Sheepscott Bridges

Christmas Eve

2011-12-14T14:47:00.002-05:00

The Christmas Eve service at Sheepscott Community Church this year will be at 5:00 p.m. It seems appropriate since Christmas Eve comes on a Saturday to have an earlier service. I will include our children and families can get together in their homes following the service. The service will feature special music by Harpist Suki Flanagan and the choir. The children of the Sunday School will put on a Living Nativity and the worship will close with a service of candle lighting. Come and bring a friend as we again celebrate the birth of the Christ Child. The regular Sunday morning worship will be at 10:00 a.m. on Christmas Day. There will be no Sunday School but a special Children's Time will be included in the service.

2011-12-14T14:34:00.000-05:00

50 Years of Ministry

2011-06-07T07:29:00.002-04:00

TUCKER TALK
This coming Sunday, June 12, I will celebrate the 50th anniversary of my ordination into the Christian ministry. I recently read the following which seems appropriate as I reach this milestone in my life.
A Church goer wrote a letter to the editor of a newspaper and complained that it mde no sense to go to church every Sunday, "I've gone for 30 years now," he wrote, "and in all that time I have heard something like 3,000 sermons. But for the life of me, I can't remember a single one of them. So, I think I'm wasting my time and the pastors are wasting their time."

This started a real controversyin the "Letters to the Editor" column, much to the delight of the editor. It went on for weeks until someone wrote this clincher.

"I've been married for 30 years now. In that time my wife hs cooked some 32,000 meals. But, for the life of me, I cannot recall the entire menu for a single one of those meals. But I do know this. They all nourished me and gave me the strength I needed to do my work. If my wife had not given me these meals, I would by physically dead today. Likewise, if I had not gone to church for nourishment, I would be spiritually dead today."

I hope you will join me this Sunday for another one of 3000 sermons.

See you in church
Pastor Hal Tucker

Tucker Talk

2011-04-16T07:49:00.004-04:00

Lent is a journey that we take with Jesus and his disciples as they head towards Jerusalem and a cross. We remember the words Jesus spoke to his closest friends, that if they are to be his disciples they must "take up a cross and follow him." I have always loved the story told about the famous Passion Play at Oberammergau in Germany. One day a man and his wife, tourists, had gone backstage to meet the famous Mr. Anton Lang, the man who played the part of Jesus Christ. The man took a picture of Mr. Lang with his camera and as he did he noticed the great cross Mr. Lang had carried in the play. He handed his camera to his wife and said, "Here, dear, when I life the cross to my shoulder, you snap my picture. Before Mr. Lang could say anything, the tourist had stooped down to lift the cross to his shoulder, but he couldn't budge it one inch off the floor. The cross was made of very heavy iron oak beams. The man turned to Anton Lang and said, "Why, I thought it would be light. I thought the cross was hollow. Why do you carry a cross that is so terribly heavy." Mr. Lang replied softly, "Sir, if I didn't feel the weight of his cross, I could not play his part." Life is full of crosses we are all called to bear and they can be terribly heavy. We can carry them with faith in the Christ who gives us the strength to face whatever life gives us. Jesus said, "In this world you will have tribulation, but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world." We invite all of you to join us in the special services of Holy Week at Sheepscott Community Church. Thursday evening, April 21, we will share in a service of Holy Communion at 7:00 p.m. as we remember Jesus Last Supper with his disciples. Good Friday we will share in an ecumenical service at 6:00p.m. at the Damariscotta Baptist Church. Easter morning we will join in a Sunrise Service at 7:00 a.m. at the Hill Church, followed by Breakfast at the Valley Church at 8:00 a.m. and an Easter Egg Hunt at 9:45. We hope many will join us for our Easter Worship at 10:00 a.m. at the Valley Church. See you in church, Pastor Hal

Tucker Talk

2011-04-16T07:49:00.001-04:00

The Shepherd Psalm

2011-04-04T08:58:00.005-04:00

The first Sunday of each month at Sheepscott Community Church we observe the sacrament of Holy Communion. This past Sunday among the lectionary readings for the day was Psalm 23, the Shepherd Psalm. Since the days of the early primitive church it has been a custom in many congregatins to say the 23rd Pslam during the communion service. At the conclusion of my message yesterday I told the following story I read a few years ago. During the height of World War II worshippers had gathered in one of the great cathedrals outside of London, England. As was their custom, before receiving Communion, the congregation said the 23rd Psalm together. As they repeated the words of the Psalm bombs hit the church. The congregation didn't miss a beat, but said the Psalm through to its conclusion. Turning around after saying the words, "I shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever," they saw that the back part of their sanctuary had been destroyed. Their House of the Lord was in ruins. But, the altar had not been touched and not one person had been injured and they continued on to share the Lord's Supper. They felt God's love in the midst of violence and they committed themselves to live by that love in their war torn world. May we find God's love in the midst of our own difficulties. See you in church Pastor Hal Tucker

The Shepherd Psalm

2011-04-04T08:58:00.000-04:00

Tucker Talk

2011-03-11T12:07:00.004-05:00

I am half way through my second week as pastor of the Sheepscott Community Church. It has been a very busy time simply "getting my ducks in a row." This past Wednesday evening I attended for the first time the Community Meal at Second Congregational Church in Newcastle. Our church does the meal the second Wednesday of every month. What an enjoyable evening it was. Twelve members of our congregation prepared and served the meal and many others brought food. From the moment my prayer was completed there was happy chatter, laughter and evening singing by those who had come to break bread together. I remarked to someone that I wished the church could always be such a happy place. The guests helped clean up and put away the tables and chairs.

The New Testament often refers to the Kindom of God as a great banquet to which everyone is invited and welcomed. I sensed for a brief moment in time that I had become a part of God's Kingdom. It was Holy Communion in the best sense of that term. Jesus said: "Come...inherit the kingdom from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food..." (Matt.25:34). I hope that many of the people of our church will choose to particpate in the ministry of this monthly meal. I look forward to the second Wednesday of April.

See you in church,

Pastor Hal

Rev. Judith Robbins' Last Service at SCC

2011-03-01T16:06:00.003-05:00

On February 27, Judith Robbins conducted her final service at Sheepscott.

The church's furnace had a malfunction, and the cold church was not very welcoming to those who had come for the special service. Attendees were directed downstairs to the vestry, where we huddled close for warmth and went gamely forward, the congregation seated on benches that had been used for worship in the very early days of the church. Bev Sperry was overheard saying something to Carol Shorey about "just like the old days."

Fran Hewins had to deal with a little-used, recalcitrant electric organ, but there was nevertheless music aplenty when she joined her voice to those of the other choir members, who led all in song and quickly warmed up the room. The choir presented Judith with an original painting by Jan Kilburn a partial view of the village, including the Valley Church, from the vantage point of the Sheepscot four corners.

Cyndi Brinkler, Chrissy Wajer, and Joan Yeaton organized a brunch fit for the gods, and for retiring and new ministers and church-goers as well. New pastor Hal Tucker and his wife Bettina joined the party. By the time of their arrival, the furnace had been repaired and folks had warmed up, not only from the heating vents, but from the convivial conversations and excellent food and drink.

The Hands of Christ: Part II

2011-03-01T15:53:00.000-05:00

Sheepscott Community Church February 27, 2011

Isaiah 49: 8-16a

1 Cor. 12: 12-20; 27

Matthew 20: 29-34

The Hands of Christ: Part II

I heard Rev. Peter Beck, rector of Christchurch Cathedral in Christchurch, New Zealand, on the radio on Wednesday. He said, “This earthquake is not an act of God. It’s the natural result of living on a still evolving planet, and we had the bad fortune to be on the fault line. The act of God is how we reach out to each other and help each other.” It’s no less true for us here in Sheepscot, where an ice storm or an additional foot of heavy wet snow that knocks out power isn’t an act of God, but rather a weather-related phenomenon. The act of God is how we reach out to help each other, and during Jon’s and my time in Sheepscot, I’ve seen that outreach again and again. And I don’t doubt that after we leave, life in Sheepscot will continue as it always has––people helping one another through hard times, celebrating the good times, and coming together to worship and thank God through it all.

At least twice during my time here, I have alluded to the TV show “Joan of Arcadia,” which had a two-year run on CBS some years ago. The teenaged Joan had an unusual gift of seeing and talking with God under a number of guises. My favorite episode was one where God appeared as an old woman sitting on a bench waiting for a bus. As in all other episodes, God charged Joan to work out a problem that God presented to her. At the end of that particular episode, Joan again encountered God as the old woman on the same bench and poured out her troubled heart about all the things that had gone wrong while she was trying to solve the problem. Her best friend was not speaking to her, her family couldn’t understand her actions, and she felt alone and completely misunderstood. After a long pause, God said to her, “So, what are you going to do next?”

And that is the question I think God is asking you as a congregation: What are you going to do next?

When I was asking God for some sign that I was really understanding correctly that it was time to leave Sheepscott Community Church––it seemed counterintuitive and didn’t line up with my commitment––the reading 1 Corinthians 3: 10 came into my mind. When I looked it up and read it, I had the complete assurance I had sought that I was hearing right. The verse was, “By the grace God has given me, I laid a foundation as an expert builder, and someone else is building on it.” That spoke to me and was what I needed to go forward and speak to Cindy and the Board about my decision. Otherwise, I don’t think I could have done it.

Why I’m telling you this is that I want you to know it was a difficult decision, and that I am as sure as I can be in these matters that this is of God for this church. And what about this listening. What does that mean? I have spoken before about the intimate relationship God wants to have with each of us by, in, and through his Spirit. God is a living God who wants us to listen to him deeply and often, so that we come to recognize what we can call God’s voice. An audible voice? Probably not, but an impression of words, a thought or a feeling in response to our concerns of the hour, whether expressed or unexpressed.

What a surprise: My plan was not the whole plan of the living God for this church. It’s time for something else, someone else. You remember Jesus saying in John 16: 7: ”I tell you the sober truth: it is much better for you that I go. If I fail to go, the Paraclete”––the Holy Spirit––”will never come to you, whereas if I go, I will send him to you.” Am I suggesting that Hal Tucker is the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit, and I myself the sending second person of the Trinity? Well no, but I am telling you that it is better that I go because I believe that is God’s direction for God’s purposes at this time.

By the way, I hadn’t known that First Corinthians 3:10, which I alluded to earlier and which came to me iun answer to prayer, was part of the lectionary reading for last Sunday, when Hal and I were doing our joint service, but God knew. I as part of this church have worked to lay a foundation as others have done before me, and now Hal and the church will build on it. You see? We’re not in charge of this evolving drama; we only have parts to play, and that’s what I’d like to talk about next. As God asked Joan of Arcadia, seemingly paying little or no attention to her crying out about all her problems, “So, what are you going to do next?”

I have a strong suggestion for you in response to that question. And this is where the title of today’s sermon comes from. It’s part two in reference to a story Hal Tucker told last Sunday about the statue of the Christ without hands. After the aerial bombardment of a town in Germany, the town’s treasured statue of Christ had its hands blown off. The people of the town weren’t sure whether to replace the hands and finally decided not to, saying that they themselves would be the living hands of Christ in the world. What else does God have except us? Our hands, our feet, and so on, as we heard Barbara read from Paul’s letter to the Corinthians.

But before we can be the most effective hands and feet, eyes and ears in service in, to, and as part of the Body of Christ, we need to get our act together. That’s where this morning’s readings come in. God was listening to his people in exile in Babylon 2500 years ago, as we heard in this morning’s first reading from Isaiah. He wanted them to tell him what they wanted so he might have the joy of giving it to them in fulfillment of his own promises. No less than God was listening to them, was God in Christ listening to the two blind men who shouted to Jesus in order to be heard over the noise of the crowd, “Son of David, have mercy on us!” “What do you want me to do for you?” Jesus called back. They told him they wanted to see, and he restored their sight. God is no less listening to us, the people of Sheepscott Community Church in this time of transition, and saying, What do you want me to do for you?

God can and will deliver the goods, but those who pray for the goods have to mean what they say when they pray. You can’t put in your order if you’re not ready to pay for it.

The shout of the blind men in this morning’s gospel is a kind of prayer. Sometimes instead of spoken or shouted words, prayer takes the form of wordless tears. Some of us have physical, emotional, or spiritual pain so deep and wide, that when we let ourselves feel it, all there is is tears. God will also meet us in the silence, knowing what we cannot articulate but understanding us, as God does and did, from the moment we came into being. We are, after all, engraved into the palms of his hands. Or if your faith so leads you, grab hold of Jesus’s garment with your hand, as the woman with the issue of blood in last week’s gospel did, and don’t let go. Be healed yourself and then let the power of God in Jesus pass through you into a world that needs Christ’s healing power and presence.

This is the hour. Call out to the God of the Hebrew Bible, if that is the One whose presence you feel most when you pray; or call out to Jesus, or just hang on to his garment. He will ask you, What do you want me to do for you? Then tell him: Lord, I feel like I don’t have the strength to get through another day and do all that needs to be done. Give me strength. I want to forgive, Lord, but I can’t. Help me to forgive. I’m afraid of everything, Lord, the darkness, the world situation, the economic crisis––help me not to be afraid.

A cautionary note about this sort of praying, when we are asking God for healing or to be set free from some badgering, long-standing thing like fear or pride, unforgiveness toward ourselves or another, or anger or self-centeredness or guilt, when we are praying about these kinds of things, we need to be sure that we really want to be rid of them and that we’re not just mouthing the words. God has little patience with prattlers. In my older age, I’ve noticed that occasionally things we think we want to be rid of, like judgment of others, fear, pride, unforgiveness, are actually serving us in some way, keeping us from having to do or to be different from the way we are, and so they legitimately remain. They confound a complete conversion to God’s purposes, even as they disguise themselves as earnest prayers. Watch what you say. Mean what you say. In the gospel of a few weeks ago, Jesus said, in speaking about oaths, Say yes when you mean yes and no when you mean no. Everything else is from the evil one.

I’m going on about this because in order to serve as effectively as we might, we need to be as healthy as we can, and that means, again, body, soul, mind and spirit. And the Spirit of God in Jesus is ready and listening for our call toward healing, whatever form that call takes: words, music, silence, tears, a life grip on Jesus’s seamless garment. God will know the authenticity of the request, of the prayer made in truth and faith and will honor it with a healing, loving answer. It’s in God’s interest to do that because God wants and needs a whole people or a people on their way to being whole to minister to others. Gad wants and needs a committed surrendered people.

And so my question to you this morning: What are you going to do next, as individuals, as a church, and as a community? I recommend shouting out to Jesus for help, if you mean it, whether in words, tears, silence, music, or grasping. “Lord, Son of David, have mercy on us.” We have to ask in faith for what we want, believing Jesus the conduit through which that help comes. It is our desire backed by faith and his power activated by that faith that bring about change. The power is in him and it’s meant for us to tap.

While trying to become better persons, we also become more effective members of the Body of Christ, looking outward as well as inward. All times of transition are times of opportunity, and the time of transition at this church is no exception. Opportunity in this context means service to the church, which is to say, each other and thereby, the community. Hal Tucker and the Board will need help. Look around and see where that help is needed, and ask what you can do. Remember the statue of the handless Christ and the challenge that is to all of us. The future of the church is in your hands, which are the hands of Christ. What are you going to do next?

Choose Life Then...

2011-02-13T15:44:00.001-05:00

Sheepscott Community Church February 13, 2011

Deut. 30: 15-20

1 Cor. 3: 1-9

Matthew 5: 21-37

Choose Life Then...

I want to call your close attention to today’s message, right from the get-go. Not for my sake, except insofar as I care about you, but for your own sake, please try to not only stay awake but to really take in what I have to say. What I am going to lay out are God’s words of life, nothing less than that, God’s words of life for all of us. We have a free choice––life or death, prosperity on God’s terms, or destruction. These are matters of genuine religion, which is urgent religion. What I will talk about this morning is indeed a matter of life and death.

Two weeks ago we considered the beatitudes, a new manifesto, which Jesus clearly laid down in the religious arena of his time, when he delivered those sayings to the people: Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven, and so forth.. The beatitudes are an amplification, a means of carrying out the directive in chapter 6 of the book of the prophet Micah, which deserves quoting again today. “He [God] has showed you, O man, what is good./ And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.”

So, from the mouth of God through his prophets, “I call heaven and earth to witness against you this day, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and curse; therefore choose life, that you and your descendants may live, loving the Lord your God, obeying his voice, and cleaving to him; for that means life for you and length of days.” Again, as I said, this is the stuff of genuine religion. The issues are sharply defined and demand a concrete decision. The edges of what God is saying are not smoothed out so as to not scratch the comfortable. Sooner or later, everyone must face such a challenge that demands decision and commitment. It is the challenge that Jesus gave the rich young man, when he told him to sell all he had, give it to the poor and follow him.

It was more than the young man could deal with and he went away sad. Mind you, Jesus did not love him any less for his decision, but the young man had rejected the opportunity to be more completely avalable to God. He had asked the question, What do I need to do to gain eternal life? He had kept the commandments, as Jesus answered him. But what else? What can I do? I can imagine how caught up he was in the power of Christ’s teaching and his personality, and he must have felt like he could and would do anything for God, but when he heard what the “what else” was, that’s when he walked away slowly with his head down. He was very rich and not yet able to give up that idol, and Jesus knew that that was the sticking point for him because he knew men’s hearts like no one else. It would be interesting to know if years later, he did do what Jesus had recommended, because our values do shift as we age. But we don’t know that. These snapshots we have in the gospels are all we have as our guides to ferreting out our own thoughts and responses to God’s call on our lives, which is always deepening, always widening to fill every nook and cranny of our hopefully increasingly surrendered souls.

This morning’s reading from Deuteronomy, the quotation from Micah, and the beatitudes constitute a foundation, a kind of roadmap to the kingdom of God, to life in God and with God, the life laid out in service––whatever you want to call it. The signposts on that roadmap are the spiritual realities in the Judeo-Christian tradition. Those realities are not a Never-Never Land that has nothing to do with our everyday life. The fact is that those spiritual realities underlie everything we do, positive or negative, depending on the state of our souls. They influence every choice we make. Remember, we are not simply a body. We are body, mind, and spirit, and those dimensions of the human being are integrally connected. They are one.

Our spirits influence the choices we make in matters of forgiveness; in matters of compassion and how that compassion is acted out; in matters as seemingly insignificant as eating and drinking for the health of the body, which is at the service of the soul and affects the health of the soul. It is so important to remember not to compartmentalize body, mind, spirit. One unit: a human being, our selves.

Let’s look at today’s gospel for an application of these scriptural declarations I am talking about. Jesus reminds the people who are listening to him that their law says anyone who commits murder will be liable to judgment, but he has a new teaching. Anyone who is angry with another is liable to judgment. The law as it stood dealt with punishment for the act of murder at the end of the judgment process. Jesus, on the other hand, saw the connection between anger with another and how that can eventually lead to murder. He dealt with the inward thought of the individual and the means of changing that thought and preventing murder at the beginning of the process, not dealing with it at the end. Very different. Jesus would prevent crimes of violence by rooting out the elements in a person’s character that could lead him or her to kill. In 1 John 3: 15 we read, “Anyone who hates his brother is a murderer.“ That statement indicates that the writer of First John got the message Jesus put out there.

Notice again the inwardness of the new law as promulgated by Jesus. Anger, if it is not righteous indignation, which in fact leads us to seek justice for ourselves or others, anger which is not righteous indignation and which goes hand in hand with contempt constitutes incipient murder. Killing is not done only with knives and guns and weapons of mass destruction; it is done in the daily round by contemptuous sneers, gossip, indifference. Certainly Jesus himself had dealt with that kind of contempt and gossip. Wherever he turned, there was another pharisee looking to bring him down, so he spoke not simply with the authority that came out of his own deep life with God, but also out of the difficulties of his everyday life. He knew people’s hearts and must have felt profoundly discouraged at times with their apparent deafness to his teaching and the responsibility to apply that teaching.

Even with their contemptible behavior toward him, however, Jesus had compassion on the pharisees, as he had on all people, because they all were finally children of God. Jesus knew the value of the human soul, and because he himself was fully human, he had compassion on the human condition, in a way he could not have had otherwise.

If the new law of Jesus’s teaching was inward, with regard to the consideration of motives––if the new law was inward, it was also Godward. For God sees the inmost motive and must be worshiped in truth, worship being the crowning act of life. A heart that carries a grudge against any other person cannot be a heart fully available to worship, ergo, Jesus’s admonition, “...if you are offering your gift at the altar, and there remember that your brother has something against you, leave your gift there in front of the altar. First go and be reconciled to your brother; then come and offer your gift.” That’s very practical, very real stuff. Haven’t most of us hidden self-righteously behind a grudge? How that kind of thinking and acting must grieve the heart of God.

I am only selecting one of the issues that Jesus elaborated on in this morning’s gospel: anger as it can lead to murder. I know that seems outrageous and impossibly exaggerated, but is it really? When we truly examine our consciences before God, when we are willing to look at our own motives, we are inevitably humbled by what we are capable of.

Well, maybe I will touch on another of the issues mentioned in this morning’s reading. Adultery. Sex. There, I admonished you at the beginning of this sermon to try to stay awake because I had something important to say. For those of you nodding off, let me say again, Sex. Are we all awake now? Just as the grudge in the heart, unforgiveness can lead to a kind of murder, even if it isn’t an actual physical murder, we sometimes kill a person off in our minds just by refusing to have anything to do with them. That's shudder-worthy, isn’t it? Because it’s recognizable.

Well, in the adultery department, Jesus is saying that we don’t have to actually be physically intimate with another person to commit adultery. A deliberate touch of the hand, a look of the eye, and flirtation is underway. Innocent? No, not really, not if we are our best selves when we bring it before God, although more likely, we just don’t have time for prayer in the days when we are engaging in this sort of flirtation because we have a pretty good idea of what we would hear. Jesus says that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. I think it needs to be said that it works both ways in these post-Victorian times. Anyone who looks at a man lustfully has already committed adultery in the heart. Understand that those who are so looked at are––so to speak––already taken. Not fair game. While sexuality is one of God’s best gifts, we have to honor the gift in the honorable settings that God has laid out, i.e., marriage or committed relationship. TELL THE TRUTH.

“I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the Lord your God, listen to his voice and hold fast to him. For the Lord is your life and he will give you many years in the land he swore to give to your fathers, Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.” Amen.

Do This in Remembrance of Me

2011-02-06T20:09:00.001-05:00

Sheepscott Community Church February 6, 2011

Mark 10: 13-16

Do This in Remembrance of Me

What a special day this is today, especially for Allison and Mary and their parents, but also for us who were invited to the party. Who would not feel renewed by seeing these two precious souls blessed with the water of life, which is the symbol God has provided for cleansing and renewal, for purification and promise.

Recall the wonderful story in Second Kings of Naaman the Syrian, commander of the king’s army, who is afflicted with leprosy. Naaman’s wife’s serving maid, a young captive from Israel, told her mistress that if Naaman would go to Elisha the prophet in Samaria, his leprosy would be cured. So Naaman went with his chariots and horses and stopped at the door of Elisha’s house, and Elisha sent a messenger to say to him, “Go wash yourself seven times in the Jordan, and your flesh will be restored and you will be cleansed.”

But Naaman went away angry that the prophet did not come out and simply heal him by waving his hand over the afflicted areas. “Are not the rivers of Damascus better than any of the waters of Israel? Couldn’t I wash in them and be cleansed?” he asked, then turned, and went off in a rage. One of his attendants took issue with him, pointing out that if the prophet had asked him to do something extraordinary, he would have done it. How much more then should he follow the prophet’s instructions to wash and be cleansed. The attendant prevailed, and Naaman went down to the Jordan, dipped himself in the water seven times, and his flesh was restored and became clean like that of a newborn boy. A little humility there before God’s prophet, and so, before God.

Isn’t that a great story? And here this morning we have water from that same river, thanks to Daisy Radoulevitch who brought it home after she was there with her husband back in the ‘60s. We have used that water and water from the Sheepscot River to symbolize the baptism into Christ of these two little girls, and their baptism into the community of this church, where we are a spiritual extension of their own families. We as a household of faith have witnessed their baptism and we reach out to them in love in the name of Christ, who is the head of this household.

We will remember him and honor him as he instructed us to do, when we share the Lord’s Supper this morning. The form of that remembrance is bread and wine––for us here, grape juice, the same elements that Jesus used 2000 years ago. There are different ways of remembering others. This morning, as I have already pointed out, Mary Elyse was wearing the christening dress made by her great-great-grandmother, and worn by her great- grandmother Mary, for whom she is named today. In a very special way, that great-great-grandmother and great-grandmother are also here this morning because Jeff and Karen recognize the power of a symbol––the dress––to invoke meaning and memory. And I expect they also recognize the attendant mystery which we cannot finally explain, just how those women are here, but they are, even if only in the genes. We are, after all, an amalgam of what has gone before. The communion of saints cuts a wide swath.

Tony Kilburn showed me his watch last Sunday. He bought it on E-bay and it’s just like the one his father wore back in the ‘40s. The works had to be replaced, but now he has the working replica on his wrist. It’s a relic in a real way, an object that invokes the memory of a person and a time when that person was still here. I expect that every time he looks at that watch, he remembers his father.

If any of us look among our treasures at home, I would guess that we all have at least one piece of memorabilia––a few sketches, as I have, that my mother made when she was a teenager, my father’s signature in my baby book, which meant the world to me at one time, as he left this world early and too soon. All of us have and keep these remembrances. Why? Because they bring back to us those whom we have loved and still love and make them present to us in a unique way. But we have to be willing to bring our creative imaginations to this matter of remembrance, perhaps especially to this remembrance of the Lord’s Supper.

Allison and Mary were baptized with water from the Jordan River, half a world away, and with a history that reaches beyond the history of Jesus himself, and also with water from the Sheepscot River, which flows by our door, even now. We are about to remember the last supper, the meal Jesus shared with his apostles the night before he died. We will use the same elements of bread and wine he used when he broke the bread and passed the cup half a world away and scores of generations ago.

Although that was his last night on earth, Jesus still lives, and if we are willing to exercise our creative imaginations about this sacrament, we can think about all the ways he is present to us in each other, in these two sweet infant souls, in the unspeakably beautiful natural setting of this church by the river, in the waters of the Sheepscott flowing to the sea and the River Jordan as well. His being permeates the created world. That is why all change for good is possible if we, who partake of his life this morning, are willing to accept that we share his Spirit––and we do.

The re-creation of Tony’s father’s watch, Allison’s and Mary Elyse’s great-grandmother’s christening dress, my father’s signature in my baby book, the bread and wine permeated by the Spirit of the Living God revealed in Jesus, the Christ–– these are all manifestations of the unlimited expressions of God who is love. They are all symbols which become realities if we connect our belief with them.

And the reality that they communicate is that love lasts. Once we have loved, it never dies. It and we live forever in God, in Christ, and that is what we celebrate at two levels this morning: First, our two little girls baptized with the water of life into the family of God, especially as revealed in this household of faith; and second, fed the food of life in the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper to maintain and sustain us. There is much to celebrate, there is much to be grateful for; there is much life left to live here and there, forever. Amen.

Blessed Are You...

2011-01-30T12:57:00.001-05:00

Sheepscott Community Church January 30, 2011

Micah 6: 1-8

1 Cor, 1: 18-31

Matthew 5: 1-12

Blessed Are You...

You may recall that during the administration of George H.W. Bush, he called for people to volunteer in their communities and thereby be as a thousand points of light. That noble theme was actually spoken and outlined 2000 years earlier in a concrete way by Jesus, who illuminated his nine points of light, the beatitudes, and practiced what he preached––the kingdom of God come into the world.

The proclamation of the beatitudes as presented in today’s gospel of Matthew is written as though the Sermon on the Mount were a single unique event. In fact there were probably several such events and the sayings of Jesus would have been gathered up into this one event, which the gospel writer lays out. The probability of the beatitudes having been preached on several occasions rather than on one as presented shouldn’t distract us from their importance. If anything the writer wants to call attention to these important foundational teachings of Christianity laid out by Jesus, and so he takes the literary liberty of gathering them up into this one signal event.

The mountain from which Jesus speaks is an indication of the loftiness of the material he is propounding and recalls for us the Mount of Transfiguration or Mount Sinai, where Moses received the Ten Commandments. In an earlier translation than ours, Jesus “opened his mouth and taught them.” The use of the term “opened his mouth” is an indication of the utterance of solemn truth. That he sat down to teach was an appropriate posture for a Jewish teacher, and fitting for so important a discourse.

So we note three things: Jesus goes up to the mountain, he opens his mouth, and he sits to teach, all signals from the writer of the gospel of Matthew that there is something very important about to be spoken and we would do well to pay close attention. The location of this discourse, at the front of the Gospel of Matthew, is also an indicator of its importance. The content of Jesus’s sermon on the mount is nothing less than the statement––a new statement––of what righteousness is, especially that righteousness that characterizes the kingdom of God.

Far from being a passive or mild restatement of religious truths, Jesus in essence threw down the gauntlet before the world’s accepted standards of the time. We can see this more clearly when we set the beatitudes over against their opposites. For example, “Blessed are the poor in spirit” would be opposed to the proud in spirit. We’ve see that beatitude dramatized in the parable of the publican and the pharisee, haven’t we? The pharisee stands at the front of the Temple thanking God that he is not like other men––robbers, evildoers, adulterers. He fasts twice a week and gives a tenth of all he has. Meanwhile, the publican or tax collector stands in the back and would not even look up to heaven, but instead beats his breast and says, “God have mercy on me, a sinner.” Jesus tells his listeners––and us––that that man in the back, rather than the one in the front, went home justified before God. Blessed are the poor in spirit, as opposed to the proud in spirit.

Given the constraints of time, I’ll focus only on a few of the beatitudes, first expanding a bit more on that first beatitude, because in essence it incorporates all the others. “Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” In the gospel of Matthew, the gloss “in spirit” is added because poverty in and of itself is not a blessed state. In fact it can embitter a person’s spirit. A gloss is an added interpretation of the text, and if we will accept Matthew’s gloss of “in spirit,” we can say that that word poor covers all who would learn, who would come like children to the great book of life. It covers those who are satisfied with the simple things of life and not consumed with acquisition. It covers all those who are the spiritual descendants of those who were in Jesus’s time the peasants of Galilee, the ones who hungered and thirsted after Jesus’s words. His words were matched by his acts of healing, which the poor couldn’t have paid for and which in fact had no price. Healings were freely dispensed out of the compassionate well of Christ’s being.

