Finn Fest Roundtable Mass

Finn Fest Roundtable Mass Recording

Opening recording

Recording note: [CHOIR SINGING HYMNS]

Transcript at 7 minutes and 29 seconds: (7:29)

Unknown Preacher [UP]: Grace and peace be with you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen. The Old Testament lesson for this Sunday is written in the Gos—in the Book of Jeremiah in Chapter 23, the first six verses. Woe to the shepherds who are destroying and scattering the sheep in my pasture, declares the Lord. Therefore, this is what the Lord the God of Israel says to the shepherds who tend my people. Because you have scattered my flock and driven them away and have not bestowed care on them, I will bestow punishment on you for the evil you have done, declares the Lord. I myself will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the countries where I have driven them and will bring them back to their pasture where they will be fruitful and increase in number. I will place shepherds over them who will tend them, and they will no longer be afraid or terrified, nor will any be missing, declares the Lord. The days are coming, declares the Lord, when I will raise up to David a righteous branch. A king will reign wisely and do what is just and right in the land. In his days, Judah will be saved and Israel will live in safety. This is the name by which he will be called: the Lord, our righteousness. Amen. Our Heavenly Father, sanctify us in the truth. Your word is everlasting truth. Amen.

Transcript at 8 minutes and 57 seconds: (8:57)

UP: A week ago, a crew of various elders came upon a treasure of silver and gold worth approximately 400 million dollars. We here at Finn Fest have found our own treasure trove, that heritage that we have received as Finnish people, and it’s one that we are ready to share with others, and all we ask of them is that they be able to say Kalevala, or they be able to say [unknown Finnish word], or that they would say sauna [pronounced sow-nah] instead of sauna [pronounced saw-nah], and we will accept them [laughs] and give them share in this Finnish heritage. But the greatest treasure that we have--and already we have experienced some of it that is beautiful and wonderful--is that spiritual heritage that we have received. And that too we want to share, but it is more that God wants to share it. Our heavenly Father, now Savior, desires to share that with all people without any discrimination toward anyone.

Transcript at 10 minutes and 19 seconds: (10:19)

UP: And as we meet here and worship here, and as we heard this lesson from the Old Testament, approximately the same period of time with--allowing a few hundreds of years perhaps difference--when the rune singers of the Kalevala were telling the story of Creation and giving some hint of the coming of Christ, the prophet Jeremiah was giving this prophecy concerning the birth of Jesus Christ, the righteous branch. And we especially rejoice in this heritage of the word brought to Finland first by Bishop Henry, later with the Reformation as Mikael Agricola translated the Old Testament into the Finnish language. It is a privilege for me to have a part in this service here today as we remember this spiritual treasure and heritage. And even this very format--which is, if it’s strange to you, it is also a bit strange to us here sitting and looking at one another, even though these are friendly pastors and some of them I’ve known for a long time. [laughs]

UP: But anyway, this format and reminder of the ties that we have that we have received through the Church of Finland and through those revival movements in Finland, the [Finnish term for Awakened Ones, possibly Herätty Yksi?] or Awakened Ones and with the emphasis on the knowledge of sin and then repentance, the [unknown Finnish word] with the emphasis on prayer, the [unknown Finnish word] with the stressing the promises of the gospel of Christ, and the Laestadians who emphasize the personal confession of sins and the personal absolution, and the Beckian theology calling for holiness of life, and others, I’m sure.

Transcript at 12 minutes and 28 seconds: (12:28)

UP: We have many things in common with our brothers and sisters in our fatherland, the land of our fathers and mothers, our ancestors, but there are differences too, about administration of church policy and practice. And so here in the United States and Canada and North America, changes have taken place. And some years ago, I read--I saw a cartoon where someone took a bowl of goldfish and dumped them in a pond, and those goldfish continued swimming in the same limited area that they had been swimming in before. Well, this isn’t what happened to our immigrants who came over to this country. There were changes, and they didn’t continue their relationship to the church in exactly the same way as they had in the homeland if they did have a vile (???) or a close relationship, and we understand that there are reasons for that. Coming to this vast land, there were great changes. There were--and especially, there were not the shepherds, the pastors. In the beginning, there were very few of them who were here to guide them and direct them. And we remember also that there were those like J. K. Nikander who came to shepherd these people.

