Last week, I attended my last church council meeting for the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. My term is coming to an end in July.

Community Lutheran Church is a part of the ELCA (Evangelical Lutheran Church in America) and I am honored to serve on the church council for the national church body.

In addition to the preparation for electing a new presiding bishop and secretary at the churchwide assembly in July, we covered a lot of action items while I was in Chicago.

Here are few highlights of the work we accomplished:

• Received the final report and recommendations of the Commission for a Renewed Lutheran Church (CRLC) Recommended that the 2025 Churchwide Assembly:

• Adopt the proposed social statement, Faith and Civic Life: Seeking the Well-being of All

• Adopt proposed editorial changes to the social statement, Human Sexuality: Gift and Trust, in response to the memorial, “Reconsideration of Social Statement on Human Sexuality: Gift and Trust”

• Receive the 2024 Lutheran-Orthodox “Common Statement on the Filioque”

• Adopt additional bylaw amendments to the Constitutions, Bylaws, and Continuing Resolutions of the ELCA to allow for exchangeability of deacons with certain full communion partners and to establish additional standards for rostered ministers

• Adopt the “Rules of Organization and Procedure” for the 2025 Churchwide Assembly

• Approve churchwide organization budget proposals for 2026–2028

• Approved addition of a definition of “hate group” to Definitions and Guidelines for Discipline

• AND A LOT MORE!

I also sit on the Service and Justice subcommittee which supports the Service and Justice Unit (department) of the ELCA.

(The picture below is of the Service and Justice Committee and two staff members.)

I heard firsthand about the damage from the abrupt grant cuts from USAID that essentially closed earlier this year. This immediate lack of funding (versus tapered off) has caused much hardship and pain among the most vulnerable around the world. The ELCA does not have the resources to fill the gap left behind.

We also received an update from continuing war in the Holy Land and how it is seriously affecting the Christian community. Please keep them in your prayers.

Our church body, the ELCA does good work and seeks to be a thriving church while living into the teachings of Jesus just as we do at Community Lutheran Church. I give thanks for our church family and the ELCA.

God bless you,
Pastor Ben

For me, the journey towards the cross and the empty tomb of Jesus involves humility. Why? Because he acts on our behalf. Jesus does something for us that we can’t do for ourselves. I can’t absolve myself of sin without the death and resurrection of Jesus. I need what he so graciously did for me. That causes me to be a little more introspective and little more humble.

Ego and self-importance is a great way to short circuit your relationship with Jesus. Remember: “God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble.” James 4:6

If we go back to the time of Daniel the prophet, long before the time of Jesus, we see what happens when arrogance is out of control. We pick up the story with the son of King Nebuchadnezzar’s son who is now king. His kingdom is in decline and he is oblivious.

King Belshazzar gave a great banquet for a thousand of his nobles and drank wine with them. While Belshazzar was drinking his wine, he gave orders to bring in the gold and silver goblets that Nebuchadnezzar his father had taken from the temple in Jerusalem, so that the king and his nobles, his wives and his concubines might drink from them. Daniel 5:1-2

Yes, he is partying hard and he calls for the sacred vessels from the temple of Jerusalem to drink from as if to say he is “large and in charge” without a care in the world. He is very much thumbing his nose at God.

As you read earlier, there is no better way to get God’s attention than to be prideful and arrogant. Well, King Belshazzar has God’s full attention.

Suddenly the fingers of a human hand appeared and wrote on the plaster of the wall, near the lampstand in the royal palace. The king watched the hand as it wrote. His face turned pale and he was so frightened that his knees knocked together and his legs gave way. Daniel 5:5-6

A sign! But it’s not a good message. Belshazzar’s arrogance and careless living is coming to an end. More than that, had he not been so wrapped up in himself he would have seen the signs without the hand of God spelling it out for him.

The queen tells her husband to call the prophet Daniel (from Israel originally) to interpret this message from God. They think they will find relief once they know what the message means. Spoiler alert: they won’t.

Daniel is summoned and is promised gifts and a promotion if he can interpret the sign. Daniel says, “Keep it.” Daniel then interprets the “handwriting on the wall.”

“This is what these words mean: Mene: God has numbered the days of your reign and brought it to an end. Tekel: You have been weighed on the scales and found wanting. Peres: Your kingdom is divided and given to the Medes and Persians.” 5:26-28

This is the end for King Belshazzar. This is the end of his arrogant and prideful ways.

As the Proverbs say: “Pride goes before destruction, a haughty spirit before a fall.” Proverbs 16:18

It is still true today. Pride and arrogance doesn’t serve you or the people around you. We are called to something better in Jesus. Humility!

There is great comfort in pointing to and leaning on the One who is greater than all of us!

Humility helps us find our place in the created order and it reminds us that we will never be perfect or even God.

Lent is a perfect time to humble yourself and look to Jesus for all things. Surrender your ego and embrace kindness.

Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit, but in humility consider others better than yourselves. Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others. Philippians 2:3-4

God bless,
Pr. Ben

Yesterday, we began the season of Lent. Lent is Latin for the word “spring.” As you may have guessed, the name has nothing to do with the actual church season.

Lent is a time to prepare our hearts for the greatest miracle in human history: The Resurrection of Jesus. Lent can also be a time of introspection and soul searching. Personally,  I use Lent to return to the inescapable truth that I need a Savior. I need Jesus who will save me from my sinful self.

As the prophet Joel once wrote, Rend your heart and not your garments. Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love, and he relents from sending calamity. Joel 2:13

It is not about the outward signs of showing remorse (rending your garments), Lent is about opening our hearts to Jesus so that he can mend them back together.

Jesus accomplishes this on the cross when he died for our sins. Simply, He takes our place. As Paul wrote, For the wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Romans 6:23

I want to be ready to remember that great gift on Good Friday and that is why I spend Lent getting ready to receive the undeserved gift given to us at Jesus’ death.

Even then, death doesn’t have the final word. Jesus conquered death AND he forgave our sins. That is a double win!

Isaiah reminds us that our King is perfect and wants the best for us!

In love a throne will be established; in faithfulness a man will sit on it— one from the house of David— one who in judging seeks justice and speeds the cause of righteousness. Isaiah 16:5

Jesus was coronated King of kings and Lord of lords on Easter morning!

Take some time to look inward over the next 5 weeks. It is good for you.

God bless,
Pr. Ben