Welcome to “Our Kairos Moment,” a study guide for the ELCA’s social message “Earth’s Climate Crisis.” In this guide you will find four sessions designed to dig more deeply into major themes from the social message.
Within each session you will find learning activities, Bible studies, ideas for prayer and lessons drawn from passages of the social message.
We are called to be the church, the Christian community gathered and sent week after week. We gather around Word and Sacraments and that is unique. When I say that we would do well to get back to basics I mean we need to read scripture well, create worship experiences that are faithful to the tradition and our local contexts, and love and care for our neighbors.
Did you know that the phrase ‘separation of church and state’ does not appear in our U.S. Constitution? It was first attributed to U.S. President Thomas Jefferson in 1802 in a letter to Danbury Baptist Association in Connecticut as he attempted to clarify his understanding of the Constitution’s First Amendment, Freedom of Religion, Speech, and the Press. Specifically, it states, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof..." Jefferson wasn’t saying our religious beliefs and government should be separated, but only that the U.S. Government cannot establish, for the country, a national religion. Similarly, it cannot prevent the free expressions of one’s faith.
The Revised Common Lectionary reading assigned for the Fifth Sunday of Lent this year comes from John 12 where we find Jesus saying: “Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit” (John 12:24). This passage, along with the lengthening of days and greening landscape, have me reflecting on all the ways God is renewing life all around us; bringing to life something new from what once was barren.