Blog – Page 380

The Olive Branch, 9/28/12

September 28, 2012 By moadmin

Accent on Worship

Whenever the people of God take on a task or a leadership role, tackle a problem, or are burdened with grief or life’s problems, they are called to pray. Whenever the people of God celebrate a joyous occasion, a new beginning, or healing, they are called to give thanks and praise. Prayer should be central to the life of a Christian, the first action, though many times it is “Plan B.” We have all heard the expression, “When all else fails, pray.”

Our God is relational, and prayer is nothing other than a relationship with God. The great leaders and prophets of the Bible had two things in common: they were far from perfect, (most of them would not be the leaders we would choose) and they all had a close relationship with God. In the first reading for Time after Pentecost Sunday 26, Moses is deep in prayer. He complains and requests. It is all prayer and it is all answered. However, the fact that his prayers are answered is not the most amazing thing about this text. The amazing thing is that he is so comfortable with his Lord, his Creator and Savior, that he is downright cross with God and not afraid to show it. Our Lord longs for us to share our whole life with him, all our joys, sorrows and frustrations. This is an honest and true relationship and it is true prayer when we share our whole selves with God.

James writes in the second lesson for the day, “Are any among you suffering? They should pray. Are any cheerful? They should sing songs of praise. Are any among you sick? They should call for the elders of the church and have them pray over them, anointing them with oil in the name of the Lord.” Jesus, unlike all the other prophets, was perfect, but he had one thing in common with those who came before him, a close personal relationship with his heavenly Father. He prayed. We are called to do the same.

– Donna Pususta Neste

Sunday Readings

September 30, 2012 – Time after Pentecost, Sunday 26
Numbers 11:4-6, 10-16, 24-29 + Psalm 19:7-14
James 5:13-20 + Mark 9:38-50

October 7, 2012 – Time after Pentecost, Sunday 27
Genesis 2:18-24 + Psalm 8
Hebrews 1:1-4; 2:5-12 + Mark 10:2-16

Feast of St. Francis of Assisi
Thursday, October 4, 7:00 pm
Bring your pets to church for
this annual service of blessing!

Sunday’s Adult Education: Sunday, September 30, 9:30 a.m.

This week our forum will be “Music Ministry in Prison,” presented by Bea Hasselmann, the founder/director of the Metropolitan Boys Choir, who has undertaken a ministry of music among inmates of the Minnesota Correction Facility at Red Wing. In this presentation, Ms. Hasselmann will discuss the power of music and her work with the men at Red Wing.

Book Discussion Group

Mount Olive’s Book Discussion group meets on the second Saturday of each month at 10:00 a.m. For the October 13 meeting they will read Remarkable Creatures, by Tracy Chevalier, and for November 10 they will read, Vanity Fair, by William Makepeace Thackeray.

Music and Fine Arts Series Launched

Brochures for the 2012-2013 Music and Fine Arts series have been mailed – hopefully you’ve received yours. If not, they are certainly available around the church. Pick one up. Share one.

Your support is helpful in offering these gifts to the greater Twin Cities community in two ways: the first is in attending and assisting us in hosting these events, and second, your financial support is critical. You may leave your donations in the baskets on Sunday, or mail them to the office.

The first event is on October 14, 4:00 pm, with Peter Oustrousko and Dean Magraw. Don’t miss it!

Congregation Meeting October 28

The semi-annual meeting of Mount Olive congregation will be held on Sunday, October 28, following the second liturgy (beginning at approximately 12:15 p.m.). The main purpose of this meeting will be to approve a budget for 2013, and to consider several constitutional and bylaw amendments the Vestry is recommending to the congregation. All voting members of Mount Olive are encouraged to attend.

The constitutional recommendations were sent to all members via email and snail mail. Extra copies are available in the narthex at church. Please read this document carefully in advance of the meeting.

It’s a Wedding – And You’re Invited

The Mount Olive community is invited to share in the marriage celebration of Matt McCuen and Katie Krueger on October 13, 2012. The liturgy will be held at 3:00pm at Mount Olive with light hors d’oeuvres immediately following in the Chapel Lounge. No gifts please! If you are unable to attend, Katie and Matt appreciate your prayers and best wishes.

Save Your Manufacturer’s Coupons

Please save the coupon sections from your newspapers and mailbox (Red Plum, Smart Source, and P & G Savers). Through TRUST, a program called “Store to Door” redeems these coupons for general operating funds. Cut out the coupons you need, leave the rest of the book intact, and bring them to church. These coupon books can be placed in the white box in the coat room.

