Ascension blog

Reformation Sunday: October 25, 2026  In the past few years, artificial intelligence programs have become everyday tools. ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini and Anthropic’s Claude are used to design graphic presentations, craft essays, and carry out all kinds of research projects. You give the program a prompt and it generates the relevant materials based on the vast trove of information it has assembled via the Internet. These AI platforms also have video editing programs that allow you to create a video just by typing in a brief description of what you have in mind. For example, you can type in: “Dog arrested for stealing rib-eye steak from Costco.” The program will then scour its data base and create a video a dog arrested for stealing a steak from Costco. The video will have the production values of a Hollywood movie. This program empowers everyone to become a film producer. Like all technologies, this one can be used for evil purposes, like spreading misinformation. In fact, these video programs were immediately put to use to create fake news stories and political propaganda. One has to assume these days that any video one sees on social media is fake and computer-generated. So on the one hand, this new technology is empowering: it liberates us from lots of time-consuming work. But in another way, this technology takes away our freedom. We are no longer free to trust our eyes. In fact, artificial intelligence is in many ways plunging us deeper into a world of untruth and unfreedom. The fervent believers in AI say that it benefits will vastly outweigh the drawbacks. It will transform life for the better. Soon artificial intelligence will far surpass human intelligence. Soon computers will be self-improving; they will know how to make themselves smarter and smarter. That’s the moment the tech visionaries are working toward. That’s when the explosion of knowledge will truly become exponential. With robots conducting millions of studies every day on ever vaster sets of data, and with AI crunching the numbers, humanity will enter a new world of technical advancement. Every technical problem will be solved. Medical advances will be extraordinary. Life spans will be extended. That’s the hope that drives the true believers in AI. And, of course, there’s lots of money to be made along the way. AI promises us freedom. It promises there will be increased productivity and lots of leisure time with the robots doing the work. But this freedom may well turn out to be a new kind of slavery as more and more of human energy is devoted to supporting and servicing these computing machines. More of earth’s resources will be devoted to providing the energy run the data centers the keep the computers running. AI has already become a kind of god: it’s the power that organizes our lives, the power which we fear and to which we bow down, the basis of hope and trust. Perhaps we are on the verge of new era of human prosperity. But we also are creating another chasm between the haves and have-nots. We are likely creating a world where some people control and benefit from artificial intelligence and others are slaves to its demands. The prophet Jeremiah lived at a time when the familiar world was being disrupted and something new was taking shape. The nation of Israel was conquered by the Babylonian empire. The walls of Jerusalem were toppled, the temple was destroyed, and the leaders of Israel taken into exile. The land itself lay vacant, no longer cultivated. Everything the people of Israel had worked for centuries to create had crumbled. People were struggling to get their bearings. They wondered, Where is God in all this? For much of the book of Jeremiah, the prophet rebukes the people of Israel, saying that they brought this catastrophe on themselves by their greed and complacency and indifference to the common good. But at the very end of his career, Jeremiah delivers a promise: he speaks of a future time when God’s faithfulness will be revealed in a new way. God will write God’s commandments on people’s hearts and the nation will flourish again and the land will be fruitful again. The prophet Jeremiah does more than proclaim this beautiful vision; he backs it up with concrete action, an action which seems very foolish at the time. He purchases a plot of land outside Jerusalem. He invests in the land of Israel at a time when this looks like a very bad investment indeed. He is investing in God’s faithfulness. In times of upheaval we can take prophetic action of our own: we can invest in God’s faithfulness. We can invest in the things of God. In fact, over the coming month, you will be invited to make an investment in the things of God at Ascension Lutheran Church: things like worship, Christian formation, prayer, service to neighbor, relationships, fellowship in Christ. The most decisive challenges in life do not have a technical fix. Broken relationships, the lack of meaning or purpose in people’s lives, the finality of death—these do not have a technical fix. Our lives revolve around things no computer can generate—trust, integrity, generosity, kindness, steadfastness, care for the earth, hope in God. Intelligence, whether it is artificial or natural, matters only insofar as it serves those virtues. That is the truth. That is the truth that sets us free. Jesus said, If you abide in my word, you will know the truth and the truth will make you free. It is abiding in Jesus that makes us free, because Jesus reveals both the truth about ourselves and the truth about God. The truth about ourselves is that we live most freely when we live in fellowship with God. And the truth about God is that God does not smile on the smartest and the cleverest people in the room; God is not a god who prefers winners to losers; God cares for all and desires that no one be left out. Martin Luther’s reformation of the church began in a discovery of freedom. Luther was excited to discover the freedom that comes in trusting God with our lives. The freedom we have in Christ is not the freedom to do whatever we like; that would be an empty, meaningless kind of freedom, a freedom in which we are slaves to our impulses and the demands of our culture. In Christ we have the freedom to live as God intends us to live; we have the freedom to receive our lives as gifts from God, and to invest in the things of God. We began this service by remembering our baptism. In baptism we are bound to God and Christ binds himself to us. And in return Christ give us the freedom to proclaim the good news of God through word and deed, the freedom to serve all people, following the example of Jesus, and the freedom to strive for justice and peace in all the earth. There are days when that baptismal way of life might seem like bondage. It does rule some things in and some things out. There is a shape to Christian freedom. It’s a life shaped in tune with God’s purposes. It a way of life based on the truth about God and the truth about ourselves. It’s a way of life that sets us free to invest in the things that matter most. Today God is sending us the Holy Spirit so that we might live in the truth and freedom of God, now and forever. Jeremiah 31:31-34; John 8:31-36

“The only great sadness in life is not to become a saint.” — Leon Bloy Churches in the Roman Catholic or Orthodox traditions typically have images of saints on the sanctuary wall, usually including famous saints like St. Paul or St. Augustine or St. Mary. However, I’ve heard of Protestant churches that include on the wall paintings of former members of the congregation—the people who once worshiped in those very pews. It’s a vivid reminder that the “cloud of witnesses” and the “communion of saints” is made up of ordinary people, not just the famous saints. On All Saints Day we remember all the faithful who lived and died in Christ, some of them known to us personally, hardly any of them famous in the world at large. The British theologian Samuel Wells makes a distinction between a “hero” and a “saint.” A hero, he says, is someone who saves the day. A hero is at the center of an inspiring story. “By contrast, the saint is not necessarily a crucial character. The saint may be almost invisible, easily missed, quickly forgotten. The hero’s story is always about the hero. The saint is always at the periphery of a story that is really about God.” The hero is someone whose virtues are extraordinary. “By contrast, the saint may well not have any great qualities. The saint may not be strong, brave, clever, or opportunistic. But the saint is faithful.” As we mark All Saints Day this coming Sunday at Ascension, we have the chance to think about those who were not perfect, but who nevertheless reflected the light of Christ to us. We will have the opportunity to light a candle in memory of those who now rest in God and to give thanks for their faithful witness. See you in church, Pastor David

