Working Together So That All Experience Gracious Invitation Into Life-giving Christian Community |
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Welcome to the Gethsemane Lutheran Church Newsletter. As 2022 unfolds, and we continue to bring you information virtually, we welcome all who are members of Gethsemane, as well as those who are discovering us for the first time, to join us in our mission journey. We hope to keep you up-to-date in these times of amazing change for our church community. Feel free to forward the newsletter to others and give us the emails of those you think my wish to connect with us and see what great things God is doing with our church each week! |
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To contact staff: Please click email links on names to the right!
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Who's Who At Gethsemane
Minister of Music: Beverly Timpton-Hammond
Food Shelf Volunteer Coordinator: Jean Bailey
Children's Ministry: Brittany Schiebe
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In Loving Memory of Dianne Mae Szach |
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Szach, Dianne Mae Age 75 of Mpls. Preceded in death by parents Erwin and June Lindgren, Husband Dale and brother Erwin "Butch" Lindgren. Survived by daughters, Jennifer Forde (James Endahl) and Stacey (Shawn) Nelson; son Greg; grandchildren Ainsley and Maddox; sisters, Nancy Lindgren and Jeanne Lindgren and many special cousins, nieces, nephews, family and friends.
She was a longtime active member of Gethsemane Lutheran Church and will be loved and dearly missed.
She will be buried at Interment Glen Haven Cemetery.
The Funeral Service is Monday 6/13/22 at 11 am. Visitation Sunday 6/12/22, 4-7 pm and 1 hour prior to service at: Washburn-McReavy.com Glen Haven Chapel 763-533-8643 5125 W. Broadway, Crystal
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The Camden Shop is now open! After a short prayer of blessing, we opened the doors and shoppers found clothing and housewares that they needed. We are so excited about how this place will help our friends in the Camden neighborhood! Spread the word, and come say hello!
We are open every Saturday of the month at Gethsemane from 12-3pm
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21 “The son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’
22 “But the father said to his servants, ‘Quick! Bring the best robe and put it on him. Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet.
23 Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let’s have a feast and celebrate.
24 For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ So they began to celebrate.
25 “Meanwhile, the older son was in the field. When he came near the house, he heard music and dancing.
26 So he called one of the servants and asked him what was going on.
27 ‘Your brother has come,’ he replied, ‘and your father has killed the fattened calf because he has him back safe and sound.’
28 “The older brother became angry and refused to go in. So his father went out and pleaded with him.
29 But he answered his father, ‘Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends.
30 But when this son of yours who has squandered your property with prostitutes comes home, you kill the fattened calf for him!’
31 “‘My son,’ the father said, ‘you are always with me, and everything I have is yours.
32 But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’”
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Writer's Corner: Christmas in Oberammergau |
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They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them. (Acts 2:3-4)
The year Jeff and I were married, we visited Germany during our first Christmas. We visited Munich and its Brat-houses, famous glockenspiel clocks, and a couple of ornate castles of crazy earthly Kings. We ate delicious oxtail soup (luckily I didn’t know what it was made of before I ate my whole bowl!). The morning before Christmas, we took a rickety train up through the mountains—and literally through a puffy layer of clouds—into a small town in Bavaria called Oberammergau.
I had never heard of it before then, but the village is known for its five hour productions of The Passion Play. According to an article in the Catholic Herald by Ann Augherton, the history of this town and its mission is long. In the early 1600’s the bubonic plague ravaged Bavaria. Oberammergau escaped until a local man returned home from a nearby village bringing the illness with him. Half of the town’s people died. In 1633 the villagers asked God to spare them and promised to perform the suffering, death and resurrection of Christ every tenth year thereafter. The story is that no one else perished from the plague. The first play was in 1634 and the every ten-year promise is still held today (except during some wartimes).
Now, after being postponed for the last two years due to the pandemic, it is finally back on this year! Alleluia! 2022 will be the 42nd production and is currently running until October. Apparently, the entire town of some 2,000 townspeople (the only ones allowed to participate) is involved during the event. All the actors must grow their hair (and beards) long for a whole year before. The entire day long event (with a three hour dinner break intermission) is done in German, but they provide a program in several different languages. And I’ve heard it is quite amazing.
But even though we were there in 1990 in an off year, and we didn’t get to see the performance, Christmastime was equally special. We stayed in a room with a view of the valley surrounded by mountains. We ate a Christmas Eve meal with tourists from as far away as Australia. We attended candlelight mass at a Catholic church across from our family-owned hotel. Travelers from all over the globe gathered with locals to celebrate Christ’s birth together in a Latin and German liturgy. The candles were beautiful, the stained glass was ornate, and snow fell lightly outside the door like a snow globe. Inside it was wall-to-wall—standing room only— worshippers, shoulder to shoulder, rejoicing, praying, and singing hymns in their own native languages. I imagine the experience as similar to Pentecost as far as a group of people all speaking in different tongues, hearing different languages that they normally would not understand all at once. Together being filled with the Holy Spirit to feel God’s presence among them in every syllable and cadence, tone and word they spoke and sang.
