May 26th, 2023

FOLLOWERS OF THE RISEN ONE,

On Wednesday, May 17, 2023 a Hebrew Bible sold for $38.1 million at auction at Sotheby, New York.  How much would you pay for a bible? 

This special Bible is the Codex Sassoon, named after book collector David Solomon Sassoon who purchased the book for $450 in 1929.  The handwritten 792 page Bible is made of sheepskin and includes 24 books of the Old Testament with 8 pages missing.

It was carbon dated to the late 9th to early 10th century and measures 12 x 14 inches.  In the first centuries of its existence the book switched hands throughout the Middle East.  In the 13th century it was dedicated to a synagogue in Markada in Al-Hasakah Governorate, Syria.  After the destruction of the synagogue, either by Mongols (13th century) or Timurids (15th century), the codex was owned by Salama ibn Abi al-Fakhr as the synagogue awaited reconstruction which never happened.

600 years later the codex came into the hands of David Solomon Sassoon.  It stayed in private ownership until Sassoon’s descendants sold it in 1978 to the British Rail Pension fund and then in 1998 the manuscript was auctioned again and sold to Jacqui Safra. (Wikipedia).

The former U.S. Ambassador to Romania Alfred H. Moses purchased the Hebrew Bible on behalf of the American Friends of ANU and donated it to the ANU Museum of the Jewish People in Tel Aviv.  According to APNew.com it is one of the highest prices for a manuscript sold at auction.  A rare copy of the U.S. constitution sold for $43 million in 2021. 

What is unique about this Bible is that it is thought to have been transcribed by one person and is the earliest known complete Hebrew Bible manuscript.

On Pentecost as we celebrate the gift of the Holy Spirit that empowers our faith into action and sharing God’s good news in Jesus Christ.  In celebrating Pentecost we enter into the ancient Jewish festival of harvest and the giving of the teachings to the Hebrew people at Mt. Sinai.  God’s word is such a beautiful gift to us and has moved through time to us today.   Cherish this holy and life giving word of God that reveals God to us.  The Holy Spirit continues to breathe God’s abundant life force in each and everyone of us.  A harvest celebration grows into a celebrate of God’s fruitful people who have grown and spread throughout the world.  Happy Pentecost!

BIBLE - Bold Inquisitive Belief Loving Expansively,

Pastor Connie Spitzack

May 18th, 2023

GREETINGS TO THE FEASTING FELLOWSHIP OF CHRIST THE KING!

Followers of the Risen One, I have had great delight in feasting with you this Easter Season as we broke and tore apart challah bread on Sunday.  The bread was delicious and tearing it apart, straying from our usual neat and tidy distribution patterns to a more spur of the moment reminds us that although Jesus prepared his disciples for what was to come, they were still surprised in the ways he showed up like in the breaking of the bread.

May 18 is Ascension Day, 40 days after the resurrection, Jesus ascends, returns to the Father, his mission is complete, his work done and now ours continues.  We are witnesses of these things that have been handed on to us through the generations.  We get to tell what we know and how we experience Jesus’ life, death, resurrection and ascension.

Formation of the cross and all that it brings to us has been revealed through Jesus.  We look up and down, orienting ourselves.  Looking up we know that God sent his son, Jesus to be with us, among us.  Looking down we remember how Jesus was with us, he taught us about God, God’s kingdom and how to live in relationship with God and one another through love and service.  He suffered, died, rose from death, appearing to his disciples and returning to God.  We look up again.  The vertical part of the cross well established and connected to us.

For the horizontal part of the cross, we continue to see the fruit of Jesus’ work among us as we look side to side, seeing Jesus in each other and the true image of God we were created to be.  God’s kingdom comes among us and God’s will is done.  We are part of something that is bigger than ourselves.  Each in our own little way, with our own little contribution gets to take part.  Don’t discount your witness.  Or excuse yourself from participating in this work, this kingdom building that God has called us to embrace and take delight in.  We don’t always know how we help each other to witness God’s power and presence among us.  We step out in faith, trusting that God will and does work through our lives and relationships and we keep looking for Jesus to show up in our relationships.

Gerald and Donna Vraspier’s memorial service was on Ascension Day.  They returned back to God, our Creator, joining the communion of saints.  I am grateful for their lives.  I am grateful for their witness among us.  I remember Donna’s beautiful bright blue eyes shining with a twinkle as she received holy communion. I hope my face shows that same eagerness and delight to receive Jesus. What a beautiful witness.  I remember Gerald sitting next to the wall on the organ side, so he had something to lean on to help him up.  He had bad knees and yet he came to worship and would not let me bring communion to him.  He showed me hard work and determination even in the midst of bodily pain.  I want to come to worship with such determination.  Together they made a beautiful home to nurture their family.  It was easy to see Jesus in their presence as the Holy Spirit worked through them.

I am grateful for all the ways that you witness to Jesus and make him known among us.  God is working with us.  Showing us the way.  We are in the final days of our Easter festival celebration.  This last Sunday of Easter ends with what we do best when it comes to giving God praise and thanksgiving.  We sing.  Come celebrate with our choir and bell choir and the music they share with us as we worship God and conclude our Easter feasting season.

Bold Inquisitive Belief Loving Expansively,

Pastor Connie Spitzack

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