Nebraska Synod ELCA

After this I looked, and there was a great multitude that no one could count,

from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages,

standing before the throne and before the Lamb,

robed in white, with palm branches in their hands.

They cried out in a loud voice, saying,

“Salvation belongs to our God

who is seated on the throne,

and to the Lamb!”

—Revelation 7.9-10—

Dear siblings in Christ in the Nebraska Synod,

On Saturday, October 4th, members of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, including the ELCA Church Council, the Conference of Bishops, and honored guests from around the country and the world gathered at Central Lutheran Church in Minneapolis, MN for the installation of the Rev. Yehiel Curry as Presiding Bishop of the ELCA. It was an afternoon of deep emotion and joyous celebration. I would highly encourage all of you to stream the sermon of the Rev. Dr. Kevin Vandiver at the very least – you can find the service on the ELCA YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uc7KzC2mPto&t=10927s

As I think back on this remarkable day, I continue to marvel at how the service embodied what this church has been andwhat this church can become (and is already becoming). Some of the service was deeply familiar: a shape of Gathering, Word, Meal, & Sending; liturgical song; our best celebratory vestments; thunderous pipe organ and brass in a beautiful cathedral splendidly decorated for the day. Some of the service introduced elements with which I was not so familiar: a liturgical rite known as the Pouring of Libations; fervent and regular responses from the congregation during the service, especially during the sermon; a standing ovation following the sermon (decidedly well-deserved, to be clear).

All told, it was a worship service befitting our new presiding bishop. Bishop Curry first encountered the ELCA as a middle school teacher who wanted to get connected to a support group for young Black men sponsored by a mission church on the south side of Chicago. This is how it happened, according to Living Lutheran:

“I didn’t even realize it was Lutheran,” says Bishop Curry, “I was invited by a friend…I had these unique students, and I was interested in services for them. … There was a worship service I stayed for. And I loved it.” Curry went home and told his wife, LaShonda, about the great experience he had had there, and they returned together the following weekend. “We came back and joined,” he said. “And we didn’t understand the organizations of the Lutheran church. We just saw a home, we saw a community.”^[1]

In a world where people are looking more and more for genuine community (and are less and less willing to let denominational loyalty or simple inertia guide their faith practices), our corner of God’s church has called a presiding bishop we’ve never seen before: an adult convert who saw the Holy Spirit doing something that called to him. First it changed his life, then it changed the lives of his family, then it changed the course of an entire church. Imagine how that wily, poetic, unpredictable Holy Spirit might show up next?

As we continue our adventure together as God’s Nebraska Synod, I give thanks for the part each of you plays in the great multitude gathered before the throne of the Lamb. We get a glimpse of that great multitude every now and again, and I feel like I got one of those glimpses in Minneapolis. I see it when we gather together as well, and I hope that you, like me, are encouraged and enlivened by those glimpses of God’s glory, especially when it shines in ways we haven’t seen before. God has done and continues to do marvelous things: we, too, sing praises with a new song!

Yours in Christ,

Bishop Johnson