On August 7, 2019, a special service was held at St. Mary’s Chapel, St. Mary’s Hospital, Rochester, in support of Nathan Larson.  Representatives from the congregations of Good Shepherd and Burr Oak/Hesper attended as well as friends and family.  Nathan Larson, Abby Larson, Pr. Amy Larson and Pr. Matt Larson worshiped with the many people in attendance.  Pastor Mike Blair presided and preached, using the liturgy by Benjamin Splichal Larson.  Brooke Joyce and Jonathon Struve provided music.  

Eighth Sunday after Pentecost
August 4, 2019
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 story of the rich man is really sad, and not only because he hears he’s going to die this very night. It’s also really sad that he seems to be wandering around his farm talking to himself. It appears he has no one to consult about his plans – no family members, friends or spouse. Apparently, he doesn’t even have a trusted hired hand to talk to about the problem of not enough storage for his crops.

Instead, he talks to himself and directly to his soul, saying, “What should I do, for I have no place to store my crops? I will do this: I will pull down my barns and build larger ones, and there I will store all my grain and my goods. And I will say to my soul, Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.”

That all sounds so sad and lonely. I picture him pacing around in his bathrobe at 5:00 a.m., making these grandiose plans – plans that don’t include anyone else. It seems that his great wealth has cut him off from other people. So rather than thinking, I have so much, maybe I could share with others, instead he plans to fortify his fixation on himself. He plans to live as an island unto himself. How sad.

And then he hears God say, “This very night your life is being demanded of you. This very night, everything will change. All your plans will come to naught.”

Things can change in an instant. How well we know that. Even if we don’t hear the words, “Your life is being demanded of you,” there are so many events and words that rupture our lives: “There’s been an accident;” “It is malignant;” “There is no heartbeat;” “I want a divorce;” “The funding has dried up;” “Shots were fired today in …” “The medication isn’t working.” Sometimes such tears in the fabric of our lives happen abruptly, in an instant, sometimes with a slow unraveling.

My family and I are living through such a rending right now. I know so many of you have experienced similar trauma and heartbreak. And the people of Dayton, Ohio, and El Paso, Texas, are experiencing unimaginable pain that is becoming far too common in our country.

Life has a way of showing us that we are not actually the masters of our own destiny, that all our plans can come to naught. We are at the mercy of circumstances beyond our control. When such things happen, it is heart-wrenching and brutal, and yet such events also have a way of showing us what really matters.

In these times we see how much we need other people, how much we need God. None of us is an island. We are all interconnected. We are all dependent upon one another and God.

We forget this when we get busy with our own plans, our own efforts – all the tasks of daily life. It’s so easy to get fixated on all our small problems and all our wants. It’s so easy to think we’ll be safe and secure if only we can get more stuff built, more things done, more for ourselves. We, too, can find ourselves wandering around in our bathrobes talking to ourselves, fixated on our selfish problems and plans.

Ruptures in our life expose all of that as ridiculous. They help us to see that what really matters is our connection to others and to God. Those connections are where our real hope and help are found.

That has certainly been the case for our family. We are so grateful to this congregation and to everyone who is offering help and support in so many ways. We know that we are being held in prayer every day and we feel that deep in our bones. We know God is with us in this pain and struggle every step of the way.

This is the case for the people of El Paso who today are lining up to give blood and who, for years, have been responding with great generosity and welcome to the asylum seekers from Central America entering their community.

Painful events have a way of revealing what matters most. They can also help to disrupt our selfish and greedy plans, plans that can keep us isolated from God and one another.

But how do we remember what matters most when the crisis passes, when we’re back in the daily grind? How do we live more connected to God and other people during the mundane times? How do we keep working towards an end to gun violence and humane response to the needs of migrants even after the news cycle moves on?

One answer comes from our reading from Colossians today. Colossians tells us that a fundamental rupture has happened and continues to happen for us – we have died with Christ Jesus and have been raised with him. This changes everything for us, each day.

This rupture happens first in baptism and it happens again and again as we hear God’s word that convicts us and raises us to new life.

We are convicted so that our own plans and schemes and wants and desires draw us away from God and others. And we are reminded that all of that is not who we really are. Rather, we all bear the image of the creator and Christ is in us all. And in Christ Jesus we are raised to new life again and again.

As Colossians says: “Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have stripped off the old self with its practices and have clothed yourselves with the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge according to the image of its creator.  In that renewal there is no longer [any division among us] but Christ is all and in all!”

God’s word of conviction and promise comes to us again and again to bring a needed rupture in our selfish and greedy plans. God’s word strips away the bathrobe-clothed old self and clothes us in our new selves.