These peasants were the despised “folk of the soil,” the anawim as they were called in Jesus’s time, but it was just those despised ones whom Jesus called blessed. Something to ponder. If pride is the root of all sin, and it is, then poverty of spirit is the root of all virtue. Those who are blessed because of poverty of spirit are humble before God and never presume. They have a spiritually healthy sense of their own emptiness before God, which God can fill with that One’s self, and whereby the kingdom comes. The person does not cease to be but indeed becomes his true self, which is always hidden in God and waiting to be revealed.

Let’s consider the second beatitude for a few minutes. “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.” That seems at best a paradox. How can those who mourn be blessed? First of all, in order to mourn, we have to care about something or someone outside of ourselves. And I expect we have all mourned at one time or another, because we have cared for someone and have lost that someone to death. It doesn’t feel like a time of blessing, does it?. Maybe we need to adjust our own understanding of what the word “Blessed” means and of what mourning can encompass.

Jesus knew very well that grief in itself, like poverty in itself is not blessed state, but there it is, only second in the lineup of beatitudes. What kind of mourning can be a blessed state? Blessed are those who accept their own sorrow with a resolve to learn from it. These are they who cannot conceive that life is given only for their comfort. Darkness may reveal stars, which the daytime’s sun can only conceal. Just so, they confront the fact of death and accept the pain that goes with it, in such a way, that they offer hospitality to a strange guest––and I do mean death itself––and perhaps thereby entertain angels unawares.

Those who mourn include those who don’t turn away from the world’s misery. They voluntarily share their neighbor’s pain. They are the ones who come to visit when there is a death in the house; who visit those in prison, aware that those in prison are not so different from themselves. Those who mourn are those who agonize over injustices, from homelessness, to concern for those who have no health insurance and remain untreated, to the countenancing and so tacit acceptance of domestic violence. The list of society’s wrongs is not quite endless, but close, and those who mourn with those who suffer because of those wrongs are the compassionate of the earth, and God knows it. Blessed are they.

And blessed are those who mourn for their own sins, and indeed for those of their neighbors. It is elect souls who mourn thus, counting themselves guilty in the common guilt. There is a companionship with Moses across the millennia, who in Exodus said to God, “Blot me out of thy book yet forgive their sin.” Better known, Jesus’s own prayer from the cross, “Father, forgive them. They know not what they do.” Two who associated themselves with sinful human beings: Moses and Jesus. And with all those who mourn. They are the conscience of their age, not as acid reformers, but as the heart of love that changes the world. Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall be comforted.

I was hard pressed whether to choose the fifth beatitude––Blessed are the merciful, for they shall obtain mercy––or the seventh––Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God. So I’m going to touch on both; I can’t let one or the other go.

When Jesus said, “Blessed are the merciful,” he was once again going against the ethical grain of his time. The Romans despised pity; the Stoics might offer help, but they looked askance at compassion. And the pharisees, so uptight in their self-righteousness showed little mercy. In fact, suffering at that time was generally viewed as deserved punishment for sin. So, you can see the revolutionary nature of Jesus blessing those who showed mercy, as he himself did and illustrated again and again. His parable of the Good Samaritan, the only person who showed mercy to the man set upon by robbers, is a good example. This was a new kind of teaching. It seems somewhat commonplace to us but that’s only because we’ve been hearing it much of our lives, as part and parcel of the religion of Christianity.

Mercy lays claim on us wherever and whenever there is suffering, and not just the suffering of human beings but of all creatures. Mere feeling or sentiment in the direction of suffering is not enough. Mercy needs to become translated into action or it becomes maudlin. What I admire and like about the merciful is that they are aware enough of their own sins not to judge anyone else for theirs. There is an awareness of the common ground, of the human condition.

And the seventh beatitude? Blessed are the peacemakers. The work of the peacemaker is reconciliation between groups and human beings at odds with each other. To expect peace to just happen spontaneously is fatuous.The peacemaker, whose most important work is the practice of the presence of God, can give peace from the overflow of his or her own peaceful heart. The work of making peace keeps the love of God at the center, because as long as persons are at odds with God, they are at odds with themselves and with their neighbors.

Think of the Truth and Justice Commission established by Archbishop Desmond Tutu in South Africa, following the dismantling of apartheid. People had a chance to speak about their experience under that oppressive system and to be heard. That opportunity for injustice to be exposed for what it was and is and consequent suffering to be acknowledged is one element on the road to establishing peace. That Desmond Tutu was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize was entirely fitting, as was the awarding of that prize to former President Jimmy Carter who has spent his post-presidency years as an ambassador of peace and justice around the world, traveling when and where he is invited to oversee elections in potentially inflammatory situations and places, being a visible working supporter of Habitat for Humanity, and working for the complete elimination of guinea worm in sub-Saharan Africa..

Blessed are the peacemakers. Blessed are the merciful. Blessed are they who mourn. They are all poor in spirit, which is to say, humble before God, listening to and watching for the guidance of the Spirit of God about how to go forward in service. The world needs all of us, for we are what the world has to embody the kingdom come. We can be conduits for God’s compassion, mercy and peace, if we are poor in spirit, not thinking so highly of ourselves that God can’t get through the noise of pride around us.

Jan read the often quoted admonition from Micah, “He has showed you, O man, what is good./ And what does the Lord require of you?/ To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” I recommend committing that to memory. It will bring to mind the beatitudes and maybe bring you back to study and think about them. Amen.

We Are the Light of the World

2011-01-23T19:19:00.000-05:00

Sheepscott Community Church January 23, 2011

Isaiah 9: 1-4

1 Cor, 1: 10-18

Matthew 4: 12-23

We Are the Light of the World

In this morning’s first reading from Isaiah, there is an unmistakable yearning for the arrival of a time of deliverance from the oppressor, for the arrival of a Messiah-King. Scholars disagree about whether the reading is a reference to a contemporary king of the time or whether it was indeed, as the writer of the gospel of Matthew purports, a prophecy of the Messiah King, realized in the person of Jesus.

Perhaps it doesn’t have to be an either or situation, but that both could be true. There could have been a contemporary king––Hezekiah is the one usually cited––and the passage could have foretold the effect of the coming of the Messianic King. There is something heroic in the historical unwillingness of the Jewish people to surrender that hope for the ideal king who would finally come at the behest of God to rule his people.

Every time a new king was crowned in those days, hope stirred again in loyal hearts and people would ask,”Is he the God-anointed one? Is this the Messiah? And though no prince of the House of David ever fulfilled that hope, and king after king brutally disillusioned the believing people, still they continued to hope, pray and trust that he would come, if not that day, then some other day. You have to marvel at that kind of faith, that kind of hope, that continues even now among observant Jews, and that, in these days, these years that follow the unthinkable Holocaust. Still they hope and wait on God.

What I want to focus on today, however, is the fulfillment of Isaiah’s prophecy. For the purposes of this message, I call our attention to the response of the Christian community from time immemorial to that reading from Isaiah, which you may recognize as one of the readings for Advent, in anticipation of Christmas. We hear it every year, and we, along with the larger Christian community, rejoice in the gift of God’s love in Jesus Christ, the long-awaited Messiah, the light that shone. It is his song––”The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light. On those living in the land in the shadow of death, a light has dawned.” That is his song and we sing it in our own hearts in thanksgiving for the fulfillment of that hope, which burned in the human heart through centuries of darkness and pain.

The hope had always been that God would yet visit and redeem his people. For us that hope has been fulfilled, has been reallized in Jesus. The people walking in darkness have seen a great light. We have lived Christmas. We are living Christmas. Originally spoken to a handful of despairing Jews more than 2500 years ago, it gives voice to the thanksgiving of all people for a great deliverance and a divine Savior. The song is timeless and universal and perfectly mirrors the hopes of human beings.

Every detail of the song fits our case and meets our needs. What is our case? And what are our needs? Our case today is simply the occasion of the Annual Meeting. We have this opportunity to discuss the business and future of the Sheepscott Community Church. Our need is to have a spirit of love manifested in cooperation so that the business of God can go forward in this place at this time.

Paul’s words to the Corinthians in this morning’s epistle could not be more timely or appropriate. “I appeal to you, brothers, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you agree with one another so that there may be no divisions among you and that you may be perfectly united in mind and thought.” He further asks: “Is Christ divided?” The state of no divisions and perfect unity does not happen spontaneously, and you have to wonder if such a thing can happen with a group of people of such divergent interests and opinions as out membership. If we think of unity as consensus, however, people can continue to retain differing opinions, but have consensus on the common ground of recognizing the value of having this community church and the need to work out compromises that will make the continuation of this church possible

From another angle, you may question the likelihood of a seamless garment of cooperation, knowing your own limitations and more likely knowing with greater certainty the limitations of others, but I would encourage all of us to think of ourselves in terms of the men Jesus called in this morning’s gospel to follow him, to be his disciples. These were the most ordinary of people, average guys, these fishermen. The Joe Six-Packs of their time, if you will; four of them: Peter, Andrew, James and John. They were not men of scholarship, influence, wealth or social background. They weren’t poor; they were simply working stiffs with no great background, and certainly, anyone would have said, with no great future.

What Jesus needed was ordinary folk who would give of themselves. He can do anything with people like that, and that was the kind of people the apostles were. And that is the kind of people we are: ordinary people who are willing to give of ourselves. Jan, Clara, Tony, giving of themselves, with a little help from their friends, month after month at the community supper. They, and Joan and Curt, and Fran, providing us with music week after week, making it easier to lift out hearts and spirits to God. Cindy and Chrissy teaching Sunday School with patience and good humor, and lessons that everyone can be part of. Cindy acting as chair of the Board from time immemorial, and all those who serve on the Board: Chrissy and C.J., Cyndi Brinkler, Bill Thompson, Donna Krah, Karen Mook, Bill Robb, who has also been our Treasurer for the past three years. Jon Robbins, undertaking the weekly coffee hour for almost a year now, with recent, welcome relief from Chrissy. Sonnie and Karen Mook overseeing the lawn sale. Virginia Carol Shorey being our weekly greeter. I could go on.

The point is these are ordinary people, who will give of themselves, and it is just that attitude that enables God to carry out his work in the world, specifically in this church. I am appealing to those of you who think it takes special talent or way more time than you have to consider committing yourself to the work of the church. Believe me, there’s no one among those I mentioned who has more time than anyone else. Everyone has the same 24 hours a day. The question is what do you do with it? With twelve well-disposed people, Jesus changed the world. We have more than that here every Sunday. What might God do with us when we are willing to make ourselves available?

We are all part of the body of God, of Christ, and it behooves us to be conscious of that as we strive to work together, respecting the Christ in each other for the sake of the gospel. We don’t have to wait any longer for the Messiah to appear. For us in these latter days, Isaiah’s song is one of thanksgiving rather than longing after. The light that shone in the darkness is already here––Christ. And in him we have everything we need to serve and every reason to serve. Just ask Peter, Andrew, James and John, or Clara, Fran, Tony, Jan, Joan, Curt, Carol, Jon, Cindy, Chrissy, Brie, etcetera.

Let us speak our concerns and listen to those of others with an eye towards community at our meeting this morning. Let us be open to the light of love that is Jesus Christ, so recently born again in our midst. Amen.

The Tucson Massacre

2011-01-16T20:15:00.000-05:00

Sheepscott Community Church January 16, 2011

Isaiah 49: 1-7

1 Corinthians 1: 1-9

John 1: 29-42

The Tucson Massacre

You have heard me read the gospel this morning from John, and the very beginning of that gospel read: “Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” That is John speaking to his followers when Jesus was walking toward them.

Excuse me? If that Lamb of God came to take away the sin of the world, where was he a week ago Saturday when Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords, Federal Judge John Roll, 9-year-old Christina Taylor-Green and four others were gunned down, everyone except the Congresswoman dead. Twenty others were wounded. Where was the Lamb of God in that tragic melee? How could that happen if he had taken away the sin of the world?

Easy enough to answer that by saying, well, Jesus, the Lamb of God, comes and comes again into the world, as each of us welcomes him, or not, as each of us chooses to reject him or not. Let’s build on that a little bit. None of us has the privilege that Andrew and John, who were followers of John the Baptist had. They saw the one John i.d.’ed as the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world with human eyes, and probably did whatever was comparable in that time and place to shaking hands with him. That was how they met the one the Baptist called the Son of God––up close and personal.

They were impressed enough that each went to his brother––Andrew to Simon Peter, and the unnamed John to his brother James––to announce that they had found the Messiah, the Christ. This event, which preceded the account in Matthew 4 of the calling of those first disciples, who were out in their fishing boats, makes more understandable the report that they dropped everything when Jesus called out to them, “Come, follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” They had already been prepared, having met him in the company of the Baptist.

So this is how the two sets of brothers came to find Jesus, the Messiah. At least two of them had already been looking for him, or they wouldn’t have been hanging around with the Baptist. Some others search and don’t find, but there is blessing even in the seeking. As Oliver Cromwell once wrote to his daughter, “To be a seeker is to be of the best sect next to a finder; and such a one shall every humble seeker be at the end. Happy seeker, happy finder!”

There are different ways we come to Christ. Some are brought to Christ like Simon Peter, and some are found by Christ in what might be called a divinely interventionary way. It is important to remember that knowing Christ is not simply election to privilege but more importantly, election to service. We are the body of Christ, his feet that must run for him, his hands that must carry for him, his body through which his blessed will gets itself done. If Christ is all we say he is, we cannot keep him to ourselves but must share him with others.

And let me tell you, we don’t have to understand how the whole thing works in order to share Christ with others. We just share our own little portion of what God has done in our lives. For instance, I started off this message with a note about Gabrielle Giffords and all those killed or wounded last Saturday. I troubled about how that event could line up with the quotation from John the Baptist in this morning’s gospel: “Look, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” If the current state of the world is one in which sin has been taken away, what would our world be like without any activity of God? The answer to that question depends on us and our willingness to say yes to God in any given moment, as this taking away the sin of the world seems to be a process, doesn’t it?

To be sure, the business of the Lamb of God taking away the sin of the world is a slow business at best, if we look at the world around us, and specifically this week at the tragedy in Tucson. But we needn’t even go that far afield. We need only look within to see what a slow business taking away the sin of the world is. How long does it take us to follow through with our own resolutions to do better, to be better, to change? I remind you of the beautifully restored house on the corner of Winter Street in Augusta, which I talked about last week. It shines with its candles in the windows as a beacon of hope and beauty in a neighborhood definitely run-down at the heels.

If you recall, I made a parallel between that house and Jesus, the way he rises beautiful in our own private neighborhoods of discouragement and sin and loneliness. And he stays. He is fixed permanently among us no less than that house is on its granite foundation in that neighborhood. He sees us as we are––simple people who, in spite of our shortcomings, are trying for the most part to live the best life we can with some consistency––he sees us as we are and he loves us. Simple as that. Who deserves it? Nobody. But Jesus doesn’t relate in terms of who deserves what; he simply loves, which is how he teaches us to live––by love and not judgment, day by day in every choice we make.

Something I never noticed before in the gospel reading was John giving testimony, “I saw the Spirit come down from heaven as a dove and remain on him.” He later refers to the one who sent him––whom he doesn’t identify, by the way, but who is presumed to be the Spirit of God––who told John, “The man on whom you see the Spirit come down and remain is he who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.” What struck me was that the Spirit remained, did not return from whence it came. And even though that Spirit was utterly with Jesus, even so, he went through the ignominious suffering and death that he did. If you remember nothing else from this message, remember this, the last line of the gospel of Matthew: “Know that I am with you always, until the end of the world,” as the Spirit was with Jesus. He was not alone, even on the cross. You are not alone, I am not alone, we are not alone.

The Spirit of God remains in the world now. Even so, there are horrors such as the carnage in Tucson last week; the tsunami-like flooding in Queensland, Australia, the mudslides in Brazil; the unfaithfulness to God and human beings in the hearts of individual people. Every week it’s something else. All of this goes on and on, and yet the Spirit remains, smack dab in the middle of all our personal neighborhoods. You would only have to heard Suki Flanagan’s harp on Christmas Eve to know that the hearts of men and women and children can still be turned by grace more fully toward the light through what seemed the music of the spheres. You would know that the Spirit remains. You would only have to have seen Carol Shorey’s palpable delight in three-week-old Mary last Sunday to know that in spite of everything, the Spirit of God remains in the world.

This weekend we mark the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr., whose prophetic life was stopped by an assassin’s bullet in Memphis, TN, on April 4, 1968. The business of the Lamb of God taking away the sin of the world is a slow business. In addition to Martin Luther King, witness Ghandi, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Robert Kennedy, Jean Donovan and the nun martyrs in the El Salvador of the 1980’s, all stopped by violent acts. And yet, the Spirit remained in and with all of them.

I would like to conclude on a note of hope delivered in a speech at King’s rally on April 3, the night before he was assassinated. I think it contains and continues a true prophetic word for all of us.

“Well, I don’t know what will happen now. We’ve got some difficult days ahead. But it doesn’t matter with me now. Because I’ve been to the mountaintop . And I don’t mind. Like anybody, I would like to live a long life. Longevity has its place. But I’m not concerned about that now. I just want to do God’s will. And he’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight that we, as a people, will get to the promised land. And I’m happy tonight. I’m not worried about anything. I’m not fearing any man. Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord.”

Amen.

To Fulfill All Righteousness

2011-01-09T15:29:00.000-05:00

Sheepscott Community Church January 9, 2011

Isaiah 42: 1-9

Acts 10: 34-43

Matthew 3: 13-17

To Fulfill All Righteousness

I was in Augusta shopping last week and took a short cut over to Barnes & Noble from Western Ave., over Sewall Street, across Winthrop to Winter Street, where the Unitarian Universalist Church is located on the corner. I had the happy surprise as I passed their side door of seeing a banner draped over the entrance that read: “We come down on the side of Love.” It made me smile to see that bold red banner there, and I thought, How could that ever be a bad thing?

Further down, on the corner of the next T intersection, I came across another surprise. In a less than––shall-we-say––nice neighborhood, there was a perfectly restored and landscaped early 19th-century house, breathtakingly beautiful, especially among the surroundings of unrestored and unlandscaped buildings and lots. Almost across the street is the now vacant lot where Pomerleau’s furniture warehouse used to be. The owner of the restored house was obviously not discouraged or brought down by the surroundings, but called forth something beautiful in the midst of them, and continues to maintain that something beautiful.

That image of the house, following on the message of the banner at the UU Church––We come down on the side of love–– struck me as a parallel to today’s readings. Not to leave you in the dark or guessing about this, I tell you straight out that the house on Winter Street in Augusta is like the life of Jesus lived out among ordinary people, people who were sinners, and the banner at the other end of the street at the UU church is how he managed to do it, viz., by coming down on the side of love.

If that seems a bit of a stretch, let’s look more closely at the gospel. A question that is rightly asked in relation to this gospel is why did Jesus, the so-called sinless one, came forward for John’s baptism, which is for repentance for sin? There are at least three possible answers for that. The first is that he was not coming forward out of guiltiness for sin, but in his coming forward, he was publicly and somewhat formally renouncing what his life had been up to that point. He was leaving behind home and family to go out on his own, to indeed become a homeless wandering preacher/teacher, and as it turned out healer and raiser-up from the dead as well. He said of himself, “Foxes have holes, birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.”

His itinerant preaching and teaching was not unusual for a person like him with a prophetic calling. Jesus was hardly the only teacher wandering that countryside at that time teaching. What was more unusual was him being recognized as taking on himself the common sin when he, the sinless One, stepped forward for John’s baptism. Although they were cousins, it’s possible that John and Jesus were meeting for the first time that day, largely because John lived in Judea, while Jesus lived in Galilee. Nevertheless, John recognized instinctively the holiness of Christ, which is why he said to him, “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?”

But Jesus neither flaunted his sinlessness nor stood apart from the world’s sin. Sinlessness can never become a negative scrupulousness; it must be a holy and an outgoing love because righteousness without love ceases to be righteous. Jesus at his baptism did not become a party to sin, but he did share the shame and blame of sin by identifying with human beings and thus absorbing their sin into his own love. That was a redemptive act.

He repented with human beings as a human being himself, in order to redeem human beings in God and for God. I repeat that sinlessness can’t change anything if it simply exists as a sterile idea. Sinlessness must be active as a holy and outgoing love, as it was with Jesus. Like that house on the corner of Winter Street in Augusta, Jesus’s love is so beautiful and awe-inspiring in our own very personal neighborhoods of shortcomings, vices, or sin, call it what you want. But see? He doesn’t remove himself to a nicer neighborhood. It is as if he is fixed on a granite foundation, like that house, there with us for the duration. And...and, he comes down on the side of love.

Love, as I have said to you over the last two weeks, is a gift freely given, and so does Jesus give the gift of his love, which is his life, fully and freely. There is no coercion. He does not impose his will or manner of life on others, unlike some who claim to speak for him. His way of love freely given, without coercion, or coming down on the side of love as the banner proclaims, appreciates the pathos of our existence as human beings. His approach is not censorious or punitive; it is sympathetic.

So, that’s two reasons why Jesus came forward for the baptism: first, to mark the dividing line between his life as it had been in Nazareth and as the new life he was taking on as itinerant preacher and teacher; and the second, to identify with the sinfulness of human beings and to be the love offering that could make them whole, could bring them to the One he called Father.

Now, a third reason he came forward for John’s baptism was that in a deepening sense of the call on his own life, he knew that God had some commission to lay upon him. Just as John with prophetic insight and humility instinctively recognized the holiness of Jesus, Jesus believed that the voice of God might come through the ministry of his brave cousin, who was so disciplined in righteousness. He trusted himself, his cousin John, and God enough to step up to the plate. As we heard in the gospel, because John did recognize who Jesus was, he tried to prevent Jesus from undergoing this baptism of repentance meant for sinners.

What Jesus wants, contradicts John’s fiery apocalyptic images of final judgment that are connected with his baptism. The One John was prophesying about––Jesus, who would baptize with fire and whose sandals John was not worthy to carry––this One turns out to be a fairly ordinary man who humbly and voluntarily associates himself with sinners. John objects to the reversal of the proper roles and order of salvation history as he has understood them, but he finally acquiesces to Jesus’s objection to his objection, accepting Jesus’s call to “fulfill all righteousness” and baptize him.

To expand on that third reason of Jesus’s growing sense of his own destiny, it is not irreverent to assume an ongoing clarification in Jesus’s own mind about who he was. During his years at Nazareth, his awareness that God had for him a task that would be the making of his destiny, that awareness deepened. Viewing Jesus’s growth in understanding is neither a false nor sacrilegious assumption. Rather, it is the reverent acknowledgment of Christ’s humanness. We can only guess at what Jesus’s growing understanding was like, knowing that he was to walk a dreadful path that was singular in human history. Perhaps as he stepped forward for baptism he was finally sure that the parting-of-the-waters moment was at hand.

When Jesus came up out of the water, the heavens opened and the Spirit in the form of a dove descended upon him, and a voice, mysterious yet personal, was heard to say, “This is my Son, whom I love, with him I am well pleased.” Now the seal is set on his forehead. Christ is ordained in that moment by the laying on of God’s own hands, as it were.

I would note that in Matthew’s account of the baptism, which I read today, there is a clear and significant contrast with Mark’s account. In the latter account, only Jesus hears the voice speaking to him, addressing him in the second person: “You are my Son whom I love; with you I am well pleased.” It was a private experience. Matthew makes it a public experience by having the voice speak in the third person to those assembled there: “This is my Son whom I love, with whom I am well pleased.”

That Son of righteousness is among us still, standing beautiful, as does that house on a strong foundation, having chosen us by having chosen to come down on the side of love. Such a poet Jesus was, with his hardscrabble cousin John––truly a unique pairing in religious history. But they were both prophets and deeply understood the activity of God that undergirded and fashioned their lives for great purpose.

In rapid succession we have prepared for the feast of Christmas during Advent. We have celebrated Christmas with joy and been repelled by Herod’s slaughter of the innocent boys under two years of age in Bethlehem. We have come with the Three Wise Men to the crib on Epiphany and left our gifts there at the crib, and only we and God know what those gifts are. Now today, the first Sunday after Epiphany, we are on the bank of the Jordan, where Jesus is baptized at the beginning of his more public life. That life will end three years later in a horrific death and a headline-making resurrection. For us those three years are telescoped into the next three months.

We can follow Christ’s example and submit to a prayerfully private repentance and re-baptism, and then follow him through the weeks learning from him, and being changed, converted by association with him and with those who acknowledge his way of suffering love. We can enter into that house, that beautiful, house on the corner of Winter Street in Augusta, and sit at supper with him who is both structure and foundation built of love. Let us as a congregation come down on the side of love. Amen.

Panis Angelicus

2011-01-02T16:37:00.000-05:00

Sheepscott Community Church January 2, 2010 Epiphany

Isaiah 60: 1-6

Matthew 2: 1-12

Panis Angelicus

I entitled today’s message “Panis Angelicus,” the name of a Latin hymn and a phrase that means “bread of the angels.” And what is the bread of the angels? Christ. But not only bread of the angels, but bread of the shepherds, of the Magi, and finally our bread, our staff of life, which fully enables us to live our lives. If we feed on this bread, the very life of God will nourish us. A note of interest is that the name of the town, “Bethlehem,” where Christ was born, means “house of bread,” or, the village in the grainfields. The meaning is of course deepened by Christ, who is, again, the bread of life.

Let’s dwell for just a bit on the idea of Jesus as the panis angelicus, the bread of the angels, the bread of life, who was also the bread of the Magi, whose coming we mark on this Sunday, this feast of Epiphany, which happily is our Communion Sunday. The word epiphany signifies a manifestation or appearance of a divine or superhuman being. The meaning was early appropriated by the church to mean the festival commemorating the manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles––i.e., non-Jews, which was and is observed January 6, the twelfth day after Christmas.

The traditional understanding of Epiphany connected with the visit of the three kings, or astrologers, Magi or Wise Men––they are called by all of these names––the traditional understanding is that the infant Jesus was being revealed to those legendary men from the East were not Jews but Gentiles, possibly members of the Zoroastrian priestly caste, in any case, members of one of the religious cults of the East whose followers studied the movements of the stars.

I would remind you at this juncture that a secondary lesson from this feast of Epiphany is that God can make Godself known and available in the language and through the beliefs, acts and customs of any group. It was when they were busy about the task of their own science of astrology that the Magi discovered this new star, which they were led to follow. God leaves no person without a sign of himself, for only God knows the desires of the individual heart, its longing and ambitions and most secret thoughts, and can enable epiphany in that utterly personal space. God can enable a revelation of himself in language and setting that the host can understand as divine visitation or manifestation. In the case of the Magi, as the story goes, the unusual star led the three astrologers to the place where Jesus lay.

Notable is that Jesus was not born in the town where the Magi lived. No, this is a story of their seeking after. There is purpose in the journey itself. God safeguards our freedom, but he also gives the sign, and we decide whether we stay where we are or journey forward. to the unknown, following the sign we have been given.

When the Magi found the child with his mother, they acknowledged his kingship on bended knee proffering gifts fit for a king: gold, frankincense and myrrh.

What did he offer in return to the visiting kings? Nothing less than the bread of the angels, panis angelicus, come under the guise of flesh, born of woman in the humblest of situations––a stable or a cave where animals were kept. If you recall from the gospel a few weeks ago, Jesus asked those assembled around him what they had gone out to see when they went to hear John the Baptist preach and experience his baptism. “Did you go out to see a man dressed in fine clothes? No, those who wear expensive clothes and indulge in luxury are in palaces. But what did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, I tell you, and more than a prophet.” Jesus could have been speaking about himself as well. If John was in the desert preparing for the One to come, dressed in camel skins and living on locusts and honey, his cousin Jesus ‘s beginnings were comparably inauspicious in the worldly sense. Born in a cave. How low can you go? Humble beginnings for sure, and no fancy clothes as they wore in palaces, but a swaddling wrap.

Again, I ask you, what did he have to offer to the special guests who came, the Three Wise Men, the shepherds, others, us? He offers himself, all that he is, the bread of the angels, panis angelicus.

I wonder how much of a leap of faith that is for you to take? That Jesus can really offer himself to them then, and to us now in such a way. Do you think it’s possible to believe that in this sacrament we will share today, one of the two named sacraments of this church, baptism and communion, do you think he offers himself to us under the form or guise of bread and grape juice, the way he offered himself to the Magi? To all of us under the guise of the flesh and blood of a real person––Jesus––born of a human mother into history? Do you think that’s possible in the realm of faith? Wouldn’t it be wonderful if that were true? I believe it is.

Something I have never lost from my old life as a Roman Catholic is a sense of the importance of this bread of the angels, this panis angelicus, which we will share this morning and which I think Jesus offers all of us when we approach him. He offers the bread of himself in any number of ways, including sacramentally. No less does he offer himself in fellowship and the community meal cooked and shared at the Second Congregational Church, which we will be doing a week from Wednesday. If anyone would like to try that particular form of communion, of sharing in the life and body of God, let Jan Kilburn or Clara Fagan know.

We began this service by opening Addie’s beautifully wrapped gift to the church, which she brought us on the Third Sunday of Advent. It seemed an appropriate thing to do on this day of the gifts of the Magi brought to the Christ child. We didn’t know what was going to be in the little square, but what we did know was that it was a gift of love freely given and therefore of infinite value, whatever it turned out to be. Opening it was something of a minor epiphany, if you think of her love as a manifestation of divine love.

We began with love, and we will end with love, as we are about to share a love feast, the communion, that can also be Epiphany. The two are inseparable. We know God in the breaking of the bread; we know God in each other, when we share a meal, which in itself is a sacred act. Epiphany and the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper. Epiphany as I said earlier, a manifestation or appearance of a divine or superhuman being, the meaning was appropriated by the church for this feast we are observing today, commemorating the manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles.

Everything is possible for us today. All we need is faith, a free gift of God for the asking. Ask and you will receive. I was remembering out loud to Cyndi when we were praying last Sunday in the sanctuary after the service one of the gems of advice that Rev. Mary Harrington gave to me in the summer of her sickness and my learning, and that advice went like this. Paraphrase: Don’t be stingy with your prayers. Ask for everything you want. Don’t cut corners. Let the prayers overflow, believing that you will have what you ask for. And this is a Unitarian giving me this advice. She was absolutely right, and now I pass on that advice to you, especially in relation to asking for faith––the twelfth step––pass it on––for the twelfth day of Christmas. Amen.

Christ Abides

2010-12-26T17:35:00.001-05:00

Sheepscott Community Church December 26, 2010

Isaiah 63: 7-9

Matthew 2: 13-23

Christ Abides

I question whether there is anybody in church today who hasn’t heard of Susan Boyle, the Scottish chanteuse who a little over a year ago wowed the audience and judges on the show “Britain’s Got Talent.” Middle-aged and overweight, dowdy in dress and odd in deportment, Susan Boyle’s dream was to be a professional singer in the mold of the popular UK artist Elaine Page. The audience frowned at the allusion, and the cameras picked up more than one audience member rolling her eyes and sneering. But then, Susan Boyle opened her mouth and sang for all she was worth, and that was a lot. The audience was on its feet cheering. Here was the genuine article.

