Upcoming Globe Skimming

I feel as though with my travel itinerary, I will be globe-skimming (or surfing) rather than globe-trotting. I will probably take five whole steps in Qatar before taking off again. Here is what my travel to and from Namibia will look like.

Depart for Philly on May 8- probably around 6 - 6:30 AM to get there by the 3ish hours before international flights. (1 hour drive)
Leave Philly - 10:40 AM  (6:40 PM Qatar time and 3:40 PM Namibian time)
Arrive in Qatar - 6:30 AM local
Depart Qatar - 7:15 AM local (that's 45 minutes!)
Arrive in Johannesburg South Africa - 2:40 PM
Depart J'burg - 5:40 PM local
Arrive in Namibia - 7:00 PM local
1 hour drive to Windhoek, means I'll probably get to the hotel by 9 PM local on May 9th.

My trip back is even easier, with a flight from Windhoek to Qatar to Philly, but once more with 45 minute layover, leaving May 17 and arriving at 8:40 AM Eastern time on May 18th! Who wants to have brunch with a half-crazy-tired, jet lagged me to help me stay awake and reset to to this time zone? :) Namibia is 5 hours ahead of us, for the record.

This is kind of what I feel like I'm going to be doing. Whee!

Preparations Galore

Imagine that you are told that you will be going on an amazing trip to experience a once-in-a-lifetime event to a country on another continent, in a whole different hemisphere. And you have 4 weeks to prepare! So much to do! Fortunately most of the major stuff is already arranged, like my shots, travel plans, hotel stays, and my sermon. I'm staying at the Safari Court Hotel next to the conference center in Windhoek (pronounced Wind-Took or Vind-Took like in German).

To make things even more wild, one of my layovers will be on a entirely other continent. I get to spend a whole  45 minutes on Qatar, in the Middle East! (North America), Europe, Asia, and now the Middle East and Africa are the continents I will have under my belt after this trip! Now I just have to figure out how to pack my alb in my checked baggage with minimum wrinkles. I'm only allowed 1 checked bag on Qatar Airlines! On the way there (but not the way back) I also have another layover in Johannesburg South Africa. I leave on the 8th and return on the 19th.

I've also reading a lot - like catching up on a class I didn't know I was signed up for! I am reading a few of the essays written specifically for the main theme of the Assembly - Liberated by God's Grace, and for the three sub themes: Salvation: Not for Sale, Creation: Not for Sale, and Human Beings: Not for Sale. You can find it all online on the LWF website, or in book form on Amazon. Great stuff!

I've been reading up on Namibia too - in May the weather is cooler, the highs running in the 70s F, as they head toward the dry season. Around half of the country is Lutheran (90% of the population is Christian). Namibia has 3 Lutheran denominations, and is the companion of my previous synod (NJ). How cool is that?

Grace is free, but shots are not.

I got all my shots today! I got so many because it has been 7 years since my tetanus, and they recommend getting it early to be on the safe side, and also Heb A since it is standard for most kids now and good for most international travel. Typhoid and yellow fever complete the mix. They even gave me cool bandaids. And the barista at Panera gave me a free coffee, even though she had no idea I was about to get jabbed in the arm 4 times. At least they gave me some rad bandaids!

The price tag was a much bigger ouch, though!


Today I also picked up a good deal of  supplies for the trip. It certainly is piling up! Snacks, luggage lock, luggage tags, Dramamine, earplugs... and I ordered a converter and adapter for my electronic devices...also an SD card for my digital camera, since I seem to have lost mine in the move.  I found my neck pillow, and I'm borrowing a travel bag for my alb and stole.

This is not my first rodeo traveling internationally. In January 2011 I traveled to Hong Kong and the Sichuan province in China with Dr, Theresa Latini, newly elected President of the United Lutheran Seminary. It was for a cross-cultural class where we spent a week in Hong Kong and a week in China, visiting churches and seminaries, talking to local pastors, and seeing local sights, like beautiful temples and pandas! THAT trip boasted a 16 hours long airplane trip!

