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Tibetan Prayer Flags

Tibetan Prayer Flags

These flags are prayers for the Earth.  Folks put their intentions in a prayer as they decorate the flag.  Then as the flag hangs flapping in the wind, the prayers are spread.
Youth Group's Potato Brunch

Youth Group's Potato Brunch

Thank you to all for your generosity!  The youth group raised enough money to send one team to the Big Brother's Big Sister's of Bennington Bowl-A-Thon on April 5th.  There was also enough money raised to put aside for our Mission trip this summer.  THANK YOU!!
"High Noon at Jacob’s Well" -- John 4:5–41-- March 23, 2014

"High Noon at Jacob’s Well" -- John 4:5–41-- March 23, 2014

 

There is so much standing water still around, in the form of old snow banks and drifts and ice, and then there’s mud season still to come, that it’s hard for us to imagine that there’s a shortage of water in much of the world.  But just this week it was reported that over 99% of California–where we get so much of our off-season fruits and vegetables-- is officially in a drought.  Of course, in other places, there’s too much water, or at least the wrong kind of it, as the ice caps are melting and sea levels are rising.  Here’s the summary that Bill McKibben offers in his book Eaarth–

The planet we inhabit has a finite number of huge physical features.  Virtually all of them seem to be changing rapidly: the Arctic ice cap is melting, and the great glacier above Greenland is shrinking, both with disconcerting and unexpected speed.  The oceans, which cover three-fourths of the earth’s surface, are distinctly more acid and their level is rising; they are also warmer, which means the greatest storms on our planet, hurricanes and cyclones, have become more powerful.  The vast inland glaciers in the Andes and Himalayas, and the giant snowpack of the American West, are melting very fast, and within decades the supply of water to the billions of people living downstream may dwindle.  The great rain forest of the Amazon is drying on its margins and threatened at its core.  The great boreal forest of North America is dying in a matter of years.  The great storehouses of oil beneath the earth’s crust are now more empty than

full.  Every one of these things is completely unprecedented in the 10 thousand years of human civilization.  And some places with civilizations that date back thousands of years–the Maldives in the Indian Ocean, Kribati in the Pacific, and many other island nations–are actively preparing to lower their flags and evacuate their territory.  The cedars of Lebanon–you can read about them in the bible –are now listed as ‘heavily threatened’ by climate change.  We have traveled to a new planet [thus the new spelling of the name Eaarth] , propelled on a burst of carbon dioxide.(Eaarth, p. 45)

It has been suggested that our planet be called "water" instead of earth, since 75% of it is covered with water, and life, from the cellular level on up, is mostly water.  We can go longer without food than we can without water, and, as one environmental chant goes, "No blue, no green; No green, no you!"  Water means life, and it was that life-giving water that both Jesus and the Samaritan woman were seeking at the well that noontime.

"Jesus had to go through Samaria," John says, to get to Jerusalem, which isn’t exactly true.  He could have gone around it, around what to many Jews was "enemy territory," but there he was, with his disciples, at noontime, in Sychar, "near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph."  The disciples had gone into town to get some provisions for lunch, but Jesus, "tired out by his journey," John tells us, was sitting by the well, when a lone Samaritan woman came with her water jug to draw water.

It was a completely unlikely encounter–this "necessary" route through Samaria, and then for a man to speak to an unknown woman, let alone a Jewish man speaking to a Samaritan woman, in public.  But he was thirsty–"Give me a drink," he said to her.  The woman could hardly believe her ears–"How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?" and John tells us, in case we didn’t know, "Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans."  This "set up"–this impossible situation at Jacob’s Well at noontime–is clearly John’s way of alerting us to something as radically new and mind-blowing as the new birth we had just heard about last week in another one of Jesus’ conversations–that one with the Jewish leader Nicodemus.

But unlike that conversation, which was initiated by Nicodemus, who came seeking Jesus out at night, this one is initiated by Jesus, in the harsh, hot light of noon.  "Give me a drink," he says to the woman, for he is genuinely thirsty, and he knows that she is too, not only for water   from this well, but from a source that is even deeper, the spring of eternal life.  It is fitting and ironic, as one commentator says, "that this scene unfolds by a deep well that provides the thing most necessary for our physical survival." (Kate Huey, sermon seeds, 3/23/14)

What follows is the longest conversation–and one of the more complex–that Jesus has with anyone anywhere in the gospels. When Jesus has a theological conversation, he never uses words like "theology" or "systematic" or "hermeneutic."  He uses words like water, wind, salt and light, seeds, bread, wine.   "If you knew the gift of God," Jesus says to the woman, "and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water."  The woman comes right back at him, "Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep.  Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?"  "Jesus said to her, "Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty.  The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life."

The woman touches the grooves in her shoulders where she has carried her water jar each day.  She feels the sun beating down on her, here at noontime, instead of early in the morning, when the other women come.  "Sir," she says to him, "give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water."

And then Jesus lets her know that he sees her and knows her.  "Go, call your husband and come back."  Here we go again, she thinks.  He is like all the others.  "I have no husband."  "You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’" Jesus says to her, but not like the others.  There is no judgment in his voice. "For you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband.  What you have said is true."

Although Christian tradition has often characterized this woman as a "loose woman," a prostitute perhaps, there are other explanations for her situation, no less tragic.  She could have been divorced or widowed, and thus passed down to all the brothers; or she could have been barren, unable to have children for these husbands, who would have felt entitled to get rid of her. To be barren was as shameful as being a prostitute–it was thought to be a punishment from God–and the other women might have avoided her for that reason alone.  "Sir, give me this [living]water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water."

