July 14, 2024 – Wilbur

Posted on July 14, 2024 by megganmanlove

Wonderful morning with the saints of Wilbur Community Church in Wilbur, WA this morning. Wilbur is a federated Presbyterian USA/ELCA Congregation–meaning fully a member of both denominations. This became official in around 2020. They are currently served by Pr. Steven Nicholls (PCUSA). The congregation houses Golden Rule Childcare Center and Preschool, the only licensed daycare in Lincoln County, WA. They also host a Food Pantry on the third Wednesday of the month. We filled the sanctuary with great songs/hymns and then had a Q and A after worship. This happens to be the former ELCA building. The Presbyterian building was sold to an individual who rents it out as a venue and maybe has some classes there.

Even in a federated church, everyone sits in the back!
As people leave the sanctuary

Last week I was in Stanley, Idaho and former bishop Martin Wells commented on my FB post that it was one of 100 beautiful places in our synod. He’s of course correct. Driving out through the plains this morning from Spokane to Wilbur I was reminded of the vastness of my home state of South Dakota and how, though I really do love the mountains, wide open spaces are also beautiful and do something special for my soul. We prayed for all of the wheat farmers this morning in worship.

Pastor Niccolls told me in advance that he was doing a series on freedom and so I asked if I could preach on Galatians 5. He said he’d thought about it but something had made him leave it off his list–must have been my love for Gal. 5:13. I was fine skipping the beheading of John the Baptist (RCL gospel for today).

Galatians 5:1, 13-25

51For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.

13 For you were called to freedom, brothers and sisters; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love become slaves to one another. 14For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself.’ 15If, however, you bite and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another.

16 Live by the Spirit, I say, and do not gratify the desires of the flesh.17For what the flesh desires is opposed to the Spirit, and what the Spirit desires is opposed to the flesh; for these are opposed to each other, to prevent you from doing what you want. 18But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not subject to the law. 19Now the works of the flesh are obvious: fornication, impurity, licentiousness, 20idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, 21envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these. I am warning you, as I warned you before: those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

22 By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, 23gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things. 24And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. 25If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit.

“You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” Following Jesus by loving our neighbor is not a part-time job. It is not something we fit into our schedules. It is not one obligation among several others in our hurried lives. Following Jesus involves a radical reorientation and redirecting of ourselves, our obligations, and our loyalties.

What’s more, following Jesus is not the key to having it all. Following Jesus involves leaving it all behind. It is a way of living and relating to others that permeates into every aspect of our being. The call to discipleship seeps into our economics. As disciples of Jesus, we address how we earn and spend our money. We ask how actions impact God’s creation. We take time to find out where and how our clothes are made. When we prepare to dispose of materials, we think about where the old ones will go and how the natural world and other humans will be impacted.

Loving our neighbor seeps into our life together—our life in family, friendship, and communities. In St. Paul’s letter to the Galatians, he lists the fruits of the Spirit. As followers of Jesus, we open ourselves up to the Holy Spirit and embrace these gifts—love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. When we lapse in these fruits of the Spirit, we help one another up; forgive one another; and encourage one another. 

Love of neighbor is the ultimate call to discipleship. That neighbor may be your family member or best friend who is overwhelmed by grief. Your neighbor maybe the woman experiencing homelessness in Wilbur. Yes, our neighbors, by every biblical definition, are refugees and immigrants all over the globe. What does it look like to love a neighbor when you have never met? When I was a parish pastor, it often began by imagining one of the beloved members of my congregation in the footsteps of someone I read about in a news story. Following Jesus is not a part-time gig. It happens whenever we catch up on the daily news.

What will loving the neighbor look like through this next year for each of you this year? I don’t know. It is not one thing and there is not one magic checklist. It’s a million little acts from showing kindness to the grocery store clerk to voting your conscious at the ballot box to being gentle with yourself and those closest to you. It means making sure Wilbur Community Church remains a wellspring of God’s unconditional love. After a year in this call as bishop I think sometimes our congregations do not know how profound a gift their genuine and abundant welcome to strangers actually is.

The call to discipleship means living out the gifts of the spirit in whatever job you find yourselves in. Discipleship is the privilege of following Jesus into the streets and institutions of the world. Sometimes it is a daunting way of life. It is truly impossible even for the saintliest of people to carry out the call to discipleship without wavering. Today’s text from Galatians reminds us of how discipleship is even possible.

It is the cross and resurrection. St Paul writes that for freedom Christ has set us free. We are freed from sin and death. He writes to the Galatians that they were called to freedom, but instructs them, “do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love become slaves to one another. For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’”

My life of faith is wound up tight with this passage from Galatians because every time I hear these verses I am transported to the study room where I first read Martin Luther’s Treatise on Christian Liberty, sometimes called Freedom of a Christian. Luther wrote, “I shall set down the following propositions concerning the freedom and bondage of the spirit: A Christian is perfectly free lord of all, subject to none. A Christian is perfectly dutiful servant of all, subject to all.” 

It’s one thing to read these words from Galatians and Luther on the page. It is an altogether different thing to experience them and live them, to actually experience being free from sin and death and all that binds us as human beings, to surrender to God’s love and trust that only by God’s grace can I actually love my neighbor.

Where and how have you felt or experienced such freedom as an individual or as a whole community? Perhaps it was in the natural world—the beauty of it all so overwhelmed you and somehow reminded you that you too are wonderfully made only by the grace of God. There is something beautifully humbling about the natural world.

