A Blessed Christmas to all!!

Life Changes.  A baby is born.  Life changed for Mary and Joseph.  Jesus  is born and life changes for everyone. We are not alone.  God is with us.  Emmanuel. 

Life changes for us too.  We welcomed a new grandson, Liam Andreas last December  19th.  Unfortunately he suffered a severe brain injury during birth and died after 9 weeks. Along with his parents, Ahna and Oren, and our whole family, we continue to grieve his loss.  

Life changes.  We also welcomed a new granddaughter last December .  Matea Elizabeth joined Kari and Matthew’s family on the 7th. They live in La Crosse.  She joins our four other grandchildren:  Johnathan and Isaac (Kjerstin and Jamie’s boys) and Nora and Ezra.  You can see they enjoy being together.

Life changes. Dave’s mother passed away in July, three days after her 99th birthday.  We were blessed to have shared her life.  We grieve our loss and commend her to God’s new life. She’s pictured with Matea on Matea’s baptism in April..

Life changes.  On February 28th we retired from Our Savior’s Church after 23 years..  We’ve moved to Onalaska, Wisconsin.  Mary Jo continues to teach music at Bangor Elementary School, and Dave has  had opportunities to preach in several congregations this summer and fall.  We miss our work and the people at Our Savior’s very much, but we do trust God to continue to walk with us as life changes

 Life changes.  Retirement has meant more time to spend with family and to do a few new things for ourselves.  The picture on the card is at Miller Park, the home of the Brewers.  Along with a trip to Door County this fall, we visited Lambeau Field in Green Bay. 

May you know God’s blessings in your own life changes.  Merry Christmas and a Blessed New Year.

Thanksgiving

We had the joy of spending the thanksgiving holiday with Kjerstin and Jamie and their boys and Kari and Matthew and their girls.  Many of you know how great it is to have family around the table–a table filled with all kinds of good things to eat and too much of it.  It’s very satisfying.  We missed Ahna and Oren, but Oren had to work  Thursday and Friday this year.  Ahna wanted to stay home also as they continue to grieve their loss.

I don’t know if gratitude come naturally or needs to be learned.  We certainly teach our children to say thank you.  We also keep reminding them to speak their thanks as they receive from others.  On the other hand the emotion of thanks does come naturally as we discover that our lives are filled  with the gifts of others.  The greatest lesson  is when we learn that all that we have and all that we are are gifts from God.  What can we do except to turn in thanks to that great giver.

We hope yours has been a good Thanksgiving.  May you live always with an attitude of gratitude.

All Saints’ Sunday

As we celebrate All Saints’ Sunday this weekend, we’ll remember two special people in our family.  Pictured above are Dave’s mother, affectionately known as ‘Bestemor,’ and Liam Andreas, son of Ahna and Oren Bersagel-Briese.  One died at the age of 99, the other died at the age of 9 weeks.  Both are missed.  We grieve for both.  Our lives are not the same without them.

They both are saints of God.  In their baptism God claimed them as God’s own and made them saints.  Bestemor lived a long and productive life that had it’s share of sorrows and hardship. In spite of that she frequently said that she was very blessed.  Liam lived a short life that produced an effect on those around him.  He lived courageously even as he always needed the help and support of those around him.  We grieve that we will not know what other good he might have done in the world.  We were blessed by his presence in our lives.

We don’t believe God needed them more than we did.  We do believe that in all circumstances of life that God’s steadfast love doesn’t ever desert those God calls saints.  We believe in the wonder of life now, our call to God’s purposes in the world.  We believe in a life to come when we will gather with them around the throne of the lamb,  We will gather with the angels and archangels and all the host of heaven to praise God.  We believe we practice for that great day as we gather as Christians to worship, to praise and thank the God who makes saints out of 99 year olds and 9 week olds and all of us.

Reformation

If you worship at a Lutheran Church this Sunday, it’s likely that you’ll celebrate Reformation.  Yu already know that on October 31, 1517 Martin Luther set in motion a movement to reform the church of his day.  We Lutherans are the inheritors of that movement.

Inheritors do have a gift but with it goes a responsibility.  The church has a responsibility to always be in Reformation and we have that responsibility as possibility as Lutherans.  For me what we inherited was an emphasis on God’s grace, on God’s steadfast love for all people.  God calls to proclaim that grace, God’s love for a world God created and loves dearly.   None of us is excused from that calling of proclamation for God has made us a part of the priesthood of all believers.  Our identity is as saints because God through Jesus says we are holy and as sinners because we live in a broken world.  Sinner saints and saintly sinners.

