Week of the Third Sunday after Epiphany

Dear Friends in Christ:

Many people, perhaps especially pastors, dread annual congregational meetings. They may be burdened by the sense that annual meetings are only all about the “business” of the church, that is, the legal and organizational requirements of congregations as non-profit organizations. Indeed, there are such administrative matters to attend to, like electing new Council members and passing budgets, and so on.

But I am not among those who dread annual meetings, for I see them as occasions, not unlike state of the union addresses by presidents, when both chambers of Congress, and indeed, much of the nation turns its collective attention to the big picture of how things are going in the nation. For me, annual meetings are state of the church occasions, times to assess the quality of our life together as a congregation.

But before I get to the big picture of assessing the state of our congregation in light of this past Sunday’s annual meeting, I don’t want to leave too quickly the administrative side of things. Doing the “business” of the church is indeed important, for administrative matters serve the primary mission of the church to proclaim the gospel of Christ. In fact, we could not engage in our mission to proclaim Christ if it weren’t for the well-run, behind-the-scenes organizational systems that ungird our capacities to herald the gospel.

And as I am fond of saying, as I did in a message after last year’s annual meeting, and quoting a friend and former colleague, “good administration is good pastoral care.” So, I came away from the 2022 annual congregational meeting of Resurrection Lutheran Church with a renewed sense that we are in good hands administratively. Our congregation is well-ordered, its systems carefully attended to. And all of this happens because of the care and attention, competence and expertise, of a cadre of strong lay leaders who stay on top of things administratively. Having been around the block a few times as a member of a synodical bishop’s staff, I’ve seen too many congregations in administrative upheaval and disarray, and such conditions radically diminish the quality of life in congregations and inhibit the church’s mission. Resurrection Church is not one of those congregations. The caring attention to the administrative life of the church was much in evidence among our leaders who were panelists at our Zoom annual meeting, but they are supported by teams of people behind the scenes who also offer their wisdom, passion, and expertise.

One of the stated desires that appeared in the consultant’s report on our congregation during the interim period prior to you calling me as your Pastor was the hope that Resurrection Church might involve still more fully the laity in the moving forward of the church in and for mission. It strikes me that we are currently doing a rather commendable job of being a congregation that makes the most of lay leadership in the service of our divine calling.

Moreover, such sharing of leadership in teamwork is enormously beneficial to me as your Pastor, for when lay leaders exercise faithfully their respective ministries, especially perhaps responsibility for the “business” aspects of the church as a non-profit, that frees me to attend more diligently to what are the central foci of my particular calling as Pastor, namely, exercising oversight of the preaching and teaching and worship ministries of the church. I am heartened by the division of labor that has evolved among us over the course of my almost two years of serving as your Pastor, and it is a privilege to serve in a shepherding and coordinating capacity the collaborative team that we have become together.

In terms of raising up new and additional lay leaders to serve our mission, there’s always some anxiety on the part of those recruiting and nominating folk, for example, willing to serve on the Congregation Council. Will there be enough people to serve our needs? Yet, when it’s all said and done, people step forward, perhaps reluctantly at first given their busy and complex lives, but they do make themselves available to serve. Thus, we elected this past Sunday an excellent slate of new Council members.

Likewise, in terms of the financial status of our congregation, there is consistently also some anxiety about giving failing to match budgeted needs. But by year’s end, with the common practice among many, myself included for the charitable giving that I do beyond the church, people also step forward by the end of December with gifts that reduce what otherwise had been a running deficit throughout the year. Yes, our giving has not been matching budgeted expenses, but the shortfall has not yet been catastrophic, and there are reserves sufficient at this time to meet deficits. We are also just beginning to explore ways to generate income beyond gifts of members, likely via renting some of our space to other organizations. All of this is to say that Resurrection Church continues to be on a solid financial footing and is a well-resourced congregation to serve Christ’s mission in and for the sake of the world – a mission reflected by the particularly generous amount of money we devote each year to a wide array of organizations that seek to alleviate the suffering of those in need.

So, given the ways we fulfill the maxim that “good administration is good pastoral care,” Resurrection Church is poised in the coming months of 2022 to have the capacity earnestly to live into our shared visions for mission and ministry. Such statements of vision provide the criteria to assess and evaluate the bigger picture of the state of the church with a focus on its mission. Recall that at our annual meeting in 2021, I introduced to you statements of vision that I generated as your Pastor. Over the course of the months of 2021, these “I” statements evolved into becoming “we” statements, informed by the insights of our wider membership, and approved by our Congregation Council. I am glad for the conversations we have had about these vision statements over the past year, and I am heartened by the conversations we have been having and will continue to have in coming months to bring to concrete expression ways of making our visions realities on the ground to serve our ministry and mission as a congregation.

