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Kim's Corner May 2006 The
fall is my favorite season, This
season, so brief and
gloriously The
other part of spring that I
adore is I
spent my post-Easter vacation at my was a
lot to do to get me yard ready for The return of the birds is never, like the Much of the reason the birds appear to These two have nested somewhere in And
if I was unnerved, I wondered
how two?
Would they raid a nest?
Granted, I didn't have to
worry too hard or long However,
during the fracas these
two Much more
subdued, Mr. and Mrs. RSH like
fingers, I would imagine this
grackle And while that
Wild Kingdom moment • The
bigger
they are, the hardei •
Don't judge a
book by its cover. It also made me
remember the axiom, We
here at Winthrop
Congregational "We're
so small, what can we
possibly As our
grackle friend showed, we can
KIMS
CORNER Well, hey there! It's been a while, hasn't it? There
is so much to
say that I can hardly begin to articulate, express, and just plain
share with Firstly, however,
I must say that I
(and my Mom and Dad) have been truly overwhelmed by the So
please, I ask
that all of you accept my heartfelt words of gratitude and thanks for
everything Secondly, I want
to thank everyone
who stepped up his or her levels of commitment and So, what did I do
for six weeks? I
slept a lot, watched far more TV than is healthy (I got hooked However, I'm back,
happily so, to
work. And at Lent, no less. Which is auspicious, I think. For Again, my thanks. For everything. Kim REJOICE! He has risen ! LUKE 24:6 Kim's Corner Easter, 2005 This year Easter comes early. Very, very early in the calendar year. As a result of such an early Easter - which you can blame on the cycle of the moon as Easter is based on a lunar calendar - many people find themselves caught off guard. It's hard to wrap your mind around Lent and Easter when you've just finished packing up and putting away the Christmas decorations. It's also hard to think about Easter when it's so flippin' frigid and snowy right now, with little indication that things will change for the sunnier and softer any time in the near future. Because really, we can't help but associate our idealized Easter with spring sunshine, and flowers, and pretty new pastel-hued dresses (well, some of us think about pretty new dresses), and bunnies, and gentle, sun-kissed breezes... even when we, as New Englanders, have personally experienced many an Easter that has been a climatic symphony of sleet, snow, and freezing rain. And just how many times have you gone down to Norcross Point and the winds whipping down the length and breadth of Lake Maranacook made it feel more like you were going on a journey to Antarctica rather than attending a Sunrise service? We can't help but associate our Easters with such temperate vernal splendor because that's just the way Easter is supposed to be, and the few times it actually was blue skied and brilliant and we didn't even need to wear sweaters to church continues to fuel this fantasy of the perfect Easter. In reality that kind of weather-induced perfection spoils us and makes us resistant to the realities of both the calendar and our Yankee meteorological character. When Easter is this early, when there are few external cues to help a body focus, it takes more of an effort to prepare for it. I've been finding myself doing a lot of reading this Lent, trying to get myself mentally and emotionally prepared for this Lenten season, this time of thoughtfulness, introspection, and wonderment. Especially when the weather outside is so frightful and the calendar has just flipped from February to March. Too soon, too soon... Easter should be in April. I've been reading, in particular, the Lenten and Easter poems of Ann Weems, the ones printed in her collection, Kneeling in Jerusalem. I've even been using some of the shorter poems as benedictions during our Worship services. I like her style of writing - spare, terse, pointed, confrontational. I like how she, with words, wrestles with her feelings of ambivalence, of horror, of confusion, of her strong, aching and wounded faith as she tries to understand what, exactly, the Crucifixion was really about. Weems is unflinching in her critique of our oft-wobbly faith - how we love and embrace the natal creche and Christmas carols, how we love to wave palms and light the candles and sayhosannas, and now we lovingly decorate our sanctuaries with gobs of flowers, but avert our eyes and flinch away from the stark brutality of the cross. She writes about how, at Christmas, we can hear the wispy echoes of angels bending near the earth with songs of joy plucked out on harps of gold... but during Lent, we sometimes don't hear those very same angels shouting in our ears to come, listen, and worship the One who gives all for us. Lent, says Weems, is about owing up and acknowledging our humanness - the good and the bad of who and what we are. It's about squaring our shoulders and looking at the cross head- on and realizing and remembering that God's Son, who loves us very, very much will soon again be nailed to that hulking piece of wood...on our behalf. For us. And what, exactly, do we think about that action of Jesus's - that saving, grace-filled, loving sacrifice. Or, do we think about it at all? That's why I like to read her poems - to remind me, as I'm preparing for Easter, to really prepare for it. To be mindful. To think about my faith, my Christian faith, and how it fits into all that I do and say and am. In other words, Weems' poetry helps me to remember to fully be in Lent so that, no matter how frightful the weather is, no matter what the calendar is telling me, that when Easter does come...and come it will...I'll be as prepared as I'll ever be. Even if I have to stuff my pretty new dress under my old winter coat. I'd like to share a couple of Ann Weems poems with you. And feel free to pick up a copy of her collection of poems. I'm sure you'll find them as powerful as do I. Blessings this Eastertide, KIM Come Unto Me When the journey gets too hard, when we feel depleted, when our compassion turns to complaining, when our efforts toward justice and mercy seem to get us nowhere, it's time to remember the humility part - that it is God who has made us and not we ourselves; that the saving of the world or even on part of it is not on our shoulders. It is then we can come unto him, and he will give us rest. With rest we'll remember what it is we are about. And The Glory The silence breaks into morning. The One Star lights the world. The lily springs to life and not even Solomon... Let it begin with singing and never end! Oh, angels, quit your lamenting! Oh pilgrims, upon your knees in tearful prayer, rise up and take your hearts and run! We who were no people are named anew God's people, for he who was no more is forevermore. Nothing Can Separate Us From the Love of God Romans 8: 31-39 Sunday, January 16, 2005 When you’re in ministry there are some Sundays in which you have to throw out everything that you were planning on preaching on and start again. Start again because as the week has unfurled and unfolded, events have happened that have rocked our community – both church and area-wide. Start again, because you are trying to understand, like everyone else, exactly what happened. And this is a good place to try to begin to understand. As most of you already know, our little town has been hit with a number of tragedies, one of which would have been more than enough to deal with. We had five. Four deaths (two accidental and two suicides) and, of course, the fire that took Marie and Peter’s and their family’s home and pretty much everything they owned. The first, and natural inclination, is to wonder “Why.” Why did these things happen? Why did such things happen to these people? Why did two young men feel as though their only option, when life became painful and difficult, was to end it, end everything? Why was life so impossible that life couldn’t be lived anymore? Why? The two accidents that took the lives of two other Winthrop people: why do some people walk away from accidents, and some people don’t? Luck? Timing? Something else? Why? Then we have the Hatfields. An amazing family – you’ll never find a better bunch of people anywhere. Kind. Compassionate. Generous. Faithful. Talented. Good and dear friends. I could keep piling up the list of adjectives – they would be endless, really—and I know you have your own that you could add. And this is where, at least for our immediate church family and friends…and probably for other community members as well, where our “whys” begin to take on more and darker theological shadings. Our “whys” no longer stay strictly rhetorical and general in scope, but become more sharply focused…and are asked with the clear expectation of an answer. Why did such a thing happen to such good and faithful people? And, as faithful people who live out their faith as best as they are able, why did God let this happen? This is not to suggest that the other things that happened to our community last week, the deaths, were somehow out of the realm of God’s actions and responsibility and care because they may not have been faithful and, to push that line of thinking to it’s nth degree, because they may not have been faithful they were, consequently, not “good”. I didn’t know these people, therefore I didn’t know their relationship with God or Christ or the Holy Spirit…or if they even had one. However, unlike our more conservative brothers and sisters…or ultra-right wing believers, I cannot be convinced that their unknown relationship with God somehow made their problems more worthy of tragic outcomes. That somehow they “deserved” what they got and got what they deserved. This attitude should not be unfamiliar to us. We’ve all heard this condemning and cold and unChristian perspective before. That somehow, somewhere, these things happened because the consequences and conclusions were earned and justified. That this was all God’s will, God’s plan. That God ordained these tragedies to happen as some kind of grand, unknowable punishment for transgressions incomprehensible. We have heard, and maybe this attitude was flung at our own selves during excruciatingly horrific times in our own lives: that what has happened was some kind of test. I’m sorry, but I can not believe in a God that would seek to hurt us, ruin us, destroy us for some kind of test. I don’t believe in that Old Testament, Book of Job God – I can’t believe in that kind of God, not when God sent to us his Son to take away the sins of the world. Not when, out