Next Sunday - for Benn Banner
Lay off from your labor and join us for worship this Labor Day Sunday at Second Congregational Church, UCC. We gather at 10 o’clock on Sunday morning, and we welcome all people of faith or in search of faith to our work and worship. Special music this Sunday is offered by the trio of Gene Irons, Nancy Wright, and Sharon Yarnall, singing “Lift Thine Eyes” by Mendelssohn. Both the Sacrament of Baptism and the Lord’s Supper will be celebrated, and Rev. Mary Lee-Clark’s sermon is entitled, “Underneath the Anger.”
Solar Panels dedicated on Summer Solstice
On Sunday June 21, the Summer Solstice, we dedicated our 72 solar panels, installed this spring on our south-facing roof – dedicating them to God’s glory, not just to lower electrical bills.
The Bible begins with the story of God’s creating the heavens and the earth “in the beginning.” It’s not a scientific report, but rather a truth-telling story of faith–that God was in the beginning, being, creating, and singing out, “Let there be light!” On the fourth day, the story goes, God created the lights “in the dome of the sky” – the lesser light, the moon, to rule over the night, and the greater light, the sun, to rule over the day. The story goes on to talk about the creation of plants and animals and, finally, human beings, in the image of God, male and female, to whom God gives “dominion,” or, a better translation, “stewardship” of the whole thing. Alas, we humans have too often “dominated” the rest of creation, carelessly using its resources, seeking our own gain rather than worrying about how our use affects the balance and harmony of earth’s ecosystems, creatures, or even other human beings. Up until recently, author Diane Ackermann points out, the damage we’ve done to the earth has been largely unintentional – and devastating. Now we know better, so we can only hope that with clear eyes, we can from now on use our considerable skills, knowledge, and imagination to repair some of the damage, so that generations coming after us may be able to live on this beautiful planet.
Second Congregational Church is a Green Justice Congregation of the United Church of Christ, consciously considering how we can be better stewards of the resources entrusted to us, by using LED lights wherever possible, composting all food and compostable paper products from our Sunday morning and evening events, having recycling bins throughout the building, recently replacing our oil burner with a more efficient model, and, just months ago, installing solar panels on our roof.
This has all grown out of our experiences in worship, as we have explored the overwhelming number of scriptural passages that have to do with earth care and our connection to the earth. The United Church of Christ was also one of the earliest denominations to make the connection between justice and environmental stewardship, recognizing that it is the poor and powerless who most often bear the greatest burden of our carelessness–and sometimes downright abuse–of the earth, living near toxic dumps, living in areas of rising sea levels, unable to afford foods grown sustainably. Pope Francis’ most recent encyclical addresses this aspect of the crisis explicitly, in keeping with his–and Jesus’–commitment to the poor. Together we can support one another to live in ways that will help the earth and its people and creatures heal. Together we can advocate for legislation and regulation of practices that keep the 7th generation in mind. As people of all faiths, we can work together to fulfill the sacred trust given to us by our Creator. Let there be Light!
Rev. Mary H. Lee-Clark, Pastor
The Bible begins with the story of God’s creating the heavens and the earth “in the beginning.” It’s not a scientific report, but rather a truth-telling story of faith–that God was in the beginning, being, creating, and singing out, “Let there be light!” On the fourth day, the story goes, God created the lights “in the dome of the sky” – the lesser light, the moon, to rule over the night, and the greater light, the sun, to rule over the day. The story goes on to talk about the creation of plants and animals and, finally, human beings, in the image of God, male and female, to whom God gives “dominion,” or, a better translation, “stewardship” of the whole thing. Alas, we humans have too often “dominated” the rest of creation, carelessly using its resources, seeking our own gain rather than worrying about how our use affects the balance and harmony of earth’s ecosystems, creatures, or even other human beings. Up until recently, author Diane Ackermann points out, the damage we’ve done to the earth has been largely unintentional – and devastating. Now we know better, so we can only hope that with clear eyes, we can from now on use our considerable skills, knowledge, and imagination to repair some of the damage, so that generations coming after us may be able to live on this beautiful planet.
Second Congregational Church is a Green Justice Congregation of the United Church of Christ, consciously considering how we can be better stewards of the resources entrusted to us, by using LED lights wherever possible, composting all food and compostable paper products from our Sunday morning and evening events, having recycling bins throughout the building, recently replacing our oil burner with a more efficient model, and, just months ago, installing solar panels on our roof.
This has all grown out of our experiences in worship, as we have explored the overwhelming number of scriptural passages that have to do with earth care and our connection to the earth. The United Church of Christ was also one of the earliest denominations to make the connection between justice and environmental stewardship, recognizing that it is the poor and powerless who most often bear the greatest burden of our carelessness–and sometimes downright abuse–of the earth, living near toxic dumps, living in areas of rising sea levels, unable to afford foods grown sustainably. Pope Francis’ most recent encyclical addresses this aspect of the crisis explicitly, in keeping with his–and Jesus’–commitment to the poor. Together we can support one another to live in ways that will help the earth and its people and creatures heal. Together we can advocate for legislation and regulation of practices that keep the 7th generation in mind. As people of all faiths, we can work together to fulfill the sacred trust given to us by our Creator. Let there be Light!
Rev. Mary H. Lee-Clark, Pastor
"Who knew?!"-- 2 Cor. 5:6-10, 14-17, Mark 4:26-34-- June 14, 2015
Have you noticed that when the power goes out, even if you didn’t have anything "on," like the television or radio or music, say–even if you were just quietly reading–when the power goes out, it gets really quiet. There’s no hum of electricity, no quiet whirring of motors. It’s QUIET. You realize what a level of background noise we have become accustomed to in even our quietest moments. Some of us even have to manufacture "white noise" to get to sleep, to drown out all the other extraneous and unpredictable noises that surround us. We are constantly surrounded by noise that is just under or at the level of our hearing.
Just so, it seems, always in the background, but flaring up with more and more frequency, we live with a level of anxiety. Where are those prisoners who escaped from Dannemora prison? What disease-bearing ticks are lurking in our gardens and lawns? What chemicals have leached into our ground water and soil? What are those pesky Russians up to, let alone the Chinese? Is that a lump I feel? Did I smell something on Johnny when he came home from that party? Are they talking about lay-offs? What was that strange sound the car made this morning when I started it up? On and on it goes.
The church is certainly not immune to this anxiety, as we read the statistics, the declining membership roles, the graying of heads, the growing deficits. Who will we find to be our next pastor, not to mention, how will we pay for this bridging ministry? Will any of this make a difference?
"Anxiety," says Barbara Brown Taylor, "is an occupational hazard of a finite creature in a universe of infinite possibilities." [cited by Kate Huey in sermonseeds, 6/14/15] The symptoms of this anxiety, she suggests, are "perfectionism, drivenness, moral outrage, restlessness, dread of being alone, and estrangement from God." You may recognize some of those symptoms in yourself or people you know. "What is absent when anxiety is present," Taylor says, "is faith... that God will be God..."
The kingdom of God [Jesus said] is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground, and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how. The earth produces of itself, first the stalk, then the head, then the full grain in the head. But when the grain is ripe, at once he goes in with his sickle, because the harvest has come.
My favorite phrase in this parable is, "he does not know how." How does a seed sprout and grow? Martin Luther said, "If you truly understood a single grain of wheat, you would die of wonder." There are worse ways to die. The kingdom of God [Jesus said] is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground, and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how. While we sleep, seeds sprout and grow. Sure, they need moisture and sunlight, but how they sprout and grow is a mystery. Barbara Brown Taylor labels this phenomenon of the earth producing of itself, "Automatic Earth." The automatic earth yields its fruit, that is, unless it’s been poisoned or turned into stone by drought or depleted from overuse of any of its nutrients.
The kingdom of God is like this... Jesus said, as he began so many of his parables, these stories that are a particular kind of story–not just illustrations, but more like "instigations." It is said that "as soon as you think you understand what [a parable] means, you probably don’t." Parables are not rational equations, calculated by the left side of the brain. They are the pebble in your shoe, meant to be unsettling, evocative, appealing more to the right side of the brain. Megan McKenna even calls a parable "a trapdoor into another world," [cited by Huey, op cit.] where you may or may not want to live.
The kingdom of God [Jesus said] is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground, and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how. The earth produces of itself, first the stalk, then the head, then the full grain in the head. But when the grain is ripe, at once he goes in with his sickle, because the harvest has come.
He also said, "With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable will we use for it? It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth; yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs, and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade."
The mustard seed Jesus is talking about is not the "good little seed that could." It is more like kudzu, that weed that has taken over large portions of the southern United States. It is the bane of gardeners, pesky, tenacious. And "it grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs." Really? The greatest of all shrubs? Who thinks of shrubs as "great," other than Monty Python’s Knights that go "Ni!" in search of "shrubbery"? The kingdom of God is like that? The fact that birds find shelter and build their nests in the mustard shrub’s branches is kind of a nice image, but aren’t those the same birds that, in the parable Jesus told shortly before this one, snatched up the seed and ate it? What does he mean, "The kingdom of God is like a mustard seed?" Is that a good thing?
Jesus might have said, "The kingdom of God is like a raspberry seed, that, though the berry is beautiful and delicious, its seed becomes lodged in your teeth and bugs you until you can get it out." The kingdom of God is like that.
What are we to make of these parables of Jesus, especially as we live in a time when he is not able to explain everything to us in private, as Mark says he did to the disciples? Frankly, I’m not even sure Jesus did that, given the nature of parables not to be explained away. These are not good bedtime stories, designed as they are to keep working on us, but even as we sleep, God is at work, as the first parable says.
One of the lessons, I think, these stories have to teach us is that it’s not all up to us. We may sow the seeds–or God may be the Sower–but it is not up to us to manipulate and orchestrate
or control everything that happens from then on. We can ease up a little, trust God to be God. On some level, life can be trusted. What parent knows what little word of wisdom or encouragement or love, spoken to a surly teenager, will not grow and sprout up someday, remembered, clung to, even passed on to their child? Who of us knows what simple act of kindness to a stranger will not grow and sprout up someday to make a difference in someone else’s life? How do we know what effect our individual and collective efforts at recycling, conserving, investing in alternative energy, advocating for legislation will have upon this beautiful little planet?
And here in the life of our church, who knows what will grow from our efforts to get the word out to our community about our solar panels, our commitment to care for the earth? Who knows who will be touched by our message of radical welcome, our rainbow flag, our opening of our building to any and all who need a place of shelter or meeting? Who knows who will notice a Facebook post or a link on our website that will touch someone exactly as they have needed to be touched, to hear a word they have longed to hear? It may not mean that people will be standing in line to get into our Sunday morning worship. It may not mean that the checks will arrive in the mail in such numbers that we will need to hire extra help. But who knows? Who knows how God works? "I have great faith in a seed," Henry David Thoreau wrote. "Convince me that you have a seed there, and I am prepared to expect wonders."
It is when the harvest comes that the sower must go into action with his sickle. There is a place for us to respond to and engage with what God is doing. And as we enter into this unsettling, mysterious, "kingdom of God," we too will be transformed–we will sprout and grow in ways we do not know. In fact, Paul writes, "When anyone is in Christ, there is a whole new creation." God will stop at nothing less–than a whole new creation. All our anxiety, all our attempts to control and predict, to grasp and hold, –all that will not bring the new creation about. The antidote to anxiety, in fact, as Barbara Brown Taylor says, is courage, "chosen over and over again, everyday that you live, if real living is what you’re after." (Cited by Huey, op cit.) Courage. The true story of your heart, as its original meaning is. Courage, even in the face of fear and anxiety, to nonetheless trust God to be God, to trust that the earth will yield its fruit, that even now God is doing a new thing in and through us. That’s what the kingdom of God is like.
Amen.
Rev. Mary H. Lee-Clark
Just so, it seems, always in the background, but flaring up with more and more frequency, we live with a level of anxiety. Where are those prisoners who escaped from Dannemora prison? What disease-bearing ticks are lurking in our gardens and lawns? What chemicals have leached into our ground water and soil? What are those pesky Russians up to, let alone the Chinese? Is that a lump I feel? Did I smell something on Johnny when he came home from that party? Are they talking about lay-offs? What was that strange sound the car made this morning when I started it up? On and on it goes.
The church is certainly not immune to this anxiety, as we read the statistics, the declining membership roles, the graying of heads, the growing deficits. Who will we find to be our next pastor, not to mention, how will we pay for this bridging ministry? Will any of this make a difference?
"Anxiety," says Barbara Brown Taylor, "is an occupational hazard of a finite creature in a universe of infinite possibilities." [cited by Kate Huey in sermonseeds, 6/14/15] The symptoms of this anxiety, she suggests, are "perfectionism, drivenness, moral outrage, restlessness, dread of being alone, and estrangement from God." You may recognize some of those symptoms in yourself or people you know. "What is absent when anxiety is present," Taylor says, "is faith... that God will be God..."
The kingdom of God [Jesus said] is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground, and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how. The earth produces of itself, first the stalk, then the head, then the full grain in the head. But when the grain is ripe, at once he goes in with his sickle, because the harvest has come.
My favorite phrase in this parable is, "he does not know how." How does a seed sprout and grow? Martin Luther said, "If you truly understood a single grain of wheat, you would die of wonder." There are worse ways to die. The kingdom of God [Jesus said] is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground, and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how. While we sleep, seeds sprout and grow. Sure, they need moisture and sunlight, but how they sprout and grow is a mystery. Barbara Brown Taylor labels this phenomenon of the earth producing of itself, "Automatic Earth." The automatic earth yields its fruit, that is, unless it’s been poisoned or turned into stone by drought or depleted from overuse of any of its nutrients.
The kingdom of God is like this... Jesus said, as he began so many of his parables, these stories that are a particular kind of story–not just illustrations, but more like "instigations." It is said that "as soon as you think you understand what [a parable] means, you probably don’t." Parables are not rational equations, calculated by the left side of the brain. They are the pebble in your shoe, meant to be unsettling, evocative, appealing more to the right side of the brain. Megan McKenna even calls a parable "a trapdoor into another world," [cited by Huey, op cit.] where you may or may not want to live.
The kingdom of God [Jesus said] is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground, and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how. The earth produces of itself, first the stalk, then the head, then the full grain in the head. But when the grain is ripe, at once he goes in with his sickle, because the harvest has come.
He also said, "With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable will we use for it? It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth; yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs, and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade."
The mustard seed Jesus is talking about is not the "good little seed that could." It is more like kudzu, that weed that has taken over large portions of the southern United States. It is the bane of gardeners, pesky, tenacious. And "it grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs." Really? The greatest of all shrubs? Who thinks of shrubs as "great," other than Monty Python’s Knights that go "Ni!" in search of "shrubbery"? The kingdom of God is like that? The fact that birds find shelter and build their nests in the mustard shrub’s branches is kind of a nice image, but aren’t those the same birds that, in the parable Jesus told shortly before this one, snatched up the seed and ate it? What does he mean, "The kingdom of God is like a mustard seed?" Is that a good thing?
Jesus might have said, "The kingdom of God is like a raspberry seed, that, though the berry is beautiful and delicious, its seed becomes lodged in your teeth and bugs you until you can get it out." The kingdom of God is like that.
What are we to make of these parables of Jesus, especially as we live in a time when he is not able to explain everything to us in private, as Mark says he did to the disciples? Frankly, I’m not even sure Jesus did that, given the nature of parables not to be explained away. These are not good bedtime stories, designed as they are to keep working on us, but even as we sleep, God is at work, as the first parable says.
One of the lessons, I think, these stories have to teach us is that it’s not all up to us. We may sow the seeds–or God may be the Sower–but it is not up to us to manipulate and orchestrate
or control everything that happens from then on. We can ease up a little, trust God to be God. On some level, life can be trusted. What parent knows what little word of wisdom or encouragement or love, spoken to a surly teenager, will not grow and sprout up someday, remembered, clung to, even passed on to their child? Who of us knows what simple act of kindness to a stranger will not grow and sprout up someday to make a difference in someone else’s life? How do we know what effect our individual and collective efforts at recycling, conserving, investing in alternative energy, advocating for legislation will have upon this beautiful little planet?