The ship of this church has a better idea of where it is headed, guided by the statements of vision, and inspired and empowered by the Holy Spirit working also through our administrative life, which again is the servant of our mission.

The long and the short of it, by way of concluding these reflections on the 2022 annual congregational meeting of Resurrection Church, is that despite the constraints of the pandemic and the challenging realities that make congregational life difficult these days, the state of our church is, in my assessment, strong and solid and faithful.

By God’s grace, may this continue to be so, for Jesus’ sake,

Pastor Jonathan Linman

Week of the Second Sunday after Epiphany

Dear Friends in Christ:

January 18, the Confession of Peter, begins the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, 2022. What started as a small prayer movement among Episcopal Franciscans and Catholics in the Hudson River Valley north of New York City in 1908 has over the decades become an international observance embraced by millions and sponsored by the Commission on Faith and Order of the World Council of Churches and the Catholic Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity.

The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity, an octave encouraging daily prayer observances, begins on the commemoration of the Confession of Peter and concludes a week later on the day of the commemoration of the Conversion of Paul, an octave bracketed by the celebration of two major figures of the Christian tradition who represent different strands of our faith tradition. Peter was one of Jesus’ disciples who was among the first-hand, eyewitnesses of Jesus’ life, ministry, death and resurrection, and who became one of the twelve original apostles, and a central figure among the twelve. Paul, on the other hand, as Saul, a persecutor of the early Christian movement and its believers, had his conversion experience on the road to Damascus, and thus came to this new movement in a way very different from the twelve original apostles. Paul struggled to have his apostolic authority accepted during the days of his public ministry.

These differences could have taken Christianity in very different and divided directions. But the basic rapprochement between Pauline and Petrine factions in the early days preserved early unity in the emergent church even amidst its sometimes-conflicting diversity. There is an icon in the offices of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity in the Vatican that features Peter and Paul embracing each other. That is an image which captures the unifying spirit of the ecumenical octave of this week. It is indeed appropriate that the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity should begin and conclude with commemorations of Peter and Paul, a celebration of and aspiration for unity in diversity.

Each year materials for marking and celebrating the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity are developed by different ecumenical councils in various regions of the world. Materials for 2022, published nationally by the Graymoor Ecumenical and Interreligious Institute in New York, were crafted by the Middle East Council of Churches in Beirut, Lebanon. This year’s theme is based on Matthew 2:2 – “We saw the star in the east, and we came to worship him.” Here is further elaboration on this theme from the website of the Graymoor Institute: “Today, more than ever, the Middle East needs a heavenly light to accompany its people. The star of Bethlehem is a sign that God walks with his people, feels their pain, hears their cries, and shows them compassion. It reassures us that though circumstances change and terrible disasters may happen, God’s faithfulness is unfailing…. The journey of faith is this walking with God who always watches over his people and who guides us in the complex paths of history and life. For this Week of Prayer, the Christians of the Middle East chose the theme of the star that rose in the east for a number of reasons. While many Western Christians celebrate Christmas, the more ancient feast, and still the principal feast of many Eastern Christians, is the Epiphany when God’s salvation is revealed to the nations in Bethlehem and at the Jordan. This focus on the theophany (the manifestation) is, in a sense a treasure which Christians of the Middle East can offer to their brothers and sisters around the world.”

Here is a link, should you wish to participate in a live, online observance of the Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. It begins at 12:00 pm (Noon) Eastern on Wednesday, January 19.

And here is a link to official Week of Prayer for Christian Unity 2022 materials to support your daily prayers for greater visible unity in the church.

As I have written to you before, I am a devoted ecumenist and am committed to promoting the greater visible unity among Christian churches, and this for the sake of our witness to the world rooted in Jesus’ prayer recorded in John’s Gospel: “I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me.” (John 17:20-21) I, therefore, see ecumenical work as central to the mission of the church and not as an optional, extra thing to engage in if we have time and inclination.

