Pastor Brian’s Messenger Article June 2008

(March article below)

(April article below)

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Trinity Sunday came a few weeks ago.( May 18) We celebrate it every year, but otherwise don’t think much about why we confess God as “Holy One, Holy Three.” Why do we celebrate the Holy Trinity at this time of year? Maybe because it’s just after Pentecost. We finally get a holy Spirit to go along with Jesus and the Abba he prays to! Or, maybe it’s because it’s almost summer. Summer is when we get to go outside and see that the Creator is still making a world filled with Spirit and Life.

The creation story from Genesis is one of the readings for Trinity Sunday. We hear it and marvel at the greatness of God who makes the Earth, the seas, the sky, the wind, sun and moon, stars and comets, animals and plants, human beings. It’s a great story, unforgettable. But we often forget that God’s world is just as much a revelation as God’s Word. Lutherans say we can’t know anything about God by our merely human intelligence. It’s only through God’s revelation, we say, that we come to know God. And God’s revelation, we think, has to do only with Jesus and God’s Word in the Bible. But the book of Creation is a living “text” from God. The Holy Spirit works with us, opening our eyes to help us see and appreciate the divine glory that fills this Creation and overflows. The Spirit reveals to us that we don’t just tell a sacred story ? we live in a sacred world, where every plant and animal and person shares in the holiness of God.

So, what about “the old, old story of Jesus and his love”? Should we put Jesus on the shelf and go hiking instead of coming to church on Sundays? Well, no. Of course, we want to remember Jesus, and we hope Jesus remembers us. Jesus is the combination of humanity and divinity that unlocks the safe of salvation. But what’s in the safe? The safe gets opened not so we can crawl inside and stay there, but so we can get things out of it and use them. Jesus is the keystone in the arch, the door through which we walk into newness of life. But the whole point of Jesus is to set us free to walk in God’s world alert and grateful, prayerfully aware of God’s splendid presence all around us. Jesus is making us free to live well in the world God is still making.

Don’t focus on Jesus alone and miss the other Persons of the Trinity. Sometimes we get so preoccupied with the details of Jesus’ story in the Bible that we don’t hear the song God is singing in holy Three-part harmony all around us today Trinity Sunday helps us remember that there’s more to God than Jesus; that there’s more to God’s world than what’s inside our church; and more to a truly human life than the obsessions of so-called Western civilization.

So, if summer takes you away from church on Sunday mornings, you can still worship and adore. You take the church with you wherever you go; and God is all around you in Spirit and in truth. May God in Christ set you free to live in the power of the Spirit ? alive, awake, mindful of the holy love that surrounds you, grateful for each new day of wonder, eager to enjoy the great celebration we call the Holy Trinity.

Pastor Brian's Messenger article from the May 2008

Well, Mother Earth is at it again. She’s doing that old Springtime thing. Flowers bloom, trees blossom, clouds relax to let the sun shine on us glorious and warm. No wonder the Easter season is in Spring ? nature itself praises the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. Somehow, it’s easy to believe in God’s promised New Creation when the old one is showing off so splendidly!

We’ve got some resurrection going on at Central, too. Soon our tower will rise from the dead, doubtlessly hoping to catch up with Jesus. Lively worship happens weekly. On the Day of Pentecost, we will confirm Ben Criswell and Lizzie Hayden in the Christian Faith. The Rainbow Ministry is up and running. Lutherans for Justice in the Holy Land is looking to build up personal relationships with people and churches in Palestine. Central’s new “Green” ministry is composting, recycling, and working to get a new heating system that will save us many thousands of dollars a year, and save our planet by lightening our “carbon footprint.” We have great offerings at Adult Education every Sunday. Christianity 101 has five lively students and one happy teacher (me!). Sunday School teachers faithfully bless our younger kids, helping them fulfill baptismal vows. We’ve set priorities and are starting to live them. In all these ways and more, Central is a community of care. We hold each other in a safety net of relationships by the love of God to catch each other when we fall. Somehow, that makes it easier to risk resurrection!

But is our spiritual ecosystem sustainable? Like a perennial flower trying to break through the soil, that question keeps pushing into my mind. I’ll let go of the nature metaphors now and speak plainly. No new members have joined since last November. Our offering revenue is down a bit from last year. Our giving is still very good; but it’s harder to balance expenses with income. These trends concern me. I’m not sure what’s going on. One person said she thinks we’re getting complacent. Another said that envelope offering is down because folks are putting extra giving into the tower fund. I wonder if some of our lay leaders feel weary from hard work over the past couple years. Maybe it’s all these and more. But even with all the good things happening at Central, we need to be growing in membership, growing in giving, growing in mission and outreach if Central is to be sustainable.