of outrageous love, God gives to us Jesus Christ, who makes it possible for us to live with God for all of eternity. Not when God, out of extravagant love, pours out His grace and salvation upon us daily. And asks of us only to believe. And asks of us only to show care and compassion and love for our neighbor as our selves. That God doesn’t play sick, destructive, hateful games with us. That God doesn’t get his kicks out of making us weep, buckle under loss. That God weeps alongside of us, holding us up when we can no longer stand on our own. That God walks with us when we feel like we are the only ones left in this world – our loneliness so breathtakingly severe and brutal. Which brings us back to the original concern and question – why? And my response: I don’t know. What I know is that God loves us. That God grieves with us. That what happened last week…well, happened because of poor choices made by those who died – and those poor choices were made because God gives us the free will to make such choices; and because some faulty fluke of wiring or some spark that ignited something extremely flammable. These things happened because they did, but not by the hand of God. Early Christians, Paul’s words. What they were going through. I don’t know why these things happened. But I do know what our response is to be. Care, compassion, love, outreach, acceptance, grieving, helping. All that God teaches us through his Son, Jesus the Christ. All that God asks us to do, all that God does for us, all that we are commanded to do. And that helps me get through the weeks like we just had. Because there are lots that I just don’t know. But this, this that I do know, is mine to keep and to share so that others will come to know it, too. So, What Are We Waiting For? Isaiah 2: 1-5 Sunday, November 28, 2004 Outline for the first Sunday in Advent’s Sermon So, how’s it going? (Pause…walk around in front of the church in silence.) Waiting, aren’t you? Uncomfortably waiting, to be sure because I’m not doing what I’m “supposed” to be doing right now. You’re waiting for me to say something, to do something, something that demonstrates to you that I’m beginning my sermon, so you can sit back and pay attention and possibly have your lives changed via these words (heh)…or sit back and drift as my voice lulls you into semi-consciousness. You are waiting to hear something – anything! – remotely Scriptural and Jesus-flavored. I’m not supposed to be wandering about, staring at you in silence. It’s not how things go, not how they are to be. It’s not what is expected. It’s hard to wait in a secure, comfortable way, isn’t it, for something that you are pretty sure is supposed to be happening, but is not. I mean, there are “easy” kind of waits – boring, time consuming, but easy on the psyche, more or less. Waiting for an appointment with the dentist – what’s going to follow may not be pleasant, but you pretty much know what to expect. Ditto with car repair and maintenance. You wait to get your hair done, for the cable guy to show up, to meet a friend for lunch. You wait in line at the grocery store, at traffic lights, for a certain time at a certain hour so that you can make a phone call. So, knowing what’s pretty much coming, you either bring a book, read a magazine, write out lists of Things To Do. You/we sit and think and zone out…you just do what it is that all people do in order to kill time until the wait is over, what we are ultimately waiting for has come and gone, and then get on with our lives. But again, it’s difficult to wait in silence and expectation for something you don’t fully understand, for something that you know is supposed to be coming, that’s supposed to be happening…but you don’t know what that “happening” looks like. And yet as Christians, we find ourselves in that waiting limbo-place more often then not. Especially now, during the period set aside in the church calendar specifically created for waiting – Advent. Ah, Advent – that time of year in which we are to be waiting for the Baby Jesus to show up, to be born into this world…again…for the 2,000+ time. Here we are, waiting for Christmas…again. You know, you’d think that after all these years we’d have that waiting part down pat. We know that we are in Advent, preparing and waiting for Jesus. We’ve been doing this for a while; we know what to do. And do it we do! With gusto and drive and zeal and frustration and hope and countless of dollars sunk into this holiday season…and for what? Do we know what it is that we are waiting for? Or have we filled up this time with all of this busyness in order to distract ourselves from really pursuing the meaning of this waiting time? If we distract ourselves well enough, we’ll forget what it is that we’re supposed to be doing in this “meanwhile” time. Isaiah: like us, waiting for a new age. He’s clear about what it is that he, and those who believe and have faith in God, are waiting for. He’s waiting for God’s city to be elevated, physically as well as spiritually. He’s waiting for all nations in the world (all that he knew existed in his time, of course), to acknowledge Zion’s elevation, it’s supremacy, it’s superiority…not because of any one person’s doing, but because God has made it so wonderful, amazing, a sacred. God has made it so – all people must come to that conclusion. Isaiah is waiting for all people to come to God, to learn God’s ways, to worship him fully, to listen to God’s teachings. God shall rule, shall judge, shall make decisions, shall lead the people into peace and prosperity. God shall arbitrate in eternal, endless fairness. God doesn’t care about the petty politics and power-plays of human endeavor. God cares about love and justice and hope and life eternal. Why? Because God is God. If we truly want to live in peace, then we give up our machinations and allow God to rule in our hearts. If we allow God to do that, then all need for fighting and the art of war will be no more – there’ll be no use for it. Won’t need it, won’t make sense. Why fight and kill and invade and destroy and be killed and be hurt and suffer when there is no earthly reason for it? So, Isaiah lives in the hope and the promise of this New Age. He knows it’s possible. If we wait long enough, will humanity have suffered enough to want to listen to God’s will? To reach out to each other in peace and understanding? What are we, Christians, waiting for? Who are we waiting for? The flesh-made promise. The man of Nazareth, God’s hope for us come to us. Sure, he came to us and has come to us…but we are reminded of God’s promises yet again. God’s desire for us to live in righteousness and harmony and peace. We are to use this time, not to be distracted, but to fully explore what it means to be God’s people, Christ’s people, the people of the Living Spirit. To try to figure out what it would mean to give everything over in our lives to God, to focus fully on Him and not upon what it is that we think we should be doing until the time comes and God’s Son returns to us…whatever that means. We are to focus on the here and now…to live in the present…to explore our faith. What would it mean, really, to give over to God our lives? What would it mean to work for peace? What would it mean to live in harmony and joy? What would it mean to stop our Advent craziness and exist in the silence and listen? What would it mean to live in light? What would it mean to stop long enough and struggle to listen for a crying infant and truly wonder what it means for God to give up His son to us so that we may live? What would it mean to struggle with the responsibility that we have as Christians to figure this all out? Chapter Six – God Is Still Speaking: Becoming a Welcoming Church Luke 15: 11-32 Sunday, November 14, 2004 1. Prodigal Son Story: Three prodigals…all had one thing in common: each was the center of his own dream and goals and trusted too much in his own wisdom 2. Tell Story 3. Three ways of welcoming/inviting/becoming one with God through Christ Jesus. The farm is heaven, it’s Christ’s ministry on earth. How do we welcome each other to participate in it? Three people in this story, this prodigious and prodigal story. Three people: Dad, older Son (whom we’ll call Biff), and the younger son, whom we’ll call Kevin. They don’t have names in Jesus' telling of this tale in the Gospel of Luke, but for our purposes having a name makes it easier. Dad, Biff, and Kevin all live on this decent chunk of land, which they have – through time and hard work – turned into a pretty good farm. We know that because they have servants and can afford to hire seasonal help. Plus each boy gets an inheritance. That inheritance – remember it, because it factors in this story. Well, over the years the boys grow up and take on more responsibility, especially the older boy, Biff. Biff’s a good worker and takes his position in the family and on the farm very seriously; we know that because Jesus tells us so in the story. Biff knows he’ll be taking over for Dad some day – it was his due as older son. Therefore, he best put into this family business his all, not only because he wants to make it a success, but also because he wanted to be able to rest his old bones on his youthfully invested laurels, recoup his sweat equity…you know, enjoy being a wealthy old so-and-so during his twilight years. So where did that leave the younger son, Kevin? Hmmm, good question. We can infer from this story that, perhaps, the two brothers didn’t get along very well. How? Well because Kevin – it seems – can’t wait until he’s old enough to get his inheritance, his money, and get the heck out of there and move on. Why? Not sure, but dollars to donuts I’d bet you that it’s probably tension about that farm. Dad was still the head of the farm, but most of the duty increasingly fell upon Biff as time went on. Kevin, more than likely, had some new and innovative ideas that, I’m sure, didn’t meet with Biff’s approval. Kevin, at being repeatedly thwarted by such old, staid, and unimaginative thinking (in his opinion) was getting more and more frustrated. “C’mon, Biff! Why don’t you listen to me! I know just as much about this farm as you do! Just because you are older than me doesn’t make you more special or more capable of running this place!” “Perhaps,” replied Biff. “But the reality is, is that I’m in charge and you’ll do as I say and you stop pestering me with these crack pot ideas and let me do the work that I think needs to be done.” Kevin reached the end of his tether and one days approaches a surprisingly silent Dad and demands his inheritance because he was, in