St. Mark's Lutheran Church

Naming the Saints in our lives On All Saints’ Sunday, we will name out loud the saints in our lives who have affirmed our gifts, encouraged us, and shaped our lives for the better. In other words, we will name those persons who have loved us. Bishop Michael Curry writes about this kind of love in his new book, "Love is the Way": Love is a firm commitment to act for the well-being of someone. Who has acted for the well-being of your life? Or, as Curry asks, Someone who... stood by you, pushed you, believed in you, maybe even sacrificed for you? That person or persons are your saints and we will celebrate them, give thanks for them, and remember them on Sunday, November 1. We remember them in order to remind ourselves that we are not alone in these difficult times. We remember them and call them to mind to remind ourselves that we can draw inspiration and encouragement from them and recall their love for us. In these troubling times, we have the Saints of God who guide us, cheer us on, affirm our worth, and love us completely and fully. When I am feeling overwhelmed and discouraged, I remember and name the Saints out loud: Aunt Stella, Elizabeth Olsen (my namesake), Robert Ekdale, Pastor Susan Kintner, Coach Ben Parks, Troy Young, Pastor Gary Cockrell, and on. . . I remember and give thanks and realize I am not alone but rather surrounded by their love, wisdom, and enduring kindness. With thanks for all the Saints, Pr. Elizabeth

A week from this morning, who knows what we will wake up to? From now until then most of our society will be sitting on pins and needles wondering who will win the election and what will happen in the aftermath. Between now and then, we will be celebrating the festival of All Saints’ Sunday and praying that people of faith will rise up and cast their vote in restoring our country to some form of decency, civility, and sanity. Given that we will not be gathering in our sanctua...ry on Sunday to sing together and bolster each other’s spirits, I share with you these words of a hymn that speaks to our time and calls upon all of us to exercise our sainthood this week with courage, hope, and peace. Rejoice in God’s saints today and all days! A world without saints forgets how to praise. Their faith in acquiring the habit of prayer, their depth of adoring, God, help us to share. Some march with events to turn them God’s way; some need to withdraw, the better to pray; some carry the gospel through fire and through flood; our world is their parish, their purpose is God. Rejoice in those saints, unpraised and unknown, who bear someone’s cross, or shoulder their own. They share our complaining, our comforts, our cares. What patience in caring, what courage is theirs! Rejoice in God’s saints today and all days! A world without saints forgets how to praise. In loving, in living, they prove it is true. Their way of self-giving, God, leads us to you. Peace be with you, Pastor Ron

For all the saints we give thanks All Saints’ Sunday (Nov. 1) is one of our most meaningful festivals in our liturgical calendar. It is filled with emotion, remembering, gratitude, and encouragement. Sundays and Seasons says this about All Saints’: All Saints celebrates the baptized people of God, living and dead, who are the body of Christ. As November heralds the dying of the landscape in many northern regions, the readings and liturgy call us to remember all who have ...died in Christ and whose baptism is complete. We gather with the faithful of every time and place, trusting that the promises of God will be fulfilled and that all tears will be wiped away in the new Jerusalem. The hymns for All Saints’ are some of the best we have in our repertoire: Shall We Gather at the River, Ye Watchers and Ye Holy Ones, Behold the Host Arrayed in White (one of my favorites), For All the Saints and so many more. We will hear the Beatitudes from Matthew and how Jesus words speak to our own lives of faith. We remember our loved ones who have gone before us, we remember those in the St. Mark’s and Martin Luther Tower community who have died this past year, and we remember those laid to rest in our columbarium. We remember, we give thanks, and we look around us beholding the saints who are living and breathing and witnessing to God’s love and hope right now in their own lives. All Saints’ is a day of sacred encouragement and inspiration. Yes, we remember and give thanks. And, we acknowledge those saints in our world and lives striving right now to live out God’s vision of hope, mercy, and healing in the world. Who are your saints in your lives who are inspiring you today? Who will you remember with gratitude on Nov. 1? For whom do you continue to mourn? There are so many aspects to this meaningful festival of the church. Let’s gather on Sunday in worship in community and celebrate the Saints the among us, provide support and consolation to one another, and with all the Saints, give thanks to the tender and resilient love given to us by our gracious God. With gratitude, Pastor Elizabeth

