MUSTARD SEED FAITH

Ezekiel 17:22-24 -- The sign of the cedar, planted on the mountain of Israel
2 Corinthians 5:6-10 [11-13] 14-17 -- In Christ, a new creation
Mark 4:26-34 -- The parable of the mustard seed              

                Well, it has been a quiet week in Lake Wobegon, MN, my home town.  The only sound breaking the silence of that sleepy village on this past Thursday afternoon was the roar of David Engqvist’s chain saw, then the celebrated shout of “Timber!”  Then the whump of a tree as it crashes to the ground and the subsequent cry of “Uf dah!” from the rather inexperienced lumberjacks.

                Ever since his retirement as the pastor of Lake Wobegon Lutheran Church, David Engqvist has been looking for projects around his lake cottage to keep himself busy.  Right along the lakeshore was a fairly tall tree that had died several years ago.  He had wanted to cut it down while the wood was still good and before it got all rotten and fell down on its own.

                So he called his brother, Rupert, to come up to Lake Wobegon from the twin cities and give him a hand.  With former parishioners making comments like, “I sure hope he has more skill with that chain saw than he did delivering sermons,” he realized he could use a little assistance.  David would operate the chain saw and Rupert would be the brains of the project.  Not wanting the tree to fall back into the lake, Rupert attached a rope to the upper part of the tree to guide it more toward the cottage so the guys could then work on it across the back lawn.  David had eyeballed the height of the tree and estimated that if Rupert pulled the falling tree just a little to the left, it would land just short of the back deck of the cottage.  The plan would have worked perfectly if it weren’t for a significant miscalculation of the height of the tree.

                There were actually two shouts of “Oh no!”  Now, “Oh no” is the PG-rated translation of the Norwegian phrase, “Uf dah!”  The first shout came when both men realized at about the same time, right after impact, that the top of the tree was crashing down on the Engqvist’s back deck.  The second “Oh no!” came from Rupert when he saw the base of the tree kick back from its stump and catch his brother, David, square on his chest.  Thankfully, the chain saw went flying as did David who was propelled rear end first into Lake Wobegon.

                Knowing that he had a safe water landing, David realized that the worst scenario was the smashing of all of his wife, Judy’s, potted plants on the deck railing.  Most of the pots and the plants in them had been crushed and destroyed.  But one – a particularly hardy geranium – has not only survived the whipping leaves and branches of the fallen tree; but its knobby, ragged stems had protected what was discovered to be a bird’s nest inside the pot.  And inside the nest was one undisturbed egg.

                What sounded like the great and final apocalypse to Judy had awakened her from her afternoon nap.  She slid open the deck door at the same time as her soggy husband climbed up the deck stairs from the yard.  There they both found Rupert tenderly holding the bird’s nest in his hands.  Now David and Judy had spent many hours feeding and watching the birds, don’tcha know, and had become fairly adept at recognizing and identifying all the different birds and their eggs.  Any anger Judy might have had due to the repeated ineptitude of her husband was quickly dispelled by the awareness that this survivor was the egg of the very rare schroon bird – a cross between a screech owl and a loon.  Defying the threat of extinction, this little geranium had protected this tiniest of eggs from the fall of a mighty cedar tree.  Well, the story grows better every time it’s told, don’tcha know.

                “It’s a miracle!’ said the pastor.  “No,” he added, “more than a miracle.  It’s a metaphor of faith and life.”

                “What ch’you talking about?” joked his brother.

                “Sure,” the pastor went on.  “It’s just like the parable of Jesus when he compared the kingdom of God to a mustard bush.  Judy, she is like God.”

                “Oh my,” said his blushing wife.

                “See, she planted a tiny seed and tended to the soil and the water so that the geranium would grow strong and healthy.  Rupert, you and I are like sin and pride, the work of the devil.”

                “Wait, what?” Rupert asked.

                “Sure, we were so impressed by the great size of this cedar of Lebanon and thought that we could reap huge benefits from its great store of wood.”

                “Well, that might be what you were thinking,” he retorted.

                “Yes, and look what happened.  Our actions caused destruction and injury, not just to the mighty cedar, but to me and my deck and Judy’s plants.  But God had provided a simple, small geranium plant to protect one of God’s valuable creatures.  Two of God’s valuable creatures: that egg and me!”

