5 Minute Friday Assignment: The Women

January 29, 2011 By

The Birthday Breakfast Club – 26 years and counting: l to r: Betty, me, Meg, Judy, Nancy, Tonia, Carol
It began as an experiment – a group of 12 women in the same church community gathering around birthday celebrations. No set ‘spiritual’ agenda, just story-sharing. Oh my, were we surprised. Each of us unique, each of us with a story, a journey to share together – to talk about and wonder over and find God at work in. Some of us housewives and/or stay-at-home moms, a couple of us seminary professors, one a nurse, one a bookkeeper, one a teacher. All of us very quickly fiercely committed to being together around a meal (most often breakfast in the beginning, later morphing to whatever worked!). We came to celebrate one another and to celebrate our shared journey.

For me, this group proved to be one of the most significant and profound spiritual friendship groups in my life – my story turned to seminary at mid-life and a call to ministry that surprised all of us, me most especially. We laughed (and gave each other hilarious cards), we ate, we cried. Eventually, we began yearly weekend retreats together for deeper conversation and greater vulnerability. We’ve walked through deaths together and life together. We’ve talked through troubled children and losing jobs and feeling lost and being found. Now separated from this group by over 100 miles, we still make space to be all together at least once each year. How I thank God for the gift of enduring friendships over long stretches of time, for the joy of shared stories across the years, for the wisdom of women and the grace of friendship.

5 minutes up (actually an extra 30 seconds or so!)

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Surprise Me…Some Reflections on WORDS

January 19, 2011 By

The assignment is….words. What to say, what to say? Words are gifts; words are weapons. Words are powerful; words are stumblingly flimsy. Words are mysterious; words are crystal clear. Words.Words.Words.


We’re told in Genesis that the power of word is what called the universe into being. We’re told in John’s gospel that Jesus is the word. And in and around those two seminal places in our sacred text, we find thousands and thousands of words – words that help and heal and words that convict and condemn. Words that puzzle and confuse and words that clarify and define. Words that invite us in and words that remain removed from us. Words that paint glorious pictures of real life and words that feel distant from our day-to-day 21st century living. And most of all…we find words that surprise, astonish, mystify, overwhelm, move and transform us. We find words combined into stories, combined in such a way as to startle us into truth. Words that prick us and poke us and cause us to sigh with recognition. And in the middle of those words, we meet a story-telling God whose stories literally tell us.

And it’s those words that leap off the page. Those Spirit-powered, flame-driven words that bring a flash of light, a moment of ‘aha!,’ a shifting of our inner emotional space, making room for truth and love and grace. When we come to these words in an attitude of openness, we discover that we are there, participants in God’s story of love and rescue. We, too, have bitten into forbidden fruit and paid the price for it; we, too, have wandered through the wilderness, wondering where we’ll land; we, too, have been overwhelmed by a task, only to discover that God is able, that God is faithful; we, too, have been lost and then found.

These words that surprise us, that begin their unsettling, stir-the-pot work in us – these are words that ask more of us than to simply smile in recognition, and shake our heads at the vagaries of human willfulness. These words do their work in us when we let the surprise work its way from our heads and hearts to our hands and feet. This is the power of words, of The Word in us – we find ourselves living life differently, living life newly, living life for Jesus’ sake. And for that to happen, those words must shinny on down into that place where bone and marrow meet. And there are – of course! – some old-fashioned, often hackneyed words that tell us that part of the story, too. Words like: conversion, repentance, obedience. Because, you see, we are continual works in progress; we are ever pilgrims on the way; we are always “being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory.” (2 Corinthians 3:18) And that remarkable transformation begins with…words…

