The Sunday School observes “Shrove Tuesday” on Sunday  with a pancake breakfast.  Kids should bring their cooking enthusiasm and their appetites.  All kids will gather together for the event in the Vestry following the Time for Children.

The More Than Words Book Drive continues. Donations may be left in the boxes in the side chapel.

Follow the Nicaragua trip on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Union-Church-In-Waban/140438821719  and on the blog http://ucw-nicaragua.blogspot.com/.

Stacy is traveling in Nicaragua as well and returns February 28. For pastoral needs, contact Deacon of the Month, Wanda Getchell (617-529-5001).

Prayer Group meets Monday mornings at 7:30 in the side chapel. While Stacy is in Nicaragua, Sandra DaDalt will lead on February 20, and Heidi Ward on February 27.

Bible Study will not meet on February 19, but will resume on February 26  and will be led on that day by Heidi Ward.

Can you help out in Sunday School on March 4?  One volunteer is needed to assist Kathy with a One Room Church School on this day.  No preparation is required.  Just show up and assist.  Let Kathy know if you can help.

“If you choose” by Rev. Stacy Swain

Psalm 30
Mark 1:40-45

It is early in Jesus’ ministry but already he is causing quite a sensation.  He is creating quite a stir.  People are streaming in from the surrounding villages to see Jesus, some full of expectation, others full of skepticism.  Some come with a bone deep need to be touched and healed, so painful is their alienation; but most come to take in the “show.”

New Testament scholar, Fred Craddock says that the crowd that surges around Jesus at this early stage of Jesus’ ministry is more of an audience than a congregation, more of a collection of the curious to be entertained than to disciples ready to participate in the mission of Jesus’ ministry.[1]

And then as if on cue, a leper shows up. This leper is nameless, for this man’s identity has been erased by his illness.  Leprosy is who he is. This bacterial skin disease that progresses slowly moving through the central nervous system and the skin tissue, twisting and distorting the body and face until, in its most extreme case, the person becomes unrecognizable.  People in ancient times were terrified of leprosy not just for the physical suffering it caused, but because leprosy was also seen as an outward manifestation of a spiritual disease, the spreading corruption of sin.[2]

I am reminded of how people with AIDS were seen in the early eighties.  I was working at the Pine Street Inn, one of Boston’s largest shelters at the time when the first diagnoses of AIDS was made in the homeless community.  We saw this sore covered, emaciated and twisted frame of the man and saw AIDS. And it scared us.  I remember how we feared him.  Not just the other homeless men and women staying at the shelter but us staff as well.  I will never forget the image of him sitting by himself in the overly crowded lobby eating a plate of scrambled eggs at a table where no one else dared to sit.

We have come a long way in our understanding of HIV and for the most part our society has become more embracing of people with the disease — but not entirely.   And I wonder who else are the lepers of today?  Are they the depressed, the addicted, the poor, the homeless – those who we define not for who they are but for the condition they suffer.  Or maybe they are the ones tucked out of sight at the Waban Health and Rehabilitation Center?  I wonder.

But in the reading today, it is the leper, the one branded as “a corpse haunting the edges of the community he could no longer enter”[3] comes to Jesus and says “If you choose, you can make me clean” (Mark 1:40).

Now, what happens next is really interesting and unexpected, but is also easily lost in the translation of the text that we have.  Our translation says that Jesus was “moved with pity,” but a textual note tells us that other ancient texts use the word anger, not pity here.  “Jesus was moved with anger.”

Throughout Jesus ministry he will encounter people in need and will be moved with compassion, but this is clearly not such an encounter.  Here the leper’s statement “If you choose, you can make me clean” engenders not compassion but anger. Why?  And then after Jesus does heal the man, the text says he sternly warned him and sent him away.  These phrases, scholarship tells us, are more like ones Jesus uses when speaking to demons not newly healed converts.

What is going on here?

Well one thing, I hear in this encounter is a set up.  Jesus is being set up, tempted to perform, to demonstrate his power.  For the words of the leper are strikingly similar to those Satan spoke to Jesus just a few weeks ago during Jesus’ time of temptation in the wilderness.

Satan tempts by trying to get Jesus to prove himself, to use the grace that God has given him as a proof of his own power and importance.  “Show us how great you really are Jesus by doing these remarkable things, like turning this stone into bread. “ “If you really are the Son of God it will be easy for you.  Come on let’s see it,” this is the temptation the Satan speaks.

Have you ever felt the whisper of this tempter in you as well?  Have you ever found yourself wanting and perhaps even needing, for so great is your suffering, to put Jesus to the test? Have you found yourself asking Jesus to prove that he is who we hope he will be?  As if to say, “If you are the Son of God, than take this suffering from me.”  Is there something in us that demands that our experience of Jesus be the testing ground for the authenticity of who he really is, a proofing ground for his Holy power?

I know this is a very fine line, because God does want to hear what is on our hearts.  In just a few minutes we will offer up heart-felt prayers for ourselves and others that is good.  But it is crucial to remember that the starting place of prayer is an honest offering up of what is on our hearts.  Prayer is not a challenge to God to prove to us something of God’s self or will.  A heart-felt prayer for healing is very different than a testing prayer that says, “if you are really a good and loving God then heal me or this person.”

So, faced with this temptation that Jesus walked away from in the wilderness, why does he engage it now? Why does he heal this leper?

I think it is because there is not just a temptation there but a human being -  a human being that is suffering not just from physical pain but also from and perhaps even more troubling to Jesus, is his social isolation and alienation.  Here is a human being, a child of God who others have deemed unclean and therefore cast out from community.

And so Jesus says “I do choose.  Be made clean.”  It was not really a choice after all, for the choice had already been made.   It had been made in the beginning when the breath of God moved across the face of the deep and all that is was called into being, and blessed as good. And it was already made again when on that night the word became flesh and Jesus was born in that manger.

The crowd may be spectators to miracle, the significance they do not understand, the leper so angry and hurting for all he has suffered that he tempts Jesus, but all of that really does not matters.

What matters in this messy mix, is that Jesus is not distracted, sidelined or discouraged from who God has asked him of him.  He is to be about helping people, as individuals and as community, to come to wholeness, and even more than that to undo the boundaries that keep some out in order to protect and maintain those that are on the inside.

For no doubt about it, individual lives are transformed by Jesus but I believe that what is at the heart of Jesus’ Messianic mission, at the heart of his life, death and resurrection is the transformation, the re- forming of how we are to be with each other and with God.  Jesus is about corporate (as in all of us together) regeneration, not just personal healing.

For this reason, after Jesus heals the man Jesus sends him to the priests –  for the priests were the ones who were charged with guarding the boundaries of community.   With the swirl of chaos that living in Roman occupation brought,  the priests were the ones that were charged to interpret and apply the holiness codes from the sacred texts of Leviticus that informed and governed the way that people were to live in order to keep chaos at bay and in order to preserve the sanctity of the people’s encounter with the holy.  It was the holiness codes that stipulated that one with leprosy was to be put out for the chaos of his physical and spiritual condition was a threat to the balance and sanctity of the community.[4]

We think of holiness codes as so outdated.  Something interesting and to be thoughtfully considered, but surely not something that informs our lives now.

But I wonder.  I wonder if this fear of chaos does not influence us still.  For how comfortable are we with our own and each other’s suffering?  Isn’t it hard it is to share our pain with each other?  I wonder if there is still some of that residual thinking that somehow suffering it is a sign that we are flawed in some way. That there is something wrong with us.  That we are unclean.

And so, to protect ourselves from the fear of being judged or excluded in some way, we keep silent.  And in our silence we alienate ourselves all the more.  And on the other side, how many of may know that another is hurting but we really don’t want to go there.  For their pain scares us.  We don’t really know what to say or what to do.  And maybe we even have the sense that if we let ourselves get too close, their suffering will infect or contaminate us somehow.   And so we keep our distance.  Perhaps, a part of us thinks it really would be best if that person ate their scrambled eggs over there, at that table alone?

You know we read these ancient texts and after two thousand odd years of trying to live into the example of Jesus together, perhaps we have learned a thing or two, but in many ways the temptations and dangers remain.

It is easy to gather around Jesus because we think that maybe something spectacular will happen.  Maybe all that these texts are saying is true and we show up because we may catch a glimpse of it for ourselves. And this is not the worst thing in the world really, God can work with this.

But what if we showed up not as spectators to miracles but because we were convinced that through God’s grace we could become miracles ourselves?  What if we sat down at that table with the one who sat alone?  What if we were the means through which those who felt isolated because of their pain and suffering where welcomed back into community? What if we were not audiences to what God is doing but a congregation (a coming together of people) through which God is enacting healing and wholeness and the reformation of God’s blessed creation?  What would that feel like? What would that feel like?

Well,  it may be like twenty or so of us traveling to Nicaragua so that we may give of ourselves and receive from others so that the boundaries of “us” and “them” may be blurred and we may discover our God given purpose for us all.

It may look like the face of Bret, as tears streamed down his face on Friday at the Waban Health and rehabilitation Center all of  us shared in the bread and the cup, the communion of the love of God.

It may look like the meeting I had with you this week where we took time to think about how we can do what we want to do while at the same time making sure that our needs do not come at the expense of others.

I am so inspired and moved by you.  For you seek not to be spectators but participants.  Not an audience but a congregation, committed to engaging in the transformation not just of us alone, but of us together. This is why Jesus came.  This is why he walk among us still,  AMEN.

The More Than Words Book Drive continues.

Donations may be left in the boxes in the side chapel.

Xenia Barahona from The Center for Global Education will speak to us about Nicaragua Sunday on the stage.  Join the Nica travelers for this informative event.

The Nicaragua trip departs on February 17th. Follow their journey on Facebook:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Union-Church-In-Waban/140438821719 and on their blog http://ucw-nicaragua.blogspot.com/.

 Stacy will be traveling to Nicaragua as well and will be gone from February 17 to February 28.  For pastoral needs, contact Deacon of the Month, Wanda Getchell.

 If anyone has any used or new baseball gloves they would like to donate for the youth of Nicargua, please contact David Spertner.

 Youth Group meets this Sunday from4:00-5:30 p.m.  We will use our bake sale money to go shopping for supplies for the trip to Nicaragua.  Kids need to come with a permission slip for the shopping trip. If you have a large capacity vehicle you can lend Kathy for this shopping excursion, please let her know.

Prayer Group meets Monday mornings at7:30 in the side chapel. While Stacy is in Nicaragua, Sandra DaDalt will lead on February 20, and Heidi Ward on February 27.

The Mission and CE Committees are looking for a group of adults and kids to deliver Valentine gifts to the residents of the Waban Health Center at their Valentine party on Valentine’s Day afternoon, Tuesday, February 14. We will be taking soaps (made by our kids) and paperwhites (planted by our kids).  If you can go, let Kathy Malone know.

Bible Study will not meet on February 19, but will resume on February 26

 and will be led on that day by Heidi Ward.

One time helpers are needed for the Sunday School on February 26 and March 4.  We have one room church schools on these days.  No preparation is necessary.  Just show up and assist.  Let Kathy know if you can help.

Mark 1: 29-39

“Making Grace Visible” by Rev. Stacy Swain

I love words.  I really do.  I delight in a well turned phrase and appreciative thoughtful, articulate, speech.  I remember what a joy it was to listen to one of my professors in seminary who spoke with such crystalline clarity that hearing his words was akin to gazing at a Vermeer painting.

Words wash over us here each Sunday morning as we read and pray and preach together.  And maybe, once in a while there is a well turned phrase that gives us pause or if we are lucky maybe even a moment of crystalline clarity.

But words have limits.  They can take us just so far.  We can talk about grace and forgiveness, and love, but grace, forgiveness and love will remain an abstraction for us until what is spoken is experienced.  Until we feel grace and forgiveness, and love for ourselves, until these words becomes embodied — in our flesh and blood experience.

Words can go just so far. That’s why, God gave us Jesus.  Jesus — the word made flesh.   Jesus, because people needed not just to hear about God but people needed to experience the sacred holiness of God for themselves.  Jesus – because people did not just need to hear about grace and forgiveness and love; they needed to feel the hand of grace, and forgiveness and love upon them lifting them up and being changed by that touch.

In the passage from the Gospel of Mark we see this happening.  Jesus has been in the synagogue teaching and I am sure he spoke beautifully – I am sure there were many well turned phrase, and many many moments crystalline clarity.

But words can go just so far.   So Jesus leaves the synagogue and enters the home of Simon and after hearing that Simon’s mother in law is in bed with a fever, he goes over to her and without saying a word, he takes her by the hand and lifts her up.

It is said, that the church, all of us together in this place and all of us across the world together are the body of Christ.  As church, we are to embody Jesus in this time.  Certainly we are to speak and teach of what we know. But if we are the body of Christ in the world, we are also to go to the bedside of the one with fever and take her by the hand and lift her up.  In the way we look upon each other, in the way we touch each other, in the way we walk through the world with each other, we are to make God’s grace visible, something seen and experienced.

