The Holy Cutting Spirit

At the end of his time on earth, Jesus had 120 followers (Acts 1:15), but after Peter’s first sermon, over 3000 joined the church (Acts 2:41). What made the difference? It was the Holy Spirit (Acts 2:33). He made the difference. And he did it by cutting into the hearts of those who heard Peter preach (Acts 2:37). That cutting devastated them. It leveled them. It drove them to repentance – and the new life that forgiveness brings on its heels (Acts 2:38, 1 Corinthians 14:24–25). Later the same boom was lowered on Saul of Tarsus (Acts 9:4).

     Jesus warned about this coming cutting (Hebrews 4:12) – with its three sharp blades – conpuncti corde, in the old Latin Bible. First, this cutting brings the condemnation of sin because we won’t believe. Next, it condemns our self-importance by proclaiming that only God is righteous. And last, it condemns the world for loving the devil (John 16:9–11). All three are finely nuanced, but basically they’re the same – they all attack our perversion and crookedness (Matthew 17:17, Philippians 2:5).

     Initially there was a good response (Matthew 13:20–21), but soon no one wanted anything to do with the church any more (Acts 5:13, Romans 3:11). That brings us back from thousands to the little flock made up of two or three (Luke 12:32, Matthew 18:20). That’s because only a few are finally chosen to endure to the end (Matthew 22:14, 10:22). Why not more? It’s because Christianity is too tough (Matthew 7:14). It brings hatred from the very world we’re trying to live in – because we undercut its dominant value system (John 15:18–19, 1 John 2:15–17, James 4:4).

     But wait! Christians haven’t put up with this. No, they have instead forever been tearing down these words to make Christianity easier, so that more will jump aboard the gravy train of grace (Luke 12:19) – ostensibly to fulfill the great commission (Matthew 28:19–20). Beware of them and pray at Pentecost, on May 31, that God’s Holy Spirit, that sharp sword of old, will cut them up for trying this – and then return them to the narrow, difficult way of Jesus (Matthew 7:14, 2 Corinthians 6:1).

 Pastor Marshall

President’s Report… by Cary Natiello

God’s blessings to you all and happy belated Easter.

     As you know First Lutheran Church of West Seattle continues to suspend worship services including missing Holy Week and Easter.  During this time I spoke frequently with Pastor Marshall trying to come up with possible workarounds to the Stay-at-Home order and the prohibition on gatherings.  But each attempt was squashed because preventing the spread of COVID-19 and the safety of our congregation continued to be paramount.  Let’s pray that this pandemic will become a thing of the past so we can worship together once again.

     From one of my conversations with Pastor Marshall he referenced Psalm 46:10… “Be still, and know that I am God…!”  Pastor Marshall explained that while we cannot worship together he used these words to stand silently before God and his Word – and its elaborations in prayers, hymn texts, art works, and sermons.  I found a similar verse from Zechariah 2:13… “Be silent, O all flesh, before the Lord: for he is raised up out of his holy habitation.”  I found these words comforting while we are being prevented from worshiping together.  In Pastor Marshall’s April 10, Online Good Friday Liturgy there is a short article, Sickness According to the Bible where Pastor Marshall explains how God “punishes us with his ‘four sore acts of judgement’ – war, famine, wild beasts, and disease (Ezekiel 14:21).”  (I also found Colossians 3:5-6 which describes why God punishes us.  “Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.  On account of these the wrath of God is coming.”)  Pastor Marshall continues…“Our sufferings from disease…are but a drop when compared to the ‘ocean of God’s benefits on which we should expatiate with divine rhetoric’ (LW 3:343)…Let us therefore gird up our loins and ‘graciously accept all kinds of sickness’ and arm ourselves with the Word of God, practice faith, and ‘acquire a food that will not perish (John 6:27).’”  While I found these words instructive at a time with so much uncertainty, they got me to thinking – why?  Why is God using COVID-19 to punish the world in this instance?  Obvious reasons are mentioned above, sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, but, could it also be more specific to the present, unique to our day? 

