Word for Today

From First Corinthians 13

For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. 

Have you gone through the experience of having cataracts? I haven't and I am thankful for that, but I know many people who have. Before the procedure they have a steady decline in their ability to see detail. The world gets cloudy, fuzzy even. After the procedure to remove the cataracts, people act like they have a newfound freedom. A new lease on life. The ability to capture with your eye what you had been missing all along, that must be a sensational spiritual feeling!

Do you have spiritual cataracts? Do you miss the detail of God's work in the world around you? Are the loving acts of people toward you clouded with bitterness, or regret, or guilt? As you've graduated through the grade levels of the "hard knock" school of life, has your ability to see the way God sees gotten steadily more vague? It's understandable.

Love. That's the concept, the spiritual practice, that comes right before the cataract problem in this passage. Paul says with hope, "we will see (Christ) face to face." Love is what binds a community together. Love hardly ever feels equal (we so often feel that we are loved MORE than we love). Love is the way of Christ, a gift given through cloudiness from me to you and you to you to you. Do you ever love not knowing how it will turn out in the end? Good! One day, you will see your Lord face to face. Who could think of a better promise than that?

Pastor James Aalgaard
St. Paul Lutheran Church
541.889.9349

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Word for Today

From Micah 5:

²But you, O Bethlehem of Ephrathah,

who are one of the little clans of Judah,

from you shall come forth for me

one who is to rule in Israel,

whose origin is from of old,

from ancient days.

and from Luke 1:

 ⁴⁶And Mary said,

"My soul magnifies the Lord,

Taking pictures of small things is a growing field. There are electron microscopes and x-ray lasers, invented by people with a desire to know and understand. Scientists are fueling their own curiosities by going smaller and smaller. And by reporting to the world, the world itself is becoming more curious! As you see below, patterns emerge that seem less chaotic and more beautiful. More wondrous.

I searched high and low online for photos of small things to include in this Word for Today. I found so many pictures, the problem for me is they were rather disturbing. How long can a person look the pincers of a bed bug? One of the worse was a picture of the hair follicles of a human eyebrow. A close second was the bacteria that reside on the human tongue. Not exactly appetizing. Bleh.

Scripture today talks about greatness coming from a little place. Little places, little things, small voices carry inside them all the "coding" needed to radically change the world. Little town Bethlehem is about to become a household name. For from her comes a Savior, God-With-Us, Emmanuel.

The first picture is a composite photo of proteins by Thomas White.

The next picture is a special one to me. It's Salvador Dali's painting of Christ. The first picture prompted me to think about the second one. 

The message I would like to leave you with today is that there is no place out-of-the-way enough where God's redeeming and loving presence cannot be. There is no space inside you that God's Spirit cannot fit into. In fact, there is a pattern in you that God laid out in creation which longs for one thing above all others, fellowship with God. Through Jesus, you have it.

Pastor James Aalgaard

St. Paul Lutheran Church, Ontario Oregon

Word for Today

From First Corinthians 12:

Indeed, the body does not consist of one member but of many.  ¹⁵If the foot would say, "Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body," that would not make it any less a part of the body.  

Dear fellow amputees, here is Kiarra. She's from Portland Oregon. She had a dream of dancing at the Julliard School.  There is a video about her here. It's a very inspirational little report! I think the picture and the video tell the story better than I, but one thing I will mention is this:

Kiarra says that when she choreographs a dance, she imagines herself with fingers and toes, doing intricate movements. Those lost digits are actually part of her dance, regardless of the fact that she possesses them. She imagines herself whole.

In the above passage of scripture, St. Paul is writing to Christians in Corinth. They had done what countless communities of faith do, which is honor one member of the body over the other. Some gifts are more apparent than others. Some people look for more attention than others. Some members hurt more than others. Some have more tragic lives. Some have better luck. It's easy to say to one, "I don't need you. We don't need you." Over time, the members of the body receiving the least honor disappear. The result? An amputee community.

When I think of the faith community, even my own self, I wonder what I've amputated. Maybe it was actual people. Gifts of the Spirit. Expectations.

