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Luke

Signs and Wonder

Signs and Wonder: A reflection from Pastor Kris on Luke 24:13-35 If you would like to watch a video of the sermon, click HERE. How many of you have an old cookbook, or old family recipes on index cards around the house? If so, do you have a favorite? {In the chat feature on Zoom, people typed in responses such as: My mom’s cole slaw, vereneke, kolaches, pear bread, homemade noodles, potato hash, Czechoslovak Christmas stollen, Italian crème cake, three-minute microwave fudge, manicotti, and chocolate cake with butter cream frosting. Yum!} In the early 1970’s, my mom wrote a regular article fo...
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Cultivating: Community

You can watch the video of Pastor Kris’ reflection, Cultivating: Community, HERE. Sitting down last Monday to begin my sermon for today on Luke’s story of Jesus’s approach to Jerusalem, my heart stood still. I read the sentence again: “If you only recognized the things that make for peace!” The words caught my breath. I rolled the phrase over and over in my mind. Where do you even start with these words of Jesus, when the daggers of white supremacy have pierced the hearts of so many people of color in the United States for all too long? Over the past few months, I have been participating in a...
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Hope. Compassion. Restoration.

You can watch the video of Pastor Kris’ reflection, Hope. Compassion. Restoration. HERE As we approach the one-year mark of worshiping online, lay leaders, staff, and I have been making plans for Ash Wednesday, Lent, and worship opportunities for Holy Week. I want to remind you that, in our current, dangerous, deep freeze, there is good news! Easter is only 8 weeks away, with all the hoped-for newness which sprouts in the spring (and yes… in Bible study on Wednesday everyone reminded me that in Wisconsin it can also still snow on April 4)! Reflecting on what lies ahead, I have to share with y...
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Hold On…

You can watch the video of Pastor Kris’ reflection, Hold On…., HERE. Over the past few months, there has been a viral phenomenon happening on social media. Not “viral” as in the coronavirus, but viral as in a social media fad which has spread widely. Maybe you have seen it. Have you seen trend “How it started—How it’s going”? These are often before and after photos of people, animals, and/or events. For example, there is this then-and-now pairing: The photos show an adorable puppy as “how it started,” and then the grown dog in “how it is going.” Here is another example, from Memorial’s shift...
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When You Go Fishing With Jesus

You can watch the video of Pastor Kris’ reflection, When You Go Fishing with Jesus, HERE. This Sunday the assigned Bible reading gives us Jesus. Jesus on the shore telling a group of people to go out beyond their comfort zone and to try again. Of course, the fishermen know what to do, right? They are people who do a really hard job. They are knowledgeable and skilled in their profession. These are people who KNOW how to fish. They know the lake of Gennesaret, or what we often call the Sea of Galilee, inside and out—up and down. They know the shore. The sky. The deeps. The shallows. The moveme...
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Holy What Ifs

You can watch the video of Pastor Kris’ reflection, Holy What Ifs… , HERE. Let’s start… here. A place where waters were once calm. Clear. Inviting. While in reality it is the middle of winter and the lakes are frozen, wouldn’t it be wonderful to be here? Looking at a calm, inviting body of water, with ripples of possibility? As you look at the photo, what feelings, thoughts, memories do you have? Pastor Kris invited people to type their responses in the chat. Responses included: “Canoeing with my Dad & sister.” “Looks like a fish just jumped. Get your fishing pole.” “Pontooning on Long ...
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Those Who Dream… ponder in their hearts

Those Who Dream… ponder in their hearts You can watch the video of Pastor Kris’ reflection, Those Who Dream… ponder in their hearts, HERE. In today’s Bible reading, there is a tugging and pulling, a wondering and an answering, which reveals God to us in a radically new way. Here Jesus (a preteen)… and Mary (a young adult)… and a wider faith community (the elders)… demonstrating for us the ways in which our faith journeys are disarmingly simple in all of life’s complexities.   This cross-generational narrative includes the necessity of repeating faith practices over and over, as “every year” J...
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