                “You don’t have to tell me, brother Dave.  I thought you could have been killed by that tree or drowned in the lake.”

                When I heard about this incident from my folks back home, I thought, “that old preacher is still pretty sharp, don’tcha know.”  How often is God’s mercy and grace shown not in the grand and impressive, not in the biggest and most beautiful, not in the high and mighty; but in the small and lowly who simply do what they were meant to do.  Jesus knew that massive cedar trees didn’t grow in Israel.  Lebanon was envied for have such a rich supply of strong wood.

                And mustard bushes weren’t even allowed to grow inside the cities because they were like a weed growing in the barren desert.  Their wood was good for nothing, certainly not for building.  But they produced a staple spice which makes any bratwurst taste better, if you ask me.  And they provided shade and shelter for the birds of the air.  And, in this case, a hope for the future of the schroons.  And Jesus wanted every person, every single creature, to know that each is loved and important in the eyes of God.

                Judy cleaned off the deck and bought new potted plants to decorate the repaired deck railings.  Rupert and David sawed up the tree in the back yard for firewood for the campfire pit down by the lake.  And the Norwegian Wildlife Preservation Society took care of the schroon egg and gave it proper incubation for a healthy hatching.  And now people in town laugh to themselves when they think of Pastor Engqvist attempting to cut down a tree.  But now they know that indeed he does have more skill at delivering sermon than he has operating a chain saw.

                That’s because preaching is what he, in his own small way, was always meant to do because that’s his mustard seed of faith.

                And that’s the news from Lake Wobegon, where all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average.  AMEN.

Rev. James Slater

Emanuel Lutheran Church – Stuyvesant Falls, NY

St. Luke’s Lutheran Church – Valatie, NY

 

June 14, 2015

ADVENT ALARMS

ADVENT ALARMS

The Second Sunday of Advent

Isaiah 40: 1-11
II Peter 3: 8-15
Mark 1: 1-8

               

                Well, it has been a quiet week in Lake Wobegon, MN, my home town.  A little bit of snow, a little freezing rain, seems to cut down on the activities of my little village.  People don’t seem as hardy or find winter as enjoyable as I did when I was a kid growing up in Lake Wobegon.  Why, I remember one winter we had 110 inches of snow just in the month of December!  Sure, Buffalo, NY got five feet of snow in one storm, but it all melted away the next day.  Once it snows in central Minnesota, it just keeps adding on.

                But there is one thing that will lure people out of their warm homes and cozy cabins at this time of year no matter what the weather – Santa!  Every year, on the Saturday closest to Saint Nicholas Day (December 6) which was yesterday, the Sons of Knute hold their breakfast with Sinter Klaus at the Lake Wobegon Lutheran Church because the lodge hall is way too small for the crowds of people who attend.  Even the church hall was packed with families with little children all waiting for their chance to sit on the lap of Sinter Klaus and tell him what they hoped to find in their shoes on Christmas morning.

                And there is nothing that can break the lethargy of a sleepy village or the revelry of a pancake and bacon breakfast like a fire alarm.  That will make your heart jump, don’tcha know!  Everybody in the church hall had to be evacuated into the freezing drizzle, all except for Evelyn Lundblat’s yoga class which was in such a deep meditation in one of the Sunday School classrooms that they had no idea what was going on.

                Pastor Liz heard the alarm while writing her sermon for today in the parsonage and threw on a coat to run over to the church to see what she could do to help.  At the same time the fire trucks arrived, Barbara Soderberg’s knitting circle was arriving at the church and none of them could find a place to park.  It was a mess of chaos and confusion.

                “All clear,” announced Ole Olson, chief of the Hosers, what the Lake Wobegon fire department members called themselves.  “No fire,” he said, “just too much smoke in the kitchen.”  An alarm of danger and an announcement of relief.

                Isaiah, the Old Testament prophet, spoke of a voice crying in the wilderness.  It was an alarm – shocking the people of Israel to be alert to the dangers of their sinfulness.  It was a call to repentance to return to the proper priorities in their lives, to focus on the word and the will of God.  And it was a wonderful word of comfort that, with God, all will be well.