Within minutes of the show, Susan Boyle’s U-tube video went viral on the internet and within a few days had broken the record for hits with over 300,000,000 viewers from around the world watching the songstress, who in her ordinariness stood in for many people who have a dream. Fittingly her selection was “I Dreamed a Dream” from Les Miserables, and she had the nerve, the guts, the chutzpah to try to make her dream a reality.

The point I want to make out of this story is that the news in today’s world travels in nanoseconds on the internet, and someone in New Dehli can know what someone in New Gloucester, Maine is up to on a Sunday morning, if New Gloucester wants to put it out there on Facebook or a blog or whatever. The internet video that made Susan Boyle an international star literally overnight can be contrasted with the star that the Wise Men, the astrologers, the Kings saw in the sky. It was no instant video that informed them of its meaning. For nearly two years they studied their astrological charts and weighed them against the prophecies of the time concerning an important King to be born, and interpreting the star to mean that there was something worth investigating. So they went on the road to track down this newborn king.

The story of the Three Wise Men is actually next Sunday’s story, when we will celebrate Epiphany, but a bit of it is necessary for background about why Herod got so upset about this birth, as noted in today’s gospel. Whatever really did happen, we can at the very least learn from the story that Jesus’s birth was significant and threatening to the powers that were at the time. No sooner had the Light come into the world than the darkness fixed on it to overcome it.

In this story the darkness took the form of King Herod, who was not so far from Kim Jong Il, the current president of North Korea, or Laurent Gbagbo, the legitimately defeated president of Ivory Coast, who refuses to concede the presidential office. Herod, Kim Jong Il, Gbagbo are and were all paranoid about threats to their power from the outside. Even within the family. Herod, had three of his sons killed because he thought they were plotting against him––which they may have been, with good reason. He also had his wife Mariamne and her mother Alexandra killed for the same reason. Among the most egregiously cruel and self-serving of Herod’s acts was at the very end of his life. He ordered that the slaughter of the most notable men of Jerusalem take place at the moment of his death, so that there would be weeping in the city when he died. He had no illusions about the way people felt––including family––about him.

So, it isn’t so hard to believe that this despot would have all the boys under two years of age in Bethlehem killed in an attempt to do away with yet another threat to his power. This was the Slaughter of the Innocents, as it was called. It’s also worth noting that we aren’t talking about hundreds of boys here, maybe 20 or 30. Bethlehem was a small town, after all, and who would primarily have been affected by those killings would simply be the children and mothers of the children. In the rest of the area, the event would have caused little more than a ripple. It wasn’t their sons, after all.

So where was God in all this? I would answer with verses Cyndi read this morning from Isaiah: “In all their distress”––and we can imagine the distress of the scene of babies and toddlers being torn from their mothers and slaughtered in front of them, but Matthew spares us the details––”In all their distress, he too was distressed, and the angel of his presence saved them. In his love and mercy he redeemed them; he lifted them up and carried them all the days of old.” And that’s enough. God is always enough, even when death is involved. Whether we apply the “them” in those verses to the babies themselves or to the frantic parents, or even to the soldiers doing their duty whose Father, whose Mother, God no less is, “In all their distress he too was distressed, and the angel of his presence saved them.”

God with us. Emmanuel, if you recall from the gospels and the readings from Isaiah and from the hymns and messages of the last four weeks. Emmanuel, God with us. God carrying his people as in days of old.

A powerful image some of you may have seen that goes a long way toward making visible the complexity and perplexing nature of this morning’s gospel––as in How could Herod do that? How could the soldiers do that?––an image that can help illuminate some of the reality behind the text, and the reality even further behind the image itself is a painting by the late nineteenth-, early twentieth-century artist Luc Olivier Merson, entitled “Repose in Egypt.” The painter shows Mary and the infant Jesus asleep in the hollow between the body and the right paw of the Sphinx, the halo light from the Child’s head lighting the face of the Sphinx.. The enigma/ that life is/ remains /and it is well captured in the figure of the Sphinx and the cruelty of Herod, which is the cause of the Mother and Child being here at the base of the Sphinx in Egypt in the first place.

The Sphinx can represent the contradictions we know within ourselves, for our human nature sometimes seems a mixture of serpent, winged bird, lion and human. But even as the contradiction the Sphinx represents remains, the Christ Child has been born and sleeps peacefully between the lion’s paws. I repeat what I noted earlier: No sooner had the Light come into the world than evil in the person of Herod began to oppose it. But look: the child asleep between the lion paws of the Sphinx. Contradiction. We ourselves are a web of contradiction, with possibilities and propensities toward both good and evil.

But Christ abides, there between the paws of the Sphinx, as an answer to our yearning for the pardon of our sins, the promise of eternal life written across the top of our own deaths. He awaits only the venture of our faith to prove himself the answer to the mystery. And that is what I am going to leave you with this morning. The word “mystery” seems to be the easy way out of explaining the unexplainable, of not declaring what the Truth with a capital T is, after all is said and done. Nevertheless, that is what I leave you with this morning: the challenge to engage with mystery: the Spirit of the Living God as revealed in this Light born into the world on Christmas, which yes, the darkness immediately rises up to oppose, the darkness in ourselves as well as the darkness outside of ourselves.

But darkness is already defeated because the light has come into the world. The world is no longer in total darkness.

Think of one artist’s rendering of that child between the paws of the lion. We, when we come to know how Jesus is who he is––knowable in prayerful listening––can ourselves be between the paws of the lion and yet sleep with ease, knowing we are lifted up and carried by God as in days of old. Amen.

What Does Love Do?

2010-12-19T14:47:00.001-05:00

Sheepscott Community Church December 19, 2010

Isaiah 7: 10-17

Matthew 1: 18-25

What Does Love Do?

I’m going to talk about two things this morning in relation to the title of the message, “What Does Love Do?” First, I’ll spend a few minutes talking about Mary and Joseph and the significance and meaning of their relationship as revealed in this morning’s gospel, and then I’ll talk about the incarnation again, a kind of part II, following last week’s message in anticipation of this week’s feast of Christmas : God born into the world.

First, Mary and Joseph. The reading from Matthew tells us Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph. Betrothed is a word you may have heard before in this connection, like Alex Wajer and Greg Rice of this parish. They are betrothed. There were three distinct steps in the Jewish marriage procedure. First, the engagement. This would have been an agreement entered upon by the parents of the involved parties or a matchmaker, when the parties themselves were still children. Marriage was considered way too serious a step to be left to the dictates of the human heart.

Next came the betrothal, which was the ratification of the engagement into which the couple had previously entered. At this time, the engagement could be broken if the girl or woman was unwilling to go through with the marriage. But once the betrothal was entered into, it was absolutely binding. It lasted for one year, during which time the couple were known as man and wife, although they did not have conjugal rights, which only kicked in at the time of the wedding proper, as I said, a year after the betrothal. The only way to terminate a betrothal was with a divorce, and that is what Joseph planned to do, as we heard in this morning’s gospel, when he was confronted with Mary’s pregnancy, which could apparently only be the result of adultery.

The scripture tells us that Joseph was a just man, and the implication of the word is that he was religiously scrupulous and obedient to the will of God. In this reading this morning, the word can also mean sympathy and kindness, evident in his plan to divorce Mary rather than expose her publicly to legally justified stoning. That is what love would do, isn’t it? Do what was necessary to prevent the stoning. And that’s what he planned to do with the information available to him at the time before the dream of divine visitation with its message to take Mary as his wife, that the pregnancy had a divine source.

It’s worth noting that the word “Father” as an ascription for God had been used only infrequently in the Hebrew scriptures, and it usually implied national and not personal relationships, as in, God as the Father of the Israelite nation. But Jesus used it in intimate ways and taught us to do the same, when he taught us how to pray what is now called the Our Father or the Lord’s Prayer. That fact may be partially a tribute to Joseph’s care for his household, and it is also fair to assume that Joseph was the channel through which Jesus drew some of his incomparable wisdom. Jesus learned how to be a man from how Joseph was a man. It is also worth noting that Mary was anything but a passive player in this whole human drama. She had set the play in motion with her agreement to do whatever was necessary in order for God’s plan to be carried out. “May it be done unto me according to your word.” Mary’s fiat.

And now, on to another consideration, that of incarnation from a theological rather than sociological standpoint. Thomas Henry Huxley has said, “The highest altar man can raise is to the unknown and unknowable God.” That resonates deeply with me. The importance of allowing God to be God and not containing God in our own forms of idolatry––This is how to worship God! No, this is how to worship God, because this is who God is.––These two arguing at each other is exactly why the highest altar would be built to the unknown and unknowable God.

But such a God strikes me as ultimately cold and distant, the antithesis of the coming of Christ we are going to be celebrating five days hence, right in this sanctuary. If we think about one of the titles of that Christ, by which we just invoked him in the hymn “O Come, O Come Emmanuel,” we were singing of “God with us,” which is what the name means. We are expressing a belief that a particular mortal body, a human soul––Jesus––became for a little while the habitation of the Spirit of God. And because of that Christ, we too can become habitations of that same Spirit of God. What a Christmas gift that is!

If God is personal, we would expect that One would want to make himself, herself, itself known. If that One is indeed Love, then nothing could keep her away from her children. She would find a way to be with them. Christian theology proposes that that is exactly what happened in and through the Incarnation. God with us. Emmanuel.

If God is Love and Jesus, the Emmanuel we are speaking of this morning is the embodiment of that Love, all that Jesus was and is, God was and is. Perhaps more, we don’t know, but we do know, or at least some of us believe that at least that much is true: All of what Jesus is and was, God is. Recall that Jesus is quoted as saying in John 14: 9, “Whoever has seen me has seen the Father.”

God revealed himself in the person of a human being because human nature, being spiritual as well as bodily, made it possible for God to do so. That very special human being, Jesus, spoke of God as his Father. Whoever has seen Jesus has seen God the Father. Apart from Christ, Huxley’s word is quite true: “The highest altar a man can raise is to the unknown and unknowable God.” But in Christ, God has made himself known.

From William Blake’s “The Divine Image”:

For Mercy has a human heart;

Pity, a human face;

And Love, the human form divine:

And Peace, the human dress.

God is with us and therefore known to us, for who can deny the deep longing of the human soul for connection, through love, with other human beings and with the Source of Love, whom, or which, if you prefer, we call God, revealed in the Emmanuel, Jesus, God with us, soon coming to a stage near you. Friday night at 7.

Emmanuel. God is with us to seek and to save. The fullness of salvation as forgiveness, healing, comfort, moral strength, example cannot be given from afar or in an impersonal fashion. It is the touch, the connection that makes it real and makes it healing. Which is what salvation means: health, wellness. Pain is not removed from the heart by a word of sympathy from one who knows nothing of its anguish. To be the One who brings health and wellness, i.e., salvation, God entered our lives in an utterly human and personal fashion. He faced our temptations, dealt with our sins, and carried our sorrows––the saving length his love would go to that we might have life and have it abundantly. That is what love does.

Emmanuel, God with us. “Unto us is born a Savior! For love of us he came, and for love he still abides. “For lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world.” Do you remember last week I noted that the world is a dark place, and it seems to be getting darker, rather than lighter, but the darkness is different because he keeps getting born into it, constantly renewing our hope.

Emmanuel, God with us. By the light of nature we see God as a God above us; by the light of the law, we see him as a God against us; but by the light of the gospel we see him as Emmanuel, God with us in our own nature, and, which is more, in our interest. That is the great gospel that is proclaimed by this title and which is exemplified in the Christ who bore it. God is not against us; he is for us and with us and on our side. Amen.

We have five days left to prepare for Christmas. Believe me when I say I know about the practical preparations that have to be made. But more importantly believe me when I say that those preparations are nothing beside the preparation of our hearts, the readying of our hearts, minds, souls to be opened, healed, laid bare to the eye of the All-Seeing God who loves. What does that Love do? It comes and saves us from our worst selves, full of indolence, indifference, meanness, and walks with us as we choose to be better, spending ourselves for others while finally coming to love ourselves, by the grace of God.

By taking some time apart––5 minutes, an hour, 5 hours––between now and Friday, we can prepare the way of the Lord. We can lift up the portals and open wide the doors and let the King of Glory come in. Amen.

Who Do You Say That I Am?

2010-12-12T20:53:00.000-05:00

Sheepscott Community Church December 12, 2010

Isaiah 35: 1-10

Matthew 11: 2-11

Who Do You Say That I Am?

If you recall, last week’s gospel was about John coming out of the desert, calling those who came out to him at the Jordan River to repent and bear fruits of repentance, that the axe was already laid to the base of the tree, and that every tree that did not bear good fruit would be cut down and thrown into the fire. His was a powerful message, delivered in a prophetic manner that probably had his listeners shaking in their boots, especially the scribes and pharisees, whom he called a brood of vipers, and they knew he was a prophet of God.

John the Baptist preached the idea of a punishing God of judgment, so you can imagine that he was perplexed when he heard about what Jesus was doing. He had recognized him when he came to him to be baptized, and in fact he said to him that he, Jesus, should be baptizing him, John, not the other way around. But Jesus asked him to acquiesce for the time being so that God’s purposes might be fulfilled.

Subsequently arrested and put in prison for having spoken against Herod’s taking his brother’s wife for his own while his brother was still living, John had plenty of time to think. When he heard what Jesus was doing––the blind seeing, the deaf hearing, and the the dead raised––he sent his disciples to Jesus with that all important question, Are you the One? That question reflected the perplexity not only of John but of the larger community of Jews who expected a messiah to come with power, political and otherwise. What was he to think of this one who didn’t fit the portrait of what he, John, expected and prophesied? We can see in this case how much John’s own thought and belief colored his expectations. We know in our own lives we often see what we want to see, what will confirm us in our beliefs and enable us to continue going forward in the same direction.

When John’s disciples returned to him, they confirmed what he had heard. Indeed Jesus himself instructed them to tell John what they heard and saw: “The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cured, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor.” His concluding comment seems directed right at John: “Blessed is the man who does not fall away on account of me,” who finds no stumbling block in me, i.e., don’t let your own unfulfilled messianic expectations divert you from the Way of God’s Messiah. Unfortunately scripture doesn’t record any more about what John or his disciples thought of all this. We only hear about his death.

John’s doubts are possibly our doubts. Is this the Christ or not? Jesus’s answer may seem too undefinitive for some, but it was as much of an affirmative as his honoring of our freedom to choose could allow. He evoked the prophet Isaiah in his response to John, which passage you heard Alex read this morning: “Then will the eyes of the blind be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped. Then will the lame leap like a deer, and the mute tongue shout for joy.” John would have recognized this messianic reference from Isaiah and understood what Jesus was saying, but he would still have to decide whether he could accommodate a messiah who singularly did not fulfill his expectations. John had a better eye for the flames of judgment than for the quiet dawn of good will. To him God was Judge rather than Father, which he was to Jesus.

John’s is a question and burden we all face when considering this singular man of history. Are you the Christ, the one who is to come, or do we look for another who will wield temporal power and be a guarantee of what we think is important and what we want in this life, individually, as a people, as a nation? Jesus as messiah came with healing love, comes with healing love, and not with violence. He was, however, not ready at the time of this morning’s gospel to make that announcement of messiahship. Maybe existentially speaking, he was discovering it as he went along. In any event, the time was not full, and he would not force the issue. There needed to be room for the individual soul to choose freely. Otherwise, of what value would a compelled choice be?

An important new piece of information that Jesus communicated at that time, and which remains a key identifier to his life is about his preaching the good news to the poor. For the poor, the common folk whom he addressed at length in the beatitudes––Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven; blessed are the pure of heart, for they shall see God, and so on––Jesus’s taking their part and incorporating them into the kingdom of God was not just good news, it was the best news. They, the poor, the disenfranchised in whatever manner, mattered to someone. The prophets of old had declared that God was a God of the poor, but the lived reality looked very different, as they suffered and then they suffered some more, on all fronts.

Here was one who spoke their language, who hung out with them, whose family members they knew. He was after all a tradesman, a carpenter, not the son of a powerful and influential man. And look at what he’s doing––Can’t you imagine the excitement of these poor, these common folk?––he’s giving sight to the blind among them and restoring hearing. He’s healing the lame and the lepers. He’s among us, with us, one of us. Can this be what the Messiah looks like? No doubt there were a lot of conversations around supper tables in those days, and Jesus would have been the subject. But isn’t he the son of Joseph the carpenter and isn’t Mary his mother? And aren’t his brothers and sisters our neighbors? They didn’t know what to make of him, not just the bearer but the embodiment of the Good News, viz., he himself was the Good News. It seemed too good to be true.

Jesus acted out the prophetic dream of Isaiah. The prophet’s vision had become a reality. I’m stating that, but obviously it’s up to each of us individually to decide how we will think about what Jesus did, whether indeed he was the fulfillment of messianic prophecy or simply a good man, a very good man, who did enough good things in his lifetime to give everyone pause to consider who he might be.

After touting John’s virtues to the crowd, Jesus then notes that the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he, than John. Here Jesus is speaking of the revelation of his ministry as the kingdom come, and his own disciples are those “least” in the kingdom. They are named as greater than John, not in moral character or achievements, but in their privileges. This is an important saying, which indicates that the kingdom, as being revealed in Christ, was already present.

There is a dividing line here, a great act of God, a new creation, that fulfills the prophecy of Isaiah which we heard this morning. There is a blank page which God writes on, and his instrument is Jesus as the Christ. He is the Living Word, spoken by the Spirit and written down by limited human beings. We catch something of who he was and is, but way more eludes us and we have to put on our boots and trek out on our own to find out what is true for us and what is not, guided by the wisdom of the past encoded in the scripture, by the writings and records of human beings and their civilizations, and especially guided by the Spirit of God who will lead us into all truth, with the all-important check of community, so we don’t go off the deep end..

It’s a dark way we walk toward the fullness of truth, and indeed our understanding is darkened by our own expectations, like John the Baptist. As Emily Dickinson wrote,

Tell the Truth, but tell it slant

Success in circuit lies.

Too bright for our infirm delight

The Truth’s superb surprise.

As Lightning to the Children eased

With explanation kind,

The Truth must dazzle gradually

Or every man be blind.

“The truth must dazzle gradually/ Or every man be blind.” We with our darkened understanding continue to walk through Advent, the light gradually increasing as we approach Christmas, as is symbolically evident with the three candles this week on the Advent wreath. We in our humanity can only take so much divine truth at a time. Our constitutions aren’t made for big doses. But that doesn’t dispense with our responsibility to seek out and satisfy the deep longing of our souls toward greater and greater truth––and light.

As Frederick Buechner has written of this journey toward Christmas, “This story that faith tells in the fairy tale language of faith is not just that God is, which God knows is a lot to swallow in itself much of the time, but that God comes. Comes here. ‘In great humility.’ There’s nothing much humbler than being born: naked, totally helpless, not much bigger than a loaf of bread, yet girt with righteousness and faithfulness. And to us came. For us came. Is it true––not just the way fairy tales are true but as the truest of all truths? Almighty God, are you true?" Are you for real?

“When you’re standing up to your neck in darkness, how do you say yes to that question? You say yes the only way faith can ever say it if it is honest with itself. You say yes with your fingers crossed. You say it with your heart in your mouth. Maybe that way we can say yes. He visited us. The world has not been quite the same since. It is still a very dark world, in some ways darker than ever before, but the darkness is different because he keeps getting born into it. The threat of holocaust. The threat of poisoning the earth, sea and air. The threat of our own deaths. The broken marriage. The child in pain. The lost chance.” Fears of financial disaster. “Anyone who has ever known him has perhaps known him better in the dark than anywhere else because it is in the dark that he seems to visit most often.”

He is walking with us up out of the dark toward the crib, waiting patiently along the way as we question ourselves and him––again. Are you the One or do we look for another? Amen.

8 The King's Highway

2010-12-05T20:31:00.001-05:00

Sheepscott Community Church December 5, 2010

Isaiah 11: 1-10

Matthew 3: 1-12

8 The King’s Highway

In biblical times, when a person was setting out on a journey, he was expected to tie up any loose business ends, make sure his will, with the disposition of his estate was in order, and finally to bid goodbye to his family and friends with the expectation of possibly not returning. The reason for that dire preparation was largely the condition of the roads and the thieves who lived among the rocks and crannies of the bleak desert wilderness through which those roads wended. In relation to the gospel of the Good Samaritan, we have previously considered the dangers of those roads, and the additional shine they gave to the credentials of the Good Samaritan, who stopped to help another human being who had been set upon by the storied thieves, and thus had endangered himself.

The roads themselves were nothing more than narrow animal trails, and it was the donkeys, which we meet again and again in the scripture, who could ably pick their way along those trails in more surefooted fashion than their human masters. I expect the situation can be compared to descending the Grand Canyon on horse- or mule-back, the only way to approach that precarious descent/ascent.

So, you have a picture of this inhospitable wilderness with its even less hospitable roads. By contrast, in the time of King Solomon, 10th century B.C.E., the King ordered the roads approaching Jerusalem covered with basalt, a dark, dense igneous rock from lava flow that gave a smoother surface and black appearance to the road. The King’s purpose in putting down the basalt was to demonstrate his riches and his largesse, but also to make it easier for pilgrims to reach Jerusalem, and to facilitate his own travels. All such surfaced and artificially made roads were originally built and maintained for the use of the King, and so, they were called The King’s Highway. The ancient historian Josephus included that in his history of the period.

The King’s Highway. You did know I was going somewhere with that, didn’t you? Our address here is 8 The King’s Highway, Newcastle, Maine. We have three weeks to repair the highway before the King arrives at # 8. Considering the gospel this morning, John the Baptist has given us a formula to get that highway ready for the King, to prepare the way, and repentance is the watchword. ”Prepare the way of the Lord,” John declares to his listeners. “Make straight paths for him.” Make ready the road by which the Lord is coming.

How do we do that? How do we make straight those paths? By asking before God, What do I need to repent of? How many times did I not say the kind thing, but rather the easy sarcastic remark? How many times did I make a joke at someone else’s expense? To guide us we can simply lift the series of commandments right out of the first chapter of Isaiah: “Wash and make yourselves clean. Take your evil deeds out of my sight! Stop doing wrong, learn to do right! Seek justice, encourage the oppressed. Defend the cause of the fatherless, plead the case of the widow.”

John the Baptist was probably originally dedicated at the Temple by his observant parents. If you recall, his father Zachariah was a priest. This is not unlike our being baptized, christened or dedicated by our parents as infants. But it was John’s own resolve, the product of brooding and prayer, that led him to the understanding that life for him was more than acceptance of what the days might bring, of letting life happen to him. A life was given for a God-ordained task, and John disciplined himself toward this holy end. He chose a desert as his place to draw close to God. He was ascetic in his dress and in his eating habits and dwelt in solitude. Unlike ourselves, he was a stern realist in matters of right and wrong. We debate relativities; John would argue to err on the side of scruple rather than laxity. He was the embodiment of integrity in daily life, and although we might not even want to strive for the level of holiness that was his way of life, it’s good to have such a model to inspire and translate as we can into our lives in the twenty-first century.

A bit more asceticism, self-denial wouldn’t hurt any of us, and the more difficult it is, the more opportunity we have to think about the value of sacrificing a measure of our own comfort or leisure for the sake of another. Here, you have the last piece of chicken. I’ve already had enough. Something as simple as that is what Jesus did to the max, and what John practiced before him. Each of these men accepted a life lived in and for God, and for others, as God directed.

Indeed John, who was purified by his experience in the desert, came not with some opinion of his own, but with a message from God. He pointed beyond himself. He showed evil for what it was. He spoke the truth and wasn’t afraid of offending anyone. He also rebuked sin and was a signpost to God, pointing the way to those who were willing to repent, and were convicted of their own sin. He not only rebuked sin but challenged those who came out to hear him to be what they could be. He called people to higher things and did not appeal to their baser nature, the lowest common denominator of what it means to be human, characteristic of so much of the discourse we hear today.

This conversion to higher things, to higher ideas and ideals, is possible not because of the spiritual capital of the past. “We are sons of Abraham!” the Jews said to John, a claim that any Jew believed would be enough to save him or her. Abraham’s status was unique because of his goodness and his favor with God, his merits sufficing not only for himself but for all his descendants as well. And here is this prophet come in from the desert dressed in animal skins, living on locusts and honey for his food, he comes along and announces that the Jews cannot count on that historical spiritual capital, as God can raise up children for Abraham from stones on the ground. Outrageous! No one had ever talked that way.

He pointed the way to the One who came after him, whose sandals, as he says in the gospel, he was not fit to carry. John is making it clear to his listeners that he is not the bottom line, the final answer, that in fact another would come after him who would baptize not with water, as he did, but with the Spirit and with fire. It was he who would be the answer. John’s whole attitude was one of self-obliteration, not self-importance. That’s what happens when you spend years in a desert being purified, whatever form that desert might take: loneliness, ridicule, sickness, rejection, all of which can constitute a kind of desert of purification, suffering, that makes a way for the King, prepares a way, a straight road, an open door at number 8 The King’s Highway.

But what of this Spirit John talked about, this Holy Spirit who would baptize with fire? Before we can receive that Spirit, we have to produce fruits of repentance, as John said to the Pharisees and Sadducees, whom he called a brood of vipers. He wasn’t much of a sweet-talker. The fruit of our repentance is not merely a sentimental sorrow, but a real change of life. And in this area we need to go in fear of trading on the mercy of God when it comes to going halfway with repentance, as in, a little bit of this sin, a little bit of that, there’s time enough to repent when I’m older. Remember the message from last week: You know not the hour or the day when the Son of Man will come.

Do I mean to put the fear of God in you? I guess I do, and in myself. But more to the point is to instill a fear or dread of not fulfilling the call on our lives, the call on the gift our lives are. What we really need to walk in fear of is our own habits of indolence and self-indulgence that interfere with fulfilling that call on our lives, that interfere with our relationship with God, whose Spirit longs to show us the way to greater and greater life.

It isn’t so much God’s judgment on us, it’s our own judgment on ourselves which we project on God. God is all-forgiving, all-loving. Not so, us. Not so, us. We are more inclined toward judgment and vengeance. In any case, the instrument of mediation between God cast as judge, and ourselves cast as the accused is that repentance, genuine, life-changing repentance. No matter what we have done or haven’t done, no matter the depth of shame we may feel over something hidden in our past, which we’ve consigned to the deepest of our inner rooms, no matter that we have sealed that room shut, when we express to God our sincere sorrow for what we have done, whatever the full reality of the spriitual dynamics involved is, the seal on that door is immediately broken, and the light floods in on that shriveled, unloved part of ourselves that has been under wraps, hiding for so long.

The light that floods in is that shed by the King, who has arrived at number 8 The King’s Highway, our house of worship. No entourage, just himself. If God can raise up children of Abraham from stones, how much more will he raise us up as flesh and blood beings who are bent on being God’s people, whatever it takes, demonstrated by our willingness to repent?

When we repent, we make a way for the Spirit of God to enter into our life situations, that our own weakness may be clad with the power of God so we can do those acts that are the fruits of repentance without self-consciousness and with joy. And we, like John the Baptist, can live as God’s message, reflecting the image of the Creator, our own personalities fully developed in the truth of who we are.

As we contemplate our lives before God in these weeks of Advent pilgrimage not to the Jerusalem of Eastertime, but to the Bethlehem of Christmastime, let us prepare ourselves with prayer, and that right now, before the sacrament of the Lord’s Supper.

Hope and Readiness in the Dark

2010-11-28T21:20:00.000-05:00

Sheepscott Community Church November 28, 2010

Isaiah 2: 1-5

Romans 13: 11-14

Matthew 24: 36-44

Hope and Readiness in the Dark

There are some stories and some things that I think are important enough to repeat from the pulpit from year to year. One of those things is the need to cover the windgate when the weather changes from summer to fall, a lesson we learned from Karin Swanson.You recall that the windgate is this valley between the bony ridges at the back of the neck, which the Chinese believe needs to be covered to protect the individual from cold. Covering our windgate not only protects us from the cold and wind, but is a reminder in the wider sense of how God protects us. A habit of prayer is like a scarf that protects the windgate of the soul. We are not so vulnerable when we are in the habit of daily prayer.

One of the stories that I think important enough to repeat every year is the story of my descent into the Ailwie Cave in the Burren, in County Clare, Ireland. I like to tell this story on the first Sunday of Advent because it parallels so well the reality of the four-week spiritual journey we as a church and as a people of God, embark on today.Brie has lit the first candle of the Advent wreath, a sign of hope for us, a reassurance that even as we descend toward the winter solstice on December 21, the longest night of the year, past experience tells us that there will be a re-ascension into light. The sun will return to give us more light than darkness, and the world will go on after all.

And we have heard Jan read words of hope, written in the book of the prophet Isaiah over 2500 years ago. We are poised to believe realistically that in this world of war and rumors of war, of nation pitted against nation, person against person, of cholera, hunger and HIV AIDS: with all of that, still we are poised to believe that there is reason for hope. Hear what the prophet says: “[God] shall judge between the nations and shall decide for many peoples;/ and they shall beat their swords into plowshares,/ and their spears into pruning hooks;/ nation shall not lift up sword against nation,/ neither shall they learn war any more.”

That may sound unrealistic and overly idealistic to some, considering what we have seen over the centuries, over the millennia, and just in our lifetimes. But the truth is that the faith uttered in this prophecy is indispensable for the hope of the world. It embodies a conviction that there shall be a day when all people shall live together and walk together in faith and righteousness. Without the inspiration of such words and their power to sustain our search for a way of peace, we are condemned to the prospect of wars upon wars. Thank God for the likes of George Mitchell and his kind. He is willing to sit at the table between sworn enemies––Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, Palestine and Israel––and not go under to the enmity between them. Rather, he keeps talking and bringing them back to talk again and again. How else does change happen, except that we keep talking together? Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called the children of God.

Way back there I promised to take you down into the Ailwie Cave in County Clare. Here we go. It is an excavated descending entrance into the womb of the earth itself. At the time I was there, in ‘94, the cave had been cleared about a half mile into the earth, and visitors were invited to descend a decidedly rickety footbridge to view, among other things, the illuminated hibernation pit of a prehistoric bear, and an abyss-like cavern within the cave that featured dripping––one drop every five seconds––stalactites, and the receptive stalagmites. The relative unsteadiness of the footbridge, which was a mere one-person wide, discouraged any protracted meditation on the natural wonder.