I think I will take my cue from Kiarra, and imagine myself whole. I will be a dancing amputee, knowing that the promise of the resurrection, of a world made whole through Christ, grows members back to the body.

Pastor James Aalgaard
St. Paul Lutheran Church
541.889.9349

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Word for Today

From Isaiah 43:

  ⁴Because you are precious in my sight,

and honored, and I love you,

I give people in return for you,

nations in exchange for your life.

  ⁵Do not fear, for I am with you;

I will bring your offspring from the east,

and from the west I will gather you;

  ⁶I will say to the north, "Give them up,"

and to the south, "Do not withhold;

bring my sons from far away

and my daughters from the end of the earth — 

From Acts 8:

¹⁷Then Peter and John laid their hands on them, and they received the Holy Spirit.

This is my hand in Esther's. She is in her 90's, I in my 40's. I thought about this picture when I read about the disciples Peter and John laying their hands on Samaritan Christians, thereby giving them the Holy Spirit.

Hands move in accordance with the intentions of the mind. Your intentions will be sometimes evil, sometimes holy, sometimes related to work, sometimes love.  The intentions of the disciples that day were to give and gather. The giving and gathering happened in a single swipe, touch, of the hand.

What was given? The Holy Spirit; the very same Spirit that coursed through Jesus when he walked Samaritan roads, when he made a paste of mud in the palm of his hand, and when he wrote in the dust. This is not a replica or a symbolic gesture of any kind, it/she/he is the Spirit that belongs to Jesus. This is the Spirit that allowed the hands of Christ to be held down and nailed to a cross-beam. This Spirit was given that day through the disciples to new disciples.

And in the giving, the gathering has just happened. The verse from Isaiah proclaims that God gathers those who belong from the north and south, from all reaches of the earth. To be gathered into Christ isn't to be gathered to a place, but rather to a people. That's you and me!

I think of Esther often. I visited her yesterday and she has slowed down quite a bit. But the Spirit of Christ (whom we share) is still bright and hopeful, helping her long for the next gathering. She spends a lot of time looking out her window.

I hope you experience (and recognize) the touch of the Holy Spirit this week.

James Aalgaard

St. Paul Lutheran Church

Ontario Oregon

Word for Today

Celebrating Backward

From Isaiah 62:

and as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride,

so shall your God rejoice over you. 

From Psalm 36:

⁷How priceless is your ^| love, O God!

All people take refuge under the shadow ^| of your wings.

⁸They feast upon the abundance ^| of your house;

you give them drink from the river of ^| your delights.

From John 2:

⁹When the steward tasted the water that had become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the steward called the bridegroom  ¹⁰and said to him, "Everyone serves the good wine first, and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk. But you have kept the good wine until now."

In the touching and tragic movie "Life Is Beautiful" directed and starred-in by Roberto Begnini, A Jewish man woos a woman away from an arrogant suitor, eventually marrying her and having a son. The movie is set in the middle of the Nazi regime. Life becomes less and less beautiful as the movie progresses, and the man begins to rely on his comedic imagination to protect especially his son.

The family is interned in a concentration camp where his antics continue despite the risks. Games and jokes are plenty even when food and living conditions (including the chance of hope) are not. The movie ends after the man's death. American forces were approaching the concentration camp to liberate them, and the guards were chaotically shutting everything down. The man hid his son in a box (calling it a game) while he sought out the boy's mother, was caught and killed at the last moment before liberators came onto the scene.

This movie helps me to remember that we can "celebrate backward". In other words, we can taste the heavenly feast with every meal. We can practice the peaceable kingdom of God with every act of forgiveness and reconciliation. We can Claim the end of death with every burial. We can even be liberated from our own prisons by means of joy.

In the wedding at Cana, the best wine was served last instead of first. It was a backward celebration. It was enough of a difference that the chief steward noticed immediately. It was a sign, that the celebrating backward is happening in Jesus, the Word of God, "through whom all things were made" (John 1).

What are you doing to celebrate backward? The promise of God makes it possible for you!

Pastor James Aalgaard
St. Paul Lutheran Church
541.889.9349

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