My family has a rather unique Black Friday tradition. We wake up, in homes all over eastern Washington, and we bundle up in layers and climb into our cars several hours before dawn. We scrape ice off windshields, we load blankets, sweatshirts, pillows into the trunks of our cars. Probably most of us stop by McDonald’s for breakfast on our way out of town. And then, accompanied by the faintest sliver of light in the east: we head for the family homestead near Colton, in order to process several hundred pounds of pork in to “Grandpa Becker sausage”. Many of you have similar traditions—you may call it sausage, you may call it “wurst”, or you may call it something else—but the act of processing an animal into a freezer full of delicious sausage is something that is more common in our region than I ever realized.
We use a cast-iron, hand cranked stuffer that is older than anyone in the room. It might have been brought over on a boat with an immigrant ancestor from Germany, but I’m not sure. It may have been purchased here. Suffice to say: members of my family have been making sausage with this stuffer for a long time.
Those of us who were kids when the tradition started are now the ones who do the work of seasoning, grinding, stuffing, linking, and smoking the sausage—guided by our elders who manage (mostly) to keep their belief that we’re doing it wrong to themselves. About mid-morning we fry up samples of the meat & enjoy the flavor of our hard work. Once all the sausage is stuffed and linked, we feast on fresh sausage patties and kohlrabi (and maybe a beer or two), before tucking the sausage into the smoker.
Every year we take a group photo with everyone who was there that day. If you look at the pictures from over the years, they aren’t all the same. People are older than when we started this tradition. Hair is grayer, kids are taller, we’ve lost beloved family members, and gained others. My uncle and grandmother are no longer in the group picture, but this year (for the first time!) my nephew was—having spent a happy morning wandering around the barnyard with his older cousin, he is snuggled into his daddy’s arms. It’s hard to remember that he hasn’t always been part of the day, as difficult as remembering that some who have always been part of the day are no longer.
But change is how we get to where we’re going. This whole beloved tradition of making sausage wouldn’t work if I stubbornly insisted that I get to play in the frozen crick bed like I did when I was younger instead of doing my fair share of the work. And the tradition wouldn’t survive if my elders insisted that they are the only ones who can do the work, and the way they do the work is the only correct way to do it. There must be give and take. Ebb and flow. Losing and finding. This tradition looks nothing like it once did. But it is still our tradition. It is still beloved. There is still a place for everyone who seeks one. There is always enough food. There is always enough laughter. And at the end: everyone crowds into the picture, grateful for another year together.
We are in the waning days of 2019, looking ahead to 2020. There have been births. There have been deaths. There are people here with us now that weren’t with us on January 1. There are people we couldn’t imagine life without who are no longer with us. I’m not sure any of us could have predicted how 2019 would go. I’m not sure any of us want to hazard a guess about 2020. But I will tell you: change will come. New faces arrive. Beloved faces depart. But through it all: we are God’s People. Blessed to do the work of God’s Kingdom, together. Our role in this work won’t always look the same. But it will always be God’s work. And it will always bring blessing.
Blessed Advent to you all!
+Bishop Kristen