Prayer Shawl Ministry

The Prayer Shawl Ministry will gather monthly to work on prayer shawls. We meet the first Saturday of the month from 1-3 p.m. The location is Blue Ox Coffee Company at 3740 Chicago Av. S. Please join the fun on October 6.

Vestry Update, Sept. 10, 2012 meeting

The September 10 Vestry meeting primarily focused on creating the 2013 budget for review and approval at the upcoming Semi-Annual Mount Olive Congregation meeting (October 28). Each Director presented their area of the budget and the Vestry was able to discuss each proposed line item. A preview of the 2013 budget is scheduled following the second liturgy on October 21. During this forum, congregational members may ask questions of the Vestry.

The Capital Campaign Tithe has been met and the task force expects to distribute the gifts in 2012. An update will be given at the Semi-Annual Congregational Meeting in October and a special congregational meeting scheduled to authorize the gifts after the Vestry reviews them at the November meeting.
The Vestry approved five changes to the Mount Olive Constitution and By-laws to go before the Congregation in October. Each clarifies the intent or adds new information into the document. With these updates, the Constitution and By-laws more closely follow what Mount Olive current does in both policy and procedure.

Please keep your eye out for a proposed meeting to address the Voter ID Amendment and the Marriage Amendment from a faith perspective. With the upcoming election in November, the Vestry has endorsed a gathering of Mount Olive members to engage in discussion about how to view these amendments through a Lutheran based faith lens.

The last part of the meeting included updates from Committee Directors and concluded with a prayer by Pastor Crippen.

Please also note that a draft of the complete minutes from the Vestry meeting is available for review on the bulletin board in the church office.

The Olive Branch, 9/21/12

September 24, 2012 By moadmin

Accent on Worship

A Teaching Parish

It’s been nearly a month since Vicar Neal Cannon began with us, and in that month he’s gotten married, so it’s been a busy one for him. People have had a chance to meet and greet him and his wife Mary in these first weeks, and he seems to be settling in. This rhythm of saying farewell to one vicar while preparing to welcome another is a new one for me, but not for this parish. Neal is our 42nd vicar at Mount Olive (if I’ve done the counting properly), so this rhythm is well-established among many in this congregation.

But it seems good to remind ourselves as we begin another year with another vicar of the nature of this ministry among us. We are a teaching parish which commits itself to welcome a new seminarian each year and to live with him or her for a year in a relationship of mutual learning and ministry. This is a crucial year for seminarians, as they explore and experience parish ministry in depth in ways they haven’t before, and learn their gifts and limitations in ways they cannot simply do in class. It is also crucial for us, as we open our lives and our congregation to welcome these people among us. They learn from us; we learn from them; together we are privileged to serve God in this place.

It is worth keeping in mind our congregation’s call to teach. Sometimes it seems people are nervous about “letting” the vicar do something without someone like me looking over their shoulder or checking everything. This is part of the learning, that a seminarian tries things out, attempts to do ministry, and the chips fall where they may. Sometimes things are successful, sometimes they are not. In all cases learning can happen. Our job is to help each vicar in that learning.

To that end, I encourage all members of the congregation to consider offering Neal, and future vicars, feedback and responses to ministry they do. The Internship Committee (Steve Manuel, Miriam Luebke, John Crippen, Ro Griesse, Warren Peterson, Peggy Hoeft) will be doing a number of formal evaluations, including written evaluations of each of his sermons. But all of us are called to be a part of his learning and a part of his teaching. Any responses he can receive will help him learn, and will shape his future ministry as a pastor. It would be wonderful if when he teaches, a number of folks would write a simple reflection or feedback about how they received it. It would be helpful if people in the pews (besides the committee) would once in a while give him written feedback on a sermon (we have simple forms if you’d like to use one, printed and in the office), more than “nice sermon.” If there are things he does well in any kind of ministry here, let him know. If there are things you think would help him learn and grow, it would be a generous gift to share that as well.

This can be a wonderful place for a seminarian to learn. The more intentional we all are to be faithful sisters and brothers to our vicars as well as compassionate teachers, the better we will serve our call to be a teaching parish for future pastors of this church. Thank you for all you do in this important ministry!

– Joseph

Sunday Readings

September 23, 2012 – Time after Pentecost, Sunday 25
Jeremiah 11:18-20 + Psalm 54
James 3:13—4:3, 7-8a + Mark 9:30-37

September 30, 2012 – Time after Pentecost, Sunday 26
Numbers 11:4-6, 10-16, 24-29 + Psalm 19:7-14
James 5:13-20 + Mark 9:38-50

Sunday’s Adult Education: Sunday, September 23, 9:30 a.m.

