Monthly Archives: February 2024

February 29
Rev. Bruce Modahl

He is mindful of his covenant forever, of the word that he commanded, for a thousand generations.
Psalm 105:8

A college Old Testament professor used the word covenant so many times that his class named him Covenant. The nickname stuck to him from class to class, from one generation to another. The word covenant litters the Old Testament; it would be impossible to teach the subject without repeating the word over and over. He was a faithful teacher. He kept covenant with God and with his students.

Every word in Hebrew is rooted in a verb. As often as the noun covenant appears in the Old Testament, the verbal form “to covenant” never does. From other ancient sources, we know the verb means “to select the best.” But it can also mean “to bind.” I may be playing fast and loose with the grammar, but not so with the theology when I say God selects the best for us when God binds himself to us.

God bound himself to the people of Israel and they to him. The writer of Psalm 105 recounts the times in the history of God’s people when there seemed to be no way forward, but God made a way for them. The God of the covenant makes a way out of no way. That’s how the preachers in one mighty tradition of Christian preaching put it.

The incarnation is the chief way by which God binds himself to us. God in Christ takes on our flesh, our sin, our idolatry, and our death. He establishes a new covenant in his blood, shed for us and for all people. The grave is the last and greatest enemy. By Jesus’ resurrection, he makes for us a way out of the grave’s no way.

God binds himself to us at our baptism. God renews the covenant with us at the Lord’s Supper and as the gospel is preached to us and into us. In this covenant, God gives us all of Christ’s benefits to use in our lives and for the sake of others.

Heavenly Father, make us faithful stewards of the covenant you have made with us. We pray in the name of Jesus, your dear Son and our Lord. Amen.

Febrary 28
Julie Hinz

“I will establish my covenant between me and you and your offspring after you throughout their generations, for an everlasting covenant, to be God to you and to your offspring after you.” Genesis 17:7

From the earliest moments in time, God made promises to those who follow God’s commands. He covenanted with Noah that God would save them from the flood, and then again that God would not again destroy the earth in such a way. In this passage, God’s covenant with Abraham lives on today.

God’s promise or covenant was with Abraham and his offspring throughout their generations. An everlasting covenant – everlasting is a long time! When we trace our faith back, we see that we as Christians share our lineage with Islam and Judaism through this same human man. We are bound together by the promise God made to Abraham.

God has continued to fulfill that promise made thousands of years ago; Abraham’s children continue to flourish. Whether Jewish, Christian, or Muslim, we are still here, we see new generations being born into our extended family, and we continue to rejoice in the God of Abraham. Yes, we all consider God differently. But our beginnings are from the same man to whom God made a promise.

There are no qualifiers in God’s declaration. Nowhere in this verse can you even sense a stipulation, a requirement by Abraham or any of his generations to follow. Simply “I will be God to you and your offspring.” No “if you do this,” or “as long as they follow this rule.” Also, notice in this verse that God does not say “and you will be my people,” another example of the gift of free will God has given us. If we, through the work of the Spirit, become followers, we know and recognize the promises. But even if we do not, God will continue to be God. God and God’s promises are inescapable.

Timeless God, thank you for Abraham who believed in you, whom you declared righteous, to whom you granted an everlasting promise which has been kept over the generations. Help us to revel in the promises you continue to fulfill, promises of comfort, joy, peace, and eternal life with you. Amen.

February 27
Scott Schwar

Posterity will serve him;
    future generations will be told about the Lord
and proclaim his deliverance to a people yet unborn,
    saying that he has done it. Psalm 22:30-31

This psalm expresses David’s feeling of abandonment and the suffering he feels surrounded by enemies and criticism and the thought that God is not listening to his cries of anguish. In the first part of Psalm 22, David itemizes his pains. But he does not deny or forget God, and in the second part, he recalls God’s faithfulness in all times. 

In the past few years, I have had Sunday difficulties with work intruding on my time at the church I love. Feeling estrangement from some fellow parishioners has made necessary absences seem somehow justified. But as David moves from the cry of pain to the shout of praise, I too remember that God’s ever-present love has nurtured me since youth and brought me salvation through Jesus Christ.

