The GLOW Show: Theological ABCs on the Holy Spirit

During fall 2021, we explore Theological ABCs from a Lutheran perspective! Each week, we will define and discuss the words that shape our faith and their meanings. Today, we lift up H for the Holy Spirit!

Seeking: Caretaker for Grace

Grace Lutheran Church

Phoenix, Arizona

Caretaker Job Description 

Position Summary:

The caretaker cleans, oversees property maintenance and repair, sets up for events, and provides hospitality to outside groups.

Reports Directly to:

Pastor

Position Requirements:

• Integrity and Trust: Is seen as trustworthy by others; practices direct, honest, and transparent communication; admits mistakes; responds to situations with consistency and reliability; respects the autonomy of each individual; is accountable for work assigned

• Emotional Intelligence: Demonstrates strong and appropriate personal boundaries in relationships; is emotionally and spiritually mature; can maintain a non-anxious presence in the midst of turmoil; can stand in the presence of others’ strong emotions without taking responsibility for them or reacting to them externally or internally; does not hold grudges or bitterness; practices forgiveness and generosity in interpersonal relationships; values individuals’ gifts and accepts individuals’ limitations without demeaning them

• Personal Resiliency: Can shift gears comfortably; can comfortably handle risk and uncertainty; is flexible

• Attention to Detail: Follows up on missing or out of balance items; resolves unanswered questions needed to address a problem

• Time Management: Uses time effectively and efficiently; can appropriate balance priorities

• Technical Expertise: Cleans effectively; understands which skills are lacking and seeks to develop those skills; recognizes when a project is outside their scope

• Quick Response to Emergencies

Principle Accountabilities

• Clean church buildings as described in extended job description (available upon request)

• Pick up trash around exterior of church twice per day

• Set up and take down for scheduled events, open and close for scheduled events

• Provide basic maintenance for church property

• Collaborate with property team and contractors to address property projects outside their scope

To apply, email Pastor Sarah Stadler your resume and at least two references at pastorsarah@graceinthecity.com.  For questions, you may email Pastor Sarah or call her at 602-318-6876.

Sermon for Sunday, September 5

 Day of the Church Year: 15th Sunday after Pentecost

Scripture Passage: Mark 7:24-37

Friends, it’s bad.  The division among the people of this nation, the division among the people of all nations. 

In a recent visit to the ER where I learned I was just fine, a tech engaged me in conversation while conducting a simple test.  Talking about Covid-19 and his relationships with other hospital staff, he said: Back at the beginning of the pandemic, we were all on the same side, fighting for the same cause.  Now, there is division.  Though he didn’t say it, he implied that, at least at his hospital, there is division between those who are vaccinated and those who choose not to be vaccinated, a division replicated throughout our society. 

I strongly advocate for all people who are eligible for vaccination to get vaccinated.  I imagine there is a small subset of people whose doctors have recommended they do not receive the vaccine for some particular medical reason, and by all means, everyone should follow the advice of trusted medical professionals.  Still, we have learned from virologists whose expertise is the growth and mutation of viruses that vaccination is the fastest way to slow the spread of the virus and to mitigate virus mutation.  Vaccination is the way to end the suffering that has been caused by this pandemic: physical suffering, economic suffering, isolation, and the overwhelm of and chaos within hospitals that affects everyone—since we ourselves or someone we love will surely visit an ER or be admitted to a hospital at some time, just like I did two weeks ago.  Perhaps most troubling of all, like most other disasters, those who suffer the most are those with the least resources. 

The Covid-19 pandemic has fractured our community, our nation, our world.  I too am having trouble listening to those who don’t share my view because I believe that getting vaccinated is a matter of faith, love for all humanity, and justice.  Because getting vaccinated is not about us but about others, about the common good.  And tending to the common good is core to the prophecy of Old Testament prophets, to the life and teaching of Jesus, and to the writings of the Apostle Paul.  I’m having trouble these days.

