Holy Week

By a perversion of justice he was taken away.
    Who could have imagined his future?  -Isaiah 53:8

Welcome to Holy Week 2025. The concept of Holy Week was invented during the middle ages, when pilgrims began to travel to holy sites and for entertainment—yes, entertainment!—acting troupes would put on what were called Mystery Plays. These were exciting reenactment of the events leading up to Easter, including Jesus’s entry into Jerusalem, the devil’s possession of Judas which led to his betrayal of Jesus, Jesus’s arrest and trial before both Herod and Pontius Pilate, his torture and crucifixion, his descent into Hell (a very important element of the story, and one we modern Christians tend to gloss over) and finally his resurrection. We see remnants of these mystery plays in our own Palm Sunday processions at church, in movies like Jesus Christ Superstar or Mel Gibson‘s Passion of the Christ, and in our own reenactment on Maundy Thursday of Jesus’s washing of his disciples’ feet as he celebrated the Passover meal.

When I was growing up, my parents celebrated Passover every year. My earliest childhood drawings are of the seder plate. I loved the sacred foods: the Matzoh, lifted high in blessing, the cup of wine, the salt water to represent the tears of the Israelite women, the bitter herbs for the bitterness of slavery. I loved to open the door for Elijah, who could return at any time. We had to close our eyes and then when we opened them again, the cup of wine was empty—had Elijah come?

It’s impossible to understand the meaning of Holy Week, except through sacred story. Who can believe that God, the ultimate Reality, Creator and Sustainer of the universe, could not only dwell with us in human form, but could die the most humiliating and shameful death known at that time? I don’t think our minds can wrap themselves around it without the accompaniment of these sacred stories, these legends going back to Adam and Eve in the garden, God’s promise to Abraham, or the Exodus from Egypt.

When we try to articulate the meaning of the cross without these sacred stories, we end up with a strange transactional formula that not only doesn’t make sense but leads to a dangerous and violent theology—most famously developed by Anselm in the Middle Ages (when these Mystery Plays were popular)—that God demanded “satisfaction” of His honor: He needed to punish human beings for their sins, and it was only when Jesus stepped forward to “pay the price” for our transgressions that God agreed to let it go. This strange and distorted view of God is still prevalent today, particularly in churches that have allied themselves with empire and domination. 

We need the whole story, the story of the deliverance of God’s people from the oppressive system of domination represented by Pharaoh in Egypt, which is why Jesus came to Jerusalem during the festival of Passover, which this year coincides with our Holy Week. There is no way to separate the Passover festival—with its memories of liberation from slavery, from idolatry, from a betrayal of humanity’s true nature and vocation as the bearers of the image and likeness of God. There is no way to separate that story from the story of Jesus who leads us out of domination into liberation.

This Holy Week, as we meditate on the last days of Jesus during the season of Passover, as we ask ourselves what the story of the crucifixion means to us, may we remember and honor the Jewish people, our ancestors and siblings in faith. 

Shalom

Rev. Adina

Lenten Pastoral Letter

Lent 2025

Look, how good and how pleasant
is the dwelling of siblings together.
Like fragrant oil on the head
coming down over the beard,
Aaron’s beard that comes down
over the opening of his robe.
Like Hermon’s dew that comes down
on the parched mountains.
For there the Holy One ordained the blessing –
Life forevermore!

—Psalm 133

My dear siblings in Christ:

I don’t think I have to tell you that the motto of the United Church of Christ is “that they all may be one.” What you may not know, however, is that Lent is traditionally a time when communities seek deeper unity with one another. The Sunday before Lent, which we celebrate as Transfiguration Sunday, marks the beginning of the one hundred days before Pentecost, a mystical time where we ask God to help us grow together as a community and then celebrate and use our various gifts in service to the Realm of God.

I thought I’d take this opportunity to tell you a little bit about one of our two partner communities, Living Water, whose members often come to worship with us. As you probably know, I first started coming to Keystone when, as the leader of the Living Water community, I called up Rich Gamble and asked if we could worship there. The leadership of Living Water – including Dixie and Jo Anne – met with the leadership of Keystone – including Barb and Rita, and they discovered they were like peas in a pod! Since that time, Living Water has celebrated Mass in Battson Hall on the second and fourth Sundays of the month.

Of course, the Masses that Living Water hosts are somewhat different from more traditional Masses celebrated by the institutional hierarchy. Living Water members decline to use the sanctuary, because they prefer to sit in a circle, emphasizing the equality of all believers. They also decline to listen to a sermon! Instead, after Scripture is read, people engage in a “shared homily,” in which different people share short, spontaneous reflections about how the readings touched them. On the second Sunday of the month, Living Water holds a “People’s Mass,” in which there is no priest presiding. Instead, the liturgy - which, by the way, means “work of the people” – is led by two “ordinary” members, following a model from the Iona Community in Scotland. All are welcome at these liturgies, and Keystone members are especially invited to visit Living Water sometime!