his words, “so out of there!” Biff said nothing and his silence regarding Kevin’s request for cash and his vow to leave the farm was deafening. Poor Dad – it must have been hard to see his two boys fighting like that. And over the farm that he worked so hard to build up and make successful. What to do? He loved both boys dearly and he say the value of what both of them were saying…and yet…it was too difficult for him to take sides. He knew if he ever did that he’d lose one of his sons. Kevin’s words cut him to the quick, and yet it was within Kevin’s right to ask for his inheritance. “Perhaps,” thought Dad, “this is just some oat sowing and that Kevin will leave for a couple of days and then come back and all will be well and we can get back to the business of working on this farm.” Kevin left home and nearly immediately began to live it up. He had a lot of ideas and high hopes, a lot of energy and resolve, and the gut-certain knowledge that he’d make something of himself. “I’ll show you – I’ll show you all! I don’t need any of you and most of all, I don’t need that stupid farm! What a millstone, dragging me down! I’ve got money and I’ve got brains and I’m going to be a big success and you’ll be sorry you ever made me leave! How d’you like them apples, eh?” Kevin wound up far away from home. He settled in a new city in a far off country – it was hip and happening -- and began to look to make contacts. He was going to conquer the world, remember. And he did find new contacts – the best friends money could buy! All of his new ideas and his resolve for success…well, he was having too much fun to think about that now. He had friends who appreciated him, who listened to his new ideas and innovations for farm growth – well, they listened as long as Kevin bought them all rounds of beer. It wasn’t too long before Kevin forgot what he was there for and what he was trying to prove to his family and the world. Meanwhile, back on the ranch…Dad waited for Kevin’s return, which wasn’t happening as soon as he thought it would. Biff pretended not to notice Kevin’s absence and his father’s longing and saddened demeanor. Dad began to keep watch, waiting for Kevin’s return. Soon the farm hands, and even Biff, began to question the old man’s sanity. “He’s not coming back, the little punk,” thought Biff. “Kevin didn’t need or want us. He didn’t want to live or work the way he should have so he packed up and left. Who needs that problem. Dad needs to get over it and get back to work. With me.” That fateful, but not too surprising day came and Kevin finally ran out of money. As soon as he realized this disquieting fact, all of his friends ran out on him. All of Kevin’s hopes and dreams, his resolve, his need to build that bigger, better farm – gone…all of it, gone. “Well,” he thought, “I’ve still got my brains. I’ll get a job and build myself back up. That won’t take too long.” Uh, well, it did. No sooner did those words leave his mouth than famine hit the land. The economy of that far off land flatlined. No one was hiring, especially a down-and-out wastrel like him. It was the worst of the worst of the worst. The only job he could get was to feed the pigs. As a Jew that was indescribably horrific for Kevin. It was the equivalent of cleaning out sewer drain pipes with one’s tongue. He was devastated, shattered. Everything…gone. Then he had an idea. He’d go home. Back to the farm and his father…and Biff. Oh, the humiliation. But he was so tired and so sick and so very, very lonely. The husks of his dreams lay dried and crackling at his feet like the husks of the pods he stole from the pigs trough. He had to go home, he had no other choice…well, except death. So he screwed up his courage and looked heavenward and asked God for the strength to go home, tail between his legs, and confess his arrogance and stupidity, his recklessness and self-centeredness. “All I deserve is to live in a shack on the farm and have a piece of bread for dinner. I’m no longer worthy to be a part of this family. I have sinned against you and I deserve nothing less. Please forgive me.” Kevin rehearsed this apology over and over until he reached the boundary of the farm. “Here I am,” he though. “May they find compassion and pity or I shall be forced to find death, for I have nothing else left.” He bowed his head and stood still. “I have to move forward down this road,” he thought again, “or I shall forever be lost.” Kevin heard the running of footsteps. “Great, a messenger. Soon the whole farm will know of my shame.” He heard heavy breathing – whoa, a really out of shape messenger. Kevin lifted his heard. It was his father. Dad was running toward Kevin. He had seen him on the horizon and knew immediately who it was. “My son has return. He’s come back to me.” Dad ran to Kevin. He hadn’t run in years and thought he’d keel over before he even reached his son. But he willed himself to get to his boy and he did and Kevin opened his mouth and began to offer a confession and Dad, well, he just kissed that confession away. It didn’t matter anymore. Kevin was home. Dad ordered robes and rings and clothes and food and dancing and drinks be all brought out and about. He dressed Kevin in the finest robes and put rings on his fingers to show the world that he, Kevin, was his son. “You were lost to me, lost to the family, lost from this place. You are here now. You were dead and you came back. Let us celebrate that you, my beloved, are home.” Biff, serious Biff, came down out of the upper fields later that night, as was his habit. He tended to work late and long, because who else would do that work if he didn’t? And he noticed something odd…no one was around and out in the fields or in the barns or at work. What’s going on? Then he heard the music and the laughter and the sounds of dancing and he smelled the food. What. Was. Happening? He was getting annoyed. He called over a servant and demanded an explanation. “Well sir,” replied the servant, “Kevin’s home and Dad was so happy he threw this party.” Biff was livid and refused to have anything to do with his brother or the party. What a slap in the face, a kick in the gut, a knife to the nether regions. “My stupid, idiot brother is home and they are throwing him a party. Heck, no one even came to get me to tell me he was back? I had to find out the hard way? Humiliating! And, that’s all my stuff that they are celebrating with! My food! My drink! My buildings and clothes. I earned all of this! It’s mine!” At that moment Dad came out of the main hall and saw his elder son standing in the shadows, clenched and rigid in anger. Dad’s heart went out to his raging son and he went over to invite him to come to the party. “No freakin’ way am I celebrating anything!” cried Biff. “All of these years I have worked for you! All of these years I have done my best to make this the greatest farm in the country. I watched you waiting for that idiot brother of mine, but I said nothing. And now that he’s back – which must mean he ran out of money – you throw him a party. You never even gave me so much as an afternoon tea! Why? Why him and not me?” “You brother,” said Dad, “was dead to us all and now he lives. You, my son, have always been with me. I truly appreciate all that you do, and all that you work for will be yours – no questions or contested will! All of mine will be yours. But there is room on this farm for all of us – the faithful, the stalwart, the returned and newly born. Let’s all come to this party and celebrate what we have. Easy to empathize with Biff; not only as people of faith but as a church community. We haven’t strayed, individually or communally, from Christ’s mandate to us: be a presence for and of good in the community. Feed the hungry, visit the lonely, help heal the sick, give to the poor. Worship me, live out your lives in my name and blessings shall be yours! We have been faithful…and yet when we see other church communities that, truth be told, that seem to be doing better: they are growing, stuff’s going on, they don’t seem to be so tired and frustrated, recognition is better than ours and we’ve been here going on two hundred and thirty years! We are Biff – working and working and what do we have to show for it? Parties are going on all around us and we’re still in the fields listening to the music, smelling the food, and wondering where our celebration is, our reward. It’s frustrating, it’s real, and it’s a dangerous mind/thought path to follow because, just like Biff, if we allow our “why not us?!” thoughts take a hold we truly will find ourselves outside of the party and forever looking in. This prodigal son story is not just about one man. It’s about many prodigals. Because one doesn’t have to leave the farm, per se, to become a prodigal, to become lost and risk losing everything! Like Kevin and Biff, however, we lose site of our purpose on the farm, ie, heaven, the manifestation of Christ’s work here on earth, when we begin to believe that it’s us doing the work. These new churches, they are like Kevin: full of good ideas and hopes and dreams. They meet a need in our community, a need in our faith community. We meet a need, too. A need that only we can fill. God Is Still Speaking: Chapter Five: Promoting Identity Haggai 1:15b – 2:9 Sunday, November 07, 2004 I shall spare you all my really bad impression of Barbra Streisand and refrain from launching into a scary version of Memories. You can thank me later. However, this isn’t some just random need of mine to sing overworked and overwrought songs poorly, but rather the subject of our fifth week of our God Is Still Speaking series titled, “Promoting Identity.” Or, as I have subtitled it, “It’s all in our mind and memories.” It should go without saying, although I’m going to say it anyway, that memories hold great power for us. Power that is good and power that is bad. Power that helps and power that hinders. Memories that empower and invigorate or blind and bind. And this got me to thinking – what is a memory, anyway? Why do we have them? What purpose do they serve? So, using the World Wide Web as my research library, I began an Internet search. What is memory? And what I found was just so cool. Long, involved, heavy on the medical science, but so fascinating. Memory, according to the Georgia Tech Biology course website, is an information processing system. There are three parts to the overall structure of our memories: sensory, short-term, and long-term. Some of these terms, I’m sure, are familiar. Sensory memories “act as buffers for stimuli received through the senses.” As sensory memory exists for each