     So, I thought about that question. What else could be important to God right now?  I learned recently that scientists have been warning about catastrophic pandemics for years, but their alarms went unheard and now we know how little was done to prepare for the inevitable.  I also learned that world pollution has been greatly diminished due to COVID-19.  “Global carbon emissions from the fossil fuel industry could fall by a record 2.5bn tonnes this year, a reduction of 5%, as the coronavirus pandemic triggers the biggest drop in demand for fossil fuels on record.”  Could COVID-19 be God’s way of telling our world leaders to listen to our scientists when they sound the alarm that the sky is falling (e.g., pandemics and global warming), and realize that yes, the sky really is falling rather than dismiss them as Chicken Littles?  Is God telling us to take better care of our planet or He will do it for us!?  Is God showing our world leaders that they must work in cooperation rather than isolation to combat things like global pandemics and climate change (and maybe if they did, it could also lead to a more peaceful coexistence throughout the world)?  Is it possible that God is using COVID-19 to send us these messages?

     Well, we will never know God’s true intentions but we can meditate about them.  So, while we cannot worship together as a congregation with songs, readings, sermons, communion, and sharing God’s peace, we can take comfort in our silence before God and his Word, and ponder what God is trying to convey to us when he sends us a disease like COVID-19.

FIRST QUARTER 2020 is off to a solid start financially, continuing the trend we set in 2019.  I would like to express my sincere gratitude to our congregation for their ongoing relentless financial support of our church.  Thanks be to God.

Here are the numbers:

Year to date through the first quarter of the year, total giving was $68,053 versus target of $58,750, meaning we are $9,250 ahead of the giving target needed to meet our budget through three months of the year.  Average weekly giving through the first quarter was $5,235, or $715 per week higher than we need to fully fund our budget.  Total general budget income was $87,622 versus a target of $77,318 through March, putting the overall income target $10,300 above budget through March.

     On the balance sheet, the Endowment Fund declined to $271,062 as of March 31, seeing just under a 16% decline for the first quarter of 2020.  Q1 2020 was the worst quarter in the history of the S&P 500 and the Dow 30 indexes, including the entirety of the Great Depression (1929-1940s) and the Great Recession (2007-2009).  Our Endowment Fund having only a 16% decrease is in part because at the start of the year we increased our bond weighting as a percentage of our total endowment fund assets which helped our relative performance in the first quarter.  The fund's balance as of Easter Sunday increased to just over $283,000. 

SAVE THE DATE:

God willing, our midyear congregational meeting is preliminarily set for August 2, 2020 following the 10:30 service.

Psalm 46:10 for Now

Introducing Our Online Liturgies

by Pastor Marshall

In lieu of our time together due to the stay-at-home orders issued by our government, because of the coronavirus troubles – which have put our worshiping, studying and serving in abeyance – I offer these abbreviated online liturgies. They in no way are equivalents to our normal fare. But they still have value. In them I’m taking advantage of our time apart to accentuate Psalm 46:10 about being silent before God. These liturgies have no audio tracks or video streams – which in Mendocino County, California, have been banned (Doug Mainwaring, “California County Bans Singing in Online Worship Services,” LifeSites, online, April 17, 2020). So what we have here are just words. Providing instead a full mock worship service online would be inconsistent with our mission statement and the honor it pays to historical liturgies (which require a congregation present). The liturgies I provide are short, meditative in tone, and solitary. Use them to stand silently before God and his Word – and its elaborations in prayers, hymn texts, art works, and sermons. Luther thought God has his way with us in this silence (Luther’s Works 6:35). Kierkegaard agreed, seeing in this silence God’s Word gaining power over us (For Self-Examination, ed. Hongs, p. 47). He even thought, somewhat humorously, that by blunting our “loquacity” through this silence, God’s ways were protected from any “undietetic uncircumspection” coming from us (The Book on Adler, ed. Hongs, p. 166). Be that as it may, we must never forget, as Kierkegaard elsewhere warned, that Christianity is not primarily for quiet times, but for slugging it out “right in the middle of actual life and weekdays” (Journals, ed. Hongs, §2:2132).

