Greeting and prayer

Welcome to this Sunday Service. Welcome to a time of service and worship, but even more a time to reflect on our history.

From Twilight, Los Angeles, 1992

 to Sunrise Yorba Linda, 2023.

Look around in our beautiful sanctuary. So much beauty and so much history.

The Danish Church and Congregation was founded in 1906 in LA. In 1992, The pulpit, the altar and altar rail, and the baptismal font were in the Old Danish Church on 3rd Avenue/  - and now it has been adorning The Danish Church in Yorba Linda since 1995.

As we begin our worship, take a moment to think about where you were in 1992.

I was in Ringive, Denmark; – I had just been ordained and installed in my first call as a pastor in November 1991, so in 1992 I was still the young new pastor in Ringive. I was far from California and had no idea that I would end up serving this congregation in California.

But I did follow the terrible events in the Twilight of 1992 in Los Angeles. I remember the shock when watching the terrible beating of Rodney King, the acquittal of the police officers, and the following riots, the violence, and the fires burning in LA in 1992.

Where were you? And where are we now: as a City, a Society, a Community, A Church?

From Twilight, Los Angeles, 1992 to Sunrise Yorba Linda, 2023.

 

Call to Worship (based on Psalm 130)

Lift up your voice and call out to God.

We cry out, believing that God hears us.

Come together and wait for God.

We come together, trusting that God is still speaking.

Surely God’s presence is here with us now.

We wait in hope, for God’s steadfast love lifts our hearts.

Come, worship the Lord.

We celebrate the power of God that restores us.

 

 

Gospel: John 11.1-27

The Death of Lazarus

11 Now a certain man was ill, Lazarus of Bethany, the village of Mary and her sister Martha. 2 Mary was the one who anointed the Lord with perfume and wiped his feet with her hair; her brother Lazarus was ill. 3 So the sisters sent a message to Jesus, ‘Lord, he whom you love is ill.’ 4 But when Jesus heard it, he said, ‘This illness does not lead to death; rather it is for God’s glory, so that the Son of God may be glorified through it.’ 5 Accordingly, though Jesus loved Martha and her sister and Lazarus, 6 after having heard that Lazarus was ill, he stayed two days longer in the place where he was.

 

7 Then after this he said to the disciples, ‘Let us go to Judea again.’ 8 The disciples said to him, ‘Rabbi, the Jews were just now trying to stone you, and are you going there again?’ 9 Jesus answered, ‘Are there not twelve hours of daylight? Those who walk during the day do not stumble, because they see the light of this world. 10 But those who walk at night stumble, because the light is not in them.’ 11 After saying this, he told them, ‘Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going there to awaken him.’ 12 The disciples said to him, ‘Lord, if he has fallen asleep, he will be all right.’ 13 Jesus, however, had been speaking about his death, but they thought that he was referring merely to sleep. 14 Then Jesus told them plainly, ‘Lazarus is dead. 15 For your sake I am glad I was not there, so that you may believe. But let us go to him.’ 16 Thomas, who was called the Twin, said to his fellow-disciples, ‘Let us also go, that we may die with him.’

 

Jesus the Resurrection and the Life

17 When Jesus arrived, he found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. 18 Now Bethany was near Jerusalem, some two miles away, 19 and many of the Jews had come to Martha and Mary to console them about their brother. 20 When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went and met him, while Mary stayed at home. 21 Martha said to Jesus, ‘Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died. 22 But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of him.’ 23 Jesus said to her, ‘Your brother will rise again.’ 24 Martha said to him, ‘I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.’ 25 Jesus said to her, ‘I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, 26 and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?’ 27 She said to him, ‘Yes, Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.’

 

Gospel: John 11.28-45

Jesus Weeps

28 When she had said this, she went back and called her sister Mary, and told her privately, ‘The Teacher is here and is calling for you.’ 29 And when she heard it, she got up quickly and went to him. 30 Now Jesus had not yet come to the village, but was still at the place where Martha had met him. 31 The Jews who were with her in the house, consoling her, saw Mary get up quickly and go out. They followed her because they thought that she was going to the tomb to weep there. 32 When Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said to him, ‘Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.’ 33 When Jesus saw her weeping, and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. 34 He said, ‘Where have you laid him?’ They said to him, ‘Lord, come and see.’ 35 Jesus began to weep. 36 So the Jews said, ‘See how he loved him!’ 37 But some of them said, ‘Could not he who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?’

