Installation of Pastor Lars Hammer 

Christ Lutheran, Walla Walla

July 13, 2025

Mark 4:1-9, Isaiah 40:1-11, Psalm 96, Romans 12:4-8

An installation service is a great day for celebration. We celebrate the journeys of both the congregation and pastor or deacon and the new mutual ministry that has begun. Ministry always takes place in a context and so today provides opportunity to pray and dream and wonder about the present and future ministry of Christ Lutheran in Walla Walla, WA, a place with its own story.

Pastor Hammer has selected a wonderful constellation of scripture passages for us: Isaiah’s words of comfort that we perhaps all wanted to break in song proclaiming—so many composers have paired those words with music. We read together Psalm 96 with its praise, invoking so much of natural world. If every congregation in our synod simply provided God’s comfort for their community and praised God, that would be more than enough, I think.

The truth is, I want more for our congregations, which is why I love that Romans 12 is part of our worship today. Paul gives us the reminder that everyone in this congregation, not just the pastor, brings God-given gifts to their daily lives and to the collective ministry of Christ Lutheran. It is also a reminder that no congregation has to do everything, be all things. As one of my friends is fond of saying, “congregations can have vocations too.” 

After two years as bishop of the Northwest Intermountain Synod, I can say that one of my deep joys is not only identifying gifts in individuals but watching an entire community of faith discern its calling or callings for a particular period of time, a chapter of their life together. 

And then we have our gospel reading about seeds landing on different soil, a lesson for those who follow Jesus about how the Word of God and the Word, Jesus, are received. Listen! Jesus commands, foreshadowing the message to those on the Mount of Transfiguration, “This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!” In the verses following our gospel passage, Jesus explains the parable for his early followers and us.

Birds eat the seeds on the path; the obstacle is Satan, whose opposition ensures that potential disciples will remain “by the way” instead of “on the way.” Consider the crowd that only listens but does not follow. 

Seed that falls on rocky soil is like the word that is received but when obstacles arise, followers of Jesus defect. You might think of disciples for whom suffering is a stumbling block.

Seed sown among the thorns seems to represent those who really do hear the word; however, they do not bear fruit. We are reminded of the “worries of this age, the lure of wealth, and all other passions.” And it’s hard not to think of the one discipleship rejection story in this same gospel—the rich young man who turns away from Jesus’ call, whose story we never hear the end of.

Despite the years since this parable and explanation were written down, there is much that still resonates. The barriers to hearing the message–to repent for the reign of God has come near–are perhaps as robust as ever. There is much that can and does block hearing Jesus’ word.

Evil still exists and we might be better off if we all called it by name. In my synod newsletter column, I recently encouraged our congregations to include the corporate the Affirmation of Baptism service into Sunday morning worship this summer or fall, in part so you can all practice renouncing the devil and all the forces that rebel against God.

Do other obstacles still arise? Well, what would our rostered and lay leaders gathered here today say? Global pandemic, recessions impacting the church institutions we’ve depended on for so long, dissolution with organized religion. A few nights ago, I read a thread on social media: members of Generation X explaining why they do or do not participate in a church community. The stories of people hurt by the church were heart breaking. But to some of the writers I wanted to shout, “Well, Christian community is not perfect but it’s worth it. Try it.”

In fact, there are so many barriers to hearing the word and following Jesus. It’s almost easy to miss the final verse, “Other seed fell into good soil and brought forth grain, growing up and increasing and yielding thirty and sixty and a hundredfold.” 

On an installation Sunday we get to bear witness to that fruit. (In so many other parts of our synod I would stick with grain, or substitute wheat, but hear in the Grape Cluster, fruit seems the appropriate metaphor). Reading through Pastor Hammer’s biography, we see seeds that were planted in his life, and we see seeds the Holy Spirit has already planted through him. 

But equally as important is the body of Christ seated here, to return to our passage from Romans. Each of you, members of Christ Lutheran, members of Walla Walla, and clergy colleagues are also evidence of fruit bearing, evidence that the Holy Spirit pursued you along the way. Through another person or in a holy solitary encounter you heard the message “repent, the reign of God has come near.” And you are here on a Sunday afternoon worshiping and celebrating that through the same Holy Spirit, the good news of Jesus Christ will continue to be shared. Alleluia! What might that mutual ministry look like? For that we go back to the gospel.

It strikes me that the reading for today does not include Jesus allegorizing of it.  How does the text read by itself? One scholar, taking us back to rural 1^st century Palestine, writes that “the parable’s focus on the majority of seed, which went fruitless would be bitterly familiar to the peasant, for whom the grain seed represented his only ‘cash flow’—with it he fed his family, paid the rent and tithes, and sowed next year’s crop. The fact that above all it is the greed of affluence that chokes the seed also held special significance for the tenant farmer, for it reflected [his agrarian reality]. Wealthy landlords always extracted enough of the harvest to ensure that the farmer remained indentured to the land, strangling any prospects he might have to achieve even a modicum of economic security.” 

A typical farmer might expect a yield of around 7:1. The parable’s harvest then represents a dramatic shattering of the vassal relationship between peasant and landlord. With this surplus, the farmer could not only eat and pay his rent, tithes, and debts, but even purchase the land, and end his servitude. “The kingdom is like this,” Jesus might be saying. It envisions the abolition of the oppressive relationships of production that determined the horizons of the Palestinian farmer’s social world. 

I doubt that many of the top 1% of wealth in our country is here in Walla Walla, but the wealth gap in our country is widening and impacting your community. I don’t expect our congregations to solve our country’s or world’s economic woes. What I hope for are wellsprings of God’s love where people receive glimpses of the reign of God, where imaginations are opened, where hope is born and nurtured, and where we can talk about all the hard things through the lens of the gospel of Jesus Christ. 

Today God’s abundance is made clear in a simple meal of bread and wine. The promises of new life and forgiveness are the fruit that will feed and sustain us. A new perspective, an in-breaking of the reign of God, are clear at the table with its foretaste of the feast to come. Thanks be to God.