Sixth Sunday after Pentecost
Good Shepherd Lutheran Church
Decorah, Iowa
Rev. Amy Zalk Larson

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Beloved of God, grace to you and peace in the name of Jesus.

Did you catch all the joy in the scripture readings today? These texts are overflowing with just extravagant rejoicing. There is abundant joy busting out all over the place.

The prophet Isaiah proclaims to the people living in exile, “You shall go out in joy, and be led back in peace; the mountains and the hills before you shall burst into song, and all the trees of the field shall clap their hands.”

The Psalmist praises God saying, “You make the dawn and the dusk to sing for joy. May the meadows cover themselves with flocks, and the valleys cloak themselves with grain; let them shout for joy and sing.” 

Paul proclaims good news of great joy to the Romans, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” 

And Jesus tells a vast crowd a parable about a sower who goes out to sow. This sower flings seeds everywhere with joyful abandon, and they bring forth an incredibly bountiful harvest.

All this exultation may seem a little disconnected from the challenges we are facing today. How can we rejoice as the pandemic surges, as loud, angry voices rage, as people prioritize their own comfort over the common good, as racial injustice persists? Extravagant joy and delight feel out of reach and a little inappropriate, maybe. We’ve got some big issues to address after all. Our Gospel reading today does paint a vivid picture of our human challenges. We’ve got a lot of hard, thorny, and rocky soil within us. The conditions are not so good for growth and change.

Evil and sin eat away at the truth and it doesn’t flourish in our lives. We hear a summons to justice and receive it eagerly, but it doesn’t really take root. As soon as something hard is asked of us, we turn away. We want to do what is right, but the cares and lures of this world are persistent thorns that block our growth.

The landscape is pretty bleak. When you look closely at the human condition, there’s not a lot of cause for rejoicing. There’s much that can lead to despair, judgement and anger – at ourselves and others. So, we better get to work digging and fertilizing and tending the soil to try to improve ourselves and others, right? We should attack those thorns and clear out those rocks and not be afraid to get our hands dirty. Maybe, but as anyone who’s spent time gardening or farming knows, soil can’t make itself into good soil. It can’t weed out the thorns or clear away the rocks within itself. Soil can’t just pick up and move to a less trodden path.

The good news is that this parable isn’t instructing us about how to be better soil. It isn’t telling us how we should improve the landscape around us. This parable is about Jesus, an extravagantly generous sower who scatters seed with abandon. This sower flings the seed of God’s word everywhere – the word of justice and mercy, challenge, forgiveness and love, the word that changes lives and brings new life.

This sower doesn’t storm around angrily declaring, “You better clean up your act if you want any hope of change.” He doesn’t shake his head muttering, “Can you believe this thorny, rocky, shallow soil?” The sower doesn’t even do a careful analysis of the soil to determine where the seed has the best chance at growth. Common sense would say you shouldn’t sow seed on the path, or the rocky or thorny ground.  You should conserve and be frugal and sow just enough seed only on the good soil. 

This sower approaches the human landscape very differently. He goes out walking, sowing seeds everywhere. Author Debie Thomas has helped me to picture this extravagant sower, Jesus.^[1] She writes, “Imagine it — a sower blissfully walking across the fields and meadows, the back alleys and sidewalks, the playgrounds and parking lots of this world, fistfuls of seed in his quick-to-open hands. There is no way to contain that much seed. No way to sort or save it. Of course, it will spill over. Of course, it will fall through his fingers and cover the ground. Of course, it will scatter in every direction. How can it not?”

The good news is that this marvelous seed, the seed of God’s word, does work change. People are changed, we are changed, when we hear of God’s love, God’s mercy, God’s justice, God’s welcome.

This good news of great joy matters in the world. “God’s Word will go out from God’s mouth and accomplish what God purposes for it, no matter where it lands … God has an endless ability to soften hard ground, clear away rocks, and cut through the most stubborn of thorns to make way for a harvest.”^[2] God is at work in the soil of your life, in the soil of our world to bring growth.

