April 3rd, 2026

Greeting Holy People of God,

During the season of Lent we met John’s characters – Nicodemus, the Samaritan woman at the well, the healed blind man and Mary, Martha and Lazarus and thought about the risks they took and how these characters and their stories help us to believe.  They build bridges with their experiences with Jesus and the questions they ask.  Their experiences and questions help us to cross the bridge and come to Jesus at night or in the heat of the day, know that he will meet us there and walk with us.  Jesus helps us to see more and to unwrapped the grave clothes and think again about hearing Jesus’ voice calling to us even when we are dead. 

When we came together on Wednesday evenings for food, fellowship and worship we got to meet our Wednesday Witnesses, people who not only serve others but also help us to make connections that we would not otherwise make.  Like a bridge, they bring us to new places – new places like walking with us as we navigate our health and the medical institutions with Faith Community Nurse, Carolyn Laxson or Mosaic’s crew who seek to meet the needs of those with learning disabilities, giving them more options and more opportunities for us to connect with worship and homes to live in.  Or our missionaries, like Stacey and Utpal Saha who connect us with Bangladesh in a part of world where Christians are not always welcomed and the name of Jesus is more difficult to proclaim.  Or Deb Dunkhase from Open Heartland who started by playing with children in trailer parks late in the afternoon and one conversation led to another and grew a totally volunteer organization to serve an immigrant population in Iowa City, mostly families with young children. And our very own, Bishop Current who is working to continue to build relationships with our brothers and sisters in Tanzania.  All of these witnesses act as a bridge to help travel further with God and each other.

These next days Maundy Thursday, Good Friday and Easter Vigil are witnesses that also build bridges for us helping us to move further into being children of the resurrection and ascension.   These days help us to walk through the deep valley where the shadows of death and despair linger.  The witness of these days shape the living of our lives and our dying and the promise of life with Christ through everything.

These days witness to us what we are to do in the environment of betrayal, whether that is Judas’ betrayal or the Pharoah’s betrayal, God comes to us to set us free, to build a bridge for us to enter the kind of life God desires. A life that prepares us for life with God. A life where we serve one another and we let our master wash our feet so that we learn not only how to serve but also how to receive grace.

On Good Friday we come to hear and sit with Jesus as he dies and hear his words from the cross.  These words are a bridge and witness for us as we live with death and accompany those who die.  Jesus speaks words of forgiveness, promise, and  community.  Jesus also names our struggles with abandonment, desire and the dead end of death.  The goodness of this day is an opportunity to sit with Jesus as he dies and ponder what it means to be a part of God’s family.

Easter Vigil is that time where we light the candles we had placed near the Good Friday cross and sit again in the wake of Jesus’ death, telling those old stories and listening for the promise of new life and resurrection.  We recommit ourselves to our baptismal promises and welcome back the word we have fasted from and feast again on the Lord’s Supper. 

These days are bridges that lead us to Jesus and help us walk together as a community of faith.  Let’s meet at these Holy Week bridges with hope of walking with Jesus.  Because it’s all about Jesus. 

Bold Inquisitive Belief Loving Expansively,

Pastor Connie Spitzack

February 24th, 2026

Disciples of Jesus,

On Sunday, January 4, we celebrated Epiphany, a couple days early.  January 6 marks the day we celebrate the arrival of the magi with their gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh for Jesus.  It is the day and the beginning of the season of Epiphany, a season that centers on the manifestation or revealing of God in Jesus Christ.  God is with and for us and this season shows us God revealed in Jesus.

The Magi, are the outsiders, the foreigners, that God chooses to draw to Jesus through the stars.  God is revealed to Mary and Joseph, to the shepherds, to the angels and now to the Magi.  What could God be trying to show, to reveal to us? It appears that God desires the arrival of His Son to be known through out the world.  God is expanding the horizon.  God continues to work through God’s chosen people, the Jews and extends the invitation to the Gentiles, the rest of us and that is good news for us.  We too have a star to guide, a word we follow for a season or a year and we wonder what God might reveal to us through this word. 

On Sunday, the Epiphany words were passed around after Clara Calhoun drew a word for our community.  Our community Epiphany word is JUSTICE.  The navy blue bag with Epiphany words will be available on the ushers table for you to draw your own word and see where it leads you.  Place the word in your purse or wallet, on your nightstand, on the frig or a place you will see it and let the word guide you.

