over and around the rainbow

Several RMC members and I have been experiencing what I’m calling LITURGICAL MADNESS. It all started during Advent when I told some folks that when I was young(er), and whenever I heard fancy words in church like liturgical, I would write the word out on a piece of paper and then spend the rest of the worship service trying to find all the smaller words contained in the big, fancy word. Lizzie and Greg Shelly were at Rainbow the morning I said that and well, THE GAME WAS ON. (I can only assume they listened to the sermon that morning too. Millennials are supposed to be good multi-taskers after all.)  They came up with their list and then I spent the next few months trying to find another word. This has gone back and forth now many times. Girl. Curt. Curl. Tragic. I even had to look up a few words like Crag. A few other RMC folks have joined in the fun including Steve Goeke, who I discovered is an absolute genius at this game. (It shouldn’t be a surprise that he found the word guitar in liturgical.)

It’s time to see who else might be a genius. Greg, Lizzie and I don’t know how much longer we can last. Anyone else want to join the season of LITURGICAL MADNESS? We dare you to find another word.

PS Speaking of liturgical madness, check out this great article about a priest who, during March madness, made up a tourney bracket pitting saint against saint in a lively contest. I wonder what a Mennonite/Anabaptist saint bracket would look like?

Ever since becoming the pastor at Rainbow, I have performed a simple ritual of sprinkling the leftover communion juice around our church grounds.

One of my ministry mentors, an ordained United Methodist pastor, introduced me to this ritual several years ago. I have found that pouring out the communion juice is a way to remember Jesus’ special concern for those on the margins, those who don’t always feel welcome in our places of worship.

I often find myself saying a simple prayer such as, “May all who play, pray, laugh or cry here know the Love of God.” This week as we sprinkled the juice near the Amy Fretz memorial sculpture I found myself saying, “To all who have played and worked here and who are no longer with us, may you rest in peace.”

Last Sunday I said that for Jesus’ early followers, breaking bread together had economic implications. It was not only an act of remembering Jesus’ life, death and resurrection, but it was a way they shared with the poor the daily material things that sustain life. What if we saw gathering at the Table as a call to break down barriers of wealth, class, education and hierarchy?

I’ve been contemplating this question ever since a recent RMC Deacon retreat. While we were together we talked about the fact that in the early church the Deacon job description was as follows: Seven people in good standing were selected to wait on tables and serve the poor. See Acts 6:1-6  Deacons are called to be Table Waiters. The word Deacon actually comes from the word diakonia which means service.

Of course RMC Deacons aren’t the only ones in our congregation who wait on tables and share resources.  We are all commissioned to be table waiters of sorts and care for those in need. In fact, if you’ve been to RMC in the morning on a weekday, there is a good chance you’ve seen this truck parked outside the church or these pallets in the entryway.

And if you’ve been to church on a Wednesday around 4:00pm, there is a good chance you’ve seen these Spirit-filled people working hard, preparing snack packs. Harvesters and its network of agencies provide a helping hand to tens of thousands of people in need every week.

Another thought I had following communion this past Sunday is that we can often get tripped up in our efforts to wait tables and give to those in need. Often our best efforts to serve can perpetuate unhealthy and even destructive patterns of hierarchy, power and control. We are often in need of humility, perspective, and I would suggest, learning how to give fully involves learning how to receive fully. That is why I have felt led to think about Jesus as The Great Table Waiter or the Great Host, the One who is Abundant Life for All. So whether we find ourselves on the giving or receiving end of table waiting (and I do hope it’s both) may we continue to draw inspiration and hope from the life of Jesus, who is Divine Nourishment and Divine Refreshment, Bread of Life and Holy Vine.

Our cats like to hold paws in between their cat fights. Sometimes they even like to take cat naps together.

I share this because this past Sunday I invited people to hold hands with the people near them as we said the oft repeated phrase: The Lord be with you. And also with you. I did this knowing that this would be a welcome invitation for some and an unwelcome invitation for others. We all have our degrees of comfort and discomfort when it comes to physical touch. I’ve had people tell me that they appreciate holding hands in church especially since, in one woman’s case, this was the only time she held hands with people. Another woman, in citing why she appreciates Ash Wednesday said, ”  It’s one of the few times, with baptism and last rites, that the clergy is required to touch the penitent.” Other people have told me that even the simple act of holding hands can trigger feelings of anxiety or even worse. I hope no one felt forced to participate, and I hope no one got clawed. And I hope that no matter our comfort level with physical touch in church, we can appreciate the words to this lovely hymn found in our blue hymnal # 93: Lord, bless the hands that share with us. And bless the hearts that care for us. Now hear this simple prayer from us. Amen. Amen.

P.S. People have told me that I need to figure out a solution to my incredibly cold hands. What say you physicians at Rainbow?

Someone at Bethel College Mennonite wanted to know just how cold my hands were compared to the rest of the church. Here is proof that I might have a problem.