The guide had told us at the beginning of the descent that when we reached the furthest-most accessible point of the cave, she would turn off the jerry-rigged strand of single light bulbs that stretched the length of the walkway. We arrived at the end, and, true to her word, she switched off the lights, and we all were plunged into absolute darkness, which is darkness without even a pin prick of light.

The guide had told us that the human being can only bear absolute darkness for about 30 seconds before becoming agitated and anxious. We weren’t simply predisposed because of her words; that’s the way it really felt. The movement on the bridge as seconds passed was disquieting in itself, considering its seemingly haphazard construction. With the addition of the aforementioned anxiety, you have a nervous mix of people poised to turn and return to the entrance to the cave. But we needed the light, the turning on of which was welcomed with audible sighs of relief, small talk and the shifting of purses from one shoulder to the other.

That descent into the Aelwie Cave has always been a metaphor for me for this season of Advent we begin today, which is really an ascent toward Christmas. We are a people in complete darkness waiting in fear of the unknown, whatever form that might take––terrorist attacks, an uncertain economy, advancing age with its increasing health risks, and so on. For the most part we are willing to have faith and not despair, to wait for the coming of the light. And, as we believe, that light is the Light of the World, Jesus, the Christ.

No more than we can stand absolute darkness beyond 30 seconds can we stand or bear being without God, whether or not we know that as the name or label of what or who is sustaining us moment by moment. Our hope in these days of early sunsets, early suppers and early bedtimes is that there will be light at the end of Advent with the coming of Christ at Christmas. We let that hope build in us and give us the wherewithal to continue in the multiple responsibilities of our individual lives, which now include preparations for the season, from Christmas cards, to decorations, to gift-buying; from cooking and baking, to wreath-making, to re-baptism into shoveling, which some of us experienced Friday, to wider service in the community.

All of these activities are part of the preparation for the 12-day Christmas season, which by the way runs from December 25 to January 6, the Feast of Epiphany, regardless of what the retail outlets would have you believe. The most important preparation of this penitential season before Christmas is that of the individual heart. Once we get past our primal fear of the darkness associated with the season, we can focus on the four weeks of Advent preceding Christmas in the same way we focus on the season of Lent before Easter, as a time of penitential reflection. That is why the altar cloths, the paraments are changed today. They have been green since the first Sunday after Pentecost, with the season of so-called ordinary time, but now the purple of penitence is in place.

So, we agree that the season of Advent with this first Sunday of a new liturgical year, begins today; that it is a penitential time to get the heart as well as the house ready for Christmas. We can also agree that there is hope in the darkness, as we wait in faith to see the promised coming of Christ. In addition to hope, let us then consider the second leg of this morning’s readings: readiness.

Get ready, Paul exhorts his readers in the epistle to the Romans, which we heard this morning. Paul speaks about that “present time,” not so different from our present time because people do not change in the larger sense.”The hour has come,” he writes, “for you to wake up from your slumber, because our salvation is nearer now than when we first believed. The night is nearly over; the day is almost here.”

Wake up! he is saying, which is reminiscent of what Jesus himself said in this morning’s gospel: Keep watch, because you do not know on what day your Lord will come. “Watch” is an often-repeated word on the lips of Jesus. A person must live with eyes open, watching. It’s easy to become absorbed in one’s career, or in one’s daily chores and responsibilities and forget the life-and-death issues of the soul, what finally matters. A person has to stop, look and listen at more than railroad crossings. That awareness should be a way of life, and the practice of prayer is crucial to that way of life, whether it’s five minutes or 55 minutes a day; or whether it’s standing on the edge of a field at dusk and simply being consciously before God. Prayer takes many forms and God receives them, is on the other side of them all, listening and answering.

To watch does not mean to forsake our daily round of tasks. If we’re always looking at the sky for signs, we’re never going to reap any harvest. If we’re always wondering and saying, “Tomorrow may be the day,” we’ll never feel at home fully in this life. So how do we do it? How do we find the balance? Consider the farmer at the plow. He keeps his eye on the furrow, because that is how a plowman plows, but he also looks up at the horizon from time to time to make sure that the furrow is straight. He might also pause to greet his friend or neighbor who comes by, and also take some moments of prayer during the workday. That is an example of a balanced approach. Watch. Keep it all in mind without anxiety, but with trust in God for the outcome. Again, as our friends in AA wisely say in this regard, Keep it simple; One day at a time; and, Help me to change the things I can change, to accept the things I cannot change, and the wisdom to know the difference.

Cultivate hope even in this deepest darkness of the year, watch and be ready. Remember this candle during the week. See the flame and the light it gives in your mind’s eye and remember: Jesus is on the way. Jesus is the Way. Amen.

In the Vicinity of Sheepscott Bridge

2010-11-21T13:19:00.000-05:00

Sheepscott Community Church November 21, 2010

Jeremiah 23: 1-6

Luke 23: 33-43

In the Vicinity of Sheepscott Bridge

As I have mentioned before, Jon’s father was a Unitarian minister. On the top of the parish’s order of service each week were the words, “We gather for the worship of God and the service of man.” I think we here at the Sheepscott Community Church gather for the same reasons, with only a nod to gender correctness, which would make it, for the worship of God and the service of humankind.

These are our unifying principles, as we come from a number of different traditions, as I pointed out at the beginning of the service. When I look around the church, I see Congregationalists, Methodists, Presbyterians––displaced from New Jersey––Unitarians, displaced from the Midwest. There are those who were raised in the Roman Catholic tradition, Episcopalians, maybe a Lutheran or two, and the group of so-called “unchurched.” But they’re not really unchurched, are they, because here they are with us, we with them, one worshiping body. And most welcome you all are; if you’ll look at the mission statement on the front of today’s bulletin, where it appears every Sunday, you can read for yourself that we open wide the doors for anyone and everyone to worship here freely.

How can any worship, that potentially comes from so many different directions be unified and how can it have any depth of transforming meaning if it tries to be all things to all people? And does it? Federated in 1947 by the union of the First Congregational Church of Newcastle and the Sheepscot Methodist Church, the Sheepscott Community Church self-identifies as being in the Christian tradition. I believe we can answer the question of unity in diversity by recalling the line from this morning’s gospel––the seemingly ironically placed gospel of the crucifixion of Jesus on this Feast of Christ the King.

The line that suggests unity in diversity is what was written on the placard and affixed to the crosspiece of Jesus’s cross. The Roman custom was to write the crime of which the crucified was accused and either drape it around the presumed criminal’s neck, or, as in Jesus’ case, attach it to the crosspiece. What it said on his placard was “This is the King of the Jews,” in Hebrew, Greek and Latin, as I read from the pulpit bible. That it was written in the three languages spoken in that area at that time was an eloquent expression of Jesus as a King for all the peoples, not the message the Romans were trying to convey, but one that can be construed theologically after the fact.

What kind of a king was Jesus? Apparently, in the world’s view, a powerless king, a weak king, a king for fools, who was mocked with a crown of thorns and a reed for a scepter. The writer Frederick Buechner considers the kingdom of such a king. “If only we had eyes to see and ears to hear and wits to understand, we would know that the Kingdom of God in the sense of holiness, goodness, beauty is as close as breathing and is crying out to be born both within ourselves and within the world; we would know that the Kingdom of God is what we all of us hunger for above all other things even when we don’t know its name or realize that it’s what we’re starving to death for. The Kingdom of God is where our best dreams come from and our truest prayers. We glimpse it at those moments when we find ourselves being better than we are and wiser than we know. We catch sight of it when at some moment of crisis a strength seems to come to us that is greater than our own strength. The Kingdom of God is where we belong. It is home, and whether we realize it or not, I think we are all of us homesick for it.”

And I think that is why we gather here by the river on a Sunday morning, and why generations before us have also gathered here in the vicinity of the Sheepscott Bridge. Out of homesickness we come together from different directions on the theological as well as geographical compass, to be that kingdom, one of unity in diversity. For my money there is only one ticket for full admission to this kingdom of God Buechner speaks of, and that is forgiveness––asking forgiveness for ourselves and offering it to others. Ooh, that last one is a tough one, but Jesus showed us how to do it when he said from the cross, “Father, forgive them. They know not what they do.” The prayer he taught to his disciples, which we ourselves just prayed, includes the line, “Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.” Listen to what you’re saying there. We need to forgive others, no matter how deep the hurt, no matter the reasons for the hurt, and God will forgive us in just the same way.

That kind of forgiveness is creative and has nothing to do with the worthiness or unworthiness of the one forgiven. It is creative in the sense that it gives itself to human need, that out of chaos can come order, out of evil good, no matter how much one might get hurt in the process. That is what creative forgiveness does and what we need most of in our community church, what all groups need the most of in order to continue as effective agents for good. It is the Christ kind of creative forgiveness. Father, forgive them. They don’t have a clue.

If the purpose of our coming together is the worship of God and the service of humankind, we also build up our relationship with God and with our fellow human beings as a result of the worship and service. This community church is not simply a place we go to, it is something we are part of, and have an important part in, a kingdom of God in miniature, if you will. As Buechner proposed. “The kingdom of God is where our best dreams come from and our truest prayers. We glimpse it at those moments when we find ourselves being better than we are and wiser than we know.” That happens in fellowship in our community church, whre we need to keep forgiving each other.

We become better people because from week to week we acknowledge that there is someone and something more important than we are, and we act out of that. Our model is Jesus, whose teachings we hear about in scripture and whose selflessness we can imitate. Nothing namby-pamby about that selflessness. Jesus knew who he was. He was a man among men, and he spoke right at and through hypocrisy and self-importance. He lived among sinners as a model of forgiveness and empowerment of others, who though broken by life, were transformed through his nonjudgmental love. We can choose to follow that same model in our worship, and in each other’s company both in service and over coffee and cookies on Sunday morning.

For some people, this talk of Christ as King, and of throne and cross has no meaning. And yet a church where people can come together to acknowledge that we have common concerns, common weaknesses and the opportunity to join together to support and help one another, that does have meaning. Both groups are welcome here, and neither group is more loved of God than the other. God meets us where we are, in and on the ground of our being. There, in time, He will reveal Himself as we can best understand because what God is after is relationship with you, with me. For some of us, happily, Jesus is the facilitator of that relationship.

The God whose very habit is to stand up in the midst of the ruins of sacred things, of ancient and timeless precedents, and call them newly into quickened being is in our midst, doing just that. No less than God was with the Ladies in the area of the Sheepscott Bridge when they raised that $16.00 to buy this bible in November 1864; no less than God was with the committee of people who had a vision of reorganization of this church and put together the mission statement seven years ago; no less than God was with Rev. Mary Harrington, who left this earth on October 26, this year, but not before telling stories that inspired. As we appreciate yet again this Sunday these flowers from Mary’s memorial service, which her family asked be used in the church in commemoration of her life, I’d like to share in conclusion a story Mary told me.

She enrolled in Starr King Theological School on the West coast in mid-life to prepare for ministry in the Unitarian Church, of which she was a lifelong member. But she wanted a safety school, so to speak, and was at an open house at another seminary to hear and see what she would need to make the best decision when the time came. She was waiting in line to gather information and the woman in front of her struck up a conversation, (Mary was very easy to talk to.) which conversation quickly turned to the woman’s son, who had serious substance abuse problems with all the thorns that go with those problems.

The mother had bailed him out of jail again and again, and nothing changed. She had seen him through drug rehab programs, but nothing changed. She concluded her lament with, “Well, I guess I can always pray for him.” Mary wondered aloud why prayer is always the last resort. “Why would it not be the first thing we do?” she asked. “What if prayer is all we have?”

What if prayer is all we have? Prayer is what we do and give and have here at Sheepscott Community Church. It is what we can offer each other. Whatever we believe or don’t believe, we as caring human beings can come together in this place consecrated for worship to be in each other’s presence and so, in the presence of God. There is no hierarchy here of thought or idea or person. There is only humility and gratitude for the great gift of life we all share and the challenge of what we will do with that life, no matter what stage we are at. By God’s grace we help each other to learn how to give, whether out of our lack or out of our abundance.

Keep in mind that as a community church, we are here for and do represent the larger community before God. We take seriously the responsibility to care prayerfully and practically for all those in the community of Sheepscott and towns in the area, as we are able, and to care as God leads for flood and now cholera victims in Haiti, political refugees around the world, the hungry in North Korea. We are one family of God, who act as we are led, individually and as a group, gathering strength and inspiration to do that from our Sundays and service days together.

What do we do next? We love each other, forgive each other, pray for each other, and serve each other, always keeping the model of Jesus in view. We are the Sheepscott Community Church. Amen.

Let's Get Our Priorities Straight

2010-11-14T20:29:00.000-05:00

Sheepscott Community Church November 14, 2010

Isaiah 65: 17-25

Luke 21: 5-19

Let’s Get Our Priorities Straight

As a child I was always thrilled by the readings of the last Sundays of the liturgical year. Why? Because they were scary. Earthquakes, famines, pestilences. Heavy stuff for eight- or nine-year-old ears to hear. Without explication and explanation of the text, a child’s imagination takes sometimes unfortunate flight, as in, well, if there are earthquakes and famines and pestilence, my family will be in danger. We might die.

Ever one to make deals with God, at that time I wrote a promise on a piece of paper: “If you will not destroy the world, I will give you my life.” Nothing big, you understand, just my life. Then I pricked my finger with the pointed end of a safety pin and signed my name in blood. Isn’t that the way it was supposed to be done? After that, I buried my note to God in a field. Apparently God read it, for here I still am all these years later, having just read one of the those same eschatological readings.

The word eschatology means the science of last things, and religiously speaking, as we are here, those last things are death, judgment, heaven and hell. Signs of the end times Jesus was speaking of in the gospel were famine and pestilence, wars and rumors of wars. The apostles wondered, as we ourselves do, especially at this time of the year as we sink towards winter, if that time, if that season was in the far or near future. Jesus was never particularly concerned with the hours of the clock. What he focused on was fulfilling God’s will and intent, and the time for that fulfillment, which is always now.

You may have heard the Shaker admonition to live each day as if it were your first and as if it were your last, consciously, with gratitude, and with a heart after service. For his part, God is always bent on rescuing his own from misery, and planning to do it with the gospel concerning Jesus, and by means of every life that will give itself away to him. That life may be in the form of a note signed in blood, or in a less dramatic way––the opening of the door of the heart a crack to take a chance that the promises of God may be true and that Jesus may be who we are afraid he is.

The time to focus on is now, not some unknown future, when in our own little cosmologies we perceive the signs lining up. Ah, this must be it! You know what the Bible says. No. Get your eye off speculative interpretations of Revelation and other writings, and onto the matter at hand. Who needs some supper? Who needs a visit but doesn’t know how to ask for it? What young mother is pulling her hair out with frustration in her sense of isolation and is becoming afraid of what she is capable of doing? Look around. The time is now and the needs are all around us, challenging us to see with the eyes of love.

In that vein, I want to tell you a story I heard last Sunday. As you may know, Rick Newell, who was pastor of this church for a year or two, and who has been the ongoing pastor of the Alna-Newcastle Baptist Church for the last 20 years, was ordained in that church last Sunday by the people of the church.

A good friend and mentor of Rick’s, Rev. Darryl Lavway, originally of this area, but now of Santa Clara County, CA, came East for the occasion. His responsibility was to give the charge to the minister, which he did, but not before making it clear to Rick and all those gathered just what he thought Rick and we ought to know about what is important versus what is not important. What do we need to remember?

He then went on to narrate an experience he had had a few weeks before. Eighty ministers of that county where he has his church, were invited to listen to 10 judges from the county courts, each of whom had a different jurisdiction, as in one for criminal court, one for traffic court, one for family court, and so on. The testimony he wanted to share with us was that of the judge from the court of domestic violence. All day, every day, that judge hears and adjudicates in cases of domestic violence.

The judge played a 9-1-1 tape for the ministers and those other judges. All listened raptly as a 6-year-old boy spoke with the dispatcher about what was going on in the next room. His mother’s ex-boyfriend was hurting her, he said. She had put the boy in another room to keep him safe. “But,” he told the dispatcher, “I have to go and check on my mommy now.” So he carried the phone out into the next room where his mother was and cried into the phone to the dispatcher, “My mommy is dead,” which she was.

In that same week, Reverend Lavway noted that he heard the head of the largest Protestant denomination in the world holding forth on the dangers of yoga, calling it evil. Reverend Lavway was aghast at this declaration, still recovering as he was from the story the judge told about the boy and his mother. That this significant person was using precious time and air space to name as evil something that Lavway thought unimportant in this context, while what mattered, what was important was the death of the boy’s mother and the consequent impact on the life of the boy. That went unaddressed at that level. Mr. Lavway was obviously scandalized by the what he considered the inappropriate declaration about yoga as evil, about who is inside the circle and who is outside the circle, about who belongs and who does not belong. All that when people are suffering and dying for want of human understanding and involvement.

I suspect this was the first time Darryl Lavway had heard a firsthand account of a real case of domestic violence, and it had been when he was ready to hear it. He was not filled with judgment about the mother, about the boyfriend, but filled with Christ’s loving concern for that child, and also Christ’s outraged sense of justice at the unnecessary suffering and death involved.

Darryl Lavway was convicted about this issue because someone had taken the time and trouble to arrange the meeting between judges and clergy, and he had taken the time to attend. He heard something new and passed it on to us, and so Christ’s loving concern for that child became our concern and inherently challengedus to explore the issue in our area. What he said to Rick Newell, and to all of us gathered there, including Lucy, who is the church’s music director, is that he and we need to learn from that story what is important and what is not important, what matters and what does not matter. We need to get our priorities straight. What is important is love, loving the suffering one enough to serve in the way and in the hour as God leads. Incidentally, I don’t think Reverend Lavway was saying yoga itself is unimportant. It has its its place as a tool for physical and spiritual health for some practitioners. What he was saying was the temporal juxtaposition of the 9-1-1 call with the statement about yoga from a denominational leader in a pulpit that could have been used to say something infinitely more important, about suffering in the world and the need for us to address it and be involved––all of that was a scandal to him.

When we are busy judging whether this person or this thing is good or evil, and whether to include or exclude that person or thing on the basis of our judgment, we may miss the task or situation that is right in front of us needing to be addressed. It was a big teaching that had obviously converted Darryl Lavway, and he used it to illustrate to this man being newly ordained what should be important and what should not be important in his ongoing, post-ordination ministry. We would all do well to pay attention.

I’d like to finish with yet another story that I heard last week, a true story from the daughter who lived it. This adult daughter’s mother was the apple of her daughter’s eye. When the mother in her increasing age developed Parkinson’s, her daughter invited her to live with her, wanting to take care of her. The mother moved in, time passed and the Parkinson’s got worse and worse, and so did the circumstances of living together, as they will when people are in close quarters out of necessity. It was hard for the daughter to see her mother failing.

Finally the mother died, and yes, the daughter was devastated because she loved her deeply. Perhaps there was relief as well, as happens when a huge burden is sadly lifted.

Several years later, the woman, who is a psychologist, was called to a nursing home because a patient there was out of control, and the treatment team didn’t know what to do with her. The woman met with the team, and as soon as she saw the diagnosis––Parkinson’s––and the medications that the patient was on, she was immediately able to understand the woman’s behavior and explain it to the team, while suggesting modifications to medications and as a result, to behaviors as well.

As she was leaving the building, the woman said she heard a voice that clearly said to her, “See? This is why your mother had to come and live with you.” The woman was able to bring the knowledge and wisdom from her own and especially her mother’s suffering to bear for the sake of this other member of the family of God. She was listening, she cared, she wasn’t focusing on the big questions of who and what was good or evil. That wasn’t her business. She was focused on dealing with what was right in front of her face: helping to relieve the suffering of another human being. For her the time is always ow; she learned that with her mother, and she has her priorities straight. For Darryl Lavway, the time has become now in a new way for him, and he has his priorities straight.

You may see it differently. That’s fine, but for me that sharing of stories––the judges with the ministers; the minister with the minister and the congregation; and the woman who had a story to tell over coffee––the willingness to share the stories, with those who have ears to hear them, and then act, this is a way to be fully in the moment, in the now, not worrying about or fearing a possible future time. It is recognizing the gift of Jesus, the Christ to the world, and what that means: new heavens and a new earth, where we care for one another, where God can bring good out of suffering, when we surrender to him our idea of the meaning of that suffering and make ourselves available for God’s purposes. Amen.

A Time for Poetry, A Time for Prose

2010-11-07T21:22:00.000-05:00

Sheepscott Community Church November 7, 2010

Haggai 2: 1-9

Luke 20: 27-38

A Time for Poetry, a Time for Prose

The message this morning will be right out of the Book of Haggai the prophet. His timing, God’s timing, shall we say, couldn’t be better on this reading out of this minor prophet of the Hebrew Bible, from which book Jon read this morning.

Our treasurer Bill Robb sent out pledge letters this past week. Pledges and weekly offerings, bean suppers, lawn sales, other special events and occasional bequests are what keep our church afloat financially. We don’t have the luxury of an endowment. This message is not going to be a complaint, or a harangue, I promise; only an illumination of our situation through the writing of a sixth-century lesser Hebrew prophet.

The pledge letter notes the reorganization of this church seven years ago under the leadership of Joan Yeaton, a lifelong member of the church. We have had at least three or four ministers during this period and perhaps as many organists and choir directors––those figures usually seem to go hand-in-hand––and a Board comprised of long-term and repeating members, with a few newer members, including Lee Roberts and Cyndi Brinkler. While people have continued to come in greater and lesser numbers, we have continuously worshiped God in this Sheepscott Community Church.

This message I will deliver today is at some level distasteful to me because I perceive the church as the people, the living Body of Christ in the world, interdependent, as in, what happens to you affects me and vice versa. A friend made the analogy between the people of God and a spider web. When you pull on one thread of that web, the whole web trembles. Probably that’s as true for the entire web of creation as well.

My topic this morning is considerably more modest than the interdependence of the whole of the web of creation. You can be grateful for that. I only want to talk about this building, this temple, this church, and the need to rebuild it, physically and metaphysically, which for us means maintenance, because, unlike the Temple of Jerusalem in Haggai’s time, our temple has not burnt down with only stone foundations remaining, but is just a little rough around the edges and needing, as I said last week, care and feeding.

A little background on the reading from Haggai. His brief prosaic prophetic utterances, which were recorded by someone other than the prophet himself, were delivered to the returned post exilic Jewish community. The Jews had been led into exile in Babylon in 586 BCE,, according to the orders of King Nebuchadnezzar. In 539 BCE,, 47 years later, the Persian leader Cyrus conquered Babylon, and in keeping with his policy of conciliation with conquered peoples, he encouraged the Jews to return from Babylon to Jerusalem, which they did, and Palestine then became a province of the Persian Empire under Cyrus.

It was not, however, until 520 BCE that the Temple of Jerusalem began to be rebuilt. There were several reasons for this delay. One was that the people had become accustomed to the sight of the burnt out hulk of the old Temple of Solomon. The sorry condition of the building did not deter those who had not been taken into exile from bringing offerings to the Temple. It’s like living in an uncompleted house. When Jon and I moved into our 18th-century Cape on the Old Sheepscot Road in 1969, it was anything but complete. A cautionary note, if you’re young and starting out: don’t do that. Get as much done as you can before you move in because it gets more and more unlikely that it will be done as the years pass. For example, one of our observations about our kids was that the first sentence they were able to read was, “This Side Toward Living Space,” which is what was written on the silver side of the insulation between the roof beams upstairs where they slept.

Anyway, the point is that the people in Palestine had gotten used to the burnt out ark of the Temple, destroyed when the Babylonians conquered, even as we get used to our circumstances and situations when they are not optimal. For example, we had needed a paint job on the outside of this building for a long time before we were able to get it done, and anyone can see that Dale Hunt did a beautiful job.

Another reason for the delay in rebuilding the Temple at Jerusalem was that the Samaritans had thrown up roadblocks to the reconstruction, and the people were too dispirited by their post exilic inertia to oppose the Samaritans. More significantly, however, it was the wretched state of the people generally that discouraged them from undertaking the religious duty of rebuilding the Temple. That they would have a roof over their own heads was their particular focus––and we understand that. Harvests had been bad, food and drink were in short supply, warm clothes were scarce and money had little value. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? The people’s energy was going to providing for themselves and their families, and frankly, they didn’t give a hoo-ha that Yahweh’s house had no roof on it, as long as their roof was in place.

It was to a people in this state of deprivation and discouragement that Haggai had to deliver the message of rebuilding the Temple. Not an easy task in a hard time, and who cannot see the parallels between that time and ours? History can be seen through the economic lens of recessions and depressions, with only an occasional blip of prosperity on the radar screen for the average household. We know where those Jews were coming from when they heard Haggai make his earnest appeal for rebuilding God’s house. I suspect they were saying under their breaths whatever would have been comparable in that time to our, “Yeah, and good luck to you, fella.”

But Haggai had his commission and he had to keep at the people about it. Where the people found a reason for their indifference to rebuilding in the difficult conditions of their lives, Haggai saw in those same conditions, a consequence of the indifference. He told the people that as long as the righteous claims of religion remained unhonored among the people, and that not honoring especially manifest in the sorry state of the languishing Temple, as long as those claims remained unmet, just so long would their misfortunes continue.

I have to say that while I have been moving in the direction of parallels between our church and the Temple of Jerusalem, I don’t step over the line as Haggai did and say that the misfortunes in your lives, in our lives, whatever form they may take, are a result of applied indifference to the just claims of religion. But that’s my take. Who knows what God’s take is? I don’t pretend to.

Back to Haggai. He appealed to the people to shake off their indifference, and if they would, if they would build, there would be an end of the hard life. Instead, the people would know what it meant to be blessed of Yahweh; life would be better. Haggai’s words were first addressed to Zerubbabel, the civic head of the community, and Joshua, the religious head of the community. His words had their effect, and under the leadership of these two men, the building of the Temple began in 520 BCE. In 516, four years after Haggai first made his appeal, the Temple was completed. It occurred to me that Haggai would have made a great fundraiser, or politician, having the power to move a people from one position to a radically different one, in a relatively short period of time.

A month or so ago, I referred in a sermon to Nobel Prize winner Albert Schweitzer, who went to Africa in the early 20th century, where he founded a hospital in Lamberene, in Gabon. When he returned to his hospital after his first furlough, he found the buildings in disrepair and set about rebuilding them with his own hands. As he said, he realized that the poetry of his African adventure was over; he had entered on its prose period. But he was a mature soul and equal to the occasion.

The prose periods of the religious life are our opportunity to make good the truth of their earlier poetry. Without them, without the prose periods, our insights, inspirations and visions lack substantial and enduring reality. The prophet Haggai challenged his contemporaries to make good the glory of the first Temple in the terms of the reconstructed Temple. He was not deterred by the sentimental mood of his listeners who remembered the first Temple and compared any reconstruction unfavorably. That is the perfect scenario for the indifference that the people felt. Finally the moral earnestness of the prophet prevailed over the sentimental inertia of his listeners.

I consider the vision and inspiration and insights of Joan Yeaton, Chuck Reinhardt, Cindy and Chrissy, Bonnie Gerard, and all the others who were involved in the reorganization of this church through their outreach to the community to have been the poetry phase of rebuilding this church. They had a vision Now have we entered the prose phase, the real work of building. And we have made a really good start. I encourage you, as I have done again and again, to be part of the rebuilding, the reconstruction of this Community Temple in Sheepscot, both financially and n service.

Consider the closing words of the reading from Haggai: “’The glory of this present house will be greater than the glory of the former house,’ says the Lord Almighty. ‘And in this place I will grant peace,’ declares the Lord Almighty.” In another translation, “’The latter splendor of this house shall be greater than the former,‘and in this place I will give prosperity, says the Lord of hosts.” Glory and splendor. Peace and prosperity.

I think God has for us that peace and spiritual prosperity, but we are in the prose time when we have to work for what we want our church to be. Part of that work can be in responding to the pledge appeal, mailed to your houses this week. If anyone doesn’t receive a letter and wants to, please let me or Bill Robb know. Thank you Joan, thank you all who have continued to hold the vision and do the work of the Sheepscott Community Church. Amen.

Loose Ends

2010-10-31T21:12:00.000-04:00

Sheepscott Community Church October 31, 2010

Habakkuk 1: 1-4; 2: 1-4

Luke 19: 1-10

Loose Ends

I decided to entitle today’s message “Loose Ends,” because that’s the title of the last entry on the blog of October 24 that Rev. Mary Harrington wrote, two days before her death. We have been praying for Reverend Mary since the summer. There was no real expectation of a rising up from her ALS sickbed, but there was the real hope for relief from pain and the comforting reassurance that she was loved by many, near and far.

Because she and her husband Marty chose to move to this community for what turned out to be the last year of her life, she belongs to us, and we belong to her. We have our own intercessor before the throne of God; I expect she has already met Marjorie Huntley. I like to think that these two women who understood the importance of the church community are already comparing notes. No theological stance intended there, only a wish of the heart.

This time of the year is always fraught, but especially so this year. Besides Mary’s death last Tuesday, two days after the blog entry, where she said her goodbye, today is Halloween. Tomorrow is the feast of All Saints, a holy day in Orthodox, Anglican, and Roman Catholic churches, and Tuesday is All Souls Day, another feast day in those same churches, where the souls of those who have died are remembered prayerfully. It is also election day. Phew! Mary’s passing, Halloween, All Saints, All Souls, election day. That’s a bowlful for reflection. The wise preacher would choose one item in that list to focus on, but not one to be accused of wisdom, I’m going to sit down with this bowl served up by circumstance, and see what sifts out in light of the gospel message today.

I’d like to begin by reading Mary’s last blog entry. And for those of you who hadn’t met her or Marty, they live right next door to the old postmaster’s, house where Carol Shorey grew up, directly across the street from the King’s Highway street sign. Their house is the small gray one with the flowers out front that looks out over the marshes, which was such an important focus for Mary as she was confined to her bed, but not confined in her imagination.

Loose Ends

Nothing ever really ends. I see this in the marsh, where things certainly change, but they don't stop. The colors provide a continuing lesson in how the color green, for example, can become greener, or greenish, or green-like, or sort of green, depending on the day, the season, and the light. Right now this is especially true of the browns: the umbers, khakis, caramels, and military camouflage abound. There is no one true brown when you look out the window. Instead there are many many many variations.

So what does this have to do with loose ends? In my life as a person, I have stretched myself towards certain goals, such as the kind of spouse, mother, sibling and friend I long to be for those people in my sphere. Once in a while, I have had that particular thrill of feeling I had gotten something just right, and perhaps I did. But it only lasts such a short time, then there's the next day, or month, etc. So I can never become a truly pure, purely good anything. There are always changing circumstances - cranky days, and loose ends. Nothing can get pinned down for long. Just like the browns outside don't stay any particular shade of brown for more than a week or two.

