home | contact

Message from Pastor Marty

Faith rising from the ashes

A thoughtful 19-year-old, full of spiritual quest and a lot of heart, stopped me as I was leaving his grandmother’s visitation. He asked me a probing question: “Pastor Marty, when did you get your faith?” Whoa! This was a big one. You don’t just casually walk toward your car, chew on a gritty funeral home mint, and address this big enchilada. We sat down.

The tame reply would have had something to do with the day I was baptized. That would feel theologically correct. Lutheran Christians tend to think of God as something other than a gigantic fireworks display, converting the soul in one dramatic moment on one unforgettable day. More like dust mites that won’t leave your house alone, God works under the radar — quietly, invisibly, and with incredible constancy, always in the hope of gaining at least one chamber of our heart.

This strapping 19-year-old wasn’t after a tame reply. He wanted the real deal. So I told him about that day in my life that was different. It is the day faith came off the page and became a living reality. Never again would I wrestle with faith as an abstraction.

In July 1982, I drove over to the neighborhood church where our family had planted itself for the past two decades. Fresh home from a year and a half in Africa, it was my task to pick up the urn containing mother’s ashes. It seemed like a fair assignment. Several brothers and dad had done yeoman’s work the prior year, caring lovingly for mother when I was away. Cancer had withered her once athletic body into exhaustion and death. Resurrection was the only thing that could make good on the idiocy of such a ravaging disease.

Pastor led me to the basement of the church. As we descended the steps, he spoke all sorts of grace-filled words about what this woman named Elsa meant to him, to that congregation, and to the world. I loved mother, and admire this pastor, still so deeply. He unlocked the church vault. Then, quite unceremoniously, he placed the canister containing mother’s cremains — that would be her ashes — into my hands. The light steel urn was nothing fancy. The non-descript label on top had mother’s name and dates of birth and death.

Pastor and I exchanged an embrace before I headed out into the summer sun to load the urn into the trunk of the family Mustang. I pulled out slowly, as if not to rattle the urn, and headed for northern Wisconsin. There we would hold a brief service and bury mother’s cremains on a windy day in the country cemetery.

Two thoughts kept colliding in my head as I drove. First, there were the questions: “What happens if I get in an accident? Should I have put the urn inside the cabin of the car instead of the trunk? How is it that a woman who could give me a challenge in an arm-wrestling match before Africa, was now reduced to a small can after Africa?” Second, though, were the words of this Apostle named Paul — words that I couldn’t get out of my head. “If Christ was not raised from the dead, everything you call faith is futile, Peter. Everything you are up to is a waste of time. You can believe whatever you want, and be spooked by whatever you wish, including those ashes in the trunk. But I’m telling you, Christ was raised from the dead so that you and yours can be also.”

Those groping questions of mine were strangely silenced by the eloquence of Paul. Faith came alive that day as I steered the Mustang through lush Wisconsin farmland. I cannot say exactly how it all happened. But the same faith that came alive that day has held me ever since.

P.S. Cremation is not for everyone. Embalmment is not for everyone. Some people choose embalmment for visitation purposes and then cremation.

I do want you to know of the Memorial Garden designs we have for St. Paul, now posted in the Commons at church. They display a vision that will allow our members to be buried in a beautiful setting on the grounds of a church that has meant so much to them.

I hope you will consider a gift toward the construction of this garden. If you would like to visit about making a substantial gift, please give me a call.

Pastor Peter W. Marty,

  ::