The words righteous and righteousness are not everyday words. Perhaps for that reason, people tend to confuse righteous with self-righteous, being overly proud of one’s moral achievements—not a good thing. But in the Bible righteous simply means “right” or “in the right,” or “doing the right thing,” or “doing the just and faithful thing.” African-American slang catches something of this meaning when it uses righteous to mean authentic, good, and beautiful: “That was a righteous song.” In chapter 3 of his Letter to the Romans, the apostle Paul writes that “the righteousness of God has been disclosed . . . through the faith of Jesus Christ.” This verse was decisive for Martin Luther and the Lutheran Reformation. After studying the verse for a long time, Luther decided it was saying something different from what he had long thought. He had thought—and it seemed the church was telling him—that God’s being righteous meant that God looked with dismay on humanity’s shortcomings and was jotting down all the sins for which humanity deserved to be punished. If that is God’s way of being in the right, it is hardly good news, thought Luther. But if God’s way of being righteous is indeed disclosed in Jesus, then it is good news, for Jesus’ way of being in the right is to console those who mourn, cast out demons, forgive sins, welcome the outsider, invite the poor to a banquet, and suffer persecution and death for our sake and rise again. In Jesus, God enters into the crisis points of life on the side of human beings. Jesus is not righteous in a standoffish way, as if he can’t bear to be tainted by humanity’s imperfections; Jesus’ way of being righteous is to get down into the messiness of life and death alongside humanity. Luther’s aim was to keep this good news of God’s rightness at the forefront of the church’s proclamation. Jesus’ way of being in the right helps us trust that God will meet us in all circumstances, even the most unpromising. And Jesus inspires us to side with our neighbors at the crisis points of their lives. See you in church, Pastor David

St. Tim's welcomes Bobcat Opossum to the Listening Room @Ascension November 21, 2026 @ 7:00PM

Is the apostle Paul serious? Rejoice always? Someone who is always rejoicing would seem to live in a fantasy land, not the troubled world we are familiar with. Or perhaps “Rejoice always” is one of those spiritual exaggerations one has to make allowances for in the Bible. Paul’s letter to the Philippians is punctuated with a number of references to joy. Paul says that whenever he prays for the Philippians he prays “with joy” because of the partnership they share in the gospel. And Paul calls the Christians in Philippi his “joy” and his “crown.” Just knowing that there is congregation that perseveres in faith gives Paul joy. These reference to joy are remarkable given that Paul writes the letter from prison and he knows that he might not get out alive. And he’s writing to people who themselves are facing persecution. The situation would not seem to lend itself to expressions of joy Whatever this joy is that Paul is talking about, he is hardly living in a fantasyland. Paul seems to know of a joy that exists even in the midst of harsh realities. For Paul, it’s a joy that comes being part of the body of Christ, and a part of what God is doing in the world. It’s a joy that comes from trusting that God is for us, and not against us, that God is with in death and in life. In the English language we tend to make a distinction between happiness and joy. Happiness has to do with feelings of pleasure and contentment. Going to a favorite restaurant, or taking a vacation to France, can make us happy. Those things do not necessarily make us joyful. To some extent we can achieve happiness. We can figure out what makes us happy and go for it. Not that we humans are always wise about seeking happiness. Sometimes the things we pursue and think they will make us happy, turn out be empty. And if happiness is the only thing we pursue, or if we pursue it for its own sake, we often find out that the result tastes bitter. Still, we can work toward a measure of happiness. But joy— joy is in a different category. Joy is not something we can manufacture or even find by our own effort. Joy comes as a gift, when suddenly we are grasped by the beauty and goodness of the world. “You cannot make yourself joyful,” said a great theologian; “something unexpected must happen." And the curious thing about joy is that, unlike happiness, joy does not vanish when we encounter sorrows or problems; joy has a deeper purchase on our lives. That’s the kind of joy Paul is talking about. I imagine that Paul did not always feel happy. But he lived out of a deep joy in God that stayed with him. And he strove to keep faith with that joy. A friend of mine was diagnosed as a young adult with a rare form of cancer. He spent many days in the hospital when his two kids were little. He remembers that when his kids visited him in the hospital they found his hospital room extremely interesting. To them it was like a special hotel room, with all kinds of gadgets, and curtains, and a table that moved on wheels. They loved exploring the room. My friend commented that having children around is not always pleasant, but it is almost always joyful. It was miserable to be in hospital, but he still felt joy in the children’s presence, and joy in their sheer existence. That difference between happiness and joy: I’ve seen people work hard to make a wedding day a day of happiness for everyone involved. They choose a wonderful venue, and arrange for abundant food and drink. They want to make it a joyful day. But you can’t manufacture joy. If you show up at the wedding and you aren’t grasped by a powerful sense of the goodness of God, if you don’t have the sense that something unexpected has happened, then it’s not going to be that joyful. In the Gospel lesson today Jesus uses the image of a wedding to describe the joining of God and God’s people. This wedding comes as a gift—it’s a surprise, not something we could ever manufacture. Joy surprises you. It sneaks up on you like it sneaks up on a father on his daughter’s wedding day when he remembers the struggles of her growing-up years, and how uncertain her future looked, and he thinks about how life is still uncertain and there are no guarantees, yet he feels intensely the goodness of a world that has produced this moment and he is flooded with gratitude and amazement at being a father, and the whole day feels like a miracle. That’s joy. These experiences of joy that I’ve described can happen to anyone. They are not just for religious believers. But joy does pose a question: does joy mean anything beyond the moment? Does it disclose anything about the universe? That’s where Christian have an answer: we say moments of joy are all hints of the joy that God has prepared for us in Jesus Christ. They are all of hints of the joy of Easter. Our experiences of joy give us a hint of that joy when all things will be redeemed and perfected in Jesus Christ in a glory beyond all knowing. Joy is rooted in our conviction that this joy is for all people. That’s why on the other side of joy is compassion—-we know that joy is meant not just for us but for all people. We want others to know this joy. And so teachers working in underfunded schools can feel joy in their work, and so can doctors working in extreme circumstances, or parents caring for sick or difficult child. They experience moments of joy because sense that this is where God has called them to be—not discounting for a moment the challenges that go along with this vocation. They are not happy about the way things are; but they have a deep joy in the work they do and in knowing the people they work with. Over the past few weeks we’ve been hearing sections of the letter to the Philippians, in which Paul gives us some markers for thinking about life together in the church. We’ve mentioned how he uses the word koinonia as he talks about being partners in the gospel with the Philippians. Working together in the church, we have partners in the gospel, and that is reason for joy. And Paul talks about our being citizens of heaven. We are citizens of God’s kingdom before we are Americans or Canadians or Democrats or Republicans. We find our identity in Christ. Having a citizenship in God’s kingdom is also part of our joy. And Paul encourages us to have the mind of Christ—the mind that does not use his power for his own advantage but to serve others. That God himself works through a path of humility and obedience gives us joy as we walk on our path. And there is a promise of joy in our life together. Not that life in the church is always happy or pleasant. But when we share faithfully in the ups and downs of ministry, as partners in the gospel, we are on the path that leads to joy. So Rejoice always! “Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which passes all human understanding, will keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.”