In today’s Jesus story, Jesus encounters people his disciples and even he have trouble with.  People who are not Jewish; remember: Jesus and his disciples are Jewish.  People from neighboring nations: Syro-Phoenicia to the north of Galilee and Decapolis to the east.  A woman.  A woman who challenges Jesus when he insults her.  A man deaf and with a speech impediment, supposedly sinful as all people born with such conditions were considered at the time.  Jesus encounters this woman whose daughter needs healing from a demon and this man who desires hearing and speech, and instead of turning away from them because they are different than him or because he or his disciples have trouble with them, he pauses and provides for them what he provides for the crowds of Jewish people who follow him: healing, acknowledgment, even commendation.  Of course, though, the stories are more complex than that. 

Of all Jesus stories, Jesus’ encounter with the Syro-Phoenician woman reveals the tension between Jews and Gentiles, non-Jews.  Jesus outright says that only the children of Israel deserve his healing, and because the woman and her daughter are not Jewish, he initially denies her daughter healing.  To illustrate his point, Jesus calls her and her daughter dogs who should not receive the children of Israel’s food, to which she responds: “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.”  She acknowledges her status in his eyes and still cries out for his compassion.  Jesus appears to realize his mis-step, declaring: “For saying that, you may go—the demon has left your daughter.”  Jesus publicly reverses his position on the worthiness of a Gentile woman to receive healing from him.  Jesus appears to learn from the Syro-Phoenician woman that he was wrong to insult her and disregard her.  In front of his disciples and all those who may be crowding around, Jesus acknowledges the value of this woman and her daughter.  He heals her daughter, yes, but he also begins to heal the fracture between the people of Galilee and the people of Syro-Phoenicia. 

In this Jesus story, Jesus demonstrates a prejudice typical for people of his demographic, a prejudice shared by his disciples, and his prejudice has to do with characteristics that cannot be easily changed: gender, nation of origin, and religion.  And so, this story is not a perfect match to our current situation where we are divided by vaccination status.  Yet Jesus teaches us that, when we come face to face with anyone, regardless of our differences, regardless of our choices, we come face to face with a person, a person with needs and a complex story, a person whose value is not up for debate.  Not for any reason.

There are no easy answers to the division in our nation.  On Thursday evening, I commented to someone in our community: “I want to know what to do.”  She heartily agreed.  What do we do in this context?  We weren’t just talking about the division sparked by the pandemic but about natural disaster, climate change, Afghanistan, and all the other bad news stories of this week.  The words I keep coming back to are from Thomas Merton, a 20th century mystic who wrote:  “Do not depend on the hope of results.  When you are doing the sort of work you have taken on, essentially an apostolic work, you may have to face the fact that your work will be apparently worthless and even achieve no result at all, if not perhaps results opposite to what you expect.  As you get used to this idea, you start more and more to concentrate not on the results but on the value, the rightness, the truth of the work itself.  And there too a great deal has to be gone through as gradually you struggle less and less for an idea and more and more for specific people.  The range tends to narrow down, but it gets much more real.  In the end, it is the reality of personal relationships that saves everything.”

We are a divided people, a fractured nation, and I too am having trouble.  We probably all are, regardless of our opinions and vaccination status.  This week, Jesus gets real, recognizes his own mis-step, and in the end, comes face to face with the woman and her daughter, people of value.  People of value, that’s us; people of value, that’s everyone.  Thanks be to God!  Amen. 

The GLOW Show: Theological ABCs with Bishop Hutterer

During fall 2021, we explore Theological ABCs from a Lutheran perspective! Each week, we will define and discuss the words that shape our faith and their meanings. We begin with G for GRACE because the grace of God is the very center of the Christian faith from a Lutheran perspective. Our Grand Canyon Synod bishop, Rev. Deborah Hutterer, joins Pastor Sarah. Enjoy!

Summer Journey 2022

Where is God calling us to serve and build community in summer 2022? Those interested in a summer 2022 journey met, and we are discerning between two possibilities: a return to Holden Village, a Lutheran retreat center in Washington state or a mission trip to Chicago, likely staying at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago. If either of those possibilities sound like something you feel drawn to participate in, please join us on Sunday, September 19 at 12:30 pm in the North Room or via zoom for further conversation and prayer.

