"The Fragrance of Life "-- Isaiah 43:16-21, John 12:1-8 -- March 13, 2016

Jesus was in the wilderness for forty days, we are told, getting clear about who he was and Whose he was, and these 40 days of Lent are meant to help us do the same thing. We’ve explored different kinds of wildernesses–the geographic ones, like desert, mountains, ocean, forest, not intentionally leaving out the wilderness of the Great Lakes, as one of you pointed out to me the fierceness of those waters; and we’ve also explored wildernesses of the heart and head–the wilderness of fear, of sudden loss, of losing ourselves. As Barbara Brown Taylor reminded us, "Wildernesses come in so many shapes and sizes, that the only way you can really tell you are in one is to look around for what you normally count on to save your life and come up empty." ["Wilderness Exam"]

Being in the wilderness is disorienting, sometimes life-threatening. If we only "look around for" something outside of ourselves to save our lives, we may very well come up empty. It is what we bring with us into the wilderness–as Jesus did–that we are likely to survive that experience and even grow from it.

So we’ve talked about practices and disciplines , practices of faith and resilience, that we can engage in right now, incorporate into our daily living, before we find ourselves in the wilderness, things that we can take with us, things that can become part of us–practices like prayer and mindful meditation, the practice of gratitude, the practice of allowing the negative to stand alongside of, but not overshadowing, the positive, the practice of perseverance, the practice of knowing and leading from our strengths, the practice of discerning what to let go of and what is abiding, lasting; the practice of community, of finding our "choir."

Sometimes the fact that we are in the wilderness surprises us. It doesn’t look like the wilderness–we’re going about our business, in our usual environment, doing what we do, but somehow, at some point, we realize that what we had assumed to be true isn’t; what we had thought was just a harmless joke has turned into a hateful, destructive act; the story we had always been told or told ourselves about the way things are, or who we are, just doesn’t seem to fit reality. We "look around for what we normally count on to save our life and come up empty." That’s when we’re in the wilderness of what I call "old think."

If we’re lucky enough or wise enough to recognize this wilderness for what it is, it can be what sociologist Brene Brown calls "the reckoning." [Rising Strong ]–recognizing our feelings of, perhaps, lostness or anger or resentment and being curious enough about them to explore what’s going on. And then, Brown says, if we’re brave enough, comes the "rumble," when we get honest about the stories we’re telling ourselves and challenge them, if we dare. (P. 37)

Biblical scholar Walter Brueggemann talks about the prophets of Israel as "new, imaginative, poetic voices" that arose from the bottom of the loss and guilt Israel was experien-cing, first in their turning away from God toward the false security of other powers, and then the destruction of Jerusalem and the carrying off of their leaders and elite into exile. Prophets like Isaiah– and it’s probably the writer we call "Second Isaiah" whom we read this morning–Isaiah took the loss of identity and the guilt "with deep seriousness," as Brueggemann writes, "but... shrewdly interpreted old faith traditions to turn exilic Israel in hope for the future." (Cited by Matthews in sermonseeds, 3/13/16)

Thus says the Lord, who makes a way in the sea, a path in the mighty waters, who brings out chariot and horse, army and warrior; they lie down, they cannot rise, they are extinguished, quenched like a wick: Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old.

The old faith tradition had looked to God’s deliverance of the people of Israel from slavery in Egypt as a sign of their chosenness by God, a sign of their "manifest destiny" to be a light to the nations, a sign of their right to the "promised land" over all the other peoples who may have already lived there. They had seen their choseness as a guarantee that God would protect them, from dangers without and within, and so they became lax with their adherence to the covenant, the law; they were careless about the original intent God had had for them.

"Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old.," Isaiah tells them, if past glory is all you can think about, if all you can do is wallow in your guilt and regret. "I," God says,

"I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. The wild animals will honor me, the jackals and the ostriches; for I give water in the wilderness, rivers in the desert, to give drink to my chosen people, the people whom I formed for myself so that they might declare my praise."

"Israel will have no joy or justice or genuine repentance," Brueggemann says, "until it receives a newness it cannot generate for itself."

We in the church may feel a little like ancient Israel at times–experiencing the loss of our former glory, maybe feeling guilty for having declining numbers, a loss of influence and prestige.

To some extent, we too find ourselves in the wilderness of old think, thinking perhaps if only we had a new curriculum for the Sunday School we’d attract more families, or maybe a new, younger pastor will bring the energy and technological savvy we need to really grow. But Isaiah reminds us that our renewal is not all about us, about new programs or plans, new marketing schemes or a sensational webpage. We must be open to a newness we cannot generate for ourselves, the newness that God is creating.

And then there’s the "old think" that is no longer life-giving–if it ever was–about ourselves. Were you always the responsible one in the family? Maybe you were the trouble-maker. Maybe you were the one who was always a disappointment, the one who would never amount to anything. Maybe you were the one on whom everyone counted. What were the stories you grew up with or maybe told yourself to make sense of things–that people who got involved with drugs were weak-willed and immoral? That all black people are poor? [that story caught up with Bernie Sanders and got him in trouble this week] Maybe it was the story that if somebody makes fun of you or hits you, you hit them back, punch them in the face? That we don’t talk about the abuse or the violence? Maybe it was a story that said your body is dirty and ugly? That you’re stupid? As Dr. Phil might say, "How’s that working for you?" And Brene Brown might ask, "Are those stories true? Maybe it’s time to ‘rumble’ with them." Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old. Stay open to grace. Remember what you’re grateful for. Learn from your mistakes and failures. Figure out what your strengths or gifts are, use them as God intended them to be used. Find your choir with whom to test out some "new think" about yourself . It’s never too late to build new neural pathways in our brains–our brains stay "plastic"–changeable-- well into old age, so "new think" is not only possible but often necessary, even life-giving.

The sense of smell, it is said, is directly linked to our memory. [That’s what some of those neural pathways are doing.] A whiff of perfume or cologne can remind us of someone. The smell of turkey conjures up memories of Thanksgivings and family gatherings. Some people say the smell of hot, mulled cider reminds them of Christmas Eve here.

But what of the smell of that expensive perfume made of pure nard that was released at that strange dinner party at the home of Mary and Martha and Lazarus that we read about a little while ago? Did it remind them of the burial that had taken place, just days ago, the burial of Lazarus whom Jesus raised and was now "one of those at table with him"? (One can only imagine what his presence did to the dinner conversation.) After all, nard was used to anoint the dead, and here was Mary, anointing Jesus’ feet and wiping them with her hair. While smell can bring up memories, here was a fragrance that overwhelmed a present moment of intimacy, this letting down of a woman’s hair, this anointing of feet that was usually done by men, this extravagance–this "wasteful extravagance," according to Judas–of love, poured out not only on feet but penetrating the very air they breathed. "There’s only so much to go around," Judas spoke the old think they were most likely all thinking. "We can’t help the poor unless we scrimp and save, not only our money but also our joy and love."

"Leave her alone," Jesus said. "She bought it so that she might keep it for the day of my burial. You always have the poor with you–and you can and should always give to the poor–but you do not always have me." This is a time for new think. This fragrance was not only the fragrance of death and burial, but through that death would come new life. Behold I am doing a new thing. Do you not perceive it?

This radical newness that we do not generate ourselves is loose in the world–the perfume is out of the bottle. The old boundaries between peoples and nations, the walls between colors and bone structures of the one race of humanity, the old notions of greatness and power are all unraveling, and not without a fight, not without resistance and protest. The old false stories we’ve told ourselves, or been told about ourselves, are even now being transformed into new stories of truth and promise.

This is not merely re-arranging the furniture or a new coat of paint. This is not resuscitation at the hands of a hard-working team of EMT’s or folks trained in CPR. There is no other way to describe this radical newness that we don’t generate ourselves than resurrection. This new life, this resurrection, is both now and not yet–but how desperately we need it, in our nation, in our world, in our community, in the church, in our own lives. It will not happen until we go through the death of the old, not until we wander in the wilderness as long as it takes us to be ready for the new and promised land.

New life–lush, green, its fragrance penetrating death and diffusing itself until it fills the whole house–God is doing this new thing, creating this new life, even now. Do you not perceive it?

Rev. Mary H. Lee-Clark

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Knitting

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A hand-knit sweater and hand-knit baby blanket are pictured above. As in past years, knitters of our congregation made a large number of each. With Church World Service no longer "doing" baby kits," 25 baby blankets and 25 baby sweaters (many with intricate patterns) were donated to the US Committee for Refugees. The women also donated "one-zies," and receiving blankets they had sewn. Staff at the reception center in Albany were effusively grateful.

 

Earlier this year, jackets, hats, mittens and boots as well as large pots and pans were donated by 2CC members for refugees being settled in Albany. Large pots and pans for stove-top cooking are especially needed for families with many children. Palm Sunday we will again gratefully receive donations of kitchen and eating utensils to be delivered to the reception center in Albany. There, kitchen utensils, along with pots and pans, plates, bowls and "silverware," are sorted and stored along with outerwear. Before refugees move in, apartments are rented and outfitted appropriately for a specific family.

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"Lost"- Psalm 32:1-7, Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32-- March 6, 2016

Most of us have heard this story that Ted just read for us many times. We may know it as the Parable of the Prodigal Son. Even if we haven’t heard this story, if we’ve ever heard the word "prodigal" used–and it’s not all that common outside "church-y" contexts–it’s probably attached to the word "son"–"prodigal son."

Actually, the word "prodigal" never appears in the story, did you notice? It’s probably in the heading that got added to the text and translation, but it’s been added from one of those many, many layers of tradition and understanding that stand between Jesus and us. Probably a more appropriate heading–if you felt the gospel should be divided up by headings–would be, "The Parable of the Lost Son," following the parables of the lost sheep and the lost coin that come right before it. Jesus told these stories about "lost" things and people after the Pharisees and scribes "were grumbling and saying, ‘This fellow welcomes sinners and eats with them.’"