She is not ashamed of being Samaritan, however, and engages Jesus in that central question that separates Jews and Samaritans.  "Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem" [on another mountain]. Mountains were important for local watersheds–the people living there were dependent upon the mountain for the water that flowed down from them and so worshiped God–the source of life-- there–at mountains.

Jesus answers, as Peterson imagines it, saying "The time is coming–it has, in fact, come–when what you’re called will not matter and where you go to worship will not matter.  It’s who you are and the way you live that count before God.  Your worship must engage your spirit in the pursuit of truth.  That’s the kind of people God is out looking for: those who are simply and honestly themselves before God in their worship." (The Message)

Can this be? the woman wonders.  Can I be honestly myself and be accepted and loved by God?  "Sometimes being listened to is so much like being loved," Barbara Pine writes, "it is impossible to tell the difference."  Can this be?  "I know that the Messiah is coming."

"I am he," Jesus says, or really, what the Greek says simply is I am, which is the name of God.  Then, as the disciples return, the woman leaves her water jar, no longer needing it, and goes back to the city, shouting out, "Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done!  He cannot be the Messiah, can he?" Her evangelism is so refreshing, so not triumphalist.  Fred Craddock suggests that "in [the woman’s] mind, a God whose nature it is to embrace all people in all places [like Jesus has just spoken about] is a Messiah." [Christian Century, 3/7/1990]

"Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, ‘He told me everything I have ever done.’  So when the Samaritans came to him they asked him to stay with them; and he stayed there two days.  And many more believed because of his word."  Like so many other women in the bible, this Samaritan woman is unnamed, but in the Orthodox tradition, she is named, "Photina," or "Svetlana," in Russian, which means, "Equal to the apostles."  She is the first person to be offered the cup of Eternal Life, as one commentator points out, and she receives it and shares it...in her joy at being loved." [Nancy Rockwell, The Bite of the Apple, 3/23/14] This turns out to be a love story after all. [Richard Lischer, Christian Century, 1990]

In the "vulnerability of this interdependent moment [at a well], in the insistence upon relationship, in the breaking down of barriers," [Patricia Farris, Christian Century, 2/13/02] Jesus and the Samaritan woman model for us not only the way to the abundant life which God’s Spirit offers us, but also the way ultimately to  preserving the waters that are life for all beings on earth.  Water management and finding ways to slow or stop the atmosphere’s warming must become sacred duties, actions that are essential if life in all its beauty and diversity and abundance is to be preserved. Some problems have solutions already; it is only the political will we lack.  Other problems involve conflicting claims between human needs and the needs of other creatures, between urban and rural populations. But our problems are not essentially engineering problems.  They are theological–what do we give "worth to," i.e. what or Whom do we worship?

Like the woman coming to the well, not knowing what she was really thirsty for, we are too often unaware of what it is that we thirst for.  Is it really more stuff?  A "perfect" appearance? "Success"?  Money? The "perfect" family?  More convenience?  Or is it the living water that gushes up to eternal life, "eternal" not because it lasts for a long time but because it is infinite in this moment?  Vulnerability, interdependence, relationship, breaking down of barriers, this is the only way that leads to life; and this is the only way that leads to life for our planet.

May this prayer by the Chinese poet Wang Weifan be our prayer–

My Lord is the source of Love; I the river’s course.

Let God’s love flow through me.  I will not obstruct it.

Irrigation ditches can water but a portion of the field;

the great Yangtze River can water a thousand acres.

Expand my heart, O Lord, that I may love yet more people.

The waters of love can water vast tracts,

nothing will be lost to me.

The greater the outward flow, the greater the returning tide.

If I am not linked to Love’s source, I will dry up.

If I dam the waters of Love, they will stagnate.

Can I compare my heart to the boundless seas?

But abandon not the measure of my heart, O Lord.

Let the waves of your love still billow there!

[Imaging the Word, vol.2 , p. 159]

 

May it be so.   Amen.

Rev. Mary H. Lee-Clark

 
"Winds of Re-birth" -- Johhn 3:1-17 -- March 16, 2014

"Winds of Re-birth" -- Johhn 3:1-17 -- March 16, 2014

 

Why is it we are suspicious of things that happen at night?  "Nicodemus came to Jesus at night."  He was afraid of being seen associating with this radical rabbi, it is said, and when you realize that in John’s gospel, Jesus has already turned over the tables of the money-changers in the Temple, back in chapter 2, you could understand Nicodemus’ hesitancy to be seen with Jesus in the light of day.  "He came to Jesus by night and said to him, "Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God."

At night, things are not so clear and simple as they are in the daytime.  I can work myself into a real snit thinking about things and worrying over things between 2 and 4 in the morning, and yet when daylight dawns, I am amazed at how much more manageable they seem, how much they have shrunk in size as I see them in larger context.  Nicodemus came to Jesus at night, full of questions and doubt, maybe even some skepticism, but I sense he was genuinely seeking understanding.  One friend calls him "the Patron Saint of Seekers."  (Patricia Farris, Christian Century, Jan. 30-Feb. 6, 2002)   Maybe he was coming to Jesus "undercover," but we should also know that the rabbis taught that Torah was best studied at night, when it was quiet and there were fewer distractions.  "Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher who has come from God; for no one can do these signs that you do apart from the presence of God."   Nicodemus sensed the presence of God with this young rabbi, and Jesus sensed a seeking spirit in this man with the trappings of the elite.