The pictures accompanying this brief essay were selected because of the gift of surprising beauty they represent. It had been a long, tiring day – much of it fun and meaningful – but…tiring, nonetheless. My almost 90-year-old mom is slowly getting smaller and frailer and somehow less of herself and we had spent the day together – eating lunch, redecorating her tiny apartment (at least in our heads!), seeing a remarkable movie (“The King’s Speech”) and talking about the pain and loss of the last few years since my dad’s and brother’s deaths. She had given me a gift card for Christmas – to a department store that is near her home, which is 115 miles south of mine. So I stopped there on my way back to see what I could find. It was almost 5:00 p.m and getting dark in the southern California sky and I spent the next 30 minutes finding some t-shirts on sale and one really pretty new skirt. I came out, bag in hand, even more tired than when I went in. And lo and behold – there was this sky. Right there in the middle of rush hour traffic in busy eastern Los Angeles county, surrounded by parking lot lights and screeching cars: glorious, beautiful SURPRISE. I grabbed my Canon 20D and behaved like a 10 year old at the county fair for the next 10 minutes or so. Transformed, you see. Transformed from a tired sixty-something, worried daughter of an aging mother to a jubilant, grateful, worshipful daughter of an Almighty and surprising God. I think that’s my word for 2011: surprise! It’s a great one!

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An Anniversary…

December 19, 2010 By

Enjoying dinner at a favorite spot – The Montecito Cafe. It’s POURING rain here, and this one was close and sheltered. 
45 years ago today –

on a Saturday, too –
at 3:30 in the afternoon,
in the original sanctuary
of Glendale Presbyterian Church,
the one that separated ceiling from wall in the ’71 earthquake and had to be torn down, brick by brick, stone by stone….
two kids got married.

One was a senior at UCLA,
the other a recent grad of the same fine institution
and finishing his studies for an MBA at…USC.

They were excited, in love
and did not have a clue what they were getting into that afternoon.

An adventure, to be sure.
A challenge? Yes, indeed.
A lifelong partnership of give and take, push and pull, trial and error, laughter and tears, sickness and health, better and worse, richer and poorer (though that happened in reverse order, as it should!)
Would we do it again?
In a heartbeat. 

Three amazing children,

three remarkable children-in-law,
8 outstanding grandkids,
each of whom has added richness and joy to our lives.
Along the way, we’ve also enjoyed and endured:
living cross-culturally in the 60’s for two years,
moving 9 times,
post-graduate studies for both of us and each of our kids,
9 hospitalizations in our immediate family
and about 15-20 in our wider family circle –
a few of them really serious health issues,
including 4 difficult deaths (both of our dads, our son-in-law and my brother).
Life is good and life is terrible,
love is easy and love is hard work,
God is near and sometimes distant, at least from our end of things.
We’ve asked hard questions of ourselves and each other,
we’ve learned to listen even when we didn’t feel like it,
we have a great mutual admiration society thing going,
and sometimes we’d like to take a long walk and not come back for a while. 

But all of the time, ALL of the time – we rely on one another to be: 
a best friend, 
an honest responder, 
a loyal defender, 
a port in the storms of life. 

The memories are rich, the laughter is real, as are the tears.

But…after all these years, I can honestly and thankfully say
that the joys more than balance out the sorrows and the struggles when the math is done.
I am grateful tonight for my husband,
for my marriage,
for my family.



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Advent 2: Waiting for Signs of New Life

December 5, 2010 By


Isaiah 11:1-10

a sermon preached at Montecito Covenant Church

December 5, 2010 by

Diana R.G. Trautwein

Today – December 5th – marks the 14th anniversary of my arrival at Montecito Covenant Church. December 5th was a Thursday in 1996, and on that date, I drove up here from our home in Altadena to begin my first-ever paid pastoral job in the newly created position of Associate Pastor. I find that fact a lovely bit of what our literary friends might call inclusio – a sweet bookend, drawing together the beginning and the end.

Because today does mark an ending of sorts. This will be the last sermon that I preach in this pulpit as Associate Pastor. That’s an ending. December 31 will officially mark the final day of my employment as a member of the pastoral staff. That, too, is an ending.

But…here’s the lovely thing about endings in this life we live together: the ending of one thing always brings the beginning of something new. That’s how the God of new life operates in this world of ours. Because the work of the kingdom is ongoing, there is always something being re-created out of the old stuff that keeps the gospel new and vibrant and relevant. There are pieces of the old always – woven in and amongst the shining threads of the new. And that is true of my relationship with this community as well.

I am blessed to be ordained in a denomination that does not require retiring pastors to permanently leave the congregations they have served. That is a blessing for us, that is for sure. You all have become family to Dick and to me and we value your friendship and encouragement so much. So – after a good long break from January through the end of April (just to make sure that both you and I fully understand that I am no longer working here) – we will be back worshiping with you once again. This time we’ll be sitting in the back of the sanctuary, however, and we’ll be figuring out how it might be that God will continue to use us as lay members at MCC. Now it is true, that I am a pastor for the rest of my life – my ordination holds until death! I will just not be one of your pastors any longer. Instead, I will be a retired pastor.