With such an extravagant sower flinging this good news everywhere, we can let go of our own despair at the human condition. We can instead practice abundance and joy. Debie Thomas writes,

“How I wish that the Church was known for its absurd generosity. How I wish we were famous for being like the Sower, going out in joy, scattering seed before and behind us in the widest arcs our arms can make …. How I wish the people in our lives could see a quiet, gentle confidence in us when we tend to the hard, rocky, thorny places in our communities, instead of finding us abrasive, judgmental, exacting, and insular. How I wish seeds of love, mercy, justice, humility, honor, and truthfulness would fall through our fingers in such appalling quantities that even the birds, the rocks, the thorns, and the shallow, sun-scorched corners of the world would burst into colorful, riotous, joyous life.”^[3]

Beloved of God, we do have hard work to do in this world. Yet, we also have an extravagant sower who scatters love and forgiveness, joy and abundance freely and fully into our lives, into your life. When you consider the landscape and are tempted to despair, fix your eyes on the sower and rejoice. Open your hands, lift up your heads and bask in this joyful abundance. Let it flow through you to this world God so loves.

^[1] The Extravagant Sower by Debie Thomas posted on JourneywithJesus. net https://www.journeywithjesus.net/lectionary-essays/current-essay?id=2687

^[2] Ibid.

^[3] Ibid.

Fifth Sunday after Pentecost
Good Shepherd Lutheran Church
Decorah, Iowa
Rev. Amy Zalk Larson

Click here to read scripture passages for the day.

Beloved of God, grace to you and peace in the name of Jesus.

There is a lot going on in this passage, but I want to invite you to again hear Jesus’ words near the end of the passage and imagine Jesus speaking them directly to you. Jesus says to you today: Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.

Beloved of God, I know you are weary and burdened today. Jesus knows you are weary and burdened. Jesus gives you rest. Receive this rest and this care today.

Please don’t diminish your own weariness, your own burdens by saying, “I know others have it so much worse.” Don’t fall into the trap of comparative suffering. Emotions researcher Brene Brown describes how comparative suffering happens. She writes, “Fear and scarcity immediately trigger comparison, and even pain and hurt are not immune to being assessed and ranked.” In this time when fear and scarcity are rampant, we are so often engaging in this comparative suffering, saying things like, “I shouldn’t complain about the family reunion being cancelled because others have lost family members.” “I’m overwhelmed by the challenges of my job during a pandemic, but it could be so much worse – I could be unemployed.” “The pain of black Americans is so great so why am I complaining?”

Brene Brown points out that comparative suffering comes from the belief that empathy is finite, the idea that If you practice empathy and kindness with yourself, you will have less to give for the people who really need it.

But empathy doesn’t work that way. When we practice empathy for ourselves and others, we create more empathy. The ER doctor in Texas doesn’t benefit more if you conserve your kindness only for her and withhold it from yourself or from your neighbor who is lonely. The family of George Floyd doesn’t benefit more if you just ignore your own pain right now. Certainly, we do need to practice perspective as we consider our own struggles and the pain of the world. We do need to be aware of our own privilege and work to dismantle it. Yet, when we acknowledge our own pain, it can help open us to the pain of others.

I saw this at work last Sunday when we had a Zoom Adult Forum on White Privilege in the ELCA. Our facilitator, Jon Ailabouni, read a list of the privileges that most European Americans experience in the ELCA and people of color do not. These include things like: “When I enter the church office, I am not given directions to the food shelf unless I ask for them;” “When I read Scripture in church, no one congratulates me on being “so articulate.” Jon asked us to listen to the 26 statements and discern for ourselves, ‘yes’ or ‘no’, if we felt we had these privileges. Some of the women and LGBTQ people in the group had higher levels of ‘no’ answers. For instance, as a clergy woman, as I reflect on my experience in the larger church, I said ‘no’ to 5 statements, including: “It is not likely that people will talk over me when I am trying to share;” and “People are rarely surprised by the fact that I am employed or by my choice of career.”

I was struck that those who had said ‘no’ to some statements had a deep empathy for how difficult it is to feel welcome as a person of the color in most ELCA congregations. An awareness of their struggle with feeling excluded helped to open them to the pain of others, it made them want to be even more welcoming to others.

So please dear ones, don’t feel you need to ration empathy and love, practice it for yourself and for others. Empathy is not finite. It grows as we receive it and offer it.

Today hear and receive Jesus’ words to you, “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.” Notice, too, that the rest Jesus gives us isn’t escape from the world. Jesus says we are to take his yoke upon ourselves and learn from him. We are to take up his work of loving God and loving others and loving this hurting world wholeheartedly – with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. We are to join Jesus’ work of healing and redeeming the world. Jesus says that this yoke is easy and that this burden is light. Sometimes I want to say really Jesus? It doesn’t always feel that way.

Loving others, loving this world wholeheartedly, feels really hard some days, most days right now, actually. It feels heavy and wearisome to try to be responsible and community-minded during this pandemic, especially when so many are choosing not to act the same. It feels heavy and wearisome to try to address white privilege when so many won’t even acknowledge it exists within our congregation, community and country.