But can we be the body of Christ, embodying grace, forgiveness and love, if we have not ourselves experienced grace, forgiveness and love for ourselves?  How can we be Jesus in the world if we have not experienced him?

Thankfully, like that bumper sticker so succinctly puts it, “Grace Happens.”  Grace happens all around us all the time, sweeping us up in moments of unexpected joy.  Ordinary moments that open out into encounters with something extraordinary.  You can name these moments can’t you?  Moments in our live together in this place, moments of your lives out in the world?  It happened to me yesterday when I was visiting a dear friend who had just had a knee replacement.  We were chatting in her hospital room when all at once the room was filled with such an extraordinary presence of love and care that I could feel it physically washing over us both, healing her wounded body and calming my concern.  I am sure that what we experienced was the touch of the sacred upon us, lifting us up.

And thankfully, we have these sacraments of baptism and communion.  In them a window to the divine is thrown open, the Holy Spirit rushes down upon us.  The hand of Jesus is on us and we are lifted up again, raised into life in Christ, fortified again as his body in the word.

Did you feel it just now?    When the water streamed from Graham’s forehead, could you feel that blessing flowing over you as well?  I know many of you came in here world weary but as you turned to welcome Graham as I brought him to you and as Suzie’s voice soared over us, did you see how your faces glowed?  Did you see it in the face of the one across from you how beautiful it was? Did you see in that face grace, and blessing and love?  Did you see it?  Did you feel it?

And in a few moments we sit gather at the communion table with Jesus.  We will take the bread that is broken for us and the wine that is poured out for us into our bodies, and as we do so the forgiveness and love of God will enter us again, Jesus will be become again part of who we are and in doing so we will be changed into and fortified as the body of Christ, again.

Here as the church, the body of Christ in the world, we do not just talk about grace, and forgiveness and love, we live it. We live it for Graham, we live it for each other and we live it for the one who is with fever, the one with pain, the one who is lonely, the one who is hungry, the one out in the world right now experiencing violence and hopelessness.  We are the Body of Christ in the world.   Thanks be to God, for a faith that is embodied.  AMEN.

The More Than Words Book Drive continues.
Donations may be left in the boxes in the side chapel.

Xenia Barahona from The Center for Global Education will speak to us about Nicaragua on Sunday, February 12 at 11:30 a.m. on the stage.
Join the Nica travelers for this informative event.

Bible study is reading through the Book of Luke and meets each Sunday morning
from 8:00 to 9:00 a.m. in Stacy’s study.

Living Waters Prayer Group will meet on Monday, February 6 at 7:30 a.m.

The Mission and CE Committees are looking for a group of adults and kids to deliver Valentine gifts to the residents of the Waban Health Center at their Valentine party on Valentine’s Day afternoon, Tuesday, February 14. We will be taking soaps (made by our kids) and paperwhites (planted by our kids). If you can go, let Kathy Malone know.

The Nicaragua trip departs on February 17. Follow the journey on Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Union-Church-In-Waban/140438821719

and on the blog http://ucw-nicaragua.blogspot.com/.

Stacy will be traveling to Nicaragua as well and will be gone from February 17 to February 28.
For pastoral needs, contact Deacon of the Month, Wanda Getchell.

One time helpers are needed for the Sunday School on February 26 and March 4. We have one room church schools on these days. No preparation is necessary. Just show up and assist. Let Kathy know if you can help.

Sermon, January 29, 2012

“What am I doing here!?” offered by Rev. Stacy Swain

1 Corinthians 8:1-13
Mark 1:21-28

You know it’s really rather astonishing that week after week you come into this place.

You greet each other with a warm embrace, or words of care.  There is often laughter; sometimes tears and, if we are lucky, there is even a baby’s cry.

Some of you are here early, while others pile through those doors, long after the processional hymn has faded.  You come in tucking in shirts and wiping breakfast from faces and yet in you come.

You slide into well worn pews, whispering cues to your kids, underlining with your finger where we are in the bulletin or in the hymn so they can join in.

Others of you settle back yawning off a week’s fatigue of running too fast and having too little.

And as the peace of this place settles around you, a few of you nod off for a moment or longer, catching up on some much needed sleep.

In you come.  Week after week.

It’s astonishing.  Here we are in this post modern world, and yet are engaged in a millennia-old practice of worship.  Here we are with a QR code in our bulletin and yet are contemplating what it is to have Galilean dust on our sandals.

What are we doing?

Let us listen to what the Gospel of Mark has to say.

But first let us pray:  May the words of my mouth and the mediations of all of our hearts be acceptable to you O God, our rock and our redeemer, Amen

It is the Sabbath.  The work of the week is over.  As the last light fades, and the candles are lit, the people gather to study Torah.

An itinerant teacher named Jesus is in town so the people ask if he’d be willing to open scripture for them. And he does.  Though it is the same scroll that is reverently unrolled every week, it sounds somehow different when Jesus reads it.  And when he looks up and begins to teach, the people feel as if their hearts are aflame in their breasts.  They are astonished. “Listen to how he speaks.” They say.  “It is with an authority that we have not heard before.   (Luke 1:22)  What is this kind of authority?”

The question of the source of Jesus’ authority will swirl around Jesus throughout his ministry and ultimately it will be what gets him killed.

But, while everyone else may wonder at this authority that Jesus has, Jesus himself does not.  Jesus is perfectly clear that his authority comes   not because he knows better, or because he is smarter or more important.   And even through crowds are beginning to follow him and reports of him are reaching every place in the region, he is also perfectly clear that this authority of his is not conferred upon him by those that follow him.

Jesus knows that what the people find so compelling has nothing really to do with him at all, but has everything to do with the God who called him beloved as the waters of the Jordan streamed from his face.  For what the people find so compelling is that through him they are see something of God.  When they hear his words, as their heart burns within them, they are reawakening to Eden.  They feel  God’s primordial blessing upon them and they sit up a bit straighter, they lean in a bit closer, they listen a bit more deeply because there is a blessing being spoken that they remember, and long for and are experiencing again.

And then when Jesus words are hanging there in the candlelit air and the people are wondering about how these words speak to their lives right there in the midst of Roman occupation, and poverty, and fear, and hurt, there is a commotion in the back of the synagogue.  Everyone turns around as someone from the back shouts out “What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth.”

The people turn to Jesus with the question the unclean spirit in their mouths as well.  “What does any of this have to do with us?” “How is anything of this going to change anything?”  “When I leave this place, I will still owe more than I can pay.  When I leave this place, I will be as fearful for my future as when I came in. What does all this talk have to do with anything?”  And though there was one man in the back with the unclean spirit upon him, Jesus looked out over all of them and sees the burden of demons upon them all.

And with a heart wide open, he walked over to that man in the back who dared to speak his pain and said “Be silent, come out of him!”   And looking deep into the man’s eyes I hear Jesus saying,  “You are a beloved child of God.  With you God is well pleased.”  In that candlelit moment, I am certain that more than one unclean spirit fled into the darkness.

Isn’t that is why we come?  Isn’t that is why we let the coffee get cold on the counter and leave the dog still begging for her morning walk?   Jesus isn’t just a compelling teacher. His words are not just interesting.  No, they are, he is, life changing.  We come here each Sunday, like those of old to open the scriptures and to learn from them about what God is doing in the world and how we are to be a part of it.  But we also come here with demons on our backs. There is something that has a grip on us, that is keeping us out of Eden.  Something that is doing all it can to keep us from living into the wholeness God envisions for us.

Don’t be ashamed of that.  It does not mean you have failed or are less than or somehow screwed up.  It is simply a part of what it is to be a part of the human condition.  What is so radically, counter cultural and incredibly freeing about church is that here we do not have to pretend that we do not need anyone or anything.

We get to come into this place and say. Yes, I have the demon of fear upon me.  Yes, I have the demon of shame upon me.  Yes, I have the demon of bitterness and anger and hate upon me.  We get to come into this place not just with ourselves but all that is upon us.

So what came with you today?  What clings to your back?  Is it fear for your future?  Is it frustration at how self centered and demanding our adolescent children can be?  Is it anger and frustration at an aging body that keeps you from living the life you want?   Is it outrage at the unfairness of a life drowning in difficulty?  Is it enslavement to an addiction of one kind or another?  Is it a buried rage at a wrong that cannot be righted?  Is there a sadness that cannot be spoken?  A shame that cannot be faced?  What is it for you this day?  What is it that you need to be freed from so that you too can taste Eden?

The book group this month has been reading a remarkable book entitled Unbroken.  It is a true story written by Laura Hillenbrand, the author of “Sea Biscuit”, Louie Zamperini, an Olympic athlete who joins the air force in WWII.  It is the story of how Louis’ plane is shot down over the Pacific and of how he survive 47 days on a life raft.  It is the story of how He is picked up by the Japanese and taken first to secrete interrogation camps and then to POW camp.  The book is a powerful testimony to the tenacity of the human spirit and it is a disturbing exploration of what we do to each other — of how violence, deprivation and abuse can strip degrade and dehumanize us.   It is a story of the human condition of how we put demons on each other’s backs.  It speaks not to just then, but the now I hear in reports from Doctors without Borders that speaks of torture occurring right now, right now, in Libyan detention centers.

Louie survives his tormenters.  His POW camp is liberated by allied forces, but nightmares haunt him.  He begins drinking too much and is overcome by bouts of uncontrollable rage. He is clearly not of his right mind. His spirit is unclean. He is in the hands of a demon.

Until one night, when he wandered into a tent rival in LA. Billy Graham was up front telling the crowd about Jesus but all Louis felt was anger and rage.  Like that man in the synagogue so long ago, Louis stand up ready to bolt, screaming in his heart “What have you to do with any of what I have experienced of the pain that I feel.” But in that moment, Louis finally feels all of his rage and pain, the unclean spirit that was choking the life out of him leave.  He was free.   Never again does Louis have nightmares of his tormenter. Never again does he drown his rage in drink.

Hillenbrand writes of Louie’s reflections as he thinks back on that night:  “When he thought of his history, what resonated with him now was not all that he had suffered but the divine love that he believed had intervened to save him.  He was not the worthless, broken, forsaken man that the Bird (his chief tormentor) had striven to make of him.  In a single, silent moment, his rage, his fear, his humiliation and hopelessness had fallen away.  He believed he was a new creation and for that he wept.”[1]

But being reclaimed by God, being made free of the unclean spirit that has its grip on us is not the only reason why we stumble into this sanctuary every Sunday. There is more.

A couple of weeks ago, one of you told of how your teenaged daughter raked you over the coals when soon after getting to church she discovered that no other of her young friends had made it that morning.  Completely put out, she demanded “What am I doing here?!”  As if to say, what is the point of me being here if my friends are not!

We come into this place week after week not only because we have a need to be liberated us from that which diminishes us, but also because we know that life lived in its fullest is life lived together.  Let me repeat that,  life lived in its fullest is life lived together.

H. Richard Niebuhr, the 20^th century theologian writes compellingly of this need to respond to each other in his book The Responsible Self.[2]  Niebuhr claims that the ethos or way of living that enables us to be most fully alive is not that of striving to achieve some goal, or of following some prescribed rules for living. The ethos that enables us to be most fully alive is living a responsive life.   Listening and responding to the words and actions of those around us and having them listen and respond to our words and actions that is what we do, who we are.

But what the key is that we listen and respond not out of our own authority based on self interest, but out the kind of authority Jesus lived, out of God love. When we do that for and with each other, a new way of being in the world and with each other is born.  A new creation unfolds.  Eden is again.

Jesus is doing this all the time.  Starting here in the synagogue.  Jesus calls the unclean spirit out of the man not to demonstrate his own power, but in order that this once sidelined man can step into the embrace of the community.  Jesus will go through his entire ministry doing this. He will heal the hemorrhaging woman calling her daughter, reinstating her back into her community. He will redefine belonging not based on whose household you were born into but as a shared kinship as brothers and sisters, as children of God.

This is at the heart of Paul’s teaching to the community in Corinth that Stu read for us today.  A dispute has arisen about eating meat.  Not just any meat though.  Corinth was a cosmopolitan town where many people from any religions lived.  The town was full of shrines and temples to a pantheon of gods.  It was the custom to sacrifice animals. Some of the meat after sacrifice  sold in the market place.  So those followers of Jesus argues that it surely can do no harm to eat this eat since they know that there is no other god but God.  None of this other god worship or temple meat has any meaning and therefore cannot be of harm.

Paul says yes that is true, but if there are some in your community who are new converts. Who are shaky in their faith, who may be confused by seeing you eat meat sacrificed to other gods, then why would you do it? Don’t gloat in knowing you are right.  Love of your fellow Christian is more important than whether you do or do not eat meat.

Knowing you are right just puffs up, he says. But it is love that builds up.  And we are in the business of building up. That is also why we come.