This week we will view a film, “The Creed: What Christians Profess, and Why It Ought to Matter.” Produced by actor, director, and writer, Tim Kelleher, The Creed is a remarkable film about why the radical claims made in the Nicene Creed are so important to all of us.

Next Sunday, September 30, our forum will be “Music Ministry in Prison,” presented by Bea Hasselmann, the founder/director of the Metropolitan Boys Choir, who has undertaken a ministry of music among inmates of the Minnesota Correction Facility at Red Wing. In this presentation, Ms. Hasselmann will discuss this project — how she came to it, how it works, what its benefits are.

Prayer Shawl Ministry

Do you knit or crochet? Yes? Then mark This Sunday, September 23 on your calendar because you are needed at the next meeting of the Mount Olive Prayer Shawl Ministry group. We will meet at 9:30 a.m. in the Undercroft.

Don’t know how to knit or crochet? No problem. We can teach you! So grab a cup of coffee and join the meeting to learn more about this rewarding ministry.

If you need additional information or have any questions about this project, contact Peggy Hoeft (peggyrf70@gmail.com).

Book Discussion Group

Mount Olive’s Book Discussion group meets on the second Saturday of each month at 10:00 a.m. For October 13, they will read Remarkable Creatures, by Tracy Chevalier, and for November 10 they will read, Vanity Fair, by William Makepeace Thackeray.

It’s a Wedding – And You’re Invited

The Mount Olive community is invited to share in the marriage celebration of Matt McCuen and Katie Krueger on October 13, 2012. The liturgy will be held at 3:00 pm at Mount Olive with light hors d’oeuvres immediately following in the Chapel Lounge. No gifts please! If you are unable to attend, Katie and Matt appreciate your prayers and best wishes.

Feast of St. Francis of Assisi: Thursday, October 4, 7:00 pm

Bring your pets to church for this annual service of blessing!

Welcome, New Members!

We give thanks to God for these new sisters and brothers who will be received into membership at the 10:45 Eucharist this Sunday, September 23:

• Anders & Valerie John-Amala (their son Elijah was previously received by Baptism)
• Cathy Bosworth & Marty Hamlin (associate members, will be received in October)
• Sue Browender
• Martin Connell & Greg Terhaar (associate members)
• Ronald & Barbara French (associate members)
• Marilyn Gebauer
• Jennifer Kaufenberg (daughter Tate will be received by Baptism at a later date)
• Mark Lofstrom
• Julie Manuel
• Marty & Rebecca Melang
• Tim & Amy Reddy
• Janelle East & Bern Youngblood

Join us for lunch following the second liturgy to greet our newest members!

A Note From the Property Director

Thanks to all the helping hands for their assistance on the September 8 Clean-up Day! We made great progress on getting the church ready for the fall activities. Another Fall Clean-up Day is scheduled for Saturday, October 20. Watch the Olive Branch for more details.

– Brenda Bartz, Property Director

Win or Lose

September 23, 2012 By moadmin

Jesus Christ’s preference often seems to be for the last and least in our society. Jesus himself chooses place himself on the cross, the last place anyone would want to be. From Jesus we learn the value of placing ourselves last and least in the world.

Vicar Neal Cannon, Time after Pentecost, Sunday 25, year B; texts: Mark 9:30-37; James 3:13-4:3, 7-8b, Jeremiah 11:18-20

Sisters and brothers, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

Something you should know about me, your new vicar, is that I am very competitive person. I hate to lose. Growing up, my brother and I would play basketball against each other in the driveway at home. It always started friendly, but on more than one occasion ended with a black eye, or some bruised ribs. I’d like to think that as an adult I’ve got this under control. But then I start playing cribbage against my wife … and I start seeing myself fall farther and farther behind on the board … and my blood starts to boil, and I get a little bit quiet. At least when I lose to her, only my ego is bruised. Maybe you can relate.

I’ve known people in my life that aren’t like this. My Mom, for example would tell me after my basketball games in high school that she rooted for a tie because she didn’t want the other team to feel bad. Which of course, just made me more angry when I lost.

And I always thought that was a bit extreme, but Jesus in our story today takes this to a whole other level. He says, if you want to be first, you must be last. I think as Christians, we think we get it. We’ve heard it before. Serve your neighbor, welcome the stranger … yeah, yeah, vicar, we know.