Perhaps in a worship like this one, following words of confession, the words of forgiveness or absolution seemed spoken just to you and you, for the first time in a long time, you were reminded of the power of God’s forgiveness and life in your life. It all washed over you like a flood.

Maybe the words and tune of a piece of music resonated with you—you felt the freedom that is yours because of Jesus Christ’s life, death, and resurrection. Music can surely be used to manipulate, but it can also be an altruistic gift. Some of my most free feeling, transcendent, knowing God’s love moments are intricately tied to music.

Whatever the experience, your body, heart, and mind, hopefully have felt the freedom that is ours when we trust the love of Jesus Christ, not in a manipulated or fabricated way, but in a very real way you can point to. It is such a counter-cultural thing to trust something besides ourselves for the penultimate, and yet that is the gift of faith. You, every one of you, is beautifully and wonderfully made by God, a God so much bigger than any of us can imagine and yet that same God came and lived among us. That same God gives us new life and mercy each day. You, each of you, is freed from sin, death, shame, brokenness, and whatever else binds you. 

Likewise, you are freed for something. Knowing that there is nothing we can do to earn the love of God in Jesus Christ, how can we not spontaneously love our neighbor? Or as, the old hymn asks, “since love is lord of heaven and earth, how can I keep from singing?” We cannot help ourselves. We are not only freed from somethings but freed for something—love of our neighbor. 

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Celebration of New Partnership – Mountain Home

Posted on July 7, 2024 by megganmanlove

This morning, Bishop Jos (Idaho Episcopal Diocese) and I were both in Mountain Home to celebrate St. James Episcopal and Grace Lutheran sharing a priest. These two churches have long known one another, shared Advent worship services and soup suppers, shared fellowship together. This partnership grew out of fertile and tended soil. I loved that at lunch people naturally mixed at tables. For over a decade, Grace was a major distribution site for the Idaho Food Bank. They gave that up in the last few years because their older members could not physically do the work, but they recognized that their location, land, and, most importantly, commitment to loving their neighbors, can be gifts to the larger community. They are overjoyed to now have a partner in St. James Episcopal Church as they discern what will be the next form of their neighbor love. Thanks to Grace’s Council President Steve Gustafson for driving me over to LEAP Housing’s new Falcons Landing affordable housing neighborhood in Mountain Home (rentals and home ownership units)!

Inside St. James
with Bishop Jos and Father Larry
Pews out. Tables in. Grace’s sanctuary set up for lunch.

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June 7, 2024 St. James/Grace, Mountain Home

Posted on July 7, 2024 by megganmanlove

Sermon time shared with Bishop Jos of the Idaho Episcopal Diocese. St. James Episcopal Church and Grace Lutheran Church are now sharing an Episcopal priest, Father Larry. This joint worship at St. James, followed by lunch at Grace, celebrated this new partnership.

Ezekiel 2:1-5

2He said to me: O mortal, stand up on your feet, and I will speak with you. 2And when he spoke to me, a spirit entered into me and set me on my feet; and I heard him speaking to me. 3He said to me, Mortal, I am sending you to the people of Israel, to a nation of rebels who have rebelled against me; they and their ancestors have transgressed against me to this very day. 4The descendants are impudent and stubborn. I am sending you to them, and you shall say to them, “Thus says the Lord God.” 5Whether they hear or refuse to hear (for they are a rebellious house), they shall know that there has been a prophet among them.

To be clear, 75% of the time, I preach on the gospel, but there were themes in today’s scripture passage from Ezekiel that I think speak to this morning and the new partnership between St. James Episcopal and Grace Lutheran. Please do not think for a moment that I believe Father Larry specifically has something to learn from the story of Ezekiel. Instead, I believe it is all of you, as well as the Fr. Larry and Bishop Jos and I, who can glean something from Ezekiel’s story. 

The prophet Ezekiel was raised in a priestly family in Jerusalem and educated to become a priest himself. However, before he was able to perform his priestly duties at the Temple, he was taken with other high-ranking people during the first siege of Jerusalem (597 B.C.E.) by Nebuchadnezzar II (ruler of Babylon, 605-562 B.C.E.). Ezekiel went into the servile oppression of exile, working in a small village by the river Chebar. There, in his 30th year, he received a powerful vision and a call to be a prophet.

And what of the other exiles? They were forced to leave everything that was familiar and precious to them—family members, homes, possessions. They lost even the temple, the center of their life of faith. The temple was the place where they offered prayers and brought sacrifices, but more than that, it was considered the very dwelling place of God.

Now the exiles are in a foreign land, far from their homeland and far from the temple. How could God permit such a thing? Has God abandoned them? And now, distant from the dwelling place of God, how will God ever find them or answer their prayers? 

Though sharing an ordained minister may not be up there with the plight of the exiles Ezekiel prophesied to, you all may feel like you are a bit in exile. After so many years of having your own ministers, it’s certainly a new venture to be sharing a shepherd and it’s perfectly normal to feel a little off kilter. How did the larger church and your congregations get to this state where you can no longer afford separate ministers? You might even ask if God has forgotten you, or does not care about you and your ministry. This scripture passage reminds us that even in moments of exile, God remembers us and comes to us.

