Velkommen til Skandinavisk Gudtjeneste og fælleskab. Welcome to the Scandinavian Service and Fellowship. Welcome to sing, pray, listen, talk, and worship in a mix of our native languages, but in our common faith.
Welcome to our beautiful Danish Church, which we, as the humble Danes, think is the most beautiful church in California! Or the world, but that would be a little bit too presumptuous.
Let us blend our languages today. Let us celebrate our differences but most of all our similarities and fellow traits as Scandinavians.
Call to Worship by Pastor Anne-Grethe
Pastor: Velkommen & Welcome.
Welcome to this place: where children and seasoned citizens sit side by side, where heaven and earth embrace in peace, and where God has been, is, and always will be.
All: All are welcome here! Let us worship God!
Pastor: Welcome to this place, as we gather with all of God's children. This is where we find God's love, hear the tender voice of Jesus, and hear the Spirit teach us new songs.
All: All are welcome here! Let us worship God!
Welcome to this place, where all is made ready by our God: where we may bring our hunger and find food; where we may be in our brokenness and find healing and hope.
All: All are welcome here! Let us worship God! Pastor: Whoever you are, whatever you are, wherever you are on your journey, we bid you welcome. Amen
Sermon:” Welcome!” pastor Anne-Grethe
Velkommen. Welcome to the Danish Church where the first shall be the last and the last the first.
Welcome to the ones who were here early making the church and the hall ready; to those who found their pews before the bells rang, and to those who came drizzling in due to traffic, family chaos, or other things that might distract and delay us.
Welcome to the ones from far away who worship with us online. Let us all turn for a moment and wave to our streaming fellow congregants.
Welcome to young and old. To Norwegians, Swedes, Danes and every other nationality. We are greater when we can meet like this, aren’t we?
Today we will celebrate our Scandinavian Heritage and our deep connectedness through tradition, language and humor.
Today’s Gospel from Mark is quite funny, I think.
Jesus is walking through Galilee on his mission with a vision of how the displaces should be in the world and spread the good message, - and with a vision of openness, acceptance and love.
And then the disciples argue – once again.
Argue about who is the greatest among them, and who should have the best seats at the table of Christ and even in the Kingdom of God.
We can image how Jesus was rolling his eyes and sighing deeply before he once again must set mis mission and vision straight for these disciples who never really got it right.
We know them, don’t we? We recognize the behavior and thoughts of the disciples, don’t we? They are so human and so relatable.
We may side with Jesus in the Gospel and silently roll our eyes and sigh deeply over that kind of behavior. Because they should have known better. But the gospel is also a mirror for us to reflect our own behavior. Just stop for a moment and think about how much time and energy we spend in our lives to argue like them. About whom is the best, the greatest, the wealthiest, the most important, - yes, we might even in earnestness argue who is the humblest of us?
Who is the greatest? The first or the last. The loudest or the most silent? The smartest or the most honest? The wealthy of the poor? The man or the woman? The Norwegians or the Swedes?
This reminds me of the wonderful little anecdote that the wonderful Demond Tutu once told:
“I have been helped by my wife,” Tuto said,” who is very good at keeping me humble. Once, we were driving and I noticed that she was a little smugger than she normally is. And then when I looked again at the car in front of us, I saw a bumper sticker that said: “Any woman who wants to be equal to a man has no ambition.”
Well, the greatest is the one who can take themselves not too seriously, and in all humility, I do think that we as Scandinavians are good at that with our sarcasm and irony.
My favorite Danish Poet Benny Andersen wrote a poem called “Vendinger” Sayings. And in his very quirky clever way, he turned these sayings upside down and gave them new truth: for example:
Vendinger:
Ingen undtagelse uden regel.
No exception with a rule.
Der er kun nyt under månen.
There is only news under the moon.
Betal di nglade med skat.
Pay your joy with taxes.
Det er nu eller altdi
It is now or always.
And then the poet turns to the word of Jesus and ask:
De forste skal blive de sidste, og de sidste skulle blive de forste, men hvad med alle os andre?
The first shall be the last, and the last shall be the first, but what about the rest of us?
Jesus explained the concept of greatness reminding the disciples and all the rest of us, that “who ever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.”
And then he took a little child and said: “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me. And whoever welcome me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.”
This is how we should be: as a church, as a congregation, as a private person, as a civilized nation under God.
Welcoming. Inviting. Open.
I am quite sure that all 3 Scandinavian Churches claim to be welcoming churches. I am quite sure we go out of our way to welcome everyone in the pews on Sundays and for all other activities of the churches.
But as I shared with our church council last week, words matter, and actions matter when we want to be a welcoming church.
When it comes to the work of shaping our Christian community, words and phrases matter.
We should not think of anyone as visitors that we kindly welcome into our church, - but we are all guests in the house of the Lord.
We should not talk about attending church as if we are attending a soccer match or a concert, instead, we should talk about belonging that we belong to a church and community.
Instead of saying Welcome and join us for service… we should say Welcome and join in. As we are all equal in the pews regardless of how many times we have been here or not.
Welcome!
You might have noticed that all the hymns today reflect on our Scandinavian Heritage and connectedness:
The Danish Septembers Himmel
The Swedish Bred dine Vinegar/Thy Holy Wings
The beautiful prayer This is my Song of God of al the nations…. On the tune of Finnish Sibelius.
And then we will end with a special non-Scandinavian song: Hallelujah.
It is a song recorded by the Israeli band Milk and Honey and it represented Israel in the Eurovision Song Contest in 1979 and won. It became a big hit – and I am sure many of you know it.
It is indeed a humble song praising life, joy, the day, freedom, and hope.
“Hallelujah, hand in hand
Hallelujah all over the land.
Hallelujah let us try from the start.
And sing it with all our heart.
Hallelujah.”
In a time of war and unrest in Israel and Palestine, this song should be song as a hymn to peace, just as the beautiful This is my Song.
In any war zone, in any conflict, we forget the simple human humility and human longing for peace. So, let this last song be a prayer for peace, joy and coexistence in our troubled world that too often is consumed by “who is the greatest” and forgets to be the servant of all – welcoming the children, each other and God.
Because God’s eye is on the Sparrow. On the least and the last. On the greatest and the first. On the Norwegians and the Swedes. On the Danes and on the Isralian and Palestine people too.
We are called to be servants and stewards.
At the end of the wonderful book by Dalai Lama and Desmond Tuto it says:
“Humility helps us to remember our common bond with others. It helps us to avoid isolation, judgment, and indifference. It helps us remember that we are all equally beloved children of God, and to remember that we are just one of the seven billion people on the planet. It helps us remember that we are all in it together.