Archives for March 2020

Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19)
Immediate Temporary Change at Trinity Lutheran Church

UPDATE: March 16, 2020

The health and safety of our congregation is of utmost importance. Therefore , based on the latest recommendations from the CDC and Minnesota Governor’s Office, we feel that suspending all services, activities and education classes thru the month of March is necessary. We will continue to monitor this evolving situation and will continue to update everyone as time passes and we have more information to make future decisions.

If anybody needs anything, please call the office at 325-5178, and leave a message, or email Bonnie at trinity008@centurytel.net, and she will pass the word onto the appropriate source. Otherwise contact any member of the council members or Jim.

March 14, 2020
Due to the Coronavirus Disease outbreak around the world and in the United States, the Trinity Lutheran Church Council feels we need to take action to limit the exposure of our congregation to this virus. Effective immediately, we will be implementing changes for a limited time basis.  Please know that we may need to make additional changes if the circumstances require.  We will continue to monitor recommendations by the Department of Health, our local healthcare providers and our synod.
Church services will continue as scheduled along with Sunday School and confirmation classes (UPDATE as of 3/15/2020 – with school closing – confirmation and Sunday School will be cancelled until the end of March). During this time, we are asking, and strongly encouraging, members to take the extra precautions to prevent the spread of this virus. Anyone who may be feeling ill, may have been exposed to the coronavirus or believe that there is any chance that they have been exposed, should stay home from any gatherings!  If in doubt, don’t take the chance of exposing and contaminating others. 
Some of the symptoms of the Coronavirus are:
-Runny nose
-Sore throat
-Cough
-Fever
-Difficulty breathing
Some of these symptoms are common with other illnesses, so if you’re experiencing any of these, please take the precautions and stay home and away from others to prevent the spread of any illness. 
Temporary changes you will see at Trinity beginning March 14, 2020:
-We will have appointed individuals greeting you at the North and South main entrances.  We are asking that you do not use any of the side entrances at this time.  These greeters will not be shaking your hands, but will be opening the doors for you. This is an effort to reduce the amount of germs shared on the door handles.  
-We will not have greeters as you enter the Sanctuary.  If you have signed up for greeting, you will not need to do this task for at least the next few weeks.
-Communion will be suspended thru the month of March
-We will not be sharing the sign of the peace
-The offering plate will not be passed around.  Instead, the offering plates will be located at the front and back of the church for you to deposit your offering on the way in or out of the sanctuary.
-We are asking people to spread out during the service. The recommendations are for individuals to be at least 6 feet apart and to limit any close contact to less than 10 minutes.  
-Coffee hour and Wednesday night lenten suppers will be suspended until further notice.
-The quilting and bible studies will be suspended until further notice.

If you have any questions or concerns about any of these changes, please contact any of the council members or Jim for direction.  We will keep you updated as we move through the coming weeks.
Trinity Lutheran Church Council 

by Minister Jim Rach

                Our reading today from Genesis is, in a way, how God commences his great rescue mission. But first let’s look back to last week, when we looked at Genesis 3 and the fall. We saw how God intended life, and life to all fullness, for us humans, giving us almost free reign over the garden. He only set one prohibition, eating from the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. They were not to make of themselves the criterion of right and wrong.

                They fell, precisely because they stopped listening to the voice of God, instead listening to the voice of the tempter, and the voice of their own desires. Mainly, the desire to make of themselves the decision makers of good and evil. Disobedient, yes, but more a refusal to listen. To listen to a higher voice. The voice of God summoning us beyond what we can imagine. Our desires lead to a buffered self, separating us from anything that is transcendent. Our desires lead us to that little space, our small, boring desires. Listening to God moves us to that infinitely wider space. Listening to your own voice really always amounts to, in some degree, playing it safe. Listening to God’s voice, that’s always an invitation to adventure. And, that’s the way to read the whole Bible, the Bible is full of narratives of adventure. And where does the adventure come from? Obedience. Listening to that higher voice. Summoning us beyond this narrow world.

                Think of it as Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings,” where Bilbo and Frodo have to leave their safe space of the shire to go on adventure, they are called by a higher voice. That’s what a Christian life is all about, to leave behind the safe space of my own imaginings and go on adventure following God.