One final thought.  Did you know we have a facebook page?  We study Scripture that is more than two thousand years old but also we a have an online presence that ought to be always new and changing. But when I sit down in front of my computer to update our status, I always pause.  I know the whole point of updating our status is convey to others all that is happening here and to invite them to be a part of it.  But I always end up wanting to type the same thing “experiencing God’s love and learning to love each other in the same way.”  Or perhaps “Growing in love of God and of each other.”  And then “ Yep, still at it, we are growing in love.”

Not too catchy I know, but it is true.  Whether our youth are raising over $500 dollars in a bake sale for Nicaragua; or whether the women in the church are gathered for good soup and heart-felt conversation; or whether the stewardship committee is thinking deeply about how best to manage our investments, our status is about loving God and loving each other.  It is a message as old as the Galilean dust on our sandals and as new as the deliverance that is ours this today.  Thanks be to this loving and timeless God of ours and thanks be to this community through which we come to experience that love.  AMEN

Jonah 3:1-5, 10

Mark 1:14-

Jonah, the “reluctant prophet” who God has to call two times before he begrudgingly does what God asks of him.

Jonah, the rebellious prophet who when he first hears God’s call to Nineveh goes in the exact opposite direction, jumping on a boat and fleeing for Spain.

Jonah, who gets himself tossed overboard to calm a tremendous storm, who is swallowed by a whale, who ends up spending three days in the belly of that whale before being vomited out onto dry land.

Jonah, who finally goes off to Nineveh to deliver God’s message but is so bitter about having to do so that afterwards he marches off in a huff to a bluff outside the city, to pout and fume.

Jonah, who gets so angry when God makes a bush to spring up to give him shade only then to be devoured by a worm the next day, that he rants “why not just kill me now!”

This book of Jonah seems like it ought to be prophetic after all it is set in the Bible in right next to the greats as Isaiah, Jeremiah, Micah and Amos.  And his call seems authentic for it begins with the prophetic announcement “Now the word of the Lord came to Jonah.”

But with all the odd and rather comical twists and turns of this narrative, one has to wonder what the prophetic message of the book really is.  Is its prophetic message the words that Jonah reluctantly speaks to the people of Nineveh?  The words that were read to us today? Or is there more going on here? [1]

Before we dive into that question.  Let us pray.

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be acceptable to you O God, our rock and our redeemer.  Amen.

             Jonah is often referred to as the reluctant prophet as if reluctance is that which distinguishes him from all the other prophets of the Bible. But in fact, reluctance is not atypical for prophets.  When a human being hears the word of God telling him or her to go out and say something bold, something that often runs against the grain of the status quo, the dominant culture, the prevailing myth of the time, reluctance — if not outright protestation — is most often how the “would be” prophet responds.

We have a tendency these days, especially in my profession, to glamorize or romanticize the prophets.  If someone says “O, he has a prophetic voice,” or that “she has a prophetic ministry,” we all sit up a bit straighter and nod knowingly (trying to hide just a shade of envy perhaps) for who wouldn’t want to have the hand of God upon them, who wouldn’t want to have the words of God in one’s own mouth?

Who wouldn’t?  Well a true prophet of course.  The role of a prophet is a hard and dangerous one.  The prophet is called when there is a rift in the relationship between God and the people.  The role of the prophet is to mediate between God and God’s people when things are not going well.

Remember Moses, the great prophet of the Exodus, when he goes up Mount Sinai to receive the Ten Commandments and then comes back down only to find that the “stiff necked people” have turned from their faith in God to bow down to a golden calf, an idol of their own making.  Remember how angry God gets and how God threatens to destroy them all?  But then Moses steps into the breach, into the broken relationship between God and God’s people and talks God down from destruction.  Moses asks God to remember God’s love for the people, to forgive them — and God does.

Or do you remember, how the prophet Micah speaks truth to power, chastising the wealthy and privileged for their excesses, naming the injustice of an economic system that privileges and protects the prosperity of a few while consigning the rest to poverty and branding them as less than and not deserving.

Standing in the breach and speaking God’s vision is difficult and dangerous work.  Not something taken on lightly.  Remember the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., Mahatma Gandhi, and Archbishop Oscar Romero.

But as high as the cost is of doing the job of a prophet, not doing it is even higher.   For salvation is at stake.   The deliverance of a people hangs in the balance.  Deliverance from misguided, unjust, sinful ways of being in the world that rob them and others from experiencing the full, glorious humanity that God has entrusted to them and envisions for all is at hand.

What a responsibility.  No wonder Moses, when standing face to face with the burning bush and hearing the message that God asked him to speak to the great and powerful Pharaoh, was reluctant.  He stammers “Who am I that I should go to Pharaoh and bring the children of Israel out of Egypt?”  Or Isaiah, when the word of the Lord comes to  him and he is to speak to Jerusalem of how they have strayed from equity and justice of God’s vision, Isaiah protests “Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips!”

So it is not the reluctance of a prophet that distinguishes Jonah.  Reluctance is a natural response when faced with one’s own limitations and the enormity of the task at hand.

What distinguishes Jonah is that his reluctant stems not because he fears he is not capable of what is being asked of him or even because he fears for his own safety, after all Nineveh is the capital of the Assyrian empire, arch enemies of the Hebrew people; but because he thinks that the people to whom God has asked him to speak do not deserve it.  For Jonah, it is not he who is lacking; it is the people of Nineveh.  The scripture tells us that Jonah flees from God when God first asks him to deliver the message because Jonah knows that God is “a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and relenting from disaster.” (Jonah4:2).  Given what Jonah knows of God, Jonah fears that God may very well extend God’s grace to the Ninevites; that God may well deliver them into new life and in Jonah’s mind that would be just about the worst thing possible.  In fact, Jonah would rather die than deliver the life changing message that God wants Jonah to speak.

That is why Jonah runs away to sea.  That is why Jonah pouts on the hillside.  That is why Jonah rants, “Just kill me now God.”

The prophetic message of the book lies not in the words that Jonah speaks but in the person and actions of Jonah himself.  The book in its entirety is a carefully crafted farce or parody that uses hyperbole to bring into relief the tight fisted, greedy, self serving mind of Jonah that he himself is blind to. The book of Jonah is a prophetic utterance warning of the choice we have to make between greed and grace.

For grace is happening all around.  The sea and sailors, the whale and worm, the very lowest of low, the people of Nineveh and even the animals are all aware of it. They are all participants in this flood of grace of forgiveness and second chances and new beginnings.  And then there is Jonah, so entrenched in his world view that he is missing out on it all.  What was it about Jonah? Exclusive and self centered, he thinks he knows better than God. That he knows what should and should not be. The only one that looses out in this story is Jonah.  His refusal, his inability to engage grace ultimately leaves him sidelined.

The book of Jonah, it is believe was written in the post exilic time when the Hebrew people were struggling to make sense of what just happened to them.  When they were prying their fingers open to release their understanding of God as just their own tribal God concerned with only their well being to a wider and wilder understanding of God as moving in the world in ways they could not understand but that ultimately they were called not just to trust but to participate in.  This tension between wanting to hold onto God for ourselves and the expansiveness of God’s grace is reflected in beautiful and lyrical passages that pepper the prophetic literature about the Hebrew people being the ones through whom all the nations will come to know God.  Listen to these words that speak the vision of reconciliation.

It shall come to pass in the latter days
that the mountain of the house of the LORD
shall be established as the highest of the mountains,
and shall be lifted up above the hills;
and all the nations shall flow to it,

The grace of God is not just for one people but for all.

And so the book of Jonah is a powerful indictment of our tendency toward self absorption.  Our own tendency to clutch onto our way of seeing things.  Our own sense of entitlement.  Our own tendency to determine who we think is worthy and who is not.

So I wonder what the book of Jonah in its prophetic indictment of greed and exclusivity in the face of grace, may help us to see about ourselves or about the social, economic and political landscape of our time?  Do we think there are some outside of God’s grace? Some who are undeserving and better left out?

If Jonah is a teaching of warning, the gospel passage today is a teaching of inspiration. While Jonah focuses on himself the Disciples are being draw into the time that has come.    “Follow me,” Jesus says, and they do.  When God calls we are to trust that what God asks of us is what is needed not only for ourselves but for the greater good.  The time is now.  We are no longer waiting.  “The kingdom of God is at hand; repent and believe in the Good News.” The God of love and forgiveness, of second chances and new beginnings is at work in the world.  The seas and the whale, the bush and the worm, even the rulers and animals of Nineveh see it, participate in it, rejoice in it.  Will we?  Let us be informed and warned by the book of Jonah.  Let us never hold too tightly what we believe is ours.  Let our hands and hearts be open so that like Simon and Andrew, James and John we may be led into the future God envisions.  Amen

 The Youth Group Bake Sale takes place Sunday from 9:30-11:30 a.m.outside Starbucks.  Stop by for a goodie. The Youth will use the money raised to buy school supplies for next month’s mission trip to Nicaragua.

 Ice Cream Party This year our Noah’s Ark and Faithful Friends classes have been working on skills that build community.  To celebrate having filled their marble jars
of good behavior, they will have an ice cream party at the end of class on Sunday.
 

Living Waters Prayer Group will meet on Monday, January 23 at 7:30 a.m.

 The NICA Committee will meet Sunday after worship.

 Youth Group Ski Trip January 27-29. Ski at Stratton Mountain. Stay at Buz and Karen’s condo in Bondville, VT.  RSVP to Kathy.

Book Group The next meeting is Tuesday, January 31 at 7:30 p.m. in the Reception Room.  We are reading Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand.

Guest Speaker on Nicaragua

 Please join the Nicaraguan travelers on the stage on Sunday, January 29 at 11:30  as we hear from Xenia Barahona from the Center for Global Education.   Xenia will speak to us about the history of Nicaragua and the current social, political and economic landscape of the country. Xenia was born and raised in Nicaragua, where her family lives, and came to Boston six years ago where she now resides with her husband.  Throughout her life she has worked in cross-cultural education, bringing awareness around issues of social justice.  She is passionate about experiential education as a tool for personal and societal transformation. Xenia has worked organizing and leading short-term travel seminars to Central America with organizations such as The Council of Protestants Churches in Nicaragua (CEPAD), the Center for Global Education/Augsburg College,  and the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee (UUSC).  Currently she works as a medical interpreter at Shriners Hospital for Children in Boston.  She has a B.A. in Translation from the Central American University in Managua and a M.A. in Urban and Environmental Policy from Tufts University.

  Bring your curiosity and questions! This will be an interesting and informative discussion.

“Being Called”

Second Epiphany 2012-1 Samuel 3:1-10, John 1:43-51

I was in the sixth grade the first time I really understood the idea of what it meant to be “called”.  It was my first year of middle school full of all of the things a first year in middle school is often ripe with:  anxiety, a new wing of the building, my first locker, a particularly unfortunate haircut…you get the drift.

After months of struggling through my adolescent angst, I read a flier about auditions for the upcoming school musical.  I had always loved to sing, and had been in the school chorus for as long as I could remember.  But I had never auditioned for a musical.  I couldn’t get up in front of all of those people and perform by myself!

Well, as mothers often do, mine begged to differ.  Insisting it was an excellent idea, she cheered me along the road to try outs.  After a couple of brush-ups with a voice coach, and as much confidence as I could muster, I went to the auditions.

I have to say that it wasn’t the awful experience I feared it would be.  I sang my solo, I sat down in my chair, no one laughed, and I am here today to tell you that I landed a part in the chorus.  But landing the part wasn’t the pinnacle of that experience for me.

It was watching with rapt attention over the coming months as the woman who became my drama director turned our band of middle and high school misfits into a cast fit for the professional stage.  She cheered, coached, and drove us to bring our absolute best to the stage every time.  She polished and molded each of us into individual performers richer than we knew we could be.

I remember asking her about halfway through rehearsals, how do you do it?  How do you make everything work so well?  She responded simply, it is what I was called to do.  While it would be a few years before I could truly appreciate what that meant, I was struck by the idea of being “called” to a profession.

Scripture is rich with examples of people answering God’s call.  In this week’s text, we hear the story of God’s call to Samuel.  This story is written in a time when the people of Israel were longing for leadership, for a king.   While it later chronicles Israel’s monarchy, we begin this text with the story of a prophet, Samuel.  He is a most unlikely messenger, a young, adolescent boy.

The story of Samuel’s call by God is one of words and hearing.  Unlike Kings that came after him, Samuel did not have an ornate palace to try and prove his call from God.  Moreover, he did not even want to be a King!  He had only ears to listen and a mouth to share God’s message.  And although he did not want to be a King, this prophet did become a king-maker.  He set moral authority in Israel that lay the groundwork for rulers to come.  Surely Israel would not have been the same without him.

Tomorrow is Martin Luther King, Jr. day.    The day we have set aside to honor his legacy of justice, peace, service, and faithfulness.  I am sure that many of you know pieces of his story.  Frank shared some with us during children’s time this morning.  Dr. King’s March on Washington and “I Have a Dream” speech are defining pieces of our lives and culture today.