"So he told them this parable: ‘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 you find it?" ..."Or what woman having ten silver coins, if she loses one of them, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it?"....And then, "There was man who had two sons... ...who both ended up lost in the wilderness," he might have added–the wilderness of losing sight of who they really were.

Have you ever been in that wilderness? The wilderness of waking up one day and realizing you had made a terrible mistake....that what you thought you had wanted most really wasn’t? Some people wake up in a job like that, or a marriage like that, or a lifestyle like that, or an addiction like that. Oh, my goodness, how did I get here? Oh, no, I never thought it would be like this....I thought I would be happier....

It’s an age-old dilemma, obviously, as we’ve just read this ancient story about the two sons who found themselves in the wilderness of estrangement. But today it is perhaps even more common, because everywhere we turn, we are being called, beckoned, seduced, sold on a product or an image or an assumption or a view of reality; and, if we stop to think about it, or really check in with our deepest selves, we realize that is NOT what or where or how we want to be. It may be right for someone else, we even say, but it’s not right for me. That’s if we ever stop to really notice.

It took being in a pigsty–the most unholy, unkosher place for a good Jewish boy to be–his stomach roaring with hunger to finally bring the younger son "to his senses," as one translation puts it, or even more accurately, "to himself." "But when he came to himself, he said, ‘How many of my father’s hired hands have bread enough and to spare, but here I am dying of hunger!" He remembered where he had come from, a household where servants were given more than adequate food to eat, from a father who allowed him to run after all those things that he thought would make him happy so he could find out for himself. "He came to himself."

I’ve read some commentaries that say that this younger son then connived to wheedle his way back into his father’s good graces, made up a story that he rehearsed, and then most likely gloated when the old man bought the line. But I don’t see that in the story. I find it equally plausible that he had to tell himself over and over again that he had screwed up–that he had "sinned against heaven and his father"–and that that, rather than an excuse, was going to be the first thing on his lips when he got home. And that’s as far as we see or hear from this younger son, because the father–the real prodigal in the story–the one who was excessively extravagant with his love and generosity–takes over the heart of the story.

Then, of course, there’s the elder son, the one who had spent his life in joyless obedience, who we never see "coming to himself." Perhaps it is unreasonable and unfair to expect this of him in this highly structured and stratified society with its emphasis on the family as the immovable core. But he had wasted his father’s love just as surely as his younger brother had wasted his father’s money. He had thought love was a limited quantity, so if his father showed love to his younger brother, surely that meant there was less or nothing left for him. He found himself in a wilderness of his own making as surely as his younger brother had.

How do we survive such a wilderness? If it is of our own making–by our mistakes, our mis-judgments, our foolishness, or even our immaturity–how do we "un-make" it? The clue may be in what happened to that young man in the pigpen. "He came to himself." We can "come to ourselves," take a good, hard look at where we are, but perhaps more importantly, who we are. We can be mindful, in other words. Again, like all the other practices of resilience we’ve looked at this season of Lent, it’s most helpful if we practice this "pre-emptively," that is, before we head into the wilderness.

So, a couple more of the qualities or practices of resilient people are first, to learn from failure, AND secondly, to lead from your strengths. The younger son certainly recognized his failure and learned from it. He then used his innate strength of courage (after all, he had been brave enough to leave the known world of his father’s house) and headed home to face the music.

You may be reluctant to talk about your "strengths," in case that’s too much like boasting, but you might think of them as gifts–given to you by God. On the bottom of the announcement side of your insert, you’ll see what may have been mysterious if you read it before: it says "Website for character strengths: www.viacharacter.org" If you enjoy this sort of thing, you might go to this website and take the free survey–it takes about 15 min.–and it will give you a list of 24 character strengths that you have, in order from top to bottom. These may be things like honesty, spirituality, forgiveness, love of learning, appreciation of beauty, fairness, gratitude, that sort of thing. If you don’t "do computers," you might ask a trusted friend or family member to tell you what they think your top strengths are.

When you’re in the wilderness, it’s helpful to know and to call on your strengths. One of my top signature strengths, for example, is gratitude, and I told you last week about using gratitude to help me through the wilderness of Bruce’s hospitalization 15 years ago. And remember other resilience practices we’ve talked about – ask for help, call on your choir, don’t lose sight of the positive and the possible, learn from failure.

Of course, as I said, the real "prodigal" in this story was the Father, whose overwhelming strength was his Love, love freely offered to both his sons, amazing grace, for neither son "deserved" it. God’s love is like that, Jesus said. Belden Lane, in his book The Solace of Fierce Landscapes describes what it is like to discover that Love in the midst of wilderness experiences, even when it’s the last thing we may be looking for or expecting–

...Ever distrustful of grace, I assent more readily to being destroyed than to being loved. It’s too much to presume that I might be the object of God’s deepest longing, profoundly loved by that which frightens me most. Why am I drawn to desert and mountain [or ocean] fierceness? What impels me to its unmitigated honesty, its dreadful capacity to strip bare, its long, compelling silence? It’s the frail hope that in finding myself brought to the edge–to the macabre, stone-silent edge of death itself–I may hear a word whispered in its loneliness. The word is ‘love,’ spoken pointedly and undeniably to me. It may have been uttered many times in the past, but I’m fully able to hear it only in that silence. [cited in Niles, Almanac of the Soul, Feb. 13]

Sometimes the wilderness turns out to be a gift, the gift of no escape from the Truth, and fiercely, wondrously, ruthlessly, that Truth is that we are loved. That even now God is waiting with open arms to embrace us from wherever we have wandered from our true selves. "This one welcomes sinners and eats with them," they said about God. The same is true today. We are welcomed to this table where God invites us to eat and drink and be filled with God’s very self. Even if once–or twice or a thousand times–you were lost, now you are found. Let us keep the feast.

Rev. Mary H. Lee-Clark

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Ocean Wilderness March 6

Blue waves of ocean wilderness rolled on the altar table, surfing onto a shore of beautiful shells and drawing congregation members after worship to yet another "Wilderness" diorama during our Lenten exploration of wildernesses, geographic and spiritual

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The Wilderness - Desert

Congregation members admire the desert wilderness created on the altar by Barbara True-Weber and Mike Weber.

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“Thirsty for God”-- Psalm 63:1-8, Luke 13:1-9-- Feb. 28, 2016

I remember exactly where I was when I got both phone calls. The first one came just as I was getting up one Tuesday morning, and I answered the phone by our bed. It was my mother. “Mary, your dad died this morning.” The second one came when I was visiting my mother at her home in North Carolina. My brother George had just left for the airport, when the phone rang. The caller asked for me, instead of my mother, and then my sister-in-law got on the line and agonizingly told me that my brother Bob had died.

I remember the moisture instantly evaporating from my tongue, and adrenaline flooding my body so that my ears rang and my vision closed in. I was instantly transported to a wilderness of loss and shock.

O God, my God, I seek you, my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.

Perhaps you have been in such a place too. A phone call in the middle of the night–or the middle of the day–both can be equally life-changing. A diagnosis spoken. A terrible truth revealed. A betrayal uncovered. An accident that in a moment changes everything. A wilderness of loss and shock that feels utterly alien.

At that very time there were some present who told [Jesus] about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices [Luke tells us]. He asked them, “Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans?...Or those eighteen who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them–do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem?”

It seems that bad news has been a topic of conversation for millenia. Pilate’s killing of Jews worshiping in the Temple was merely a first century version of bombs going off in mosques or churches or synagogues today. Or of 9 people being gunned down at Bible study. The tower of Siloam–part of the old wall around Jerusalem–fell on people who happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, just as any tornado or cyclone can destroy houses and schools, apartment buildings and farms. “Were any of them worse offenders?” Was this a punishment from God? Was Superstorm Sandy a punishment of New York’s immoral way of life, or 9/11 God’s vengeance for gay marriage, abortionists, and feminists?

“No, I tell you,” Jesus said, “but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did.” The notion of tragedy as punishment for sin was common in Jesus’ day and is suggested elsewhere in the bible, and as strongly as we might dismiss it, we may still be tempted to say in the midst of crisis, “Why is this happening to me?” Or, conversely, we may hear those whose homes or families escaped destruction saying, “Somehow God chose to save us.” (But not our neighbors?)

Jesus doesn’t go there. “No, I tell you,” he said, “but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did.” Of course we will all perish–even Jesus did–but we do have choices about how we will live right now. Let the tragedy of others – which just as easily could have happened to you– let such events remind you to take a look at how you are living your life. If your life were to end like theirs tomorrow, how would you feel about the shape of your life? And if tragedy should come to you–should you find yourself in the wilderness of loss and grief–what choices can you make right now that will help you through that dry and thirsty land?

There was a woman in my church in Syracuse who had two young daughters and who was married to a state policeman. She was also a nurse, and was well-acquainted with the tragedies that can change a life in an instant. She was terrified that some such tragedy might befall either or both of her daughters. “I don’t know what I’d do if anything happened to either of them,” she told me. None of us can anticipate “what we would do” in such a situation, but we cannot simply live each day in fear and dread of such a thing. That sucks the very life out of us and closes us off from the real joy and gratitude that is to be experienced by having such loved ones in our lives.

While none of us can say for sure exactly how we will react when loss or failure or grief comes our way, which it will, we can make choices, we can take on practices, that can build up our strength and resilience for making it through such times. We may think of the “repentance” that Jesus talks about as simply being intentional about working on our relationship with God– taking stock of where we are in relationship to where our true path lies–“confessing,” if you will where we have wandered from that truth, where we have gotten distracted by that which will not provide us with Real Life. Making prayer and meditation a regular part of our lives keeps us open to the presence of God, which is always and everywhere with us. More than “belief,” more than “faith,” even, we can come to trust in God.

