Things we want to teach Grace

November 11, 2016

My dear daughter,

          Before you were born, your dad and I talked a lot about things we wanted to teach you, things especially that we wanted to teach you as our daughter. This week, in the wake of Donald Trump beating Hillary Clinton for the presidency, I feel compelled to write them down for you, so that you will never, ever forget.

1)   You are loved. This is hands down the most important thing for you to know. Your dad and I love you

more and more each day, as we get to know you better and appreciate who you are and what you bring to this world. Your grandparents love you, and all your extended family and many friends. Most of all, God loves you. None of us will ever let you go, my dear child.

2)   You are valued, not for what you do, but for who you are. We also love and value some of the things you do – you are, by and large, delightful (as I write this, you are reading a book aloud to us in the most adorable and dynamic baby dialect) – but at the end of the day, we value you simply because you are Grace, and Grace has so much to offer, and though what you have to offer will change, our value of you never will.

3)   Everyone else is also to be valued and respected. We think you’re pretty great, but the good news is, everyone on this earth has something important and valuable to offer the world, too. And so we want you to learn to value and respect these people, too. Sometimes this looks like simply smiling and saying hello. Sometimes it means praying for their well-being. Sometimes it means taking the time to hear their story, their struggles, and what brings them joy. More often than not, I find I am a better person for having heard the stories of people who are different from me.

4)   Kindness goes a long way. It’s easy to be kind to people you know and like. But we hope you will be kind even to people you don’t know and like. Ask the grocery store clerk how her day is going. Hold the door for someone. Sit with someone who is lonely at lunch. Smile at someone who looks different from you. Pay the toll of the person behind you on the thruway, or for someone else’s coffee. Ask someone who is looking sad if they would like to talk. A little kindness goes a long way, and it is far more important to be kind than to be right.

5)   It’s okay to be smart, capable, and assertive. As a girl or a woman, you may encounter people who think it is most important for you to be pretty, or sweet, or even to act dumb. Don’t listen to them. Never stop learning. Never stop trying new things. Never stop singing your song. Never stop striving, even when someone else gets what you wanted. And above all, never let anyone tell you that you are somehow less valued because you are a woman. Being a woman is an incredible thing, and one that should never keep you from pursuing good in the world.

6)   It’s okay to say “no,” especially about your body. If someone asks you to do something you are not comfortable with, it is okay to say no. Your body is yours, and no one gets to decide how to treat it, or what to put in it, but you.

7)   Love one another. This is something that Jesus says many times, but it is also the basic tenet of every major world religion. Sometimes loving one another is easy. Sometimes it isn’t. Sometimes it looks just like people expect it to – like, kindness, and giving people what they want, and helping them. Sometimes love looks different than you might expect – like, being respectfully honest, or holding people accountable, or speaking truth to power on behalf of the disadvantaged or disenfranchised, or going against the majority to do what you know is right. Loving one person or group of people does not always look or feel loving to another person or group. Sometimes it is hard to discern what is the most loving action, but here are some hints: Love puts the other first. Love means building bridges, not walls, because love is connection – with God and with one another – not separation. Love is showing up, and being present. Love is seeing the beauty in another person, and celebrating it in whatever way you can.

My dear Grace, I pray that you will always know these things, that you will always be driven by hope, love, and possibility, never by fear or despair. And I pray that knowing these things will compel you always to seek good in the world, but also to seek to make the world even better, by sharing your own beautiful spirit and strength with whatever challenge or opportunity you encounter. You, my daughter, have the power to change the world, and don’t you forget it.

I want to end this particular letter with some words from Secretary Clinton’s classy concession speech, which I listened to with tears running down my face as I thought about you: “Never stop believing that fighting for what’s right is worth it. It is, it’s worth it! . . . And to all the little girls…, never doubt that you are valuable and powerful and deserving of every chance and opportunity in the world to pursue and achieve your own dreams.” May it be so for you, my daughter. I love you so much.

                                                                                                Your proud Mama

Election Day with Grace and Susan B. Anthony

November 10, 2016

Dear Grace,

This week has been a big one, both in our lives and in the life of America. A couple of days ago, America elected Donald Trump as president. Your dad and I, and many other Americans, have grave fears about this, but I won’t get into that just now. Instead, I want to tell you about earlier in the day, before the election results came in.

We voted!

You see, everyone expected that this would be the election when America would finally elect her first woman president, Hillary Clinton! Oh Grace, I was so hopeful – for you, and for all girls and women, so that you would grow up in a world where you would see that you really can be anything you want, even president!

