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Tuning misfortune into something positive takes a lot of strength from a community. Recently Pastor Sarah Semmler-Smith at Good Shepherd Lutheran Church returned after vacation to a message the church did not sanction on its display sign. During May to celebrate Mother’s day and the diversity of the congregation the front sign displayed the message “God Love you the way She made you!” Only to find “Screwtape” painted in red below on Tuesday.
Nothing controversial in that statement except perhaps uh… the pronoun we used for God. Here at Good Shepherd, we use inclusive language so we’ll use male-female trinitarian all sorts of language for God because that’s what we find in scripture, and the “Screw tape” word it is a reference a word for the devil’s assistant. That is from a C.S. Louis book written in 1942 called the screw tape letters. Essentially the vandals wanted it to appear that Screwtape or the devil had written such as message on our sign. –Sarah Semmler-Smith, Pastor, Good Sheppard Lutheran Church
The church has submitted a police report. The church understands it may be difficult to find the persons responsible. However, they will invite the community, and vandals, to the Good Shepherd Lutheran front lawn to sit out the June display message and have a conversation about theology and diversity. The community Erase the Hate event at 11:15 following service on Sunday. Below find an open letter written by Pastor Semmler-Smith regarding the incident.
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Dear Vandals…Thank you?
Vandalism has a way of reminding you of the power of words, indeed — of individual letters.
Since before Mother’s Day, Good Shepherd Lutheran’s sign on College Ave in Houghton has read “God loves you just the way She made you.” Can you spot the one letter in that sentence which offended someone enough to deface property and angered others enough to warrant multiple phone calls to church this past month? This Tuesday, like Hester Prynne, our church sign on College Avenue was literally red-lettered, not with an “A” but in very scarlet paint someone wrote the word “—Screwtape,” under our quote about God’s love, even adding a dash before it as if to indicate authorship. And I ask you, dear readers, had we referred to God as he instead of she, do you think we would have gotten that response? It’s just one letter.
But, Screwtape?
At first I was confused, then offended at the property damage, but ultimately a bit amused. How erudite of the vandals to use a literary reference when committing a crime. The Screwtape Letters by CS Lewis (1942) is a satirical collection of letters written in the voice of Mr. Screwtape, a senior devil’s assistant mentoring his nephew in the art of luring humans away from God and towards damnation. So by one definition, screwtape can be used to mean “to mess things up, to corrupt, to be devilish.” But there is also a secondary definition, arrived at since the internet age, which is “to bump a particularly old topic thread on the internet or in an electronic forum, by posting an ironic or humorous reply to a previous message.”
So what I am left puzzling, is what our dear vandals meant by the scarlet “Screwtape” painted on our sign this week. If they meant the internet-related definition, did they mean to say that in 2024 we Christians are so beyond the conversation of God’s gendering, that it does not matter whether we use male or female pronouns in reference to them (see what I did there?). Or, if it was indeed a literary reference they were after, do they mean to imply that to call God she is so offensive, that the people of Good Shepherd (and their female pastor) are the devil’s assistants themselves? I want to be offended. I did get upset, and even reached out to friends for care. It never feels good to be the target of ignorance and hate, individually or as a church community.
But then, I turned to the words (or Word) I always do when I am seeking wisdom, and do you know what the assigned gospel reading in the Revised Common Lectionary is for this Sunday June 9? Mark 3:20 – 35, which in part reads, “And the scribes who came down from Jerusalem said, ‘He has Beelzebub, and by the ruler of the demons he casts out demons.’”
Jesus was accused of being the devil’s assistant, too.
Jesus — who welcomed the outcast, challenged oppressive powers, uplifted women— he, too, was called a “Screwtape” in his day. And that, made me feel in pretty good company.
So to our dear Vandals, I want to offer two things. The first is an invitation: To come forward and identify yourselves to the people of Good Shepherd. We will not press charges, but want to invite you into dialogue. Relationship is more rich when it happens in the daylight, and communities are built on civil dialogue not acts of hate. The second thing I offer is, oddly(?) our thanks. Thank you for helping re-clarify our mission. Thank you for reminding us that when a person or group of people stand up against the status quo (even with just a single letter), history
may want to put a scarlet letter on their chest, use the word ‘radical’ to disown their voice, silence them, or even try to take away their rights.
As a Reconciling in Christ congregation, at Good Shepherd we are proud to welcome all, and we mean all. You — and the entire community — are invited to join us any Sunday at 10 am for worship, and this Sunday (6/9) at 11:15 am on our front lawn — for a special Community Service where we both refute the powers of oppression at work in our world and change our church sign message —to celebrate and lift up…Pride month.
Blessed be the journey,
Rev. Sarah Semmler Smith
Good Shepherd Lutheran Church, ELCA
Pr. Sarah has been an ordained pastor in the ELCA for 14 years, and holds and M.Div from the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago and a B.A. in religious studies from St. Olaf College in Northfield, MN.