I know I have shared with you my own practice of framing my prayer in gratitude for God’s presence and healing already at work in places of need and despair, so that when word came to me several years ago that Bruce had had an asthma arrest and had to be resuscitated and intubated, I was able to move from praying, “O please, o please, don’t let anything happen to him” to “Thank you, God, for Your presence with Bruce and his doctors and all those attending to him.” It immediately shifted my ability to respond more clearly and skillfully.

One of the things that resilient people do is to turn to their “choir”–those connections and people who are “singing their song,” even–perhaps especially-- in the midst of crisis. Three wise connections are first, the “experts”–call 9-1-1, if necessary, or your doctor, or pastor, depending upon what the crisis is. Secondly, we can turn to others who have been through similar crises but are further along the road–a grief support group, perhaps, or those recovering from similar medical conditions, that sort of thing; and thirdly, we can turn to our choir, those whom we trust implicitly, whom we know love us and genuinely want to be of support. I know our New England sense of independence often makes it hard for us to ask others for help, but our asking may actually be a gift to them, allowing them to put their love for us into action. And in this model of “choir,” of course, having a relationship with the “choir director”–God–will be invaluable.

In the wilderness of loss and grief, we can choose to notice the blessings amidst the burdens and struggles. One observer wrote, “Those who exhibited resilience after the Sept. 11 attacks were neither in denial nor selfish. They experienced great pain, suffering, and loss just like everyone else. What made their circumstance different was that they were able to let the negativity sit alongside positive emotions like gratitude, love, and joy.” [Jennifer Mattson, The Wellness List, Psychology Today, 1/31/16] They noticed the generosity of friends and strangers, they felt the love others expressed toward them, they were able to allow laughter to come alongside the tears. They didn’t allow themselves to get sucked endlessly into the negative. It reminds me of a cartoon where Winnie the Pooh and Piglet are walking along and Pooh says, “You know, the world could end tomorrow.” And Piglet says, “Yes, but what if it doesn’t?”

Steve Doughty, a Presbyterian minister and writer, says that “over the years I have been much nurtured by a band of persons I regard as ‘the holy resilient.’ When subjected to the fiercest pressures of change, the holy resilient do not just endure or bound back. They become more: more compassionate, deeper, simpler in their desires, and more focused in how they use their time.” [Weavings, vol. Xxviii, no. 2, p. 5] He has observed in these “holy resilient ones” a two-fold rhythm: the rhythm of releasing and taking hold; knowing when and what to let go of, knowing, discerning what to hold on to.

So Doughty suggests 6 questions we might ask ourselves when faced with the profound changes and challenges that may come our way. No, make that, will come our way. These are the questions–
1. What must I/we let go of? That might be anything from old ways of life, to abilities we once had, to life itself.
2. In the midst of this change that is taking place, what abides? Who and what remains?
3. What of Christ am I/are we invited to put on? Is it patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, love, any of those gifts of the Spirit? Another way to think of this might be, What of Christ is already within me that I can call upon? What are my God-given strengths that I might put to use here?
4. What fresh glimpses of God’s grace do I/we see amid all that is going on? For what can I/we be grateful for? What unexpected gift was given to us today?
5. What models of faithful change can I/we look to? This is like that 2nd group of connections we talked about–who has been through this–and seems to have come out “more”?
And finally, 6. How might what I am/we are learning help others? You see this in people like the mothers and fathers of the Newtown, CT children who have devoted their energies toward getting gun control legislation passed, or the woman who started Mothers Against Drunk Drivers, or Sally Donovan, whose son Peter was killed on 9/11 who started schools for girls in Afghanistan.

Sometimes the very refuse of our lives becomes the fertilizer in which we grow and bear remarkable fruit. That, I think, is what Jesus was getting at in the parable about the fig tree which hadn’t produced any fruit and which the owner was ready to cut down. The gardener, though, responded, “Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig around it and put manure on it. If it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.” It is the “other hand” of Jesus’ “unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did.” We are given just so much time to get our lives “in order,” so to speak, to accept God’s invitation to live in relationship. At some point, our time will be up. But know that God is infinitely patient, knows that when you-know-what happens it can actually provide us with opportunities to grow and even thrive, to come out “more” as Doughty said about the “holy resilient.” Patience, perseverance, giving time for the crisis to pass, knowing when to say, “This too shall pass,” are all qualities of resilience.
Even God allowed time to pass–3 days, we are told–after Jesus’ horrible, terrifying death on the cross. But oh, then, so much more than we could ever have expected came to pass. And the seed of resurrection is still planted in the midst of every death.

“O God, you are my God, I see you, my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water...Because your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise you. So I will bless you as long as I live; I will lift up my hands and call on your name. My soul is satisfied as with a rich feast, and my mouth praises you with joyful lips when I think of you on my bed, and meditate on you in the watches of the night; for you have been my help, and in the shadow of your wings I sing for joy.

So may we find water in the dry desert of loss. So may we be sustained in that weary land. So
may we even come to sing songs of joy.

Amen, and amen.

Rev. Mary H. Lee-Clark

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2CC Donations for Refugees

Jackets, hats, mittens and boots as well as large pots and pans were donated by 2CC members for refugees being settled in Albany. Large pots and pans for stove-top cooking are especially needed for families with many children.

Women of the congregation knit and donated 25 baby blankets and 25 baby sweaters, many with intricate patterns.
The women also donated "one-zies," and receiving blankets they had sewn.


At the reception center in Albany, outerwear for winter cold unfamiliar to most refugees, and kitchen utensils, pots and pans are sorted and stored. Apartments are rented and outfitted before the refugees move in.

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Mary's for Banner

From middle of town intersection of Routes 7 & 9, take Route 7 south 2 blocks.
Turn left onto Hillside St. (just before Friendly’s). Church is located on right at top of hill.

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All people of faith or in search of faith are welcome in our worship and work at Second Congregational Church, United Church of Christ, at 115 Hillside St. Sunday morning worship begins at 10 o’clock, and includes a Time for the Children in All of Us, after which children up through grade 5 are dismissed for Godly Play. The Middle- and High-school Class is at the Kitchen Cupboard this week for their monthly service work. On this Third Sunday of Easter, Rev. Mary Lee-Clark’s sermon is entitled, “Resurrected into the Ordinary,” based on the story from John’s gospel about Jesus’ meeting the disciples on the lakeshore.
A time of fellowship and refreshment for the whole church family follows in Webster Hall, and the Reading Group meets at 11:35.

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Hygiene Kits (health kits) are Ziploc bags of toiletries that we at Second Congregational assemble each year to be sent to Church World Service for folks in need in places of disaster and poverty. You can help by giving the following items (or money to purchase) to Lorna Cheriton:
Hand Towels (approx. 16" - 28") Washcloth
Toothbrush in wrapper Bath-sized soap
Wide tooth Comb Regular sized Band-Aids
Nail Clippers

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Vermont Gubernatorial Candidates Forums in Addison and Bennington County will be holding a forum on
April 9th from 3:30pm - 5:30pm, at St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, 200 Pleasant Street, Bennington, VT. The next Governor of Vermont will make critical decisions that will shape the lives of our communities for decades. Our next governor could be the leader who will help grow a vibrant, stable, open Vermont for all families. Who are the people who want to take on this role? Where do they stand on the issues that will most affect our lives and families in Addison and Bennington Counties? We have invited all current candidates and have confirmations already from Matt Dunne, Bruce Lisman, Peter Galbraith, and Sue Minter. Free event register at: www.radvt.org/apr9

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The Open Door deadline is April 10th! Please submit any articles electronically to bennscc@sover.net.
Sunday, April 10th The reading group will meet in the Clayton Room at 11:45.
Tuesday, April 12th at 7pm. Trustees Meeting.

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"Whom Shall I Fear?" --Psalm 27, Luke 13:31-35-- Feb. 21, 2016

"Get away from here," some Pharisees told Jesus, "for Herod wants to kill you." "Death to America!" we see and hear on the news. ISIS posts gruesome videos of beheadings. We proclaim a "war on terror" and find ourselves more terrified than ever. African American brothers and sisters live in fear of the police, mothers nad fathers fearful for their children being killed. Signs and hashtags and voices shout, "Black Lives Matter!" because there is so much evidence from city streets and jails and prisons that they don’t. Fear is the air we breathe, the water we drink–literally, as our planet and its resources are threatened. Supergerms and diseases like zika lurk invisibly. We live in fear for our children, as they face challenges and are growing up in a world that so often seems to be spinning out of control. First-graders are gunner down in classrooms, theaters and shopping malls no longer safe. We fear for our jobs, so tenuous in this struggling economy. We fear the debilitating effects of aging, for ourselves and our parents. We worry about the future of our church. We worry that we are not enough, that we are not up to the challenges and expectations others have for us. It could well be said that we are living in a wilderness of fear, always struggling up rough slopes of challenge and impossible tasks, always seeming to be on the edge of some precipice of disaster.

From that ancient story of Adam and Eve in the garden, discovering after they had disobeyed God that they were naked and vulnerable, we find "the ancient taproot of fear in human life [as one writer puts it]. At a primal level of awareness we know that before God and in the world we are completely and distressingly naked, vulnerable to assaults against our person, our place, our relationships, our sense of meaning and purpose." [John S. Mogabgab, Weavings, Mar./Apr. 1999, p. 2]

"Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you," they told Jesus, but Jesus chose to stay, to continue his work, casting out demons, healing people, exposed and vulnerable to Herod’s men, courageously choosing that vulnerability. "The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?" the psalmist wrote. "Though an army encamp against me, my heart shall not fear; though war rise up against me, Yet I will be confident." Jesus would have known that psalm. Oh, to have that kind of confidence and courage!

