Four States,Three Hymnals and Still We Sang

For 59 years I have belonged to the Lutheran Deaconess Conference, since my consecration in 1960. We gather as a community once every summer.  In between we gather in area conferences. I belong to the Minnesota/Wisconsin Area which clusters around the Twin Cities area.

Last Saturday they gathered as they usually do once a month.  I can't always attend since I live in Iowa--Northern Iowa. That's why I'm included. We're only 30 miles from the Minnesota border and in the Rochester, MN, television viewing area (quite frankly I'd rather see the Des Moines news)  But I digress.

The Area Conference Saturday began with devotions and about 1/2 hour of simply singing favorite hymns. The meeting would go from 10:00 a.m. until 2 in the afternoon. I had joined by conference phone call. Another woman, Brenda, also joined by phone from Eastern North Dakota. Four States! As the group in Minneapolis chose their favorite hymns I soon realized they had with them "Gather" and "With One Voice."  I had the "Evangelical Lutheran Worship" (ELW or the "Cranberry Hymnal")  Three Hymnals!  What could have been an absolute mismatch not just of voices but of books (We had to call out hymn numbers from one book and look them up in the index in another book) and states,--not to mention the difficulty of some of us on the phone--turned out to be what it always is when deaconesses gather: women making beautiful music together, singing of faith and service in Christ.

We are theologians and with that solid base, we are also social worker, parish worker, nurse, teacher, professor, counselor, chaplain and more.  We have a commitment to faith and service to Christ and also to one another--for a lifetime.  That's what it means to belong to a community!

The meeting went on with each sharing some of  our work, our challenges, our joys, our questions, our lives, our prayer concerns.  We talked and we prayed. We also share leadership, a circle of leaders, collaborative, not hierarchical. We care about each other in the midst of our diversity.  We can count on that always.

Diaconal ministry is servanthood ministry, no matter where we serve, whatever our gifts. The words of our final hymn have stayed with me all week:

When the poor ones who have nothing, still are giving;
when the thirsty pass the cup, water to share;
when the wounded offer others strength and healing;
we see God, here by our side, walking our way;

When compassion gives the suffering consolation;
when expecting brings to birth hope that was lost;
when we choose love, not the hatred all around us,
we see God, here by our side, walking our way.

When our spirits, like a chalice, brim with gladness;
when our voices, full and clear, sing out the truth;
when our longings, free from envy, seek the humble,
we see God, here by our side,walking our way.

When the goodness poured from heaven fills our dwellings;
when the nations work to change war into peace;
when the stranger is accepted as our neighbor;
we see God, here by our side, walking our way;
we see God, here by our side, walking our way.

Picture from our entire Lutheran Deaconess Conference meeting Summer 2019

Finally: Ordination for Deacons, Beyond Classism Toward Partnership

By one little word the ELCA in assembly changed the entrance rite for ministers of Word and Service—Deacons—to “ordination.” I celebrate that decision. The vote wasn’t even close. We have come a long way, but it has taken a long time.

Let me go back before the ELCA came into being. I served on the “Design Task Force on Specific Ministry” (1983-4) We presented a model to the proposed new church on the “Public Ministries of the Church” for the “Office Word and Sacrament” and the “Office of Word and Service.” I remember drawing the parallel chart. The two ministries were to be side by side. The proposal was not accepted

After the beginning of the ELCA, January, 1988, the “Task Force on the Study for Ministry” was formed. I also served on that (for five years) and on the subcommittee which designed diaconal ministry. Diaconal ministers would be called to serve inside the structures of the church and called by the church to serve in the world outside the structures of the church. For many years we had faithful diaconal ministers, associates in ministry and members of the ELCA deaconess community.

Meanwhile I also served on the Anglican-Lutheran International Commission which produced the Hanover Report “The Diaconate as Ecumenical Opportunity.” (1996)

I had the privilege of teaching M.A. in Diaconal Ministry students at Wartburg Seminary for many years, seeing them flourish in their service in the world and yet never quite understood or fully accepted in the church on whose behalf they served. (“Why don’t you want to be a pastor?”) We still had a ways to go to fully catch the vision of the being the church for the sake of the world.

