180th Birthday

On Sunday September 25 Second Congo celebrated its 180th birthday. The special worship service featured four historical characters from the church's past, and four “Grasshopper Tales” (five-minute stories, in the style of Moth Radio stories, each told by a member of the congregation who participated in a “leap of faith” in the church's history). The adult choir sang and the handbell choir rang, both under the direction of Sue Green. Vintage photographs and newspaper clippings from events such as the explosion of the church organ, continue to be on display in the social hall.

Originally part of what we now know as “Old First Church,” the congregation divided into two in 1836 because many women were no longer willing to walk up the hill several times a Sunday for worship services at the Congregational church on Monument Avenue. Parishioners down in the valley built Second Congregational Church, a tall and traditional church in New England style, on the corner of School and Main where the TD Bank now stands.
In 1959, when that building became too expensive for the congregation to maintain, the congregation sold it and built an architecturally radical church building on Hillside Street. Only 18 months after its construction, the church was heavily damaged by an explosion caused by a gas leak. On August 6, 1961 the Bennington Banner carried front page news and photographs of the walls of the sanctuary blown out and lying on the ground, the interior of the church exposed to the outdoors. Another memorable explosion in Second Congo's history was of pressure cookers containing the ingredients for a chicken pot pie supper.

In 1965 Rev Thomas D Steffen was called to be the church's new pastor. He served for 29 years that included the church being the site of draft counseling during the Viet Nam War, and the church undergoing study and discussion that led to its officially declaring itself “Open and Affirming” to LGBTQ people (the first church in Vermont to do so).

After Tom Steffen retired in 1994, the church called its first woman pastor. With Rev Mary Lee-Clark as pastor, Second Congo has continued active involvement in the Bennington community both as a congregation and with individual members volunteering at many community endeavors including Sunday Suppers at the church, the Free Clinic, the Kitchen Cupboard, the Seedlings Program to nurture elementary school children in after school program, and many others. Long-running annual events such as the Snowball Bazaar, now in its 68th year, attract locals and others. The history of Second Congregational Church is indeed interwoven with the history of Bennington.
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"Lamentation and Prayer for the Nation"- Jeremiah 8:18-9:1, 1 Tim.2:1-7-- Sept. 18, 2016

I remember being struck in the weeks after Sept. 11, 2001 how the assigned readings from the lectionary, particularly from Jeremiah, seemed so eerily current. They were addressed to a nation in distress, a people wounded, wondering where God was, facing devastation.

And now, 15 years later–starting the 6^th round of these 3-year cycles of readings–we’re back in Jeremiah, and the prophet seems to be speaking once again to the anguish of our time. The first 8 chapters of Jeremiah are full of condemnation and accusation of the nation of Israel’s deceit and corruption and God’s dismay and weariness at the people’s refusal to return to God’s ways. "Why then has this people turned away in perpetual backsliding?" God asks. "They have held fast to deceit, they have refused to return. I have given heed and listened, but they do not speak honestly; no one repents of wickedness, saying, ‘What have I done!’" It’s as though God is reading the New York Times over coffee in the morning, and every few paragraphs, crumples up the paper and pounds on the table. "What did he say?" God asks incredulously. "What has she done now?" "Jeremiah!" comes the Divine command. "Tell them. Point out their lies. Look at my poor people dying!"

And Jeremiah is exhausted from the effort. Exhausted from trying to compete with all the other noise and getting blamed for being a messenger of doom. "My joy is gone," he cries. "Grief is upon me, my heart is sick. Hark, the cry of my poor people from far and wide in the land: ‘Is the Lord not in Jerusalem, or Washington, or Aleppo, or the Congo, or Baghdad?’ ‘The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved.’ For the hurt of my poor people I am hurt, [Jeremiah moans], I mourn, and dismay has taken hold of me."

