Following are updates shared from submissions of the Lutheran Office for World Community and state public policy offices (sppos) in the ELCA Advocacy Network this month. Full list and map of sppos available.

 

U.N. | ARIZONA | CALIFORNIA | COLORADO  | MINNESOTA | NEW MEXICO | OHIO | PENNSYLVANIA | TEXAS | WASHINGTON | WISCONSIN |

 

U.N.

Lutheran Office for World Community (LOWC), United Nations, New York, N.Y. – ELCA.org/lowc

Christine Mangale, Director

Women’s Human Rights Advocacy Training

• The Lutheran World Federation (LWF) in partnership with the World Council of Churches, Finn Church Aid, and Norwegian Church Aid held the Women’s Human Rights Advocacy Training in Geneva from 25-28 October 2022. The training reverted to its in-person format following the relaxation of COVID-19 travel restrictions. 
• Lutheran Office for World Community (LOWC) Director Christine Mangale joined LWF colleagues in the planning and facilitation of the training. Nearly 40 delegates from faith-based organizations participated in the training. ELCA participants included Witness in Society advocacy staff, Latin America and the Caribbean and Europe staff, and delegates from companion churches in Africa, Asia, and Latin America and the Caribbean.
• The course enhanced participants’ advocacy effectiveness through U.N. mechanisms such as the Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW), Universal Periodic Reviews (UPR), Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), the Generation Equality Action Coalitions and other local and regional gender justice processes. The training also offered participants networking opportunities and a chance to meet with CEDAW commissioners and Geneva-based government representatives. 
• A resource, “Affirming Women’s Human Rights: Resources for Faith-Based Organizations”,  can be found here. 

Arizona

Lutheran Advocacy Ministry Arizona (LAMA) – lamaz.org

Solveig Muus, Director

LAMA Summit. The third annual LAMA Summit featuring Rev. Eugene Cho of Bread for the World was engaging, thought provoking, informative and fun for the nearly 40 clergy, LAMA liaisons and hunger leaders in attendance. The event consisted of opening devotions on 1 Kings 17; an introduction to LAMA and its policy priorities; the keynote address by Rev. Eugene Cho; small group conversations to process Rev. Cho’s address; a lengthy Q & A with Rev. Cho; an update on the new legislative districts; an update on current hunger legislation; a practical demonstration of advocacy; and advocacy practice speaking to legislators.

2023 Policy Priorities. The LAMA Policy Council met in November to review the year, discuss the social and political issues facing Arizona, and agree on what LAMA’s priorities would be for 2023. The council agreed LAMA’s primary focus will be to continue advocacy and education around Hunger in our most vulnerable communities, including partnering with hunger anti-hunger advocates around the state and launching the Arizona Anti-Hunger Alliance. In addition, LAMA will continue its work in Civic Engagement as it relates to our Lutheran heritage of being a publicly engaged church, encouraging participation in all areas of our government. Finally, LAMA will focus on Water, educating ourselves and our network on the complex issues related to water in Arizona.

Civic Engagement. LAMA’s work leading up to the election in support of its Civic Engagement policy priority involved efforts to register voters, encourage participation in the voting process, educating our network about ballot deadlines, ID requirements, polling locations, ballot measures, etc.

 

California

Lutheran Office of Public Policy – California (LOPP-CA) – lutheranpublicpolicyca.org

Regina Banks, Director

Meetings were held between the LOPP-CA office and California congregations during October to discuss the policy office’s positions on the upcoming ballot propositions. It was great to see a large turnout at those events! 

Election day has passed, but votes are still being counted in California and across the country –  and we expect mail-in ballots to continue coming in for a while yet. Currently, ballot propositions 1, 28, and 31 are passing with ‘yes’ votes. These propositions would enshrine the right to reproductive freedom in the California constitution, provide more funding for arts and music education, and uphold a law banning the sale of flavored tobacco products, respectively. The LOPP-CA policy council supported proposition 1 and 31 and took no position on 28, the arts and music education funding. Measures the policy council were against, including two on sports betting regulations, are currently receiving more ‘no’ votes and willould not pass if the results continue in this direction. 

The 27th UN Climate Change Conference of the Parties (COP27) is also taking place from November 6th-18th in Egypt, and Regina Banks is attending on behalf of the ELCA and LOPP-CA. You can find updates from her on our social pages throughout the conference. 

 

Colorado

Lutheran Advocacy Ministry Colorado (LAM-CO) – lam-co.org

Peter Severson, Director

COLORADO ELECTION RESULTS: Coloradans voted on 11 statewide ballot measures this election season. We are excited to report that all three measures which we supported have passed! 

• Proposition FF, Healthy School Meals for All, won with 55% of voters saying Yes! This will ensure that kids in public schools have access to healthy meals regardless of ability to pay. The program takes the place of a federal initiative that provided free meals to all kids through the first two years of the pandemic.

• Proposition GG, Add Income Tax Table to Ballot Measures, also passed with over 70% of voters saying Yes. This will require ballot titles and fiscal summaries for future measures affecting income tax to include a table showing how people in different income brackets would be affected. 
• Proposition 123, Dedicate State Income Tax to Affordable Housing, passed very narrowly, on a margin of 51% to 49%. This will dedicate 0.1% of the state’s income tax revenue to specific affordable housing programs. 

 

Minnesota

Lutheran Advocacy – Minnesota (LA-MN) – lutheranadvocacymn.org

Tammy Walhof, Director

ELECTIONS: Narrow poll margin reports proved false as the Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party took all state offices, held onto the House, and flipped the Senate with a one-seat majority. Margins in several races suggest much ticket-splitting. Secretary of State, Steve Simon, had the largest margin over challenger Kim Crockett (who questioned 2020 election validity). Attorney General Keith Ellison barely prevailed, with votes primarily from urban cores. Governor Walz won by eight points over challenger Dr. Scott Jensen (who questioned COVID mandates).  

NEW MEMBERS: Minnesota House and Senate both lost many veteran lawmakers through retirement, redistricting, and elections. About 35% of both chambers are new.  

NEW LEADERS: Representative Melissa Hortman will remain Speaker of the House, but Representative Lisa Demuth will replace Representative Kurt Daudt as Minority Leader (first time since 2014 someone other than Daudt leads House Republicans). Demuth is anticipated to have a less confrontational leadership style. Representative Jamie Long will be the new House Majority Leader, so we are watching to see who will take over Energy & Climate leadership from Long.  