I already know that God is calling me to continue to develop my skills in Spiritual Direction, that ancient practice of the church that requires paying attention very intentionally to the work of the Holy Spirit in the life of another. I will continue my training and I will continue seeing individuals as God leads them to me. I will likely preach here from time to time, but as an invited guest preacher in future. My husband will, after our break, continue to serve on both the Finance and Whole Life Ministry Teams. Time will tell how else we might work together, and we both remain open (within limits!) to whatever opportunities present themselves.

But there is an exciting opportunity waiting for you in this ending-that-leads-to-a-new-beginning. During those early months of 2011, Pastor Jon Lemmond will also be gone, teaching in Europe with his wife and family – but he is coming back to work in May!

So between January and May (and really beyond that as well), we are going to need a fairly long list of folks to step up and help. Don and the remaining staff cannot possibly pick up all those pieces.

And so, we have been busy this fall gathering together a small team of people who are willing to provide some leadership in a variety of important areas. They’re all here this morning, clipboards in hand, to gather around themselves a few more willing helpers so that the work of the kingdom can continue without interruption in this place. I’m going to invite them to stand so you can see what they look like. And then find them on the patio and pick a place to offer your services. If everyone in this room said ‘yes’ to just one thing – we’d have all the bases covered pretty quickly. So, I am excited about this new thing that God will do in our midst as we transition to a different staff configuration. Count on it – God is not done with us yet!

And here’s a not terribly subtle little segue for you – just as God is not done with us, here in Montecito CA in the year 2010, so God was not done with his salvation plan in the time of the prophet Isaiah, which is where our primary text of the morning is found.

During our Advent series this year, we’re looking at some of the gorgeous words found in this major book of the Old Testament, the book that many believe was the foundational one for Jesus, as he lived out his life and ministry, as he suffered and died and rose again. So let’s listen to the words for this week, found in chapter 11, the first 10 verses. And I want you to especially listen for the inclusio found in this short selection, a sweet bookend which underscores the message of hope and promise that Isaiah has written. Hear the word of the Lord for us today:

1 A shoot will come up from the stump of Jesse; from his roots a Branch will bear fruit. 2 The Spirit of the LORD will rest on him – the Spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the Spirit of counsel and of might, the Spirit of the knowledge and fear of the LORD—3 and he will delight in the fear of the LORD. He will not judge by what he sees with his eyes, or decide by what he hears with his ears; 
4 but with righteousness he will judge the needy, with justice he will give decisions for the poor of the earth. 
He will strike the earth with the rod of his mouth; with the breath of his lips he will slay the wicked. 
5 Righteousness will be his belt and faithfulness the sash around his waist.

6 The wolf will live with the lamb, the leopard will lie down with the goat, 
the calf and the lion and the yearling together; and a little child will lead them. 
7 The cow will feed with the bear, their young will lie down together, and the lion will eat straw like the ox. 
8 Infants will play near the hole of the cobra; young children will put their hands into the viper’s nest. 
9 They will neither harm nor destroy on all my holy mountain, 
for the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the LORD as the waters cover the sea.

10 In that day the Root of Jesse will stand as a banner for the peoples; the nations will rally to him, and his resting place will be glorious.

Amen and Amen

Advent is a captivating season of the year. It comes when the world, at least our world in the northern hemisphere, is at its darkest point. The days are short, the nights and the shadows are long. The season lends itself to mystery, to contemplation, to cocooning, to waiting. Waiting for the light, waiting for the sun to shine a little higher in the sky, waiting for signs of new life.

I am learning more and more about waiting as I age. And I’m learning to appreciate it far more than I once did. I’ve been a somewhat impatient person for most of my life. Some folks might even use the word driven to describe me, although one can hope that when they do, they do so with affection! I haven’t liked waiting much, choosing too often to push for things to happen, to tap my feet and wring my hands and question why they aren’t happening faster! Too often, I’ve leapt into things without pausing long enough to reflectively and intentionally think through what the possible ramifications of my words/ actions/noise might have on a particular situation or the people involved in that situation.