My friend Ian told me that when he was in 6th grade a volcano erupted in his hometown of Alaska. Guess what day it was? Ash Wednesday. He said, “We were sitting there in school, on a day like any other. And then the sky broke, and we realized that something was terribly, terribly wrong. It was an everyday Wednesday like today.” Ian remembers being scared. There were all kinds of newscasts, warnings about ash inhalation and property damage. They were cooped up inside and restless.

Then a few days later he looked out of the icy window of his house and noticed that it had started to snow and snow and snow. It snowed all day and all night. When he woke up Sunday morning to go to church the mountain was no longer gray, the trees were pristine white. He said here and there he could see reminders of Wednesday; under the eaves and on people’s foreheads. A reminder that something had been terribly wrong and yet, was no longer.

Purge me with hyssop, wrote the Psalmist, and I shall be whiter than snow.

At various points I have felt ambivalent about Ash Wednesday. It can be a haunting thing to be on the giving and receiving end of the imposition of ashes. The words, “Remember you are dust and to dust you shall return” don’t roll off the tongue very easily. (Neither does the phrase “whiter than snow.” For too long the color white has been associated with purity and superiority, as if darker colors were somehow bad or lesser than.)

During one of the more memorable Ash Wednesday services an older gentlemen looked me in the eyes after I made the sign of the cross on his forehead and he said, “thank you.”  Thank you for what? I thought. Who wants to be reminded of mortality?

“They are a curious thing, ashes; they are terrible and remarkable by turns,” writes the great Jan Richardson. She continues:

“Ashes come as a reminder of the ways that humans across history have been horrible to one another, of how we have, with an awful finesse, reduced to literal ashes one another’s homes, buildings, cities, histories, and very bodies. Ashes can also be a thing of wonder. Ashes—dust, dirt, earth—are the stuff from which we have been made, and to which we will return. Ash Wednesday, and the season it heralds, seeks to ground us, to make us mindful of the humus, the humility, the earthiness of which our bones and flesh are made. And yet, in the midst of this, the season calls us to open ourselves to the God who brings life from ashes, who works wonders amid destruction, who cries out and grieves in the presence of devastation and terror, and who breathes God’s own spirit into the rubble. It is this God who breathes into us, calling our awful and glorious ash-strewn selves to speak words of life and freedom and healing amid violence and pain.”

And so…..I plan to bring ashes to the Taizé service Wednesday at 5:45 pm. I will offer ashes to those who would like to receive them. And with a mixture of trepidation and hope, uncertainty and trust, I will ask someone to place ashes on my forehead.

Last night I took the liberty to set these said ashes in the snow, hoping that our snow-wrapped ground would breathe life into these ashes, into us all.  May it be so.

Another friend Sam has written this beautiful reflection on Ash Wednesday. Check it out.

Sculptor in wood, John Gaeddert, made this for me. It is called “Women at the well.” It was waiting for me at church upon returning from a women doing theology conference. I like to think that women have always done theology, especially while drawing and fetching water.

Recently I spent two days at an Anabaptist Women Doing Theology Conference called “All you need is love: Honoring the Diversity of Women’s Voices in Theology.”

This  was no “sloppy agape” as Melinda Berry put it. This was a time for us to reflect on what it means to love in the midst of a world rife with struggle and oppression. This meant facing the truth that even as sisters in Christ there are still many things that divide us, even us.

Several times during the weekend it felt as though we were gathering near a well, drinking deeply of Live-giving water- of Love Herself. So you can imagine my surprise when I came home to find this wood-carved piece by John Gaeddert, a man who knows something about drinking from a deeper well. In fact, in his retirement he says he uses his wood sculptures “to express simplicity, gentleness, growth and relationship themes.”

Seminars and papers were presented on a whole range of lived experience: From food, to empty wombs, to sexual abuse, to adoption, to climate change, to forgiveness, to disability, to mental health, to technology, to mothering, to self-love, to adventures in mascara. Biblical stories and characters were looked at, often in surprising ways: The Good Samaritan story (or as the speaker put it, the Good Enough Samaritan), Esther, Sophia, and Rizpah. And then there were times for yoga, guided meditations, poetry, dance (I opted out of this one), singing, and seeing beautiful photographs displayed. Oh, and yes, I did find time to do a little bit of Olympic-watching. In fact, on of my Canadian friends pulled me aside on Friday at noon, just when the hockey game was about to begin, and said, “Ruth, we’re going to have to sit near a power source for this session.” This picture says it all:

Here are some questions that I continue to think about in my own search for Love: Am I a slactivist? Do I take short-cuts in my activism? What might it mean for me to build my activist muscles? Likewise, what does it mean for us, of all genders, to be repairers of the breach?

Thank God for conferences, for people, for visions that inspire strong bodies, fertile gardens and Love that never dies.

