2012 eNEWSLETTER ARTICLES

JANUARY 12  |  God Makes the Ordinary Extraordinary

This is going to be, I suspect, a bit of a sneak preview onto this Sunday’s sermon.  Tentatively, the sermon is titled “God makes the Ordinary Extraordinary.”  The bulletin cover features a photo showing steps leading up to an expanse of lawn, possibly in someone’s backyard or a neighborhood park.  On the lawn, there’s a pair of sneakers, sitting there for a reason unknown to the viewer’s eye.  This photo is so ordinary, that it feels as if it were taken in my own backyard, but it wasn’t.  It is a beautiful photo, but it does not depict anything extraordinary.

In that, it feels comforting to me today.  Earlier today, I assisted two families mourning a deceased member.  The first occasion was at Gate of Heaven cemetery in Los Altos, where a 76-year old member of our congregation, Norman Prokey, was laid to rest.  The second was an ICU room, where 87-year old Walter Johnson, a member of my previous congregation was rapidly nearing his death. 

Both of these men had very ordinary, quite modest beginnings, each hailing back to communities in the middle of our country.  Both of them had served in the military – Norma in the air force, Walter in the army (in World War II).  Both of them had been happily married for many years. Norman’s wife, Betty, survives him; while Walter laid his wife Jane to rest in 2007.  Both of them had children – Norm had one daughter and three sons, Walter one daughter and two sons – and a good number of loving grandchildren. 

Through dedication and hard work, both of them had risen through the ranks –Norm to be engineering manager at a local technology company, Walter as the long-time secretary-treasurer of the San Francisco Labor Council. 

One of the readings at Norman’s funeral service came from the 12^th chapter of John’s gospel: “Jesus answered them, ‘The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also. Whoever serves me, the Father will honor.”

I am struck by how God has used these two very ordinary men to do wonderful things – to raise their families, to instill values in them, and to touch the lives of many a co-worker and union member.  Their lives illustrate to me how God seeks to use each and every one of us to do extra-ordinary things. 

May this in-between time between Christmas and Lent help us to explore how we, too, can do great things.

I’d like to close with one of my favorite quotes by Agnes Gonxha Bojaxhiu, better known to us as “Mother Teresa,” the catholic nun from the poor nation of Albania who went on to found the Missionaries of Charity in Calcutta, India: “We cannot all do great things, but we can do small things with great love.” 

MARCH 1  |  Take Up Your Cross

In this Sunday’s gospel lesson Jesus calls on all who want to be his followers to deny themselves and to take up their cross and follow him (Mark 8:34).    This is a very familiar passage and has been used frequently to encourage Christians to suffer quietly—slaves, women caught in abusive marriages, the poor.  It appears to go hand in hand with Jesus’ call to turn the other cheek to aggressors.  On the surface, this passage appears to encourage quiet submission in the face of adverse circumstances.  But is that truly all?  Is “taking up our cross” the same as suffering quietly, all for the sake of Jesus?  What if “taking up my cross” means that I serve in Jesus’ name and help to bring healing to hopeless situations?

Those who have been to worship lately or who have read their eNewsletter, will have come across this year’s ministry emphasis on loving service –in form of our “iServe” campaign.  This campaign encourages us to actively serve our neighbors, both locally and on a global scale. 

Often, though, we perceive of “service” as either giving money in support of worthy causes and/or actively engaging in hand-on support (e.g., cleaning a yard, serving breakfast at a shelter, or sorting food supplies at Second Harvest).  Those are all great ways of serving our neighbors and I don’t want to discourage any of them, but I hope to impress on you the need for yet another kind of Christian service – that of education and advocacy. 

As a Christian community, we have an important voice.  Our beliefs and concerns matter and we must make them heard.  If we don’t speak up on behalf of others who don’t have the power to speak or to be heard, we – sort of – try to put band-aids onto wounds without doing something about the issues that cause the injuries.  If one of my daughters, for example, gets a blister from shoes that have grown to small and I only put a band-aid onto the wound without buying her shoes that fit properly, I am not truly doing a good job as a mother.