ANNOUNCEMENTS:  WEST SEATTLE FOOD BANK suggested donation for May is bar soap and toiletries.

HELP NEEDED:  Please consider volunteering for one of these jobs that need regular or at least yearly attention:  Pressure washing the outside walkways and steps, Memorial courtyard clean up and weeding, south courtyard clean up and weeding, cleaning of the outside stairwells, cleaning of the nursery and church kitchens.  If you are interested in taking on any of these above tasks please talk with someone from the office or church council.

CONFIRMATION:  On Pentecost Sunday, May 31st, Samantha Kahn, daughter of Matthew and Dana Kahn, will complete her confirmation studies with the Affirmation of Baptism: Confirmation at the 10:30 am Festival Eucharist liturgy.  WEST SEATTLE HELPLINE:  If you haven’t already heard, the month for the very popular Taste of West Seattle has been changed to September this year. It will be its 15th year.  Watch for updates in The Messenger for September.

Stewardship

__________________________________________

Stewardship of the Earth

We’re living in a time when a day doesn’t go by that we hear arguments about global warming and about continued political battles over where to draw the line of protecting the environment vs. the impact that protection might have on jobs and our economy. 

     But politics aside, as Christians, we are called to be stewards of the earth.  Psalm 24:1 states, “The earth is the Lord's and all that is in it, the world, and those who live in it".  If the earth is the Lord’s, then of course we are to be stewards of it, tend to it, and take care of it.  Genesis 1:26 and 1:28 state that man is to have dominion over the earth.  Pastor Marshall explains that dominion does not mean to waste, ruin, and use up, but instead it means to preserve.  The word dominion is defined as dominance, authority, and rule.  Unfortunately, because of our sin, this dominance, or rule over creation, becomes corrupt, abusive, self-serving, and destructive.  A righteous ruler, however, which is what God calls us to be, cares for and tends to his domain and protects it from waste and destruction.

     May we pray about being good stewards of the earth; that we will have the wisdom to rightly identify what it means to be good stewards of the earth; and that we have the courage to publically display our support of being good stewards of the earth and all its creatures.  I pray that our congregation will continue its financial support of First Lutheran Church of West Seattle to help our church keep its doors open so that this message about being good stewards of God’s creation can be spoken here and abroad.

Cary Natiello, Church Council President

The Body

“I am fearfully and wonderfully made.”

(Psalm 139:14)

“You don’t know how the body is formed in the mother’s womb.”

(Ecclesiastes 11:5)

The Kidneys

“It remains something of a mystery… why we have two kidneys. It’s splendid to have a backup, of course, but we don’t have two hearts or livers, or brains, so why we have a surplus kidney is a happy imponderable. The kidneys are invariably called the workhorses of the body. Each day they process about 190 quarts of water – that is the amount a bath holds up to the overflow level – and 3.3 pounds of salt. They are startlingly small for the amount of work they do, weighing just five ounces each. They are not in the small of the back, as everyone thinks, but higher up, about at the bottom of the rib cage. The right kidney is always lower because it is pressed down upon the asymmetrical liver. Filtering wastes is their principal function, but they also regulate blood chemistry, help maintain blood pressure, metabolize vitamin D, and maintain the vital balance between salt and water levels within the body. Eat too much salt and your kidneys filter out the excess from your blood and send it to the bladder [to be eliminated]. Eat too little and the kidneys take it back from the urine before it leaves your body. The problem is that if you ask the kidneys to do too much filtering over too long a period, they get tired and stop [which can cause death]. More than most other organs, the kidneys lose function as you age. Between the ages of forty and seventy, their filtration capacity drops about 50 percent.”

[Bill Bryson, The Body:

A Guide to Occupants (2019) p. 154.]

Luther on Samson

By Pastor Marshall

Samson is famous for killing a lion with his bare hands (Judges 14:5–6). Most believe this shows how incredibly strong he was – a mere display of his “physical ability” (T. C. Butler, Judges, 2009, p. 335). But not Martin Luther. He instead saw this dazzling spectacle to be a call for all Christians to be brave. In Samson’s power we see that “it is not enough to know what you should teach, but you must also be bold enough to persevere bravely against the gates of hell in your teaching. The Spirit provides both of these… He will burst through like a blast of wind, unopposed” (Luther’s Works 67:158–59). So be confident that what God did for Samson he will also do for you in your Christian witness.  