There is however a piece of his story that hits close to home which some of you may not know.  In 1951, Dr. King came to Boston University to pursue a Doctorate in Systematic Theology.  It was at Boston University that he first met Coretta Scott King who later became his wife and partner in life, ministry, and the pursuit of justice.

As Boston’s Baptist community grew riveted with King’s preaching and dynamic style, his reputation grew.  A former roommate recalls that friends and visitors came to their Dorchester apartment from far and wide.  They would join in the conversations about civil rights.   Memoirs on King’s life talk about how he reveled in this time.  Never before had he been in a place where he had felt so free and equal.  The possibilities seemed endless.  It was during this time at Boston University that Dr. King’s first reflections on how to end segregation and ease racial tensions in the South began in earnest.

And it was in these reflections that he came to realize that he could not stay in this northern “safe haven” he had developed.  His passion for justice and equality for all was calling him back to his home in the deep South.   There was much work to be done, and they needed a person of his gifts, skill and talent.  He said, here I am, Lord, send me.  And God did.

And so in 1953, he went home.  He married Coretta, and in the coming years came the Montgomery Bus Boycotts, the foundation of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and the passage of the Civil Rights Act.

Now, I am certain that staying in Boston was probably pretty appealing to Dr. King.  There was a safety and security, a level of comfort in his life here.  He could have easily pastored a church, preached a good word on Sunday mornings, and left the hard fought battles of the civil rights movement to someone else.  But instead, he took a risk.  He said no to the comfortable and familiar, and yes to God.

And so did the people who became part of his movement.  Like Samuel, this preacher’s kid from Atlanta, Georgia was an unlikely messenger who bravely listened and answered God’s call.  And like Samuel, he was a leader in his own right, setting the tone for our nation through his rich oratory and community organizing.  Surely we would not be the same without him.

I am reminded of Dr. King as I reflect on this week’s text from the Gospel of John as well.  Jesus travels to Galilee where he finds Philip.  He asks Philip to become a disciple.  Now, I don’t know about you, but I can only imagine Philip’s emotions were running high.  He has been asked by the messiah to follow him!  And of course, he runs to find his friend Nathaniel to share in this news.

Upon finding Nathaniel, he tells him that he has found the one about whom Moses and the Prophets have written.  He has found Jesus of Nazareth!  Nathaniel replies:  Can anything good come from Nazareth?  You see, Nathaniel has heard of Nazareth’s reputation.  A reputation that it was a place of depravity, and well, certainly not somewhere a MESSIAH should come from.  How on earth could God be sending a messenger from a place like that?

Yet, I found myself exclaiming out loud as I read the text:  OF COURSE something good can come from Nazareth.  Because God has a long history of choosing messengers from the most unlikely places to bring us the things we need to hear most.

I wonder how many of you have experienced something like Samuel, or Dr. King?  You have felt the unmistakable tug of God’s call, pulling your life in a new and perhaps unseen direction.  Maybe at first you resisted, pushing aside the tug on your heart or encouraging words of others to pursue a new vocation, or project?  Maybe you stood alone in a room having a strongly worded conversation with God about how God MUST mean someone other than you.  Because you are just not equipped to do this thing that you are being called to do.

This week’s scriptures challenge us to listen to God’s call in our lives.  To hear the places where we are being called out of our comfort zones, to speak truth to power, to work for justice for the oppressed, to make a change in our own lives even if we are not sure where the road is leading.  For God’s call did not stop with Samuel, or Dr. King.  God is still speaking to us today, calling us to share God’s very heart with bold audacity into a world that so desperately needs it.

I’m sure that Dr. King did not always see the road ahead of him with clarity.  But he moved forward knowing that this is who he was called to be.  I’m sure there were nights that my drama director sat in our auditorium at 8 PM, watching us run the same scene for the 10^th time, wondering if she could keep going.  But she did, secure in the knowledge that this was where God called her to be.  I’m sure that there were moments that Samuel was sure that God must have meant someone else, but could not escape the tug on his heart that this was God’s call.

Be bold brothers and sisters.  Do not be afraid.  What is it that is tugging on your hearts this morning?  However unlikely a messenger, or ill-equipped you may think that you are, know this:  God does not call the equipped.  God equips the called.  Stand strong in the arms of this community, for we will be here to cheer you on.   Beloved ones, we cannot always see the road ahead, but if we step out in faith, God will not leave us alone.

In a few moments, I will invite you to stand for our responsive hymn: Here I Am Lord.  And as we sing, I encourage you to throw open the doors of your hearts.  Listen for God’s voice calling to you this morning.  And then sing with all of your conviction:  I will go, Lord, if you lead me, I will hold your people in my heart.   For in the words of Dr. King:  Faith is taking the first step, even when we cannot see the whole staircase.  May we have the courage to take the first step.  Amen.

Eliot W. Hill

Newton Highlands. Eliot W. Hill died suddenly at home

on December 9, 2011. He was 53 years old, the beloved

son of Geraldine Hill Elion and the late Walter D. Hill.

He is survived by a sister Alexis D. Hill of Westboro, and

a brother Theodore G. Hill of Brooklyn NY, and several

cousins, nieces, and nephews.

Eliot graduated from Newton South High School and received

a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Massa-

chusetts at Amherst. He did advanced studies at the University

of Arizona at Tucson, and the University of Wisconsin.

He worked in the building trades in Arizona and Oregon,

returning to Newton in 2007. He was an avid outdoorsman

and supporter of the ecology movement.

A memorial gathering will be held on January 21st, 2012, at

11 am at the Union Church in Waban.

In lieu of flowers, please support your preferred animal welfare

organization.

Living Waters Prayer Group will meet on Monday, January 16 at 7:30 a.m.

Donations of baked goods are needed for the Youth Group Bake Sale to benefit Nicaragua. If you can help, please let Kathy know. Donations are
needed by Saturday, January 21st at 10 a.m.

Join the women of Union Church for the first meeting of the Wellspring Women’s Group on Wednesday evening, January 18 from 6:30 to 8:00 p.m.

The January meeting of Java Gents will be Friday, January 20 at 7:00 a.m.

The NICA Committee will meet January 22 after worship.

Youth Group Ski Trip January 27-29. Ski at Stratton Mountain. Stay at Buz and Karen’s condo in Bondville, VT. RSVP to Kathy.

Book Group. Many of you may have participated in a book group in the past or maybe do so now. But have you had the experience of reflecting on literature through the lens of faith with your fellow church friends? Please consider joining us for these particularly rich conversations. The next meeting is Tuesday, January 31 at 7:30 p.m. in the Reception Room. We are reading Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand.

“The face of the deep”

Genesis 1:1-5, Mark 1:4-11

It was well over a mile wide, a grey swath cutting through the green arctic tundra.  It was the Denali National Park in Alaska.  Two hours of hiking had brought us down onto the great gravely expanse of the river bed.

The river we were to cross was a braided river called such because instead of one big stream of water, it consisted of several smaller interwoven ones.  Braided rivers are typical for glacial run off and often change course surging and diminishing with the changing melt from the glacier above.

We had been instructed at the ranger station, before setting off, on how we were to cross this river bed before us.  We were to make a chain with interlocking arms, one person before and one behind, and to walk in single file facing up stream in order to keep an eye out for a sudden surge of water.

We were about half way across, when it happened. When suddenly I was lifted up as if grabbed by the collar of my jacket and tossed backwards into the icy water.  A section of the stream above had changed course and great gush had hit me square on while leaving the person on my right and on my left untouched. But I was tumbled downstream. I thrashed from side to side, trying to find a footing, trying to wrestle my arms out of my water logged back pack, but I couldn’t.  It was too cold  –  the current too strong – the water too tumultuous.  I could do nothing.

I am certain that I am not the only person in this sanctuary who knows what it is to be swept away.  [1]  At one time or another, and for many of us right now, we are hit square on.  We lose our footing and tumble backwards into churning chaos.  Illness strikes and someone we love is suddenly gone.  The words we dreaded are spoken and our job is swept from us.  A relationship that has grounded and defined us for years, crumbles tossing us to waves of sadness and loss.  And even if our life circumstances are fairly stable right now, there are places in our hearts that we keep well guarded.  Places of regret, or shame or pain that we seal off for fear that if we face them their angry energy will surge up and overwhelm us.  And let’s not even mention the chaos of the nation’s and world headlines.

“In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, ” (Genesis 1:1)

In the beginning… back before language, back in the shadowy dawn of pre-memory, back in the beginning.  At a then so long ago, a then lost to us now, a wind from God swept over the face of the formless void, swept over the waters of chaos and God created….

We hear these words now as an echo of what was so long ago.  But theologian Catherine Keller wonders if the “in the beginning” that was, is not the God that is.  What if God is the beginning, what if God is that which moves over chaos, enters the formless void to deliver us from it, creating something beautiful, a new creation, on the other side of it?

Did you know that here are  two creation stories in the Bible.  There is this first one where God calls all that is into existence.  And then there is the second one with Adam and Eve in the garden, and the serpent that tempts them to eat what God has forbidden.  This second story was remembered when the Israelites were at their strongest. When theirs was a unified Kingdom under one Monarch.  It is a story of beginning that warns about the arrogance of thinking too much of ourselves and too little of God.

But this first creation story was remembered centuries later when that powerful kingdom had been toppled by the Babylonians and the people swept far away into exile.  It was written later but placed first in the cannon of the bible not as a warning against arrogance but as a hymn of hope.  Out of chaos, out of the churning of the formless void, out of the dislocation and despair of exile, the breath of God moves across the face of the deep and God creates.

As the waters closed over him, as he sank backwards into the cold and muddy waters of the Jordan he saw it all.  In one achingly pure moment he saw their pain.  He saw how lost they were.  He saw their fear.  He saw how they were swept away by chaos unsure of their footing, unable to make their way.  As he felt himself drowning with the sorrow of it all, his cousin John’s strong arm reach underneath him and lift him up, up.  And as his face broke through the water, as the warmth of the sun was upon him the heaven was torn apart and the Spirit descended like a dove upon him and a voice from heaven said.  “You are my Son, the beloved, with you I am well pleased.”

Jesus, the one Paul will call the new creation. Steps out of the river Jordan, water streaming from him, baptized in glory he will walk forward now into his ministry for us.  He will be the strong arm that lifts the lame to walk.  He will be the kind hand that touches ones no one else dare touch.  He will calm the stormy sea and fills the fishing nets until they strain.  The new creation,  in the beginning  — is now.

All was fading from me, until a strong arm reached underneath me and lifted me up.  As my faced broke the waters I was startled by the son.  Where was I?  What was this, what this new beginning now?

In this beginning, God creates.

In the beauty of song, in the candle lit softness of the sanctuary, in the sweet singing voice of a camel, in the twirling dance of a rogue sheep, the strong arm of the one who was born to us in a manger lifts us up.  As our faces break the waters are we are warmed by the son and stunned by the beauty that we are part of the new creation that is unfolding around us.

People of God, the good news for us and all the world is that “in the beginning” is ours not just then but Now!  Thanks be to God. Amen.

The Christian Education Committee is looking for classroom assistants and hall monitors for the winter weeks. Look for Kathy after worship and at reception to sign up.

Bible study is reading through the book of Luke and meets each Sunday morning from 8:00 to 9:00 a.m. in Stacy’s study.

Living Waters Prayer Group will meet on Monday, January 9 at 7:30 a.m.

Mission will meet Monday evening January 9, at 7:30 p.m.

Lunch Bunch meets Tuesday, January 10 at noon.

The Teaching Parish Committee meets Wednesday, January 11 at 7:00 p.m.

Join the women of Union Church for the first meeting of the Wellspring Women’s Group on Wednesday evening, January 18 from 6:30 to 8:00 p.m.

Book Group. Many of you may have participated in a book group in the past or maybe do so now. But have you had the experience of reflecting on literature through the lens of faith with your fellow church friends? Please consider joining us for these particularly rich conversations. The next meeting is Tuesday, January 31 at 7:30 p.m. in the Reception Room. We are reading Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand.

There will be no Sunday School on Sunday. Infant and toddler care is available.

 Sunday School resumes January 8.

Bible study will resume on January 8 from8:00 to9:00 a.m. in Stacy’s study. 

Living Waters Prayer Group will resume on Monday, January 9 at7:30 a.m.

Epiphany Service.  Did you know that the early church did not celebrate Christmas?  Instead, early Christians celebrated the season of epiphany when they remembered and rejoiced at the manifestation of God on earth in the person of Jesus. 

This year, we too will celebrate Epiphany on Friday, January 6th at6:00 p.m. 

  We will begin with a potluck meal in the vestry. 

 We will then process the light of God throughout the church ending up

 in the sanctuary for the culmination of the service. 

 This intergenerational service will appeal to all ages.