Likewise, if I feed the homeless in Jesus’ name, but don’t also advocate for a better mental health system and more low-income housing, my Christian ministry is incomplete.  Individually, our resources (both time and skills) are limited, but together we can accomplish a great many things and bring healing and change to seemingly hopeless situations.

Just a few days ago, I watched the 2008 movie “Skin” with my younger daughter, Anna.  The movie tells the story of a “colored” South African girl who is born to two white parents (based on a real story). She looks ethnically black because of some genetic mix-up in which dormant parental genes have combined and formed a black child.  The movie gives us a terrifying glimpse at the system of Apartheid.  

Christians around the world played an important part in bringing down the Apartheid regime when it came to an end in 1994.  I remember growing up and learning from my middle and high school religion teacher about South Africa and how everyone can help end this terrible system by boycotting products made or grown in South Africa and by not investing in South African companies. 

Fortunately, Apartheid as a political system is gone in South Africa, but it still exists under different names in other parts of the world.  One of those areas that is particularly dear to my heart, because I have lived there for a year, is the Holy Land.  In the US, we tend to hear mostly about one perspective onto this conflict, that of Israelis whose safety is threatened by Muslim terrorists.  The perspective about which we don’t hear much is that of Palestinians whose land is stolen, who can be arrested and imprisoned without a trial, about roads reserved for Israelis only, about Israeli settler violence, etc. 

I hope to help change this imbalance.  Some of you have heard me talk about an ecumenical conference that I am helping to organize ((March 23 & 24 at Sunnyvale Presbyterian Church).    To me, my involvement with planning this conference is part of a ministry of education- and advocacy-oriented service. 

One of the ways in which we can serve as Christians is to create safe spaces for civil dialog and debate about important, yet difficult issues.  Our politicians tend to make strongly-worded statements which put down their opponents more than advancing constructive solutions.  What is missing from our public is a respectful debate about issues and problems, a debate with objective to solve issues, not merely to garner votes.

I ask that you take the time to check out the website for the “Breaking the Barriers to a Just Peace in Israel/Palestine” conference (the website, by the way, has been designed by a member of Grace Lutheran Church in Palo Alto): www.barriers-conference.org.  Please take a lake a look and register for the conference. 

Come, learn about the on-the ground-facts and learn how you can make a difference and help bring peace to the Middle East.  We have been able to recruit an impressive array of expert speakers – Christian, Jewish, and Muslim.  Rarely ever do you get the opportunity to learn from so many teachers without having to travel far.

The registration fee (ranging from $25 for students to $90 to both days) includes two tasty Middle Eastern meals (catered by DishDash, Sunnyvale), beverages, and snacks.  Your registration fee, in fact, covers the expenses involved in bringing international experts to Sunnyvale only partially; the difference is picked up by donors and sponsors.

I have negotiated a special group rate for us (if we get together 20 “Bethelites,” we’ll pay $80 per person).  Attending this conference as a group will continue our congregation’s efforts to make our ministry more culturally relevant to the community around us.

Please consider attending!

APRIL 19  |  iServe – Faith in Action Silicon Valley Rotating Shelter

Those among you who were in church last Sunday heard Cathey Edwards, Executive Director of the Faith in Action Silicon Valley Rotating Shelter, speak at both worship services; some among you even heard her speak about the project in greater detail afterwards.  For the benefit of our community at large I’d like to present to you this project as yet another element of this year’s emphasis on loving service (“iServe”). 

Although it builds on an earlier similar project, The Faith in Action Silicon Valley Rotating Shelter is a new project that began operations in March of this year.  It is a faith-based cooperation of a number of different congregations, the majority of which are Christian (one participating congregation is Jewish). 