We have been taught different table manners. Some of us grew up with strict rules around how to hold silverware or set the table or how to chew. Others of us learned through observation and still others of us have yet to  learn any table manners! I cringe every time I think of a meal I shared with my Czech friend in Prague. I learned later in the evening that every time I cut my steak with my fork (I hadn’t learning the art of eating with a knife), the table would shake. And so every time I was about to cut the family would warn enough other in their native tongue (unknown by me), “Ruth is about to cut her steak!” They would  then reach for their wine glasses so that they wouldn’t spill when the table shook.  Lesson learned.

I attended a women’s theological conference this past week where they served us sticky rice and honey!

Gathering at the Lord’s Table feels just as awkward at times. How do we set the table? How do we pass out the elements? What elements should we even use? Gluten free? Juice or wine? And do we say something as people approach us? And then there are the questions about receiving the elements. Do I wait to be handed the bread or do I reach for the bread? What if I didn’t wash my hands? What if I drop the bread? Or, as happened during one service I attended at Fourth Presbyterian Church in Chicago, what if a bird flies into the sanctuary and starts eating the bread while the choir is singing the communion anthem?

At Rainbow we gather at the Lord’s Table the first Sunday of every month (I’ll write another post in the future about why this is). You’d think this would be frequent enough to have the sharing of communion figured out- down to a science. Not so. That is because gathering at this common table with a common loaf and cup isn’t a science. It is about sharing together and communing with one another and with God and like life, this can feel messy and awkward at times.

This is all to say that this Sunday, March 2, we will be invited to the table in a slightly different manner. Or as Rosi put it, the table will have a few new flavors this Sunday! We are going to have what we’re calling a choral communion service. It will have some Latin and Spanish flavors, with a touch of Mennonite 🙂

It will most certainly have a different  feel than last Sunday. After all, we had a duck fly into the sanctuary to wish some folks a happy birthday.

We could all stand to think about our table manners and flavors from time to time. I have a feeling this Sunday might be one of those times. I’m counting on it.

They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more. -Isaiah 2:4

Lent begins on Ash Wednesday, March 5 and concludes with Easter, April 20. Lent comes from a word that means “to lengthen,” referring to the lengthening of daylight hours as spring approaches in the northern hemisphere.

Lent, which lasts 40 days,  is associated with the 40 days Moses spent on Mount Sinai, Israel’s 40 years wandering in the wilderness, and Jesus’ 40-day fast in the desert.

For those fact checkers out there, you might notice that there are more than 40 days between Ash Wednesday and Easter. That’s because Sundays are not included in this 40 day Lent calculation. Sundays, interestingly, are considered “little Easters.”

There are many other things to highlight and consider about the season of Lent. That is why I will lead an Introduction to Lent Adult Education session in the Sanctuary this coming Sunday, March 2. We will hear more about the purpose and rhythms of Lent, learn some Lenten songs and hear more about our Lenten theme: Conflict Transformed.

Regarding the theme, some of you might notice that the sketch at the top is based on a piece by RMC artist and builder, Arlie Regier. I’m grateful to Leroy and June Seat (pictured below) who informed me of this piece (or should I say peace?). They recently brought me to the Clay County Court House where this sculpture sits permanently. Since there was no way to move this sculpture to our sanctuary I asked my husband Jesse to sketch it.

As we approach this new season of lengthening days, may our hearts and minds also be stretched or lengthened as we consider how Jesus transforms conflict and how we might live in that Love.

The one-and-only Olivia Bartel will be with us on Sunday, February 23. Olivia is the Director at Camp Mennoscah. I’ve asked her to come talk with us about the beloved camp community. Hopefully she brings the one-and-only AeroDynamic Duck, local Murdock superhero.  Olivia tells me the Duck usually shows up for birthdays and the occasional midnight swim at camp.

Camp Mennoscah is a beloved place and Olivia is a beloved friend. When Jesse and I were on staff at camp (lifeguard and art director-I’ll let you guess who was which), we looked forward to her quacky sense of humor. I know she is near and dear to RMC having grown up in this congregation. In fact one of you recently told me that Olivia “has always been one of my favorite people.”

Like I said, Jesse and I were at camp together as staff. (Why we decided to take a camp staff photo in bed together beats me?!) We don’t have a chance to go to Camp  Mennoscah as much as we’d like, so we were especially delighted when Olivia asked us to co-direct family camp retreat July 26-27. Anyone from Rainbow want to come with us?

During the Sunday school hour, the kids, junior highers and senior highers will have a chance to hear a little more about camp and learn some camp songs. Thankfully we will have the band Book of JEBB with us that morning to help play along!

J stands for Jesse Graber (fiddle and vocals)

E stands for Eric Schrag (guitar and vocals)

B stands for Bethany Schrag-not related to Eric (extraordinary vocals)

B stands for Ben Regier (mandolin and vocals)

Book stands for their repertoire.

The Book of JEBB has graciously agreed to stay for Sunday worship on February 23 so if you can’t make it to the coffeehouse, you can hear them Sunday. And if you want to get a feel for their music, click on these play buttons.