Here is the ZOOM information:

September 19 at 12:30 pm in the North Room or via Zoom: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/81073091323?pwd=YUVOYWJROWkrc2xFNVQ1VFh0cWthZz09, Meeting ID: 810 7309 1323

Regardless of where we go, Covid-19 vaccination will be required as well as active participation in monthly team-building sessions and regular worship attendance. Friends are most welcome to join us too—as long as they are able and willing to commit to the same expectations. For questions, please talk with Pastor Sarah.

Sermon for Sunday, August 29

Day of the Church Year: 14th Sunday after Pentecost

Scripture Passage: Mark 7:1-9, 14-15, 21-23

Each Christmas, my parents, my sister and her family, and I gather like many families do.  From the time I was 8 years old until just a few years ago, we ate the same foods every Christmas Eve: hors d’oeuvres.  Lefsa with butter and sugar, lefsa being a Norwegian potato flatbread, sausages cooked in a fondue pot with a sauce, sausages that we stabbed with toothpicks to serve, little Norwegian meatballs, crackers and cheese, a veggie tray, deviled eggs, and krum kaka which is an impressive trumpet-shaped Norwegian waffle cookie.  Every year the same.  When my family started this tradition, my dad was serving as pastor at a church where we had a Christmas Eve service at 4:00 pm and then a Christmas Eve service at 8:00 pm which meant that we had to celebrate Christmas between 5:30 and 7:30 pm.  While all the families in our little town sat down to large turkey dinners, my mother reasoned that it would be far easier to put together all the hors d’oeuvres the day before, cover them in plastic, set them in the refrigerator, and quickly warm up the hot items just before eating—since we had so little time in between services.  The next day, Christmas Day, blizzard or not, we drove to Minneapolis to celebrate with my mom’s side of the family.  Then came the year I moved here, the year we scratched our heads and tried to figure out how to celebrate on Christmas Eve with the worship schedule of not only Spirit of Hope Lutheran Church in Mesa where my dad served as pastor but also Grace’s worship schedule.  It finally dawned on us that could celebrate on Christmas Day, instead of Christmas Eve, since we all lived here and didn’t need to travel.  For several years, we continued to dutifully prepare deviled eggs, a veggie tray, and sausages even though the reason for this tradition no longer existed.   It took us several more years to realize that we could eat whatever we wanted because we were no longer constrained by church service times.

We likely all have similar traditions in our families, things we do a certain way that we started for a practical reason that then became just what we always do.  Even when the practical reason for the tradition ends, we keep our traditions alive.  Traditions such as these show up not only in our families but in our churches, in our workplaces, in our schools, in our government.  Traditions that began as a practical solution to a problem that no longer needs solving.  For instance, throughout most of the 500 year history of the Lutheran church, we have received Holy Communion every Sunday which may surprise you.  Theologically and liturgically, the centrality of Holy Communion in Lutheran worship makes sense both because Luther was originally Roman Catholic where Holy Communion is central to mass and because Luther taught that we should receive Holy Communion at every opportunity.  Holy Communion at every Sunday service was commonplace in all Lutheran churches everywhere until Europeans began to settle in what is now the United States.  Because settlements grew slowly, there were not enough Lutheran pastors to serve all the little Lutheran congregations planted in the countrysides of the Midwest and east coast.  Instead, pastors would preach and serve Holy Communion at Church A on the first Sunday of the month, at Church B on the second Sunday of the month, and so on, sometimes with as many as six congregations in one pastor’s circuit.  The tradition that developed to accommodate the shortage of clergy during the settling of the US was having Holy Communion once per month instead of every week.  In 2006, the ELCA worship office published a small book entitled The Use of the Means of Grace to set standards for Lutheran worship, and one of the standards was Holy Communion every week.  A cry arose among many Lutherans: we’ve never done it that way before!  To which I laughed and laughed.

Today in the gospel of Mark, the Pharisees question why Jesus’ disciples don’t follow the tradition of hand washing before eating.  The Pharisees aren’t concerned about hygiene; they’re concerned about spiritual defilement as defined by the tradition of the elders.  You understand, hand washing is not prescribed in scripture.  Hand washing is not central to loving God and loving neighbor as ourselves.  Well, except during a pandemic.  Hand washing is a tradition of the elders, and while the Pharisees may be uncomfortable with Jesus’ disciples failing to honor that particular tradition, the disciples do not defile themselves.  For Jesus says in response: There is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile.  Or in other words: one cannot spiritually defile themselves by eating with unwashed hands.  Rather, the evil intentions of our hearts defile us.  Jesus frees his disciples from traditions that no longer serve them.

