Worship: We gather once a week at 10:00am on Sunday to worship God and hear his word. We have a faith background in the United Church of Christ and the United Methodist Church and use parts of each order of worship. We welcome people of faith no matter how young or old.
The Federated Church recognizes two (2) sacraments: Baptism and Communion. Communion is offered on the first (1st) Sunday of every month and is open to all persons of faith. Anyone wishing to be baptized or have an infant baptized should contact the pastor at the church office.
SERMONS
Mark 1:14-20“and Live God’s Word with Compassionate Service”
January 22, 2012
This is not just any Sunday but it is Annual Meeting Sunday, that one day of the year in which we collectively take stock of the year just passed and look forward with optimism. What sets this Annual Meeting apart from any other in the 169-year history of this church is that we are voting today on a Mission Statement. The hard working and devoted committee took your feedback and crafted and wordsmithed and attempted to get the most bang for the buck out of 14 distinct words. They came up with a singles sentence that says who and whose we are and what we about doing.
This is a church that prides itself in encouraging faith without dictating what that faith looks like. This has been our blessing and sometimes our great challenge. As individuals, no one, thank goodness, asks us for our personal mission statement most of the time or at least we don’t call it that. Instead we do expect some version of a statement from our candidates for public office and often from students applying to college. For the rest of us, we rarely put out there for the world to hear what it is we are trying to do with the finite years of our life on earth. But when you bring all these lives together in one place, united in a desire to put God at the center, it is important to figure out what we are going to do about it. And that’s where our Mission Statement comes in.
Today we wrap up our three-part discussion on the words of our proposed Mission Statement that we will vote on in about an hour or so. This final part begins with that simple little word “and” so that we are clear that yes, “We welcome all. Yes, we follow Jesus Christ together and, yes; we “live God’s Word with compassionate service.”
One part of these final seven words speaks of what we are to do and the other part tells us how. It is the recognition that as a community of faith we are to always have our brothers and sisters down the street and around the world and everywhere in between at the heart of our actions. This means that we exist as an organization for a purpose greater than ourselves. It is tempting to worry about the church itself, focusing on bricks and mortar, for example. But the purpose of these buildings that we have been entrusted with is that they are to provide us with the space needed to help our world. Jesus’ own words and works were all about building the beloved Kingdom. Here in today’s passage from Mark’s Gospel we are witnesses to the start of Jesus’ ministry on earth. It is here in Galilee that the first thing Jesus does in his work is to invite others to join him in this new thing he is doing. The purpose of church is that together we are to live out the proclamation of Jesus. The good news that is to be spread is for all people and here we witness that it takes more than Jesus alone to do this. We are still about spreading this good news. To live into the words and the Word means that we must move beyond the specific letters on a page and become engaged in the world around us. Jesus did not sit on a throne and issue proclamations that he then expected others to carry out. He was in the business of interacting with the grieving, the hungry, the sick, the dying, the societal outcasts and the power elite. He walked the walk, not just talked the talk. Our faith is intended to be worn on our sleeve if that means that we roll up that sleeve in order to proclaim with our actions and sometimes the sweat of our brow what God’s Word is, all wrapped up in these words from Matthew’s Gospel:
“‘You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ The entire law and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments.” (Matthew 22:36-40)
Today is a great day for us to look at how we use our physical, financial and human resources as a church to love God and love our neighbors. I would encourage us to prayerfully and boldly figure out how we as a church will serve God’s people with compassion. Compassion is what distinguishes going through the motions with truly hurting with those who are hurt and serving means finding ways to end suffering. To serve with compassion is to act with kindness, empathy and mercy. Where can we as a church be making such a mark? We must seek out ways every day to live God’s word with compassionate service. That should be what we are about.
How will we serve, knowing that we are capable as a group of committed people of faith of accomplishing so much more collectively than we are individually? This most likely calls for a two-prong approach. What can we do to serve this community and what can we do to serve the broader world? In every decision we make today and from this point forward, the entirety of this mission statement, should it be adopted, must be used as a gauge. How will we live into, “To welcome all, follow Jesus Christ together, and live God’s Word with compassionate service?”
This most definitely moves us beyond Sunday morning. Transformation of our world begins with our own transformation into people who walk the walk. Worship is not the destination. This time we are together each week is when we are rejuvenated and strengthened for the rest of the week’s work of Kingdom building. On the topic of not making every decision hinge on Sunday worship, one blogger encouraged churches to “Drive people out to serve. [Your] lives won’t be transformed by sitting in a pew, but by hammering nails, serving meals, praying for a neighbor, doing mission far away, visiting the elderly, teaching children, standing with the oppressed, and seeing God at work in the world. Worship will affirm what [you] experience out there, but by itself worship isn’t enough.” (Tom Ehrich, Morning Walk Media blog, October 7, 2011)
We are more than Sunday morning people. What is the greatest need in this community right now? Who needs us most? That should be what unites us. The needs are great – there are families struggling here in Arlington, local children in need of our support, older adults and neighbors who are alone or feel as if they are and so many others who may be literally or figuratively crying out for help. We know these people and we know there is no lack of need.
