Gloria Dei Lutheran Church

Dear Friends in Christ, God’s grace and peace be with you. Amen.

When asked what makes a place sacred, Maggie Lorenz likes to quote a Dakota elder, “The sacred is like rain, it falls everywhere, but it pools in places.”

Lorenz is the executive director of the Lower Phalen Creek Project, which is restoring part of the Wakan Tipi as a sacred site. Wakan Tipi is the cave that sits at the base of the Mississippi bluffs on St. Paul’s east side.

In an interview with MPR about the restoration project at the site, Lorenz explained the significance of the cave to her people. “It was a central meeting point for nation-to-nation kind of discussions and negotiations and agreements, treaty making, and… it’s never lost that connection[i].”

In the last few hundred years, a significant portion of the cave was destroyed during expansion of the railroad, and then the area was highly polluted with toxic waste. It still suffers vast flooding from storm runoff that pools in the lower areas. Lorenz is working to bring a new cultural interpretative center to the area, so that visitors can see the petroglyphs in the cave, can appreciate the natural beauty and healing power of the waters that flow there, and can reconnect with peoples who have lived there: a sacred site, where people from various cultures and traditions can once again come together to connect and understand each other.

“The sacred is like rain,” the elders taught. “It falls everywhere, but pools in places.”

Have you been able to catch sight of any of those pools? Last week, Kyrstin encouraged our children to look for “God sightings.” She reminded us that God is everywhere, but once in a while, we are struck by the beauty or grace of God’s powerful presence. Once in a while, we notice the pools where the sacred collects.

Those God sightings are a really good reminder to us because we can get pretty focused on the dirt we keep dragging our feet through.

Jesus commissions seventy followers to share the good news with the world with some ominous instructions[ii]. Take no provisions with you. Greet no one on the road. Enter the first place you come to and offer peace. Some will receive it, and some won’t. Some places will welcome you and some won’t. You will be sent in like lambs among wolves.

But know this, whether or not you are welcomed in peace, you carry the power of God with you. Wherever you go, the reign of God has come near.

When the 70 return, rejoicing over their success, Jesus reminds them that it wasn’t their own faithfulness or aptitude that gave them power. Those seventy followers of Jesus aren’t described as any more focused, or uniquely gifted than anyone. They were ordinary, run-of-the-mill followers, who probably had as much doubt and confusion and feelings of being overwhelmed as any of us do.

Jesus reminds them that the powerful acts they seemed to perform weren’t due to their dramatic faith or ability, but because they were claimed by God. Our identity as beloved children of God is more essential than our abilities or efforts[iii]. As children of God, the reality of God’s reign in us is all that’s needed to overcome the power of destruction.

What if we trusted that same truth? Regardless of what rejection or oppression, divisiveness or atrocities we face, the reign of God has come near us; the compassion and grace and reconciling love of God is present. We have the assurance that powers of evil and hatred will fall like flashes of lightening around us, and nothing can separate us from the power of life. God’s sacred goodness and love flow down everywhere, like the rain. And its grace can gather like a pool in our lives.

Every Sunday we make this audacious claim in our eucharistic prayer, that Jesus’s resurrection has “opened to us the way of everlasting life.” There’s a present tense in that sentence that we tend to overlook.

It’s not just that Jesus will open to us eternal life after we die. We are assured that God is opening ways to live in everlasting goodness now, to experience the powers of evil reeling, and know God’s freedom, life, light and healing in our lives today[iv].

Could we trust that God would still use ordinary followers to witness the healing goodness pooling around us? Could we sense that God may even allow our own live to be pools of grace and healing? Maybe those God sightings look a lot like the people we see here in this room, or in our neighborhood, or on our prayer list. We lose sight of how much God is doing in our lives, especially when we’re surrounded by voices obsessed with fanning flames of hatred.

Trust me, I’m not oblivious to the pain. It’s rough. Fifty-three migrants found dead in an abandoned tractor-trailer, still more COVID infections, and questions regarding how long this will last, democratic traditions seeming to crumble, nearly daily reports of violence, bigotry, burnout, inflation, divisiveness, and continued isolation for those who are living alone. I don’t mean to sound naïve.

But Jesus instructs us to wipe off the ugliness and brutality, to remind the world that the reign of God is here regardless. Our identity is shaped by the peace of Christ. Even with his face set toward Jerusalem, anticipating rejection and a cross, Jesus reminds us that God’s peace remains with us. Despite the destruction and toxic pollution we may have to wade through, we are created in pools of sacred goodness, and empowered to share that goodness with others.

