A Love Note from God

May 14, 2023 / erikamorck / Leave a comment

May 14, 2023 – Mother’s Day

Grace and peace to you dear friends in Christ, from God our Father – and a special blessing of peace and abundant gratitude to all mothers on this day that we honor you.

Sometimes, I found them in my lunch box nestled between the same old same old PB&J or Turkey sandwich and the resplendent orange Cheetos – aside from those Cheesy wonders, they were the best thing in my lunch box – other times they were tucked under my pillow waiting for me at bedtime, still others arrived in care packages when I was far from home – love notes from Mom.

Notes that took her place when she could not be there to protect me from the world or when I was too grown up to be tucked in at night but still needed assurance that she was near and the night was not to be feared. No matter the circumstance, she always seemed to know in advance just what I would need to know in that moment – that she believed in me – that I would never be alone – that she was sorry – that she loved me more than words can say. I never tired of finding her heartfelt words intended to help me through whatever challenge I was facing…They gave me courage to face whatever the day had in store for me – when I was the new girl in school, when junior high bullies made life miserable, when adult life was messy, when my heart was broken, when I had more questions than answers, when I was afraid of failing, when I was confused or felt terribly alone. Later in life, when our spoken words held more heat than light, her written words would gently soften and heal my heart.

Though my mom and I had a difficult relationship in later years, my memories of her now are only ensconced in love. I’ve been missing her for over 7 years now and every once in a while, when I am searching through the room where I piled all my collected junk upon moving here – I’ll come across the stack of letters and even some of the lunch notes she gave me. At once, her love comes flooding over me – once again encouraging me – and reminding me that I am not alone and that I am so very loved. Even though she cannot be with me, somehow, I know she still is.

This morning, we find Jesus preparing his disciples for hard days ahead when he too, will no longer be with them. We have jumped back to the before times – before his crucifixion – before the disciples’ lives are turned upside down – before the world is changed forever. It is the Last Supper. Bread has been broken and wine poured, feet have been washed, the betrayer has left. I imagine the disciples sitting back pleasantly full from their meal and relaxed after their feet have been lovingly refreshed. There is an ambiance of warmth and intimacy. But now night has fallen and darkness enters in – as Jesus announces he is leaving the disciples. Not just leaving but going to the Father. The one for whom the disciples left everything, with whom they have risked their lives, and who has transformed their lives – now says he is going where they cannot yet go. Imagine sitting with someone you love and have devoted your life to as they speak such foreboding words – words you don’t want to hear let alone believe – that soon they will not be with you.

This was one of my greatest fears growing up and even into adulthood – often keeping me awake long into the night – that my parents would die, that I would be abandoned, that I would find myself alone in this world.

As does anyone who has ever loved and lost a parent, a spouse, a child, a friend, their sense of security, their hope – I imagine the disciples had questions like these running through their minds: What will I do now? Where do I go? What happens next? Who will love, nurture, and guide me? Who will stand by me? What will become of me? Who am I now?

Questions that speak to our greatest fears and challenges – abandonment and isolation, loneliness and vulnerability, loss of identity and purpose.

We fear becoming orphaned, forgotten, left behind. That fear points to the deeper reality that by ourselves we are not enough. That maybe this world is too much for us – that maybe we are not up to the life we’ve been handed. It is not, however, because we are deficient – though millions of dollars are made convincing us that we are. It is because we were never intended or created to be self-sufficient. Though millions of dollars are made implying that we can be transformed as such.

We were never intended to stand alone. We were created in love to love and be loved, to live in relationship sharing ourselves with one another; to dwell, abide, and remain within each other. There is a joy in companionship that is life giving. It gives us a sense of identity and meaning and belonging – a joy that Jesus shared with his disciples and followers up to this point.

But there are seasons of life when the transitions, changes, and tragedies take us off course and leave us without an identity or direction – when we feel we are destined to walk alone; when the community surrounding us seems distant or foreign; when we feel forgotten by a world that just goes on without us as we try to find our footing – try to find our way. When the life we have known is suddenly pulled out from under us, it can be hard to do anything but draw inward and seek security from within. But this just furthers our sense of abandonment, exclusion and isolation.

Jesus knows this. He has been there – wandering in the wilderness, chased out of towns he once called home, and soon he will be there again, forsaken by the disciples he loves in the Garden of Gethsemane. Knowing his words of departure will leave his followers distraught he speaks these powerful words into our lives: “I will not leave you orphaned. I am coming to you.”

Regardless of the circumstances of our lives, death, separation, the storms we endure, even sin – when we forsake our relationship with God, we have never been and will never be abandoned by God. Jesus promises that just as he was by their side as a living Advocate as the Way and the Truth, as a comforter, helper, counselor and encourager, the Father will give us another who will come along side us – The Spirit of Truth.

Jesus promised, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you forever.”

Into a world which neither sees or knows this truth, into a world that would have us go on feeling abandoned, questioning ourselves, and conditioning God’s love for us and our love for others, into a world where loneliness has reached epidemic proportion, God sends us another Advocate. Just as Jesus did, the Spirit comes along side us to advocate for us in the face of all these challenges, reminding us of Jesus’ promise to be with us and for us in the face of all the things that conspire to make us doubt our worth in God’s eyes, let alone the world.

Six weeks on from Easter Sunday, how many times have you needed someone like that?

How many times have you wondered where God was? And, how can it be as the ways of this world take hold of us, that we are worthy of and capable of unconditional love and loving unconditionally as children of God? How can we possibly live and move and have our being as offspring of the Creator – for whom the good shepherd laid down his life?

It is a hard identity to hold onto, a hard identity to believe is really ours, especially when we are stressed or frightened, unsure about our future, or when have let others down, hurt another, and it feels like everything has been turned upside down. How can we ever love Jesus enough?

