Go & Tell the Story

  By Rev. Kristen Van Stee, Assistant to the Bishop “For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face.  Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.  And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.”  --1 Corinthians 13:12-13 My family is the kind of family that is committed to holding on to relics from the past.  Anything that tells the story of our ancestors is usually kept safe somewhere in the house like a sacred artifact.  Letters, photographs, antique furniture, knick-knacks, and more haunt the rooms of our homes, helping to trigger human memory and the stories they invoke.  For this reason, when I visit with my grandfather, it is not an unusual activity that we sit down together and dig through one of his many boxes of old papers in an attempt to organize what is there, sifting trash from treasure.  The last time I was with him, we looked throu...

God’s Greatness ( Lectionary 29 B--Mark 10:35-45) Sermon by Rev. Kristen Van Stee Preached October 21, 2018 If I asked you to describe what great leadership looks like, what would you say?  Perhaps you would describe a great leader as someone who takes charge in any given situation, who makes decisions and convinces other people to follow along, someone with a forceful personality who can manipulate a situation so that he and his people come out on top.  A great leader might inspire other people to work for greatness as well.  Well if you take that definition of great leadership to heart, I can name many individuals throughout history who embodied this greatness.  Leaders like Alexander the Great, the 4 th century BC king of Macedonia.  By the time he was thirty years old Alexander led his armies on the largest military campaign ever, conquering everything from North Africa to India.  And under his leadership, his army never lost a battle...

By  Rev. Kristen Van Stee, Assistant to the Bishop 27 Why do you say, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel, “My way is hidden from the  Lord , and my right is disregarded by my God”?  28 Have you not known? Have you not heard? The  Lord  is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable.  29 He gives power to the faint, and strengthens the powerless.  30 Even youths will faint and be weary, and the young will fall exhausted;  31 but those who wait for the  Lord  shall renew their strength , they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.   -Isaiah 40: 27-31             I have a confession to make: I’m grumpy with God.  But I’m also grumpy about a lot of other things too.  I’m grumpy that I have lots of online meetings every...

By  Rev. Kristen Van Stee , Associate to the Bishop As a pastor, I usually prepare for Ash Wednesday every year by reading the assigned Gospel text for the day from Matthew 6 in which Jesus instructs his followers in how to give alms, pray, and fast.   And indeed, that is what I and probably most congregations focused on for Ash Wednesday March 6 th , 2019…but only a week later as I felt the fear of a rising Elkhorn River only a mile south of Pilger where I live, I remembered the often-overlooked text from the prophet Joel that was the first reading for Ash Wednesday:             1 Blow the trumpet in Zion; sound the alarm on my holy mountain! Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble, for the day of the Lord is coming, it is near— 2 a day of darkness and gloom, a day of clouds and thick darkness! Like blackness spread upon the mountains a great and powerful army comes; their like has never been from of old, nor w...

By Rev. Kristen Van Stee, Associate to the Bishop Acts 15: 36-41 “After some days Paul said to Barnabas, “Come, let us return and visit the believers in every city where we proclaimed the word of the Lord and see how they are doing.” Barnabas wanted to take with them John called Mark. But Paul decided not to take with them one who had deserted them in Pamphylia and had not accompanied them in the work.  The disagreement became so sharp that they parted company ; Barnabas took Mark with him and sailed away to Cyprus. But Paul chose Silas and set out, the believers commending him to the grace of the Lord. He went through Syria and Cilicia, strengthening the churches.” In the middle of the book of Acts, we read the story of how two early leaders of the faith, Paul and Barnabas, argued so fiercely that they walked away from each other in anger, choosing to abandon the other.   They each had a strong opinion on whether a third c...