Both parties will have new leadership in the Senate. Senator Kari Dziedzic will be new Majority Leader, Senator Bobby Joe Champion will be the first person of color to serve as Senate President, and Mark Johnson of East Grand Forks will be Minority Leader (replacing Senator Miller, who chose not to run again after just 1 year as the head of Senate Republicans). Much remains unknown about committee chairs, particularly Agriculture, since most senators from rural Minnesota are Republican. 

 

New Mexico

Lutheran Advocacy Ministry New Mexico (LAM-NM) – lutheranadvocacynm.org

Kurt Rager, Director

A decade of advocacy… 

According to the 2022 Annie E. Casey Foundation’s KIDS COUNT Data Book that measures 16 indicators of child well-being in the areas of economic well-being, education, health, and family and community, New Mexico once again ranked 50th in the nation. Though the data used does not consider several key state-level policy changes made recently, the challenge for improvement is immense. 

On Election Day, 70% of New Mexico voters approved an amendment to the state’s constitution that advocates, including LAM-NM, believe will truly transform the health and well-being of the state’s youngest and set a standard for the rest of the nation to follow. Driving the decade long battle was the belief that every family and individual should have access to an affordable, evidence-based, and high-quality prenatal and cradle-to-career system of care and education. 

Constitutional Amendment #1 will authorize an additional 1.25% to be withdrawn annually from the state’s unique Land Grant Permanent Fund, financed by state oil and gas revenue and interest on the fund’s investments, which is currently valued at $26 billion. If passed by the U.S. Congress, it is estimated that an initial $150 million would be available to early childhood education, and another $100 million for K-12. Among the many proposals being considered, this includes expanding early childhood services like state-wide prenatal care, home visiting, high-quality childcare and pre-kindergarten programs. Other priorities include moving childcare worker average pay to $18 an hour and making permanent the policy change last year that made childcare free for most NM families. 

Over several contentious sessions, LAM-NM worked alongside numerous partner organizations, which together, formed the Invest in Kids, NOW coalition. While joyous about our victory, the coalition will now join with the state on the hard work it will take to create transformational programs for the future. 

 

Ohio

Hunger Network Ohio (HNO) – hungernetwork.org

Deacon Nick Bates, Director

ADVOCACY IN ADVENT: NOV. 29TH 

The Hunger Network and the Ohio Council of Churches are joining together to host Advocacy in Advent: A Lame Duck Lobby Day! We will discuss the important efforts we can take as a state to end hunger in Ohio and transform our criminal justice system to support neighborhoods, families, and communities to regain stability. You can join us by registering here: https://actionnetwork.org/ticketed_events/advocacy-in-advent . 

HUNGER ADVOCACY FELLOW: We are grateful to ELCA World Hunger for supporting a new Hunger Advocacy Fellow position in Ohio who will begin on November 28th.  

ISSUE 1 and ISSUE 2: Sadly, both Issue 1 and Issue 2 passed on election day in Ohio. Issue 1 cements cash bail into Ohio’s constitution. Issue 2 bans non-citizens and, due to a drafting error by the State Legislature, may also end up preventing 17 year olds who will be 18 by the election from registering to vote. “As a person with an early November birthday, this could have disenfranchised me from voting in my first election,” said Deacon Nick Bates, Director of the Hunger Network in Ohio. 

 

Pennsylvania

Lutheran Advocacy Ministry – Pennsylvania (LAMPa) lutheranadvocacypa.org

Tracey DePasquale, Director

In the waning days of the 2022 session of the Pennsylvania General Assembly, Lutheran Advocacy Ministry – Pennsylvania (LAMPa)  and fellow housing advocates applauded the passage of legislation lifting the cap on the state’s housing trust fund by $20 million.  

The increase, which brought the cap on revenues for the Pennsylvania Housing Affordability and Rehabilitation Enhancement (PHARE) Fund to $60 million annually, came on the heels of more than $375 million in American Rescue Plan funding targeted to housing and homelessness in the FY 2022-23 budget. 

Although LAMPa advocates and coalition partners in the Housing Alliance of Pennsylvania had pushed for bipartisan legislation that would have raised the PHARE Funding cap to $100 million over three years, the progress is welcome. Read more. 

In addition to surveying our network and Pennsylvania ministries about needs, LAMPa began meetings with coalition partners to begin informing our priorities for the next legislative term. LAMPa’s policy council will consider that policy agenda in December.  Trinity Lutheran Church in Camp Hill graciously hosted leadership from the Pennsylvania Hunger Action Coalition as that group shared updates and discussed potential areas for collaboration in fighting hunger in the Commonwealth.

LAMPa participated in planning for a Southwestern Pennsylvania Synod event to honor the work of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., continued organizing for the Homeless Memorial Blanket Project in Washington, D.C., and attended a regional faith-based environmental summit co-hosted by the Lower Susquehanna Synod. 

 

 

 

Texas

Texas Impact – texasimpact.org

Scott Atnip, Outreach Director

In preparation for the general election, Texas Impact participated in presentations in congregations throughout the state, including our Faith in Democracy Series with events in Austin, Houston, Dallas, and Denton. Faith in Democracy events included a faith leader panel discussing why our faith calls for participation in democracy and advocacy efforts, training on Texas Impact’s Election Center tools, and breakout sessions on key public policy issues. Texas Impact also targeted social media ads to encourage voting and supporting the election infrastructure as election workers or poll monitors.
 

Texas Impact’s Weekly Witness podcast is in the midst of a series outlining legislative priorities for the next biennium, including our 200th episode featuring Bishop Michael Rinehart, Texas-Louisiana Gulf Coast Synod, discussing human migration.  

The popular Courts and Ports Program is re-launching with a new Immigration Education and Advocacy Manager, Fabiola (Fabi) Olvera Benitez coordinating trips to the Texas-Mexico border.  

Election results changed little in terms of state leadership, so Texans of faith are preparing for the Texas Legislature to convene in January 2023 in a session that could be very similar to 2021. 