Of course, we will still need to consider how our money is spent but it should be with an eye toward how will we use it to best love others. This is what distinguishes church from other organizations, many of whom do amazing work, in this community. Yes we want others to be a part of this endeavor but our goal should not be to fill our pews on Sunday morning but rather to have folks joining us in the work we do the rest of the week. Then they may or may not find the nurture and love for God and each other that is palpable here on Sunday mornings for all of us.
The idea of “service,” the last word of this proposed mission statement should be what we are known for, what we constantly work toward, what we base our decisions on as a community of Christ’s followers. We are to go out into the world proclaiming God’s love to all, with the Word of God sustaining us and Jesus’ example preparing us. Amen and amen.
John 1:43-51“Follow Jesus Christ Together”
January 15, 2012
There’s nothing like a Presidential primary season to get you thinking about leadership or how little we actually talk about leadership when we are picking presidential candidates. Instead there is way too much media saturation on Romney’s Mormon faith and his work at Bain Capital, Ron Paul’s supposed isolationist Libertarian streak, Newt Gingrich’s Fannie Mae gig and three marriages, Jon Huntsman’s come from way behind climb and time as Ambassador to China under a Democratic president and Rick Santorum’s strongly held and often divisive social agenda. And we are still 10 months away from electing the person who will lead us as a nation for the next 4 years. A scary thought…
I try to imagine what it must have been like to be in small towns in New Hampshire, so many like Arlington, and for one week having huge television trucks parked in front of the general store and someone with a microphone at the ready when you stop in at the neighborhood diner for pancakes and coffee in the morning. Suddenly your opinions matter a great deal even when the only opinion you have is that you don’t really have an opinion.
No one candidate is a perfect fit. We are not able, unfortunately, to cut and paste human beings so that they strike the right balance for us. Instead we strive for candidates that resonate with us in some shape or form. And most of us typically selectively embrace some aspects of these potential leaders and ignore the parts that make us hold our noses when we go into the voting booth. That’s what happens when you choose from among equally fallible human beings, just like us. As I heard on the radio from one woman from South Carolina this week where the media circus has set up camp for the next primary point out, every one of the candidates is a compromise because, after all, Jesus Christ is not on the ballot.
The second part of our proposed mission statement is comprised of only four words and every one of them packs a punch and has so much meaning for so many so today let us attempt to unpack them. “Follow Jesus Christ together” comes immediately after the part of our Mission Statement we heard about last week, “To Welcome All.” Today’s two Lectionary readings happen to be great examples of what the concept of following is all about. We heard Tom share the story of Samuel’s repeated call from God and with some help from Eli, Samuel was able to respond. Eli was growing old and yet he had so much still to offer while Samuel was young and eagerly energetic but needed the wisdom and guidance of Eli to fully realize what God was doing with him. Following for Samuel was something that he had to grow into while wise and experienced Eli was able to mentor and advise, interpret and encourage. It may have been Samuel doing the actual responding but it was a joint effort. Together they were able to do so much more than either one of them alone.
Perhaps one of the toughest things about following Jesus for us is that, just as that voter from South Carolina observed, none of us is Jesus. We tend to look at Jesus in his entirety and then quickly recognize that not a one of us measures up to this ideal and yet here we have a man who struggled with family issues, often found people frustrating, questioned himself, grew weary of all of the expectations of him and often had to carve out personal time from a demanding schedule just to be alone to gather his thoughts and to pray. Jesus is both human and divine and its that divinity part that we often use as an excuse when it was the human way in which he moved and interacted and expressed himself that is what we are to follow.
Following is our call. We are to be like Jesus but we are not being asked to be Jesus. When Jesus says to Philip as he says so many other times in so many ways, especially in John’s Gospel, “Follow me” it is a call to discipleship that he is offering not an expectation of perfection. The words “Follow me” are creating an expectation that we will spend our lives in constant student mode. Jesus is to teach us. When we call ourselves Christian what we are saying is, as one writer puts it, that we are “following Jesus” – listening to him, learning from him and doing what he does.” (Anthony B. Robinson: “How to follow the leader,” The Christian Century, January 11, 2012, pp. 30-33).