God has provided Father Larry, and all of this is possible because you all have been building relationships with one another for the last chapter of your life. You saw beyond denominational lines and, for the sake of sharing the good news of Jesus Christ, decided to spend time with Christians who do things slightly differently than your home denomination. And what fruit that has born!

We are celebrating this shared ministry because you have followed the Spirit’s lead. What the future will bring is, likewise, up to both you all and that same Spirit. The text from Ezekiel is again a mirror. Ezekiel had a difficult message to proclaim, and what was his measure for his own effectiveness? Statistics, the listeners’ behaviors, the temple being rebuilt? Not at all. For Ezekiel, the measure of success, if he would even use that word, is not the outcome, but his own faithfulness. Ezekiel’s commission suggests that he may plant seeds, but he harvest is up to God.

What is God calling you to next? I’m not sure. I found more hope turning to the national full communion agreement between The Episcopal Church and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. I will end my sermon with the final paragraph from that nearly 25-year-old document.

29. We do not know to what new, recovered, or continuing tasks of mission this Concordat will lead our churches, but we give thanks to God for leading us to this point. We entrust ourselves to that leading in the future, confident that our full communion will be a witness to the gift and goal already present in Christ, “so that God may be all in all” (1 Corinthians 15:28). Entering full communion and thus removing limitations through mutual recognition of faith, sacraments, and ministries will bring new opportunities and levels of shared evangelism, witness, and service. It is the gift of Christ that we are sent as he has been sent (John 17:17-26), that our unity will be received and perceived as we participate together in the mission of the Son in obedience to the Father through the power and presence of the Holy Spirit. 

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New Hope, Shoshone, June 30, 2024

Posted on June 30, 2024 by megganmanlove
New Hope Lutheran, Shoshone, ID, nested in the Episcopal Church

Mark 5:21-43

21When Jesus had crossed again in the boat to the other side, a great crowd gathered around him; and he was by the sea. 22Then one of the leaders of the synagogue named Jairus came and, when he saw him, fell at his feet 23and begged him repeatedly, “My little daughter is at the point of death. Come and lay your hands on her, so that she may be made well, and live.”

24So he went with him. And a large crowd followed him and pressed in on him. 25Now there was a woman who had been suffering from hemorrhages for twelve years. 26She had endured much under many physicians, and had spent all that she had; and she was no better, but rather grew worse. 27She had heard about Jesus, and came up behind him in the crowd and touched his cloak, 28for she said, “If I but touch his clothes, I will be made well.” 29Immediately her hemorrhage stopped; and she felt in her body that she was healed of her disease.30Immediately aware that power had gone forth from him, Jesus turned about in the crowd and said, “Who touched my clothes?” 31And his disciples said to him, “You see the crowd pressing in on you; how can you say, ‘Who touched me?’” 32He looked all around to see who had done it.33But the woman, knowing what had happened to her, came in fear and trembling, fell down before him, and told him the whole truth. 34He said to her, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.”

35While he was still speaking, some people came from the leader’s house to say, “Your daughter is dead. Why trouble the teacher any further?”36But overhearing what they said, Jesus said to the leader of the synagogue, “Do not fear, only believe.” 37He allowed no one to follow him except Peter, James, and John, the brother of James. 38When they came to the house of the leader of the synagogue, he saw a commotion, people weeping and wailing loudly. 39When he had entered, he said to them, “Why do you make a commotion and weep? The child is not dead but sleeping.” 40And they laughed at him. Then he put them all outside, and took the child’s father and mother and those who were with him, and went in where the child was. 41He took her by the hand and said to her, “Talitha cum,” which means, “Little girl, get up!” 42And immediately the girl got up and began to walk about (she was twelve years of age). At this they were overcome with amazement. 43He strictly ordered them that no one should know this, and told them to give her something to eat.

I love this scripture passage from Mark because of the way the stories invite me and you into the text—so many details and characters and twists and turns plus two happy endings. But these stories have occasionally frustrated me because I have sat with parishioners and families over the past nearly twenty years and after pleas to God and many prayers, healing as we had hoped and prayed did not happen. 

Are these stories about Jesus’ healing two different women meant to encourage us to ask God for healing? Maybe. But maybe healing with a more nuanced understanding. Jesus’ ministry in Mark’s gospel begins with the declaration that the kingdom of God has come near, “repent, and believe in the good news.” The reign of God has come near—to you.

Our stories today from Mark’s gospel are all about relationships. We might say that these two incidents together help us understand each of them. They both involve women in crisis—in fact we do not know them by their names but by their needs. They were not outsiders to begin with, but both are now subject to the taboos around the mysterious power of life and the even more mysterious (and seemingly unconquerable) power of death. 

The first nameless and needy woman is barely a woman, just twelve years old and ready to begin her adult life. However, an unknown illness has struck her down, driving her father to extremes in his desperate search for help.  He was a leader, a religious leader in the synagogue, and yet this precious child’s illness has reduced him, weakened him, lowered him to the ground in front of a traveling folk healer in a last-ditch effort to prevent the worst from happening.

It seems that desperation, drives Jairus, the synagogue leader to Jesus. Jairus’ moment of faith comes a little while later, when the news arrives of his daughter’s death. Jesus then preaches briefly: “Do not fear,” he says to the grief-besotted man, “only believe.” Fear not; only believe. Jesus’ sermon was for all of us who suffer from the human condition. 