 

Jesus Raises Lazarus to Life

38 Then Jesus, again greatly disturbed, came to the tomb. It was a cave, and a stone was lying against it. 39 Jesus said, ‘Take away the stone.’ Martha, the sister of the dead man, said to him, ‘Lord, already there is a stench because he has been dead for four days.’ 40 Jesus said to her, ‘Did I not tell you that if you believed, you would see the glory of God?’ 41 So they took away the stone. And Jesus looked upwards and said, ‘Father, I thank you for having heard me. 42 I knew that you always hear me, but I have said this for the sake of the crowd standing here, so that they may believe that you sent me.’ 43 When he had said this, he cried with a loud voice, ‘Lazarus, come out!’ 44 The dead man came out, his hands and feet bound with strips of cloth, and his face wrapped in a cloth. Jesus said to them, ‘Unbind him, and let him go.’

 

 

SERMON:

 From Twilight, Los Angeles, 1992

 To Sunrise, Yorba Linda 2023.

We are on the last Sunday of Lent, and next week we begin our Easter Week celebrating Palm Sunday.

We are here in the Danish Lutheran church on a Sunday Morning in March 2023, and what we might talk most about today is the heavy rainfall, the unusual amount of rain, the mudslides, the filled reservoirs, and our longing for Spring, warmer temperature and dry days.

But then we have just listened to the story about Lazarus.

 As a prelude to Easter, we heard the mysterious story about a man called back from the dead and the dark tomb, and into life and the bright day.

It is such a powerful story. And also a story that touches and moves us in so many ways, as we also cling to the faith of Martha and Mary that Jesus will be there when the time of death and darkness come: that he will indeed call us out of death and darkness into life and bright sunrise.

 

The Story of Lazarus speaks to us about our shared hope for a new life, new hope, and new love to emerge from the ashes of hopelessness, despair, and destruction.

 It speaks to us about longing for and believing in a power so strong that it may roll the stone away and let light in.

For there is always light, if only we are brave enough to see it, if only we are brave enough to be it, as Amanda Gorman proclaimed.

 

Her profound words and hope echoed in my mind as Soren and I had our Theater Evening last week.

Soren and I watched a very moving and soul-searching play at Mark Taper Theater “ Twilight, Los Angeles 1992.”

The play follows the stories of many real-life Los Angeles residents during the LA Uprising in 1992. While there were many underlying and systemic socio-economic-racial issues that contributed to the uprising, - the catalyst for the civic unrest was the announcement of the acquittal of 4 police officers beating Rodney G. King, a black man, the year prior. That beating was videotaped and shared and watched and ignited the fires. The verdict plunged LA into approximately 6 days of social conflict and riots.

Los Angeles was declared a disaster area by President Bush, and Mayor Bradley imposed a curfew for the entire city. On May 3rd 1992 LA Times reported 58 deaths, 2383 injuries, 7000 fire responses, 12.111 arrests and 3100 damaged businesses.

President Bush said: “Viewed from outside the trial, it was hard to understand how the verdict could possibly square wiht the vieo. Those civil rights leaders with whom I met were stunned. And so was I, and so was Barbara and we were my kids.”

 

Where were you in those days?

 

The play makes us listen to all the voices of those who witnessed and lived the riots: they tell their own stories and speak their own truths and their words have the ability to uplift, confuse, proclaim, challenge and portray a time of conflict.

In the program, it said: “Reexamine. Reason. Reflect.”

 

We all have to do that on our own history, but even more on our shared history.

 

We did it yesterday here at the church when we saw the movie “Passage to Sweden.” about the heroic bravery of fellow human beings risking their own lives when war and violence were haunting the world during WWII.

 

And that is what we need to do when we look some 30 years back at the LA Uprising started by a beating of a black man by police officers – and then sadly remember that the US again experienced unrest and demonstrations, when police officers killed George Floyd in 2021.

Sadly we continue to witness acts of brutality and violence and have to confront and condemn systemic racism in our society and communities.

Reexamine. Reason. Reflect.

 

In the days of the LA Uprising the area surrounding the Old Danish Lutheran Church was increasingly becoming more and more unsafe. Since the late 1980’ies, the congregation had been discussing and planning to relocate from downtown to a safer area. The last Danish pastor residing on 3 Ave, Ib Helgestad, wrote in the Centennial book:

 “Better and better we came to understand the necessity of relocating our church so much more as none of the church members lived in the neighborhood and furthermore, had experienced their cars being wrecked or broken into during services…. Plans for relocation were already underway and were definitely speeded up by the unfortunate riots in May 1992. The direct cause was the Rodney King beating by four policemen and the authorities’ seeming reluctance to follow it up by adequate judicial measures. This exploded in a rage of frustration and anger. Crowds of angry people started burning and pillaging shops and official buildings, and in the afternoon the first-day smoke was hovering over the roof of the church and parsonage, fortunately only coming from our local grocery store.