But if we really think about how that’s lived out in our lives … I think we’ll realize that we don’t actually agree with Jesus all the time … because being in last is the worst! You don’t want to be last in line for tickets, nobody wants to get picked last, and you’ve probably heard the phrase, “nice guys finish last …” Come on… Jesus. Get with the program.

So what is with Jesus’ fascination with being last?

The Old Testament text and the Psalm don’t seem very helpful at first to answering why Jesus chooses to be last. In fact, Jeremiah and the Psalmist want to defeat their enemies, they want to win. “Let me see your vengeance,” says Jeremiah, “in your faithfulness, destroy them,” says the Psalmist. “Yikes!” says the Vicar, “how am I supposed to preach on that?”

Sometimes it seems like the God of the Old Testament has nothing to do with Jesus … until we look a little closer.

For our Old Testament lesson today, we are thrown into Jeremiah today and we’re in the middle of a story. You see, Jeremiah was being persecuted for telling his people the truth, he was telling the people that God was angry. The people were creating idols of wood and stone and jewels, and as Jeremiah tells us earlier in his book, people were sacrificing their children to these idols.

No wonder God was angry… and Jeremiah was angry too.

And in response to Jeremiah telling Israel that God is angry and they need to change their ways, the people plan on killing Jeremiah. So Jeremiah says to God, “God, I want your justice visited upon them! All I did was tell them the truth, I told them what you told me and now they want to kill me!” And God says, “You’re right. They’re wicked, they have evil hearts, something drastic must be done.”

But then something interesting happens in the following chapter. Jeremiah asks God why do bad things happen to good people like me? And, why do bad people flourish while the righteous die? If God is “just” then good people would be winning and bad people would be losing. It’s that simple. Right?

And God’s reply is a bit cryptic. God agrees that the people are doing evil deeds and that must stop, but God also says that Israel is the beloved of God’s heart and God’s heritage. It’s like God’s mourning their loss, not celebrating a victory. God even implies that things will get worse for Jeremiah when his people are suffering.

So who’s the winner here? It seems like the people are going to suffer, and Jeremiah is going to suffer, and God is going to suffer along with them.

And at this point … the winner in me just wants to yell, “God, you just won! Why are you putting your head down?” You beat the bad guys! It’s like God can’t stand it when anyone loses.

What’s more, later in Jeremiah God says, I will remember their sins no more. But here’s the problem. If God doesn’t remember what they did, how can they be punished? How do we know who the righteous and unrighteous are if God makes, everybody righteous? Who’s the winner, and who’s the loser here? Jeremiah and our Psalmist get what winning is all about. They are eager for God to strike down their enemies. Why isn’t God?

This got me thinking, I wonder if we’re asking the wrong question. Maybe the question isn’t, whose winning, and whose losing, or why do bad things happen to good people. Maybe the question we need to ask is, what does winning look like to God?

God helps us when he says to Abraham all the nations on Earth will be blessed by your offspring. He doesn’t say, all your children will be blessed by what you’ve done. He doesn’t even say that his country will be blessed by his offspring. No. He says that the whole world will be blessed. And I wonder, is that what winning looks like to God? That everyone is blessed?

Then we of course have to ask, what does losing look like to God?

In the Beatitudes, God blesses all the losers. I don’t mean to say this glibly, but seriously, God blesses those who we might consider to have lost. God blesses those who mourn, or those who have lost a loved one. Jesus says the meek will inherit the Earth: since when have the meek won anything? Don’t the meek get steamrolled by Donald Trump on The Apprentice? Yet our God says they are blessed.

At another point in the New Testament, Jesus tells us a parable us a parable of a Shepherd watching over his Flock. And Jesus tells us that when one sheep wanders away from the Flock, that the Shepherd leaves the 99 in search of the one …

It seems to me that God can’t stand it if even one person loses.

God is telling us something. God hates it when anyone loses. So much so that when we have lost, or that we are lost, that God will find us, and bless us even in our darkest hour.

I think our New Testament and Gospel readings today give us some more clues as to what winning looks like to God. Our text from James says, “17 But the wisdom from above is first pure, then peaceable, gentle, willing to yield, full of mercy and good fruits, without a trace of partiality or hypocrisy.”

I find this statement to be fascinating for our lives today. Think about this, how often are we really willing to yield? How often can we put aside an argument or a fight and really listen to what the other person is saying and care about our enemy in spite of our differences.