Into the midst of this comes the silent woman with the hemorrhage, without the boldness of the leader, simply hoping for one healing touch. I think a good word to describe the woman is “tired.” A flow of blood for twelve years would exhaust a person, as if her life force were draining away. Given ancient understandings of anatomy, menstruation, and ritual purity, Mark’s implicit point would therefore be that her womb is no longer a source or a site of life.That could be an instigator of shame in her culture and a cause of particular grief for her and her family. Jesus reaches beyond the shame for the sake of relationship. 

Further, he doesn’t permit this touch to stay anonymous, a passive healing on his part. He lets himself be sidetracked from hurrying to Jairus’ home long enough to find the person who has reached out to him with a touch that is more specific, more intentional, than merely jostling him in the crowd. Perhaps the crowd wanted to get near a celebrity, but this woman was reaching for her life. Jesus felt both her weariness and her deep hope. How could he simply walk away?

And for Jesus, the most important thing in that moment is to face the person who has touched him, to encounter her has human being and not just as an anonymous touch. Another translation might read: “Daughter, you took a risk of faith, and now you’re healed and whole. Live well, live blessed! Be healed.” And her neighbors witness this restoration of dignity.

During the delay, the synagogue leader gets the bad news that his daughter is already dead, and Jesus is no longer needed.  “Don’t bother,” the messengers say, “it’s too late.” Jesus speaks quietly, personally to Jairus right then, reassuring him: “Don’t listen to them; just trust me.”  When they arrive at Jairus’ home they make their way through the hired mourners. Jesus addressed them as he did the frightened, faithless disciples back in the boat, during the storm.  Where is their trust?

It must have been a tender scene, in the quiet that surrounds the sorrow for a dead child, yet Jesus is once again calm and confident. He reaches down to invite the little girl to rise up and live. And the little girl gets up immediately and walks around to the amazement of all. Jesus has to be the one to remember that she might be hungry after her ordeal and tells them to feed her.  He doesn’t miss the most ordinary and compassionate details.

Why does Jesus perform such miracles? The purpose is to establish Jesus’ identity: They are not stories about how to get God to do what we want, which is just another way of trying to stay in control. Instead, they are stories about who God is and how God acts, and what God is like. This is no ordinary man. This man is the son of God. Trust him. Holding on to that knowledge would sustain the early Christian community and the church today, all of you, and give you strength to meet the days to come and not lose heart.

Frederick Buchner puts us in the place of the little girl, with Jesus speaking to you, taking your hand and telling you to rise up and live: “You who believe, and you who sometimes believe and sometimes don’t believe much of anything, and you who would give almost anything to believe if only you could…’Get up,’ he says, all of you—all of you.”  Jesus gives life not only to the dead, but to those of us who are “only partly alive…who much of the time live with our lives closed to the wild beauty and the miracles of things, including the wild beauty and miracle of every day we live and even of ourselves.” 

I started this sermon wondering about our asking God for healing, wondering about our prayers. I know that sometimes prayers for healing have not been answered in the ways my parishioners and I had hoped they would be. But I also know the prayers were not fruitless. Have you had such an experience? With each prayer, each petition, each amen, your relationship with God deepened. You will never know if God’s mind was changed, but you understand that you were transformed—transformed by remembering Jesus is with you and sees you and loves you.

Who needs to know they are not alone in the town of Shoshone, in greater Lincoln County? I grew up in Custer, SD (population 2500 with a service population of 5000 in the 1980s). My parents were newcomers for at least their first twenty years there. 

The first congregation I served was Soldier Lutheran in Solider, Iowa (a farming town of 200 people near the Nebraska border). I absolutely loved the way people came together when there was a death or other tragedy. And yet, it was hard to break into the community. Most people were not intentionally malicious. It was simply the age-old human instinct to have insiders and outsiders. It’s the feeling so many of us have had—being in a crowded room full of people and realizing we’ve never felt so alone before. 

Small towns are not immune to that part of human nature. So, when you pray for healing in this county and place, who do you pray for? Who is wallowing in shame because of something they did or because of circumstances beyond their control? Who is desperate to regain an ounce of dignity? Who is longing to be seen, truly seen, an accepted? Maybe you know who that person is or who they are. Maybe it’s you.

Today, Jesus bids you, “Get up.” And at the table he gives us something to eat, something extraordinary—his own body and blood, simply bread and wine, the bread of life, the cup of salvation, or healing. In this simple sacrament we participate in the means of God’s grace once more and each one of us is restored. The psalmist’s words become our own: 

11 You have turned my mourning into dancing;
   you have taken off my sackcloth
   and clothed me with joy,
12 so that my soul may praise you and not be silent.
   O Lord my God, I will give thanks to you for ever.

New Hope was started in the 1980s with help from Pr Fred from Our Savior Lutheran in Twin Falls

Me with Synod Authorized Minister Diane Davis. Newest stained glass window in sanctuary.

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Luther and Ministry in Daily Life

Posted on June 27, 2024 by megganmanlove

I received good feedback on this column, so I thought I’d share it here on the blog as well.