At the heart of this part of the Mission Statement, of course, is Jesus Christ. To follow Jesus Christ be it together as we do here as a church or individually which is our respective personal call to discipleship, we must give thought to the one whom we are following. John’s Gospel is filled with words and concepts that describe Jesus – there’s “the Lamb of God (v. 36), rabbi (v. 38), Messiah (v. 41), ‘him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote’ (v. 45), son of Joseph from Nazareth (v. 45), Son of God (v. 49), and King of Israel (v. 49). (Feasting on the Word, Year B, Volume 1, pp. 261-263) John is chock full of so many of the words used to describe Jesus and I’ll bet we have many more we could each offer. That is truly a beauty of this church. There are many identities of Jesus that are held dear by each of us and yet we do not say that any are right or any are wrong. Words are only able to partially capture all that Jesus Christ is which is why the mission statement does not provide a definition but rather leaves open the very real possibility that over the course of a lifetime each of us will embrace and follow different parts of what Jesus said and perhaps, more importantly, how Jesus acted in the world. It was Spencer Kimball who said that our call to follow is not a call of Jesus saying, “Do what I say” but rather “Do what I do.”
And that’s why the “together” part of this Mission Statement is the clincher here. Together is the recognition that none of is Jesus but that within this family we call church each of us has something to offer, as we are reminded in the letter to the Ephesians, “The gifts he gave were that some would be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ.” (Eph 4:11-12)
Just as none of Jesus’ disciples during his lifetime or after his death were perfect, neither is the expectation that any one of us alone will reach that perfection. But just think what we can do with all of the gifts that are a part of this church family! We each have so much to give and so much to learn from each other.
The world needs our collective efforts. Wisdom that comes from experience, energy that comes from youthfulness, shared opportunities and new dreams, boldness and patience, serenity and exuberance, generosity and faithfulness, creativity and practicality. None of us possesses all these traits in massive amounts but collectively we do and we want others to follow with us and so we build on the welcome expressed in the first part of the mission statement. We need hearts and minds that reflect the great diversity of God’s creation. In discipleship, no one is complete in this lifetime. In the grace that is God’s love, however, we are all rich beyond measure. Amen and amen.
Mark 1:4-11“To Welcome All”
January 8, 2012
Is everyone comfortable? How’s the temperature? Did the person sitting next to you greet you when you sat down? How about when you walked through the front door were you smiled at, wished a good morning or its good to see you or we’re glad you’re here or would you like to sign our guest book? How’s the sound this morning? The lighting? I think I know the answer as to whether your pew is comfortable but I’ll ask any way. How’s your pew? Can you see everything that’s going on? Is the print of your bulletin and hymnal big enough for you to read? Can you follow the service? Is the organ at an acceptable volume? Did you appreciate the announcements at the beginning? Was there a nametag with your name on it even if you don’t always wear it? The answers you give to any or all of these questions are what will determine whether or not you feel welcome here. Or at least that is the beginning, the sensory, the first impression part of feeling welcome. But welcome is so much more…
“To Welcome All” is the very first part of the proposed mission statement that we will vote on in 2 weeks. As any of those of us who are on the Mission Statement committee can tell you – raise your hand if you served on that committee – this was by design. It was so important that before we went any further in describing what it is we attempt to do here at the Federated Church of East Arlington that we put it out front that the act of welcoming everyone is at the heart of who we are. This welcome is for both the stranger looking for a faith community, the visitor here because they’re on vacation or read about us in the paper, or the bulk of you, the regulars.
It is our hope that in making hospitality at the top of our list of priorities that guests will only be strangers until they walk through the door. In considering our biblical history it is important to remember that at the time of Jesus and all those centuries before him hospitality was not considered a courtesy but an obligation. The early church often took place in people’s homes where neighbors mostly gathered with folks they had known all their lives. Once the church expanded and grew and began gathering in other settings that feeling of family had to be created.
As we know with our own family, our blood relatives, we don’t get to choose who we are related to and family takes you in and accepts us for who we are. This, too, is the goal of church. We are a part of the family of God gathered around rituals and service to others and food and life celebrations like baptisms and weddings as well as at the times of greatest sadness through illness and death.
Feeling welcome is both for the stranger who has no clue what we’re about as well as those gathered here every Sunday for worship, or teaching Sunday School, or hosting coffee hour, or bringing their ideas and energy to a position on any of the almost 20 committees and boards and panels that keep this church doing the work of church here and in our world, or working on Sunday Supper or preparing lunches for kids at Camp Adventure or engaging with our youth through youth group activities or visiting the sick or the homebound or baking for the auction or working at the auction, or having an active role in worship from singing in the choir to ushering to reading scripture and prayers or setting up for communion or sending birthday and anniversary and get well cards or knitting a prayer shawl or putting up and taking down the Christmas greenery or publicizing the weekly services and the special events or shopping or cooking or serving or cleaning for a dinner, every one of these activities and so many more speaks to how welcome folks feel here and this isn’t just about being nice, although that is good and wonderful and important, it is about the fact that as church we are living into the modeling for us by countless folks in both the Old and New Testaments and Jesus himself. It was Jesus who said, “Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me.” (Matthew 10:40)
The acts of hospitality that say you matter, you are important, we want you to join us is not so that we can get you on some membership list or get your money or have you serve on one of those many committees, it is that by welcoming you, asking you in, making you feel at home, engaging you in the work we do, allowing your voice to be heard, encouraging your faith life, witnessing to the significant milestones and transitions of your life - this is all intended to be how we welcome God into our midst. That is the call of the Bible – it is all about relationships with God and with each other.
