Post-election message from Bp. Elaine Stanovsky

November 10, 2016 | A Pastoral Letter from Bishop Stanovsky: In the Wake of the Election

During the two-year presidential campaign, tension built across our nation like it does as you wind up a jack-in-the-box. Then, SURPRISE, the polls closed and what seemed impossible had happened. Donald Trump was elected the next President of the United States. Half the country is elated beyond their wildest dreams. The other half is reeling in disbelief. Most of us on one side of the divide don’t know many people on the other side.
I’m less interested in what kind of president Donald Trump will be than in his election as a symptom of a grave illness in our nation.

Can it be in 21st century America, that many of us no longer have substantive conversations with anyone who isn’t very much like us in education, income and world view? Have we become separated, red from blue, without even realizing it until this most unexpected election?

More than twenty years ago, Robert Bellah described how Americans were adopting Habits of the Heart (the title of his 1985 book) that lead us to live in “lifestyle enclaves” of people who share our values. Once most Americans lived in families, in communities, in churches not of their own choosing. Relating to your neighbors, whether you liked them or not, was a given. Identity and community formed in relationships that were given by circumstance. Over time, industrialization and urbanization, military service, and increased mobility all loosened the ties to land and local community. Increasingly people chose who they related to. Increasingly we have chosen to relate to people like ourselves.

In our chosen “lifestyle enclaves,” we no longer mix it up with people who are different from ourselves. Rather, we limit our social relations to people who reinforce our preferences. Pretty soon we don’t even see or take account of people who aren’t like us. In 1985, Bellah couldn’t have anticipated the ways social media now makes relationships even more voluntary. Today, if you aren’t interested in the dinner conversation, you can take out your smart phone and join another conversation altogether, among people who may never sit at the same table.

Bellah and his associates noted that kinship, religious communities, civic traditions and friendship, are institutions that have held people in relationships not of their choosing. But today, all of these institutions are strained and adapting to quickly changing norms and many of the relationships that rely upon them have come significantly unstitched or changed radically.

What we learned on election night was just how far our alienation from one another has gone. We don’t even recognize each other as American’s any more: “He’s not my President.” “I’m moving to Canada.” 

Jesus Christ built community among people who were deeply divided from one another: Jews and Gentiles. Slaves and free. Women and men. He invited his followers to gather all kinds of people together, and help them grow to know and love one another. Jesus is calling us out of our lifestyle enclaves into human community, as surely as he called Lazarus out of the tomb.

How can the church become public again – involved in the public square; a place to talk with one another about what we really care about, what keeps us awake at night, and makes us worried for our children? A place where we turn together to the great mystery of life and love, to give thanks and to ask for mercy, forgiveness, and direction.

There is no better gift for our day than to tear down the dividing walls and invite unlikely conversations among people who think they have nothing in common.

In Ephesians, Paul wrote that Christ “proclaimed peace to you who were far off and peace to those who were near; for through him both of us have access in one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God.

May the prince of peace open a way of healing before us.

Bishop Elaine JW Stanovsky
Oregon-Idaho Annual Conference, UMC

Sermon: (Doubting) Thomas

Sunday 3 April 2016
The Second Sunday of Easter

John 20:19-31

St_Thomas_icon-296x300Thomas. Doubting Thomas. That is how we always seem to remember him. When someone brings up the subject of Thomas, usually we don’t remember anything about him, except, or course, that he doubted.

In the three synoptic gospels—Matthew, Mark, and Luke—Thomas only appears in the list of the twelve whom Jesus called. Like many of the other disciples, Thomas appears only as a member of the crowd. But in John’s gospel, Thomas plays a very important role. After Lazarus dies in chapter 11, Jesus decides to travel back to Judea to visit him. The disciples are afraid to have Jesus return Judea, because they know that he has already made too many enemies there. However, Thomas bravely tells his colleagues: “Let us go also, so that we can die with Jesus.”

Later, at the last supper, Thomas speaks again. When Jesus tells the disciples that he is going to prepare a place for them, Thomas asks how they will know the way to follow him if they don’t know where he is going. Jesus responds that he, himself, is the way, the truth, and the life.

The story we read today is the third time that Thomas speaks in the gospel of John. And we always seem to remember him as the one and only disciple who refused to believe that Jesus had risen from the dead. He had to see for himself, whereas all the other disciples believed in Jesus’ resurrection without having seen.

