Spiritual Reflections
Since we cannot assemble weekly in person for a full range of experiences of Christian community, I am endeavoring in the first weeks of my pastorate at Resurrection Church to offer weekly spiritual reflections in addition to my Sunday sermon videos. I see these mid-week written reflections as an exercise of my teaching ministry as a pastor, especially during this time of global pandemic and necessary sheltering at home and social distancing. Resurrection Church has a rich tradition of substantive adult Christian Education. These weekly reflections seek to fill, in some measure, the void created by the absence of our Sunday morning adult educational experiences. I long for the return of those Sunday morning offerings in person which feature the substantial gifts of our own members, but for now, I give you what I can in these weekly reflections. These messages also serve to nurture a sense of our Christian community during this time when we are apart.
May God in Christ bless your engagement with these pastoral offerings in the power of the Holy Spirit for your ongoing Christian formation for your journey of faith for such a time as this.
Midweek Message: “Promised Reflections on the Current Controversies within the ELCA”
Week of the First Sunday after Pentecost
Dear Friends in Christ:
I had hoped to gain greater clarity at our Synod Assembly about the controversies within the ELCA concerning events in our Sierra Pacific Synod in northern California. Unfortunately, I don’t have many new insights to share that shed definitive light on what is happening there, as the situation continues to unfold.
I risk mispresenting the circumstances and perhaps overstepping my bounds in offering reflections, given that I do not have first-hand knowledge of what is occurring in the Sierra Pacific Synod. That said, I believe that some attempt at a summary is in order. But please know that this is a very complex situation which my summary cannot ultimately do justice to.
Here is a summary: Allegations of the misuse of pastoral authority were made against a pastor who was a mission developer in the Sierra Pacific Synod in an emerging Spanish-speaking ministry. The Bishop of that Synod, who also happens to be the ELCA’s first publicly-known transgendered Bishop, removed the mission developer pastor from his ministry, and did so on a festival day that is dear to Hispanic Christians. This action was received as extraordinarily insensitive and racist in the ELCA’s Hispanic community. Our Presiding Bishop called for an investigation into the actions of the Synodical Bishop. When the investigating team offered their report, our Presiding Bishop declined at first to bring charges against the Synodical Bishop. This decision on the part of the Presiding Bishop was deemed as woefully inadequate by various constituencies in our church, including our Conference of Bishops. Meanwhile, the Synodical Bishop resigned from their ministry as Bishop. However, new concerns about the Synodical Bishop have emerged, and our Presiding Bishop has now decided to engage in disciplinary action against the Synodical Bishop. This decision to pursue disciplinary action has the wide support of the Conference of Bishops. That’s basically where we are now as this controversy unfolds in our church.
Should you wish to engage in further reading about all of this, see the many links below at the conclusion of this message.
Now on to my reflections. This matter is a perfect storm of the conflicting confluence of various realities in our church engaged as we are in mission in a particularly divisive time in our current society. Here is a listing of these complicating realities: the concerns of the LGBTQIA+ community; the Hispanic community within the ELCA and certainly the local mission site; governing documents and policies and procedures of our church which may have embedded within themselves instances and dynamics of systemic racism; the extent to which these policies and procedures were carefully followed or not in these matters; the interdependent, often messy, but still laudable, polity of our church which seeks input from many constituencies – locally, synodically, and nationally – for discernment and decision-making; how all of this affects the nature of the exercise of authority in our church; and finally, how the realities of human sin find their expression in the church at various levels when we inevitably fail institutionally to live up to the theology we proclaim.
One thing that did come out of our Metropolitan DC Synod Assembly was a memorial to advocate for the establishment of a process to review the polity, procedures, and structures of our church through the lenses of diversity, equity and inclusion to discern how the ways we organize ourselves as church inhibit our aspirations to be a more fully welcoming and safe place for all of God’s children. This memorial will be sent to our Churchwide Assembly in Columbus, Ohio in August of this year for consideration there.
As a potential silver lining, this perfect storm holds promise for all of us in the ELCA to take a good, hard look in the mirror to recognize and acknowledge the various ways in which we fail institutionally to live up to the mission of gospel proclamation that God has entrusted to us. Our Lutheran theological sensibilities give us what we need to engage in this kind of reality therapy, to acknowledge fully, forthrightly, honestly, and courageously our brokenness, our need for forgiveness, and our total reliance on God’s grace to be led to ways of enacting our life together that nurture greater justice, welcome, and safety for all people. If only we as the ELCA would draw fully on our own theological tradition as we move forward together in coming months in response to the pain and suffering in the Sierra Pacific Synod and the reverberating effects throughout our church.
Our Synod Bishop, Leila Ortiz, recounted at Synod Assembly the circumstances of her conversion to the Lutheran theological way, having grown up in the Pentecostal tradition. Bishop Ortiz’s theological transformation, which also had profound existential effects on her, occurred in the seminary classroom while studying the Lutheran Confessions. Indeed, it was the discovery there of God’s unconditional, boundless love, mercy, and grace which was life-changing for Bishop Ortiz. Which is to say that we have theological riches to share with the wider world. Moreover, we have theological riches, which by God’s sovereign grace, give us what we need to navigate these stormy waters currently in church and world. By the Holy Spirit’s guidance, may we as a church in our local, synodical, and churchwide expressions, draw deeply on these riches for our healing and for the healing of the nations.
With hope in Christ Jesus via the leading of the Holy spirit,
Pastor Jonathan Linman
Sierra Pacific Synod Background Information
From Churchwide
A Message from Presiding Bishop Eaton (English) / (Spanish) RE: Disciplinary Process Initiated
Sierra Pacific Synod: Bishop’s Report to the Church
Presiding Bishop Eaton Listening Session Statement (English) / (Spanish)
From Sierra Pacific
A Letter from Synod Vice President, Gail Kiyomura
Bishop Rohrer Resignation Post (Facebook)
Council Response to Churchwide (Facebook)
Open Letter to DE-MD Synod
Letter from Bishop Rohrer after External Review
From the Listening Panel
Statement from the ELCA Listening Team (English) / (Spanish)
From the Asociación de Ministerios Latinos de la ELCA
O Lord How Long Shall I Cry for Help - Response (Facebook)
From Our Synod
Bishop Ortiz Initial Letter - December 2021
Bishop Ortiz Letter to Rostered Ministers - March 2022
Other Sources
What Happened In the Sierra Pacific Synod - Compiled Resource Page
Washington Post Resignation Article (6/7/2022)
Pastor David Hansen Summary Post (Facebook)
Extraordinary Lutheran Ministries Response
Bp. Bill Gohl's Statement at the DE-MD Synod Assembly
Bp. Bill Gohl’s Letter to the DE-MD Synod
Bp. Mike Rhinehart’s Blog Post
The Rev. Hazel Salazar-Davidson Letter to the Elders of the ELCA
Midweek Message: “Thoughts on the Holy Trinity”
Week of the Festival of Pentecost
Dear Friends in Christ:
Many of you have read and are wondering about the recent article in the Washington Post concerning the controversy in one of our ELCA synods in California. I plan to write about this next week when I know more after having attended our Metro DC Synod Assembly this coming weekend.
Meanwhile, we will celebrate the festival of the Holy Trinity this coming Sunday, the First Sunday after Pentecost. Thus, I am moved to offer reflections this week on our Trinitarian understandings of God.
First off, the doctrine of the Holy Trinity – the teaching that there is one God, and three distinct persons of the Godhead, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit – does not explicitly appear as a concept in the bible. That said, there is plenty in the scriptures which point in the direction of Trinitarian understandings and which formed the foundations for the evolution of Christian thought toward Trinitarian doctrine.
Here are some of the important biblical passages which suggest Trinitarian possibilities:
John 1:1-18, the Prologue to John’s Gospel, proclaims that the divine Word who was made flesh in Jesus Christ was at the beginning with God and was in fact God.
Genesis 1:1-2, the first creation story, speaks of a wind or spirit from God that swept over the face of the waters to bring created order from chaos. When this story is read in connection with John’s Gospel, we may begin to see hints of the Trinity.
Then there are a number of other passages in the Gospel of John appointed for Eastertide in Lectionary year C which are suggestive of Trinitarian understandings. John was written perhaps three generations after Jesus’ earthly sojourn, thus offering us the vantage point of seeing the evolution of theological thinking among early Christians. So, there’s John 10:30, where John reports that Jesus said, “The Father and I are one.” And there’s John 14:9-11 where John reports Jesus saying to Philip, “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father…. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me.” Moreover, there’s John 16:12-15, which we’ll hear this coming Trinity Sunday, which concludes with these words of Jesus reported by John which described for the disciples the coming of the Holy Spirit: “All that the Father has is mine. For this reason I said that the Spirit will take what is mine and declare it to you.” Finally, there’s the Pentecost event recorded in John 20:21-23, “‘As the Father has sent me, so I send you.’ When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit…’” John’s Gospel is, thus, rich with evocations of the beginnings of Trinitarian thought.