Book Group.   Many of you may have participated in a book group in the past or maybe do so now.  But have you had the experience of reflecting on literature through the lens of faith with your fellow church friends?  Please consider joining us for these particularly rich conversations.  The book group will not meet in December but please mark Tuesday, January 31 at 7:30 p.m. in the Reception Room.  We are reading Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption

John 1:6-8, 19-28
Luke 1:46-55

Earlier this week, I attended the rededication of the African meeting house, there on Beacon Hill, just off Joy Street.

Build in 1804, this meeting house was the first place in the United States created by and built for African Americans.  Within its walls, African American children were educated, people gathered to hear speakers debate the most pressing issues of the day and on Sunday people gathered for worship.  At the rededication of this meeting house, speaker after speaker told how this simple but elegant structure had born witness to a people as they threw off the chains of slavery and laid claim to freedom and a full dignity of self.  In fact, I learned that it was the African meeting house that first opened its doors to the organizing effort of the abolitionist movement when no other public building in Boston; when no other church would do so.   And it was the African meeting house, there on Beacon hill, just off Joy street, that would go on to be an important stop of rest and rejuvenation on the underground railroad.

The underground railroad, the way that Slaves, having escaped from the plantations of the south would make their way north to freedom.  These men and women traveled in the deep darkness of the night through fear and hunger, forging rivers that threatened to swallow them, crossing fields that threatened to expose them.  Traveling through the night, moving from enslavement to freedom, from fear to hope, from pain to promise, from death to new life.

And in that last bit of night just before dawn, these weary travelers would look for a place to rest.  Peering out through the darkness they would look for the flicker of a candle’s flame.  Deep in the shadows they would look for the light shining out in the darkness.  They would look for a candle alit in a particular window or there on the front stoop of a doorway. For a lit candle signals that that the house was safe.  The light of the candle led these weary travelers in from the night, from the dark and the cold and the fear and the threat and the hunger and to a place where they could find rest.  The light was a sign of hope, peace and even joy on this difficult way to freedom.

The days of the underground railroad may be but a stirring memory now, but people all over the world, in our back yard and we ourselves, continue to walk in deep darkness.  There is much that enslaves us, much that we are afraid of, much that we hunger for.  The tents of Occupy Boston have been taken down but economic disparity persists sucking more and more lives into the gap.  Our stores are alit with bright lights and cheerful carols yet so many can hear only the echo of pain and loss of love ones who have died, relationships that have broken, illness or economic uncertainty that befall them.

And yet, we dare to light the candles of hope, peace and yes, even joy.  We dare to gather around their flame, because we are on the walk to freedom.    We are on the Way to new life.  You see, Jesus came into this world, the creator heaven and earth took on flesh and walked among us so that we may know what it is not to be enslaved any more but to be free to be fully alive.  To wake up to the truth that God is present to us right now.   The love of God, made manifest in Jesus is the light that is shining out in our darkness.  It is the light that is leading us.

But it does not stop there.  It can’t.  For having seen that flicker of light, having followed that light, having been delivered from the deep darkness of night and having been gathered around that light of new life,  we are to take up that light and carry it ourselves into places of deep darkness, places where people continue to be imprisoned, fearful or hungry.

We listen to the scripture of Mary and John the Baptizer and marvel at their courage and faith; their clear-sightedness and their passion.  But we are called to do more than marvel.  We are called to be the Marys and the John the Baptizers of our time.  We are to be Light bearers like Mary, birthing God’s peace into the world. We are to be like John, Baptistizers calling out in places of wilderness preparing the way for God’s light to come into the world, a light of justice, peace and hope.  This is the two fold movement of advent, to prepare to receive but also to wake up to the truth that we have received the light and that we are compelled now to be that light for others.

Friday morning, several of us went over to the Waban Health and Rehabilitation Center for our monthly worship service with the residents.  Only Friday was to be a bit different.  I had received a call from Joanna the activities director earlier in the week letting me know that Katherine, one of the residents who worshiped with us had died.  And Joanna asked me if we would be willing to make space in the worship service for the residents, staff of Waban Health and for Katherine’s son and sister to remember Katherine and to grieve her passing.  As we worshiped together a remarkable thing began to happen.  There in that room, in the dingy basement of that nursing home, with the din of the kitchen in the background, a light first dim and then growing ever brighter began to shine.  As it shined out and as it did the residents began to emerge from the silence of grief and the fear of their own future and began to share memories and yes even their joy at having known Katherine.  It shined out and grew ever brighter, as the staff with eyes streaming laid down their weariness at having to say goodbye to another one that they had grown to love.  It shined out and grew ever righter as Katherine’s son and sister thanked  the residents, broken in body and confused in mind though they may be, for so bravely and compassionately walking with Katherine as she tried so hard to find her way.

People of God, let us light a candle and set it burning out there on the front stoop of this church.  Let us light a candle and set it burning in the window in this church so that those who are wandering in deep darkness may see in this place, in this people, a safe house, a place where they can come in from the darkness, from the fear and the hunger. Come into a place where they can be freed from that which persecutes them, a place where others will walk with them on the Way to freedom and new life.

People of God, let us live the advent stories – let us follow the example the so many people who have walked the road of freedom and let us prepare the road for those who have yet to walk it.  And in all of this, may Jesus be our light.   Amen

 Many thanks go to all of the cast members of Sunday’s pageant, and to the many people who made the cast’s participation possible: parents, the CE Committee,  and our director Kent Wittler.

To celebrate the pageant and to remember our sisters and brothers in Nicaragua, the kids are invited to party Nicaraguan-style with pinatas in the Vestry following worship.

Children are invited to join in worship on Christmas Day and New Year’s Day.  Sunday School resumes on January 8.

Children who would like to take part in the Christmas Eve tableau should plan to arrive at church by6:45 p.m. on Christmas Eve.  Parents should accompany their kids to the Littlehale Room to claim a part and a costume.  Participants will sit with their parents during the service and will be cued to come forward for their part in the  tableau during the appropriate hymn.

Living Waters Prayer Group continues on Monday, December 19 from7:30 – 8:15 a.m. in the Nativity Chapel.  All are welcome.

Advent Booklet.  If you have not already done so, please be sure to pick up a copy of the advent devotional booklet available on the table in the side chapel today. The booklet is a resource of scripture, prayer and meditations written by UCW members to help guide your preparation and reflection during this season.  The reflections from fellow members are particularly moving.  You will not want to miss them.

Blue Christmas Service.  The Christmas season is certainly full of joy and anticipation  but it can also be full of stress from the busyness and rush of it all.   This year we will gather for a new service on Wednesday, December 21 at7:00 p.m.  where we will take time to rest in the peace and calm of the sanctuary.  With song, prayer, candle lighting and reflections, we will have a chance to set down whatever burdens we carry (whether that be strain from financial difficulties, sadness at the loss of loved ones, struggles with illness, or just the fatigue of the season) and take up the love and peace of God giving us the strength we need to move through these days.

Epiphany Service.  Did you know that the early church did not celebrate Christmas?  Instead, early Christians celebrated the season of epiphany when they remembered and rejoiced at the manifestation of God on earth in the person of Jesus.  This year, we too will celebrate epiphany on Friday, January 6th.   We will begin with a potluck meal in the vestry.  We will then process the light of God throughout the church ending up  in the sanctuary for the culmination of the service.  This intergenerational service will appeal to all ages.

Book Group.   Many of you may have participated in a book group in the past or maybe do so now.  But have you had the experience of reflecting on literature through the lens of faith with your fellow church friends?  Please consider joining us for these particularly rich conversations.  The book group will not meet in December but please mark Tuesday, January 31 at 7:30 p.m. in the reception room.  We are reading Unbroken: A World War II Story of Survival, Resilience, and Redemption by Laura Hillenbrand.

 Photo/Video permission. In order to share the good news of the ministries of  The Union Church in Waban, we sometimes take photos and videos at worship and other events in the life of the church.  We, however, do not want to use these photos/videos without your permission to do so.  As such, the Council approved at its December meeting an updated photo/video permission policy. The entire policy is available at our web site, and on the office door, but the essence is that for adults we ask that you let us know if you DO NOT give us permission to use photo/video images of you, but for children, parents must explicitly GIVE US permission to do so.   Please take a moment to review the policy and communicate with the office as needed.

"It’s time to wake up"  Rev. Stacy Swain

Isaiah 64: 1-5

Mark 13:24-37

           It had gotten later than we usually liked it to be when we traveled that so called road back from the city of Chalatenango to our little village.  It was inky dark out, no moon, and, of course, no street lights.  We were going slowly, rolling like a boat on rough seas, through the pot holes, ditches and ridges in the road.  It had been a long day at a training we had had with other health promoters in the region.  I was tired.  Mark was driving.  As the truck rolled along, my eyes got heavier and heavier. 

           And then, we rounded a bend and came upon something that jolted me awake, — that made Mark hit the brakes.  Right before us, the heavens were opening and the stars were falling from the sky. 

           It took a moment for our eyes to adjust and our astonishment to abate just enough to make out that what we were seeing was a several acre field absolutely chocked full of fireflies.  There must have been thousands and thousands of them.   The entire field was lit up as if someone had laid miles of Christmas lights in the grasses.