Yet, when Jesus calls us to take up his yoke, he is saying we don’t have to do this work of loving the world alone. He is reminding us that we are yoked with him the way one ox is yoked with another so they can pull in tandem. We don’t have to do the work of loving the world on our own. Instead, we are joined to this work with Jesus.

And as my friend Stacey Nalean-Carlson puts it, “Yoked with Christ—united with him in baptism—there is no burden we carry that isn’t shared by him. The full weight is never ours to bear alone.” She also points out that, “We also learn from the one whose yoke we wear.  Jesus is gentle and humble in heart. The Greek word translated here as ’humble’ describes one who depends on the Lord rather than self, one who is God-reliant rather than self-reliant.* We learn from Jesus how to entrust all our burdens to God. On the cross, as Jesus bore the full weight of loving this world to the end, he cried out to God, “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit” (Luke 23:46). Jesus lived and died – loved and lost, wept and rejoiced – relying on God’s love for him and for the world.” Yoked with him we learn how to do this. He shares our burdens as we do this.

And as Pr. Stacey says so beautifully, “When I picture being yoked with Jesus, I actually imagine an endless yoke circling around the world, all God’s people united by Christ – the church on earth and the church in heaven – carrying that burden of love for the world together.”

Beloved of God, you who are weary and heavy laden, Jesus gives you rest.
You are yoked with Christ Jesus and with all God’s people.
There is no burden you carry that is not shared.
Receive Christ’s love and compassion for you today.

Remember you are joined with Christ Jesus and Christ’s church as you share that compassion with the world.

___________________________________________________

Sources

Brene Brown: https://brenebrown.com/podcast/brene-on-comparative-suffering-the-50-50-myth-and-settling-the-ball/

Greek translation: https://biblehub.com/greek/5011.htm

Pastor Stacey Nalean-Carlson: http://staceynaleancarlson.com/2019/12/22/light-advent-day-22/

The Fourth Sunday after Pentecost
Good Shepherd Lutheran Church
Decorah, Iowa
Rev. Amy Zalk Larson

Click here to read scripture passages for the day.

Beloved of God, grace to you and peace in the name of Jesus.

As Jesus sends his disciples out into the world, he tells them, “Whoever welcomes you, welcomes me.”

This means that when we welcome the people Jesus sends to us, we are welcoming Jesus himself. As we welcome them, we experience Jesus present with us, and we come to know Jesus more fully. We are rewarded, we are blessed, as we welcome.

When has this happened for you? When have you experienced Jesus’ presence, when have you come to know Jesus more fully as you’ve welcomed others? When have you been blessed by the experience of offering welcome?

There are so many stories of this happening through Good Shepherd Lutheran Church.

In the early 1980s, Good Shepherd came to know Jesus more fully as the congregation welcomed refugees from Southeast Asia. Members served as host families, made space for English classes, helped to teach those classes, and welcomed these beloved children of God as valued members of the congregation. One Good Shepherd family moved to the basement of their home so that a Hmong family of seven could live on the main floor. This family, and so many others in the congregation, were blessed with deep friendships that taught them so much about life, faith and compassion. One member continues to be in close contact with the people she welcomed back then even though most have moved to bigger cities now. Her understanding of scripture has been deepened and broadened and she regularly brings these insights to Good Shepherd Bible studies where others are richly blessed by them.

Today as the congregation welcomes new immigrant neighbors, we continually see the face of Jesus in these beloved children of God. We’re reminded that when Jesus was an infant, his family had to flee their country because their lives were in danger. They became refugees in Egypt. Jesus’ ancestors also went to Egypt when there was famine in their own land as we hear in the book of Genesis. They were immigrants seeking better economic conditions. Being in relationship with immigrants is helping us to remember that accompanying and advocating for immigrants isn’t a partisan issue but rather a biblical mandate stated throughout scripture.

Many Good Shepherd members have welcomed guests of Luther College as well as high school and Luther students into their lives and their homes for years. Many did that this spring as Luther closed due to the virus. As you’ve welcomed these guests, you’ve reported growing in faith, patience, compassion and good humor. You’ve become more Christlike through the experience of making space for others. Many of you have been rewarded with lifelong friendships.

Good Shepherd has also been blessed through a welcome to those who are lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans-gender and queer. Back in 2007, Good Shepherd was one of the first congregations in our area  to become a Reconciling in Christ congregation, thereby extending an intentional welcome to these beloved children of God. This congregation now experiences the presence of Christ through these beloved ones and their powerful leadership in the congregation.