When we welcome each of you and every other person who might be brave enough or curious enough or confused enough or lost enough or determined enough to walk through our doors, and I would say that intentionally because the physical door into worship is but one way into this church, we are welcoming God. The doors into this church, be they for a Bone Builders class or a Bible study or the one into our office by someone looking for emergency assistance or the one who steps under the tent on the First Saturday of August to occupy a folding chair and maybe bid on some treasure, every one of those folks is crossing a threshold of sorts. What is happening sometimes literally as when someone join us on a Sunday morning in a pew or a Saturday night around a dinner table or even over a telephone line with a panicked call for help, everyone of those people is crossing over a virtual doorway that separates the public space – “out there” from the private space that is church – “in here.” These are not just physical doorways but symbolic, meaningful, distinctive thresholds that distinguish us and what we do here from what happens say at lots of other significant locations be they the public library, the high school gym for a basketball game or the counter at Stewart’s. All these places want you to feel welcome but in those “out there” places the goal is to entertain and its said that when you entertain or provide a service, you bring honor and glory to yourself or to that entity while showing hospitality here, in this place, in church, brings honor and glory to God.
The word “welcome” comes from the medieval words for “desired” and “guest.” One way that makes it easier to welcome the one who is different, who shakes things up, whose opinions are at odds with yours, whose communication style you have trouble warming up to, the one that makes it hardest to heed the words in Peter’s first letter where we are told, “Be hospitable to one another without complaint,” (1 Peter 4:9) is that in each one who walks through our door, ourselves included, we are welcoming that most desired of guests, God, to be found in everyone who crosses our threshold, real or imagined.
This mission statement that we are proposing for a vote is not intended to be just words that we put on our letterhead and bulletins and event flyers and website but rather a representation of who and what we are and for that we need the help of all of you, the entire congregation. You will notice that in each of the bulletins I have placed a piece of scrap paper that may have something on the back. Ignore that part and turn to the blank page, I would encourage you to write down what makes you feel welcome in this church and what has made you feel unwelcome. If you would like to put your name on it – great. But you can also remain anonymous. I would then ask you to put the paper in the offering plate or if you need more time, you can bring it next week or hand it to me during coffee hour or e-mail it to me or call me on the phone and tell me. We pride ourselves on being a warm and friendly place but we are not perfect and so your thoughts and ideas are welcomed.
Our welcome, God’s welcome, is for all. May we live into that welcome we have found in the God whose love is unconditional and tireless. Amen and amen.
Luke 2:1-20A Christmas Message
December 24, 2011
I checked our mailbox everyday, anxious to see the return address that never materialized. I found out that everyone else had received theirs when it was all over the newspapers and the Internet. The newscasters on television and radio had touted it until we were sick of hearing about it and yet ours never arrived. Finally, in frustration I asked our local postmaster Brian to please check again in what can’t possibly be too big a stack of dead letters here at the little East Arlington post office. It was Brian who clued me in on the reason we had not received our 2010 census form by mail. It was because all we were to the government was a post office box, no person attached.
Undaunted, I went on-line to see what those of us who were missed should do and learned, don’t worry, we’ll find you. Not exactly the reassurance I was looking for but it had to be enough. I liked to think I was not weird or obsessive but the reality was even though the population of our country hit the 300 million mark a few years earlier, I was still anxious to have the three of us in our little household count. It mattered to me that my government, the powers that be that often seem like one huge dysfunctional bureaucracy, knew we existed. I did not want to go uncounted. There was also a sense of responsibility that somehow this was my duty as an American citizen, married, with one child, the three of us all born in different decades and in different towns but now considered a family unit. I wanted that faceless monolith known as the U.S. Census Bureau that spent $13 billion on this once a decade undertaking that has been going on since 1790 when it was mandated in the newly adopted U.S. Constitution to include us. I wanted to be recognized, affirmed and to be statistically relevant.
We have no idea what Joseph was thinking as he made the long trek with a very pregnant Mary, riding precariously on a donkey, perhaps experiencing Braxton-Hicks, false labor pains as they bumped along the rocky dirt road from Nazareth to Bethlehem all those years ago. Unlike our modern-day census here in the U.S. where the authorities come to us for the information and have been since the first census was conducted during the presidency of George Washington, the Emperor Augustus then mandated that everyone go back to the city of their birth in order to be counted. And when he said everyone, he meant it – this decree was that the entire world return to their birthplaces. Talk about power!
What the Roman Emperor didn’t know is that his decree made it possible for a power greater than him, that was at work in that baby that was being jostled in the womb of Mary to bring God in the form of a child, into this world. Within hours of arriving in Bethlehem, God would come in the form of the baby Jesus, marking the arrival of the Messiah in a way that would seemingly be the least equipped to go up against the massive armies and wealth and heavy-handed Augustus. Already the powers of domination were turned on its head as the prophets had announced this place for the birth and Joseph’s call home would see this prophecy fulfilled. But what match would a baby be for the hearts and minds of the people?
