May 11th, 2023

GREETINGS TO THE FEASTING FELLOWSHIP OF CHRIST THE KING!

Followers of the Risen One, last Sunday I shared the old story of the woman who wanted to be buried with a fork in her hand, with the hope that people might ask, “What’s with the fork?” when they looked at her in the casket at her funeral. Even in death, she was seeking a way to be a witness of the resurrection and the empty tomb. During her life in the faith community, this woman heard many times, when the potluck plates were being cleared, someone would inevitably say, save your fork, the best is yet to come.  As she faced death, she knew that the best was yet to come.  Even in death, we meet Jesus and there is more life, resurrected life as Jesus demonstrated to us.

This story has been around for many years.  It’s made the circuits.  It is one of those strange, funny stories Christians share with each other.  This time I got to hear a variation on the theme.  At our fellowship across the generations, Aaron Bengtson had remembered the story from a previous telling and his mom, Sarah, had heard the story when she was at Luther College.  At Luther everyone was walking around with a fork attached to their backpacks as a reminder that the best is yet to come because Jesus leads the way.

This is the hope of the resurrection that we proclaim this Easter season.  I loved how some ingenious students at Luther got a hold of a drill and some forks and shared the symbolism of this story. I love how college students at the beginning of forging their way in the world would carry a symbol that reminded them that with God, the best is yet to come.  This is the hope we have living in relationship with God.  The Holy Spirit keeps blowing this idea into our lives and through the people we meet.  We just can’t keep this good news to ourselves.  It’s a good story to tell and keep telling.

1 Peter 3:15b-16a puts it like this, “Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and reverence.”  Peter is encouraging a faith community in times of persecution.  That is not the case for us.  We have the freedom to tell this story and I am always so delighted when we find clever ways to share God’s good news with gentleness and reverence.

Thank you for bringing your stones to stack as a beautiful reminder of the work God does with us to build a spiritual house (see 1 Peter 2:2-10). In verse 9, I see the four walls of this spiritual house; we are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people. God is a beautiful architect and creator. The stacking stones are available for your stacking on the sides of the sanctuary.

I’ve placed an order for challah bread to share with you this Sunday as we continue feasting in the season of Easter with a common bread from our Jewish brothers and sisters reminding us of God’s great ability to pull us together and build spiritual houses.

Here are some of the other ideas shared by Gerry Kuhl for feasting during the Easter season: Leave up the Easter Garden until Pentecost with fresh things added. Celebrate Ascension Day Services (Thursday, May 18), share rich desserts and homemade candies during fellowship time, procession of cross at all services, Holy Humor Sunday, and a potluck brunch Sunday.

I think you are getting the idea.  We have much to be thankful for and we have good news to share.  The tomb is empty.  Christ is risen!  Alleluia!

Bold Inquisitive Belief Loving Expansively,

Pastor Connie Spitzack

May 4th, 2023

GREETINGS TO THE FEASTING FELLOWSHIP OF CHRIST THE KING!

Followers of the Risen One, I’ve asked our kids to think about Jesus as the gate. They are video game players and like to figure out puzzles. I wonder what will come of their explorations. 

In Jesus’ time, gates for sheep folds were rare and often the shepherd served as the gate, lying across the entrance. Devote some time thinking and pondering about Jesus as the gate.  Jesus as the gate that protects us from lurking dangers so we can rest and be restored in a safe place.  Jesus as the gate that opens the way for us to venture out into the pasture lands of our world to graze and explore God’s beautiful creation.  Jesus is the gate that opens the way to God allowing us to be safely in God’s awesome and magnificent presence.  Play with this image, this metaphor expanding the relationship we have with Jesus. 

This is part of the Easter festival spirit, a spirit of playfulness and frivolity.  In 1 Peter’s letter we are given another image to play with and explore.  Peter encourages us to be living stones, letting ourselves be built into a spiritual house.  Take some time to look at humanity’s creativity in building with stones.  It’s truly amazing and then think about what God can do and build through us, living stones.

On Sunday, bring your stones and I will also provide some stacking stones for us to play with in this feasting, festival season of Easter that celebrates a rolling stone revealing an empty tomb. Christ is risen!  Alleluia!

Bold Inquisitive Belief Loving Expansively,

Pastor Connie Spitzack

April 27th, 2023

GREETINGS TO THE FEASTING FELLOWSHIP OF CHRIST THE KING!

Followers of the Risen One, I’ve been hung up on the idea of feasting for 50 days.  Easter is not just a day. It is a season.  What does it mean for us to feast for 50 days? I’m playing around with the idea if you haven’t noticed.

For the kids it’s easy.  Easter Sunday and the next Sunday they got chocolate crosses.  Last Sunday, they got full size candy bars.  Their eyes widen, delighting to have a chocolate choice over the usual fruit chews or dumdums.  Our kids are easy to feast with. It's harder to have adults widen their eyes in surprise.  We’ve seen so much but a baby or children have a way of widening our eyes.  New life, new birth has a way of widening our eyes with delight.  What widens your eyes in delight?  What do you feast upon this season of Easter?

Jesus, the first born of the dead, widens our eyes and our vision and we give thanks.  What I am gleaning from our assigned lessons in this season is that feasting has to do with giving thanks as we lift up our cup of salvation.  We give thanks to God for our lives and for the new life that is ours through Jesus.  We give thanks to God for an empty tomb, for Jesus living so fully into our humanity and showing us how to rise to new life as we follow Jesus, our risen Lord and Savior.