The project serves a dual focus.  First of all, the program seeks to provide a new beginning – safe and supportive housing and support services – to a group of homeless individuals.  The shelter is able to accommodate each month up to 15 guests who can stay in the program for up to 90 days.  Due to space limitations, the shelter currently only serves male guests. 

The project is not for everyone who is homeless.  Shelter guests have to sign a contract with the program in which they promise to live clean and sober, to actively pursue job and housing searches, and to meet with the program’s case manager.  Applicants are referred to the program by various local social service agencies and by word of mouth.  Many of those who apply are not accepted, as they program only accepts those individuals who show the greatest promise to establish a stable, self-sufficient life style and obtain permanent housing at the end of their shelter stay.

During their stay in the Faith in Action shelter, the men prepare their own breakfasts and lunch bags, take care of their laundry (at the local YMCA), take advantage of classes offered through the program (life skills, money and time management, interviewing, etc), do the dishes after dinner, and clean the facility in the morning.  The program is proud to be green – no disposable dishes are used.  Suitable ceramic ware and silverware has been provided by a corporate sponsor.

A second goal of the Faith in Action Silicon Valley Rotating Shelter is to provide an opportunity for the faith community to open their doors to the homeless and to connect with and support the guests of the shelter.  The most frequent way in which we encounter homeless is at intersections and freeway entrances, holding signs and begging for a living.  If the traffic light is red, we may even reach into our small change jar, roll down our window, and hand over some coins, wondering, many a time, whether we should or shouldn’t give money, whether our funds will support a substance addiction.  Some among us have gone further than that and served breakfast or lunch at area shelters.  Very few among us have gone beyond this level of engagement and served as overnight supervisors at the San Jose Family Shelter. 

This project gives folk like us the opportunity to meet with members of the homeless community, to listen to their stories, and to share with them the best we have to offer – our faith in Jesus Christ.  While the shelter program does not include worship or group prayer (“we give you dinner, provided that you pray with us first”), the most effective form of evangelism happens one-on-one anyway. 

Here is how you can get involved:  The project will move into our Stelling site (940 S. Stelling Road, Cupertino) on Saturday, April 28, and move out on Friday, May 25.  Over the intervening 4 weeks, Bethel will be responsible for a number of things:

• to provide safe accommodations (incl. bathroom, kitchen, and internet access and safe storage of guest possessions during the day),

•  to provide about half of the dinners,

• to provide breakfast and (brown bag) lunch supplies, and

•  to provide individuals who serve as hosts each night. 

The church council has voted to set aside $1,000 to cover some of the costs involved with the program and we have received a couple of generous donations to help out, as well.  Together, these funds cover most, but not all the costs involved. 

We are very fortunate to have two very capable and dedicated leads in Dale Jones (our representative on the Faith in Action board and host council) and in Alice Isaacson who has agreed to serves as program liaison and volunteer coordinator for Bethel.  Many members of the Bethel community have already volunteered to cook dinners or to help out with other chores, but there are still gaps.  Please contact Alice for more information at aliceisaacson@yahoo.com.

I am proud of the dedication of this congregation and look forward to serving alongside with our members in providing a temporary home to the shelter guests and to witness in word and deed to God’s love for them.

MAY 25  |  A Bethel iServe Story: Ryan and Garrett Brown

Last November when the members of the Brown family (Eric, Angela, Ryan, Garrett, and Drew) were collecting food for local food banks, 6-year old Ryan concluded that if people needed food, they must certainly need beds. So he and his younger brother Garrett (4 years old) began earning and saving their money in order to buy a bed for someone who needed one. Six months later, the kids have collected $296 (the photo above on the left shows them counting that money). The boys earn 5 cents for each chore they do, so think about how many chores they have done in six months… and their grandparents contributed some money as well! What amazed their parents was that the boys did not spend any of their money during this time. This month, while Bethel has been hosting the Silicone Valley Rotating Shelter, the Browns contacted Faith In Action (the organization behind the rotating shelter) and asked if Ryan and Garrett’s desire to donate a bed could benefit their organization. They responded with a resounding “yes!” and said that the money would be used to buy the remaining three cots needed (they only have 12 now) for the 15 men in the program. Last Saturday, the boys, together with their mom, visited the shelter and Ryan and Garrett got to see where and how their donation will be used. On Tuesday night of this week, Ryan and Garrett were invited to attend Faith In Action’s monthly host council meeting to present their donation and be and thanked.