Both Keystone and Living Water enjoy remarkable music, especially given their relatively small sizes. As an experiment, I asked Rose Morrison, the cantor of Living Water, and our own Elliot Kraber if they would try teaming up one Sunday to provide music to both congregations at once during a service on the fifth Sunday of the month. Those of you who were able to attend the celebration of the Season of Creation on September 29th and hear the “combined cantor quartet” of Rose, Elliot, Chris Ronk, and Sherry Tuinstra, know how special it was. And the four singers had such a wonderful time they asked if they could do it again! That is how the special “fifth Sunday” combined services began – we had a second one on December 29th and we are planning yet another special musical fifth Sunday for March 30th. 

Living Water and Keystone are not planning to “merge.” Each congregation enjoys its own unique identity and flavor of liturgy. However, we have celebrated potlucks together, sang together, and engaged in days of justice-centered social action together. The members of Living Water host our Ash Wednesday service this year, with members of Keystone, Prospect UCC, St. Paul UCC, and the Seattle Taiwanese Christian Church attending. As small congregations, it is easier for us to enjoy the wonderful fellowship that is, according to the Psalmist, the dwelling of the Holy One.

With Lenten Blessings

Pastor Adina

Adina’s pastoral letter February 12 2025

“For my eyes have seen your salvation,
 which you have prepared in the sight of all nations:
a light for revelation to the Gentiles,
    and the glory of your people Israel.” (Luke 2:30-32)

I’m writing this on a sunny, freezing cold day where winter and spring seem to overlap. We have just passed Candlemas, the midpoint between the winter solstice and the spring equinox, a time when the light is visibly returning. Although many folks these days have never heard of Candlemas, they have heard of Groundhog Day, which is a modern derivative of an earlier, pre-Christian holiday called Imbolc, which literally means “in the belly” because of the sheep waiting for their spring lambs to be born.

Whatever name we give this time of year, it is a time of new vision - the light has begun to return but is not all the way there. We ask God for new vision to light the path before us.

As I continue my listening sessions with all of you, I am inspired by your love of Keystone’s past and present: the empowerment you feel to be ambassadors of the Realm of God, the support you receive from this beloved community, the home you have made at Keystone. I am eager to hear more about your vision for Keystone’s future.

After our listening sessions, we will gather in person for our first Day of Discernment together. This will be a time to listen to one another, to affirm our shared vision for Keystone, and to look with clear eyes at the path ahead of us.

Blessings

Adina

Transitional Pastor

my new year letter

Happy New Year, Keystone Community!

In this time of uncertainty and hope, I am grateful to be part of Keystone, now more than ever. The past six months has been full of joyous hard work. Here are just a few of the things I’ve enjoyed in 2024 since being called as your transitional pastor:

• Playing bingo with Pat and Dick

• Cleaning and organizing 25 years of collected treasures from the Rich Gamble era and creating an archives project

• Replacing the Windows 7 office computer with a new laptop that can also be used for worship

• Updating the wireless internet so that it is faster, more accessible for worship, and more secure

• Learning about the unique relationship between churches and the local and national tax system

• Developing my preaching style

• Taking a class on the history and polity of the United Church of Christ (I got an A-)

• Getting connected with the Pacific Northwest Conference

• Asking two people (Steve Bauck and Meighan Pritchard) to mentor me as a Member in Discernment

• Visiting Lynn at her lovely new retirement community

• Attending the Faith Action Network dinner

• Witnessing Keystone in action at the Festival of Hope

• Singing a duet with Elliot on Christmas Eve

• Receiving Lay Ministerial Standing with the United Church of Christ

• Meeting with your leadership team and reporting to them on a weekly basis

• Organizing the “Fifth Sunday” joint worship with Living Water Inclusive Catholic Community and the combined cantor choir

In 2025, I have a few intentions I would like to share with you:

• Continue preaching with enthusiasm, articulating our theological and social positions of universal love and radical inclusivity, and specifically preaching against the sin of Christian Nationalism which props up the white supremacist, imperialist patriarchy that has engulfed our country

• Deepen Keystone’s connections with organizations that support the most vulnerable populations in this country’s climate – LGBTQ (especially trans) people, immigrants, refugees, and asylum seekers, as well as people experiencing homelessness

• Support the people of Palestine and speak out against the genocide that our government is funding

• Let more people know about Keystone’s community through outreach – specifically updating the Keystone website

• Organize some very important deferred maintenance on the building

• Strengthen our “Tri-Church Initiative” with St. Paul’s and Prospect

• Seek ordination in the United Church of Christ

• Continue to get to know each and every one of you, individually and as a community, as we discern together about the past, present, and future of Keystone.