And Jesus frees us from traditions that no longer serve us.  Sometimes, traditions can feel binding, sometimes comforting.  But if our only reason for doing or not doing something in particular is: “we’ve never done it that way before,” today’s story from Mark reminds us that Jesus seeks for his disciples and for us what leads to life.  Just parenthetically here, please don’t eat with unwashed hands.  That actually could be harmful.  But there may be other traditions that bind us today, that no longer serve us, either individually or communally.  We are free to let them go. 

Just yesterday, a few of us visited Beth El synagogue near 12th Avenue and Glendale as part of our education series Honoring Our Neighbor’s Faith.  Beth El is a conservative Jewish synagogue, and we joined a small portion of their congregation in-person—with others online, just like we do here—for their weekly shabbat service.  When we spoke with the rabbi after the service, I asked about some of the traditions of the synagogue and of the conservative branch of Judaism.  I was surprised when she, the rabbi, responded: “Well, we traditionally do this, (she described some of their traditions) but nowadays, we don’t really need to do that anymore.”  She spoke of the incredible importance of the Torah, the first five books of the Bible, for her and her community and the less important traditions of the elders.  Since I was already pondering Jesus’ words from Mark, I appreciated her clarity.  For her and her community, what really matters is the Torah.  Everything else is gravy. 

So it is for us. Jesus seeks for us what leads to life and that is the law of love—love for God, neighbor, and self.  He frees us from all else.  Thanks be to God!  Amen. 

Sermon for Sunday, August 22

Day of the Church Year: 13th Sunday after Pentecost

Scripture Passage: John 6:56-69

When I first read this passage from John this week, the image that flashed through my mind was me at age 21.  In college.  In chapel.  I went to a Lutheran college where we had chapel services Monday through Friday at 10 am.  Being a church girl, I regularly attended these chapel services and participated in a variety of campus ministry groups and activities.  I was also majoring in religion, being challenged by my professors, and having my mind expanded by all I was reading and discussing, especially feminist theology.  So, chapel was tricky.  Twenty minutes of song, Bible reading, prayer, and sermon, and I got stuck on the patriarchy of the Bible and masculine metaphors used for God.  Twenty minutes, and I was infuriated by what I considered bad theology in the liturgy.  Only twenty minutes, yet I sometimes got up and left before the end.  It was just too difficult.

After Jesus shares the hard teaching we have heard and studied the last four weeks, about eating his flesh and drinking his blood, the followers of Jesus complain.  The teaching is too difficult.  Many of Jesus’ followers turn back and no longer travel with him.  And then, Jesus asks those who remain: Do you also wish to go away?

When I was 21 and excusing myself from worship on the regular, I thought that I might leave the church.  I despaired of the injustice I saw woven into our liturgies.  I wondered if there was a place for me in the church with my questions, doubts, and anger.  In truly humorous fashion, that very same year, God called me to serve as a pastor.  On my least favorite day of the church year, Good Friday, in the middle of worship, actually at the point when I was devising a plan in my head about how to respectfully exit the worship space, I suddenly knew that God had called me to serve as a pastor.  And I knew the decision had been made and that it was the right decision because God had made the decision and not me.  Over twenty years later, I realize it’s a given that the church is going to fail to some extent in following Jesus because the church is the people.  And we are going to fail.  But this need not deter me—or us—from following Jesus.  To forgive and love people as we are is, indeed, a large part of following Jesus.  I no longer wish to go away.

Lutheran doctrine states that we are saved by grace through faith apart from works for the sake of Christ.  There is nothing we can do or not do to be saved.  Whether we follow Jesus or not has no bearing on our salvation.  And so, Jesus’ question is genuine and even kind: Do you also wish to go away?  Because you can if you wish.  God will not love you less.     