However, this will be my first international trip going solo!

Out of the tomb, and off to Namibia...

Not that long ago, I spent a lot of time in the darkness of tombs. Much of my life was in a whole lot of limbo, like a seed waiting to find some new, fertile ground to thrive, but for a while not much happened. By the grace of God, and on the shoulders of many wonderful friends, family members, colleagues, and therapists, I made it to 2017.... where Resurrection has pretty much been smacking me in the face every. single. day.

After saying goodbye to a well-loved but part-time call with a great colleague, I had just moved to a new town, a new state, a  new apartment, and a new call. Things were busy, but going great! Lent was about to start, to add to the craziness of starting a new call.

Ash Wednesday morning, my world moved again.

I woke up.

I checked my email.

I nearly fell out of bed.

I JUMPED out of bed.

I may have yelled really loudly and scared my cats.

I was one of the top ten finalists in a preaching contest I had completely forgotten that I had entered. At the time, back in October, I was part time and figured there was no good excuse for me NOT to enter. Plus, I really wanted to see a woman preach at this event, and so I had better contribute my part.

Fast forward to the Monday of Holy Week. Much the same as Ash Wednesday:

I woke up, checked my email, and promptly went into shock. More crazy yelling.

Everyone is so thrilled, I'm thrilled, my congregation is thrilled, my family and friends are thrilled....

But....

I'm leaving on an international trip to an African country that I had not planned for...

..in less than 2 weeks now.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

To keep my sanity, and to chronicle the before, during, and after adventures and reflections, I'm going to share here, on my blog, which has sort of turned into mainly a sermon blog, which it should not be limited to anyway. So stay tuned for further hi-jinks in "Pastor Lydia Goes to Namibia"!

"Joy to the world, the Lord has come.... back!!!!"

Easter Sunday 4-16-17

Grace to you and peace from God our father and from our risen Lord and savior Jesus the Christ,  Amen.

Merry Christmas! ….  “Joy to the world, the Lord has come… Back!”

“Hark the Herald Angels sing! Glory to the resurrected king!”

“Oh come all ye faithful… to the empty tomb.”

Well, I haven’t actually lost my marbles, though this week I probably came close, between Holy Week prep and my first ever Easter here, and also planning a surprise trip to Namibia! So, ya know, not all THAT much going on this week!

This is the most special day of the most special week of the Christian calendar. On Palm Sunday, just one week ago, Jesus entered Jerusalem in a festive parade. On Thursday, we gathered around the Lord’s table to remember the night that Jesus ate his last meal surrounded by his closes friends – friends who would later go on to deny, betray, and completely abandon him. And on the Friday that we call Good, we heard the rest of the story of Jesus’ suffering, crucifixion, and death, as darkness fell inside a tomb sealed with a stone.

But today, “It’s beginning to look a lot like.. Easter!” Because, after all, today we remember how we received the Best. Gift. Ever.

When I went Luther Seminary in Minneapolis, I attended a downtown church that drew members from the white retired social justice involved crowd and those who were born in West Africa. One year, Easters fell really early, and as we sang our Alleluias, we saw snow starting to fall outside, in big fluffy, Christmas-card-worthy flakes. It seriously felt like Christmas morning, made me want to sing some “Joy to the World” rather than “Jesus Christ is Risen Today.”

After all, Christmas is the holiday that most of us say is our favorite. There aren’t too many “count downs” to Easter Sunday, unless you are a big church nerd like me. Though, we still try to make Easter into a cute holiday, like Christmas, and cover up talk of tombs and death by crucifixion with chocolate and bunnies. Babies are much easier to deal with than crosses anyway. And don’t get me started on CHOCOLATE Crosses. Bah Humbug!