This was proclaimed to me in confirmation study and Luther League by Pastor Earl Bengston at Concordia Church (Chicago) and by my sister’s father-in-law, Pastor Franklin Giese at Messiah Church. And later from Pastor Marc Braudal, Lutheran Church of the Atonement (Barrington), and from my 40 plus years here at Grace with Pastors Dean Lueking, Bruce Modahl, Michael Costello, and now David Lyle.  As an active lector at Sunday worship, I served with Assistant Pastors including Peter Marty. In association management work, I served under a wise and good man, Robert Becker, whose wife, Vivian, became a Pastor, I attended her ordination which she shared with Phyllis Kersten who like other Grace Associate Pastors, Leon Rosenthal, Lauren and David Wagner, and Troy Medlin, reached out with God’s good Word. And I will soon see my granddaughter’s first communion as a reminder that the proclamation of God’s deliverance is continuing in new generations.

Dear Lord, keep my heart focused on love of you and your neighbor as I walk through the ever-present difficulties we humans cause ourselves and others. May we unite in the salvation you have brought us through Jesus Christ. Amen.             

February 26
Rev. Marnie Rourke

For this reason, it depends on faith, in order that the promise may rest on grace and be guaranteed to all his descendants, not only to the adherents of the law but also to those who share the faith of Abraham. Romans 4:16

God’s covenant promises that Abraham’s descendants will be blessed by faith, grace, and more. Are you waiting to inherit something that belonged to your great-great-grandparents? That one priceless object that everyone knows was meant just for you? Everyone knew about it as if your name had been written on it before your parents were even born?

I was promised a clock with Westminster chimes that my Grandpa made sing while he cuddled me in his lap. Well, I never got it, but those sweet memories will always be mine! I inherited a grace covenant when God stayed by my side when my grandfather died. I was 5 and had never been in a hospital, and I wasn’t there that day. I sat in my bedroom while my parents were with Grandpa, and the Holy Spirit opened my eyes and heart to see them there beside him. I saw the oxygen tent, and watched Grandpa breathe more and more slowly, until he peacefully exhaled the last time…and I inherited that peace — forever!

Grandpa was a man of faith, who now rested in the grace of eternal peace. I inherited the gift of knowing that when someone dies, God always shows up. This led to my becoming a pastor, therapist, and hospice chaplain. We are children of Abraham, and when we die we rise with Christ. That is the most priceless inheritance in the universe. Watching Grandpa die from afar promised me that we can trust the future because the future belongs to God!

God grant us the grace to live in resurrection faith knowing you have promised to love all of your children forever, as we seek to enjoy the blessing of the eternal peace we inherit through faith, both today and tomorrow. Amen.

February 25
John Albright

He called the crowd with his disciples and said to them, “If any wish to come after me, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” Mark 8:34

When Jesus tells prospective followers to “take up their cross,” what does He mean?

In the Middle Ages, a wildly popular response was for men to paint crosses on their shields, saddle up their horses, and head for Palestine to make war against Muslims. The cross-bearers (English “crusaders”, German “Kreuztraeger”) were responding to an interpretation that does not serve well in our time. The Lutheran college (Susquehanna) where I graduated, fielded athletic teams called “Crusaders”; several years ago they changed the name to “River Hawks” to avoid offending Muslims.

Did Jesus ask us to give up our favorite luxuries for Lent? Somehow it seems that he had something more serious and more difficult in mind.

 For many people, the agony of physical and emotional suffering from illness, injury, aging, or death of a loved one is a sad reality. For such cases, there is a cross to bear. But those who do not follow Jesus have these burdens also.

Elsewhere in the Gospels, Jesus tells us, his followers, to love our enemies, to bless those who curse us, and to be kind to all without really expecting kindness in return. We are asked to forgive those who have harmed us physically, emotionally, or financially. These things are much more difficult than giving up something we like because of the season of the church year.

