FROM THE PASTOR

Masks of God

Dear church,

This Sunday, we are celebrating a Backpack* Blessing, and the asterisk is intentional.

For many of our children and young people, the backpack marks the beginning of a new school year, filled with books and folders, lunches and Chromebooks, and all the hopes and anxieties that come with heading back to the classroom. So we will bless those backpacks, and especially the students who carry them.

But the blessing does not stop there.

Your “backpack” might be a briefcase or laptop bag, a diaper bag or tool bag, a purse, gym bag, or even a piece of luggage. Whatever you carry into the places where you learn, work, care, serve, travel, and live out your calling, bring it with you.

Martin Luther spoke of our everyday vocations as “the masks of God,” ordinary places and ordinary work through which God is quietly at work in the world. That means classrooms and kitchens, offices and hospitals, homes and airports can all become holy ground, places where God works through us for the sake of our neighbors.

So bring your backpack*, whatever it may be, as we ask God’s blessing upon a new school year and upon all the places God is calling us to love and serve.

See you in worship,
Pastor Kyle