It was only 96 years ago that women got the right to vote, in the passing of the 19^th amendment. One of the people who worked tirelessly for this, though never saw it in her lifetime, was Susan B. Anthony. As it turns out, she lived right here in Rochester, and is buried at Mt. Hope Cemetery! So on Election Day, I dressed you in all white – the color that suffragettes wore as they fought for women’s right to vote. I also donned a white shirt and sweater. And together, we went to our polling site and proudly cast our vote for what I thought would be our first female president. What an emotional and exciting experience! I was so delighted to have you with me for it. We were making history together!

After we cast the vote, we took a field trip to Mt. Hope Cemetery, to visit Susan B. Anthony’s grave. This has become a Rochester tradition, to come by and leave “I voted” stickers on Susan B’s grave as a way to pay her homage and gratitude for the right to vote. I expected a lot of people, especially with a woman on the ballot for the first time. But Grace – it was insane! I had to park about a quarter mile away, and then we waited in line for 90 minutes! I understand it was at least that long a wait for the whole day. I popped you in the carrier on my back (which you love) and made the hike, then joined

Back of the line

the line. It was a gorgeous fall day – sunny and 60 degrees in November! – and in one of the most beautiful spots in town for fall foliage, which has lasted far longer than usual this year.

But even more beautiful than the foliage was the atmosphere. Being there made me so proud and grateful to be an American. People were kind to each other. When you wanted to run around a little, strangers smiled and talked to you, and held my place in line while I followed you to make sure you didn’t crash into a gravestone. When my 36-week-pregnant body was starting to get tired of standing with a 20+ pound baby on my back, people offered to hold you, or find me somewhere to sit. There were lots of women there of all ages, many dressed in white or even white pantsuits (a style Hillary Clinton is known for), but also lots of kids, and lots of men. There was a spirit of hope and gratitude there. Today, we all thought, history would be made!

Hillary’s campaign slogan was “Stronger Together,” and as we all stood in line, I really felt that. I felt it in the people there that day, so full of kindness and hope, and especially the people who made it a

Front of the line in view!

little easier for me to be there with you, my active toddler. And I felt it as I thought about those suffragettes, working so hard and taking so many risks for their right to vote – so that I could vote, today, for the first female president, and so that in 17 years, you can vote. Stronger together. We fight today for what is right, so that 100 years from now, our children’s children can have a better life. Stronger together! We work today toward positive change, toward progress, so that we can come closer to that “more perfect union” the founders talked about. Stronger together!

When we finally got to the front, we took a picture – one that I hope will be special to you for years to come, even though the results were not what we had expected and hoped for. We are squatting behind a stone marker covered in “I voted” stickers and a pile of flowers, notes, pictures, etc., grinning. I know you won’t remember the day, but I hope that picture will be for you a reminder of the greatness that America can achieve, and that in all things, we are stronger together.

After our picture, a reporter pulled us aside and asked to interview us. He asked, “What brought you here today?” Suddenly caught up in the emotion of it all, I got choked up and couldn’t speak. When I could, I said, “I want my daughter to know she was a part of this day.” Then I smiled and said again, with more conviction, “When Hillary wins, I want her to know she was a part of it.” (I made the Democrat and Chronicle with that quote! Read it here.)

Made it!

Well, sadly, Hillary didn’t win (though she DID win the popular vote!). But I still want you to know, my sweet, smart, talented, spunky, brave girl, that all those things I felt standing in line are still true. America is a place where passionate people can make a difference; where when you care deeply about something, you have the power to change things for a better future for your children; that it’s true that, as Hillary Clinton also said many times, “America is great because it is good,” and the goodness of people can be seen in so many ways.

I hope that you will always watch for it. I hope that it will bring you hope in dark times. I hope that you will embody that goodness for others. I think you will.

For now, we will still watch and wait and fight for that final glass ceiling to be shattered. And in the meantime, we will be goodness and kindness and light in the world. Lord knows, it is needed now more than ever.

                                                                                    Your proud mama

Dad rounds out the day by reading you Grace for President.

Sermon: Being saints in a broken world (All Saints Day, 2016)

All Saints C (and Confirmation at SMLC)

November 6, 2016

Romans 6:1-14 (off lectionary)

Luke 6:20-31

Grace to you and peace from the one who is and who was and who is to come. Amen.