Doing church these days is a challenge. Christianity is no longer most folks’ first option when it comes to living with dignity and hope in a scary world. Pastor’s Message continued

But God put us here for a reason. Our tradition tells us that reason is to love God more than life itself; and to share that love with every person we know. We need to be reaching out and asking others to come, taste, and see that God is good. As individuals, we need to do this. As a community of Christ, we need to do this. Every week, each one of us must make it a priority to invite others to join us so that together we grow strong in the faith that can help us live with integrity and love in the face of death. Now, that’s a challenge!

At church you hear about God’s love and receive it as a gift in community. At church you learn the words of eternal life and the things that make for peace. You get deep insight into the human condition and tools to cope with the tragedies that try our souls. Churching isn’t always easy; and it’s certainly not perfect. But it’s how God has made us who we are. And it’s more interesting, more satisfying, and more fun when we have lots of friends in Christ who help us risk resurrection. Now it’s time to rise to the occasion, since Mother Earth is doing her Springtime thing again, helping us bloom and blossom to live newness of life as People of God.

Pastor Brian's Messenger article from the April 2008

The Fall and Rise of Central’s Tower

Recently, after all the news about our tower in The Oregonian, I was talking with a member of Central who told me he really didn’t know much about why the tower was taken down or about what was at issue with the city of Portland in rebuilding it. I said to myself, well, if this person has questions, probably others do, too. So I want to recount briefly why we removed the tower, and what is happening in our relationship with the city as we work to rebuild the tower.

When I came to Central in 2004, the tower was already a big topic of conversation with the Council. They had been talking to a couple of cell phone companies who wanted to install an antenna in the cross atop the tower, and put in transmission equipment elsewhere in the building. Ultimately, those deals both fell through. But in exploring them, we had a lot of testing done on the tower. We wanted to know if the structure was sturdy enough to support the cellular equipment.

Getting reliable data to answer that question was difficult; and coming up with clear interpretation of those data was no easier. But finally we got a report we could trust. The results: the tower was way more rotten than any of us had realized. Built over 50 years ago of native Oregon Douglas Fir, it was lovely and strong. But over the years, the untreated wood naturally grew weaker through exposure to weather and insects. By 2005, it had become dangerously weak.

After careful deliberation, the Council decided to act swiftly and take down the tower without getting a demolition permit from the city. We did so because as Christians, we see a clear moral imperative to protect innocent life. Had we not acted quickly, there was a real chance that a strong gust of wind or a strong seismic tremblor could have brought the tower crashing down on people standing outside, or onto the rest of the building. We believed the risk of injury, death, and destruction was simply too great to permit delay.

So we hired a construction company to detach the tower from the rest of the building, lift it off, and put it down in the parking lot. It is no surprise that when the structure was set down it immediately fell apart. A good many of the wooden beams fell to pieces or crumbled into dust on the spot. So I am convinced that the Council did the right thing in acting swiftly to take down the tower.

Unfortunately, though our action was morally right, it violated requirements of municipal laws, in a couple respects. We should have had a demolition permit; and we should have filed a plan for reconstructing the tower before demolition, since the building had been designated an historic landmark by the city of Portland. When someone reported our action to city officials, the city acted rightly in citing us for violating the pertinent laws.

Clearly, the law requires us to rebuild the tower. City officials charged with monitoring our progress have clarified what it would take for us to comply with the building codes and the laws pertaining to reconstruction of historical landmarks. They have also informed us of the financial penalties and other sorts of legal jeopardy that could result from non-compliance. However, it is important to state that the city officials involved with this project have never acted in a punitive or threatening manner. They made it clear that as long as Central made a good-faith effort to get the tower rebuilt on time, they would exercise restraint in applying penalties. So far, we’ve had a harmonious and productive relationship with these officials.

Plans for rebuilding the tower have now been approved by the city. We are supposed to get building permits for construction no later than the end of June. Then we are supposed to complete tower construction within six months thereafter. Whether we can actually get the tower done in that time-frame remains to be seen. But we are making a good-faith effort to do so. God willing, it will get done on schedule. And if that begins to look impossible, then we’ll be in conversation with city officials to see how we can re-negotiate the construction schedule. But we’ll cross that bridge when we get to it. Meanwhile, let’s work hard to “Lift High the Cross” and get the tower done well before the winter rains come again.