David Lose points out that there are two kinds of courage–the first is courage in an immediate situation. Courage doesn’t mean we are without fear, and in fact, as another writer puts it, "In healthy fear, what little power we may have is wonderfully concentrated. It is the mother of wisdom and the companion of courage." [Robert Morris, Weavings, op cit., p. 21] To have courage in an immediate situation is being willing and able to act, even though we are afraid. Such courage doesn’t just "pop up" in the moment, but it is the manifestation of character, the accumulation of practice and behavior. The second kind of courage is the kind that anticipates and walks toward a situation of adversity, choosing not to turn away. This too, says Lose, is the manifestation of "character that has emerged from a lifetime of facing fears and shouldering burdens and that is also being forged in the very moment of accepting challenges and responsibilities that one could avoid." [inthemeantime, 2/17/16] Thus we see Jesus "setting his face toward Jerusalem," even though he knew what awaited him there.

Through her research on shame and vulnerability, sociologist Brene Brown has con- cluded, "You can’t get to courage without walking through vulnerability." It seems counter-intui-tive--isn’t vulnerability exactly what we fear? That our vulnerability will be exploited by those who wish us harm, that vulnerability will expose our true weaknesses and faults and we will be seen as the imperfect, flawed human beings or even nations that we are? Don’t we have to build walls and impenetrable defenses around ourselves, never apologize or admit weakness or error? Otherwise, surely we will be taken advantage of. Vulnerability is for weaklings, for losers.

Interestingly, researchers studying the effects of marketing and advertizing on those who claimed to be invulnerable to their siren songs found that "far from being an effective shield, the illusion of invulnerability undermines the very response that would have supplied genuine protection." [Brene Brown, Daring Greatly, p. 40] When we do not face our fears and vulnera-bilities squarely, we actually shut ourselves off from the strengths and resources available to us which can help us live more fully and wholeheartedly.

It was perhaps this refusal and loss of support and community that drove Jesus to lament over Jerusalem, "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!" Able to see those, like Herod, who wanted to kill him not just as enemies but as those who had chosen to cut themselves off from any true healing and source of power, Jesus’ words also challenge us to see the multiple layers within those who would do us harm–those who would inflict terror perhaps have also been humiliated, perhaps have seen their loved ones killed or cut off. Not to make excuses, but to be mindful of the many-sided responses that might be available to us.

In the wilderness of fear, we can practice courage by facing our fear and seeing the multiplicity of responses we might make. Psychologist Maria Sirois writes, "As we turn to face fear, our vision of the worst shifts and our heart calms. We can bring ourselves back to the present moment where choice abounds and let go of the terror of what might yet be or what has been and attend to the moment that is." [A Short Course in Happiness After Loss, excerpted on Wholebeing Institute website]. So in practicing mindfulness in meditation, honing those skills to examine our emotions, we might see what comes up alongside fear-- like sadness, or anger, or powerlessness, or disappointment, or frustration, OR possibility. We might see our adversaries as complex figures who not only hate us but may also experience grief, hopelessness, humiliation. So, mindfulness is one practice we might adopt so that we do not have to be paralyzed by that overwhelming, monolithic, red-face of FEAR.

Brene Brown suggests that our culture is so dominated by the fear of scarcity–of not having enough and not being enough–we are actually contributing to our on-going dissension and dysfunction, instead of having the courage to admit and honor our sense of vulnerability.

There are enough of us struggling with the issue of worthiness [she writes] that it’s shaping the culture...From 9/11, multiple wars, and the recession, to catastrophic natural disasters and the increase in random violence and school shootings, we’ve survived and are surviving events that have torn at our sense of safety with such force that we’ve experienced them as trauma even if we weren’t directly involved....Worrying about scarcity is our culture’s version of post-traumatic stress. It happens when we’ve been through too much and rather than coming together to heal (which requires vulnerability), we’re angry and scared and at each other’s throats." [Brown, op cit. , p. 27]

Sounds something like this campaign season, doesn’t it?

"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and your were not willing!" What a wonderful maternal image for God–a hen who would gather her chicks under her wings–"strong and tender," as our bulletin covers say, courageous and vulnerable. One Biblical scholar tells the story of a "barnyard fire...in which those cleaning up have found a dead hen, scorched and blackened, and live chicks sheltering under her wings." [NT Wright, cited by K. Matthews in Sermon Seeds, 2/21/16] That is the fierce, courageous, vulnerable power of God’s love for us. This is a God whose presence and power is to be reckoned with–that is, before whom we ought to experience a holy, healthy fear–but this is not a God from whom we should fear vindictiveness or random assaults of power. Rudolph Otto called this the mysterium tremendum–"a Tremendous Mystery." [The Idea of the Holy] This is the God who took on human flesh and shared all the frailty of human life, even death on a cross, for us.

So in this wilderness of fear, during this season of Lent, we have choices of a number of different practices, in addition to the traditional ones of prayer, fasting, almsgiving, study, and worship. We can practice courage, as Brene Brown says, "by showing up, by letting ourselves be seen, and by honoring vulnerability." We can practice being mindful by meditating, and in that mindfulness, examine those things we fear and maybe become aware of other emotions connected to that fear. In our meditation and prayer, we might hold those people we fear in the presence of God, seeing what light might be shed upon them.

In that practice of mindfulness, we can also take note of the things we have to be grateful for–another practice of resilience. In the midst of our fears about ageing, we can give thanks for the wisdom we’ve obtained through the years and for the abilities, though different, still available to us. In the midst of our worries over the security of our jobs or our retirement funds, we can be grateful for the jobs we haveand the skills we’ve gained, for the funds that are still there. In the midst of our worries over our "enoughness," we might make a point of noting and expressing our thanks to those friends and loved ones who love us as we are.

In our national conversations, what energies and creativity might be released for problem-solving if, instead of focusing solely on all that’s wrong with our country, we celebrated and reinforced all that is right ? "Make America Great Again" is the slogan of one of the presidential candidates’ campaign, but Nancy Rockwell urges us not to lose sight of the ways that the U.S. is great now– we have the largest, most capable military the world has ever seen, she says, a large, strong economy which though it has been rocked, is better than most; we earn the most Nobel prizes, we are the "purveyors of the stuff the world gets on its knees for: medicine, cars, hi-tech, Coke, Levis, rock and rolls, movies, and perhaps the ultimate Most, as every third world citizen will tell you, the greatest thing about America is so many grocery stores and all the shelves are full" [The Bite in the Apple, 2/18/16] –unless, of course, you live in the inner cities which are wastelands for real food]. "So," Rockwell asks, "how will ramping up fear of immigrants and purging the country of Latinos and Moslems, reducing wages, repealing Affordable Health Care, and denying climate change make us greater?" We must acknowledge and addres the things that are "wrong" or not working in our national agenda, but we must not lose sight of our gifts and strengths. One of the skills of resilient people is their ability to face both the negative and positive aspects of their situation and not succumb to the negative. We can choose to put our energy into the positive.

"The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear? The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?...Teach me your way, O God..."

The way that Jesus taught was the way of vulnerability and courage, the way of gratitude and perseverance, the way of self-awareness and the ability to see others in all their multiplicity, the way of trust in God in the face of adversity. Even in the wilderness of fear, we have choices. Remember that Mother Hen Jesus longs to shelter us beneath her wings in a community of love and belonging. In the wilderness of fear, know that we are not alone and without resources. So may we "be strong, and let our hearts take courage."

Amen, and amen.

 

Rev. Mary H. Lee-Clark

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The Wilderness

Members of the congregation admire the Mountain "Wilderness" created on the altar table by Barbara and Mike. Our church is exploring various aspects of wilderness during Lent, as Jesus went into the wilderness before beginning his public ministry. Each week during Lent, Barbara and Mike will create a representation of a different type of wilderness.

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"Into the Wilderness"-- Luke 4:1-13-- Feb. 14, 2016

The story is told of a young woman from what was then the Soviet Union, who came to the United States to study theology. "Upon entering a supermarket for the first time, she promptly fainted. Her senses simply shut down, overwhelmed by the unending aisles and avalanche of products." Or, of another woman "who was unable to find a particular brand of crackers on the supermarket shelf even though the box was right before her eyes. Its presence was masked by the surrounding thicket of other cracker boxes. "Apparently," one writer says, "our capacity to take in what is most important and to perceive what we are most seeking has become clogged by unrestrained abundance, ‘confused [as it were] by adjacent irrelevancies.’" [John Mogabgab, Weavings, May/June 2001, p. 1]

Lent is a time for clearing away all those "adjacent irrelevancies" to see if we can discover what is most important in our lives. It is an entirely counter-cultural idea. If anything, we are taught to seek what is "important" by acquiring more things, doing more things, by taking in more and more information through more and more means and devices. "Too much information" is not only the response to the friend who wants to tell you about everything that transpired in the bathroom this morning, but also to daily life in 21^st c. America. We are literally re-wiring the brains of our children and young people to accommodate this amount of stimulus, so, more than ever, the idea of Lent, of intentionally sifting through and letting go of what is not essential in our lives, seems at best quaint or archaic, perhaps escapist, maybe just one more of those self-help schemes that tout all sorts of remarkable results but end up being discarded after a couple of days.

"I was at least 25 years old before I learned that Lent wasn’t about punishing myself for being human," Barbara Brown Taylor wrote. ["The Wilderness Exam," Day1.org, 2/21/10] You may be familiar with that understanding of Lent–you must purge your appetites, confess all the deeds for which you are heartily sorry, give up anything that gives you pleasure, don’t smile too broadly, wear somber colors. More recently, there has been a move away from giving up some pleasure–like chocolate-- or habit–like smoking-- and taking on some useful or beneficial practice, like putting aside money to be given to some good cause, or writing a card or hand-written letter to people too long out of touch, or starting a gratitude journal. One of my favorite suggestions that I recently read was from the Rev. Michael Slaughter, who suggests "a forty-day fast from being a jerk." If only we could prescribe Lenten disciplines for other people, right?!