But…I am learning. I am learning that regular times of quiet, and solitude; of hiddenness and watchfulness and careful listening and very deliberate pulling-out of the hubbub can bring incredibly rich rewards. Which is one of the reasons I have learned to love Advent.

I am also learning, through many tough, even terrible life circumstances, that there is gift to be found even there, in the middle of the toughness and the terror. Sometimes life forces us to slow down, and when it does, we need to search for the gift, to look for hope and promise and peace.

The prophet Isaiah, in the chapter just preceding the one before us today, has delivered a hard and a harsh word about a desolate future for the people of Israel – and for the people of Assyria, the nation that has swept aside that southern kingdom of Israel, demolishing and scattering the people as an instrument of God’s justice at work. And the image Isaiah uses for both nations is that of a forest being completely destroyed – listen!

1 Woe to those who make unjust laws… to deprive the poor of their rights and withhold justice from the oppressed of my people, making widows their prey and robbing the fatherless. What will you do on the day of reckoning, when disaster comes from afar? To whom will you run for help? 
… 33 See, the Lord, the LORD Almighty, will lop off the boughs with great power. 
The lofty trees will be felled, the tall ones will be brought low. He will cut down the forest thickets with an ax; Lebanon will fall before the Mighty One.

A devastating life experience if ever there was one! Every tree severed, the ground barren, hopeless, devoid of life.

And then our chapter for today opens with that glorious picture of new life!

Look for it, search for it, see it??

A green shoot coming up from what appears to be a dead stump; life in the midst of death and destruction; hope in the midst of defeat and dismay. A promise of peace; a picture of justice for the oppressed and needy; all of it because of this small, determined, burgeoning new spot of green in a devastated, defeated land.

Both Jewish and Christian interpreters view this passage as one of several messianic prophecies sprinkled through the words of Isaiah – for the figure that grows from that tiny shoot and is described in such glowing terms here – this One surpasses even the greatest of Israel’s kings.

This One is figuratively and literally wrapped up in righteousness and faithfulness – two of the key attributes of Israel’s God.

This One is indwelt by the Spirit of the LORD and blessed with the divine gifts of that Spirit. This One will judge or discern with superhuman powers that look below the surface to the very heart of life.

This One will usher in a new era – a time when previously natural enemies will dwell together in harmony, when children will not only be safe and secure from danger and harm – but will actually lead the way to this peaceable kingdom.

This One will stand as an ensign – a banner – a sign for all the world’s people to see and to rally behind and to rest in.

This One, this green shoot, this root of Jesse, this Messiah, whom we know to be Jesus – this Messiah will bring in the kingdom of our God in its fullest glory, its deepest fulfillment, its truest reality.

One of the writers I read in preparation for this week is a retired woman Episcopal priest named Fleming Rutledge, and her blogpost reminded me that:

“It is typical of Advent liturgies to weave together biblical and liturgical references to the first and second comings of Christ so that it is almost impossible and—more important—unnecessary to tell where one begins and the other ends….Advent is only secondarily about the baby Jesus. It is primarily about the rending of the heavens and the coming of the Lord in power and glory to take the creation back for himself. Until he comes, then, we are the people who put on the armor of light “now in this present time” and by our works point to the One who is to come.”

I really like that idea – that it is sometimes ‘impossible and – more important – unnecessary to tell where one begins and the other ends,” the first and the second coming of our Lord. In Advent, we remember that we wait for both the baby and the king of the universe, that we wait for things small, hidden and vulnerable and we wait for things explosive and dramatic and life-changing, that we wait for small moments of joy and larger-than-life moments of rapture, that we wait for a baby’s laughter and a king’s trumpet, that we wait for the God who created us to claim us, and the entire creation, as God’s and no one else’s. We wait for glory.

And in the meantime…in the meantime…we look for signs of new life, we look for signs of glory.

Where in your life today are you looking at devastation?

Where do you face fear or destruction or even death?

Where have the trees been clear-cut, demolished, cut off from the land of the living?

What kind of denuded land are you looking over this morning?

A relationship that’s teetering on the brink?

A diagnosis that is scary?

An overwhelming depression?