Matthew 28:19, the Great Commission, gives us the Trinitarian words we use to this day at baptism: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit…”
Then there are Trinitarian aspects of the stories of Jesus’ baptism by John in the River Jordan. Matthew 3:16-17, Mark 1:10-11, and Luke 3:21-22 variously report God proclaiming Jesus as a favored Son while the Holy Spirit from God descends on Jesus.
Acts 2:32-33, a moment in Peter’s first sermon proclaiming God’s deeds of power in raising Jesus from the dead, offers Trinitarian hints: “This Jesus God raised up, and of that all of us are witnesses. Being therefore exalted at the right hand of God, and having received from the Father the promise of the Holy Spirit, he has poured out this that you both see and hear."
Then there are the Pauline greetings that are liturgically quite familiar to us which are suggestive of the Trinity. 2 Corinthians 13:13, which concludes that letter, has these well-known words: “The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit be with you all.”
Ephesians 2:18 offers this insight: “for through [Christ] both of us [Jewish and Gentile believers] have access in one Spirit to the Father.” Here, like many New Testament passages, the three persons of the Godhead are mentioned.
A great Christ hymn in Colossians (cf. 1:15-17) echoes themes found in the prologue to John. There in Colossians it reads, Christ “is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation; for in him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers – all things have been created through him and for him. He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” Colossians 1:19 concludes, “For in [Christ] all the fullness of God was pleased to do dwell.” In this hymn, which also sounds creedal, we see perhaps the beginnings of explicitly Trinitarian thinking.
Finally, salutations to believers recorded in 1 Peter 1:2 offer Trinitarian themes as it is there written: “To the exiles… who have been chosen and destined by God the Father and sanctified by the Spirit to be obedient to Jesus Christ and to be sprinkled with his blood: May grace and peace be yours in abundance.”
This review of the scriptural witness, which arguably contributed to what would later be understood as the Trinity, is not comprehensive or exhaustive. There’s more in the bible that we could point to and explore in relation to Trinitarian themes. And it is essential to say that none of these scriptural passages add up in a simple kind of math equation to the doctrine of the Holy Trinity, one God in three persons. That nuanced and paradoxical understanding would evolve over the course of the next decades and generations of Christian history as the church itself came to be and to develop. But I believe it is true that the scriptural witness laid a solid foundation for what would become our Trinitarian understanding of God as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Thus, we have the Athanasian Creed (likely dating from the 5th Century) which arguably articulates best, at least in authoritative creedal form, the Christian understanding of the Trinity. Here is a portion of that ancient creed: “Now this is the catholic faith: We worship one God in trinity and the Trinity is unity, neither confusing the persons nor dividing the divine being. For the Father is one person, the Son is another, and the Spirit is still another. But the deity of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is one, equal in glory, coeternal in majesty.” And on and on this creed goes, exploring the many paradoxical convolutions of our Trinitarian understandings.
The evolution of Christian thought and understanding is itself a work, I believe, of the Holy Trinity. John reports that Jesus said (and we’ll likewise hear this later this week on Trinity Sunday):
“I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of truth comes, you will be guided into all the truth; for the Spirit will not speak out of the Spirit’s own authority, but will speak whatever the Spirit hears, and will declare to you the things that are to come.” (John 16:12-13) Teaching about the Holy Trinity is one such truth into which we have been guided.
As has been the case throughout Christian history, the Holy Spirit, whom we confess proceeds from the Father and the Son, continues to guide us into all truth, including the truth about the Trinitarian nature of the God who creates, redeems, sanctifies, and more and more – all in a wonderful, sometimes baffling, paradoxical mystery and wondrous dance.
How can we respond and conclude but in words of poetic praise of the Trinity, here in a text of unknown source, translated by Clarence Walworth, the concluding stanza of “Holy God, We Praise Your Name” (ELW 414): “Holy Father, holy Son, Holy Spirit, three we name you, though in essence only one; undivided God we claim you and, adoring, bend the knee while we own the mystery.”
Pastor Jonathan Linman
Midweek Message: "At Pentecost, Thoughts on the Discernment of Spirits"
Week of Easter Seven
Join Us for the Bible in Christian Worship this Wednesday:
Our explorations of the biblical foundations for Christian worship conclude this Wednesday, June 1 with Gail Ramshaw finishing up her presentations on the lectionary, thus deepening our understanding of the place of the appointed readings in our Sunday worship. Please look in your Constant Contact messages for a Zoom link, that your participation may enrich your worship life for the work in and for the world that God has entrusted to us. If you do not receive our Constant Contact messages, then please This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
Please note that beginning on June 6, we’ll shift back to our Monday evening Bible Study format with sessions beginning at 6:30. In the coming weeks, we’ll take a look at the lectionary readings for the upcoming Sundays, viewing the readings in relation to each other to see what new horizons of meaning emerge.
“At Pentecost, Thoughts on the Discernment of Spirits”
Dear Friends in Christ:
Since we are on the cusp of celebrating the Day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit descended upon Jesus’ followers as recorded in Acts 2, and since we have been living and serving for two millennia in what we might consider the epoch of the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Trinity, we do well to consider what we mean by the Holy Spirit.
First off, it’s important to recognize that there are all manner of spirits, and not all of them holy. The Apostle Paul acknowledged as much when he wrote about powers and principalities of the world (cf. Ephesians 6:12). We aren’t talking about ghosts and goblins here. Rather, we might have in mind communal energies that transcend particular individuals, as in “team spirit.” Scholars write about zeitgeist, or the spirit of the times. Or some colloquially talk about the “vibe” in the room. The word “ethos” also comes to mind, as in the characteristic spirit of a culture, era, or community. In these ways, spirit, and perhaps even spirituality, inhabit the realm of quite common and ordinary human experience.
The generic reality of spiritualities invites us then to discern and identify the qualities of the Holy Spirit of the Trinitarian Godhead in the specifically Christian tradition manifest in the church and world. We are not left without help for these considerations. The witness of the Christian scriptures gives us criteria for understanding the dimension of the fruit of the Holy Spirit. These same scriptures also give us lists of qualities which are not of the Holy Spirit of the God made manifest in Jesus Christ. Paul, for example, writes in Galatians that the fruit of the Holy Spirit is marked by the following qualities: “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control” (Galatians 5:22). In contrast, Paul lists in that same passage qualities which he believes are opposed to the Holy Spirit, namely: “fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these” (Galatians 5:19-21a).
With such criteria in mind and at hand – and there are other such listings of qualities of the Holy Spirit elsewhere in the New Testament – we are called to engage in the discernment of the spirits of our age, in the church and elsewhere in the world. Etymologically speaking, the Greek word that translates discernment implies a kind of discrimination, making judgments about what is of the Holy Spirit and not. This is not discrimination in terms of injustices against people, rather the identification of what is and isn’t of the Holy Spirit, as in discriminating tastes.
So, with such listings as Paul’s in Galatians, we are given quite clear criteria with which to judge the spirits of our age, again, in the churches and in the world. When it comes to the spirit or ethos or vibe given off by some churches and pastors and preachers today, I think it is abundantly clear that some churches are not living according to the dimensions of the fruit of the Spirit identified by Paul. Many churches today, including Lutheran, but certainly others, embody and express a communal spirit that is more suggestive of idolatry, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, and factions than Holy Spirit qualities of “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.” When Christian leaders lead by cultivating and stoking people’s anger, fear and grievance, that is simply not of the Holy Spirit. It’s that clear and straightforward. There is no ambiguity. I believe that we are called upon in our day to be more courageous in proclaiming that some churches and Christian leaders are simply not living and teaching and proclaiming according to the dimensions of the fruit of the Holy Spirit as identified in our scriptures.
Then consider the zeitgeist of our wider culture and society. Much of what we endure in the news and on social media and more is held captive by the powers and principalities, the qualities that are opposed to the Holy Spirit, as Paul identifies. “Impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, envy” – do these qualities not prevail in our current popular social and cultural climate? Do we – even secular persons who are not Christian – not long in our hearts for the humane qualities of the Spirit, such as “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control”? While these are features of the Christian ethos according to Paul, this listing is also in keeping with secular philosophies which may point to more universal human aspirations.
A lot of what troubles us in current popular culture and society boils down to an ethos that pursues and fetishizes the ways of death in contrast to a culture that promotes life abundant and holistically understood. And I am not reducing this consideration to the pro-life vs. pro-choice controversies surrounding abortion. It’s a far broader and more comprehensive orientation. We as a society seem to be captive to ways that make for death, and actively resist that which makes for life understood as comprehensive, holistic well-being for all.
The Day of Pentecost in the church’s calendar falls on the fiftieth day of Easter. Thus, there is an intimate connection in the Christian tradition between the Holy Spirit’s coming and the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. That is to say, the Holy Spirit’s advent occurs in the context and because of Christ’s death and resurrection. Christian spirituality, thus, cannot be separated from Jesus Christ and what God, the Father, accomplished in and through Christ. What were the proclamatory utterances of Peter and the others at Pentecost, when empowered by the Spirit, but the preaching in the languages of the nations of God’s deeds of power in raising Christ from the dead (cf. Acts 2:11; 22-24; 32)?