Following Jesus does not mean an absence of questions, doubts, or struggles.  We know from the gospels that Jesus’ first followers had plenty of questions, doubts, and struggles.  They frequently did not understand what Jesus was talking about in parables.  Judas betrayed Jesus.  Peter denied him.  Every one of them abandoned Jesus when he needed them most on the night of his arrest.  Still, as they pondered Jesus’ complex parables, they also literally followed him as he traveled and ministered.  Still, over what we now call Holy Saturday, the time between Good Friday and Easter Sunday, the disciples gathered in the upper room, together, to live among God’s faithful people, as we would say two thousand years later.  After Easter Sunday and Jesus’ ascension, the disciples received the Holy Spirit and got to work building the church: preaching, teaching, gathering community, healing, caring for those in need.  And for all this, they received in return persecution, skepticism, and conflict about the inclusion of Gentiles, meaning non-Jewish people, among those who followed Jesus. 

Jesus asks his disciples today: Do you also wish to go away?  Because life following Jesus is honestly difficult, for the disciples, a life of persecution, for them and all of us, a life of forgiveness, loving our enemies, working for justice and peace, serving all people, giving up our ego and practicing humility.  Jesus’ question is for all of us.  Do you wish to go away, to no longer follow Jesus?  If the answer is yes, it is understandable.  Not only does Jesus compel us to give of ourselves, we live in a world where bad things happen to good people, where we are beset by pandemic and violence and natural disaster, where illness and death are ever present, where we have lots of questions and many fewer answers.  In this world, perhaps following Jesus just doesn’t make sense.

In response to Jesus’ question, Peter says neither no nor yes but instead asks: Lord, to whom shall we go?  You have the words of eternal life.

My last year of seminary, I did not have any commitments or obligations on Sunday mornings.  I remember thinking: This is the last time until retirement I’ll be able to sleep in on Sundays.  Still, each Sunday, I got up and walked across 55th Street to attend worship at Augustana Lutheran Church.  To be honest with you, very few of my classmates attended worship that year, and I was annoyed with myself, asking myself: why are you going to worship?  Very soon, you will have to go to church every Sunday morning!  But I couldn’t help myself.  I needed to hear the words of eternal life.  I wanted to follow Jesus.  I still do.  For no one else has the words of eternal life.  Thanks be to God!  Amen.

Sermon for Sunday, August 15

Day of the Church Year: 12th Sunday after Pentecost

Scripture Passage: John 6:51-58

The pyramids of Egypt, the cathedrals of Europe, vast oceans, mountain ranges extending hundreds or even thousands of miles, the noblest of capitols and monuments.  These and others are, for us, some of the most grounding, solid places into which we sink our feet.  As we rotate on the axis of Earth and spin through space around the sun, as we consider the reality of where we are in the grand scheme of physics and human history, we feel appropriately small and appropriately awed by all that stands the test of time, like the tide that has come in and gone out every day for billions of years.

On a smaller scale, we recognize and celebrate longevity: 50th wedding anniversaries, Grace’s centennial, 245 years we have been seeking life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness in the United States of America, 2000 years that Jesus’ followers have told that old, old story of Jesus and his love. 

I would venture to guess most of us consider this planet one of the most enduring aspects of our lives.  At least in our solar system, it appears that no other planet is as conducive to human life or life at least as we define it than any other planet.  However, with the release of the UN climate report this week, we may no longer ignore Earth’s fragility.  While Earth itself will likely adapt to the changes wrought by rising carbon emissions, humans’ ability to live on Earth, at least with relative ease, is diminishing in unprecedented fashion.  Suddenly, Earth as home to humans is not something to take for granted.  To put it simply: even the most steadfast aspects of our lives are temporary.  Buildings crumble.  Relationships end.  People die.  Nations divide.  Institutions collapse.  Even Earth changes dramatically, and one day, the sun will no longer burn which will bring an end to our solar system (not for 5 billion more years.  Don’t worry). 

