daily

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We should send a memo out to our staff about e-mailing.

Do not e-mail your concerns without speaking to the person directly.
Do not e-mail everyone on the list if they don't need to know.
Do not e-mail a series of questions that no one can answer.
Do not e-mail 1,2, 0r 3 on Friday afternoon.
Do not forward e-mails without informing the original sender.
Do e-mail ordinary concerns that might be helpful to have in writing.
Do e-mail to remind us of duties.
Do e-mail to ask a specific question.
Do e-mail to ask to talk.

We're all adults.
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Matt 22:1-14

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Beginning thoughts

God does not play by our rules

Like a cat, God is just God

Do we think our everyday garment of compromise is adequate for the wedding banquet?

Should I spend any part of the sermon trying to explain that the issue isn't that God is unfair? It's that God is God.

Shouldn't we be terrified? (Thanks to BB Taylor's essay "Tales of Terror, Times of Wonder.' found on Textweek.com.)

Where is grace to be spoken here? Where is true grace?
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daily

A day that started calmly and turned wilder and busier each hour. An expected funeral consult turned into 4 hours of calling and leaving messages and calling back looking for a soloist and an organist who could play the family's requested song. During that 4 hours I made 4 hospital calls, gave blood and ate lunch. And received calls to visit the dying, arrange another funeral and come to a community organizing meeting. And dealt with a request for familiar religious music that might be familiar to both Christians and Jews. Finalized info for next Sunday. Preached at the late afternoon service. E-mailed all day. Visited the dying. Made it home to watch Heroes. I could use some superpowers. Maybe flight. not freezing people or turning into a fly.

other men

I stopped by the quilting and others group. The ladies quilt. The gentlemen talk to each other and watch the ladies quilt. They are supposed to stop for a bible study, then have potluck lunch.

Elderly gentleman 1: Aren't there any pastors here?
Elderly gentleman 2: Why, Pastor Prisca's right here!
Elderly gentleman 3: She's our favorite lady pastor.
EG1: What's she going to do here?
EG2: She's going to do the Bible Study.
Me to EG1: What's your favorite Bible story?
EG1: Noah! Love Noah!

At the end of the Bible study EG1 led grace. We went off topic several times. I won't tell his wife. He'll never hear the end of it.

little green men

I actually quoted Luther in the sermon. The text (I preached from Philippians 3) drove me to the idea of alien righteousness. So I had to find Luther on the "Two kinds of Righteousness" (which are the alien and proper kinds). And that was the theme of the sermon.

First we recognize that all we are, achieve and do is 'rubbish', and then we respond to our new track suit of grace by running the race with eyes on the prize.

Yeah, I know, mixed metaphors. For first service I did it straight. At the second service I had powerpoint and pictures - including a little green man for the alien.

There are two retired pastors in our congregation. They seemed to approve. Lutherans tend to be get queasy about santification - it's not a popular subject. Aquila in his pure Lutheran mode had a problem with including the last line of the passage from Philippians 2 for our wedding text - "work out your salvation with fear and trembling" (You can tend we were quite the serious couple way back when.)

However, perhaps our reluctance to think about 'proper righteousness' and preach on the challenges of the life lived in grace is part of our on-going problem of cheap grace. Yep, God died for me, now get out of my way.

We encounter the misapprehension of the church and the cheap grace over and over. An e-mail - I'm a member of the church but haven't been active for a long time. I'd like my child and spouse baptized. Can we do this privately? Can we do this without any pre-education? Can we do this without ever talking to one of the pastors? Can we do this without ever darkening the church door again? (I made those last two requests up).

About a year ago I met with a family who presented with 3 children and a baby. They wanted to join the church, enroll all the children in Sunday School and get the baby baptized. Great! Turns out each child was baptized in a different local church of our denomination - each about two years apart. The family had joined each church in succession. Children had never gone to Sunday School anywhere. I started to think that this had a lot to do with family stresses and shame. They were ashamed that they never followed through on their promises. I discouraged them from attaching to us and asked them first to contact their last pastor (a friend of mine, the gentlest soul in the world) and work with her about accommodating their family and it's needs. MP thought I had driven them away. But I felt that unless they heard a word - a considered and thoughtful word, not a shaming word - that asked them to reflect on the separation between their words and actions, they would never come to terms with God's call to them. They did not return. I didn't ask my friend if they came back to her church.

And then there are the 12 year olds who are dropped off on Wednesday night for confirmation who have never been to worship or to Sunday School - really, never. Those parents I get really angry at. And they are the ones we have the most issues with.

day off????

Well, something of a day off. The realtor came back to take new pictures of the house, off we go again hoping to make that change. Then back to work on the sermon. Sermons have not been flowing for a few months. Off the blog I've been collecting thoughts why that may be. I'll post them as I sort through them.

I am blessed to have a spouse who does get it - gets the day in and day out issues of parish ministry - because he once was there himself. He listens to me grouse about squeezing sermon writing in between loads of laundry, and lack of leadership and mixed signals and he just shakes his head.

My dear Aquila has worst days than any of mine in the parish. As a chaplain he's been at the Big Trauma Hospital for 6 months, and has filed more trauma reports in those 6 months than were filed in the last year. (he was asked if he was a trauma magnet) And the community had another child injured in a car accident this week. Those are times he knows he really 'does ministry' but I know he lays awake. (it's much quieter).

I think sermon writing is one of the reasons I'm beginning the blog. To practice writing - not really polished writing - but writing down the bones - as part of finding and refining my voice.

His Majesty Fuzzy the Bunny zkiller is on the keyboard! oryrrrr. Purr, Purr. Me, Me. The pure unadulterated self-centerness of the cat. Priceless

fifth week

It's a fifth week and that's a great blessing. A fifth week means that there were - not five Sundays which makes the treasurers antsy - but five Tuesdays! Five Tuesdays means I have a whole week with no meetings! Church A has committee meetings on the First Tuesday, council on the 2nd Tuesday, and Church B has council on the third Tuesday (they have meetings on the 2nd thursday)- add in Monday worship every other week. And usually on that last week.

And more blessings - confirmation is a 'service & social night' and the YDs don' need me!

The whole week at home in the evening. I don't know what to think. I estimate I work about 12 evenings out of 20 weekday possibilities in the average month. And of course, I never get home during the day with these gas prices - and it takes too long.

DH reminds me not to talk guilty. This is a normal work week for most people.

I'm making meat loaf tonight. And baked potatoes.

We are going with a realtor in our 'selling' community instead of in the working community. Hope this will draw lots of people to see and say 'this is a great house' and just right for us. I do like the guy, he's upbeat, and with 24 hours notice he did his homework to sell us, and that impressed me.

As St. Julian says: All will be well.