And here in the life of our church, who knows what will grow from our efforts to get the word out to our community about our solar panels, our commitment to care for the earth? Who knows who will be touched by our message of radical welcome, our rainbow flag, our opening of our building to any and all who need a place of shelter or meeting? Who knows who will notice a Facebook post or a link on our website that will touch someone exactly as they have needed to be touched, to hear a word they have longed to hear? It may not mean that people will be standing in line to get into our Sunday morning worship. It may not mean that the checks will arrive in the mail in such numbers that we will need to hire extra help. But who knows? Who knows how God works? "I have great faith in a seed," Henry David Thoreau wrote. "Convince me that you have a seed there, and I am prepared to expect wonders."
It is when the harvest comes that the sower must go into action with his sickle. There is a place for us to respond to and engage with what God is doing. And as we enter into this unsettling, mysterious, "kingdom of God," we too will be transformed–we will sprout and grow in ways we do not know. In fact, Paul writes, "When anyone is in Christ, there is a whole new creation." God will stop at nothing less–than a whole new creation. All our anxiety, all our attempts to control and predict, to grasp and hold, –all that will not bring the new creation about. The antidote to anxiety, in fact, as Barbara Brown Taylor says, is courage, "chosen over and over again, everyday that you live, if real living is what you’re after." (Cited by Huey, op cit.) Courage. The true story of your heart, as its original meaning is. Courage, even in the face of fear and anxiety, to nonetheless trust God to be God, to trust that the earth will yield its fruit, that even now God is doing a new thing in and through us. That’s what the kingdom of God is like.
Amen.
Rev. Mary H. Lee-Clark
"Hide and Seek"-- Gen. 3: 8-15, Mark 3:20-35-- June 7, 2015
We just heard what I think are two of the most beautiful and poignant verses in the whole
Bible–from the passage in Genesis 3:
"They heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man, and said to him, "Where are you?"
You can practically feel the warm breeze against your cheek and hear the sound of leaves rustling, birds singing. I can barely begin to imagine what the "sound of the Lord God walking in the garden" might have been like–rolling thunder? Ocean waves rolling and crashing? A pod of humpback whales singing and breaching? A herd of elephants calling out in their deep rumble? A thousand tubular bells? Maybe a still, small voice?
But then that voice, calling to them, "Where are you?" "Where are you?" The Lord God
couldn’t see them? Didn’t know where they were? "Where are you?"
A friend pointed out, "The worst thing that can happen in hide-and-seek is to have no one come looking for you." Another friend recalls a time when a group of kids were playing hide-and-seek in someone’s big, old house, and his son hid under one of the beds. He was one of the younger kids in the group, and somehow, whether by intention or just forgetfulness, they forgot to look for him. He fell asleep there, and finally when it was time to go home, they realized that Moses wasn’t around, and it was then that they all had to seek him and , in the end, he was indeed found. A happy ending. But what if no one had remembered that little boy? What if no one had wanted to find him?
"Where are you?" The man and the woman have hidden themselves from the Lord God among the trees in the garden because they had listened to the serpent instead of to God. They knew they were naked. "I heard the sound of you in the garden," the man says to God, "and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself." Not only does the man try to hide among the trees, but he then also tries to hide behind the woman–"The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit from the tree, and I ate." And the woman does the same thing–"The serpent tricked me, and I ate." Hiding behind half-truths is as effective as hiding among the trees. Ultimately, they are found out, and whether you read it as punishment or merely conse-quences, their lives are never the same again. Children grow up. Adolescents experiment and test the boundaries. Adults live on the other side of innocence, perhaps sadder but wiser. The Lord God fashions garments of skins to replace the fig leaves, before sending them out into the world, as many a parent has done since.
And still, the echo of that evening call–"Where are you? My son, my daughter, where are you?" They may have been expelled from the garden, but God wasn’t confined to the garden either. God followed them out into the world.
God keeps calling to us–"Where are you?" And beneath that question, "Do you know where you are? Are you where you want to be?" On and on, throughout the ages beyond this primordial time, God continues to seek us out, longing for relationship, longing to be in honest relationship with us.
So the question with which Jesus responded to the crowds who told him that his mother and brothers and sisters were outside the house sounds utterly jarring. "Who are my mother and my brothers and sisters?" They have come seeking you out, Jesus, because they think you have gone out of your mind! They’re worried about you, because you’ve left the protective and societally-sanctioned web of your family and you’re going around with all these strangers and keeping crazy hours and interacting way too closely with demons. Come home with us.
And he replied, "Who are my mother and my brothers and sisters?" And looking at those who sat around him, he said, "Here are my mother and my brothers and sisters! Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother."
Weren’t they just wondering, "Where are you, Jesus?" Where is the boy who grew up in our household, who was expected to carry on the family business, to care for his mother, to keep in his place in this observant, peasant family? "Where are you?"
Jesus knew that that question was not coming from God this time, and that actually was what that whole discussion about Beelzebub, that is tucked in the middle of this story about his family, was about. You need to be able to discern the difference between God’s voice and spirit and The Temptor’s voice and spirit. And woe to you if you cannot perceive God’s Holy Spirit working and calling you, if you cannot see the healing and justice and truth and liberation that God is working to bring about, but instead dismiss it and work against it.
"Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother." It is, in a way, another story of coming of age. Can you recognize when the gods who were your parents to you growing up are no longer the God whose voice you must listen to? Can you, at some point, recognize and appreciate all your parents did for and said to you, knowing that they were and are not the Lord God, that they were and are as fallible and imperfect as any human being, and that there may be a fuller, deeper truth that you have to live into?
"Who are my mother and my brothers and sisters?" And looking at those who sat around him, Jesus said, "Here are my mother and my brothers and sisters! Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother." Sometimes our blood family cannot accept that we need to move away to escape the web of dysfunction and abuse. Sometimes our blood family cannot accept that we are gay or lesbian or bisexual or born into a body that doesn’t reflect our
true identity. Sometimes our blood family sees our wanting to go to college or into a different career as a judgement upon them. Sometimes our blood family cannot accept that we have grown and changed.
That’s when the water of baptism is thicker than blood. That’s when, Jesus knew, that blood was too narrow a definition of family, and that sometimes the community of faith is given to us as family, to care for us, to hold us accountable, to cry with us, to cheer us on.
At the end of his life, from the cross, Jesus says to the disciple whom he loved, "Behold your mother," nodding to his birth mother. "Woman, behold your son," nodding to the disciple. And from that day forward, he took her into his home and cared for her. We don’t need to reject our families; but we do need to know that family is a much more expansive reality than DNA or address can determine.
"Where are you?" God always wants to find us. God keeps calling to us, whispering to us. "I love you. You are part of me. I am part of you." Here, this is my body, broken for you. Take and eat. And this is my blood, poured out for you. Take and drink. Come home to who you really are.
May it be so. Amen.
Rev. Mary H. Lee-Clark
Bible–from the passage in Genesis 3:
"They heard the sound of the Lord God walking in the garden at the time of the evening breeze, and the man and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man, and said to him, "Where are you?"
You can practically feel the warm breeze against your cheek and hear the sound of leaves rustling, birds singing. I can barely begin to imagine what the "sound of the Lord God walking in the garden" might have been like–rolling thunder? Ocean waves rolling and crashing? A pod of humpback whales singing and breaching? A herd of elephants calling out in their deep rumble? A thousand tubular bells? Maybe a still, small voice?
But then that voice, calling to them, "Where are you?" "Where are you?" The Lord God
couldn’t see them? Didn’t know where they were? "Where are you?"
A friend pointed out, "The worst thing that can happen in hide-and-seek is to have no one come looking for you." Another friend recalls a time when a group of kids were playing hide-and-seek in someone’s big, old house, and his son hid under one of the beds. He was one of the younger kids in the group, and somehow, whether by intention or just forgetfulness, they forgot to look for him. He fell asleep there, and finally when it was time to go home, they realized that Moses wasn’t around, and it was then that they all had to seek him and , in the end, he was indeed found. A happy ending. But what if no one had remembered that little boy? What if no one had wanted to find him?
"Where are you?" The man and the woman have hidden themselves from the Lord God among the trees in the garden because they had listened to the serpent instead of to God. They knew they were naked. "I heard the sound of you in the garden," the man says to God, "and I was afraid, because I was naked; and I hid myself." Not only does the man try to hide among the trees, but he then also tries to hide behind the woman–"The woman whom you gave to be with me, she gave me fruit from the tree, and I ate." And the woman does the same thing–"The serpent tricked me, and I ate." Hiding behind half-truths is as effective as hiding among the trees. Ultimately, they are found out, and whether you read it as punishment or merely conse-quences, their lives are never the same again. Children grow up. Adolescents experiment and test the boundaries. Adults live on the other side of innocence, perhaps sadder but wiser. The Lord God fashions garments of skins to replace the fig leaves, before sending them out into the world, as many a parent has done since.
And still, the echo of that evening call–"Where are you? My son, my daughter, where are you?" They may have been expelled from the garden, but God wasn’t confined to the garden either. God followed them out into the world.
God keeps calling to us–"Where are you?" And beneath that question, "Do you know where you are? Are you where you want to be?" On and on, throughout the ages beyond this primordial time, God continues to seek us out, longing for relationship, longing to be in honest relationship with us.
So the question with which Jesus responded to the crowds who told him that his mother and brothers and sisters were outside the house sounds utterly jarring. "Who are my mother and my brothers and sisters?" They have come seeking you out, Jesus, because they think you have gone out of your mind! They’re worried about you, because you’ve left the protective and societally-sanctioned web of your family and you’re going around with all these strangers and keeping crazy hours and interacting way too closely with demons. Come home with us.
And he replied, "Who are my mother and my brothers and sisters?" And looking at those who sat around him, he said, "Here are my mother and my brothers and sisters! Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother."
Weren’t they just wondering, "Where are you, Jesus?" Where is the boy who grew up in our household, who was expected to carry on the family business, to care for his mother, to keep in his place in this observant, peasant family? "Where are you?"
Jesus knew that that question was not coming from God this time, and that actually was what that whole discussion about Beelzebub, that is tucked in the middle of this story about his family, was about. You need to be able to discern the difference between God’s voice and spirit and The Temptor’s voice and spirit. And woe to you if you cannot perceive God’s Holy Spirit working and calling you, if you cannot see the healing and justice and truth and liberation that God is working to bring about, but instead dismiss it and work against it.
"Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother." It is, in a way, another story of coming of age. Can you recognize when the gods who were your parents to you growing up are no longer the God whose voice you must listen to? Can you, at some point, recognize and appreciate all your parents did for and said to you, knowing that they were and are not the Lord God, that they were and are as fallible and imperfect as any human being, and that there may be a fuller, deeper truth that you have to live into?
"Who are my mother and my brothers and sisters?" And looking at those who sat around him, Jesus said, "Here are my mother and my brothers and sisters! Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother." Sometimes our blood family cannot accept that we need to move away to escape the web of dysfunction and abuse. Sometimes our blood family cannot accept that we are gay or lesbian or bisexual or born into a body that doesn’t reflect our
true identity. Sometimes our blood family sees our wanting to go to college or into a different career as a judgement upon them. Sometimes our blood family cannot accept that we have grown and changed.
That’s when the water of baptism is thicker than blood. That’s when, Jesus knew, that blood was too narrow a definition of family, and that sometimes the community of faith is given to us as family, to care for us, to hold us accountable, to cry with us, to cheer us on.
At the end of his life, from the cross, Jesus says to the disciple whom he loved, "Behold your mother," nodding to his birth mother. "Woman, behold your son," nodding to the disciple. And from that day forward, he took her into his home and cared for her. We don’t need to reject our families; but we do need to know that family is a much more expansive reality than DNA or address can determine.
"Where are you?" God always wants to find us. God keeps calling to us, whispering to us. "I love you. You are part of me. I am part of you." Here, this is my body, broken for you. Take and eat. And this is my blood, poured out for you. Take and drink. Come home to who you really are.
May it be so. Amen.
Rev. Mary H. Lee-Clark
Pentecost May 24, 2015
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[fsg_link class="btn" ]Click here for slideshow[/fsg_link]
During worship on Pentecost Sunday, congregation members built an altar by processing up the central aisle of the sanctuary and placing red and yellow candles on the communion table. Many people wore red to celebrate the flames of the Holy Spirit alighting on the heads of the disciples on the original Pentecost. After worship, the congregation gathered outside for the burning of the palms from Palm Sunday. The ashes of the palms will be used to make the sign of the cross on our heads on Ash Wednesday 2016.
[fsg_link class="btn" ]Click here for slideshow[/fsg_link]
During worship on Pentecost Sunday, congregation members built an altar by processing up the central aisle of the sanctuary and placing red and yellow candles on the communion table. Many people wore red to celebrate the flames of the Holy Spirit alighting on the heads of the disciples on the original Pentecost. After worship, the congregation gathered outside for the burning of the palms from Palm Sunday. The ashes of the palms will be used to make the sign of the cross on our heads on Ash Wednesday 2016.
"Each in our own language"- Ezekiel 37:1-14, Acts 2:1-21--May 24, 2015–Pentecost
Short of a gust of wind blowing in and spreading these candle flames to the altar clothes and igniting them, our worship service this morning probably bears very little resemblance to that first Pentecost, in terms of chaos, violence, confusion, and fear. And don’t get me wrong–I’m not advocating that somebody come up here and set the place on fire, although if the Holy Spirit should decide to blow in and shake things up, that’s an entirely different matter!
"When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability."
Or what about that other disruptive, unsettling whirlwind of the Holy Spirit, terrifying to see and hear, where the prophet Ezekiel found himself standing in the valley of dry bones. "And there were very many [bones]lying in the valley, and they were very dry." God tells Ezekiel to prophesy to the bones, "and so I prophesied as I had been commanded; and as I prophesied, suddenly there was a noise, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone. I looked, and there were sinews on them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them; but there was no breath in them."
But this coming together of lifeless skin and bones and sinews is only part of the story. These bones and sinews and skin which had come together were speaking no languages; they had no breath in them. They looked like people, but really they were more like zombies. Not really alive. Bruce Maples suggests they were like a "dry drunk"–someone who has stopped consuming their drug of choice, but hasn’t done anything else about their recovery–haven’t looked into the source of their addictive behavior, maybe are still engaged in the same, destructive behaviors, maybe still as mean and nasty as they were when they were drunk. Old wine in old wineskins, as Jesus might have described them. This is not new life.
So God says to Ezekiel, "‘Prophesy to the breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.’ I prophesied as he had commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived and stood on their feet, a vast multitude." JRR Tolkein’s "Return of the King" and the rising of the army of the damned may have gotten its inspiration here.
We often speak of Pentecost as the birthday of the church, but we shouldn’t be too quick to break out the balloons and birthday cake. Births are always messy and are also perilously close to deaths, there on the threshold of life and death. It was a "violent" or "mighty" wind that swept through the upper room, remember, a sound like a freight train filling the entire place, and then tongues of fire alighted on each one of them. Rudolph Otto wrote of the experience of the Holy as the mysterium tremendum–meaning just as it sounds–"the tremendous mystery," full of both awe and dread. "The Good News is real change," as Suzanne Guthrie writes, "and change is dangerous, and often not received well." [At the Edge of the Enclosure, 5/24/15] We may or may not want to get an invitation to this birthday party.
Surely we are in just such a time in the church today, not only here at Second Congrega-tional, but in the church at large–on the threshold of death, as the Pew Survey reports fewer and fewer people aligning themselves with any religion–but also on the threshold of new birth, a birth into new forms, new ways of communicating, speaking to a new age. Still, as Bruce Maples warns, we need to beware of becoming "dry Christians," or a "dry church," similar to a dry drunk. We may spruce up our buildings, come up with new ways and styles of worship, maybe a new target audience, get a new, hip, young pastor, but if we are not filled with the breath of life, filled with God’s Holy Spirit, we are like that valley of dry bones and sinews and skin, without breath or soul. [Bruce Maples, brucewriter.com, 5/18/15]
"All of them [gathered in that upper room] were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability. Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. Amazed and astonished, they asked, ‘Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language?"