And that is why Jesus’ words in the gospel of John—not just today but throughout the gospel—astonish us and ground us.  When Nicodemus visits Jesus at night, Jesus teaches: For God so loved the world that God gave the Son so that whoever believes in him may not perish but may have everlasting life.  When Jesus meets the Samaritan woman at the well, he tells her: The water that I will give will become in those who drink it a spring of water gushing up to eternal life. Today, when the Jewish leaders question Jesus about eating his body and drinking his blood, Jesus says: The one who eats this bread will live forever.

In the gospel of John, when Jesus talks about eternal life, he talks not just about afterlife, not just about what happens after we die.  He talks about life now, right now, and life into the future, the future beyond death.  Eternal life, according to Jesus, looks not like the heavenly vision of Revelation 21, a city of pure gold adorned with jewels.  In the gospel of John, eternal life is not a place at all but a relationship, a relationship with God where we abide in God and God in us.  Our relationship with God that begins now continues through our lifetimes and after, beyond the stretch of our family line, beyond life on this planet, beyond any time that we can measure. 

Jesus invites his disciples into relationship, into eternal life because, remember, eternal life begins now.  Jesus teaches the disciples: “Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me, and I in them.”  For the disciples, abiding in Jesus was clearer, simpler because he stood before them.  What might it mean for us to abide in Jesus?  To remain engaged in relationship with Jesus? 

We discussed this as a group.

For me, Jesus’ words through these four weeks of the Bread of Life Discourse have steered me toward Holy Communion.  In Holy Communion, we receive bread and wine, yes, but also Christ’s body and blood.  We take Christ’s own body into our bodies.  Christ abides in us. 

I confess I am late to the party on a key theological point here about how we, then, abide in Christ.  Post Jesus’ ascension, we are now the body of Christ on earth.  I mean, I knew this mystically, but I didn’t get it until just yesterday that we, physically, literally are the body of Christ on earth.  Not individually but communally.  Together, we are the hands and feet of Christ.  So we abide in Christ by living among God’s faithful people, by simply entering into relationship with one another, by building community.

Jesus invites the disciples to abide in him not in order to receive eternal life, not as a quid pro quo arrangement.  NOT we come to worship and receive communion and THEN Jesus gives us eternal life.  No.  The abiding itself is the eternal life—according to Jesus in the gospel of John. 

The invitation to abide that we may enter eternal life now and into the future, even beyond death, means that the lives we live right now have profound meaning, means that we are not simply biding our time until we meet God face to face in heaven one day.  We meet God every day.  For as we abide in God, God abides in us.  Thanks be to God!  Amen.

Fall Prayer Retreat

Our annual fall prayer retreat at Emmanuel Pines Camp near Prescott will be Friday, October 1-Sunday, October 3. We will study the beatitudes under the theme “Plan B: Faith in Motion.” Cost per person is $120. Please RSVP ASAP to Carol Staffieri or Pastor Sarah.

Summer Journey 2022

We will consider mission trip/soul journey/spiritual adventure possibilities for summer 2022 for people of all ages on Sunday, August 29 at 12:30 pm in the North Room and via zoom.  Come with ideas, friends, and enthusiasm!

Zoom Link:

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86283851139?pwd=YUswZkVaYURJbW5oenoxcGVUUlQyZz09

Meeting ID: 862 8385 1139

Passcode: 572642

Daily Outreach Ministry

Our daily outreach ministry will continue in a minimal form in order to ensure the hydration and basic comfort of those in our community.

Water Ministry & Bathrooms Available / M, T, W, Fr / 9:00 am-12:00 pm / NW gate

Sandwiches & Snacks / M, T, W, Fr / 11:30 am-12:00 pm / NW gate

If you have a morning available when you would like to tend the water and sandwich & snack ministry or monitor the restrooms from 9:00 am until 12:00 pm, please be in touch with Adrienne at officemanager@graceinthecity.com.

The GLOW Show: How Can I Keep From Singing with Joey & Gabe

Over summer 2021 on The GLOW Show, we hear about the favorite hymns and songs of members of the Grace community. Hymnody and praise music are two ways we articulate our faith and have our faith formed. If you would like to share about your favorite hymn or praise song, please be in touch with Pastor Sarah. Today, Joey Lay and Gabe Saldivar share about their favorite spiritual songs, Shout to the Lord and Poor Wayfaring Stranger. Enjoy!