            But because the moonless night was so inky black and so full of stars, it was impossible to tell where the sky ended and where the field began.  It was as heaven and earth had merged in one vast expanse of dancing lights.  We sat there for I don’t know how long awed by heaven and earth’s embrace.  

~~~

          Jesus tells us in Gospel of Mark from today to “Beware, keep alert.”  These are some of Jesus’ final words to the disciples before heaven and earth come together in the events of Holy week.  It’s striking to me that the teaching of “Keeping awake” is what Jesus chooses to  underscore for the disciples at the end of his time with them.

          Perhaps that is because Jesus knows it is what the disciples need to hear.  Perhaps it is because he knows their propensity to be plagued by drowsiness.

           Remember that passage in the Gospels called the Transfiguration when Jesus takes Peter, James and John to the top of a high mountain?  Remember how the disciples almost missed the whole thing?  They were just nodding off when it happened. When  Jesus’ face changed and his clothes became dazzling white; when Moses and Elijah appeared and all were surrounded by the glory.  The disciples almost missed it; this embrace of heaven and earth.

           And then these same disciples,  did not do nearly as well in the Garden of Gethsemane it turns out, that night.  When Jesus again took Peter, James and John with him and told them to keep awake as Jesus withdrew a bit further to pray.  When he returned he found them sleeping.  He woke them then up and said  “your spirit is willing but your flesh is weak.”  And he went off two more times to pray only to return again and again to find the disciples sleeping for their eyes were very heavy? (Mark 14:32-42). 

           What is it about this tendency of the disciples to doze off?  Why is it that Jesus warns us about it so explicitly against it?

           The early church mothers and fathers, those holy people who settled in the sands of Egypt recognized this tendency in themselves and their community.  They saw this tendency to “fall asleep” as a kind of creeping lethargy that sapped the vitality and energy not only of their individual selves but of their community as well.  So clear were they about its presence that they gave it a name, the noonday demon. For it was at that hour that distraction and disinterest most often came creeping doing its best to convince the monk that the life of devotion to God was a ridiculous pursuit full of nothing but tedium.  This noonday demon is life sapping, and leads lethargy, to a kind of a paralysis of the soul. (from Kathleen Norris, Acedia and Me)

           This noon day demon does its best to convince us that living a life of faith really takes too much work and it really is not worth the effort.  Things are really not going to change.  Prayer does nothing.  The problems of the world are far too vast for us to do much about them and after all what it is point?  You were up to late last night, you should have skipped church.  You are too tired, no need to get up for prayer group.  What’s the point, of making such an effort?    

           And this tendency to doze off, this pull towards lethargy has affected our life as a nation as well.  Pastoral Theologian and Professor Sharon Thornton believes that we are suffering from pervasive issues of dislocation from our true selves and from our common life.  As the ties that bind us together as families, communities and as a nation begin to unravel we struggle to find meaning and purpose in our days.  In our dislocation and increasing isolation we turn in upon ourselves filling up the ache on our hearts with the latest quick fix, shopping, working, eating or drinking too much. 

           But then just as we feel our eyes closing, Jesus grabs us by the shoulders on Advent and says Wake up!  Beware, Stay alert! 

           Now being one, as Mark will attest, that chafes at being told what to do, I for want for one want to know why it matters if I am awake for not.  Is it really that important for me to be paying attention?  And if so, Why?

           God came to us in the person of Jesus to not just to show us the way of right living, but I believe that in some in the person of Jesus all flesh, all creation was re-infused, reconnected with that life force of the universe that was laid down on the dawn of creation.  We when we awake from our stupor we awake to the reality that ourselves and everything around us is filled with the light and love of God and through our hands and feet we participate in this light and love is brought into the world.  To succumb to the whisper of the noonday demon is turn over, give up our connection with the light and love of God.  It is to relinquish that creative, life giving power that has been extended to us through Jesus.  That’s why the stakes are so high.   

          You see waking is up not just something we do for ourselves. It is not just something that makes our own lives much more meaningful and fulfilling to live.  But waking up and staying awake is really something we do for each other and for the world.  When we wake up to the deep and powerful way that we are connected to God and through God to all things, then we can become instruments of God’s grace in the world.  Through who we are, what we do and how we love, we join in blurring that line between heaven and earth.  Through who we are and how we love we can send some of those stars tumbling down from heaven.

           It was imperative to Jesus that the disciples be awake because Jesus’ earthly presence was about to end. He needed the disciples to fully understand that it was this presence they were soon to inherit.  He would be with them.  He would give them through the Holy Spirit the power and presence that they would need to continue the regeneration of life on earth as God would have it.  But they soon would be his hands and feet, his eyes and mouth in the world.  This is why they needed to wake up.  This is why we need to wake up!

           So how do we do it? How do we wake up?  How do we stay alert?  How do we set our advent alarm clock?

           Turns out that once very effective way waking up and staying awake is through the power of structure and routine.  The noonday demon turns out hates a disciplined life.  That is why religious communities through out the ages have organized their lives in very intentional ways.  Each day there is time set aside to pray, and to work,  at time to meditate on God and a time to serve those around them.  It turns out this kind of integrated living creates a kind of mindfulness where one is more able to see where God is moving in the world and more will to participate in that movement. 

           What if we try it for these next four weeks?  I know it seems like a lot, but what if every day for the next four weeks we were to aside 30 minutes for God in whatever form that works best for you, but that we stick with it.  Praying in the morning, walking at noontime, journaling before bed of a review of your day looking for what you are grateful for and what you wish had gone differently.  Whatever it is what if you were to practice that every day for the next four weeks?  And then in the balance of our days, what if we committed ourselves to looking for God.  What if we held in our minds the question “Where is God in this?”  What if we walked through our days really connected to this power of life and goodness that is coursing through the world?  How would that change what we do? Who we are?  How would that chance our experience of being alive? 

           All around us there are examples of people waking up to the needs of our time. From Occupy Boston that, regardless of its politics or future agenda, has made us aware of the life sapping income disparity in our nation.  To City mission society in its partnership with the Boston Public Schools that is waking us up to the life sapping disparity in our public education system where disadvantaged children, are shunted to disadvantaged schools.  There is much to wake up to. There is much to be done. .

            Wake up!  Jesus says.  Stay alert.  Not just for yourself but for the world.   For things are happening.  Around the next bend the stars are falling from the heavens, and earth caught up in heaven’s embrace.  Around the next bend is a babe in a lying in a manger. Around the next bend, light is shining in the darkness, shining forth a love and peace and hope.   It is time to wake up.  AMEN     

November 20, 2011

“Standing at the Foot of the Throne” by Rev. Stacy Swain

Ezekiel 34: 11-16, 20-24

Matthew 25:31-46

            The first time I remember meeting God was when I was four years old.  My family was living outside of the Twin Cities in Minnesota.  We lived in an old farm house, with a bright red barn out back and several acres of pasture stretching out all around it.  I remember my dad had an old tractor that he would use to mow the meadows and I loved nothing more than to stand on the back hitch and hold onto his shoulders as we made long sweeping circles around the fields.

             It was there in the back field, the one that stretched in a gentle slope up to a rise and then down again to the forest beyond,  where I met God.

             My sister and I were laying on our bellies with elbows propped up chin in hands waiting silently in the tall grasses.  We had hauled a large block salt lick up from the barn and placed it on top of the rise in the field.  We placed it there in the late afternoon sun knowing that that was the time that the shy deer made their way out of the forest and into the pasture to graze.   We lay hidden in the lush green grasses warmed by the sun full of fragrance of late summer. 

             Now as vivid as this memory is, the strange thing is I do not remember if a deer ever did come meet us that day.  But what I do remember so clearly, what has held my heart all of these years, is how completely at peace I felt.  There by my sister’s side, warmed by the afternoon sun I felt so safe, so deeply contented, watched over somehow, protected by the universe. Lying there in the grass, I felt the care of God.     

~~

Will you pray with me?  May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be acceptable to you, O God our Rock and our Redeemer.  AMEN.

                In the sweep of the yearly cycle of worship, this Sunday is known as Christ the King Sunday.  This is the Sunday when we are reminded that at the end of all things, we will pass under the judgment of Christ who is seated on a throne of glory, Matthew tells us.  Our ancestors of faith, who built this church wanted to remind us of this as well.  Now we may have thwarted their intention a bit exiting the sanctuary as we do through the side chapel for reception.  But it is no accident that there on the back wall is enshrined Christ the King in the stained glass.  Christ the King is there so that every Sunday, we will be reminded that when we leave, whether it be this time of worship, or this liturgical year, or this earthly life, all of us leave passing under the judgment of Christ the King.

            Judgment day, this time of reckoning when the people are called to the foot of the throne and separated out one from another, sheep from goat, the righteous from the condemned has gotten a lot of play in Christian tradition.  I remember visiting a beautiful little church on one of the islands off Venice in Italy.  It was over a thousand years old and as I entered the peace of the place was palpable.  But after sitting for a while in the stillness I turned to go and was shocked and horrified by the grizzly scene of judgment on the back wall.  There was Christ seated on the throne of glory, the righteous looking smug on his right and those on his left, well let’s say, the scene made my blood run cold.  The message could not have been clearer.  Be afraid.  Be very afraid, for you never know where you will land.

             So every year when we come to this last Sunday in the worship year, this last Sunday before we start again next week with the first Sunday in Advent, I turn to the biblical text with a certain degree of trepidation. 

             I read the criteria for being among the righteous;  one must have fed the hungry, given the thirsty something to drink, welcomed the stranger, clothed the naked, cared for the sick and visited the one in prison and I don’t know about you but I immediately start running through my “own how to get to heaven” check list.   Feed the hungry?  Check, we are collecting food for the Newton food pantry.  Clothe those in need?  Check, we are collecting coats for cradles to crayons.  Welcome the stranger, Check, we had our community thanksgiving dinner.  Visit the one in prison? Check, we visited prayers upon the inmates through the Kairos ministry. Ok, so I may get by this year…   Maybe…

             But there is a rub for me at least.  Is uncertainty and fear really the emotion we are to feel at the end of it all?  After all we have experienced this year as we followed Jesus from the manger to the cross, and through the cross to the empty tomb, is fear and uncertainty really the emotion we are to feel as we live into Christ’s example?

              I think not.  Not only has time and time again, Jesus told us “Do not be afraid” but listen again to the scripture from today!  Jesus is speaking these words to the disciples on the day before he is betrayed. He knows that his earthly end is coming to a close and that the disciples are going to go through some really tough times and that they most likely will be really afraid.  He tells them, that at the end of it all, Jesus the Christ will be there on the throne of glory, but he will not be as a stern judge the text tells us.  He will be as a shepherd, separating the people as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.

             Now I am sure that there was a collective sigh of relief from the disciples that day, those gathered around Jesus when they heard these words, for they knew what they meant.  They knew how a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.  It is not by score card.  It is not by tallying it all up and seeing if one is good enough. 

             It’s by calling that special call, whistling that special whistle, when hearing that the sheep’s ear’s perk up for they know the one that calls them.  So the separation of goats from sheep is something that the goats and the sheep do themselves.  It is not based on some divine score card, but on a deep seated response of the sheep to their shepherd.  When the shepherd calls they leave the common water spring where all have come to drink and they gather at the side of their shepherd.  They come because they know what it is be under the care and protection of the shepherd.  They know what it is to be hungry and then to be fed;  what it is to be thirsty and be led to fresh water, to be afraid and then to be comforted; to lay down on their bellies in the grass and to know that they are watched over, protected, to be contented and at peace.

             This is the promise Ezekiel speaks.  Can’t you just feel it?  To lie down in good grazing land and be fed on rich pasture.  To be found when we are lost. To be binded up when we are injured.  To be strengthened when we are weak.   

             At our Thanksgiving Dinner yesterday, after we had eaten together, and laughed together, and told stories together, as we were cleaning up and getting ready to go, an elderly guest from the community came up to me. She took my hand and with tears brimming in her blue eye she said, “You know, when you get old, it is easy to feel like you don’t matter really.  But I really felt at home here today. And I thank you!”

             As I hugged her goodbye, I felt that same peace that I felt that day as I lay on my belly in the fragrant pasture with my sister at my side, so long ago.  For that moment, in the vestry yesterday, I caught a glimpse of the deep contentment of which Ezekiel speaks.  I felt that deep peace of being held in the care of God.        

             Why do we collect food for the Newton food pantry and the food pantry at Andover Newton Theological School?  Because we know what it is to be fed not just in body, but even more in spirit and we want others to know that as well.  Why do we welcome the stranger at our Community Thanksgiving Dinner?  Because we know what it is to be welcomed not just into this community but into the embrace of God and we want others to know that as well.  Why do collect coats for Cradles to Crayons? Because we have known what it is to feel the warmth being cared for by others and by God when we are cold and exposed and we want others to know that as well.    

             In the days and weeks ahead, May the kindness and care that we extend to those around us be our heart felt response to the kindness and care that has already been extended to us through Jesus.And when we gather at the throne of our King, may be do so not with fear but with faith knowing that we will be judged not on whether we are good enough, but on whether we have heard the call of our shepherd and followed the example of the one who leads us all to good pasture and deep peace.

  Amen.

All third, fourth and fifth graders will be receiving a gift Bible as part of a special presentation during the Time for Children during Sunday's worship service.

In Sunday School, Grant Gund leads the Faith Seekers in the second of a three part exploration of money.  He’ll be wondering what class members did for the homework assigned last week by Buz. Ask your Faith Seeker what he or she did with the dollar in the envelope! Cindy Spertner teaches Noah’s Ark, while Alex & Chris Kiritsy teach the Disciples Class. Both classes will be talking about Jesus’ call to help the least of these.