Jeremiah is the master of lament. In fact, there’s a whole book in the Bible called Lamentations, the Lamentations of Jeremiah. "How lonely is the city that once was full of people," it begins, as Jeremiah looks upon Jerusalem after its people have been taken off into exile. But lamentation is not only for the aftermath of tragedy. It is also for those times when tragedy can still be averted, when the depth of the crisis, the reality of the situation and the consequences of the decisions being made right now can be seen in all their terrifying power. Lamentation is appropriate to help us get a grip on just how much is at stake, how much we have to lose. When we can feel deeply and fully just how far we have gone astray, when we can see clearly where this current trend is taking us, we may finally be open to the possibility of getting our act together and re-orient ourselves to head in a direction that we actually may want to go–a direction that is life-giving, ot death-dealing.

There’s no "going back again," of course. That is never possible. The world and time never stand still. But the greatness and goodness that is possible is always drawing us forward, God is always making all things new.

"Is there no balm in Gilead?" Jeremiah wonders. Back in the 6^th c. BCE, Gilead was thought of as a place of healing and medical care. The balm in Gilead was probably resin from balsam trees, the "balsam of Mecca," and the balm was probably some kind of topical ointment. But it was a surface treatment, not unlike a bandaid in our day, and alas in Jeremiah’s day and in ours, bandaids are utterly inadequate for the job. What is needed is more like a heart transplant, a complete change of heart, a radical–as in "root"–transformation.

Anyone who’s had surgery–a joint replacement, or organ transplant, or other repair–knows that the surgery itself is only part of the healing. In fact, usually, hopefully, you’re anaesthesized during the surgery. It’s the aftermath, the slow, painful, aching mending of tissue and bone that requires the real patience and courage.

We have arrived at a place where the chasm between income levels, the distrust and despair between races and religions, the toxicity of our environment, the polarity between political parties and segments of our population is so deep and wide that easy and painless solutions won’t do. There is no balm in Gilead that will smooth things over. It is going to take deep sacrifice across the board, painful adjustments of expectations and assumptions, humbling realizations of responsibility and openness to a new order. Balance sheets of profit and loss will need to be examined with new eyes, factoring in the cost to future generations and our environment in our short-term expenses and plans.

The days of the church merely continuing on with business as usual, even exploring new ways to attract people here, are over, as once thriving churches are now closing their doors, including the church I came from in Syracuse. Here in Vermont, here in Bennington, –this least religious state in the nation--the climate is even more challenging, as families are reluctant to send their children to a free summer camp held in a church, for fear they will be proselytized, and the faith community is at best an afterthought when community events are planned. We will have to shift our efforts from attracting people here to going out where people are, bringing the good news of God’s love there, witnessing in acts of service and justice that our God is a God of justice and compassion. When or if people do come to join us in worship and fellowship, we must offer words and music and rituals that are accessible to those who may have never been in a church, many of whom are digital natives, finding ways that bring the wisdom and worth of our tradition into the 21^st century in a way that communicates and touches heads and hearts. The "old hymns" and "old ways" are not banned forever–we can still find ways to feed hearts and minds for whom they have meaning–but if our children’s children and beyond are to know and experience the love of God, we will need to find new ways to express and embody that.

Jeremiah could speak truth to power because he also experienced the grief and pain and hardship of the people. That is what gives one the right to be a prophet, or to be a leader, really. "You know what you people should do..." is not the beginning of any advice you should pay attention to. That is not the voice of one who understands the full consequences of where we are and where we must go. "O that my head were a spring of water, and my eyes a fountain of tears, so that I might weep day and night for the slain of my poor people."

How like our God, who became flesh among us in Jesus, to fully experience the pain and suffering of humanity, who knows our grief, who knows even our death. And the community that lived on in His name and spirit, also understood –in its most faithful times– what kind of servant leadership was needed. Generations after Jesus, even a generation or so after the apostle Paul, wrote in Paul’s name to a community led by Timothy. "First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for everyone, for kings and all who are in high positions, so that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and dignity..."