We come to the end of Colossians 3:12-17 with these words, And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God through Christ. The modern version of this verse might ask, What would Jesus do (WWJD)? As trite as this question may be, it still carries some credibility, because as disciples of Jesus Christ, all our thoughts, words, and deeds ought to be filtered through the lens of Jesus’ testimony and witness to the world.... Imagine what life in our communities would be like if we all would heed this challenge, and do so with gratitude in our hearts! I often have wondered what my life would be like if I didn’t have Jesus in my life. Would I still be the same person that I am today? Would I still be as dedicated to the principle of loving my neighbor as I am? Would I still strive for justice and peace in this world as much as I do? What difference does having Jesus in your life do for you? Can you imagine your life without the influence of this Jesus who came to proclaim good news to those who are impoverished and liberty to those who are oppressed? How does the Spirit of Jesus help you to deal with the demons in your soul like pride, greed, fear, and envy? How does Jesus’ vision of the realm of God for which he advocated throughout his ministry inform us about how we are to be with each other and act toward one another in community? This question plagues me these days because people who claim to have Jesus in their lives are at polar opposites when it comes to so many important issues that divide our country, and even our churches. How can we draw upon the presence and power of Jesus’ Spirit in our lives to break down these dividing walls of animosity and hostility and work through our differences? Bishop Michael Curry in his book, Love is the Way, may have some insight into answering this question. Join us at our Adult Forum for the next 2 Sundays and hear what he has to say about what he calls The Great Relationship Revival based on the question, How can love overcome what divides us and move us forward together? Peace and Hope be with you, Pastor Ron

A More Dangerous Enemy of the Good On Tuesday, I respectfully contrasted the recent exorcism by Archbishop Cordileone with our Lutheran tradition of public renouncements of evil. In worship, we publicly renounce the devil and all the forces that defy God, the powers of this world that rebel against God, and the ways of sin that draw us from God. (ELW Baptismal liturgy) This is a powerful moment for the community as we renounce evil and then profess our faith in the Triu...ne God. Earlier this week, I read a devotion from Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer (a German Lutheran pastor/theologian who opposed the Nazi regime and died due to his opposition) who makes a surprising claim that stupidity is a more dangerous enemy of the good than evil is. As Election Day approaches, I offer Bonhoeffer’s words to you in order to motivate you and everyone to vote. Stupidity is a more dangerous enemy of the good than evil is. Against evil, one can protest; it can be exposed and, if necessary, stopped with force. Evil always carries the seed of its own self-destruction, because it at least leaves people with a feeling of uneasiness. But against stupidity, we are defenseless. Neither with protest nor with force can we do anything here; reasons have no effect. Facts that contradict one’s own prejudice only need to be disbelieved in such cases stupid people even become critical, and when facts are unavoidable, they can simply be swept aside as meaningless isolated cases. Stupid people, in contrast to evil ones, are satisfied with themselves. Indeed, they become dangerous in that they may easily be stimulated to go on the attack. Therefore, more care must be taken in regard to stupidity than to evil. . . . Closer examination reveals that every strong external development of power, whether of a political or religious nature, strikes a large portion of the people with stupidity. . . . The biblical saying, The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge (Prov 1:7), says that the internal liberation of people for responsible life before God is the only real way to overcome stupidity. (Dietrich Bonhoeffer I want to Live these Days with You) There is so much to ponder - but a brief response to Bonhoeffer’s prophetic words written over 70 years ago is this: Our engagement in public life is done through the lens of our faith, our relationship with God and our God-given intellect. Let us remember the vulnerable, the poor, and those who have no voice at all when we vote on Nov. 3. With hope, Pr. Elizabeth

We all can sit down and read the Bible on a daily basis as part of our spiritual discipline. As we do so, we are encouraged today from Colossians 3:16, Let the word of God dwell in you richly; teach and admonish one another in all wisdom; and with gratitude in your hearts sing psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to God. As you read the Bible, how do you let the word of God dwell in you richly? What authority does this word have in your life? Given how the Bible is used and a...bused these days, how can we trust that what we hear from God’s word to be true? Perhaps that is where the Holy Spirit comes into play to guide us into the way of truth, as Jesus once said. Therefore, dwelling in the word of God richly also involves dwelling in the Spirit of God with our whole selves in order to be open to all that the Spirit has to say to us through this word. From this source of God’s word, we are encouraged to teach and admonish one another in all wisdom. We generally resonate with the imperative to teach one another from God’s word, but too often we are so hesitant to admonish one another because we think that it will come across as judgment or even condemnation, when, in fact, the word to admonish literally means to warn someone about something. God’s word is filled with a lot of admonishment: If you do this, this will happen (to you). Admonishment can be a good thing if we use it wisely to prevent someone from getting into trouble, being hurt, or harming someone else. As a community, this last part about gratitude in our hearts for being able to sing together is such a challenge today when we are being told that we cannot sing in each other’s presence due to COVID. The best that we can do when we are together is to sing in our hearts the songs, the psalms, and the spiritual songs that mean so much to us. No one can take this experience away from us. While we listen to the melody being played, we still can dwell in the words of the text and allow them to speak to us in ways that will make us rich and wise unto the life that God desires for us. Peace be with you, Pastor Ron

