Friends in Christ,
This Easter season I find myself meditating on brokenness and healing. There are many reasons (and I believe you’ll hear some from me in the sermons to come!), and they include: the story of Jesus’ death and resurrection; the story of society healing from pandemic and death; and the creative activity of home renovations; and more. Yes, that’s right. My neighbors and I have been sharing stories on how we want to repair parts of our homes. There’s roots, and concrete, and water, and the need for organization all involved. And I’ve noticed how the story is sometimes circling around how some parts will need to change or go away — Break — so that what is new can be there now, and in a good/vibrant way.
And there is something about this that is also death and resurrection. I think there’s something about this that is also our own lives.
“It is good to realize that falling apart is not such a bad thing. Indeed, it is as essential to transformation as the cracking of outgrown shells. Self-protection restricts vision and movement like a suit of armor, making it harder to adapt. Going to pieces, however uncomfortable, can open us up to new perceptions, new data, and new responses.” – Joanna Macy
It’s springtime, and our worship and community life is also inviting us to living the baptismal story of Easter’s death and resurrection in openness, honesty, and brokenness — with trust in healing and goodness and wholeness too.
And think of how we even use that work — “Break” — to mean not just falling apart, but also emerging. Like, when there’s a viral “break out” (God, help us; hold us!). Or more encouragingly, like when our scripture and hymns mention: “The trees shall clap their hands; the dry lands, gush with springs; the hills and mountains shall break forth with singing!”
In the spirit of Easter, new life, and Spring, the world is breaking forth with praise to our God of love! Turn your heart with us; listen and lean into the promise. God is a God of creation, resurrection, and renovation. What breaks, breaks forth!
“We shall got out in joy, and be led forth in peace, as all the world in wonder echoes shalom.”
Blessed Eastertide,
+ Pastor Shaun

This past Ash Wednesday we did drive-thru ashes at noon and after our 7pm service. Many of our folks came out on that Wednesday, and received this strange, important, sobering blessing. And it was a blessing to know we were receiving it together.
Remember you are dust and to dust you will return.
The ashes remind us of our humanity, our dependence, and our brokenness too. From life through this past year, this can feel like a reminder upon a reminder upon a reminder.
But because you were there, I also knew we weren’t just reinforcing some personal sense of brokenness, but the collective. Because we’re in it together.
That I am dust is true. That I am not alone is also true.
This is continually my prayer for our Lenten journey now, our coming celebrations at Easter, and all that we will face this 2021 and beyond. Getting through a pandemic means we will still have much to process and to grieve. There is brokenness. We feel it in parts of our lives, and we know it’s in our systems.
And we have each other through it. We will hold each other up, face new questions together, share and pray and cry and celebrate.
Most of all, we have God. And the Spirit’s work and joy is to turn our mourning into dancing (see our Psalms from Advent time). Lent is a time to journey with Jesus, and may we see that this is our God—turning ashes into life again and again.
With you,
+ Pastor Shaun

Friends in Christ,
I write this to you as inches and inches, and in some places in our area — FEET — of snow are blanketing all our hills and yards and roads around Reno/Sparks/Tahoe. The kids have had a snow day off school, and with so much work at home in this Covid-year, a snow day is a special treat to get us to wake up even out of our “stay-at-home routine.” So I hope this finds you safe and warm and comforted and well!
For me, the snow has been comforting this week. But in an active way. I had to drive to Fallon to see hospice patients, and it’s been beautifully surprising to see those eastern hills all covered in snow. It’s remarkable to see this common landscape in a new way, fresh features. And it’s lifted my spirits toward thinking about how we all view our worlds, and our lives, and our existence. I find the comfort and presence of God in the times of life when I am surprised by beauty and inspiration. This week, it’s been the snowy hills.
When I got to my visit with a dying hospice patient outside Fallon, they wanted to hear some readings and poetry. We read John 8, where Jesus says, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness but will have the light of life.”
And I thought of how the snow on the mountains makes them shine and sparkle a bit. Everything is brighter in the light of the snow.
And then I offered some of my favorite Wendell Berry quotes. And it surprised me in the moment—lifting us—and I thought of how seeing those snowy hills was a wake up to beauty and strength, moments I needed on my drive out to pray with the dying.
Berry writes,
“So, friends, every day do something
that won’t compute. Love the Lord.
Love the world …
Be joyful though you have considered all the facts …
Practice resurrection.”