As inheritors of the Reformation God calls us to love this world God loves dearly.  That world belongs to God and God is always active in it.  We join this God of action in providing for and protecting all that God has made.  It’s a privilege and a duty that God grants to us.

I remember the days when our worship on Reformation Sunday was a reminder that thankfully we weren’t Roman Catholic.  I’m grateful now that our Reformation worship is truly a call to continuing reformation of our lives and our congregations and our world.  Change is the constant for us as the inheritors of the reformation Luther began almost 500 years ago

Happy Reformation celebration!!!

 

Called but not chosen?

This blog has been idle for a little while.  I haven’t been preaching in September, so I haven’t paid as much attention to the scripture readings coming up.  I have an assignment later in October, however, so I’m stepping back into the flow of the scriptures we’re all hearing.

Having just read the readings for Sunday, I’m left scratching my head.  The gospel reading in particular is troubling.  Jesus tells a parable about a king who plans a wedding banquet.  When the invitations go out, those invited laugh it off and even kill the delivery workers.  So the king kills them all and has his servants go out in the street and invite everybody in–the good and the bad.  Good news there for us who through Jesus are invited to God’s great feast of joy.  And yet the story concludes with the strange wrath of the king toward someone not suitably dressed.  the conclusion:  Many are called but few are chosen.

The community for which Matthew writes his gospel is a mixed community.  Some are super Christians claiming special gifts of the Holy Spirit.  Matthew sees others as shallow Christians.  For Matthew true faith is lived out in right living.  At the same time he discourages a judgmental attitude toward others.  Judgements about sincere faith are to be left to God in God’s good time.  So the first shall be last and the last shall be first.

We could read this story as a call to invitational evangelism–inviting others into the faith community of which we are a part.  How good a “church member’ they may be, how good a “follower of Jesus” they may be is not up to us to decide, but simply to invite them and let God work in their lives. In the end God will make the judgements.

Listen to the first reading as well.  What good news it is that even God can change God’s mind.  We are constantly creating idols for ourselves, we turn away from God and God would be rid of us.  But Jesus intervenes on our behalf and God changes God’s mind and continues to be our God.  In our baptism God has made us a promise to always be our God.  We trust God not to have a change of mind, a change of heart about that.  But it is Good News to us that God is not just an angry God, but a God of steadfast love.

May you enjoy these days of beauty and let them remind you of God’s great blessings.

Grandparents

Ten years ago this week, we became grandparents.  Johnathan Richard Smith gave us this title with his birth.  Since then we have been blessed 5 more times.

What is it to be a grandparent?  We’re still learning.  But what we’ve noticed is that it usually means unconditional love given and received.  It means sitting at t-ball games and football practices as children learn the fundamentals of the game.  It means reading books and more books.  It means watching Toy Story and Cars over and over again.  It means attending dance recitals and musicals and holding your breath as they come on stage.  It means changing diapers with a smile.  It means an occasional overnight guest.  It means interesting conversations and occasional meltdowns.  It means biting your tongue when you don’t agree with parental decisions, and biting your tongue because you weren’t a perfect parent either.  It means an opportunity to watch in a more detached way as a special human being grows and develops and struggles toward maturity and adulthood.  It means dreaming for their futures and worrying for their futures and grieving for those whose future will never be.

Johnathan was born three days after 9/11.  It was a note of hope in the midst of despair.  It was an affirmation of life in the middle of death.  It was a peace in the midst of turmoil.  We’re happy to be here to celebrate him and all our grandchildren.

Servant Leaders

A synod colleague of Dave’s had the opportunity this summer of  taking a sabbatical.  Dave had the privilege of preaching in his congregation this morning.  This pastor is doing his own set of readings as he leads them this year through the Bible. He assigned Dave the last half of the gsopel of Mark for this morning.  Key was Jesus word to the disciples and the crowd,  ”The Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

Jesus was a servant leader who showed the power of God in his life of service.  The power of His leadership grew out of the service He gave.  Many of us know those who seek to “serve first” and because they do are held in high esteem by those around them.  We can’t be Jesus, but perhaps we can be more like Jesus in our lives of service.