With the gift of your word received you might ponder these questions:

·       How do you feel about your word?

·       How does the word connect to your life?

·       What is one way you could live into your word in the coming week?

·       What scripture, phrase, or song can you carry with you to help you focus on your word?

Here is a blessing for those who receive star words to guide them. (adapted from spaciousfaith.com, Worship Words: Star Words for Epiphany, 1/4/23, Joaana Harader):

As stars have guided wise ones for centuries,

May your word guide you in the year ahead.

By the radiance of your star and the power of the Holy Spirit,

May you live with deeper intention and greater attention;

May you find the holy in delightfully unexpected places;

May you worship with joy,

Give with gratitude,

And follow another way home as God guides you.

Giving thanks to God for the journey with you and wondering where our community word of JUSTICE will lead us.

Bold Inquisitive Belief Loving Expansively,

Pastor Connie Spitzack

November 13th, 2025

Greetings Disciples of Jesus!

At the end of September I attended the Fall Gathering of rostered leaders from across the state of Iowa.  The guest lecturer was one of the Lutheran bishops of Hungary, Bishop Dr. Tamás Fabiny.  On Reformation Sunday, I shared how the Bishop tried to teach us the Hungarian Lutheran greeting, “Erős vár a mi Istenünk!” And the other replies with the same, “Erős vár a mi Istenünk!”  

Which translates, “A mighty fortress is our God!”  This illustration made from the sermon tickled David Whitebread’s memory of a joke Pope Francis told at Ferenc Liszt Airport after visiting Budapest in September of 2021.

Why will we speak Hungarian in heaven?

Because it takes an eternity to learn it!”

Translation and communication.  It is not an easy thing and demands our attention, time and reflection. A week later I was delighted to have Katie Ode pull out her Greek New Testament during the sermon at the 11:00 service when I mentioned that Zaccheaus tells Jesus about what he is already doing – giving his possessions to the poor in the present tense but the NRSVue and NRSV puts it in future tense, which leads us to believe that he will do this because of his encounter with Jesus (Luke 19:8) not that he is already trying to support his community who has already made up their mind about him.  Translation choices change the meanings we derive from the text.  I was hoping the updated edition would correct the verb tenses.

And then last Sunday, November 9, did you catch the new Job translation of a very familiar text?  “I know that my redeemer lives” is now “I know that my vindicator lives.” (Job 19:25).  We will continue to sing the familiar hymn but now another layer of understanding comes before us.  The Hebrew, go’el, vindicator was used rather than redeemer because of the context Job was referring to.  Job was in a legal context like a court room.  The translation team wanted to focus more on this aspect and avoid imposing a later Christian theological concept of redemption on this text.

Many decisions are made when translating.  It is a complicated process, as any of you know who have experience with translating.  It’s why both Jews and Muslims insist on using original language.  It wouldn’t hurt us either.  And I would advise you in your study of the Bible to use many translation as well as the web site: Bible Hub which offers Hebrew and Greek interlinear   along with Strong’s numbers (an exhaustive concordance) to discover how the word is used in other contexts, biblical and historical.  It’s a wonderful tool and may just open wider God’s word for us today.

 Once I get beyond my whining and complaining, I can think again about God as redeemer and God as vindicator and my idea of God has grown and expanded.  I love that about God most of the time.  The mysteriousness of God can delight and discourage me, often at the same time.  But that is what it means to live in relationship with another, and I am grateful God is gracious and merciful and slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love!

Bold Inquisitive Belief Loving Expansively,

Pastor Connie Spitzack

September 5th, 2025

Greetings Disciples of Jesus!

More than just a long weekend marking the end of summer, Labor Day is a day to recognize workers. It’s not a church holiday but it ends up pairing very well with our scripture readings from Luke 14 and Hebrews 13 this week.

Jesus teaches the guests of a leader of the Pharisees the etiquette of where to sit at the banquet table and in Hebrews we hear about service that pleases God.  These scriptures invite us to reflect on the kinds of work we dismiss today as lower-status, lower-value, or invisible.  We are invited to think about status, about social media followers and what captures our attention enough to make us think about where we are in the pecking order and what our behavior should be.

Jesus advises humility, as does our reading from Proverbs 25:6-7. Hebrews 13 reminds us to “remember those who spoke the word of God to you; consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith.” (v.7).