God’s word assures us that we have been given new life in Christ, a life of abundance and generosity, community and hope now and forever.

Let’s take a moment for silent prayer.

Seventh Sunday after Pentecost
July 28, 2019
Good Shepherd Lutheran Church
Decorah, Iowa
Pastor Mike Blair

Scriptures: Genesis 18:16-33; Psalm 138; Colossians 2:6-15; Luke 11:1-13

Genesis 18:16-33:

¹⁶Then the men set out from there, and they looked toward Sodom; and Abraham went with them to set them on their way. ¹⁷The LORD said, “Shall I hide from Abraham what I am about to do, ¹⁸seeing that Abraham shall become a great and mighty nation, and all the nations of the earth shall be blessed in him? ¹⁹No, for I have chosen him, that he may charge his children and his household after him to keep the way of the LORD by doing righteousness and justice; so that the LORD may bring about for Abraham what he has promised him.” ²⁰Then the LORD said, “How great is the outcry against Sodom and Gomorrah and how very grave their sin! ²¹I must go down and see whether they have done altogether according to the outcry that has come to me; and if not, I will know.”
²²So the men turned from there, and went toward Sodom, while Abraham remained standing before the LORD. ²³Then Abraham came near and said, “Will you indeed sweep away the righteous with the wicked?” ²⁴Suppose there are fifty righteous within the city; will you then sweep away the place and not forgive it for the fifty righteous who are in it? ²⁵Far be it from you to do such a thing, to slay the righteous with the wicked, so that the righteous fare as the wicked! Far be that from you! Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?” ²⁶And the LORD said, “If I find at Sodom fifty righteous in the city, I will forgive the whole place for their sake.” ²⁷Abraham answered, “Let me take it upon myself to speak to the LORD, I who am but dust and ashes. ²⁸Suppose five of the fifty righteous are lacking? Will you destroy the whole city for lack of five?” And he said, “I will not destroy it if I find forty-five there.” ²⁹Again he spoke to him, “Suppose forty are found there.” He answered, “For the sake of forty I will not do it.” ³⁰Then he said, “Oh do not let the LORD be angry if I speak. Suppose thirty are found there.” He answered, “I will not do it, if I find thirty there.” ³¹He said, “Let me take it upon myself to speak to the LORD. Suppose twenty are found there.” He answered, “For the sake of twenty I will not destroy it.” ³²Then he said, “Oh do not let the LORD be angry if I speak just once more. Suppose ten are found there.” He answered, “For the sake of ten I will not destroy it.” ³³And the LORD went his way, when he had finished speaking to Abraham; and Abraham returned to his place.

Who taught you to pray? How did you learn about prayer? Did you learn to pray through the rhythms of liturgy and the poetry of hymns? Maybe a parent, grandparent or mentor taught you about prayer?

Clara and Thelma were my teachers. My father’s mother, Grandma Clara, was very or- ganized and orderly. Grandchildren would get a card in the mail that arrived on their birthday or the day before if your birthday fell on a Sunday. On the Sunday following your birthday, you would get a birthday cake decorated in a personal theme that was of interest. If the cake needed ballerinas, football, race cars or ponies, Clara was on it. She taught us prayers for grace and bedtime.

God is great, God is good …

As a teacher, Clara knew that rhymes and repetition would help us remember.

         Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake …

That prayer troubled me. Instead of going to sleep, that prayer made me feel woke!

Grandma Thelma, my maternal grandmother, had 7 kids who all had their own kids. Her house was always full of cousins and grandkids and neighborhood kids and kids who were just hanging out with all the other kids. It was always fun to visit because you never knew what would happen. Sometimes she’d stand in the kitchen and say, “Lord, have mercy, I can’t keep track of this tribe! Hells bells, let’s bake a cake; it’s bound to be somebody’s birthday!”

Both grandmothers sang a familiar refrain, “All night, all day, angels watching over me my Lord. All night, all day.” Sing with me … That song still helps me sleep well when I need to quiet my heart or slow my racing mind.

My grandmothers both knew deep suffering through tragic losses in their immediate and extended families. Clara knew the loss of sons at the ages of 7 and 26. Thelma’s broth- er Ray died serving as a Navy pilot in WWII. Both of their family systems were wounded by alcohol abuse and a host of mental health struggles.

They both came from beloved, broken, blessed, complicated families. As I grow older, I am more aware of how deeply they both shaped my faith. They are my people and I thank God for the faith, hope and love I encountered in them and learned from them.