Dear Lord, who once had to carry a cross and die on it, give us strength to bear the burdens of life and even death, so that we may abide in God’s covenant and be numbered among your true followers.  Amen

February 24
Gwen Gotsch

He left Judea and started back to Galilee. But he had to go through Samaria. So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. John 4:3-5

Jesus is traveling through Samaria, where he’ll have a memorable encounter with a woman at a well, promising living water to all who thirst, to all who worship God in spirit and truth. The grace is there for the taking, grace offered to all who see it, from Judea to Galilee and to the Samaritans who lived in between. Picture it as an arching rainbow of grace – living water illuminated by the true light, a sign of God’s love and care.

Rainbows made with ink or dyes are everywhere: unicorn stickers on children’s lunchboxes, rainbow flags, rainbow gradients around the color wheel. But a real rainbow is a fleeting thing – usually. It requires rain and sun at the same time; you have to be standing in the right place at the right time to see it. More than once I’ve stood outside in drizzling rain and looked for a rainbow that never appeared. More than once, I’m sure, I’ve hunkered down inside and missed rainbows that followed storms. (These statements are true in metaphor as well as in actual fact.)

I once saw a rainbow that lasted a long time. It was an early evening on a Saturday in spring. It was bright and strong in the sky as my daughter and I came out our back door, and it stayed with us for ten minutes or more as we drove south on Austin Boulevard. At every stoplight, every slowdown in traffic, I looked anxiously over my left shoulder to see if it was still there — and it was! It arched from North Avenue to Berwyn, but truly, it was everywhere – a friend texted me a photo of the same rainbow from her apartment on the north side of Chicago.

Like the woman at the well after her encounter with Jesus, I felt awed, blessed, and energized by this rainbow of grace – Living Water illuminated by the True Light.

God of Light, Lord of Living Water, give us eyes to see your grace and faith to carry it in our hearts, in sunshine and shadow, in drought and plenty, in death and in life. Amen.

February 23
Sandy Lentz

“Thus he has shown the mercy promised to our ancestors
    and has remembered his holy covenant,
the oath that he swore to our ancestor Abraham,
to grant us that we, being rescued from the hands of our enemies,
might serve him without fear,in holiness and righteousness
    in his presence all our days.”  Luke 1:72-75

We are often called to look at a rainbow when one appears in the sky. “Come and see!” we hear. A beautiful arc of color. A rainstorm is over. Maybe even a pot of gold at its end, courtesy of popular culture

Luke records that Zechariah, a priest of the temple, after the birth of his son John, prophesied, reminding his hearers of God’s covenant with his people. That covenant, symbolized by the rainbow, was first a promise that God would never again destroy the earth with water.

The covenant goes much further, however. It is with us, his people down through the ages, a broader promise of delivery not just from flood, but “from the hand of our enemies.” I see this as a prophesy of the gift of Christ, who by his death and resurrection has delivered all his people from our “enemies” _— sin and death.

What does that covenant mean, then, for us? We are promised Christ, and through his act, we are to serve without fear. Our part of the covenant, then, is to respond, not in fear, but in love, freed to serve wherever we are needed. Freed, then, to serve, not to earn salvation, which has already been gifted to us, but to serve in joyful response to that covenant.

Father God, remind us of your covenant, your faithful promise to us in your beautiful rainbow, but also in the beautiful faces of your people whom we freely strive to serve in your name. Amen.

Rev. F. Dean Lueking
February 22

The voice of the Lord is over the waters;
    the God of glory thunders,
    the Lord, over mighty waters. Psalm 29:3

Psalm 29:3 says a lot in a few words.

Meaning this: God’s voice must ever be heard over the babble and misdirection of counter-voices all over the place, all the time. Such is the meaning of “waters” in Psalm 29, spelled out in the remaining verses. 

I think back to a time just over 50 years ago in our Grace Church history when everything we now know and love as our sanctuary and school building was at stake. All this was challenged by a group within the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod, our denominational home at the time. It had been hijacked in the early l960s by power-hungry folks seeking among other things to take over Grace Church and School as their own.    