And each week when there is worship in Good Shepherd’s building, a wide welcome is extended to everyone. All are welcome at Christ’s table. After worship, that welcome continues during Fellowship Hour. A great feast is spread for all guests. You can sit down at any table and be welcomed into conversation. People don’t stay in set groups talking only with those who are like them. You can have great conversations with a wide range of people.

This congregation welcomes others so beautifully. It’s what I love most about Good Shepherd.

Throughout your history, you have come to know Jesus more fully as you welcome those Jesus has sent to you. That makes these days when the building is closed even harder. It’s not just that members can’t gather together. We also can’t welcome others into the building and to the altar. We can’t welcome guests to sit at a table together breaking bread after worship. We also can’t invite many people to come inside our own homes. This is so painful.

We know we are welcoming many guests into this online worship space. Some who haven’t felt welcome in church buildings are now able to share in worship. If that is the case for you, I pray that you know God’s welcome of you today and always. As a congregation, we are living out Jesus’ call to welcome in new ways and for that we are grateful.

Still we long for the day when we can once again welcome people into the building and into our homes, offering them a cup of cold water or a great cup of coffee. We long to gather in the place where we proclaim in word and deed and with a big sign in the entryway, “There is a place for you here.” We long to live out Jesus’ call to welcome that we heard in our Gospel reading today.

Yet beloved of God, this Gospel reading still has an important message for us now.

Jesus speaks these words about welcome to his first disciples and to us as he sends us into the world. They are part of the instructions we’ve been hearing the past three weeks – instructions about how disciples are to take part in Jesus’ work of disrupting and healing the world. Jesus ends these instructions saying whoever welcomes you, welcomes me. Which means, Jesus isn’t just calling us to welcome those he sends to us. He is also sending us out to others to be the face of Christ for them. We are to help others out in the world to experience the love of Jesus.

The mission of the church of Jesus Christ isn’t to get people into buildings. The mission is to share the good news that the crucified and risen Jesus is present and at work in the world. The mission of the church is to be the hands and feet and face of Jesus in the world. We are fed and serve and love others out in the world. We are to make space for others in the world in our daily lives. We are to help people know that there is a place for them in the very heart of God. Gathering in the church building, at the altar, equips us for that mission, but it can never take the place of that mission.

In this time of COVID-19, many are commenting that the church has left the building and that this isn’t all bad. This pandemic time and the Gospel reading today each remind us that we aren’t called to get people into the pews.

We are called to be the church at work in the world.
We are called to welcome those Jesus sends into our lives.
We are called to be the face of Jesus in the world by how we live and speak and serve others, even in these strange times, especially in these strange times.
We are called to make space for others.

This is a daunting task, yet we are not alone. Jesus sent the first disciples out in pairs as we heard a few weeks ago. He sends us as a congregation now.

Together, we do Jesus’ work in the world in all the places Jesus sends us.
Together, we are given the power of the Holy Spirit to carry out Jesus’ mission.

Beloved of God, Jesus makes it clear that there is a place for you, and all people, in the very heart of God.

You are sent to share that good news in the world. Thanks be to God.

Third Sunday after Pentecost
Good Shepherd Lutheran Church
Decorah, Iowa
Rev. Amy Zalk Larson

Click here to read scripture passages for the day.

Beloved of God, grace to you and peace in the name of Jesus.

This Gospel reading is pretty intense. I wish Jesus had a different message for us on Father’s Day. Something a little more peaceful and uplifting would be so welcome this weekend!

And yet today, Jesus speaks to a very pressing question for us right now – what is the value of a life? Policy makers and all of us are having to wrestle with that question these days. What impacts on the economy are we willing to accept in order to reduce deaths from COVID-19? What impositions on our own freedom and comfort are we willing to tolerate in order to flatten the curve of this virus? This question is often framed as a false dichotomy – do we sacrifice the economy or sacrifice human life? Framing the question that way feels like a failure of the imagination. Jesus’ challenging words today help us to imagine and enter a new way of being.

What is the value of a life? Jesus speaks to this question as he sends us to be his disciples in a dangerous world. He sends us to face hatred, violence, division and “those who kill the body”. And even as he asks us to be willing to risk our own lives for the sake of his work, Jesus is clear that God values all life.

