Lenten Devotion

Repentance: A few rather unorganised, random Lenten reflections by an all-too-imperfect Lutheran pastor

The prophet speaking of The Suffering Servant, in Isa 53:5 says: “But he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed.” Jesus beginning his public ministry in Galilee in Mk 1:15 has this to say: “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.” King David, after the prophet Nathan had pointed out his sin of committing adultery with Bathsheba, had this to say in Ps 51:17: “The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.” Peter, while Jesus was on trial, denied him three times, cursing and swearing an oath in Matt 26:74: “I do not know the man!” Paul, described himself as “chief of sinners,” and declared in Rom 7:15 with raw honesty the state of his sin-sick soul: “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.” And again in verses 19 & 20: “For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I that do it, but sin what dwells within me.”

In more recent times, one of the famous 20^th century poets, T.S. Eliot had this to say about our sinful state and hence the need to repent in his play Murder in the Cathedral: We are soiled by a filth that we cannot clean,/united to supernatural vermin/It is not we alone, it is not the house,/it is not the city that is soiled,/But the world that is wholly foul.

Then in our time, there is contemporary prophet-poet, Bruce Cockburn, who is one of my favourite Canadian singer-songwriters. Some of his lines, I think are so brilliant and all encompassing that they speak volumes. In his song “Tried and Tested,” listen to these lines: Tried and tested/Tried and tested/By “What does love require”/By the lure of false pride/By the need to take sides/By the weight of choice/By the still small voice/By things I forget/By what I haven’t met yet. At the end of such trials and tests, Bruce concludes, “I’m still here,” likely if asked, he’d say he’s still here by the sheer grace and love of God. Bruce, reflecting on the song, had this to say, which again underscores our need to repent: "You look at war and environmental problems and you look at what’s causing them and what’s preventing us from solving them and the trail always leads to human greed. Somebody’s getting paid to keep it that way or make it worse. Everyone’s wondering what it all means and what we can do about it."

Lent is the heavy-weight season of the church year. Most of us would rather fast-forward and eclipse Lent by moving from Epiphany right on to Easter. But it doesn’t work that way. We Lutherans value our theology of the cross, and someone once said that for us Lutherans, Lent is our favourite season of the church year. Lent is the season of repentance and Luther himself said that life for sinner-saint baptised Christians is a life of daily repentance.

Why is repentance and Lent so important? Well without Lent, there would be no Jesus dying on the cross to forgive and atone for our sins because the gospels themselves would not contain the Passion Story. It is believed by many New Testament scholars that the gospels started with the Passion narratives and after that grew and expanded into what they are now. So without Lent, the story of Easter is empty, trivial and meaningless. Without the suffering and death of Jesus, there is no resurrection and new, redeemed, set-free life. So, this Lenten season I encourage you to read the Passion Story, meditate on it, read it prayerfully. Do you see yourself in the story? In response to what Jesus has done for you through his suffering and death, are you able to repent? Repent is not only confession of your sins, although we need to do that too—repentance literally means returning, turning back to God and God's ways. Lent is a season that offers you and me the opportunity to return back into a deeper, closer relationship with Jesus through such disciplines as spending time in prayer, fasting, and giving generously and sacrificially to causes and organisations like Canadian Lutheran World Relief that work with and help the poor. That's why we can sing in one of our Lenten Gospel Acclamations: “Return to the Lord, your God, for he is gracious and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and abounding in steadfast love.”

Prayer: Loving and merciful God, help us during this Lenten season to return to you in true repentance not only by reciting and being sorry for our sins, which are many, but also by living lives worthy of our calling as your followers with ever greater gratitude for what you have done for us by your suffering and death on the cross and your victory over death through new, resurrection life. In Jesus our Suffering Servant's Holy Name we pray. Amen.

Funeral Sermon for Kay Thompson

Funeral sermon for Katherine “Kay” Thompson, based on Prov 31:10-12, 28-30 & Rom 14:7-9; by Rev. Garth Wehrfritz-Hanson, Chaplain, The Good Samaritan Society's South Ridge Village, Medicine Hat, AB, January 18, 2013.