To conclude this reflection, then, may the Holy Spirit embolden us to nurture in word and deed a culture of resurrected new life in Christ as a countervailing witness to the ways of death that prevail in so much of society and in too many churches. May the Spirit of God in Christ nurture in us the dimensions of the fruit of the Spirit for the healing of the nations.
God in Christ help us through the encouraging and emboldening guidance of the Holy Spirit,
Pastor Jonathan Linman
Midweek Message: "Meditations on the Lectionary"
Week of Easter Five
Join Us for the Bible in Christian Worship this Wednesday:
Our explorations of the biblical foundations for Christian worship continue this Wednesday, May 18. This week, Gail Ramshaw will begin a series of three Wednesdays on the lectionary, deepening our understanding of the place of the appointed readings in our Sunday worship. A Zoom link for this discussion will be distributed via Constant Contact. If you are not receiving our Constant Contact messages and wish to do so, please This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
“Meditations on the Lectionary”
Dear Friends in Christ:
A major focus of our time together during Sunday worship involves hearing three readings from the Bible and singing a psalm. Once we are assembled and settled, having confessed sin and received forgiveness or having remembered baptism, and having sung the hymns and canticles and having prayed the prayer of the day, we turn our attention to the appointed readings.
Take a moment to reflect on how counter cultural it is for us to sit there – or stand in the case of the gospel reading – to listen carefully to texts written and incorporated into the canon of holy scripture centuries ago. These are ancient texts, far removed from our time and place, and yet we attend to them living as we do in an age obsessed with innovation and saying new things in ever changing ways. Thus, we listen to ancient texts not always easily understanding what they have to say to us in our day.
Questions about this practice may arise. Why so many passages? Why not just narrow it down to focus on one or maybe two readings? And why do we consent to using passages chosen by teams of scholars far removed from our own congregational circumstances? And just what is the lectionary anyway?
These are important questions, and we are blessed to have in our fold a scholar, Gail Ramshaw, who has devoted a great deal of her professional life to studying and to helping craft the lectionary that we use. Beginning this coming Wednesday, May 18, Gail will teach us about the Revised Common Lectionary and its essential place in our life together. And she’ll address the questions we have about the lectionary, thus helping to form us in our enhanced understandings that we may worship with greater intentionality to and with heightened awareness of the grace given to us via the word of God, and the Holy Spirit speaking through that word.
In anticipation of the coming Wednesday evening Zoom sessions on the lectionary, I offer here some of my own thoughts about its importance in our Sunday routines.
First off, the lectionary is a great gift to you, God’s people in this place, because it spares you from me as your pastor imposing on you my favorite Bible passages, passages of my own choice and whim and, at worst, prejudice. In churches that do not employ a lectionary of appointed readings, local preachers have the freedom to choose the Bible passages they preach on, which gives to the local pastor a great deal of power to attempt to shape the theological convictions of people in the local assembly. In contrast, with the lectionary of appointed readings, we are all in this together, you and I as your pastor, as we sometimes struggle to make sense of the divine word for us in the givenness of the lectionary readings. Thus, the lectionary helps to keep preachers humble, since they are not in control of choosing given passages for a given Sunday. In this way, I would argue that the lectionary has a democratizing effect on life together in congregations, even if the lectionary is chosen by others whom we do not know and who are not accountable to us. But those scholars are accountable to the wider church in its many expressions. The appointed lectionary passages do not come to us willy-nilly, but with a great deal of consultation and deliberation, sometimes approved by voting assemblies of God’s people. Again, I believe that the use of the lectionary is more democratic and participatory than local preachers choosing their own favorite Bible passages.
Moreover, the discipline of using the lectionary, particularly the Revised Common Lectionary, gives us the gift of hearing and working through large portions of the Bible than would otherwise be the case if left to singular readings or the limited scope of the proclivities and choices of the local pastor. With its three readings and the psalm, we end up hearing the multiplicity of voices in the Bible and its rich variety of types of literature. The Revised Common Lectionary works on a three-year cycle, with different readings appointed for each different year. We hear readings appointed in an orderly fashion from the Old Testament, from the Gospels, and from other types of New Testament literature. Again, this helps us to get a sense of the Bible as a whole, but not just as a book, but as a compilation of different types of literature set within our worship of God in Christ with attention to its particular liturgical calendar and seasons. As you know, the appointed readings relate intimately and importantly to the themes and events of the church year. So, with the appointed readings alongside our liturgical enactments, we receive Christ himself, who is present in word and sacraments in the gathered assembly of God’s people. The lectionary and its readings help make Christ known to us by God’s grace in the power of the Spirit.
Another gift of the lectionary is that its use becomes a concrete enactment of Christian unity each and every Sunday. We Lutherans like the fact that we are ecumenically oriented. Yet, explicitly ecumenical efforts in which we actively cooperate with other churches are often occasional and tangential to our life together. Except when it comes to the lectionary! The appointed readings we use on Sundays are the same readings used in other Lutheran churches. Moreover, you could visit churches of other Christian traditions on any given Sunday and hear the same or similar readings to the ones we are using. These churches include: Roman Catholic, Episcopal, Methodist, Presbyterian, Moravian, various other Reformed churches and more. Thus, the lectionary and its use become an expression of often elusive visible Christian unity, helping to give some fulfillment to Jesus’ prayer that we might be one so that the world might believe (cf. John 17:20-21).
Speaking now as a preacher, as one who obediently submits to the discipline of attending to all of the appointed readings for Sunday, I love the challenge of the lectionary, for there are readings appointed for any given day that I myself would not have chosen! And yet, I trust that there is a word for us in our day in the givenness of the appointed passages. It’s been my experience that the lectionary never fails to give that needed word. Thus, I love attempting to rise to the occasion of proclaiming God’s gospel word via what the lectionary puts before us week by week.
You who hear me preach will note that I attempt to address each of the appointed readings in my sermons, the first, the second, and the gospel readings, and sometimes even the psalm. In the discipline of having returned to preaching every Sunday again as a parish pastor, I delight in the new horizons of interpretation and meaning revealed when the passages are set alongside each other. Even if my main preaching focus may be the gospel reading, inevitably portions of the first and second readings will help illuminate the meanings of the gospel – and vice versa in relation to the gospel passage and its power to illuminate the other readings as well. In the course of the many months of my current preaching ministry, even after three decades of doing this work, I am still discovering new meanings of old, old stories in large measure because of the call to give attention to each of the appointed lectionary passages on Sundays.
So, you can tell that I am sold on the lectionary! Please join us this Wednesday as Gail Ramshaw takes us still deeper in our understandings of and appreciation for the Revised Common Lectionary. Gail’s efforts in the next three Wednesdays will set the stage for a return to our Monday evening Zoom Bible Studies in June when we will begin to look together at all three of the appointed readings for each upcoming Sunday. Our engaging these passages in communal Bible study will undoubtedly end up informing what I preach on Sundays, giving you all a voice in the proclamation of the gospel which is at its best a community effort.
With thanks to God for the gift of the lectionary that makes Christ known,
Pastor Jonathan Linman
Midweek Message: “Reflections on Worship Livestreamed”
Week of Easter Four
Join Us for the Bible in Christian Worship this Wednesday:
Our explorations of the biblical foundations for Christian worship continue this Wednesday, May 11. A Zoom link for this discussion will be distributed via Constant Contact. If you are not receiving our Constant Contact messages and wish to do so, please This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
“Reflections on Worship Livestreamed”
Dear Friends in Christ:
There have been some curious silver linings to the clouds of my Covid convalescence, one of which was having occasion to experience first-hand our Sunday worship livestreamed. While I’ve shared with others in the responsibilities for livestreaming our Sunday worship, I’ve obviously not had occasion to participate live online because of my calling otherwise to lead our worship in person. So, on the Third Sunday of Easter, when seminary President Guy Erwin preached and presided on my behalf, I shared in our worship life from a distance – not far at all geographically speaking, namely, next door in the parsonage.
For those in need, I am glad that we make this option available. Some, out of ongoing concern for coronavirus vulnerabilities, still cannot be present with us indoors and in person for worship. Others have temporary circumstances of one sort or another that keep them home or away on Sundays – recovery from illness or surgery, travel for business, generally being homebound, and other sundry reasons that may keep us from church. Worship livestreamed is a point of contact with our life together. It is a connection among our small diaspora of those who for whatever reasons cannot join us in person for worship. It’s not nothing.
Thus, especially as a ministry for our most vulnerable members, I am glad that we livestream our worship. And I am especially thankful for the team of members who expend a great deal of time and energy to make this happen. And given our limited resources and our desires to protect the privacy of those who worship in person in not having their identities revealed to the wider public of cyberspace, the production quality, in my experience, is quite reasonable, especially the quality and clarity of the audio aspects of the livestreaming. Thousand thanks to Steve Black, Paul Bastuscheck, Chris Smith, and their team for their work in providing this current outreach ministry in our pandemic life together.