So why not just skip Easter and celebrate another Christmas? If one Christmas is good, two are better! Right? All the same elements are already there: we have an angel who announces good news of great joy to some unsuspecting people – shepherds, women – both pretty far down on the social latter.  Mary the mother of Jesus is there too, as “the other Mary,” at least according to many scholars. The angel tells them to “fear not.” Then the women GO to SEE what the angel has told them. (go to Bethlehem) “Come and see the empty tomb…”  And Lo and behold – they find Jesus, just as the angel said. And you know what? SNOW is even mentioned today – the clothing of the angel is described as being as white as snow! “I’m dreaming of a white… Easter!”

Oh yes, I almost forgot. At both Christmas and Easter, someone is also trying to kill Jesus. You probably forgot about that part of the Christmas story. King Herod attempted to kill baby Jesus when he heard about him from the Wise Men, and Herod tried to put the kabosh on Jesus’ potential political career at its start. (kill motion) Try putting THAT on a Hallmark Christmas card.

Jesus obviously escaped death as a baby, but it looked like here it finally caught up to him. The Roman government, in partnership with the Judean leadership in power, thought they had finally gotten rid of this troublemaker. They even put his grave under surveillance, so that his followers could not steal the body and claim resurrection. But we just heard how about how that plan failed BIG TIME.

This is what Jesus had been saying his whole ministry. Over and over Jesus told his disciples, that he “must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and on the third day be raised.” (Mtt 16:21) That third day, that’s TODAY. But where are his disciples? We haven’t heard from them since Friday. The only people who showed up, the only people who believed the word of Jesus, were the WOMEN.

Dorothy Sayers wrote that women “were first at the Cradle and last at the Cross,” and I would add that they were first again to witness the resurrection. Women were the first preachers of the good news. The men, the soldiers at the tomb didn’t stand a chance. They came to “work” that morning expecting the cushy job of guarding a dead body. The women came to see a dead body, hoping and believing that they would be disappointed. Then boom. Resurrection happened.  Same event, totally different reactions.

Just imagine for a moment these big, tough men with weapons at the ready fainting dead away like proverbial Victorian ladies at the sight of ONE SINGLE MEASLY angel. One. Not even a heavenly host. Just one was all it took to pass out from fear. But for these women, they were not overcome by fear, because they already expected to see the impossible. For them, believing was seeing.

We’ve all been there. We’ve all be so overcome by fear of the darkness around us that we miss out where new life is happening. There is so much fear and so much TO FEAR in the world – racism, sexism, violence, war, bombing, homophobia, fear of our neighbors, of refugees, and strangers – so many things that would set us to shaking in our boots and fainting dead away in dismay.

But what if we looked at the darkness around us with resurrection eyes, like these women. Preacher and writer Barbara Brown Taylor writes, “...new life starts in the dark. Whether it is a seed in the ground, a baby in the womb, or Jesus in the tomb.” What if we could hear through our fear, and see in the dark? What if believing is seeing? What if Easter is Christmas? What if Christmas is Easter?

At Christmas, we often call Jesus Immanuel, which means “God with us.” Remember that great Advent hymn, “O Come, O Come Immanuel?” “And ransom captive Israel, who mourns in lonely exile here, until the Son of God appear.” Well, Immanuel IS HERE and Immanuel has ransomed us, so that mourning and death and exile are no longer our reality.

Maybe Easter feels like Christmas because the two are bookends of the same story –which is the story of God birthing light out of darkness, life out of death, resurrection out of Good Friday. This story is also OUR story. Easter is the culmination, the completion, the last note in the final movement of the symphony, the nail in the coffin for death. Birth, death, resurrection – you can’t have Easter without Christmas, but without Easter, Christmas is more like a gift of a pair of socks rather than a BMW.

At Easter, Jesus give us the greatest gift of all – not chocolate crosses, but eternal life with God, made possible by Jesus defeating the REAL cross, it’s power of sin, death, and the grave. Jesus’ resurrection is OUR resurrection too, and THIS is why it is GOOD NEWS. Because this gift is FOR US. It is FOR YOU.