Thelma and Clara’s prayer life held a spectrum that mirrored Abraham and Sarah’s prayers. They knew prayers of longing, joy and wonder. They knew urgent prayers of intercession and grounding prayers of gratitude. All that range of prayer is held in our liturgy when we plea for God’s mercy in the Kyrie and when we join creation’s praise with This is the Feast and Glory to God.

In today’s Genesis text, we have the story of Abraham in an urgent prayer of intercession for Sodom and Gomorrah. Today’s text follows right on the heels of Sarah and Abraham’s hospitality with the three strangers who visit them at the oaks of Mamre to bring news that Abraham and Sarah will become parents of a son. Sarah’s laughter at this news foreshadows the child’s name. Isaac means laughter in Hebrew.  

Right after Sarah’s laughter, the story pivots to Abraham walking away with the three strangers. God has a conversation with God’s self about letting Abraham know about the outcry and expected judgment against Sodom and Gomorrah. God decides to let Abraham know because of Abraham’s calling to bless the world by practicing righteous- ness and justice.

Before we get into the story of Abraham’s prayer, how Abraham practices righteousness and justice with God, an important note about this story.

The sin of Sodom and Gomorrah is not about homosexuality. They suffer judgement for gross injustice, violence and disregard for the poor and needy. Here’s what the prophet Ezekiel says of Sodom: This was the guilt of your sister Sodom: she and her daughters had pride, excess of food, and prosperous ease, but did not aid the poor and needy. Ezekiel 16:49

Genesis 19 tells of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah after the angels of God visit and are threatened by a mob who threatened to rape the guests. Lot pleads with them and even offers his daughter – a troubling and vexing response that speaks to Sodom’s ravenous appetite for sexual violence and exploitation that degrades everyone. Rather than using their prosperity to help others thrive, Sodom only saw opportunities for exploitation, self-indulgence, violence and abuse of power, especially in relationship with those who were weak and vulnerable. The injustice and cruelty of Sodom poisoned everything from hospitality and travel and even the gift of human sexuality.

The prophet Jeremiah called Jerusalem to account telling them their sins were greater than Sodom. This is a prophet’s way of getting the people’s attention.  

God’s vision of shalom, healing, resurrection and renewal embodies a righteousness that stretches all of us into a greater communion, a more generous kingdom of healing and restoration.

When Abraham learns of the planned judgment against Sodom, he pleads with God. The two angels depart and their story is told in the troubling 19^th chapter of Genesis. Sodom will suffer judgment in spite of Abraham’s prayer.

Abraham’s pleading with God brings us to a difficult place, to our own prayers of pleading. Who among us hasn’t offered an urgent prayer for a loved one in need, at the unwelcome news of cancer or chronic illness? We have all offered prayers for children at the border, for vulnerable migrant families navigating coyotes and cruelty and harsh government policies all because they hope for a better life. Lord, have mercy..

We gasped together when the news of Nathan’s fall and injuries was shared in worship two weeks ago. We give thanks for his prognosis for recovery and continue to pray for his healing. At Good Shepherd, we are grateful for the faithful ministry and leadership of this flock provided by Pr. Amy and we are glad to offer prayers of healing and well being for Nathan and the Zalk-Larson household.

Abraham’s prayer is a particular prayer for a community where he envisions a gathering of 10 righteous will save even the unjust. While we may not have prayed this precise prayer, we all know variations of pleading with God.    

The promise of this story is that prayer changes us and that prayer also changes God. God with us is also God is process, grace evolving and growing with the expanding universe. Prayer calls us to know ourselves as God’s beloved and calls us to grow into the fullness of God’s love.

Abraham practices righteousness by calling God to be merciful. Genesis 19 tells of the eventual destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah. That’s not the whole story. The prophet Ezekiel, after naming the judgment against Sodom cited earlier, speaks a surprising Gospel word just a few verses later in the 16^th chapter of Ezekiel: I will restore their for- tunes, the fortunes of Sodom and her daughters and the fortunes of Samaria and her daughters, and I will restore your own fortunes along with theirs. Ezekiel 16:53

God’s ultimate work is about healing a broken world – that’s the work of the cross, the good news of Jesus.

In the Lord’s prayer, Jesus is teaching us to pray our way into new community, the kingdom, the kingdom of God. In this new community we know ourselves as God’s blessed, beloved, broken people. I love the way this new community is embodied and practiced in the partnership, vision and shared works of justice and mercy embodied in this beloved flock, Good Shepherd Lutheran church.

God’s new community comes to us in many surprising ways. In the summer of 2016, I discovered Gospel community keeping watch with my father. My parents were divorced when I was in college. It was a difficult and complicated matter that wounded us all along the way. As my father’s biological son, I found a way to hold on to resentment and a grudge toward my step-brothers, one of whom bears my name.