Through the Knothole

As a teacher in the Humanities I’ve often encountered in students the unbeliever’s assessment of belief.  It is often offered in the guise of compassion and tolerance, but is actually patronizing and self-serving.  Believers, thinks the unbeliever, have caved (understandably…) both morally and intellectually under the terrible silence of the physical universe toward humanity’s heartfelt questions about good and evil and the meaning of it all.  Believers don’t have what it takes to face this so they take shelter in superstitious belief.      No matter how understanding and compassionate the unbeliever making this argument wishes to appear, it is a brittle compassion and easily shattered—just a front barely concealing a sense not only of intellectual but of spiritual superiority.  It takes real fortitude to stare into “the abyss,” fortitude that believers clearly lack, and it is only with such fortitude that one becomes fully human.

     Real persons take full responsibility for themselves and their actions and do not simply obey an external moral imperative.  Let me call this position the existential heroic.  Such persons heroically assert their moral convictions alone, without support of any kind from tradition or religion or ‒in the extreme‒ even from their contemporaries.  Such persons vaunt their individuality to this extreme, and yet are in plentiful abundance, and hardly lacking for sympathy in society.

     This version of the human person is offered up as the product of human progress, which would naturally have been unavailable to pre-scientific generations, such as the poor fishermen that followed Jesus of Nazareth.  Yet when I compare this version of the human person to the characterization of belief in the Scriptures, I find a terror before the infinite that is incomparably greater than any merely existential terror my modern agnostic friends and acquaintances portray to me.   Before the possibility of being an eternal soul before a wrathful God‒if I truly entertain the possibility‒I am unimpressed by their empty abyss.  Rather, that abyss seems to me to be the cop-out, a rather wide and easy way, compared with the truly narrow way of one who suspects his soul is both eternal and at odds with an infinite and therefore infinitely wrathful God, if He is wrathful.  So much easier to believe that one merely dies!

     Is not His wrath revealed in His separation from any who would believe?   One is always already in the existential abyss: one is born into it.  It is old and familiar.  It is of little concern and no help to one who awakens in the true night of God the Father’s absence.  There is no therapist at hand, no philosopher, no poet, no friend or parent, no lover.  They are all at just as much of a loss as you.  All the most terrifying questions fill one’s mind.  Why is there so much injustice, and why has one been unjust oneself?  Why is one unjust before one understands its consequences?  Why is the punishment for sin, even such as one’s own, visited upon future generations?  And finally, is there only punishment for sin?

     If one awakens in this night, there is only one source of help.  The truth is, not even your pastor can help, even a good one.  It is now between you and Christ, and you must either turn to Christ or . . . I do not know.  I do know now that I do not need to fear to turn to Christ.  At one point I did not know this, but I did turn to Christ in unbearable fear, in the midst of what seemed the darkest possible night.  An immense, crushing anxiety was then most kindly and swiftly dealt with, removed as if it did not exist, not by me, but by the One to whom I prayed.  His presence became suddenly unmistakable and its instantaneousness was so startling, the effect so complete, that the impression remains that He is always already present and entirely adequate to the task.  That has indeed been comforting.

     I cannot account for this inversion of darkest night to bright day except as divine miracle (Psalm 30:5).  I do not have an explanation of why our sin is so bad.  In the delight of release from sin, I forgot to ask, and I probably would not have been answered.  I am just as convinced now that sin is bad beyond our own imagining, but now I know there is a solution.  But there is only one, and that uniqueness makes it “narrow” (Matthew 7:14).  It hurts to be squeezed through.  You might think it is going to kill you.  I certainly did think so, but it did not kill me.  It brought me to life.