                Then we look at the chapters of Genesis between 3 and todays reading from chapter 12 and what do we find. We find all the varying degrees of sin. All showing us what happens when we decide to stop listening to God. Cain and Abel, jealousy, rivalry, hatred, murder. We hear the story of Noah, how sin can start small and then spread through an entire community and covering the whole world. The floodwaters, meant to invoke the watery chaos at the beginning of creation, out of which God brings order, but the watery chaos returns through sin. Then the tower of Babel, work together to build this tower to the heavens, nothing more than cultural arrogance, human pride. We see what sin looks like, in our heart, and in wider society. The Bible is remarkably clear-eyed on this. Its clear what happens when we fall into disobedience.

                Now we get to chapter 12, today’s reading, and we see the beginning of God’s great rescue operation. God does not want us stuck in sin. He wants people fully alive. He’s frustrated at our lack of true life. So, God sends out a people Israel. Could God have done it other ways? Probably, but it is the mark of God that he wants humans involved, he wants to affect our salvation but with our co-operation. And so, he’s going to form a holy people, Israel, after his own heart and mind, that from tis people may spread God’s way of thinking. They would become, as Isaiah says, a light for the rest of the world.

                So, chapter 12 shows how this whole thing started. How it started through Abram. How come God chose him? Who knows, God certainly could have chosen someone who the world would have known better. And he was no longer young. And God was calling him to just get started with his mission. God calls him, “Go forth to a land which I will show you.” And then one of the most important lines in the Bible. “And Abram went as the Lord directed him” And that makes all the difference. Trouble began when humans refused to listen to God.  The solution comes when one human being (Kind of a new Adam) listens.

                Abram most likely wanted to stay right where he was. He was among family, friends, familiar surroundings. One would think he would say to himself “stay,” don’t listen to this crazy voice. But he chose not to listen to the voice of his ego, but to the voice of a higher power.  And this higher power called him on an adventure. Like Bilbo and Frodo, come on get up, leave the shire, leave the comfort, I get it it’s a comfortable place, but leave it.

                Jordan Peterson reflects on these Biblical stories and finds a similar rhythm. The hero has to always leave the familiar and venture into the unfamiliar. And thereby make it familiar, to expand the realm of comfort. But the hero was always called into an adventure to something more dangerous. God’s words to Abram, “come on, get up, go to this land which I will show you.”

After many centuries, Paul could say to the Ephesians, “There is a power already at work in you, that can do infinitely more than you can ask or imagine.” The implied message, “trust it, trust it,” there is a power at work in you, beyond your ego, beyond your comfort zone, that can do infinitely more than you can trust or imagine, trust it. Listen to it, let’s go an adventure, leave what your familiar with, leave the settled ways, which are probably the settled ways of sin.

                Sin is a refusal to trust, faith is an openness, the willingness to listen. When you do that you become part of the solution for God in this sinful world.

March 1 Sermon… by Jim Rach

            In C.S. Lewis’s novel, “The Great Divorce,” there was a scene in which a man had a pet creature on his shoulder, who was standing between the man and the destiny that he so desired. And the Angel, I believe it was if I remember correctly, asked him if he wanted him to kill it, for that was the only way that his desired destiny could be accomplished. No, said the man, can’t we just let it live, and in a sense, not have quite so much control. Just a little of it to hold on to.

            When Jesus went into the desert, remember he was human as well as God, it took him 40 days and 40 nights to accomplish what he needed to do. To finally and completely kill it off completely. Jesus was not out in the desert to starve himself physically, although that happened. He was there to starve and kill the one major hurdle that envelopes all of us. He was there to kill .the ego. That part of us that longs to be right, to be great, to be in control, the part of us that longs to be God. Jesus knew the temptations would only intensify beyond the wilderness. Each healing, each adoring crowd, would make it easier to buy in to the hype, easier to trade God’s mission for something more glamorous.

            The devil came to Christ as a tempter, just to give Jesus some alternate possibilities. If this is what this devil looks like, this devil tempting Christ, well, we have all run into this devil. Nothing at all like we see in the pictures, pitchfork, red tail, nasty jokes. This devil just wants to make Jesus great. He just wants to make Jesus think that maybe God, and God’s plan are holding him back. This devil is not mean, he just wants Jesus to be successful. Rich, famous, powerful, what’s so bad about that. It starts innocently enough, how about some bread for a hungry guy, a guy who just survived a fast that should have killed him twice over. Surely Jesus was hungry, and there’s nothing wrong with food. And if he has the gift, why not put it to good use. Undoubtably somewhere along that fast, Jesus saw those rocks turn into bread, we know how hunger works, how our minds work when desperate. You know, making one loaf of bread in the middle of nowhere is nothing special, if a stone turns to bread and no one sees it, did it really happen. Jesus is hungry, but its more than that. If the temptation was merely physical, than any lunch would have worked.

