Installation of Ann Hultquist – Mark 10: 35-45
Augustana Lutheran Church – Denver CO
24 April 2016
My beloved sisters and brothers in Christ: grace, mercy and peace be with you from our God who is love, and from our living LordJesus.
What a day this is for you, Augustana Lutheran Church! What a day this is for YOU, what a day this is for the whole church, as together we welcome your new senior pastor, Ann Hultquist, as a partner in ministry with you! I am delighted to be here to celebrate this moment in your life as a congregation, and I bring you the greetings of your brothers and sisters in Christ across our ELCA Rocky Mountain Synod, folks who have been in prayer with you and for you during this time of transition and discernment and who rejoice with you now as you take this next step into ministry and mission. Today you have a visible representation of our life together as Christ’s church through these rostered leaders who are here to mark the fact that we are indeed Christ’s church, better together.
That’s not just a catchy phrase, by the way. It expresses a deep truth of what it means to live together as the Body of Christ. To be church better together means that whether we are facing challenge or change, opportunity or joy, no one part of the body exists in isolation from another. Which means, beloved of Augustana, that your ministry and witness in this place and in your community here in Denver, all this you carry out on behalf of all of us in this church. And everything that is done in the ministry and witnessof our church beyond these wall, in the rest of our ELCA congregations, in our extended ELCA ministries in our synod and around the world – all of this is an extension of your ministry and witness here at Augustana. And so today’s celebration really is about our life together!
You may not be aware of it, but whenever we celebrate the installation of a new pastor, I invite that pastor to choose the texts for worship, and to let me know why those texts matter for such an occasion. Pastor Ann has offered us three wonderful readings from the Scriptures. First we heard this well known passage from Micah that was read at Pastor Ann’s own ordination and is reflected in your mission statement here at Augustana, with the familiar commission to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with God.
And then these words of the Apostle Paul from Romans that get at the heart of ourLutheran proclamation of the gospel – a proclamation of the love of God poured out for us in Jesus Christ, a love that saves, justifies and reconciles us, not on the basis of who we are or what we do, but out of the abundance of God’s grace.
And then this gospel text from Mark that points us to the manner in which Jesus calls his disciples to servant leadership, something that I know has been foundational for Pastor Ann in her many years of ministry, and reminds us of how we are to live in community as Christ’s beloved.
These are wonderful and rich words of Scripture for us to consider on a day like today. And when I ponder these texts, and especially when I hear them in light of what this service of installation is all about, what emerges for me is something that I can only call classically Lutheran. I know it will come as a disappointment to some of you to know that when I talk about classically Lutheran, I’m not talking about our identity as Swedish or Norwegian or German, or any other ethnic identity. For me, what is classically Lutheran is our calling to be a both/and church in this either/or world.
To be a both/and church, to bear witness to the gospel in a way that is always including and never dividing, this one of the unique marks and gifts the Holy Spirit has given to us as a church of the Reformation, and in particular as this part of the Body of Christ we call the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. And today of all days, is a time to lift up and embrace that classically Lutheran gift of both/and.
In case you’re not sure what I mean by the gift of being a both/and church, let me point out that our Lutheran theology and our ELCA way of living as church are filled with both/ands. It begins with our definition of church as being a community gathered around Word and Sacrament – not one or the other but both/and. We speak of the Scriptures as Christ’s living word proclaimed to us in both Law and Gospel. We acknowledge that in this life we live simultaneously as both sinner and saint. We recognize that God is at work both through what Luther called the Kingdom of the left and the Kingdom of the right, what we might call the secular and the sacred. Through the gospel, we say, we are made perfectly free lords of all, subject to none, and at the same time we are made perfectly dutiful servants of all, subject to all. We find God’s truth revealed to us in both faith and science, not either/or. And so it goes … dig just a bit into our ELCA way of being Christ’s church and you will find plenty of both/and – sometimes know as paradox.
So what are the both/and insights that these Scripture readings and this occasion draw forth today? Let’s start with some of the most obvious. I’ve already indicated that today is about BOTH your life as a congregation, specifically as Augustana Lutheran Church in Denver AND about our ministry as the whole church. As I noted, when you carry out your ministry here at Augustana you embody the whole ministry of our church right here in this place. And likewise Pastor Ann, just like Pastor Caitlinand Pastor Todd, while serving as your called pastors also serve as pastors of this whole church – which is why they share their gifts beyond your congregational context, in the case of Pastor Ann as chair of our synodical candidacy committee, in the case of Pastor Caitlin as Dean of our Metro East Conference, and in the case of Pastor Todd as a member of our Lutheran Advocacy Ministry Policy Committee here in Colorado. Both/and.
Another both/and of this day grows out of who you have been as a congregation AND who you are becoming. You have called Pastor Ann to this community of faith with a strong foundation and a proud heritage – AND you have called Pastor Ann to a community of faith that is actively changing and moving into God’s future in new ways. You have called Pastor Ann to help build and strengthen the good ministries for which you are known AND you have called her to partner with you in imagining completely new ways of engaging in mission and witness in this neighborhood and in the world. It’s not a matter of either “honoring the past” or “living into the future” – it’s aboth/and!
That particular both/and is confirmed by our scripture readings. Paul’s letter to the Romans reminds us that what we are called to do in the future is what we have always been called to do: to bear witness to God’s saving love for us in Jesus – to live out the good news that we are indeed justified by faith through God’s amazing grace, utterly reconciled to God in Christ so that we may be agents of reconciliation in this world. It’s the same sense of missionthat we have always had – and yet together as pastor and parish, together as Christ’s whole church, we are called to bear witness to this good news in a context that continues to change. And so what does our consistent witness to the gospel need to sound like for 21st century North American ears and hearts?
At the same time, our readings remind us of a particular both/and related to HOW you will carry out this ministry, how you will partner together for the sake of the gospel. Jesus’s words to his disciples in Mark’s gospel remind you that you have not called a senior pastor to lord over you, but to humbly walk and serve with you – that you are called to live as fellow servants of one another. Which means that leadership in this place isn’t about either the pastors or the Council, the staff or the congregation, it’s mutual servanthood and mutual leadership, shared by both pastors AND council, by both staff AND congregation.
Another wonderful both/and of this day is prompted by our reading from Micah and links us to your own mission statement as a congregation. Do you know your mission statement? Here’s what you say: Guided by the Holy Spirit, we gather in Christian community, reach out and invite, offer hope and healing in Jesus Christ, and walk humbly with God. That last part is the direct Micah reference – and as Pastor Ann noted to me, this mission is a tall order for any congregation. And yet what is so wonderful about it, is the both/and. Do you see it? What you describe as your calling as a congregation both draws you together here in community AND sends you out. You are committed to reaching out, stepping into the messiness of this world as Christ’s servants to offer hope and healing, and at the same time you are committed to inviting and welcoming people here to experience that same hope and healing of Jesus with you! There is both a boldness in your sense of calling AND the necessary humility to recognize that what we are about is always God’s work, not ours, and that what we are called to do is to live as the vessels through which that work is accomplished.
Both/and …such is the gift of our life as this part of the body we call the ELCA. Such is the gift for your life today as Augustana Lutheran Church as you welcome Pastor Ann Hultquist to be your partner in ministry. How appropriate then that we gather around this both/and Table, where in both bread and wine, Christ comes to us, with hope and healing, with forgiveness and love, with power and inspiration, to feed us and then to send us out – his both/and disciples in this either/or world!
Thanks be to God!
AMEN