Right away, Jesus launches him into the deeper wisdom of metaphor and poetry, away from his familiar shoreline of left-brained reason and logic.  "Very truly, I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God without being born from above."  Or born anew, as the word also means.

Nicodemus is stunned.  This is not Torah study as he has come to know it.  "How can anyone be born after having grown old?  Can one enter a second time into the mother’s womb and be born?"   Jesus pushes further and further away from shore.  "Very truly, I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit.  What is born of the flesh is flesh, and what is born of the Spirit is spirit.  Do not be astonished that I said to you,’You must be born from above.’  The wind blows where it chooses, and you hear the sound of it, but you do not know where it comes from or where it goes.  So it is with everyone who is born of the Spirit."  Utterly floundering, Nicodemus asks, "How can these things be?"

And who can blame him?  This is not easy sailing.  In fact, Nicodemus is the only person in the gospels with whom Jesus uses this image or metaphor for entering into or abiding in the kingdom of God–and there were lots of people who asked him!  But Jesus takes Nicodemus into this multi-layered, multi-dimensional, imaginative conversation about being born from above or born anew or born again, and the wind/spirit/breath (all the same word) blowing where it will.

I have to admit that my understanding of "being born" or "giving birth to" has been forever deepened or expanded by our niece Katie’s experience of giving birth to her third child, for which we all/you all have been praying. [I need to tell you, by the way, that Katie and Rory, now over 6 lbs., are both home this week and doing well.] You’ll recall that Katie had been hospitalized for two months ahead of the delivery, because the placenta had broken through the walls of her uterus and was taking up residence in various other places in her body.  Her doctors had already determined that as late as possible, the baby would be delivered by C-section and then they would perform a number of necessary surgeries on Katie.

When the time of Rory’s delivery came, the extent of the trauma and damage to Katie’s body was far more extensive than anyone could have imagined, and as I told you, 170 units of blood were used in the process of saving Katie’s life.  Teams of doctors and nurses worked together to save her, improvising at some points, trying whatever they could think of to stop the bleeding.  All unnecessary surgeries in the Boston area were put on hold, as runners from hospitals all over the region brought units of blood to Beth Israel.  Literally hundreds of people connected to Katie and Matt and their families by holding them in prayer.  I know that I have never felt closer to Katie (which I’m sure would be a surprise to her) as I imagined healing light at every one of those points of trauma, as I imagined the clots in her lungs dissolving, as I pictured Light and Love coursing through every vein and artery.

As I just told you, this story has a happy ending, but as Katie’s primary surgeon told Bruce, "If anyone thinks that God wasn’t in that operating room, they would be wrong."

"Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God without being born from above."  Katie’s story demonstrates so clearly what is involved with "being born" at all–from above, in the flesh, by the spirit, whatever.  English doesn’t have a middle voice, which is what this word "being born" is in.  We have the active voice–"I did this"–the voice of self-sufficiency, personal responsibility, the voice of science, with its repeatable results.  And we have the passive voice–"It was done to me," "mistakes were made"–much less interesting, often obscuring, the voice of political "spin" where responsibility is slippery and blame is diffuse.

But "being born"?  It’s like bread baking in the oven.  The bread doesn’t bake itself, nor is baking something that is simply done to the bread.  The bread participates in its baking, the yeast or leavening growing; the baker mixes and kneads; the oven provides the heat.  Just so, we don’t birth ourselves in the active voice.  Anyone who’s given birth knows that it’s not simply a matter of the mother giving birth to a baby.  She is not in control.  She participates with the baby and the built in abilities of her body and the midwife or doctor and the power of Life that is way beyond any of them.

In Katie’s case, not only were she and Rory bound together as all mothers and babies are, but they were both in the midst of this web of tissues and life-force and doctors and nurses and runners of blood units and givers of blood units and all the medical knowledge passed down to the medical personnel, to all those who were praying for them, and, to my mind and many other minds, without a doubt the Power, Protection, Wisdom, and Presence of God.  Katie and her husband Matt and Rory and his two brothers are forever bound together in a web of light and life and grace with untold numbers of people who participated in this birth, which was so connected, as all births are, to death...just as all deaths are also connected to new birth.

The "middle voice" [as one commentator explains it] of being born involves participation in a larger, on-going action, where the main player is unnamed, even unrecognized, and the subject is not wholly in control... This is the voice of interrelatedness, of multi-causality.  This is the ‘voice of faith.’" [Liz Goodman, Journal for Preachers, Lent 2014, p. 5]

"No one can enter the kingdom of God without being born anew, born of the Spirit which blows, like the wind, where it chooses."  "God so loved the world that God entered into it, "gave the Son," John says.  God not only longs for our re-birth but for the world’s re-birth as well.  Biblical scholar Marcus Borg says that the images of being born again and dying and rising were closely associated-- from the same root word, in fact-- in the early Christian community.  They were both ways of talking about dying to the old ways and being born into new ways of living.  Being born anew was a way of talking about personal transformation that resulted in being centered in Christ/God/Spirit. [cited by Kate Huey, Weekly Seeds, 3/16/14]

"You must be born anew," Jesus said.  Like Nicodemus, like Katie and Rory, we are part of the web of Love and Life and Grace that connects us to all other beings in space and time, and that is enlivened, in-spired (breathed) by God.  What we do, how we live our lives, matters, not only to us and those near us, but to every other creature on earth.  We must claim the active voice, and take responsibility for what we do and how we live–there are a number of actions suggested on our insert today which are a piece of this–and we must not simply settle into the passive voice, claiming only to be victims of other people’s actions, what "they" do or have done.  But most importantly, we must claim the middle voice of being born again and being part of the earth’s rebirth– participating in this process, recognizing all the others who are involved in and affected by this process, affirming and opening up to the One who is the real Subject, the Source of Life and Light and Love.

