This weekend in Indianapolis, a group of Lutherans capped off at 1200 met to discuss the formation of an “alternate church fellowship” or a “reconfiguration of Lutheranism in North America” for those who find unacceptable the decisions made by the Churchwide Assembly of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America in Minneapolis last month.  Those decisions, which affirmed same-gender relationships and reversed policies which previously had excluded from the ministry rosters of the church those in such relationships are the specific reason why this group, called the Lutheran CORE or Coalition for Renewal, came together in numbers rivaling the Churchwide Assembly.

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If you prayed this prayer before bedtime as a child, or perhaps even still do now — with your own children or maybe all alone with your own inner child, chime right in:

Now I lay me down to sleep.
I pray the Lord my soul to keep.
If I should die before I wake,
I pray the Lord my soul to take.

I have a feeling most of us stumbled on that phrase, “If I should die before I wake.” It was always a rather troubling and confusing thought: the notion of waking up dead. As a child, I used to wonder how that all worked. “Well, I’ll wake up, but I guess when I do I’ll be dead.” As I got a little older, the whole concept got a little scarier. “What if I don’t wake up?” “What if I really do die before waking up? … I guess I better finish the prayer!”

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Jesus needed an attitude adjuster. I really don’t know how else to say it. Clearly, he needed a break. He had been ministering to the masses who would not leave him alone. Everyone, it seemed, wanted a piece of him.  Including a Syrophoenician woman whose daughter’s illness led her and everyone else to believe she was demon-possessed.

St. Mark sets it up for us:  Jesus is making an attempt at getting away for a few days.  Just a little R&R over a 3-day weekend perhaps. The region was Tyre, extending just to the east of the Sea of Galilee. It was clearly Gentile territory, although there were many Jews who also lived in the area. But Jesus wasn’t going to the region of Tyre to preach to the Gentiles. Nor was he going to the region of Tyrie to preach to the Jews.  He was going to the region of Tyre to get away, to take a break.

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