Which leads to the realization that even if you could try with all your might to hold on to one of those glorious connections, it just couldn't last. This makes leaving hard, wanting so much to find the moment when all is well in every part of my life, and with every person in it. Instead, I have to settle for knowing that at a certain point, things will simply stop where they do. And my ability to improve, repair, refine, or finish will have to be sufficient, and enough.

This is why I rest my eyes on the marsh. The slow, languorous, drawn-out days fill me with a little bit of peace and solace. Sometimes there's the excitement of a storm, or an astronomical tide - these really get my attention. Mostly, I attune myself with what is easy, swimming, or in flight, or the way the current carries the water in and out with such deftness. My hope is that I too will sail off on a such a gentle, peaceful current as my friends the geese and ducks do, leaving behind whatever loose ends my little ducky toes didn't have time to complete - but knowing that my people will come with me in my heart.

Posted by Rev. Mary at 11:17 a.m. October 24, 2010

“My hope is that I too will sail off on such a gentle, peaceful current as my friends the geese and ducks do, leaving behind whatever loose ends my little ducky toes didn’t have time to complete––but knowing that my people will come with me in my heart.”

I loved Mary and am sure I am still with her as she is with me. But not just me. Where I am, you are because of how I care about you all, so you too have gone on with Mary and in some Christly marvelous way are beholding the face of God as that One truly is, because of all the people I have met in my life, Mary had a singular everyday holiness that guaranteed the peaceful, gentle passage that she longed for. She saw God everywhere and would no doubt despise my assertion of saintliness in relation to her because of that, but I do so assert and recommend that we, all of us appropriate those lineaments of sainthood in the same way: by seeing God everywhere in everyone.

And God is everywhere––on the road, in the marsh, in this house of worship, where we meet each other and Him, in today’s gospel, where we can rejoice with Zaccheus in the availability, the accessibility of such a God, whom the despised publican from Jericho met on the road. Everyone in the neighborhood had heard about Jesus, and now here he was coming into town. Zaccheus was beside himself with excitement. Hoping to get a glimpse of Jesus, he hurried ahead of the crowd and scrambled up a sycamore tree, for he was small of stature and otherwise might miss seeing him.

When Jesus reached the tree, he called up to the startled publican, “Zaccheus, come down immediately. I must stay at your house today.” Zaccheus was more surprised than anyone. He would never have dared to even consider inviting this extraordinary guest to partake of his hospitality, knowing he was viewed by his neighbors as a sinner, simply by virtue of being a publican or tax collector. But Jesus was actually inviting Zaccheus to partake of his––Jesus’––hospitality. There were the usual murmurings in the crowd, which Zaccheus heard, as did Jesus. Zaccheus quickly asserted, that half of his goods he would give to the poor, and if he had defrauded anyone, he would make fourfold restoration, which was in keeping with the Roman law, as well as the Jewish Law. And what was Jesus’ response? “Today has salvation come to this house since he also is a son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”

Zaccheus was a sinner, as was the famous forefather Abraham, who was a liar. Remember when he introduced Sarah as his sister rather than as his wife in order to save his own skin? Moses was a murderer, if you recall his slaying of the Egyptian for badly treating the Israelites beneath his command. Jacob was a thief. Recall his scheming theft of his father-in-law’s sheep and cattle, and the earlier theft of the birthright from his older brother Esau. Jacob was ever a deceiver. Who’s left? Rahab the harlot, who hid Joshua’s men in her house to protect them from discovery; David the adulterer. All sinners, like Zaccheus, like us.

But, recall the promise in Deuteronomy 4: 29. God warns the people that if they become corrupt and make any kind of an idol, doing evil in the sight of God, they will perish, and some few will be scattered among the nations. But, says the scripture, if from there you seek the Lord your God, you will find him if you look for him with all your heart and all your soul.” Sweet promise, as God knows the heart and the soul. There are times when we talk about finding God in Christ. Infinitely truer is it that in him, in Christ, God finds us, just the way he found Zaccheus up in the tree that day, looking down, full of hope. God knew any craftiness that this publican might have employed, but he also knew the deeper heart and desire that underlay that craftiness.

“God is always courteous,” reminds St. Francis of Assisi, “and does not invade the privacy of the human soul.” But God knows where a welcome waits, as it did with Zaccheus. Are we waiting to welcome God beyond our own knowing simply by trying to live a good life, whatever our circumstances are at any given time?

Think about whom you would climb a sycamore tree to see? Jon was remembering an event in Chicago in the early ‘50’s when General Douglas Mac Arthur was visiting the city and rode in a motorcade down the Midway. He had famously been fired by Harry Truman for insubordination, but returned to a hero’s welcome. Jon’s school had been let out to see General Mac Arthur. They all craned their necks at the curb, their own sycamore, for a better view.

How about the Beatles in the ‘60’s? Would anyone have climbed a sycamore to get a better view of John Lennon? Or maybe John F. Kennedy, or Jackie Kennedy, or the Pope in 1978, Ronald Reagan in the ‘80’s, Clinton in the ‘90’s? Almost any sports figure has his or her following. Think of climbing to the best vantage point for viewing––with binoculars––Kurt Schilling’s bloody sock in the Red Sox successful World Series in 2004.

But you know? As exciting as seeing our personal idols or heroes might be, not one of these people, even my dear Reverend Mary, can do for us what Jesus was able to do for Zaccheus: to bring salvation to his house that day. It’s reassuring to know that in the small pitiful searches we do make for meaningful life, which searches are more like a groping discontent, we are still seen and known by the One who finds us in Christ. Wherever we hide ourselves, in whatever dark corner, there is Love, whispering and prodding about there with wounded hands, and we know whose hands those are. We’ve heard Curt Roberts sing about them.

We know our unworthiness, just as Zaccheus did, and God delights to reveal himself to those who do recognize their own unworthiness. As Jacob said in prayer to God, “ I am unworthy of all the kindness and faithfulness you have shown your servant”; or with the centurion in Luke, “Lord I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof;” or with the prodigal son, rehearsing his speech to recite for his father, “I am not worthy to be called your son.” Like all of these, we too know ourselves unworthy, and only then are we ready to hear and to see. Just as Jesus said to Zaccheus, “Hurry and come down,” shocking Zaccheus to his marrow. Isaiah, the prophet writes of God, “Before they call, I will answer.”

Zaccheus, who never would have dreamed of inviting this prestigious guest to his house, as he knew himself despised by other Jews for his occupation, God in Christ pulls a fast one and surprises the vertically challenged publican to come down from the tree because Jesus was going to come to his house on that day. How he must have scrambled back down that tree. He was seen and known and named worthy of and by God, and before he could call, God had answered because God knows where all the welcome mats are spread before our inner chambers, knows the deeper bending toward good that is our truer self.

Rev. Mary Harrington has abandoned her post overlooking the marsh, but she has not abandoned her family or us. She remembers us, even as we remember her and all those we love who have left this world for another. One way of honoring Mary, and indeed all those who have walked before us, is to be a good steward of our place in this world. For us that is this village of Sheepscot and other towns and villages on this central coastal plain. Part of stewardship in Sheepscot is seeing to the proper care and feeding of these buildings, which house our church and our church’s history. Let us honor Mary and Marjorie Huntley, and others who have grown up here, moved here, or who have worshiped in these buildings by making the best informed decisions we can at this time about how we go forward as a church.

Then, when it comes time for us to go the way of Mary, of the umbers and golds of fall, and of her geese and ducks, we can leave a few loose ends trusting that others of like mind will do what they can to ensure a future for our churches which have housed and celebrated life and enabled smooth passage for many into this life and on into the next.

Happy Halloween. Vote your conscience on Tuesday, and as Mother Jones, the nineteenth-century activist for children’s rights used to say, “Pray for the dead and fight like hell for the living.” Amen.

Attitude of Gratitude

2010-10-10T21:10:00.000-04:00

Sheepscott Community Church October 10, 2010

Jeremiah 29: 1, 4-7

Luke 17: 11-19

Attitude of Gratitude

Koraysha shared her new baby Ellis with us last week. His beauty, his curiosity, his focus on everything from his mother to Carol Shorey, to all the new faces he was surrounded by as he nestled safely in his carryall, all of what makes up the new life that is Ellis was a gift to all of us last Sunday. If Ellis is hungry, he lets Koraysha know by his mewing or wiggling or grasping at. A mom knows in a thousand ways that it is time to feed baby. Or if Ellis’s diaper is wet or full, Koraysha knows that in ways we all understand, and will take care of it. If Ellis is tired, whether overwhelmed by stimulation, as he was last week at the coffee hour, or by the dictatorial hands of the clock, which indicate how many hours it has been since he slept, if he is tired, his lids will droop, even against his will.

The time may come when he will fight those drooping lids because he can’t bear to leave the party or to not have sight of his mother for even a moment. But that’s in the future. For now, he settles into his mother and sleeps like a baby bird in the nest. This is entirely appropriate for a 6- or 7-week-old baby. In a year or so he may be demanding another handful of Cheerios on his highchair tray. He might do that by raising his voice and pounding the tray, and just as she recognizes the signs of his hunger now, Koraysha will easily interpret the different signs of his hunger at that different time.

What is appropriate for Baby Ellis is not appropriate for healthy adult persons such as ourselves. I am not talking about individuals in care who need a high level of support, but about individuals demanding that kind of support who are capable of doing for themselves.

People need to grow in all their parts as they age, not just physically. And that growth involves assuming personal responsibility, which in part can lead to appreciation of what has been done for us in our own past, not only by our caretaking parents early on, but by teachers, doctors, scout leaders, family members, all those who have helped us into adulthood, an adulthood in which we can provide the same support and mentoring for others who are growing. This is the Body of Christ in action.

If that appreciation, another word for gratitude, doesn’t kick in at some point, we become self-centered human beings, overgrown infants, who take life and its gifts for granted, not unlike the nine lepers of today’s gospel. I won’t be too hard on those lepers, who, simply by virtue of their long-standing suffering, were no doubt so excited about the healing they received––Can you imagine? To be without fingers or whole hands or even feet, with just stumps to hobble about on, and perhaps no nose, and the characteristic grayish pallor of the leper’s face, and then to be whole and healed and able to leap. And so they went on their way rejoicing, to show the priests, as Jesus had directed them. We can understand their giddiness and their focus on carrying out Jesus’ orders. And yet, and yet, one did come back. And he, as Jesus said, a foreigner, a Samaritan, who on his way to the Lord praised God with a loud voice for this great favor and threw himself on the ground at Jesus’ feet, giving him thanks. Where were the other nine? Because the writer takes the trouble to point out that this was a Samaritan, it is reasonable to assume that the others were Jews.

An incidental point, that addresses the question of what this usually despised Samaritan was doing among the Jewish lepers, suffering is a great leveler, a great democratizer. For instance, those who have lost loved ones and who attend grief support groups don’t check on age, ethnicity, sexual orientation, race, or religion of members before deciding whether to attend. Loss of a loved one is a universal experience, and the suffering that attends that loss is also universal. As varied as individual responses to the loss may be, the feeling of utter bereftness is the same, and being in the company, in the presence of those who know the experience comforts as nothing else can. The Body of Christ in action. So, this suffering lot of lepers would not have checked the Samaritan’s ID card, when he came to their conclave. They needed only to see the affected flesh to open the gate to admit him.

It is also possible to assume that the Jewish lepers who did not return may have had a sense of privilege, as the chosen people. If anyone would be getting a healing, it would be they, after all. They continued on their way to show themselves to the priests in accordance with Mosaic law, while the Samaritan in a spontaneous outburst of gratitude and joy ran back to Jesus and flung himself at his feet in gratitude. That action is spiritually instructive. Which attitude do you think would be more pleasing to God? The obedience to the Law or the acknowledgment through spontaneous joyful gratitude of the revelation of God among men? That’s a no-brainer as far as I’m concerned.

If we can’t tap the inbuilt sense of gratitude that would respond spontaneously as the Samaritan did in such a situation, how do we get there? How do we get out from under the heel of the Law that proscribes that kind of spontaneity? Can we cultivate such an attitude? A person cannot become what he or she is not. That seed of gratitude must be in him or her before it can grow. I think that seed is in everyone from the beginning. It’s part of the package when we come, a response by the creature to the Creator. However, that seed needs sun and rain in order to grow, i.e., moments of joy and of sorrow. The fact is that we grow more in and through the sorrowful times than through the joyful times.

Recall for a moment the voice that was heard to speak from the cloud that overhung Mount Tabor at the time of the transfiguration. Peter, James and John, who had accompanied Jesus up the mountain, were awestruck as they saw Moses and Elijah speaking with Jesus about his passage and heard the voice from the cloud say, “This is my beloved Son. Listen to him.” The point is the voice came out of the cloud. It is often in those clouded times of our lives that we begin to see clearly, that we hear God, that we begin to get our lives into balance by coming to understand what is important, what finally matters. When we’re running around the field playing disc golf on a gorgeous day and tossing back a beer between rounds, as important as that R & R might be to maintaining our sanity, it’s doubtful that that’s where we’ll be learning life’s big lessons.

As the saying goes, “Into every life a little rain must fall,” and it is that rain that will water the seed of gratitude out of understanding of what we have been given. I’m talking about the air we breathe, the water we have to drink, fresh eggs from hens––Who but God could have come up with that one? all the gifts of nature, other people, the gift of life itself, a marvelous body that usually works, the love that we by grace discover in this life if and when we pay attention to the moment and what the moment offers. Then, if we have been spiritually developmentally delayed, having continued to sit at the table and bang our fist for more Cheerios, we’re more likely to get up, clear the table, and do the dishes. We’re more likely to ask what else we can do to make life easier for the rest of the household. Remember the gospel of last week, where the servant does not expect to be served when he comes in from tending the flocks or plowing the field. Rather, he comes in and waits on the Master and will have his supper when the Master has finished his. And the servant doesn’t expect thanks as he has only done his duty.

The source of our gratitude is the grace that enables us to recognize the presence of God in the world, whether that is in nature, in a human being, in a situation, in the gifts of food and drink, of bird song and human song. Praise of the Creator is native to people. Human beings give praise for the same reason that birds sing. It’s an instinctive response to the creative love of God; it is the river flowing back to the sea, that is, when it isn’t dammed up by aforementioned, inappropriate, child-appropriate attitudes and behaviors.

It’s true that we people have a disposition to sin, as well as to do good, what the Catholic Church historically called original sin. According to Oswald Chambers, a Scotsman who lived in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and who wrote extensively on spiritual matters, that disposition of sin is not immorality or wrongdoing, but the excessive preoccupation with self whereby we become our own little gods. By this I mean we claim our right to ourselves. Me, me, me. Like the baby, only inappropriately, I am the center of the universe. What a huge self-deception that is. Can you see what a mercy it is when we realize we are nothing except by the grace of God, whereby we then become everything, which we are invited to surrender. Didn’t you know it would come back to that? It takes a lifetime to surrender that way, but when it finally happens, it induces peace and joy.

Which brings me back to the reading from Jeremiah. It is presented as a letter from the prophet, who must have stayed behind in Jerusalem at the time of the Babylonian captivity, perhaps because of his advanced age, which would prevent him being a help to the conquerors. In the letter the prophet encourages the people to buck up, keep on building houses, planting gardens, marrying, having children, and then marrying off those children so they too can have children. Jeremiah stresses that the people should increase and not decrease. It’s basically an admonition to keep on keeping on, even in exile, and to pray for peace and prosperity, for if their Babylonian captors thrive, they too will thrive. Very practical and pragmatic. No time for the “woe is me” routine. It is the time of the exile, but God assures them through his prophet that he is with them, that they shouldn’t give up. There does come an end to the exile in the fullness of time, and the people return and rebuild the Temple in Jerusalem. God will not delay. God will come.

He will come on the road on the way to Jerusalem, and there the lepers, all unexpectedly, will meet God in the person of Jesus. And he will heal them, again all un- expectedly. Halleluia shouts the Samaritan. I am saved. I am healed, and he runs back to thank this one whose power from a distance ran through him. Although, mark well, Jesus said to him, “It is your faith has made you whole.” It is our faith that makes us whole, and we come together in faith on a Sunday morning to thank God for the gifts of grace, including the gift of life itself, and the gift of life as it should be lived in a surrendered fashion in the example revealed in the life of Jesus himself. It happens that his life on the earth ended on the cross, and that cross has become the symbol of what he did for us, the teaching that he died for us. The fact is he lived for us; he showed us how to live and give our whole selves to the life, which is the love of God in the world. His life ended on the cross, but that was his bridge to the resurrected life in the next world.

I think I told you this at least once before, but it bears repeating here. I used to have images of the crucifixion around my house. I understood at some point along the way that it was time to put away the images of crucifixion and live the imprint of the resurrected life, not the imprint of the nails in the hands. If we can believe that, we are not focused on that extreme suffering but on the extreme expression of life that the resurrection represents and that can actually, by the power of the Spirit of the risen Christ, raise others to life as well.

That is what the gospel today calls us to do: to have the faith to be whole and to allow the risen Lord, through his Spirit, to work through that faith for the sake of others. We need to come out of our selves and our petty needs, our feed me, our see me needs, and in gratitude do for the other what once our parents did for us by raising us, and what God has been doing for us since the beginning, i.e., having mercy and allowing us the opportunity and time to become ourselves. To be Christ on the road ready to be God’s instrument of resurrection for another person. That other-directedness comes out of a sense of gratitude and proportion about what the gift of life really is. Our faith makes us whole, and where that faith is lacking, our willingness to believe the gospel message indeed makes us whole. Amen.

Only Doing Our Duty

2010-10-03T20:53:00.000-04:00

Sheepscott Community Church October 3, 2010

2 Timothy 1: 1-14

Luke 17: 5-10

Only Doing Our Duty

Waiting in faith for the fulfillment of promise has been widely demonstrated scripturally. We need only look at Abraham, old Abraham, to whom God promised descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky. How he could look at his wife Sarah, who was almost older than God at the time, and believe––well, that’s faith. Faith in the word of God as revealed to us, a willingness to set aside what we see with our natural eyes to focus instead with our spiritual eyes on what God promises and shows us.

And whether or not that promise is fulfilled in our lifetime, we need to resolve to continue to go back and plow the field again with faith that the crops will grow. If we look around and see a temperature of 113 degrees, as in California this last week, or 25 degrees below zero, which we will probably see this winter, either way we need to keep believing that God will give the harvest.

I am talking about the harvest in this church, a harvest of souls living in surrender to the will of God, and consequent inevitable service to the human community. As you probably heard or read, Tony Curtis died this last week. I heard a recording of an interview done with him wherein he said, “Service to others is the rent we pay for our time on the planet.” Nice. How far we are along that path of surrender to God’s will will determine just how we feel about that statement. Are we still naming what the will of God is for our own lives, serving ourselves and our definitions of the godly life? We need to be careful.

Let’s consider this morning’s gospel parable as we think about being careful. Before we do that, let me quote from the reading in 2 Timothy: “Join with me in suffering for the gospel, by the power of God who has saved us and called us to a holy life––not because of anything we’ve done, but because of his own purpose and grace.” Why on God’s green earth would we ever consent to suffering, whatever that might entail, and actually actively join, by an act of our will, in suffering for the gospel. In a profound sense it is true that no man, no woman makes a sacrifice, in this case, to join in the suffering for the gospel. In the area of our duty, which is what today’s parable is about, there is no room for the sense of pride or merit that is usually part and parcel of the concept of sacrifice.

Too often, what passes for religion today is the gospel of health and success. All we have to do is be baptized and establish a personal relationship with Jesus and we will live the good life, the kingdom of God on earth. Would that it were that simple; would that that were entirely true, but it isn’t. Life isn’t like that. The gospel today makes that clear, and the word and life of Jesus are a sharp corrective on the gospel of easy salvation. Yes, Jesus has already done the Big Work, but we need to work as well. We will have times of the comfort, the balm of Gilead, which we sang about last week, the healing medicament of the Holy Spirit of the Living God, but it is the epitome of presumption to think that we either deserve to have that all the time or have somehow earned it by the decisions we have made.

When we begin to think that way, that we have earned the rewards of God, let us remember today’s gospel, which is a cure for self-righteousness, self-pity, pride and an imagined sense of merit. If we make a note to self when reading about the peccadilloes, the sins of others on line, or in the newspaper, or hear about them on the broadcast news, if we think to ourselves, “Hmm. I’ve never done anything like that. I’ve never failed my family and friends in that way,” watch your step. It’s like reading the obits and not finding ourselves there. While there may be satisfaction, there is no merit. Jesus has clearly said that no man ever makes God his debtor. As I noted earlier, there is a profound sense in which it is true that no man makes a sacrifice; in the realm of duty there is no room for pride in sacrifice or merit.

While this parable is not the whole truth about God and that One’s relationship to human beings, it is a truth, part of the whole picture, because the fact is that the demands of duty are never fulfilled when we surrender our lives. It’s ongoing and lifelong. . Think of that old saw, “A man’s work is from sun to sun, a woman’s work is never done.” And speaking for the distaff side, it isn’t ever done. And that is true of the servant in the parable. He comes in from the field after plowing or keeping the sheep. Does the master say, “Have a seat, and I’ll get you your supper.” Hardly. Rather, as the parable lays it out, the master tells the servant to wait on him, the master, and after he has had food and drink, the servant can sit down and have his supper. After supper, he may have to clean up the dishes and turn down the master’s bed as well. There is no respite. That servant can never say, “For an hour I am not under obligation.” However honorably he may live or imagine himself to live, the only thing he can say is, “I have only done my duty.”

The servant is not concerned with long-term results, but only with obedience in the moment. The satisfaction that we get from going forward in obedience to what we understand is the will of God in our lives––including being here together on Sunday morning––is the joy that is greater and better than that of self-pity or pride. When a person is doing what he or she considers their duty and yet knows that in this life he or she can never fulfill the obligation but then continues to go forward anyway doing what he or she can, we can be sure that the mark of God is on that person, who is content to serve the Lord of heaven and never ask to enter the service of some lesser lord, whose patch of ground is narrow and whose work is soon done. Then that person can labor in quiet joy and leave the issue in God’s hands.

And we fail at our tasks and in our attitudes in relation to duty. It isn’t all sweetness and light in submission to the will of God. It’s treacherous, long, tedious, often thankless, except, except in the depths of our own soul where we meet God, whose love lavished on us when we fail is greater than the vastness of the failure itself, and we can go on. We can go on to work in harness with Christ, who has invited us to take his yoke upon our shoulders because it is a light and easy yoke. Jesus makes the difference to s who sometimes feel like the oarsmen below decks dragging that oar back and back and back again, until we think our back will break if we don’t have some relief. But then the music starts to play, and it turns out to be Jesus. His music makes every task possible because our hearts lighten when he is around. And I’m not making light of difficulties, whether of health or personal economies or seemingly unending troubles with kids, grandkids, friends and family.

All of that is not going away. We don’t live in the Never-Never Land that some religion promises. It’s work, it’s hard, it’s relentless, and finally we die, but God is in the midst with us, suffering with us, rejoicing with us, true thing, and Jesus himself, the Great Promise and Living Word of God is palpably with us. We can realize that this morning when we share communion together. Everything is possible for us because we have the living Christ in our midst. I’m not the one who said it. He said it on the night before he died. “Do this in remembrance of me. Whenever you eat this bread and drink this cup there am I in the midst of you.” Or “When two or three of you are gathered together, there am I in your midst.” So we are together, we are praying, and we are about to share communion. Jesus is and will be in our midst.

Here’s where the faith comes in, the faith Jesus spoke of in the earlier part of the gospel, which was not particularly related to the parable but which is always deserving of restatement. If you had faith the size of a grain of mustard seed, you could tell this mountain to be moved into the sea and it would obey. Jesus is exaggerating once again to make a point. Part of that point is the power of the prayer made in faith. Don’t pay attention to what your natural eyes see, but pay complete attention to what your instinct is telling you, what your own developed and thoughtful conscience and conscientious mind are telling you. That is the built-in homing device that will bring us back to the dovecote where we commune with the Spirit of God, where goodness resides in us and can make its home in all people of good will who desire it.

That mustard seed of faith is the thrust of the soul into a future always hidden, but we do get glimpses of it. What is our future here in the Sheepscott Community Church as a people of faith? Do we have faith the size of a mustard seed to believe that God can bring his purposes out of our few numbers? Do we feel God’s joy in the children who are here this morning, who are the promise of the future? I have alluded to this before, I allude to it now; I will allude to it again in a future: This is God’s time in this church, for this church. While all time is always God’s time, there are moments and there are moments, and this is this church’s moment to heal, to be reconciled one with another, denomination with denomination, historical perspective with historical perspective, forgiving as we ourselves have been forgiven. And we can consciously act that out in our communion service this morning.

We are a powerhouse of prayer and song, faith and action. I do believe that when I look out at you and love you with God’s heart. Some have chosen to leave our congregation, but we have chosen to stay, to try to uncover and facilitate the life of God in this village on the coast of Maine. That’s our charge, that’s our duty, and our joy . I will stay and continue to do my best, which in my humanness is a limited best, but what I have is yours to try to realize with you God’s dream for this church. We will fail, and we will succeed. That’s the way of human endeavor, but we will do it together, strengthened by the body and blood, humanity and divinity of Jesus, who offers himself to us through the communion today. Let us share that communion in faith. Amen.

Sunday School Begins!

2010-09-27T09:59:00.002-04:00

All children are invited to the Sheepscott Community Church Sunday School, which begins next Sunday, October 3, 2010, under the direction of Chrissy Wajer and Cindy Leavitt. The children will gather in the vestry of the church for music, prayer, instruction, crafts, and SNACKS! following the children's lesson during the 10 a.m. service.

If you have questions or would like to help out, contact Chrissy at 586-5021, or Cindy at 586-5414.

Hiding in Plain Sight

2010-09-26T21:37:00.000-04:00

Sheepscott Community Church September 26, 2010

Amos 6: 1a, 4-7

1 Timothy 6: 6-19

Luke 16: 19-31

Hiding in Plain Sight

Lazarus, the poor man, the beggar of today’s gospel parable lies on the front step of the rich man’s house, hiding in plain sight. Just so do the poor in our society––panhandlers on the streets of Cambridge, MA, in the shadow of Harvard University; the homeless on the streets of Portland; the hungry in Augusta and on the backroads of Pemaquid––just so do they hide in plain sight. They’re not deliberately hiding, you understand, we simply choose not to see them.

Incidentally the rich man is traditionally named Dives, a word meaning “wealth,” while Lazarus, on the other hand, means “God helps.” The rich man does not really see, does not look at the beggar Lazarus, who disgusts him with his open sores licked by dogs, considered unclean animals in Jesus’ time. The rich man does not seem like a particularly bad man, and in a reality of suspended disbelief, might readily give of his riches to a charity that could benefit the likes of Lazarus and his kind. But look at Lazarus? Look at him and really see him as another man like himself? Highly unlikely.

And it is just that refusal to see, so absorbed in himself and in his affairs as he was, that led Dives to be condemned. He refused to see Lazarus’ loneliness, his flashes of insight and conscience and longing for God, so much like his own. His was the refusal to see this poor man as emanating from the same source and heading for the same place as he himself was; it was entirely out of the realm of consideration. Absurd. Or was it?

The contrast of the archetypal rich man Dives with another literary character, Shakespeare’s King Lear, is potentially enlightening. When tragedy overtook the once noble but benighted king, and he himself stood ruined on the heath, suffering enabled him to imagine how it was for the poor ragged folk who were exposed to the same terrible storm:

O, I have ta’en

Too little care of this! Take physic, pomp;

Expose thyself to feel what wretches feel,

That thou may’st shake the superflux to them

And show the heavens more just.”

King Lear, Act III, scene 4.

If we prolong this comparative parable, we can imagine that after death, the character of Lear might find himself in Abraham’s bosom, resting between Lazarus the beggar and indeed the wretches who would freeze and die on the heath. And they would have conversation with each other and sweet peace, as they rested there in the knowledge that they all come, that we all come from the same fountainhead, the same source.

Lear milked the wisdom out of his wretched circumstance to recognize the bonds of human family, whereas, even after death, when there is that great chasm fixed between the rich man and Abraham and Lazarus in this morning’s gospel, even then the rich man asks Abraham to send Lazarus over with some water for him. He continues to view Lazarus’ role in relation to him and his needs, not as if Lazarus himself has a role for himself that has nothing to do with the rich man. As the parable is drawing to a close, the rich man still doesn’t get it.

His final appeal, that Abraham allow Lazarus to go back and warn his brothers, the members of his family still living, of what awaits them after death unless they change their ways, is met with Abraham’s refusal. He says simply that they have Moses and the prophets to guide them, just as the rich man himself had. There are multiple interpretations of that last part of the parable, none of which I will consider because what I would rather focus on is the power of the parable to effect change in a person’s life. One such person was Albert Schweitzer, who after hearing this parable read at church, concluded that the continent of Africa was the beggar lying on Europe’s doorstep. He went off and founded the Lamberene Hospital in Gabon, on the West coast of equatorial Africa, in 1913, and spent the rest of hs life in service. It still operates today under the name of the Albert Schweitzer Hospital. Google it for pictures.

Let’s go back to the disgust we can imagine someone like the rich man would have for the figure of Lazarus, covered with sores and lying on his front steps. How different would it be from the victims of the AIDS epidemic during the mid-’80s, especially in the advanced stages of that disease, when those suffering would be covered with sores? Or lepers in the ancient world or in medieval times or banned to the Island of Molokai in Hawaii or Carville, LA, in our own times––Carville, where the National Hansen’s Disease Clinical Center was located, and later moved to Baton Rouge? Not that different. When we turn away from what in another human being disgusts us, makes our stomachs turn over, it is not an overstatement to say that we turn away from Christ. When we do not recognize Christ in the drug addict, in the drunk, in the incarcerated, in our Muslim neighbors, in an estranged family member, in our bitterest enemy, we are refusing to recognize Christ, no less than the character of the rich man in this morning’s gospel.

I can imagine you might have already turned down the volume at this point so you can’t hear me anymore. It’s like, lighten up, Judith. You’re stretching a little too far here. No, no I’m not. “Whatever you do unto these, the least of my brethren, you do unto me.” Jesus speaking. The Christ speaking, calling us to witness his presence in the world, everywhere in every person, the light of Christ, perhaps burning very dimly, but burning, and needing our oxygen, our very breath of the Spirit of God in the world, to make that flame burn high and bright again. That oxygen may take the form of a kind word, a shared lunch, a community supper, a long-delayed phone call, an accompanying walk in the park, a letter that reaches into years past to seek or offer forgiveness.