 

Washington

Faith Action Network (FAN) – fanwa.org

Elise DeGooyer, Director

During Food Week of Action in October, the Faith Action Network (FAN)  hosted a Food Policy in WA webinar (linked on our YouTube page) with our coalition partners at Northwest Harvest. We also co-hosted two forums with indigenous writers Sarah Augustine and Mark Charles regarding the ways the Doctrine of Discovery continues to impact native peoples and lands. 

FAN helped organize faith leaders in a press conference in October with Governor Inslee and state legislators announcing protective legislation for reproductive choice and gender affirming care in our state. Here’s the recap of the legislation proposed.  

We are in full preparation mode for our hybrid Annual Dinner, Sunday evening, November 20, in Renton, Spokane, and online. Our biggest fundraiser of the year is also a time to come back together in-person after two years and renew our connections and solidarity for justice across the state. 

 

Wisconsin

Lutheran Office for Public Policy – Wisconsin (LOPPW) loppw.org

The Rev. Cindy Crane, Director

WEDNESDAY NOON LIVE: We interviewed outgoing Republican Senator Kathy Bernier about her views on elections in Wisconsin. Our conversation included the costly Gableman investigation and the Wisconsin Elections Commission. 

ELECTIONS: Governor Evers was re-elected. Michaels, his opponent, claimed he wanted to decertify the 2020 election. How elections are certified made our Secretary of State race unusually contested. At the time of writing this report, the election hasn’t been called. Earlier,  Lutheran Office for Public Policy – Wisconsin (LOPPW) interviewed Sec. of State La Follette (D) after extremists tried to prevent him from certifying the 2020 election. U.S. Senator Johnson was re-elected for a third term. The 3rd Congressional race was closer than expected. In the end, Derrick Van Orden, known for being present at the Trump rally just before the insurrection, won. After Wisconsin maps recently became more gerrymandered, the party that has the legislative majority won enough seats for a supermajority in the Senate but not the Assembly, which means the governor still has veto power. 

JUVENILE JUSTICE SYSTEM: A few of us from our coalition’s steering committee recently met with staff from the Bucks Basketball Team to discuss their interest in supporting our efforts in returning 17 year-olds to the juvenile justice system 

CARE FOR GOD’S CREATION: LOPPW had its second meeting with staff from Faith in Place and confirmed plans to organize a spring advocacy day. 

YOUTH: Representatives from six synods are working with LOPPW to organize our first high school youth gathering with a focus on advocacy, scheduled for April 14 – 16, 2023. 

Today’s blog post comes from DeAnna Quietwater Noriega.

 

DeAnna Quietwater Noriega is half Apache and a quarter Chippewa. She is the mother of three, two daughters and an adopted blind son. She was the eldest of five children in a close–knit American Indian family. As a result of congenital glaucoma, she became totally blind at the age of eight.

DeAnna was mainstreamed in public schools in Texas, Michigan, and California. She completed a bachelor’s degree in social science and did a year toward a master’s in social work at California State University Stanislaus. While attending college, she taught independent living skills to the blind for the California Department of Vocational Rehabilitation. She worked as a caseworker in Santa Clara County, California, before joining the United States Peace Corps. DeAnna and her sighted husband met while attending college, and Curtis joined her in the Peace Corps. They worked together to establish a school for blind children in the independent nation of Western Samoa.

Upon her return to the U.S., DeAnna spent the next seven years at home, raising children. During this time, she became active in the American Council of the Blind and in Guide Dog Users, Inc. She taught braille, instructed breastfeeding mothers as a La Leche leader, was a friendly visitor at nursing homes, and worked as a volunteer intake clerk at the welfare office.

DeAnna and her husband opened two Papa Murphy’s pizza franchise stores. She served as operations manager, doing inventory, ordering, supervising staff, and handling the cash register and phone during late afternoons and evenings.

After 14 successful years, they sold the restaurants to move to Colorado, where their two daughters were enrolled in college. DeAnna kept busy working as an instructor of braille and independent living skills with an adult education program in Colorado Springs. She remained active in many organizations of the visually impaired, serving as an officer at local state and national levels. She served as a founding board member of a nonprofit organization that opened a blind center in Colorado Springs. She established The Braille Books to Keep project for blind children in both Oregon and Colorado.

DeAnna has been a guide dog user for over 50 years and has taken an active part in passing legislation protecting service animals.

 

Who Are You!

By DeAnna Quietwater Noriega, an excerpt from Fifty Years of Walking with Friends

My uncle always described us as assimilated traditionalists. Men in our family went in to construction or the military. These were acceptable choices for warriors. Those who worked in construction usually left their families during the months when the building trades had work. They returned home in winter. Military families went with their men when possible and returned to the reservation when they weren’t allowed to go to posts in war zones.

My father was a master sergeant in the army and a full blooded Apache. My mother was born on the Isabella Reservation in Mount Pleasant Michigan. She is Ojibwa. My grand father was a six-foot 8-inch Full blooded Ojibwa who left the reservation to find work. He and my grandmother lost two of their 8 children to malnutrition and disease as toddlers. My mother was their first surviving child. She married my father at age fifteen and followed him to California where I was born when she was seventeen.

When I was four, I was living in Louisiana and had a black baby sitter. I asked her why her skin was such a pretty dark color. She said that god had made her with chocolate. White people were made with vanilla. I asked what flavor I was and she said a ginger snap.

When I was in the first grade living in San Antonio Texas, my teacher went around the room using last names to illustrate emigration. When she came to me, she said “Your ancestors probably came from Mexico.”

I shook my head and replied, “No, I don’t think so, I think we didn’t come from some other country but were always here.” I told her we were native Americans. My classmates asked if my parents wore paint and feathers. In all innocence I answered “Only on Sundays.” My mother wore a hat to Church with feathers on it. She used makeup then too.

When we were away from the reservation, people assumed my mother was Hispanic and tried to speak Spanish to her. My Apache grandparents spoke Spanish. I learned a little as a preschooler. I was lighter skinned than my brothers, favoring my maternal grandmother.  I often confused people who weren’t familiar with my Apache face. I have been mistaken for someone from the Philippines, or asked if I were Caribbean, Samoan, or even Eurasian. Until the flower children began viewing all things Native American as mystical, it wasn’t popular to be thought an Indian. People living near reservations held negative opinions of us, believing we were all alcoholics, came from broken families and obstinately held to beliefs that were little better than ignorant superstitions. Children were placed in schools where they were forbidden to speak their native languages. They were shipped far from home and forced to conform to mainstream religion and cultural beliefs. If we wanted to learn more of our culture, we had to make an effort to seek out elders who would teach us.