SEPTEMBER 6  |  Nots & Buts

“Therefore we also, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily ensnares us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.”
(Hebrews 12:1-2)

Those among us who attended the Labor Day Retreat last weekend, heard a lot about the many things that keep us from devoting more time in service to God and our neighbors.  The two speakers, Pastors Tim Huff and Sarah Sumner-Eisenbraun, talked about our big “buts” that keep us from servings God and about the “nots” that each one of us comes up with as excuses for not serving God more. 

Everyone has reasons that stand between themselves and service for God. The writer of Hebrews lists several in Hebrew 12 that had definite "buts", but they served God anyway. The question for God’s church today is if we will remove our "buts" and serve God.

As a way for all of us – those who were able to attend the labor Day Retreat and those who weren’t – to participate in this self-examination of our “nots” and “buts”, I am quoting below a prayer that was said during the retreat which seemed to touch many of us in a special way – the “Knots Prayer”.

The Knots Prayer

Dear God:
Please untie the knots
that are in my mind,
my heart and my life.
Remove the have nots,
the can nots and the do nots
that I have in my mind.

Erase the will nots,
may nots,
might nots that may find
a home in my heart.

Release me from the could nots,
would nots and
should nots that obstruct my life.

And most of all,
Dear God,
I ask that you remove from my mind,
my heart and my life all of the 'am nots'
that I have allowed to hold me back,
especially the thought
that I am not good enough.
Amen.

None of us, left to our own devices is able to untie their “knots” and get rid of their “buts” on their own.  To suggest that we could do this on our won would amount to works righteousness and to a Christian self-improvement philosophy.  We cannot – ever – become perfect through our own efforts.  We can, however, ask God to be our perfecter and we can support one another in the process of growing in faith and opening ourselves to the workings of God’s Holy Spirit within us.

Thus, we all need one another to grow in faith—or to quote and paraphrase a well-known Politician,  “we’re all in this together” is a far better theology than “you’re on your own.”

See you in worship – this week back indoors at BOTH services.

SEPTEMBER 13  |  Litany for 9/11

The 11^th anniversary of the acts of terrorism committed on September11, 2001 has just passed.  Chances are that you heard some about it on TV or read about it in the paper. 

In commemoration of the anniversary, I am sharing with you the following “Litany for 9/11” which was commissioned by Saint Peter’s Lutheran Church, New York City, and first performed on September 8, 2001.  Please take the time to read and reflect on it.

I look forward to seeing you in church on Sunday.  I would also appreciate opportunities to catch up with you on an individual basis; thus, please feel free to call me, send me an email message, or simply drop by my office at Bethel.

Lord and lover of humankind,
Teach us to groan as you must groan, sudden mourners, all of us.
Cry with us, instruct us in the language of lamentation.
For wars we thought were far away have snatched lives so near,
Anonymous as our own, and dear as our own,
And what shall we do Lord, with all our might?
What are we to do?

Lord, Good Lord, hold us in your arms
as we tear open the gospel’s hard truth.
Is this the hour to trample down violence, to deny death any more lives?
To refuse false safety in walls and weapons, to beg of you Lord,
Courage enough to look at all that is amiss in our world?

Father, forgive.
Father, forgive the hatred which divides nation from nation, race from race, class from class.

Father, forgive.
Father, forgive the greed which exploits the work of human hands and lays waste the earth.

Father forgive.
Father, forgive our envy of the welfare and happiness of others.

Father forgive.
Father, forgive our indifference to the plight of the imprisoned, the homeless, the refugee.

