Last night our group stayed at Mbingu Sister’s Spiritual Centre, run by Catholic sisters. It rained before we left and the road was pretty rough.
This morning we went to Ebenezer Parish to dedicate a foundation stone, even though the walls of the new church building are already up. Bishop Mtenji has been ill and was not able to attend but his assistant Pastor Paulson and Pastor Faith, who we met yesterday, also joined us, an opportunity to do some more interviews with parishioners for her PHD research. We got to reconnect with Pastor Eliud, who visited our synod twice in the past and was representing the district pastor who couldn’t be there. The choirs and singing were again a highlight.
Team is readyDuring the dedication Getting ready to cut the ribbonAddressing the congregation after the dedication One more photo with Faith, back in Ifakara
Wednesday night we had a farewell celebration at Tumaini Seminary. We received gifts, heard speeches, shared our own words of gratitude, had a fuller tour of the newly dedicated dining hall our synod helped pay for, and took lots of photos. I have feelings on top of feelings and am wondering when I’ll burst. So much emphasis has rightly been on the construction of the dining hall. Look at those beams for crying out loud! It’s not just structurally sound; it’s aesthetically pleasing.
But what I loved about the celebration was hearing from the head girl, elected by her peers and she is one of our synod’s secondary school scholarship recipients. Her speech was amazing, touching on all the issues the adults had discussed in our management meeting: scholarships, other improvements needed, the impact of the dining hall, climate change impacting the school’s crops which could impact the students’ ability to learn. I have never been so proud of our synod’s commitment to financially support girls in the UKD going to secondary school. It’s life changing. And the government schools just aren’t as good as the private schools; the statistics for going on prove it. (I worry about this same trend coming to my part of the world but that’s for another blog post).
Dan receiving his giftMoses giving me a gift from the schoolMe with all of the scholarship recipients The head girl, Sophia Mbwego, is to my immediate right.With some of the teachersShaking hands with a teacher, Emmanuel Amani Lukindo, who has been at Tumaini for 20 years!
What do a chicken, a Mission Investment Fund (MIF) pen, and a growing church have in common? They were all part of our trip to Tanga Parish.
As Tumaini Lutheran Director Moses wrote, “This is one of the parishes located in a very remote places in Tanzania. It is the parish with the lowest income in the Ulanga Kilombero Diocese of tye ELCT. However members are very happy and hard working, they even managed to build that new Church building not yet roofed. We had wonderful time with our hosts.”
Road to TangaNew church building with remnants of old building still insideGroup PhotoSigning guest book with MIF penReceiving a chicken, great gift and great honor
Monday, Moses and the other mgmt team members gave us a tour of some other upgrades (beyond the dining hall) at Tumaini.
New computer labRefurbished science laboratory Batteries to store solar energyMetal door to keep rats outNew library!Our delegation Mtg with Tumaini Mgmt TeamWith Esther and Neima (students here at the Bible School and also helping host us)
Yesterday, we visited the Lugala Lutheran Hospital, also run by UKD. They do so much with so little.
Entrance to the hospital Dr Steven Kyelula Hospital workshopNew pharmacy for hospital patients and the community Gathering space for students of the Lugala College of Health and Allied SciencesHospital ChapelHospital Chaplain SamuelGroup photo of our delegation and the hospital and college mgmt teamsFormer Tumaini student and current hospital treasurer Janet Endua
My head is so full of connections, notions, and wonderings. My heart is full of joy and awe.
Our delegation (Deacon Heidi and Dan; Pastor Ethan and Carla; and me) and Bishop Mtenji of the Ulanga Kilombero Diocese (UKD) arrived at dusk to a party and choir. The whole Tumaini Seminary, a secondary school and Bible school run by the UKD, came out to greet us.
Yesterday our group heard from the bishop and staff about the growing church in Tanzania. They have more of a Catholic model-parishes consisting of several congregations. Is that the direction the ELCA should go? Should we be recruiting Lutheran pastors from Tanzania? Why or why not? The UKD is encouraging Saturday small groups in the home (prayer and reflection on scripture with guided questions-provided by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Tanzania). What can we learn from that? Anything, or are our contexts too different?