Like some kind of universal translator, the Holy Spirit spoke to each one gathered from all over the world, maybe even from different times, as the Medes, which are mentioned in that long list of nationalities, were an ancient Persian people. Despite our relative isolation up here in Vermont, we are connected to no less a dizzying variety of people from all over the world, through the earth’s nervous system which we call the internet, plus images on television screens, even images from space. So many languages, so many cultures, such a variety of colors, shapes, sizes, people just being born, some people as old as 115. How do even begin to imagine speaking to–but more than that–communicating with all those people? What about the rich variety of people right here in our community–natives and flatlanders, little children, teenagers, college students, young adults, families, singles, gay and straight and everywhere else along the continuum of sexuality, newly retired folks, people whose working days are long behind them, people with comfortable lives, people who struggle to get by everyday. How can we possibly communicate the Good News of God’s love for them and all people, unless it is God’s Spirit which indeed works and communicates through us?
Mark Nepo writes in the introduction to his book,
I was having lunch with Olasope Oyelaran, a linguist from Nigeria. As we talked, he brought languages alive like tropical plants and spoke of them as rooted things that sprout and reach in all directions for the light. He marveled that there are seven thousand living languages on Earth. And these are only the ones we know of. The music of his African voice flowed beneath his overtones of English. Listening to him affirmed the things that come before us and which, thankfully, outlast us.
That night, as I settled under the covers, with the lights out, I heard our yellow Lab breathe as the wind announced the stars. There, in the silence that’s never quite silent, I realized that, if there are at least seven thousand ways to speak, there are least seven thousand ways to listen. And just how few we know. [Nepo, Seven Thousand Ways to Listen, p. viii.]
Seven thousand ways to listen. Phyllis Tickle, who came up with the image of the every-, 500-year rummage sale that the church goes through, says that there are important things to learn from the folks who responded to the Pew Survey that they did not consider themselves either spiritual or religious. In an article written shortly after she revealed that at age 81 she has been diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer, Phyllis is still hopeful and curious--
"Christianity isn’t going to die!" she exclaims, almost offended at the suggestion. "It just birthed out a new tributary to the river."
"Christianity is reconfiguring," she says. "It’s almost going through another adolescence. And it’s going to come out a better, more mature adult. There’s no question about that."
For Tickle, the most interesting cohort in the survey is not the usual "spiritual but not religious," but the "neither spiritual nor religious" who get "lost in the shuffle" but are in fact the key to the future of faith.
"There is an honesty in their conversation and self-understanding that, it seems to me, makes them much more open to conversation and analysis and perhaps, ultimately, to persuasion than is true for other groups...I may be wrong, but I am, as I say, fascinated." [Religious News Service, May 22, 2015, David Gibson]
We may not be able to speak the language of folks of another nationality or even another generation, but we can listen–there are 7000 ways to listen. "Amazed and astonished, they asked, ‘Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language?’" Christianity is no longer the native language of our culture, if it ever was.
There are many other languages being spoken. We must learn to listen and let the Spirit give us the ability to speak.
The story of that first Pentecost was not only a story of invitation and inclusion, it was a story of a group of Galileans, "rubes," country folk, being drawn out of their comfort zone, discovering gifts and strengths that they, in their wildest dreams, never thought they had, and who were expected to dream dreams and prophesy! Recalling the prophet Joel, Peter said to the crowd gathered that day,
"In those days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and you sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young people shall see visions, and your old people shall dream dreams. Even upon slaves, both men and women, in those days I will pour out my Spirit, and they shall prophesy."
Into the new world after Jesus had been crucified, out of the valley of dry bones and exile, into the new reality and challenges of our day, God’s Holy Spirit is still blowing, moving, sweeping, setting on fire, enabling us to speak–and listen-- in as many ways as there are languages, to touch lives, to warm hearts, to give hope, to bring justice, to care for one another, to find the lost and the lonely, to be Christ’s Body in the world.
May this blessing from UCC pastor Mark Suriano speak to your heart and set our dreams on fire–
"On Pentecost, may you find your heart singing with the Spirit of God, your ears humming with the voice of the Spirit speaking in a language that reaches deep into your soul, and wisdom dawning on your mind so that the shackles that [may] have hardened around your mind may be broken, and God’s voice and language set free. May our church community experience the coming of God’s Spirit, anticipate it with joy and hope, give in to it with love, so that when the day is done, all the world may know the love of God because of you."
May it be so. Amen.
Rev. Mary H. Lee-Clark
"When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability."
Or what about that other disruptive, unsettling whirlwind of the Holy Spirit, terrifying to see and hear, where the prophet Ezekiel found himself standing in the valley of dry bones. "And there were very many [bones]lying in the valley, and they were very dry." God tells Ezekiel to prophesy to the bones, "and so I prophesied as I had been commanded; and as I prophesied, suddenly there was a noise, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone. I looked, and there were sinews on them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them; but there was no breath in them."
But this coming together of lifeless skin and bones and sinews is only part of the story. These bones and sinews and skin which had come together were speaking no languages; they had no breath in them. They looked like people, but really they were more like zombies. Not really alive. Bruce Maples suggests they were like a "dry drunk"–someone who has stopped consuming their drug of choice, but hasn’t done anything else about their recovery–haven’t looked into the source of their addictive behavior, maybe are still engaged in the same, destructive behaviors, maybe still as mean and nasty as they were when they were drunk. Old wine in old wineskins, as Jesus might have described them. This is not new life.
So God says to Ezekiel, "‘Prophesy to the breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.’ I prophesied as he had commanded me, and the breath came into them, and they lived and stood on their feet, a vast multitude." JRR Tolkein’s "Return of the King" and the rising of the army of the damned may have gotten its inspiration here.
We often speak of Pentecost as the birthday of the church, but we shouldn’t be too quick to break out the balloons and birthday cake. Births are always messy and are also perilously close to deaths, there on the threshold of life and death. It was a "violent" or "mighty" wind that swept through the upper room, remember, a sound like a freight train filling the entire place, and then tongues of fire alighted on each one of them. Rudolph Otto wrote of the experience of the Holy as the mysterium tremendum–meaning just as it sounds–"the tremendous mystery," full of both awe and dread. "The Good News is real change," as Suzanne Guthrie writes, "and change is dangerous, and often not received well." [At the Edge of the Enclosure, 5/24/15] We may or may not want to get an invitation to this birthday party.
Surely we are in just such a time in the church today, not only here at Second Congrega-tional, but in the church at large–on the threshold of death, as the Pew Survey reports fewer and fewer people aligning themselves with any religion–but also on the threshold of new birth, a birth into new forms, new ways of communicating, speaking to a new age. Still, as Bruce Maples warns, we need to beware of becoming "dry Christians," or a "dry church," similar to a dry drunk. We may spruce up our buildings, come up with new ways and styles of worship, maybe a new target audience, get a new, hip, young pastor, but if we are not filled with the breath of life, filled with God’s Holy Spirit, we are like that valley of dry bones and sinews and skin, without breath or soul. [Bruce Maples, brucewriter.com, 5/18/15]
"All of them [gathered in that upper room] were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability. Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. Amazed and astonished, they asked, ‘Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language?"
Like some kind of universal translator, the Holy Spirit spoke to each one gathered from all over the world, maybe even from different times, as the Medes, which are mentioned in that long list of nationalities, were an ancient Persian people. Despite our relative isolation up here in Vermont, we are connected to no less a dizzying variety of people from all over the world, through the earth’s nervous system which we call the internet, plus images on television screens, even images from space. So many languages, so many cultures, such a variety of colors, shapes, sizes, people just being born, some people as old as 115. How do even begin to imagine speaking to–but more than that–communicating with all those people? What about the rich variety of people right here in our community–natives and flatlanders, little children, teenagers, college students, young adults, families, singles, gay and straight and everywhere else along the continuum of sexuality, newly retired folks, people whose working days are long behind them, people with comfortable lives, people who struggle to get by everyday. How can we possibly communicate the Good News of God’s love for them and all people, unless it is God’s Spirit which indeed works and communicates through us?
Mark Nepo writes in the introduction to his book,
I was having lunch with Olasope Oyelaran, a linguist from Nigeria. As we talked, he brought languages alive like tropical plants and spoke of them as rooted things that sprout and reach in all directions for the light. He marveled that there are seven thousand living languages on Earth. And these are only the ones we know of. The music of his African voice flowed beneath his overtones of English. Listening to him affirmed the things that come before us and which, thankfully, outlast us.
That night, as I settled under the covers, with the lights out, I heard our yellow Lab breathe as the wind announced the stars. There, in the silence that’s never quite silent, I realized that, if there are at least seven thousand ways to speak, there are least seven thousand ways to listen. And just how few we know. [Nepo, Seven Thousand Ways to Listen, p. viii.]
Seven thousand ways to listen. Phyllis Tickle, who came up with the image of the every-, 500-year rummage sale that the church goes through, says that there are important things to learn from the folks who responded to the Pew Survey that they did not consider themselves either spiritual or religious. In an article written shortly after she revealed that at age 81 she has been diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer, Phyllis is still hopeful and curious--
"Christianity isn’t going to die!" she exclaims, almost offended at the suggestion. "It just birthed out a new tributary to the river."
"Christianity is reconfiguring," she says. "It’s almost going through another adolescence. And it’s going to come out a better, more mature adult. There’s no question about that."
For Tickle, the most interesting cohort in the survey is not the usual "spiritual but not religious," but the "neither spiritual nor religious" who get "lost in the shuffle" but are in fact the key to the future of faith.
"There is an honesty in their conversation and self-understanding that, it seems to me, makes them much more open to conversation and analysis and perhaps, ultimately, to persuasion than is true for other groups...I may be wrong, but I am, as I say, fascinated." [Religious News Service, May 22, 2015, David Gibson]
We may not be able to speak the language of folks of another nationality or even another generation, but we can listen–there are 7000 ways to listen. "Amazed and astonished, they asked, ‘Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language?’" Christianity is no longer the native language of our culture, if it ever was.
There are many other languages being spoken. We must learn to listen and let the Spirit give us the ability to speak.
The story of that first Pentecost was not only a story of invitation and inclusion, it was a story of a group of Galileans, "rubes," country folk, being drawn out of their comfort zone, discovering gifts and strengths that they, in their wildest dreams, never thought they had, and who were expected to dream dreams and prophesy! Recalling the prophet Joel, Peter said to the crowd gathered that day,
"In those days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and you sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young people shall see visions, and your old people shall dream dreams. Even upon slaves, both men and women, in those days I will pour out my Spirit, and they shall prophesy."
Into the new world after Jesus had been crucified, out of the valley of dry bones and exile, into the new reality and challenges of our day, God’s Holy Spirit is still blowing, moving, sweeping, setting on fire, enabling us to speak–and listen-- in as many ways as there are languages, to touch lives, to warm hearts, to give hope, to bring justice, to care for one another, to find the lost and the lonely, to be Christ’s Body in the world.
May this blessing from UCC pastor Mark Suriano speak to your heart and set our dreams on fire–
"On Pentecost, may you find your heart singing with the Spirit of God, your ears humming with the voice of the Spirit speaking in a language that reaches deep into your soul, and wisdom dawning on your mind so that the shackles that [may] have hardened around your mind may be broken, and God’s voice and language set free. May our church community experience the coming of God’s Spirit, anticipate it with joy and hope, give in to it with love, so that when the day is done, all the world may know the love of God because of you."
May it be so. Amen.
Rev. Mary H. Lee-Clark
Coming up
Sunday September 6: Worship with Communion at 10am. Nursery care is provided. Social hour with refreshments afterwards.
5 pm Sunday Supper
******************************************
BIRTHDAYS AND CELEBRATIONS: August 31 - Robert and Nancy Osgood's 52nd anniversary
September 1 - Edna Prouty, 87, Thomas Saunders, 9
September 2 - Heather McManigle
September 5 - Mickey Marchetti, 15; Bonnie Holden
******************************************
Sunday September 13 - Rally Day! Bring your vials of water that you collected over the summer from waters near and far. KIds are invited to bring their school backpacks for a Blessing of the Backpacks. Godly Play and Middle-High school class begin.
******************************************
Back to school items are now on sale. Items needed for CSW schools bags:
12 inch rulers
Boxes of 24 crayons
blunt scissors
hand-held pencil sharpeners
Or make a donation to Pat Lafontaine and she will do the shopping.
******************************************
Mon, Wed and Fri, 9:30am – 35 minute DVD-led exercise with group in Room 6 or 2
******************************************
SEARCH COMMITTEE:
During worship on July 26, the congregation commissioned, and gave its blessing to, the Search committee that will soon begin the crucial process of seeking our next pastor. They are a group of talented individuals who bring a range of experience and perspectives to the search. They have made a major commitment; we can assist them by communicating who we are as a church and what we hope to become, and by respecting their adherence to confidentiality. Here they are with a short item about each:
Ernie LaFontaine: led Re-thinking Church initiative
Bruce Smith: Vice-moderator
Kathy Shaw: active in Earth Advocates
Bonnie Holden: faithful member of the choir
Nora Parsons: former moderator, deacon, trustee, youth leader
Barbara True-Weber: whose passion led to the Earth Advocates
George Sohn: helped initiate Sunday suppers
Lisa Plummer: mother of Emma and Erica
Eric Webster: former Moderator and ONA member
******************************************
Adopt a room at Thatcher House. The Bennington County Coalition for the Homeless invites faith communities to adopt a room at the transitional living facility at Thatcher House pm Pleasant St. This involves making sure the room is painted and cleaned and welcoming to incoming families, as well as providing furnishings and household items for the family. If this is something you’d like to be involved with, please speak to Bruce Lee-Clark.
******************************************
Support Habitat for Humanity: Donate $5 and have one chance to win a handmade quilt which SCC helped make (or 5 tickets for $20) See Nancy Jean or Rebekah for tickets
****************************************
The choir needs a Metronome needed for music practice.
******************************************
Church library is now in Room 2, Education Wing
******************************************
Members of our church made, collected and assembled 309 School Kits, 107 Hygiene Kits and 41 Baby Kits. These weighed 886 lbs. and have a money value of $ 6976 and processing fees of $ 914. A mammoth job well done! The Church World Service truck picked up the kits, to start them on their journey to those in need.
5 pm Sunday Supper
******************************************
BIRTHDAYS AND CELEBRATIONS: August 31 - Robert and Nancy Osgood's 52nd anniversary
September 1 - Edna Prouty, 87, Thomas Saunders, 9
September 2 - Heather McManigle
September 5 - Mickey Marchetti, 15; Bonnie Holden
******************************************
Sunday September 13 - Rally Day! Bring your vials of water that you collected over the summer from waters near and far. KIds are invited to bring their school backpacks for a Blessing of the Backpacks. Godly Play and Middle-High school class begin.
******************************************
Back to school items are now on sale. Items needed for CSW schools bags:
12 inch rulers
Boxes of 24 crayons
blunt scissors
hand-held pencil sharpeners
Or make a donation to Pat Lafontaine and she will do the shopping.
******************************************
Mon, Wed and Fri, 9:30am – 35 minute DVD-led exercise with group in Room 6 or 2
******************************************
SEARCH COMMITTEE:
During worship on July 26, the congregation commissioned, and gave its blessing to, the Search committee that will soon begin the crucial process of seeking our next pastor. They are a group of talented individuals who bring a range of experience and perspectives to the search. They have made a major commitment; we can assist them by communicating who we are as a church and what we hope to become, and by respecting their adherence to confidentiality. Here they are with a short item about each:
Ernie LaFontaine: led Re-thinking Church initiative
Bruce Smith: Vice-moderator
Kathy Shaw: active in Earth Advocates
Bonnie Holden: faithful member of the choir
Nora Parsons: former moderator, deacon, trustee, youth leader
Barbara True-Weber: whose passion led to the Earth Advocates
George Sohn: helped initiate Sunday suppers
Lisa Plummer: mother of Emma and Erica
Eric Webster: former Moderator and ONA member
******************************************
Adopt a room at Thatcher House. The Bennington County Coalition for the Homeless invites faith communities to adopt a room at the transitional living facility at Thatcher House pm Pleasant St. This involves making sure the room is painted and cleaned and welcoming to incoming families, as well as providing furnishings and household items for the family. If this is something you’d like to be involved with, please speak to Bruce Lee-Clark.