This story we have heard so many times that we each could tell probably with all of the same details, these images of the strong but weary Joseph, the round-bellied young Mary, the rejection over and over again from inns all over town that are packed full with all those mandated homecomings, the lowing cows and baaing sheep and hee-hawing donkey and the modest stable with its feeding trough doubling as a cradle are meant to be remembered in the battle of earthly powers coming up against a counter-intuitive picture of modesty, humility and most importantly, simplicity. God does not come into the world with trumpets blaring, bedecked in jewels, having every whim catered to by a palace full of servants. This God who intends to get the people who are headed in the wrong direction to change their course uses a strategy that none would expect. This one whose lead we are to follow has no use for earthly riches. Position and influence carry no sway.
This is the Jesus we are to follow, the one who says that we all count, each and every one of us from the mentally ill to the obnoxious, from those who dwell in the halls of power be it in Congress or corporations to those who tonight will couch surf, if they’re lucky in order to have a warm place to sleep. The drug addicted count, the dictators count, the two thirds of the world’s population that does not celebrate Christmas – all these count to God. We need only read the Gospel stories to witness that Jesus spent his ministry with the ones that someone else thought didn’t count.
Once someone knows they count, amazing things happen. Not overnight conversions per se but rather a small but not insignificant dose of self-worth can be planted and from there, anything is possible. Jesus was here on this flawed and dangerous planet, beginning as a vulnerable baby reliant on others and growing into the one who would challenge earthly powers and princes so that we might rethink our allegiances, recognizing that God’s grace is not thrust upon us but rather is a gift bestowed upon us. We are free to accept it or not. We can question it but will often come up short with concrete, provable by human standards answers. The data may not add up following a scientific model but the results are sustainable. God’s love can and must endure. Among God’s creation, every living thing counts. There is no expendable person if we believe in the incarnation of God. God made flesh. God indwelling. Each person is to be treasured in the same way as that baby born in that stable all those years ago – Emmanuel – God with us.
Oh, by the way, lest you be concerned whether we made it into the official 2010 census count of 308,745,538 Americans, we did. But not in the way we expected. It happened that a man with a clipboard was in our parking lot one beautiful spring Saturday and he appeared to be somewhat confused. He was looking for the people that lived in 88 Ice Pond Road, the old Methodist Parsonage. I told him that it was no longer a residence but that the other parsonage, the one where the three of us live now was a residence but it would not have been during the last census in 2000. He was thrilled to have found us. He said that his supervisors would be so excited to learn that there was a new household they didn’t know about. He asked me all of the census questions standing there in the parking lot and had me officially confirm the information. At last, we counted.
And so, Jesus arrives yet again on this Christmas, bearing the message of hope, peace, joy and love from the God who wants us all to know that earthly measures of success don’t amount to much but by God’s grace, we, each and every one of us matter. Amen and amen.
Luke 1:26-38, 46b-55“The Impossible Dream”
December 18, 2011
Mary, Mary, Mary. So many questions, so few satisfying answers about this first of Jesus’ disciples who answered God’s call just like the skeptic one would expect any level headed, rational human being to be. With an initial response sounding something like, “Are you talking to me?” her mindset is either “much perplexed” (NRSV), “greatly troubled” (NIV), “thoroughly shaken” (The Message) or “confused and disturbed” (NLT) depending on your choice of Bible. Any way you slice it, this pronouncement that is known as The Annunciation, not “The Request” or “The Invitation” coming from God’s messenger, the Angel Gabriel is visited upon a young woman who is pretty much in a state of shock.
This is God’s call to Mary. Suddenly the life she envisioned for herself - marriage to Joseph, a quiet home, going about their business making a living, observing the customs and traditions of Nazareth - has taken on a whole new spin. This supposedly male angel just by visiting, Mary, a single woman, alone would have been enough to send tongues a-wagging. Most likely Mary as a young unwed girl would have been at home, in the part of the home that was a courtyard or an inner room that would be away from the view of the outside world, and to be honest, the eyes of men. When this Angel Gabriel arrives she was obviously thrown for a loop. With his words about the child to be born that she didn’t even know about until a few seconds earlier she learns that she is to give birth to not just any baby which by itself would have been amazing enough, but to the Son of God.
This baby, who will grow and be nurtured within her, the one who will kick and squirm with increasing regularity as the months go on, and whose very existence has now become her call in life will grow into his greatness whose reign will go on forever. It is the immediate future, though, that is much more daunting with all of the same concerns that any pregnant woman finds herself challenged by.
She is to be a God bearer, this mother to be. When she discovers that her elderly cousin Elizabeth is also having a child, both of them now the unlikeliest of pregnant women, Mary finally recognizes and gives voice to one of the greatest statements of faith, “For nothing will be impossible with God.”