That was what I experienced in Oberammergau that night. The Holy Spirit moving through strangers, weaving together a tapestry of God’s family on earth. At the end of the magical Christmas service, I got goose bumps when we started singing Silent Night. We all had the same intent, the same melody, the same lyrics in our heads, but our tongues and voices sang in different languages. Yet, we all understood each other’s voices as the being the same song. One song in many languages. The cantor sang in Latin, my husband in German, myself in English, our neighbor to the right in Italian, the one to the left in a language I didn’t recognize. The woman behind me switched from language to language with each verse. Some of us had tears in our eyes, others huge smiles on our faces. We all stood before God and received God’s blessed gift. Proof that God can work through all our differences to speak to and through us in commonality. The proof that if we open ourselves up to the experience, that God will connect us. The proof that above all God reigns. The proof that God continues to weave us together in God’s love. Yes, Christ the Savior is Born and yes, the Holy Spirit moves! Alleluia!
Amen
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The Camden Promise: Weekly Food shelf Schedule |
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Food Giveaway Schedule into 2022:
The Camden Promise Food Shelf feeds boxes of food to community families 6 days a week at noon: Monday through Saturday.
All are welcome!
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Gospel Reading: Psalm 112:5-10 |
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Good will come to those who are generous and lend freely,
who conduct their affairs with justice.
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Surely the righteous will never be shaken;
they will be remembered forever.
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They will have no fear of bad news;
their hearts are steadfast, trusting in the Lord.
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Their hearts are secure, they will have no fear;
in the end they will look in triumph on their foes.
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They have freely scattered their gifts to the poor,
their righteousness endures forever;
their horn will be lifted high in honor.
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The wicked will see and be vexed,
they will gnash their teeth and waste away;
the longings of the wicked will come to nothing.
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Sermon Notes: The Broken Plate |
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Now is the time to repent, to turn around and for those who are lost to be found.
I am going to tell you a story about a little girl that lived across the street from the church. She was involved with the foodshelf, youth group, and would be at service almost every Sunday. But she would steal; many times. She would also get caught and without a second thought would say she is sorry. This, however would happen many times. She took paper, eye glasses, a bag, and one day took someones cellphone. After she had taken the cell phone, I pulled her aside. “You cannot do that type of thing”, I told her. She would respond by saying she was sorry. After looking at her and hearing those words, I told her, “I am going to tell you about what sorry really means.”
I take this plate that is sitting on the counter and I show it to her. “Imagine this plate is something important,” I tell her as she looks at the clean and shiny new plate. Suddenly, I drop the plate and It breaks, shattering all across the floor. I tell her, “when you do something wrong, the plate breaks, and you may say sorry, but the plate is still broken. How will saying sorry change what happed to the plate?”
A week later she comes back to my office, and in her hands she gives me the broken plate which she had glued back together. She gives it to me and says, “I am sorry”. She says that she feels like this plate; “I am not good enough, permanently damaged - you can try putting me back together, but I will always look like this.”
One day, during the after service kids program, the same little girl is playing with her friends. In walks her mother, and with rage in her eyes, walks up to her daughter and back hands her with her right hand. The mom looks at her daughter and says, “you had no right to eat the food in the refrigerator.” And she left. In those little girl’s eyes, I could see the feeling of a brokenness. I could see a reflection of that plate that was so broken that there was no “sorry” that would make it whole again.
In Luke 15, this story is important because it is not just a story about the younger son, but a story about God, broken people, older more righteous people, and us. It is a story about God because God does amazing things in this parable. The son spends all the half if his inheritance he was given had and spends it like crazy. When he finally has nothing, he doesn’t have the heart to ask to be taken back.
Sometimes the pride we have outweighs the shame we feel; if we do not do something in moments that are very low, we lose our way. Something happens to us as we drift away from God. When we take what God gives us and we squander it on things we have no business to squander it on, we lose our way. Even worse than that, we do not have the courage to ask God to help us find our way once we are lost.
In Luke 15, before the son gets to the father, the father sings praises to his son’s return. The father had nothing but love for his broken son. This is how God treats all of His children. There is nothing that we have to do when we come back having repented for the stupid things we have. God will put a cloak on our body and throw us a party when we are lost and found again. That is the type of God that we have!
It was not long until that little girl, now a young woman, was caught by the police for stealing cellphones. She was convicted and is now in a women’s jail. I imagine the challenges that are ahead for her. I remember her when she made the plate and how broken she felt. When your liberties are taken from you and you are forced to live out a sentence for the mistakes you have made, you can feel your most broken.
It does not matter what you have done or how bad it is, God will forgive you. He will love you. It does not matter where you are, you can still come back to the love of God. This is the story of who God is for us. He will not let us forget that when we feel broken like, that plate, or the prodigal son, that we can run to the arms of the Lord. We are always welcome into the arms of our Lord.
Amen.
-Pastor Jeff
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May God give to you and all whom you love His comfort and His peace, His light and His joy, in this world and the next; and the blessing of God almighty, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, be upon you, and remain with you this day and for ever.
Amen
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Please join us every Sunday for our Virtual Zoom Worship Service. Online "fellowship starts at 10:00 am and Worship Service Starts at 10:30 am. |
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Gethsemane Lutheran
Building Hope Together
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4656 Colfax Avenue North
Minneapolis, MN 55412
612-521-3575
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