The ancient Persian king named Cyrus (d. 530 BC) unexpectedly made the news a few years ago when some American Christians invoked his name to explain their support for a particular political figure. They admitted this leader knew nothing of Christian faith or morals, but they argued that he nevertheless served God and God’s people—much as the pagan King Cyrus did for the people of Israel, as recorded in the Bible. In other words, very flawed people can do good things. Indeed, Cyrus is remembered in the Bible as the pagan king who allowed the exiles from Israel to return to the land of Israel and even commissioned the rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem. The prophet Isaiah is so excited by Cyrus’s deeds that he proclaims Cyrus as “anointed” by God (Isaiah 45:1) even though Cyrus knows nothing of the God of Israel. Isaiah’s praise of Cyrus hints at a remarkable development in the faith of Israel. It was in these years that Israel began to understand Yahweh not only as the god of the tribe of Israel but as the God of the whole universe, working in mysterious ways through various nations and peoples to accomplish God’s purposes. Isaiah’s aim in praising Cyrus was not to normalize Cyrus’s beliefs or minimize his deficiencies but instead to recognize that God worked through this pagan king’s virtues —his self-control, wisdom, magnanimity, and foresight. Cyrus was in fact one of the most enlightened statesman of his age. He abolished forced labor and created the world’s first postal system. He fashioned a stable empire in which local customs and minority religious practices—like those of the Jews—were tolerated. As believers in the One God, the people of Israel were beginning to recognize that the gifts of the Holy Spirit can be manifested even among people who don’t yet know God’s name or understand God’s purposes; these people too can serve God. For that reason, we give thanks for such gifts whenever and wherever they appear, for they are signs of God’s grace and faithfulness. Recognizing these gifts among people who don’t share our own faith is part of living faithfully and honestly in a pluralistic world as believers in the One God, ruler of heaven and earth. See you in church, Pastor David

Over the past few days I’ve been visiting the sites where on D-Day, June 6, 1944, Allied forces landed in German-occupied Normandy—a crucial step in ending Nazi Germany’s tyranny over France and Europe. These sites are, of course, deeply moving. One can’t but stand in awe at what Allied military forces were asked to do on D-Day, and in awe at the courage with which they responded. One also can’t but be deeply sobered by the scale of suffering and loss for soldiers and civilians. I was moved too by a visit to one of the German cemeteries, whose very presence is a reminder that the enemy of those days, the German soldiers, were also human beings, with parents, wives, girlfriends, and children who grieved when they died. What especially caught my attention was a statement by Germany’s Cemetery Commission which frankly admitted that the war had been launched by the Nazis. The war had led to the deaths of millions, it acknowledged, and was the prerequisite “for crimes without precedent, including the mass annihilation of European Jews.” The statement went on: “The question of personal responsibility and guilt in periods of dictatorship and war must be faced. Arbitrary accusation of guilt should not be permitted. Most fought in the belief that they were fulfilling their national duty. Many were guilty, others could withdraw, a few dared to oppose.” There is a lot to ponder here, as the author wrestles with a complicated memory of the realities of war. The statement says personal responsibility cannot be evaded in times of war and dictatorship; indeed, “many were guilty.” But neither can guilt always be easily assessed, for it seems we should respect those who fought out of a sense of “national duty.” Or is the point that a sense of duty is not always trustworthy? Or are both points true? The statement started me thinking about the purpose of visiting battle sites and keeping memories of war alive. Surely it is right to honor the dead and their sacrifice, and right to remember examples of courage and compassion. Do our memories also help us see the complicated truth about ourselves and our responsibilities? Or are we tempted to avoid such questions? Surely the Christian reason for remembering war is this: to deepen our knowledge of war and its horrors, to deepen our sense of humanity, and to strengthen our efforts to “pursue the things that make for peace” (Romans 14:19). See you in church, Pastor David