Last week I went with a friend to hear Mahler’s Resurrection Symphony #2. During the final movement, two soloists and a choir accompanied the orchestra, and sang these words, translated from German:  

O Sorrow, all-penetrating! I have been wrested away from you!
O Death, all-conquering! Now you are conquered!
I shall die, so as to live! What you have conquered Will bear you to God.
O believe, my heart, oh believe…
Tremble no more! Prepare yourself to live!

The disciples hid, and the soldiers fainted, but the women took a page out of the shepherds’ book and MADE HASTE, skedaddling out of that tome so fast that they crash headlong into the risen Jesus. 

Because Jesus lives, we live too. We live, not to hide away or be paralyzed by fear, but to boldly put one foot in front of the other, knowing that Jesus, Immanuel goes with us, and sometimes lets us crash head on into resurrection without realizing it. Immanual comes with us, so that we may live.

“Joy to the world, the Lord has come back!”

Christ is Risen!
(He is Risen Indeed! Alleluia!)

Thanks be to God! Amen. 

Good, not Great

Good Friday 2017

Grace to you and peace from God our father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus the Christ, amen.

For nearly every great person of history who is no longer alive today, remembering the time and place of their death is a vital part of telling their story. Especially if that person was cut down in the prime of their life while working for the cause of justice and reconciliation. What biography of Abraham Lincoln would be complete without mentioning the tragic night at Ford’s Theater? What account of Martin Luther King Jr would be worth its salt if did not include a chapter set on that hotel balcony in Memphis, Tennessee? And, though Malala is still alive, any future biography of hers will surely include her nearly successful assassination while fearlessly crusading for education for women in her native country of Pakistan.

But we can safely say that no other death in human history is as important as the death of a Palestinian Jewish peasant who lived in relative obscurity and died on a cross over twenty centuries ago. At the time, he was nothing more than another failed messiah, yet another victim of senseless violence in the name of the Empire of Rome. Here is a man who claimed to be a king, and look at what those in power did to him.

The area of Judea and Galilee at the time of Jesus were already under the thumb of about a half a dozen successive empires by now. Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, and now Romans, with a few minor empires scattered in between, with hardly a break. Oppression and subjugation were old hat to the Jewish people. They groaned from one generation to the next, longing for deliverance, looking for the day when the Messiah, the holy one, anointed by God, would take up the cause and forever send all empires packing.

And Jesus, at least for a while, seemed to be shaping up to be a pretty decent contender for the title of Messiah. He healed people of their illnesses, cast out demons, miraculously fed people, flouted all authority, whether governmental or religious. True, he also had some disturbing quirks like eating with sinners and hanging out with women and children and talking too much about the kingdom of God. But as long as he kicks out the Roman Empire, much can be forgiven.

And this week also started out so well –  On Palm Sunday, we heard how the people crowded around and showed their support in the “Jesus parade,” as Jesus triumphantly entered Jerusalem, the headquarters of power in the region, presumably to take it by storm and finally route the Roman oppression.

But that didn’t happen. Almost a week later, Jesus is hanging on a cross, not sitting on a throne. Almost a week later, there is no revolution, no overthrow of the oppressive government of Rome, no political victory. He is failure in the eyes of the Jewish leadership. A failure in the eyes of history, presumably doomed to obscurity, yet another failed king.

But Jesus didn’t come to be a great king of history. He wasn’t born to be prince over an earthly realm. He wasn’t born to be great. He was born be good. He was born, lived, and died to show that the goodness of God is for all people, not just the rich, not just the righteous, not just the powerful. And that is why we call today Good Friday. Jesus chose what was good for the entire world, even though it led to his death.

While Jesus was still in the garden, praying that this cup of suffering would be taken from him, Jesus still had a few options left open to him. He could have called on his disciples to fight for him – one would already chop off an ear, why not try to do more? Or he could sneak out of the garden and become a hermit. He could have called one those legions of angels to his aid and proven beyond a doubt who he really is. He could have struck an agreement with the religious authorities and worked to reform the religious institutions from the inside.