We’re thankful for those in the medical field who continue to serve Mary Jo.  She had good reports in her visits to the doctors this week.  The mammograms were clear, and we are thankful.  She had several blood tests and the results so far are very good(still waiting for 2 to come back).  She’s about to return to school tomorrow with teacher in-service days for the next three days.  School starts with kids on September 1.  We continue to pray and to believe that God will give her the strength for this year.  She does enjoy working with the students.

Thinking of students returning to school and Sunday School, Dave used the story of Jesus’ blessing of the children as a children’s message this morning.  God continues to bless children as they learn and grow and live in God’s great love for them.

 

Confirming the gifts

I helped confirm thirty-eight 10th graders today.  The whole church confirms for them that God has given them the gift of faith and a specific gift to use as they live out that faith for the sake of the world.  One of the readings for the day  reminded them that God has created them not to conform to the powers that be,  but  God is in the process of transforming them through the renewal of their minds.  We asked the young people to confess their faith in God, knowing all along that confession is God’s gift.   It was a privilege to be with them today after spending most of the last three years watching them grow into men and women.  May God keep God’s promise and bless their lives daily.

It was a real privilege to be invited back for this special occasion.  It was good to see people who were and still are important in our lives.  We thank Pastor Grow and the confirmation class for this opportunity.

Ellen Mostrom Bersagel 1912-2011

Dave’s Mother died on Saturday, July 30 at the age of 99.  She was born at home in July of 1912, and she died peacefully in that same home with family present.

We celebrated her 99th birthday on Wednesday.  She was able to greet us, celebrate with us (she sang along on “Happy Birthday),  and hear our words of love for her.

She was and will continue to be a blessing to us as her family.  Her faith, her wit which she never lost even at the end, her sly smile, and her deep sense of gratitude about life are a great legacy for us. My sisters Marie and Ruth faithfully cared for her in the home they shared.  Over the last 3 weeks they had the wonderful help of a Comfort Care Team from the area. Dave is grateful to his sisters for the constant and loving care they gave.

We’ll have a funeral service for her and celebrate God’s grace in her life on Thursday afternoon at 1:30 at Elk Creek Church near Northwood, Iowa.  She was baptized, confirmed and married in that church and now will be buried from it in the cemetery there.   She returned to Elk Creek Church after she and Dave’s father served parishes in Iowa, South Dakota, and Illinois.  He died in 1973 at the age of 62.

We will remember her as a talented musician (choir director, organist, pianist), a lover of puzzles and gadgets, but especially as a person who saw her life as richly blessed by God.  We will miss her presence in our lives but claim God’s promise given through Jesus of resurrection to eternal life. May God bless her memory among us.

Metaphors

We haven’t posted to this blog in a little while.  Over the last couple of weeks we’ve helped our daughter Kari and family move (about a half block.)  They’re now in a 100 year old house with more room than they have had in their married life and now are wondering how to furnish it.  Papa and Nana had the tough job of caring for the grandkids.  What a treat.

In addition, we’ve made some trips to Iowa to spend some time with Dave’s mother.  She’ll be 99 on Wednesday (God willing), but had a few days stay in the hospital and now is on comfort care at home.  We still see some signs of the old “Bestemor”, but also see the failing health.  She’s at home with Dave’s two sisters who do a marvelous job of caring for her.  Dave had tried to help with time spent on the mower working around their very large yard.

One of the good things about retirement and Mary Jo’s time off from school is the opportunity to do these sorts of things.  We are thankful for that.

Dave had a chance to preach this weekend.  The gospel for the day presented some metaphors–”The kingdom of heaven is like…”  The kingdom of heaven is when God does what God does, or is God being God.

One of the metaphors we heard in that gospel is that the kingdom of God is like a merchant in search of fine pearls.  When he finds a most perfect pearl, he sells everything to possess it.

When God is being God, it’s like a merchant searching for a priceless pearl.  Could it be that the priceless pearl God is searching for is YOU!  Yes, in all of your humanity, with all of your strengths and weaknesses, with all the good that you do and all of your faults, all of your sins of commission and omission. God is willing to give up everything to have you–becomes human with all that means including dying.  That’s what the kingdom of heaven is like, that’s what God does.

This kingdom is a gift to live in, a gift to receive, a gift to live out of in service to the world and the people in it that God loves so dearly.