Originally published in the June 4, 2024 Northwest Intermountain Synod e-newsletter

As graduation season winds down, we celebrate graduates from our congregations and wonder about who these people will become and how they will live out their lives. I write this in the middle of a synod candidacy committee meeting weekend, so I hope some of these graduates will one day become pastors and deacons. But I also hope there will be those who find their calling as teachers, business owners, technicians, mechanics, chefs, elected officials, judges, marketers, nurses and hundreds of other vocations. Beyond daily work, I hope they live out their faith as family members, friends, neighbors, and volunteers.   

Over the past few months, I have emphasized and shared my own excitement about getting people trained for parish ministry through Montana’s Lay Ministry Associate program. While my enthusiasm remains, I do not want something else to get lost. Why do we gather for worship, for Bible Study, for prayer? Why do we care about what is read and preached in our assemblies? We worship so we can collectively communicate with the Triune God. We also hope that we will be nourished for the time when, at the end of worship, we are sent forth into the world.

My father, who worked for the YMCA and the church his entire life but was never ordained, was passionate about ministry in daily life. He wrote a newsletter for a time called Salt and Light, taking the name from Jesus’ words in Matthew 5:13-16. In that newsletter, dad lifted up all the ways Lutheran lay people were living out their faith in their daily lives. The Lutheran understanding of the priesthood of all believers is one many reasons my dad became a Lutheran as an adult. 

Martin Luther’s passion to make Scripture, the sacraments, and faith accessible to lay people is woven throughout his writing, preaching, and teaching. One of the most powerful examples of his commitment to equipping lay people was his translating the New Testament into the German language, the language of the people. 

Another important work to consider is Luther’s An Appeal to the Ruling Class of German Nationality as to the Amelioration of the State of Christendom. It is, like the 95 Theses, a call to reform. In this work, “Luther calls upon the ruling class to reform the Church, since the Church will not reform itself.” In this long document, Luther sets out to attack what he calls the three walls, “which the Romanists have cleverly surrounded themselves with.” Attacking the first wall, Luther writes that in his time popes, bishops, priests, monks, and nuns are called the religious class, whereas princes, lords, artisans, and farmworkers are called the secular class. No one should be frightened by this, Luther writes. “For all Christians whatsoever really and truly belong to the religious class, and there is no difference among them except in so far as they do different work. That is St. Paul’s meaning, in I Corinthians 12 [:12f.], when he says: “We are all one body, yet each member hath his own work for serving others.” This applies to us all, because we have one baptism, one gospel, one faith, and are all equally Christian.”

He follows this up with the statement that is the origin of the phrase “priesthood of all believers”: “The fact is that our baptism consecrates us all without exception and makes us all priests. As St. Peter says, I Pet. 2[:9], ‘You are a royal priesthood and a realm of priests,’ and Revelation, ‘Thou has made us priests and kings by thy blood’ [Rev. 5:9 f.]. If we ourselves as Christians did not receive a higher consecration than that given by pope or bishop, then no one would be made priest even by consecration at the hands of pope or bishop; nor would anyone be authorized to celebrate Eucharist, or preach, or pronounce absolution.”

Luther does believe that our office or occupation gives us different work but not greater dignity as he moves into what became our tradition’s understanding of Christian vocation: “Therefore those now called “the religious,” i.e., priests, bishops, and popes, possess no further or greater dignity than other Christians, except that their duty is to expound the word of God and administer the sacraments—that being their office. In the same way, the secular authorities “hold the sword and the rod,” their function being to punish evil-doers and protect the law-abiding. A shoemaker, a smith, a farmer, each has his manual occupation and work; and yet, at the same time, all are eligible to act as priests and bishops. Every one of them in his occupation or handicraft ought to be useful to his fellows, and serve them in such a way that the various trades are all directed to the best advantage of the community, and promote the well-being of body and soul, just as all the organs of the body serve each other.”

If any of this is intriguing to you, ask your pastor or search your church library for An Appeal to the Ruling Class. Also, read on in this e-newsletter for ELCA’s Tim Brown’s column Where Your Heart Is. Find ways to celebrate how you and others in your congregation are being salt and light wherever you are.

Peace,

Bishop Manlove

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Retreat in Seward

Posted on June 22, 2024 by megganmanlove

I never learned the history, but Region 1 of the ELCA (AK, MT, OR, SW WA, NW WA, NWIM) has a long history of bishops and spouses retreats. We rotate around the region and this year we were hosted by Bp Shelley Wickstrom in Seward, AK, home of her internship site. Bishop Wickstrom will finish twelve years as bishop and many more years as an active pastor in our region June 30.

I flew into Anchorage through Seattle early last Sunday and made my way to the hotel, chosen for its proximity to the railroad station. I walked up to downtown Anchorage and found the weekend market, where I enjoyed a breakfast burrito with reindeer sausage. Then I found the Anchorage Museum with many excellent temporary exhibits, including ones about mapping Alaska, creativity fueled by climate change, and more. The heart of the museum, in my humble opinion, is the Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center: Living our Cultures, Sharing our Heritage: The First Peoples of Alaska. I went back to the motel to nap and got a message from a family/camp friend who lives in Anchorage. Judy Engh and I ended up having dinner.

Bp Laurie Jungling from Montana flew in later that night and we took the Alaska Railroad to Seward Monday. The scenery was fabulous.

We arrived in Seward long before our three colleagues showed up by car, fine since we couldn’t check into our VRBO until later. So we walked all around Seward and even visited the Alaska SeaLife Center. Then we enjoyed a very rich seafood chowder at a local restaurant.