A season of crippling anxiety?

A child who is broken?

An unending stack of papers to write….or to grade?

An overbooked calendar and an under-ready spirit?

And if not in your own life right now, where is there devastation around you, in this community or the broader world?

Where is justice being short-circuited?

Where are the poor being oppressed?

Where are the widows and orphans being exploited?

We all look over landscapes, either personal or communal, that are pictures of disaster and disarray.

But wait a minute. Wait just a minute. What’s that over there?

Do you see it? LOOK FOR IT.

It’s small, it’s even struggling a little, but there it is.

A tiny green shoot – coming up right in the middle of all that ugliness. A sign of new life, a promise of hope, a reminder of peace, a picture of the kingdom that will be – and that already is.

We worship a God of new beginnings, dear friends. We worship a God who brings life right out of death. We worship a God who girds himself with human flesh and hurtles himself right down into the mess and says,

“Be of good cheer. I have come to seek and to save that which was lost.”

Oh, glory be.

______________________________

As we go to the table of the Lord this morning, I want to share with you one of the signs of new life I found this week – on Facebook, of all places.

Jim and Judy Halvorsen posted a beautiful 4-minute video of shots of Yosemite with a musical accompaniment that I found just lovely – and very much in keeping with the sound and spirit of Advent. So I did a little research on the song, which I had never heard before. It was written in 1972, with the title, “God and Man at Table Are Sat Down,” by then-chaplain at Oral Roberts University, Robert J. Stamps. It’s a song that seems to blend together perfectly the threads of the Isaiah passage and the gift of the table – let me share just a few of these small verses with you, and as you listen to these words – and as Bob and the worship team play the lovely melody – I invite you to prepare your hearts for communion, which we will share together today by coming forward down the center aisle to tear off a piece of bread and dip it into the cup and then return to our seats up the side aisles. If you find it difficult to walk to the front, the elements will be brought to you.

This song is now entitled: “In Christ There Is a Table Set for All” (verses 1 4,5,6,7)

copyright 1972 by Dawn Treader Music

Welcome, all you noble saints of old, as now before our very eyes unfold,

the wonders all so long ago foretold: In Christ there is a table set for all.

Who is this who spreads the vict’ry feast? Who is this who makes our warring cease?

Jesus, risen Savior, Prince of Peace. In Christ there is a table set for all.

Here he gives himself to us as bread; here, as wine, we drink the blood he shed.

Born to die, we eat and live instead! In Christ there is a table set for all.

Worship in the presence of the Lord. With joyful songs and hearts in one accord.

And let our host at table be adored. In Christ there is a table set for all.

When at last this earth shall pass away, when Jesus and his bride are one to stay.

The feast of love is just begun that day. In Christ there is a table set for all.

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Remembering Ken…

November 28, 2010 By

Today we buried my youngest brother. His ashes have been sitting in a plastic container, in a red velvet bag, on a small shelf in our bedroom since the beginning of October, one year ago. He was almost two years sober when he died, and he was living in a recovery residence in Pomona. His health was terrible – open heart surgery the year before had left him with chronic heart disease, little energy and insufficient stamina to hold a job. Still, his death was sudden and shocking.


Ken was a tag-along baby – nearly 11 years younger than I and 9 years younger than my closest sibling, Tom. He struggled his whole life long and yet he was one of the sweetest people I have ever known. He could get angry, tired and frustrated, but he did not ever say or do anything that was in any way cruel. Not many of us can say that.

When he was 50 years old, he was diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome – an autism spectrum neurological set of behaviors and symptoms which was not even identified when he was young enough to have benefitted from intervention and treatment. We think now that he drank (secretly, for most of his adult life) as a form of self-medication – to dull the pain associated with never quite ‘fitting in’ socially and to quiet the noise in his head. One of the sad, sweet ironies of his death was that he had found the kind of community and companionship for which he longed in the daily AA meetings he attended. How blessed we all are that he and they found each other!

In the early morning of October 2, 2009, I got a phone call from the manager of his residence telling me that Ken had died in his sleep, just after midnight. His body was not discovered until his housemates got up and began their day. My widowed mother lives in a retirement community in LaVerne, about 10 minutes from that residence and I did not want her to be alone when she learned this terrible news. So I got on the phone and gathered some friends around her before I called and told her that her baby was suddenly gone and that I’d be there as quickly as I could get packed. About three hours later, I was there to help hold her tears, and my own.