I Sometimes scripture and grace and the simple beauty of the world almost doesn’t compute. But then there’s the truth of deep joy there too, hidden. I’ve felt it. And I’ve tasted it. And I’ve experienced it this week.
I pray it’s our experience even in the routines of “stay-at-home”; that we might sense the blessing of love that surrounds us in this life with God. And that love would surprise us, leading to joy!
And to strength for all the shoveling.
Blessedly with you,
+ Pastor Shaun

It is my sincere hope and prayer that the grace of God and the hope of Christ and the warmth of love fills you this New Year. May God’s Spirit propel us into newness together! It’s the kind of paradox I preached during Christmastime, and it’s the same tune I’m humming along as we enter 2021. That in the midst of our worries and cares, and in our times of need for health and safety, that we would simultaneously know the companionship of God; that we would be given the comfort and joy of God-with-Us. It’s in all our songs and prayers and blessings this season: Love has come to be with us, and we are filled with good things.
Even when it’s hard to believe.
In December of 1943, the theologian and pastor and fighter of Nazi’s—Dietrich Bonhoeffer— wrote winter letters to his friends and family. He wrote them from his prison cell, the one in which he’d been detained since April. He had wondered if he might be released and maybe even by Christmas time get be home with his family. As he realized this wouldn’t be happening, he wrote to them in Advent and Christmas saying that he was doing ok, and that memories of their good Christmases would carry him along, and that Christmas meant more than their comfort and security together anyway. There are many powerful and beautiful moments in these letters. One is where Bonhoeffer quotes a hymn that he says has been inspiring him while in prison, a Lutheran hymn that sings:
“Calm your hearts, dear friends; whatever plagues you,
whatever fails you, I will restore it all.”
And Dietrich explains: “What does that mean, ‘I will restore it all’? Nothing is lost; in Christ all things are taken up, preserved, albeit in transfigured form, transparent, clear, liberated from the torment of self-serving demands … the restoration of all things.” (Bonhoeffer Works, Vol. 8, 230)
Reading Bonhoeffer’s letter this season reminded me of all our Psalms during Advent, calling out for restoration (Psalm 80, Psalm 85, Psalm 126, Mary’s Psalm in Luke 1). And these are the very words Dietrich was hearing emanate from the child in the manger. That God-child of love saying: “I will restore it all.”

Pastor Shaun

Dear Church Friends,
Last year for Christmas Eve I wasn’t working for a church and I wasn’t an intern. I was in an “in-between” kind of place. Have you been in those places? Waiting for work? Or waiting to finish school? Waiting for a relationship to change? Waiting for time to pass and the next thing—whatever the next thing might be—waiting for it to happen?
I saw this as an opportunity. For it’s long talked about (sometimes bemoaned, if I’m honest), as clergy share or seminarians talk and say: “We must plan carefully because from here on out, we’ll always be ‘working’ on each Christmas Eve. It will feel different. So savor each one on which you’re not working now!”
Thus, last December was that kind of opportunity as I waited for my first call congregation. I decided to go to a local church that was having a Christmas Eve service very late at night. I wanted to taste what that late, late kind of Christmas Eve service was like.
It was … okay.
I guess it should be no surprise that folks seemed a bit tired as we neared midnight that Christmas Eve. The Christmas magic was there, and silent night was beautiful, yes. But we may have yawned a few more times than usual.
Of course, I went into it thinking: “Every Christmas Eve after this one will be quite regular and predictable. This will be the outlier, because all the others are going to be a uniform Lutheran celebration, like we’ve known before.”

We have had this whole year now, and now we have this December and we have this Christmas. My waiting last year for a call to a church has become this year, all of us, waiting. And I don’t take our position lightly. I know it’s hard, and frustrating. I know it’s confusing and unsettling too. I feel all of this.
We are (and at least we’re doing it together) in an in-between place of waiting, and hoping, and practicing safety and care as best we can.
And yet, because we are called to love and trust a God who is loving and trustworthy — we can still bless this season with ritual and embrace any opportunity we may sense. Maybe we have quiet time at home, to nestle in, to work on something, to read or pray or call more friends and check on them. We need this as church!
For now, we wait.
I believe we will worship in-person in the months to come, and I believe our safe practices will bene-fit our community to be able to be warmly invited to many Advent and Christmas Eve services in Faith Lutheran’s future.
For now, we wait. So let us call one another to faith and remind each other to wait with hope, and practice peace—all of these, long-practiced elements of the church’s Advent journey. We can wait like this together because of God, who holds us. On Christ the King Sunday we celebrated that our God is a Shepherd-King—one who cares for all the lost and least; and in God’s kingdom we care that way too.
For now, we wait. And even in a long and dark night, the Good Shepherd waits with the fretting sheep. Holds them. Loves them. And talks to them and sings to them too.
Wait. Can you hear it?
Pr. Shaun