So consider the news that does not make the headlines.  Consider a story about humility. Listen to the podcast produced by The Christian Century, In Search of entitled: Love and Desolation:  The story of Matushka Olga Michael with Meagan Saliashvili (S3E7, Mar 27, 2024).  “Blessed Olga said, ‘God can create great beauty out of complete desolation’”.  Salisahvili tells the story of the recently glorified Orthodox saint Matushaka Olga Michael, an indigenous healer in Alaska who was known for her humility and ability to heal victims of sexual abuse.  She is a big deal in the orthodox churches in Alaska.  She is from the Yup’ik tribe.  She was quiet and worked behind the scenes and rose up to sainthood in the orthodox church because their path to sainthood recognition grows out of the community and who they venerate. She is a mother who bore 13 children, 8 lived.  She was known to sit in community sauna and listen to women tell their stories and share their bruised bodies with each other and there was healing.  It’s a beautiful story to consider her way of life and imitate her faith.

Who have you found in your life that is humble?  Who helps you to hear the word of God and how they live.  You might want to consider remembering them this Labor Day Weekend.  Or find someone like I did that helped me see humility enfleshed like Hebrews suggests. 

Bold Inquisitive Belief Loving Expansively,

Pastor Connie Spitzack

May 8th, 2025

Greetings Disciples of Jesus!

The Bible is a library and very complex literature that is meant to be studied and reflected upon, especially the book of Revelation.  The information that follows is gleaned from the Bible and Craig Koester’s book, “Revelation and the End of All Things”.  Koester advises us to think about what we expect of Revelation’s visions and the large realities they open for us.  Last week we had the 7 letters to the churches and the question of who was worthy to open the scroll with the 7 seals and the slaughtered yet living seven eyed and seven horned Lamb who was found worthy and there was worship.  This is the template for our celebration of Christ’s resurrection.  This is why we keep the weird looking lamb before us and keep looking for where Jesus shows up.  This shapes our developing vision of resurrection.

The worthy Lamb opens four seals and each of the four living creatures calls forth the horse and its rider.  The white horse and bowed conquering rider, the red horse and peace taking rider with the great sword, the black horse with the scales holding rider and the green horse with the Death rider who could kill with sword, famine, pestilence and wild animal a ¼ of the earth.  These horsemen may stand for the larger realities of conquest, violence, economic hardship and death awakening a sense of uneasiness in the reader's well-being and sense of security. The opening of the 5th seal reveals the martyrs who are told to rest a bit longer and the 6th seal was the earthquake that chases all the powerful into hiding asking, “Who is able to stand?”

This is the question our Sunday lesson from Revelation 7:9-17 answers and we are brought again to the Lamb and the throne with the multitude from every tribe, people, languages robed in white with palm branches shouting out “Salvation belongs to our God who is seated on the throne and to the Lamb!” They are joined with the angels and the 4 living creatures worshipping God.  I hope this sounds familiar.  Revelation likes layering images upon images hoping to stir our imaginations into deeper insight and reflection.  Keep thinking about resurrection.

The vision draws our attention to the white robed worshippers who have come out of the great ordeal and washed their robes in the blood of the Lamb resulting in white robes.   Amazing what the power of the Lamb’s blood can do and the worship it calls forth in those who have come through the great ordeal.  The vision asks us to look for more than just blood stains as we see this Lamb become the shepherd of the people who will guide them to springs of living water and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.  And the opening of the 7th seal gives 90 minutes of silence in heaven before the smoke of the incense and prayers of the saints rise before God and heavenly fire and thunder comes to the earth.  I hope you are thinking about the waters of baptism and the Holy Spirit’s fire.

Besides setting before us the threats we face, the vision is designed to awaken the readers’ willingness to identify with those who have suffered for the faith.  The martyrs suffered not because they were sinners but because they were faithful. They received a divine response showing that they are valued in God’s eyes.  I hope we are encouraged to look at the lives of those martyred because of their faith. Read their stories to inspire you.  Most every week on the back of the bulletin we share the commemorations that names martyrs.  Look them up and learn about their lives and deaths and then think about Jesus’ resurrection and the gift we receive because he lives.  What does that call forth in you, people of the Risen Christ?

Bold Inquisitive Belief Loving Expansively,

Pastor Connie Spitzack