Jesus was revealed to some disciples in the breaking of the bread.  Enter the feasting season by sharing a loaf of bread together by breaking it apart, remembering and celebrating what Jesus did in the giving of his life and the return of his life to us and to God.

Acts 2:42 tells us the baptized devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers.  All of this would have been common for the Jewish community – fellowship, breaking of bread and the prayers.  The new part of this would have been devoting themselves to the apostles’ teachings.  Break some bread in fellowship, pray together and learn something new about Jesus. 

The apostles are the sent ones.  We too are sent into the world.  Think about what new thing you could teach the world about Jesus.  Can you point out some of Jesus’ redeeming work in our lives?

Christ is risen!  Our eyes are wide open, and we are delighted with the gift of Jesus’ new life among us.  It is something to behold.  It is a delicious feast and a story we love to tell!

Bold Inquisitive Belief Loving Expansively,

 Pastor Connie Spitzack

April 21st, 2023

GREETINGS TO THE LIGHT SHINING PEOPLE OF CHRIST THE KING,

These 50 Days of Easter we get to explore and be surprised with the hidden and the unseen blooming forth and the beauty of new growth that pops into view and then gets blown furiously about by the winds all around.

The 50 days of this season give us the opportunity to live in the dawning of something new and all that means for us.  It is a time of awakening, recognizing and naming what is already present but has been unseen.  The light of Easter seasons needs to remember and honor the work that has happened in the darkness of Lent, bringing together the various experiences.  The buried alleluias, the extra worship and offering opportunities, the giving up or taking on of a spiritual discipline.  All to awaken us to this time.

We, like Moses, pay attention to the task before us and have seen the burning bush not consumed.  We have seen the empty tomb and recognize that God is up to something.  So we are on the lookout, called to become what we have received; the body of Christ, broken, poured out for the sake of the world God created and loves deeply.

We are the ones who have the honor and responsibility, the duty and delight, of being the body of Christ that takes shape, the shape of the cross and resurrection with the Holy Spirit propelling us to do God’s Work with our hands.  Watch in this Easter season for the Holy Spirit to emerge, bringing power to transform our lives while God’s kingdom takes root and grows.

Pay attention to how Peter and the early church of Acts grow as they wrestle with Jesus’ death and resurrection and Peter’s letter that encourages them to look for God in the midst of their suffering in their small  communities of faith in Turkey.

Light helps us to see more than we can with our own eyes.  We look closely at the empty tomb, we look closely at what those first witnesses did as they tried to see more and make sense of the empty tomb and Jesus’ appearances.  And then we look around for what God is up to now and how God is appearing to us today and we help each other to see more than we can see on our own because we are the light shining people of God.

Bold Inquisitive Belief Loving Expansively,

 Pastor Connie Spitzack

April 14th, 2023

GREETINGS TO THE LIGHT SHINING PEOPLE OF CHRIST THE KING,

3 I thank my God for every remembrance of you, 4 always in every one of my prayers for all of you, praying with joy 5 for your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now. 6 I am confident of this, that the one who began a good work in you will continue to complete it until the day of Jesus Christ.                       Philippians 1:3-6

In step with Paul’s words of thanksgiving, as I reflect back on Holy Week, I give God thanks for you with joy for our partnership in living with God’s good news revealed in Jesus. 

It was a beautiful Holy Week and couldn’t have been accomplished without all your helping hands and voices. 

I give thanks to God for a wonderful staff that lays the foundation for us. Thank you to Colleen Jacobson, Kevin Edens, Stephen & Dennis Peterson for their faithful service to the CTK community as well as our council and all committee members, choir & bells.

I am grateful for all the volunteers that stepped forward to help and please forgive me when I have forgotten names that should have also been uplifted.

Thanks to:

Palm Sunday

New processional cross that mirrors the cross in the sanctuary:  William, Ella & Ethan Johnson.

Maundy Thursday

Foot Washers:  Amy Calhoun & Jon Bengtson

Communion Assistants:  Carolyn Laxson, Spencer Howard and Sarah Bengtson.

And your faithful witness of following Jesus’ command to love through your service.

Good Friday

Passion Readers: Noah Tiegs, Kevin Edens, & Richard Tiegs

Cross processor – Richard Tiegs

And your witness of devotion to Jesus and his cross.

Easter Vigil

Story Tellers:  Elizabeth Calhoun, Susan Stanley and Richard Tiegs

And your listening to the stories, your witness of making a joyful noise and  recommitting to your baptism promises.

All who helped to transition the fellowship hall into a worship space and then into a dinning hall and back to fellowship area.

Easter Egg Hunt & Easter Breakfast

To all who provide donations, candy, food and their time to encourage a seeking heart for God in this community and opportunities for fellowship.

We are so richly blessed and the risen life of our Savior, Jesus shines through you and all the work you do to create a warm and loving environment at Christ the King.

On Monday, the church still dressed in its Easter glow, welcomed Norm Kennel and his family and friends as they entrusted Tillie (Mathilde) Kennel into God’s good hands at her funeral service.  Tillie, a Ukrainian refugee from many years ago was also a teacher, school volunteer and flower gardener was dressed in her baptismal clothing (the funeral pall) and surrounded by an environment that resembled a classroom filled with “ALLELUIAS” and a garden with beautiful music reminding us all that God is with us in life and in death and resurrected life with God. 

Tillie taught her family and us to always be grateful.  I am grateful for you and how Jesus’ resurrection light shines through you.  Christ is risen!  Alleluia!

Bold Inquisitive Belief Loving Expansively,

Pastor Connie Spitzack