But that’s not the temptation. This temptation is not to Jesus hunger, but to Jesus ego. Turning one rock into one loaf of bread in the middle of the wilderness is nothing. But, what if Jesus could turn stones into bread, and not just here in the wilderness, but in the towns and villages and cities. What if this was a business plan, now we are talking. Money and power and fame would certainly follow, in a world of first century middle east, a land of scarce food supply, a land of stones aplenty, this would make Jesus great, the greatest. He would be like a god. So, what’s so bad about that. That devil just handed Jesus the perfect idea, the ultimate get rich quick scheme. Or if Jesus is not into money, he could give the bread away. He would be adored. He would be the most popular guy in the empire. And the most popular guy in the empire does not die on a cross.

            But Jesus doesn’t agree to this. So the devil ditches the bread plan and pitches Jesus something else. There is, after all, more than one way to become great. Maybe a trick, but not just any trick. A death- defying feat, that would amaze and impress the crowds. Maybe money not the thing, maybe Jesus needs a title. And what better title for a young Jewish man than Messiah, this would be it, Jesus the Jewish messiah. And the Jewish messiah would have his coming out party at the temple. The temple was the heart of the Jewish religion, it was the house of God. Imagine how the crowds would react if God’s angels caught Jesus right before he hit the ground below, Then they would get it, they would all know who Jesus really was, they would have to believe in him. They would fall at his feet. The angels would remove all doubt, he would be loved, adored, accepted, he would be great. He would be like a god. What’s so bad about that.

Jesus is already the messiah, the Son of God, but the messianic plan has some holes. There is a lot of suffering, and not a lot of glory, in God’s plan. The devil’s plan is more attractive. In the devil’s plan, Jesus strong healthy body is held by angels before an adoring crowd. In the other plan, Jesus dead body is held by his mother as passersby insult his corpse.

            And yet Jesus continues to hold his ground. So, the devil takes one more shot. This is the final offer, and it’s a good one. It’s an offer, and the devils been around awhile, an offer no one can refuse. It’s a feast for the ego, all the power, all the money, all the fame, the world, the entire world will fall at your feet. There is only one condition, and it’s pretty simple. All Jesus had to do was fall down and worship the devil. And that sounds like a terrible thing to our ears, because most of us know the Satanism scares, The Exorcist movie and such, but the devil is not asking Jesus to join a new religion, or become a member of a cult. For the amazing price of all the nations of the world in all their splendor, Jesus just needs to alter his alligences. People have traded in God for much, much less. And the devil knows Jesus will never truly be great following God’s plan for his life. And everybody wants to be great.

            It should have worked, the devils plan, it usually does. It has since the very beginning. From the very first recorded temptation, coming to us from the Garden of Eden is the old standard, every temptation throughout history is a variation on the same theme, “You will be like God.” The tempter always aims for the ego-money, power, fame…you can have it all. Adam and Eve took the bait, they ate the fruit, because they were told that fruit would make them great, great like God. And so it went on, generation after generation, after generation. Until Jesus walked into that wilderness, knowing his ego could blow the whole plan for us and our salvation. He also knew that you have to starve it if you want to kill it.

            We always begin this Lenten season in the barren wilderness with Jesus. We start there because or relationship with God depends on it. It is there that we learn that God does not care if we are successful, just faithful. Which really just proves that God doesn’t get it. The devil gets it, this is how the world works, the ones with money, power, and fame are the ones who matter. And you don’t get those things by taking up your cross and following Jesus. God knows the temptations are strong, of course we want to be great, have people think we are smart, successful, and in control. We need to be affirmed. Our egos so desperately long for human acceptance that we will do just about anything to get it. Our ego is so desperate for acceptance that we forget we are eternally loved by the God of the universe, even if everyone you know thinks you’re a failure. We are all saddled with these hungry egos. And the world offers many choices, choices so much more appealing than the cross that Jesus offers. Which is why we drag our egos into this season of lent. Because this season drives us into the wilderness, which we learn to live for something or someone bigger than ourselves. Where we are called to a season of prayer, self-denial, and repentance. And fasting, because you’ve got to starve it if you want to kill it.