Back to today. I was in the Northwest Intermountain Synod on internship in 2003-2004, served in Iowa, and came back to the synod in 2010. We were giving and still give scholarships to girls who attend the secondary school. I remember former bishop Pastor Martin Wells talking pretty early on about the need for the dining hall at Tumaini. The synod started raising money. Then the ELCA decided to do its first capital campaign and synods were invited the have a campaign alongside it. Wells, the staff, and synod council made the decision to do a campaign and the dining hall was one of maybe three components. Making the long, often bumpy, ride yesterday makes the completion of this project all the more remarkable to me. There are almost 200 students.
Four of our delegation read scripture this morning and Heidi and I both brought greetings from our synod once inside. The singing was a highlight.
Moses, Director of Tumaini Me cutting the ribbon!Inside the dining hallHeidi shares some history and brings greetings. Matthew Matimbwi, the amazing engineer, shares reflections.Two bishops
We think the staff saw Bishop Jaech in a cope for my installation. When they found out our synod did not own a cope, they made one for our visit. Bp Mtenji loaned me one of his miters.
After the Inauguration, we all got in our cars and traveled to a nearby parish (Kipingo) for their Sunday worship. They are raising money for a new church building. The bishop preached on David building the temple.
After worship we met Angela, now in Kipingo and at worship. She was a visitor to our synod some years ago when she was the head of the UKD Women’s Ministry.
We continue to walk shoulder to shoulder, bega kwa bega.
All of our flights were on time and we landed as scheduled late at night in Dar es Salaam. My checked bag’s didn’t arrive but our driver was there and after exchanging money and visiting the ATM, our group was off to the Crown Plaza and some vertical sleep. We gathered for breakfast the next morning and then started the journey south and west.
We had lunch around Morogoru. Heidi, making her fifth or sixth trip to the Ulanga Kilombero Diocese (UKD) commented on the increased semi-truck traffic, which slowed down our travel. The roads are also better. We made it to Vuma Hills, near Mikumi National Park, around dusk. I slept so well and felt refreshed the next morning, yesterday. One of our group of five didn’t feel well so had to miss our safari. The rest of us had an amazing morning with an incredible guide, Fraida, and driver, Andrew. Fraida talked with us about Tanzania’s history, the animals, how many women are safari guides, environmental issues and more. We came back for lunch and a nap and then went out a second time. The highlight of the morning was watching a family of five elephants under a tree. The highlight of the afternoon was watching a stand off between some lions and Cape buffalo. I have a new appreciation for the peaceable kingdom image from Isaiah.
Monday thru Wednesday our synod held our Bishop’s Fall Convocation (fall theological conference for pastors, deacons, and interns). Here are some highlights:
Installing our new Director for Evangelical Mission Pastor Liv Larson Andrews during opening worship:
Welcoming all of the new people to out synod. I have been listing these leaders in my state of the synod addresses this summer and fall but to meet them and watch them get to know our synod was a gift.
Assistant to the Bishop Pastor Phil Misner leads a lunch discussion for all the pastors serving congregations in pastoral transition.
Vance Blackfox was our keynote speaker and led us through The Blanket Exercise and presented Indian 101. Monday night we watched the documentary Covenant of the Salmon People and then we were honored to hear from NezPerce tribal Chairman Shannon Wheeler.
Vance Blackfox, Chairman Wheeler, and Me Monday evening.
We tried out a new vespers service created at Holden Village: Bless this Night.
Wednesday morning I was able to interview Rachel Wilson, Communications Manager for the NezPerce.
The Holiday Inn, Clarkston has been remodeled and the venue and staff were fabulous. The hotel is a popular lodging spot for people embarking on Snake/Columbia River Cruises.