To help him get clear about what was important in his life, we read in Luke that "the Spirit led Jesus in the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil." The wilderness–eremos is the Greek word–and it doesn’t mean hot and dry, but rather uninhabited, lonely, with no human population [David Rensberger, Weavings, May/June 2001, p. 7]. "In a word, it means deserted." "Desert" is probably how we picture the Judean wilderness that Jesus was led to, and it is a barren, rocky, dry land. But all wildernesses do not necessarily look like that.

One of you wrote on the "Wilderness" sheet in Webster Hall, that "the middle of North Star Bay in northern Greenland, in the fog" comes to mind when you think of Wilderness. Another wrote, "places in God’s creation that are WILD, natural, untainted by human activity-and-leftovers." To someone who’s lived her whole life in Kansas, an ocean beach looks like wilderness. To a desert-dweller, an old-growth forest is a wild and scary place. Mountain ranges and rushing rivers can be places of wilderness.

But of course, the wilderness is not only a geographical location. Most of us have had at least one wilderness experience in our lives. "Maybe it just looked like a hospital waiting room to you," writes Barbara Brown Taylor, " or the sheets on a cheap motel bed after you got kicked out of your house, or maybe it looked like the parking lot where you couldn’t find your car on the day you lost your job. It may even have been a kind of desert in the middle of your own chest, where you begged for a word from God and heard nothing but the wheezing bellows of your own chest." Maybe it was your own house the first time you walked into it after saying good-bye to a loved one; or the grain on your kitchen table you stared at after you spouse told you they’d had an affair. "Wildernesses come in so many shapes and sizes," Taylor says, "that the only way you can really tell you are in one is to look around for what you normally count on to save your life and come up empty. No food. No earthly power, no special protection–just a Bible-quoting devil and a whole bunch of sand." [Ibid.]

"Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil." Luke and Matthew detail the conversation between Jesus and his temptor–conversations about bread, power, and safety. In our day, David Lose suggests, they could easily be about youth, beauty, and wealth, or confidence, fame, and security. [inthemeantime, 2/14/16] Jesus’ temptations "involve good things that come between God and ourselves," which, when they become our sole focus, lead us away from our true vocation and relationship with God." [Bruce Epperly, Adventurous Lectionary, 2/14/16] Maybe family is your temptation–such a good thing, a wonderful gift, but we can be tempted to devote all our time and energy into that tight circle of relationships and close ourselves off from the rest of the human family. Or maybe it’s fitness and health–being good stewards of our bodies is part of our faithful response to God’s good gift. But when they consume all our time, prevent us from ever being available for other experiences or people, when we define our worth by whether we win or lose, how we look, how we feel, then we might need to examine what lord we are serving.

The North African Desert Father and Mothers, mystics of the 2^nd, 3^rd, and 4^th centuries, moved out into the desert precisely to eliminate the world’s distractions and temptations. But they came to "believe that the greatest temptation was to have no temptation. As Abba Anthony once asserted, ‘Whoever has not experienced temptation cannot enter the kingdom of God...[And even], without temptation no one can be saved.’" [Epperly, op cit.] We have to be able to recognize all those other gods beside God who appear so friendly and appealing and seductive.

So it is said that Jesus was human because he "was tempted like we are." The point isn’t that he was tempted to overindulge in food or drink, or that he may or may not have had intimate relationships, but rather that he had to get clear about what was and wasn’t the God he would serve. Like an athlete in training for a race or a match or an event, he had to hone his skills, sharpen his abilities, strengthen his body and mind to manage his appetites, obtain clarity and grit for the task before him, which was nothing short of turning the world upside down.

The wisdom of this wilderness "vision quest" is largely lost to our culture, though still part of many other indigenous cultures. We in the church even have so domesticated this sense of wilderness, preferring instead the more "reasonable approach," of reading, perhaps, or study, or coming up with a carefully arranged schedule or calendar. All of which can be fruitful, but the real wilderness experiences–those times when we are not in control, when what happened today was not on the calendar, when we have none of the usual landmarks by which to get our bearings, when the things and the people which have made up our lives are gone–those wilderness experiences will come to us, whether chosen or not.

And so gaining the skills and grit, but perhaps more importantly the clarity about who we are and Whose we are, will help us go through those wilderness. With what besides God do we usually fill up the empty spaces inside us? Busyness? Food? Drink? Exercise? Facebook? What good gifts from God have we used only to serve ourselves? What distracts us from our true selves, our true purpose, if we have ever even taken the time to discern what that true self or true purpose is? What are the cravings we have for things that have no power to save us or to give us real life? Are we tempted to think we are not enough, that we are not worthy to be loved?

We have 40 days before us to explore some of these questions, to sort out from the midst of all the distractions and abundance what is really important, to maybe let go of some of the things we use to numb the uncomfortable or scary feelings that arise in the course of our lives. The very prospect may make your palms sweat and your breath catch. We’ll talk each week about some skills and practices that may help us have more resilience in those wilderness times. But for the meantime, Take a deep breath. Then take another. Sit quietly for a few minutes and make sure your breaths are coming all the way in and all the way out. See if you can hear your heartbeat. You may feel like you’ll die without whatever you’ve been filling the emptiness with. You probably won’t. Breathe again. It’s just one day, one breath. And then another.

The wilderness may actually turn into a gift. "The wilderness," Taylor says, "is still one of the most reality-based, spirit-filled, life-changing places a person can be." (Ibid.) For remember, it is not a "God-forsaken place," as John Stendahl writes, "nor does it belong to the devil. It is God’s home. The Holy Spirit is there, within us and beside us. And if we cannot feel that spirit inside of us or at our side, perhaps we can at least imagine Jesus there, not too far away, with enough in him to sustain us, enough to make us brave." [cited in K. Matthews, sermonseeds, 2/14/16]

So, finally, a blessing for entering this wilderness time. Just as Jesus was led into the wilderness with the name given to him at his baptism ringing in his ears, so may we take the name "Beloved," which is also ours, with us into these 40 days. Receive this blessing from Jan Richardson–

Beloved Is Where We Begin

If you would enter

into the wilderness,

do not begin

without a blessing.

Do not leave

without hearing

who you are:

Beloved,

named by the One

who has traveled this path

before you.

Do not go

without letting it echo

in your ears,

and if you find

it is hard

to let it into your heart,

do not despair.

That is what

this journey is for.

I cannot promise

this blessing will free you

from danger,

from fear,

from hunger

or thirst,

from the scorching

of sun

or the fall

of the night.

But I can tell you

that on this path

there will be help.

I can tell you

that on this way

there will be rest.

I can tell you

that you will know

the strange graces

that come to our aid

only on a road

such as this,

that fly to meet us

bearing comfort

and strength,

that come alongside us

for no other cause

than to lean themselves

toward our ear

and with their

curious insistence

whisper our name:

Beloved.

Beloved.

Beloved.

-[http://paintedprayerbook.com/2016/02/11/lent-1-beloved-is-where-we-begin/]

Amen.

 

 

Rev. Mary H. Lee-Clark

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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"The Light Within" -- Luke 9: 28-43-- Feb. 7, 2016

Here on this last Sunday in the season of Epiphany, we read the story of the Transfiguration–of Jesus on the mountaintop with three chosen disciples, his face and his clothing suddenly shot through with Radiance as he prays, and the appearance with him of those two larger-than-life figures from Jewish tradition, Moses and Elijah, speaking to him about his "departure" or "exodus." Jesus has often gone off by himself to pray, and maybe this is what happens to him all the time. But this is the first time–the only time that we know of–that Peter, James, and John are with him and witness this transfiguration, this encounter with The Holy.

Clearly it short-circuits all the neural pathways in their brains. As Moses and Elijah are fading from view, Peter blurts out, "Master, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah!" A typical extrovert, perhaps, talking out loud to process what is going on, but really, as Luke says in an aside, "not knowing what he was saying." Lori Brandt Hale imagines "a cosmic hand from heaven, reaching down to give Peter a good ‘you are missing the point’ slap upside the head" [cited by Kate Huey Matthews in sermonseeds, 2/7/16]. Every situation doesn’t require us to Do Something. Sometimes, the thing to remember is, "Don’t just do something–stand there!"

The story of this vision is in all four gospels, so clearly it was important to the early Christian community. They, by the way, would have been less impressed by the fact that Peter, James, and John had this vision, this experience, for visions and dreams were viewed as common modes of experience and knowledge. What would have been important for those early Christians was the meaning, the lesson, the affirmation of Jesus and his path by God, God’s radiance shining from within Jesus but also enveloping them all on that mountaintop. Remember this. Don’t lose sight of this...

....because each time in the gospels this story of the mountaintop transfiguration is told, it is followed by the story of the descent into the valley, where the demon-possessed boy and his father are crying out for help. The mountaintop and the valley stories go together, even though too often we separate them. These stories, but more importantly, these experiences, need each other. The valley isn’t the postscript to the mountaintop, but the "in the meantime..."

Listen again, as Debie Thomas re-tells the two stories–

On the mountain, a man bent in prayer erupts in sudden light. As glory leaks from every pore, three sleepy disciples cower in the grass and watch their Master glow. Two figures appear out of time and space; in solemn tones they speak of exodus, accomplishment, Jerusalem. The disciples, comprehending nothing, babble nonsense in response — "Let's make tents! Let's stay here always! This is good!" A cloud descends, thick and impenetrable. As it envelops the disciples, they fall to their faces, certain the end has come. But a Voice addresses them instead, tender and gentle. "This is my Son, my Chosen." The Voice hums with delight, and the disciples, braver now, look up. They gaze at their Master — the Shining One — and a Father's pure joy sings with the stars. "This is my Beloved Son. Listen to him."