Of course, that isn’t actually true. The other disciples had already heard from Mary Magdalene that Jesus had risen and appeared to her, and there is no indication from John that any of the disciples believed her. Matthew, Mark, and Luke are all quite emphatic that they did not believe Mary’s story.

So there the disciples are, on the evening of Easter, behind locked doors in some upstairs room, afraid to do anything. Even though the doors are locked, Jesus appears among them. Jesus speaks to them, and says, “Peace be with you.” And before anyone gets a chance to respond, Jesus immediately shows them his wounds so that they will have proof that it is really him.  Before he disappears, Jesus tells the disciples that he is sending them out. They are to leave that locked room and start sharing God’s love in the world. But a week later, they are all still gathered there in that locked room.

So, just to be clear, all of the disciples of Jesus, except for Thomas, get to see the risen Christ, get to see his wounds before they believe that he is raised. And even after they have seen the risen Jesus, they don’t follow his directions to go out into the world. They stay cowering behind locked doors. This is not exactly an overwhelming show of belief and faith.

When they tell Thomas what they have seen, Thomas doesn’t believe them. But this isn’t terribly surprising, since they hadn’t believed what Mary had reported to them about Jesus rising. Thomas doesn’t believe before he sees, but neither does anyone else in the story. Mary doesn’t, the other disciples don’t, and Thomas doesn’t. So when Jesus says, “Blessed are those who believe without seeing,” he isn’t talking about anyone else in the story. So who is he talking about? If this were a television show, then this is the moment when Jesus would break the fourth wall, look directly into the camera, and speak to the viewers at home, “Blessed are you who don’t see and yet believe.” Jesus isn’t speaking to anyone in the room; he’s speaking to future Christians, who will be forced to believe based on the testimony of others.

Now, that’s about all we hear about Thomas in the bible. He appears again in the added scene in John when the disciples encounter Jesus along the shore in Galilee when they are out fishing. John tells us more than once that he is known as “the Twin,” but we are never told whose twin he is.

But there are other early Christian sources that tell us more about the story of Thomas. According to multiple ancient accounts, Thomas became an apostle to the east. It is believed that he travelled to India in the years after Jesus’ death and resurrection, founding churches and spreading the good news of Jesus Christ. When Marco Polo travelled through Sri Lanka and India, he found native Christians there, Christians who traced their lineage back to St. Thomas. Again, when Portuguese colonists and traders established sea routes to India, they found native churches there, reading the bible and worshipping in Syriac. According to legend, Thomas founded several churches in India and was martyred there. A church in Mylapore reports to contain the tomb of the apostle. Thomas is the patron saint of India, and there are still Indian Christians today who believe themselves to be part of an unbroken tradition that goes back to Thomas.

I suggest to you today that is time that we stop doubting Thomas. It is time that we stop remembering him as a second-class apostle. Yes, Thomas refused to believe until he had seen some evidence, but so did all of the other early disciples. Yes, Thomas asked questions and wanted to know more. But it is often through our questions, through our doubting and our puzzling that our faith is made to grow stronger. A faith that never questions anything is not a very mature faith, not a faith that is capable of sustaining through trials and tribulations. Thomas may have questioned, but his questions led to one of the most powerful statements of faith contained in the Gospel of John. “My Lord and my God,” Thomas confesses the moment he sees the risen Christ. Not one other of Jesus’ male disciples has a statement of faith so clear as Thomas’s statement here.  Not Peter, not James, not John. Of all of the Twelve, it is Thomas who is portrayed as understanding the best who Jesus is. His questions did not lead to a lack of faith. His questions led to a stronger faith.

And that is an example we can learn from. It is sometimes suggested that Christians should never question anything that we have been taught about the faith. We should just believe unchangingly everything that we were taught in second grade Sunday school just as we were taught it. It is suggested that if we were to question our faith, then we would lose it.