Fall Convocation – Oct. 16 (Grace Lutheran, Lewiston, ID)
Isaiah 25:1-9
Did you all figure out a life-giving way to preach on the gospel text yesterday? I might go back and listen to a few of your sermons for inspiration. I looked up Sunday’s lectionary text in June and just groaned. I looked at a few old sermons. I read Father Capon and Dr. Richard Swanson. Where is the good news? I asked when I called a friend who was with me in text study for six years in rural Iowa. We laughed.
This afternoon we are obviously turning to the other banquet or feast passage from the prophet Isaiah. Isaiah had plenty of harsh words of judgment up until this point, but not in the portion we read today. God is a refuge and shade; in other words, God absorbs violence and brings peace. Our minds might wander to other passages of promise in Isaiah: the prince of peace or the wolf and the lamb lying down together.
Oh, how we long for peace on days like today, in the Holy Land most especially. But I also in so many other parts of the world that are not front and center but where violence rages. We long for peace in our own communities, maybe in our own families. And we know that we are called to be peace makers, in our calls as pastors and deacons to be sure, but we can reach further back to the waters of the font. The outcome of all the promises made is so that the baptized will, “proclaim Christ through word and deed, care for others and the world God made, and work for justice and peace.”
There is more to Isaiah’s feast. The prophet also makes it plain that God will invite all to the rich feast God prepares on this mountain. The text layers adjectives to evoke a lavish banquet filled with food and drink. You hear an echo of Jesus’ invitation to come and feast with him at the marriage supper of the Lamb (Matthew 22:1-14; Revelation 19:6-8). The Eucharist is but a foretaste of this final feast for the nations. God invites all to come and dine.
This scripture passage always reminds me of the table grace we sang at big family dinners, a table grace which brought together so many of the biblical feasts: Come and dine the master calleth come and dine. There is plenty at God’s table all the time. He who fed the multitude, turned the water into wine, to the hungry calleth now. Come and dine. Amen.
Like so many major biblical scenes, the feast Isaiah describes takes place on a mountain. Usually, it’s only on Transfiguration Sunday when I talk about mountain top experiences, but Isaiah 25 lends itself to a similar exploration. Moments of spiritual high are rightly critiqued when they are paired with manipulation or never lead to actual discipleship. But when someone or a group of people truly experiences the love of God in Christ Jesus in an authentic way, that is something to celebrate.
As a lifelong proponent of outdoor ministry, I’m used to the critique that a week at camp is too unrealistic. Nothing can replicate it down the mountain. It sets the bar too high for what beloved Christian community looks like. My response is something like, How else are we supposed to help bring in the reign of God if we’ve never had a glimpse of it.
We get into trouble when we think our feast experience, our glimpse of the reign of God is the only one. In my twenties I learned that Lutherans don’t one-up each other through born-again stories, we one-up each other through feast stories—camp, college, mission trip, whatever. We could have just said, isn’t it great we all have some idea of what the Holy Spirit is trying to usher in!
An amazing gift of being on the synod staff is hearing and seeing the variety of mountain top feasts in our synod. Sometimes a glimpse of the reign of God is being welcomed into one of the recovery groups so many of our churches host. Sometimes it’s reconciliation with a family member. Sometimes it is a meaningful worship service. And a glimpse of the reign of God may come by reading scripture passages like this one from Isaiah where God, through a prophet, paints the actual picture.
I will fully admit that when I consider the ELCA’s Truth and Healing Movement, which we are participating in this week, I hear a real call to discipleship, to speak the truth in love to one another and maybe to our communities. I also see another glimpse of the reign of God, another feast.
Part of why Vance Blackfox is with us is because so many of us are in proximity to Indigenous populations. Our whole synod can enter into this movement. But another reason he is here is because you elected a bishop from Western South Dakota and when I began digging into my own anti-racism work, so much of my childhood bubbled up.
As I have written, there is a strange dissonance that comes with growing up in a town called Custer down the hill from Crazy Horse Mountain. Pine Ridge was the poorest county in the nation, the very worst piece of land we could give to anyone, as if it was ours to give. Wounded Knee (both of them) occurred only hours from my home, but I never visited until I was in my twenties.