But Jesus did none of those things. He didn’t fight, or hide, or amaze, or bargain. He decided to obey God, even unto death. He decided to die. He decided to choose us.

Just a few weeks ago we heard about Jesus’ encounter with Nicodemus, where Jesus says the most famous line in all of scripture, the most quoted Bible verse ever: “For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, so that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life.” Jesus was talking about this moment. He was talking about his death. He was talking about the cross. Here is that man, that moment, that cross.

The cross was not always one of them most recognized symbols of our faith. The Roman Empire used it as a symbol of intimidation, a deterrent, a sign that reads clear as day “This is what happens when you go up against the “powers that be.” You WILL LOSE.”

 On this Friday that is called Good, though, the symbol of an instrument of torture and humiliation and death is transformed. It becomes a symbol of life and repurposed as the sign by which God wants to be known in the world. It is transformed into a sign of a divine love that holds nothing back.

Today on the Friday we call Good, we remember that we worship this suffering God, and we follow this crucified man. Jesus shows us that God is willing to take on the worst the world has to offer, to experience it in a human body that can feel pain and can bleed and can die. Jesus is willing to take on the worst that WE have to offer – our selfishness, our fear, the broken mess we’ve made of our lives – to transform that too into something beautiful and precious and to be repurposed – chosen - as beloved children of God.

Even when the night has fallen, all hope seems lost, and it looks like the darkness will win in the Fridays of our lives - death cannot win, not forever. We cling to hope. We cling to the cross. And we wait for the light that shines in the darkness. We wait for the Sunday we know is coming. Amen. 

Strawberry Jello and Jesus

Maundy Thursday 2017

Grace and peace to you from God our father and from our lord and savior Jesus the Christ, amen.

Family, friends, and food just seem to go together. Here at Family of God, we live this like it is Gospel itself!! Between Dine and Donate, my installation celebration, the 55+ Group, Soup and Sandwich, you just can’t turn around in this church without bumping into a “food and fellowship” related ministry.

Food is how we take care of one another, and also how we celebrate. While both of my grandparents were alive, they would host every holiday many birthdays at their large house, with folding chairs and tables scattered everywhere, surrounding one huge table with leaves to make it huge. Food filled the kitchen, and no family gathering would be complete without Grandma’s strawberry Jell-o with bananas in it. And so, no plate would be complete without a helping. Now, strawberry Jello and bananas aren’t my favorite flavor combination, but eating this special desert was like eating with her, especially since there eventually came a time when strawberry jello with bananas was no longer on the menu.

What are some of your favorite food memories? Perhaps it is the smell of Grandma baking homemade bread, or the taste of fresh marina sauce at your favorite restaurant as you celebrated a birthday or milestone, a Champaign toast at a wedding. And then there are the special food traditions that become staples in our lives for family get-togethers and holidays, like my Grandma’s strawberry and banana jello. Like turkey on Thanksgiving. Mom’s sugar cookies at Christmas. Honey ham and Aunt Marge’s cheesy potatoes at Easter. Ice cream birthday cake from Dairy Queen.

Food makes us remember. The Jewish people used the Passover meal to remember that God had led them from slavery in Egypt to freedom, that God had guided them through years of wandering in the dessert, and eventually gave them to a home to call their own. Each item in the Passover meal jogs their memories of God’s saving acts and faithful presence in the past, to remind them that God will continue to be faithful, no matter what the future year holds.

This is the reason why strawberry Jell-O is actually more than just strawberry Jell-O. And bread is more than just bread and wine is more than just wine Like common Jell-O, here is nothing inherently special about bread and wine. Just walk down the bread aisle at ACME or GIANT sometime. There may be more varieties NOW than were available to Jesus, but really, bread still is just bread and wine is still just wine, no matter where you are. Like a package of Jell-O, neither are hard to find. They are common, familiar, everyday things, nowhere near on par with extraordinary.