For the second week in a row, our readings invoke the vine that runs through our stained glass windows. It tells a story that runs through time, and like history, it rhymes. The vine of my family is long and its roots run deep in the soil and bedrock of America, a land they did not own when they arrived. When the fruits of their efforts began to disappear and their belief in God was repressed in Sweden and England in the1600s and in Germany in 1856, my maternal and later paternal forebears emigrated to this land. In 1639, Sweden was a European empire, seeking to expand its reach into North America and other parts of the world. Empire building is expensive and Sweden needed people to develop new land and send back tobacco and fur to fund it. That year, the forebear of my maternal grandmother was a 27 year old Swede named Peter Gunnarsson. He boarded a ship called the Kalmar Nyckel in Sweden, bound for what is now Wilmington, Delaware, then known as New Sweden. On ship with Peter was the first Lutheran priest in America, Torkel Reovius, as well as convicts who exchanged their sentences for this form of exile. Peter enjoyed great success in America, even after the Dutch came down from what is now New York and overtook the Swedish colony by force. You might say Peter was a “self-made” man. Historians tell us that by the time my paternal great grandfather came to the US in 1856, the self-made man was a myth that had taken hold in American politics. With the myth came the belief that individual liberty and equality must be nurtured only by white male landowners through a burgeoning market economy, and protected from the intrusion of any government. There was no need to ask for help from God; to ask anyone or anything for help or guidance betrayed independence and reduced a man to dependence on the unearned charity of others. That myth is very much alive today. We know this is true every time we look into a mirror – we see what we believe we have made of ourselves; we don’t see those on whose shoulders we stand, nor do we see God as our maker, on whose love we depend. This myth echoes throughout the Bible and in today’s readings. Our first reading is from Isaiah. God is frustrated with the people of Israel. They are likened to a vineyard in which God as landowner dug a wine press and built a watchtower. The winepress consisted of two vats in which grapes were crushed under foot and the juice collected; it symbolizes God’s expectation that His people would produce from His vineyard the fruits of righteousness and justice. The watchtower is a stone structure built in the middle of the vineyard that served as a practical guard post; it represented God’s protective care. But instead of producing patiently grown grapes of faith from which God expected the Israelites to release and share the wine of devoted love, the Israelites were like wild grapes that instead exploited and shed the blood of others. In Psalm 80, the librettist sings of a people in exile. God has delivered the Israelites out of Egypt and planted them in fertile ground where he expected their faith to grow deep. But unbelievers came and stole from the vineyard. This is a song of regret that ends with a prayer for a return to God. The Second reading is from Paul’s letter to the Philippians. He writes from jail to close friends in Philippi whom he had visited three times and who had supported him generously. In this passage, Paul is writing to a small-town congregation in which two women have had a falling out. It is splitting the church, and Paul entreats them to stop focusing on themselves, and instead learn to love one another more. He bases his appeal on the bedrock example of Christ’s own humility in putting others’ interests first, even at great personal cost. And in the Gospel, we have the parable of the landowner who planted a vineyard with a winepress and watchtower, and entrusted it to the care of tenants to whom he had leased it. When he sends his slaves to collect his produce at harvest time, the tenants kill them to keep the bounty for themselves – after all, they earned it, right? So the landowner sends his own son, rightly expecting the tenants will respect the son; instead, they kill the son. Matthew asks, “What will the owner of the vineyard do to the murderous tenants when he comes?” The answer?: He will take from them what they hold most dear – their lives – and give the vineyard to other tenants who will produce the fruits of the kingdom and share it with others – out of an abundance of faith and love, of hope and charity, of righteousness and justice. Not only does Matthew preview Jesus’ crucifixion, but he teaches that humans will go to great lengths to protect their sense of “ownership” if confronted. The parable and the Isaiah passage both present a forceful challenge to our sense of being self-made, of being entitled to what we “own” or hold in our hands. We should be asking in what areas of our lives - personal, communal, global, in the church - do we go to great or even violent lengths to protect our sense of ownership and entitlement? So, what is the “good news” for us in these passages? Of course it includes the graciousness of the owner, God, who keeps sending his prophet messengers. Surely it is Jesus who, though rejected by people, God makes the “chief cornerstone” of a new way of life. But it is also found in the joy that comes with sharing our abundance. After all, belief in Jesus, like the fruit of God’s vineyard, is meant to be shared. And doesn’t it always feel better to give than receive? In each of these readings we hear of people transplanted into vineyards who forgot their charge and lost their focus. They have come to believe that the fruits of the vine are the result of their own efforts, not gifts from God bestowed upon them by grace for sharing. Thousands of years after the Garden of Eden, they are still making the same mistakes and needing forgiveness to go on living. It is not different now, is it? We all trace back to such times, and we all resemble our forebears. Well, at least much of the time. Until I had learned of my Swedish ancestry, no one could have convinced me that I was of that heritage. Look at me. But there were clues. Whenever we gathered for Schwab family reunions, all of our cousins were tall, blond haired and blue eyed. The DNA in my mother’s English roots shown through – we were darker haired and “less tall.” They never said it, but I know my cousins were thinking, “where did you come from?” Many in the US today are fortunate to be descended from others who came to America hundreds of years ago, when taking land away from others for little or no consideration was the MO. Today we herald such settlers as self-made men, overlooking their often greedy and violent ways. But we forget that history when others come here looking to escape violence or looking for new opportunity, betting their lives on an uncertain journey into a land they have not seen. We forget that history when we ask them to prove they are entitled to be here. And we forget that history when we say “you haven’t earned the right to be here or to take from me what I have earned.” It is so easy to forget that the wind at our backs easing us forward is at the same time howling in the face of others, impeding their progress. The words “vine” and “vineyard” are metaphors that appear 7 times throughout the Bible. They remind us that God planted us here with a purpose; that true religion finds its expression in moral lives and social justice; and that faith is strongest when it grows deep despite challenge. You may know that the tender roots of burgundy grapes grow many feet deep into the bedrock of the Willamette Valley, Oregon. They produce a wine that reflects and tastes of the rock. Matthew reminds us that the rock of Jesus is our cornerstone and that we are to use it to produce and share the fruits of God’s kingdom. 2026 has been a year-long celebration of the semi-quincentennial of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, a reminder of the victory of liberty and equality over the Old World’s class-structured society and the relegation of place beneath merit. At times the celebration has sounded quite secular. For example, little attention has been paid to the fact that it was in their churches that the colonists in 1776 heard from their pastors about how religion and politics intertwine. The Declaration was a carefully crafted, much debated document that speaks of “Nature’s God,” “Creator,” “Supreme Judge of the World,” and “Divine Providence.” As another historian reminds us, Thomas Jefferson included the word “sacred” to reflect an association with God, to levy an admonition that these United States merited reverence and protection, and to remind every reader of the Declaration that we must shoulder the strongest possible moral commitment to its principles of liberty and equality. We should not forget that today’s secular belief in me over Thee, of my now over Thou, must not displace either our need for community or our need for one another as more than consumers of what we make or do, but rather as stewards of God’s vineyard. The church – you and I – are to keep our eyes on the watchtower in the vineyard. Sometimes the watchtower takes the form of sanctuary. Not to keep others out, but to ensure that the fruits of God’s creation are shared with those who need them most – need them most, not covet or want them more. At Ascension, we – you and I – are what our forebears hoped for. We are most mindful of the needs of others. We share out of our abundance through Refugee Resettlement, soup kitchens and the Food Pantry, Night Ministry, Habitat for Humanity, Holy Family School, God’s Work Our Hands, two concert series and so much more. As a congregation we more than tithe with our treasure, time and talent. In each of these ways we are acting as God intended. For all that, we still haven’t “arrived” have we? No, not until justice rolls down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. This is our charge as Christians, our call to action. And Jesus is the bedrock into which our vineyard is to grow deep.

