Reflections for Pentecost

This year, as I was looking at the Pentecost reading from Acts 2, I was struck with the strangeness of it all. Far from the picture-perfect little scene I usually imagine, this time it struck me as rather chaotic and even a little frightening.

If you just take verses 2 and 3, you get:

And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them.

Sounds kind of scary, doesn't it? Can you imagine being there, and experiencing that? Today we might suppose a bomb had gone off. But of course we know what is happening:

All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.

But what if we didn't know what was happening?

How many times does the work of the Spirit in our lives look like this? At first, it seems disruptive and even frightening. Perhaps all we can see is the noise and confusion. Only later, or perhaps with someone else's help, can we tell that God was doing something amazing.

~Pastor Sarah

Top 3 Reasons for Celebrating the Vigil of Pentecost (49)

1. The liturgical color...is red.


2. See #1.


3. See #2.

There are lots of other terribly good reasons...but I keep being distracted by the color. Really, what other reason do we need? There aren't that many red festivals.

~Pastor Sarah

June newsletter (47)

This year, the entire Easter season will have come to an end by June 1, with the Day of Pentecost falling on Sunday, May 31. This completes the first major segment of our church year, full of excitement and major festivals—Advent, Christmas, Lent, Easter.

We now begin that other part of the church year, the “Sundays after Pentecost”, also known as “Ordinary Time”. (Remember, it’s called “ordinary”, not because it’s boring or average, but because it’s counted, as in “the 2nd Sunday”, “the 3rd Sunday”, and so on.) There are few major festivals to break the rhythm of week after week, Sunday after Sunday. And so, freed from exciting distractions, we are able to notice the work of the Spirit among us in quieter ways, as we go about the regular business of our lives.

At the same time, we are also moving into what I think of as “Assembly Season”. Across the country, synods have already begun to gather for yearly assemblies—our Southwestern Minnesota Synod will meet June 12-14. This year, all four of our congregations are planning to send voting members. Although it seems ordinary and commonplace to us, our presence all by itself is a sign of hope in our region, where many other congregations are considering entering into parish relationships, some for the first time.

This year is especially important because it’s also a Churchwide Assembly year. As the entire ELCA prepares to gather in Minneapolis in August, our Presiding Bishop has asked that we all spend some time in prayer for 50 days before the assembly, beginning June 29. Some sample prayers will follow in this newsletter; more suggestions are available at elca.org. And I figure, why wait for June 29? Why not start now? Those of us who will be at synod assemblies will also appreciate prayers for wisdom and discernment.

Some of the business conducted will be routine—and, yes, even boring. Some of it will be more exciting, and will need extra prayer support—you may even hear about it on the news. All of it is about of how we try to live together as God’s people, called to be saints but also knowing that we are still sinners!

And may God’s love and peace be with us all, in this and every season.

~Pastor Sarah

And 46.

...which does sort of raise the question: what random thing am I going to ramble on about after the 50 days of Easter are over? Weeks after Pentecost? Doesn't have quite the same appeal, to me.

I suppose there are the "50 Days of Prayer" leading up to Churchwide Assembly. Of all the various suggestions I have heard and seen for getting reading for this year's assembly, this is probably the most helpful: that we pray.

Of course, then I would be setting a pattern, and then I'd have to keep track of 50 days of something else...

~Pastor Sarah

Today is...

...well, it's still Easter. In fact, it's the 40th day of Easter, which means it is also the Ascension of Our Lord.

A lot of congregations don't celebrate the Ascension all that much, partly because it always falls on a Thursday, and who has church on Thursday? (Well, my seminary did, but that was on purpose, because no one had to be at church anywhere else on that day.) Some communities will choose to celebrate the ascension on the next Sunday (i.e. this coming Sunday), but it's not all that common, at least not in most Lutheran circles that I'm aware of. There isn't even an extra page for it in my "Pastor's Desk Diary" from Thrivent, although a search of elca.org reveals 64 congregations named "Ascension". There's even an island named after it.

So what is with this weird-seeming festival? Why don't we celebrate it more often? Or...why do we celebrate it at all? Isn't it a little hard to take seriously the image of Jesus literally rising up into the sky--like he's, what, up there in orbit somewhere? Or maybe on the other side of the moon? Our cosmology has changed a bit since the New Testament ascension accounts were written.

And yet. Without the ascension, the event that started with the crucifixion and the resurrection isn't complete. The Apostles' Creed still includes the line, "he ascended into heaven". And that's important, so important that we'll be celebrating it this Sunday. Why? Come and see!

~Pastor Sarah

By the way, Happy Easter!

No, I have not forgotten.

~Pastor Sarah

Prayers: Summer camps

Summer camps, particularly church camps (I don't really get non-church camps), have been near and dear to my heart since I first went to Lutheran Memorial Camp the summer after fifth grade. My sense of call to ordained ministry developed most clearly out of my three summers on camp staff. (Fortunately, the "memory" of any camp staff being what it is, the current website has almost no pictures of me whatsoever.) Which is not to say that every camp counselor becomes a pastor--but there are more of us than you might realize.

Most of the camps, if they are anything like my experience, have pretty much lined up their summer staffs right now, or they are in the process of making the last few hires. (That said, I seem to recall a couple of times when we were still looking at a spot or two to fill by the first week in June, so if this is what you want to do with your summer, you might just be a God-send for some camp.) They will be getting ready for the summer and especially for the critical days of staff training. This is an intense (and richly blessed) time, so many prayers are needed!

Our parish relates mostly to Luther Crest in Alexandria, which in my experience so far seems to be a great camp. We also sometimes do things through Mount Carmel, which is practically next door to Luther Crest, and focuses on different sorts of ministry. (They just started a new blog with daily Bible readings, which is supposed to get through the Bible in three years. With pictures and artwork and music selections. Nice. They seem to have the same problem I do with the comments, though.)

~Pastor Sarah