This is not about being right or wrong, this is about giving up the fight for the sake of loving the person in front of you. This summer I was a chaplain at Good Samaritan in Minneapolis, and my job was basically to go from room to room and visit with residents, all of whom had extreme mental and/or physical illness. One of the first things they taught us and one of the things I had the hardest time learning, was to put aside your own opinions and beliefs and quit trying to fix people. You see it is easy to give people answers. Eat better, quit smoking, pray more … but our job was to sit with people, and listen to them, and share with them what they were going through.

And I think that is what James was talking about here. He’s asking if we can put ourselves aside, if we’re willing to yield to people for love’s sake and the sake of the gospel. So when James says that God’s wisdom is “without prejudice” he means that true wisdom that comes from God shows mercy and compassion to another without any regard for that person’s status, what they’ve done, or even for the person’s moral character. God shows compassion, to his friends and his enemies, to the people that we want to lose, and to the people we hope will win.

So finally we come to our Gospel lesson today and we find Jesus again telling his disciples that he will be killed and in three days he will rise again. And the disciples don’t get this. Dying on the cross is equivalent to losing their battle. They can’t lose. The good guys just started winning. The blind can see, the deaf can hear, and the word is being proclaimed! How could Jesus lose now, just when it seems victory is in hand? And as if they wanted to prove to Jesus that they didn’t get it, they start arguing with each other about which of them is the best. So he says something that seems backwards. He says, “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.”

What the disciples don’t understand, and what we still struggle with today, is how Christ’s loss becomes the world’s gain. Because when you choose to lose, it destroys our me vs. you world view, and creates a world about us, and we don’t know what that looks like.

And he picks up a little kid, and by the way, kids are in the lowest place in ancient Jewish society below even servants and slaves, and he says, “whenever we welcome a child, whenever we feed the hungry, whenever we speak up for the marginalized, whenever we love our enemy, whenever we welcome whoever is last and least important in our eyes, we welcome God.”

Today, I hope we consider that winning and losing is not what God is about. And even if we’re in the right and we are the good guys, like Jeremiah and the Psalmist were, it shouldn’t be about me verses you it should be about us. You see, I think for Jesus and for God, it is not enough for a few people to win. It’s not a real victory for God and Christ unless everybody wins. Because the cross that Jesus takes up is about forgiveness, and love, and mercy. It is for the healing of the world.

Thanks be to God.

Off Center

September 16, 2012 By moadmin

Jesus modeled God’s selfless, other-centered love in becoming one of us, dying and rising; followers of Jesus are called likewise to set themselves out of the center of life, the center of reality, and look to the good and need of the other.

Pr. Joseph G. Crippen, Time after Pentecost, Sunday 24, year B; texts: Mark 8:27-38; Isaiah 50:4-9a

Sisters and brothers, grace to you, and peace in the name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen

In 1543, as he lay on his death bed, we are told that astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus had placed in his hands the newly-published copy of his life’s work, a radical re-thinking of the place of Earth in the heavens. Copernicus argued that in fact the Sun was the center of the heavens, not the Earth, and the Earth orbited the Sun, along with the other planets. His theory wasn’t immediately rejected by the Church, but nearly 75 years later it was declared to be “false and altogether opposed to Holy Scripture.” Of course, with the later help of others like Sir Isaac Newton, it eventually became accepted that he had gotten it right. Except for the idea that the Sun was the center of the heavens. By the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, astronomers began to realize that even our Sun was simply one star among many, and now we understand that our Sun is at the edge of a huge galaxy of stars called the Milky Way, a galaxy which itself is not very close to the center of the universe. So in less than 500 years, Earth has been moved in human thought from the very center of all that exists to a tiny planet on the fringe of all that exists.

It’s a hard blow to realize that we’re not the pinnacle of creation. One of the reasons the Church always seemed to resist such data as scientists discovered it over the centuries was in part because of our understanding of the Incarnation. Surely if the God who created the universe blessed our existence so much by becoming one of us, then we must be the best, the brightest, the highest of all creation. To consider that we might be living in the boondocks of the universe, to say nothing of the idea that we might be only one of millions of other species of intelligent life scattered across millions of light years can be threatening to some people of faith.

But if that Incarnate One himself, Jesus our Lord, is to be believed today, it’s not merely foolish that we ever thought so highly of humanity. According to Jesus, his coming as one of us was such an act of self-giving, of losing of one’s self on the part of the Triune God, that it calls those of us who would follow Jesus to the same kind of self-loss, self-sacrifice. Rather than see our discipleship as a sign of favor and importance, Jesus invites us, urges us, to see our discipleship as the beginning of the moving of ourselves from the center of our universe, and a changing of our focus instead to looking to the reality, the needs, the pain, the suffering of others before our own.

