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Bishop Scott’s May Reflections

April 15, 2026

1Give thanks to the Lord, for the Lord is good,

for God’s mercy endures forever.

2Let the redeemed of the Lord proclaim

that God redeemed them from the hand of the foe…

14You led them out of darkness and gloom,

and broke their bonds asunder.

15Let them give thanks to you, Lord, for your steadfast love

and your wonderful works for all people.

16For you shatter the doors of bronze

and break the iron bars in two.

— Psalm 107.1-2, 14-16 (Evangelical Lutheran Worship) —

Friends, it’s landscaping season! This time of year, when the weather is fair and my time is free, you’ll find me getting my hands in the dirt somewhere around our house – tending the lawn, splitting and moving perennials, spreading mulch, watering annuals, cleaning gutters, etc.

Last week I wanted to take stock of the clay pots I had on hand for annuals. Two of them that I’d stacked up last fall had gotten stuck together; when I tried to pull them apart, I  broke one of them. In a different version of this story, I’d be the kind of ceramicist who can repair broken pots using kintsugi and this could be a metaphor that lines up with the prettier parts of our Assembly theme Broken Open. Instead I’m the kind of person who will reflect here on the uncomfortable experience of getting unstuck.

Getting unstuck takes patience and work, and it’s not particularly enjoyable for anyone involved. I remember a lot of scraped knuckles from working on frozen farm implement bolts as we got ready for planting season (we called our longer socket wrenches “breaker bars” for a reason). Some of us remember carefully untangling and rewinding cassette tapes that got stuck while playing, hoping we weren’t stretching the tape right in the middle of our favorite song or movie.  All of us have cussed out a particularly nasty knot in our shoelaces once or twice at least.

Sometimes we get stuck because we’ve gone farther than we can safely go. I got one of our tractors stuck so deep in some bottom land one spring that it took our pickup and our biggest tractor to get it out. I’ve rescued sheep who poked their heads through wire fencing and panicked when they couldn’t pull back the same way they pushed forward.

It’s just as easy for us to get metaphorically stuck, and just as difficult to get unstuck. We get stuck in patterns we don’t know how to change. We say “yes” to an invitation to serve one time, and all of a sudden it’s 8 years later and no one understands that it’s time for someone else to serve. An event that was an experiment 50 years ago has become a black hole at the center of our faith community, sucking in all the energy just to keep going, year after year. The harder we struggle to get unstuck, the tighter the knots hold us fast.

Sometimes the only way to get unstuck is for something to get Broken Open. The frozen bolt needs to be drilled out. The knotted shoelace has to be cut. The stuck pots can’t be freed without breaking one of them. It’s not easy, and it’s not comfortable. Being Broken Open will always leave cracks or scars. But it will also set us free to move where God needs us to move. The psalmist says it’s God who does the breaking so that we can be free. Just don’t imagine it’s comfortable when God sets about breaking what holds us captive. Getting unstuck never is.

Yours in Christ,

Bishop Scott

PS: I have a favor to ask. If you use this monthly message as a devotion with leaders in your congregation, would you be willing to share your answers to the Questions to Ponder? I’d like to share some of them as part of my report to the Assembly this year. You can submit your answers at this Google Form.

Questions to Ponder

Think of something that’s been Broken Open in your congregation.

  1. How did it happen?
  2. How has God changed you in the experience?
  3. How has God changed your congregation?
  4. What’s something else that might be stuck? How might God be at work getting you unstuck?

Prayer

O God, you are bread to the hungry, deliverance to the captive, healing to the sick, and harbor to every soul in peril. Gather the wanderers from every corner of the world into the community of your mercy and grace, that we may eternally praise you for our salvation in Jesus Christ our Lord.

Amen.

(Evangelical Lutheran Worship, © 2006 Augsburg Fortress)