It was a strange, sad, wonderful week of preparing Ken’s memorial service. My brother Tom came from northern CA and he and mom and I did what had to be done. La Verne Heights Presbyterian Church was superb, the service went well, the reception was a warm and loving occasion for remembering.

But mom could not face any final decision about Ken’s ashes – the shock was immense and she simply did not know what was best. We talked about it off and on over this year, considering burial in a cemetery – either in LaVerne or Santa Barbara – or dispersal at sea. Nothing quite felt right. Then Tom did some research and discovered that it is legal in the state of CA to bury ashes on private property. So my amazing and thoughtful husband found a sapling oak tree in our side yard and we all made plans to gather for Thanksgiving and then to put him in the ground on what would have been his 55th birthday.

There were just 5 of us there. My 89 year old mom, my husband Dick and I, my brother Tom and his wife Sandy. I put together a small service – the exact one I had used for Dad, 5 years ago February. We read scripture verses of hope and promise, we remembered our son and brother, we read the beautiful ancient prayers from the Book of Common Prayer and we sang the doxology. It was good. It was right. It was enough.

Peace to his memory – I am grateful for his life and grateful for his release from it.
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A Prayer for the End of the Year…

November 21, 2010 By

Christ the King Sunday, 2010

written for worship at Montecito Covenant Church

by Diana R.G. Trautwein

You may not be aware of this, but today marks the last Sunday of the year – the church year, that is. Today is the last Sunday in the longest season of our liturgical calendar, a season which is called Ordinary Time. Next Sunday, the New Year begins as we step into the first Sunday in Advent. As each year comes to its close, the church has chosen to remember that the baby whose advent we await is, in fact, our King. So I begin our prayer time today with the collect – or short prayer – for this Sunday in the church year:

“Almighty and merciful God,
 you break the power of evil and make all things new
 in your Son, Jesus Christ, the King of the universe.


May all in heaven and earth 
acclaim your glory and never cease to praise you.


We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
 who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
 one God, for ever and ever.”

We offer heartfelt thanks today, Lord God, that you are indeed almighty and merciful.

We humbly recognize that we desperately need you to be both of those things – mighty to save and merciful to forgive.

Thank you that even in the midst of the most ordinary of our days, you are still and always God, that your son Jesus reigns in heaven with you and the Holy Spirit, and that we – for some miraculous, hard-to-fathom reason – are invited into the fellowship which you enjoy together.

Thank you that we have been born into a life of privilege and of blessing; that we live in a place of beauty and abundance; that by virtue of our birth in this great land, we are granted the grace and the freedom to gather in worship together any time we choose.

Thank you that even our darkest days can be lightened by your presence with us; that the most tangled of our problems do not overwhelm you; that the worst we can do to ourselves or to others is never beyond your willingness to forgive and to redeem.

Thank you that you are God, King of the Universe and King of our lives.

Help us to acknowledge your reign in the daily doings of our lives; to seek your guidance and direction in the making of our decisions, both large and small; to yield to your truth, to trust in your faithfulness, to live in your light.

Forgive the many and various ways in which we sin against you and against one another. Give us eyes to see our own foibles and failings and to offer those places of struggle up to you. For it is in our brokenness that you can bring wholeness, it is through our battle scars that your light can shine, it is by your grace that we can begin to see ourselves as new creatures, those who are slowly but steadily taking steps toward transformation and redemption.

As we celebrate a national holiday built around the idea of giving thanks, help us, O Lord, to truly cultivate grateful hearts. Because it is gratitude which can soften the rough edges, open our hearts to the beauty around us and help us to see one another as reflections of your glorious son, Jesus Christ, whose kingship we celebrate today and always. Amen.