One Tree Many Branches welcomes Chris Forte and his Band with their album release of "Skywatching" to the Listening Room @ Ascension October 24th, 2026 @ 4:30PM

 Halfway through his Letter to the Philippians, the apostle Paul breaks into song. Or at least he starts quoting a hymn that was sung by the early church. I have to believe that the tune of that hymn was on his mind and in his heart, and maybe on his lips, as he wrote this part of the letter (Phil. 2:6-8). The hymn Paul quotes refers to Jesus as one “who though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death.” It would be exciting to know what kind of tune was used for this theologically rich text; unfortunately, that is lost to history. What’s worth remembering is that the faith of the church was sung before it was put into a formula or a formal statement. Christians gathered not only to listen to the words of a sermon or to reflect on the Bible or to pray, but also to lift their voices together, using words and music and rhythm in solidarity with one another and in praise of God. They used the mysterious power of music to express the mystery of faith. Modern psychologists and therapists have discovered how deeply music is embedded in our bodies and minds. The regions of the brain that process music hold on to words and tunes long after other parts of the brain lose cognitive function. (And surely the tune in his head helped Paul remember the words of the hymn.) One lesson here is that music is not an ornament to worship; music is a key part of it. Music draws our hearts, minds, and bodies into the mystery of God such that the mystery becomes part of who we are. We’re blessed at Ascension to have musicians and faithful worshipers who together help bring this mystery alive for us all! See you in church, Pastor David

Christ has no body but yours This coming Sunday is “God’s Work, Our Hands” Sunday at Ascension. Our hands will be put to work after worship to assemble packages for people served by local food pantries. Each kit delivered will be part of God’s work in the world. I’m not sure how leaders at the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America came to choose the phrase “God’s Work, Our Hands” for this annual day of community service. I’ve always suspected it was inspired by a poem by Teresa of Avila, a 16th-century Catholic nun who spent much of her life in prayer and contemplation. Her poem goes like this: Christ has no body but yours, No hands, no feet on earth but yours, Yours are the eyes with which he looks Compassion on this world, Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good, Yours are the hands with which he blesses all the world. Yours are the hands, yours are the feet, Yours are the eyes, you are his body. Christ has no body now but yours, No hands, no feet on earth but yours, Yours are the eyes with which he looks
compassion on this world. Christ has no body now on earth but yours. This poem certainly captures the spirit of “God’s Work, Our Hands” as it invites us to serve as Christ’s hands, feet, and eyes. If we stop to think about it, however, it might seem a bit strange that a woman who spent her life inside a convent seeking a mystical union with God should write such an activist poem, exhorting us to put our faith into practice by doing Christ’s work. Part of the explanation is that the convent was not a haven from the world for Teresa. The convent offered plenty of opportunities to be of practical service. But as a person of prayer and contemplation, Teresa would have focused not so much on what we can do for Christ, but rather on what Christ is doing in us. Teresa would remind us that Christ is still working. Christ’s pleasure and desire is to work through flesh and blood; it is Christ’s nature to take flesh in the world, to be present with us here and now. Christ invites us to join him in the ways that he is already present in the world to heal, bless, and serve. See you in church, Pastor David 

What Would Dolly Do?