******************************************
Support Habitat for Humanity: Donate $5 and have one chance to win a handmade quilt which SCC helped make (or 5 tickets for $20) See Nancy Jean or Rebekah for tickets
****************************************
The choir needs a Metronome needed for music practice.
******************************************
Church library is now in Room 2, Education Wing
******************************************
Members of our church made, collected and assembled 309 School Kits, 107 Hygiene Kits and 41 Baby Kits. These weighed 886 lbs. and have a money value of $ 6976 and processing fees of $ 914. A mammoth job well done! The Church World Service truck picked up the kits, to start them on their journey to those in need.
"Letting Go"-- Acts 1:1-11, John 17: 6-19-- May 17, 2015
"In progressive churches like ours," my friend Mike Piazza writes, "we don’t feel compelled to take these stories [like the Ascension of Jesus] literally, though we do try to take them seriously." (Facebook post, 5/15/15] To take this story literally requires that we adopt the triple-deckered view of the universe of the ancient world, with heaven at the top, hell or the place of the dead at the bottom, and earth where we live our lives in the middle. There was only one "up," because it was also a flat earth, which except for some climate change deniers and a few others, nobody much believes today.
"Of course," Mike writes, "even a cursory glance at a globe tells us that ‘up’ for Jesus is a very different direction from ‘up’ for those of us living on the other side of the world." If we were to be taken "up"–to "blast off" as Jesus did in this story, we’d end up in a different place than he did....which calls into question what it means to "go and be with Jesus."
You see how silly it becomes, but this up and down language has crept into our current language and even our psyches. We talk about "the Man upstairs" or going "down there." "The problem is that part of us knows what isn’t true," [Piazza] which just adds to our discomfort about talking about any of this stuff, especially publicly. "Up there," we know, are the stars and galaxies and black holes. "Down there" is a molten rock center. So where and how does God fit into all this and what do we do with this story of the Ascension of Jesus?
One commentator suggests that the Ascension is much more of a church question than it is a Jesus question. [Texts for Preaching, year A] In telling the story of Jesus, including his death and resurrection and his appearances after that to his friends and followers, what were the early followers to say when people asked, "So where did he go after he had breakfast on the beach with you?" As any good mystery writer knows, there is the challenge of addressing the question, what do we do with the body?
Neither Matthew nor John feel compelled to solve that mystery. Matthew simply has Jesus tell his followers that he will be with them always, to the end of time, and John ends his gospel with Peter and Jesus and the beloved disciple, presumably John, walking on the beach, and the writer saying that Jesus did so many more things that the whole world couldn’t contain the books telling of them. Mark’s gospel originally ended with the women running away from the tomb, terrified and telling no one, which was totally unsatisfactory to those who came after; so an additional ending was written in, which included a hasty report that after speaking to his disciples, Jesus was taken up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God.
It is only Luke who makes a big deal of the ascension, ending his gospel, part 1, with Jesus’ withdrawing and being taken up, and then beginning his gospel, part 2 [the Book of Acts] with a different story of Jesus being taken up in a cloud, out of their sight. "Men of Galilee," the two men in white robes suddenly standing beside them ask, "why do you stand looking up toward heaven?"
Luke writes the book of Acts to make clear that following Jesus is not just a spectator sport. We don’t get to be merely "admirers of Jesus, and in our better moments inspired to imitate him," as Eugene Peterson writes in his introduction to Acts,[The Message] The book of Acts tells the story of how Jesus’ followers–as clueless and fickle and cowardly as any of us–became so energized and filled with what only could be called the same Spirit and Power of God that was in Jesus, that they literally changed the world. We who gather here this morning are living testimony to that.
Ascension Day is sometimes celebrated with a release of balloons or a flock of doves, which is dramatic and often beautiful, but we run the risk of being like those early disciples whom the angels asked, "Why do you stand looking up toward heaven?" Whether Jesus was taken bodily up into the clouds, or whether he descended into our collective unconscious, as Walter Wink suggested, or whether he went to be "with God," which is the point of the Ascension story, or whether he still walks the earth in an infinite variety of disguises, it is clear that all of these meanings require that we "let go" of Jesus, let go of the time- and body-bound Jesus, let go of our limited understandings of him, our presumptions that we an know all about him, let go even of thinking of thinkiong we have to be "like him." Each of us has to live the life given to us, in our own unique fashion, though shaped and informed by the life of Jesus of Nazareth, embodying his spirit in individual and collective ways. We are still in "this world," which God continues to love. "God loved the world so much that God sent the Son," we remember from John 3:16, but God continues to love the world and sends us to convey and incarnate that love. "I do not ask you to take them out of this world," Jesus prayed in that great final prayer in John’s Gospel," but I ask you to protect them from evil."
You may have heard of –or even read--the apocalyptic novels by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins entitled, "Left Behind" – all about what happens after God has "raptured" the true believers out of the world. Episcopal priest Mark Davis has entitled his weekly blog and translation of the gospel text of the week, "Left Behind...and Loving It." We are those who, indeed, are left behind after Jesus’ first coming,–after he went to be with God-- and so we are the ones now through whom God so loves the world.
But there are things we need to "leave behind" too, things we need to let go of. So many of Jesus’ stories were about letting go–selling all that you have to give to the poor, as he told the rich young ruler; finding the pearl of great price worth everything you have; leaving the oxen untried, the investment not examined, even leaving the dead to bury the dead when the invitation to the wedding feast is issued. Jesus’ death on the cross, of course, was the ultimate "letting go," the ultimate self-emptying. "Whoever loses their life for my sake will find it," Jesus had said, and in this ultimate losing of life on the cross, he opened up to the ultimate finding of it in resurrection life.
"There’s really no other way to do this [writes Nancy Rockwell]: to rise into eternal life, to transcend the limits of mortality, to move forward into time, beyond time-- than to let go." [Bite in the Apple, 5/10/15] Over and over, as I have talked with folks who know they are close to the time of dying, it is not so much the letting go of the physical body that is hard–in fact, for many, that feels like a relief; but it is the letting go of the presence of loved ones that is difficult. And so, how often do we hear of someone holding on to life until all the necessary good-byes have been said, the estranged son or daughter has come to the bedside, all the grandchildren have been present one more time. Or, just as often, the letting go happens when the loved ones have given their assurances that, however difficult, they are willing to let go, they will not hold their loved one back.
The story of the Ascension of Jesus is a story of letting go–letting go of limiting the power and presence of God to one man or one way of being Church, letting go once again of our old notions of endings. They had "lost" Jesus once, those first, close friends of his thought, when he died on the cross, and then, Good God, he was alive once more in their midst, in a new way; and now another kind of ending or death, an ending of his being with them in that resurrection body. "And they know [now, as Nancy Rockwell writes] that, when an ending comes, along will come a new beginning. Nothing is final. Yet, nothing will ever be the same again, either." [ibid.]
Jesus has gone to be with God–that unity which he experienced so clearly in life–"I and the Father are one"–that unity is even deeper now. For those first companions and followers, their experiences of the Divine took on the face and likeness of Jesus. He was still with them, but in a new way. Nothing would ever be the same again, either. So it is when a loved one dies. They too have gone to be with God, and sometimes when we experience God’s presence, it is with that loved one’s face.
"Let it go." How interesting that that’s the song from the Disney movie "Frozen" which has been sung over and over by little kids and pre-teens until their parents can’t stand to hear it anymore... except that with some distance even adults can affirm its theme of letting go of others’ expectations that limit and hinder your own gifts and potential to spring forth. "Let it go." What is ti that you need to let go of? An old self-image? A grudge or bitterness? A notion of what would make you happy? A past that will never come again? A prejudice or fear that keeps you from experiencing new people, new ways of being?
"In the end, only three things matter," the Buddha said. "How much you loved, how gently you lived, and how gracefully you let go of the things not meant for you." Surely those words are in the same stream of wisdom as Jesus’ teaching, including "into your hands I commit my spirit..." "Let it go." It is the stream of mercy and love that carries all of us and our loved ones and all of creation, for that matter, so that indeed, Jesus’ prayer – "that they may all be one" – will be fulfilled as we let go into God. Unclench your fists. Open your hand so that God may take you forward.
May it be so. Amen.
Rev. Mary H. Lee-Clark
"Of course," Mike writes, "even a cursory glance at a globe tells us that ‘up’ for Jesus is a very different direction from ‘up’ for those of us living on the other side of the world." If we were to be taken "up"–to "blast off" as Jesus did in this story, we’d end up in a different place than he did....which calls into question what it means to "go and be with Jesus."
You see how silly it becomes, but this up and down language has crept into our current language and even our psyches. We talk about "the Man upstairs" or going "down there." "The problem is that part of us knows what isn’t true," [Piazza] which just adds to our discomfort about talking about any of this stuff, especially publicly. "Up there," we know, are the stars and galaxies and black holes. "Down there" is a molten rock center. So where and how does God fit into all this and what do we do with this story of the Ascension of Jesus?
One commentator suggests that the Ascension is much more of a church question than it is a Jesus question. [Texts for Preaching, year A] In telling the story of Jesus, including his death and resurrection and his appearances after that to his friends and followers, what were the early followers to say when people asked, "So where did he go after he had breakfast on the beach with you?" As any good mystery writer knows, there is the challenge of addressing the question, what do we do with the body?
Neither Matthew nor John feel compelled to solve that mystery. Matthew simply has Jesus tell his followers that he will be with them always, to the end of time, and John ends his gospel with Peter and Jesus and the beloved disciple, presumably John, walking on the beach, and the writer saying that Jesus did so many more things that the whole world couldn’t contain the books telling of them. Mark’s gospel originally ended with the women running away from the tomb, terrified and telling no one, which was totally unsatisfactory to those who came after; so an additional ending was written in, which included a hasty report that after speaking to his disciples, Jesus was taken up into heaven and sat down at the right hand of God.
It is only Luke who makes a big deal of the ascension, ending his gospel, part 1, with Jesus’ withdrawing and being taken up, and then beginning his gospel, part 2 [the Book of Acts] with a different story of Jesus being taken up in a cloud, out of their sight. "Men of Galilee," the two men in white robes suddenly standing beside them ask, "why do you stand looking up toward heaven?"
Luke writes the book of Acts to make clear that following Jesus is not just a spectator sport. We don’t get to be merely "admirers of Jesus, and in our better moments inspired to imitate him," as Eugene Peterson writes in his introduction to Acts,[The Message] The book of Acts tells the story of how Jesus’ followers–as clueless and fickle and cowardly as any of us–became so energized and filled with what only could be called the same Spirit and Power of God that was in Jesus, that they literally changed the world. We who gather here this morning are living testimony to that.
Ascension Day is sometimes celebrated with a release of balloons or a flock of doves, which is dramatic and often beautiful, but we run the risk of being like those early disciples whom the angels asked, "Why do you stand looking up toward heaven?" Whether Jesus was taken bodily up into the clouds, or whether he descended into our collective unconscious, as Walter Wink suggested, or whether he went to be "with God," which is the point of the Ascension story, or whether he still walks the earth in an infinite variety of disguises, it is clear that all of these meanings require that we "let go" of Jesus, let go of the time- and body-bound Jesus, let go of our limited understandings of him, our presumptions that we an know all about him, let go even of thinking of thinkiong we have to be "like him." Each of us has to live the life given to us, in our own unique fashion, though shaped and informed by the life of Jesus of Nazareth, embodying his spirit in individual and collective ways. We are still in "this world," which God continues to love. "God loved the world so much that God sent the Son," we remember from John 3:16, but God continues to love the world and sends us to convey and incarnate that love. "I do not ask you to take them out of this world," Jesus prayed in that great final prayer in John’s Gospel," but I ask you to protect them from evil."
You may have heard of –or even read--the apocalyptic novels by Tim LaHaye and Jerry Jenkins entitled, "Left Behind" – all about what happens after God has "raptured" the true believers out of the world. Episcopal priest Mark Davis has entitled his weekly blog and translation of the gospel text of the week, "Left Behind...and Loving It." We are those who, indeed, are left behind after Jesus’ first coming,–after he went to be with God-- and so we are the ones now through whom God so loves the world.
But there are things we need to "leave behind" too, things we need to let go of. So many of Jesus’ stories were about letting go–selling all that you have to give to the poor, as he told the rich young ruler; finding the pearl of great price worth everything you have; leaving the oxen untried, the investment not examined, even leaving the dead to bury the dead when the invitation to the wedding feast is issued. Jesus’ death on the cross, of course, was the ultimate "letting go," the ultimate self-emptying. "Whoever loses their life for my sake will find it," Jesus had said, and in this ultimate losing of life on the cross, he opened up to the ultimate finding of it in resurrection life.
"There’s really no other way to do this [writes Nancy Rockwell]: to rise into eternal life, to transcend the limits of mortality, to move forward into time, beyond time-- than to let go." [Bite in the Apple, 5/10/15] Over and over, as I have talked with folks who know they are close to the time of dying, it is not so much the letting go of the physical body that is hard–in fact, for many, that feels like a relief; but it is the letting go of the presence of loved ones that is difficult. And so, how often do we hear of someone holding on to life until all the necessary good-byes have been said, the estranged son or daughter has come to the bedside, all the grandchildren have been present one more time. Or, just as often, the letting go happens when the loved ones have given their assurances that, however difficult, they are willing to let go, they will not hold their loved one back.
The story of the Ascension of Jesus is a story of letting go–letting go of limiting the power and presence of God to one man or one way of being Church, letting go once again of our old notions of endings. They had "lost" Jesus once, those first, close friends of his thought, when he died on the cross, and then, Good God, he was alive once more in their midst, in a new way; and now another kind of ending or death, an ending of his being with them in that resurrection body. "And they know [now, as Nancy Rockwell writes] that, when an ending comes, along will come a new beginning. Nothing is final. Yet, nothing will ever be the same again, either." [ibid.]
Jesus has gone to be with God–that unity which he experienced so clearly in life–"I and the Father are one"–that unity is even deeper now. For those first companions and followers, their experiences of the Divine took on the face and likeness of Jesus. He was still with them, but in a new way. Nothing would ever be the same again, either. So it is when a loved one dies. They too have gone to be with God, and sometimes when we experience God’s presence, it is with that loved one’s face.
"Let it go." How interesting that that’s the song from the Disney movie "Frozen" which has been sung over and over by little kids and pre-teens until their parents can’t stand to hear it anymore... except that with some distance even adults can affirm its theme of letting go of others’ expectations that limit and hinder your own gifts and potential to spring forth. "Let it go." What is ti that you need to let go of? An old self-image? A grudge or bitterness? A notion of what would make you happy? A past that will never come again? A prejudice or fear that keeps you from experiencing new people, new ways of being?
"In the end, only three things matter," the Buddha said. "How much you loved, how gently you lived, and how gracefully you let go of the things not meant for you." Surely those words are in the same stream of wisdom as Jesus’ teaching, including "into your hands I commit my spirit..." "Let it go." It is the stream of mercy and love that carries all of us and our loved ones and all of creation, for that matter, so that indeed, Jesus’ prayer – "that they may all be one" – will be fulfilled as we let go into God. Unclench your fists. Open your hand so that God may take you forward.
May it be so. Amen.
Rev. Mary H. Lee-Clark
"At Home in the House of Joy"-- John 15:9-17-- May 10, 2015
A dear friend told me that he experienced our worship as one long season of Lent. I think he may even have used the word "dreary." As you may guess, that was not exactly the tone I have been aiming for. At first, I was heart-broken. Then, with a little distance and a reminder from a friend in my Positive Psychology support group, I have been able to recognize this friend as what Emerson called, "a beautiful enemy." "In a friend," Emerson wrote, "I’m not looking for a mush of concession, a person who will agree with everything I say. Rather, I’m looking for a person who will be a beautiful enemy, a person who will challenge me, help me in my appren-ticeship to the truth."