All of this said, livestreamed worship is no substitute for our worship together in person, in the flesh, together in our nave. I would not want a steady diet of only the tangential participation that livestreaming affords. Especially at the time of Communion, when the video feed was turned off to protect the privacy of communicants going forward to share first-hand in Christ’s presence, I was reminded of those occasions when, as a young child before I was of age to receive the sacrament, I would sit alone in the pew as my mother and father and older brother went to the chancel to receive Christ’s body and blood. I recalled my longing to go up there myself (this was before the now common practice of giving blessings to the little children), but was instead left behind. That’s the memory of experience that came flooding back a week ago Sunday when I could not be present with you, the body of Christ next door, as the church, to receive and to abide with and share sacramentally in Christ! I was filled with desire for incarnate presence of the full sacred body of our Lord made known in the breaking of bread in the in-person community. My consolation prize at that moment was Steve’s beautifully rendered slide images of our building’s compelling stained-glass windows. Engaging those images meditatively helped redeem that moment from the pangs of longing to be present with you – and with Christ – in the flesh.
Worship livestreamed made for me at best a sense of tangential participation, largely as an onlooker from the back of the room – which is literally where our cameras are located up in the balcony. Even if our cameras were located more centrally in the nave and even if I could see all of your faces on the screen, it still would have been the experience of looking on from afar.
Moreover, sitting at home on my sofa with my laptop before me on a coffee table, I found it challenging to participate in worship, singing and speaking the words in the bulletin by myself in the parsonage living room. Maybe that’s just me, but it took some effort to do more than just view the screen. It didn’t seem natural to sing and speak all by myself. It might have helped if others were there with me. And I also found myself easily distracted by other things in the house – for example, what my two cats were up to in their usual playfulness with each other before their lunch. It was better than nothing, and I’m glad I viewed the livestream, but it was still not the fullness of the divine happening that was going on next door.
Still further, livestreamed worship, even at its best, is but another experience online in front of a screen when so much of the rest of our lives is undertaken online in front of screens. Which is to say, think about how comparatively countercultural is our habit of being assembled in person together each and every Sunday morning in a place apart from our homes. Fewer and fewer people do such things together these days on a regular basis, week after week. Yes, many folk attend sporting events in person, or go to the theater, or to concerts, but usually only on occasion and not as a regular, weekly habit. And worship of almighty God at its best and as intended is so much more than a concert or sporting event, which themselves are experiences of being spectators together but not active participants in the drama of what is going on in the room.
My absence a week ago Sunday underscored for me in renewed ways the central importance of the Sunday assembly in person, in the flesh. Worship on the Lord’s Day, the day of resurrection, is the centerpiece and organizing principle of all of Christian life. It is the focal point of our whole week as people of faith, people of Christ. Sunday serves as I imagine how a gyroscope functions – as that which stabilizes our life and helps to maintain equilibrium in forward missionary movement in and for the sake of the world. As such, as THE organizing principle of Christian life, the Sunday assembly best happens in person and together. Livestreamed worship is at most a thin approximation of the fullness of the incarnate reality of what we habitually do on Sundays.
Think of the multiplicity of gifts available to us when we are gathered in person by the Holy Spirit at our beloved Resurrection Church. We’re together in a three-dimensional space and not the comparative two-dimensionality of the experience of the screen. Our building becomes an extension of our embodiment and focuses our attention on the central things and places – the place of the baptismal bath, the place where the word is proclaimed, and the table at which we gather for the meal. Together as the body of Christ, even if our faces are covered with and obscured by masks, we nonetheless give to each other the gift of body language where so much communication takes place, communication that is largely impossible or confusing online. We sing together, we speak together, voices blending in unity in an increasingly divided, compartmentalized, isolated world. We may get wet by dipping our hands into the waters in the font in thankful remembrance of our baptism into Christ. We share the peace, even if it’s in truncated form still because of pandemic safety precautions. We get up out of our seats, making our offering in the plates provided as still more profoundly we move to the place of the table to eat and drink of Christ’s real presence in, with, and under the gifts of bread and wine. We benefit from the discipline of each other’s presence which helps us to stay focused on the central activities of the liturgy. We get to hear and enjoy the live music of our choir and the sounds of the pipes of the organ and sounds of the piano in a space with fine acoustics – in contrast to recorded music which is our more usual norm in life these days. Before and after worship, we enjoy the privilege of one-on-one conversations or holy conversation in small groups which contribute greatly to our well-being in Christ with each other, drawing us palpably together in community. Again, this is all so very counter cultural. It’s a dedicated hour and more away from the screens which otherwise dominate us in our contemporary daily lives. In short, our Sunday routine in person is an astonishing gift.
I know that I am preaching to the choir, as it were, as the vast majority of you reading this prefers what we do on Sundays to occur in person over against the lesser, but not insignificant-in-its-own-ways-option of worship livestreamed. Given the immense benefits of being together in person, I don’t understand the churches which expend undue energies, in my opinion, on attempts at doing church more and more online. What we do by way of livestreaming or other online video recordings should serve to point to and ultimately draw people to the in-person assembly. The tail of a complementary ministry initiative in livestreaming should not wag the dog of the centrality of Christian assembly in person. Anything short of this incarnate gathering is not ultimately faithful to the core principles of the Christian tradition. May livestreaming serve those in occasional, circumstantial need, but more importantly, may these efforts increase in us the desire, as it did for me, to gather in the flesh in Jesus’ name each Sunday.
In thanksgiving to God in Christ for the grace given us week after week on the Lord’s Day,
Pastor Jonathan Linman
Midweek Message: “Personal Reflections from Quarantine”
Week of Easter Three
Join Us for the Bible in Christian Worship this Wednesday:
Over twenty persons participated in the first session of this new series which explores how the patterns and content of our Sunday worship are grounded in the scriptural witness of both ancient Hebrew and Christian practices. A Zoom link will be distributed via Constant Contact. If you are not receiving our Constant Contact messages and wish to do so, please This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
“Personal Reflections from Quarantine”
Dear Friends in Christ:
For two full years, I had managed to dodge the Covid-19 bullet. No longer. As I write these words, I have shown improvements each and every day with the diminishment of what from the beginning were comparatively mild symptoms. General fatigue persists with energy levels waxing and waning through the day. And while I currently have tested negative for Covid, erring on the side of caution, I maintain for now the discipline of quarantine for the sake of the health and well-being of our wider community.
Even with a mild case of Covid, I have a sense that the coronavirus is not something to be trifled with, particularly when it comes to its general systemic effects on my whole body’s energy levels and capacities. In a renewed, first-hand way, I am thankful to God for the work of scientists who developed such effective vaccinees and boosters and antiviral medications which likely kept my case mild.
But how did Covid catch up with me? Throughout the pandemic, I have consistently persisted in my discipline of wearing masks in all indoor settings and circumstances, from church to grocery shopping, and have limited my participation in large group activities. What the reality of my infection reveals to me is that guarding or promoting public health is not reduced to a matter merely of individual, personal choice. I chose to err on the side of caution, and yet I still got sick. As individuals we are inevitably participants in a wider community culture, namely, one that has currently chosen to relax safety protocols such as mask-wearing – and this during a phase of the pandemic when a variant of the virus that is even more transmissible than omicron and its first subvariants is increasingly widespread throughout the nation, especially in the Northeast. I’m not engaging in a blame game here, but just observing that we are all in this together, whether we like to admit that or not. What we choose to do or not do together as a society has real life effects and consequences, all up and down the line, on individual lives and on the quality of our life together.
Of course, I cannot determine or isolate the particular set of circumstances that resulted in my exposure to the virus sufficient that I tested positive and became symptomatic. Which is to say, even as I acknowledge the power of our whole communal contextualization, it is still a matter of my individual particularity that resulted in my current illness. I marvel at the fact that during the pre-symptomatic time when I was likely most infectious, my son, Nathan, and my college friend, Chris, and I were together in the parsonage, un-masked and interacting in close quarters. Yet, neither one of them has gotten sick or even tested positive. The body, with its immunities and complicated, interacting systems, is full of wisdom and mystery.
Which is to say, stress and its effects have a lot to do with what we, our bodies, are able to withstand or succumb to. I find it fascinating that I began to experience symptoms the moment that Nathan got on the plane at Dulles Airport Sunday a week ago to return to Phoenix. It’s as if my body was waiting to get sick until my fatherly duties for his visit concluded. Nathan’s spring break time with me happened in the context of the busiest time of the year for pastors, namely, Holy Week and Easter – and this on top of what has already been a stressful two years with the pandemic. I’ve long been wondering when my body would eventually tell me, essentially, “you have no choice now but to take a break.”
It’s noteworthy that past periods of particular stress in my life have commonly resulted in my being on the receiving end of one form of illness or another, at this point, consistently on the milder end of things. Each occasion became its own kind of grace to allow a cessation of stressful circumstances in order to open up horizons for rest and healing and restoration. I am claiming my current case of Covid as one such expression of grace. Clearly not everyone who catches Covid would name it as an odd kind of grace. If my episode were more severe, I wouldn’t either. But in this particular case, I do see the grace – and the warning sign to listen to my body and its wisdom in always seeking a restoration of balance and well-being.