This has led to a gradual decline in the numbers of native people who remember who they are. Somethings I have learned by watching the adults in the family are:

Babies and young children are people too. They should receive the love and attention of the family. Native American babies aren’t left to cry but move from loving lap to lap. Small children are encouraged to master tasks to add to the well being of the family because all hands can make contributions.

Elders are to be respected and listened too. They have survived many things and can offer much wisdom.

If you have something and another doesn’t, then share. Gifting your little extra will come back to you someday when you may need it.

You are as the great mystery has made you. Value the gift of life and make the world a better place for having been born in to it.

Don’t fear death, it is just another change like birth. Just because we don’t know what to expect doesn’t mean it won’t be good.

We aren’t superior to our brothers and sisters who walk on four legs or swim in the streams or fly. All living things are equally the children of the maker. That is why we owe them respect if we take their lives to live.

These are the gifts I carry in my heart as I walk the world and they define who I am as much as my dark hair and high cheekbones or the fact that I became totally blind at age eight.

ELCA World Hunger and Lutheran Disaster Response have always been intricately connected, but in recent months global events have reminded us again just how vital the work of God through these shared ministries is for communities around the world.

The depth of the humanitarian and refugee crisis in Ukraine and across Europe will require a yearslong response. Incredible generosity to Lutheran Disaster Response in the wake of the Eastern European crisis and to ELCA World Hunger over the last 18 months has enabled us to temporarily expand our work in impacted regions. Because of our donors, we are better-equipped and better-resourced to support our global neighbors as they face great challenges.

As the world yearns for an end to this terrible conflict and its far-reaching consequences, in this issue of “LifeLines” we lift up stories of hope, of new opportunity and of God at work even amid tragedy and instability. We know that the effects of the war in Ukraine are far-reaching, which makes the relationships our church has with local communities around the world so important.

In this issue, you will read about a project of our companion church, the Evangelical Lutheran Church in The Gambia. The church is working with women such as Anna, a caretaker of a cashew farm in The Gambia, whose story is shared in this issue, to create new opportunities for food security without reliable imports from Ukraine.

You’ll also read about Rosita in Guatemala, who at just 11 years old made the difficult journey with her father to try to migrate to the United States. In Tacoma, Wash., rapid gentrification is forcing longtime residents out of their neighborhood, but Peace Lutheran Church is seeking justice by enabling those neighbors to afford to stay or return.

We look back at the work made possible by gifts to Lutheran Disaster Response and the efforts of our companions and partners in the five years since the devastating 2017 hurricane season. And we look ahead to the work that remains in response to civil unrest, famine and drought in the Horn of Africa.

The world faces some incredibly complex challenges in the days ahead, but we know that God stirs up wellsprings of hope that inspire generosity and tireless efforts for peace, justice and a future filled with good things. We thank our donors for being a sign of hope through their support of ELCA World Hunger and Lutheran Disaster Response.

Janjay Innis, Tucker, GA

Warm-up Questions

• How do you define politics?
• Do you believe God can be part of the way we do politics?

Personal Faith Is Political

According to Wikipedia, politics, from the Greek politika (“affairs of the city”), is the set of activities associated with making decisions in groups, or other forms of power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of resources or status. It’s jarring to see such a definition because politics is currently far from what it was intended to be.

At home we see the political parties in the United States determined to tear one another down for the sake of promoting their agendas.  Across the world dictators and greed-stricken leaders, driven by the insatiable thirst for power, disregard the well-being and humanity of their people.  Politics has lost its original meaning. Today, politics has less to do with leaders coming together to figure out how to adequately distribute resources.  It is more about how one side can portray who and what they have power over.

Because many people around the world have only seen and lived through the ugliest political economies, they truly believe that it’s simply the way things ought to be. Thus, when given the chance to lead, they often fall into the very patterns they detest. 

Discussion Questions

• Where have you seen, heard, or read about bad politics?  good politics
• Do you believe politics has the capacity to be decent? If so, how?
• Can and should Christians be involved in politics? Why or why not?
• Is it possible for Christians to NOT be involved in politics?
• What responsibility do people of faith have for the tone of political debate?

Christ the King Sunday

Jeremiah 23:1-6

Colossians 1:11-20

Luke 23:33-43

(Text links are to Oremus Bible Browser. Oremus Bible Browser is not affiliated with or supported by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. You can find the calendar of readings for Year C at Lectionary Readings.)

For lectionary humor and insight, check the weekly comic Agnus Day.

Gospel Reflection

Many would say faith is deeply personal, and thus has no place in politics. But as the radical feminist Carol Hanisch wrote, “the personal is political.” Jesus, who is the center of our faith, would agree. Everything Jesus did—the disciples he chose; the people he healed, fed, and engaged in dialogue—were acts of redistributing resources and status. Jesus was unapologetic about his politics.  On the cross, he publicly forgives his accusers and executioners, saying, “Father, forgive theme for they know not what they do.”  And he pardons the thief crucified beside him, saying “Today, you will be with me in paradise.”

In God’s political economy, which Jesus embodied throughout his life, there are no sides. In God’s political economy, there is no concern with upholding power which draws lines between people. In God’s political economy, the undeserving, the least of these, the poor, and the disenfranchised are forgiven and redeemed.  Jesus moves them from the margins to the center through radical love, hospitality, and inclusion. And though the Romans thought they were mocking him by calling him king, Jesus’ actions, contrary to the way kings of his day ruled, made him a true king. 

Though Jesus is no longer physically with us, we carry on God’s politics when we do as Jesus did, mirroring his life and seeking the reign of God here and now.  Our faith is always deeply political.  It reflects our values—and our values guide our actions in the world. Christ is our King, and in his kingdom there is no hierarchy.  All are welcomed and transformed.

Discussion Questions

• From the cross Jesus said “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do?” Have you been forgiven for something you were guilty of? What was that like?
• What does it feel like to forgive? Is there power in it?
• What makes Jesus’s act of forgiving guilty people like his accusers, crucifiers, and the thief controversial? Is there room today to forgive such people?
• How have you seen the reign of Christ in your community lately?