This is such an important point for Jesus, and it’s so often missed. But it’s core to what Jesus himself experienced.

It’s tempting to think that we’re a big deal because God became one of us. But perhaps it’s the opposite. Surely we can say with confidence that the Triune God thought enough of us to become one of us. John 3 makes that clear, that the Son came because of the Father’s love for us. A love so powerful it hoped to bring us all to healing, to salvation.

But perhaps we might want to realize how unlikely such attention by the Creator of all things this really is. Consider the size of the universe, the immensity of space, the uncountable galaxies that exist, let alone stars. We could learn a lot from the psalmist of Psalm 8 who, in the face of such contemplation, said, “Who are we that you would care for us?” That the Creator of all that is cared about the bipedal beings on a planet on the edge of the universe enough to become one of us in order to bring us back is nothing short of astonishing.

Yet it is also, from God’s standpoint, a huge step down. When I was young, people would say: “Think of how different we are from ants. If you were to imagine what God did, it would be like us becoming ants, so the ants could understand what we really were like, and so on.” That kind of made sense to me. But given the expanse of the creation, surely it’s more like comparing us to single-cell amoebas. Or something even smaller, less coherent. In the life of this world, we’re actually closely related to ants.

And yet . . . and yet. The Triune God was willing to lose all to become one of us. To join our existence, take up our lot, all for the sake of bringing us back into love with God and each other. To suffer our indignities, to be limited like we are. And ultimately to permit us to kill him. This is the One, the Son of God, Jesus, whom we follow.

And so Jesus calls us to do the same. If we see this reading from Isaiah today as one of many referring to Jesus, and his willing suffering on our behalf, Jesus today invites us to see it as referring to us. “If I’m willing to lose everything to be with you, teach you, love you, even my life, then I need you to follow that way,” Jesus says. To be willing to lose all. That’s what discipleship is.

What Jesus says is clear: following him is not a path to self-aggrandizing, not a path to wealth, not a path to importance. My followers, he says, become the least, not the greatest. They turn their cheeks to those who strike them, as he did. They lose instead of trying to win. They don’t think of themselves first, but they think of others.

His is not a message for those who would make governments enforce particular religious beliefs by constitutional amendment or by law, or those who would declare that the ultimate goal is that Jesus’ followers rule the world.

He says, “take up your cross,” be willing to face the worst in following me. Be willing, as I was, to lose everything. Because – and this is the key – because to bring the healing he needs, the love God envisions, the grace Jesus’ death brings, it will take all of Jesus’ followers to reach all who need such gifts, and those followers will need to be willing to let go of all their needs to accomplish this mission.

But what we are being called to discover is not a false humility or self-denigration, nor is it an explanation for various sufferings we might have.

Too often we’ve taken the expression “take up your cross” and applied it to daily pains and annoyances. Even real suffering. We’ll say, “that’s just my cross to bear,” speaking of whatever it is that causes us difficulty. But as real as pain and suffering are, that’s not at all what Jesus means by this expression.

In “taking up our cross,” Jesus means us to take up suffering and loss for the sake of others and for the sake of the world. If any of us do bear a cross, it’s when we move ourselves off of the center of our lives and look to where we can be God’s grace and love to others. It’s certainly not the unlooked for and uncontrollable suffering that exists in the world, hard as that might be.

But a worse problem is the false sense of martyrdom that this call sometimes evokes in Christians, the manufactured humility. As much as I’m amused by Garrison Keillor, I’m increasingly tired of his caricature of Midwestern Lutherans. And it’s probably because it’s an accurate assessment of the reality. There is in us a tendency to talk down about ourselves, minimize our accomplishments, act as if we’re called to think poorly of ourselves in order to follow Jesus.

But even though it’s an accurate take, I think it’s dangerous for us to admire it, or to consider it a virtue, which seems to be an element of our reaction to such humor. If we were to take the best of what Keillor offers, we would use his humor to laugh at a situation as a way to start changing who we are.

Jesus isn’t asking us to play the part of martyrs, sighing and letting others have their way, while being certain that it is noted by all how much we’ve given up. Nor is he calling us to think ill of ourselves, knock ourselves down, act as if we’re worthless, crummy people. Jesus loved humanity enough to become one of us and die for us – that’s honor beyond anything in the universe. And lastly, we’re not called to play-act humility, to pretend to be humble and lowly as if others can’t see through it. We’ve all seen that in others, and it’s revolting. It’s just as bad when we do it, but we often can’t see that as clearly.