Just as Jesus brought Nicodemus into new ways of thinking and imagining, so we too must be open to letting go of the old, familiar ways that are no longer life-giving and open to new ways of imagining, appreciating, defining joy and beauty.  Listen to this description of the solar array in a former hayfield near Middlebury College–

Above the earth, grass, and snow of a former hayfield, the College’s solar panels float in their resting position as the sun...descends.  The collectors perform their harvest between heaven and earth, like an energy-absorbing sculpture that parachuted down from the sky or mushrooms that rose from the soil.  Their rhythm of position suggests the ordered wavelengths of light upon which they thrive.  They offer a promise of warmth for the cold night to come.  This is the bold, new aesthetic of a sustainable world: the formal beauty of the contrast between a modern machine in a pastoral landscape, the conceptual beauty of power generation that works with the environment, the social beauty of people taking responsibility for their part of the planet.

[John Huddleston, Middlebury Magazine, Winter 2014, p. 3]

We must imagine new ways of living on the earth which God gave to us to tend.  This web which connects us to all other beings requires that we take seriously how and from where we get our power to live.  Many Vermonters decry the pollution of our visual landscape with solar panels or wind turbines, but for too long our power supply has come from power stations and pipelines and towers polluting the landscapes of those who have no alternatives but to live next door to those substations and towers or beneath the wires and pipelines.  They look at them everyday.  Their homes and bodies are radiated and polluted by them everyday.  These are not easy or simple decisions.  They are the labor of the new earth–letting go, dying, being lifted up to new life, being born anew.

"God did not send the Son into the world–God did not take on human flesh–to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him."  In Jesus we see God tied to humanity, and through him all humanity and the earth woven together.  It is that Web of Love and Light that is both our burden and our blessing.  We can fight and resist and deny that we are bound together, or we can allow that web to strengthen and assist us, even midwife us, into new ways of living together.

So may we born anew, born of the Spirit, which blows where it chooses. May that Spirit bring us to new life together.   Amen, and amen.

Rev. Mary H. Lee-Clark

 
Ash Wednesday 2014

Ash Wednesday 2014

 

Our friend Kathy Clark up at the Federated Church in East Arlington is joining with Scott Neal at St. James Episcopal Church in Arlington to offer drive-by ashes today, once this morning, and then again later on in the day, each time at one of their churches.  It’s an act of public liturgy, inspired, perhaps, by the publicity gained by Sara Miles, the director of ministry at St. Gregory of Nyssa Episcopal Church in San Francisco.  There they have been taking ashes and creating a street altar in the middle of San Francisco’s Mission district for the past few years, a way of acknowledging the darkness and sin in the world while taking a symbol of God’s mercy into the streets.  It’s a public act of faith.

I will be curious to hear about Kathy and Scott’s experiences, and I confess my own hesitancy to doing something like that here.  Not only are we located on a street where people are not likely to "drive by," but there’s something a little too "hip," a little too "McChurch" for me in a drive-by imposition of ashes.

Clearly this is not a "popular" service amongst us New England UCC-types.  Of the five of us at my clergy support group yesterday, ours was the only church having an Ash Wednesday service.  And really, for a day when the gospel reading warns us against public shows of piety, the smearing of gritty, black ashes on our foreheads in the shape of a cross is an odd ritual.  We don’t do this kind of thing usually. It’s a little too showy, too "catholic," I’ve heard, and, when you think about it, rather an intimate act to have someone touch your face.   It stops us in our tracks, which, actually, I think, is what it’s supposed to do.

"It’s the most honest of days," one woman commented.  "It’s a mystery, a sitting-with...a sitting with the dark.  It is bearing witness to the dark."  She said this, remembering another Ash Wednesday, when her older sister had killed herself by jumping off the top floor of the parking garage at the hospital.  The hospital chaplain had given her the ashes earlier in the day.  Ash Wednesday is a bearing witness to the dark. [Christian Century, 2/5/14, p. 24]

I guess that’s my main objection to drive-by ashes.  I’m as introverted as the next person–more than most, perhaps–but when I am called to bear witness to the darkness of my own life and the world’s, I don’t want to sit alone with it in my car.  I think it is important that we bear witness to the dark–Ash Wednesday is something like Yom Kippur for our Jewish brothers and sisters.  We don’t need to live our lives weighed down by our darkness and sin, but we do need to acknowledge it at some point, acknowledge that we are part of the evil and hatred and depravity of the world, tied up in structures and systems that oppress and destroy and deprive.  We need to acknowledge that and let that knowledge sink in to inform us.

Like Yom Kippur, we need to do this on the world’s behalf. Somebody needs to bear witness.   But just as we are part of the world’s darkness and sin–and it’s helpful to have others alongside us when we acknowledge this–so also it’s helpful to have others alongside us to remind us that it’s not up to just us, as individuals, to fix it.  Certainly, we each need to decide what our part in the healing of the world will be, but we also need to know that we are not alone in this.  We are part of a local community, a whole worldwide community, even a community that transcends time and space, that bears witness to the light.  "The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it."  Otherwise, it’s too easy to get overwhelmed by the darkness and simply give up in despair.