Activity Suggestions

Hats Race:

Two teams will run a relay to the hats, put a hat on and run back to their team member, who will then run down to the pile of hats for their team and put on another hat. This will continue until all the hats for each team have been put on and everyone is back on their team line. When their team is done, they will all say together JESUS CHRIST IS KING!! Teacher, make sure that there is a CROWN in your pile of “hats” to go along with today’s story!

Jesus and the Superheroes Game:

Download the printable PDF, Who is the real superhero? It contains a chart that your kids can complete to compare Jesus Christ, King of the Universe, to their favorite superheroes.  Have  your kids pick their favorite superheroes and fill out the chart.  Detailed instructions for filling the chart can be found at the website linked to the title of this activity.

Closing Prayer 

Christ, you are the sovereign of all he world, including every element of our lives.  Rule our hearts, that every  value, action, attitude, and choice may be pleasing to you.  Come, Lord Jesus, that your will may indeed be fully done on earth as it is in heaven.

Situation:

In December 2021, western Kentucky was hit by a series of deadly and destructive tornadoes, destroying over 1,300 homes. In July 2022, record-setting floods inundated communities in eastern Kentucky. The flooding caused heavy damage to homes and local infrastructure. Recovery in both areas will takes years.

 

Response:

Since December, Lutheran Disaster Response has been working closely with the Indiana-Kentucky Synod in developing long-term recovery plans for each disaster. In each region, the synod is collaborating with local partners to repair and rebuild homes damaged by the tornadoes and flooding. The grants from Lutheran Disaster Response are being used for construction material and labor costs.

 

 

Be part of the response:

Pray
Please pray for people who have been affected by the tornadoes and flooding in Kentucky over the past year. May God’s healing presence give them peace and hope in their time of need.

Give
Thanks to generous donations, Lutheran Disaster Response is able to respond quickly and effectively to disasters around the globe. Your gifts to Lutheran Disaster Response will be used to assist survivors in Kentucky and around the world.

To learn more about the situation and the ELCA’s response:

• Sign up to receive Lutheran Disaster Response alerts.
• Check the Lutheran Disaster Response blog.
• Like Lutheran Disaster Response on Facebook, follow @ELCALDR on Twitter, and follow @ELCA_LDR on Instagram.
• Download the situation report and share as a PDF.

Dave Delaney, Salem, VA

Warm-up Questions

• 1. What’s the most impressive building you’ve ever seen or visited in person? What was the effect on you? Why do societies build such big, solid, expensive, and ornate buildings? 
• What’s the giveaway signal that someone is trying to sell you a dubious story  – a politician or a sales spokesperson or even a teacher? Why are some people drawn to believe fantastic claims that really should raise people’s suspicions? When do know to trust rather than doubt what someone is saying?
• How worried or confident are you about the security of your own future? Many young adults are hesitant to get married and start families because they believe that the future of humanity and even the earth itself is uncertain. What is your outlook on life for the next 50 or 75 years?

  Apocalypse Now?

President Putin of Russia has recently claimed that he will not employ nuclear weapons in Ukraine, but even clear-headed analysts are not completely convinced. Furthermore, our own President Biden has said that we are closer to nuclear war than at any time since the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. 

All of this, in turn, has elevated the anxieties of the American public to a point that has become noticeable by people who study these things. Peter Kuznick, a history professor and director of the Nuclear Studies Institute at American University, also compared the present situation to that tense standoff almost exactly 60 years ago between the United States and Soviet Union, when the latter country’s leaders secretly placed nuclear warheads in Cuba. Kuznick observes, “And that was short-lived. This has gone on for months now.” 

A Reuters-Ipsos poll conducted on October 10^th concluded that “58 percent of respondents said they fear the United States is headed toward nuclear war.” Furthermore, the Spring 2022 “Stress in America” survey by the American Psychological Association and the Harris Poll found that 69 percent of respondents believed they were watching the beginning of World War III. 

This recent escalation of nuclear rhetoric has gotten the attention of scientists who maintain the so-called “Doomsday Clock” – a symbolic “clock” that since 1947 has represented an estimate of how close humanity is to extinction from its own actions. 

How serious is this phenomenon of worry in the United States? Amir Afkhami, associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at the George Washington University, notes that older adults have enough historical experience and perspective to put it all in context, but also adds that his patients actually seem more concerned about midterm elections and the economy than the specter of nuclear conflict. “We have a new generation that has never experienced that potential for Armageddon.” So it seems that if nuclear war doesn’t destroy us, politics and economic catastrophe will – or at least that’s how it seems to a growing segment of younger Americans. 

Discussion Questions

• What do you think of people in our own day who use “apocalyptic” language to describe the possibility of something devastating, like climate change, economic collapse, or World War III? Are they just using extreme language to get people’s attention for political purposes, or are they really speaking the truth?
• Where are the positive or uplifting messages coming from in our society today? What signs are there that people inspired by love and respect for each other can work to reduce the fear that so many people experience?
• There is a story about Martin Luther – probably just a legend, but it fits with his views – that when asked what he would do if he knew the world would be ending tomorrow, he said “I would plant an apple tree.” Knowing that Jesus tells his followers that in the face of certain doom, “This will give you an opportunity to testify,” what signs would *you* give that you trust in God’s care for how everything ends?

Twenty-third Sunday after Pentecost

Malachi 4:1-2a

2 Thessalonians 3:6-13

Luke 21:5-19

(Text links are to Oremus Bible Browser. Oremus Bible Browser is not affiliated with or supported by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. You can find the calendar of readings for Year C at Lectionary Readings.)

For lectionary humor and insight, check the weekly comic Agnus Day.

Gospel Reflection

The gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke all have sections where Jesus makes dramatic predictions about things that will happen in the future. Because these things seem to be hidden from general knowledge and are being revealed as special information to Jesus’ followers, they are called “apocalyptic” sayings. These terms “apocalypse” and “apocalyptic” are Greek words meaning “uncovering” or “revealing.”

The way they get used now, they often imply mass destruction or catastrophic changes in the world (like large-scale nuclear war), mainly because the Book of Revelation (“Apocalypse”) in the Bible contains such scenes of cosmic devastation. These sections of the gospels are often called “Little Apocalypses” because they are much shorter than the whole book of Revelation, but still match its tone, depicting sometimes terrifying events, in contrast to much of the rest of Jesus’ teachings.