Six weeks on from the empty tomb I pose this question – what then do we believe? Is Jesus, for us, as The Way, the Truth, and the Life – a past memory, a sentimental story that makes us feel good, or a living experience that challenges, guides, and nurtures our life?

Though we often hear it as such, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments” isn’t a conditional statement. This isn’t an if/then statement where Jesus says – only if you love me will I love you, nor is it – If you keep my commandment, I will love you. No, it is a promise! Jesus has loved us from the beginning. He came to give us life and to give us life more abundantly. (John 10:10) He is telling us that by loving him we are fulfilling the new and greatest commandment given just before this passage begins: “(T)hat you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” –(John 13:34-35)

When fulfilled, this new commandment transforms our lives, our identity and our direction – and reveals his promise to us.

Jesus promises that we will see and know Him and that because He lives, we also live. This promise isn’t just for some future heavenly life – but pertains to the quality and way of our life now. Because He lives means we live in a different away. Eugene Peterson’s The Message translation words it this way: “because I am alive you’re about to come alive. At that moment you will know absolutely that I’m in my Father, and you’re in me, and I’m in you.”

With this promise, with this LOVE, with this Spirit within us – we live and move and have our being in this world sure of our identity and calling as Children of God. We no longer ask whether we keep commandments – we just do. We no longer ask whose feet we should wash – we just wash them. We accompany and comfort, guide and encourage others not for any gain on our part but for the sheer joy of relationship. We no longer put boundaries on love – our love for others or God’s love for us. When we love as Jesus loved, the Spirit comes alongside us to help us love without limits! To help us love our neighbor as ourselves, to love our enemies, and to love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength.

As our lives are challenged, guided, and nurtured we see Jesus as a present reality and as our love grows and expands – transforming ourselves and the world in the process – we see his promise fulfilled – that we are not left orphaned. On the contrary – we are surrounded by love.

Just to be clear – there are no prerequisites on the love of Jesus. Keeping the commandment of Love does not make Jesus present to us. Even when we feel unable to love, even if we remain self-enclosed and isolated – Jesus remains faithful to us and his promise to never abandon us is still real – we simply have not claimed it for ourselves.

Keeping the commandments do not earn us Jesus’ love, they reveal our love for him, a love that originates from his abiding love and presence within us.

As my mother’s lunch box love notes over and over again encouraged me and reminded me that I was not alone and that I was loved – more than words could ever say, over and over, day after day, regardless of what is happening in our lives, the Spirit abides within us – reminding us of Jesus promise: those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them…”

We have not been abandoned so do not abandon yourselves or others to the dark places of this world. Love with all that you are and all that you have just as the Father and the Son love us more than words can ever say.

We have received the best love note we could ever hope for – God’s Son.

Let your light so shine!!

Rising with the Son

April 19, 2023 / erikamorck / 1 Comment

“What a God we have! And how fortunate we are to have him, this Father of our Master Jesus! Because Jesus was raised from the dead, we’ve been given a brand-new life and have everything to live for, including a future in heaven—and the future starts now! God is keeping careful watch over us and the future. The Day is coming when you’ll have it all—life healed and whole.”
– 1 Peter 1:3-5

Winter came abruptly last year and its resilience has held a tight grip on my yard well into this year, laughing at the sun’s feeble attempts to break through its icy grip. But finally, on the afternoon of Easter Sunday, I was able to get to work on clearing away the remains of a summer and autumn that ended too quickly for my taste and schedule.

It was a dirty job, raking away piles of leaves and late summer’s last blooms caught unawares by the first heavy snowfall that perpetually covered my windblown neck of the world in feet of deep drifting snow, then ice, then more snow, and so on. As I raked away the layers of winter’s wrath, I’ll be darned if I wasn’t at once surprised and then heartened to see the first green sprigs of my cottage yarrow making an earnest attempt at life peeking out from the cold ground. I paused, momentarily, and praised their hard work of making their spring-green presence known, and I felt the weariness of winter loosen its grip on me. New life had won the day!

New life has a way of surprising us, doesn’t it? Often coming when we least expect it (as with those sprigs of green popping through winter’s leftover wrath.) As I returned to uncovering the rest of my yard, I pondered how easy it would have been to miss that resurrection moment in my fervent rush to get the raking done, to get rid of the death winter wrought on my yard.

We experience many deaths in our lives and they usually don’t go unnoticed – actual death, a life changing diagnosis, job changes, relationship changes (even marriage brings death to a certain way of being), children leaving the nest. Every day that we live a part of us is dying away.

But just as death closes a door on our lives, new life opens one. How often do I miss these resurrection moments happening in my life every day?

As Father Richard Rohr writes:

“I want to enlarge your view of resurrection from a one-time miracle in the life of Jesus that asks for assent and belief, to a pattern of creation that has always been true, and that invites us to much more than belief in a miracle. It must be more than the private victory of one man to prove that he is God. Resurrection and renewal are, in fact, the universal and observable pattern of everything. We might just as well use non-religious terms like “springtime,” “regeneration,” “healing,” “forgiveness,” “life cycles,” “darkness,” and “light.” If incarnation is real, and Spirit has inhabited matter from the beginning, then resurrection in multitudinous forms is to be fully expected.”^[1]

For many, many reasons, Easter is by far my favorite day of the year. Not just my favorite Holy Day but favorite day of the year. It is the one day I don’t hit the snooze button at least once – but rather bound out of bed anticipating the SON rise! It’s the day we “officially” celebrate Resurrection both of our Lord Jesus Christ and, if we are honest, of our winter and death weary souls. But after the rush to church (and I do mean rush as sometimes I get carried away with my “son-gazing” photography at dawn), festive worship services filled with rejoicing among friends and family in the light of the Resurrection, Easter Egg hunts and eggsellent brunches – I find the quiet of Easter night every bit as meaningful. For it is then, as the day quiets down, that it is just me and my Lord sorting out what all this means. And just what does it all mean for me tomorrow and the day after?