How hard it is for we practical, common sense ridden, always rational, look both ways before crossing the street, never leave home without a tissue or handkerchief, saving for a rainy day Christians to remember that God is with us, dwelling here, sitting beside us in the pew, never abandoning us. Mary ultimately gets it. What will it take for us to accept the surprise, the new thing, and the in-dwelling nature that is God at work through us? This young maiden Mary is teaching us still to recognize that all activity in our world does not come with an instruction manual but that we are never alone in this endeavor we call life.
The Rev. Kenneth Carter recounts a terrific story he had heard “about a man who was home with the children one afternoon while his wife went out Christmas shopping. He was reclining on the couch, half sleeping, half watching a football game, when the kids came into the room. ‘Dad, we have a play to put on. Do you want to see it?’ He really didn’t want to, but he knew he needed to, so he sat up, came out of his slumber, and became a one-man audience. His four children: four, six, eight, and ten years old, were the actors: Mary, Joseph, an angel and the wise men. Joseph came in with a mop handle. Mary came in with a pillow under her pajamas; another child was an angel, flapping her arms as wings. Finally, the last child, the eight year old came out, with all of the jewelry on that she could find in the house, her arms filled with three presents. ‘I am all three wise men,’ she said. “I bring three precious gifts: gold, circumstance and mud.’ The father didn’t laugh. The father didn’t correct the wise man. The father reflected on the words that somehow got to the heart of the Christmas story: God loves us for who we are - our gold, where we are our best; our circumstances – where we might be even now; even our mud – where we are when we are most human.” (James Moore, Won’t You Let Him In? An Advent Study for Adults, page 30)
The impossible for us is the possible for God. Mary goes to pregnant Elizabeth’s home and utters the words that tell us that she gets it. Mary’s response to God’s call is The Magnificat. She knows that she now has a purpose in life that no one could have dreamed of for it is beyond imagining. Nothing in her background: humble, modest, imperfect, fallible and most certainly human would have helped her see this coming. She would not be able to find any precedent for something like this in Jewish history. All of the other miraculous births up until this time happened to barren women like Elizabeth, not virgins.
There was no preparing for this job, this honor, this call. Instead she could only respond and her response is a yes that speaks to the fact that in spite of being blind-sided by this news, she has recovered enough to know that the source of this gift is a God who is about justice and mercy and love.
And so we hear this story of the greatness of Mary, who for many Christians is a symbol to be offered adoration and prayers for intercession while others write her off and the circumstances regarding Jesus’ birth narrative as so unbelievable as to be dismissed. This Christmas week, however, as we place our Mary’s in our Nativity scenes or open the window near her head on our Advent calendars or watch Lizz be our Pageant Mary holding dear Jaxson as Jesus at the 4 p.m. service on Christmas Eve, let us try to figure out what Mary’s story is passing onto us as we near the end of our Advent journey for another year.
Quinn Caldwell reflected this week that outside of Jerusalem stands a church where history has it the Ark of the Covenant had rested. The name of the church, translated from French, is Our Lady, Ark of the Covenant. The ancient Christians thought that just like the original Ark that held the words that spoke of God’s relationship with God’s people that we know as the Ten Commandments, so, too, was Mary an Ark as she carried Jesus and all that he brought with him. Thus her name - Our Lady, Ark of the Covenant.
Caldwell goes on to point out that neither of these arks is around now and “so the world needs a new one: you. It’s your turn to bear the terms of God’s relationship with the people – devotion, gentleness, honesty, self-control, respect, love – to the world. Nobody else is going to if you don’t and God knows the world needs it,” now more than ever.
If you are having a rush of humility at the thought that you could be the Ark of the Covenant, that this is too hard, that you couldn’t possibly be up for the task, “just remember this: that’s just what Mary would have said.” (Stillspeaking Devotional, United Church of Christ, dailydevotional@ucc.org, December 15, 2011)
May we each go out as God-bearers. For nothing will be impossible with God. Amen and amen.
Psalm 126“Jumping for Joy”
December 11, 2011
How many Christians does it take to screw in a light bulb?… None. They all stand around and wait for God to say, “Let there be light.” How about this one – “What do John the Baptist and Kermit the Frog have in common?” … Their middle names. Okay, I’ve got another one in the spirit of the season – The three wise men are walking through Bethlehem towards the manger. One of them steps on a rake, which hits him in the face. In pain, he shouts, “Jesus Christ.” One of the other wise men says, “Great name for the kid.” Okay, that’s enough from me now I’m going to let our in-house expert share one (Go to Gail Rice with the microphone).
Our laughter is good and right and is an antidote to the religion that some of us grew up with that said having fun had no place in church. You may have been raised with the fear model of church to keep you in line. Joy was not to be found in God. How sad and ineffective and totally missing the mark that model was. To take the joy out of our faith is to take God out of our faith. Laughter is a restorer. Joy strengthens us for the Kingdom building we are about.