The bottom line of the Bible’s apocalyptic passages is not just a call to be alert to big powerful changes on earth and in heaven, and certainly not to wield private information as if it were a tool to use against those we consider unfaithful.  Rather, they provide all people with promises of hope, justice, and God’s steady presence in the face of frightening historical events. 

Discussion Questions

• Jesus’ disciples speak for us all when they ask for some advance warning when the strong and familiar structures they’ve relied  on are about to come tumbling down, whether they be buildings or governments or other social systems. In response, Jesus warns against trusting in anything but God’s solid protection, and especially against trusting anyone who claims to know exactly when things will be disrupted. Who are the people in your life whom you trust to remind you of the good news of the gospel when the temptation to panic is strong?
• Notice how quickly Jesus turns people’s observations about the beauty of the Jerusalem temple into, first, a warning about a coming destruction, and then into a comment about maintaining a witness when our faith is challenged. He says not to worry in advance about what you will say, because when persecution or ridicule happens, the right words will come to you. This suggests that he has so fully prepared his followers that words of love, justice, and forgiveness, and trust in God will flow naturally from what they have heard and internalized. What regular practices do you have (memorizing scripture, singing Christian songs, praying for your enemies, watching for God’s inbreaking activity all around you, etc.) that are so much a part of you that they would just naturally emerge when you are confronted?
• Being “hated by all because of [Jesus’] name” in our own day can mean supporting those who have been isolated or ridiculed or bullied or denied justice because they are vulnerable or different. Sometimes young people suffer because their family identity or sexual identity doesn’t match the majority, which makes them easy targets for those seeking power or popularity. Would you, in the name of Jesus, befriend such a person, even if it cost you your own safety or status? Befriending someone who is hated by others, and then being ridiculed for it, will, in Jesus’ words, “give you an opportunity to testify.” What promises and teachings of Jesus would you draw on for support in such times?

Activity Suggestions

• Jesus frequently uses physical images and objects to guide his disciples into a deeper understanding of God’s grace and love (sheep, buildings, coins, water, bread, salt, etc.). Challenge each other to think of how any object in the room you’re in can be used to represent or describe the reign of God. Use your imagination!
• Invite a senior member of your congregation (someone perhaps 70 or older) to visit with your class and describe what it was like to live with the fear of nuclear war in the 1960s, and especially ask for how their faith in God helped them stay resilient and have hope for the future.
• Look in the topical index in the back of your congregation’s hymnal for hymns about “Hope.” Are any of them familiar? Invite each person to select one hymn and note what phrases or verses are especially comforting when we as Jesus’ followers begin to worry about the state of the world or potential disasters.

If the class is ambitious, check out other “apocalyptic” passage in the Bible. Some examples are Isaiah 24-27, Ezekiel 38-39, Zechariah 12-14, Daniel 7-12, Matthew 24-25, II Thessalonians 2, Jude vss. 14-15, and Revelation 4-22. These passages are characterized by vivid symbolic imagery, the presence of heavenly beings, catastrophic predictions, and conflict between good and evil on a cosmic scale. How does studying such passages help strengthen our faith?

Closing Prayer

God of hope and history, we rejoice and find peace that you hold all things in your care, including the future. Bless each of us as we strive to be good witnesses to your love in the face of opposition and let your Spirit calm the hearts of those whose worries threaten to disrupt their lives. In Jesus’ name we pray, Amen.

 

By Rev. Peter A. Pettit

We have just navigated our way through Reformation Sunday once again and many in the church will have wrestled with the appointed texts of the Revised Common Lectionary. Jeremiah’s “new covenant,” Paul’s “faith apart from works of the law,” and John’s “if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed” all lean into the problematic posture of the church’s millennia-long anti-Jewish rhetoric. Few among us want to go there; any echo of that rhetoric in our preaching and teaching is usually unintentional. The ELCA in 1994 spoke explicitly, in “A Declaration of the ELCA to the Jewish Community,” of “our urgent desire to live out our faith in Jesus Christ with love and respect for the Jewish people.” That means we need to learn to step clearly away from even unintentional offenses into which the lectionary and long-standing theological habits might lean us.

A 56-page guide that has recently been published on the ELCA website lays out steppingstones for taking those deliberate steps of understanding, respect, and authentic representation in relation to our Jewish neighbors and their faith traditions. The guide distils decades of recent research into accessible sections focused on ten key areas of textual, historical, and theological significance. Prophetic language, Jewish leadership in Jesus’ day as well as Jewish diversity then and now, Jesus and the Torah, gospel contexts, Paul among Jews and Gentiles and Martin Luther’s reading of Paul, law and gospel, promise and fulfillment, old/new language regarding covenants, and the dynamics of lectionary constructions all gain clarity through the explication of core principles and numerous examples. Indexes to both scripture and the lectionary calendar aid in locating relevant discussions.

The guide was developed by the ELCA Consultative Panel on Lutheran-Jewish Relations with input from many ELCA colleagues, consultants in the Episcopal, Roman Catholic, and Presbyterian churches, scholars from around the world, and Jewish partners. Dr. Phil Cunningham, a leading Roman Catholic expert at St. Joseph’s University, admitted to a measure of “holy envy” when seeing the guide published. (Of course, he was quoting the Lutheran bishop, Krister Stendahl, with that phrase!). Prof. Ruth Sandberg at Gratz College and Prof. Dan Joslyn-Siemiatkoski at Boston College have already committed to using it in courses on “Post-Holocaust Theology” and “Un-doing Anti-Judaism in the Church.”

Rabbi James Rudin, senior interreligious advisor to the American Jewish Committee, plans to use it in a local dialogue group in Florida. He cheers it as “most useful on a ‘retail’ level (congregational clergy and laity) because it clearly focuses on many of the neuralgic issues present in authentic Christian encounters with Jews and Judaism.” Abel Bibliowicz, author of Jewish-Christian Relations: the First Centuries (4^th ed., 2022), has called the guide “thoughtful, courageous and paradigmatic…, a groundbreaking and admirable effort.”