Ecumenical involvements, ranging from local to national and even international initiatives, have consistently been key features of my public ministry for over three decades. Thus, it’s been a disappointment to me that Arlington has no apparent current, active, formal ecumenical association of churches and church leaders. I would otherwise be an active participant in such a group. Thus, I will continue to endeavor informally to reach out to colleagues in neighboring congregations in future months, pandemic permitting, seeking to build some meaningful ecumenical relationships locally. Nationally, I continue to serve as the Lutheran co-chair of the Lutheran-Methodist Full Communion Coordinating Committee.

Additionally, I am heartened by Resurrection Church’s own history of and current expressions of ecumenical commitments. My predecessor, Pastor Scott Ickert, is a committed ecumenist, well-known for his involvements synodically and nationally. And we have a number of members whose current professional and personal passions include involvement in various forms of ecumenical work.

Meanwhile, Resurrection families, like many Christian families today, embody their own versions of ecumenical commitments and realities. We have several mixed church families, especially Lutheran-Catholic, and it gladdens my heart that these families find ways of honoring the other spouse’s own churchly commitments by participating in activities of their spouse’s churches. And it’s especially delightful to me that some of our most active participants at Resurrection are officially members of other churches!

This is perhaps an expression of what is known in ecumenical circles as “spiritual ecumenism,” that is, when commitments to the greater visible unity of the church are lived out in personal and practical ways at local levels.

Thanks be to God for such witness to the unity we in fact enjoy in Christ Jesus, an embodied fulfillment in part of our prayers for Christian unity this week and throughout the year.

Praying along with our Lord that we may all be one – for the sake of the world,

Pastor Jonathan Linman

Week of the First Sunday after Epiphany, Baptism of Our Lord

Dear Friends in Christ:

A number of persons have recently asked me why we use the contemporary version of the Lord’s Prayer in our public worship on Sundays. There’s been sufficient energy around this topic that I am moved to write about it in some significant detail to offer a fuller rationale for using the translation of the Lord’s Prayer that we do on Sundays.

First off, I want to recognize and affirm the power of language that we know by heart. Most of us are more familiar with the older translation of the Lord’s Prayer that continues the use of “thy” and “thine,” more archaic expressions in English that do not generally appear in everyday speech. Knowing the Lord’s Prayer by heart in the version we have grown up with speaks to the power of particular language expressions to form us and to carry deep spiritual and theological meaning for us. We may embody decades of associations and experiences with particular formulations of language that continue to speak powerfully to us. Thanks be to God for the power of God’s word in our lives in the particularities and perhaps peculiarities of language expressions.

But God’s living word is not limited to particular translations. In fact, as you well know, the Lord’s Prayer did not come down from on high in King James Version English. The origins of the Lord’s Prayer date back to traditions prior to Jesus, namely, the Kaddish, a prayer of praise in the Jewish tradition that hallows God’s name. In Jesus’ day and in the very early days of the church, the Lord’s Prayer would have been offered in Aramaic, then the common vernacular. Even the New Testament gospels (Matthew 6:9-13 and Luke 11:2-4) render somewhat different versions of the Lord’s Prayer in English translations from the Greek, and the biblical versions of the prayer in English bibles are not exactly what we pray on Sundays.

Moreover, the Lord’s Prayer has come to Christian people also in the languages of the nations throughout the centuries. My forebears prayed the Lord’s Prayer in Swedish, Norwegian, and Finnish. Your ancestors likewise would have prayed the prayer in their various mother tongues. All of this variety in translation adds to the richness of God’s living word; it does not detract from or diminish the power of sacred meaning.

Which is to say, human languages are not stuck in time. They change and evolve over the course of generations. Continuing to pray the Lord’s Prayer using a translation that continues some archaic expressions does not robustly acknowledge the fluid nature of human language. More significantly perhaps, continuation of older forms also does not fully acknowledge and honor that God’s word continues to be living and active, such that the timeless truth of the divine word is also expressed in new and renewed ways that make sense to speakers of ordinary language in our own day.

Recall that Martin Luther was passionate about proclaiming the gospel in the vernacular of ordinary people. Hence his turn to use German as the language of liturgy and not Latin. Likewise, passion for making the gospel available in everyday language informed his translation of the Bible into German. Our use of the version of the Lord’s Prayer that is more in keeping with current speech continues the Lutheran passion for vernacular expressions of the gospel, trusting that God’s voice is indeed living and active in the ordinary language employed in liturgy and in prayer.