So in the midst of this highly contentious and troubling presidential campaign, let us at the very least heed this advice and pray for our leaders and those who would be our leaders. The children in a video created by the Salt Project, a Christian resource group based in Indianapolis, offered some great advice to the next president of the United States. Here are some of their pleas and prayers–"Support the homeless and give them shelter." "Build more community centers so kids and teens have a place to go." "It’s gonna be hard, so my advice is to try to have some fun everyday." "Have ice cream everyday." "Get rid of homework." "Make America a peaceful and non-violent place." "Donate to charities and organizations, create more jobs." "Respect everyone, no matter their color or gender." "Keep guns off the streets, so loved ones won’t get hurt, and to make all gun laws strict. And keep guns from teenagers and in the neighborhoods." "Remember being nice is better than being mean." "Listen to us kids because if we ruled the world, no one would be homeless and there would be less crime." The last little boy, as the credits are running, says, "And everyone would live in harmony, and there would be no bank robberies too. That’s my advice."

"Unless you become as little children, you cannot enter the kingdom of God" is how Jesus put it.

"Offer prayers for kings and presidents and candidates and all who are in high positions..." Here’s a prayer "For One Who Holds Power" by the late John O’Donohue. May it be our prayer as well, as we think of President obama, Hillary clinton, Donald Trump, and all who "hold power"--

May the gift of leadership awaken in you as a vocation,

Keep you mindful of the providence that calls you to serve.

As high over the mountains the eagle spreads its wings,

May your perspective be larger than the view from the foothills.

When the way is flat and dull in times of gray endurance,

May your imagination continue to evoke horizons.

When thirst burns in times of drought,

May you be blessed to find the wells.

May you have the wisdom to read time clearly

And know when the seed of change will flourish.

In your heart may there be a sanctuary

For the stillness where clarity is born.

May your work be infused with passion and creativity

And have the wisdom to balance compassion and challenge.

May your soul find the graciousness

To rise above the fester of small mediocrities.

May your power never become a shell

Wherein your heart would silently atrophy.

May you welcome your own vulnerability

As the ground where healing and truth join.

May integrity of soul be your first ideal,

The source that will guide and bless your work." [John O’Donohue, To Bless the Space Between Us, p. 147]

May we hear the pain of God’s people and the earth, and may we pray with our lives for healing

of the nation. Amen, and amen.

Rev. Mary H. Lee-Clark

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Will's Baptism

[caption id="attachment_84973" align="alignnone" width="711"] Extended family after baptism[/caption]

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“God of Wisdom, Wrath, and Compassion”-- Jeremiah 4:11-12, 22-28, Luke 15:1-10--Sept. 11, 2016

“God is everywhere, within me and around me.” Who is this God who is everywhere, within us and around us? What is the character of this God? Who is this God whose child we’ve affirmed young William is, whose children we all are? “God is everywhere, within me and around me.”

It matters who or what we think and say God is. Not what statement or creed we might recite about God, though statements of faith and creeds are all snapshots of what people have thought about God at a given time. In the United Church of Christ, we do not require agreement to any particular statement or doctrine to join our church. The closest thing we come to that is affirming that Jesus, the One in whom we see God most fully alive in a human being, Jesus is “Lord” of our lives, which even now is language that isn’t always helpful. It comes from a hierarchical, feudal culture, where lords literally, forcefully, controlled those living “beneath” them. For those in slavery, like our African-American brothers and sisters, calling Jesus “Lord” was an act of defiance and liberation – Jesus is my Lord, not you, massah.

Here’s how I understand Jesus to be Lord of my life–the Way that Jesus taught and lived is the guiding principle of my life. It’s how I judge my actions and thoughts, where I need to make adjustments, make amends; it’s a Way of life that I seek to follow and learn about and discern anew every day.

“God is everywhere, within me and around me.” Who is this God who is everywhere, within us and around us? Some people say that the God of the “Old Testament,” the God of Hebrew Scripture, is the God of wrath and judgment, while the God of the “New Testament,” the Christian testament, is the God of love. That is a conclusion you can draw by cherry-picking verses or passages from each testament, but way too simplistic and sweeping a statement to make. Read the love poem that is Song of Songs in the Old Testament, or take a look at the Book of Revelation at the end of the New Testament.

Take, for example, the reading from Jeremiah which Ted read for us. It sure sounds like a God of wrath– “At that time it will be said to this people and to Jerusalem: A hot wind comes from me out of the bare heights in the desert toward my poor people, not to winnow or cleanse–a wind too strong for that. Now it is I who speak in judgment against them.” That, just a few verses after this warning to clean up their act, “or else my wrath will go forth like fire, and burn with no one to quench it, because of the evil of your doings.” Lightning bolts at the ready!