As a handy reference to support weekly preparation, a study document for a clergy or adult study group, or the focus of a retreat or learning series on thinking as Christians in relation to Jews and Judaism, the guide can provide resources for a wide range of settings in the church and beyond. It can be accessed as a downloadable PDF on the ELCA Ecumenical and Inter-Religious Relations resource page and through tinyurl.com/ELCApreachingguide.

 

Peter A. Pettit is teaching pastor at St. Paul Lutheran Church in Davenport IA and a member of the Consultative Panel on Lutheran-Jewish Relations. For 20 years he directed the Institute for Jewish-Christian Understanding of Muhlenberg College.

 

Emily Edenfield, Irmo, SC

Warm-up Questions

• Who do you consider to be an enemy? 
• For whom do you usually pray?

Across the Divides

Open any news website and you’ll see a world divided into groups. Some people have what they need and others don’t. There are wars and political parties. Some live in cities while others are in the country. There are generational, racial, and religious divides. 

Some divides are natural.  Some are made or exaggerated by those who use conflict to gain power or money. In an election season, we see parties and candidates sharpening the divides among voters, trying to gain as much support as they can for their cause. 

I’ve lived in both cities and in the country–and in a few different states. There are commonalities among people everywhere I’ve lived. Most people want the best for themselves, their families, and the world.  But we disagree on what that looks like and how we can bring it about. 

Discussion Questions

• What different groups do you experience in your life? 
• Where do you see people agreeing, despite other differences?
• What is worth disagreeing about? 
• What is worth dividing a group over?

All Saints Sunday

Daniel 7:1-3, 15-18

Ephesians 1:11-23

Luke 6:20-31

(Text links are to Oremus Bible Browser. Oremus Bible Browser is not affiliated with or supported by the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. You can find the calendar of readings for Year C at Lectionary Readings.)

For lectionary humor and insight, check the weekly comic Agnus Day.

Gospel Reflection

One of the hardest things that Jesus teaches about is the change that God’s kingdom brings about in this world. The ones who seem blessed will have a downturn. The ones who seem distressed will have good things come their way. And the ones that we least want to deal with are the same people that we’re supposed to pray for. 

The Beatitudes is one name for Jesus’ teaching about what it means to be blessed. In Luke, the Beatitudes are like a roller coaster ride: what goes up must come down and what goes down is bound to come back up. We don’t need to be too worried about where we are now, because we know that God is with us on every hillside and valley of the ride.

God knows that this world isn’t the way God made it to be. God loves all people and wants us to care for each other. And yet, we are divided in a hundred ways.  Sometimes it’s by culture or distance, sometimes by our own choice—or someone else’s choice to separate from us. Jesus calls us to resist efforts to divide us and  care for one another across the divides.

Discussion Questions

• When in your life has something bad led to something good?
• How did God work through or around the bad thing? 
• What did you learn from the situation?
• Have you ever had an enemy? How did that happen? What did you do about it?
• Resilience is the trait we develop by overcoming challenges. How does our faith in God help us be resilient?

Activity Suggestions

• Play a game where participants are divided up by different categories. Have everyone who likes sweets move to one side of the room and everyone who likes salty snacks move to the other. Or people with brothers and people with sisters move to opposite sides. See if you can find a category where everyone agrees. (People who are baptized, people who go to a certain church or school, people who like/don’t like the communion wine…)
• Brainstorm together times when we might expect change to be right around the corner. (Graduation, moves, breakups/new relationships…) How does our faith help ground us when everything seems up in the air?

Closing Prayer

God, you made all people in your image. Help us to see our common places with other people and to know that you are always with us. Amen. 

 

By Richard J. Mammana

The Episcopal Church’s 80th General Convention in Baltimore this summer was a watershed moment for relationships of Lutherans and Anglicans around the world. The triennial gathering was delayed by a year because of the global Covid pandemic, but the bicameral legislative process (one house for bishops and another for priests and lay deputies) has been in place since 1785. The General Convention makes decisions about the mission and governance of The Episcopal Church, the official name of which is the Domestic and Foreign Missionary Society of the Protestant Episcopal Church in the United States of America.

ELCA Presiding Bishop Elizabeth Eaton brought prerecorded video greetings to the assembly, wishing God’s blessing on its deliberations. She was joined by Dr. Heinrich Bedford-Strohm of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bavaria and new communion partners the Rev. Susan C. Johnson of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada, and Archbishop Antje Jackelén of the Church of Sweden.

While the video greetings were brief and represented an accommodation to health precautions, they were also a sign of increasing depth and breadth in international Anglican-Lutheran relations. (Previous conventions have had in-person ecumenical guests, observers, preachers, and participants from across the Christian spectrum in addition to the presence of representatives from other religious traditions.)

2022 marks two decades of full communion between the ELCA and The Episcopal Church—a pioneering decision for Christians in the United States that now bears fruit in about two hundred ministry sites including combined church plants, shared facilities, joint camping ministries and governmental advocacy, food pantries, campus ministries, archival work, very regular exchange of pastoral care and preaching, and collaboration in educational initiatives. Resolution A183 celebrated continued cooperation and shared ministries between the ELCA and The Episcopal Church.

Two memorial resolutions honored the contributions of Episcopal priest-ecumenists J. Robert Wright (1936-2022) and William Norgren (1927-2022) for their work in shepherding the dialogues that led to Called to Common Mission and the current full communion relationship. Another resolution continued the mandate for the Lutheran-Episcopal Coordinating Committee, which provides resources for implementation of the full communion between the churches: devotional and educational material, liturgical guides, historical documentation, and asset mapping, in addition to constituting a contact group for relations on the official denominational level.

This year also saw an expansion of Called to Common Mission in the United States and the Waterloo Declaration for Canadian Anglicans and Lutherans by creating a new ecumenical, transnational grouping called Churches Beyond Borders. This is a quadrilateral or four-way relationship among the ELCA, The Episcopal Church, the Anglican Church of Canada, and the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada. Drawing on a 2018 agreement at Niagara Falls, Ontario, this new full communion family affirms the integrity of the bilateral relationships while committing the four churches to ongoing work on the Doctrine of Discovery, climate change, racial reconciliation, gender justice, and other matters specific to North America. It will have important applications in the 13 American states that border Canada and the six Canadian provinces and one territory that border the United States, where First Nations communities and their life and work can both pre-date and transcend national boundaries.