My stepbrother Mike lived with my father and stepmother during his middle school and high school years after my father remarried. We could be friendly together as we knew each other from long before my Dad remarried. Still, I always thought of my stepfamily as the people who took my father.

At my father’s deathbed, I heard my stepbrother voice words of thanks and love to my father. He spoke of the abuse he suffered from his biological father and voiced gratitude to know a father who cared for him and had high expectations for him. It was a revelation to me to hear this grace in my father’s story. I was old enough to know, but I had never opened myself to this storyline. In the shared grief of my father’s death, there was a new path of love for my stepbrother and stepfamily. It came to me by grace and surprise.

By grace we are saved – this is not our own doing, it is the gift of God. Hallelujah! I am still learning how to pray, how to open myself to the mind of Christ, to God’s expansive mercy and restoring justice.

So today, offer whatever prayers you bring. As we say in the communion liturgy – Lift up your hearts, we lift them to the Lord.

Lift your prayers of joy, lament, longing, wonder, gratitude knowing that they all are held in God’s mercy. Abraham prays for the sake of a people. The Psalm promises that God will not forsake the work of God’s hands. Rejoice today that God’s response to our prayers is Christ’s love poured out for you, for all God’s people and all creation. Such generosity moves us to prayers of humble thanks.

And together we say, Amen.

Fourth Sunday after Pentecost
July 7, 2019
Good Shepherd Lutheran Church
Decorah, Iowa
Rev. Daniel Christensen

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

Most of us celebrated Independence Day this past week in some fashion. You may have witnessed a parade or fireworks, attended a picnic, watched a July 4th concert or some special programming, observed a baseball game, gone fishing or boating or biking. Did you know that is just what John Adams told his wife Abigail, “There should be all sorts of celebrations all over this nation … in the generations to come … “

Most if not all of us probably did some sort of reflection upon Independence and freedom. As citizens of this independent nation we recognize that our independence and the freedoms we cherish are important matters that continually need our attention so that we might continue to be a free people. We need to be on our guard so that we hold fast to the freedom that this nation was founded upon. Be on your guard …

In our second Lesson today, St. Paul is closing his letter to the Christian church in Galatia. Paul had brought the message of the Gospel of Jesus Christ to this region as a missionary – two or three trips to that area of present day Turkey. He carried the message that ‘Jesus had given himself for our forgiveness.’ It was a message of freedom in Christ, freedom to live and bear fruit. He wrote It was for freedom that Christ set us free. Therefore, keep standing firm and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery, trying to keep all the law. Forgiveness was given through Christ and he insisted it was through Christ alone – not Christ and good works, not Christ and keeping the law, not Christ and traditions and practice, but faith in Christ’s suffering and death and resurrection. Forgiveness and salvation come through Christ’s death and resurrection, nothing else – except Christ. Jesus Christ is the one who renders forgiveness to those who put their faith in Him and where there is forgiveness there is life is in his name.

That is the gospel that Paul carried and that is the faith that you the church family in this place hold dear. It is what you know and you have been taught. This faith in Jesus is what you count on in the journey of Life. When things are on cruise control, you give thanks, or at least I hope you do. When things seem to be bogged down and in a mess, you pray for strength and wisdom, help, guidance, healing – right?

Here in this congregation you keep coming Sunday after Sunday because you expect to hear and experience the love, grace, mercy, and forgiveness of Jesus in this place. You come expecting to hear a word from God, to be among God’s faithful people in this place, you come to pray, to lift up your voices in praise to God, and you expect this almighty God to answer. You come to give of yourself, your time, and your possessions in the mission of this congregation.

You come to be among God’s faithful who like you come to hear that your sins are forgiven in the name of Christ. Again, that is all good news and it is exciting to be part of this congregation where you know the gospel is proclaimed and lived in this place. That is good news – still, we need to be on our guard . This is a world that has lots of different ideas about God and in some cases the lack of God. So, Pastor Amy and you the members of this congregation need to continue to be on guard so the gospel continues to be clearly shared in this place to strengthen and inform all who come into and go out from this church building into the world to bear witness to Jesus the Savior of the World.

In the second lesson today, written by the apostle Paul – the one who was called from being persecutor of the Jesus people, the people of the way, to being a proclaimer of the very message he was trying to silence (Acts 9). Now remember, this letter of Paul’s did not come because he was so delighted with what was happening in Galatia. Rather, Paul believed there was a major crisis in Galatian churches. They had not been on their guard and the Galatian Christians were watering down the truth of the gospel because some folks, people called Judizers, had come and preached a different message of forgiveness and salvation to these folks after Paul had established congregations in that area. Paul was concerned that the folks there had been duped and had bought into this false gospel, which Paul said was no gospel at all. Truth of the matter is, Paul was really upset with the Galatian folks and those who had come with this other message that contradicted the message of the gospel Paul had shared with them.