Jesus said, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” The citizens of the Roman Empire were familiar with crosses. They were erected outside the cities of the Roman Empire for the execution of criminals and disobedient slaves. Crucifixion was the favored form of execution, because it was so excruciating and humiliating. The display of crosses made a point. The leaders of the empire were making sure everyone knew the terrible fate that awaited them if they disobeyed their masters or rebelled against the emperor. (I’m relying here on historian Tom Holland’s account in his 2019 book Dominion.) Crucifixion was not a topic that educated Romans liked to think about—which explains why, though this form of execution was widely used and accepted, there are few written accounts of it by writers of the ancient world. Among the accounts we have of crucifixion, four of them describe the execution of the same person. The victim was a wandering preacher from an obscure town north of Jerusalem; he was called Jesus of Nazareth. The four accounts of his crucifixion are found in the four Gospels. Those Gospel writers claimed that this crucified man was in truth God’s Son, and that after he was crucified, God raised him from the dead. No claim could have been more outrageous in the Roman world, or the Jewish world. People in the Roman Empire could easily imagine that great men like the emperor, Caesar Augustus, were divine. Caesar was often called a god or the Son of God. That made some sense because Caesar wielded godlike power over vast territory, and his career seemed a string of godlike triumphs. But that the son of God would be one of those unfortunate people humiliated and nailed to a cross—that seemed like a sick joke. As you came to church on this beautiful late summer day, I suspect that crucifixion was not what you were hoping to hear more about. And after all, we are a long way from Good Friday. But this little background helps us understand why Peter objects so strenuously when Jesus talks about taking up the cross. And when Jesus predicts that he will suffer and be killed in Jerusalem, it’s no wonder that Peter exclaims, “God forbid it! This must never happen to you.” He means: Not you, of all people. The messiah of God, crucified? God’s chosen one, crucified? What kind of sick joke is this? Peter was scandalized. And the scandal of the cross of Christ never quite goes away, no matter how many times we hear about it. But over the years, as Christians have pondered the passion of Christ, the meaning of the cross has seeped into people’s hearts and minds and created a new perception of how and where God may be at work. Even those who don’t think of themselves as Christians have been shaped by this Christian story. If God’s own Son was rejected and crucified, and then raised from the dead, then maybe the weak, the rejected, and the humiliated of the world are not despised by God, as was commonly thought. Maybe victims are innocent. Maybe they are people close to God’s heart. After the cross of Christ, we can never get it out of our heads that the powers of this world may get things terribly wrong. In God’s kingdom, Jesus said, the last will be first and the first will be last. And Jesus lives out this truth in his life. By his death and resurrection, Christ turns upside down our thinking about who are the winners and who are the losers. Jesus calls us to follow him in his upside-down life. He calls us to align ourselves with him and with all those who suffer rejection and humiliation. Jesus asks us to pick up a piece of his cross and bear some suffering or rejection for Jesus’ sake. Take up your cross, Jesus says. You don’t have to go looking for a cross to take up. Jesus himself does not go looking for a cross. But he accepted the cross when that was necessary to be faithful. You don’t have to go looking for a cross; the cross will find you—it will find you in the workplace, or in marriage, or in your family, or in your community. Or even at church. That story is at the heart of Claire Keegan’s recent book Small Things Like These. She tells the story of Bill Furlong, a man who delivers coal to his neighbors in a small town in Ireland. Bill is a hard worker, and he is devoted to his wife and five daughters. One of his regular customers is the local convent of Catholic sisters who run a program for unmarried mothers, most of them poor. The girls were seen as an embarrassment by their families and were quietly placed with the sisters. On his visits to the convent, Bill gets glimpses of how harshly these girls are treated; they are basically held prisoner, cut off from family and the outside world. Their babies are taken away from them—and where the babies are sent, the girls are never told. Thousands of Irish girls were in fact treated this way in a network of church-run programs known as the Magdalene Laundries. On one of Bill’s visits to the convent, he passes some girls scrubbing the floors. One girl grabs him and asks him to take her away. “At least take me as far as the river,” she says. “All I want to do is drown myself. Can’t you do even that much?” Bill moves past her, but he can’t get her words out of his mind. On his next delivery of coal to the convent, he opens the coal shed and discovers a young girl locked inside. She is barefoot and shivering from the December cold. He gives her his jacket and leads her to the convent and knocks on the door. They are greeted by the Mother Superior, who ushers Bill and the shivering girl inside and serves them tea. The Mother Superior acts kindly, but she shrewdly pressures the girl to say she must have been accidentally left behind in the coal shed after a game of hide-and-seek. Bill doesn’t buy that explanation, but he says nothing. As Bill prepares to leave, the Mother Superior hands him an envelope. It’s a generous Christmas bonus. Bill knows it is meant to ensure his silence about what he has seen. While he goes about his day, Bill can’t stop thinking about what is going in the convent. Bill’s wife and others in town tell him to mind his own business. Nothing good can come from opposing the convent, they tell him. The sisters have a lot of power, and they are backed by the forces of the church and the state and public opinion. Bill’s wife and friends remind him that the nuns can deny his daughters a place in the local Catholic school if he gets on their wrong side. But Bill is nagged by a question: What if those were his daughters? “Was there any point in being alive [he wonders] without helping one another? Was it possible to carry through all the years . . . without once being brave enough to go against [the powers of the world] and yet call yourself a Christian?” That evening he goes to the convent, opens the door of the coal shed, and discovers that the same girl has again been locked inside, barefoot and thinly dressed against the cold. He puts his coat around her and leads her outside, and this time they walk toward Bill’s home. He intends to make her part of his family, though he knows it won’t be easy. His wife and his neighbors won’t be happy about this. He knew the worst was ahead of him. But in another way the worst was behind him—for how much worse it would have been for him to have done nothing, and to have gained the world but lost his soul. As Bill walks with the girl toward home, Keegan writes, he felt a kind of lightness; he felt an “unrecognizable joy” and peace. He felt like the best part of himself was emerging. Jesus says that by giving our live away for the sake of the gospel we will find our lives. The cross of Christ is God’s gift to us, so that we can find in this troubled world a different kind of peace than the world gives. God promises to meet us at the crosses that find us, and to fill our lives with his presence—with grace and peace, and an unrecognizable joy. Today God is sending us the Holy Spirit to bring out the best part of ourselves, through Christ our Lord.  Pentecost 14A August 30, 2026 Ascension Lutheran Church Matthew 16:21–28

I saw Christopher Nolan’s film version of The Odyssey— it’s three hours long, but the time goes by quickly! If you’ve never read Homer’s epic poem (as I hadn’t), the movie conveys some of the scope and power of this great story.. Matt Damon plays the main character, Odysseus, as a soulful warrior. As the story unfolds, Odysseus mourns the countless deaths he has caused in battle and regrets the duplicity of his famous military trick—hiding soldiers inside a wooden horse in order to defeat the Trojans and destroy the city of Troy. An ingenious and brave leader, Damon’s Odysseus also broods over the “law of Zeus,” which commands respect for all human beings, something Odysseus knows he has failed to do. As several commentators have pointed out, this version of Odysseus departs from Homer and the classical traditions of Greece and edges toward a Biblical vision. Nolan, the director, might well have felt he needed to make this revision so that modern viewers could identify with Odysseus. The ancient world would have had few of the scruples expressed by Odysseus in the film. Ancient Greek and Roman societies celebrated the warrior virtues—strength, valor, honor, and the glory of military triumph. They assumed that the strong dominate the weak, and that the weak serve the strong. As one ancient historian put it, “The strong do what they can and the weak suffer what they must.” That’s just how the world works. Leaders of the ancient world would have agreed with the presidential adviser who recently explained US policy to a CNN reporter: “We live in a world . . . that is governed by strength, that is governed by force, that is governed by power. These are the iron laws of the world since the beginning of time.” It took a revolution in morality for an alternative worldview to emerge. Living on the other side of that revolution, we tend to assume that the exercise of power must be judged by moral norms of justice. We seek to listen to the voice of victims and we regard compassion for those who suffer as the essence of morality. To the extent we share those views, it is because we are shaped by centuries of Christians preaching, teaching, and meditating on the Gospel stories, which turned the world upside down with teachings like “Love your enemies” and “The last will be first and the first will be last.” The beginnings of this revolution can be traced to this week’s Gospel reading, in which Jesus discloses that he, the very Son of God, will become one of the least in the world. He “must go to Jerusalem and undergo great suffering at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes and be killed and on the third day be raised.” God’s Son will himself become a victim of those in power before he is raised in glory. This was an outrageous idea to the ancient mind. The belief that the Son of God suffered for the truth, and that those in power can be massively wrong, has transformed the way the world thinks about what power is for, and whose side God might be on. See you in church, Pastor David