Filed Under: Public Prayers

All Saints’ Day, 2010

November 7, 2010 By


Did you know there are ELEVEN published verses to the hymn, “For All the Saints?” I didn’t either, until I looked it up on Google last night. Eleven verses. These words, all eleven verses of them, were written by an English bishop specifically for this day in the church calendar – All Saints’ Sunday. And Ralph Vaughan Williams wrote the magnificent melody we began our worship with today – a melody considered by many to be the greatest hymn tune written in the 20th century. He gave this strong unison line the title, “Sine Nomine” – which means “without name,” because it was crystal clear to everyone in the English speaking church that this tune was written for this set of lyrics. In our six-verse collection, we are missing the verses extolling the martyrs, the evangelists, and the apostles. We’re also missing a verse encouraging soldiers fighting the fight of faith. And then there’s this one which we don’t sing:

The golden evening brightens in the west;
Soon, soon to faithful warriors comes their rest.
Sweet is the calm of paradise the blessed.
Alleluia, Alleluia!
which immediately precedes the far more familiar:
But lo! there breaks a yet more glorious day.
The saints triumphant rise in bright array;
The King of glory passes on his way.
Alleluia, alleluia!
“Alleluia, alleluia,” indeed! Such a picture! Let us go to prayer this morning with the picture of that heavenly evening and daytime in our imaginations:
O King of Glory,
How truly magnificent you are.
To think that we –
messed-up,
confused,
broken,
over-scheduled,
over-tired,
over-done
21st century members of your body –
are numbered with those who will one day rise triumphant, clothed in bright array to sing your praises with the saints of all times and places – well – it just boggles the mind.
We praise you and we thank you for Jesus, who makes the promise of our own resurrection real, and who came from you and the Holy Spirit to show us how to live, and breathe and have our being centered in the Triune God.
O good and gracious God, will you hear now our silent prayers, confessing our complete unworthiness to participate in such glory! Oh my, what glory!
We are so thankful that salvation,
redemption,
transformation and ultimately
resurrection itself are not dependent upon our worthiness – but only upon your grace. Thank you for hearing our confession and for forgiving our sin.
We are also thankful that you invite our prayers on behalf of others and ourselves, that you have designed us for real and deep and honest communion with you. We gather in this room today to worship you together – to once again seek your face and to live your gospel. Hear our prayers for the world now, LORD – our prayers for this world, right here where we live – and for that world out there – that world that you love and that we worry about, and that so needs
a whiff of hope,
a glance at peace,
a shirttail of grace to hang onto in the winds of adversity.
So we lift aloud names and situations that are heavy on our hearts today, O Lord,
confident that you will hear and answer,
and with each prayer mentioned, we all will say – “Hear our prayer, O Lord.”
So now we’re ready to receive you in bread and cup. These plain and ordinary things we bring to the table today – including ourselves, Lord! – will you bless them, and us – miraculously marking bread, juice, people as sacred and set apart and holy.
And then may we, your people, strengthened and encouraged by our shared meal,
may we carry your holiness with us to the world in which we live and work and play.
For Jesus’ sake. Amen.
Filed Under: Uncategorized

Be Still and Know…

November 7, 2010 By

Today was a quiet day. An intentionally quiet day. We opened the sanctuary doors at 9:00 a.m., set out some quasi-healthy snacks under the pergola, and provided some simple written resources so that a few too-busy people might take a step to the side this morning.

A step to the side of the road we call life – that increasingly busy highway of family/job/travel/ technology/you name it – that sometimes moves faster than we wish it would. So much motion leaves little space or time for us to b-r-e-a-t-h-e, to slow down, to be reflective, to listen.
Oh, how I need to listen! I’m so full of responsibilities, appointments, people I care deeply about (some of whom are in crisis of one kind or another), and my own peculiarly bedeviling health issues, that I sometimes think I’ve forgotten how to do that – to listen…quietly, alone and still. So today was a lovely, soothing, moving opportunity to un-kink a bit. To scribble down some thoughts, a few prayers, some confession, all of it offered up to God as a gift of child-like adoration.
Two of our grandchildren recently gave us art of their own creation and I was struck by two things: how pleased and proud they were to give them and how moved and pleased we were to get them. Do you suppose God sees our simple, child-like offerings like that? Oh, I hope so. I pray so.
Filed Under: Uncategorized

A Prayer for the Faint and Weary…

October 18, 2010 By


written for worship on October 17, 2010 by

Diana R.G. Trautwein

“This is the air I breathe…this is my daily bread…”

“Abba, Father…”

“Allelu, alleluia…”

Oh Lord, I am so glad that we can sing our prayers to you.