If you have never read the Letter to the Galatians, or not read it recently (takes 20 minutes or so), he greets them. Paul starts by telling them he was amazed they had so quickly deserted God the Father who had called them by the grace of Christ – strong language, ‘deserted’. He wrote about how the revelation of the Gospel of Jesus had come to him and how his authority to preach the gospel to the gentiles was okayed by pillars in the church, John, Peter, and James. He even shared a story where he faced Peter down because Peter was wishy-washy. Peter had been eating with Gentiles until some Folks who insisted upon circumcision and keeping Jewish traditions and laws came to town. Peter backed away from the gentiles and eating with them.

Paul said it is Christ alone that saves us, not Christ and some rituals or traditions or keeping the laws, but Christ alone. Then Paul writes about how the Spirit came to them and pointed out that the Spirit did not come by acts of the law, but by hearing with Faith. Faith is the work of the Spirit, you know.

Paul spends a good deal of space in the letter talking about what the law was intended for and what it cannot do. He wrote that if you think you are going to be circumcised to insure your salvation, you have got to keep all of the law, every bit of it. Then what happens? Then you are in bondage to the law and you have cut yourself off from Christ, he said. Last week the second lesson was on the Fruit of the Spirit. When the Spirit of Christ, the Holy Spirit, is at work in us we live by faith. We demonstrate the love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, and self-control -and there is no law against such things – when the Spirit of God is working in us. The fact is, the love of Christ is exhibited in you.

Now in our lesson today we have Paul’s closing. Paul talks about things that we need to be on guard about in our daily lives. He says be on your guard: When someone is caught in sin or trespasses, you who are spiritual restore that one in gentleness lest you be tempted. Isn’t that true for us? When someone tells about another’s wrongdoing, we sort of get puffed up thinking I would never do such a thing.

Bear one another’s burdens, give a hand, listen to another’s hurts and sorrows, offer your time to bring comfort, pray with and for those who are struggling and hurting. When the offering plate is passed here, you know that part of what you give goes from this place to missionaries, world relief and world hunger, seminaries, and the like. That fulfills the law of Christ. I know this congregation has a long history of bearing one another’s burdens. Back in the 70’s, this congregation sponsored several refugee families. Your congregation inspired our congregation in Riceville to sponsor some refugee families; and then a congregation in Cresco sponsored some more members of that family. And do you know we get a box of chocolates every year at Christmas from one on the family members we sponsored.

Paul says we should be on our guard. If anyone thinks he is something (pride) – On Sunday evenings I go to the Mission in Cresco, a Bible training to help folks whose lives have been out of control generally because of drugs and alcohol. One of the new guys came up and said,“You were wonderful.” I told him to watch out, my head might swell before these guys. I trust that it is the Spirit at work, not me. So think about who we are without Christ. Think about where we would be without Christ in our lives. Christ has been there for us with hope and promises and with forgiveness and protection in our lives.

Pastor Amy is not here today. She probably would not say much on this next verse, “Let the one who is taught share all good things with the one who teaches …” As people we are instructed in the word of the Lord. We need to support those who teach and lead and guide us along life’s way.

This God of ours is really something – all powerful. God invites us to pray – all present and all seeing. God knows us better than we know ourselves, so do not think you can fool God. He will not be mocked, he can read our motives, he reads our hearts, through and through. We do not have anything that we do that will impress God except when we are walking in the Spirit.

Dear friends in Christ – Continue to seek to hold firmly to Christ alone. There is nothing else that will bring freedom except for the forgiveness won by Jesus Christ on the cross on Calvary and when you believe the Spirit is at work in you. And then my friends, the Lord will use you in all sorts of ways. Be on your guard and enjoy the journey …

Third Sunday after Pentecost
June 30, 2019
Good Shepherd Lutheran Church
Decorah, Iowa
Presider: Rev. Amy Zalk Larson; Preacher: Rev. Mike Blair

First Reading: 2 Kings 5:1-15; Psalm 16; Second Reading: Galatians 5:1, 13-25; Gospel: Luke 9:51-62

The sermon today was a mixture of poetry, music and text by Luther College Pastor, Rev. Mike Blair. No text is available; however, the audio is posted on Facebook and on the “Sermons” link under the “Connect” tab on the Good Shepherd homepage.