We are gathered here today to remember Katherine, more fondly referred to as Kay Thompson. We’re also here to acknowledge and share the loss of Kay and support one another as you mourn the death of Kay; and we’re here to worship God by giving thanks to him for the life of Kay and to commend her into the Lord’s eternal care.

   For those of you who knew and loved Kay; you will likely remember her as a strong-willed, even at times, a stubborn person. However, being strong-willed and stubborn is a blessing if one exercises these gifts at the right time for the right reasons—which I’m sure Kay did. Kay needed to be strong-willed and stubborn for the many challenges that she faced in her lifetime. Coming from a large family, she was given responsibilities for other family members at an early age. In her family of origin as well as after getting married and raising her family; Kay did the best she could because for her, family was very important; and looking after one another is a sacred duty. In this way Kay showed, expressed and lived as a sibling, a wife, mother and grandmother—sharing her love with you all, as you children have so clearly affirmed in your eulogy.

   When we have loved someone and that person dies, what happens to all the love we invested in that person? The Israeli poet Yehuda Amichai offers a bold and arresting image to answer that question. He suggests that a person’s body absorbs and stores all the love it receives in the course of a lifetime, from parents, lovers, husbands or wives, children and friends. Then when the body dies, it pours out all that love “like a broken slot machine disgorging the coins of all the generations,” and all the people nearby, and the entire world, are warmed by the love that has been returned to them. People die, but love does not die. It is recycled from one heart, from one life, to another.1  

   I think that is what our two passages from Proverbs and Romans are telling us as well. Love never dies. Love invested and shared in the life of others is a worthwhile investment and sharing—oftentimes the benefits of investing and sharing love go far above and beyond our highest imaginings or expectations.  

   That’s why I thought the words of the writer of the Book of Proverbs are an appropriate description of who Kay was and what her life was about.

   The passage from Proverbs describes a capable, a worthy wife and mother. In the patriarchal society in which it was written, one of the highest compliments given to a woman would have been to call her a capable, a worthy woman. To be a capable, a worthy woman, meant that you were important; you were a positive, a powerful and hopeful influence on others because God had blessed you with physical and spiritual strength; God had given you wisdom worth listening to; God had given you life-skills to love and serve others.

   So capable, so worthy is such a wife and mother says this passage from Proverbs that she is more valuable, “far more precious than jewels.” I’m sure Kay’s husband Harry would have regarded Kay in that way, since she was a very devoted and supportive wife. Such a wife, says our Proverbs text, gains the whole-hearted trust of her husband and he shall lack for nothing. Consequently her husband praises her. 

   The Proverbs author goes on to tell us that such a capable, worthy wife is also loved and respected by her children—and the children call her happy, likely because she provides for the needs of her children, making them happy. I think Kay’s children and grandchildren regarded her as a really good mom and grandmother; and likely you were blessed with happy times together. All of this was possible because of God’s provision for Kay of a long, healthy and full life. To the author of Proverbs; being able to do your duty as a capable, worthy wife and mother meant that you were fearing God; therefore you were worthy of praise.   

   So the love that Kay invested and shared with you family members and others too that she came to know have much to be thankful for; since you benefitted greatly from the life and love of Kay. That reminds me of our second passage from the apostle Paul’s letter to the Romans, where he assures us that: “We do not live to ourselves, and we do not die to ourselves. If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s.” I like the way the Contemporary English Version puts it: “Alive or dead, we still belong to the Lord.” Why is that the case? Well, Paul answers that by telling us: “This is because Christ died and rose to life, so that he would be the Lord of the dead and the living.”

   Those who fear God; those who trust in the Lord are not afraid of death since Jesus is always with us; even in death. Why? Because he’s Lord over death; ultimately he defeated it he won the victory over it through his suffering and death on the cross; and thanks to his resurrection he tells us that if we trust in him we shall be raised from the dead into eternal life. Such Good News cannot be kept to himself. He shares it with everyone; he loves you and me and the whole world. His Lordship over our lives and deaths is his way of spreading his love around so that it grows, and grows, and grows.