Transcript at 13 minutes and 54 seconds: (13:54)

UP: And I’d like to--without any incantations (??)--I’d like to change the discussion to sheep [laughs], if you’d mind, and get to this lesson from Jeremiah which the prophet writes about the shepherds and the sheep. The shepherds were—he was not referring to the priests, but he was referring to the secular rulers who were--who did not care for the sheep and who oppressed them. And so, the sheep--who were the children of Israel or the Jews--were scattered to the different countries of the world. And the prophet pronounced woe on them in the name of the Lord because they did not have this care for the sheep.

UP: Now hundreds of years later in our time, we know that the Jews were persecuted under the dictatorship of Hitler. Six million of them were put to death in the Holocaust. And now in this present time, the Jews are being persecuted in Russia and perhaps elsewhere. And the Prophet Jeremiah spoke about and prophesied of the return of the God's people, chosen people, to the land, their land. And we know that this was partially fulfilled in the return of the Jews to Palestine, to the Holy Land, and the establishment of the nation or reestablishment of the nation of Israel in 1948, but there is still to come that day when these chosen people of God will acknowledge Jesus as their Messiah and their Lord.

Transcript at 15 minutes and 30 seconds: (15:30)

UP: Now, even though this is not a true interpretation of this scripture passage, but I see parallel in this with our Finnish people, our Finnish immigrants, who came to this land and were scattered in various parts of this land and who had to struggle here to make a living. We know, many of us from personal experience of our parents and grandparents, how they struggled to make a beginning and have a new life here. But as we think about this passage, the greatest unifying force that we have amongst us in this new land where things are different and the Finnish people are not in just one church body. They are in a number of different Lutheran church bodies and other church bodies. And you can go to almost any Christian church, and you'll find Finns there. Maybe not so much in the south, but other places.

UP: Now, the prophet speaks about the righteous branch, and that is Jesus Christ. The righteous branch, Christ who will gather together his people, will be the shepherd. And Isaiah speaks about this root out of dry ground--tender shoot, root out of dry ground--and goes on in that 53rd chapter to speak about, it says, “All we like sheep have gone astray. We have turned everyone to his own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity or sin of us all.” And so, this is our greatest joy and greatest treasure on this righteous branch.

UP: And if we have sometimes tried to make--compile a family tree, or we think about our history as a family or as a community or as the Finnish people, the greatest blessing that we can have is to have in that family tree this righteous branch who is Jesus Christ. The shepherd who gave his life for the sheep, who died that we could have forgiveness of sin and everlasting life.

UP: And when we think about our relationship to God, wonder how can we be righteous and acceptable to God, and it is as we sang in this one hymn in the Finnish, the righteousness of Jesus Christ in which we are clothed. By faith, God holds us in his holy righteousness. We are acceptable. Our sins were laid upon him. Christ died to free us from that power and guilt of sin and made us so that in the sight of God we are spotless and pure in Christ. And this is our treasure, our greatest treasure, Jesus' priceless treasure. Amen.

Transcript at 18 minutes and 20 seconds: (18:20)

Recording note: [CHOIR SINGING HYMNS]

Transcript at 20 minutes and 48 seconds: (20:48)

Unknown Preacher 2 [UP2]: The second reading is from the second chapter of the letter of Paul to the Ephesians. But now, in union with Christ Jesus, you who used to be far away have been brought near by the death of Christ. For Christ himself has brought us peace by making Jews and Gentiles one people. With his own body, he broke down the wall that separated them and kept them enemies. He abolished the Jewish law with its commandments and rules in order to create, out of the two races, one new people in union with himself, in this way making peace. By his death on the cross, Christ destroyed their enmity. By means of the cross, he united both races into one body and brought them back to God. So Christ came and preached the good news of peace to all, to you Gentiles who were far away from God and to the Jews who were near to him. It is through Christ that all of us, Jews and Gentiles, are able to come in the one spirit into the presence of the Father. So then, you Gentiles are not foreigners or strangers any longer. You are now fellow citizens with God's people and members of the family of God. You too are built upon the foundation laid by the apostles and prophets, the cornerstone being Christ Jesus himself. He is the one who holds the whole building together and makes it grow into a sacred temple dedicated to the Lord. In union with him, you too are being built together with all the others into a place where God lives through his spirit. Here ends the reading. Grace, mercy, and peace be unto you from God the Father and Christ our Lord and Savior. Amen.