I can say this because I’ve had my own God sightings in the last few weeks. Like those who once gathered at the entrance of Wakan Tipi I’ve had the privilege to sit with people who haven’t always agreed with my point of view or expressions of faith, but who respected and honored me enough to sit in my presence and pray with me. We shared the peace of God with each other, and the reign of God felt very near. Instead of arguing over that with which we disagreed, we allowed God’s grace to wash over us, and trusted that our identity as children of God was more essential than the different ways we understood what that identity called us to do.

Last Sunday, after the second service, the sacred poured down on this very place, as Otto Etley Kuhlmann was baptized into the reign of God, the first child to be baptized in our new font. We rejoiced that his name was written in heaven, that he was marked with the cross of Christ, and claimed for everlasting life.

Otto, I will admit, didn’t seem that enthralled with the situation. He fussed throughout most of it. So I followed the clues of his family and sponsors who did that sweet baby bounce we do to settle a child who needs to be in motion. Practicing my semi-squats while I held him, I washed this beloved child of God in this pool of sacred grace, and sealed him with the eternal love of God.

If anyone understands how to hold on to hope in the midst of fear and opposition, it’s the parents who have welcomed children in the last few years. Parents, I know many of you haven’t been able to join us in the same ways you once did, but we see you. We see you bouncing your little ones, calming their fears, encouraging them to be faithful and resilient, and praying for the world to welcome them in peace. You have witnessed to the ways we hold hope and fear in the same moment, trusting that God’s goodness, healing and reconciliation are stronger than the hate and destruction around us.

The ancient prophet Isaiah uses the same image to remind his people of God’s promises to them[v]. Like a mother who has recently given birth, God continues to love and protect her children, holding them tenderly, regardless of the oppression or loss they face[vi]. Like the images we see of Ukrainian women, playfully caring for their infants in the face of war, God continues to comfort us like a nursing mother. Like the glimpses we catch of tearful parents of Uvalde, caring for their surviving children even while they grieve, like the hope we notice when any of our neighbors dandle their little ones on their knees, and teach them to persevere in joy regardless of the atrocious news and frustrations of our daily lives, Isaiah assures the people of God that goodness is stronger than evil, and that reconciliation and renewal are still possible.

This is the assurance that we have been given to face the world, despite the pain and the depth of need we sense.

Certainly, there is a lot of work to do. “The harvest is plentiful,” Jesus says. But God sends us out as laborers of the heavenly reign that has come near, a reign where justice and goodness abound, where forgiveness and reconciliation are assured, where children are calmed with the steady rhythm of God’s eternal love for them, and where we are given the encouragement to put that love into action.

In fact, God calls us to let this place serve as a sacred site, inviting visitors to read the ancient messages of goodness remembered here to appreciate the natural beauty and healing power of sacred waters, and to reconnect and learn with God’s peoples of every time and place.

The kingdom of God has come near to us. The goodness of God’s abundant love flows all over us, like the rain, and we’ve been invited to serve as pools for its goodness to water the world in grace. Thanks be to God. Amen

 

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[i]Olson, Melissa, “Sacred in the city: Indigenous site in St. Paul prepared to welcome, educate public,” North Star Journey, Minnesota Public Radio news, St. Paul, June 14, 2022 1:52 PM. https://www.mprnews.org/story/2022/06/14/sacred-in-the-city-indigenous-site-in-st-paul-prepared-to-welcome-educate-public.

[ii] Today’s gospel reading: Luke 10:1-11, 16-20.

[iii] Schifferdecker, Kathryn M., Dear Working Preacher: Called Together, June 26, 2022, Craft of Preaching, Working Preacher, https://www.workingpreacher.org/dear-working-preacher/so-crazy-so-complicated

[iv] Klug, Ronald A, Rise, Shine You People, ©1974, Augsburg Publishing House, Evangelical Lutheran Worship, #665.

[v] Isaiah 66:10-14.

[vi] Couey, Blake J, “Mother Jerusalem and Mothering God: Commentary on Isaiah 66:10-14,” Working Preacher, Fourth Sunday after Pentecost, July 3, 2022. https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-14-3/commentary-on-isaiah-6610-14-5