            Today at St. Martin, we will witness five young people who have spent the past two years learning about God and God’s Word and the life of faith, as they stand up and affirm their baptismal promises – the promises made on their behalf when they were infants, and which they will claim today as their own. I have always loved confirmation Sunday, because it is a day on which we are all invited to remember those promises, to consider what they mean in our own lives, and how we are living them out. Witnessing a baptism allows this opportunity for reflection as well, of course, but there is something about watching a young person, someone who is just learning to understand who God is for them as an adult, that really urges us all to do the same once again.

            This year, as I considered how to talk about this in a sermon, I was presented with an additional challenge: the date that would work for everyone involved to have confirmation was today, which is also the day the Church calls, the Festival of All Saints. This is one of the highest feast days in the church year, right up there with Easter. Over time, its purpose has changed, but today we see it primarily as a day when we celebrate and give thanks for those who have died, who have gone before

us in faith to live eternally in the light of Christ in heaven.

            But this year, due to its sharing the day with confirmation, I have been thinking about another important aspect of All Saints, and that is remembering that for Lutherans, you don’t have to have died to be a saint. No, in fact, we understand that our sainthood begins in our baptism, on that day when we were “clothed with Christ,” when we were, as the Apostle Paul writes, baptized with Christ into a death like his so that we would also be raised in a resurrection like his.

            That’s pretty remarkable stuff, when you think about it – that Christ would invite us to be a part of his own resurrection! It’s stuff that Paul talks about in our reading today from Romans. We don’t necessarily feel the same impact watching baptisms today, sprinkling a bit of water on someone’s brow, as people might have in the early church, when full immersion baptism was the norm. This is much more like what Paul talks about, where baptism is more like a descent into the tomb, just as Christ descended to the dead. In some settings, people would be held under the water for quite some time – so long, in fact, that they were desperate for a breath of air! When they finally did emerge from the water, that first breath was indeed like a new birth – like a newborn emerging from the womb and crying aloud with that first breath of real air! And so, Paul says, when we are baptized, we are like Christ – dying to kill off that sinful way of life, and rising again into new life. I dunno, I think that’s pretty cool, myself!

            But of course, it doesn’t end there; baptism isn’t a once and done event. That new life – that is something we continue to work toward, to live into, for the rest of our time here on earth. And here, I think, is where baptism and confirmation merge just perfectly with today’s celebration of All Saints Day, because Lutherans use that word, “saint,” to talk about all baptized believers. Martin Luther talked about how we are simultaneously saint and sinner: that is, in our baptism, we are declared saints in that we are justified, declared righteous, forgiven our sins, and promised eternal life. But even so, even though we are saints, we remain captive to sin, captive to our human desires and inclinations, and we frequently fall short of the glory of God. And so on All Saints Day, we also

remember ourselves – both the fact that we are baptized saints of God, and the fact that we have a lot of work to do!

            It is a difficult dichotomy, being both saint and sinner: on the one hand, we have a pretty good sense of what living a Christian life looks like, and we desperately long to live into that… but we are also painfully aware of how far we and the world around us are from that hope and expectation. All around us is pain – death and loss, fighting and brokenness, disappointment and judgment. We need look no further than the election taking place in just two days, in which we will elect one of two people who are by and large the most despised candidates we have ever had. The build up to this day has been wrought with ugliness, and I fear that won’t stop on November 9, as we deal with the aftermath of whatever happens on Tuesday. How can we look at how all of this has turned out, and still embrace that we are all saints of God because God told us so in our baptism? How do we live like saints in the world when there is so much hatred and division?

            These are the sorts of questions we must continually ask ourselves – when we witness a baptism, a confirmation, or even just go about our daily lives. Being a saint in this world is not to be taken lightly. It is a call to confront injustice with a word of peace, to reach a hopeful and gracious hand out to those who are poor and hungry now, to comfort those who weep now, to have compassion on those who are hated. It is a call to be the heart, hands, and voice of Christ in a weary world. It is doing all those things we talk about in every baptism, and which our confirmands at St. Martin will commit to by their own volition this morning. It is a hefty commitment, being a saint in this world!

            I hope that all Christians understand this, and in particular today, I hope that our confirmands understand this. When we stand up each week and profess our faith in the creed, when we come forward to this meal, when we stand around and promise to pray for the newly baptized – these are regular promises we make to live this life of sainthood, through thick and thin, come what may. It means being a saint during a particularly painful election season. It means being a saint after the election, whether you’re pleased with the outcome or not. It means sitting with the lonely person at lunch. It means giving from the heart of our time, talents and treasures. It means caring about the things that Jesus says in his famous sermon we heard today from Luke. It means taking the word of God, and especially the teachings of Jesus, very seriously, and considering how they can be enacted in the world – whether that is in how you cast your vote on Tuesday, or how you interact with your colleagues at work, or how you serve God through this church.