A legal battle ensued over our property. It continued through the l970s, finally reaching the United States Supreme Court which ended it in May, l985, by a ruling in our favor.

While fully acknowledging our sins and failures as well as those of our opponents throughout this wearisome time, Psalm 29:3 still speaks to us.  

God has the last word, which is Christ’s death and resurrection for us and for the world. That’s the good news for us in every bad situation. Keep it first in your heart, mind, and daily doing.      

Most powerful God, open our ears that we might hear your voice over the chaos of this world. Calm the noise in our lives and our hearts so we might know your guidance and direction always, and follow your word in our daily living. Amen.

Susie Calhoun
February 21

“When the bow is in the clouds, I will see it and remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is on the earth.” God said to Noah, “This is the sign of the covenant that I have established between me and all flesh that is on the earth.” Genesis 9: 16-17

The God of the rainbow is our God of love, mercy, and hope. The rainbow is a sign, a reminder to God of his promise of mercy and love that he will never send a catastrophic event to destroy life on earth, but that he will sustain it. We know this because we know the story, we know his promises are true, and we know that the fulfillment of God’s promises was the sacrifice of his Son, Jesus, to save us.

We know this because we are his children. Like the rainbow is a sign for us, we need to think about how we can be signs to those who don’t know the story about God’s love. We can’t keep this story to ourselves, we must let everyone in on this good news by what we say and do.

As I volunteer at the Harmony Food Pantry, I see many people being signs of God’s love. I see little faces light up when my husband hands out little baggies of cookies and fruit snacks to occupy them while moms and dads are shopping, or the smiles and words of gratitude when another volunteer brings out a warm coat for a customer who has come in with just a sweatshirt. One volunteer stays outside for a while when he arrives just to talk to and greet those waiting in line. Many others work tirelessly for hours every week so that this place on Wednesday can be, not only a place to pick up food, but a place with people who greet them, pray for them, sometimes are able to call them by their name, and who wish them a blessed week. Twice a month these people know that they will be surrounded by people of God who love them when they come to the Harmony Food Pantry.

Each of these volunteers is a small sign of God’s love and promise of hope, but think of what large billboards of this message there could be if all of us became signs.

Dear God, thank you for keeping your promises. Cause us to think how we can be signs of your love in this troubled time when so many need it, and then help us to begin. In your Son’s name. Amen

February 20
Al Swanson

Do not remember the sin of my youth or my transgressions; according to your steadfast love remember me, for your goodness’ sake, O Lord! Psalm 25:7

God, don’t hold a grudge against me for what I have done in the past.

That is a straightforward plea in the psalm that applies to all of us.

Consider what holding grudges means to the society in which we live: drive-by shootings spurred by perceived slights, calls for retribution or payback against those who may disagree or oppose, or the urge to get even with someone for whatever reason, real or imagined.

We are human after all. And having these feelings may well be a human reaction to events in our lives. In business economic terms, balance the costs and benefits of carrying out these feelings. What price do we pay if we let a grudge dominate our thoughts? What will we gain from seeking revenge? What will seeking revenge cost me: a lost friend, a strained relationship, lost respect, or something more?

What if God did hold a grudge against us? The cost to God is a lost soul. No benefit to God there. Fortunately, God is not human. Through our faith, God leads us with compassion and love — love of ourselves, and our neighbors as ourselves.

Psalm 25 is more than a plea to God to forget our past actions and transgressions. It is a plea for God’s compassion and love to deliver us from the past. The challenge for me is not to forget the event, insult, or perceived slight. Rather, the challenge is to put those feelings into the past, forgive, and then live a life of love of God and our neighbors.

This psalm is a plea to the Lord to forgive us our sins (vv. 11, 18) and to relieve the troubles in our hearts (v. 17). It is a plea for God to guide us to follow his lead — the real benefit to God and to us.

Lord, strengthen my faith and bring me out of the distress that carrying a grudge causes. Guide me to focus not on retribution or getting even but on what is truly important — trusting you and loving my neighbor as myself. Amen.