The NICA Travelers will meet Sunday after worship at 11:30 a.m.

 
Youth Group meets Sunday evening from 4:00-5:30 p.m.  Bring a rake!

Living Waters Prayer Group continues on Monday, November 21 from 7:30 – 8:15 a.m. in the Nativity Chapel.  All are welcome.

New Young Adults Small Group is starting. If you are between the ages of 18 and 35 and would like to join in food, fun, and fellowship with other young adults at Union Church, then join Stacy and Heidi for our first meeting on November 27th at 11:30 a.m.

Mission is planning an Alternative Advent Fair for the Sunday December 4. This will coincide with the C.E.’s Advent wreath-making, and will be an opportunity to purchase beaded bags made by M’Tendere women, handcrafts, photo note cards, and other gifts.

A Membership Exploration Gathering is planned for December 1st at 7:00 p.m. in the Reception Room, and December 11th at 11:30 a.m. in Stacy’s office.

We will share faith journeys, learn the history of the church and where we are now,

 discuss what membership means in this faith community, and hear your needs, hopes, and dreams for church life. You need only attend one session.

Our Holiday Greens Sale is here!

Our Holiday Greens Sale supports all Nicaraguan initiatives, including our trip project in February, scholarships, and other efforts in Newton’s sister city

of San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua.

Beautiful wreaths, greens, and Christmas trees will be sold on

 Saturdays in December from 10 to 2, Sundays from 11 to 1,

and Tuesdays from noon to 1:30. Donate some greens to decorate the church!

Order forms are available at the church.

Announcements from the Mission Committee

Cradles to Crayons Coat Drive

Cradles to Crayons (C2C) strives to provide children up to age 12 living in homeless and low-income situations with the essentials they need to feel safe, warm, ready to learn, and valued. A surprise snowstorm in October should generate excitement for kids in Massachusetts, but many local families struggling in the midst of an unforgiving economy find buying a winter coat for their child to be a  challenge. There is no joy in a snow day for a child who faces the cold without the essentials.

Cradles to Crayons expects to receive requests for 15,000 winter coats, and the Union Church in Waban would like to help them get there. Starting in November, the Mission Committee is organizing a Winter Coat Drive for children sizes 0-12. Look in your closets and basements! Pick up one at a garage sale or Costco! The coats must be stain-free and have working zippers.

Newton Food Pantry

Last year, the Union Church in Waban deepened its relationship with the Newton Food Pantry, and we want to continue that connection this year. Located in the basement of the Waban Library, the NFP provides a three day supply of food, one time a month, for eligible Newton residents. The apples picked by UCW kids were donated there a couple of weeks ago. In the month of November, we would like to help the NFP in two ways — with the Thanksgiving Collection and a non-perishable food drive. Please give generously so that we can deliver a big, fat check and multiple mini-vans of food! Meals in a can and peanut butter are usually high on the request list. 

Heidi Ward

“Putting on the Armor of God”

November 13, 2011

 I was taking a Saturday drive recently down a busy highway.  It was a beautiful, sunny day.  I might have been singing along a bit too loudly to the song on the radio.   I came around a bend in the road and a billboard yelled out to me:  “Jesus is coming!  Are you ready?”   I had a familiar moment of pause.  I wondered aloud to myself, and the person in the car with me:  I don’t know, am I? 

 You see, from a very young age, I worried about being “left behind.”  While the church of my youth didn’t focus much on the second coming of Christ, many of my friend’s churches did.  I worried that I would come home from school one day to find the water running in the sink, the dish towel that often resided on my mother’s shoulder on the floor, and I would know she had been raptured.  More importantly, I would know that I hadn’t.

 My experience is not a unique one.  The at times intense focus in contemporary Christianity on Christ’s return is not a new struggle for the church.  Paul wrote his letter to the Thessalonians in a time when they too were struggling with questions about what they believed to be the “end of days”, and what that meant for their faith. 

 Paul’s letter to the Thessalonians is likely the oldest book we have in the New Testament.  Scholars believe that Paul was writing from Corinth to the people in Thessalonica.  He had stayed with them for only a short time before he moved on.  But his impact was lasting.  Their lives had been so radically changed by his message that they had founded a new church community in a time of a great persecution and external pressure.  But the Thessalonians were afraid.  They had misinterpreted Paul’s teaching on the second coming of Christ, and they were terrified. 

 Maybe you too have had your own “billboard moment.”  You stopped at a red light and the bumper sticker on the car ahead of you proclaimed:  Jesus is coming, look busy!  You paused for a moment.  Your stomach dropped a little.  Maybe you even wondered aloud to yourself if you were ready? 

 I don’t know when Christ will return brothers and sisters.  I have some idea of what I think it might look like when He does, but that is a sermon for another day.  And neither did Paul know when Christ would return.  Like many in Christianity today, the Thessalonians believed that Christ’s return was imminent, but Paul was among the first to say that we cannot predict when it will come.  He was not instructing he followers what to believe, but how to live in the present moment.

 So hear now the good news of Paul’s words brothers and sisters, while Christ has not yet returned, God is already here.  Already known to us.  God has already come to us through our faith.  In Christ’s death and Resurrection, we are awakened daily to that faith.  It is in Christ’s saving love and Grace that we can engage in lives of love and service. 

 You know a little something about living lives of love and service Union Church.   You do it every day.  You do it in your mission work in Zambia and Nicaragua.  You do it in your commitment to make our church a welcoming and accessible place for all who worship here.  You do it in the ways you care for one another with casseroles, cards, and phone calls.  You live daily into the privilege of being called out people in the light that Paul talks about.

 But being called out children of the light is tiring work!  It is not easy to get up on Sunday mornings, or give up your weeknights for yet another meeting.  It is not easy to see the headlines in the newspaper, or the evening news that seem filled with hunger, poverty, breakdowns in civil discourse and so much pain.  It is easy to feel as though the work we are doing will just never be enough.  You may wonder to yourself how or why you should keep going.  Like the Thessalonians, you may be growing weary and need a message of hope. 

 When Paul realized the Thessalonians were struggling, and in need of hope, he sent Timothy back to check on them.  Timothy found that while they were doing okay, they needed bolstering from their leader.  And so, Paul sent them a letter. 

 As you all know, Stacy and I wear a clergy robe to worship each Sunday.  My robe is special to me.  It was given to me by a Rabbi I have done interfaith social justice work with in the last year.  And it is filled with blessings from people I have not yet met. 

 Before she sent it to me, she asked scores of people I had never met to shower it with their prayers and blessings for my journey.  And so, they did.  Their prayers and blessings are like my letter from Paul.  When the journey is long, and my armor feels like it is cracking, I can put on this robe, and be reminded that God has given me all I need for this journey.

 Much like I can put on my robe, when we are battle fatigued from doing God’s work in the world, we can return to this place.  You see our letter from Paul is the reminder that we are not alone.  We are part of a community of faith, this community of faith.   We can return to this place to pause for a moment from our busy lives to be reminded to “Be still and know that I am God.”  We can return to this place to put on the armor of God’s promises-for they will never fail us.   

 Paul writes: put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation.  The best evidence of God’s faith, love, and salvation we have is one another.   We come into this place on Sunday mornings to set down the heavy armor the world has laid upon us, and take up the armor of God.  To lay down the armor of self-doubt, fear, anger and pain the world has given us to carry, and to put on the armor of love, faith, grace and the helmet of blessed assurance that God has given to us instead through Christ and one another.

 Now, I am the first to admit the word armor can be a little jarring, but the armor we put on through this community is not the kind of heavy, war torn armor you may think of.  For God’s armor is not the world’s armor.   God’s armor is light, life giving, and sustaining.  When we wear it out of these church doors, it has the possibility to create new life instead of destruction in its path.   God’s light cannot help but shine from us.

 Paul wrote his letter to the Thessalonians as a source of encouragement.  In verse 11, he writes: Therefore encourage one another, and build up each other, as indeed you are doing.  The term he uses for “building up” is one he also uses in the book of Corinthians to describe how the individual is responsible for the larger community.  Many scholars say that Paul sees Christianity as a temple, and while the builder is God, we can assist in its building.  We put on our life-giving armor so that we may build things up, not tear them down.  We wear it to carry forth a message of hope and encouragement to those in our lives who need it most.

Friends, I don’t know when Jesus is coming back.  Neither did Paul.  But I do know that if we daily put on the armor of God and encourage one another along the journey, we will be one step closer to the Kingdom of Heaven on earth.   That if we reach out to those in our lives whose armor is cracking, and help to patch and polish their holes, we will be a living example of the encouragement Paul gave to the Thessalonians.  That there are many weary travelers on the journey who need you to help secure their breastplates and straighten their helmets, so that God’s light can shine more fully into a broken world.  Brothers and sisters put on the armor of God. Then: Go.  Be.  Love.  The world needs you.  May it be so this week.  Amen

There will be a brief Council meeting at 11:30 on Sunday to discuss the snow cancellation policy.

Bible study continues each Sunday from 8:00 to 9:00 a.m. in Stacy’s study.  We are currently reading through the Gospel of Luke. All are welcome. No previous theological study or Biblical literacy is needed.  Just come with an open heart and curious mind. 

Coffee and tea are provided.

Last week the kids received coin boxes to collect money to support our church's partnership in Nicaragua. Coin boxes left behind last week, as well as extra coin boxes for those who did not get one, are available in the Crocker Chapel on your way out of worship.

Saint puppets processed by the Noah's Ark class are lined up in the
Crocker Chapel. Be sure to take your child's home.

Living Waters Prayer Group continues on Monday, November 14 from 7:30 – 8:15 a.m. in the Nativity Chapel.  All are welcome.

New Young Adults Small Group is starting. If you are between the ages of 18 and 35 and would like to join in food, fun, and fellowship with other young adults at Union Church, then join Stacy and Heidi for our first meeting on November 27th at 11:30 a.m.

A Membership Exploration Gathering is planned for December 1st at 7:00 p.m. in the Reception Room, and December 11th at 11:30 a.m. in Stacy’s office.

We will share faith journeys, learn the history of the church and where we are now,

 discuss what membership means in this faith community, and hear your needs, hopes, and dreams for church life. You need only attend one session.

Our Holiday Greens Sale is here!

Our Holiday Greens Sale supports all Nicaraguan initiatives, including our trip project in February, scholarships, and other efforts in Newton’s sister city

of San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua.

Beautiful wreaths, greens, and Christmas trees will be sold on

 Saturdays in December from 10 to 2, Sundays from 11 to 1,

and Tuesdays from noon to 1:30. Donate some greens to decorate the church!

Order forms are available at the church.

Announcements from the Mission Committee

Cradles to Crayons Coat Drive

Cradles to Crayons (C2C) strives to provide children up to age 12 living in homeless and low-income situations with the essentials they need to feel safe, warm, ready to learn, and valued. A surprise snowstorm in October should generate excitement for kids in Massachusetts, but many local families struggling in the midst of an unforgiving economy find buying a winter coat for their child to be a  challenge. There is no joy in a snow day for a child who faces the cold without the essentials.

Cradles to Crayons expects to receive requests for 15,000 winter coats, and the Union Church in Waban would like to help them get there. Starting in November, the Mission Committee is organizing a Winter Coat Drive for children sizes 0-12. Look in your closets and basements! Pick up one at a garage sale or Costco! The coats must be stain-free and have working zippers.

Newton Food Pantry

Last year, the Union Church in Waban deepened its relationship with the Newton Food Pantry, and we want to continue that connection this year. Located in the basement of the Waban Library, the NFP provides a three day supply of food, one time a month, for eligible Newton residents. The apples picked by UCW kids were donated there a couple of weeks ago. In the month of November, we would like to help the NFP in two ways — with the Thanksgiving Collection and a non-perishable food drive. Please give generously so that we can deliver a big, fat check and multiple mini-vans of food! Meals in a can and peanut butter are usually high on the request list. 

Community Thanksgiving Dinner, Saturday, November 19, 2011

For the third year in a row, UCW will be hosting a Thanksgiving dinner for local families. In the spirit of “Widening our Welcome,” we encourage members of the congregation to invite anyone they know that could use a delicious Thanksgiving meal and some lively conversation to join us from 2:00 to 4:00 on November 19th. There are hard-copy invitations in the office as well. It’s a unique experience because volunteers and guests sit down together to enjoy the meal and the company. If anyone is interested in helping organize the event with Alicia Collins, please let her know. We will need a lot of UCW volunteers this year, so if you are willing to help with anything from shopping, to setting up, to transporting the guests, to organizing kids’ activities, to carving the turkeys, then we’ve got a job for you! We want to make sure we have enough food on hand, so if you could also help us keep track of who is planning on coming, that would be great! Questions, contact Alicia at 617.965.1696 or aliciamaureencollins@gmail.com. Thanks! 

 Rev. Stacy Swain

Ezekiel 37:1-14

Matthew 23:1-12 

           I have taken lately to wandering the Museum of Fine Arts.  Sometimes as I wander, I recognize right away the hand of the master artist that crafted the piece before me.  I recognize in the thick passionate brush, the touch of Vincent Van Gogh. Or the sensibilities of Monet in a canvass full of afternoon light.

           At other times it is not clear to me though, who made the work in front of me.   And so I draw close to read and wonder at the name printed there beside the work.  And I wonder at the artist, “Who is this that crafted such beauty?” “How extraordinary she must be!” 

           At oftentimes, at some point in my wanderings, I come upon something so breathtakingly beautiful that I can actually feel my heart swell as I stand there absolutely awash in beauty’s inspiration.

          But, there is little beauty in the valley of dry bones.   It is desolate.  There is loss and sadness.  Life drained away.   Nothing, but bones, bleached and brittle.

           Ezekiel speaks to a people who know this valley.  They have wandered there.  It is Jerusalem after its destruction.  It is life going out of the Hebrew people as many died and many more are marched off to exile.  It is their despair in a foreign land, despair of a future without hope, life without promise.

           We too know this valley of dry bones.  It is there in our national landscape in the dehumanizing oppression of our prison system, in the life sapping disparity between those that have so much and those that do not have enough, it is there in our young people who despair of a future without hope, of life without promise.

             And this valley is our internal landscape as well. It is those parched times when life has gone flat and dry.  Times of loss, (a marriage crumbles, a loved one dies) times of illness (can this cancer be true? What does life look like now?) Times of depression, (do I have the strength to face another day?).  These are the times when we ask ourselves “Can these bones live?”