My son Patrick, who is a movie buff and consequently a fan of the movie critic Roger Ebert, of Siskel and Ebert fame years ago, printed up a blog entry of Ebert’s from July. As some of you may know, Ebert has had cancer of the salivary glands, which has resulted in him being unable to speak and being somewhat grotesquely disfigured by the surgery necessary to eliminate the cancer. Yes, his audible speech is gone, but his written speech, his writing itself has improved, he says, and gained for him whole new audiences on line. That’s all pretty much irrelevant to what I want to say about him, but just an FYI for no extra charge.

In the referenced blog entry, Ebert said he has been in Alcoholics Anonymous since 1979, and talks at length about what the organization has meant and continues to mean to him. What spoke to me on the blog was this wonderful line, apparently one of AA’s rules: “Don’t take anyone else’s inventory.” Isn’t that great? I find that relevant to this morning’s gospel and this sermon. We have no idea what life has thrown at people that has brought them to this or that point, and we don’t have to speculate. It doesn’t matter. What matters is to go out on the front step, and whoever is lying there, bring them in. Yes, bring them right into the house. You know I’m speaking metaphorically, but I can as well be speaking literally. You never know what or who is going to appear on the front step, to be the phone call or life-changing letter in the mailbox on any given day.

How can you possibly be ready for that, you might wonder. Practice. While with us faulty humans practice may not make perfect, it will predispose us to act in a certain way if and when a situation takes us by surprise. I’ve talked before about a habit of virtue. That can be as simple as avoiding vice. And by the way, what’s vice for you is not necessarily vice for me, and visa-versa. It all depends on attitude. There’s a great few lines in Romans 14. “The man who will eat anything must not ridicule him who abstains from certain foods; the man who abstains must not sit in judgment on him who eats. After all, God himself has made him welcome.”

And further on, “If a man eats when his conscience has misgivings about eating, he is already condemned, because he is not acting in accordance with what he believes. Whatever does not accord with one’s belief is sinful.” Acting against our own conscience is sinful. And further, “Accept one another then, as Christ accepted you, for the glory of God.” Have a look at Romans 14 and 15 if you have a problem with overeating or undereating or judging others or yourself in that department. It’s enlightening and encouraging.

And before we leave scripture, in 1 Timothy, which Jan read, in verse 13 the writer of the epistle cites “Christ Jesus, who while testifying before Pontius Pilate made the good confession.” What I think he is referring to is Jesus’ response to the question, “Are you the King of the Jews?” to which he replied, in effect, “That’s right.” There he was the King of the Jews, the Messiah, and he went unrecognized but for a few. He was Lazarus on the doorstep, i.e., the word of God made flesh, the Spirit of God in a man who surrendered himself entirely to the will of God, even as it meant death at the end. Recall the quotation from the Book of Isaiah, chapter 53, which Christian interpreters have appropriated as anticipating Jesus as the Messiah.

“Who has believed our message and to whom has the arm of the Lord been revealed?

He grew up before him like a tender shoot and like a root out of dry ground.

He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him, nothing in his appearance that we should desire him./ He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, and familiar with suffering./ Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised and we esteemed him not.” And so on. Do you see what I mean? Jesus was despised. He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to him. Artists and theologians have dressed him in magnificent robes, have made him a king before whom we easily and readily now bend the knee. I don’t know if Jesus is there. I think he is still out at the gate begging for a handout.

You have probably heard how during the Great Depression hobos, drifters would mark a gate or door or wall with a coded mark or sign that indicated to other hungry passersby that a kind woman lived in that house. To say that she was a soft touch, which in fact that mark communicated, did not indicate that the drifters were taking advantage of her, but that she simply saw and knew the Christ in those drifters. Whether or not she called it that, she looked at and recognized their common humanity with hers, as Lear did, and the bag of sandwiches and fruit, and perhaps a few cookies, was as surely communion as what we will share next Sunday. The unshaven faces, the felt hats pulled down, the worn overcoats with missing buttons, there is the Christ, not in raiment gold, but in raiment old and soiled and smelling of the earth.

I’ll conclude with a poem of mine I may have read to you before, “The Men of Lincoln Square.” Lincoln Square was that area in the North End of Worcester, which, before route 190 was built, included a market, a five and dime, the Boys Club on the far side of the rotary, which was centered around the tallest of flagpoles, from a child’s perspective. But what really stood out to me were the bars and hallways of buildings between the bars because we would often see the denizens of that neighborhood when we were on our way to the Plymouth Theater for the Sunday matinee. Two features, a cartoon and a newsreel for a quarter What a bargain.

The Men at Lincoln Square

wore overcoats

and could blow their noses

between thumb and index finger

over the gutter neat as can be.

I tried it but it didn’t work for me.

The lucky ones had cigarettes

a felt hat

a pint in the pocket.

They hung in hallways

like bats against the walls.

Sometimes they smiled as we children

made our way past them to matinees.

I wanted to take their winter hands

in mine and bring them inside the theater

to spend my candy money on them.

I wanted to hear them laugh out loud

at cartoons, Martin and Lewis, newsreels

anything to bring them alive in the bright darkness

that for long moments

walled judgment outside.

In poverty of spirit we are all the men of Lincoln Square, and the children walking to the theater, and the minister in the church I passed by, whose son I would one day marry. We are the ticket seller at the theater and the usher with his flashlight, all walking through our days in this dark world, lit by the recognition that we are all related in the family of God, all equally loved, one no more than another. Our brother the Christ is hiding in plain sight among us, in each of us. Amen.

The Little Way

2010-09-19T15:38:00.000-04:00

Sheepscott Community Church September 19, 2010

Jeremiah 8: 18-9: 1

Luke 16: 1-13

The Little Way

Jeremiah 31: 31-34: “The time is coming when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah./ It will not be like the covenant I made with their forefathers when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they broke my covenant, even though I was a husband to them./ This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time. I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people./ No longer will a man teach his neighbor, or a man his brother saying, ‘Know the Lord,’ because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest. For I will forgive their wickedness and remember their sins no more.”

What a wonderful promise. A new covenant. And it’s for us, each one of us individually and for us as a church. Why would we want to be associated with a church, to work for a church, if God is not our God and we are not God’s people, and God’s law is not written on our hearts? When we do know that God is our God, that we are God’s people, and God’s law is written on our hearts, we are filled with joy and want to pour out our lives for God. That’s not just evangelical rhetoric; it’s a true thing. I think of this prophecy in Jeremiah of a new covenant as the gospel before this morning’s gospel, where Jesus shows us a new way to live out that new covenant, to realize that God among us.

The bridge between the two positions of the new covenant established––knowing God is our God, knowing we are God’s people, and knowing the law of God written on our hearts––the bridge between that position and the other position of Jesus showing us the way to live that new covenant––that bridge connecting the two is the living Spirit of God, a.k.a. the Holy Spirit. It is that One, who makes the work of living the new covenant a work of joy in the fulfillment, not a work done out of religious or social duty, guilt, or simply for humanitarian ends, all of which are valid reasons for the work, but none of which give the profound joy that can only come from doing the work of the new covenant for God’s sake. I dare say it is only the work motivated by the Spirit, and the church filled with people motivated by the Spirit that will last. By becoming nothing in surrender, we become everything in Christ, and there is joy, not simply fulfillment .of duty in the work.

When Jesus is kept at more than arm’s length by making him divinely inaccessible, life would seem to be easier because the demands on us are not so great. I mean, if Jesus is God after all, who can possibly think of being on a par with God, of doing what God does? But when the lineaments of the portrait of that One who has been called the Son of God become clear, and we see him as the Son of Man, and what he did with that humanity by surrendering it, we are challenged to look at and consider what we too might do with a surrendered humanity, particularly surrendering it in the manner that Jesus did. Thy will be done.

In fact it’s easier for us if we follow his lead. We join ourselves to him. We don’t have to break new ground. Keep setting our foot down in the track that he has made and eventually that will be our own track, divinely transformed by our choice to set our foot there and by the action of the Spirit of God who led the way in the person of Jesus. Think of St. Andrew’s Church here in Newcastle, or St. Patrick’s. But for Jesus, to whose star they attached their wagons, Andrew, brother of Peter and one of the original apostles, and Patrick, a missionary to the pagan peoples of what would later be called Ireland, but for Jesus, those men would most likely be unknown, except to their families and a few friends of their time. Their choice to associate themselves with Jesus has given them an unexpected celebrity, their names attached to places of worship. Again, they simply attached their wagons to Jesus’ star, led by the same Spirit which led Jesus into the desert, out into his public life, up the Mount of Transfiguration and then the Mount of Calvary, and finally to Easter.

Was it really the same Spirit? Yes, unequivocally, yes. And indeed it is the same Spirit that moved you to not roll over and go back to sleep this morning, but to come here and worship God in fellowship with other men and women yes for your own sake but more for the glory of God. To worship God for God’s sake.

Was that all in the gospel? I think so. At least it was for me. Let’s look a little more closely and see what else is there for all of us.

I would note that today’s story of the unjust steward is just that––a story, a parable. Jesus told parables, not allegories. In an allegory, the characters can be identified with a specific person or series of persons, characteristics or situations. In a parable, however, imperfect people, like the unjust steward of today’s gospel, are employed to teach us more about ourselves, if we have ears to hear.

First consider the word “steward.” The original meaning of the word was a ward of the sty, a keeper of pigs, indicating the simple order of life: man as God’s agent to govern earthly life. Mind you, we are stewards, not owners. This is God’s world and it has been given over into our charge as stewards. Our job is not the hoarding of wealth or fencing it in for our own pleasure, but the proper circulation of it in God’s sight. For us that can mean taking care of our own families and the larger human family by contributing when and where we can.

And that attitude relates to stewardship across the board. If we treat forests as our own, and not as responsible stewards of creation might, we would have erosion, dust storms, and in the extreme, new deserts. Likewise, as a person is a steward of the earth and his or her own wealth, that person is also a steward of his or her own gifts. Those gifts lay on the person a greater measure of responsibility for their use, for sharing them with the community. I know you have heard this from me countless times, but here it is again in this context. Why I bring it up again and again is because Jesus brings it up again and again. If you have a gift, use the gift for the common good. Share the gift: That is the common good.

Consider the word “commonwealth,” as in Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The commonwealth is the general good, the body politic or state viewed as a body in which the whole people have a voice or an interest. It is our sharing of our gifts and of our wealth, even if that wealth amounts to a halfpenny, the copper coin of the woman Jesus singled out for her generosity because it was all she had to give. It’s all about attitude in the exercise of stewardship. That’s where the good or evil names itself and makes its home, how we think about things within ourselves, and then how we flesh .out thought in action.

The point I would like to focus on this morning is the importance of being faithful in small things, as it is in verse 10 of the gospel: “Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much.” This saying may in fact have been a proverb current in Jesus’ time. Even if it was, that does not necessarily eliminate it as a saying of Jesus because scripture shows that he would often employ the proverbially rich language of the people, but would give an edge or a twist to the proverb that deepened the meaning and brought it home. This particular saying is also characteristic of Jesus’ teaching, where he stressed the importance of apparently trivial things––the cup of cold water, the single talent, the need to become like a child in order to enter the kingdom of God.

It’s our human nature to think that bigger is better, that more is better. At our house we had what our kids called defensive eating as they were growing up. If there were a desirable morsel––fresh ear of corn, freshly baked oatmeal cookies, blueberry pancakes, a newly opened bag of potato chips, the understanding was to get as much as soon as possible to ensure that you got some at all. There was not one ascetic abstainer in our household. Anyway, we seem to think in terms of me and mine and now and big and more. This is antithetical to Jesus’ approach. As I just said, he stressed the importance of trivial things, the crucial nature of little things.

Our lives are made up of such little things––small steps, small gestures of the hand, single, small breaths. I expect at the end of life, many of us will be saying, Darn. I missed it. That’s what it was about––the little things. The word of kindness, the smile, the hand on the shoulder, the refusal of meanness until that refusal of meanness becomes a habit, eye contact with another when listening to them. These are the small things that make a life, that are really the giving of alms to the poor. Jesus is no doubt speaking literally of money, as he does in the last verses of today’s gospel, but I think the alms of generosity and kindness he would not dispute. And we are all in need of the giving and receiving of those alms.

And we all need to be broken down from the heights of self-importance to the depths of the Christ-life in each of us. That life is hidden from view but pulsing there as surely as our heart is beating in us and waiting, waiting, waiting for that moment of yes, that moment of surrender to the Christ, where we do indeed put our foot in his footprint and stretch the other into the next print and walk that llittle way, the way he shows us. What a challenge, what an invitation, what a joy when we accept that invitation

I’m going to bring all that language down to one earthly application this morning, and I confess to having had this in mind from the first. My focus has been on the importance of small things as the way to live the Christ-life. I want to talk about the small things in relation to this church. As a community, we need to grab hold and take part in this church, participate, if we are to last as an entity and not just disappear or operate on the margins. That’s not enough.

What do I mean? In the big issues department, in December Bill Robb will be finishing his most recent three-year stint as treasurer for the church. It’s a huge job, and his work on behalf of all of us has been––as with everything Bill does––of the highest standard, and any expression of thanks is dwarfed by the measure and caliber of his work, but it is what we have to offer, our thanks. Carroll has left and we are searching for another organist. Sue Hunt has agreed to give us a few months, and on behalf of the church, I express my gratitude for her willingness to be with us over the weeks of the search. We currently have enquiries out to two churches to assist us in the community supper we cook and serve once a month. Jan and Clara, who are chair and back-up chair of that effort, are wearing down at the edges and need some relief. The coffee and cookie fellowship Jon has been faithful to do since April has made a real difference in our sense of community. Although we celebrate the Lord’s Supper ritually once a month, I feel and think that we have communion every week through and in this fellowship when we take time to talk and listen, to share with one another.

There’s also the Sunday School. Chrissy and Cindy, who are the co-directors, both have sons who are freshmen in college this semester. Both sons are athletes, and in these athletic families, where the members of the family are the chief fans, the moms will be traveling this fall and need help with coverage at Sunday School.

We have lost two of our lectors, so if anyone would like to be added to the lector list, to proclaim the word of God on a regular basis, please let me know, and I will gladly add you to the list. Also, we have our annual meeting in January, and at that time we will elect Board members. If anyone is interested in helping to shape this church for the future, to ensure that we have a fiuture, let Cindy Leavitt know. Cindy is chair of the Board.

So, we need a treasurer, come January; an organist or other musician and choir director; help with putting on the community supper; someone to occasionally sign up for the coffee and cookie fellowship; help with Sunday School; lectors, and bean supper helpers; and Board members.

That’s quite a list, but it’s a list of small things––well some small things and some bigger things––that we can all help out with. Some will say they don’t have the time, but in fact, in our own lives we all have the same amount of time; it’s a question of how we use it. We can bring that before God for parsing in prayer. If you can see your way clear to help out, it would be a relief to those who have carried so much of the work of the church for years. And mine and the church’s thanks for all that you all you do, from Virginia Carol greeting all comers, to members of the Board, to the choir and Sunday School teachers, cooks for the community supper and so on.

This is our church. We all need to recognize that we are part of this commonwealth, where our riches, whether that means time, money, talents, or all three, depending on what we understand in our own hearts as we come before God in prayer about the matter, those riches can be shared for the benefit of all. We are already rich in the membership of our church, and I hope that the membership will become an increasingly active one.

God wants a new covenant with us and the bridge to making that happen, to connecting us with God’s mind in Jesus, is the Holy Spirit of God, who is the source of joy in the work of the new covenant, which can be the life of this church as we know it, on steroids, on holy steroids. It can happen. It needs to happen if we’re going to continue as a viable church, and I am not speaking lightly. Amen.

Life as Grace

2010-09-05T16:48:00.000-04:00

Sheepscott Community Church September 5, 2010

Deuteronomy 30: 15-20

Luke 14: 25-33

Life as Grace

Hanging over all my preparations for the liturgy today was the threat of Hurricane Earl. On Tuesday, as I began writing, all weather prognosticators were saying, Stay alert. We don’t know whether Earl will be hitting New England and Canada––or not. A slight deviation from the current track could change everything, and we might get whacked––or not. Just because Earl could wash out or blow out the Sunday service, that was no excuse for not preparing the service as carefully as if it were going to be the Sunday worship service in the front room of the heavenly household. We must forge ahead.

And that forging ahead is what I want to talk about today. It’s a watershed of a

day for this church on several fronts: First and foremost, as the first Sunday of the month, it is our Communion day, when we share the sacred meal with each other as Jesus shared with his disciples the night before he died. Which brings us to the next reason for its being a watershed. Just as Jesus’s meal was what came to be called the Last Supper, because it was the last he would share with his apostles, so this will be our last supper with Carroll and Ted Smith. They are moving on, and we will share this meal with them today––and a coffee fellowship afterwards––and wish them Godspeed and Godbless, wherever they may finally alight. The third aspect of watershed is that today marks the last day of our annual season of worship at the Hill Church, this house of worship built so long ago as the First Congregational Church of Newcastle. In this service, I ask you to be mindful of this church and its history and of its current situation, praying for wisdom for those who will decide how this church and the Sheepscott Community Church continue in their walk together.

These latter two elements of our departing choir director and organist and the migration of the congregation back to the Valley Church for the next three seasons, are an indication of the church in flux. At such a time feelings of anxiety and pain are normal. What will the future look like? Do we have a future? Yes, again we are a church in transition, but that doesn’t need to speak of fear or dread, but change. And where there is change, there is opportunity, there is hope when and where the Spirit of God is actively apparent. When water is stagnant, mold forms, bacteria grows. When there is the fresh, running water, which we saw yesterday in our driveways and over our roads post-Earl, that moving water is a symbol of change, new life, a contrast with stasis. Recall the words of Jesus in John 4:14: “Whoever drinks the water I give will never thirst. Indeed the water I give will become a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” That is living, moving water in the physical and the spiritual sense, conducive to health.

What enables us to bear with and live through these sometimes exhausting periods of change is grace. In religion the word “grace” has two meanings, according to Carl Scovel, Unitarian minister retired from King’s Chapel, Boston. It may refer to God’s gracious and unmerited acts of love toward men and women and children––after all he owed us nothing and yet brought us into being out of love. Or the word grace may mean a short prayer which we offer at mealtime. These two meanings are closely related: we offer our spoken grace in response to his given grace. And these two meanings figure in our service today. With these migratory changes that take place this week––Carroll’s departure, and our own congregational departure for the Valley Church––we need to know that the grace of God will sustain us again, as it has in the past, and will lead us, even as it upholds us, in the way God would have us go. I believe that with all my heart, and invite you to believe that as well and to work for God’s will and way in this church.

How can I not bring up here Jesus’s exhortation from this morning’s gospel of Luke: “If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters––yes, even his own life––he cannot be my disciple.” A stern word. And the crowd that heard those words of Jesus thinned out pretty quickly. If you recall, in last week’s gospel, Jesus told the people not to invite to their dinners friends and relatives and those from whom they might expect a return invitation, but rather to invite the poor, the needy, the lame and the blind, from whom no invitation was expected.

Jesus was not saying don’t invite your family. What he was saying was, don’t invite them exclusively. As I pointed out last week, he often used hyperbole, and this week he uses it again to make a point, and the people got the point, well, some of the people anyway. This week, we hear the word “hate” and are repelled by it. It’s a staggering word, and Jesus meant it to stagger. Its root, however, is an Aramaic word that means “to love less.” What the word meant, stern as it was, was that people were to act as if they hated loved ones whenever the claims of home came into conflict with the claims of Jesus. Although he did not despise natural ties, he demanded a primary and undivided allegiance. Think about that. Think about what Jesus is asking us for.

We will always have the grace to respond in a way that gives life, God’s life, but as always the power to respond rests solely with us and the disposition of our own human wills. The invitation that Barbara read this morning from Deuteronomy is at least as stern as Jesus’s paradoxical call to hate those whom we are expected to most love. Listen to these words again: “This day I call heaven and earth as witnesses against you that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the Lord your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the Lord is your life,” etcetera. I have always thrilled to those words and know by my sheer physiological response that they are true words and I darned well better pay attention.

Okay, so we have Jesus reiterating God’s invitation. But it really doesn’t sound like a good time. I don’t know. It sounds like work, thankless work. But those are stern words, and I do want to be responsive to God’s invitation. I just don’t know. I think I’ll get back on the fence and watch the water run by.

Okay, while you’re on the fence watching the water go by, some of us will be moving forward, led by the Spirit of God, first back to the Valley Church to discover week by week what God’s will and way are for us for survival as a church. I invite you to come along. The church needs you to listen with your inner ear, to hear your understanding of what God is saying to you. All of the understandings of the community listening, that is how we discern the way to go––without self-righteousness, without anger, without judgment, without self-importance. We discern by listening with a peaceful heart, with equanimity gained through fulfilling the demand of Deuteronomy: to love the Lord our God, to walk in his ways, and to keep his commands, decrees and laws. The rewards are built in to the response and our response to the demand is made easier by being in each other’s company as a worshipping community, as a community of love and service. Do not be distracted from your purpose in having joined this community at all, but keep going forward. God sees and knows how we are trying to be a light on the hill, and God will bring the return, the harvest, the rewards, but in God’s time and God’s way. Who has the faith to hang on is invited to do so. You will not be sorry as rewards will be full and eternal.

What is going to make it more possible to accept that invitation, to respond to Jesus’s stern words and those of the writer in the passage of Deuteronomy? Grace. We started with grace; we will end with grace. If by the grace of God we have life at all, do you imagine that God will not provide grace in abundance to forge ahead in this work of the Sheepscott Community Church? Not a chance. God will provide. Watch and see, but while you’re watchIng, be about the work of the kingdom, however God is revealing that to you in your life.

So, grace. By the grace of God we have life. And by the wisdom, circumspect imagination, and especially the love of Jesus we have this sacramental supper to share today, which is a source of strength for us as a community and is a remembrance of the One who is the focus of the life of our community church. In anticipation of sharing the communion, the Lord’s Supper, a few more thoughts from Carl Scovel, the retired Unitarian minister I quoted earlier.

I have made clear the first meaning of grace, and that second meaning is that of the words spoken before a meal. It is no accident that wherever people gather to eat, they offer a word of gratitude for the food on the table. Food is more that simply fuel for the body. Each meal we share in true Christian fellowship becomes a sign of Providence, through whose love we were created and by whose grace we are sustained. We give thanks for food because it is the most natural thing in the world for a person to say “thank you.” We are the better for it and it would hurt us to withhold our gratitude. We tend to feel a little cold and less human if we don’t take the time to voice our thanksgiving.

With that in mind, join me if you will in saying a grace before our shared eucharistic meal. This grace was written by another Unitarian minister, who was Carl Scovel’s predecessor at King’s Chapel, and who later was instrumental in moving forward the project of this Sheepscott Community Church, which he joined on December 27, 1978: Rev. Joseph Barth. Let us recite his simple grace together, in gratitude for all the graces of this life, whether or not we see and understand them when they are bestowed, and in gratitude for the bread of heaven, which we are about to share:

We give thanks for Being,

We give thanks for being here,

We give thanks for being here together. Amen.

Jesus: A Revolutionary?

2010-08-29T08:52:00.000-04:00

Sheepscott Community Church August 29, 2010

Hebrews 13: 1-8, 15-16

Luke 14: 1, 7-14

Jesus: A Revolutionary?

I almost never read the sports section of the newspaper, except to check the Red Sox standings, and occasionally a feature will catch my eye, as one did last weekend. A two-sport athlete for Villanova University donated his bone marrow to save the life of a very young girl stricken by leukemia. His marrow was a perfect match.

The athlete is Matt Szczur [See-zer], and the sports are baseball and football. His coach Andy Talley established the marrow donor program in connection with the university’s football team 20 years ago after hearing a radio program that publicized the need for donors for all types of deadly diseases. Talley makes participation as much a routine part of the football program as helmets and knee pads.

Nearly 20,000 potential donors have been tested and entered into the national registry because of Coach Talley’s effort. Two previous Villanova players were matches, and Szczur makes three. A simple swab on the inside of his cheek in freshman year with the statistic of there being a one in 80,000 chance he would be a match, and Matt Szczur turned out to be a toddler’s best chance for a normal life span. As Szczur said, “Just to experience something like that to help save a life––I’d do it every day of the week.”

When Talley found out that the timing of the donation might interfere with the football playoffs for which Szczur was quarterbacking, his comment was, “Saving someone’s life is a lot more important than a football game.” In this context, if a person had only one prayer to pray, he or she might well ask for a sense of proportion––think a life vs. a football game––even a small measure of that sense of proportion which both Coach Talley and his star quarterback Matt Szczyr exhibited.

Rabbis have always had a saying that the best kind of giving was when the giver did not know to whom he was giving, and when the receiver did not know from whom he was receiving. That is the case with marrow donation, and most organ donations as well. After a period of a year or more, there could be exchange of information if the involved parties so desire. It’s also true of donations we make to the Red Cross, Doctors without Borders, the Salvation Army, CHIP––whatever your charity of choice. We don’t know what individual persons particularly benefit, but God does, and God knows it is for good that we do this.

I am not so subtly leading into one of the messages in today’s gospel, which is not to invite to your party or your dinner those whom you know will respond in kind. The best kind of invitation is that which expects no response, which is done without self-interest. All well and good for the saints among us, we might say, but get real. Who among us is going to go out into the fields and hedgerows to bring in the poor, the crippled, the lame and the blind of today’s gospel, knowing they can never return the favor? Who among us, indeed? Before I try to answer that question, let me clarify that Jesus is not saying don’t invite friends and family, but rather, don’t invite them exclusively. He often used hyperbole to make a point.

Not to beat a dead horse, but we do invite the larger family of God to dine when we host the community supper once a month. I’ve said it a hundred times, if I’ve said it once, that the rewards for that work are not monetary or tangible but of the kind that give the greatest satisfaction and last forever. But in our everyday lives, how can that happen more often? I think that we all probably have good instincts about this. When we recognize a need, if we have the mind of Christ about it, we will know how and when to fill that need. We won’t have to think about the end of whether to relieve the need, but only about the means, the how to do it.

What do I mean, “the mind of Christ,” and how do we go about getting such a mind? This is actually a pretty simple concept, but I’m going to ask you to focus as I try to explain. You often hear the term, deciding for Christ, I’ve decided for Christ. I would offer a different term: yielding to Christ. That dispenses with the fiction that we are in control and have anything to offer, and it raises up the specter of our own poverty when we stand before God. When we are willing to recognize that we are nothing and have nothing that is worth offering, when we have internalized that sense of true poverty of spirit, which is in essence repentance, and are willing to admit it before God, then do we begin to have everything, to be potentially useful in every way, to be available to joy we have not known heretofore, when we were striving to be good and to carry the world on our shoulders like Atlas. It’s a heavy load, let me tell you.

The true character of the person who is renewed in the sense of having yielded to Christ, of having the mind of Christ, shines forth, and the glory is not to the person, but of and to the Creator, to the Spirit of the One who is the Motivator, Savior, call it what you will. This is becoming one with the mind of Christ, by desiring it and letting go of our plans of how our world will be saved, or our corner of the world. Don’t misunderstand me. It is necessary and important to do good, to try to live a good life, including in each other’s company as we are this morning, but know, remember that the greater good, indeed the greatest good is possible through us as we allow the Spirit of God in us to have that One’s way.

To yield to the Spirit of God. I can almost hear the protests: No! No! Anything but that! It isn’t just two-year-olds who have tantrums. What will it look like if I do this? Will I have to stop drinking? Smoking? Dancing? Other things? We don’t give up our individuality or expressions of it. Along the way to the milestone of a yielded spirit, we may think that cigarettes, or some other thing, things that aren’t necessarily good for us define us. Of course they really don’t. They are simply distractions from or pleasures in this life, depending on how we look at them. But they are merely the poorest of reflections of what the good life really is.

A yielded spirit, that place where we exercise our free will, is a God-consciousness that becomes unconscious the longer we live in it and with it. When we turn away toward our own agenda after being in that kind of consciousness for a time, we have an immediate check in the Spirit, I call it, that lets us know we are heading off track. We can also call it conscience, for that is what it is, and we all have it. I note that we can also make callous our conscience by not paying attention to those checks in the spirit.

Contrasted with the unselfconscious way of life we can experience when we are one with Christ, is the self-consciousness that characterizes the man of Jesus’s parable in today’s gospel, who takes the first seat at table and thereby makes it clear what he thinks about his own importance or at least of how he wants to be perceived as important. He opens himself to humiliation, for if a more important person comes to the dinner, the first man would be asked to move to a lower place.

Jesus suggests to his hearers that they take the lower place from the get-go, and then the host may invite them up higher. In a way, that seems no less jockeying for one’s importance, but perhaps Jesus is offering a practice of humility. What we practice can become a virtue as it becomes internalized, and so, an unconscious way of being. We can actually reach the point in our own spiritual development whereby we automatically go to the lowest place because we know what and who we are before God. We don’t even have to think about it.

All of that isn’t meant to make you feel bad. It’s an exercise in the proportion I was talking about earlier. In fact, rather than making you feel bad, it is like putting down the weight of the world, as I also indicated earlier. We are what we are: human beings, which is to say, sinners, people who make mistakes; people who are clumsy, greedy and self-seeking, and God loves us just as we are, before we have changed, before we act differently.

It is that unconditional love that makes everything possible. If we think of the Hebrew Bible, the Old Testament, as an expression of the punitive God of justice whom the Israelites needed as they pushed other tribes aside on their way into the Promised Land, if that is the punitive God of justice, we recognize the God of love and mercy in the New Testament as revealed in the life of Jesus. For those who profess Christianity, Jesus fulfills and also supersedes the earlier revelations of the Old Testament. When we can take in, when we can receive that unconditional love, can actually accept the truth of what I am saying here, there lies freedom. There comes the power to become what and who we are capable of being, not acting out of fear of punishment, but out of love for ourselves and others that enables God’s will in the world. How can we do that? By watching and listening to Jesus, a model of the loving life. Then can we enjoy partying down at the end of the table, whether or not we ever get invited to go higher up. The love of God releases us from our own Babylonian captivities, whatever form they may take, so that we can return to the Promised Land to fulfill the promise of our lives.

Then we don’t simply tolerate but actually enjoy the company of those who are considered less than, because, thanks be to God, we have come to the understanding of our own poverty. That understanding makes true relating across all lines of race, class, religion, gender, abilities, wellness or sickness––makes relating across all those lines possible, and fun. We are all part of the same family of God, no one more imporatnt than another, and hospitality to all members of that family, which Jesus recommends to us, can fill the earth with love and be a foretaste of heavenly joy. It brings us into a deeper friendship with God––not a bad place to be and excellent company.