"A billion sermons have been focused on Jesus’ love," Mark Davis writes, but "I would guess few persons have ever heard a sermon on Jesus’ joy." [Left Behind and Loving It, 5/10/15]
So, forget about the beef–Where’s the joy? What about Jesus’ joy?
"As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you," Jesus said. "Abide in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s command-ments and abide in his love. Abide in–make your home in–my love. I have said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete."
Now, keeping commandments hardly sounds like a recipe for joy. It conjures up, rather, images of somber forebearers making sure no one danced, played cards, sang the wrong kind of songs, drank alcohol, swore, smoked, laughed too loud, or had too much of a good time. It still is many people’s image of the church. "One long, dreary season of Lent."
But what are these "commandments" that Jesus says he received and kept from his Father, from God? Just one–love one another. Love is the commandment. Love is the sea we are to swim in. Love is the home we are to live in. Love is the air we are to breathe, so that Jesus’ joy may be in us and our joy may be complete. This living in relationship to him and each other – like a vine and its branches --is the path to true joy, not out of a dreary sense of obligation or self-denial, but out of an abundance and a fullness that overflows.
"No one has greater love than this," Jesus said, "than to lay down one’s life–one’s psyche, one’s breath, one’s soul–for one’s friends. You are my friends..." Again, who of us can–or even wants to–lay down our lives even for our friends the way Jesus did? Are we not back to this never-ending season of Lent, leading up to the crucifixion?
Of course, there are experiences of physically laying down one’s life for one’s friends. A Vietnam vet tells of his experience of literally risking his life for his friends, knowing they would and did the same thing for him, and in the midst of death he never felt more alive. When he returned to the States, he could hardly stand the lack of commitment of anyone to do anything for someone else–oh, if I’ve got time, I’m really busy you know. Or oh right, I forgot. That kind of attitude could get you killed in Vietnam –or Iraq or Afghanistan; and, for this vet, that kind of attitude was just as life-threatening back home. It took the fullness and power out of life, the breath, the spirit. It’s a story told by vets and aid workers and people who literally put their lives on the line for others all the time. We spend too much of our lives "phoning it in," living on auto-pilot, in a lukewarm mush. "No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends."
But there are many ways to lay down one’s life, to give of oneself, before that final "laying down of our lives" in death. A mother waits up for a child to come home. A teacher stays long after the school day has ended to work with a student. A business owner goes out of her way to make sure her customer receives exactly what he needs. A teen gives up a chance to go to the mall to rake up the leaves of an elderly neighbor. A child gives a favorite toy to a sick friend to keep him company. "No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends."
Process theologian John Cobb writes, "In the ancient world, friendship implied deep mutual commitment. Friends were materially committed, they shared a common purpose. According to Aristotle, friends sacrificed themselves for one another, even to the point of death." [Process and Faith, 5/10/15] "I do not call you servants," Jesus said, "but friends."
The thing about the friendship that Jesus talks about in John’s gospel "is that it centers in mutual abiding among God, Jesus, and the disciples," and, by extension through the presence of the Holy Spirit, among us. The late Henri Nouwen said, "The mystery of ministry[–our life and serve together–] is that we have been chosen to make our own limited and very conditional love the gateway for the unlimited and unconditional love of God." [cited by Kate Huey in sermonseeds, 5/10/15]
This "other-centered, belonging-to-something-greater-than-yourself love" [Kate Huey, op cit.] is what our worship and our outreach and our life together are about, or should be. There is joy in discovering that when we connect to another person, even someone we had thought was very different from ourselves, that they and we are actually part of that "something-greater-than-yourself." Our notion of ourselves expands. This "is not a sacrifice," as Bruce Epperly writes, "but an expansion and growing of our authentic selfhood. Our willingness to go beyond self-interest opens us to the larger selfhood of Christ, whose love identifies with all creation." [Adventurous Lectionary, 5/10/15]
This joy–is there not joy in that?-- is the joy Jesus was talking about–this sense of discovering that who you are is actually one with the deepest, most essential force in the universe, which connects you to everyone else, in all times and places, and to the whole creation. That most essential force is Love, and even death–which we and our culture act as though it were the most important force in the universe–even death is not stronger than Love, cannot separate us from Love. So without denying the horror of crucifixion and "Good" Friday, without piously dismissing that experience as "Jesus’ joy," we can still affirm the joy that emerged from it on Easter morning, the Love that had gone through that horror and that death; the Love that went to the depths of human depravity, "descended into Hell," as the creed says, and emerged in resurrection power on Easter morning and even to this day.
I had the privilege several years ago of seeing and hearing the Dalai Lama when he came to speak at a conference at Middlebury College. Here was–and is-- a man who has experienced great suffering and sorrow, has seen his homeland overrun and his countrymen/women slaughtered. Yet the joy radiating from the man was palpable. The wattage of his smile was off the charts. Desmond Tutu is the same way, after all the suffering he has witnessed and experienced.
Surely Jesus was that way–a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, but also a man of deep joy. I imagine the joy radiating from him and the wattage of his smile were also part of his "good news."
Surely there is joy in that, deeper than all the suffering and tragedy and cruelty we see everyday; and our worship, I would hope– our music, our prayers, our sermons, the way we interact with one another-- should bring us back to that joy. We are so concerned about being "proper" and reverent, so we’re not sure about clapping or laughing, but how do we experience and express joy? That is the truth that my beautiful enemy challenges me–challenges us–to apprentice ourselves to.
"Abide in me," Jesus said, "make your home in my love." It is the house of joy. So may our joy be complete. Amen, and amen.
Rev. Mary H. Lee-Clark
"Spring Cleanse"- John 15:1-8, 1 John 4:7-21-- May 3, 2015
There was a rumor of spring this week. I’ll admit I’m a little reluctant to believe it’s
really here–I haven’t put away my boots and heavy gloves. My parka is still hanging on the hook near the back door.
But there have been days–like today and yesterday–where you can almost hear the flower beds and gardens calling out to be raked and turned over, when the pruning shears practically leap into your hands to get to work. So the piles of rakings and the dead branches mount up, and our eyes search for green shoots and new blossoms.
"I am the True Vine," Jesus said, "and my Father is the Gardener, the Vine Grower. God removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit God prunes to make it bear more fruit." This is a springtime image, though for Jesus, it was the springtime of his crucifixion. Mere "pruning" was hardly what lay ahead for him–it seemed more like cutting down, destroying. But we do know that with his death–his "pruning"–new life did indeed spring forth, from a place we never expected to see it, and his once-terrified and hidden disciples became the fruit revealed on that vine, able to go out and bloom in a way no one would have expected of that rag tag group of followers.
"You have already been cleansed–or to keep the gardening image–you have already been pruned by the word I have spoken to you," Jesus told his disciples. "The same Greek root refers to pruning and cleansing," a note in my Bible tells me. So we prune our trees and shrubs, we clean our houses, some people undertake a "spring cleanse," drinking only liquids to "cleanse" their bodies of accumulated toxins. My friend Maria Sirois is teaching a course at Kripalu this spring called "Clearing the Clutter: Making Space for Positive Change. "Clutter is more than what crowds your physical environment," the course description says. "It can be found in stress-based thoughts, confusing feelings, and unclear visions that weigh us down. What you choose to remove from your life is as important–if not more important–than what you choose to bring into it."
Surely making space for positive change is what our Next Level process is about. Part of that process will involve getting clear on our vision, sorting out our feelings and thoughts about what our future as a church community will look like. What do we need to let go of? Because we cannot simply ask our new pastor to continue doing everything I’m currently doing plus all the other things we want him or her to do to reach those we are not reaching. "What you choose to remove from your life is as important–if not more important–than what you choose to bring into it."
But in addition to the pruning and cleansing, the removing and the cutting away–what we might think of as the "negative" aspect of this image of the vine–there is the life and the nourishment and the thriving that is involved. "Abide in me as I abide in you," Jesus said. "Make your home in me" is another way of putting it. "I am the vine, you are the branches," he said. "Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing."
Bruce Epperly calls this "spiritual horticulture" [Adventurous Lectionary, 5/3/15] – practices like intentionally staying open to divine energy, cutting out what is non-essential or harmful, seeing the intimate connection with other branches; "clearing the clutter and making space for positive change," as Maria puts it. So, in addition to clarifying our vision, discerning what needs to be let go of so we can take on new initiatives and a new way of being, we must also intentionally stay open to divine energy. Another way of putting that is, we’ve got to pray about this process. What is it that God intends for us as we move into the future? You may or may not be involved in the meetings and plans and financial calculations, but at the very least I beg you to pray about this. Listen for the leadings of God’s Spirit. Bring that wisdom to our life together.
This organic image of the vine and branches is one of complete interchange and flow of energy. We are nourished by God’s love and power and in turn we bear divine fruit. "If you abide in me, and my words abide in you," Jesus said, "ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you." That may be a little misleading for those of us used to instant gratification, with little patience for slower, organic unfolding. Mark Davis offers this translation instead– "Whatever you may resolve, require and it will come into being for you." [Left Behind and Loving It, 4/28/15] This is more than a wish or a hope. This is a thoughtful, considered resolution of what is required. If we are abiding in–making our home in–God and from there resolve something, it will come into being for us, Jesus promises. "Both God and we are agents," David observes, "in a joyous circularity."
Communion is another word for this relationship. "This is my body, this is my blood. Take and eat. Take and drink." In some mysterious, mystical, yet very real way, in the sacrament of communion we take Jesus into our bodies and we become his body, one with all the others who are part of that body, as well as, I believe, the whole world, for whom his body was broken and given. "You can’t be a Christian by yourself," Sara Miles concluded from taking communion, first in a church and then in food pantries all over the city of San Francisco.
In her book, Take This Bread, she describes her first communion–
One early, cloudy morning when I was forty-six, I walked into a church, ate a piece of bread, took a sip of wine. A routine Sunday activity for tens of millions of Americans–except that up until that moment I’d led a thoroughly secular life, at best indifferent to religion, more often appalled by its fundamentalist crusades. This was my first communion. It changed everything.
Eating Jesus, as I did that day to my great astonishment, led me against all my expectations to a faith I’d scorned and work I’d never imagined. The mysterious sacrament turned out to be not a symbolic wafer at all but actual food–indeed, the bread of life. In that shocking moment of communion, filled with a deep desire to reach for and become part of a body, I realized that what I’d been doing with my life all along was what I was meant to do: feed people. And so I did. I took communion, I passed the bread to others, and then I kept going, compelled to find new ways to share what I’d experienced. [p. xi]
Miles, both a professional chef and a war correspondent, shared that astonishing hunger and her desire to feed people by setting up a weekly food pantry around the altar of the Episcopal church she became part of, and when that began to outgrow their space and volunteers, she helped to set up several more pantries and meals out of churches in San Francisco. For her, it was simply an extension of the sacrament of communion.
The hunger was, at root, the same. The former Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, wrote, "It’s really the hungry who can smell fresh bread a mile away. For those who know their need, God is immediate–not an idea, not a theory, but life, food, air for the stifled spirit and the beaten, despised, exploited body." [cited by Miles, op cit., p. 75] Do you know any hungry people? Any stifled spirits or beaten, despised, exploited bodies? Are you one of them? This is the food we have to offer here, and there are so many we’re not reaching–not with our doctrines or theology or our "beliefs," but with the experience of being part of a sacred body and being fed the very bread of life. How can we not move ahead in faith–to go out into our community and bring this food to the hungry, this drink to the thirsty?
"I am the vine and you are the branches," Jesus said. "Make your home in me." How does Jesus "abide" in bread and wine? How is he "really present" in this meal? Countless ecclesiastical arguments and even wars have been fought over this, but I invite you to observe your own experience, as we serve one another in this meal, as we move forward to the bread and cup, or as we pass them along the pew.
Do not shrink from the person beside you, the shoulder ahead of you in procession...[the priest at Sara Miles’ church said in a sermon]...Feel Christ’s body there; feel the shoulders of humanity...God has made these people into Christ’s body for you to caress, to anoint, to comfort, to give and receive and share affections. These people and the human race outside our church doors." [Miles, op cit., p. 113]
"We are leaves of one branch," wrote a French man back in the 19th c. [Jean Baptiste Lacordaire], [we are] drops of one sea, the flowers of one garden." We are members of one body, one loaf, one cup, we are reminded in this meal. Let us keep the feast!
Rev. Mary H. Lee-Clark
really here–I haven’t put away my boots and heavy gloves. My parka is still hanging on the hook near the back door.
But there have been days–like today and yesterday–where you can almost hear the flower beds and gardens calling out to be raked and turned over, when the pruning shears practically leap into your hands to get to work. So the piles of rakings and the dead branches mount up, and our eyes search for green shoots and new blossoms.
"I am the True Vine," Jesus said, "and my Father is the Gardener, the Vine Grower. God removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit God prunes to make it bear more fruit." This is a springtime image, though for Jesus, it was the springtime of his crucifixion. Mere "pruning" was hardly what lay ahead for him–it seemed more like cutting down, destroying. But we do know that with his death–his "pruning"–new life did indeed spring forth, from a place we never expected to see it, and his once-terrified and hidden disciples became the fruit revealed on that vine, able to go out and bloom in a way no one would have expected of that rag tag group of followers.
"You have already been cleansed–or to keep the gardening image–you have already been pruned by the word I have spoken to you," Jesus told his disciples. "The same Greek root refers to pruning and cleansing," a note in my Bible tells me. So we prune our trees and shrubs, we clean our houses, some people undertake a "spring cleanse," drinking only liquids to "cleanse" their bodies of accumulated toxins. My friend Maria Sirois is teaching a course at Kripalu this spring called "Clearing the Clutter: Making Space for Positive Change. "Clutter is more than what crowds your physical environment," the course description says. "It can be found in stress-based thoughts, confusing feelings, and unclear visions that weigh us down. What you choose to remove from your life is as important–if not more important–than what you choose to bring into it."
Surely making space for positive change is what our Next Level process is about. Part of that process will involve getting clear on our vision, sorting out our feelings and thoughts about what our future as a church community will look like. What do we need to let go of? Because we cannot simply ask our new pastor to continue doing everything I’m currently doing plus all the other things we want him or her to do to reach those we are not reaching. "What you choose to remove from your life is as important–if not more important–than what you choose to bring into it."
But in addition to the pruning and cleansing, the removing and the cutting away–what we might think of as the "negative" aspect of this image of the vine–there is the life and the nourishment and the thriving that is involved. "Abide in me as I abide in you," Jesus said. "Make your home in me" is another way of putting it. "I am the vine, you are the branches," he said. "Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing."
Bruce Epperly calls this "spiritual horticulture" [Adventurous Lectionary, 5/3/15] – practices like intentionally staying open to divine energy, cutting out what is non-essential or harmful, seeing the intimate connection with other branches; "clearing the clutter and making space for positive change," as Maria puts it. So, in addition to clarifying our vision, discerning what needs to be let go of so we can take on new initiatives and a new way of being, we must also intentionally stay open to divine energy. Another way of putting that is, we’ve got to pray about this process. What is it that God intends for us as we move into the future? You may or may not be involved in the meetings and plans and financial calculations, but at the very least I beg you to pray about this. Listen for the leadings of God’s Spirit. Bring that wisdom to our life together.
This organic image of the vine and branches is one of complete interchange and flow of energy. We are nourished by God’s love and power and in turn we bear divine fruit. "If you abide in me, and my words abide in you," Jesus said, "ask for whatever you wish, and it will be done for you." That may be a little misleading for those of us used to instant gratification, with little patience for slower, organic unfolding. Mark Davis offers this translation instead– "Whatever you may resolve, require and it will come into being for you." [Left Behind and Loving It, 4/28/15] This is more than a wish or a hope. This is a thoughtful, considered resolution of what is required. If we are abiding in–making our home in–God and from there resolve something, it will come into being for us, Jesus promises. "Both God and we are agents," David observes, "in a joyous circularity."