   Kay didn’t live only for herself; she lived and shared her love for you family members, friends and neighbours. She did because Christ her Lord, your Lord, and my Lord first loved her and claimed her as his precious daughter. No person is completely alone. Thanks to Jesus we are bound to one another and our Lord—so we can never live to our self. Whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s. In response to his endless love for us; may we serve him by being bound together in love for our fellow human beings. Being bound together in love we are all part of God’s family; and so we can celebrate and give thanks to the Lord for the life and now the death of Kay and the privilege of having known and loved her. Amen.

1 Harold S. Kushner, Living a Life That Matters: Resolving The Conflict Between Conscience And Success (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2001), p. 154.      

  

Amazing Video

This is an amazing video from the folks at Preaching Today! A Blessed Christmas to one and all.

Norwegian Lefse

Last night my wife and I made our annual Norwegian lefse (pictured above). It is a flat bread made mainly of potatoes and flour. We like to eat it at Christmas time, and for me it brings back very pleasant memories of my childhood years when we used to celebrate Christmas with my Norwegian grandparents and eat all of the traditional dishes. There are several different types of lefse, here is our recipe.

5 cups of mashed and riced potatoes (cool them)

1/3 cup of cooking oil

1 tbsp of salt

2 1/4 cups of flour (we use 1 cup of whole wheat flour and 1 1/4 cup of white flour)

Lefse is eaten in several different ways. We like to eat ours with: cinnamon and sugar (can use either white or brown), various flavours of jams or jellies, and I personally like it with peanut butter too!

God bless you this God jul as you celebrate the birth of Jesus and feast on lefse or whatever happens to  be your traditional Christmas fare!

Latest Scribble-Digital Art

 I've been having fun working with Microsoft Paint, here's a couple examples.

The Other Iranian Revolution

In 'godless' eastern Germany, Iranian refugees surprise pastors with their interest in Christianity.

God must have been laughing up his sleeve," muses Jobst Schöne. The retired bishop of the Independent Lutheran Church in Germany is applying a German paraphrase of Psalm 2:4 to the baptism of seven former Muslims from Iran. Early Easter morning, the seven were baptized in the Berlin parish where Schöne serves as associate pastor. The baptisms were an emblem of something bigger—a nationwide surge of such conversions in several denominations and a spate of reports of Muslims seeing Jesus in their dreams. But Martin Luther's Bible translation, now nearly 500 years old, also played an important role in their story.

The group baptism happened at an unsettling time for European Christians. During Lent, radical Muslims handed out large numbers of Qur'ans on street corners and announced plans to distribute 25 million German-language copies of their holy book in order to win Germans to their faith. But on the night before Easter, some 150 worshipers filed silently into St. Mary's Church in the Zehlendorf district of Berlin to witness conversions in the opposite direction.

Until midnight, the sanctuary was dark. Then Gottfried Martens, senior pastor, chanted from the altar: "Glory to God in the highest." All at once the lights went on, the organ roared, and the faithful broke jubilantly into song: "We praise you, we bless you, we worship you." Like Christians everywhere, they celebrated the Resurrection of their Lord.

For the six young men and one woman in the front pew, the moment had additional significance: They were placing their lives in danger in exchange for salvation. Under Islamic law, apostasy is a capital crime, a fact brought home to the German public by press reports about Iranian pastor Youcef Nadarkhani, an ex-Muslim, who was sentenced to death in Tehran. Some of the converts at St. Mary's were themselves persecuted before fleeing to Germany, now home to the largest Iranian community in Western Europe, numbering 150,000.

"These refugees are taking unimaginable risks to live their Christian faith," says Martens, who ministers to one of Germany's most dynamic parishes, which has grown from 200 to over 900 members in 20 years. He views the conversion of a growing number of Iranians in Germany as evidence of God's sense of irony. "Imagine! Of all places, God chooses eastern Germany, one of the world's most godless regions, as the stage for a spiritual awakening among Persians," Martens exclaims. According to a recent University of Chicago study, only 13 percent of all residents of the formerly Communist part of Germany attest belief in God. Read the whole article here.

What is the point of the Church?

I like the following quote by Anglican bishop, Nick Baines, when he was asked about the point of the Church. “The job of the church is to create the space in which people can find that they have been found by God.”