sensory channel: iconic memory for visual stimuli – images, mental pictures, something you see triggers something, or something you see creates another meaning. Echoic memory for hearing: what do you hear that you need to remember, or that triggers a memory in you? The sound of a person’s voice, a snippet of song, poem, the sound of screeching tires that may mean that “danger is near.” Haptic memory is the sensory memory for touch: the feel of silk, of warm, sun-touched grass, cool water, whatever it is that triggers a memory – or warns of danger. Fire – hot and it hurts and burns. Sharp objects cut. “Information is passed from sensory memory into short-term memory by attention, thereby filtering stimuli to only those which are of interest at a given time.” Meaning that our brain filters out all of the sensory information that bombard us continually, unless we pay attention to the stimuli enough for it to make an impression and be processed into our brain. For example, pews are hard to sit on. But, we don’t notice how hard it is until the sensory receptors in our posteriors inform the brain and create a haptic memory. Isn’t that so interesting? Think about how, on a minute by minute, or second by second basis how much stimuli by which we are flooded. Short-term memory, according to the same website, “acts as a scratch-pad for temporary recall of the information under process.” For instance, in order to understand what you read, or what you are hearing, you need to hold – in your mind – the beginning of what you either read or hear until the end of what it is you are reading or hearing. Otherwise, it would just be a stream of words that flow in and flow out, visually or aurally. “Short-term memory decays rapidly and also has a limited capacity – no duh! Chunking of information can lead to an increase in the short-term memory capacity. This is the reason why a hyphenated phone number is easier to remember than a single long number. The successful information of a chunk is known as closure. Interference often causes disturbance in short-term memory retention – if you are in the middle of trying to remember something and you are interrupted…how annoying! This accounts for the desire to complete the tasks held in short term memory as soon as possible. “Long-term memory is intended for storage of information over a long time. Information from the working memory is transferred to it after a few seconds. Unlike in working memory, there is little decay. Okay, if that’s true…and now I know why I forget where I put my car keys or what I had for dinner last night…because my short-term memory, via my unconscious input, doesn’t deem that important…why are there things from a long time ago that I can remember and some that I can’t? Well, the article continues and gets increasingly technical. But basically we have two-types of long-term memory: episodic and semantic. Episodic represents our memory of events and experiences and gives them a serial form: that’s why when we remember events that have happened to us it’s almost like a movie replaying in our heads…because it is like a movie. When we want to remember some episode of our life, a tiny portion of our brain gets activated – the part that holds that particular memory – and it flips on just like a movie projector and we watch it all over again. That can be good, or bad, depending upon the movie we are watching and the lens through which we watch it. Is it a good memory? Bad memory? A memory we use to cheer ourselves up, or to beat ourselves up? The brain stores it, it’s the mind that processes it. Isn’t this so cool? Semantic memory, is the structured part of our brain that helps us to remember facts, skills, concepts. How do we know how to shower? To speak? To drive? To do long division? We don’t have to relearn these things all over again. It’s like riding a bicycle, right? I’ve also read about what happens to our long-term memory. How we story our memories like storing things in an attic or closet. Some memories we use all the time. Some infrequently. Some either get lost or are deleted through brain decay (not a pleasant thought). Or, we need one memory, that triggers another memory, that triggers another memory…until we begin to wonder…yeesh, where did that come from? Or, after watching that contestant guy that’s been on Jeopardy for the past, oh, five years now (or at least it seems that way) you think, in awe, “How does he know that?” His mind must be exceptionally well ordered and labeled and he can retrieve what it is that he needs to know with speed and efficiency. Intelligence is not only the capacity to figure something out, but also the ability to store and access memories and use such memories appropriately. And we know people like that in real life, like that Jeopardy guy. People whose brains are amazing. “Gosh, how smart this person is to know all of that, to remember all that. My brain, my collection of memories looks like multiple skeins of snarled, tangled yarn in comparison. I can’t compete. I don’t want to even open my mouth for fear of sounding like a complete boob in comparison. I can’t remember anything and when I do, I fear my memories are lame and I don’t really want to share them. I’m so afraid of becoming like that person who has one or two memories, stories, that they share with everyone – repeatedly, repeatedly, repeatedly. Friday night I actually went out to the movies, which for me is amazing. I went to see “I (Heart) Huckabees,” which is a movie that you have to experience, rather than go and see. It’s hard to describe, but it’s labeled an “existential comedy,” which, I guess, is a smarty-pants way of saying that it’s about a bunch of people who are in the midst of crisises. Existential means, in the best dictionary defined sense of the term, is how people express the fact that they actually exist. Anyway, the movie is about how some people are wondering who they are, and what they are, and why they are, and why certain things have happened to them. So they hire these Existential Detectives, played by Dustin Hoffman and Lily Tomlin, to investigate their lives and help to solve these mysteries. Sounds odd, but it’s funny. Without giving too much away, there is one character that develops a severe crisis about who he is because he discovers that he can’t stop telling this one particular story about country singer Shania Twain. His whole sense of self revolves around this one, stupid story and when he realizes that, his whole world is shattered. It’s shattered because, along the way, he’s lost his connection with the greater universe – with what we would call God – because he fixated on this one memory, this one story to the exclusion of everything else and lost his way. His brain, if we think about his memory structure, probably would look like a vast, hanger-sized warehouse with only a shoebox stored within it. One story, one connection, one fixation, one soul lost. The people of Haggai’s time, especially in regards to their faith, also had one story, one memory that they clung to above all others. A memory that was beautiful and damning at the same time. A memory of what used to be, of what once was and will never be again. A memory that bound them to the past and that threatened, like the fellow in the movie, to overwhelm and crush them, a memory that would cause them to lose their connection with the One God because they didn’t realize how constricting it was. This memory was lodged deep within their collective long-term memory. The people of Haggai’s time were returning from exile. Their Golden Age of David and Solomon were no more. Their glorious temple, shattered, destroyed. It was gone, all of it gone. These people were returning from their exile to rebuild their lives, and they didn’t even know where to begin. There was so much work to do. They had to rebuild their homes, their farms, their businesses. Squatters had taken over family land and estates and they had to force these people out – although that was hard since the exiled had been gone for an entire generation. How do you claim land that you haven’t lived in for over 70 years? So the people had this to deal with, too. They had to rebuild their home life as well as rediscover who they were as God’s people. The culture they lived in while in exile made them different. They were influenced by outside thoughts and manners, etc. And then they come home and find their land also overrun by “outsiders.” It wasn’t the same. The temple, oh the temple. It was so beautiful. So busy, so full of life. Services were always full, coffers laden with offerings. How can we rebuild the Temple? How can we make things the way they were under Solomon, the good old days? It’ll never be the same. Too much work. Haggai says: you are focusing on the wrong memory. Not what used to be, but how God always works in our lives for the good. And God will continue to work in our lives, leading and guiding us, helping us to be a people once again. We can’t be held back by our memories here, either. We must be willing to give them up…or learn from them. Use them to help us to figure out how we are to grow in the here and now. We can’t hold on to these memories of the good old days or, like the man in the movie, we’ll be lost, disconnected from the reality of life. We will lose our sense of self, lose our connectedness with God, and not be attuned to what God is still trying to tell us today. And that is: don’t be afraid. Learn new ways. Put new memories into your brain. That’s what it’s there for. God Is Still Speaking: Chapter Four – Creating an Identity Brand Luke 19: 1-10 Sunday, October 31, 2004 Accents – the twang and tone and dipthongisms of a particular region – is probably the easiest and most reliable way of recognizing that a person is from “away,” that a person is not from around here. People can change their manner of dress: for example, how long does it take for someone who, say, is from the warm climes of the Deep South and who is used to wearing pastel colors or linen dyed in jewel tones…well, how long does it take a linen-totin’ guy or gal who moves to Maine to begin to be clad in flannel and Bean boots? Not very long. And yet as soon as that man, woman, or child opens his or her mouth – y’all know they be from away. But those who grew up and call home that place where Mr. or Mrs. Southern person – once they hear those dulcet tones – well, they could probably place that transplanted native within a few miles of where he or she was born. Like New England. People from outside of this six-state area say that there is a “New England Accent.” Well, we