This Lent, for example, we are exploring ways that we can be better stewards and advocates for the earth.  Faced with the enormity and complexity of climate change, it doesn’t take long to throw up our hands in despair and simply give up...which is why we need each other, and not only the people at Second Congregational Church, but people all over, everywhere, in fact, who are so concerned and committed to leaving a beautiful, habitable planet to their children and grandchildren and all the generations to come that we will change our ways, advocate for policies that will stop or at least slow the warming, and be willing to sacrifice to make this happen.

That’s just one example of the darkness that we bear witness to tonight.  It’s also the darkness in our own hearts that we may be painfully aware of, that we think only we carry–a failing, an addiction, a flaw–but perhaps especially with those "private" sins, it’s important to know that we are not alone.  We are not the only ones.

And finally, when we bear witness to the darkness in us and in our world, it’s important to know not only are we surrounded by companions on the journey to the light, but we are given food and drink for the journey, the very body and blood of the One who entered into our darkness and bore witness to the Light.  He was, in fact, the Light himself.

So, I’m glad to be here with you.  I give thanks for your presence on this most honest of days, as we witness together and as we draw sustenance for the journey ahead.  Amen, and amen.

Rev. Mary H. Lee-Clark
"A Vision for the Journey"-- Exodus 24:12-18, Matthew 17:1-9 -- March 2, 2014

"A Vision for the Journey"-- Exodus 24:12-18, Matthew 17:1-9 -- March 2, 2014

 

If you’ve been keeping your eyes and ears and heart open to Epiphany moments this season, you may have noticed that they stay with you, at least for a while.  Maybe that early morning bird call echoes in your mind later in the day, when you’re taking the garbage to the curb.  Maybe the image of that faint green pushing up through the concrete where the snow had pulled away inspires you to keep going when you’re tempted to quit a task or project.  Maybe the memory of that encounter with an old friend just when you were thinking of him keeps playing itself in your mind as you fold the laundry.  Startling beauty, inspiring courage, connections and "God-incidences" all around us, just waiting for the doors of our perception to open.  Epiphany moments can last for hours, or days, or longer.

The Epiphany moment Peter, James, and John experienced up on that mountaintop would last a lifetime.  Maybe beyond.  The images of the Transfiguration of Jesus’ face and clothing up there on the mountaintop, and then the appearance of Moses and Elijah talking with him, seared themselves into the disciples’ brains.  But it was the Voice from the cloud–"This is my beloved Son; with him I am well pleased.  Listen to him!"–that’s what blew the disciples off their feet and onto their knees, shaking them to their core.   TME.  Too Much Epiphany. Too much Glory.

It was the same Glory that enveloped Moses up on that other mountaintop.  It looked like a "devouring fire," the people said.  Like a devouring fire.  It didn’t devour Moses, but there really were no words to describe it exactly.  That kind of glory is way beyond words.  Walter Brueggemann says that the glory of God is "the luminous, inscrutable, inaccessible power and presence of God." [Odyssey Network, Scripture] It is way beyond our words or understanding, lest we think we can get too cozy with God.  Like Aslan, the Lion-Christ in C.S. Lewis’ Narnia Tales, the Holy One is good but definitely not safe.

This is not power as we usually encounter it.  "Power corrupts," we say, "and absolute power corrupts absolutely."  The kind of power that we too often experience or read about is coercive and threatening.  Do this or else... The power of God, though it may knock our socks off, is relational, it connects to us and with us at an essential level.  It makes us reflect on how we live our lives.  It heals us, illuminates us.  It is "loving energy that gives birth to"  [Bruce Epperly, Adventurous Lectionary, 3/2/14] our best, true selves.  "If you’ve been looking for some way to trade in your old certainties for new movement in your life, look no further," writes Barbara Brown Taylor of the power and glory of God [DayOne, 2014].

"Get up and don’t be afraid," Jesus said to Peter, James, and John when they had buried their faces in the dirt up there on the mountaintop.  "Get up."  It’s the same word used for "Be raised, resurrected."  The Transfiguration story is a displaced resurrection story, some commentators say.  In fact, Matthew uses a lot of the same language in his resurrection story–Describing the angel at the empty tomb, Matthew writes, "His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow."(Mt. 28:3)  And elsewhere in Matthew’s gospel, Jesus describes resurrection life saying, "Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father." (Mt. 13:43)

"Get up and don’t be afraid," Jesus says to the disciples.  They were to be resurrected too, and they would need courage and assurance, even though they would be afraid.   This Epiphany moment would need to stay with them and last them through all kinds of persecution and scary moments.  They would need to keep this vision of Jesus "not as a victim, but as a victor, not the one despised but the one beloved of God" in the days ahead–as they continued their journey toward Jerusalem.

In his classic work, Man’s Search for Meaning, concentration camp survivor Victor Frankl writes that "to suffer unnecessarily is masochistic rather than heroic," [113] but unavoidable suffering is bearable if it has meaning. "Life is not primarily a quest for pleasure..[as some have said]or a quest for power [as others have said]..., but a quest for meaning.  The greatest task for any person is to find meaning in his or her life.  Frankl saw three possible sources for meaning: in work (doing something significant), in love (caring for another person), and in courage during difficult times.  Suffering in and of itself is meaningless; we give our suffering meaning by the way in which we respond to it." [Harold Kushner, in Foreward to 2006 Edition, Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning, p. x]

We don’t know if this vision of Jesus’ transfiguration helped his followers through the awful events of Holy Week–Jesus’ arrest and crucifixion.  It didn’t seem to have made much of a difference, if they ever actually had that vision, since they betrayed and denied and deserted him.  But looking back years later, as the gospels and letters were written, it is clear that this epiphany moment, of who Jesus really was: that he was part of God’s loving intention and promise from the very beginning, in line with the great prophets and law-givers of their past, that he was so full of God’s glory and so beloved of God that no power on earth could take that away–that vision would raise them up and help them not be afraid.