Father, forgive.
Father, forgive the lust which dishonors the bodies of men, women, and children.

Father, forgive.
Father, forgive the pride which leads us to trust in ourselves and not in God.

Father, forgive.
Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another as God in Christ forgave you.

Amen.

NOVEMBER 30  |  Advents Anticipates – But what?

We’re standing on the doorstep of the season called Advent. As with many of our Christian observances, the world of business often misuses the season for its own commercial purposes. Advent has turned into just another merchandising gimmicW for the Christmas buying public—a pre-Christmas season of impatient, frenetic preparation for a gluttonous excursion into all kinds of excess.

But Advent is an uniquely Christian season, an observance for followers of Christ, and not for a commercial culture. It is, in fact, the beginning of a new church year. As much as we might organize life and count off the days in several different ways—the school year, the fiscal year, the calendar year—the season of Advent reflects a sacred calendar in which the church remembers, rehearses, and retells the stories of God’s holy intentions for saving God’s people from their sins by giving the Son as an expression of God’s love.

The church year concludes on the Sunday before the First Sunday of Advent, on the Sunday we call “Christ the King Sunday.” The observance acknowledges that Christ is King of kings and Lord of lords. It is an opportunity for the Church universal to affirm that the kingdoms of this world will become the kingdoms of our God and of his Christ who will reign forever. It is thus a fitting day to pray a simple Jewish prayer with gospel meaning: “Blessed are you, Lord God, King of the universe.”

Nevertheless, after the Church celebrates Christ as king, it inaugurates a fresh cycle of gospel proclamation and a new year of Christian worship begins, not at the beginning of the gospel (that is, with the birth of Christ), but with a sober admonition to watch for the return of Christ—a signal of the consummation of God’s redemptive work for those who follow Jesus and a sign of God’s judgment on all sin.

Advent is the time when we make our spiritual preparations for the second coming of Christ by reflecting on his return in glory as it is promised to us throughout the New Testament. The season of Advent anticipates good news on the horizon of human destiny—the Son of Man coming in great glory. The word to us is, “Stand up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near” (Luke 21:28).

If we are going to prepare for Christmas during the Advent season as we should, and if we wish to anticipate the birth of Jesus with a spiritual depth that the prevailing culture finds irrelevant, then we will need to take the time to move intentionally toward Bethlehem with thoughtful introspection and spiritual preparation. The preaching prompts suggested below are simply meant to help a pastor prepare a congregation do just that—move purposefully toward the celebration of the incarnation event.

For this reason, our worship services during Advent begin on a similarly somber note as during Lent – with our confession of sins to God and in the presence of one another and with a call to God to forgive our sins and shortcomings.

On those Sundays when we include Old Testament lessons, they tend to come from the prophets – from Isaiah, Jeremiah, Malachi, Zephaniah, and Micah…those passages that announce the coming of One sent by God, the Messiah of Israel, the root of Jesse, the Prince of Peace, the Refiner and Purifier. 

Let us gather over the next few weeks and strengthen one another in the hope and trust in Christ’s return.  Let us confess together and rejoice together, singing the old familiar tunes of Advent. 

DECEMBER 14  |  What’s a Madrigal, Anyway?

This Sunday, the Mountain View Madrigals, the high school choir directed by our own Jill Denny, will be singing for us at both worship services.  Remember, the youth that are dressed as if they came straight out of a Three Musketeers movie?   Wanting to be a bit more educated about the genre of music that they represent, I began to read up a bit on madrigal music.  Knowing Bethel and the congregation’s thirst for learning, I am sharing with you some of what I learnt.

According to the online Merriam-Webster dictionary, a madrigal is “a complex polyphonic unaccompanied vocal piece on a secular text developed especially in the 16th and 17th centuries.” Eh?  This sounds good, but does not tell me very much, being the musical amateur that I am.