Thank you so much for giving me the opportunity to be a part of this amazing community. I am truly blessed to be here.

With Much Love,

Pastor Adina

PS below are  “10 intentions to enflesh in the new year”
by anna blaedel and m jade kaiser which I think speak for themselves, and for Keystone’s core values as well. I am setting them as my own intentions for 2025 and invite you to pick one or two that speak to you, and to focus on them:

• I will disrupt the destructive stories and beliefs I have internalized, and cultivate habits of body, mind, and spirit I wish to grow in the world.

• I will remember we are of the earth, and pay attention to how I/we can (re)align with the earth’s rhythms, seasons, and cycles.

• I will seek out, savor, and share food that brings me pleasure, nourishment, and connection.

• I will approach other human and non-human animals with curiosity and respect, honoring and learning from their unique embodied wisdom.

• I will pay attention to habits of thought and action that are rooted in individualism and separation, and actively seek collaboration, cooperation, and solidarity.

• I will shed aspects of religion and spirituality that diminish collective aliveness, and turn toward, reclaim, and open to practices and beliefs that enliven.

• I will say yes to generative desires and ordinary pleasures, and no to pressures and prejudices that stifle.

• I will prioritize care–collectively and intimately–in how I relate to every body’s unique vulnerabilities, limitations, and needs.

• I will cherish and celebrate that which transphobia, racism, misogyny and other forces of oppression demonize.

• I will resist exploitative expectations and invest in endeavors that serve the common good.

Pastoral Letter for Advent

Your pattern is perfection
         It quiets the soul that knows it
         And its eloquent expression 
         Makes everything clear 
         So that even the simple are wise.  
-Psalm 19, translation by Norman Fischer

Can you coax your mind from its wandering
and keep to the original oneness?
Can you let your body become
supple as a newborn child’s?
Can you cleanse your inner vision
until you see nothing but the light?
Can you love people and lead them
without imposing your will?
Can you deal with the most vital matters
by letting events take their course?
Can you step back from your own mind
and thus understand all things?
-Tao Te Ching, translated by Stephen Mitchell

Dear Keystone,

It has been a whirlwind Festival of Hope Season so far, full of joy and hard work and warm hugs and delicious soup. We now enter the season of Advent, the dark time, the time of waiting, the start of a new liturgical year. During this year, we will draw stories primarily from the Gospel according to Luke, whose primary setting is “On the Road.” So many of Luke’s beloved stories take place on a road: Mary, discovering she is pregnant, travels on the road to visit her cousin, Elizabeth, who is pregnant with John the Baptist; Mary and Joseph travel to Bethlehem for the census; the traveler who is helped by the “Good Samaritan” is attacked on a road; the Prodigal Son’s father runs down the road to meet him; the two disciples (most likely a husband and wife) encounter the risen Christ on the road to Emmaus.

The road is a liminal space between two fixed spots, a place of transition and travel and adventure, but often without security and safety. I think of the half a million people who traveled across the Darien Gap last year; the millions of people displaced from their homes in Lebanon and Palestine; our neighbors who camp by the side of roads throughout our city and country. Christians, too, exist in a strange liminal space, ever since the time thousands of years ago when a Galilean rabbi came into the world and invited us to follow him on “the Way,” the name adopted by the earliest Christian communities. The word “Way” in Greek is hodos, which also means – you guessed it – road. The earliest Christians expected Christ’s imminent return, and many today are still waiting to “see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with power and great glory.” (Luke 21:27) Some of us are not sure Jesus meant that he would return exactly like that; but in any case, while we wait, we look for the face of Christ in our neighbors, especially those facing weary journeys on the road.

Recently I had a conversation with my son about his favorite movie when he was in 7th grade and had faced many losses and changes. Every day after school, Jack would watch The Terminal starring Tom Hanks, a movie about a man named Viktor Navorsky, who travels to New York as a tourist, but while he’s in flight, the government of his fictional Eastern European country is overthrown and his passport is no longer valid. Viktor is trapped inside the terminal at JFK, a liminal space if there ever was one, unable to return home or to enter the United States. Viktor remains in the airport for nine months – he makes friends, is able to earn some money, and even falls in love while waiting.

As Christians, we also find community and love as we help one another along this road between birth and death, between Christ’s incarnation thousands of years ago and the apokatastasis, when all will be restored and drawn together into One. Advent especially reminds us of this liminal space, this place of waiting, watching, readying ourselves to set out on the road once more to follow Jesus.

In On the Road by Jack Kerouac, Dean Moriarty says to Sal Paradise, “Sal, we gotta go and never stop going ’till we get there.” Sal asks, “Where we going, man?”

“I don’t know,” Dean replies, “but we gotta go.”

Advent Blessings,

Rev. Adina