all know that’s not true; well, okay. Five and one-half of the six states (southwestern Connecticut is a suburb of New York and they all talk like they’re from the Bronx) drop their “r’s”. And that’s about it for the similarities. It’s more like we have about 60 different mini-regional accents that flag us, that let those who dare to try figure out where we are from. This was brought to my mind most fully this week after the Red Sox won the World Series. There was tons of media coverage, of course, of all of the long-suffering fans of the Old Town Team. But Boston, well, it was rife with media – a plague of media. And the Fenway Faithful – man, did they have a lot to say – well, that was finally happy and positive and joyous for once. And as soon as they began to talk, well to me, it was music. Ooo – I know where they are from! South Boston! Fall River! Cambridge! Southeastern Massachusetts. It left me a bit homesick, hearing all of those nasally voices and chants of “wicked ahhsum!” And it also left me a bit concerned: wow, do I really sound like that? Another thing I noticed, though, as I was watching a lot of Boston-linked TV – were the ads. There were a lot of Boston/Eastern Massachusetts-based company ads on either NESN or NECN. I mean, I had noticed it before, but after being inundated with all things Boston, I guess I was just that more sensitized, that more aware of it. And it scared me. Because as soon as I heard a particular jingle, even though I haven’t lived back “home” for quite a while now, I new all the words and the tune and could see the stupid thing playing in the DVD player in my head. For example, for those of us from Massachusetts, as soon as you hear, “Who do you call when your windshields’ busted? Call Giant Glass” Or, “Bernie and Phyl! Quality, comfort and price…that’s nice!” Argh! It’s always the ones in your head, the ones with the annoyingly familiar jingle that gets logged in your brain like a piece of popcorn logged in your teeth. And now it’s going to be stuck in my head for the rest of the day. See what I do for you people? Now I’m getting Maine ads stuck in my head. The Newick’s Seafood Restaurant jingle. As soon as I hear those opening notes, I know it’s Newick’s. Oakhurst Dairy: the natural goodness of Maine. Renny’s. They don’t have these ads back in Massachusetts. They are regional. They are identifiable. And, for good or for bad, makes us think of Maine. Hmmm. Think of Boston, of Massachusetts, of Maine, of home. If these often cheesy, sometimes endearing, always faintly annoying ads and jingles can, with accuracy and immediacy, help us to identify not only the company and its product, but also the locale, and maybe even illicit warm and fuzzy feelings…hmmm…what else could ads and jingles and brands do? If I can be transported back 30 years or so after only hearing a few notes…wow, that is a lot of power, isn’t it? That’s why such ads are so effective, isn’t it? With very little effort the brain makes that leaping connection and knows, without a doubt, what this particular “brand” and all of its accouterments signify. What other aspects of our lives, aside from the strictly commercial, does this kind of “branding” behavior work? Are there life logos or songs or jingles or brands that make us say, “Yep – I know what this is about.” What about church? Are there logos and jingles that are associated with church that when you see it and hear it you know that, “yep – for better or for worse we all pretty much know what this is all about.” There’s a big logo here right now, in this sanctuary, that tells us – and those who aren’t Christian, “Yeah! This is what we’re about.” Any guesses? Well, it’s the cross. The cross is our logo. Our universal, corporate brand. The cross tells everyone: this is who I am. I’m a Christian. I believe Jesus was born, lived, and died on a cross. This symbol of torment and death we have taken and made our own, made into a symbol of eternal life, of eternal love, of salvation and grace. That which was seen as the end we now see as the beginning. This is the cross. This is who we are. Just as we have logos, we have jingles. We call them hymns. Hymns that, when we hear those first few notes: boom! We’re there! We know these songs, these hymns. We know the words. Even people who aren’t traditional church-goers know these hymns, they’ve become part of our culture. “Amazing Grace,” anyone? “A Mighty Fortress is Our God?” And they tell us, these prayers set to music, exactly what it is that they are all about. And what we, if we sing them with conviction, believe as well. When we sing these hymns we are claiming them as our own, that they speak for us as we sing them out loud. Our logo and our jingles: the cross and our hymns. And I don’t blame you if that seems a little off. Slightly ooky and maybe a tad sacrilegious. Logos and jingles? Seems so corporate and commercial. Seems a bit cynical and overly worldly, maybe? That business lingo should not be a part of the purity of church, that goes with the other parts of our lives that have no bearing on this part of our life. Well, then you get into the argument that our lives in church should be no different than our lives out of church…but I do concede the point. There is an uncomfortableness with using this kind of language to talk about church. Makes it sound like a capitalistic business. It makes the whole process seem less sacred, somehow. Less Jesus-like. Because Jesus wouldn’t talk about logos and jingles and all of that kind of stuff. Well, again…I’m not sure about that. Jesus may not have used the terminology. But he certainly knew what logos and jingles were all about. Our story in Luke this morning was a great example of the initiating power of logos…initiating a connection and conversation…a way that God speaks to people, grabbing their attention before they consciously knew that they wanted their attention grabbed. Zacchaeus had to see Jesus Jesus' logo – himself How did he respond. Us individually, our church? What is our logo? How do we get others to see us? God Is Still Speaking – Chapter Three: “Come to the Party!” Matthew 22: 1-10 (11-14) Sunday, October 24, 2004 OUTLINE FOR INTERACTIVE SERMON I. Retell the Scripture story with modern language: Pretend there is a feast at the front of the room Choose some slaves Have “slaves” pretend to invite invisible people who won’t come. Have some slaves “die” Have remaining “slaves” hand out rhythm instruments to everyone, the good and the bad. II. Explain the allegorical meanings behind the subject: God – King Jesus – Son Invited Guests – Jews/Israel Wedding Feast – a joyous occasion. What the Kingdom of heaven will be like: bounty and beauty and happiness and abundance. That’s what the Kingdom of heaven will be like. God’s Kingdom on earth – one of utter happiness and overflowing wealthy of utmost joy Slaves – church workers, the faithful, the martyrs Others – regular folk, gentiles, who come to believe (vs. 11-14) The guy without a wedding garment – lazy faithful person who’s unprepared to truly be a Christian or follower of Jesus III. Who do we choose to invite? And why? And do we? Do we tend to limit ourselves in our invitations because we don’t think that “so ‘n’ so” would be interested? Do we limit ourselves because we don’t think that we are good enough to offer an invitation? Do we have a clue as to who and what we’re inviting people to be a part of? IV. When we hear that both “good and bad” people were invited, how does that make us feel? What does that mean? How do we dare determine one’s “goodness” or “badness?” Is it our job to make those determinations? Or is it our job to bring all people to Christ Jesus, regardless of who we think they are? What other kinds of “invitations” can we offer? How else do we invite people to join us? Is it just worship oriented, or are there other opportunities for invitation? V. Who are the “least” in our community? How do we serve them? Once upon a time there was a King. He was a great and powerful King and had a wonderful, flourishing Kingdom. He had lots of wealth, the fields of the farms of his Kingdom were fruitful and multiplied. There was peace in the land and all who belonged to this King and loved him, as he loved his subjects, were inordinately happy. This King had a son. The son was equally loved by the people of the Kingdom. The son, under the watchful gaze of the King and the Kingdom, grew up into a fine young man. All rejoiced! Yay! One day the son was old enough to be wed. A very nice young woman from a very nice family was arranged to be married to the prince. The King, ever thoughtful, had decided long ago that status and wealth were not hallmarks of happiness and kindness. Therefore he would never agree to force anyone, his son or an eligible young woman, into a marriage just for political or economic gain. These two young people, the prince and the soon-to-be princess They actually fell in love with each other, which thrilled and amazed the good citizens of the Kingdom! All were happy and rejoiced yet again. The King, wanting to celebrate their collective good fortune, decide to throw an elaborate, expensive, and amazingly wonderful wedding feast. This would be the feast to end all feasts – not because the King wanted to impress people with his wealth and power. Oh, no! He just wanted to have a good time and welcome friends and the people of his Kingdom into his greater family. He wanted to show them the depth and breadth and height of his euphoria and love. And what better way to do that than with a part? So, the King dropped a chunk of change and had fatted calves and oxen and lambs and chickens and fish and grains and veggies and spices and cheese and dried fruit and nuts and wine and goat’s milk and all other foods put together to create a massive, laden feast. And everyone in the King’s realm was happy. Yay! Well, the King, when the prince finally proposed to his sweetie, the King sent out invitations to all sorts of royalty and leaders of the neighboring Kingdom. “My son is getting hitched! I’ve prepared a huge get together, a massive wedding feast in honor of this special day and these special people. Y’all come!” The invitations went out and time went by. Hmph. No RSVPs. No acknowledgment that the invitations even arrived. Hmph, thought the King again. How rude! Here is this wonderful event, this wonderful place, with all of these wonderful people, all set and ready to go…all set and ready to honor my son and my son’s bride…all set and ready to go…and not a one of these people I’ve – no, make the “we’ve” – my kingdom has invited