Bishop Rick Jaech from SW WA couldn’t join us for the retreat and he’s the only current bishop in our region who is married, so we were five single women; quite a contrast from the last time Wickstrom hosted a group of 11 and she was only single person. So, some things have changed. As conversations unfolded, it was fun to learn how each of us had been shaped in some way by time in the Montana Synod–growing up there, first call as pastor, middle of career calls as pastor, working at the Lutheran camps, serving as bishop. Montana was a meaningful thread.

Our time together consisted of a hike to Exit Glacier, an incredible six-hour boat tour of Kenai Fjords National Park, an amazing dinner in Seward, cooking together at the house, games, laughter, long conversations, creating a book list, and finally having an actual meeting about all things Region 1 in which we zoomed in Jaech for about 90 minutes Thursday morning.

My flight was not until Friday morning so I spent Thursday night at Wickstrom’s home in Anchorage. It was such a gift to have this time and get to know her better. She is from the NWIM Synod, worked at Camp Lutherhaven, and preached at my Installation last fall–many connections even beyond those.

I accidentally left my laptop in my house in Nampa before heading out last weekend. I went to print off just one last thing and never returned the laptop to my carry-on. Maybe it was my subconscious telling me to unplug in Alaska. I had my phone and was able to handle a few things that came up. Yes, I’ll be doing catch-up this next week. I bought an extra novel at the Anchorage Airport but I never got to it because we were together and doing so much I simply had little time to read. I think I actually retreated and feel rejuvenated. What a gift!

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Omaha Ordination

Posted on June 12, 2024 by megganmanlove

This past weekend I traveled to Omaha, NE to preside at Gretchen Olson Kopp’s ordination to ministry of word and sacrament. She has been called to St. Mark’s Lutheran in Spokane, WA.

On Gretchen’s suggestion, I worshiped at First Lutheran in Omaha.

First Lutheran, Omaha

Gretchen grew up in Western Iowa (Moville–which I’ll come back to) and served her internship at Kountze Memorial Lutheran Church in Omaha. Her husband Sacha’s work in academia has taken them around the country so there were people present also from around the country. I was happy to be back in Omaha, site for me on many days off when I served Soldier Lutheran Church in Western Iowa.

Inside Kountze Memorial Lutheran Church
Gretchen received many stoles. This purple one was made by Threads of Grace, connected to the Episcopal Church in Nampa, Idaho! I remember when they were just getting started.

One of Gretchen’s childhood friends and neighbors is Megan Sorenson, who became a friend of mine when she was nurse for the week and I was with kids from church at Lutheran Lakeside Camp in northwest Iowa. Gretchen graduated from Wartburg Seminary and retired professor Dr. Thomas Schattauer was the guest preacher–I’m still thinking about his sermon.

Gretchen, Megan, and Meggan

I loved talking with Dr. Schattauer about worship (which he taught at Wartburg) and then I asked his wife Paula Carlson, who has had a career in Lutheran higher ed, where she grew up. When she answered Brooklyn, that led to us connecting over Camp Koinonia, the camp my dad helped found in Highland Lake, NY. Carlson celebrated her birthday at Koinonia’s dedication–cake and everything! It really is a small world. She also had great stories about Koinonia overnight trips in the Catskills and along the Delaware River, stories that would make the American Camping Association (who sets safety standards) shake their heads today.

With Thomas and Paula

If family and friends are near where I travel for work, I try to catch up with them. I wish I could have connected with even more people on this trip, but I did get my cousin and husband from Lincoln, NE to drive over to Omaha. We went to the Old Market neighborhood. When I came to Omaha on my days off, I often visited Soul Desires Bookstore. Now it is much more than a bookstore–it’s a United Methodist worship community (and more) called Urban Abbey.

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Candidacy and North Idaho

Posted on June 3, 2024 by megganmanlove

Last Friday and Saturday, the synod candidacy committee met for business and interviews. This is the committee of the Northwest Intermountain Synod which walks alongside candidates for Word and Sacrament and Word and Service ministry. During this meeting we had two entrance interviews, both online, and two approval interviews, one online and one in-person. Last fall we had two endorsement interviews (the middle step of candidacy). We also hear updates from committee members who relate to candidates somewhere in the candidacy process. There is so much about this work that is an honor and privilege but being part of these four interviews was incredibly humbling. As grateful as I am for the candidates, I am equally grateful for the dedicated and compassionate committee members.

Once the candidacy meeting was scheduled, I knew to schedule other things in proximity to Spokane. Pastor Duane Fister has been serving First Lutheran in Sandpoint for a while, but we scheduled his installation for this past Sunday afternoon. Knowing I would already be up in Sandpoint, I decided to go further north Sunday morning and preach and bring greetings to Trinity Lutheran in Bonner’s Ferry. As I said in my FB post, Trinity has many wonderful ministries including a garden and childcare, both run by outside groups, deep connection to our companion synod, and just a lovely presence in the community. It was delightful during fellowship time to hear from people who have recently found the congregation. The installation at First, Sandpoint was also fun. Several pastors from the North Idaho Cluster joined us and two Episcopal colleagues and one Presbyterian, two of who did much of the supply preaching during the transition time, also attended. After the reception, a retired pastor who happened to serve on my dad’s board at camp Koinonia in Highland Lake, NY in the 1960s and who now lives at Luther Park, gave me a tour of the facility.