So I looked further and found a wonderful article written by Judith A. Eckelmeyer,  a Professor Emerita of Music History at Cleveland State University.  Hoping that I may see many of you this coming 3^rd Sunday in Advent at one or both of our worship services at Bethel, I am summarizing Prof. Eckelmeyer’s article for your enjoyment.

Simply put, it’s a genre (type) of non-religious (secular) unaccompanied vocal music that became extremely popular in Europe in the 16th century, and continued to be written in most of the first half of the 17th century especially in Italy and England. In fact, the madrigal was so popular that composers from most of Europe wrote in the genre.

In writing madrigals, composers engaged in solving the problem of setting a secular poem—a sonnet or some other form—to music for a small group of singers, usually from four to six or more. The poems were in Italian and always sung in Italian. At the earliest stage of madrigal writing the texts consisted of innocent poetry about love and wit, sung by four voices; but increasingly through the century composers chose highly sensual poems with many erotic images and allusions to sex. With the change in the focus of the poetry came increasing sophistication of the music.

Madrigals were written as social entertainment for the middle-class and aristocracy who, in the Renaissance, were expected to be able to read music and perform, either vocally or on an instrument—optimally, both. Compartmentalization of musical skill to only professional musicians was a foreign concept in that era. Rather, those who wished to be considered “civilized” individuals were expected to be broadly educated and participate in the arts as patrons or performers. Performing music was for the performers themselves and their immediate circle rather than for the public. A merchant’s family and dinner guests, for instance, might entertain themselves after dinner in their home by singing madrigals indoors around the dinner table. The aristocratic class might enjoy performing madrigals in an outdoor setting—a garden or private park—for their own diversion. Or they might have their household musicians (part of the usual staff of the nobility) entertain them and guests at a feast or celebration.

Madrigal singing is different from the kind of singing by a trained choir that one would hear in church. In madrigal singing, there is only one person singing each line of music by him- or herself in Italian, the everyday language of the people; typically there is no instrument playing the same lines along with the voices, and no independent instrumental accompaniment. Only men sang in church choirs, but women as well as men participated in singing madrigals.

Northern madrigal writers living in Italy started the ball rolling around 1530, with relatively simple four-part settings of witty Italian texts or poems about carefree aspects of love, often using the poetry of the 14^th-century Italian poet Petrarch as texts for their madrigals.   Over time, the range of voices expanded, with extremes of high and low seeking to evoke tension and passion.  Dissonances increased to almost painful levels, appearing mostly on passionate words such as pain, sorrow, death, anguish, cruelty, and such.  Rhythms varied enormously to reflect varieties of action in the text.  Eventually, the madrigal moved forward into an entirely new direction, exploring  a new style that was no longer “Renaissance”, but rather “Baroque”.  By the first half of the 17^th century, madrigals had essentially become accompanied songs, rather than unaccompanied ensemble works. These new-style madrigals are masterpieces of the expression of text, using all the known rhetorical devices to assure the text’s impact on the listener. Their style is actually that of the emerging new genre, opera.

As a very popular genre of secular vocal music, the madrigal spread from Italy to other European countries. Some of the better-known composers of such music were the Germans Hans Leo Hassler and Orlando di Lasso, the Englishman John Dowland, and the French Josquin des Pres, and the Spaniard Juan del Encina.  In the 20^th century, the madrigal genre has seen a revival in works by Philip Glass, Alfred Schnittke, Joaquín Rodrigo, Emma Lou Diemer, and countless others.

So much for Professor Eckelmeyer’s madrigal article.  Now back to the Mountain View Madrigals at Bethel.  Given that they will be performing as part of a worship service, they won’t be performing secular love songs, as you can imagine.  In fact, they’ll be performing four songs in the 9am service (O Come, Emanuel; Carol of the Bells; See, Shepherds Dancing; and Coventry Carol) and two songs at the beginning of the 10:30am service (Sing for Joy the Festive Day; Glad We Be This Day). 

I look forward to worshipping God in word and song with you and to be enjoying the festive music of the Mountain View Madrigals.