So we stayed put until finally some friends from Pasadena Youth Christian Center, Pastor Bryan and his friend, a black policeman off duty, and another friend of ours Charles Urtuzuastegui, came to our rescue in a van , driving us, our heads held low, through the inferno of smoke, crowds, and burning building. In Pasadena, we were warmly welcomed in the home of Ane Marie Gore, where we stayed until everything had calmed down and it was again possible to return not the church. A few months later the church council saw to it that we were relocated to another house sitting on the future church compound in Yorba Linda. On Feb. 21 1993 I celebrate the last service in our old church which was sold to a Black Baptist congregation.”

 

After some years as homeless, the congregation could inaugurate this beautiful building in March 1995.

 

As I think about the years from Twilight and burning fires of Riots in  Los Angeles, 1992 to the beautiful Sunrise in the land of peaceful gracious living, Yorba Linda, 2023, I have to reflect on the story of Lazarus once again. As Lazarus is a story about hope and life found where only darkness and death were.

 

Like Lazarus, the almost fatally beaten black Rodney King was pulled back into life and during the riots, King made a television appearance pleading for an end to the riots, famously saying: “I just want to say can we, can we all just get along?”

Like Lazarus, that almost fatally beaten white driver Reginald Denny, emerged back to consciousness and sought to soothe the racial tensions reminding reporters of the 4 heroic black person saving him.

Like Lazarus, the City of LA emerged from the Twilight into a time of risen from the ashes.

Like Lazarus, the Danish Lutheran Church emerged from the burning Twilight of LA into the sunrise of grace in Yorba Linda.

 

Did we just leave the tensions, the problems, the burning fires behind us, when we left the church to relocate to a more peaceful place in suburban OC? Did we try to be a part of the future with reconciliation, and fight against any racism and misuse of power, - or did we just turn our back and find a new more peaceful home?

 

I hope we were all reminded by the tragic George Floyd killing and unrest, that we cannot just close our eyes to the underlying racial tensions that are still an underlying systemic current in our society.

 

Our Pacific Bishop, Dave Nagler, invited and encouraged pastors and council members to meet with him on Mondays for Lunch and Learn via Zoom. From December to Feb. these short lunch conversations have been focusing on racism and reflection on where we are and how we are church and individual. In a time after the LA Uprising 1992 and after Black Lives Matter 2021.

Reflect. Reexamine. Reason.

 

Los Angeles, California, and US continue to be a city, a state, and a country which holds immense contradictions, painful poverty, unimaginably wealth, tensions, and divisions, but also boundless creativity, compassion, affluence, and humanity.

The Church Council and I are in the process of connecting with the black community church in the old danish church on 3rd ave. Simply just to connect and maybe share our common faith.

 

As a church, we should always try to build bridges.

As a church, we should always try to reconcile.

As a church, we should always believe in the resurrection of life and hope.

 

I hope that the congregation of the Danish Lutheran church will reflect, reexamine and reason as we consider our history as an old Danish Immigrant Church, as a proud Lutheran Church and also as a relocated church rising out of a time of riot and change.

We are predominantly a white elderly church – nothing wrong with that since you are all some of the nicest white elderly people I know, - but we need to consider how to be more inclusive, more open, and more inviting to those many different ethnic groups and that California consists of.

The Danish Lutheran Church’s motto is “Human first then Christian.” By Grundtvig. Meaning that there is no distinction between Jew and Gentiles, Black and White, Men or Women, Straight or Gay, …. We are all humans first.

Let us reexamine, reflect, and reason with that.

 

And end on a poetic prophetic note with  Amanda Gorman’s poem “New Day”

May this be the day

We come together.

Mourning, we come to mend,

Withered, we come to weather,

Torn, we come to tend,

Battered, we come to better.

Tethered by this year of yearning,

We are learning

That though we weren't ready for this,

We have been readied by it.

We steadily vow that no matter

How we are weighed down,

We must always pave a way forward.

*

This hope is our door, our portal.

Even if we never get back to normal,

Someday we can venture beyond it,

To leave the known and take the first steps.

So let us not return to what was normal,

But reach toward what is next.

*

What was cursed, we will cure.

What was plagued, we will prove pure.

Where we tend to argue, we will try to agree,

Those fortunes we forswore, now the future we foresee,

Where we weren't aware, we're now awake;

Those moments we missed

Are now these moments we make,

The moments we meet,

And our hearts, once all together beaten,

Now all together beat.

*

Come, look up with kindness yet,

For even solace can be sourced from sorrow.

We remember, not just for the sake of yesterday,

But to take on tomorrow.

*

We heed this old spirit,

In a new day's lyric,

In our hearts, we hear it:

For auld lang syne, my dear,

For auld lang syne.

Be bold, sang Time this year,

Be bold, sang Time,

For when you honor yesterday,

Tomorrow ye will find.

Know what we've fought

Need not be forgot nor for none.

It defines us, binds us as one,

Come over, join this day just begun.

For wherever we come together,

We will forever overcome.