* * *

In the valley, a boy writhes in the dust. He drools, he cannot hear, and his eyes — wide-open, feral — see nothing but darkness. Around him a crowd gathers and swells, eager for spectacle. Scribes jeer, and disciples wring their hands in shame. "Frauds!" someone yells into the night. "Charlatans!" "Where's your Master?" the scribes ask the disciples an umpteeth time. "Why has he left you?" "We don't know," the disciples mutter, gesturing vaguely at the mountain. Panic wars with exhaustion as they hear the boy shriek yet again — an echo straight from hell. He flails, and his limbs assault his stricken face. A voice — strangled, singular — rends the night. "This is my son!" a man cries out as he pushes through the crowd to gather the convulsing boy into his arms. Everyone stares as the father cradles the wreck of a child against his chest. "Please," he sobs to the stars. "Please. This is my beloved son. Listen to him."

"Here’s what I’d like to know [Thomas asks, as she reads these two stories together]: how does glory on the mountain speak to the agony in the valley? What does it mean that they share a landscape? Can a love song on a pinnacle reach a scream in the depths? What happens if it can’t? Aren’t there two beloved sons in this story?" [journeywithjesus, 1/31/16]

Right now, as we sit in this peaceful, love-filled place, on this hillside [not quite a mountaintop], what else is going on in the meantime? We know that right now, in our community, there are people waking up with hang-overs, people on their 2^nd beer of the morning, people shooting up heroin, a woman is being hit, a child told he is stupid, many people are hungry with no prospects for food until, perhaps, if they know about it, if they dare come, until our Sunday Supper at 5. We know that right now a young black man is being stopped by the police for no other reason than he is black and in the "wrong" place. We know that Jesus’ name is being used to advocate carpet-bombing. We know that God’s name is being shouted as suicide bombers detonate themselves in crowded streets. We know that demons of all kinds possess children, teens, women, and men. We know that the earth herself cries out from poisons and toxins polluting and killing her and her children. Hoosick Falls and Flint, MI are but two of her voices. All the mountain tops are connected to the valleys, and the plains, the rivers and oceans, the villages and mega-metropolitan areas.

The Rev. Dr. James Forbes, former pastor of NYC’s Riverside Church, says that we are "in the midst of an epidemic of what [he calls] ‘a degenerative discouragement syndrome’....with a list from the news cycle [that] seems to resist remediation or repair." [ON Scripture, 2/7/16]

"One thing is certain," Dr. Forbes writes, "very little progress will be achieved apart from costly commitment...it is likely that true commitment will make very serious demands upon one’s strength, security, resources, and comforts."

This story of the Transfiguration, where Jesus and the disciples were overwhelmed with glory, seems to have been critical for the early Christian communities who were facing their own overwhelming challenges. Having the white light of that image from the mountaintop seared on their minds’ eyes and on their hearts gave them encouragement, hope, affirmation, power, just as it seems to have given Jesus strength for the journey into the valley and up to that other hillside that awaited him. As Jim Forbes says, " If Jesus needed and received extraordinary encourage-ment and empowerment, what about us?" In the midst of our epidemic of "degenerative discouragement syndrome," we need extraordinary encouragement and empowerment too, don’t we?

"Here’s the great challenge to the Christian life," Debie Thomas suggests–"can we speak glory to agony, and agony to glory? Can we hold the mountain and the valley in faithful tension with each other–denying neither, embracing both? Can we do this hard, hard work out of pure love for each other, so that no one among us–not the joyous one, not the anguished one, not the beloved one, not the broken one–is ever truly alone?" [Ibid.] Can we do this?

I caught just the beginning of a National Geographic special this week on television as I was finishing up the dinner dishes. It was about bioluminescence–the ability of some creatures to give off light, like fireflies, or deep sea squid or other fish. It’s an adaptive feature, the narrator said, that has evolved to give off light in dark places.

Isn’t that what we are called to do? Give off light, radiate Light, in dark places, places where suffering and falsehood and distortion have obscured the Light that we know as God? Psychologist C.G. Jung wrote, "As far as we can discern, the sole purpose of human existence is to kindle a light in the darkness of mere being." The sole purpose.

And the thing is, we know that kindling this light, as others have said, is "hard, hard work"; it will require "costly commitment...making very serious demands upon one’s strength, security, resources, and comforts." But the story of the Transfiguration also reminds us, encourages us, that that Light is already within us; sometimes just being there is enough, if we can be transparent enough. [Don’t just do something; stand there.] And so we need times like these, here on the hillside, to be reminded of who we are and Whose we are. We need times of quiet and stillness, of prayer and meditation, of nurturing ourselves, body and soul, times of tending to and building up the flame of the Light within. AND we need to return to the valleys–literally and figuratively–of the world, to kindle the darkness of mere being that so many experience, to love God and our neighbors with all we’ve got, so that "no one among us–not the joyous one, not the anguished one, not the beloved one, not the broken one–is ever truly alone."

We begin the journey into Lent this week, this wilderness time that both tests us and strengthens us for the challenges that lie ahead. This vision of the Glory that is in us and around us can be part of the resilience that will see us through the hard times. We’ll explore other practices and gifts that we can call upon when the going gets rough. But today, let the Glory soak and saturate you. We are given the bread and cup this morning to nourish us for our journeys. So take this meal, take that sure knowledge of Glory with you as you "go forth into the world in peace, being of good courage, holding fast to that which is good..." You know the rest. Carry it with you.

May these words be hope and strength and courage for the living of these days. Amen.

Rev. Mary H. Lee-Clark

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"Pushed to the Limit"- Luke 4: 21-30-- Jan. 31, 2016

Last week on "Galilean Diaries," also known as The Gospel of Luke, we saw Jesus having returned from 40 days and nights in the wilderness, where he was tested by Satan before he could begin his public ministry. Jesus was "filled with the power of the Spirit," we were told, and word of his presence, his power, and his wisdom spread throughout the Galilean villages and towns. When he came to his home town of Nazareth one Sabbath, he went to the synagogue, as was his custom, and the native son was given the honor of reading the scripture of the day– the one from the prophet Isaiah which talks about Jubilee–"good news to the poor, release for the captives, sight for the blind, freedom for the oppressed, the year of the Lord’s favor." As he handed the scroll back to the attendant, he said to them, "Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing."

Now in today’s installment, as the theme music for Galilean Diaries comes up, we sense a pregnant hush over those who had gathered. They look at Jesus, "his jeans loose from 6 weeks without eating [as Lutheran preacher Nadia Bolz Weber imagines him]...His face thin, but bright. He holds himself without apology, inhabiting his own unique shape in the world so completely that it almost creates a space around him for all of us to relax into un-self-consciousness and we sink out of our heads and into our bodies." ["If Jesus Was Your Preacher," Sarcastic Lutheran, Jan. 31, 2016] "All spoke well of him," Luke tells us, "and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth. They said, ‘Is not this Joseph’s son?’"

"Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing," he said. Bolz Weber wonders what it would be like if Jesus had walked into our sanctuary to read scripture and be the preacher of the day. Let’s listen in–

...when he opens his mouth to speak, [Nadia imagines] it’s as though there is something both common and melodic about his voice. A voice that is as familiar as the sound of our own heartbeats. A song we had forgotten and yet still know by heart. Maybe, just maybe, [she says] our Lord would say something like,

The Spirit of the Lord has anointed him to bring good news to the poor.

-to bring gifts of fine wine and rich food to those who exist only on McDonalds and Funions because it’s the only food in walking distance from their decrepit neighborhoods

-The Spirit of the Lord has anointed him to forgive all your student loans.

- to bring living water to the people of Flint Michigan and Rwanda and Haiti

- to tell the bank janitors that the CEO has distributed all their own pay raises and bonuses and stock options to them

-to look the Dow Jones in the eyes and laugh

-to dismantle our system of profits at the expense of people

-to restore the dignity of the 99% AND to restore the dignity of the 1%

- to endow us with a sense of worth that has nothing to do with bank accounts and status

"Because the Spirit of the Lord had sent him to bring good news to the poor.

I imagine Jesus standing here [Nadia says] and saying that The Spirit of the Lord has sent him to release to the captives

to free the addicts from the needle and the bottle and the laptop

- to remove the feeling of worthlessness from the depressed

-to bring rest to the sleep-deprived parents of babies

- to free those wrongly imprisoned by a justice system so often lacking in actual justice

- to take away the profit making system of the US prison industrial complex

- to remove all desire for the kind of cheap goods that only can come from child labor

- to give a sense of belonging to the alienated

- to forgive the sinner

- to save us from having to prove ourselves

- to remove all resentments from those who can’t let go of the past... (ibid.)

"Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing." How wonderful! What’s not to like? Wouldn’t that be good news for us?

Maybe it was too good to be true. Maybe the crowd in the synagogue in Nazareth was tired of promises made and not being taken seriously. Maybe, as Richard Swanson suggests, they thought Jesus may have been "trifling with hopes that had lived for so many years" and had died for so many different reasons. (Cited by Kate Huey in Sermonseeds, 1/31/16) You can only dangle hope in front of people for so long. And so they became angry with Jesus, almost threw him over the cliff.

Sounds a little like some campaign rallies in our country. Voters are angry, we are told, tired of too many unfulfilled promises, angry and tired of all this so-called prosperity going to other people. Angry because they see their values being trampled upon, angry because the changes that are coming all too quickly seem to be leaving them behind. Jesus leaves out "the day of the Lord’s vengeance" from the Isaiah reading, and both that Nazarean crowd and many American crowds are anxious to hear just that–it’s time for God to kick some proverbial "butt."

It was the Gentiles–the Romans and all the other pagans in their midst–that many first-century Jews saw as their enemies and God’s enemies, and here was Jesus reminding them of stories within their own tradition–in their own scriptures-- where God seemed to go out of the divine way to bless the Gentiles–to save the widow in Sidon and to heal a Syrian general of leprosy. "Anger and violence," the great preacher Fred Craddock said, "are the last defense of those who are made to face the truth embedded in their own tradition." [cited by Huey, op cit.]