The challenge for us, of course, is to keep our eyes open to transfiguration, to seeing the light and beauty present in the faces around us.  The challenge is to allow Glory to change us, and then to have the courage to follow where it leads us, even if that means into that "great cloud of unknowing," as one mystic described it, the cloud of death, or loss, or suffering.

Jesus didn’t remain on the mountaintop.  In fact, he raised the disciples up so they could head down into the valley, where people waited to be healed, and fed, and brought to new life themselves.  There would be no building of booths or tabernacles or temples or even churches where the Glory could be contained, and if you thought you could contain it and encounter it without being utterly changed, you were settling for something less than the Real Thing.

"Get up and don’t be afraid."  Whatever comes next, whatever life presents us with, whatever Cloud of Unknowing we find ourselves in, we do know that there is One who is with us in that cloud.  His real presence is with us in this bread and in this cup.  Take and eat, take and drink, he told his followers.  I will be with you always and everywhere.  In that assurance, with that vision, let us keep the feast.  Amen, and amen.

Rev. Mary H. Lee-Clark
test Lenten

test Lenten




click for all Lenten/Easterreadings

 
The
practice of using a Lectionary to assign particular Scripture readings
to each Sunday and festival day (ie Christmas) dates back to the fourth
century, and has continued through the history of the Christian Church.



In
1992, the Consultation on Common Texts (CCT) – an ecumenical
consultation of liturgical scholars and denominational representatives
from the United States and Canada, including some from the United Church
of Christ – produced the Revised Common Lectionary. In 2005, the CCT
published the Revised Common Lectionary DAILY Readings, which provides
weekday readings that relate to the Sunday Scripture lessons. Thursday
through Saturday readings help prepare the reader for the Sunday
reading, and Monday through Wednesday readings help the reader reflect
on what they heard at church.

MARCH

Lent 1

WE 5 Ash Wednesday: Joel 2:1-2, 12-17 or Isaiah 58:1-12, Psalm 51:1-17, 2 Corinthians 5:20b—6:10, Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21
read texts

TH 6 Psalm 51, Jonah 3:1-10, Romans 1:1-7 read texts

FR 7 Psalm 51, Jonah 4:1-11, Romans 1:8-17read texts

SA 8 Psalm 51, Isaiah 58:1-12, Matthew 18:1-7

SU 9 First Sunday in Lent Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7, Psalm 32, Romans 5:12-19, Matthew 4:1-11