It was said by some “Christian” preachers at the time of the 9-11 attacks that they were God’s punishment of the United States for our feminists, abortionists, and gays. God’s wrath had been kindled, they said. That is blasphemy against the God I trust in.

The wrath of the God of Jeremiah against the people of Israel was the anger of a parent toward a child engaged in hurtful, self-destructive behavior, worshipping hollow idols, polluting the earth, exploiting the poor, forswearing justice. If you discover that your daughter has been driving while texting, or your son has been bullying someone, or that your babysitter has been allowing your toddler to chase a ball out into the street, anger is an appropriate response–not anger that lashes out in violence – but anger that they have played so dangerously with precious life. You want to impress upon them that that behavior can’t go on. God’s wrath is not random, narcissistic, or petty, but grows out of a profound love for God’s people and a longing for their well-being.

“For my people are foolish,” God says-- Notice it’s not, “My people are bad”– “My people are foolish, they do not know me; they are stupid children, they have no understanding. They are skilled in doing evil, but do not know how to do good.” We can certainly go ahead and pollute the earth, starve millions by our own greed, humiliate those whom we perceive are different from ourselves–different in skin color, religion, custom, or culture–we can put all our money into weapons of destruction or tax breaks for the wealthy while our schools fall apart, along with our roads and bridges. We are free to do all that, but the consequences – especially the long-term consequences– are also certain. They are beginning to emerge all around us. You can call it God’s wrath, but it’s not because of what God is doing from some distant heaven. It’s because of our own foolishness and refusal to follow the way of God’s wisdom.

“God is everywhere, within me and around me.” Who is this God who is everywhere, within us and around us?” We can’t contain this God in a word or name, we can only point to a quality, or an experience, in which we experience something of this God. That’s why Jesus told parables or stories, to draw his listeners into a story that wasn’t neat and tidy and wrapped up in a moral or meaning, though the gospel writers often added on those “meanings” when they told Jesus’ story.

When “sinners and tax collectors” were being drawn to Jesus, the Pharisees, who were inclined to think that you could predict and guarantee God’s favor by fastidiously following “the Law,” the Pharisees grumbled, “This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.” In other words, that’s not what God would do.

So Jesus tells a story, drawing even the Pharisees in–“Which one of you, having a hundred sheep and losing one of them, does not leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness and go after the one that is lost until finds it?” You would do that, wouldn’t you? Um,...yeah? “And when he has found it, he lays it on his shoulders to bring it home and calls together his friends to rejoice with him, that he has found his lost sheep.”

Or what woman [you mean, we have to imagine what it would be like to be a woman?!] having 10 silver coins–maybe from her dowery–if she loses one of them, does not light a lamp [with whatever precious little oil she has remaining] , sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it? And calls together her friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found the lost coin.” “Just so,” Jesus said, there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.”

[A little digression here from research in positive psychology– it has been found that when a partner in a relationship takes the time to listen to and to rejoice over the good news that their partner shares, that has even a longer-lasting benefit to the relationship than only sympathizing over bad news. So, don’t overlook the celebrations and triumphs, however small.]

“God is everywhere, within me and around me.” This God is not only a God whose ways are wise and who loves us so deeply that we project onto God the human emotions of anger and grief when we, God’s children, stray far from that wisdom–this is also the God of compassion who is always seeking us out, like a shepherd with one lost sheep or a housewife with one lost coin. That is what this God is like, Jesus said.

Our God is like the man working in the North Tower of the World Trade Center, who, when the plane hit, ran down the stairs with hundreds of others to safety, but then, realizing that his co-workers and others were still in the building, went back in to help others get out, and continued to go back in, until the Tower collapsed on top of him. Our God is like the firefighters and first-responders who carried people on their backs, who searched through the rubble for any trace of those who had been lost. Our God is like the mother whose son was killed in the attacks using her grief to set up schools for girls in Afghanistan, knowing that education is the way out of poverty and despair.