I often joke after Easter Sunday that Jesus vacated his tomb in resurrected new life at least in part so that pastors and other busy church people can enter that womb of the tomb for their own few days of rest toward new life…. So it is that I have claimed my bout with Covid as such an occasion for needed rest, hopefully also toward renewal in this Eastertide for the sake of the work entrusted to me as pastor here.
Enough about me. Thanks for your various expressions of concern. Thanks for your indulgence in reading these personal reflections. I pray that they may provoke you to reclaim a renewed passion to promote and nurture public health in our wider communities. And I pray that my reflections may also inspire you, without first getting sick, to claim your own needed occasions of rest and renewal for restoration in the midst of your busy lives and routines, and perhaps to see moments of God’s grace in unexpected places and circumstances. And I pray that you all may stay well.
I trust that I will be back in your midst soon. Another graced moment in all of this is that I also had the occasion to share in Resurrection’s livestreamed worship for the Third Sunday of Easter, obviously a new experience for me – more on that in next week’s Midweek Message. Meanwhile, my thanks to those who covered for me in my absence – especially Council President, Glen Mason, who took on some additional duties in my absence, Pastor Amy Feira who officiated at the funeral of Malcolm Stark, and Pastor and Seminary President, Guy Erwin, who preached and presided on Sunday.
With ongoing prayers in Jesus’ name for your health and well-being and that of our communities,
Pastor Jonathan Linman
Midweek Message: “Join Us for the Bible in Christian Worship – a New Bible Study Series”
Week of Easter Two
Dear Friends in Christ:
Have you ever wondered how traditions and rituals of Christian worship came to be, and what are the biblical origins of our worship practices? And how about the lectionary with its three appointed readings for each Sunday along with psalm – why do we use the lectionary to ground our time together on Sundays in the scriptures? These and other questions concerning the Bible in Christian worship will be addressed over the course of six weeks in a new Bible Study via Zoom on Wednesday evenings, beginning this Wednesday, April 27 at 7:00 pm. This series will be led by our own members, Gail Ramshaw and Gordon Lathrop, two of our wider church’s foremost scholars concerning worship who have devoted their whole careers to the very questions I have posed here. Even in their retirement, Gordon and Gail continue active lives of scholarship, producing books and other publications and resources to promote the understanding and faithful practice of Christian worship. In fact, both have new books available to us and to the wider church. Gail recently published Much Fine Gold: The Revised Common Lectionary (Church Publishing, 2021), a work which explores the logic and importance of the lectionary for worship and Christian faith formation. And Gordon just put into my hands his new book, The Assembly: A Spirituality (Fortress Press 2022), which explores the Sunday assembly as the foundation for Christian spirituality along with heralding the central importance of gathering in person together in this age of virtual realities which keep us apart and tied to our various screens.
In my own engagement with the scriptures over the course of three decades of public ministry as both pastor and professor, I have marveled at how key biblical passages, in both the Hebrew and Christian scriptures, reveal the patterns of worship which we continue to practice to this day. Gordon will devote three sessions to exploring some of these foundational texts, namely, Isaiah 25 (a passage of praise for deliverance from oppression with the promise of feasting), Nehemiah 8 (a passage that reveals how God’s people engaged the holy word and feasted together in response to God’s gracious generosity), and Luke 24 (which records resurrection appearances of Jesus, centering on the Road to Emmaus where the risen Christ is made known in the breaking of bread).
Likewise, I have a longstanding devotion to the church’s lectionaries, and I marvel at how the appointed passages never fail to offer a needed word for us in our day. Returning to the practice of preaching every Sunday after an eighteen-year hiatus from such regular preaching on Sundays, I am currently experiencing a renewed delight in the discipline of attending to each of the three main appointed readings for Sundays. Seeing and engaging the passages alongside each other consistently opens up horizons for interpretation and understanding the scriptures in new ways. Gail, in her sessions, will explore how our lectionary uses the Bible on Sunday morning, centering her presentations on some of the appointed readings for the Sundays closest to our Wednesday sessions.
Gail and Gordon’s classes will involve their making presentations, followed by discussion and questions among participants. Have a Bible available for each session. For Gail’s sessions (May 18, May 25, and June 1), you should also have available a copy of Evangelical Lutheran Worship. This might be a good time to buy one if you do not have your worship book at home. You could also borrow one from church, as long as you return it. ELW includes the lectionary for Sundays in its three-year cycle, along with daily lectionary resources. There is also a section on Scripture and Worship which provides some of the scriptural foundations for our orders of worship for Holy Communion and for Holy Baptism (ELW pew edition, pages 1154-1159).
In short, this new series is a great opportunity to renew and deepen our understanding of why we do what we do each and every Sunday morning, grounding such understanding in the scriptures themselves, the norming rule of our life together.
Please join us! Zoom links will be distributed via Constant Contact. If you are not on our Constant Contact mailing list, then please This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
In Jesus’ name,
Pastor Jonathan Linman
Midweek Message: “It Was a Very Holy Week”
Easter Week
Dear Friends in Christ:
Holy Week and Easter 2022 were simply splendid in my estimation. And what a privilege and joy, even amidst the gravitas of the days, to have assembled in person and in doors for the fullness of the holy days, from Palm/Passion Sunday to the Three Days – Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, the Vigil of Easter – and then through to Resurrection of Our Lord, Easter Day. It is commonly acknowledged that the pandemic, with its upending of routines, has interfered with our sense of time. Thus, it is remarkable for me to realize and now to observe to you that this year’s Holy Week with Easter was in fact my third observance of these days with you as your Pastor. The first year we undertook the observances together but remotely when I was still in Phoenix before I even moved to Arlington. Last year, our observances and celebrations were a combination of worship videos and abbreviated and partial gatherings outdoors. At last, third year’s the charm, we could return to more normal liturgical routines even as our faces were still adorned with masks. I am sure you agree with me that it was wonderful at last to be able to do what we do during these holy days with far fewer impediments. Thanks be to God.
Now that I have experienced the worshipful traditions for Holy Week and Easter first-hand and in person at Resurrection Church, I marvel at the enthusiasm our faithful visibly express in worship, especially during the Three Days. First off, attendance at each of the liturgies was quite respectable for a church our size these days – 34 on Maundy Thursday, 54 on Good Friday, and 35 for the Vigil of Easter. In my experience of other Lutheran congregations, people tend to be a bit shy about sharing in the dramatic re-enactments of the Three Days. At Resurrection last week I experienced worshipers who put their all into gathering outdoors for the blessing of palms and the procession into the church on Palm and Passion Sunday, and who read Luke’s Passion with attentiveness to the word, and who were not shy about having their feet washed on Maundy Thursday, and who lined up for the full length of the center aisle to place lit votive candles before the roughhewn cross on Good Friday, and who with gusto gathered again outdoors for the new fire and blessing of the Paschal Candle and another procession into the church with individual candles lit for the Easter Proclamation, and who rose to the occasion with full assembly participation in the reading from Daniel, and who didn’t mind getting wet during the Affirmation of Baptism at the recitation of the Apostles’ Creed. That was quite the run-on sentence, but it is purposively so to reinforce the seamless unity of the Three Days, when one day flows into the other. Then Easter Sunday morning was a grand culmination in resurrection victory, made all the more meaningful in relation to each of the liturgies during the Three Days. It is clearly evident to me that you have been well-formed over the course of many years to be able to share so deeply in the drama of Holy Week and Easter, and for this I am thankful indeed as your Pastor.
When congregations offer the full complement of liturgies during Holy Week and Easter, it is a major undertaking for all hands on deck. Thus, I want to offer thousand thanks to the many who gave generously of their time and talents as a congregational team to plan and execute the liturgical and other events of the past week:
- Our Worship and Music Committee under Cindy Reese’s leadership, along with others who helped plan the liturgies.
- Heidi Dech, who did extra work in securing worship leaders for all the services.
- Rosalie and Heidi Dech who tended to the production of the hard copy bulletins.
- Our assisting ministers, readers, communion assistants, and other worship leaders who went the extra mile this past week during multiple liturgies.
- Gordon Lathrop who preached for the Vigil of Easter.
- Our team of ushers under the direction of Maggie Mount who had extra work to do to make the ceremonial enactments go smoothly.
- Our altar guild under the leadership of Jeanette Barkley for her and their many extra efforts as well.
- Patti Mugavero and her team of helpers who painstakingly assembled the floral cross, an annual tradition at Resurrection.
- Our team who makes Sunday livestreaming possible, Steve Black, Paul Bastuscheck, Chris Smith, and our youth who help with the videography.
- Tom Mugavero and the Fellowship Committee for arranging Easter Breakfast – how wonderfully normal it felt to eat together at tables indoors on Easter Day.
- Angie Brooke who oversaw logistics for the Easter Egg Hunt.
- Our Music Director, Barbara Verdile, our choir, cantors, and other musicians who offered splendid music to mark each of the week’s liturgies.
- And anyone else whose roles or names I’ve inadvertently omitted!