To illustrate this, Jesus draws our attention to an insignificant sparrow. Sparrows were very low on the pecking order in the ancient world. They were the food of the poor. They sold two-for-a penny in the market. Yet, Jesus says even the sparrow receives God’s attention; even their lives and deaths are not beneath God’s care.

This passage inspired schoolteacher Civilia Martin to write the lyrics to the song “His Eye Is on the Sparrow”, the gospel hymn that confesses, “I know he watches me.” This image, God’s eye on the sparrow, has struck such a chord in the Black church. For Black Americans, the issue of the value of a life is not at all abstract. They know that the lives and freedom of their ancestors were sacrificed for the sake of the American economy.

They know that they were viewed as units of production, as marks in the ledger books that listed assets: cotton, sugar, slaves. As one historian puts it, there were “marks where human beings once stood.” Black Americans also know that now, in the data about COVID-19, their lives continue to be marked as expendable statistics worth risking for the sake of the economy. To sing that God’s eye is on the sparrow is a way to proclaim the truth that God values those the world overlooks. God values Black lives, nursing home residents, elders, prisoners, immigrants, workers in meat packing plants.

God is also concerned with the ways that devaluing the lives of others kills the souls of everyone.

When some are viewed as expendable this not only inflicts material harm on those who are most vulnerable, it inflicts spiritual harm on us all. We become enslaved to the power of greed, pride, racism and white supremacy. We become isolated, anxious, and self-centered. We strive and grasp and hoard. We seek our own security at the cost of our others. We can’t imagine how to order our economy in ways that value the flourishing of life.

When we live this way, we lose out on the life God intends for us. God created us to live together in harmony. Each precious life that God so values is bound together with all other life. When one life is diminished, we are all diminished. Our well-being is connected to the well-being of all creation.

Yet we can’t recognize this when we are so focused on ourselves. It is only when we lose our self- centered lives that we find the life abundant that God longs for us to know.

So, Jesus calls us to lose our lives in order to find them. We are to stop trying to secure our own lives, to let go of our tight hold on what we see as our own. We are to join in acts of sacrifice, service and prayer. We are to follow in the way of Jesus.

The way of Jesus is a challenge to the ways and powers of this world. Following in the way of Jesus can cause others to feel offended, affronted, threatened. It can lead to division, even within our own families. Our lives become less comfortable. There is risk and sacrifice. Yet, following this way of Jesus frees us from the death dealing aspects of our culture and opens us to abundant life.

And lest this we think following this way of Jesus depends upon us, the reading from Romans today reminds us that in baptism we have already died with Christ Jesus and been raised to walk with him in newness of life. In baptism, we are set free from the power of sin. This means that losing our lives to find them does not depend on our strength or effort or willpower. Instead, we are called to daily turn to the power of God that is at work to set us free each day, to raise us to new life each day. This power makes it possible for us to follow in the way of Jesus.

Jesus also reminds us that we have real and abiding security in the God who cares for the sparrow, the God who values all life. God’s eye is on the sparrow and on each one of us. We are secure in God’s care and attention, now and forever.  With that assurance, we can follow Jesus into work that disrupts and heals the world.

We can challenge systems that devalue the lives of others.
We can remain steadfast amidst turmoil and struggle.
We can follow Jesus into death and abundant life.

Beloved of God, your life has incredible value.
You have been joined to the death and resurrection of Christ Jesus.
You are set free from the power of sin.
You can join Jesus in the care and redemption of all that God has made.

Let’s take a moment for prayer.

Second Sunday after Pentecost – Commemoration of the Emanuel Nine, Martyrs, 2015
Good Shepherd Lutheran Church
Decorah, Iowa
Rev. Amy Zalk Larson

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Beloved of God, grace to you and peace in the name of Jesus.

This Gospel reading reminds me, once again, that Jesus is not so interested in being nice. I grew up in a suburb of Minneapolis where “Minnesota Nice” is highly valued. I’ve lived almost my whole life in the Upper Midwest and have learned well how to be polite and appealing. I work hard not to

offend. Sometimes I take this a bit too far. The other day I was biking on the Dug Road Trail and   called out to a man walking ahead of me, “on your left”; but my voice was too sweet and too quiet. He couldn’t hear me over his headphones. By the time I realized he hadn’t heard me, I’d almost crashed into him. Sometimes ‘nice’ isn’t so helpful!

Jesus is not so concerned with being nice. In our Gospel reading today, we’re told Jesus has com- passion when he sees people who are harassed and helpless – a better translation is those who are oppressed and put down – but his compassion isn’t sweet niceness. The word used to describe compassion is connected to the Greek word for bowels – meaning Jesus is moved deep within and feels the pain of others right in his gut.