I would also call your attention to Jesus himself, who never refused anyone’s invitation of hospitality. We often see him at a dinner, a banquet, a wedding feast. In today’s gospel he is at a Pharisee's house for dinner, where the gospel tells us they were watching him, a hostile group that wanted him to make a mistake, to break the Law perhaps by one more of those healings on the Sabbath. Jesus knew how the Pharisee felt about him, but he accepted the invitation anyway. To the very end of his life––think about “Father, forgive them, they know not what they do”––from the cross––to the very end he never abandoned hope for human beings that they might change. He was ready to go the extra mile by accepting the invitation that would put him directly in the line of fire. One thing that Jesus teaches us by that example is that we will never make our enemies our friends if we refuse to meet and talk with them, maybe even break bread with them.

I am reminded of Senator George Mitchell as the State Department’s special envoy to the Mideast at this time, who has apparently been instrumental in getting Israel and Palestine to agree to sit down at the negotiating table this week. We probably all know that Senator Mitchell’s quiet diplomacy and sheer doggedness, his refusal to throw in the towel, enabled the peace process in Northern Ireland to go forward so that now there is shared government there after centuries of dissension and killing. Yes, the resistance has reared its head a few times, but peace, which is what the majority of the people want, seems to be holding.

It remains to be seen whether Senator Mitchell will be able to see the same kind of success with the two Middle Eastern parties, but like Jesus, he is willing to try to bring them together to talk, to sit at the same table and get to know each other, if not as friends, at least as enemies who respect each other’s right to coexist on this planet we all call home, in this family where most of us recognize God as the parent of our spirits, by whatever name we address that One.

Coach Andy Talley and his quarterback Matt Szczur stepped forward in their roles to contribute to making life better for one little girl suffering from cancer. George Mitchell has worked toward the same goal of making life better for many, by bringing a measure of peace on earth, and potentially saving lives by saying yes to the time and to the call on his gifts for diplomacy. If we yield––not decide for, but yield to the guidance of Christ, to the invitation to be one with the heart of God––in the same way, what good might we not be capable of enabling on this needy, turning planet we all share?

In case it isn’t completely clear to you yet, I would note that Jesus is revolutionary in his thinking and teachings. He was so in his time; he is so now, and I do speak of him in the present tense, because he is alive in the spirit. The body did die, but the spirit lives and is present to us at all times. Here and now. Call out. He will answer. Recall the line from Deuteronomy, which is quoted in the reading today from Hebrews: “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.” And from Psalm 118: “The Lord is my helper; I will not be afraid. What can man do to me?” Amen.

Repair and Restore, Breach and Foundation

2010-08-23T09:52:00.000-04:00

Sheepscott Community Church August 22, 2010

Isaiah 58: 9b-14

Luke 13: 10-17

Repair and Restore, Breach and Foundation

I know of two paid professional counselors in our congregation, and it may be there are more. In fact all of us, paid or not, are de facto counselors when we listen attentively to another human being and give the best solicited advice or counsel we can in any given situation. It may not be the best informed , and we may not be able to offer multiple options or strategies, but if it comes from a concerned, disinterested heart––that’s dis-interested, not uninterested––it will be of value. Sometimes all of us just need to be heard.

And because needing to be heard doesn’t always limit itself to office hours, sometimes we have to reach out in the middle of a workday for a word from someone else, an indication that we are not alone in our trouble. Or we ourselves are called on to respond to someone else who reaches out. I recently saw a member of this congregation, who was at her workplace, standing outside the building and talking intently on her cellphone. A friend had called her to share her anxiousness about a member of her family who was threatening to harm himself. The friend was on her way to the site where the family member was, when she called to share her fear and receive even a word of understanding from someone else in the human community whom she trusted. And she got it.

The woman in today’s gospel had been under it for so long––18 years–– that she no longer realized there was a way out. As the years succeeded each other, she was just more and more bent over. Extreme case of osteoporosis, maybe? When Jesus saw her in the synagogue on the Sabbath, he called her forward and said simply, “Woman, you are set free from your infirmity.” And she was. Almost needless to say, the ruler of the synagogue rebuked Jesus’s healing on the Sabbath indirectly by saying to the people, “There are six days for work. So come and be healed on those days, not on the Sabbath.” The healing constituted a “work.”

Jesus’s retort was, “You hypocrites!” You may recall that in last week’s gospel he used that epithet a number of times to chastise his listeners for not being able to interpret the signs of the times, the principle one being himself, the embodied kingdom of God among them. And he goes on to detail the situation whereby they would take their donkey out of the stall to give it a drink on the Sabbath, but they would not be willing to heal this daughter of Abraham on the Sabbath? I like the last line: “When he said this, all his opponents were humiliated, but the people were delighted with all the wonderful things he was doing.” I can easily imagine the buzz in the synagogue that morning. When the Spirit of God is at work, there’s absolutely nothing like it because there is no doubt who is the originator of the work going on. People who aren’t invested in opposing the good, know the work of God when they see it because they can feel it. It’s a response of the spirit, our spirit, to the work of the Spirit of God. The people in the synagogue recognized that kinship with Jesus and rejoiced in it.

We too recognize a family member sometimes by what he or she does. For instance, Jan Kilburn’s art work. Her style is unmistakable, and it’s a little thrill to see her work out in the community, whether in a public area used as an exhibition space, or in a private home. She’s a member of our church family; we recognize her work when we see it.

Another example, I may have already told you this, but it fits here, and besides, Mary and Tom wouldn’t have heard this before. When we “do” the Wednesday night community supper in Newcastle once a month, one of our regular visitors, Lisa, always brings some treat for those who are working the supper. Treats may range from specialty jelly beans at Easter time, to chocolate-covered espresso coffee beans a few weeks back. A few months ago, she brought in a pie, a raspberry pie, and when I saw it, I thought, Hey! That’s an Eliza pie. Eliza is my daughter-in-law, who is a baker and whose mother Robin sells her pies at farmers’ markets in the area. Her pies have a certain look, and I knew it had to be one of hers, and so I asked Lisa, and sure enough, she had bought it at the Farmers’ Market in Damariscotta.

I know Eliza’s pies when I see them. She’s family; I know her work. We all know Jan’s work when we see it, because it’s church family. Reproductions of her paintings made every Sheepscott Community Church cookbook a collector’s item, as Sonnie, Lily and Sylvia were fond of saying as part of their sales pitch for the cookbooks; and believe me, those women can pitch. Everybody in that synagogue who did not oppose Jesus, recognized the work he was doing and was delighted. The Spirit of God who motivated Jesus, also lived and moved in these delighted people, who rejoiced that God was among men. They recognized the sign of the time in their spirit, whether or not they could name it.

What does God among men and stooped over women do? Sets aside protocol and heals, frees, reminiscent of our congregation’s counselors who in their lives have seen the importance of setting people free and decided to give their lives over to this important work. Not just within the church family, but making themselves available to the larger family of God, as did and does the woman who listened to her fearful and frantic friend outside her workplace.

We don’t need to push down doors, to break into the private houses of people’s souls. They invite us in when they recognize that the work we do, the way we are in this life is of God. That may not be at the level of the intellect that people understand that, but again, at that same level where the people in the synagogue delighted in Jesus. They recognized someone who had the same parent of the spirit that they did, i.e., God.

I also think of teachers who raise up those stooped over, if not in the misery of physical, mental or emotional infirmity, then in ignorance, sharing knowledge with them and encouraging them in developing their own thought processes. And I know from watching Jon over the many years of his career that the teacher is never far from the classroom in his or her head, even during the summer. Always planning, always reading one more book of literary criticism, always mining for deeper, wider ties with other disciplines to make the path of knowledge more accessible and more rewarding for the students.

All of these people, the artist, the teacher, the counselor, the listener to another, the baker who feeds and the consumer who cares to share what the baker prepares, all of these are in their own way fulfilling what is translated in our New International Version of Isaiah as “Your people will rebuild the ancient ruins and will raise up the age-old foundations; you will be called Repairer of Broken Walls, Restorer of Streets with Dwellings.”

I prefer the translation of this passage in The New American Bible, which reads, “The ancient ruins will be rebuilt for your sake, and the foundations from ages past you shall raise up; ‘Repairer of the breach,’ they shall call you, ‘Restorer of ruined homesteads.”

It is a fact that the reference the prophet Isaiah is making is to the post-exilic destruction and ruins the Israelites would encounter on their return home from the Babylonian captivity in the sixth century BCE. There would need to be a physical restoration, and that restoration is clearly in the writer’s mind, but spiritual regeneration significantly precedes it and empowers the people to undertake such a large-scale restoration, or even to imagine it after their long period of involuntary servitude.

Consider the Pakistanis, who survived the initial decimation of their villages inundated by the floodwaters of the Indus River. They need just the sort of encouraging words that Isaiah gave to the Israelites, individually and as a people. They too will need to repair the walls breached by water, and restore the ruined homesteads the best they can. Closer to home, this village of Sheepscot has a number of eighteenth-century houses and a history that goes much further back than that. Some of you may have restored one of these old houses, whether as a living or for your own family. Whatever may have been the cause of these houses’ breached walls or collapsed roofs, and crumbled foundations––weather, animals in residence, or abandonment to the elements by some who because of death or disease gave up the struggle to stay––whatever the cause that called for restoration, you and others repaired those breaches, restored those ruined homesteads. Resurrected them, one might say.

I remind you of the woman Jesus healed whom he characterized as bound by Satan for 18 years in this indeed involuntary servitude to infirmity. I am suggesting to you that our counselors, our artists, our teachers, parents, those who raise our food and make it available to us, our rebuilding carpenters, masons, plumbers, and electricians––indeed all of us who take seriously our responsibility to fulfill our place, our calling in the human community, which is ultimately about us all helping one another to live and make meaning of this life, all of us who do that are repairers of the breach, restorers of ruined homesteads. We repair and restore each other in whatever way we can.

The breach in the human soul between what we are called to and what happens to us along the way to interfere with fulfilling that calling, we hear God saying here through his prophet that that breach can be repaired, that the homesteads of lives that have been ruined for whatever reason, those homesteads can be rebuilt. And we, we are the repairers, we are the restorers. God will empower us with his Spirit, but it is we ourselves who are the workers. Let us say yes with the delight that the townsfolk in the synagogue that morning had in Jesus, who was restoring the ruined homestead of a woman bent over ––we have all seen such women, and occasionally a man, but more often women. I trust you know it would be the height of chutzpah to walk up to such a person, lay a hand on the person, and announce yourself as his or her healer and restorer. No. We wait on God, who opens doors gently and quietly. And we, who are watching and listening, like the people in the synagogue, we recognize the action of that One whom we are related to. Then we move. Then we act.

Jesus, our teacher, our healer, our way-shower. He was his own man and was not done or undone by the ruler of the synagogue, by the powerful scribes and pharisees, by the know-it-alls in the religious community. He knew who he was. He continued to discern that in his nights of prayer with his Abba, his Father, on mountain, in garden and in desert place, how he was to carry out what he understood to be the call on his life. Once he stepped over the line, crossed the Shannon, as they say in Ireland, once he had finished his time of preparation in the desert, he never looked back, and God accomplished in him and through him everything that was needed. Consistent as he was along the whole way of his life, he fulfilled the call on his life, just as we––you and I––are invited to do, indeed, we no less than he. The invitation is there. As I did last week, I dare you to R.S.V.P. in the positive. Amen.

"Hypocrites!"

2010-08-15T21:35:00.000-04:00

Sheepscott Community Church August 15, 2010

Hebrews 11: 29- 12: 2

Luke 12: 49-56

Hypocrites! You hypocrites! How does that make you feel? Not good, if you take it in. Being accused and challenged that way can make us defensive, as in, “I’m not a hypocrite. Do you know what I do for the church?” And there we might begin to recite a litany similar to the parabled litany the pharisee recited in the temple: “God, I thank you that I am not like other men––robbers, evildoers, adulterers––or even like this tax collector,” referring to the publican at the back of the room. “I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get,” he continued, while the publican or tax collector didn’t even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, “God, have mercy on me, a sinner.” One the picture of smugness, the other of true humility.

What did Jesus say about this pair from the parable? “This man,” referring to the tax collector, “rather than the other, went home justified before God.” God knows the hearts of men––and women, and children. Only God knows the heart.

Hypocrites! Jesus is not what we would consider now a “nice guy,” is he? A compassionate man who alleviated suffering whenever and wherever he saw it, yes, but not a nice guy. By that I mean one who tries to make others feel better ultimately for his or her own gain or purposes, and not for God’s purposes.

You hypocrites! Jesus said to his listeners on the occasion of this morning’s gospel that while they were able to interpret the signs in the sky as predictors of the weather––Red skies at morning, sailors take warning; red skies at night, sailors delight––they could not interpret the sign of God, whom they had in their midst––himself. They could not interpret the meaning of the present time.

No less than the people of Israel had the sign of God in their midst through the presence of Jesus, do we have that same sign in our midst, available in the word of God, and in and through each other insofar as we are available to the Spirit of God. The more we are surrendered, as in, Okay God, I give up. Do your thing. I can’t do it anymore. Insofar as we surrender increasingly in that way, just that far can the the will and purposes of God be realized in and through us in the world, most immediately in the world of our own neighborhoods. We can change history by being fully our selves when those selves are surrendered to God. That is no exaggeration.

Think of Mother Teresa, who was not a particularly “nice” person, the way we think of nice now. She had an edge. She alleviated suffering of the dying on the streets of Calcutta, giving them the dignity of a clean and peaceful death in an enclosure instead of on the streets. She alleviated suffering when she saw it––like Jesus––but had little patience with hypocrisy or a sentimental view of what she was doing.

The people of Jesus’s time occasionally did acclaim him as a prophet in their midst. And I remind you of what a prophet is, i.e., not necessarily one who predicts the future but one who speaks for God. Many times Jesus said, in one way or another, when you hear me, when you see me, you hear and see God. These are the words of a prophet who is entirely surrendered to God. That prophet does not tickle his or her hearers’ ears: he or she tells the truth. Hypocrites! You can tell the meaning of the weather signs, but you cannot interpret the meaning of God in your midst. Is that addressed to us?

Jesus was a complete contrast to the false prophets, about whom it was written in Jeremiah 23, “They keep saying to those who despise me, ‘The Lord says. “You will have peace,” and to all who follow the stubbornness of their hearts, they say, “No harm will come to you.”’” By contrast, Jesus said, “I have not come for peace but division,” and then the particular divisions within families were itemized in this morning’s gospel. Some of us may have experienced those divisions ourselves, whether for religious or other reasons, and those divisions can be painful and have long-lasting reverberations.

In this context it’s significant to remember some scriptural references to Jesus’s family, when he often seemed to slight them, as in, “Who is my mother and who are my brothers? Here are my mother and my brothers,” he said, pointing to his disciples. “For whoever does the will of my Father in heaven is my brother and sister and mother.” Harsh. Perhaps. But it’s coming from the same place as, “Hypocrites!” from the life and mouth of a surrendered soul, an entirely surrendered soul who came to teach us how to live. Consequently we would do well to pay attention to what he is saying. Jesus didn’t come to make nice. He came to tell the truth, and that truth might mean divisions in families. And finally he was killed because he told the truth.

I don’t know about you, but “Who needs it?” is my first response. It doesn’t take much more reflection than listening to the evening news to have a second response: We need it. We all need it. “It” being the compassionate teachings, the model of the life of Jesus. How else can we make meaning out of our lives and continue to strive after the good in the face of acknowledged evil, in the face of what we do to one another, which we hear and read about almost every day in the news and which we experience in our own lives? How can we make meaning out of our place in the world and choose to act and not be overcome by anguish, despair, and consequent inertia?

We can fully accept membership in another family, with Jesus as brother and God as Father and Mother. If we surrender all other credentials of constructed connection for redefinition on God’s terms, we can truly become agents of change, prophets in our own lives, which is to say, bearers of God’s news, which is truly good news. Something to think about anyway.

Yeah, okay, but what about that part about what happens to prophets, as in Jesus’s life? What about it? If you are ready to surrender your life to God, you take your chances. I don’t doubt that your internal response to that is, yeah, right, or, as mine was, who needs it. If you still don’t buy into what I have said, viz., that we all need to house the Living Word of God, who is Jesus, if we are to be able to continue to bear living and serving in this world, and not be overcome by inertia, then let’s talk a little more about what happens to God’s prophets.

One of my favorite artists is Meinrad Craighead, whom I believe I have mentioned before. She had been a cloistered Carmelite in Glastonbury, England, for 15 years when, following her mother’s death, she felt called back out into the world, to America her home, to continue as a developing artist. For the past 30 years she has lived and painted in the desert of New Mexico, where she maintains her studio which has multiple altars honoring the feminine aspects of God. She also prays sometimes in a kiva, which is a hole dug in the ground. This is a common practice among some Native American tribes, and she herself is Native American through her grandmother.

It was her praying in a kiva that brought her to mind in this context of the lifestyle of the prophets that is laid out in a detailed way in the reading from Hebrews, which C.J. read this morning. “Some faced jeers and flogging, while still others were chained and put in prison. They were stoned; they were sawed in two; they were put to death by the sword. They went about in sheepskins and goatskins, destitute, persecuted and mistreated––the world was not worthy of them. They wandered in desert and mountains, and in caves and holes in the ground.” The kiva. Meinrad Craighead.

What she who has listened to the Spirit of God and that One revealing that One’s self in her life has led to is an art that has lifted the minds and hearts of how many people to God. To seeing God in a new way. To allowing God to be more than our little creeds and practices can imagine or hope for. That seems like a worthwhile goal, a reason to put up with, a reason to take a chance on. The rewards are built into the surrendered life, and the only way we can find out what those rewards translated into our individual lives are is to surrender to God––entirely. Take a chance. What do we have to lose besides lives that we have constructed, which are little better than stage sets compared to the real thing.

One more note about Meinrad Craighead: One of her work practices over the many years of her painting had been to briskly rub the painting to achieve a certain surface that was one of the recognizable features of her work. After decades of that rubbing, she had to have surgery in the ‘90s on her shoulder, which was simply worn out. She no longer had the strength or the cartilage to do what she had done for so long. Did she give up? Go down into the kiva to lick her wounds? Heck no. She worked out a new technique which is startlingly bare and much more colorful and undetailed than her earlier works. The new work is almost frightening, but in these days, that is what she is seeing, and perhaps that’s the prophet’s brush held in the other hand.

I think of this wonderful line in Jeremiah 23: “Is not my word like fire,” declares the Lord, “and like a hammer that breaks a rock in pieces?” Where are you feeling that hammer? What is the hard place in you, the rock that needs to be smashed into submission? remember what I began with: Jesus is not a nice guy. Jesus will do what is necessary to bring about the fullest realization of the purposes of God in our lives, as he did in his own life. And what is it to be baptized into Christ if not to fully share his life? If you don’t want to be part of that, if you say, “Hey, I was an infant, a toddler, when I was baptized. My parents made that decision for me.” Okay. Tell God that. That you want out. That you never really made that decision yourself. I expect God would honor that, as God honors every person’s free will. However, if you as a reasonable and reasoning adult do want to decide for God, you can as well do that. But for Pete’s sake, get off the fence. Fall one way or the other, but fall.

If you fall for God, i.e., jump off the precipice into the abyss, you will be caught. I can promise you that. But you don’t know me, really, so that promise is meaningless. Nope, you have to go on your own faith. That’s your problem, your journey, your risk-taking adventure, not mine. I’ve got my own to work out. But y’ know? We can work this out together. In this community that can become increasingly a prophetic community in the sense of embodying God, we can help each other to try to live the life we are all called to. What do you say? Can we take a chance on each other?

The OED, the Oxford English Dictionary, defines a hypocrite as one who falsely professes to be virtuously or religiously inclined; one who pretends to be better or other than he is, hence a dissembler , a pretender. The word is from the Greek meaning an actor or pretender. Is that what we are? Persons pretending to be God’s people? Do we feel accused when Jesus exclaims, “Hypocrites!” If so, let us go down into our own kivas and meet the living God, that hungry lover of souls who pursues and pursues, but always at a distance that denies and defies certainty to make way for the faith that is the ground of decision. Amen.

Ready, Get Set ...

2010-08-08T13:28:00.000-04:00

Sheepscott Community Church August 8, 2010

Hebrews 11: 1-3, 8-16

Luke 12: 32-40

I Want to Be Ready

There’s an old Spanish saying, “There are no pockets in a shroud.” That’s a little more colorful than what we Americans usually say, i.e., “You can’t take it with you.” I’m talking about money, and I am talking about money because so was Jesus in the first part of this morning’s gospel.

It’s interesting that that introductory paragraph is usually read with the preceding verses in which Jesus tells his listeners not to worry about what they will eat, what they will drink, and what clothes they will wear, because God will take care of them, even as he clothes the grass of the field and the birds of the air. All that is followed by the searching question, “Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?” Who indeed?

That the passage introduces the reading of Jesus’ admonition toward watchfulness, as we do not know when the parabled Master will return from the wedding banquet, that unexpected introduction has to give us pause. Rather than being tacked on to the end of considerations of how God will take care of us in this life and not to worry about where the next meal is coming from, it introduces the idea of preparation for the next life, and consequently, its content takes on a more ominous and compelling ring.

To wit: “Do not be afraid, little flock.” So far, so good. “for your Father has been pleased to give you the kingdom.” So far, even better. But now, “Sell your possessions and give to the poor.” Ouch. I didn’t see that coming. “Provide purses for yourselves that will not wear out, a treasure in heaven that will not be exhausted, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

Interestingly, in this week’s news, Warren Buffet and Bill Gates, two of the richest men in the world, announced the Giving Pledge, which asks the nation's 100 billionaires to publicly commit to give at least half of their wealth to philanthropic and charitable groups within their lifetimes or after their deaths. The pronouncement by Buffett and Gates stems from a series of dinners the two men held over the past year to discuss the effects of the recession on philanthropy with some of the nation's richest people. Thus far, 40 of the hundred billionaires have bought in to this idea of spreading the wealth around. Their goal is to help create an expectation in society that the rich should give away their wealth, and also to create a peer group of wealthy people that can offer advice on philanthropy. The pledge is a moral commitment, not a legal obligation.

Brother and sister philanthropist billionaires from Maine, Marion Sandler and Bernard Osher, are among the 49 who have pledged to give. Besides Buffett and Gates and these two Mainers, I thought of at least two other people who gave up their wealth. The legendary St. Francis of Assissi, who when he had discovered the pearl of great price, gave up all his possessions and his soldier/playboy lifestyle to possess that pearl. He acted out by stripping himself in the village square of the beautiful raiment he had from his father, a cloth merchant, and placing his naked self under the protective cloak of the local bishop. Francis knew how to make a dramatic point, when he embraced Lady Poverty.

The other person I actually knew many years ago was a Jewish convert to Christianity. He too, when he felt God’s call on his life, took the admonition from this morning’s gospel literally and sold his considerable holdings and gave all the money away. With the passage of time he married and had children and often had need of what he had given away. I don’t know how he came to peace about all that, or whether he did, but I think his initial act of faith in the words of Jesus can only ultimately be for good. Like Francis, who happily called himself God’s fool, this man often felt the same way. But more often than not, what the world considers foolishness is wisdom in the sight of God.

The realization of ideals, spiritual and otherwise, is not always as simple as it seems. Practically and realistically speaking, I think we can all acknowledge that we have to keep for ourselves enough to live on and not be a burden to the State or our children or the community. While it’s important for all of us as community to continue to provide a safety net for those––including the poor––who are not able to provide for themselves, it is also true that we need to continue to provide for our selves the best we can. But we must be honest with ourselves and answer the question before God, how much does that take? As billionaire Marian Sandler noted in her letter of commitment to the Giving Pledge, “There’s no way to spend a fortune. How may residences, automobiles, aireplanes, and other luxury items can one acquire and use?”

If we are reasonable about tithing, however you do that––through the church, through personal charities, even in our own families where there is always another need cropping up, as in, Charity begins at home––I think that can fulfill what Jesus is asking here. More important is that last line, “Where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.” What do we value more? Accumulating wealth that enables bigger, better purchases? Or accumulating the other wealth, that Jesus is suggesting, the wealth that is actually divestiture of money and goods and redistribution, thereby providing a treasure in heaven that will not be exhausted, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys?

Considering the recent economic collapse, and the effects of which I’m sure even some in this congregation experienced sharply, we know the reality of the thief and the moth, and it should give us pause about what we value more, and where and how we want to invest our wealth and to consider what kinds of dividends we want that wealth to generate. Temporal or eternal? Also, it should be becoming clearer to all of us as time and the years go by, just what true wealth is, viz., what Jesus is teaching about this morning.

All of that is by way of introducing the rest of this morning’s gospel, which speaks about readiness––being ready to meet God. If you recall, last week’s gospel dealt with the rich man who didn’t have enough room to store all his worldly goods, and so he happily hit on the idea that he could build bigger barns to hold the stuff. Do you ever wonder about the recent proliferation of storage units on our roadsides? I wonder if those aren’t the bigger barns of our present day, and also a corruption of Descartes’ “I think, therefore I am,” viz., “I have, therefore I am.” What does God say to all that? “You fool! This very night your life will be demanded from you.” Are we ready? Have we prepared the way?

In the narrower sense, what we’re talking about here is the Second Coming of Christ, but in the wider sense, it is God’s call on each individual life, the eventuality of death that comes to us all. The Grim Reaper reaps without regard for what’s growing in the field and how good it looks. How do we prepare? First, sell our possessions and give the money to the poor, whether you want to hear that literally, metaphorically or somewhere in between. We have considered ways of thinking about that.

Next, like the menin the gospel waiting for their master’s return from the wedding banquet, we should be dressed and ready for service, with our lamps burning. Our translation is “dressed and ready;” an older translation is “With girt loins,” which is to say, let the long robes worn in the East be gathered up at the waist with a belt to make work possible. We wait as workers ready for service, with our lamps burning ready.

One understanding of being dressed and ready is having completed the work we came to do. In John 17: 4, Jesus says to the Father, “I have brought you glory on earth by completing the work you gave me to do.” Wouldn’t it be a sweet relief to be at the end of our lives and able to say that? All of us need to give that long thought and prepare, where we are not prepared. Life for many of us is filled with loose ends, and a simultaneous sense of unfulfillment. Pay attention to that feeling. There are things done, and things undone; things said and things as yet unsaid; some things we have put off, and other things never undertaken. We need to make an inventory of these important matters.

I think many of us could tell stories about those close to us who have passed on, who needed to attend to unfinished business. So often that attending is an indication of the mercy of God at the last, with members of families being reconciled. Others refuse the grace of the moment, which is an act of the free will.

In the last month of my mother’s life, while she lay in the hospital suffering the aftereffects of a massive stroke, her overarching worry was who would harvest her garden. She was a good and faithful gardener, and nothing ever went to waste that the earth produced in her garden. It was canned, frozen, pickled, or dried, but not wasted. She was realistic enough to know, as August bent toward September, that she would not be able to harvest her garden that year, and it was clearly a source of distress. My younger sister had the time and was in the right place in her life that she was able to step in to can and preserve enough of the garden’s bounty to set my mother’s mind at ease. Now my mother’s husband, our stepfather, would have plenty to eat through the winter. My mother finished her work before she died, with a little help from her friends, and that included a full month of life following her first stroke. She had time to settle more serious accounts than the garden.May we all be so blessed.

Sell all our possessions, i.e., search out in prayer before God where our heart’s treasure lies, and depending on what we understand, act accordingly. Then we need to see to the completing of our several works, whatever forms those works might take.

Next are the admonitions to be at peace with others and also with God. Ephesians 4: 26 reminds us not to let the sun set on our anger. Before we sleep each night, it is always a good and smart thing to review the day before God, forgiving where we need to forgive and asking forgiveness for ourselves in turn. Thereby can we come to be at peace with God.

We don’t have to wait until we know we’re dying to do these things. They should be a regular practice of anyone who is trying to live the Christian life, who is trying to follow Jesus’s example. He had no possessions except the seamless garment he wore. As I quoted earlier, he completed on earth the work he came to do. From our recent consideration of the Lord’s Prayer, we know that he was at peace with God and with his fellow human beings because of what he included in the prayer, which he left behind for us to follow as a road map: Father, holy be your name. Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Give us our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses, our sins, our debts to one another. And lead us not into temptation. Amen.

The Blessed Community

2010-08-03T08:21:00.001-04:00

Sheepscott Community Church August 1, 2010

Ecclesiastes 1: 2, 12-14; 2: 18-23

Luke 12: 13-21

The Blessed Community

The following is a quotation from Apology, published in 1678, and being a partial testimony of Quaker Robert Barclay. “... for when I came into the silent assemblies of God’s people, I felt a secret power among them, which touched my heart, and as I gave way unto it, I found the evil weakening in me and the good raised up, and so I became thus knit and united unto them, hungering more and more after the increase of this power and life, whereby I might feel myself perfectly redeemed.”

While I don’t think anyone would ever call our assembly a silent one, I did recognize our gathering in the description, and I recognized as well as an invitation and challenge, which, if answered, would be how we could draw others in. Nothing draws others in as do joy and love, evident in forgiveness, concord, and healed lives. That is the “secret power” Barclay refers to: the Spirit who gives life.

The title of today’s sermon, The Blessed Community, is also a Quaker term. As Marty Walton wrote in his book of the same name, “Living in Blessed Community requires a shift in our thinking as the Light shows us our interdependence, and increases our empathy with all Creation. We come to understand that building compassionate and healthy relationships with others and with all creation is what God asks us to do. Our spiritual growth depends on it. Because of this emphasis on interconnectedness and compassion, living in Blessed Community can be a vital part of our witness for peace, social justice and care for the earth.”

Are we in the Sheepscott Community Church a Blesssed Community? Consider this. Last Sunday after the service Chrissy Wajer was soliciting contributions of salads, desserts, and whatever else was needed for the supper last night. She asked Lily the familiar question, “What would you like to bring?” At first Lily demurred, mentioning that she wouldn’t be able to be at the supper or probably at church today because their sons and all of their grandchildren would be visiting. But Lily’s inevitable generosity and work ethic prevailed and she noted that she or Ernie could drop something off Saturday afternoon, regardless. She expanded on this to me and Jon, saying, “We have such a small church, how can we say, ‘I won’t have time,’ or ‘I won’t bring anything; I can’t’”––shades of the cranky householder with the shut door in last Sunday’s gospel, who didn’t want to be disturbed, didn’t want to get up out of bed to share what he had with his neighbor.

“No,” Lily continued, “we have to contribute. We have to be involved. If we don’t all help out, then we leave Chrissy––or someone else––to do the work.

“That’s the price of being part of a small congregation,” she said, and she is willing to pay that price and to show the rest of us how it’s done. Her comments really gave me pause because, of course, she was exactly right. But I think if people are going to be as involved as we all need to be, if we are going to survive as a church, there has to be joy in the work, joy in the community, not just the fulfilling of a duty. That’s a good thing on its face, but it’s not fun. And that’s where Robert Barclay’s comment enters in. When he came into the meeting, the assembly of God’s people, he felt a secret power among them, which touched his heart, and he gave way unto it. He felt the joy and love in the assembly.