Many hands make much lighter work, and I thank God for all of you, even as I offer at the same time my thanks to each of our leaders. Liturgy is colloquially understood as the “work of the people.” God’s people were indeed hard at work at Resurrection last week, a very holy week indeed.
As Eastertide continues, this coming Sunday, the Second Sunday of Easter, we will also mark Earth Day under the planning sponsorship of both our Creation Care Team and Education Committee. Our Sunday worship will conclude with a Litany of Praise for Creation. We’ll adjourn outdoors for the blessing of our community garden – our Plot Against Hunger – even as we pray for our volunteer gardeners. Coffee Hour will be mainly outdoors, and there will be creation care activities for all ages during that time. Please join in!
With thanks to God and to all of you for your faithfulness in worship and in our life together,
Pastor Jonathan Linman
Midweek Message: “An Invitation to a Full Immersion in the Three Days”
Holy Week
Dear Friends in Christ:
Over the years, commitment to attending services during Holy Week has waned. Yet, the Three Days that are the centerpiece of this week are the crown jewel of the church’s whole liturgical calendar when we participate dramatically and sacramentally in the mysteries of salvation fully revealed in scripture. In our worshipful participation we engage not just the stories, but come to know the very sacred realities to which the scriptural stories bear witness.
The Three Days – consisting of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and the Vigil of Easter on Holy Saturday – are best understood as one seamless sacred drama enacted over the course of three different days. Hence, we are producing one worship booklet to cover the Three Days.
I urge you, for your edification and spiritual well-being, to come to worship on each of the Three Days beginning at 7:00 pm each evening. Those who participate fully have routinely told me over the years just how powerful it is spiritually, intellectually, emotionally, and existentially to be immersed in the richness of the Christian gospel in these liturgies which communicate to us salvation in Christ.
For your prayerful consideration, here again is a summary of what you can expect this week:
The Three Days Commence, Maundy Thursday (April 14): Worship at 7:00 pm, Confession and Forgiveness, Washing of Feet, and Holy Communion with Stripping of the Altar.
The Three Days proclaim and re-enact the drama of Jesus’ last days of public, earthly ministry culminating in his death and resurrection.
Worship on Maundy Thursday begins with confession and forgiveness, and also features footwashing. In obedience to Jesus’ new commandment to love one another, those wishing symbolically and literally to enact such servant love will wash each other’s feet. We continue with Holy Communion, the institution of which is remembered on this night. Worship concludes as the lights in the nave and chancel are dimmed and the altar and chancel are stripped of their adornments as Psalm 88, a psalm of lament, is sung as we recall Jesus’ agonized prayer in the garden. We will then depart in silence.
Good Friday (April 15): Worship at 7:00 pm, with sung Passion According to John and Adoration of the Cross.
We assemble again on Friday evening, continuing the Three Days, where the focal point of our time together in worship is the Passion According to John, which will be sung by our choir. After the sermon and Hymn of the Day, worship continues with bidding prayers in the context of which your silent prayers are invited for the church and world. Then a rough-hewn cross is carried in procession into the nave as we sing of our adoration of Christ who was crucified on that lifegiving tree. Solemn Reproaches are said and the Trisagion (“Holy God, holy and mighty, holy and immortal, have mercy on us”) is sung while members of the assembly come forward for various expressions of devotion at the cross, including placing lit votive candles around it. When worship concludes in a darkened church, and all depart in silence.
The Three Days Conclude, Resurrection of Our Lord, Vigil of Easter (April 16): Worship at 7:00 pm, new fire, procession with Paschal Candle, Easter Proclamation, service of readings, affirmation of baptism, and Holy Communion.
We assemble once again on the third of the Three Days outdoors on the Potomac Street side of the church to begin the Vigil of Easter. The new fire is lit, from which the Paschal Candle, is also lit and blessed. The whole assembly follows the Paschal Candle into the church, through the hallways and into the nave where worshipers will receive their own individual candles with light taken from the Paschal Candle. We will gather at chairs surrounding the baptismal font as the Easter Proclamation is sung. A series of readings, recounting major stories of salvation history, is read followed by prayer. Still at the font, we’ll affirm our baptism, confessing anew our faith as we are sprinkled with water from the font. Then the lights will come on, and we’ll sing “This is the Feast of Victory for our God” as we take seats in the pews in the nave for Holy Communion, concluding the Three Days, having run the gamut from sorrow to joy, from darkness to light, from death to new life in Christ.
Resurrection of Our Lord, Easter Sunday (April 17): Worship at 10:00 am. Easter Breakfast begins at 8:30.
We’ll assemble yet again on Easter Sunday, Resurrection of Our Lord. An Easter Breakfast of egg casseroles and breakfast breads begins in the parish hall and outdoors at 8:30 am. At 10:00, we’ll assemble in the nave for a festive celebration of the Resurrection of Our Lord in the manner of our usual Sunday Assembly, but with the volume of celebration turned up a bit in honor of the resurrected Christ who is our light, our life, our salvation.
Your share in the joy of Easter Day will be all the more enriched by your having also attended liturgy on Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and at the Vigil of Easter!
Again, as your Pastor, I urge your full participation in each of the Three Days.
God in Christ take us together into these paschal mysteries in the power of the Spirit,
Pastor Jonathan Linman
Midweek Message: "What to Expect as We Embark on the Coming Holy Days"
Week of the Fifth Sunday in Lent
Dear Friends in Christ:
We are soon to embark on the holiest of days in the calendar of our Christian life. What follows is narrative description of what you can expect in the coming week.
Midweek Lenten Series Concludes:
Our Midweek Lenten Program via Zoom concludes this coming Wednesday, April 6 at 7:00 pm with a brief service of the word featuring readings from the daily lectionary which complement our Sunday readings. Following worship, Mimi Van Poole will offer reflections and engage in conversation with you on how global experiences have expanded her views of both Christianity and the church. We’ve been hearing about some enriching experiences from those who have offered reflections, and in subsequent conversation, participants have also shared some of their own international experiences of Christianity and the church. Please join us this Wednesday as a concluding feature of your Lenten discipline.
The Zoom link will be distributed via Constant Contact. If you wish to receive our Constant Contact messages, then please This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
The bulletin for Midweek Lenten Worship is below:
RELC Lenten Midweek Worship for April 6, 2022
Many thanks to each of our members who has offered a reflection during these Wednesdays in Lent, namely, Wally Jensen, Norm Olsen, Gordon Lathrop, and Mimi Van Poole.
Sunday of the Passion/Palm Sunday (April 10): Worship at 10:00 am, Procession with Palms and Reading of the Passion According to St. Luke.
We will gather outdoors on the Potomac Street side of the church where we will hear the proclamation of the gospel from Luke that recounts Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem. Prayer will be offered over the palm fronds that will have been distributed to you. The whole assembly will enter the church through the doors and through the hallways into the narthex and then into the nave while singing the beloved hymn, “All Glory, Laud, and Honor.” Then, in the context of our usual liturgy of Holy Communion, three readers will proclaim the Passion of our Lord Jesus Christ according to Luke. Then we continue with our liturgy of Holy Communion in our usual ways.
The Three Days Commence, Maundy Thursday (April 14): Worship at 7:00 pm, Confession and Forgiveness, Washing of Feet, and Holy Communion with Stripping of the Altar.
The Three Days – comprised of Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and the Vigil of Easter – is essentially one extended liturgy that proclaims and re-enacts the drama of Jesus’ last days of public, earthly ministry culminating in his death and resurrection.
Worship on Maundy Thursday begins with confession and forgiveness, and also features footwashing. In obedience to Jesus’ new commandment to love one another, those wishing symbolically and literally to enact such servant love will wash each other’s feet. We continue with Holy Communion, the institution of which is remembered on this night. Worship concludes as the lights in the nave and chancel are dimmed and the altar and chancel are stripped of their adornments as Psalm 88, a psalm of lament, is sung as we recall Jesus’ agonized prayer in the garden. We will then depart in silence.
Good Friday (April 15): Worship at 7:00 pm, with sung Passion According to John and Adoration of the Cross.
We assemble again on Friday evening, continuing the Three Days, where the focal point of our time together in worship is the Passion According to John, which will be sung by our choir. After the sermon and Hymn of the Day, worship continues with bidding prayers in the context of which your silent prayers are invited for the church and world. Then a rough-hewn cross is carried in procession into the nave as we sing of our adoration of Christ who was crucified on that lifegiving tree. Solemn Reproaches are said and the Trisagion (“Holy God, holy and mighty, holy and immortal, have mercy on us”) is sung while members of the assembly come forward for various expressions of devotion at the cross, including placing lit votive candles around it. When worship concludes in a darkened church, and all depart in silence.
The Three Days Conclude, Resurrection of Our Lord, Vigil of Easter (April 16): Worship at 7:00 pm, new fire, procession with Paschal Candle, Easter Proclamation, service of readings, affirmation of baptism, and Holy Communion.