Will I live my life any differently tomorrow knowing that nothing can separate me from the love of God; that eternal life is for me now, that incomparable love and belonging are mine now; that forgiveness and true freedom are mine now – just as I am? AND that because of this living truth, I can share all this with anyone and everyone I encounter – in my current capacity – just as I am without fear, without judgment, without holding back?

Or will I fall back into the ways of this hard and weary world? Will I allow the deaths in life to obscure the opportunity of the new life they bring?

It’s a question I am faced with every morning – when the weight of the world presses in on me, when my faith, hope and joy are challenged by the news of the day, by doubt, uncertainty and darkness. Will I still be spring green and earnest and grasp the new life that continues to beckon in the midst of everything? Or will I hit the snooze button and let the storms of life and darkness pull me down?

I wish that I could say I live every day reflecting confidence that I know my Redeemer lives – and that I for certain know what that means for me in my very ordinary, often messy, anything but spring green life. But I don’t.

No, again and again I am shown the Light and choose to look away, I know the Truth and still choose mine, I know the Way – but still wander in circles.

Thankfully, every day we are given a new life – not just a chance at one. “(We) have been crucified with Christ and (we) no longer live, but Christ lives in us. The life we now live in the body, we live by faith in the Son of God, who loved us and gave himself for us.” (Galatians 2:20)

New life is right there waiting for us to wake up – we are new every morning! Our old selves die away and we rise with the SON – with Christ – opening doors to new ways of being: knowing that nothing can separate us from the love of God; that we have life eternal in an incomparable love and belonging; that we are forgiven and truly free; and, free to forgive. AND because of this living truth, we can share all this with anyone and everyone we encounter – without fear, without judgment, without holding back.

Just as the earth dies away each winter – bringing cover and nourishment for the new life that emerges each spring, we are resurrected into life to bring life to the world. Rise anew with the Son as the sun rises. It’s a gift and a reason to jump out of bed for – not just on Easter Sunday – but every day.

Let your light so shine!

^[1] https://cac.org/daily-meditations/the-resurrection-of-all-things-2023-04-10/

On this Easter Night

April 9, 2023 / erikamorck / Leave a comment

Easter is by far my favorite day of the year. Jesus Christ is Risen today – how could it not be? It is the one day I don’t hit the snooze button at least once – but rather bound out of bed anticipating the SON rise! But after the rush to church (and I do mean rush as sometimes I get carried away with my “son-gazing” ) festal worship services, rejoicing and congregating with friends and family in the light of the Resurrection – I’m finding the quiet of this Easter night every bit as meaningful. For now, in this quiet at the end of the day, it’s just me – and my Lord- sorting out what all this means.

Will I live my life any differently tomorrow knowing that eternal life is for me now, that freedom is mine right now, that incomparable love is mine now, that belonging is mine now, that forgiveness is mine now – just as I am – AND that I can share all this with anyone and everyone I encounter – in my current capacity – just as I am?

Or will I fall back into the ways of this hard and weary world?

It’s a question which continuously begs to be answered – one I am faced with every morning. I wish that I could say I live every day in a manner that exudes confidence that I know My Redeemer lives – and that I for certain know what that means. But I don’t.

No, again and again I see the Light and still choose darkness, I know the Truth and still choose mine, I know the Way – but still wander aimlessly in circles.

Despite all this, tonight, I am at peace, I can rest, knowing that nothing can separate me from the love of God – not even me.

May it be so with you too.

May you carry Easter’s truth and light with you in all your ways and all your days.

Christ is Risen indeed!!

In the Shadow of the Cross

April 8, 2023April 8, 2023 / erikamorck / Leave a comment

Holy Saturday, the day in-between. Our Lord has been crucified and now we wait – wait for the celebration we know is to come – of resurrection, of life, of promise, and hope. But for now, we are suspended. Suspended in the grief of our Lord’s death – shocked by the brutality of Good Friday – perhaps more cognizant of our fallen ways. With a broken spirit, I am uncertain of how to go about this day. Some will go about the day as if it were any other Saturday – sleeping in, working out, doing household chores, runs to the dump, shopping, and if we are lucky to be free of snow, some early Spring yard work or a trek into the hills.

And why not? It is difficult to dwell in grief and uncertainty; to live with the darkness a day like Good Friday brings into our being. We want to move on – quickly – to the joys of life we know and are coming. We want to live in the triumphant brass and bold joyous singing and drink in the “Good News” of Easter morning. And so we do anything to distract us from what this day in the Christian belief system represents – Jesus Christ’s death and descent to hell and the numbness and fear felt by Jesus’s followers after the horrifying events of the previous twenty-four hours. A day where a suddenly and frighteningly unknown future pierces the heart.

I know this day well, perhaps you do too. I lived it after the deaths of my parents and the end of my marriage. Anyone who has been on the journey of life for a good distance is cognizant of what a great loss can do to upend your world. The day after death. The day after your heart is broken. The day after the divorce. The day after the job was lost. The day after the diagnosis. The day after a dream was shattered. The day after a part of your life has died. The day after a part of you has died. Today is the day after, where putting the pieces of life back together seems unimaginable; when the sheer shock of catastrophe that muted our feelings and sheltered us from the raging storm has worn off.

Today is the hard day. Today is the painful day of initiation by reality. The time after the funeral when the calls and visits stop. The uneasy time between your diagnosis and treatment, when there is absolutely nothing you can do but wait. Today embodies the loneliness and the nothingness that invades the soul when friends no longer check in as they must get back to living their lives and your life is supposed to get back to normal. And isn’t that what we all really want to do – just get back to living our normal lives?

But the thing is, great loss changes you, forever. Normal will never look the same again. Great loss forever unsettles you from the life you once knew. Life won’t be the same. You won’t be the same. The shadow of The Cross will transform you.

It may harden you; it may fill you with bitterness or remorse. It may soften you and make you more present. In whatever manner, it will change you. And you find yourself here – on a day just like today. How will you live in it and how will you live it? How has the shadow of the cross changed you? Will you let it change you?

We’d all like to think the travesty of what happened on the cross wasn’t necessary. Surely, we had no part. But without the horrors of The Cross and the bleak uncertainty that reigns over This Day, we would not know the hope and promise of new life tomorrow – Easter Day – and every day – reigning in our lives as I write.

New life sprang from The Cross and in the tomb a history-changing transformation began and because of that, new life can spring from the cross you are in the shadow of now.

And so, as we face our shadows with life at times suspended, as we try to carry on – however unsettled and uncertain each day may be – remember Jesus also endured this Day After, this Time In-Between. Trust that God is neither absent from nor inactive in your life. God was creating a new vision of life that none on that day after Good Friday could imagine. We know that God raised Jesus from the depths, providing the ultimate turning point for time immemorial and God is not finished. He is never finished. God never stops creating us anew and He never stops loving us.

Today, God is at work – redeeming and restoring the whole of creation with His mercy and grace. Let this be so. Let His will be done.

Happy Easter!!!

“Here it is in a nutshell: Just as one person did it wrong and got us in all this trouble with sin and death, another person did it right and got us out of it. But more than just getting us out of trouble, he got us into life! One man said no to God and put many people in the wrong; one man said yes to God and put many in the right. All that passing laws against sin did was produce more lawbreakers. But sin didn’t, and doesn’t, have a chance in competition with the aggressive forgiveness we call grace. When it’s sin versus grace, grace wins hands down. All sin can do is threaten us with death, and that’s the end of it. Grace, because God is putting everything together again through the Messiah, invites us into life—a life that goes on and on and on, world without end.”
Romans 5:18-22

Let your light so shine!!!

Resurrecting Life

May 1, 2022May 13, 2022 / erikamorck / Leave a comment

A sermon on John 21:1-19

I grew up listening to the late great radio broadcaster, Paul Harvey, every day at noon. I would come home from grade school for lunch and there was his uplifting voice delivering the day’s news – sometimes good, often not so good as this was the 70’s and we were in the middle of a severe economic and energy crisis. Nevertheless, he always ended his broadcast with – the rest of the story – a story about life and ordinary people living it.

That’s how I heard today’s Gospel story – picking up from last week’s climatic closing:

“Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.” John 20: 30-31

Today’s story opens with three descriptive words: After these things… Can you imagine the emotional exhaustion all those things brought on? It’s been a busy time in the lives of the disciples: Jesus appeared to Mary Magdalene in the garden outside the tomb, and then twice to the disciples in a house in Jerusalem, showing them his wounds, giving them the Holy Spirit, and commissioning them out into the world to proclaim, forgive, and heal: As God has sent me, so I send you and all that great stuff!

When we heard those closing words from John at the end of last week’s Gospel lesson it sounded like we were done. Done with the resurrection stories! But guess what – Happy Third Sunday of Easter!!

John and Jesus will just not let them or us go! John is like me – he loves his words!!

So now – just as Paul Harvey did so well drawing us into what I thought was the best and most important part of his program – we have the rest of the story…

And it is one of my favorites! We get a taste of what life in Jesus’ name is all about.

After all those things had happened, we have before us a restless and still uncertain but earnest Peter, a dark night on the sea, no fish and lots of fish, a charcoal fire on the beach at dawn, questions, answers, and Jesus! The scene is a vivid one, and it is one that makes my senses come alive. The salty sea air, the smell and warmth of a charcoal fire on a brisk dawn morning, the taste of fresh caught fish cooked on an open flame – it just makes me sigh.

But this is no ordinary morning coffee among friends and Jesus.

We are not certain of the amount of time that has passed since that final scene at the house in Jerusalem, but Peter has gone back to fishing and Jesus is still at work.

Perhaps you too have gone back to fishing? Maybe you hooked a few during the Mack Days fishing competition? Maybe you’ve endured a few rough goes on the water – be it a sudden spring storm or nothing at all to show for your efforts.

The disciples have returned home to where it all began. They’ve gone back to fishing – back to their old ways and former lives. They’ve traveled about 80 miles from the place of Jesus’ resurrection to their boats and the familiar waters of the Sea of Tiberias and given themselves to their old routine of fishing. Where the pieces of life fit together and make sense.

Now, I don’t know a dab about fishing. I’ve never baited a hook, cast a line, jigged a rod, or waited hours for a bite. But I do know well how it feels to be like Peter and gone-a-fishin’.

After the dramatic and traumatic events the disciples lived through the last three years and especially during the last three weeks of their lives with Jesus – who can blame them for seeking the security of their lives in the before-times. The time before Jesus.

They are back to doing what they know and do best – fishing off their home shores – except they are not having much success.

Isn’t that what we all want to do after a dramatic or traumatic experience or when life gets complicated and challenging and we can’t see our way forward? Sometimes even after the wonderful and exciting events of our lives – who doesn’t catch themselves saying – well, I’m glad that’s over with – now I can get back to normal. Even after the ordinary out of ordinary times we breathe sighs of relief! Maybe after Lent concluded and the celebrations surrounding Easter were done – you murmured quietly “now I can get back to business as usual – have my Wednesday nights back and not feel so adamant about attending worship on Sunday.”??? The pandemic inspired much pining for the before-times. Many of us are now searching for a new sense of purpose and deeper meaning in our lives.

When life gets difficult, when we become lost, confused, and afraid, when the changes of life are not what we wanted or think we deserve we tend to run away or seek refuge, comfort. We try to go back to the way it was before – to something safe, something familiar. Even when we do not want to go backwards – backwards always seems easier than moving forward into uncertainty and fleeing humans naturally favor the path of least resistance.

After a long dark night on the sea the disciple’s net is empty and sagging and I imagine their spirits were too. Because no matter how close to home they are, no matter how familiar their daily routines are once again, their lives are not the same. How could they be? They have spent three years in relationship with Jesus – it was life changing – and then it was over – in the most dreadful of ways!

They are fishing for answers to the piercing questions that sound painfully familiar in our own dark nights adrift at sea: What just happened here? Who was Jesus? Where is he? What have I done? Who am I? What now? Where am I going? What will happen to me? Are you even there, God?

What once gave them purpose and meaning doesn’t do it for them anymore. They are adrift on the water, directionless. Is this what life in His name feels like?

Peter may have left Jerusalem, but he can’t leave behind three years of discipleship, the miracles he witnessed next to Jesus, the love he learned to show, the life of abundance instead of scarcity he experienced. He cannot forget the last supper, the arrest, the charcoal fire, the denials, that crowing rooster that haunts his dreams. He cannot unsee the cross or the empty tomb; he cannot un-feel the fear in the house with the doors locked tight or ignore the echoes of “Peace be with you.”

In times like these I used to go for really long runs – sometimes really really long runs! Unfortunately, I’m paying for all those mindful marathons now (ha).

What do you do? What do you do when you are searching for meaning, a way forward, a place in life? Answers? Peace?

We have all spent time asking the same questions as Peter. Often in the context of the failures, losses, and sorrows of our lives or when our life just doesn’t have much life in it. When our sense of the way things should be is no longer. When we come face to face with our life in this world and our identity and purpose no longer feel so certain.

We can leave the places and even the people of our life behind, but we can never escape ourselves or our life. Wherever you go, there you are and all that went on before comes with you. The good news is – so does Jesus.

Perhaps you’ve sensed the power of new life, the promise of the risen Jesus, even the helpful contributions you might make as you returned once again this year – especially this year – to the Easter story — but you are afraid or too painfully aware of your own shortcomings – you suspect you are disqualified, or unqualified, or in any case incapable of answering God’s call on your life – His call to live in His name.

Or maybe, as theologian & writer Henri Nouwen shared regarding searching times like these “it seems easier to be God than to love God, easier to control people than to love people, easier to own life than to love life.”

It is in these moments when we come face to face and heart to heart with Jesus. We may not recognize Him at first – just like the disciples didn’t recognize Jesus calling to them from the shore at first.

Have you sensed something pulling you forward – perhaps in a direction you are not certain you want to go? Where the security and comfort you are accustomed to may not be as certain? Have you listened for Jesus to answer when you realize you “have no fish” in your current state of being, doing what you’ve always done? Do you find it easier to be God than to love God, easier to control people than to love people, easier to own your life than to love life? Easier to just live your life rather than live your life in His name?

“Children you have no fish, have you,” Jesus calls out to the disciples and us – calling us out of the dark and empty nights, the pain of our past or current circumstances – out from the running away and the fishing on the wrong side of the boat.

“Cast your net to the right side of the boat,” He says. Run to me. Love me. Follow me.

Jesus calls us – His children – to move from our errant thinking into truth, out of sin into righteousness, out of death into life.

When we drift about aimlessly or find ourselves lost in regret or guilt, Jesus, knowing all there is to know about us, calls us ashore and fills our nets with abundant grace; by the fire He warms and unites us with His presence, at the dawn of a new day He restores us to Him, to one another and to ourselves; He feeds us for the Good Way ahead; and He loves us three times over by teaching us how to live.

To our questions and self-doubts and professions of love for Him, Jesus meets us where we are and gives purpose to our life sending us out to feed and tend His sheep: to be leaders in love – yes even you (!), to look out for others – yes you(!), and devote ourselves to finding and building His community. Jesus provides for our most basic human need – a sense of purpose and with that a belief that what each of us does matters. Even when we fall short of our aspirations, disappoint, or transgress- which we will do time and again – Jesus keeps calling us to Him and sending us forward with purpose, meaning and a sense of belonging to something greater than our own cause.

Calling us to live in a way that may not be familiar and not always easy but most certainly transformed. Resurrected living, you might call it.

Run to Me. Love me. Follow Me, “ Jesus says, “Live as resurrected people. I’m giving you a new life in my name.”

Amen.

In the Shadow of the Cross

April 18, 2022April 18, 2022 / erikamorck / Leave a comment

May be an image of nature, grass, twilight and sky

Jesus: “In the shadow of My Cross, you sit. My body and life are missing today. Gone.

What was is no longer and what will be is not yet. You’re not only wondering about what is next but if there will even be a next…”

***

I know this day well, as I suspect many of you do too.

It was the day after my mother died and again, the day after my father died.

It was the day after my marriage ended – in a courtroom far less holy than where it began.

It is the day after all you lived for now is no longer.

It is the day after death. Where hope seems beyond grasp and clarity only brings despair.

A part of your life has died. A part of you has died.

Today is the hard day. Today is the painful day of initiation by reality.

The day we realize again and again that it really did happen. This is our new reality.

And it brings with it feelings: grief, sorrow, hurt, fear, anger, guilt, and shame – feelings so magnified they consume us. The torrent of our tears leaves us exhausted and depleted.

Anyone who has been on the journey of life for a good distance is cognizant of what a great loss can do to upend your world.

I’m not going to try and paint a pretty picture here -the day after changes you, forever.

Normal will never look the same again. Joy and beauty and happiness will never be the same again. Nor will pain. Life simply will not be the same again.

You won’t be the same.

Great loss forever unsettles you from the life you once knew.

***

Jesus: “Today you are in the shadow of My Cross. The Cross that will transform you. The Cross I turned from an instrument of death into the Tree of Life. And in so doing I made living for tomorrow possible. A tomorrow where you are no longer imprisoned by your losses – no, they become your story of life. A new life. Tomorrow, your life begins again as it does every day in Me, not apart from your losses but through them. You will grow and live a new life in the light of My resurrection and My life.

I promise you this:

“I will take you from the nations, and gather you from all the countries, and bring you into your own land. I will sprinkle clean water upon you, and you shall be clean from all your uncleanliness, and from all your idols I will cleanse you. A new heart I will give you, and a new spirit I will put within you; and I will remove from your body the heart of stone and give you a heart of flesh. I will put my spirit within you, and make you follow my statutes and be careful to observe my ordinances. Then you shall live in the land that I gave to your ancestors; and you shall be my people, and I will be your God.” -Ezekiel 36-24-28

Let your light so shine!!!

Darkness

April 15, 2022 / erikamorck / Leave a comment

Lord, teach me…

April 14, 2022 / erikamorck / Leave a comment

“Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.” John 13:1

“I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” John 13: 34-35

Oh, that we might all love to our very end and that we might be loved too.

If I have one regret in this life – it is that I have not loved enough. I ask for your forgiveness. Lord, teach me how to love like you.

Risking Joy

April 10, 2022April 10, 2022 / erikamorck / Leave a comment

A Palm Sunday Sermon

April 10, 2022

Luke 19: 28-40

And then the day came, when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom. – Anais Nin

Those words have inspired many hard decisions I have made in my adult life. As I was seeking inspiration for what I might say to you today I was reminded of those poetic threshold words penned by Anais Nin – words that encourage us to take the risk we are contemplating -to open ourselves to the world – to leave the comfort of what we know – be vulnerable – and welcome what awaits us.

During the season of Lent we leave our false comforts of life and enter the wilderness with Jesus. We did our best to withdraw from the busyness of the present and our favorite numbing distractions. Sometimes we choose to sacrifice or live with more intention. Always, we meditated and prayed and allowed the protective walls between our sensitive spirit and the complexity and conflict of contemporary life to fall. We let ourselves be vulnerable – if only to ourselves – but hopefully also to God.

Perhaps we got to know Jesus better – the radiant child King we lavishly celebrated at Christmas. Hopefully, in our Lenten wilderness with Jesus, we let Him get to know us better too – our fear, grief, even rage and yes, our longings, loves and deepest joys. Perhaps we have wept and hollered and let our weakness and exhaustion show in these sacred and vulnerable 40 days.

For some, the past two years have been an eternal wilderness. In pandemic America, many were forced into long periods of separation, refrained from celebration, and we worshiped in solitude, without the pomp and joy of gathered community. Indeed it has been three years since we last celebrated Holy Week all together. Now as we enter a new & uncertain phase of life amid a pandemic, we are learning how to be together again. Many of us are raw with grief and despair over lost loved ones and broken relationships, lost dreams, and financial hardship. Distrust of those in power runs rampant, strife and division corrode our foundation as a country and a people. And war in Ukraine is taking lives and livelihoods and threatens the stability and safety of the world. It seems like we live in an ongoing crisis, burdened by crosses laid upon us and of our own making. It’s been a while since we have known true unfettered communal joy.

The people we meet today traveling to Jerusalem with Jesus also bore crosses. Crosses of oppression and poverty, sin and sickness, despair, and death. In Jesus day, the cross was the prescribed form of capital punishment. Biblical historians tell us that it was common for the road to Jerusalem to be lined with crosses each of them bearing a body. Picture those roadside crosses you pass on Hwy 40 as part of your daily commute, or the ones erected at the 10 Commandments display with a body hanging from them. Anyone who took that way from their home to the market, or from the market to the temple, or from the temple to a friend’s house, would have no choice but to encounter these grim instruments of capital punishment on a regular basis. They didn’t have the privilege of speeding by in the comfortable confines of a vehicle. They walked with eyes turned away, but they smelled the stench, and they heard the horrors of death on a cross. Imagine the threat and constant terror the Roman Empire instilled in the people who lived in the shadows of those crosses – their lives and hopes shriveled by this unspoken but most deadly of all messages of power. They were also divided by caste and social privilege and lived with suspicion & scorn for one another. This was the grim reality of Jesus’s day.

Today we with the disciples step away from our individual realities and join a celebration of our shared walk with Jesus – a triumphal entry into a new way of thinking and seeing ourselves in the world. Today we join the multitudes on the road to Jerusalem and begin the journey of Holy Week. I’ve seen Holy Week referred to as a Holy symphony with four movements. In years past we have observed the first three movements as Palm/Passion Sunday because the church has argued that you can’t have the finale – the resurrection – without first experiencing the triumphal entry, betrayal and death and most people won’t darken the church doorway after today until Easter morning. But this year this week’s Holy Symphony will have its full expression throughout the days ahead.

And I am glad for that. Palm Sunday feels like life to me — rich and full and complicated and contradictory. And so very expressive of those times in our lives when we stand at a threshold with a choice to make. Today we are at such a threshold as we reflect on a series of events that changed the world and even today – changes our lives if we allow ourselves to fully experience the passion of our Lord.

The last days of our friend, Jesus who lived out our human experience to the fullest, whose deeds of power were indeed worthy of our praise, but who also chose to walk, laugh and cry with us and emptied Himself for us so that we may have true life.

During Holy Week, just as we often do in our own lives, we have a natural tendency to focus on the worst of what Jesus experienced: the betrayal, the agony, and finally his death. But it’s really important for us not to lose sight of the triumphant entry. It is a joyful experience, inspiring feelings of communal gladness we haven’t felt in a while.

So let’s spend some time here in this triumphal entry into Jerusalem cheering Jesus on, waving our palms, and throwing our cloaks down before him – all the while acknowledging that many of the very same people we join on that road shouting, “Blessed is He” will be in the ugly mob that cries out “Crucify him” on Friday as this same Jesus, an innocent man, is tortured and executed for alleged crimes against the Empire. There is joy and there is despair. This was and is our human experience.

What did you feel this morning as you entered the sanctuary and sang that wonderful song of glory to our Redeemer and King? What was in your heart as you waved your palm branches high? Joy? Surely not a yawn!

The people cheering for Jesus that day abandoned their dignity, not to mention an important material possession by throwing their cloaks down on the road in front of Jesus. They let go of their fear and troubles and were lost in wonder, love, praise, and joy. What did you let go of – if only for a moment?

And what about Jesus? What was He feeling inside? The text doesn’t give us much to go on if we want to know his state of mind during the grand parade. He certainly seemed certain of how the events would play out. I hope He too felt immense joy, don’t you? Then again, a recipient of praise and adoration of this magnitude might also feel uncomfortable – I know I would!

But Jesus would not have been fully human if he didn’t experience intense joy, maybe even giddy abandon, and yet we rarely picture him that way. I wonder why that is? Do we feel guilty for being joyful amidst a suffering world? Does suffering deny the existence of joy? Does joy deny the existence of suffering?

As I think on the nature of the Jesus I know, I think He wanted the people to feel wonder and joy – to have a taste of the kingdom in which He reigns. To show that joy comes from knowing a love greater than any fear – a joy that can be felt even in the worst of times. And what joy this day must have brought Jesus to see the hearts of his followers, hearts long hardened by fear and oppression, open again to wonder and love!

Joy in the midst of a politically and personally dangerous time for Jesus. Because this was not a simple parade down a road to Jerusalem. Jesus was committing a subversive act against the powers of the Roman Empire. Pontius Pilate was on his way to Jerusalem too because this was the feast week of the Passover, the celebration of God’s triumph over the greatest superpower of its day. This would be foremost in the minds of the Jews in their celebrations of the event. Imperial Rome generated feelings of hatred and contempt from many of its subjects. Pointing to their feelings, the writer Tacitus said, “[The Romans] rob, they slaughter, they plunder — and they call it ‘empire.’ Where they make a waste-land, they call it ‘peace.’

Because of this, the Romans distrusted associations, crowds, and gatherings such as the one we find celebrating the arrival of Jesus in Jerusalem and it explains why Pontius Pilate and his legions would have left the comfortable confines of his palace in Caesarea Maritima for the parochial space of Jerusalem. To reaffirm the Empire’s authority and power over the people. Some accounts say it was likely that Pilate was conducting his own triumphal entry upon mighty steeds of war into Jerusalem from the opposite direction while Jesus was making his way through the throngs of adoring. cheering people.

The royal implications of Jesus’s entry to Jerusalem are clear in the words of “the whole multitude of disciples” who praised Jesus as the Messiah, the Christ, the King who is to come. Obviously, this made the Pharisees very nervous. They had warned Jesus before that Herod wanted to kill him and had advised Jesus to lay low. Now they implored Jesus to silence the disciples. They knew that such a display of royal pretense would bring down the wrath of those in power in Jerusalem, whether it be the Sanhedrin, Herod, or Pilate. They didn’t want to rock the boat.

But Jesus chose to do the hard thing and the brave thing – He chose to rock the boat – to open the eyes and hearts of his followers and ignite a joy so powerful even stones would shout of it. On a lowly colt, Jesus made Himself vulnerable to the will of the crowd and the events of the days to come. His followers chose the Joy of Jesus that day – they aligned themselves with his authority – not one of oppression, fear, and death – but of compassion, love, and life. They crossed a threshold and took a step forward on the road that would change their lives forever – and they were filled with joy.

And about that crowd – that is after all the role that most of us are taught to play in the passion liturgy – as we wave our palms and shout our hosannas to Jesus and later this week as we join in the calls for Jesus’s crucifixion.

How is it that we can be so united both in our positive energy and our negative, destructive, even violent energy? We still see this play out in the social, cultural, and political fronts of our lives today. To whose authority are we choosing to live under?

Franciscan writer Richard Rohr talks about two ways of gathering or creating unity among people. One is the way of love: “God unites by the positive energy of loving, shepherding, and revealing the divine presence in one’s midst.” Unfortunately, there is another more common and more efficient way to gather people and form group cohesion. “You can either rally around love to unite, or you can rally around fear, gossip, paranoia, and negativity.” Fear and Hate can be as powerful and enticing as Joy and Love.

Palm Sunday captures much of our human complexity and the observances of this Holy Week before us will show us the fullness of God and humanity. We have many opportunities to gather together, and I encourage you to participate in all of them.

There’s a question I want you to contemplate as we enter this week: will the way we gather here as a people, as the Body of Christ, change the way you gather with others outside of these walls? Will we choose to reflect the Joy we know in Christ, choose to be “good gatherers”, people who unite others based on our best instincts, not our worst? Will you lead others to light or allow darkness and fear to permeate?

In his meditation on how to unite people, Rohr concludes, “There are still two ways of gathering: the way of fear and hate, and the way of love. But do not yourself be afraid, because Jesus is still gathering.”

Jesus calls us to take the risk of joy. This week of all weeks, we know how great the cost may be when we take that risk and listen to the call of Jesus. But the day has come, when the risk to remain tight in a bud is more painful and costly than the risk it takes us to blossom. Let’s take that risk. Let’s joyfully walk in the way of love — together.

Amen

Let your light so shine!!

Miles Apart

April 19, 2021 / erikamorck / Leave a comment

It can be a long drive to my “other life.” When the weather is favorable for windshield time, I actually relish the time behind the wheel as the mountains of NW Montana give way to the big wide open of Eastern Montana. When the weather doesn’t cooperate with my travel plans (which is at least 75% of the time) it can be the longest butt toning session ever undertaken! I had both experiences for my Easter trip home this year.

Armed with road snacks, MT’s own John Denver aka Mike Eldred and Phil Aaberg CD’s (yes I am old school) ready to rock me across the Divide, a plethora of podcasts loaded for my intellectual advancement, and 3 seasons worth of clothing (this is Springtime in MT) for 4 days of travel, I departed the Flathead on a very fine Good Friday.

It was a wonderful day for a road trip! Especially on the backroads that I love. Blue skies and dry roads were abundant. As I crested the Continental Divide and saw nothing but flat land and open sky before me, the deep freeing sigh that occurs every single time escaped my being. The open road ahead of me is not only the way home but an invitation to what I lovingly call my prairie wondering. It takes me awhile to get to this place of thinking deep thoughts. The stresses of packing and repacking, dropping the talkative dog off for his staycation at the ranch, and navigating the traffic to get out of the Flathead take a while to loosen their grip.

As I delighted in the multitude of calves finding their bearings in this great big, sometimes cold and harsh world, I couldn’t help but say a little prayer that all would be well, that all matters of being would be well – for them and for us, and yes, for me. For life has been uncertain of late – not unlike the lives of those darling mooers frolicking about in the warm sun – within moments a predator or sudden spring storm could snuff out all that was to be.

But while one could dwell in that particularly unsavory side to the cycle of life – which has been easy to do during this yearlong global pandemic (another cyclical event) – it is all part of the eternal pattern of change and transformation. Franciscan contemplative, Richard Rohr, says that for change and transformation to happen, we must move from Order (those warm times of carefree frolicking in the sun) to “a period—or even many periods— of Disorder.” Often that means loss and disappointment. “There will be a death, a disease, a disruption to our normal way of thinking or being in the world.” The ways of being and doing are disrupted and our notions of control and certainty are displaced by a sense of restlessness, an unease with our very nature and place.

I know I have grown increasingly unsettled – despite being pretty much homebound for the last year. With the busy trappings of my pre-pandemic busy life stripped away, I have had to come to terms with the core foundation of my life – the bare essence of who I am without external forces laying claim to my identity. I haven’t always liked what I have uncovered. And I wonder if others have found themselves in the same state of dismay. Rohr says this “is necessary if any real growth is to occur.”

The Disorder stage is all about letting go of control and stepping “out of the driver’s seat for a while,” Rohr says. (The Wisdom Pattern: Order, Disorder, Reorder [Franciscan Media, 2020].) Then we can open ourselves to Reorder, where we radically “let go and let God.” Which is why the template for “Order, Disorder, Reorder” is Jesus, who surrendered to God’s will, was crucified and was resurrected.

“Letting go and letting God” is easy to do when you’re driving across a landscape uncluttered by the demands of modern life and mirrors that dare you to compare your lot in life to those around you, not to mention bathe in the murky waters of your failures and regrets. It’s easy to hide behind the guise that while our world is plagued by righteous hate, sadness, power, fear, and judgement -thinking that I am somehow not a part of that – until I realize that I most certainly am! I sometimes feel I am stuck in a never ending state of the Christian observance of Good Friday – that darkest of days when all of humanity’s sin and ugliness were foisted upon a divine savior, Jesus, and hung on a cross to die a bloody death.

It’s times like that which inspire thoughts of putting the pedal to the metal and driving off into the sunset in search of an escape from it all – from me, from the world, from life – a place to start over – to start fresh.

Thankfully on this particular Good Friday, I had a rendezvous with Easter and family awaiting my arrival, which got me to thinking about which side of the cross I tend to live on on a daily basis – because Easter is not just a single spring Sunday once a year, nor is Good Friday a single dark day preceding the celebration of resurrection and new life.

Have I ever truly opened myself to the Reordering of life that God offers us – all of us – freely – freely if I surrender all my sins, failure and regret from my inherent need to control them – have I ever paid more than lip-service to surrendering them all to Him?

As the miles (and there are a lot of them on this particular journey) rolled on, I realized just how far apart the life I am allowing myself to live is from the life God wants for me. In my heart, I felt alienated from myself. In that moment, I knew that I knew little or nothing of my own heart. I have kept my distance out of some disabling fear of what I might find.

Henri Nouwen wrote: “Where we are most ourselves, we are often strangers to ourselves. That is the painful part of our being human. We fail to know our hidden center; and so we live and die often without knowing who we really are. If we ask ourselves why we think, feel, and act in such and such a way, we often have no answer, thus proving to be strangers in our own house.” [You Are the Beloved: Daily Meditations for Spiritual Living, by Henri J. M. Nouwen]

Jesus didn’t go to the cross for me or you to remain wallowing in fearful despair, regret, or sin. Nail those gifts from Satan to the cross, right now! Jesus longs to make his love known to us in the seclusion of our hearts, to free us from our fears, and to make our own deepest self known to us – even the parts we would like to hide. Only through Jesus can we come to know and love ourselves so that we might love as Jesus loved. Only then can we help others know and love themselves – free of their failures, regrets and the righteous hate, sadness, power, fear, and judgement that pervades our world.

That is the side of the cross I want to live on. It’s not far away at all – it is within me and you. The journey however won’t be easy. Jesus knows that well.

Just like those calves tasting life for the first time, amid the harsh landscape of their vulnerable reality, we need a savior to tend us. Jesus knows what seeks to destroy us from within and without and He will seek you out, yes, even you wandering wretchedly in the wilderness. Jesus will bring you safely home. Jesus gladly gives you His life to fend off the wolves and promises you a reordered, resurrected life – every single day you walk with Him.

That’s a promise that will stay with you for the rest of your journey down the highways and back roads of life. You won’t always frolic in the warm sun like those Easter calves, but you will always have Jesus shortening the miles between the life you live and the life God wants for you – life on Easter’s side of the cross.

Oh, and here’s one more for the road – a timeless guitar melody that will take you places fast! Don’t Look Back Turn it up and let it all go!

“Look at this: look! Who got picked by God! He listens the split second I call to him. Why is everyone hungry for more? “More, more,” they say. “More, more.” I have God’s more-than-enough. More joy in one ordinary day, than they get in all their shopping sprees. At day’s end I’m ready for sound sleep, for you, God, have put my life back together.” – Psalm 4: 3, 6-8
The Message

Let your light so shine!

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