There were other stories too, good stories mostly around high school basketball. Because our high school boys basketball coach was commited to reconciliation with the Indiginous people, Custer High School was the one white school invited to the Lakota Nation Basketball Tournament in Rapid City. The tournament was amazing to behold. More importantly to me was SuAnne Big Crow, a member of the Oglala Sioux, and a member of the 1989 state champion Pine Ridge Team. She was more than a great ball player; she was an amazing human and so proud of her heritage. Then she died tragically in a car accident in 1992.
As a teenager, the adults in my life generally did not talk about the roots of all the obvious inequity and certainly no one had a plan for truth and healing. The one exception perhaps being New Jersey Senator Bill Bradley and his bill to return 1.3 million acres of federal land, most of it in the Black Hills, to the Sioux Nation. For me, the ELCA’s Truth and Healing movement, it was another feast, another glimpse of the reign of God. It continues the long feast, the long story we already know.
I always loved that Barbara Brown Taylor called the long commentary series she edited Feasting on the Word. The Word, the story we find in holy scripture, may be the biggest feast of all. We will perhaps be reminded this week that the story has been used in terrible ways to harm people, but I still think it’s redeemable because it is so full of stories of God’s faithfulness and promises and visions for the world.
What’s more, it is the story you and I are part of. At some point each of you was brought into this story, maybe at the very beginning of creation or maybe in the waters of baptism (metaphysics were never my strong suit). What I do know for sure is that you are part of the feast already here and now because you each bear the name Child of God.
Each of you in your fullest, authentic, beautiful, and broken self – are loved. Embraced and forgiven, you are set free from all the self-talk and other-talk that binds you with names that are not your true name. You are God’s beloved child.
This morning I was with the saints of Grace Lutheran, Mountain Home, Idaho. Grace is the eastern most congregation in the Treasure Valley Cluster so I knew several people there through various cluster events the past twelve years. (they have a new floor since I was last there pre-pandemic!) They have been served faithfully for almost the last three years by interim retired Pastor Caryl Miller. Mountain Home is home to Mountain Home Air Force Base and the majority of the congregation served in the Air Force sometime. After worship I spoke with the call committee about possibilities for their future. I listened to them explain why they think Grace’s presence is important: they are a caring church–caring for people both within the church community and beyond. For many years they hosted a huge monthly food distribution in partnership with the Idaho Food Bank. An older membership made them give up this labor intensive ministry, but they are pivoting to a free monthly lunch for their neighbors. When you look across the street, you see that their current neighbors are construction workers building a new credit union, car wash, and a few other businesses. The church sits near one of the Mountain Home exists and the two buildings (sanctuary and kitchen in one and former food bank building) were originally Boise National Forest administrative offices. It was wonderful to be with the people of Grace, even for a few hours.
I will confess that when I first read this passage from Exodus, I thought I would focus on the first half of the passage, during which the Israelites go astray. Later I supposed I would focus on Moses’ conversation with God. I never really planned to spend much time on God’s anger, right there in the middle. But eventually I came to see that the entire narrative has much to say to us today, and not necessarily because we are installing a pastor, though I’ll address that later, but simply because this is a word we always seem to be in need of hearing.
God giving the commandments on Mt Sinai was a high point in Israel’s story. It was a gift, the beginnings of God’s vision for community. Despite having those commandments, the Israelites fell into chaos and apostasy. It all happens as they wait for Moses to return from the mountain. We are left wondering, how did the relationship between God and Israel go so wrong?
Aaron is Moses’ brother and helper. Moses is the go-between for the people and God. 40 days seemed to be too long for the people. Aaron is left to lead the people during Moses’ absence and what happens could be described as a failure in leadership. Reading different translations and commentaries, it is hard to say if the people end up worshiping another god, altogether, one formed for them out of gold, or a replica of the one true God. Either way, false god or false image of God, they are breaking the commandments.