     In the narrow way of salvation there is no room for the existential self I described above.  You will not be able to take that self with you.  You must let go of it and its self-centered pride.  If you think that you will cease to exist if you let it go, you are mistaken.  The only way to truly let it go is in appealing to Christ, directly in His name, from the bottom of your being.  To get to that bottom may take time and will probably be an agony in which you will feel truly alone.  And yet there are many passages in Scripture that describe this.  They are in the Psalms, in the wisdom texts, and in Genesis.  And of course they are in the Gospels and the Letters.  They probably don’t really make any real sense until you’ve been drawn through the knothole, as our good pastor calls it (Acts 14:22).  They are a great comfort to read, and strengthen my conviction that I am not only not truly mad, but becoming truly sane. 

Earl Nelson

John 5:14

Monthly Home Bible Study, May 2020, Number 327

The Reverend Ronald F. Marshall

Along with our other regular study of Scripture, let us join as a congregation in this home study. We will study alone then talk informally about the assigned verses together as we have opportunity. In this way we can “gather together around the Word” even though physically we will not be getting together (Acts 13.44). (This study uses the RSV translation.)

We need to support each other in this difficult project. In 1851 Kierkegaard wrote that the Bible is “an extremely dangerous book.... [because] it is an imperious book... – it takes the whole man and may suddenly and radically change... life on a prodigious scale” (For Self-Examination). And in 1967 Thomas Merton wrote that “we all instinctively know that it is dangerous to become involved in the Bible” (Opening the Bible). Indeed this word “kills” us (Hosea 6.5) because we are “a rebellious people” (Isaiah 30.9)! As Lutherans, however, we are still to “abide in the womb of the Word” (Luther's Works 17.93) by constantly “ruminating on the Word” (LW 30.219) so that we may “become like the Word” (LW 29.155) by thinking “in the way Scripture does” (LW 25.261). Before you study then, pray: “Blessed Lord, who caused all Holy Scriptures to be written for our learning: Grant us so to hear them, read, mark, learn and inwardly digest them, that we may embrace and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which you have given us in Our Savior Jesus Christ. Amen” (quoted in R. F. Marshall, Making A New World: How Lutherans Read the Bible, 2003, p. 12). And don’t give up, for as Luther said, we “have in Scripture enough to study for all eternity” (LW 75:422)!

Week I. Read John 5.14 noting the word sin. Why worry about it? On this read Ecclesiastes 9.18 noting the line destroys much good. How so? On this read 1 John 3.4 noting the word lawlessness, and Romans 14.23 noting the word doubts. How does breaking the law and giving up on the certainty of faith do that? On this read Matthew 25.24 noting the word hard, and Romans 11.22 noting the word severe. What makes God so foreboding? On this read Galatians 6.7 noting the word reap – which is about being punished for the bad seeds we sow. Note also how God’s wrath pays back our disobedience in John 3:36. Read also Hebrews 10.29–31 noting the connection between God and punishment. Why does God punish sin instead of overlooking it and cutting us slack? On this read Psalm 106.29 noting the word provoked. How is it possible for us to get under God’s skin? On this read Psalm 99.5 noting the correlation between the words holy and footstool. Why do we have to honor God’s holiness? On this read Isaiah 55.9 noting the double use of the word higher regarding God’s ways and thoughts. Does disregarding that great difference diminish God? On this read Romans 1.24–25 noting how that disregard can’t touch God but instead denigrates us with dishonor when we worship creatures rather than the one holy God. This attack on the created order with its extreme and rigid demarcation – setting God apart from people – is what provokes God. As long as that extreme difference stands, God will be provoked by sin instead of looking the other way. Do you agree? If not, why not?

Week II. Read again John 5.14 noting the line sin no more. Can we do that? On this read 1 John 5.3 noting the line commandments are not burdensome. What makes this possible? On this read Philippians 4.13 noting the line in Christ who strengthens me. So if we receive strength from Christ, we can stop sinning. But what about Romans 7.18? – I cannot do what is right. On this read Hebrews 2.1–3 noting the line drift away… from such a great salvation. If, then, we are cut off from the power of Christ by our willful neglect of him, we, then, can’t stop sinning. On this read Hebrews 12.2 linking the phrase looking to Jesus with Hebrews 12.12–16 and the six verbs lift, strengthen, make straight, strive, obtain and be. Do you believe in that linkage? If so, why? How important is it?