And none of these ways of acting out Jesus’ call today look at all like what Jesus is doing, or calling out in us.

In fact, what we are called to do is to see the world without ourselves as the center, the focus, the important thing. To have our own internal Copernican revolution.

It’s actually as simple as that. Jesus says, “What if you didn’t filter everything you experience through the question of what’s in it for you, how it affects you? What would that be like?” It’s a call to transcend ourselves and learn a way of life where we don’t focus our thoughts, plans, hopes, dreams on what we want and need, but on what God needs, and what God’s world needs.

Every once in a while the Holy Spirit saves time and doubles up on inspiration. That happened this week, when both your cantor and your pastor were walking down this path separately. When we met to talk about hymns on Wednesday, and I was telling David where I thought this sermon was heading (much of which you’ve now heard), so he could think about what hymns would work with that, he said that was something he’d been thinking a great deal about with regard to worship and music. You can see his reflections in the Olive Branch which just came out on Friday.

And he’s right: in worship we are at our best when it’s not about “me” but “us.” When we put our selves aside for the sake of us. And even more deeply for the sake of the God around whom we are gathered to worship.

Because that’s the deeper truth here: we move ourselves off the center of our lives and put the Triune God there, where God belongs. We learn this best in worship, but it’s a learning Jesus today calls us to take with us every moment of our lives. If the God who made all that is, who loves us with a death-defeating love, who fills us with life and grace, if this God is the center of our thoughts and being, then we will also be focused where God needs us, on those whom our God loves. Until we’re able to free ourselves from self-centeredness we cannot truly love God as God loves us, and we cannot truly follow the Son of God as disciples.

It’s just as shocking to understand this as it was to begin to see that the Earth might not center all things.

But once we move ourselves off of center, we begin to live the way we were meant to live, and we see its abundance. We find the joy of self-giving, the hope of being able to see ourselves as given to the world for healing and life. Best of all, we begin to see how we might actually follow Jesus fully, because we begin to understand how he lived for others, for us, for the world.

Let us pray that the God who once gave up everything for us would help us likewise shake free of our self-centeredness, our antiquated view of our internal universe, and move our lives to circle the astonishing, loving, and gracious Triune God who made all things. And let us pray that in so doing, we become fully disciples in the mission to bring all the creation back into place, and all God’s creatures into the life and grace God intends for all.

In the name of Jesus. Amen

The Olive Branch, 9/14/12

September 14, 2012 By moadmin

Accent on Worship

I remember a scene. I was at Central Lutheran Church for a worship event, Paul Manz was the organist. I remember the hymn was “For All the Saints.” Dr. Manz led us with a stately speed (which I found wonderfully majestic). The person next to me, however, had a different idea. She was literally squirming, muttering “Come on …! Move it!! A little faster!!” Wow. I also remember thinking, It doesn’t matter who’s right and who’s wrong about how fast that hymn should go, her choices at that point were one of two options: to sing with the rest of us (at the tempo we were singing) or, not to sing with rest of us.

The readings for this and next week underscore something I learned in the above situation.

When we gather for worship with its various activities, including singing, there’s an important dimension that we can be aware of: it’s not about us. We have to put “self” aside in order to become “us.” If we are going to express our faith “with one voice” we need to be in the same key, at the same tempo, singing the same song.

For that person next to me at Central, she probably learned “For All the Saints” at a quicker pace. Perhaps it was jarring for her to slow down. And I’ve learned that most assemblies are made up of individuals whose experiences and learning sources were elsewhere – all with different understandings of issues like how fast, what key, or even which hymns they know and love. It’s not that anyone is absolutely right (although I am always right, of course). For the sake of unity, one decision needs to preside to bring us out of individualism and into community as one voice. Otherwise each song becomes an aleatory hodge-podge of individuals in competition with each other.

That is where my mind went with the next couple of Gospel readings. This week, “Deny yourselves and take up the cross,” then next week the disciples arguing about who was the greatest, all speak of setting aside “self” for the sake of the community of Christ.

Any choir becomes an excellent illustration. If everyone tries to be a soloist, if everyone sings at their own speed, it’s a mess. One person decides and all join in as one. Even if it’s not YOUR favorite hymn, or if it’s a different tempo than what you learned, or if it’s in a key different from your memory – your choices are one of two: to sing, or not.