This third Sunday of Lent is known as Gaudete Sunday. It is set apart on our Advent wreath by the pink candle and in our journey. The word “Gaudete” means, “rejoice” in Latin. The rejoicing that this day reminds us of is the joyous return of Jesus and the joyous birth of Jesus. Here we are celebrating the presence of God and God coming into the world – what better reason than that for celebration!
Today’s Psalm is one that speaks of a restoring God. The God who previously the Psalmists had cried to in sorrow and suffering, is now being touted as great and praiseworthy. The people have had their fortunes restored. They have returned from exile. They left empty-handed and sorrowful and return with barns full of a plentiful harvest. It is in the contrast that the joy is that much sweeter.
As it was for God’s people in an earlier age, so it continues through to today. Joy and suffering are both part of us. Sadly for too many the focus is on what is missing, what is bringing them down, what is causing pain and too little time is given over to gladness and thanksgiving, for a joy that is palpable. Joy involves the humor that I attempted to share this morning but it is even more. C.S. Lewis wrote, joy is “an unsatisfied desire which is itself more desirable than any other satisfaction.” This speaks of a striving, a way of being. He went onto highlight the distinction between joy and what we would call happiness or pleasure. Joy is more. It is deeper. It is a way of being in the world.
As we make our way through Advent, taking time to quiet ourselves, certainly trying to find time to focus more on the Jesus who came and the Jesus who is to come, laughter and tears can be seeming to play a back and forth game of volleyball with our hearts. For some of us, Christmas evokes memories of a loved one with whom we celebrated Christmases past and who is no longer here. For many families Christmas can be a tough time to raise children in a manner consistent with the rest of the year.
There is such an emphasis placed on the spending of money for the perfect gift which we know is an impossible task when so many are struggling to find a sustainable job that pays a living wage. Consider the Red Stocking gifts we’ve gathered today in the hope of bringing even a small amount of joy to children who live down the street or the next block over and maybe some measure of joy to their parents who have the challenge of explaining why some have so much when they have so little. This is a question for which there is no good and satisfying explanation. The joy we hope to bring is less about the specific pair of pajamas or snow pants and more about the message that they are not alone, that others care, that we are connected.
Rev. Susan Sparks, who is both the Senior Pastor of Madison Avenue Baptist Church in New York City as well as a professional stand-up comedian whom I had the pleasure of hearing speak in Nashville in 2010 tells the story of how before she was a minister she was working as a lawyer in Atlanta but she determined that she needed to make a change in her life and so she went on a two year odyssey that took her around the world. Her journey began at Shishu Bhavan, Mother Teresa’s orphanage in India. She writes, “What I saw stopped me short: three and four children in one crib, tiny toddlers tied to bedposts, children crying out with no one to comfort them. After a moment, I gathered my courage and slowly stepped across the threshold. That is when I encountered five-year-old Anna. Blind and deaf since birth, Anna could sense human presence from the vibrations of footsteps. As I walked by, she reached out and wrapped herself around my leg like a little koala bear. Not knowing what else to do, I sat down crossed-leg beside her. She immediately crawled into my lap and began rocking back and forth, laughing and singing. I quickly discovered that her favorite game was to hum a short tune and then press her ear up against me, feeling the vibrations as I hummed it back. She would laugh with joyous high-pitched squeals, hum a little tune back, and then press her ear against me again to feel the vibrations of my response. We played this game for hours.” Sparks continues, “Here in the laughter of this tiny girl was humor and the Holy made manifest. …For Anna, laughing was like breathing. It was her way of being in the world. She didn’t offer her laughter to please. She didn’t hope to get into heaven faster through her smile…Anna laughed simply because she was alive.” (Laugh Your Way to Grace: Reclaiming the Spiritual Power of Humor, pp. 5-6)
This mid point of Advent offers us an opportunity for joy that no mall or catalog has in stock. As we get nearer and nearer to the day on which we lift up and celebrate the birth of Jesus, living expectantly, we have cause for joy that comes from the God that makes all things well. Our God is a God of restoration. This Jesus who will begin life tiny and vulnerable will grow into the Jesus the healer, teacher, truth-teller and justice seeker. This is the one whose life will be filled with the range of sorrows – illness and death and suffering all around him as well as the joys of friends and family, hard work and love. This Jesus, the one who is and was and forever shall be is a joy bearer. And so might we be. We can be the church filled with glad tidings of great joy. Through God all things are possible. Amen and amen.
Isaiah 40:1-11“Just What We Need to Hear”
December 4, 2011 Second Sunday of Advent
(Begin with the playing of Handel’s Messiah – Comfort Ye My People). Think back to your childhood. Think about the messages that were said over and over by your parents and teachers and other influential adults. Which ones stick with you? “If you don’t finish what’s on your plate, there will be no dessert for you.” “Shut the door. What do you think we’re doing here heating the outdoors?” “How many times do I have to ask you to set the table – now.” “I don’t care what your friends are doing – as long as you live in my house you will live by my rules.” “Where are your glasses, Kathy?” All of these phrases were uttered to me enough times that they are etched in my memory. Repetition is certainly a routine part of parenting a child or training a dog (forget about cats, they don’t remember for longer than a minute and even that is doubtful).
The messages we retain are the ones that have been integrated into our consciousness so that not only are we able to remember them years later, but as much as we sometimes hate to admit, especially when we’re new parents ourselves, we are bound to repeat them ourselves with our own children.
One of the great functions of church is the way that shared experiences, the rituals, the prayers be it the Lord’s Prayer or the Gloria Patri or the Doxology, become part of our ingrained culture. We say them so frequently that sometimes we must shake them up, say them or sing them in a new manner, find ways to bring life to the words and have their meaning help shape our days, our lived out worship of God beyond Sunday mornings. The same is true for Scripture.
I can honestly say that taking today’s Isaiah reading from the King James Version is a first for me in a worship service. I’ve used the King James in funerals, especially with the Psalms, but I’ve often balked at the language as being so ancient that I had to mentally translate while I was reading it and I thought that was just too much work. But the work of translating Scripture, taking the words on the page of whatever Bible is our favorite and making it our own is our task every single time we read or hear or study it. Sometimes we have to shake things up a bit, do them in a different way, to have the point driven home so that we do not just hear, but also act. Thus the words you just heard sung came from what many of you probably recognized as Handel’s Messiah, the much beloved oratorio that is so often performed during this Christmas season and you can hear in Arlington on New Year’s Eve at St. James Church at 3 p.m.
This passage from what is known as the beginning of Second Isaiah is all about restoration. The people of Israel are about to finally be able to return home after their exile to Babylon and through God’s faithfulness, the people who really blew it in God’s eyes and paid a very heavy price, are reconciled to God. This passage is all about God’s love and grace. This call for preparedness in Isaiah is found in all 4 Gospels in reference to John the Baptist, the one who is not the Messiah but is making room for the Messiah. In the wilderness, the people are to prepare a way for the Lord.
Comfort – what comfort will we declare this Advent and Christmas? Where are the bumpy places on the journey that you are called to smooth out, in preparation for Jesus’ entry? Look around – who needs our comfort now more than ever? “Who me, a comforter, isn’t God or Jesus or the Holy Spirit supposed to be the comforter, the one that will make everything okay? Hey, I’m not God, what do want from me?” may be on the tip of your tongue but wait…
In this season of preparation, of patience, or perseverance, we, like the Israelites are being called to comfort. Words, no matter how many times we say them or how they’ve been committed to memory or drummed into our consciousness in whatever format, still must be translated into action.
We wish that the pure thought of God alone would be enough for our world but it obviously is not. When a young mother phones our office because she has run out of oil to heat her home and she won’t have any more money for two weeks and she’s depleted every option, having borrowed from relatives more times than she can count, having used her paycheck for food and rent and car insurance and there is nothing left for fuel, we must be the comfort of God. It is not enough for us to say “God will provide” and hang up quickly before they start crying. We are to be the comfort that the prophet speaks of. We must be the shoulder, the ears, the encircling arms, the open heart of God. Being comfort bearers is hard work. It is the ministry to which each and every one of us has been called.
Believe me, I can say that there have been times when a call comes in and I hear Kathie or Sandy from the outer office say, “Oh let me have you talk to the pastor,” that I find myself gearing up for the ask. Sometimes the help comes from the Pastor’s Fund or the Salvation Army fund I administer or the Board of Missions is asked or we advocate for them with the Emergency Needs Fund of the Interfaith Council of the Northshire. The comfort must come from somewhere and we are to be an instrument of comfort in whatever way possible. We must find a way to be a comfort, not with judgment, not with an air of resignation, but with love.
Our love for God expressed in our love for those that God loves which is you and me and every single other living creature is how we go about comforting God’s people. Our lives are an act of preparation for our God. How will folks know God, feel God, take God within their hearts? How will we be sure that others get the message, “Behold your God?” It will be the incarnate God at work in us – when we listen for the twelfth time to the story that the elderly neighbor will tell us; when we invite the lonely relative or co-worker to be a part of our Christmas dinner; when we play yet another game of Candyland with the young nephew or granddaughter; when the mentally ill family member starts ranting yet again and we listen and help them get to appointments; when we put “Food Shelf items” on our grocery list each month and bring in not the castoffs from our kitchen cabinet that we don’t like but rather select items that we enjoy knowing that it’s a pretty good indicator of what others might like. The word “comfort” comes from the Latin for “strengthen.” We are meant in our comfort to build up and strengthen God’s people.
I will end with music just as we began. Seeking to prepare a way for the One who is to come. Hear and act…(Play “Prepare Ye the Way of the Lord” from Godspell)