Communion is another word for this relationship. "This is my body, this is my blood. Take and eat. Take and drink." In some mysterious, mystical, yet very real way, in the sacrament of communion we take Jesus into our bodies and we become his body, one with all the others who are part of that body, as well as, I believe, the whole world, for whom his body was broken and given. "You can’t be a Christian by yourself," Sara Miles concluded from taking communion, first in a church and then in food pantries all over the city of San Francisco.
In her book, Take This Bread, she describes her first communion–
One early, cloudy morning when I was forty-six, I walked into a church, ate a piece of bread, took a sip of wine. A routine Sunday activity for tens of millions of Americans–except that up until that moment I’d led a thoroughly secular life, at best indifferent to religion, more often appalled by its fundamentalist crusades. This was my first communion. It changed everything.
Eating Jesus, as I did that day to my great astonishment, led me against all my expectations to a faith I’d scorned and work I’d never imagined. The mysterious sacrament turned out to be not a symbolic wafer at all but actual food–indeed, the bread of life. In that shocking moment of communion, filled with a deep desire to reach for and become part of a body, I realized that what I’d been doing with my life all along was what I was meant to do: feed people. And so I did. I took communion, I passed the bread to others, and then I kept going, compelled to find new ways to share what I’d experienced. [p. xi]
Miles, both a professional chef and a war correspondent, shared that astonishing hunger and her desire to feed people by setting up a weekly food pantry around the altar of the Episcopal church she became part of, and when that began to outgrow their space and volunteers, she helped to set up several more pantries and meals out of churches in San Francisco. For her, it was simply an extension of the sacrament of communion.
The hunger was, at root, the same. The former Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, wrote, "It’s really the hungry who can smell fresh bread a mile away. For those who know their need, God is immediate–not an idea, not a theory, but life, food, air for the stifled spirit and the beaten, despised, exploited body." [cited by Miles, op cit., p. 75] Do you know any hungry people? Any stifled spirits or beaten, despised, exploited bodies? Are you one of them? This is the food we have to offer here, and there are so many we’re not reaching–not with our doctrines or theology or our "beliefs," but with the experience of being part of a sacred body and being fed the very bread of life. How can we not move ahead in faith–to go out into our community and bring this food to the hungry, this drink to the thirsty?
"I am the vine and you are the branches," Jesus said. "Make your home in me." How does Jesus "abide" in bread and wine? How is he "really present" in this meal? Countless ecclesiastical arguments and even wars have been fought over this, but I invite you to observe your own experience, as we serve one another in this meal, as we move forward to the bread and cup, or as we pass them along the pew.
Do not shrink from the person beside you, the shoulder ahead of you in procession...[the priest at Sara Miles’ church said in a sermon]...Feel Christ’s body there; feel the shoulders of humanity...God has made these people into Christ’s body for you to caress, to anoint, to comfort, to give and receive and share affections. These people and the human race outside our church doors." [Miles, op cit., p. 113]
"We are leaves of one branch," wrote a French man back in the 19th c. [Jean Baptiste Lacordaire], [we are] drops of one sea, the flowers of one garden." We are members of one body, one loaf, one cup, we are reminded in this meal. Let us keep the feast!
Rev. Mary H. Lee-Clark
Update on Eaarth Advocates
The cold reality of human impact on the environment
Update on Eaarth Advocates’ Environmental Activism
So, Why is “Eaarth” spelled with two “a’s?
Answer: Because the earth that God created, and that our grandparents grew up on, no longer exists. It has been changed irrevocably by human activity. Bill McKibbon in his book Eaarth uses the different spelling to denote the forever-changed earth that we have now and which we need to protect from further damage.
The Eaarth Advocates group in our church grew up from grassroots concern – what can we do, individually, as families, as a church, and advocating in the wider world…. to care for our planet?
In 2014 Mary and the Eaarth Advocates group focused on giving each of the weeks of Lent an environmental theme tying together worship and social hour activities. The first week, Eaarth Advocates led Sunday worship, emphasizing mindfulness of our relationship to the earth, and, for the social hour, Jan Day prepared delicious snacks that were all locally sourced. She also brought in items available in the supermarkets that are brought from the far side of the world at tremendous cost in fuel and therefore in greenhouse gases that contaminate our atmosphere and are the major culprit of global warming. The second week’s focus was on the atmosphere, and we made prayer flags during the social hour. The third week the focus was on water; the congregation was invited to submit words that spoke to their concerns about water and a “word cloud” was composed from those words. The fourth Sunday the topic was energy; kids and adults insulated all the electrical outlets in the building. The final Sunday a scavenger hunt led people to explore energy efficient and environmentally friendly things in our church.
This year, everyone is invited to take part in our Environmental Eastertide during the period from Easter to Pentecost on May 24. On Easter Sunday, Eaarth Advocates Jan Day and David Durfee convinced the Easter bunny to bring eggs for adults as well as kids; each egg contained a tip for making the earth a sweeter place for us and our descendents, in addition to jelly beans and wildflower seeds. On April 12 Barbara True-Weber and Kathy Shaw made a Spring Cleaning Display with non-toxic cleaning options and a list of what ingredients to avoid when looking for cleaning products. On April 19 the Eaarth Advocates led worship, exploring food and farming in connection to care of the environment.
On April 26 there will an opportunity during the social hour to learn about bats as well as about other organic, non toxic ways of dealing with insect pests in our gardens. Come see how bats are a natural pesticide against insects, much better than chemicals. Sunday May 3 we are all invited to ‘dress down’ (or come as you like) and, after worship, help clean the inside of our church with non-toxic materials. On May 10, Mother’s Day, come see the artwork that invites us to honor and celebrate our Mother Earth. The weekend of May 16-17 we plan a plant sale, together with instructions on how to make good black earth by composting (good for your garden and the environment). Eastertide concludes on May 24 with Pentecost Sunday. Our celebration of the installation of our solar panels will follow later, possibly in June.
Throughout all this we aim to further the ways in which we are a congregation of what the United Church of Christ calls “Green Justice” – building a community spirit based on care of God’s creation at the individual, community, and global levels.
Update on Eaarth Advocates’ Environmental Activism
So, Why is “Eaarth” spelled with two “a’s?
Answer: Because the earth that God created, and that our grandparents grew up on, no longer exists. It has been changed irrevocably by human activity. Bill McKibbon in his book Eaarth uses the different spelling to denote the forever-changed earth that we have now and which we need to protect from further damage.
The Eaarth Advocates group in our church grew up from grassroots concern – what can we do, individually, as families, as a church, and advocating in the wider world…. to care for our planet?
In 2014 Mary and the Eaarth Advocates group focused on giving each of the weeks of Lent an environmental theme tying together worship and social hour activities. The first week, Eaarth Advocates led Sunday worship, emphasizing mindfulness of our relationship to the earth, and, for the social hour, Jan Day prepared delicious snacks that were all locally sourced. She also brought in items available in the supermarkets that are brought from the far side of the world at tremendous cost in fuel and therefore in greenhouse gases that contaminate our atmosphere and are the major culprit of global warming. The second week’s focus was on the atmosphere, and we made prayer flags during the social hour. The third week the focus was on water; the congregation was invited to submit words that spoke to their concerns about water and a “word cloud” was composed from those words. The fourth Sunday the topic was energy; kids and adults insulated all the electrical outlets in the building. The final Sunday a scavenger hunt led people to explore energy efficient and environmentally friendly things in our church.
This year, everyone is invited to take part in our Environmental Eastertide during the period from Easter to Pentecost on May 24. On Easter Sunday, Eaarth Advocates Jan Day and David Durfee convinced the Easter bunny to bring eggs for adults as well as kids; each egg contained a tip for making the earth a sweeter place for us and our descendents, in addition to jelly beans and wildflower seeds. On April 12 Barbara True-Weber and Kathy Shaw made a Spring Cleaning Display with non-toxic cleaning options and a list of what ingredients to avoid when looking for cleaning products. On April 19 the Eaarth Advocates led worship, exploring food and farming in connection to care of the environment.
On April 26 there will an opportunity during the social hour to learn about bats as well as about other organic, non toxic ways of dealing with insect pests in our gardens. Come see how bats are a natural pesticide against insects, much better than chemicals. Sunday May 3 we are all invited to ‘dress down’ (or come as you like) and, after worship, help clean the inside of our church with non-toxic materials. On May 10, Mother’s Day, come see the artwork that invites us to honor and celebrate our Mother Earth. The weekend of May 16-17 we plan a plant sale, together with instructions on how to make good black earth by composting (good for your garden and the environment). Eastertide concludes on May 24 with Pentecost Sunday. Our celebration of the installation of our solar panels will follow later, possibly in June.
Throughout all this we aim to further the ways in which we are a congregation of what the United Church of Christ calls “Green Justice” – building a community spirit based on care of God’s creation at the individual, community, and global levels.
"Living Within Love"- John 10: 11-18, 1 John 3:16-24-- April 26, 2015
At first glance, the "fuzz factor" may seem to be pretty high in today’s readings–fuzz as in fuzzy wool of sheep, fuzz as in the images of love that we see on greeting cards or in movies or ads, fuzz as in many of our associations with shepherds, from the little kids in bathrobes portraying the shepherds keeping watch over their flocks by night in Christmas pageants or the pastel pictures of Jesus holding lambs in his arms. "The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want," begins what is many people’s favorite psalm. And who, in this harsh, cold, often frightening, world, doesn’t need a warm blanket, a strong but gentle protector, let alone love?
As you may have come to expect by now, before we get all comfortable and cozy, we would do well to look at how the first readers, the first listeners, of these passages might have heard them. The image of shepherd was a familiar one to the Jewish community. Their leaders were referred to as shepherds–good shepherds or false shepherds. Moses was a shepherd, herding his flocks when he saw the bush burning but not being consumed. And David, of course, often called the Shepherd King, was a beloved, if not complex, figure.
But shepherds were not sentimental figures. In fact, the shepherds keeping watch over their flocks by night on Christmas Eve would have been the last people anyone expected an angel messenger, let alone an angel choir, to come to. They were not folks you’d want to get too close to–smelly, rough, dirty, not the most sociable of characters. And the word that usually gets translated as "good" when Jesus says, "I am the Good Shepherd," is more often translated "beautiful." You didn’t often hear the words "beautiful" and "shepherd" put together. "I am the Good, the Beautiful, Shepherd," Jesus said. Really? How does that work?
The image of shepherd was not sentimental, but it was intimate. Sheep do, apparently, know and respond to their shepherd’s voice. And, of course, a good shepherd knows his or her sheep. You have to wrap your arms around a sheep to shear them, and of course, you can only shear one sheep at a time. You can’t just "know the flock."
From both the passage from John and the 23rd psalm, we know that being a shepherd is risky business–the table is set in the presence of enemies, and Jesus uses words like bandits and thieves, wolves, and strangers. He talks about laying down his life for the sheep. Which, of course, is what he told his disciples to do–lay down their lives for one another. "We know love by this," the writer of John’s letter says. Yikes! So much for the Hallmark version of love!
Martin Luther King Jr, who knew a thing or two about laying down his life, told his congregation in one of his sermons that when he spoke of love,
I am not referring to some sentimental or affectionate emotion. It would be nonsense to urge [people] to love their oppressors in an affectionate sense. Love in this connection means understanding, redemptive good will...We speak of a love which is expressed in the Greek word agape. Agape is not a weak, passive love. It is love in action. Agape is love seeking to preserve and create community. When I am commanded to love, I am commanded to restore community, to resist injustice, and to meet the needs of my brothers [and sisters].... [Cited by Ryan Herring in Sojourners, May 2015, reviewing Cornel West’s The Radical King].
"I am the Good Shepherd," Jesus says. "The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep...The hired hand runs away [when a wolf comes], because a hired hand does not care for the sheep." The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.
Why is Good Friday good? That was one of the things we wondered about a couple weeks ago, in "wondering" about Easter. Why is Good Friday good? One of the reasons it’s good, perhaps, is because we are shown how far Love will go with and for us–not running away from our deaths, from our experiences of being crucified, not even our experiences of doing the crucifying and betraying. Love–God’s love-- does not run away, like the hired hand. Love lays down his life, her life, for the other. For us. That’s good news.
"We are not loved by God because we are precious," the late Henri Nouwen wrote, "but we are precious because we are loved by God." I am–God’s name–I am the good shepherd. God knows us–in the incarnation, as one writer puts it, God knows the people [us] from up close" [Bernard Brand Scott, in Kate Huey’s sermonseeds, 4/26/15] and — still, often to my amazement– and yet, God loves us, willing to lay down God’s life for us.
But not just for us. "I have other sheep," Jesus says, "that do not belong to this fold." Bruce and I actually have an embroidered version of this that someone in one of our churches made for us–"I have other sheep which are not of this fold." Let’s not get too smug here [in other words], too parochial or exclusive, as Christians sometimes have a tendency to get. "I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd."
Do those other sheep include migrant workers? immigrants fleeing from wars and poverty and violence? People who, like the shepherds of old, are dirty and smelly and socially inappropriate? What about Muslims or Buddhists or Hindus? Might they be part of God’s flock? What about the "nones" as in "what is your religious affiliation"? "I have other sheep that are not of this fold." We heard this weekend at Annual Meeting about physicist David Bohm, who wrote, "No one piece [of the universe] can have the entire picture of the whole." Maybe we can hear from science, from quantum physics what we apparently haven’t believed from Jesus–"I have other sheep that are not of this fold"–unless the fold is as big as Love.
"I came that they may have life," Jesus says in the verse just before we began reading this morning, "and have it abundantly." "God is my shepherd. I have everything I need." Abundant life, not more stuff. And abundant love, love for you just the way you are. You are enough. Right now. Already. What if we could really believe that–"You are, each one of us is, a beloved child of God and you are enough." Do you know anyone else who needs to hear that? For whom hearing you say that and believing it might just plant a seed that could change their life? "I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd."
Oscar Romero, the Archbishop of El Salvador was fatally shot while saying Mass on March 24, 1980. He had just read the passage from John which says that unless a grain of wheat falls to the earth and dies, it remains only a grain. But if it dies, it bears much fruit. Archbishop Romero himself became that seed that bore fruit in the struggle for justice for the El Salvadoran people. Weeks before he died he said, "A church that doesn’t provoke any crises, a gospel that doesn’t unsettle, a word of God that doesn’t get under anyone’s skin, a word of God that doesn’t touch the real sin of the society in which it is being proclaimed, what gospel is that?"
Now, we may not think that proclaiming a provoking, unsettling, get under your skins kind of gospel is any way to grow a church. Who wants to give up a Sunday morning or a Wednesday evening, to be unsettled? Maybe that’s our problem. We’ve been too fuzzy. We’ve been too boring. We’ve been too harmless, too innocuous. Who cares about a gospel that only stays on the surface of things, that only offers a momentary pleasant diversion, that never goes deep enough to the real, root causes of human suffering?
I got a Facebook message from a friend of mine this week, addressed to all her "minister friends." [I think she meant that in a kind way–her dad was a minister.] It was a link to a blog from the Sojourners community in Washington, DC, entitled, What Struggling Congregations Need to Know to Renew Their Churches." Those congregations addressed are struggling in the same ways we are–declining and aging membership, diminishing resources, ... The answer offered was: "There is too much shallowness." I hope we go deep, but maybe not deep enough.
"We know love by this," John writes, "that he laid down his life for us–and we ought to lay down our lives for one another." The word for "life" here is psyche, which looks like our word "psyche," often used with the sense of "soul." Martyrdom is not everyone’s calling– literally laying down one’s life for another. But "martyr" does come from the root word for "witness." What might it mean for us to "witness" to this incredible Love that knows us intimately, that does not abandon us, even in death, in all the kinds of death that we experience in life? Might it mean, for starters, that we could speak openly, in public, that we are part of Second Congregational Church? Might it mean that we could, individually as well as collectively, maybe even in a variety of media, that we could love, not in only in word or speech, but in truth and action, and so counteract the messages that our culture is blasting out that you are not loveable, you are not enough, you are not worthy of love or generosity?
How far are you–are we–am I–willing to go for love? Maybe begin by thinking about how far you’d go for your children or other loved ones. Would you do that for a stranger? For an "unattractive" stranger? Would you go to the point of civil disobedience? Would I have gone to Selma? Would you go to the place of confrontation–as in a drug or alcohol intervention–or a public demonstration? Would you or I go to the place, the action, the statement that would not make people like you/me? For love? How far would go for love?