“God is everywhere, within me and around me.” Our God seeks us out when we are the ones who are lost–lost in depression or discouragement, lost in self-loathing or humiliation, lost in a relationship that is destructive or deadening or unraveling, lost in ignorance or addiction or abuse. And remember what God looked like in those other stories? Like a shepherd or a housewife, like a co-worker or first-responder, like a grieving mother, like you or like me. “God is everywhere, within me and around me.” You just never know when God will swoop you up on His shoulders to carry you, will gather you up in Her lap to embrace and comfort you. You just never know, because “God is everywhere, within me and around me.” Thanks be to God! Amen.

Rev. Mary H. Lee-Clark

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"Hard Labor"-- Ps. 139:1-6, 13-18, Philemon 1-21-- Sept. 4, 2016

From what I hear, and what I long for myself, what most people look for in a sermon is something they can "take home" with them, something they can apply to their everyday life, something, as is sometimes said, not just for Sunday morning but for the rest of the week. I am grateful when someone tells me they’ve found that in a sermon of mine. And then I try also to remember what my mother told me when I used to send her copies of my weekly sermons–

"Sometimes they’re way over my head," she said. Noted, Mom. Thanks for that reminder not to get too abstract and high-minded. "Keep it real, Mary."

But, honestly, sometimes the text for the day is a little too "real." I find myself squirming, wondering either what in the world it might possibly mean for us who live 2000 or more years after the text was written down OR thinking, wow, human beings haven’t really changed all that much in 2- or 3000 years, have we? We still can’t do what God seems to want us to do.

Take, for example, the passage David just read for us from Philemon. We hardly ever read Philemon, mainly because you have to read the whole thing to make any sense of it. The whole letter is only 25 verses long, and it’s about slavery. Owning another human being. Paul is writing to his friend Philemon–and to the church or community gathered around Philemon–to tell him that he’s sending his slave Onesimus back to him.

"Onesimus" was a pretty common name for slaves–it meant "useful." Onesimus apparently left Philemon’s house–fled? escaped? which would have a risky thing to do–or perhaps left with Philemon’s permission, and somehow met up with Paul and became a Christian. Paul talks about Onesimus as becoming his son, not only "useful" to him, but also beloved. Kind of an awkward situation, when the head of one of the churches you started is supposedly the owner of this young man.

So Paul sends Onesimus back to Philemon with this letter, urging him, a little short of commanding him, to treat Onesimus as a brother in Christ, in fact, to treat Onesimus as though he were Paul himself. Paul doesn’t tell Philemon to free his slave; Paul, the apostle of Christ, says nothing about the evils of slavery or of owning another person. Paul lives within a culture in which slavery is a given. Yes, many slaves were treated kindly by their owners, even, in some instances, like family, and received food and shelter which they otherwise might have been hard-pressed to find. That was true in our own country during our period of owning African-American slaves. But it was certainly not the whole story. Not only was it the owning of human beings–the buying and selling of human beings–but the story is by and large one of brutality, exploitation, abuse, even savagery.

The Smithsonian Institution in Washington DC is in the process of building The National Museum of African American History and Culture. I was struck by the description of one of the objects that will be on display in the museum–a pair of iron shackles, "likely for a slave ship, early 18^th or 19^th century," the label says.

If these shackles could speak, [writes Charles Johnson, author of the book Middle Passage]"they would say it took the resources of an entire society to create slave ships. Every shipboard item pointed to not only the financiers but also the merchants who prepared barrels of salted beef and the workers who created tools of restraint. A medical device adapted for the trade, the speculum oris, was used to force open the mouths of slaves who refused to eat. Everyone in slave trading societies, even those who never owned a slave, was implicated. No one in a country that profited from traffic in slaves was innocent. [The Smithsonian, Sept. 2016, p. 63]

The majority of our founding fathers owned slaves. John Adams, one of our Congregational forbears who defended the runaway slaves aboard the Amistad, after which the Amistad Chapel at our UCC national headquarters is named, was a fierce abolitionist, but "No one in a country that profited from traffic in slaves was innocent."