And there is no finish to this call as long as we are on earth. Sometimes people think of confirmation as a sort of graduation – from Sunday School, from Church, I don’t know, but you notice a lot of people get confirmed and then we never see them again. (I know this will not happen

2016 St. Martin confirmands

with any of you, right??) I have a colleague who likes to say, “We do have a graduation in our church life, but it isn’t confirmation. It is your funeral.” For it is in our funerals, in our deaths, that all that we have lived and worked for and believed has reached its purpose.

We had such a “graduation” yesterday at St. Martin, for a longtime and well-loved member. One of my favorite parts of the funeral liturgy is right at the beginning, when we drape a large pall over the casket. As this is done, we remember that we were clothed with Christ in our baptism, that we put on Christ’s own righteousness. We live our lives of faith striving to grow into those clothes – we go to Sunday School, we read our Bibles, we go to church, we pray, we serve others and do our best to live a godly life. But all of that comes to its culmination at the moment of death – for it is in that moment that all of the promises made in baptism suddenly come to their final expression. We finally, as Paul writes in our lesson from Romans, leave this sin-sick world and move on to a place where grace is sovereign, move on to a new life in a new land, where we live by and bask in Christ’s light and love.

Until then, brothers and sisters, we do our best. We do our best to live into our saintly nature, to keep those promises made in baptism, to look to the word of God to guide us and to trust the light of Christ to light our path. We bring up our children with the knowledge and assurance that Christ has made all things new. We come to this meal for the sustaining reminder that we are not in this alone – that indeed we are in it with all the saints in light from every time and place, as well as the saints who sit beside us in our pew. Most of all we do it with the promise of our loving God, with us all along until we, like those we named this morning, take our place in the nearer presence of God amidst all those who have died in faith. Thanks be to God!

Let us pray… Gracious God, in the gift of baptism, you extended to us an important call: to be saints in this weary world. Give us strength, courage, and wisdom to reach out to those in need, to speak up for those without a voice, to work toward your heavenly kingdom until we take our place with all the saints in light from every time and place. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.

Sermon: What's written on your heart? (Reformation Day, 2016)

Reformation Day

Oct. 30, 2016

Jeremiah 31:31-34

            As Michael and I try to wrap our heads around the reality that in just a few weeks, we will once again have a newborn living at our house, I have been trying to remember what it was like last time we had a newborn. I remember Grace being pretty easy, as newborns go, pretty agreeable, pretty compliant, even a pretty good sleeper. But of course, there were some nights where she was much more interested in being held and cuddled than being left alone in her crib. I remember one night in particular when I sat there rocking her, bouncing her, and singing every song I could think of. At some point, I ran out of Beatles and James Taylor and Carole King songs, and I thought, “Hmm, what other songs do I know by heart?” And then it came to me: and I spent the next chunk of the evening singing every liturgy I could recall from growing up in the Lutheran Church. I sang Marty Haugen’s Holden Evening Prayer. I sang LBW Settings 1, 2 and 3, and a few from the ELW, as well – Kyries and Hymns of Praise and Holy Holy Holys and Lamb of Gods. I think it was this night that I began

the tradition of singing the chanted Lord’s Prayer to her each night as I gently trace a cross on her forehead.

All of these – these are the songs and the words and the faithful expressions that are written on my heart. They are my go-to prayers, they are my comfort, they are the words of my faith. They are words and phrases that appear in my sermons and public prayers whether I’m trying or not, because they are what have provided me with a way of talking about faith. That’s what going to church every single Sunday of my childhood has given me: my heart became a tablet on which God could scribe His Word, His law, His promises, so that they would become a part of me.

God, after all, promised to do that, centuries before Jesus ever walked the earth. Jeremiah tells us so, in our first reading today, in these remarkable words: “This is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days [those days of rebellion and turning away from me], says the Lord: I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.” Such a promise leaves me breathless! First of all, that God would make such a covenant with such a rebellious people! Those who made it through reading the Old Testament this year will recall, that the history of the people of Israel has been riddled with failure upon failure to follow God’s law. God has continually tried to give them what they want and need, and they have repeatedly turned away to follow their own whims. At this point in Jeremiah’s prophecy, Jeremiah is witnessing one of the most heart-wrenching times of Israel’s history: the exile, in which all the Jews were exported out of the promised land, out of Jerusalem, and into far-away Babylon. And yet out of this heartbreak, he shares this promise: “I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.” In other words, God says, “I know times are tough right now and the future looks grim, but know this: I have not given up on you.”