"It’s your public face, your public invitation," our new Next Level coach said, "that we can work on taking to the next level." I believe she can help us develop such a process that has integrity for us, and I believe the proposal to begin the search for our next pastor points us in that direction. The Next Level–"up" from or beyond-- our current comfort zone is almost by definition a place that is unsettling, uncomfortable, but it s place of growth and new life.
"I am the Good Shepherd," Jesus said, "and the good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep." "We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us–and we ought to lay down our lives for one another. How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help? [Brothers and sisters], let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action."
The flock that Jesus is the Good Shepherd of is bigger, wider, more diverse, more abundant than we an imagine. It’s as big as love. May we live within that flock and be guided and shaped by the Shepherd, with joy, with courage, with hope. Amen, and amen.
Rev. Mary H. Lee-Clark
As you may have come to expect by now, before we get all comfortable and cozy, we would do well to look at how the first readers, the first listeners, of these passages might have heard them. The image of shepherd was a familiar one to the Jewish community. Their leaders were referred to as shepherds–good shepherds or false shepherds. Moses was a shepherd, herding his flocks when he saw the bush burning but not being consumed. And David, of course, often called the Shepherd King, was a beloved, if not complex, figure.
But shepherds were not sentimental figures. In fact, the shepherds keeping watch over their flocks by night on Christmas Eve would have been the last people anyone expected an angel messenger, let alone an angel choir, to come to. They were not folks you’d want to get too close to–smelly, rough, dirty, not the most sociable of characters. And the word that usually gets translated as "good" when Jesus says, "I am the Good Shepherd," is more often translated "beautiful." You didn’t often hear the words "beautiful" and "shepherd" put together. "I am the Good, the Beautiful, Shepherd," Jesus said. Really? How does that work?
The image of shepherd was not sentimental, but it was intimate. Sheep do, apparently, know and respond to their shepherd’s voice. And, of course, a good shepherd knows his or her sheep. You have to wrap your arms around a sheep to shear them, and of course, you can only shear one sheep at a time. You can’t just "know the flock."
From both the passage from John and the 23rd psalm, we know that being a shepherd is risky business–the table is set in the presence of enemies, and Jesus uses words like bandits and thieves, wolves, and strangers. He talks about laying down his life for the sheep. Which, of course, is what he told his disciples to do–lay down their lives for one another. "We know love by this," the writer of John’s letter says. Yikes! So much for the Hallmark version of love!
Martin Luther King Jr, who knew a thing or two about laying down his life, told his congregation in one of his sermons that when he spoke of love,
I am not referring to some sentimental or affectionate emotion. It would be nonsense to urge [people] to love their oppressors in an affectionate sense. Love in this connection means understanding, redemptive good will...We speak of a love which is expressed in the Greek word agape. Agape is not a weak, passive love. It is love in action. Agape is love seeking to preserve and create community. When I am commanded to love, I am commanded to restore community, to resist injustice, and to meet the needs of my brothers [and sisters].... [Cited by Ryan Herring in Sojourners, May 2015, reviewing Cornel West’s The Radical King].
"I am the Good Shepherd," Jesus says. "The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep...The hired hand runs away [when a wolf comes], because a hired hand does not care for the sheep." The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.
Why is Good Friday good? That was one of the things we wondered about a couple weeks ago, in "wondering" about Easter. Why is Good Friday good? One of the reasons it’s good, perhaps, is because we are shown how far Love will go with and for us–not running away from our deaths, from our experiences of being crucified, not even our experiences of doing the crucifying and betraying. Love–God’s love-- does not run away, like the hired hand. Love lays down his life, her life, for the other. For us. That’s good news.
"We are not loved by God because we are precious," the late Henri Nouwen wrote, "but we are precious because we are loved by God." I am–God’s name–I am the good shepherd. God knows us–in the incarnation, as one writer puts it, God knows the people [us] from up close" [Bernard Brand Scott, in Kate Huey’s sermonseeds, 4/26/15] and — still, often to my amazement– and yet, God loves us, willing to lay down God’s life for us.
But not just for us. "I have other sheep," Jesus says, "that do not belong to this fold." Bruce and I actually have an embroidered version of this that someone in one of our churches made for us–"I have other sheep which are not of this fold." Let’s not get too smug here [in other words], too parochial or exclusive, as Christians sometimes have a tendency to get. "I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd."
Do those other sheep include migrant workers? immigrants fleeing from wars and poverty and violence? People who, like the shepherds of old, are dirty and smelly and socially inappropriate? What about Muslims or Buddhists or Hindus? Might they be part of God’s flock? What about the "nones" as in "what is your religious affiliation"? "I have other sheep that are not of this fold." We heard this weekend at Annual Meeting about physicist David Bohm, who wrote, "No one piece [of the universe] can have the entire picture of the whole." Maybe we can hear from science, from quantum physics what we apparently haven’t believed from Jesus–"I have other sheep that are not of this fold"–unless the fold is as big as Love.
"I came that they may have life," Jesus says in the verse just before we began reading this morning, "and have it abundantly." "God is my shepherd. I have everything I need." Abundant life, not more stuff. And abundant love, love for you just the way you are. You are enough. Right now. Already. What if we could really believe that–"You are, each one of us is, a beloved child of God and you are enough." Do you know anyone else who needs to hear that? For whom hearing you say that and believing it might just plant a seed that could change their life? "I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd."
Oscar Romero, the Archbishop of El Salvador was fatally shot while saying Mass on March 24, 1980. He had just read the passage from John which says that unless a grain of wheat falls to the earth and dies, it remains only a grain. But if it dies, it bears much fruit. Archbishop Romero himself became that seed that bore fruit in the struggle for justice for the El Salvadoran people. Weeks before he died he said, "A church that doesn’t provoke any crises, a gospel that doesn’t unsettle, a word of God that doesn’t get under anyone’s skin, a word of God that doesn’t touch the real sin of the society in which it is being proclaimed, what gospel is that?"
Now, we may not think that proclaiming a provoking, unsettling, get under your skins kind of gospel is any way to grow a church. Who wants to give up a Sunday morning or a Wednesday evening, to be unsettled? Maybe that’s our problem. We’ve been too fuzzy. We’ve been too boring. We’ve been too harmless, too innocuous. Who cares about a gospel that only stays on the surface of things, that only offers a momentary pleasant diversion, that never goes deep enough to the real, root causes of human suffering?
I got a Facebook message from a friend of mine this week, addressed to all her "minister friends." [I think she meant that in a kind way–her dad was a minister.] It was a link to a blog from the Sojourners community in Washington, DC, entitled, What Struggling Congregations Need to Know to Renew Their Churches." Those congregations addressed are struggling in the same ways we are–declining and aging membership, diminishing resources, ... The answer offered was: "There is too much shallowness." I hope we go deep, but maybe not deep enough.
"We know love by this," John writes, "that he laid down his life for us–and we ought to lay down our lives for one another." The word for "life" here is psyche, which looks like our word "psyche," often used with the sense of "soul." Martyrdom is not everyone’s calling– literally laying down one’s life for another. But "martyr" does come from the root word for "witness." What might it mean for us to "witness" to this incredible Love that knows us intimately, that does not abandon us, even in death, in all the kinds of death that we experience in life? Might it mean, for starters, that we could speak openly, in public, that we are part of Second Congregational Church? Might it mean that we could, individually as well as collectively, maybe even in a variety of media, that we could love, not in only in word or speech, but in truth and action, and so counteract the messages that our culture is blasting out that you are not loveable, you are not enough, you are not worthy of love or generosity?
How far are you–are we–am I–willing to go for love? Maybe begin by thinking about how far you’d go for your children or other loved ones. Would you do that for a stranger? For an "unattractive" stranger? Would you go to the point of civil disobedience? Would I have gone to Selma? Would you go to the place of confrontation–as in a drug or alcohol intervention–or a public demonstration? Would you or I go to the place, the action, the statement that would not make people like you/me? For love? How far would go for love?
"It’s your public face, your public invitation," our new Next Level coach said, "that we can work on taking to the next level." I believe she can help us develop such a process that has integrity for us, and I believe the proposal to begin the search for our next pastor points us in that direction. The Next Level–"up" from or beyond-- our current comfort zone is almost by definition a place that is unsettling, uncomfortable, but it s place of growth and new life.
"I am the Good Shepherd," Jesus said, "and the good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep." "We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us–and we ought to lay down our lives for one another. How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help? [Brothers and sisters], let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action."
The flock that Jesus is the Good Shepherd of is bigger, wider, more diverse, more abundant than we an imagine. It’s as big as love. May we live within that flock and be guided and shaped by the Shepherd, with joy, with courage, with hope. Amen, and amen.
Rev. Mary H. Lee-Clark
"Thomas the Twin Reflecting"--John 20:19-31--April 12, 2015
Thomas was the only one with guts enough to leave that upper room where the others were locked in on that first Easter night. And did you notice, they were still there, locked in, a week later, only this time Thomas was with them.
My twin brother, Thomas, was the one who, when Jesus said they were going to where Lazarus had died, even though they knew there were people there who wanted to have him arrested, Thomas was the one who said, "Let us go and die with him." I’d like to think I’d have the same courage as my twin brother.
Paul Tillich said that "Doubt isn’t the opposite of faith; it’s an element of faith." In fact, he said, "The opposite of faith is certainty." I like that. "The opposite of faith is certainty." If you’re all that certain, if you know who’s in and who’s out, what God is and what God isn’t, then why do you need faith? You’ve already got proof. "Doubt isn’t the opposite of faith...the opposite of faith is certainty."
Khalil Gibran–the Lebanese poet who wrote "The Prophet"–put it this way–"Doubt is a pain too lonely to know that faith is his twin brother." I think we’ve pushed Thomas – "Doubting Thomas"– away from us for too long, and we’ve become lonely in the process. Jesus didn’t push him away, –"he didn’t scold me"--and he won’t push us away either.
"The doors of the house where the disciples had met were locked for fear of the Jews," John tells us. It wasn’t just the doors that were locked. William Sloane Coffin wrote, "You can’t think straight with a heart full of fear, for fear seeks safety, not truth. If your heart’s a stone, you can’t have decent thoughts–either about personal relations or about international ones. A heart full of love, on the other hand, has a limbering effect on the mind." [cited by Kate Huey in sermonseeds, 4/12/15]
I guess that’s where I wish I were more like my twin brother Thomas–not locked down in fear, but out looking for answers. "The opposite of love is not hate," God says in Neale Donald Walsh’s Conversations with God. "The opposite of love is fear." I know fear shuts me down. I know it narrows my vision. The walls and blinders go up when I think about what might happen on those snowy roads, what random, crazy, wounded person is going to pull out a gun and start shooting, what we are doing to the air and the creatures and the water and to each other on this planet. "The opposite of love is fear." "A heart full of love, on the other hand, has a limbering effect on the mind."
Thomas, my twin brother, at least had a heart full of love. In that wonderful painting by Caravaggio, Jesus presents the wounds on his side to Thomas and Thomas reaches forward, practically falls into Jesus, his eyes wide with amazement. It’s almost as if, as someone has written, he’s saying,"There’s another world in there!" [David Lose, inthemeantime, 4/10/15] .
Thomas’s whole perception of reality changes when he looks inside those wounds. He’s no more certain than he was before, but he is full of wonder, full of love.
"Blessed are you," Jesus says to him, "blessed are you who have seen, and blessed are those who haven’t seen, and yet believe, yet trust." So, all of us are blessed as well, we who haven’t seen, but still, somehow, on the occasional Thursday morning, or a quiet Monday afternoon, –we are blessed when we "believe" or trust in the One whose wounds open up a whole new world to us.
Another of our twin brothers, Wendell Berry, suggests this approach– "Give your approval to all you cannot understand. Praise ignorance, for what [humanity] has not encountered, [we have] not destroyed. Ask the questions that have no answer. Invest in the millenium. Plant sequoias." [from Manifesto for the Mad Farmer Liberation Front]
The Risen Christ gives us his peace. So, along with Thomas, may we give him our hearts. Let us pray...
Rev. Mary H. Lee-Clark
Early Easter 2015-- John 20:1-18
You may have heard of the custom in the Ubuntu African tribe, where
...when a woman of the tribe knows she is pregnant, she goes to the jungle with other women, and together they pray and meditate until they get to "The song of the child." When the child is born, the community gets together and they sing the child’s song. When the child begins his education, people get together and sing the song. When the person becomes an adult, the community gets together again and sing it. When it comes to the time for a wedding, the person hears his or her song. Finally, when the person’s soul is going from this world, family and friends gather and, like at birth, sing their song to accompany the person on the "journey".
"In this Ubuntu tribe, there is another occasion when men sing the song. If at some point the person commits a crime or aberrant social act, they take him or her to the center of town and the people of the community form a circle around her or him. Then they sing "their song." The tribe recognizes that the correction for antisocial behavior is not punishment, but is the love and memory of one’s true identity. When we recognize our own song, we have no desire or need to hurt anyone. [Tolba Phanem, singingteachers.wordpress.com]
You could do a lot worse than to imagine God or the Church as the One who knows your "song," who knows your true name, before you were born, who sings it to you in all the joys and sorrows and wanderings of your life, and then sings it to you as you pass into new life.
Jesus had taught Mary Magdalene her true name. She had heard her own song in the melody of his voice, in his teaching, in his healing, in his laughter. But the events of the past three days had muffled that song, had blurred her vision, had broken her heart.
She went to the tomb alone, as John tells the story, "while it was still dark." She finds the stone rolled away from the entrance of the tomb, and assumes the worst. Running to find Simon Peter and John, she tells them that someone has taken the Lord’s body and hidden it. They come and enter the tomb, and, John says that the disciple whom Jesus loved saw the empty grave cloths and "believed." Then the men go home.
Mary, though, cannot leave, any more than she could have left that Good Friday scene of crucifixion. When she finally bends over and looks into the tomb, she sees two in angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying. She still thinks somebody has stolen Jesus’ body, and continues to weep. "When you live only in a Good Friday world," a wise woman observes, "and your eyes have gotten too used to the dark, and you are crying over a stolen body, a stolen hope, a stolen promise, everyone you meet is not a potential friend, but a potential thief–even two angels sitting in an empty tomb." [Shannon Johnson Kershner, Journal for Preachers, Easter 2015, p. 35]
Mary even assumes the gardener is a potential thief–"Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away." And Jesus says to her, "Mary." "What an empty tomb, two angels, folded linens, and a separated wrapped up hanky could not do, [one writer says] the call of one’s name does. This is a beautiful moment." [Mark Davis, leftbehind. 3/30/15] Mary has heard her song, her true name, and at last she is able to see clearly and truly. "Rabbouni!" she cries, and falls at his feet. "Don’t cling to me," Jesus tells her. This is not where the journey ends. Go and tell my brothers and sisters.
Life in God’s reign is far more than "surviving," more than simply becoming accustomed or adjusted to the Good Friday world that so many people–and most of us at times–can only see. The only way out of that Good Friday haze, as one woman puts it, is to remember our true names, or, when we forget them, to have them sung to us. It may not be the actual song, like the Ubuntu tribe sings, but we might hear it in some other music, in poetry, in the hug of a friend, the laughter of a child, in a dream or vision, in the voices and faces of all kinds of people, in the view from a mountain. "Mary," he said, and she knew who he was and who she was.
"While it was still dark," Mary went to the tomb. The darkness does not last forever, and in fact it is precisely out of the darkness that the dawn arises. God does some of God’s best work in the dark–at the creation of the universe, on Christmas Eve, on an early Easter morning, "while it was still dark." In your darkest hour–at the bedside of a loved one, when you feel like a failure, when your life is a hot mess, when the pain seems never to go away, when you feel all alone –know that God is especially experienced at this kind of thing. Listen for your true name, perhaps the name given you at your baptism. Perhaps your true name, your own song, has only become clear to you in the years following your baptism. Maybe you’re still waiting to hear it. Know that your searching, your straining to hear it, is part of the melody. And know that this One, whom death could not contain, is even now singing the song of every heart which is open to Love and Truth. Like a bottle of precious essential oil, a fragrant perfume of the most beautiful flowers and blossoms, broken open and filling the world with its fragrance, so the risen Body of Christ infuses and pours over the wounds of the world, including each one of us.
"Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed." It was when she heard him call her name that she too experienced new life. Listen for his voice–"You are beloved, a precious child of God, beautiful to behold." He’s singing your song.
Rev. Mary H. Lee-Clark
...when a woman of the tribe knows she is pregnant, she goes to the jungle with other women, and together they pray and meditate until they get to "The song of the child." When the child is born, the community gets together and they sing the child’s song. When the child begins his education, people get together and sing the song. When the person becomes an adult, the community gets together again and sing it. When it comes to the time for a wedding, the person hears his or her song. Finally, when the person’s soul is going from this world, family and friends gather and, like at birth, sing their song to accompany the person on the "journey".
"In this Ubuntu tribe, there is another occasion when men sing the song. If at some point the person commits a crime or aberrant social act, they take him or her to the center of town and the people of the community form a circle around her or him. Then they sing "their song." The tribe recognizes that the correction for antisocial behavior is not punishment, but is the love and memory of one’s true identity. When we recognize our own song, we have no desire or need to hurt anyone. [Tolba Phanem, singingteachers.wordpress.com]
You could do a lot worse than to imagine God or the Church as the One who knows your "song," who knows your true name, before you were born, who sings it to you in all the joys and sorrows and wanderings of your life, and then sings it to you as you pass into new life.
Jesus had taught Mary Magdalene her true name. She had heard her own song in the melody of his voice, in his teaching, in his healing, in his laughter. But the events of the past three days had muffled that song, had blurred her vision, had broken her heart.
She went to the tomb alone, as John tells the story, "while it was still dark." She finds the stone rolled away from the entrance of the tomb, and assumes the worst. Running to find Simon Peter and John, she tells them that someone has taken the Lord’s body and hidden it. They come and enter the tomb, and, John says that the disciple whom Jesus loved saw the empty grave cloths and "believed." Then the men go home.
Mary, though, cannot leave, any more than she could have left that Good Friday scene of crucifixion. When she finally bends over and looks into the tomb, she sees two in angels in white, sitting where the body of Jesus had been lying. She still thinks somebody has stolen Jesus’ body, and continues to weep. "When you live only in a Good Friday world," a wise woman observes, "and your eyes have gotten too used to the dark, and you are crying over a stolen body, a stolen hope, a stolen promise, everyone you meet is not a potential friend, but a potential thief–even two angels sitting in an empty tomb." [Shannon Johnson Kershner, Journal for Preachers, Easter 2015, p. 35]
Mary even assumes the gardener is a potential thief–"Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have laid him, and I will take him away." And Jesus says to her, "Mary." "What an empty tomb, two angels, folded linens, and a separated wrapped up hanky could not do, [one writer says] the call of one’s name does. This is a beautiful moment." [Mark Davis, leftbehind. 3/30/15] Mary has heard her song, her true name, and at last she is able to see clearly and truly. "Rabbouni!" she cries, and falls at his feet. "Don’t cling to me," Jesus tells her. This is not where the journey ends. Go and tell my brothers and sisters.
Life in God’s reign is far more than "surviving," more than simply becoming accustomed or adjusted to the Good Friday world that so many people–and most of us at times–can only see. The only way out of that Good Friday haze, as one woman puts it, is to remember our true names, or, when we forget them, to have them sung to us. It may not be the actual song, like the Ubuntu tribe sings, but we might hear it in some other music, in poetry, in the hug of a friend, the laughter of a child, in a dream or vision, in the voices and faces of all kinds of people, in the view from a mountain. "Mary," he said, and she knew who he was and who she was.
"While it was still dark," Mary went to the tomb. The darkness does not last forever, and in fact it is precisely out of the darkness that the dawn arises. God does some of God’s best work in the dark–at the creation of the universe, on Christmas Eve, on an early Easter morning, "while it was still dark." In your darkest hour–at the bedside of a loved one, when you feel like a failure, when your life is a hot mess, when the pain seems never to go away, when you feel all alone –know that God is especially experienced at this kind of thing. Listen for your true name, perhaps the name given you at your baptism. Perhaps your true name, your own song, has only become clear to you in the years following your baptism. Maybe you’re still waiting to hear it. Know that your searching, your straining to hear it, is part of the melody. And know that this One, whom death could not contain, is even now singing the song of every heart which is open to Love and Truth. Like a bottle of precious essential oil, a fragrant perfume of the most beautiful flowers and blossoms, broken open and filling the world with its fragrance, so the risen Body of Christ infuses and pours over the wounds of the world, including each one of us.
"Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed." It was when she heard him call her name that she too experienced new life. Listen for his voice–"You are beloved, a precious child of God, beautiful to behold." He’s singing your song.
Rev. Mary H. Lee-Clark
"Ragged Edges"- Mark 16:1-8-- Easter 10 a.m.– April 5, 2015
You can see why they thought it must have been a mistake. Mark couldn’t really have intended his gospel to end like that–"So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid." He even ends the sentence with a preposition–gar–"for". There must have been a mistake. The real ending of the gospel must have been lost or torn off–surely there was an appearance of the risen Jesus, some happy reunion with the disciples, something other than the women running off in terror and saying nothing to anyone, "they were afraid for..."
So in the later manuscripts, the ones copied faithfully by the monks, Jesus does appear to Mary Magdalene, and to the disciples, and sends them all out to spread the good news. He even tells them they’ll be able to do all sorts of things–cast out demons, handle poisonous snakes, drink poison. You get the feeling that maybe the monks or one of Mark’s followers got carried away with their own imaginations about what the ending of the gospel really should have been–not "they were afraid for..."
But they were frightened. All the gospels–even the ones with longer endings–say that the discovery of the empty tomb wasn’t an immediate cause of joy and celebration. We may shout, "Christ is risen!" and respond to such news with "Christ is risen indeed!" But the first reaction to that discovery was more like, "Holy ... you know what! Let’s get out of here!" Instead of confidence and joy and a desire to go and tell others, the first followers of Jesus responded with fear and silence and running away.
The apostle Paul wisely insists that there is no resurrection that is not resurrection from the dead. Tom Currie suggests that "the church has always wanted something less miraculous. We would like a resurrection that would be more like self-improvement, a resurrection that would not so messy, so intrusive, so threatening."[Journal for Preachers, Easter 2015, p. 3] "Because," as another writer notes, "when a guy executed for sedition is raised to new life, the line between life and death suddenly grows paper-thin. As a result we’re asked to re-assess all our familiar assumptions." [Mark Skinner, Odyssey Networks, 3-30-15]
You may be here this morning under protest. Not only may the whole "Church Thing" feel incredibly uncomfortable and even alien to anything else in your life; but you may also be thinking this "resurrection" stuff is just impossible to believe. It’s a fool’s crutch. You should know you’ve got lots of company–a company that goes back thousands of years–all the way back to that first Easter morning when the women got away as fast as they could and no way were they going to tell anybody about they’d found. A person could get killed for saying stuff like that; and they did. At best, you’d be called a fool; and they were.
Mark is not interested in proving that Jesus was raised from the dead. The ending of his gospel–what I think was the real ending–leaves us all in krisis–in a moment of crisis or decision, which is what that word means. Maybe it’s incomplete by design, as David Lose says, for "no story about death and resurrection could possibly have a neat and tidy ending." It’s open-ended so we’ll jump in. "It’s only just getting started,...[he says] Resurrection isn’t a conclusion, it’s an invitation." [David Lose, inthemeantime, 3/30/15] Your future–our future-- must be lived into, and we have to decide how we will do that–paralyzed by fear, deadened by cynicism, carelessly without hope, or trusting in the power that is able to bring life out of death.
"The ‘Fear not’ of the Easter message [Tom Currie writes] is not a declaration that there is no reason to fear or that our fears are illusions which we can ignore or wish away. It is not even a message that tells us that death has no power....The reason we are told to ‘Fear not’ is not that there is not reason to fear, but that amidst our fears, amidst our running away in terror, our walking in discouragement and isolation, there is one who has broken through the imprisoning bonds of death, one whose fellowship has overcome that deep loneliness that death intends for all of human life, one whose risen life is always a life together." [Currie, op cit., p. 4]
"Do not be alarmed," the young man in the white robe said to the women. "You are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here...But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you." Death is a scary thing, but we know that life can be a scary thing too. And we know that life is full of all kinds of little deaths–disappointments, failures, sickness, injury, betrayals, moving, graduating, divorce, losing a job, losing a loved one, endings of relationships. We get lots of chances to practice dying during our lifetimes, and it doesn’t always feel good.
But the message of the Easter story is that we don’t have to live our lives in a state of fear, despite what the news media and politicians would sometimes have us believe. We can acknowledge our fears and anxieties–after all, our bodies have built in ways to handle dangers and assaults– but then we might remember to breathe, especially if we’ve practiced taking deep breaths in the midst of anxiety. And maybe in that moment we can remember that we’re not alone. There is One beside us who’s been through all those little deaths and the Big Death, who did not run away but went through them, so we wouldn’t have to be alone, so we wouldn’t think that God wasn’t right there with us. And then on the other side of death–whether big or little–we are still not alone. We may be different, our loved ones are not present in the way they were before, in those same bodies, but they–we–are still held, together, in God’s loving embrace. Just how that all is is a mystery. Words fail us here; it gets messy and ragged. We might even end the story with a preposition.
"So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid." Mark’s gospel may have ended there, but we know the story didn’t end there. They must have eventually told someone, because we’re hearing the story today! As Fred Craddock said, "When the women finally find their voices, what powerful witnesses! No glib and easy Easter words here. They had been to the cemetery." [Christian Century, 4/5/03] Their story passed the reality check of their own experience of encountering the risen Christ. Their story passed the reality check of the experience of generations of followers who have experienced the presence of the Risen Christ, who have experienced new and abundant life even after the most crushing of defeats and death.
The resurrection is not a conclusion but an invitation. Enter into the story. Don’t let your head become a dead end for possibility. Open up to new life. Be part of the blossoming of hope –and blossoms always start out as little things–seeds or bulbs or buds. So find one small act to begin the revolution–you might help us transform the cross into not just and ending but a beginning. Place, if you will, one of the flowers into the wire, and help us create a symbol of new life. Become part of the good news!
Christ is risen! Christ is risen indeed!
Rev. Mary Lee-Clark
So in the later manuscripts, the ones copied faithfully by the monks, Jesus does appear to Mary Magdalene, and to the disciples, and sends them all out to spread the good news. He even tells them they’ll be able to do all sorts of things–cast out demons, handle poisonous snakes, drink poison. You get the feeling that maybe the monks or one of Mark’s followers got carried away with their own imaginations about what the ending of the gospel really should have been–not "they were afraid for..."
But they were frightened. All the gospels–even the ones with longer endings–say that the discovery of the empty tomb wasn’t an immediate cause of joy and celebration. We may shout, "Christ is risen!" and respond to such news with "Christ is risen indeed!" But the first reaction to that discovery was more like, "Holy ... you know what! Let’s get out of here!" Instead of confidence and joy and a desire to go and tell others, the first followers of Jesus responded with fear and silence and running away.
The apostle Paul wisely insists that there is no resurrection that is not resurrection from the dead. Tom Currie suggests that "the church has always wanted something less miraculous. We would like a resurrection that would be more like self-improvement, a resurrection that would not so messy, so intrusive, so threatening."[Journal for Preachers, Easter 2015, p. 3] "Because," as another writer notes, "when a guy executed for sedition is raised to new life, the line between life and death suddenly grows paper-thin. As a result we’re asked to re-assess all our familiar assumptions." [Mark Skinner, Odyssey Networks, 3-30-15]
You may be here this morning under protest. Not only may the whole "Church Thing" feel incredibly uncomfortable and even alien to anything else in your life; but you may also be thinking this "resurrection" stuff is just impossible to believe. It’s a fool’s crutch. You should know you’ve got lots of company–a company that goes back thousands of years–all the way back to that first Easter morning when the women got away as fast as they could and no way were they going to tell anybody about they’d found. A person could get killed for saying stuff like that; and they did. At best, you’d be called a fool; and they were.
Mark is not interested in proving that Jesus was raised from the dead. The ending of his gospel–what I think was the real ending–leaves us all in krisis–in a moment of crisis or decision, which is what that word means. Maybe it’s incomplete by design, as David Lose says, for "no story about death and resurrection could possibly have a neat and tidy ending." It’s open-ended so we’ll jump in. "It’s only just getting started,...[he says] Resurrection isn’t a conclusion, it’s an invitation." [David Lose, inthemeantime, 3/30/15] Your future–our future-- must be lived into, and we have to decide how we will do that–paralyzed by fear, deadened by cynicism, carelessly without hope, or trusting in the power that is able to bring life out of death.
"The ‘Fear not’ of the Easter message [Tom Currie writes] is not a declaration that there is no reason to fear or that our fears are illusions which we can ignore or wish away. It is not even a message that tells us that death has no power....The reason we are told to ‘Fear not’ is not that there is not reason to fear, but that amidst our fears, amidst our running away in terror, our walking in discouragement and isolation, there is one who has broken through the imprisoning bonds of death, one whose fellowship has overcome that deep loneliness that death intends for all of human life, one whose risen life is always a life together." [Currie, op cit., p. 4]
"Do not be alarmed," the young man in the white robe said to the women. "You are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here...But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you." Death is a scary thing, but we know that life can be a scary thing too. And we know that life is full of all kinds of little deaths–disappointments, failures, sickness, injury, betrayals, moving, graduating, divorce, losing a job, losing a loved one, endings of relationships. We get lots of chances to practice dying during our lifetimes, and it doesn’t always feel good.
But the message of the Easter story is that we don’t have to live our lives in a state of fear, despite what the news media and politicians would sometimes have us believe. We can acknowledge our fears and anxieties–after all, our bodies have built in ways to handle dangers and assaults– but then we might remember to breathe, especially if we’ve practiced taking deep breaths in the midst of anxiety. And maybe in that moment we can remember that we’re not alone. There is One beside us who’s been through all those little deaths and the Big Death, who did not run away but went through them, so we wouldn’t have to be alone, so we wouldn’t think that God wasn’t right there with us. And then on the other side of death–whether big or little–we are still not alone. We may be different, our loved ones are not present in the way they were before, in those same bodies, but they–we–are still held, together, in God’s loving embrace. Just how that all is is a mystery. Words fail us here; it gets messy and ragged. We might even end the story with a preposition.
"So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid." Mark’s gospel may have ended there, but we know the story didn’t end there. They must have eventually told someone, because we’re hearing the story today! As Fred Craddock said, "When the women finally find their voices, what powerful witnesses! No glib and easy Easter words here. They had been to the cemetery." [Christian Century, 4/5/03] Their story passed the reality check of their own experience of encountering the risen Christ. Their story passed the reality check of the experience of generations of followers who have experienced the presence of the Risen Christ, who have experienced new and abundant life even after the most crushing of defeats and death.
The resurrection is not a conclusion but an invitation. Enter into the story. Don’t let your head become a dead end for possibility. Open up to new life. Be part of the blossoming of hope –and blossoms always start out as little things–seeds or bulbs or buds. So find one small act to begin the revolution–you might help us transform the cross into not just and ending but a beginning. Place, if you will, one of the flowers into the wire, and help us create a symbol of new life. Become part of the good news!
Christ is risen! Christ is risen indeed!
Rev. Mary Lee-Clark
Easter Bloom
In Lent last year, 2014, a fire-pit bowl was brought into the sanctuary and filled with stones from a local stream. People of the congregation were invited to write their concerns, regrets, and "sins" on purple slips of paper and to slip them in between the rocks. On Easter the bowl was transformed with greenery and bright yellow forsythia. Later the purple slips were burned.
Maundy Thursday worship service
Maundy Thursday worship service of simple supper in remembrance of the Last Supper, with communion, music and readings: