February 9th, 2023

GREETINGS TO GOD’S IMAGE BEARERS,

It was such a delight to have Bishop Current with us last Sunday.  There is a joy that exudes from her that is from the Holy Spirit.  Thank you all for the warm welcome you gave her.  Hold her and our church in your prayers as Bishop Current serves on our behalf connecting us to other churches within the synod as well as the larger church.  And if you feel called to serve in synod leadership, please let me know and I will make necessary connections.  I will also let you know what positions the synod nominating committee is seeking.

I am grateful for the image of threshold places that Bishop Current offered to us with the healing of Peter’s mother-in-law.  It lingers for Carolyn Laxson as you will read in her article reflecting on her epiphany word, RITUAL and for me too as I think about the Transfiguration of Our Lord for this Sunday.

Not only are doorways places of threshold, places of movement where we are nurtured with the promises of our baptism and the food of Jesus’ table so that we are energized to go out into the world but so are mountain tops.  Mountain tops and those mountain top like experiences are moments of transfiguration, where we get a glimpse of God that we may not fully understand immediately but yet touch us and leave us speechless or stammering for something to do.

We may long to stay in those mountain top moments, like Peter desired but these places are places of movement.  Places to go to and from.  They are threshold places that help us to move as we get a little glimpse of what God is up to.  God pulls back the veil and we can see a bit more.

Jon Bengtson shared at adult forum a mountain top experience from his time attending a national youth gathering and the impression it left.  Amy Frank attended the Extravaganza which is an event that prepares youth directors for the national youth gathering in July.  She brought to our attention that due to the covid cancellations, this will be the first time that there are no youth that have attended the gathering before.  It is a brand-new event for all, except our adult leaders.  So for those of you who have attended a national youth gathering, please share about your experience and your hopes for our gathered youth. We hope and pray for our youth to have a mountain top experience at our youth gathering this summer and at that place away, Ewalu near Strawberry Point for summer camp, including Confirmation Camp. 

In this coming week we will be experiencing a couple of threshold events with the Transfiguration of Our Lord and Ash Wednesday.  We will give God glory and praise and then tuck away our alleluias, fasting from them as we move to the valley of Ash Wednesday, reminding ourselves that we dust and to dust we shall return.  These are threshold places.  Places we visit for a time and then move through.  We don’t build a dwelling here but move through bidding farewell to the season of Epiphany and into the season of Lent.  We move from God being revealed to us and to where God’s revelation takes us.

Approach these mountain top and valley times with a keen ear for the whisperings of the Holy Spirit that just might tell us to listen to Jesus and hearing Jesus say keep quiet until even more has been revealed.  Trust Jesus to be with us as we move through these times together.

Bold Inquisitive Belief Loving Expansively,

Pastor Connie Spitzack

February 1st, 2024

GREETINGS TO GOD’S IMAGE BEARERS,

 Now is the time to stir your creativity and begin thinking about making an ALLELUIA (Greek) or if you prefer Halleluia (Hebrew) to add to our Transfiguration of Our Lord Sunday (Feb. 11) where we feast on the alleluias before we fast during the 40 days of Lent.  The rhythm of moving from feast to fast to feast helps us to engage fully in our relationship with God as we move from celebrating the goodness of God to a time of great desire and need for God.  This rhythm keeps us in step with Jesus and Jesus’ journey with humanity as we move back and forth between feasting and fasting.

When I was in Israel we visited Mt. Tabor, one of the possible sites of Jesus’ transfiguration (the other is Mount Hermon) as the Bible does not name the high place Jesus took Peter, James and John.  We visited this high place.  Our guide pointed out that the architecture of the church reflected Peter’s question to Jesus of his desire to build 3 booths for them.  The structure reminded us that we would like to stay in the feasting place as long as we can and experience the glory of God, the parts of us that want to shout out allulia.

Inside the main worship area there are two levels of worship beside the many little chapel areas.  I like that idea of high and low worship areas mingling together with the idea of the movement between high places and low places and the worship in both with different tones and rhythms. At times we feel close to God and at other times the distance seems far and yet God is here and it is good to be here.

In our chapel time at this church, we were asked to reflect on transfiguration experiences and to briefly share. I shared that the Sunday of Transfiguration was the Sunday I was installed at Christ the King.  I remember saying like Peter, “It is good to be here.”  How true that statement is even after all these years.  How good it is to be here to worship God with you in the high place and the valley times. 

Sit with God, the God who loves you and wants good things for you.  Give God praise with your alleluias in whatever shape they take, with your desire to want to stay with God, to be in God’s presence with joy and delight.  And even though you would like to stay here in this good place, begin your preparations of going down into the valley again for the journey of Lent, asking God to show you where your life needs examination, to show you your blind spots, the places you cannot see on your own but need God’s help to see.

It is good to be here with you and with God, to move between these high and low places, the places of feasting and the fasting and feasting again.

Bold Inquisitive Belief Loving Expansively,

Pastor Connie Spitzack

January 25th 2024

GREETINGS TO THE CHILDREN OF GOD,

This isn’t a beautiful question but a question I wonder about.  How do we translate God’s good news for our world today?  Jesus who uses the metaphor of a fishing net saying he will make his disciples fish for people.  We get to translate how this wonderful tool for fishing but not so wonderful tool for the fish who are captured in it becomes a vehicle for God’s good news in Jesus Christ. 

For a fish the net means certain death to be caught up in it.  Is this what it means to die to ourselves, to recognize the limits of our humanity, to name our brokenness? We are a caught people or in those old familiar words, “I am in bondage to sin and cannot free myself.”  How do we translate that for today? 

For the one who wants to catch fish, the net is a beautiful tool that gives access to fish.  How does Jesus teach them to fish for people as he draws them in, capturing their attention so that they don’t dart away from the net?  Jesus heals people, casts out demons and teaches the Hebrew scriptures with authority not just an opinion or a review of the best scholars of the time.    Is our conversation about Jesus compelling and respectful so that it captures other’s attention?  Do we share with others how Jesus has caught us up and drawn us in?

Is Jesus the net in the metaphor?  Who slips around us, coming up to our speed and pulling us in?  Is Jesus the one who fishes, casting the net, trying to pull us out of the waters of chaos into what looks like death for us but transforms us into food, food for the world.  Jesus crosses those boundaries, God becoming human, giving his body for us to eat, so that we would remember, so that we would be fed on his very being, so that we would have life.  

Jesus teaches us how to be disciples by giving us his body and blood in bread and wine and gives us his body and blood on the cross and into the tomb to resurrected and returned life that finds home in God.  Is Jesus teaching us that he is both fish and net and the one who fishes for people drawing them into what seems like death in order to give them new life?   

How do we translate this today?  What lessons do we take from the net and fish and disciples following Jesus and Jesus teaching them how to fish for people.  How do we cast our net, our tools with our family members and friends in daily conversations and life unfolding events?  Jesus gives us plenty of metaphorical and symbolic room to figure out how our story weaves together with God’s story.  The Holy Spirit works with us as we trust and keep looking to God’s story while we live our story now.  Like fishing, we keep at it day after day.  No fish are ever caught in a net that isn’t cast into the water.  Little by little the Holy Spirit works in and through us as we figure out how to spread God’s good news in Jesus.  It is a wild and death-defying story drawing us home to God.  I am grateful we get to journey together on this fishing expedition.

Bold Inquisitive Belief Loving Expansively,

Pastor Connie Spitzack

January 19th, 2024

GREETINGS TO THE CHILDREN OF GOD,

Our community Epiphany word is INSIGHT not incite. In the Bible insight is found 15 times. Once in Job 34:35 where Job’s words are without insight. Daniel is found to have insight (Daniel 1:4 & 17) and twice in Paul’s letters to the Ephesians (1:8) and the Philippians (1:9).  But the majority of times insight is found in Proverbs as follows:

For learning about wisdom and instruction, for understanding words of insight, Proverbs 1:2

if you indeed cry out for insight and raise your voice for understanding, Proverbs 2:3

Trust in the Lord with all your heart, and do not rely on your own insight. Proverbs 3:5

Listen, children, to a father’s instruction, and be attentive, that you may gain insight, Proverbs 4:1

Get wisdom; get insight: do not forget nor turn away from the words of my mouth. Proverbs 4:5

The beginning of wisdom is this: get wisdom, and whatever else you get, get insight. Proverbs 4:7

Say to wisdom, “You are my sister,” and call insight your intimate friend, Proverbs 7:4

I have good advice and sound wisdom; I have insight; I have strength. Proverbs 8:14

Lay aside immaturity and live, and walk in the way of insight.” Proverbs 9:6

The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom, and the knowledge of the Holy One is insight. Proverbs 9:10

Insight will be a good word to lead our community this year.  We will pray for insight as we prepare for our annual meeting on January 27.  Pick up your copy of our annual report.  Our committee chairs have been very faithful and busy this year.  Please read through the reports and see what insights you gain and share those insights with our leadership.

Our business items include the usual election of leaders and adoption of the budget.  In addition to those items we hope to have estimates for flooring for the sanctuary, fellowship, vestibule, offices, library, cry room, and alcove areas.  The Long Range Planning Committee is seeking approval to update the lighting fixture in the vestibule to match the fellowship area with one ring and our newly formed Endowment Committee is seeking adoption of the Gift Acceptance Policy.  Paper copies of policy will be next to the annual report on the usher’s table or follow this link:  https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YkYPxi43IGLcgEgYW6BHwmrVdO5byVfV/view?usp=sharing

If you would like an electronic version of the Annual Report, follow this link or request a copy from Colleen Jacobson.  On Sunday, January 27 our Adult Forum will be dedicated to the presentation of all of our business items.  Please join us to gain more insight.

Bold Inquisitive Belief Loving Expansively,

Pastor Connie Spitzack

P.S.  Epiphany words are still available in an white bowl on the usher’s table.

January 12th, 2024

CTK GREETINGS CHILDREN OF GOD,

This Sunday we celebrate the Baptism of Our Lord.  I wonder what a beautiful question about Jesus’ baptism would sound like?  I immediately go to the tangible and concrete.  Baptism is a sacrament for us demonstrating God’s grace in a tangible way.  Baptism is holy and set apart.   These are foundational and fundamental responses.  An internet search reveals mostly common and doctrinal questions about baptism like why was Jesus baptized? When should someone be baptized?

But what is a beautiful question about baptism?

Where did John the Baptist get the idea of water baptism?

Was Jesus’ baptism an apocalyptic event as the heavens were torn open and God is revealing and making known to us something of God that is hidden from us?

Is Jesus’ baptism a beautiful portrayal of the loving union of the Trinity?

Is Baptism a beautiful picture of our sinful lives dying with Jesus and our new life beginning when we are “raised” from the water?

Does Jesus’ baptism bear witness to us and God?

To celebrate Jesus’ baptism find the beauty of it and maybe some beautiful questions.  Search for those who can speak beautifully about baptism whether it be Jesus’ baptism or baptism in general.  You have your favorites.  Pay them a visit.

In seeking beauty, I was drawn to Walter Wangerin’s children’s book, Water Come Down where Wangerin invites the members of creation into the story of baptism.  Then The Jesus Storybook Bible popped into my head, and I had to read what Sally Lloyd-Jones had to say and how she told the story of Jesus’ baptism.  Then on to music to find beauty in Jesus’ baptism, All Creation Sings give us Susan Briel’s hymn, To Christ Belong, In Christ Behold (958) and Sylvia Dunstan’s Down Galilee’s Slow Roadways (916).  So spend some time thumbing through the hymnal or searching your playlist.

What a wonderful journey.  I think I’m ready to celebrate Jesus’ baptism.  What preparations do you need to make to be ready to celebrate Jesus’ baptism?  What beautiful questions do you need to seek in Jesus’ baptism or your own?  God richly bless you on your journey.

Bold Inquisitive Belief Loving Expansively,

Pastor Connie Spitzack