And then he offers this greatest gift: God will write, right on their hearts, right on their very souls, His life-giving word. God will put it where they cannot forget it. God will relentlessly give them exactly what they need to find and experience life. “And I will be their God, and they shall be my people.” God will not desert them in their hour of pain and doubt and separation. God will remain as their God, and God will continue to claim them and love them as His people. They will not be alone.

What is written on your heart? What is so ingrained in you, you couldn’t forget it if you tried? The words of the Lord’s Prayer? The 23^rd Psalm? The words and tunes of the liturgy? Something your parents or grandparents used to always say? What is written on your heart, and how has it shaped who you are – as a person generally, and as a person of faith in particular? What is written on your heart?

Maybe, if you grew up in the Lutheran Church and went to confirmation class, you have the

Download yours for free here:
http://info.augsburgfortress.org/luthers-small-catechism-new-mobile-app

words of the Small Catechism written on your heart. That was Martin Luther’s intention, that children and families would have his little manual on faith memorized. And so, back in the day, confirmation students were required to memorize the entire Small Catechism – the Lord’s Prayer, the Creed, the 10 Commandments, and all the explanations thereof. I admit I didn’t have to do that, but I memorized enough of it to be able to say, “We are to fear and love God so that…” and, “This is most certainly true!” Anyone recognize those phrases? They are quintessentially Lutheran phrases, and yes, they, too, have become a part of my faith lexicon! A couple weeks ago I asked our current confirmation class just to memorize the Apostles’ Creed – not the explanations, just the Creed itself – and oh, the groans I got! “More homework!” “Ugh, it’s so many words!” Now, I try to be a gracious teacher, understanding of their workload at school and the stress they are under with their various extra-curriculars. But on this, I will not budge. They need to know those words! These are the words of faith! These are the words five confirmands will speak from memory next week when they are confirmed. These are the words they will return to again and again when they face challenges and struggles in their life and faith. These are the words that will be written on their hearts, that they will continue to wrestle with all their lives but which are, nonetheless, a part of them, a part of their relationship with a loving, caring God, a God who will never, ever desert them, who will continually forgive them and hold them close.

What words are written on your heart? What words do you wish were written on your heart? What words do you need written on your heart to help you remember God’s abiding promises?

In the book, Sensible Shoes, one of the women, Mara, who has struggled with her self-esteem,

sense of security, and identity, decides that having something written on her heart is not enough. She wants it written on her body. She is compelled by the name Hagar gives to God, after Abraham has just sent her and her unborn child away to a desert wasteland. In that place, pregnant, frightened and hopeless, God reveals Himself to Hagar as “El Roi,” the God who sees – who sees Hagar and her fears and her struggles. The story resonates with Mara’s own, and so Mara has tattooed on her wrist an eye, the eye of God, as a reminder that God always sees her – sees her for her failings, yes, but also, she comes to realize, sees her as a child of God who is worthy of love. God is the one who sees, and who loves, and she wants that written on her heart, and her wrist.

What is written on your heart? How has God revealed Himself to you in your life – through what words, images, songs, or experiences has God become real for you? What imprint have those words left?

I love the post-Easter story in which Jesus shows his disciples his scars. Those scars – they are the marks that were left after claiming eternal life for God’s beloved people. Sometimes those things that are written on our hearts did not get written there easily. Sometimes we may confuse the word of God with the hurtful words left on our hearts by someone else. But this I can assure you: while human words can indeed hurt us, contrary to what the child’s rhyme would have us believe, God’s word – the word that is written deep inside our hearts – is always, finally, a word of life. It is a word of forgiveness – as Jeremiah also tells us today, “I will forgive their iniquity and remember their sin no more.” God’s word is a word of grace, and of love. And that life, forgiveness, grace, and love – that word of God that is written on our hearts – is a word that frees us from fear, from death, from our own self-doubt, from all that would hold us captive.

What, dear people of God, is written on your heart? What words has God scripted on your heart to remind you every day of His love, grace, and assurance of forgiveness? In what way does what is written on your heart become apparent in your living and your loving? What is written on your heart?

Let us pray… Lord God, you have put your law within us, and written it on our hearts. You have promised to be our God, and we your people. You have forgiven us and forgotten our sin. Help us to live by the promises you have written on our hearts, to cling to your love within us, and to live all of our days as your beloved, forgiven, and free children. In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. Amen.