                David and Judy Engqvist missed all the excitement at the church he once served as pastor for 35 years.  They had traveled to the Mayo Clinic where Judy was having surgical work done on her heart.  For the patient herself, the day of surgery can be nothing but an anesthetized blur, but for those who wait and watch (quite the Advent theme) every hour can seem like 1,000 years.  David was given a pager like they have at Steve’s Seafood Shanty at the north point of Lake Wobegon, that would flash and buzz when there was a message for him.  It made him, however, rather hungry for a fresh walleye, fries and a Wendy’s beer.

                As time plodded on, David’s eyelids became very heavy and droopy and was surprised by a poke on his arm and a voice in the wilderness of the waiting room saying, “Sir, sir, your pager is buzzing.”  David’s heart jumped in his chest.  Sure enough, he was being summoned to attend a class for all family members of surgical patients.  It was a presentation designed to prepare you for what to expect when your loved one comes out of surgery and you have your first visit in the Intensive Care Unit.

                First, they prepare you for the worst (no, not sausage).  There will be tubes and wires coming from her mouth and nose, arms and chest, connecting her to complicated machines and monitors.  Patients will still be groggy under the influence of anesthesia. She will have a swollen face, hands and feet.  The gauze on her chest will be protecting a stitched incision down through her broken breast bone.  Visitors may stay for no more than ten minutes and stay out of the way of the busy ICU staff.  A voice of warning, but also a voice of comfort: Don’t worry, your loved one is in the most capable and skillful hands of the best doctors, nurse, and technicians.  With rest and treatment and trained cardiac care, you will see improvement each day.  It was an alarm of warning and preparation and a word of future hope and healing.

                Back in the waiting area, David took out his Advent devotions.  It was amazing, but true, how often those devotional words seemed to speak directly to what he was going through.  The scripture reading was from Isaiah 40.  Maybe not as dramatic as a fire alarm or as shocking as a poke on the arm that wakes you from your slumber, but here was an announcement of good news he needed to hear.  It spoke a word of comfort – the prophet begins by calming down those who worry and wait.  Things may seem scary and dangerous, but God is going to walk with you.  If God’s promise was to walk with you through the valley of the shadow of death, then certainly through the valley of scary surgery as well.  And the valleys will be lifted up and the mountains leveled; and the broken hearts will be mended and the damaged values replaced, and the glory of the Lord will be revealed.

                What seemed like 1,000 years later, the pager buzzed and flashed.  The pager had the name of John the Baptizer.  He was a voice in the wilderness crying out, “Prepare ye the way of the Lord.”  The good will of God for all people would be accomplished through the one whom John announced, “Behold, the lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.”  In the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, God would usher in a new heaven and a new earth, as the apostle writes in 2 Peter; and will create in us a new heart.

                That was God’s word for his wife, Judy.  It didn’t make his heart jump.  It made his heart rejoice!

                And he couldn’t help but smile and even laugh to himself as he read further in Isaiah.  “All people are grass,“ cries the prophet.  David remembered that “grass” was once the favorite word of his daughter when she was two years old.  It was her answer to every question and she thought it was hilarious.  She even worked it into the liturgy of the new green book they were learning at that time: “Lord God, hebendly king, almight God, da vater, we worship you, we give you grass.”  And then she would squeal with delight.  But the grass withers and the flower fades.  The announcement of good news through Jesus, however, is not just temporary.  It is not just for our immediate concerns.  It is eternal.  “The grass withers and the flower fades, but the word of our God endures forever.”

                Isaiah concludes, “He will feed his flock like a shepherd and gather the lambs in his arms and gently lead the mother sheep.”  BUZZ!  David’s pager was flashing.  He went to see the nurse at the desk.  “The alarm went off,” he told her.

                “Yes, Mr. Engqvist,” she replied.  “I’ll take your pager now.  Your wife’s surgery is over.  You may go see her now.”

                And that’s the news from Lake Wobegon, where all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average.  AMEN.

Rev. James Slater

Emanuel Lutheran Church – Stuyvesant Falls, NY

St. Luke’s Lutheran Church – Valatie, NY

 

December 7, 2014