From the ELCA Churchwide Assembly

“Remember that all through history the way of truth and love has always won. There have been tyrants and murderers and for a time they seem invincible but in the end, they always fall — think of it,

ALWAYS.” 

 Mahatma Gandhi

Here is an excerpt from Bishop Hanson's sermon at the Churchwide Assembly. Lutherans will be relevant in the 21st Century when we follow his advice to move out of our sanctuaries and into the public square to act in the way of truth and love.

Finally Jesus caused such disruption with God’s gracious

word of promise that the cry, “How can this be?” turned into

shouts of “This must not be. Crucify him! Crucify him!” Even

the angel’s announcement on Easter morning, “He is not here. He

is risen” left Jesus’ followers fearful and bewildered, asking,

“How can this be? How can it be that not even death has the final

word with us?”

But it is tempting for us to stay there, is it not? It is tempting

for us as the ELCA to be content as a “How can this be” church,

a community that finds its comfort zone among the ponderers.

Skepticism becomes our first response when someone tells us of

God’s disrupting, interrupting grace in their life. Suspicion

becomes is our first posture toward our neighbor.

So are we ready for the Holy Spirit to move us with Mary?

I believe that, as the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, we

are being moved by the power of the Holy Spirit to sing Mary’s

song of God’s disrupting, dislocating, relocating power.

Oh, yes, I believe the Holy Spirit is moving us to sing Mary’s

Magnificat not only in the security of our sanctuaries, but also in

the public square. It will take the Spirit’s power to embolden us

to sing of God scattering the proud in the thoughts of their hearts

and bringing down the powerful from their thrones.

In the midst of the gridlock over the debt ceiling and debt

reduction debate, I went to Washington, D.C., to join other

religious leaders in singing Mary’s song about God’s promise to

fill the hungry with good things. But, I can tell you, the refrains

of Mary’s song were not resounding throughout those halls of

power. There seemed to be more willingness to dismantle

programs than to draw a circle of protection around those

programs that serve the hungry, the homeless, the most vulnerable

in our land and around the world.

Friends, you know and I know that religious leaders singing

Mary’s song are not packing people into sports stadiums for

so-called religious rallies. In a consumer-oriented, competitive,

what-has-God-done-for-me- lately? religious marketplace, we are

not going to hear much about God dismantling structures that

marginalize and exclude people in poverty or those whose race or

gender or citizenship or sexual orientation, physical or mental

abilities or health make them unwanted, unnoticed.

But that is Mary’s song, and it is Mary’s song that the Holy

Spirit will give you the courage and voice to sing. It is Mary’s

song of God bringing the despised and the marginalized, the

outcast and the downcast, the defeated and the denied, and even

the dead into a new place. The place where God is building the

new creation—the new community in Christ.

When we have been disrupted by God’s grace, when we have

been dislocated, when we have been knocked off balance by

God’s word of judgment and left wondering, “How can this be?”

the Holy Spirit moves us. The Holy Spirit relocates us into God’s

abundant mercy, into a community of faith that with Mary

believes “Nothing will be impossible with God.”

Oh yes, this is who we are as the Evangelical Lutheran

Church in America—a community freed in Christ to serve. So let

this assembly unfold. Come, Holy Spirit. Come with your

power, Holy Spirit. Move us as you moved Mary. Move us to

sing, to live Mary’s song. Move us to faith. Move us to a living,

daring confidence in God’s grace. Move us to respond with

Mary, “Here am I—here we are. Let it be to me—let it be to us,

the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, according to your

word.”

So, like Mary, are we ready to be moved by the power of the

Holy Spirit? Don’t forget—by adjournment Friday, we will have

given our answer. Amen.