them, too…not a one has walked through those doors. So, he sent out his slaves to remind the guests of this important event…of the excitement and joy awaiting the guests should they just venture through the doors. But those invited guests…my, oh, my…they ignored the words of invitation and welcome extended to them from the king. In fact one fellow told one of the slaves that he had important business to attend to – he had money to make! And thus didn’t want to take the time to walk through the doors of the wedding hall. Another fellow said he had stuff to take care of on the farm – he had things to do at home, his fields needed tending and the kids needed help…the usual. He was too busy to spend any time in celebration. The other slaves…well…they didn’t fair so luckily. They went out to remind people of their invitations. These slaves were mocked, treated poorly, ignored. Others were hassled, abused, and some were even killed! When the king found out he was furious! It’s one thing to ignore the invitation, it’s another to harass and murder those who work on behalf of me and in my name! So he gathered his substantial army and invaded the dis-invited’s city and to it laid waste. The murderers were destroyed. “That’ll teach people not to RSVP!” he thought. But what next? All of this food and no one to eat it; all of this fun, and no one with which to share. He asked those slaves who were left to then go out into their city, onto the streets, and invite anyone and everyone they could find. It didn’t matter who they were – the good and the bad were asked to join the King in the celebration of his son’s future. So all were gathered into the hall and all made merry, the good and the bad, together. God Is Still Speaking: Chapter Two – Religion and Culture Luke 18: 18-30 Sunday, October 17, 2004 Two weeks ago now, as you know, I was at the Maine Criminal Justice Academy in Vassalboro, receiving training for my certification as a Law Enforcement Chaplain. The training was interesting and informative, and there was a lot of free coffee. Of course there were donuts, too, but I didn’t partake…much. And while the training and all was important to me as a chaplain, what was occurring there was of even more interest to me as a Christian. For once it was firmly established that all the attendees of this course claimed Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior…well, that’s when things began to cut loose and the party got started. Have you ever spent, intentionally, a week with a room full of evangelical and Pentecostal Christians? Have you ever spent a week, intentionally, with a group of people (in my case, men), who were free and easy in their faith? Who weren’t afraid to claim, publicly and loudly – sometimes too loudly – that Jesus was their Savior, that God was the Supreme Being in their lives, and that the Holy Spirit wasn’t some vague construct or wispy Holy Ghosty that we only paid attention to once a year at Pentecost. These were grown men, many of them hardened military veterans and/or police officers with years and years of experience. You would think that these men would be cynical and jaded. You would think that these men, who have seen the worst of the worst of humanity, who have seen death and illness and poverty and the wretched excess and excuse of a life lived in addiction and despair, you would think that they would boldly and with great certainty state that they have the empirical proof that there was no such thing as God. And yet that is not the case. These hardened men, with emotion and thanksgiving, praised God for the grace that they have received and, boldly and with great certainty, claimed themselves to be witnesses for Christ Jesus, and as such, would preach the Gospel to everyone. It was an amazing week to sit with people who weren’t embarrassed to claim to be Christian. To sit with big, burly men who could talk about their faith with great passion during lunch in the Police Academy cafeteria and not cringe, who didn’t look over their shoulders to see if anyone heard them talk about Jesus, and who didn’t put on a fake smile or roll their eyes if someone else wanted to wax poetic about the power of the Holy Spirit moving in their lives. It was great, it was inspiring and invigorating, and I’m not sure how long it’s magic will last before I’ll be back to talking softly about Jesus to people I’m pretty sure won’t make fun of me. “What? You’re a minister, aren’t you? Ordained and everything! It’s hard for you to talk about your faith in public?” True, I am ordained. Yes, what I do for a living should scream stridently that I believe in Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior…but I’ve also been brought up in the Congregational Church (our unofficial motto is “Don’t ask, don’t tell, and don’t touch me”), my family tree has been rooted in New England for going on 400 years, and I’ve had the uncomfortable and unhappy experience of being yelled at and mocked by strangers…and even by some nuts from that family tree, for being a Christian. I’ve said this many a time now, based on my readings, the good work last year by our Stewardship Committee after reading the book, The Once and Future Church by Loren Meade, and by my own personal experience: we are no longer living in a culture or society that implicitly or explicitly supports us as a Christian Church. Where as society used to support the Christian Church as normative, as THE only viable and majority religion, it doesn’t do so anymore. In fact it almost seems like the culture and society that surrounds us now takes a perverse delight in being “ecumenical” in a way that doesn’t lift and support other faith traditions as much as it enjoys confounding and hampering the faith practices and traditions of the Christian churches in its community. Ah, but perhaps I’m projecting. Okay, so we know this about the world around us now. It no longer tacitly supports us…if it ever really did. The culture no longer “makes” Christians for us either: Bible isn’t taught in public schools, can’t sing Christmas Carols, can’t hang the Ten Commandments in a publicly owned building for fear those religious commandments may offend someone’s sensibilities. People have to work on Sundays and all manner of sporting events for our youth are scheduled during church and worship time. I sometimes think, “Ah, if I could only have been working 40, 50 years ago…how much easier my work would be.” How easy it would be to live and work in a time in which the culture supported religion. Or even better, to live in a time where and when the culture WAS religion! Oh, to live in Jesus' time, or Paul’s time, when miracles were as common as hot, desert rocks and the faith was fervently and easily lived out and people didn’t laugh at your or mock you or call you names or blame you for 2,000 years of history – because that history had yet to occur. To live in a time of prophets, like Jeremiah, who had a direct DSL link to God, and who told Jeremiah to tell the people what to do and how to live and how God loved us and will always be our God – and to do so in God’s own words, even! Jeeze, talk about God Is Still Speaking…. Ah yes, here comes the inevitable twist, the concern raised. And that is, even in Jesus's time, with the living, fully human-fully God hybrid present 24/7, it was still difficult to follow him. It was still hard to claim ones faith. It was still hard to be, publicly, a disciple of Jesus. The young man, the rich man, comes before Jesus. Now the other Synoptic Gospels – Mark and Matthew – also have this story, with some variations. One of them was when Jesus met this young man Jesus was taken with him – he really liked him. The kid was lovable. He came before Jesus and said, “Good Teacher, tell me what I need to know. Tell me what I need to do to get to heaven.” Jesus, still liking this kid though, heard the flattery that wasn’t quite flattery. The young man recognized that Jesus was…pure. That he was something “other,” that he was beyond all of the other teachers and religious leaders that he encountered. And since he was a wealthy man, he probably met a lot of them in his day. Jesus counters: “I’m not ‘good;’ only God is good. And because God is good and I do all things through God, well, hence is my ability to do anything that hints at goodness. So, what’s on your mind?” So the young man tells him. Openly, honestly. “I need to know what I must do to get to heaven.” “Have you done what you were, and are, supposed to do,” asks Jesus. He was, of course, referring to the Law of Moses, the Commandments and the rules of the young man’s faith. “Have you done what you are supposed to do?” “Yes,” the man answers simply and without boasting. “I’ve done all of this since childhood.” “Well,” says Jesus, “there is one more thing you need to do. I challenge you to give up all that you possess. I challenge you to give up your world goods, your money. Give up all of this to the poor and then come and follow me.” The young man was aghast. “You want me to give up everything? All that I have? All of that stuff that makes me who I am? All of that stuff against by which I know who I am? You want me to give that up?” And the young man walked away devastated for he had much money and he couldn’t give it up. Jesus then made his famous analogy about wealth and camels and needles’ eyes. But it was more to it, more to his words than just a commentary on monetary wealth. It wasn’t so much the wealth as it was the fear that underlined the man’s desire to cling to his wealth. Jesus challenged him, dared him, this young man, to give up the very stuff that held him back from publicly claiming Christ as his Lord and Savior. Jesus challenged him to give up his fear, his concern, his need to be accepted by the culture as a wealth, powerful man. Jesus challenged him to give all of that up. He dared him to abandon his soul to God, to say to everyone who knew him – “I’m going to be a follower of Jesus,” and not care about what others thought or about the consequences. He, the rich man, couldn’t do it. Those gathered with Jesus that day were just as upset as Jesus, but for different reasons. If this man, this rich young man who was, ironically, a good man, couldn’t lay public claim to Christ, if this man who did everything he was supposed to couldn’t make that final step…didn’t want to take that final step…then what can be done? If this good man can’t do it, how can the rest of us. And Jesus replies, simply, “Nothing is impossible with God. If we believe God can do it, if we have real trust and faith in God, then it can be done. If we pay lip service