Week III. Reread John 5.14 noting the line nothing worse befall you. What already had hurt him? On this read John 5.4 noting the words lame and paralyzed. What else could trouble him? In that same verse note the word blind. Now how is it possible for distress to be heaped upon distress like that? On this read Matthew 12.43–45 noting the contrasting words swept and evil, order and worse. Why doesn’t the clean life stay cleaned? Note in those same verses that it is the nature of the unclean spirits to look for rest in healed people. How do they get away with that? On this read 1 Peter 5.8–9 noting the words resist and firm. So as long as we’re lax we’ll fail. On this read Jeremiah 48.10 noting the word slackness, and the word armor in Ephesians 6.11. Are you ready? If not, why not?

Week IV. Read John 5.14 one last time noting the word befall. How does that happen? On this read Luke 13.1–5 noting the phrase likewise perish. How does God do that? On this read Ezekiel 14.21 noting the line sword, famine, evil beast, and pestilence. Why would God be so cruel? On this read Romans 1.24 noting the line God gave them up in the lusts of their hearts to impurity. What possible good purposes could these divine acts have? On this read 1 Corinthians 5.3–5 noting the line that his spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. Well, there is surely no better purpose than that! But why can’t we be saved differently? On this read John 6.44 noting the coercive word draws. That’s needed because Romans 11.24 says that our nature is contrary to God. Do you agree? 

Philippians

The Apostle Saint Paul

“Whether in pretense or in truth,

Christ is proclaimed; and in that I rejoice”

(1:18)

by Pastor Marshall

Martin Luther believed that this striking verse (Philippians 1:18) holds that even when preachers do a poor job and the sermon isn’t “alive [with the] pure flame and fire” of God’s word, those who hear it can still take “note of the text” and thereby be enriched (Luther’s Works 58:211). Luther insists that Christians should be “satisfied” and even “glad” when God’s truth is furthered by, of all people, his own “enemies” (LW 35:185). “Therefore we are not concerned,” he writes, “with our woes, but with the wretchedness of our persecutors; for we ourselves are well provided for. We are certain that they cannot distract from that; rather, the more they rage against us, the more they [instead] destroy themselves and prosper us.” Luther continues that our enemies “threaten us with death. If they were as smart as they are stupid, they would threaten us with life. It is a shame and a disgrace to try to threaten and terrify Christ and his Christians with death for… they are… victors over death. It is just like trying to frighten a man by bridling and saddling his horse and [then] bidding him to ride on it” (LW 43:63).

     It’s not quite right, however, to say that what Luther is getting at here is that what matters most are the “content” of the sermon and “not the identity of the preacher.” It is not that Luther, following Paul, has “mellowed” here and is being less harsh and more “gentle” toward wayward preachers (F. F. Bruce, Philippians, 1989, pp. 47–48). Rather it’s about how God won’t be snookered by skeptics, but uses them against their own nefarious designs. The note being struck, then, is one of encouragement and endurance against our foes – without minimizing their wretchedness. “None of the distressing events in the present life,” then, “can get its teeth into the great soul that loves wisdom: no, not feuds, nor accusations, nor [calamities], nor dangers, nor intrigues” (John Chrysostom, Homilies on Philippians, trans. Pauline Allen, 2013, p. 59). “For all the dangers of opening the doors of ministry to charlatans, it must be affirmed that the gospel has its own life and efficacy whether or not there is visceral authentication in the preacher.” And so we see that “too much introspection can immobilize the church in a subjective captivity of the gospel” as it labors to psychologically invalidate its opponents (Fred Craddock, Philippians, 1985, p. 26). That’s a dead end. Saint Paul steers clear of this by adopting in the disputes he waged “a standpoint above the dispute” – so that Christ is somehow magnified in spite of it all (Karl Barth, Epistle to the Philippians, 2002, p. 33). This is important to note in order to get a clear picture of Saint Paul. Indeed, “the esteem in which later Christianity held the apostle Paul was not universal in his lifetime” – but still he wasn’t derailed by that early disregard (Bonnie B. Thurston, Philippians, 2009, p. 61).