So Jesus, bless his heart, ignores all the advice and wisdom told to new preachers at their first pastorate– just listen first, don’t come in determined to slaughter all the sacred cows in your first sermon. Instead, he reminds his congregation that God can bless whomever God chooses to bless–even those people you can’t stand--, and brings up the year of Jubilee, when all debts are forgiven, land is returned to its original owner, which, by the way, is God, and slaves are freed; in other words, he talks about money.

Biblical scholar Walter Brueggemann is "incensed by our need to be reassured that Jubilee was actually never practiced and by our own resistance to what Jubilee would accomplish." [says Huey, op cit.]. Jubilee, says Brueggemann, "is the most difficult, most demanding, most outrageous demand of Biblical faith, because it flies in the face of our deep practices of accumulation and our intense yearning to have ours and keep ours and make it grow." [Inscribing the Text, cited in Huey]

Even though the bible addresses the subject of money and possessions and how they are all to be used in the service of God and the common good over 2000 times, we are not supposed to talk about money in church, right? It makes everyone squirm. But, as someone once said to a previous presidential candidate, "It’s the economy," isn’t it? that is at the heart of people’s discontent and anger– the growing gap between the haves and have nots, or, really, between the 99% and the 1%?

It is true here in our community, whether or not it’s as blatant in our congregation as elsewhere. People–especially young people–are more and more hopeless, as they see no prospect for jobs, as they live in substandard housing, as their bodies and minds decay from lack of adequate nutrition and healthcare, and so they numb the pain and the hopelessness with any number of substances–alcohol, pills, heroin. Biblical economics actually addresses this, as Brueggemann suggests–

You cannot have a viable, peaceable, safe, urban community when deep poverty must live alongside huge wealth, when high privilege is visible alongside endless disadvantage in health and housing and education. You can have some inequities, but the inequities must be curbed by a practice of neighborliness that knows every day that rich and poor, haves and have-nots, are in it together and must find ways of being together as neighbors in common." [op cit.]

As Martin Luther King said, "We may have all come in different ships, but we’re in the same

boat now."

For all our small town closeness, I wonder about our practices of neighborliness. It came up in our community discussion on Martin Luther King Day, how we really don’t talk to our neighbors, let alone know them. I’m wondering if the faith communities might facilitate neighborhood gatherings where people are simply invited, not to worship with us, but just to come together in our facilities to get to know one another. Our Sun and Fun Day, for example, would be a wonderful opportunity to invite the neighbors.

When Jesus’ neighbors heard him, "all in the synagogue were filled with rage. They got up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town was built, so that they might hurl him off the cliff." Talk about blessing our enemies and our money and what is and isn’t ours will get you thrown out of town if you’re lucky, off a cliff if you’re not.

How would we react if Jesus were our preacher today, as Nadia Bolz Weber suggests, if he came preaching forgiveness of sins and student loans, bank CEO bonuses distributed among their janitors, if he came preaching release from addictions and hopelessness and resentments of the past; if he came proclaiming relief from depression and lead- and poison-tainted water systems, if he came naming all the things that we have secretly been bound up by and thinking there would never be release? If he sat here among us, "without apology, inhabiting his own unique shape in the world so completely that it almost creates a space around him for all of us to relax into un-self-consciousness, [so that]we sink out of our heads and into our bodies," could we receive this not as one more false, naive promise but as the possibility of fulfillment?

He offers this fulfillment today not with the wave of a magic wand, or spitting into the dirt and scribing some cryptic symbol, or even promising that he will do all of this for us, if we simply vote for him. This scripture is fulfilled because the Divine working through and often inspite of human beings is able to create us anew. This scripture is fulfilled when we enter into that Christ-space, take on the "mind of Christ," as Paul writes, and see the world, our lives, as God sees them. Make no mistake–there is great resistance to this fulfillment. The powers that be, sometimes our neighbors, even our family, we ourselves, are heavily invested in keeping things–in keeping us–just the way things–and we–are. There are cliffs and edges and envelopes and comfort zones to be pushed off and out of all over the place.

"But [Jesus] passed through the midst of them and went on his way." It is that way– Jesus’ way–that we too must follow. So that, even in us, this scripture might be fulfilled.

Amen.

Rev. Mary H. Lee-Clark

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"Fulfilled Today"-- Nehemiah 8:1-3, 5-6,8-10, Luke 4:14-21-- Jan. 24, 2016

Sermon January 24 "Fulfilled Today" For many different reasons I’m glad I don’t live in Iowa or New Hampshire. I cannot imagine the barrage of phone calls, tv and radio ads, let alone door-to-door canvassers that have invaded these two states as the first Presidential primaries draw near. I remind myself, as tired as I am of the daily stream of reports from the campaign trail, that this is nothing compared with what the people of Iowa and New Hampshire are going through, let alone the reporters assigned to each of the campaigns, listening to the same stump speeches over and over each day.

Considering the consequences of this process, it’s alarming to realize what a circus it can sometimes resemble. I don’t know that any nation has a better system for choosing their leaders–some are far worse-- but given the fact that the winner of this contest will be arguably the most powerful person in the world, I do wonder every now and then if we know what we’re doing.

Listen to this translation of an ancient hymn describing those who can be trusted with

power. It’s Stephen Mitchell’s translation of Psalm 15–

Who Can Be Trusted?

Lord, who can be trusted with power,
and who may act in your place?
Those with a passion for justice,
who speak the truth from their hearts;
who have let go of selfish interests
and grown beyond their own lives;
who see the wretched as their family
and the poor as their flesh and blood.
They alone are impartial
and worthy of the people’s trust.
Their compassion lights up the whole earth,
and their kindness endures forever. Stephen Mitchell, Source: A Book of Psalms

Do any of the current candidates come to mind?

Now listen to the platform, or inaugural address, of Jesus as he returned fresh from the wilderness and was asked to read and interpret scripture in his home synagogue in Nazareth–

The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor." ....Then he began to say to them, "Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing."

Some who were present would have noticed that he left out the last part of that final verse–"to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor and the day of vengeance of our God." With all the injustice and humiliation we have to endure, many first century Jews thought, isn’t it time for God to demand vengeance? With our perceived loss of power to control world events, with so many people still unable to find work that allows them to live as they’d like, with so many immigrants and non-whites quickly becoming a majority, isn’t it time for someone like us to take charge, demands the Tea Party and others?

To the poorest of the poor, however, like many of those who lived in Nazareth, this passage from the prophet Isaiah would be music to their ears. Here was a reminder of the Jubilee year–which was supposed to take place every 50 years, though it’s unclear whether it ever actually did–Jubilee, when all debts would be forgiven, when land would be returned to the people, all slaves would be freed–a clear reminder that nobody owned the land, that it was a gift from God, that they were bound together with one another. The promise of Jubilee was also seen as a corrective for the way that human beings get things out of whack, as Kate Huey says, (sermonseeds, 1/24/16), so that before you know it, somebody has too much while others don’t have enough. Kinda like the way things are right now.

The Jubilee year and its corrective, as well as all the ways described for living justly and peaceably together and with God, would have been contained in the reading of the law which Ezra read to the people for the first time since they had returned from exile. The people wept when they heard it, realizing how far they had wandered from the way God had set for them, and knowing the consequences of all that, but Ezra tells them not to grieve, "for the joy of the Lord is your strength," he tells them. God has given you this way to live so that you might know joy, so receive it, live it.

The question might surely be asked of us, "Have we lost our way from the course Jesus set in [his] inaugural address?" [Huey]: "good news for the poor, sight to the blind, release for the captives, freedom for the oppressed"? As we’ll see in the reading that follows for next week, Jesus’ neighbors at first received his teaching and message with astonishment-- "Today this has been fulfilled in your hearing." "Doesn’t he speak well?" Then denial–"Isn’t this just Joseph’s boy?"–and then offense.

Perhaps, suggests Anna Shirey, they had become used to the lack of fulfillment of the prophets’ promises and visions and had made peace with who they were. Perhaps they had become used to the way things were, living so long under Roman occupation, having no power over their land or livelihood or lives. "All they have to do," she writes, "is receive the message, release their old ideas of who they are, and live into God’s dream for them," but they can’t do it. Receiving, releasing, and living in trust are easy to say, hard to do. As we’ll see, his neighbors actually turn on Jesus.

I wonder if there isn’t something of that going on for us. Haven’t we come to assume that the visions of the prophets were just that–visions? Mirages? Dreams? When was the last time you saw a lion and a lamb lying down together, with the lamb lasting through dinner? Or in our own government, how often do Republicans and Democrats even sit down to lunch together? What good news has there been lately for the poor? Ask an African American male in our country about the captives going free. What liberation, other than death, is in store for the oppressed living in Syria?

Or what of our own dreams for our church as we gather today to take stock of where we are. How close are we to following Jesus’ platform? Can we make the bold claim that Isaiah’s dream, that Jesus’ dream, have been fulfilled in our hearing? Wouldn’t that take a miracle, or a savior, like a smart, young, new pastor maybe?

Diana Butler Bass says that "today"–as in, "Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing"–"is the most radical thing Jesus ever said." [Day1.org, 1/24/16] He didn’t say to his neighbors in Nazareth, "Just as our ancestors waited, so we wait for the day of the Lord..." He didn’t say, "Once you/we have repented, God will usher in the kingdom." He doesn’t say to us, "Once you get that new structure working, once you get rid of that deficit, once you get some more young families in here," you’ll be a successful church. A recent survey by the Public Religion Research group found that church-goers express high levels of nostalgia and anxiety– nostalgia being the shadow side of looking to the past and anxiety being the shadow side of looking only to the future. It’s too easy to lose today. Today this scripture–about good news for the poor, release for the captives, sight to the blind, the year of the Lord’s favor–Today this scripture is fulfilled. "‘Today’ places us in the midst of the sacred drama," Bass says, "remind-ing us that we are actors and agents in God’s desire for the world...It is a call to see more deeply, past the immediate sin, injustice, trials, and evils of human life to the profound reality of love and compassion upon which everything else truly rests: the love of God and neighbor."