to God and cling to our old ways, our past, our uncertainty, our fear, our silence, our unwillingness to say to the public around us, ‘I AM GOD’S!’ then nothing will happen and we’ll end up just walking away broken hearted.” Peter, giving voice to the collective doubt and confusion – I think that’s Peter’s specialty – says, “But, but, but – when will we know when the impossible will happen? We’ve given up everything to follow you.” And Jesus replies, in so many word, “Relax. You’ll know. For all that you do in my name and in the name of the Lord God, you will receive the impossible.” How do we lay claim to Christ? How do we, as a church, publicly claim him? How do we publicly claim Christ to the community? The sign outside says we’re a church – a Christian church. How do people in this community know that to be a fact, know that to be true? How do we abandon our own fear and learn to say, I am a Christian? How do we do that? What are some of the claims that Jesus has made upon us that we don’t necessarily like and try to, like the rich young man, ignore, hoping they’ll go away? All things are possible with God. Let us await, like Peter, for the impossible, for we’ll know when that happens. God Is Still Speaking Chapter One: Our UCC Identity: There is more light and truth to yet be revealed Matthew 5: 1-16 Sunday, October 10, 2004 Today we begin the first chapter to our seven-part sermon series, God Is Still Speaking (or GISS). This series works in partnership with the video program from our denomination, God Is Still Speaking. Again, as I mentioned during our announcements this morning, we’ll be playing each “chapter” in the Vestry during Fellowship. We hope that you’ll watch and think about the questions it asks us about how God is Still Speaking in each of our lives and how we, as God’s people, respond to God’s voice. And that’s the $64 question, isn’t it? How does God speak to us? In what manner, shape and form? A still, small voice? An eerily timed phone call, note or email message? Does God speak to us in the majesty of creation – the vibrant colors of fall, the cold icy hush of winter? Does God speak to us in the rebirth of spring, the warming grace of long summer twilight? Do we hear God speaking in the sound of children’s laughter, a Bach cantata, the familiar chords of a rock and roll song? Are these all measures of God’s presence in our lives? But what about the times when life ain’t so grand and we face turmoil and danger, sleepless nights and roiling stomachs? What about health problems, financial woes, death and loss, the end of relationships or the straining of the ones we value most? What about those times when everything seems to be going wrong and the only right thing that’s happening in our lives is our ability to recognize how things seem to be crashing down around our ears? How can God possibly be speaking to us in the midst of this mess? How can we possibly hear God speaking to us over the frantic beating of our own hearts? These are important questions to ask ourselves, aren’t they? Because it’s sure is easy to see how God is moving and shaking in our lives when everything is puttering along like a well-oiled machine, but hard to see when life seems to be circling down the ol’ hopper. We live in an age, too, where we are strongly encouraged by the culture and by modern psychology and Oprah and all of those other types of things, to look at our lives critically, in a vaguely self-involved, self-critical fashion. What is our life like, really? What can we do to make it better, emphasis on the “we.” How can we take control, take charge, make the necessary alterations, find those boot straps and tug insistently upon them, investigate our own needs and wants and desires, and then focus all of our energies upon ourselves and, as a result, turn our lives into public service announcements on how to grasp, cling to, and thus live the good life. That’s what we are supposed to do, right? We are supposed to be daring, cut throat, laser-light centered on what we can do to make our lives brilliant, shiny, and much emulated and envied. We are to be that light, shiny above the dregs and bottom feeders of society, a torch-light of capitalistic hope, a beacon rising above the breakers, directing all to the safety of a life luxuriously lived, avoiding the rocks of care and fear. A city on a hill, a light lifted upon a bushel basket for all to see, banishing the darkness to the dank and dirty corners of the world. That’s what we’re supposed to do, according to the world. All we have to do is switch on the TV or read a magazine or the newspapers and we can see that is so. After all, who are the ones lifted up and honored and valued? “My Big, Fat Obnoxious Boss.” “How to Survive by eating disgusting things and humiliating myself for money.” “Learn how to be a wretch to my co-workers so I can be a famous billionaire.” Is that how God is Still Speaking? Is that how God speaks to us? Is that how God wants God’s light shining in the world? Of course not – that’s a pretty stupid, rhetorical question. And yet…and yet, how delicious the world’s offerings can appear, huh? How delicious, how naughty, how harmless and fun the world’s offerings can be…how caught up we can get in them. The light of the city on the hill dims and wavers, the light on the bushel flickers and smokes, casting shadows…the darkness encroaches from the corners. What kind of light are we offering back to the world – a mere reflection of itself or the mag-light of God’s loving grace? And how do we know the difference? We aren’t the only Christians in history to be faced with such dilemmas. Christians throughout history have had to step carefully through the minefields of culture and society and life. They had to tiptoe through wars, pestilence, and poverty. They had to struggle to worship an image and message of God that was, more often than not, co-opted by a powerful church and/or ruling hierarchy that cared very little for God’s children and more for the power they wielded. The important, marvelous thing about this most dire of situations, was that there were people living in the midst of this chaos and strife, people of faith, unimposing, normal and regular folk who knew, in their most secret heart, that this life that was presented to them, that was laid out before them, was not the life God intended them to life. God was speaking to them, God was moving in them, and God was letting them know that this was not how a Christian, a person of faith, was supposed to live. People like that, with the courage to let the world know that God was speaking in their lives, have popped up repeatedly over the past few millennia. They saw themselves as lights, as cities on hills, as beacons of hope in a dark, dark world and struggled to let others know of their passionate response to how God was speaking and moving and acting in their lives. They dared to show it. Lucky for us. Again, such people have existed over the past 2000+ years of our faith. But for us, for those of us who claim membership in the United Church…of Christ, we tend to concern ourselves with a small number from the relatively near past. Our United Church…of Christ history is rather involved. If any of you are interested in knowing dates and names and whatnot, I’ll be happy to direct you to the appropriate resources. Ah, yes. Our history. Who were the people who looked within themselves and could not sit silently by any longer, acknowledging how God, how Christ Jesus, how the Holy Spirit were screaming in tandem within their souls, demanding to be heard, demanding to be loosed into the world. We, in the United Church of Christ, lay claim to as our church, our denominational ancestors the guy who pretty much started it all, Martin Luther. Luther basically said to the Roman Catholic Church – “Enough! You can’t buy salvation. You can’t buy grace. God loved me, us, first and because of that love we are saved. Because of our faith we are justified in that love. Christ is the head of the church, not you people. God is speaking to me, telling me that we cannot go on like this, crushing the will and spirit of the people. God is speaking through me. It is time that we respond in kind.” There were other German Church Reformers who picked up Luther’s banner and ran with it. There were other theologians, too, such as the Frenchman John Calvin, and others, who (with some differences, of course) said that God continues to reveal God’s self to us. We cannot be trapped by stale dogma and tired liturgy. We cannot be deadened by rote worship or by fear of threats from a hierarchical structure of Church that bears very little resemblance to the small, vital, vibrant church of St. peter and St. Paul. We need to be a church, anchored by tradition, but not bound by it. We need to be that light and life in the world, constantly reforming and constantly listening to God’s revelation, and constantly responding to that revelation. Time marched on. The German Reformers worked in German…and there was quite a bit of turmoil as the old tried to hold on and political machines began to work their mojo, looking for secular power along with spiritual and divine guidance. The Reformation moved all through Europe, and into England, where Reformers sought to purify the Church of England. The political powers that be dug in their heels and a group of reformers, realizing that God’s word wasn’t able to be heard in the political climate that existed, broke off or separated from the CoE and, after some fits and starts, set sail for the New World. John Robinson, the pastor of these Pilgrims, urged them, “as they departed, to keep their minds and hearts open to new ways. God, he told them, ‘has yet more light and truth to break forth out of his holy Word.’” The Puritans soon followed, and soon a flood gate was opened. Hundreds of people braved the gales and fury of the North Atlantic to come to an unsettled place, not only for economic freedom, but for a freedom to worship as God directed them to worship. They saw the light, so to speak, and grabbed a old of that light and made it their own. Again, time passed. The Congregationalists were firmly established in the Northeast. Other denominations began to take root. One was called, plainly, the Christian Church. Founded by James O’Kelly, it was a reaction to what he saw was an overindulgence in ritual…again. He wanted to a return to a simplified form of worship. In the early 1700s and in the 1800s, followers of the German Reformers began to flood into the growing colonies. They were members of what eventually became the German Reformed Church of the United States, and the Evangelical Synod in North America. They settled in the south in the mid-west. These churches were not as independently formed as their Congregational and Christian counterparts and were more likely to bind themselves together to form a more unified whole. How did these churches ever get together? Why did they get together? How did we get the United Church…of Christ out of these disparate bodies of faith? It wasn’t easy, and it wasn’t quick. It took time, lots of prayer, lots of emotion, and some dissension. Because God spoke and the people listened. That’s the short-hand answer. Obviously it is much more convoluted…especially since a speaking God had many ears to filter into and many hearts to sway…and many minds to change. These churches, the Congregational Church, the Christian Church, the Reformed Church and the Evangelical Church, eventually gravitated to becoming, by 1957 – see how long that took, from 1620 to 1957! – the United Church of Christ. It’s because of the common values that each church held were far stronger than those values that kept them apart. They had a common light that drew them together, a common light of God’s saving, grace-filled, forgiving and abundant love that bound them together, giving them a reason to come together. What is it that we believe, that brings us together? (read list of beliefs) What are some of the things that exemplified that light? (read list of firsts) These are the things our forebears were able to do. This is how God spoke to them. The challenge before us is to continue to pick up where they left off. The mantel is ours, the light is ours. How will it shine? How with the light and truth be revealed? How will God speak to us? Times are hard. The culture that surrounds us is indifferent to us. The culture around us challenges us to reveal our light, challenges us to our claim that we are a city that exists on a hill, a beacon to all who seek God’s love. Let’s begin. Kim’s Corner October, 2004 Hey y’all. Did you have a good summer? Aside from a minor, yard-care related injury and a constant, summer-long battle against mildew, mine was pretty darn good. Summertime...it’s a wonderful thing. Ah, but summer is over, and it’s time to knuckle down, think somber and sober thoughts, and get back into work mode. Unless you’re retired, and then you can pretty much do what you want to do. However, even if you are retired or live a life of leisure, the slowly diminishing hours of daylight, the snap of coolness and the smell of woodstove smoke permeating the twilight hours reeks of fall and of the oncoming winter. Because of these seasonal clues we are culturally, and maybe even biologically, compelled to leave the hedonistic wackiness of summer behind and pick up the mantel of seriousness and get back into the act of living, leaving the art of living for us to embrace next summer. However, the little worker bees that populate this church have not been idle this summer! Far from! Not only did we have a Summer Fair and Art Show Luncheon (that defied all odds and did well in spite of a monsoon); we had Vacation Bible School and a whole host of fellowship events. We still even had worship (grins). One of the things that the usual group of worker bees were buzzing around was our impending God Is Still Speaking campaign. Much has been made of it in past newsletters, and please check out the pages of The Witness for another article by the Maries on this subject. I’ll be beginning a sermon series this month, a series created in conjunction with the First Congregational Church in Waterville’s pastors, Alice and David Anderman. It’s based on the seven chapters raised by UCC’s Interim Executive of the Stillspeaking Initiative, Ron Buford, in his excellent video program on God Is Still Speaking. Each chapter raises a question regarding who we are as a people of faith and as a denomination and challenges us to articulate and form an answer. Because basically, if we’re so hot to grow our church and evangelize our communities, then it’s vital to first know who we are before we can begin to invite people to join us. The series, which begins on Sunday, October 10 and runs until the last Sunday in Ordinary Time (which means the Sunday before the first Sunday of Advent), will raise up these concerns. The chapters are as follows: Oct. 10: Chap 1 UCC Heritage Oct. 17: Chap 2 Religion & Culture Oct. 24: Chap 3 Come to the Party Oct. 31: Chap 4 Creating an Identity Brand Nov. 7: Chap 5 Promoting Identity Nov. 14: Chap 6 Becoming an Inviting &Welcoming Church Nov. 21: Chap 7 Where do we go from here? We’ll have a time of brief discussion about these chapters during Coffee Fellowship for those who are interested. Also, you’ll be seeing some new graphics floating around the church, too. New ads, new posters, new nametags...maybe a sign or two out on the front lawn. You’ll see the Gracie Allen phrase which, over the past few years, has become the United Church of Christ’s verbal logo. Ah, and speaking of logos...you’ll be noticing something that looks like a comma. Probably because it is a comma. In fact (gasp!) there’s a comma located in this very article. Wanna know what that comma is about? Come to worship and find out. God is still speaking...let us come together to listen. , Kim’s Corner July and August, 2004 Whoever thought that vaudeville, radio, and television comedienne Gracie Allen would recently become our denomination’s favorite theologian? Perhaps you’ve seen evidence of the United Church of Christ’s amore of Allen hanging on the walls of our, and other, UCC churches over the past year or so. These posters (and other similar paraphernalia) consist of a bright red background, an oversized comma floating either in the fore- or background, and the words of Ms. Allen, that say in darkly bold, proud letters (and allow me to paraphrase), that one should not put a period where God has put a comma. Then, next to the insignia of the United Church of Christ proclaims the statement, “God is still speaking.” Huh. What exactly does that all mean? Commas, periods – how has parsing the English language become an aspect of the hallowed realm of theology? And what is, exactly, “God is still speaking?” Does that mean to imply that God, at some point in human history, may have actually stopped speaking? Or rather does it mean that we, as people who allegedly profess themselves to be folk of faith, may have stopped listening to what God has to say? Hmmm. “Don’t put a period where God has put a comma.” “God is still speaking.” Okay, sure, right, yeah. What of it? “What of it” is this: the paraphernalia and posters and the words of Ms. Allen all add together to become a rather clever and (at least as proven by test markets across the country) successful advertising and marketing campaign that has been launched by the United Church of Christ. A campaign that has been designed to introduce ourselves to the good people of this good nation that we, the United Church of Christ, exist and are a viable, alive, relevant, Christ-centered, faithful and faith-filled religious denomination. And that perhaps...no, make that we are the faith community that you – the people of this good nation – have been searching for. This campaign also serves to remind us, those of us who are members of the United Church of Christ, who and whose we are. We are a denomination, grounded in Scripture, supported by faith traditions that reach back to the time of the Protestant Reformation, and yet are still able to respond to God’s eternal revelations about God’s self that continue to make themselves known in our present-day world. But why a marketing campaign? Isn’t that, well, a bit commercially and capitalistically suspect? I suppose, to use the lingo of advertising, it would be a questionable practice if we didn’t believe so deeply and fiercely in the “product” that we are trying to let the world in on. And also, by engaging in this campaign, we are seeking to follow the example of Jesus the Christ, but instead of using his techniques – which were radical for First Century Palestine, we are using technologies available to us today. And what, exactly, are we trying to sell by this marketing and advertising campaign? Why, the same thing Jesus was advertising, through his preaching and teaching and miracles and healing: God’s saving and redeeming love. God is still speaking. We in the UCC are called to listen to God’s word...and help others to hear God speak to them as well. You, gentle readers, will be hearing a lot more about the “God is still speaking” campaign this fall. The Maine Conference of the United Church of Christ will be working actively with area churches, ours included, as we seek to let people in Maine and beyond know that the United Church of Christ is alive and well, and still listening to what God is saying. Kim’s Corner June, 2004 June, moon, goon, spoon, spittoon, loon, balloon, maroon. Blech. Good – I’ve proven I can rhyme. Now what? I hate writer’s block. What to write about, what words of wisdom to impart or share? Shrug. I dunno. What can I say about the Church, God, Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit, and the month of June? Hmmm. June is rather an interesting month. Not quite hazy enough to be considered one of the months of those lazy days of summer. But, it’s also nice enough to want to take advantage of its relative warmth and sunny and balmy breezes. And I betcha that there isn’t a color that exists that is as pretty as a deep blue June sky. Well, that’s all nice and everything, but what does it have to do with the church? Nothing much except that the life of our church continues on, even as our longing to bask in our short summer and our desire to slow down grows. We’ll still have worship, though committee meetings will wind down...we’ll have our VBS in July and our Summer Fair and the Art Show luncheon for which to prepare. We’ll have our Church School Picnic and Choir Sunday to celebrate...we’ll have a wedding and new members will be joining into our church family. See – we’re busy. Lots doing. Come and join us as we celebrate summer in Winthrop at our church. Hmmm. Let’s see – what rhymes with “busy?” First Sunday of Summer Hours: Sunday, July 4, 2004 9:30 AM Communion will be celebrated! You are cordially invited to, on this Fourth of July Sunday, to pick your favorite hymns for fun, faith-filled holiday worship service! Please contact the Church Office (377-2063) and let us know which hymn you’d like to hear. We can’t guarantee all will be chosen – majority rules! So, vote early and vote often! |