     Even though this unique verse reinforces the “prominent theme” of proclaiming Christ in spite of opposition against him, it hasn’t been “assigned for Sunday use in traditional pericopes” of appointed readings for worship (John Reumann, Philippians, 2008, p. 207). That’s a shame because of the faithful course it maps out for church conflicts. It shows how to battle without getting stuck in the battle. It shows how in fighting the good fight of faith in Christ, there is more to care about than defeating the enemy. The overriding concern should be rather “that Christ [is] truly proclaimed. All perils from without, all discords from within, all sorry motivations are finally of little consequence. No room for discouragement can exist” – as long as Christ is still somehow lifted up in church through his word (G. Hunsinger, Philippians, 2020, p. 20).

  PARISH PRAYERS 

Remember in prayer before God those whom He has made your

brothers and sisters through baptism.

Eve Young, Pete Morrison, The Tuomi Family, Sam & Nancy Lawson, Bob & Barbara Schorn, Connor Bisticas, Eileen & Dave Nestoss, Kyra Stromberg, Tabitha Anderson, Diana Walker, The Rev. Albin Fogelquist, The Rev. Howard Fosser, The Rev. Kari Reiten, The Rev. Dave Monson, The Rev. Paul Smith, The Rev. Dan Peterson, Sheila Feichtner, Richard Uhler, Yuriko Nishimura, Leslie Hicks, Eric Baxter, Paul Sponheim, Mary Lou & Paul Jensen, Hillary & Jim Thoren, Trevor Schmitt, Lesa Christensen, Maggie & Glenn Willis, Shirley Graham, Evelyn, Emily & Gordon Wilhelm, Karen Berg, Bjorg Hestevold, Wayne Korsmo, Garrison Radcliffe, Antonio Ortez, Gretchen Hoyum, Marv Morris, The Jill & Dave West Family, Noel Curtis, Randy Vater, Joe & Sam Frary, The Duncan Sturrock Family, Garret Metzler, Doreen Phillips Will Forrester.  Pray for our professional Health Care Providers:  Gina Allen, Janine Douglass, David Juhl,   Dana Kahn, Dean Riskedahl and all those suffering from the coronavirus pandemic. Also, pray for unbelievers, the addicted, the sexually abused, harassed, and unemployed.

     Pray for the shut-ins that the light of Christ may give them joy:  Bob & Mona Ayer, Bob & Barbara Schorn, Joan Olson, Doris Prescott, C. J. Christian, Dorothy Ryder, Lillian Schneider, Crystal Tudor, Nora Vanhala, Martin Nygaard, Gregg & Jeannine Lingle, Anelma Meeks.

     Pray for our bishops Elizabeth Eaton and Shelley Bryan Wee, our pastor Ronald Marshall, our choirmaster Dean Hard and our cantor Andrew King, that they may be strengthened in faith, love and the holy office to which they have been called. 

     Pray that God would give us hearts which find joy in service and in celebration of Stewardship.  Pray that God would work within you to become a good steward of your time, your talents and finances.  Pray to strengthen the Stewardship of our congregation in these same ways.

     Pray for the hungry, ignored, abused, addicted, and homeless this May.  Pray for the mercy of God for these people, and for all in Christ's church to see and help those who are in distress.

     Pray for our sister congregation:  El Camino de Emmaus in the Skagit Valley that God may bless and strengthen their ministry. Also, pray for our parish and it's ministry.

     Pray that God will bless you through the lives of the saints: St. Philip and St. James, Apostles; Monica, mother of Augustine, 387; and John Eliot, missionary to the American Indians, 1690.

A Treasury of Prayers

Dear God, the creator of all, enlighten my mind by the grace of your Holy Spirit, that I may seek what is well-pleasing in your sight. Order my doings that they may be in keeping with your commandments. Bless me this day, O Lord, I pray, that I may in the end enter into the unending joys of heaven. In the name of Jesus I pray. Amen.

                                                  [For All the Saints II:32, altered]