A Graceful Moment in Lenten Journey

This week we journey with Jesus to Mount Olive as he approaches Jerusalem. At the sight of Jerusalem Jesus has an emotional moment: “Oh, Jerusalem!” he says. Matthew tells us that at the sight of the city and its history and present experience of suffering that “Jesus wept.” Luke tells us that Jesus looked upon the city with a mother’s heart: “How I would gather you like a mother hen gathers her chicks.” Our sermon will center on the compassion of Jesus, who today looks on the city of Kyiv and Park Ridge (where each of us bear our burdens as well as joys) and sees the suffering and enters it.

Devotion: Saranam Kyrie

Yesterday in my conversation with Pastor Sally we continued our Epiphany focus on global mission, in the words of Simeon’s song: “A light to light the nations of the world.” I shared the history of the planting of a Southeast Asian ministry in Queens in the Metropolitan NY Synod of the ELCA. Pastor Daniel Peter from the Andrha Pradesh Lutheran Church in India was the pastor who developed the outreach. After the Tsunami in South Asia we gathered for comfort and renewal with South Asian Lutherans and neighbors for comfort and prayer. In the pastor’s blog is a devotion I wrote about that event.

Yolanda’s Story

AAMPARO is the ministry of the ELCA which accompanies migrant minors (and their families) in Central America, their country of origin (especially the Northern Triangle: Honduras, Guatamala and El Salvador); in Mexico (the country of transit); and at the southern border of the US. I was Director of Domestic Mission for the ELCA and Rafael Malpica-Padilla was Director for Global Mission. We led a delegation to Central America to hear the stories of those who have been deported, and to hear what drives families to attempt to migrate to the US. This is one of the stories we heard

There is No Short Cut

Seventeen years ago, Amadou Diallo was killed in a hail of forty-one bullets from police guns in the Soundview section of the South Bronx, holding a wallet, not a gun, in his hand. Bruce Springsteen wrote a song about it, “41 shots…American Skin.”  When I wrote an editorial about it, it got me in a lot of trouble. I said that if Amadou had been my son (one of my sons was Amadou’s age), he would still be alive. I called on public and religious leaders to admit that we have a racial problem in our community and that we needed to find the resolve to face it together.

Nature of Epiphany

I would like to reflect with you on the nature of Epiphany and the ministry we share at Saint Luke, especially as we find the mission field not somewhere else, but right outside our doors.

See It With New Eyes

Nativity scenes are all around us. Over the years in my parish ministry we had children’s processions at the beginning of each Advent liturgy. On the first Advent Sunday they would bring in the stable, the straw, and light the first candle. In successive liturgies would come the animals, the shepherds, the wise men, the mom and dad. And then the baby.

Wait for the Light

In Advent we wait for the light…

A sign above the door tells you to “wait for the light” when you get off the bus in Manhattan. But when you get off the bus on the Lower East Side the sign is also in Spanish and says, “espere la luz.” In English, “wait” is not as rich, lush and romantic as the Spanish “esperar,” which means to wait, hope, expect and anticipate all at once. The light for which we wait is Jesus Christ. And we not only wait for the light, but hope for it, anticipate it, work toward it, and long for it.