Because sometimes – actually, a lot of time! – singing

is the only way we can muster up the words,
connect with the emotions,

get in touch with those central pieces

and parts of ourselves

that most need to be opened

to the reviving,

rejuvenating,

encouraging,

challenging work of your Spirit.

So, hear our songs today, Lord, as our earnest and heartfelt prayers to you:

our cry for mercy when life feels overwhelming;

our desire for forgiveness when we’ve gone astray;

our exuberant ‘thank you’ when we’ve seen grace;

our exhausted ‘where are you’ when we’ve lost our

bearings.

We sing these prayers of ours with full hearts,

and also sometimes with tired bodies and

puzzled minds;

with contrite spirits,

and just plain empty gas tanks.

And we sing them to YOU, O Lord, because…

we have no other.

You are the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

You are the God of Deborah, Ruth and Hannah.

You are the God of Peter and Paul and Mary and Elizabeth.

And you are, most of all, the God of Jesus, the incarnate one;

Jesus, the savior and healer;

Jesus, the living water and bread of life;

Jesus, our hope and our redeemer.

How we thank you for Jesus and for the gospel good news he brings us!

How we thank you for the promise of Presence made real

by the indwelling of your Holy Spirit.

How we thank you for loving us in spite of the messes we make and the messes we inherit;

for loving us enough to call us to be better than we know, better than we are.

And we thank you most of all this day,

for the gift of prayer – which is the primary way we experience your presence with us. We thank you…

for prayers with words

and prayers without words;

for prayers of hope and delight

and prayers of discouragement and despair;

for prayers of contrition and repentance

and prayers of thanksgiving and praise;

for all manner of conversation,

interaction,

silent communication,

noisy jubilation,

or unconscious groaning – all of it

welcomed by YOU –

the God who sustains us through all that life throws our way.

Grant us grace and strength to pray without ceasing through all of our days. For Jesus’ sake. Amen.

Filed Under: Public Prayers

A Prayer for the Table…

October 5, 2010 By


Sunday, October 3, 2010

Diana R.G. Trautwein

It’s table time, again, Lord,

when we come together as your family,

broken and bruised as we are,

and take a little bite

and drink a little sip

and remember who you are

and what you’ve done for us.

Some of us are a little surprised to find ourselves here,

to tell you the truth.

We’re here to see and be seen,

to do the Sunday church-going thing,

and the call to the table is not what we had planned

on, not what we’d planned on at all.

And some of us are here today out of habit –

today is Sunday; on Sunday we go to church;

therefore – we are in church.

And we know enough to track that this is the 1st

Sunday of the month, so…

it’s time for communion.

And we’ll take the bread and we’ll sip the juice…

because it’s familiar and comfortable

and it’s comforting –

it’s what we do on this day.

But some of us are here today because we just plain have to be here.

Participating in this sacramental meal is not just important,

it’s crucial.

It’s a lifeline that we grab with fierce gratitude and a ready

admission of our deep need for it.

And so the whole motley crew of us gathers around your table, Lord. All of us together,

the looky-loos,

the regulars,

the desperate ones.

And the miracle of this table is this:

we’re all welcome here,

we’re all invited,

we’re all included.

Any one of us who has faith the size of a mustard seed,

our scripture for the morning told us;

anyone with just the tiniest bit of hope and belief

that Jesus’ broken body and shed blood can

change us and shape us and re-make us-

any of us

and all of us

are invited guests at this, the table of the Lord.

Thanks be to God!

So, Lord, we’re all crowding around now,

we all want to be ready.

Will you, then, hear first our prayers of confession and need

as we offer them silently to you?

–Silence–

And then, we want to offer our prayers on behalf of others

who are in trouble, looking for healing and help.

Will you hear our prayers for these dear ones we name

out loud right now?

And finally, Lord, we all want to say a huge ‘thank you,’

for this table and what it means to us.

Thank you for simple gifts that take on sacred meaning.

Thank you for the story that these simple gifts tell.

Thank you for Jesus. For his life, for his death, for his

resurrection from the dead, for the new life he

makes possible for us.

Continue to change us more and more into the image of that

crucified, risen one we worship and in whose name

we pray today and always, even Jesus Christ. Amen.

Filed Under: Public Prayers
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