We pray for the first.

– Cantor David Cherwien

Sunday Readings

September 16, 2012 – Time after Pentecost, Sunday 24
Isaiah 50:4-9a + Psalm 116:1-9
James 3:1-12 + Mark 8:27-38

September 23, 2012 – Time after Pentecost, Sunday 25
Jeremiah 11:18-20 + Psalm 54
James 3:13—4:3, 7-8a + Mark 9:30-37

This Week in Adult Education

This Sunday, September 16, Pastor Crippen will present part 2 of a 2-part series, “An Introduction to the Book of James.”

New Members

New members will be received on Sunday, September 23. If you are interested in becoming a member of Mount Olive, please speak to Pastor Crippen soon!

Welcome Our New Members

Please join the Mount Olive Vestry for a welcome brunch with our new members on Sunday, September 23, following the second liturgy (approximately 12:30 pm). We will gather in the Undercroft for introductions, a light meal, and conversation.

RSVP by Friday, September 21, to the church office (e-mail: welcome@mountolivechurch.org, or call 612-827-5919).

Prayer Shawl Ministry

Do you knit or crochet? Yes? Then mark Sunday, September 23 on your calendar because you are needed at the next meeting of the Mount Olive Prayer Shawl Ministry group. We will meet at 9:30 AM.

Don’t know how to knit or crochet? No problem. We can teach you! If you need additional information or have any questions about this project, contact Peggy Hoeft (peggyrf70@gmail.com).

Coffee Hours This Sunday

This Sunday, September 16, members of the Worship Committee Altar Guild will host the Coffee and Fellowship following each of the morning liturgies. These two committees wish to use this opportunity to acknowledge the countless hours of service provided by the many volunteers at Mount Olive.

We are still trying to determine just how many consecutive years Marcella Daehn has served Mount Olive on both the Altar Guild and Worship Committee. She has decided to retire and pass the baton to others. Marcella is certainly not the only long serving volunteer in our midst. So we take this opportunity of her retirement to thank her for the example she has set for us all, and to thank all who have served and continue to serve.

Well done, good and faithful servant(s)!

Book Discussion Group

Mount Olive’s Book Discussion group meets on the second Saturday of each month at 10:00 a.m. For the October 13 meeting they will read Remarkable Creatures, by Tracy Chevalier.

October 2 is Drawing Near

Tuesday October 2, is the first day of Way to Goals Tutoring for this year, and I am looking for a few good men and women to be a positive force in a child’s life by becoming a volunteer tutor. If you have a heart for children this is the job for you! This is a once a week commitment on Tuesday evenings from 7:00-8:30 p.m. You will spend one hour with your student and the last half an hour enjoying a snack and fun activity, or just visiting with the other students and tutors. The youth are in second through sixth grade. The season goes from the first Tuesday in October through the last Tuesday in May. We do not meet when the Minneapolis Public Schools are off and a few other Tuesday evenings. If you would like more information or you are interested in volunteering please give me a call at church, 612-827-5919.

– Donna Neste

Name Change and Request for Helpers

The Worship Committee recognizes the valuable service the greeters are performing during our worship services, and most of you realize it goes far beyond greeting folks at the door. Greeters arrive at least thirty minutes prior to the services, ensure bulletins and other informational brochures are available to the worshipers. As well, they ensure doors are unlocked, lights and fans turned on, and windows opened or closed. They may also be asked to perform some minor duties for the other worship assistants, depending on the logistics of the service. They keep track of and record the numbers in attendance. They are also responsible for the offering collection, the procession of the gifts to the altar, as well as coordinating the flow of traffic to the Eucharist. At the end of the service, they see that the offering is transferred quickly to the safe and conclude their duties by tidying the pews in the nave. They also often field questions of newcomers, and now and again may have to respond to minor emergencies. In other words, the greeters are much more than people who just greet at the door. They are ushers, gracious hosts, ambassadors. Therefore, it was decided in the most recent Worship Committee meeting that there will be a name change in the servant roster from “Greeter” to “Usher.”

With all of that in mind, we are always looking for new ushers, especially those who can serve with flexibility for both services, as well as evening services. Those who serve in the evening would be asked to learn how to close the building, therefore adding some additional duties, similar to the previous “Building Keeper” position. This commitment is available for new and current ushers. If you are interested in learning the building keeper duties of the ushers and have a flexible schedule that allows you to serve in the evening, please let Brian Jacobs know.