Can we receive this message of good news? Can we really take it in? Can any of us receive that good news for ourselves–that those places within us where we perceive only poverty and lack and failure are already places where God is present with abundance? That our blindness–our short-sightedness–our bias–can be restored to sight? That we can be set free to be the full human beings God intends?

And, "What a stunning vocation for the church," Walter Brueggemann exclaims, " to stand free and hope-filled in a world gone fearful–and to think, imagine, dream, vision a future that God will yet enact." [cited by Huey, op cit.] Can we be filled with hope that is more than wishful thinking? "Old hopes are often domesticated hopes," Richard Swanson warns, and so we must careful not to limit our hopes to things like a full Sunday school and a balanced budget. "Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing." Dare we believe that, or will we let all those reasons why it couldn’t possibly be fulfilled–statistics about declining membership rolls or deficit budgets and how non-religious Vermont is, our own fears of rocking the boat, our world-weariness that is resigned to the way things always have been and probably always will be, our own brokenness and uncertainty about what real healing and empowerment might look like for us as individuals, let alone the church–will we let all those things prevent us from embracing the good news and instead, like Jesus’ neighbors, become fearful and angry?

What if we brought all those reasons why today couldn’t possibly be a day of fulfilment into the light of day, maybe dared to share them with each other around our tables and see not only what fears we shared but also what hope and encouragement we might offer one another, what if we then offered them up in prayer and let God transform them? "The Spirit of the Lord is upon us," not waiting for someone else to come along, no other candidate, no new pastor, no savior to come along and save us. We are the ones we have been waiting for. Today this Scripture has been fulfilled. The kingdom of God is coming and now is. May it be so.

Rev. Mary H. Lee-Clark

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"So Much More"-- John 2:1-11-- Jan. 17, 2016

We are a culture of sound bytes and rapid images, of information technology and data. And so we have a tendency to dismiss stories as nice but useless, not nearly as important as scientific findings and reports; and, really, who has time to listen to stories? My father-in-law used to say that if you want the unvarnished truth, ask someone under 8 or over 80, precisely, by the way, the ones remaining who happen to love stories....because the "unvarnished truth" is more likely than not to be expressed best in a story. For all our cutting edge knowledge and information, the wisdom of the ages is still retained and passed on in stories.

An old tale from Eastern Europe is told about "the great wise man, the Bal Shem Tov."

The beloved Bal Shem Tov was dying and sent for his disciples. "I have acted as intermediary for you, and now when I am gone you must do this for yourselves. You know the place in the forest where I call to God? Stand there in that place and do the same. You know how to light the fire, and how to say the prayer. Do all of these and God will come."

After the Bal Shem Tov died, the first generation did exactly as he had instructed, and God always came. But by the second generation, the people had forgotten how to light the fire in the way the Bal Shem Tov had taught them. Nevertheless, they stood in the special place in the forest and they said the prayer, and God came.

By the third generation, the people had forgotten how to light the fire, and they had forgotten the place in the forest. But they spoke the prayer nevertheless, and God still came.

In the fourth generation, everyone had forgotten how to build the fire, and no one any longer knew just where in the forest one should stand, and finally, too, the prayer itself could not be recalled. But one person still remembered the story about it all, and told it aloud. And God still came. [Clarissa Pinkola Estes, The Gift of Story, pp. 1-3]

The Bible is a library full of books and stories. It was with a particular kind of story, the parable, that Jesus chose to teach almost exclusively–"he spoke to them only in parables," one of the gospels tells us–and, it could be said, Jesus’ whole life was a parable–a story that isn’t easily wrapped up and explained, but rather draws the listener in, engages you.

By the time John writes his gospel he may well have become one of those unvarnished truth-tellers over the age of 80. He is the only one of our gospel writers to tell the story of the wedding feast at Cana, and as he passed it along to the second and third generations of Jesus’ followers, it is quite possible that, like the story of the Bal Shem Tov, some of the details have been forgotten. Did Jesus’ mother really come to him in the midst of the wedding feast and tell him they had run out of wine? Was Jesus really that abrupt and dismissive of his mother–

"Woman, what is that to you or me?" Had they run out of wine because Jesus and his disciples were such heavy drinkers? It’s not overly helpful to get bogged down in those kinds of details.

But what of this story that tells the truth about the nature not just of a wedding feast but of reality? This story, set at a wedding feast, which was a Hebrew scripture image of the messianic age, this story describing the kingdom or the reign of God that is coming and now is, as Jesus says over and over in the Gospel of John, this story that describes how the Divine turns ordinary water into extraordinary wine, the stuff of our everyday lives–water, bread, work, play, sitting around tables for meals, making music, making love, walking in the woods, dying–all that "ordinary stuff" is transformed into extraordinary opportunities. God comes, if we remember only the story, or really, God is present. "The first of Jesus’ ‘signs,’" as John puts it–signs pointing to the glory of God.

And, of course, it is not just a goblet of water that is transformed into wine. It is 120 or 150 gallons of water that is transformed into the finest wine, not just the stuff that is often mixed with water and vinegar to stretch out a diminishing supply of wine. This is sheer abundance.

After the meal of the Passover seder, a song is sung called, "Dayenu." Day- day-yenu....

Dayenu means, roughly, "It would have been enough." The chorus of Dayenu is sung between the verses that retell God’s amazing deliverance of the people of Israel from slavery–"If He had brought us out of Egypt, and not carried out judgments against them, it would have been enough (dayenu)....If He had given us their wealth and not split the sea open, it would have been enough (dayenu)...If He had brought us through the sea on dry land, and not destroyed our oppressors...if He had supplied our needs in the desert for 40 years and not given us manna,... If He had given us manna and not given us the sabbath, If He had given us shabbat and not brought to Mt. Sinai, it would have been enough, dayenu. On it goes, down to, If He had brought us into the land of Israel and not built the Temple, it would have been enough, dayenu.

If Jesus had turned a glass of water into wine, we might say, it would have been enough. Surely that would have been enough to show that Jesus was a miracle worker, the Son of God, even. But that is not the point of this story. This is a story of a perceived scarcity, a potential humiliation, that in the presence of the Holy One, is seen and experienced as abundant and rich and sweet beyond belief. "The first of his signs," all of which point somehow in John’s Gospel to the crucifixion, where we see, John says, God’s "glory" manifested fully. It would have been enough for God to take on human flesh and live among us, disguised as an ordinary man, but then his true identity revealed before suffering and dying. There are plenty of stories like that–the King takes on pauper’s clothing and walks about the kingdom. Dayenu. It would have been enough. God walks among us. But God’s glory was shown in going with us all the way to and through death and suffering. We are not alone, we are not abandoned by God, when we or our loved ones go through that experience. It would have been enough. Dayenu. But God did not stop there. God’s glory was not contained by death. Jesus appeared to his followers after his death, he entered into their consciousness, his presence in the world was not limited by a human body–his or theirs–or by their memories or by all the details and words, the red-letter editions of what he had said or done. It would have been enough for this great man to have lived and died among us–dayenu–but God is still speaking, God is still working, God is still creating and bringing about justice, God is still living among us and dying our deaths with us, bearing our heartaches, suffering our pains and failures, experiencing humiliation and injustice alongside us. God is still holding us in strength and comfort, God is marching beside us for justice, God is still celebrating our love and our joy.

And in our day, we may have to arrive at the point where we can say, It would have been enough for God to have become embodied in the church. It would have been enough. But God’s notion of "enough" is far more abundant and wondrous than the limits of our imaginations.

This past week the British actor Alan Rickman, known to the latest generation by his role as Severus Snape in the Harry Potter movies, died. From all the tributes to Rickman from those who knew him, he was a generous, kind, gifted man, and in one of the postings about him, came this quotation from him "on the power of stories" – "The more we’re governed by ["idiots," was the term he used. We might give the benefit of the doubt to those in leadership positions, while acknowledging the appalling lack of ability to truly lead. At any rate, back to Rickman–] "The more we’re governed by idiots and have no control over our destinies, the more we need to tell stories to each other about who we are, where we came from, and what might be possible."

When we are told that there is not enough to go around, that programs that might help people imprisoned by poverty and generational despair are too expensive, that we must restrict access to the freedoms and dignity and privilege that most white people enjoy in this country, that there is only room here for people who look and believe like we do, then we must remember this story of the wedding at Cana, which tells of the abundance in which we live. When we look around us and see that our neighbors, perhaps we ourselves, do not have enough to eat, or a safe, decent place in which to live, that there is indeed a scarcity of jobs or opportunities, then we must put that scarcity narrative into the wider story of abundance, where there is enough for all but not enough for a small percentage to have too much. When we look at ourselves, and think that we are not "enough," that we are not worthy of being loved, because somehow there’s only a limited amount of love to go around and surely we’re not worthy of using up some of that, then we must remember this story of the wedding at Cana. We may have experienced love parcelled out in our families of origin, but God does not parcel out love. God pours out love and life from a well that never runs dry. We–even we–are beloved, just as every other child of God is beloved.

We may forget the place in the forest, we may forget how to get the fire started, we may forget the words of the prayer, but let us not forget the story of Jesus’ turning water poured into jars set aside to somehow "make us holy," turning that water into rich, delicious wine, for the celebration of love and life. When we are told that terror is what rules the world, that we must circle the wagons to keep "the others" out; when we are told there simply isn’t enough to go around; when we are told – by others, or when we tell ourselves– that we are not enough, remember and tell aloud this story of abundance. And God will come.

May it be so.

Rev. Mary H. Lee-Clark

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