May 20th, 2007 - Ascension Sunday

The Synod Assembly was this weekend. Pastor Dayle wrote an email summarizing what happened:

Creator was well represented at the synod assembly in Eugene over the weekend. Joel Mobley (who serves on synod council), Sara Gross and Peter Overvold (our voting members from Creator), Pr. Mark and myself were present. The big agenda was election of a new bishop. Bishop Paul Swanson has been our bishop for 20 years so we haven't had such a process. I'm very pleased to tell you that the assembly elected Pr. David Brauer-Rieke (currently serving Atonement Lutheran in Newport) as our bishop.

Since both Pastor Dayle and Pastor Mark were at the synod assembly Reverend Al Miller gave the Sunday sermon.

Rev. Al’s focus this Sunday was on the great commission given at the Ascension. Typically, this focus might take us to an outreach type of evangelism which Al preached about but did not recommend. Instead, he talked about how Jehovah’s Witnesses or, more generally, certain types of indiscriminate door to door evangelism, can imply in talks with strangers that there is something that the person they are talking to lacks and that their evangelism or Christianity can provide.

Instead Al focused on evangelism centered around personal moments that cement faith. He also talked about how difficult they are to share socially for different reasons.

The first personal example he gave was of an experience he had just before his ordination to the priesthood in the Episcopal Church. In a Benedictine monastery on the northern peninsula of Michigan he stayed in a starkly furnished room. There was moonlight reflected on the snow during the evening. On the wall of his room he saw an upside down cross, the sign of Peter, shining as if illuminated by the light outside the window. He blocked the light from the window coming into the room. The cross remained on the wall whether light from the window was coming in or not.

Al said he does not normally talk about this because he feels comfortable with cause and effect and this did not fall into that scientific worldview. Yet he did not deny that this cemented his faith and was an experience he returned to over the years.

Another experience he had was at a high school day camp in eastern Oregon. During a sharing of the peace an incredible, palpable joy filled many of the participants. Al felt at that moment a certainty that God’s love would never depart from him, regardless of whether he would feel it or not during other times of his life. This one felt uncomfortable for him to share because it was so “quaint”. Sometimes what might be considered a pedestrian or typical story can be filled with tremendous weight in our lives

I admired Al’s courage and his eloquence. It makes sense to me that witnessing of these personal experiences is at the heart of true evangelism. I also agree with Al that there is a social barrier that prevents our sharing these important moments. Predominantly there is fear of the reaction that your experience is not important, that it will diminish the personal meaning if is told repeatedly or it will not be understood for what it is. Describing such experiences language is barely adequate. Why elect to tell a story where it's importance is unclear or seems to beg for an explanation that is not being requested.

I have an example. My sister went on a trip to Kalaloch, an ancient and mysterious place for her, located in in the Olympic National Forest. She talked to me yesterday, as she had before, about some strange blue and white circles in two of her pictures of the forest that seemed to radiate a living energy.

My son identified them as lens flares. I saw similar circles in other pictures on the web. We ‘explained’ it to her in that way. Yesterday she discounted our explanation and insisted they were something more.

So, who’s right? Does rational explanation trump the irrational? There is a verse in the Dylan song Gates of Eden that is haunting:

At dawn my lover comes to me

And tells me of her dreams

With no attempts to shovel the glimpse

Into the ditch of what each one means

At times I think there are no words

But these to tell what's true

And there are no truths outside the Gates of Eden.

What a statement. And yet I search for the words, and the meaning that can be explained...