Trinity, Bonners Ferry
Nave of First Lutheran, Sandpoint
Pastor Fister is next to me

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First Lutheran, Sandpoint Installation

Posted on June 2, 2024 by megganmanlove

June 2, 2024

Duane Fister’s Installation

Acts 12:24-13:5a

You have had quite a journey First Lutheran. First, with everyone else, you experienced a global pandemic. You said goodbye to a pastor and welcomed interims. You continue to steward your relationship with Luther Park. Outside the walls of the church building the world continues to change at an accelerated rate. And, in the middle of it all, you continued to faithfully gather around Word and Sacrament.

It is wonderful to be here today and celebrate this beginning of pastoral and mutual ministry with you all and with members of the ecumenical community and the North Idaho Cluster of the Northwest Intermountain Synod. On an installation day, our deepest hope is for a pastor to faithfully shepherd, equip disciples, preach, and preside over the sacraments. They do all this so that a community is shaped by God’s love and also sent forth to share with the world the love made known in Jesus Christ.

Pastor Fister chose this passage from Acts today, and it’s a great one for an installation. Above all, it reminds us that though today we celebrate this congregation and this pastor, the main actor is the Holy Spirit. The same is true in this passage from the Book of Acts. The Spirit is speaking clearly through and to the disciples. The voices of the Spirit and the voices of the disciples are together but not confused. 

Barnabus and Saul and John Mark are in fact driven by the Spirit. And to follow, or be driven by, the Spirit is to follow Jesus, in his way, in his ministry, and in his body. Part of mutual ministry, part of why a congregation and a pastor do ministry together, is so the collective whole can better listen to the Spirit.

A favorite theologian (Willie James Jennings) writes, “wherever women and men give themselves to the disciplines that attune the body to its hunger for the Spirit they will find themselves receptive to the voices of God, and they will hear the Spirit speaking and offering guidance.” There is no silent Holy Spirit in the Book of Acts, and I don’t think the Spirit has been or will be silent among this community of faith either. Then as now, I see a “communion-bearing, community-forming God who speaks in the midst of the multitude and makes known where we must go to follow the Spirit’s movement.”

At the heart of this passage, we hear what the community was doing when the Spirit showed up: “while they were worshiping the Lord and fasting.” The coincidence of my sermon preparation for this afternoon is that this scripture passage was set alongside a few ELCA candidacy approval essays. Friday and Saturday our synod candidacy committee met in Spokane and entranced two new candidates and approved two candidates—two people who can now receive calls to Word and Sacrament ministry. One of the approval essay questions was about the significance of the sacraments of baptism and holy communion. I have always loved the sacraments and believed that even though I did not complete understand how they work, that they are the place where God meets us and transforms us. There are many places God meets us, but in these two means of grace we can always count on Jesus Christ meeting us and giving us forgiveness and life. 

A dance a pastor and congregation have today is how much emphasis and time to put on the worship that happens for the gathered community and how much emphasis and time to place on what happens after the words, “Go in peace. Serve the Lord.” As Christians, we confess that we cannot have one without the other. Even the busy men in our scripture passage from Acts, traveling all over the ancient Mediterranean, stopped for worship and fasting. But they did not stay there indefinitely. Worship, like faith itself, is a gift from God to nourish us and free us so that we can love our neighbor across the street and across the globe. That ministry of neighbor love can make us heart broken and weary and sometimes angry, so we remember our baptisms again and feast once more on bread and wine and promises of life and mercy. 

This is the mutual ministry you have already entered into as pastor and congregation; thanks be to God. But there is even more. The Holy Spirit in her wisdom made the church large and diverse. Presiding Bishop Elizabeth Eaton reminds us that we are “church together.” In Sandpoint, Idaho you have partners from various denominations and also various nonprofit organizations. You also walk alongside the other ELCA congregations in the North Idaho Cluster and the entire Northwest Intermountain Synod. And we are accompanied by the Holy Spirit. Know that the Spirit is always with you, in the bread and wine, in our shared worship, and in your daily lives. Thanks be to God.

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Bonners Ferry, June 2

Posted on June 2, 2024 by megganmanlove

Trinity, Bonners Ferry

2 Cor. 4:5-12

These verses from 2nd Corinthians are, to my mind, among the most encouraging in all of scripture. They speak of the consistency of God’s loving care from the first day of creation to this present moment. “The God who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ is the same God who has shone in our hearts to give us the light of knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.”

Imagine that the exact same power that brought light to the cosmos at the beginning of time is now offering light to illumine you, is in fact, shining through you as sunlight streams through a window. It is very hard to hold on to dark notions in the face of such a shining thought.

The subject that Paul is addressing in this letter is his own experience in the ministry. He wants to make clear to his friends in Corinth that he believes that the source of his ability to articulate the gospel is not found in himself. The credit belongs to God and to God alone. “We have this treasure, in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us.”  The point he makes is a universal one, isn’t it? Face it. You and I are all clay jars.

This is not bad news, it is simply the truth, and only the truth will allow us to be free and human in the way God intended. Here is the truth: from dust we came, to dust we will return, and for the time we are on this earth, what we are is somewhat analogous to clay jars. Useful to be sure, but also subject to chipping and cracking and likely to contain imperfections. Earthen vessels have little reason to boast. The most appropriate attitude for them is humble gratitude for the privilege of serving a function in the eternal scheme of things.