As the ELCA studied uniting the three “lay” rosters into one, I prepared a paper, “Diaconal Ministry from the Open Tomb to the Open World.” Jesus was a diaconal minister. Faithful diakonia is theologically grounded in a theology of the cross, facing the great wounds of the world, and a theology of the resurrection: death no longer has dominion.

I celebrated the ELCA’s 2016 decision to adopt a unified roster of “Word and Service” using the term “Deacon.” Deacons are now serving as hospital chaplains, musicians, congregational administrators, in disability ministries, in urban education and food ministries, as lawyer, college president, and so much more.

Finally, would “Pastor” and “Deacon” be side-by-side in collaborative ministry? However, the word “ordination” remained difficult. It was the entrance rite, not the essence of service, but it would take more time to move beyond systemic hierarchical and classism biases.

Finally, in 2019, the ELCA made a bold “new” and yet very New Testament decision with global and ecumenical support. Within the one ministry rooted in baptism, some are called to the ministry of “Word and Service” and some to the ministry of “Word and Sacrament,” side by side. Partners in the Gospel.

Cory Booker and I Talked about White Supremacy, Repentance and Authentic Diversity

Senator Cory Booker and I shared common concerns and commitments Friday night. I told him I appreciated his powerful words when speaking at Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, SC, this week. He appreciated what I shared with him, that the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America will commemorate June 17 as a day of repentance for the martyrdom of the Emanuel 9—the nine people who were shot and killed June 17, 2015, during a Bible study. We stand against racism and white supremacy.

Booker knows the ELCA and he, (including the press with him) was eager to hear more. He was grateful that the ELCA in churchwide assembly this week voted to become a Sanctuary church body and took strong stands against racism, white supremacy and gun violence. Booker and I talked about the urgent need in this country to come together and to love one in “authentic diversity.”

Over 20 candidates for the Democratic Party nomination for president of the United States spoke before a gathering of 1200 in Clear Lake, Iowa, just outside Mason City, Friday night. Burton and I attended with son Joel, his wife Rachel, and their children Jackson and Jennaya. A number of the candidates attended a reception beforehand hosted by our State Senator Sharon Steckman.

August 6: Hiroshima Day. Today: Catastrophic White Supremacy

August 6, Hiroshima Day, is a day of remembrance of the world’s first atomic bombing in 1945. August 6 is a day of remembrance of baptism in our family, mine, in 1939, and our son Kirk’s in 1969. Death: more than a quarter of a million people perished because of the catastrophic nuclear explosion by the USA near the end of World War II. New Life: being baptized into Christ’s baptism for the forgiveness of sins and deliverance from death.

Kirk was baptized outdoors, in the backyard of the church parsonage where we held weekly Wednesday night summer services. Neighborhood children, and some of their pets, came, too. Kirk’s baptismal banner hung on the clothesline. The singing was a sign of joyful life, a public witness to Jesus Christ, alive in the inner city.

I was baptized in the early stages of WW II. Kirk was baptized in the midst of the U.S. war in Vietnam. Kirk’s baptism was fifty years ago today. How do we remember now? We have stockpiles of nuclear weapons. We barely talk about whether a nation has 400 or 4000. Does it matter? But pulling out of the Iranian Nuclear deal matters. And so do North Korean missile tests and meaningful treaties of non-proliferation of nuclear weapons. We remember Hiroshima by working every day on diplomacy to avoid war.

What do we do today? We remember by acknowledging the catastrophic gun violence inside our own nation. No one brought a gun to Kirk’s Detroit neighborhood backyard baptism. There are more guns in every U.S. neighborhood today, more guns per person by far than any other nation on earth, more guns than there are people. Are we afraid to go outside? We have had 250 mass shootings this year, more than days on the calendar. The belief system of white supremacy and white nationalism is deadly.

Today we must not forget. This August 6 we choose to remember our baptisms into Jesus Christ so that together we might face the challenges that are before us.