Transcript at 22 minutes and 57 seconds: (22:57)

UP2: I admire Bill. He's able to sneak the Kalevala into his lesson. I sat through six hours of lectures and many hours of reading, and I have difficulty finding something from the Kalevala that fits this particular passage that Paul wrote to the Ephesians, but I'll sneak something in at the end if I remember.

UP2: Many of us have had an experience ourselves and perhaps through our children especially, it hurts us more. They've come home disappointed. They've been crying, and we ask them what's wrong, and they may say, “They didn't let me play ball. They said I'm too small, I'm too slow, I'm too something else. They excluded me.” And if we look closely at what Paul is telling us in the lesson, he is speaking to those people who have excluded others, and Paul's message to them is to include everyone.

UP2: From the dictionary, exclude means to shut out, and the simple definition of include is to shut in. And we many times exclude those that we do not want to--do not want them with us. And how often have you heard that Toivo Maki is having a party and you didn't get invited. You feel very insulted, and you feel very hurt because you were excluded. Exclusion is something that brings us brokenness, but on the other hand as we think of the inclusion, it brings a oneness.

Transcript at 24 minutes and 44 seconds: (24:44)

UP2: This is what Paul was seeking to do in his entire letter to the Ephesians as we read it through, and he spoke in a very shocking way to the Jewish people. Imagine telling his Jewish listeners that God had made the Jews and Gentiles one. That's almost like someone telling us as Finns that God made the Finns and the Russians as one, a very shocking thing we find difficult to accept many times in the history of the nation. But he worked on this theme, and he drove it home to them telling them many times, “In Christ there is no distinction. No male, no female, no Jew, no Gentile, neither circumcised nor uncircumcised, not slave, not free, but all were to be one.” We can tie this into the first lesson of the shepherds--and speaking of the shepherds in the gospel by taking a phrase from Jesus in another gospel of John, there shall be one flock and one shepherd. Oneness is implied so frequently.

Transcript at 25 minutes and 58 seconds: (25:58)

UP2: But we may ask ourselves, is this oneness something that is unique with Jesus? And especially as we think of Paul and his ministry to the Gentiles, those who were far away but now have been brought together. A book that just came out by a rabbi from Brooklyn, New York by the name of Harvey Falk says that in the teachings of the Talmuds, it is found that the Jewish people were told that they ought to be a light to all the people. In Isaiah, we read that the temple of God, the house of prayer is the house of prayer of all peoples. In the prophet Jonah, the story of Jonah, it is very clear that the message is to be taken by Jonah to the non-Jewish people, and this is something that probably was hidden back in the teachings of the Jewish going back even to Moses. And the rabbi says that it was not until Jesus and Paul that this then came to fruition, that it was clearly announced that they were to be a light unto the Gentile nations of the world. And Paul then goes forth at this time in order to make this teaching as clear as possible.

UP2: Now among the Jewish people and among many of us, we like to be exclusive. The church cannot be exclusive. The church is unique. It is unique, but it is not an exclusive body. It's an all-embracing body. And when Paul tangled with the Judaizers, they insisted, yes, a Gentile can become a Christian, but first he must undergo circumcision. And Paul was totally opposed to this. We tried to set our ground rules on people as to how they are going to enter into our community of faith.

Transcript at 28 minutes and 7 seconds: (28:07)

UP2: Now, the Christian church certainly should be very embarrassed as we think of our history too, that in religions as general have been exclusive, and Christianity is no exception. There are churches where you and I are not welcome because we do not think exactly as they do. They do not embrace us fully as brothers and sisters in Christ because of their teachings.

UP2: And even as we look around the world today, in Northern Ireland we have Christians, Roman Catholic brothers and sisters fighting Protestant brothers and sisters and all of them feeling that they are following God's will in the process. And these past weeks in South Africa has erupted a tremendous issue in terms of the apartheid where the ruling Christian whites do not embrace those who are of a different color or of a different race.

UP2: And this certainly stands as a blot on us within the church, and it divides that oneness that Christ would seek of us in this world. It is very true, and as we think of ourselves with pride as Finns--or whether we were to use Polish or Germans or whatever ethnic group--many times our ethnic nature--and it's with all groups throughout the world--has built walls for our self-protection. We have kept the others out so we could remain at peace. But yet as we think of all of these things, it has then prevented us from... [tape cuts out]