The new pastor at St. Mark’s Lutheran Church did not take the fast path to the pulpit: as a teenager, Hannah Benedict considered becoming a doctor.
“I felt the call in junior high when I realized that people are in need of a lot of healing,” said Benedict, who hails from Davenport, Iowa. “Medicine can heal our bodies, and there’s something about faith that can heal our spirits … to sustain life when nothing else does.”
But Benedict’s vision of becoming a doctor ended when she found she couldn’t handle the sight of blood. After college, she worked for various theater companies around the Twin Cities area in Minnesota. Even after starting at Luther Seminary in St. Paul and transferring to Wartburg College in Waverly, Iowa, Benedict had her moments of doubt, wrestling with her faith.
“I mess up all the time. I’m human,” she said. “I had this idea that pastors were these saints.”
Benedict particularly struggled with how God could let people suffer. After serving as a chaplain for patients with Huntington’s disease and suffering her own personal loss, Benedict was sick of hearing people’s platitudes. But she finally realized she wasn’t alone.
“There are things that happen in this world that are not part of God’s will. It’s part of this messed-up creation. … God doesn’t explain away our tragedy; God is that which brings life through it,” she said. “We may not be fully alive, we may not be fully joyful, we may not be fully healed, but it’s a process of becoming. That doesn’t mean God ever stops working.”
It’s this philosophy that Benedict brings to her new congregation at St. Mark’s, which has 120 active members.
“When faith gets real … it connects us to one another,” she said. “Faith is what’s authentic about being in this world.”
Benedict said it’s a pastor’s job to foster her congregants’ relationships with each other and with God.
“It’s in these relationships with another that we’re able to find life again and be there for each other and support one another,” she said. “I just participate in what the spirit is doing. It’s my vocation to [point to] what God is already up to.”
Though she was just ordained July 25, Benedict has already begun immersing herself in B’ville life by exploring Onondaga Lake Park, Beaver Lake Nature Center, the village’s Four Corners and Liverpool’s legendary Heid’s with her husband, Josiah, and their 3-year-old daughter, Eve.
“People go at summer hard here,” she said of the region’s many opportunities and activities.
Benedict said her congregation and her neighbors have embraced their new pastor and her family. “We’re trying to live the welcome that we’ve known,” she said.
Once she’s learned everyone’s names, Benedict’s goal is to have her congregation “living into safe, authentic relationships with each other and with God.”
“When all your needs are met, you are your favorite person,” she said. “You’re able to deal with anything that’s happening. You’re able to joke; you’re able to have fun,” she said. “That’s grace — when we’re living into [our relationships], we’re able to be who God made us to be.”
St. Mark’s Lutheran Church is located at 2840 Cold Springs Road in Baldwinsville. To learn more, visit stmarksbville.com or call 638-0406.
