"I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinegrower. He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit. You have already been cleansed by the word that I have spoken to you.
Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit
by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide
in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in
them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing."
Jesus is the vine and we are the branches. Hard wood stuck in the ground with Christ nailed, pierced and grafted into and onto it. We have been grafted into that vine... we are branches reaching back all the way from creation. Reaching back and into the future, we have been pruned along the way through others and by others.
So thanks be to God for grafting and for those who have pruned us in faith. One such person I think of this year is Rev. Dr. Barbara Jurgensen. Pastor Barbara served First Evangelical Lutheran Church of Logan Square on the northwest side of Chicago from 1977 to 1984. Barbara served my home church in her only role as a parish pastor in inner-city Chicago for those six years. Barbara passed away last summer, 2012. This Holy Week she has been pressed into eternal vineyard service, her life poured out upon so many.
I received an email from her son about her death. I was saddened and have wanted to write about her role in my life. She came to First Lutheran Church as one of the first female pastors in the ALC in 1978. She served First in Chicago at such a crucial time for me. I was just starting seventh grade and she led our confirmation class on Wednesday afternoon in the upstairs parsonage main room with five other teens. We read scripture, the catechism, and made taffy apples. She was able to get people from the church to pay for me to go to Bible Camp; first at Green Wing Bible Camp in 1978 and 1979 near Amboy, Illinois and then to Lutherdale Bible Camp north of Elkhorn, WI in 1980 and 1981.
So thanks be to God for grafting and for those who have pruned us in faith. One such person I think of this year is Rev. Dr. Barbara Jurgensen. Pastor Barbara served First Evangelical Lutheran Church of Logan Square on the northwest side of Chicago from 1977 to 1984. Barbara served my home church in her only role as a parish pastor in inner-city Chicago for those six years. Barbara passed away last summer, 2012. This Holy Week she has been pressed into eternal vineyard service, her life poured out upon so many.
I received an email from her son about her death. I was saddened and have wanted to write about her role in my life. She came to First Lutheran Church as one of the first female pastors in the ALC in 1978. She served First in Chicago at such a crucial time for me. I was just starting seventh grade and she led our confirmation class on Wednesday afternoon in the upstairs parsonage main room with five other teens. We read scripture, the catechism, and made taffy apples. She was able to get people from the church to pay for me to go to Bible Camp; first at Green Wing Bible Camp in 1978 and 1979 near Amboy, Illinois and then to Lutherdale Bible Camp north of Elkhorn, WI in 1980 and 1981.
Barbara’s timely influence in my life was amazing. She
pressed me into service to take on leadership of our Luther League, grafting me as a youth
representative to Church Council and to work as a volunteer in 1982 at Lutherdale
on the maintenance staff. That first of many summers away from Chicago opened my eyes to a
new world. It was around the campfires of Lutherdale I felt the "pruning of the Holy Spirit", setting me free from the hold of sin and fear, calling me to go to
college, become a Youth Director and then go to seminary.
Barbara's life influenced many! The spiritual legacy she has left impacts the branches of faith in various places. She was on the 70 member commission to create the
ELCA. She left First Lutheran Church two days before I
graduated from high school and became the first ordained woman professor at Trinity Lutheran Seminary in Columbus, Ohio.
She taught and continued to write into retirement. She always encouraged my
writing, specifically my Christmas poems. One was published in the December 1998
“Lutheran Women’s Today” magazine.
When I posted a sermon on this blog in
May of 2009
Barbara commented, “I love the vine and
branches imagery. That’s why I chose John 15:5 as my ordination text. I never
knew how drastically the vines had to be pruned each year until our family
bought a little farm with 100 grape vines. They each grew many, many feet of
branches each year and each winter we had to prune them back to just a few
inches, a total of twelve inches per vine. So we shouldn’t be surprised as we
are at the pruning the Lord does in our lives.”
Barbara was pruned from the
fellowship of our Christian community, yet to God be the glory for the many words
she poured out upon the lives of those who continue to branch out in faith. Barbara encouraged me and this blog is a reflection of her faithful pruning. Thank God for the Barbara branch.
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