You may have heard of Georgetown University’s decision this week to give special preference in admissions to descendants of the slaves owned and sold by the Jesuits to help pay off the university’s debt in 1868. They also will be re-naming two of the buildings named after men who were slave-owners. "As Americans," one member of the working group said, "we’re especially allergic to taking responsibility for the mistakes and crimes in our national history." (America, National Catholic Review) The American history that ost of us here learned in school is not the whole story. Only recently have the other parts of our history–the contributions of African Americans and of women, for example, but also the harsher, even detestible parts, like the genocide of native Americans the the truth of slavery–only now are we acknowledging that.

Last Sunday was the 61^st anniversary of the killing of Emmett Till, the 14-year-old boy who was pulled out of his grandparents’ home by 2 white men with guns in Money, MS, allegedly because he had whistled at a white woman. Emmett’s body was later found, beaten, his eyes gouged out, shot in the head, weighted down and thrown into the Tallahatchie River. His killers were quickly acquitted by an all-white jury and said that they had initially intended just to shake the boy up, but when he was unrepentant, they couldn’t allow a you-know-what not to know his place.

This is our history. This is a given in our culture, and like the iron shackles from the slave ship, no one in a society that allows acts like this, or what happens daily in our streets and cities is innocent. We live in the whitest state in the nation and most of us, I’ll bet, do not consider ourselves racist. But are we really innocent in this? Have we even begun to examine the privilege we simply assume because most of us are white? "O God, you have searched me and known me," the psalmist says. Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, as the song says.

This is hard stuff–hard labor–on this last Sunday of summer. Like reading Paul’s letter to Philemon, urging him to take back his slave and treat him kindly, commentator Kate Matthews says, "At the very least it sheds light on the tension that occurs when we shine the light of the gospel on our culture and, intentionally or not, expose its injustices." When we recognize how we accommodate those injustices, it rightly makes us uncomfortable. "Maybe it’s uncomfortable," Matthews writes, "but surely it’s a ‘good’ and appropriate kind of discomfort, the kind that unsettles and eventually dislodges injustice from its entrenched places of power and privilege." [sermonseeds, 9/4/16]

Of course it’s not just slavery and racism that the gospel calls us to recognize, acknow-ledge our complicity, and maybe, hopefully, strengthens us to do something to dislodge, but so many other aspects of our lives. Just this morning, the cup of coffee or tea we drank came most likely from a farm or plantation far from Vermont, perhaps through a Fair Trade organization, but even then, transported here by greenhouse gas-producing means. The clothes we are wearing came from where? Made by whom and under what conditions? I checked the label on my dress this a.m.–"LL Bean...Made in Cambodia." We can drive ourselves crazy trying to be pure and expend all sorts of energy trying to be untainted that might be better off spent in advocating for change.

But we must understand that we live in a web of relationship, from which there is no escape. We simply are connected to one another and to the whole world. How we exert our influence, what we put out into that web, is our choice. We can join the UCC Economic Justice Movement, for example, and receive action alerts periodically. We can support organizations that are working for racial justice, support an historically black college like Dillard University in New Orleans, contributing to the scholarship started by the Vt. Conference in honor of one of the first black Congregational ministers. We can pick any point in this whole web of injustice and exploitation, including our own unexamined assumptions, and move "out of our entrenched places of power and privilege."

And the thing is, wherever we find ourselves, at whatever level of innocence or guilt we think we’re on, God will meet us there. "Where can I go from your spirit?" the psalmist asks. "Or where can I flee from your presence...You have searched me and known me." And whoever we are, wherever we are on life’s journey, we are welcomed to claim that we are part of the Body of Christ, we are part of the one loaf and one cup. We are invited to the table, not because we are perfect or totally innocent, but because we broken and have strayed from God’s path. We are invited to this meal, not because life is supposed to be easy, but because it is hard, and we need one another. We are invited to be made whole, to be reminded that in this bread and cup we are united with one another, with all of God’s children, and with God’s very Self. Love invites us here.

So, come to the table. Be fed. Quench your thirst. Know that it is Christ who is both Host and Guest beside us. Let us keep the feast. Amen.

Rev. Mary H. Lee-Clark

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