MO 10 Psalm 32, 1 Kings 19:1-8, Hebrews 2:10-18

TU 11 Psalm 32, Genesis 4:1-16, Hebrews 4:14—5:10

WE 12 Psalm 32, Exodus 34:1-9, 27-28, Matthew 18:10-14

Lent 2

TH 13

Psalm 121, Isaiah 51:1-3, 2 Timothy 1:3-7

FR 14

Psalm 121, Micah 7:18-20, Romans 3:21-31

SA 15

Psalm 121, Isaiah 51:4-8, Luke 7:1-10

SU 16

Second Sunday in Lent

Genesis 12:1-4a, Psalm 121, Romans 4:1-5, 13-17, John 3:1-17 or Matthew 17:1-9

MO 17

Psalm 128, Numbers 21:4-9, Hebrews 3:1-6

TU 18

Psalm 128, Isaiah 65:17-25, Romans 4:6-13

WE 19

Psalm 128, Ezekiel 36:22-32, John 7:53—8:11

Lent 3

TH 20

Psalm 95, Exodus 16:1-8, Colossians 1:15-23

FR 21

Psalm 95, Exodus 16:9-21, Ephesians 2:11-22

SA 22

Psalm 95, Exodus 16:27-35, John 4:1-6

SU 23

Third Sunday in Lent

Exodus 17:1-7, Psalm 95, Romans 5:1-11, John 4:5-42

MO 24

Psalm 81, Genesis 24:1-27, 2 John 1-13

TU 25

Psalm 81, Genesis 29:1-14, 1 Corinthians 10:1-4

WE 26

Psalm 81, Jeremiah 2:4-13, John 7:14-31, 37-39

Lent 4

TH 27

Psalm 23, 1 Samuel 15:10-21, Ephesians 4:25-32

FR 28

Psalm 23, 1 Samuel 15:22-31, Ephesians 5:1-9

SA 29

Psalm 23, 1 Samuel 15:32-34, John 1:1-9

SU 30

Fourth Sunday in Lent

1 Samuel 16:1-13, Psalm 23, Ephesians 5:8-14, , John 9:1-41

MO 31

Psalm 146, Isaiah 59:9-19, Acts 9:1-20

April

TU 1

Psalm 146, Isaiah 42:14-21, Colossians 1:9-14

WE 2

Psalm 146, Isaiah 60:17-22, Matthew 9:27-34

Lent 5

TH 3

Psalm 130, Ezekiel 1:1-3; 2:8—3:3, Revelation 10:1-11

FR 4

Psalm 130, Ezekiel 33:10-16, Revelation 11:15-19

SA 5

Psalm 130, Ezekiel 36:8-15, Luke 24:44-53

SU 6

Fifth Sunday in Lent

Ezekiel 37:1-14, Psalm 130, Romans 8:6-11, John 11:1-45

MO 7

Psalm 143, 1 Kings 17:17-24, Acts 20:7-12

TU 8

Psalm 143, 2 Kings 4:18-37, Ephesians 2:1-10

WE 9

Psalm 143, Jeremiah 32:1-9, 36-41, Matthew 22:23-33

Lent 6

TH 10

Psalm 31:9-16, 1 Samuel 16:11-13, Philippians 1:1-11

FR 11

Psalm 31:9-16, Job 13:13-19, Philippians 1:21-30

SA 12

Psalm 31:9-16, Lamentations 3:55-66, Mark 10:32-34

SU 13

Passion Sunday or Palm Sunday

Palms Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29, Matthew 21:1-11, Passion Isaiah 50:4-9a, Psalm 31:9-16, Philippians 2:5-11, Matthew

26:14—27:66 or Matthew 27:11-54

MO 14

Monday of Holy Week

Isaiah 42:1-9, Psalm 36:5-11, Hebrews 9:11-15, John 12:1-11

TU 15

Tuesday of Holy Week

Isaiah 49:1-7, Psalm 71:1-14, 1 Corinthians 1:18-31, John 12:20-36

WE 16

Wednesday of Holy Week

Isaiah 50:4-9a, Psalm 70, Hebrews 12:1-3, John 13:21-32

Three Days—Easter

TH 17

Holy Thursday

Exodus 12:1-4 [5-10] 11-14, Psalm 116:1-2, 12-19, 1 Corinthians 11:23-26, John 13:1-17, 31b-35

FR 18

Good Friday

Isaiah 52:13—53:12, Psalm 22, Hebrews 10:16-25 or Hebrews 4:14-16; 5:7-9, John 18:1—19:42

SA 19

Holy Saturday (other than the Vigil):

Job 14:1-14 or Lamentations 3:1-9, 19-24, Psalm 31:1-4, 15-16, 1 Peter 4:1-8, Matthew 27:57-66 or John 19:38-42

Resurrection of the Lord—Easter Vigil:

Genesis 1:1—2:4a, Psalm 136:1-9, 23-26

Genesis 7:1-5, 11-18; 8:6-18; 9:8-13, Psalm 46

Genesis 22:1-18, Psalm 16

Exodus 14:10-31; 15:20-21 , Exodus 15:1b-13, 17-18

Isaiah 55:1-11, Isaiah 12:2-6

Baruch 3:9-15, 32—4:4 or Proverbs 8:1-8, 19-21; 9:4b-6 , Psalm 19

Ezekiel 36:24-28, Psalm 42 and 43

Ezekiel 37:1-14, Psalm 143

Zephaniah 3:14-20, Psalm 98, Romans 6:3-11, Psalm 114, Matthew 28:1-10

SU 20

Resurrection of the Lord—Easter Day:

Acts 10:34-43 or Jeremiah 31:1-6

Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24

Colossians 3:1-4 or Acts 10:34-43

John 20:1-18 or Matthew 28:1-10

Resurrection of Our Lord—Easter Evening

Isaiah 25:6-9

Psalm 114

1 Corinthians 5:6b-8

Luke 24:13-49
Daily Lenten Meditations

Daily Lenten Meditations

The practice of using a Lectionary to assign particular Scripture readings to each Sunday and festival day (ie Christmas) dates back to the fourth century, and has continued through the history of the Christian Church.


In 1992, the Consultation on Common Texts (CCT) – an ecumenical consultation of liturgical scholars and denominational representatives from the United States and Canada, including some from the United Church of Christ – produced the Revised Common Lectionary. In 2005, the CCT published the Revised Common Lectionary DAILY Readings, which provides weekday readings that relate to the Sunday Scripture lessons. Thursday through Saturday readings help prepare the reader for the Sunday reading, and Monday through Wednesday readings help the reader reflect on what they heard at church.

Following text links are to NRSV New Revised Standard Version

MARCH
Lent 1

WE 5 Ash Wednesday: Joel 2:1-2, 12-17 or Isaiah 58:1-12, Psalm 51:1-17, 2 Corinthians 5:20b—6:10, Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21 read texts

TH 6 Psalm 51, Jonah 3:1-10, Romans 1:1-7 read texts

FR 7 Psalm 51, Jonah 4:1-11, Romans 1:8-17 read texts

SA 8
Psalm 51, Isaiah 58:1-12, Matthew 18:1-7 read texts

SU 9
First Sunday in Lent
Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7, Psalm 32, Romans 5:12-19, Matthew 4:1-11 read texts

MO 10
Psalm 32, 1 Kings 19:1-8, Hebrews 2:10-18 read texts

TU 11
Psalm 32, Genesis 4:1-16, Hebrews 4:14—5:10 read texts

WE 12
Psalm 32, Exodus 34:1-9, 27-28, Matthew 18:10-14 read texts

Lent 2

TH 13
Psalm 121, Isaiah 51:1-3, 2 Timothy 1:3-7 read texts

FR 14
Psalm 121, Micah 7:18-20, Romans 3:21-31 read texts

SA 15
Psalm 121, Isaiah 51:4-8, Luke 7:1-10 read texts

SU 16
Second Sunday in Lent
Genesis 12:1-4a, Psalm 121, Romans 4:1-5, 13-17, John 3:1-17 or Matthew 17:1-9 read texts

MO 17
Psalm 128, Numbers 21:4-9, Hebrews 3:1-6 read texts

TU 18
Psalm 128, Isaiah 65:17-25, Romans 4:6-13 read texts

WE 19
Psalm 128, Ezekiel 36:22-32, John 7:53—8:11 read texts

Lent 3

TH 20
Psalm 95, Exodus 16:1-8, Colossians 1:15-23 read texts

FR 21
Psalm 95, Exodus 16:9-21, Ephesians 2:11-22 read texts

SA 22
Psalm 95, Exodus 16:27-35, John 4:1-6 read texts

SU 23
Third Sunday in Lent
Exodus 17:1-7, Psalm 95, Romans 5:1-11, John 4:5-42 read texts

MO 24
Psalm 81, Genesis 24:1-27, 2 John 1-13 read texts

TU 25
Psalm 81, Genesis 29:1-14, 1 Corinthians 10:1-4 read texts

WE 26
Psalm 81, Jeremiah 2:4-13, John 7:14-31, 37-39 read texts

Lent 4

TH 27
Psalm 23, 1 Samuel 15:10-21, Ephesians 4:25-32 read texts

FR 28
Psalm 23, 1 Samuel 15:22-31, Ephesians 5:1-9 read texts

SA 29
Psalm 23, 1 Samuel 15:32-34, John 1:1-9 read texts

SU 30
Fourth Sunday in Lent
1 Samuel 16:1-13, Psalm 23, Ephesians 5:8-14, John 9:1-41 read texts

MO 31
Psalm 146, Isaiah 59:9-19, Acts 9:1-20 read texts

April

TU 1
Psalm 146, Isaiah 42:14-21, Colossians 1:9-14 read texts

WE 2
Psalm 146, Isaiah 60:17-22, Matthew 9:27-34 read texts

Lent 5

TH 3
Psalm 130, Ezekiel 1:1-3; 2:8—3:3, Revelation 10:1-11 read texts

FR 4
Psalm 130, Ezekiel 33:10-16, Revelation 11:15-19 read texts

SA 5
Psalm 130, Ezekiel 36:8-15, Luke 24:44-53 read texts

SU 6
Fifth Sunday in Lent
Ezekiel 37:1-14, Psalm 130, Romans 8:6-11, John 11:1-45 read texts

MO 7
Psalm 143, 1 Kings 17:17-24, Acts 20:7-12 read texts

TU 8
Psalm 143, 2 Kings 4:18-37, Ephesians 2:1-10 read texts

WE 9
Psalm 143, Jeremiah 32:1-9, 36-41, Matthew 22:23-33 read texts

Lent 6

TH 10
Psalm 31:9-16, 1 Samuel 16:11-13, Philippians 1:1-11 read texts

FR 11
Psalm 31:9-16, Job 13:13-19, Philippians 1:21-30 read texts

SA 12
Psalm 31:9-16, Lamentations 3:55-66, Mark 10:32-34 read texts

SU 13
Passion Sunday or Palm Sunday
Palms Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29, Matthew 21:1-11, Passion Isaiah 50:4-9a, Psalm 31:9-16, Philippians 2:5-11, Matthew 26:14—27:66 or Matthew 27:11-54 read texts

MO 14
Monday of Holy Week
Isaiah 42:1-9, Psalm 36:5-11, Hebrews 9:11-15, John 12:1-11 read texts

TU 15
Tuesday of Holy Week
Isaiah 49:1-7, Psalm 71:1-14, 1 Corinthians 1:18-31, John 12:20-36 read texts

WE 16
Wednesday of Holy Week
Isaiah 50:4-9a, Psalm 70, Hebrews 12:1-3, John 13:21-32 read texts

Three Days—Easter

TH 17
Holy Thursday
Exodus 12:1-4 [5-10] 11-14, Psalm 116:1-2, 12-19, 1 Corinthians 11:23-26, John 13:1-17, 31b-35 read texts

FR 18
Good Friday
Isaiah 52:13—53:12, Psalm 22, Hebrews 10:16-25 or Hebrews 4:14-16; 5:7-9, John 18:1—19:42 read texts

SA 19
Holy Saturday (other than the Vigil):
Job 14:1-14 or Lamentations 3:1-9, 19-24, Psalm 31:1-4, 15-16, 1 Peter 4:1-8, Matthew 27:57-66 or John 19:38-42 read texts

Resurrection of the Lord—Easter Vigil:
Genesis 1:1—2:4a, Psalm 136:1-9, 23-26, Genesis 7:1-5, 11-18; 8:6-18; 9:8-13, Psalm 46, Genesis 22:1-18, Psalm 16, Exodus 14:10-31; 15:20-21 , Exodus 15:1b-13, 17-18, Isaiah 55:1-11, Isaiah 12:2-6, Baruch 3:9-15, 32—4:4 or Proverbs 8:1-8, 19-21; 9:4b-6 , Psalm 19, Ezekiel 36:24-28, Psalm 42 and 43, Ezekiel 37:1-14, Psalm 143,
Zephaniah 3:14-20, Psalm 98, Romans 6:3-11, Psalm 114, Matthew 28:1-10 read texts

SU 20
Resurrection of the Lord—Easter Day:
Acts 10:34-43 or Jeremiah 31:1-6, Psalm 118:1-2, 14-24 , Colossians 3:1-4 or Acts 10:34-43, John 20:1-18 or Matthew 28:1-10 read texts

Resurrection of Our Lord—Easter Evening
Isaiah 25:6-9 Psalm 114 1 Corinthians 5:6b-8 Luke 24:13-49 read texts

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