It is that kind of joy that attracts others and is found only in the midst of those who are working for God, whether or not they realize and name it as the work of God. It is only with God’s spirit that a diverse group of individuals such as ourselves can realize and embody the kind of unity, belonging, and community that answers to that of God within us and calls out to the Spirit in others as well. That happens as they work for the church, whether it’s at a bean supper, singing for the Lord, cooking for and serving at a community supper, supplying the needs of the food pantries of the area, assembling and sending health kits to Haiti, teaching the illiterate to read and write, whatever form it takes.

No one denies the importance of the fundraising efforts we have, to maintain the buildings where we meet. Even the bean supper last night was primarily to raise money for a fund to redo the floor of the vestry in the Valley Church. Just look at the rug down there, and you won’t have any questions about the need for a new floor treatment.

While fundraising is important, it is even more important to keep front and center that we are the church. We could meet in any one of our houses that are all probably big enough to accommodate our usual Sunday gathering. It is all of us coming together as a people to make church, to do church, to be church that gives glory to our Maker. We remember that One with rejoicing in the love of His Spirit, whom he gives to us so generously, again harking back to last Sunday’s gospel: “If you, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him?”

The Spirit who makes us one, who makes us aware of how we are church, who makes us willing to do our part to maintain our small congregation, that Spirit is free for the asking. No fundraising involved, but it is that One’s divine presence that makes the tasks of fundraising for church maintenance fun. Puts the fun back in fundraising. You’ve heard this from Tony and Jan, Lily and Clara, others who have helped at the community supper. We don’t get anything from that by way of monetary reward and are not looking for that; however, what we do get from it is priceless: a sense of belonging to the Blessed Community, the larger family of God, the body of Christ. “What you do for the least of these my brethren, you do for me.”

From my perspective, more important than fundraising per se is the nurturing of the blessed community we already have. How can we grow as a people of God who delight in service with each other, to each other and to the larger community? How can that happen? I think the lesson Jon brought back from Bristol Congregational Church, when we visited in April, the weekly coffee and cookie fellowship, has done a lot to foster community here at Sheepscott Church. Again, if you don’t have a people who, though few in number are willing to serve, to go above and beyond, this church will not survive as the Blessed Community we can be. People like Lily saying––and Lily is only one; I have used her as an example because I didn’t think she would be here today––people like Lily saying, well yes, I have this and this and this to do, but I can also do this because if I don’t, how are we going to make it as a small congregation?

A willingness like Lily’s can come about when we learn to love each other. She seems to come by it as part of her nature, but even she cultivates it in service. How can we cultivate our better natures and foster interpersonal growth in this community? Time

needs to be set aside for open fellowship, group discussion and education, and fun; for community-building activities such as shared meals, workdays, committee work, and community service projects. We as church are responsible for seeing that the work of the group is shared, and that members are not unduly or unnecessarily burdened. As I have already said, we can spend time together so we can get to know each other and maybe come to care more about this community that worships together, ad so be readier to serve.

Coffee and cookies and the community supper are also kinds of communion. While some lament that we don’t celebrate the Lord’s Supper every week, rather than just once a month, which is the tradition of this church, I would encourage all of us to think of all our times together when we share, perhaps especially the fellowship after the service and the community supper, as expressions of the Lord’s Supper, different in form but not in kind. As surely as Jesus is present to us as we share communion in remembrance of him later in the service today, he is present by his Spirit in coffee and cookies, in the meal of the month at Second Congregational, both activities of our Blessed Community.

The fact is that whenever we Christ-consciously come to the sharing of a meal, whether it’s a picnic in the back yard with your family, or a handful of blackberries picked off the bush and shared with a fellow picker––how this is what it is, who it is, depends on the thought or consciousness we bring to the act, to the fact. When we say grace before a meal, that is a perfect opportunity to be attuned to what God can be doing through the humble and beautiful gift of food shared.

Understand what Lily is saying. Understand what I am saying. As we read in today’s call to worship, from psalm 95, “Harden not your hearts as you did at Meribah, as you did that day in Massah in the desert, where your fathers tested and tried me, though they had seen what I did.” Our small congregation, which may or may not grow, needs to embrace the vision of the Blessed Community in order to survive even as we are; needs to be willing to set aside old disagreements to make room for this vision, which is God’s vision for his people, and we are his people.

As it is says in Colossians, “Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive whatever grievances you have against one another. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.” Amen.

"When you pray, say, 'Father'"...

2010-07-25T16:02:00.000-04:00

Sheepscott Community Church July 25, 2010

Genesis 18: 20-32

Luke 11: 1-13

“When you pray, say ‘Father’”...

There is no such thing as unanswered prayer, if that prayer is made sincerely from the heart. We may not get what we ask for, exactly when we want it, but when we do get an answer, even if that answer is a refusal, we can be sure it is the answer that comes out of the wisdom and love of God. So often our requests in prayer are self-servingly shortsighted. We can only rejoice that God has the longer view. That’s clear in Jesus’s instruction to his disciples and so to us in how to pray to the Father in the first part of this morning’s gospel.

“When you pray,” said Jesus, “say, ‘Father.’” That very first word tells us that we are not coming to someone whose hand and heart have to be pried open with fancy words or even perseverance. It reminds us that we are coming to One who delights in filling his children's needs.

“Hallowed be your name.” Another translation, “let your name be held in reverence.” Focus on the word name here. In Hebrew the word name means way more than just the name by which a person is called. It means the character of a person. Those who know––as far as our human limitations will allow––the character, mind and heart of God will easily put their trust in that One, whose name––Yahweh––I Am Who Am––stands for that One.

One of our kids was driving her Ford Ranger truck on Rte 27 out of Augusta on a January night some years ago on her way back to Farmington. For any of you who are familiar with that road, in New Sharon, the angle of ascent becomes sharper, and rain in Augusta that has turned to sleet and snow and rain in Belgrade is usually straight sleet by the time the driver is ascending through New Sharon. By the time you reach Farmington, it’s snow. That’s the way it was the night our daughter was driving.

In a moment of skid, her pickup crossed the road and did a 360 roll in the air before coming down hard on its four wheels in a ditch. She told me that in those frightful moments, without thinking about it, she cried out, “Jesus Christ!” not as an imprecation, a curse, but as an invocation, a prayer. A non-churchgoer, she nevertheless had been baptized into Christ as an infant and raised up in a church family. When she knew that she was about to die, she cried out the name that is salvation. In God’s mercy, she survived with a cut pinky finger.

Why I am telling this story is to illustrate the power of a name. What our minds and bodies cannot necessarily construe and register, our spirits know by heart. Our spirits know the character of the One on whom we can depend because that One is trustworthy. I am also telling parents, grandparents, and concerned others, to, yes, continue to pray with love and not fear for your kids and grandkids, who may not be where you think they should be or would like them to be, but who are on their individual journeys toward God––as we are. They will find their way because the One they are seeking, whether consciously or unconsciously, knows them and loves them completely right now. Let them continue on their way without judgment on them or God about the way they have chosen. Pray for them and love them. That’s the most and best we can do.

“Give us each day”––or this day––”our daily bread.” We aren’t talking about tomorrow. One day at a time. We have the wonderful precedent of the manna in the desert when the Israelites were on their way to the Promised Land and needed sustenance. God provided a dewy-like substance on the ground each morning that would dry out in the sun to something like a sweet, edible flat wafer, and the people were exhorted not to gather any more than they needed for one day . They were not to hoard. Anything stored or hoarded would rot and be inedible anyway. There are a number of Biblical exhortations against hoarding, aren’t there? Interesting. That’s all I’m saying. Well, maybe I’m also saying trust in the Lord, a day at a time, for all things.

Address God as one who wants to provide for his children; reverence or hallow the name of God––give the praise due that One; and ask for what you need in the daily round. If that is all vertical, between us and the Father, now we have the horizontal part of the The Lord’s Prayer, between us and our neighbors, and it comes in that tough and familiar dress of forgiveness.

The New International Version, which I read as part of the gospel this morning, has “Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us.” Another translation, “for we too forgive all who do us wrong.” Both of those translations have a kind of quid pro quo setup. You forgive us because we forgive others. It’s a statement of fact and something of mutual respect. The other popular and familiar translation is, “forgive us our sins or trespasses or debts, as we forgive those who sin or trespass against us or who are indebted to us. The “as” in this translation is ominous. We are asking God to forgive us in the same way that we forgive others, not because we too forgive others, but as we forgive others. The power of a translated word. Even if we pray one of the other translations, I think it’s a good idea to keep this one in the back of our minds to keep us aware and perhaps more careful than we might be otherwise, when we’re thinking about that grudge we’ve been bearing for how many years? Forgive us our debts, our trespasses, our sins in just the same way we forgive others. Think about that. If you remember nothing else from this sermon today, remember that.

Besides addressing the rightness and necessity of praising God, asking for what we need in the daily round, and addressing the always thorny issue of sin and forgiveness, the prayer Jesus taught to his followers also deals with future trials. That entails asking God’s help as we face any of the testing situations of life, any of the challenges, not just matters of sin, commission or omission.

Notice that there isn’t one “please” in the Lord’s Prayer. To return to an earlier theme, God does not have to be cajoled or convinced to hear and answer prayer. God is wanting and waiting to be asked, to be spoken to, because that is one aspect of our relationship with God, one way of being in touch, and he covets our being in touch. Really. In the prayer there is respect and submission––your kingdom come––but there is no shuffling. No obsequiousness. No please and thank you. God is straightforward, and it’s a really good idea not to try to cloak our intentions in pretty language to make it appealing to God.

It’s important to note again vis-à-vis the second half of the gospel this morning that we do not have to wring gifts from the tightened grip of an unwilling God. Not at all. The parable of the householder, who tells his friend to go away and not to bother him with his late night request for bread, would seem on first blush to be teaching us that we have to persist boldly in prayer until God answers us. A wider understanding of what the function of a parable is can help us to see the story differently.

A parable means literally something laid alongside something else. If we lay something beside another thing to teach a lesson, that lesson may be drawn from the fact that the things are like each other, or from the fact that the things are a contrast to each other. The point of the story of the householder with the shut door is one not of likeness but of contrast.

The lesson is not that we must persist in prayer, banging at the door to compel the occupant to open it to us. The lesson of the parable is that if this surly, ungracious and grudging householder finally opens the door to his neighbor’s need because of the neighbor’s bold perseverance, how much more will God, who is like a loving Father, supply all his children’s needs? God does not have to be badgered: God needs only to be asked. And sometimes––I don’t know if you have found this, but I have––that “ask” doesn’t even have to be put into words. The unspoken ask, the unarticulated prayer that is written on the heart and in the heart, also ascends to the One who knows the language of the human heart and needs no translator. It is perhaps the epitome of encouragement to have such an unarticulated prayer answered. God knows my heart.

Let’s talk about the other main character of the parable, the original householder whose door is knocked upon by the late-night traveler. First question: What is the man doing traveling near midnight? And isn’t that unreasonable to expect a response at that hour? It was a fact of life in the East of that time that people did often travel during the night––they may still, even as some of us do now in the summer––to avoid the heat of the day. Maybe they were avoiding caravans as well,even as we would avoid the heaviest traffic by traveling late at night. So, it isn’t really as unreasonable as it would first seem that someone would be traveling so late. And there wasn’t a Motel 8 to stop at, no light left on. That traveler was dependent on his friend for hospitality, which is the second element, another fact of life in the East of the time, and still in force today, viz., hospitality as a sacred duty.

If this traveler turned up on his friend’s front porch at midnight, it wasn’t enough to set before him a bare sufficiency of food. Abundance was what was called for from the perspective of fulfilling the sacred duty of hospitality. Now here is a complication. Bread was baked fresh daily because it quickly went stale and no one would want to eat it the next day, so here we have our first householder in the embarrassing situation of having an empty cupboard and a hungry guest. His solution was to go to his neighbor––why he had bread available isn’t addressed by the reading, and I confess I did wonder about that. Then I had to remember, This is only a story. Don’t for heaven’s sake take it literally, and I caution you the same way. What we are always remembering to be open to is what the story is teaching, not necessarily the picky details.––Anyway, he goes to the cranky neighbor’s and bangs on the door until he gets what he asks for.

One other note is that the man whom the traveler-friend approached for hospitality was asking for something for someone else. Yes, he was seeking to fulfill his sacred duty, but that duty involved loving his neighbor. In truth he involved the cranky neighbor in an involuntary act of kindness toward the traveling friend. He was fulfilling the Law in a most complete way.

It won’t hurt to say one more time what the lesson of the parable is: If you with all your faults know how to give your children good gifts, how much more will your heavenly Father give good gifts to his children?

Straightforwardness in simple language can focus the need in prayer. We can gauge the reality and sincerity of our desire by the passion of our prayer. I remind you as I did at the beginning that there is no such thing as unanswered prayer. The answer given may not be the answer we desire or expect, but even when the answer is no––and yes, that does happen sometimes––we can be sure that it is the right answer out of the love and wisdom of God. Amen.

Only One Thing Is Needed...

2010-07-18T14:40:00.000-04:00

Sheepscott Community Church July 18, 2010

Genesis 18: 1-15

Colossians 1: 15-19

Luke 10: 38-42

Only One Thing Is Needed...

What is that one thing that is needed which Jesus speaks of to Martha and which is what Mary has chosen? It is not only in today’s gospel, but in the gospel or good news of our every day lives as we are living them right now. Maybe by the end of this sermon you can come up with your own answer. What is that one thing that Mary has chosen?

Jon had a teacher when he was in secondary school who touted to the boys the virtues of the dictionary, “Fellas,” he’d say, “there’s a whale of a lot in the dictionary. A whale of a lot, fellas.” Well, I’m going to appropriate his figure for today's’ gospel and say, Folks, there’s a whale of a lot in the gospel today––and the other two readings as well, a whale of a lot. Maybe a smorgasbord is a better figure because the gospel did put me in mind of a groaning board of a meal that was put on for me in the home of my mother’s cousin, when I was visiting in Finland in 1994.

Aino Kuhala, my mother’s first cousin, prepared uncountable dishes for perhaps a dozen family members when I visited that day. What I remember best is the cloudberry pudding because I had never heard of cloudberries nor eaten them before that day. I noticed that Aino didn’t sit down to eat with us. She stood in the doorway in her apron, waiting to see if anything was needed and simply enjoying the people enjoying the food. I asked her son Veikko why she didn’t sit with us, and he explained that she would eat later. That’s just the way it was done.

Well, huh, I thought. Tradition. Both the incident with Abraham and Sarah and the aspects of God under the form of three angels in the reading from Genesis, and Martha’s interaction with Jesus in today’s gospel made me think of that dinner with Aino in Finland.

We assume Sarah prepared the bread, as Abraham told her to do, to feed the guests. After they had eaten the bread, the tender young calf and the milk curds that Abraham put before them, the Lord––under the guise of three angels––said, “I will surely return to you about this time next year and Sarah your wife will have a son.” Sarah, who was eavesdropping, chuckled because she was way past childbearing age. One way to hear her chuckle is as, “Yeah, right!” The point I want to make is that Sarah was listening to this conversation from the entrance to the tent, which was behind the divine speaker. Like Aino leaning in the doorway and watching the others eat, Sarah was not at that point physically with Abraham and the guests, directly involved in the conversation, although the conversation was about her. A woman and her life as currency.

Fast forward now to the gospel story. We can read it as a change in dispensation, viz., a change in the order or administration of things or systems; in this case a change in the religious order or system, with regard to the place of women, conceived as a stage in progressive revelation. Let’s set the narrative table, so to speak. This dinner which Martha was all het up about was taking place six days before Jesus’s last Passover, and it followed the raising of Lazarus from the dead. We find this out in John 12, where we also find out that this dinner is in Jesus’s honor. It may have been a celebration of the raising of Lazarus as well. If we put the two stories from Luke and John together, it would seem that when Jesus arrived, before the dinner, he was teaching. Mary was sitting at his feet listening with all of her being focused on what her Lord was saying. Martha was in the kitchen getting hotter and hotter under the collar, even as the stove was heating up for the cooking. Finally she couldn’t stand it any longer––Haven’t some of us experienced this?––and she went into the room where Jesus was reclining at table with Lazarus, his disciples, and some others who had come to see this man who had raised Lazarus, and most significantly Mary. What was she doing in the front room with all these men? Her place was in the kitchen. Martha spoke in what sounds like an indignant manner to Jesus, “Lord, don’t you care that my sister has left me to do the work by myself? Tell her to help me!” she demands.

Is Jesus moved by her vehemence? Not at all. “Martha, Martha,” he replies, “you are worried and upset about many things, but only one thing is needed. Mary has chosen what is better and it will not be taken away from her.”

In John’s account we get none of this verbal exchange. It simply says, “Martha served, while Lazarus was among those reclining at table with him.” The story can be read as another example of a woman––Cousin Aino, Abraham’s wife Sarah, and now Martha––eavesdropping on the more important world, at that time, of the doings and decisions of men. What Martha does, in a scene-stopping moment, however, is to burst into the front room with her wounded self-righteousness and sense of offended justice and demand of Jesus that he tell her sister Mary to assume her rightful place back in the kitchen beside Martha, helping her with this dinner.

But Jesus surprises Martha, perhaps Mary, and certainly us, who still live under a mantle of expected gendered behaviors and roles, at least to some degree. He kindly dismisses and defuses her fit of pique. Can’t you see him smiling gently and shaking his head? He is so patient with our impatience. He doesn’t give one inch of ground, even as he is being kind and patient. No, he won’t tell Mary to do that because she has chosen the better part and it won’t be taken from her. Apparently Martha accepts this, probably not without a few choice words under her breath, as there is no further exchange between them; at least nothing is recorded in scripture. She goes back to the kitchen to resume taking care of the details of hospitality.

It may simply be a story that teaches the importance of balance. Both things, both kinds of activity are needed in this particular story, the serving dimension for hospitality, to feed the needs of the body, and the listening dimension that in this case feeds the needs of a human soul. As I have demonstrated before, Jesus never missed an opportunity to capitalize on whatever the situation or surroundings were, in order to teach. Familiar as he was with the homely details of everyday life, he being a man of the people, he employed the metaphors of that everyday life to speak about the life of God in order to make it accessible to the people who listened.

A dinner being put on for a lot of people following hot on the heels of the host’s having been raised from the dead by the guest of honor; two sisters, one hardheaded and practical, used to getting her hands dirty, and the other a dreamer, more inclined to listen to a teacher, especially this extraordinary teacher and to think about his words, than to wash the dishes or peel the potatoes. These are the elements of a good story with its inherent conflict and they prove out.

I think all of us who entertain with any regularity are very sympathetic with Martha and need to hear what Jesus is saying. Let the dishes stay in the sink. If there’s important talk going on at the table, sit down. Listen. You may learn something, something you didn’t know before, and for all you know, your life might change because of it. Is that idea threatening? That your life might change? There will always be more dishes to do, but there won’t always be the opportunity to hear what this particular person is talking about in this particular place at this particular time. Sometimes we can overhear, but we might miss key parts if we’re not seated, as Mary was, at Jesus’s feet.

I said earlier that this story can be read as a change in dispensation, a change in the order of things. Jesus is teaching a new dispensation that breaks down artificailly constructed barriers and roles, in this case, that would put Mary back in the kitchen. Even in our time––and I do know there are exceptions––ordinarily at a holiday dinner the women will be in the kitchen cleaning up after the meal, and the men will retire to the front room easy chairs if not with brandy and cigars to talk politics, then with Budweiser and a bag of Doritos and the football or baseball or basketball game, depending on the season of the year. That front room is a NO GIRLS ALLOWED kind of clubhouse, and while in fact, that’s usually the way the girls prefer it because they have their own interests and conversation, I think Jesus would break that sign over his knee and call everybody in from the kitchen, turn off the television, and proceed to teach. Whatever he has to say is “the better part” and it will not be taken away from any of us. But we have to want it, don’t we? We have to go after it.

Do you think of Paul’s letter to the Galatians here? I do. “There is no Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.” That is the new dispensation. Nobody is consigned to the kitchen against her will in Jesus’s book of roles and life lived. Everyone has a say-so and is responsible to make decisions for his or her own life, but because women were chattel––and still are in some parts of the world––whose lives were decided by the men in those historic or geographic worlds, I am focusing on them toda in relation to the gospel.

That scene in Bethany six days before Passover, the Passover that would change the history of the world, is a kind of snapshot of what we are as church. We all set down the dishes and dish cloth, come in from the kitchen, so to speak, and listen to Jesus. How does he speak to us? In the stories we read in scripture; in the stories of our lives that we share with one another; in the births and deaths and marriages; the agreements and disagreements, the arguments, the music and laughter and dance, through all of this human experience––this is how he speaks to us. In our own prayer he speaks to us. Listen and learn, and it will not be taken from you. There is a whale of a lot in that gospel, isn’t there? Amen.

Who Is My Neighbor?

2010-07-13T10:08:00.000-04:00

Sheepscott Community Church July 11, 2010

Colossians 1: 1-14

Luke 10: 25-37

Who Is My Neighbor

I think today’s gospel about the Good Samaritan, combined with the parable in Matthew 25 of the separation of the sheep and the goats at the time of the last judgment, constitute the core of the Christian religion. Both of them have to do with action, not creed.

In Matthew 25, the King will say to those on his right, “Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.

“Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’

“The King will reply, ‘I tell you the truth, whatever you did for one of the least of my brethren, you did for me.’”

This story, today’s gospel of the Good Samaritan, and the Golden Rule––Do unto others as you would have them do unto you––which is found in some form in all religions, including Christianity, all of this I consider the core of the Christian faith. All answer the question, Who is my neighbor? We turn away from the full answer to that question at our own peril. Additionally, Jesus is the teacher, the way-shower, the one whom we listen to and imitate to bring about what constitutes the fulfillment of the Law and the prophets, the kingdom of God on earth.

Let’s focus on this morning’s gospel now, and try to keep an open mind, an open spirit to what Jesus is teaching here. It’s possible to have a radical conversion to Christianity today, or, for some of us, a recharge of our batteries and a deeper conviction of the rightness of our choice to continue to follow the teachings of Jesus, which you will hear in this church. But just as surely, you will not hear the command or even a suggestion to judge others for what they do or do not do.

In today’s gospel, judgment is the name of the game. Let us consider the players, but first, the setting. The road from Jerusalem to Jericho was a dangerous place. In something less than 20 miles, the road dropped from 2300 feet above sea level in Jerusalem, to 1300 feet below sea level in Jericho. A narrow, rocky road, its sudden turnings made ideal hiding places for robbers and brigands to surprise and seize upon their victims. The man who was set upon by robbers in the gospel story was reckless, as he was traveling the road alone. People generally traveled that road in convoys or caravans, especially if they were carrying goods or valuables. There was more likely safety in numbers. It is not ill-conceived to say that the man was foolish and brought this disaster on himself.

The other characters of this drama? Biblical commentator William Barclay suggests that according to the Law, the priest who hurried past was remembering that anyone who touched a dead man would be unable to fulfill his priestly duties for seven days because he had made himself unclean. He couldn’t be sure the man was dead, but he did look dead from the distance and he wasn’t about to take any chances on not being able to discharge his duties. He set ceremony over charity, and made the liturgy more important than the pain of another human being.

Then came the Levite who also passed by. Barclay suggests that he was not going to risk his safety, aware as he would have been that groups of robbers would often put a wounded-man decoy out to trap the would-be compassionate passerby. The Levite didn’t want to be caught in such a trap. And who can blame him?

When Jesus in his story introduced the Samaritan, it’s probable that the listeners expected that ah, here comes the real villain. As we have talked about before, the Samaritans were the despised others, who worshipped on Mount Gerazim, and not on the Jerusalem Mount where, according to the Jews, all true believers worshipped. Actually, the man did not have to be a Samaritan racially, the term could have been employed to indicate any despised other. Jesus himself is called a Samaritan in John 8: 48, named a heretic and breaker of ceremonial law. Do you ever think sometimes how difficult it was for Jesus to be Jesus? Don’t forget, he was thoroughly human, no less than you and I, and we know how difficult it is to bear the slings and arrows of slander. Now multiply that to the 10th or infinite power to imagine what it was like for Jesus, as far as frequency and virility of attacks. If Lindsay Lohan thinks she has trouble with the paparazzi, she should try being Jesus the teacher who had his own paparazz, the scribes and pharisees, always after him, always waiting and hoping for him to trip himself up.

Back to the story. We have this despised Samaritan, and isn’t he the one who gets off his animal, bathes the man’s wounds, puts him on his own animal and takes him to an inn, where he slips the owner a few pieces of silver and asks him to watch out for this man. If there is any additional charge, he’ll take care of that on his way back through the next time. He must be an honest man, and probably a frequent visitor, as the owner apparently knows and trusts him.

Whether or not he was a heretic as defined by Jewish law, the love of God was in the Samaritan’s heart. It is not really a surprise in the story to find the orthodox Jews are more interested in dogma and ceremony than in helping the man, and no doubt would have been quick to justify and back up their lack of action. It’s also no big surprise as stories go to find that the man the orthodox despise is the person who indeed helps the man in need. Jesus knew his audience and he knew how to tell a story, how to get the point across. The moral of the story was transparent enough so that anyone within hearing couldn’t miss it: In the end we will be judged, not by the creed we hold but by the life we live.

Because of the jots and tittles of qualification in the Law as Jews read it, we can assume that the scribe’s question, “Who is my neighbor?” is a genuine one. Jesus’s answer to him was another question: “Which of these three do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers? And the scribe answered, “The one who had mercy on him.” Jesus’s admonition? “Go and do likewise.”

And what constitutes mercy in this story?

1) We must help a person, even when he or she has brought trouble on their own head, as the man who fell among robbers had done.

2) Any person of any country who is in need is our neighbor; our love must be as wide as the love of God, which is wider than the span of any country and does not honor national boundaries.

3) The help must be practical and not consist in merely feeling sorry for the person. To be genuine, to be real, compassion must manifest in deeds or action.

One of the things––let’s call that “sin,” not thing––one of the sins I am most sorry for in my own history was not stopping on the side of the road once to help someone who needed it. I was in a hurry, subject then even more than now to the tyranny of the wrist watch, the tyranny of time. I know now in a way I did not know then that never is it more important to arrive anywhere on time than it is to help someone who needs it, someone on the side of the road.

But here’s the rub. Okay, many of us, if not all of us, have sinned in this area of not doing good where we might have. Breast-beating and self-flagellation do not further the cause of good either. What does re-enable us, if you will, to do good is to repent, be forgiven, and go forward. It’s nicely captured in this morning’s psalm 25, which we read together as the Call to Worship. To wit, “remember not the sins of my youth and my rebellious ways;/ according to your love, remember me, for you are good, O Lord.”

And further on in the psalm, “He guides the humble in what is right and teaches them his way./ All the ways of the Lord are loving and faithful for those who keep the demands of his covenant,” which brings us full circle back to the gospel. The man of the Law, the scribe had asked Jesus what he must do to gain eternal life, and Jesus had answered with a question: “What is written in the Law? How do you read it?”

He answered, “Love the Lord with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength and with all your mind; ‘And love your neighbor as yourself.’” Jesus approved of his answer, which constitutes the demands of his covenant mentioned in the psalm. Are we meeting the demands of his covenant? Are we loving the Lord with all our heart, our soul, our mind and our strength? And our neighbor as our self? Well, if our sin against God or our neighbor is leading us in the way of the aforementioned breast-beating, self-flagellation and woe-is-meness, get over it. Repent, receive God’s forgiveness and move on. Get back into life.

The answer to the question Who is our neighbor? covers a lot of ground. Remember what I said among those three points that characterize mercy? That our love must be as wide as the love of God. To include turtles crossing the road and fledgling swallows fallen from the wire, the nest, the sky? All creatures? A mercy so wide that it translates to stewardship of the earth? Are all these fellow creatures our neighbors? Doesn’t yes make more sense than no when thinking in terms of the wide net of love God casts?

Another example of Who is my neighbor? was someone for whom no good Samaritan came in time––Matthew Shepherd. Fifteen years ago, he died after being tied to a fence post in a field in Wyoming, and savagely beaten. Like the man of this morning’s gospel, beaten by robbers and left to die, Matthew Shepherd was beaten and left to die because he was homosexual. No other reason. We don’t have to go as far as Wyoming. Right here in our state of Maine, 1984, Charlie Howard was thrown off a bridge in Bangor into the Kenduskeag Stream because he was a homosexual. It was too late for Matthew Shepherd and Charlie Howard, but it isn’t too late for us to learn a lesson from their deaths, and that lesson, as Jesus taught by choosing the despised Samaritan to be the hero of his tale, that lesson is that nobody is other. Acts of kindness and goodness, as well as acts of meanness of spirit and depths of depravity are possible for every human being, whether as giver or receiver. We are all connected in the family of God, the body of Christ.

We move more in the direction of goodness and kindness when we make good choices, when we build a habit of virtue and not of vice. That can be done in small, homely ways such as making coffee for your spouse in the morning and serving it with a smile instead of retreating behind, “Don’t talk to me. You know I’m not a morning person.” Get over yourself and make some coffee. We can build habits of virtue by service in the community, on the planning board, in the Legislature, volunteering at the library or hospital. We can build habits of virtue by listening to the literal words of Jesus in his parable of the sheep and goats: feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, clothe the naked, give shelter to the stranger, visit the sick and those imprisoned. Performing these acts of mercy, creating these habits of virtue and distancing ourselves from vice becomes easier when we associate with others who are trying to do the same, when we seek the source of all mercy together in our Sunday service.

An example of a father and son a few weeks back who chose an act of kindness that literally saved a life even though their own lives were thereby endangered. This story was reported in the Kennebec Journal. A woman had crashed her car into a moose at night. The moose was dead on the road, the woman’s car was in the way of traffic, and the woman herself walking around dazed and disoriented, when the father and son team stopped. The son quickly assessed the situation, picked up the woman and threw her over the guardrail just as a truck bore down on them. He saved her life. When the police arrived the father and son left, and no one knew who they were. But we know: they were Good Samaritans. If Matthew Shepherd didn’t have someone that night who cared as these two did for the woman, whether she lived or died, if he didn’t have anyone to care for him the same way, maybe we can care in his name, and in the name of Charlie Howard and of all those who have died beaten and alone with no one to be their Good Samaritan. Let us thus strive to love our neighbor as ourselves, indeed as we ourselves would hope someone would so love us if the shoe were on the other foot. It’s pretty simple, really, isn’t it? Amen.