Sunday Mornings for Children at Ascension  We are excited to welcome children and families to another wonderful program year at Ascension! Whether your family has been part of our congregation for years or you are visiting for the first time, there is a place for your children to learn, worship, make music, build friendships, and grow in faith. Our children and youth ministries include Godly Play, Godly Play+, Children’s Music, First Communion, and Confirmation. We’ll share more information about First Communion, Confirmation, and other special activities throughout the year. We’re Back September 13! Our regular Sunday morning children’s programming returns Sunday, September 13: 9:30 a.m. — Children’s Music 10:00 a.m. — Godly Play for children age 3 through grade 3 10:00 a.m. — Godly Play+ for children in grades 4–6 Godly Play & Godly Play+ Godly Play is a creative, Montessori-inspired approach to Christian faith formation that invites children to explore Bible stories, wonder together, ask questions, and discover the language of our faith. We welcome children aged 3-3 rd grade. Godly Play+ continues that journey for older elementary children in grades 4–6, offering age-appropriate opportunities to explore faith, Scripture, worship, and what it means to live as people of God. Both groups meet at 10:00 a.m. on Sunday mornings. Throughout the year, our children will also be invited to participate more fully in worship. They will have opportunities to serve as readers and to work alongside our ushers in gathering and presenting the offering. Sundays Without Godly Play Godly Play and Godly Play+ will take a break on several holiday weekends during the program year: Thanksgiving weekend December 20 & 27 — Christmas break Additional special Godly Play activities and events will be announced throughout the year. Children’s Music Children’s Music meets with Minkyoo at 9:30 a.m. on Sundays. Children will learn and make music together and will have opportunities to sing during worship throughout the program year. Our children will also take part in special seasonal celebrations, including our Christmas Program on December 5. Special rehearsals will be scheduled in the weeks leading up to the program. Come Grow With Us! We are looking forward to another year filled with learning, music, worship, friendship, and growing together in faith. New families are always welcome. Mark your calendars for September 13—we can’t wait to see you at Ascension!

The word sacrifice is one of those words which doesn’t exactly gladden our hearts. Though we know it is necessary to make sacrifices in life, we don’t relish them. Perhaps, at best, s acrifice conjures up the realistic wisdom of “No pain, no gain.” Interestingly, the Hebrew word for sacrifice originally had the meaning of “draw near” and “be vulnerable.” Those associations begin to make sense if we consider that when, say, a parent willingly makes sacrifices for the sake of a child, or a person offers to do something for another, it’s a way of one person drawing near to the other person and sharing life with them. Sacrifice of this kind does make us vulnerable; it takes something out of us. This “drawing near” also makes sense if we think about Jesus Christ as God’s sacrifice for us. What is God doing in Jesus but drawing near to us in flesh and blood. God offers himself in Jesus so that we might share more deeply in God’s life. In this week’s Epistle, Paul urges Christians in Rome to respond to what God has done in Christ by “presenting your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship” (Romans 12:1). A “living sacrifice” is not a detached spiritual exercise for which we hope to get credit on some heavenly balance sheet. Rather, as Paul describes, it’s turning all of life into a form of worship, responding to God’s mercy and grace by showing mercy and grace to others. Eugene Peterson, a Bible scholar who wrote a contemporary version of the Bible called The Message, defines a sacrifice as a “readiness to interrupt whatever we are doing and build an altar, bind whatever we happen to be carrying with us at the moment, place it on the altar, and see what God wills to do with it.” Sacrifice is a way of orienting everyday life. In that vein, Peterson in The Message rewrites Paul’s words to the Romans in verse 12:1 this way: “So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering.” See you in church, Pastor David

THE nations of the world came to America this summer in the form of the World Cup soccer tournament. The national teams of 48 countries competed to see which nation is the best at the sport the rest of the world calls football. I’m only a casual soccer fan but even I could see that the soccer was brilliant. And I think I finally figured out what offsides is in soccer. What really go my attention happened outside the soccer field. It was the enthusiastic and warm welcome that many Americans gave to these foreign teams and their fans. In Lawrence, Kansas, for example, where the team from Algeria was headquartered, the University of Kansas band learned to play the Algerian national anthem. Citizens of Lawrence adopted the team as their own and distributed scarves with Algeria’s colors. The Algerian players were reportedly moved to tears by this welcome. The Algerian players responded by organizing soccer clinics for local youth. Back in Algeria, the government of that mostly Muslim country decided to create a sister city relationship with Kansas City. There were a lot of feel-good stories like this throughout the tournament. Which came as something of a surprise given the political mood of our country and our nation’s current relationship with the rest of the globe. As a soccer fan from Scotland put it, “We were expecting to be met by ICE agents, aggressive police, and the political climate we all see on the news, and that could not be further from the truth of what we've actually experienced.” These are small gestures of hospitality, to be sure, but significant, for they give us a glimpse of that day envisioned by the prophet Isaiah when people of all nations will gather on God’s holy mountain and find unity in praising God together and living in a way that is a blessing to one another. In our Gospel reading today, we see that vision of Isaiah lived out by Jesus, as he reaches across boundaries of language, culture, and religion to bring healing to the daughter of a Canaanite woman. But let’s face it, this story of Jesus meeting a Canaanite woman is not exactly a feel-good story. It turns out to be rather more complicated than that, as maybe encounters with differences usually are if we dig into them. Jesus is not all that warm and welcoming, at least not at first. He tells the woman that healing a foreigner is not at the top of his agenda. “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel,” he says, and adds what sounds to our ears like an insult: “It’s not fair to give the food meant for the children to the dogs.” Amazingly, the woman is not put off by Jesus’ comment. She seems to accept the fact that she is not the primary target of Jesus’ ministry. Her faith is resilient, however. She still has faith that there is enough of God’s power and mercy in Jesus for him to heal her daughter. “Even the dogs eat the crumbs from their master’s table,” she says. We can’t help wishing that Jesus had healed this woman’s daughter straight away. We can’t help wishing he had been more sensitive. But before we send Jesus off to a workshop on diversity, equity, and inclusion, we might remember that Jesus often challenged people and was not always quick to solve their problems. Jesus tends to ask awkward questions and tell provocative stories; he assumes people can be resilient, for his intention is to lead people to a deeper relationship with God. In his conversation with the Canaanite woman, Jesus names the elephant in the room, that is, he names the awkward truth, which is that there is a real difference between the Canaanites and the people of Israel and it is not trivial. The awkward truth is that Jesus’ entire ministry grows out of a very specific tradition that we call Judaism. Jesus does not try to hide this fact or pretend that such differences don’t matter at all. Perhaps we can take a lesson here for our own encounters with people of a different culture, religion, or political worldview. Perhaps we can learn to be resilient. In our nation we live in a time of huge political differences. The differences are often the elephant in the room at family gatherings. One approach we can take is to avoid talking about these differences. But that is hard to do and doesn’t always feel genuine. Another approach is to try to argue the other person into adopting our point of view—but that hardly ever turns out well. Few of us are ever argued out of our positions. There is another approach, and maybe a more Jesus-like approach: we can use the occasion to deepen the relationship. We can acknowledge differences and be curious about how the other person came to have the convictions they do and why they care about certain issues. And we might describe how we have come to hold the positions we hold. The goal of such a conversation would be to reveal something of ourselves and learn about the other, and to name what we long for, and the healing we hope for. That might bring us closer and point us toward the God who is bigger than our differences. Such conversations call for resilience. And a hope in a God who is bigger than our differences. Before we send Jesus to the diversity workshop we might also reflect on where we find ourselves in this story. Are we one of the disciples advising Jesus on how to conduct his ministry? Or are we closer to the Canaanite woman, desperate for healing, and knowing perfectly well that in a world of so much suffering we have no particular claim on God’s healing power, but we trust there is enough mercy and grace in Jesus Christ for us. A crumb from the table is all we need. That is what faith looks like, according to Jesus. And when we trust that there is enough of God’s healing and mercy for us, we are able to believe there is healing and mercy for those who are different from us. Some years ago, a Catholic priest named Gregory Boyle was assigned to a neighborhood of Los Angeles ravaged by gang violence. The world of gangs was vastly different from anything he had known. Part of him wanted to preach to these young men and women about the bad choices they were making. Part of him wanted to argue with them and convince them that they were headed toward either prison or a violent end. But after a while he realized that these men and women who belonged to gangs knew those facts better than anyone else. They knew that their lives were headed nowhere good. They knew they had no claim on God; in fact they were pretty sure God had no blessings for them. What they needed, Father Boyle decided, was a sign that there were crumbs of God’s mercy and grace left over for them. Father Boyle went on to create an organization called Homeboy Industries which offers jobs, job training, and counseling to former gang members. Boyle wanted to make God’s mercy tangible. And through these signs of God’s love, faith and hope have been awakened in these men and women. Which leads to their healing. Boyle tells the story of a man named Andre, who had been abandoned by his mother when he was 9 and was homeless for two years and survived on food that he scavenged from dumpsters. Eventually he ended up a gang and then in prison. Finally, coming out of prison, he made it to Homeboy Industries. One Monday morning, Andre had an appointment with his job counselor. The counselor knew Andre was always hungry and that he liked Triscuits, so she brought him a box of Triscuits. “You bought these Triscuits for me?” Andre asked in disbelief. The counselor nodded Yes. “You mean, you thought about me over the weekend?” Andre asked. The counselor said, “Yeah, I thought about you.” “You mean, you think about me when I’m not with you?” Andre said. “Wow. I never imagined anybody would think about me when I’m not with them.” Andre was learning to see himself as someone worth thinking about. He was beginning to trust that there was enough of God’s love and mercy also for him. Through Jesus Christ, God is making a new world out of a world of differences. It is not always a feel-good process. In Jesus Christ our differences are not erased but they become occasions for our horizons to be expanded and our hearts to lifted so we may reconciled with God and one another and learn to be a blessing to one another. Because there is enough of God’s healing and mercy for us, we can show grace to others. And God is sending us the Holy Spirit that we might make a holy world of difference, through Christ our Lord. Matthew 15:21-28; Isaiah 56:1, 6-8

Dear Friends in Christ, I am looking forward to serving as interim minister at Ascension and to getting to know all of you in the weeks ahead. I know something about the ministries that go on at Ascension, having talked with congregational leaders and read the church’s annual report and Ministry Site Profile. But it’s you who give life and breath to this ministry by bringing to it your unique gifts and stories of faith. I look forward to hearing some of those stories and to sharing this ministry with you in the months ahead, trusting that God is with us in this “in-between” time. This week’s reading from Isaiah (56:1-6-8) comes from an important in-between time in the life of Israel—the time between the destruction of Jerusalem and the rebuilding of the city. The Judeans who had been in exile have returned home to find foreigners are part of the community. Jerusalem has become a mix of cultures and religions. Those once regarded as “outcasts” are among those keeping sabbath and living by the commandments. Amidst the uncertainty of a rebuilding project, the scope of Israel’s mission is expanding to include previously excluded groups and “all peoples.” In his letter to the Romans (11:1-2, 29-32), Paul wrestles with what has been over the centuries one of the most painful “between the times” issues for Christians: our relationship with the Jewish people. How can it be, Paul wonders, that God’s own people—his own people!—have not embraced Jesus Christ as the Messiah of God? Just as family quarrels are often the most intense, the relationship between Christians and Jews has often been bitter, and Christians have frequently engaged in unspeakable acts of violence and discrimination against Jews, deeds which laid some of the foundation for the anti-Semitism that still infects our own time. Paul’s conclusion is therefore crucial to hold on to: “the gifts and the calling of God [to the Jewish people] are irrevocable.” God’s covenant with the Jews remains intact. Therefore, until the climax of human history, Jews and Christians remain siblings in faith. We journey alongside one another, called by God to respect and understand our differences and to appreciate the distinct ways our siblings seek to serve God. As we learn to do that, we will be better able to converse with all those who differ in faith and culture. See you in church, Pastor David

David Heim is former editor of the Christian Century magazine. (For a flavor of the magazine and some of his contributions, see the publications link below.. He has served ELCA congregations in Rolling Meadows and Palatine and has been interim pastor in Park Ridge, Naperville, and Oak Park. He is a graduate of Yale Divinity School and the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago. He grew up in Vermont and was a reporter for his hometown newspaper before going to seminary. He lives in Oak Park with his wife, Barbara Hofmaier, who is an editor and coordinator of a local GriefShare program. They have a son who is an ELCA pastor. Pastor David is part of a Lutheran-Jewish dialogue group in Chicago and was a member of the Christian Leadership Initiative at the Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem in 2016–17. He likes history, fiction, travel, and sports.