Renunciation of evil and an exorcism I read with interest about the recent exorcism by Archbishop Cordileone (Archbishop of the San Francisco Archdiocese). As reported in the San Francisco Chronicle, the Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone sprinkled holy water and said prayers in Latin Saturday at the site of the fallen statue of Father Junipero Serra, the 18th-century father of the California mission system accused of brutality against Native Americans. This sacred site has... been desecrated, so we know there is evil here, Cordileone said before the ritual outside St. Raphael Catholic Church in downtown San Rafael, according to the report. As an active participant of the San Francisco Interfaith Council, I am curious to learn about the rituals of other faith traditions and what (if anything) we hold in common. In our Lutheran tradition, we renounce in worship as a community: the devil and all the forces that defy God, the powers of this world that rebel against God and the ways of sin that draw us from God. (Evangelical Lutheran Worship pg. 229 Liturgy of Holy Baptism) We boldly and loudly respond with I renounce them and then move on to proclaim what we believe in by reciting the Apostles’ Creed. Between renouncing evil and proclaiming our belief in the Triune God, we have publicly professed our faith. This profession is lived out in action when we speak and work against the evils of poverty, racism, homophobia, systemic inequities, hunger, voter repression, sexism, and discrimination. On Thursday, I will share more including a devotion by Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer who served in Germany actively protesting the Nazi regime. As a teaser, the first line of his devotion reads: Stupidity is a more dangerous enemy of the good than evil is . . . With hope till Thursday, Pastor Elizabeth

Our world is in so much turmoil these days, and individual lives are being challenged in ways that no one could ever have anticipated. So many of our personal relationships are being subjugated to physical distancing and zooming conversations that hardly compare to the attention and affection that often accompanies our face-to-face encounters. In this context, we hear from Colossians 3:15, And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts to which indeed you were called in the... one body. And be thankful. Our hearts are prone to be filled with so many emotions these daysfear, anger, grief, hope, bitterness, hate, joy, etc. In the midst of all these competing emotions, the peace of Christ longs to reign. However, we are the only ones who can make space for this peace in our lives by the power of the Holy Spirit. What does this peace of Christ look like? What does it feel like? How will we know when we have this peace? Trust me, you will know because in the face of the worst things that you can imagine, there will be a calm that will envelop you and assure you that you are eternally in the loving embrace of a gracious God, just as Jesus experienced when he commended his spirit to God on the cross. The second part of this verse reminds us that we are to live our lives with gratitude today and every day. Sometimes being thankful is so hard to do, but certainly there is at least one person or one thing in your life for whom or which you can give thanks today. Then if gratitude can become a part of your daily exercises, imagine a community in which everyone was doing the same. We might even get to the point where we recognize something in our adversaries that we can affirm with our thanks. Thank you for being YOU. Peace be with you, Pastor Ron

Good morning, everyone! Please join us at the following link for our Sunday worship: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEgn1R-tpl8

Erhalt uns Herr (Lord Keep Us Steadfast, ELW 517) - Dietrich Buxtehude How sacred is a sacred text? A metaphor:... Sometimes, we musicians treat the musical notes on the page as some sort of mystical, perfect message left to us by the composer. We slavishly honor every detail, study the musical style, practice the execution, and perform on an historically appropriate instrument, confident that the result of our work honors the intentions of the composer. The problem is, someone else going through the same process can come up with a very different result. Both interpretations may be beautiful, may communicate something meaningful, may indeed honor the intentions of the composer. Most of the time the composer is available for consultation. When we listen to different interpretations, we need to keep our ears, and our minds open to the beauty of the performance we are experiencing. Today’s meditation is Buxtehude's short setting of the beloved chorale melody played three times, three different ways. Is one way right and the others wrong? The notes are the same, is one performance more beautiful than the other two? Is Buxtehude speaking to us in all three? Lord, Keep Us Steadfast In Your Word. ~Dr. Timothy Zerlang, Director of Music

Remembrances of Ordinations as we celebrate Women's Ordination celebrations In preparing for the Adult Forum series I have been teaching at St. Mark's on the Ordination of Women in the ELCA and predecessor church bodies, I have been going through 32 years of files, reminiscing, and remembering my journey toward ordained ministry. I came across this picture taken on March 5, 1988 at Grace Lutheran Church, Palo Alto. Cora Scheel and I were both members at Grace Lutheran, went... to Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary together, and were ordained together on March 5, 1988 at Grace. Now, 32 years later, we have stories to share of serving in many congregations. Cora served in Lutheran Churches in the Bay Area and I served in congregations in the Oregon Synod, Metro NY Synod, and now at St. Mark's in San Francisco. I continue to be grateful for Cora and her friendship, the many mentors who have supported me, and the congregations I have served. It has not been an easy journey though it has been deeply meaningful and gratifying. Let us remember and give thanks for our journeys in faiths and all who have accompanied us on these journeys. In particular, I am especially grateful for those early women who were bold and brave in stepping forward into seminary even before women were "allowed" to be ordained. With gratitude, Pastor Elizabeth