And yet, God chooses the ordinary over the extraordinary, the common over the rare, the everyday and familiar over the exceptional - every time. God has a habit of taking what is ordinary in the eyes of the world and making it into something holy, special, set apart for a sacred reason.

Jesus embodied this during his lifetime, and that’s what got him into trouble. Jesus was always hanging out and eating with all the “wrong” kinds of people: lepers, Roman centurions, the demon-possessed, women at wells, children, foreigners, the blind, and the lame – all people who were on the outside of power and status. Jesus chose to be with them, just ordinary folks, rather than to hang out in the halls of power and influence. And in doing this, he showed that God was for THEM too.

But there were those in power in Jesus’ time who could not abide the thought that God welcoming everybody, that God would use ordinary people and ordinary things for God’s holy and sacred purposes. Jesus’ message of God’s extraordinary love for ordinary people threatened the established and excepted order. Therefore, naturally, Jesus and all that he stood for must be destroyed. And they would do so by any means necessary, even if it meant using one from his own inner circle, Judas, to betray him.

But that didn’t stop Jesus, not even for a second. Jesus came to show the world that God’s extreme love does extend to everyone, that God’s extreme welcome brings everyone to the table. Just look around at the people who are Jesus’ closest friends, the people he chose to spend his last meal with: common working men who didn’t always understand him, political zealots and hot-heads, those who would later desert him, one who would later deny him, and one would hand him over to death. And yet, there they all are, sitting around the table with Jesus, sharing a meal together.

And I ask you this night, to look around, to see who is gathered around this table. As Lutheran Pastor and writer Nadia Boltz-Weber (in her book Pastrix) often says about her own congregation: “I am unclear about what all these people have in common.” It just doesn’t seem to make any sense. Except, of course, that we know that it is Jesus who has brought us all here to this table of welcome: young and old, rich and poor, children and parents, liars and deniers and betrayers, imperfect people all. All brought to this meal because of Jesus. All are welcome at God’s table.

That night that Jesus shared his last meal with his closest friends, as they sat down to break bread as they had always done, they were expecting this night to be like all the others. They did not know that with them Jesus was making a memory – one that will be passed on, remembered throughout the ages, remembered again tonight.

That night, Jesus took ordinary bread and ordinary wine and gave it to ordinary people, and something extraordinary happened.

Jesus makes a promise with us with eating and drinking, an activity that unites all of humanity to meet a most human need – our need for sustenance, our need for life. We may eat to live and keep our bodies alive and healthy, but through Jesus’ broken body and blood poured we are given life in God’s Kingdom, where Jesus is giving us a place.

Jesus promised to be present with us in the sharing of bread and wine. And this he does boldly, while sin and betrayal and fear are sitting right there with him at the table. Jesus breaks a loaf of bread and shares it with his friends, just hours before his body is to be broken on the cross. Jesus then shares a cup of wine, just hours before his blood pours forth from his wounds, caused by flogging and splinters and nails.

We don’t have to understand it. In fact, most days we won’t be able to wrap our minds around it. But we remember it, believe it, trust it, and grasp it tightly and do not let go. We reach out our hands and receive it – the body of Christ, broken for you; the blood of Christ, shed for you.

You and me, who are sometimes Peter and sometimes Judas, and sometimes the rest of the disciples, asleep on the job or running the other direction in fear. But still, always welcome.

Pastor Rozella Haydee White wrote in the Free Indeed Lent Devotional that the ELCA published for Lent year, “In a world that divides things into sacred and secular, Christianity offers an alternative, one that has the power to bring about restoration… by choosing to become human, God shows us that we are worth restoring.”

In our world of violence and fear, of division and indifference, of tight schedules and frazzled nerves, our God comes to us in a way that we can see and touch and taste. How amazing is that? And together this night we

break bread,

eat,

and remember

that Jesus is here with us. Today we remember the goodness of the Lord, as we look ahead to tomorrow, that Friday that we call good. Amen.