This past Tuesday of Holy Week, our Northeastern Ohio Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) invited rostered leaders to come together and renew their ordination vows. Many of the 65 synods throughout our wider church do the same: providing clergy and deacons and other leaders a space and time to feel a bit of spiritual nourishment amidst what can often be the most chaotic time of the year. For some reason, many show up in spite of all that still has to be done for a Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Resurrection Sunday, and whatever else in between. For some reason, many insist on that sacred space and time to not have to worry about worship-planning and the seemingly endless to-do list, and just sit in the assembly space and take all that Holy Spirit in.
And so it begins, yet again: the NCAA men’s basketball tournament will be in full swing come tomorrow (Thursday, March 21, even though it technically started with a few games on Tuesday, but minor detail). Some may not care whatsoever, but the ratings across multiple television networks, not to mention the absurd financial wagering over the 67 games played, show that millions upon millions do, to say the least. But even for the non-collegiate-basketball-enthusiasts, there is one tradition that might still pull at the heartstrings.
It was on this day (March 13) in 2013, when the wider church felt a bit of a jolt. Our Roman Catholic siblings in Christ were already taken aback when their Pope Benedict XVI announced he would basically retire from his position. And then, an archbishop from Argentina, of all places, named Jorge Mario Bergoglio, was lifted up to fill the pontiff role. After all, the ones south of the equator typically didn’t receive hardly any due consideration by their higher-up brethren. As much as the joke can be made about however many Lutherans it takes to change a light bulb (or anything for that matter) with the conclusion, “Change!?!?!?!” our Roman Catholic neighbors aren’t exactly the new-anything lovers, either.
Last week was another reminder of higher education in our Lutheran sphere needing to go through a re-evaluation, to say the least. Valparaiso University, one of the bedrock institutions for many of our siblings in Christ to further studies in music and theology and more, has publicly acknowledged the possibility of eliminating those two programs altogether. In addition, Lutheran Theological Southern Seminary (Columbia, SC), one of the seven remaining for our wider Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), announced its move to the campus of Lenoir-Rhyne University in North Carolina. These are just the latest rounds of reality checks that this isn’t “our grandmother’s Lutheran church anymore.”
This past weekend was a bit of a rough one on the home-front, as we had to bid farewell to our most beloved Zoey. A previous “wandering” has already been had on her life story, of sorts, but it’s safe to say that the quality of that life had diminished in recent months. It seemed like it had become a distant memory of her running up-and-down church building and parsonage hallways chasing after tennis balls or relentlessly going after the biggest stick she could find on beachfronts. I suppose those were the best of her “good ‘ole days.”
