One Story of Gain from Loss, Life from Death

February 24, 2010

Peace Lutheran is the church were D and I are members. Following our horrific nightmare of a departure from another church in another denomination the pastor and congregation of Peace welcomed us with open, healing arms. Though ordained in another denomination, they honored me by recognizing my heart and commitment as a pastor and have continually received me as such. Each Sunday we worship in the sanctuary where we were married eight years ago this coming Spring and listen to the Good News preached by the pastor who joyfully declared us wife and wife on that most precious of days in our life together. Peace Lutheran is also the congregation that supports this ministry in prayer and conviction and affirms YOU in your humanity and as an equal member in the family of God.

My point being that Peace Lutheran is a wonderful place, a sacred and safe refuge for D and I and for so many others who have stumbled into this house of worship filled with genuinely good and imperfect people and heavily influenced by some of the finest Swedes you’ll ever meet this side of the fjords.

I wish you could all just show up one Sunday morning, worship with us, and feel their welcome….but if you ever all decide to turn up in mass, all I ask is that you give me a heads-up. I need to be sure there are enough cookies for the hospitality hour.

D and I originally went to Peace for a couple years when we first got together and then were away for about four years while I fulfilled my ordination requirements. When we returned, Peace was different. The pews once full on Sunday mornings were now only occupied by a few dozen dear and familiar faces. The entire clergy and support staff had been reduced to the pastor and the office administrator. The choir that had once filled the three rows near the glossy black grand piano could now barely fill a standard-sized station wagon. The diverse array of outreach ministries and community involvement that Peace had been known for in the area had largely been set aside or abandoned because of limitations of budget and bodies. The Sunday School Hour, including their amazing children’s program was no more.

In our absence, this thriving congregation had confronted one of those agonizingly painful times that occurs in any number of churches where humans are involved. Life in the church got messy and uncertain. Conflicting stories developed. A few families left. Feelings were hurt and spirits wounded. And those who remained, who had faithfully endured the fire, showed the exhaustion and battle scars of their collective dark night of the soul. Though D and I were depleted from what we had just experienced at another congregation, we wept for Peace and we worried about their future, now our future with them.

But as Walter Bruggemann wrote in his Lenten prayer, through loss comes gain, through death comes new life.

Battle scars are healing. Weary souls are being restored. The rows of once sparsely-filled pews are being filled again; filled with joy and life and thankfulness, and with a people living out their individual commitment to the Gospel of Christ through being an inclusive, justice-minded, creation-conscious community in and to the world. In financial difficult times we’ve just accomplished an amazing feat together. Last Sunday morning we gathered outside in the rain around a round red charcoal grill and burned our mortgage papers, celebrating that with no debt remaining, we can look ahead to investing ourselves and our resources toward ministries that will reach beyond our walls. Last Sunday was also the first time in nearly five years our children gathered before worship in their new Sunday School classrooms. Tonight over bowls of steaming soup and warm bread we’ll gather for Soup and Sacrament, our weekly Lenten meal and meditation. Yes. Peace is breathing deep again and breathing with life that’s extending beyond our four walls to embrace the world. Once a month the sanctuary is over-flowing on Sunday nights with our Jazz at Peace series that brings people in from all over the Bay area. Neighbors to Peace come with dogs, cats, lizards, ponies and bugs in tow to our annual Festival of the Animals and every fall Peace hosts Holy Convergence, a spectacular interfaith worship service and afternoon that brings together Christian, Jew, Muslim, Buddhist, Bahia and every seeking soul.

There’s so much more happening at Peace these days but most of all what’s happening is the unfolding of hope long unrealized. There were days I wondered. I wondered if Peace would survive. I wondered if these dear people who had been through so much and been through it with so much dignity could hold on a little longer.

I wondered, but I don’t know why I did when in my own life every loss has led to gain and every death has brought the dawn of new life. There are times I get so stuck in the sorrow and suffering of the Lenten seasons of my life that I forget it’s not the destination where I’ll reside forever but instead it’s merely a moment on the path, a path that always and unfailingly leads to yet another Easter morning and to resurrection and new life.

Today your spirit might be empty from all the loss and death is a veil separating you from life but your spirit will be filled and the veil will be lifted. And if you can’t believe that for yourself today, if you can’t believe it for God, then I and all the others who have already walked that road and caught a glimpse of what lies ahead will believe it for you until you can. You can and you will. Just wait and see.

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