We assemble once again on the third of the Three Days outdoors on the Potomac Street side of the church to begin the Vigil of Easter. The new fire is lit, from which the Paschal Candle, is also lit and blessed. The whole assembly follows the Paschal Candle into the church, through the hallways and into the nave where worshipers will receive their own individual candles with light taken from the Paschal Candle. We will gather at chairs surrounding the baptismal font as the Easter Proclamation is sung. A series of readings, recounting major stories of salvation history, is read followed by prayer. Still at the font, we’ll affirm our baptism, confessing anew our faith as we are sprinkled with water from the font. Then the lights will come on, and we’ll sing “This is the Feast of Victory for our God” as we take seats in the pews in the nave for Holy Communion, concluding the Three Days, having run the gamut from sorrow to joy, from darkness to light, from death to new life in Christ.
Resurrection of Our Lord, Easter Sunday (April 17): Worship at 10:00 am. Easter Breakfast begins at 8:30.
We’ll assemble yet again on Easter Sunday, Resurrection of Our Lord. An Easter Breakfast of egg casseroles and breakfast breads begins in the parish hall and outdoors at 8:30 am. At 10:00, we’ll assemble in the nave for a festive celebration of the Resurrection of Our Lord in the manner of our usual Sunday Assembly, but with the volume of celebration turned up a bit in honor of the resurrected Christ who is our light, our life, our salvation.
Please join us for the fullness of this sacred, life-giving drama!
Pondering even now on Jesus’ holy passion,
Pastor Jonathan Linman
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Midweek Message: "Get Ready for a Major Spring-Cleaning at Church"
Week of the Fourth Sunday in Lent
Dear Friends in Christ:
Here are items concerning our life together which merit your attention, consideration, and response:
Midweek Lenten Series:
Our Midweek Lenten Program via Zoom continues this coming Wednesday, March 30 at 7:00 pm with a brief service of the word featuring readings from the daily lectionary which complement our Sunday readings. Following worship, Gordon Lathrop will offer reflections and engage in conversation with you on how global travels and work have expanded his views of both Christianity and the church. We’ve been hearing about some enriching experiences from those who have offered reflections, and in subsequent conversation, participants have also shared some of their own international experiences of Christianity and the church. Please join us this Wednesday as part of your Lenten discipline.
The Zoom link will be distributed via Constant Contact. If you wish to receive our Constant Contact messages, then please This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
The bulletin for Midweek Lenten Worship is below:
RELC Lenten Midweek Worship for March 30, 2022
On April 6, we’ll conclude this series when we hear from Mimi VanPoole. Many thanks to each of our members who has offered a reflection.
Get Ready for a Major Spring-Cleaning at Church:
As we prepare to receive The Village School as our tenant in the better part of our building’s educational wing, we will soon embark on a major Spring-Cleaning, as it were, of our church building. All items, including furniture, will need to be cleared from the rooms designated as dedicated spaces for use by the school, with major focus on the former preschool area on the lower level and the several rooms on the north wing of the second level.
There will be much that will need to find homes elsewhere – maybe other preschools or places that could benefit from our items. There will be things that simply need to be discarded because they have outlived their usefulness. There will be items which we will want to keep, and thus, find new storage places for in spaces kept for our congregational use.
All of this gives us the opportunity carefully to discern what is needed for our current and anticipated future mission as a congregation. This allows us opportunity, too, to purge items throughout our church building that no longer serve our mission. Which is to say, I envision this undertaking involving our entire building, and not just spaces dedicated for use by The Village School. In short, this will be a major undertaking which as I have said before will require many, many hands on deck for helping out.
We will soon convene a working group that will oversee these operations, creating priorities lists, a timeline, and a plan for what we will tackle first, doing a kind of triage so that we will begin with what is most urgent and time sensitive and then go on from there to less urgent, but nonetheless important tasks.
If you are interested in serving on this planning oversight group, especially if you have responsibility for ministries and initiatives that have things stored in various places in the church, please This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. of your interest.
Beyond this coordinating working group, there will also be calls for volunteers to help out with the Spring-Cleaning work on designated days in the coming weeks and months. Kindly be at the ready to offer your time and energies when invited to do so!
I don’t know about you, but I’ve found it energizing whenever I’ve undertaken Spring-Cleaning kinds of initiatives in my own homes throughout the years. These efforts have renewed my sense of connection to my personal spaces, and de-cluttering areas consistently contributes to my overall sense of well-being. What is true for our homes is true for our church, particularly when we engage this work with a mind toward discerning what is needful for our life together in our current mission which God has entrusted to us. Again, please be at the ready to join in this important work.
Voting Members Needed for Synod Assembly:
Resurrection Church is in need of two lay voting members (one female, one male) for the annual Metropolitan Washington DC Synod Assembly. This year’s Assembly is planned to be in person and will take place at the College Park Marriott in Maryland beginning on Friday morning, June 10 and concluding by early evening on Saturday, June 11.
Annual Synod Assemblies – especially in person – are wonderful ways to get a first-hand, embodied sense of the wider church and its many ministries and initiatives in service of the mission that God has entrusted to us. Worshiping with several hundred other Lutherans is almost always inspiring in and of itself. Keynote speakers likewise can be inspiring. And it’s lovely to connect socially with others in the Synod in the hallways, at meal times, and other occasions during the two days together.
If you’ve never served as a voting member to Synod Assembly before, consider offering your name. If it’s been several years since you’ve been a voting member, consider stepping forward as well. Your expenses will be paid by our congregation.
If you are interested in or feel drawn to serving as a voting member for the Assembly, please be This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. to get more information and to have your questions addressed.
Moving forward in Jesus’ name, and with the guidance of the Spirit,
Pastor Jonathan Linman
Midweek Message: “Music at Resurrection Returns this Saturday”
Midweek Lenten Series:
Our Midweek Lenten Program via Zoom continues this coming Wednesday, March 23 at 7:00 pm with a brief service of the word featuring readings from the daily lectionary which complement our Sunday readings. Following worship, Norm Olsen will offer reflections and engage in conversation with you on how global travels and work have expanded his views of both Christianity and the church. We’ve been hearing about some enriching experiences from those who have offered reflections, and in subsequent conversation, participants have also shared some of their own international experiences of Christianity and the church. 27 persons Zoomed in this past Wednesday – please join us this Wednesday as part of your Lenten discipline.
A Zoom link for this service will be sent out via Constant Contact. If you do not currently receive our Constant Contact messages but wish to do so, please This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
The worship bulletin is also available here:
Lenten Midweek Worship Bulletin for March 23, 2022
Finally, here are the other Resurrection members who will offer their reflections for the remaining Wednesdays in Lent: Gordon Lathrop on March 30; and Mimi VanPoole on April 6. Many thanks to them for their willingness to hold forth.
“Music at Resurrection Returns this Saturday”
Dear Friends in Christ:
This coming Saturday, March 26 at 4:00 pm, a compelling tradition of our congregation returns after a two-year hiatus because of the pandemic – Music at Resurrection. Our church has a long history of an excellent music program, and the Music at Resurrection series has been an important feature of our music ministry.
Entitled “New Songs for a New Season: A Hymn Festival,” our gathering this coming Saturday will feature songs and texts new to us that are included in the hymnal supplement, All Creation Sings, which is now included in our congregational repertoire and from which we draw for congregational singing on Sundays. Recent decades have seen a flourishing of new songs and new texts for Christian worship. Many of these songs come to us from across the world, giving joyful expression to the global extent of the church. Others are new texts set to familiar tunes which feature voices not previously heard in congregational song. Still other hymns give attention to current theological concerns such as care of creation and honest lament. Represented will be songs and hymns from South Africa, Pakistan, Argentina, Puerto Rico, Korea, and Indonesia, along with North America and Europe. Texts written and tunes composed by women will also importantly be featured.
This hymn festival is an important step in living into one of our shared visions for congregational life and that is to have our worship and music reflect more fully the global extent of Christianity and the church. Led by the choir of Resurrection Church under the direction of Barbara Bulger Verdile, our Music Director, the hymn fest this Saturday promises to be lively and to give expression to theological and spiritual concerns relevant to our current time and circumstances. Each song will be introduced by a brief narrative which places the text and tune in context. The program will last about an hour and will be followed by a wine and cheese reception in our parish hall.
In addition to a goodly number of our congregation members, we hoped to be joined by folk from other Lutheran congregations in the Metro DC Synod, as All Creation Sings has not yet had a formal introduction in our Synod. I hope that you will join us this Saturday afternoon for good and inspiring music and the occasion to socialize after. Add this to your Lenten discipline as well!
My thanks to Barbara and our choir, our Worship and Music Committee under the leadership of Cindy Reese, as well as the Music at Resurrection Committee now under the leadership of Cathy Carr. These persons and committees have had a significant share in planning this event.
May God in Christ bless us as we lift voices in song,
Pastor Jonathan Linman
Midweek Message: “Council Approves Moving Forward with The Village School”
Week of the Second Sunday in Lent
Midweek Lenten Series:
Our Midweek Lenten Program via Zoom continues this coming Wednesday, March 16 at 7:00 pm with a brief service of the word featuring readings from the daily lectionary which complement our Sunday readings. Following worship, Pastor Wally Jensen will offer reflections and engage in conversation with you on how global travels and work have expanded his views of both Christianity and the church.