It is easy to criticize the Israelites with our perspective, and yet I know that idolatry is something I easily fall into. We may not think of it as worship, but we surely put our trust into material things, systems, and even people. It is much easier to point at others far away and critique their worship of idol, authoritarian leaders worshiping power or billionaires worshiping wealth.
In our individual daily lives, we are offered opportunities to put our trust in all sorts of other idols: power, material possessions that make us feel powerful, money, things that give a sense of security. Some of those things can actually be helpful tools. But they can also all become idols.
A piece of the Exodus 32 story that I find fascinating, is how one particular phrase gets repeated but with slight changes: “brought us up out of the land of Egypt.” The first time the phrase is uttered, it is by the people, complaining to Aaron. They say, “Come, makes gods for us, who shall go before us; as for this Moses, the man who brought us up out of the land of Egypt.” Perhaps this should have been our first clue that something was amiss. The Israelites have forgotten that is God who delivered them. Yes, Moses led the way through the Sea, but God was the deliverer. Is it just a slip of the tongue, “This Moses, the man who brought us out of the land of Egypt”? I do not think so.
Before I leave for Tanzania I will need to receive and submit my mail-in ballot. How easy it is to turn human beings into our idols or gods! Or maybe that is just something I do. How do I know when I have turned a human into an idol? Usually about the time they disappoint me and what I feel is not just disappointment but utter heart break. How could they let me down this way? It is like I have temporarily forgotten that God alone is the redeemer of my life.
I am speaking about this with a little humor, in part because this is such a fabulous story. But worshiping idols is no small thing. And if we needed a reminder, just feel the anger from God in verses 7-10. After unleashing on go-between Moses, who has not even been down there with the disobedient people, God finishes, “Now let me alone, so that my wrath may burn hot against them and I may consume them; and of you I will make a great nation.”
To be sure, this is not the Great Flood. God is not destroying the cosmos, but God does seem okay with starting over with another group of people, so long as Moses is their human leader. God goes so far as to deny God’s own people by saying, “Your people, whom you brought up out of the land of Egypt, have acted perversely.” Clearly worshiping a false god or creating a false image of god stir up God’s anger.
God’s seemingly resolute behavior makes it even more shocking when Moses can change God’s mind. He does so by reminding God that it was God who brought the people out of the land of Egypt. He reminds God of God’s power and might. Moses reminds God of God’s promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Israel to multiply their descendants. Killing the Israelites now would not foster offspring and certainly would give the Egyptians the edge. Moses’ threefold imperative — “Turn from your wrath,” “Change your mind,” “Do not bring disaster on your people” — is bold and effective. God does change God’s mind.
I wonder who we need to intervene on our behalf. I wonder if in our impatience we have bowed to more tangible, accessible, and shinier gods rather than relying on the one who brought us out of the power of sin, death, and the devil. And sometimes I wonder how God quells God’s anger at such atrocities.
Nearly every day in the news we are reminded that as humanity we collectivelyfall short of God’s will for us. That is not shocking news anymore. I do not want to minimize the depth of our idolatrous tendencies. Still, I do think the more shocking and profoundly hopeful news here is that God sticks with us. God continues to claim us as God’s own despite it all. Instead of God’s wrath burning hot against us and consuming us, God the Father’s beloved son Jesus reminds us there is joy when even one sinner repents (Luke 15:10).
This congregation, not completely unlike the Israelites, has been through its ups and downs, many times of discernment, some conflict, but you are hear today still proclaiming the gospel to a larger community, a community that needs the message more than ever. God has already created new beginnings through and with you. Now one more chapter begins with this mutual ministry with Pastor Sierra.
You have known and know that what never changes is God’s presence and steadfastness. On God’s own, sometimes hearing the cries of God’s children, occasionally with the help of a prophet, God remains a God of promises. We worship a God of promises. We will hear promises today, promises about the life of pastor and people and your life together. All of those promises can be traced back to the promises made at the font as well as the covenants God made with people and all of creation. Those promises come down to the unwavering truth that you are loved, and God will not let you go.
