Calm Your Hearts

by | Jan 1, 2021 | Posts from 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

So, We Wait

by | Nov 28, 2020 | Posts from 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

On Lighting Candles in the Dark

by | Oct 31, 2020 | Posts from Pastor Shaun

At this time of the year, as the days grow shorter and the nights grow longer, we may do well to light a candle in the dark. And I write it literally and metaphorically. Candles draw us in with sight and smell (and more!), drawing our senses to an attention in the present moment. It can be a centering practice.
And it’s a practice that speaks. In our world, we need light in the dark. And we’re called light in the dark too.
I mention light as the presidential election takes place this month. May hope and love warm our hearts to live together in this place and time, with dignity and respect. May we hear God’s call to be a light unto the world, to bear good fruit. Whatever happens, may we trust that we are called to carry light into our future, praying: “God, Your Kingdom Come.”
I mention light as our country and world battle through this pandemic. When rising case numbers have made our best way forward one of continued distance during worship, and when being apart from each other in these times is just so hard… we may light candles as we pray for each other to be held in the love and comfort and presence of God. In what feels dark or lonely, Christ is a light and our faith is a flame that is not snuffed out, even now. In the dark and cold, there will be a light in the promise of God. And we live this with, and for, one another. And we shine our lights of love by showing care—strong and cautious—and emphasizing our collective health.
And I mention light as All Saints Day approaches. We light candles or ring bells to remember bright lights of Spirit and Flesh in our world—those that have left us, but whose fire touched us and whose testimony keeps our spirits burning too. Our tradition’s practice of All Saints Day has been a light to my spirituality, encouraging me in deep faith connections to faithful folks that have died and sending me toward wonder at the “great cloud of witnesses” we remember and celebrate. We are not alone in our journey, and each one of us is a gift to each other. How beautiful to see that light in the world! Gratitude and grief all fit in the kingdom of God.
And in God’s world, there is so. much. light. Even in the dark.
May Christ’s presence and promise be a light to us, that we may reflect that light to the whole world,
Pastor Shaun

I Love Songs That Sing the Scriptures

by | Oct 2, 2020 | Posts from Pastor Shaun

I love songs that sing the scriptures. Reach out sometime and I can give you a list of some of the ones that speak to me. And, I’d appreciate your list on this topic too!
One of my favorites is Karla Adlophe’s song “You Are Mine,” where she’s beautifully echoing Isaiah 43:2:
“When you walk through the water, I will be with you,
When you pass through the river, those waves will not overtake you.
And when you walk on the fire, those flames will not touch you.
You are Mine. You are mine.”
And I have needed this refrain as a constant reminder of God’s promise in our lives. Have you needed it? Life this spring and summer has been scary, and unpredictable, and just when you might be feeling strong or safe enough from a virus, then the skies keep filling with smoke and we’re sent inside again. In all these times, we need the refrains of our faith, and her song has been one for me. Honest and faithful, all at once.
And so have our readings in Matthew through this season––they’ve shown us the promise of extravagant love.
Maybe that is hard to feel. I know it too. So … I encourage you… dig deep. Keep with these promises in your heart. In stillness and prayer, see if you indeed can connect to them. I have been happy we’ve gathered together on Tuesday nights in an effort to gather around God’s promises. And it has been encouraging.
In songs and stillness and proclamation, we are reminding each other that we have promises of God’s love, more generous than we can imagine.
And, we have promises that when that love is hard to feel, Christ is still present. Remember weeks ago in our readings from Matthew, it read: “From that time on … Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering.” This means that all these subsequent weeks of readings about the strong love of God, they are also enfolded in the story of how Jesus is going to suffer; but that doesn’t mean disconnection.
And this means when we are sick or worried; this means even when fire does surround or consume us—well, death took hold of Christ too.
Until it didn’t.
And God who knows suffering doesn’t leave us in ours.
As followers of Christ, we are now here for one another, and for our neighbor and for the world, in Christ’s way. We are called to suffer with those who suffer, and mourn with those who mourn. We are called to comfort the world with faith that these fears and insecurities are not, in fact, all there is now. There has been, and is, and will be … the love of our Creator and Redeemer and Sustainer.
So we keep loving our neighbor well and helping preserve life and health. We take precautions and strive for health and wholeness. And we keep worshipping and serving, because we are the church both in gathered worship and in our daily life.
And Christ is always with us. With him we are, forever, in God’s care.
-Pastor Shaun O’Reilly

Grace like Rain

by | Sep 4, 2020 | Uncategorized

A couple weeks ago, after preaching a sermon that was trying to implore hearers to “Remember your baptism,” and there discover strength and blessing … then it rained in the desert.

Indeed! True story!

Now, it’s not like it never rains in this mountain/desert ecotone of the Truckee Meadows, but it can be rare (like, less than 10 inches a year)! And on a Sunday in August; and one hour after a sermon saying, “find some water today;” and that sermon having been preached while wildfires were burning nearby forests and turning all our blue sky to gray smoke; the rarities compound, right?

I don’t know if you were surprised by water again that day, like I hoped you’d be. But even as the one saying, “ya’ll watch for the blessing of water that is a gift”––even I was surprised.

Grace like rain.

It stopped me in my tracks, walking from the church doors to my car.

Wait, is it really raining? Like, is this gift really given, again?

Indeed! It was. It is!

For Lutherans, baptism is a ritual full of story and experience, and one we are called to remember, even daily. Or even more. We are remembering that life is full of death and resurrection. And God’s gift of Grace arrives to us in the midst of it all. There is nothing outside of it. Every dreary death moment. Every excellence. It’s all water-washed and Spirit-born, and it’s all holy. God is with it all, in the flow.

And I love that life is water and so all of life reminds us.

And I love that rain in the desert reminds us too.

The moment of Word in a sermon—that’s holy. And later, when drops of H2O are pelting your face and arms and you look to the (smoke-filled) sky with laughter and ask, “Wait, is it really raining?”… it’s an all-inclusive, holy gift.

You’ll be in a desert and you’ll tell people to “go find water!”

Then you’ll take a few steps, and SPLISH––water finds you!

Grace like rain––SPLASH goes strength and blessing on your fearful, faithful way.