Jesus’ compassion also leads to action – he sets about the work of healing people and setting them free. He proclaims the good news that God’s kingdom has come near. He cures sickness and frees people from the power of unclean spirits. Then Jesus sends his disciples to do the same. They’re told: “Proclaim the good news … cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons.”

Jesus is about healing and setting people free from all that binds, all that oppresses. This is com- passionate work. It’s also pretty disruptive.

Jesus makes this clear as he sends his disciples out. He warns them that enacting his compassion in the world will sometimes lead to persecution and turmoil. It will upend the status quo. Yet sometimes we need to be disrupted in order to be healed and set free. And, this is Jesus’ desire for us – healing and liberation. Jesus doesn’t seem too interested in whether we feel comfortable. He doesn’t seem to worry much about whether we are offended. When we’re walking with head- phones turned up loud to shut out the noise of the world, Jesus isn’t afraid to raise his voice to get our attention, to get through to us.

Sometimes we need to be disrupted in order to be healed and set free. Right now, white Americans are being disrupted. I so hope this disruption leads to our healing and liberation. May it be so, O God. We are being disrupted and asked to come to terms with the systemic racism and white supremacy that is harming our siblings of color, our nation and each one of us.

It’s hard for us to hear that we need to be healed of racism and white supremacy. We get offended to think we’re being called racist. And certainly, we aren’t like those white supremacists. We’re tempted to defend ourselves and blame this situation on bad actors, criminals, law enforcement, extremists, anyone else. We can’t be racist. We are good people.

Yet that implies that whites can be morally superior and somehow remain pure – unimpacted by the racism that has shaped our country since its founding. We who are white Americans are shaped by this racism; we cannot not be shaped by it. We cannot remain above it somehow.

Like sin in general, racism is not so much about specific actions. Sin is all that separates us from God, others and creation. When Christians talk about sin, we aren’t talking about all the bad things that we do. We’re talking about the brokenness that prevents us from being in a right relationship with God, neighbor and creation – all that holds us captive.

This is the case with the particular sin of racism as well. Racism isn’t about whether we do good or bad things – it’s about all that prevents us from being in mutual relationship with our siblings of color.

Racism leads us to fear those with darker skin, and so sanction strategies and policies that harm them in the name of our security.

Racism robs us of our empathy. We can’t simply lament the harm done to black and brown bodies, instead we try to justify it or blame the victim. We aren’t moved with compassion the way Jesus was, the way he wants us to be. Racism leads us to expect people of color to act and talk and think like us, and prevents us from experiencing the rich abundance of gifts of our siblings of color. It prevents us from receiving their perspectives and insights that can help to heal our communities and nation.

ELCA member Shari Seifert also writes that “White supremacy tells us that we have a right to comfort in church. What? Jesus was about flipping power structures, lifting up the lowly – he was executed by the state … Jesus was intensely political. But we want the church to ‘not be political’.  We want the church to be comfortable. We think talking about race is racist. We wonder if we could just use some words other than ‘white supremacy’, which after all isn’t really that big of a problem. So, without thinking about it, we have created the equation that white comfort is more important than black lives.”^[1]

The way the ELCA has prioritized niceness and comfort has had real consequences. One of the most tragic examples of this is in the story of the Emanuel Nine who we remember today. They were killed by Dylann Roof, a young man who was raised and confirmed in an ELCA congregation. He drew pictures of a white Jesus in his journal in prison.

As ELCA leader Elle Dowd points out, “The church Roof grew up in was full of good and faithful people … many there are horrified about what he did. Our church may not have taught him white supremacy directly, but like many of our churches and beloved institutions, it did not do enough to teach him to resist it. His formation within the ELCA was not enough to teach him to recognize the image of God in the people who would become his victims.”^[2]

 Beloved of God,
We are captive to racism and white supremacy.
Jesus sees this; Jesus has compassion for us.
Jesus comes near to disrupt us, heal us and set us free.
He sends us out to do his active work of healing and liberation in the world.
But this work must be grounded always in repentance.

To repent is not about feeling bad for specific things.
It is about naming that we are captive to sin and cannot free ourselves.
It is about turning to God who heals and frees us – to repent means to turn.
It is about asking God to uphold us by the Spirit so that we can live and serve in newness of life.

Let us join in this repentance now.

^[1] https://blogs.elca.org/elcaracialjustice/?p=285

^[2] https://blogs.elca.org/elcaracialjustice/?p=283