To get to the particular points of the contemporary vs. traditional version of the Lord’s Prayer, the differences in the translations center on the following points: your vs. thy/thine; sins vs. trespasses (or debts if you’re a Presbyterian); trial vs. temptation. Otherwise, the versions of the prayer are quite similar. On the question of your vs. thy/thine, I’ve already raised the question of the continued use of archaic expressions in the liturgy. The evolution of liturgical expressions in English was such that a more King James style of liturgical language was modified already at least half a century ago. For us Lutherans in North America, that focused on the introduction of the Lutheran Book of Worship in our circles in 1978. Which is to say, the contemporary version of the Lord’s Prayer, developed by an international, ecumenical consultation on liturgical texts in English, has been around for fifty years. So, referring to the translation as contemporary is something of a misnomer. Many have been using this translation for the majority or all of their lives. Lutheran Book of Worship gave the option of either version of the Lord’s Prayer, the last hold out when all other liturgical language was revised from its more King James style orientations. Evangelical Lutheran Worship also gives the option of either version. At Resurrection Church, as your Pastor exercising my pastoral responsibility for the public worship life of the church and exercising my teaching office, I desire that our liturgical language be consistently in a vernacular of ordinary speech. Hence my decision as Pastor for our public use of the version of the Lord’s Prayer in ordinary but nonetheless dignified and sacred speech.

But there are other important points to be made to illustrate the importance of the common usage of terms. Let’s take up sins vs. trespasses (or debts). Most people arguably associate the word “trespasses” with transgressing property boundaries, as in “No Trespassing” signs. That’s not quite what we generally have in mind when we ask to be forgiven in the Lord’s Prayer. Likewise, if it’s “debts” and “debtors,” we associate those expressions with financial obligations. Thus, “forgive us our sins” is more immediately understandable to most people, especially those new to the faith, who may not have grown up in the Christian tradition, precisely the folk we would hope and pray will also populate our worshipful gatherings.

Now, quite significantly, consider the theological implications of trial vs. temptation in Lord’s Prayer translations. Asking God to “lead us not into temptation” has very different theological meaning than pleading that God would “save us from the time of trial.” First off, I believe that we would affirm together that a loving God whose will is for our well-being would not intentionally lead us into temptation. Luther himself acknowledges this in the Small Catechism and his exposition of the meaning of this petition of the Lord’s Prayer. Luther’s explanation is this: “It is true that God tempts no one, but we ask in this prayer that God would preserve and keep us, so that the devil, the world, and our flesh may not deceive us or mislead us into false belief, despair, and other great and shameful sins, and that, although we may be attacked by them, we may finally prevail and gain the victory.” If the meaning of this petition of the Lord’s Prayer is as Luther suggests, why not use a translation that more clearly expresses that meaning? Thus, “save us from the time of trial” is the more compelling and theologically faithful translation. “Save us from the time of trial,” also more faithful to the Greek, additionally roots the Lord’s Prayer in the eschatological concerns of both the early and contemporary church, acknowledging that we live and serve in the latter days between Christ’s first and final comings, a period marked both in the Bible and in our historical experience by the faithful enduring various trials for the sake of Christ and our Christian witness. Christians for centuries have questioned the translation “lead us not into temptation.” It’s noteworthy that Pope Francis has also recently asked that Christians not use the translation that prays “lead us not into temptation.”

So, this has been an exploration in some significant detail of the rationale for my decision as Pastor to use the vernacular translation that we do in public worship on Sunday mornings. You may be moved in your own devotions to employ the older translation. But our public use of the more current, vernacular version of the Lord’s Prayer, in sum, is in keeping with Lutheran sensibilities for proclaiming the gospel faithfully and in the vernacular; it’s an expression of our ecumenical commitments in that the newer version was developed in ecumenical consultation; and its use also has an evangelistic thrust in the spirit of loving our neighbors in making good news in Christ more accessibly intelligible to those who may not yet know the old, old story. I invite your generosity of spirit to acknowledge and celebrate the power of God’s living word in the varieties of ways and translations it comes to us.

Seeking to be kept steadfast in God’s word,

Pastor Jonathan Linman

Week of the Second Sunday of Christmas

Evening Prayer via Zoom on the Day of Epiphany, January 6

Join us for Evening Prayer via Zoom on the Day of Epiphany this coming Thursday, January 6, at 7:00 pm. A Zoom link will be distributed via Constant Contact. Here is a link to the bulletin for the service that you may actively participate in worship – consider printing this out or having access to it electronically along with Evangelical Lutheran Worship if you have a copy at home.

Epiphany Evening Prayer for January 6, 2022

“Still Planning to Worship in Person, Indoors”

Dear Friends in Christ:

In response to the skyrocketing number of Covid cases in our region because of the Omicron variant, our congregation’s Reopening Planning Group met last evening to discuss the status of our current routines for assembling in person for worship indoors.