But I suggest to you today that is only a very weak faith that can’t stand up to a little questioning. If we never question things, then we never learn, we never grow, we never mature. Thomas questioned things. But his questions led him to be the brave disciple who convinced the others to follow Jesus to the cross, even if it meant they might die with him. His questions led to a greater understanding of Jesus’ nature as the way, the truth, and the life. His questions led to his bold proclamation of Jesus’ identity: “My Lord and my God.” And if the stories are to be believed, his questions led him to spread the Gospel of Jesus farther than any other of the first disciples, all the way to the shores of India. We can learn something from Thomas. And may we be bold enough in our questions and in our doubts that we are strengthened in faith, like Thomas, and empowered to share Christ’s love with the world Christ came to save. Amen.

Notes-N-News

++  This Sunday, March 20, after the second service we will have an opportunity to meet with 2 financial experts from the ELCA and Synod Endowment Board. Beth Adams, from the ELCA, and Bonny Groshound, from the synod endowment board will be here to talk with the board and finance committee members about strategies to wisely manage and invest the money from the combination of Asbury and ORLC. Anyone from the congregation who is interested is welcome to attend.  Bonnie can also offer information about grants that are available from the synod. The meeting will be from 11:45am -1 pm.

Please let me know if you will be attending so I can have a light lunch available for you.  If you are on the board or finance committee also please let me know if you are unable to attend.                                Debby Chenoweth

++ The next Women’s Spiritual Group session is April 2 at 9:00am in the church office building.

++ Men’s Fellowship Group     Sausage making this Saturday March 19th at 9am

 Hosted by Audrey and Myrin Bentz. Coffee and Pastry will be served in the morning, as well as lunch later on.

Cost for sausage: Per Pound To Be Advised.  Donation’s appreciated. Contact: Bob White via email: goirishcream@embarqmail.com

Some sausage will be served at the Easter Breakfast.

++  Men’s Retreat at Morning Song Acres! March 31 – April 2, 2016! The annual spring retreat  will use a DVD by Rev. Adam Hamilton, “Christianity and World Religions: Wrestling with Questions People Ask” as the basis for the three day study. It will give us an open minded perspective on the world’s religions to enhance our discussions and our spiritual lives. See Marv Turner, Bob White, Myrin Bentz, or Rick McBee to sign up and get involved.

++  Photographs for our Church Directory    Easter Sunday—starting at 8:30am and through the Easter Breakfast time, Gordon Leigh’s Positive Negatives will be taking pictures for the church directory. This is a no cost service, so come dressed for Easter and your pictures! If you would like prints for yourself, price information will be available for that additional service. Come and enjoy the services, the breakfast, and let’s get as many photos done as possible for our new directory.                 —-Rick McBee

++ We are using  Ecopalms for Palm Sunday again this year! 

Why a “Fair Trade” Palm?

Gatherers will receive a higher price for their “fair trade” palms improving their income and living conditions. “Fair trade” helps protect the palms and  the important forests from which they are gathered through sustainable harvest programs.

Blessings!
Jennifer Fowler

One Congregation, Two Denominations

Today Asbury Our Redeemer Partnership voted to accept a constitution that makes us officially and permanently one congregation related to two denominations. To the ELCA we are considered a federated congregation; to The UMC we are considered a union congregation. That means that every member of AORP is considered a member of an ELCA congregation, and every member is considered a member of a UMC congregation. We are one! Hallelujah!

Constitution Draft

For the last several months, Pastor David, Debby Chenoweth, Donna Fitch, and Jean Sheppard have been working to draft a constitution for our congregation. We have consulting the governing documents of both the ELCA and the UMC, carefully reviewed our current provisional covenant, and conferred with denominational leaders, particularly Bishop Dave Brauer-Rieke of the Oregon Synod (ELCA) and Rev. Steve Ross of the Columbia District (UMC). After several drafts, we have a document that we’re proud of, and we’re ready to share it with you, the congregation, for your review. This version has already been reviewed and approved by Bp. Dave, Rev. Steve, and your Board of Directors. You can find the constitution here, or there are print copies available in the narthex, as you walk into the sanctuary.

Beginning in November, I will be visiting many of the small groups of the congregation to see if you have any questions or comments about this draft. I’m also scheduling two information sessions on Sunday, November 15th, at 8:00 am and 11:30 am, for anyone who would like to hear a summary of the constitution, ask questions, and make comments. In the Sundays between now and then, I’ll be sharing a few highlights during announcements at both worship services. Also, please feel free to contact me directly with any questions.

Your servant in Christ,

+Pastor David