A Zoom link for this service will be sent out via Constant Contact. If you do not currently receive our Constant Contact messages but wish to do so, please This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
The worship bulletin is also available here:
Lenten Midweek Worship Bulletin for March 16, 2022
Finally, here are the other Resurrection members who will offer their reflections for the remaining Wednesdays in Lent: Norm Olsen on March 23; Gordon Lathrop on March 30; and Mimi VanPoole on April 6. Many thanks to them for their willingness to hold forth.
“Council Approves Moving Forward with The Village School”
Dear Friends in Christ:
At the regularly scheduled meeting on March 10, our Congregation Council voted unanimously to enter into a rental relationship with The Village School according to provisions listed on a term sheet (most of the provisions of which were shared with you on the information document I recently made available to the congregation). The term sheet, developed by our church rental working group, and approved by both our Council and the School, will serve as the basis for a legal lease document that will soon be drafted, ultimately to be approved also by our Council and the School.
In further conversations between our congregation and leaders of The Village School, it became clear that the School would benefit from the occasional use of our parish hall (perhaps a couple of times a week) and that our leaders believe it only makes sense for the school to use our hall occasionally, given its fine amenities. Because this arrangement increases the amount of rentable square footage, the rate of rent that the School pays will increase by $500 per month for a total annual rent of $126,000 rather than the previously stated $120,000. Another change to the proposal is that our congregation will retain exclusive use of the room on the second floor, next to the Choir Room, which is used for our Social Ministry purposes, especially our quilters. Other than these two substantial changes, the agreement is basically the same as what was outlined in the information sheet I had made available to you all.
In addition to our seeing to the draft of a lease, to be undertaken by an attorney’s office with whom we’ll contract, Resurrection Church will in the coming weeks mobilize a working group to oversee the removal and disposition of items in the rooms that the School will have dedicated and shared use of. This will be a major undertaking which will require many hands on deck for assistance. Please be at the ready to help out! And again, this work of cleaning out rooms and finding homes for unused items is a task many have long talked about, even before the school possibility presented itself.
Over the course of late spring and early summer (on a timetable soon to be worked out), The Village School will oversee the cosmetic redecoration of spaces available to them as well as a major overhaul of the outdoor playground to accommodate students of all elementary school ages. Then a new school year will commence in late August.
This is a major shift in the life of our congregation, which has stirred our pots, I believe, in very salutary ways. The rental income will be enormously helpful in addressing our shortfalls in giving. We’ve been running about a $5,000 deficit per month in recent months, so we clearly need the income if we are to maintain and meet our current budget. Additionally, the School will give our congregation greater visibility in the community, which can prove to be beneficial to our desire for membership and programmatic growth. And this relationship with The Village School makes for good stewardship of the gift of our fine building.
The Council’s discernment conversations and deliberation toward this decision were greatly aided by the two occasions the whole congregation had to discuss this possibility and raise questions and concerns and to hear from representatives of The Village School itself. Likewise, several have shared particular issues and concerns with me that I have passed along to our church rental working group and to the Council, along with further responses from the School concerning issues raised. Thousand thanks to all who have taken this proposal seriously enough to think through implications of this relationship and to share views, questions, and concerns. I believe that we have attended to all of this with great care. And The Village School has been very responsive to our concerns and flexible in their dealings with our congregation’s leaders.
There are many more details to attend to in the coming weeks and months. Please pray for this new relationship to move forward smoothly without undue complications. And thanks in advance for your patience with living into a reality which is very new to us and our life together.
May God in Christ bless this endeavor according to the divine will and for the flourishing of both Resurrection Evangelical Lutheran Church and The Village School.
With such prayer even now in Jesus’ name,
Pastor Jonathan Linman
Midweek Message: “For Such a Time as This: Another Message with Multiple Foci”
Week of the First Sunday in Lent
Dear Friends in Christ:
Since there are lots of moving parts in our life together currently, this week’s Midweek Message again offers comments on more than one topic.
Midweek Lenten Series:
First off, our Midweek Lenten Program via Zoom commences this coming Wednesday, March 9 at 7:00 pm with a brief service of the word featuring readings from the daily lectionary which complement our Sunday readings. Following worship, I will offer reflections and engage in conversation with you on how my global ecumenical travels have expanded my views of both Christianity and the church.
A Zoom link for this service will be sent out via Constant Contact. If you do not currently receive our Constant Contact messages but wish to do so, please This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
The worship bulletin is also available here:
Lenten Midweek Worship Bulletin for March 9, 2022
Finally, here are the other Resurrection members who will offer their reflections: Wally Jensen on March 16; Norm Olsen on March 23; Gordon Lathrop on March 30; and Mimi VanPoole on April 6. Many thanks to them for their willingness to hold forth.
Resurrection Lutheran Church and The Village School? Additional Thoughts:
This past Sunday, we had occasion to hear brief presentations from representatives of The Village School concerning the school’s educational philosophy. Over forty Resurrection members stayed after coffee hour to engage the three representatives – one of their administrators, a teacher, and a parent. This occasion not only helped us get a better sense of their holistic approach to education, but it also gave us a chance to experience school leaders directly in person as we continue to discern together the possible rental relationship between church and school.
I have been heartened in our various conversations about this possibility that you all are as concerned with the mission of the school in relation to our sense of mission as you are with the particulars of the terms of the rental contract. With that in mind, here are brief theologically oriented reflections on how the school’s educational philosophy intersects with aspects of who we are as Lutherans and with our commitments as a congregation.
On Sunday when we heard from The Village School representatives, here in a nutshell is the basic principle that guides everything they do as a school: every child has unique gifts to be nurtured and cultivated for the sake of their place, their calling, if you will, in the world. Thus, theirs is not a cookie cutter approach to education geared to performance on standardized tests. This view that emphasizes the giftedness of each child is consistent, I believe, with a Lutheran understanding of vocation where we believe that every person has a unique calling from God – not just the religious professionals, but everyone – to be used for the sake of the world in lovingly serving our neighbors.
Additionally, we heard from representatives of The Village School that their curriculum focuses on four broad areas: learning to know (acquisition of basic competence in classic curricular foci like math, reading, science, and more); learning to do (with focus on practical projects); learning to be (with emphasis on character formation); and learning to live together (employing conflict resolution skills toward cultivating tools for civil discourse in life and society). This holistic approach with focus on the whole person in communal relationships is consistent with our own congregation’s current approach to Christian education that emphasizes faith formation of the whole child of God and not just providing information about God. And it’s consistent, it seems to me, with our current focus on intergenerational approaches to faith formation which emphasize interaction within our whole community representing all ages. In fact, in The Village School, the students learn with students of other ages in group interaction.
In short, it seems that there are important points of intersection between aspects of our congregation’s sense of mission and that of The Village School. So, that while the school is not faith-based and will not engage in explicit religious instruction, there are important ways in which our approaches complement each other when it comes to our witness to the wider world in seeking to address people and communities holistically for the sake of the betterment of the world.
I invite your prayers for our Congregation Council’s discerning conversation at their March 10 meeting this week when they will make a decision about moving forward or not with a rental relationship with The Village School. The conversation this Thursday will have been informed by the two occasions the whole congregation has had to discuss this possibility. The specific focus for the decision making will be a term sheet drafted by our church rental working group which outlines the particulars of a rental agreement that, if approved, will form the basis of a lease.
Additionally, the Council’s discernment and decision making will be informed by your input as well. I have written about this possibility repeatedly in these Midweek Messages. A two-page fact sheet which contains most the information that will appear on the term sheet has been circulated via various formats. I have received emails from you and have had conversations with you that have informed the working group’s and Council’s conversations. That said, here is yet another opportunity for you to provide feedback to guide the Council’s conversation and decision this coming Thursday, March 10. Should you have any remaining concerns, observations, and more about this proposal, I urge you to send them This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. by this coming Thursday mid-day so that they can be included in what goes before the Council that evening.
May God in Christ lead us in the Spirit in ways in keeping with the divine will.
Reflections on the Retreat for Council, Committee Chairs, and Staff Members
Finally, as if there wasn’t enough going on this past Sunday, newly installed members of our Congregation Council had occasion on Sunday afternoon to meet with the Chairpersons of our various committees along with our staff members to consider particular and concrete ways we will continue to live into our shared statements of vision that guide our life together. This was an important occasion for all of us together to, as it were, see the forest for the trees in our shared mission. Typical meetings are focused on the particular matters at hand. Rare is the occasion to step back to take in the bigger picture in the greater leisure of a retreat-like time together. Our afternoon meeting this past Sunday also was an important guard against the tendency of individuals and committees to operate in the silos of their particular portfolios without the benefit of seeing the extent to which our life together is interdependent and intersecting. Such occasions as our Sunday retreat allow us as the body of Christ, the church, to move together in more fluid motion such that there is indeed movement forward.
May God in Christ continue to lead us in the Spirit for the sake of the mission that God has entrusted to us,
Pastor Jonathan Linman