Ours was a long and thoughtful discussion, but the group reached near consensus to continue to worship on Sundays in person indoors with some modifications to our current practice.

First, here’s elaborating word on the rationale to continue worshiping in person even amidst the current surge in Covid cases. In terms of the dynamics of the pandemic, we are not where we were a year ago. That is to say, with vaccinations and booster shots and the promise of anti-viral pharmaceutical treatments, most vaccinated people (which seems to include the vast majority of our congregation membership) are not as vulnerable to serious cases of Covid that require hospitalization and may end in death. Moreover, the Omicron variant seems to result in comparatively mild cases of Covid for most people, affecting mainly the upper respiratory system and less-so and less dangerously, the lungs. Epidemiologists are now recommending that we pay more attention to hospitalization rates and numbers of deaths with less attention paid to the sheer number of cases of Covid reported. Thus far, hospitalization and death rates in relation to the Omicron surge are not yet catastrophic. These realities informed our resolve to continue to worship in person on Sundays.

Another dynamic that led to the decision to continue to worship in person is that attendance on the Second Sunday of Christmas (January 2) was 55 when many of us expected attendance in the 20’s or 30’s given the current Omicron-related surge in case numbers in our area. That suggested to our Reopening Planning Group that there is a critical mass of Resurrection members resolved to claim and continue our current routine of Sunday worship in person. The numbers of those committed to worshiping in person are such that the theological principle of Sunday worship reflecting the comparative fullness of Christian community is sufficiently honored, at least in our estimation.

Clearly, whether or not one worships in person in church on Sundays has a lot to do with one’s tolerance for risk at this point in the pandemic. Which is to say, we wish to honor those committed to risking worship in person. But we also want to honor those whose tolerance for risk, dependent on any number of complicated variables, precludes their worshiping in person on Sundays at this time of the Omicron surge. That is to say, no one should feel pressured to attend worship on Sundays, even those who may have leadership responsibilities for worship, including ushers, altar guild members, assisting ministers, readers, choir members, and more. Please know that we respect and honor decisions to refrain from attending worship at this time, and we’ll make due with those who are present on Sundays to lead our worship, even as we seek new volunteers to step forward to assist in leadership. If you’re with us in person on Sundays, consider yourself invited to offer yourself for various leadership roles!

If you happen to be unvaccinated, we strongly suggest getting vaccinated. If you have not yet had a booster shot, we encourage you to get one if you are eligible. Doing so indicates your commitment to the common good. If your moral discernment has led you not to be vaccinated, you may wish to refrain from public worship in person at this time, again, to honor the wider common good.

For those who must refrain from worshiping in person at this time, the livestreaming of our services remains an option (though there will be occasion on some future Sundays when we may not have the personnel to attend to the livestreaming needs). If you are in need of pursuing the livestreaming option, we ask that you at home participate as fully as possible in the worship, reading and singing the assembly’s responses, and not just watch a video.

So, that’s a summary of the rationale for continuing to worship in person at this time. Please know that the Reopening Planning Group will continue to monitor the most current news about the pandemic. We are poised to modify our responses and practices according to our understandings of the most current realities on the ground.

Here now is a summary of what will be our modified approaches to worshiping in person on Sundays:

Masks are still required. Moreover, we ask that you wear an N95 mask or double-mask with a cloth mask atop a surgical mask.

Please be mindful of the occasions when you need to remove your mask, especially during Communion, limiting the length of time that the mask is off. For example, you may consider receiving the bread and then the wine only to consume both with mask off when you step aside from the Communion ministers.

Physical distancing remains in effect. In fact, you’ll note that every other pew is again roped off to promote appropriate distancing. Please be especially mindful of maintaining space between each other.

Singing will largely be limited to the hymns for the time being.

Alas, coffee hour in the fellowship hall is suspended for the time being. While it is wonderful to socialize with each other, that has been the time when interaction has been physically closest and masks have been off when eating and drinking, a particularly risky combination. When the weather becomes more accommodating, we may consider having coffee outdoors.

We are hopeful that all of these modifications to our practice will be short-lived, as medical experts are at this point predicting the Omicron surge may reach its peak in mid-January, tapering off after that point. Time will tell.

Meanwhile, may God in Christ continue to lead us in ways faithful in this challenging season in the power of the Spirit,

Pastor Jonathan Linman