I am not saying that is an easy thing to accept the “clay jarness” of human existence. I am certainly not saying that you will be ushered into the easy life when and if you do. In fact, the opposite is likely to happen. The constant challenges Paul faced in his ministry, teach us not to hope for ease. “We are afflicted in every way,” he wrote, “but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair, persecuted but not forsaken; struck down but not destroyed.”

What all of this says to me is that we are going to make it. There is a big difference between being beleaguered, which you will be, and being done in, which you will not be, thanks to the grace of God. According to Paul, this resilient strength is made available to us by the mysterious power unleashed on the world by Jesus’ death and resurrection. “His risen life is being made visible in our mortal flesh.”

This is the mystery at the heart of the Christian religion, and it is the heart of the matter. Our conviction is that God is at work repairing the world through these means. It is the spiritual reality on which we stake our lives.

Let me pause here to catch us up on this letter we will be hearing from for half of this summer. Paul’s relationship with the Corinthian congregation has deteriorated. In 2 Corinthians, the apostle seeks to rebuild his relationship with the Corinthians. He seeks to defend his own integrity as a trustworthy and competent servant of Christ. Paul will also refute what he perceives as the claims by other evangelists with backgrounds and gifts that are superior to his own.

Second Corinthians offers a real-life window on a strained relationship between a church leader and the people whom he loves. In this letter, we see an anxious apostle hoping to restore the relationship he had with churches he founded, even as he tries to avoid being drawn into a contest with other teachers over who has the most impressive skills and credentials. To do this, he discloses much about his own devotion to the Corinthians, his hardships in ministry, and the reconciliation God has accomplished for them all in Jesus.

In our passage today, Paul marvels that his own frail human body and afflicted life are the means by which God shares the news of God’s glorious self-revelation in Jesus Christ.

More than in any other correspondence we have from Paul, in 2 Corinthians we receive details of Paul’s persecutions and troubles. Here Paul speaks eloquently of the trouble he experiences. He concludes that these troubles are a participation in the death of Jesus, “so that the life of Jesus may also be made visible in our bodies” (2 Corinthians 4:10). 

Paul is drawing a contrast between the glory of God present in Jesus Christ and the medium through which God has chosen to spread that experience of glory. Christ is the human face of God, glorious and yet accessible to our unveiled faces. Ironically, God is making this news known through a life like Paul’s. 

In 1 Corinthians, Paul wrote that “God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are” (1 Corinthians 1:27-28). The point here is similar. In a cultural context where strength, beauty, prosperity, and wisdom were thought to be evidence of God’s presence and blessing, Paul proclaims that God is working in precisely the opposite way. This theme of God’s power made perfect in weakness runs throughout 2 Corinthians as Paul tries to defend his ministry against that of the apparently more vibrant super-apostles. 

I love 2 Corinthians because I love this theme. It reminds me of Dan Erlander’s words in his book Baptized We Live.  He says that when we are united to Christ through baptism, we are united to both Jesus’ No and Jesus’ Yes. Erlander writes, “Jesus said no to the way of glory-the way of establishing the kingdom of God by any other way than dying on a cross. He rejected using personal charisma, the sword, miracles, rewards, reason—all normal ways of promoting even a righteous cause…. Jesus said Yes to the way of the cross—the way of submission to the will of the Father, absolute trust in the Father, dedication to human liberation, solidarity with human pain, and freedom to be human, weak, and vulnerable.”

Christianity is a big tent. It is a big tent even in North Idaho. There is plenty of religion, some of which calls itself Christianity, which says that religion proves itself by miracles, answered prayer, worldly blessings, fulfilled prophecy. There is plenty of religion which fulfills our human need to have higher status than others, to be better than others, to have ‘outsiders’ or ‘unbelievers’ to despise. There is also plenty of religion which teaches “going to heaven when I die” as the main reason to believe in God. Finally, circling back to Paul, there is plenty of religion which avoids teaching that the crucifixion is both the sacrificial act of Christ and the example of the way of life we are to follow.

The discipleship that I have been describing with Erlander and Paul’s help, may very well not be the norm. Living a discipleship that says yes to trusting God, yes to dedication to human liberation, yes to solidarity with human pain, and yes to freedom to be weak and vulnerable may get grimaces and lead to disagreements. It may even lead you, in Paul’s words, to being afflicted, perplexed, persecuted and struck down.  

Please hear that I am not condoning suffering for suffering sake. Ancient and contemporary “ministers of righteousness” and “apostles of the Messiah” have often manipulated the starkness of this language to get others to submit to their own agendas (see 2 Corinthians 10-13). Dying and living in Jesus is not about submitting to a human will, whether it be that of one’s own or another’s ego. And it is not about conforming to an ideal of suffering at the expense of one’s own or anyone else’s humanity.

A favorite scholar (Lois Malcom) writes, “As all that distorts and spoils our created goodness dies in Jesus, Jesus’ life is manifest as the flourishing of new creation in our lives. But that flourishing and renewal also involves sharing in the sufferings of Jesus — continually being put to death by all that goes against what this crucified Messiah embodied. In fact, it is precisely as [you] share in Jesus’ life and sufferings that the light of God’s glory shines — amid [your] fragile human existence — in the “face” of this crucified Messiah. This is how death in [you] becomes life-giving for others.”

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