The Episcopal Church also continued this summer to work toward deeper bonds with international Lutheran bodies—one looking back to 350 years of mutual contact in colonial North America and the other to the ongoing needs of the church for diakonia in refugee and asylee resettlement in modern Europe.

The 2022 General Convention’s acceptance of a relationship of full communion with the Church of Sweden completes proposals begun in the 1850s and contacts that began in the middle 1600s. Swedish colonial churches in Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, Pennsylvania during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries offer early examples of shared ministry between Anglicans and Lutherans; most Swedish Lutheran churches of this period had joined The Episcopal Church by the 1840s. Great waves of Swedish immigration to the United States, sometimes without adequate ecclesiastical accompaniment, further intensified the coming-together of these communities and resulted in 45 Swedish-speaking missions of The Episcopal Church throughout the United States. Full communion will facilitate the sharing of clergy and the greater mutual integration of Americans into Swedish church life and vice versa, fulfilling three and a half centuries of life together. It will also give a deeper context for international disaster relief work done in common and with shared partners.

Still one more emerging connection moved forward in Baltimore this summer is The Episcopal Church’s commendation of a proposal entitled “Sharing the Gifts of Communion” (the Augsburg Agreement) with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Bavaria. The background for this agreement is partnership in diaconal ministries in southern Germany by members of the Convocation of Episcopal Churches in Europe and the clergy and leaders of the major local Lutheran landeskirche (regional church). The urgency of this collaboration has intensified in the past five decades along with globalization and Germany’s acceptance of large numbers of refugees from regions of conflict or social oppression. A strong postwar presence of Americans in Germany is part of the explanation for the vitality of Episcopal churches here. The Augsburg Agreement, when accepted by both churches, will make for a new transnational Christian relationship in the further service of the Gospel, rooted in existing regional and international agreements extended to a fresh context in creative ways.

The persistence and proliferation of these Episcopal-Lutheran relationships is notable because of their responsiveness to changing religious and social landscapes in all of the places where they are emerging. Just as global Lutheranism marked a 500th anniversary of gospel freedom in 2017, Anglicans will look to a similar five centuries of our Lutheran-inspired reforms in 1534. The two communities have been in arrangements of mutual communication, occasionally antagonism, and often strong support of one another for all of this time, with a summer of new and renewed connections drawing a bright line under important trajectories of recognition and repair.

My long view of these new horizons in Episcopal-Lutheran relations is that something very good is afoot, and that it will not make headlines in the same way that the earliest movements toward ELCA-Episcopal full communion did. There is no more controversy; all of the General Convention resolutions passed without dissent in two houses famous for their canonical precision and (sometimes partisan) passion. In the short space of twenty years in the American case, strangers now are friends because of one Lord, and for the sake of one world. There has been little news coverage because the decisions generate all light and no heat.

For the other outgrowths of mutual love and recognition, the CCM experience of deep realization that we see ourselves in one another—and that in each other we must also see Jesus Christ—provides an impulse to seek other forms and opportunities of similar connection wherever they can strengthen the church for the healing of the nations. Denver has led us in its way to Waterloo and then to Niagara, and now to Uppsala and Frankfurt by way of Baltimore, and we are glad indeed.

 

Richard J. Mammana has served as Episcopal Church Associate for Ecumenical and Interreligious Relations since 2014. A descendant of the founders of German Lutheranism in eastern Pennsylvania, he is a staff member of the Lutheran-Episcopal Coordinating Committee (lutheran-episcopal.org).

Today’s blog post comes from Rev. Lisa Heffernan, ELCA Disability Ministries coordinator

I’m just going to be honest here. All month I’ve been procrastinating on writing this blog post. Why? I’m not sure, I guess. Perhaps it’s because it asks for a bit of vulnerability on my part. You see, it’s October, and October is spina bifida awareness and disability awareness month. Spina bifida is the neural tube disorder I was born with, so I can tell you all that I am intimately “aware” of it every day. Do I hate it? No. Not at all. Are there challenges/frustrations that come along with it? Yep. Has spina bifida shaped how I live and move in a world that was not created with me and others like me in mind? Absolutely.

Before I get too far down a rabbit hole of rambling, here is a bit about this spina bifida that approximately 1,400 babies are born with each year. It comes in several different forms, some of which are occulta, meningocele, and myelomeningocele. On the whole it means that there’s an incomplete closing of the spine and the nerves of the spinal cord in the early development days and weeks of pregnancy. You can look up all kinds of information on the different forms, but I have myelomeningocele which is the most “severe” form. I was born with some nerves exposed on the lumbar part of my spine and had to have that patched up and a shunt put in right after I was born due to swelling of the brain. Oh, and I use a wheelchair full time too. My current one’s a bit worn and weathered, but I like it and the independence it gives me.

So, the question I’m not sure how to answer is this: Why does anyone, why does the church need to be “aware” of disabilities like spina bifida? I don’t want people to feel bad for me because I don’t (and I say “don’t” intentionally here) walk. What I want is dignity, respect, and an equal, equitable place in society and at the Table with my siblings in Christ. I want to encourage people to try and understand more about the things that make each of us who we are; spina bifida in so many ways has made me who I am. I want for the wider Church to be “aware” and repentant of the ways in which it has intentionally and unintentionally excluded disabled people and told us we don’t matter to anyone—not even to God.

I also pray that this body of Christ can come to understand that our world needs more reforming. That the time is more than past for attitudes and harmful theologies to be challenged, and for us to care more about our ministries to all of God’s people than what shortening a pew might do to the aesthetics of a sanctuary. That we can come to some collective understanding that a disability isn’t an obstacle to a person being a fine pastor or deacon. Instead, what is the or an obstacle? Attitudes of scarcity or lack of holy imagination, and a hesitancy to find out what it might take to make our churches and places of fellowship barrier free.

For me, this awareness month/s isn’t about simply learning what spina bifida is or saying how “inspiring” disabled people are. (Just don’t say that…seriously. We’re human. Just as faulted, sinful, loving, and capable as you.) It’s about making we who follow Christ aware of the beauty in this diverse community.  All so that we can strive together to share the love and grace of Christ with one another, seek justice and equity for one another, and live out what we mean when we say “all are welcome at the Table of our Lord”.