            But perhaps the biggest loss and greatest sadness of the Hebrew People of Ezekiel’s time was that they not only lost their homeland, not only were they cast into exile, but they also lost their God.  For the temple was the meeting place with God.  The temple was where heaven and earth drew near.  The destruction of the temple was not just the destruction of a magnificent structure, but it was also the destruction of the place of encounter with God.  If the temple was gone so too was the meeting place.  Where was God now?  Certainly not there in Babylon, not in that strange and foreign land, where strange and foreign gods resided.  

            But then, right there in the middle of the people’s despair and dislocation,  is Ezekiel.   Ezekiel who once was a temple priest in Jerusalem, well he starts having the strangest things happen to him.  Ezekiel much I am sure to his surprise, he begins to have visions, and hears words, he begins to encounters God right there by the River Chebar in Babylon

           For in the passage before the one we read today, we overhear God and Ezekiel in conversation and God says something extraordinary to Ezekiel.  God says that through the house of Israel God is going to display God’s holiness.  God says Not only will the Israel be God’s people and, God will be their God but so close will God dwell with them, so intimate will be their relationship that it will be possible to look upon the people and see something of God through them.

            And this is exactly what happens with Ezekiel.  For what makes the words of Ezekiel’s vision so compelling is that through them those exiled and despairing people begin to see something of God.  The temple in Jerusalem may be destroyed and far away, but God’s presence is very near.  In God’s promise for the people, shining out through the vision that Ezekiel speaks, the people see something so beautiful that it makes their hearts swell within them as they stand awash in its inspiration.  In God’s promise for the people, shining out through the vision that Ezekiel speaks, the people feel strength returning to their bodies, flesh coming again to give them strength, sinews binding them together to carry them forward.  Through the words Ezekiel speaks, the people encounter God.  

           Now I want to pause here for just a moment because what is going on here is really quite remarkable and rather alarming.   We often say and are quite comfortable with the idea that God is present in the world.  We look at a beautiful sunset, or the brilliance of a fiery maple and a word of praise easily comes to our lips.  And we often say and are quite comfortable with the idea that God is in us, that there is a spark of the divine residing in our souls.  But this idea that God is displayed through us pushes us a bit out of our comfort zone. 

           For this is to suggest that by looking at you, I am to see something of God?  And that you will find something of God on display through me? 

           This pushes us to the edge of our comfort zone for a couple of reasons.  First, it’s a lot of responsibility.  It is much easier to be a nobody without much importance to God than it is to be a canvas through which the artistry of  God can be know. 

           And second, and this the much more weightier one, this kind of thinking can easily get one in lots of trouble.  For how do we really know if what we say and do, how we are in the world is actually God through us or just our own doings.  How can we know if God is displayed through us or if what we display is just our own ego and desire?  After all few of us are lucky enough to have such candid conversations with God in the way that Ezekiel did, few of us hear such direct instructions like he did.  We can get our selves into a lot of trouble if we get too overly certain and confident that something of God is seen through us.  

           After all look at the Gospel reading from Matthew this morning.  The Pharisees have ceased to be in a way that enables God to be on display through them.  All that they display is their own ego and sense of self importance.  Jesus has a bone to pick with the Elders because of the way they are using religion not in service to God but in service to themselves.     Jesus warns the crowd that “all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and all who humble themselves will be exalted.”

           What keeps us, therefore, out of the danger zone of thinking more of ourselves than God, of displaying more of our own ego than God’s glory, is humility.  Humility is the check to arrogance.  Humility keeps us from moving down that path of the Pharisees, keeps us from becoming so full of ourselves that there is no room left for God.  

           Let’s be clear, humility is not humiliation. It is not a weak and submissive posture.  Humility is about balance, it is about not thinking too much or too little of ourselves.  It is about fully accepting who we are while never loosing site that there is always room for improvement. 

           It is not surprising then that humility is that which all the great saints that we remember and celebrate today, all of those great men and women who have gone before us and those who are among us still, share.   For what makes these people saints is not that they are so amazing in and of themselves, but that through them we are able to see something amazing of God. Unlike the Pharisees wrapped in ego and pride, God is able to shines out through these people, through the work of their hands, the words of their mouths, the meditations of their hearts.  Look at this artistry on display through them.   At: 

Desmond Tutu

Nelson Mandela

Oscar Romero

Dorothy Day

Cesar Chavez

Rosa Parks

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Mother Teresa

 What a gallery of God!  What works of the master artist’s hand!

           What a gallery of God.  What works of the master artist’s hand.  For we too are called to be Ezekiels, to be ones to shine forth the promise and hope of God to a despairing people, a people who are lost in a valley of dry bones.  We too are called to be saints, canvasses of the artist’s hand.  It is a great responsibility and privilege that we receive with the deepest humility, this extraordinary word that God wants to be known through us.  That through what we say and do, how we love, and forgive, how we serve and care, through who we are, people around us may see something of God that makes their hearts swell and that  stirs new life in them.

           May we not turn from this responsibility, but with all humility accept the gift of the master’s artists hand upon our lives.  May we become works reflecting God’s grace so purely that even those who wander by, those who do not yet know the love and goodness of God in their lives may be inspired to draw near and to inquire “Who is this artist that crafted such a beautiful work?  How extraordinary this God must surely be.”

           So in the days and weeks to come I invite you will all humility to consider what of God is on display through you?  Is it compassion?  Is it a passion for justice.  Is it the care of creation?  Is it seeing the Thou in yourself and in all people?  What a gallery of God.  What works of the master artist hand!   AMEN

Youth Group meets Sunday afternoon at 4:00 p.m.

The Wellsprings Women’s Group, an opportunity for spiritual companionship
among UCW women and their friends, will start up in January.  Kathy Malone
and Stacy Swain would like to hear from women who are interested.

Bible study continues each Sunday from 8:00 to 9:00 a.m. in Stacy’s study.  We are currently reading through the Gospel of Luke. All are welcome. No previous theological study or Biblical literacy is needed.  Just come with an open heart and curious mind. 

Coffee and tea are provided.

Living Waters Prayer Group continues on Monday, November 7 from 7:30 – 8:15 a.m. in the Nativity Chapel.  All are welcome to join in this time of silence, prayer, and reflection.

The November meeting of Lunch Bunch will be on Tuesday, November 8 at noon.

There will be a meeting of the Teaching Parish Committee on Wednesday evening, November 9 at 7:00 p.m.

Youth Group Lock-in on November 10 to November 11. The Youth Group is looking for someone to provide us with breakfast the morning after our Lock-in at the church. You can come cook breakfast for us or just donate some food for us to make our own.  Let Kathy know if you’re interested.

Help out the Union Church at our clean-up day, Saturday, November 12, from 9:00 a.m. to noon. Whether you have an hour to spare, or the whole morning,  please come, your help is needed.

On Sunday, November 13th, there will be a Men's Choir (women get the day off). Please come and rehearse with us on Thursday the 10th at 7:30 pm. We will learn a few easy and enjoyable songs to sing at the Sunday service. No musical training or sight reading ability is needed. Come and join us—you'll have a good time!

Union Church will hold its Community Thanksgiving Dinner on Saturday, November 19 at 2:00 p.m. in the Vestry.

New Young Adults Small Group is starting. If you are between the ages of 18 and 35 and would like to join in food, fun, and fellowship with other young adults at Union Church, then join Stacy and Heidi for our first meeting on November 27th at 11:30 a.m.

Looking ahead to the annual Holiday Greens Sale!

Our Holiday Greens Sale will support all Nicaraguan initiatives, including our trip project in February, scholarships, and other efforts in Newton’s sister city of San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua. Beautiful wreaths, greens, and Christmas trees will be sold on Saturdays in December

from 10 to 2, Sundays from 11 to 1, and Tuesdays from noon to 1:30.

CALLING ALL KIDS!  Worship begins this week with a celebratory procession for All Saint's. All children and youth are invited to participate. Plan to arrive 10 minutes early to prepare.

   A special thank you to all who participated in last week’s special Zambia service. Peter Smith of Communities Without Borders presented us with the Advocacy Award for our congregation’s advocacy and significant contributions to supporting the education of AIDS orphans and vulnerable children in Zambia. Thank you to all for the generous amount raised by the the Pumpkin Patch and the special offering, which was matched by an anonymous donor.

Nicaragua: service and a dream. The time to make decisions about traveling to Nicaragua is now. Do you really want to experience this time of mission work but cannot quite figure how to make it work for you financially?  If so, please see Tom Vawter or David Spertner as soon as possible.  The NICA taskforce would like to see if there is a way to make it possible for all who want to join the trip this February to do so.

The Wellsprings Women’s Group, an opportunity for spiritual companionship among UCW women and their friends, will start up in January.  Kathy Malone
and Stacy Swain are interested in hearing from folk who are interested.

Bible study continues each Sunday from 8:00 to 9:00 a.m. in Stacy’s study.  We are currently reading through the Gospel of Luke. All are welcome. No previous theological study or Biblical literacy is needed.  Just come with an open heart and curious mind. Coffee and tea are provided.

Living Waters Prayer Group continues on Monday, October 31 from 7:30 – 8:15 a.m. in the Nativity Chapel.  All are welcome to join in this time of silence, prayer, and reflection.

There will be a Deacons’ meeting on Tuesday, November 1st at 6:00 p.m.

Bowling on Thursday:Thursday, November 3, is an early release day for the Newton Elementary schools.  Join us after school for some candlepin bowling at
the Needham Bowlaway.  $10/person. A snack will be provided.  Rsvp to Kathy or Cindy.  Let us know if your (child)ren need transportation.

Council will meet on Sunday, November 6 after worship.

Youth Group will meet on Sunday, November 6 at 4:00 p.m.

The November meeting of Lunch Bunch will be on Tuesday, November 8 at noon.

There will be a meeting of the Teaching Parish Committee on Wednesday evening, November 9 at 7:00 p.m.

Youth Group Lock-in on Veteran’s Day Eve (November 10 to November 11).

This Sunday, after church, join the conversation on A Local Mission Initiative on supporting people with disabilities. We will discuss how we, as a church, can inform ourselves on issues facing children and adults with disabilities and how we can support them as valuable members of the community. We will meet on the stage.

The NICA Task Force will meet today at 11:30 a.m.

Youth Group meets from 4:00 to 5:30 p.m. this afternoon. All

6th through 12th graders and friends are invited.

Nicaragua Trip Deadline Fast Approaching: Arrangements are being made shortly to purchase airline tickets, so if you are still considering going in February, please make sure to get in touch with David Spertner ASAP. dspertner@gmail.com

For the month of October, look for the Waban Pumpkin Patch on our lawn where every Sunday from 11:30 to 12:30 and every Tuesday from 12:30  to 1:30 we will sell pumpkins large and small, and much, much more. Proceeds will support a project to feed and educate AIDS orphans in Zambia.

Bible study continues each Sunday from 8:00 to 9:00 a.m. in Stacy’s study.  We are currently reading through the Gospel of Luke.  All are welcome.  No previous theological study or Biblical literacy is needed.  Just come with an open heart and curious mind. 

Coffee and tea are provided.

Living Waters Prayer Group continues on Monday, October 24 from 7:30 – 8:15 a.m. in the Nativity Chapel.  All are welcome to join in this time of silence, prayer, and reflection.

The Lunch Bunch trip to Blue Hills has been re-scheduled for October 25th . We will be able to drive up to the top for beautiful views and a picnic lunch. Please rsvp to Stacy.

Book Club meets again on Tuesday evening, October 25 at 7:30 p.m. This month’s book is The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.

The Strategy Committee will meet on Wednesday evening, October 26, at 6:00 p.m.

Communities Without Borders will meet Wednesday evening, October 26, at 7:00 p.m.

There will be a meeting of the Stewardship Committee on

Thursday morning, October 27, at 8:00 a.m.

The Local Mission Initiative will meet at Brita Gill-Austern’s home on Thursday evening, October 27, at 7:00 p.m.

Join the Union Church family for a fun evening at Game Night on October 28 at 6:30 pm.

Youth Group Lock-in on Veteran’s Day Eve (November 10 to November 11).

Reverend Stacy Swain

October 16, 2011

Matthew 22:15-22

Exodus 33:12-23

 

          I was listening to a piece on the radio this week.  In it, an interviewer spoke with a scientist who had made an amazing discovery.  The scientist discovered that piranhas, you know the fish with the sharp teeth and an attitude to match, well they communicate.  By submerging a microphone in a tank of piranhas, the scientist was able to hear and decipher three distinct sounds that he believed were purposeful language.  

·       The first sound was a barking noise, and that by watching the posture of the fish, the scientist interpreted to mean “You are anoying, get out of my way.”

·        The second sound was a thumping noise that again by observing the fish’s body language, the scientist interpreted to mean “You are really annoying me now and I am thinking of eating you.”

·        And the third sound was a clicking noise the fish made with its teeth right before attacking that clearly said “That’s it, you’re dead!”  

What was amazing about all of this is that by discovering that the fish were speaking to one another in the tank, the scientist learned that these fish understood themselves not as just a random collection of individuals, but instead as being in relation to each other in some meaningful, purposeful ways.  Language it turns out, is a sign of social relationship.   One does not develop the use of “words”, unless one has the desire and need to speak them to another.

          But before we explore how piranhas have anything to do with the Scripture texts or our lives this morning, let us pray.  May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be acceptable to you O God, our Rock and our Redeemer.  AMEN.  

~~~~~

             The acquisition of language is one of those huge milestones in human growth and development.   A child first learns to language by making the connection between an object and the word that represents that object.  We point to the fuzzy creature with the long tail purring on the bed and say “cat.”  We point to the wooden panel that opens to the back yard and say “door.”  Words in their most basic sense are signs that represent tangible reality. Stand-ins that conjure up in the mind the reality they represent. I will never forget the first word my son spoke.  We were living in El Salvador and one night when the moon was big and round, I pointed to it and asked “Donde esta la luna, Mateo?”.  And  he without hesitation pointed his little finger up into sky and said “alla!!  What thrilling moment!

          Language in this first and most basic usage is tied to a tangible referent and is bound by the temporal world.  We speak with confidence about what is, because we can point to and see that of which we speak.   

          Now all of this is fine and good, and there is nothing wrong with this representational level of language.  But danger creeps in if we begin to think that what we can point to and name is all that there is —  that our experience of reality defines what reality is.   Thinking that if I find you annoying than you are annoying.  It I find you problematic than you are a problem. 

          But the truth is, words can do much more than merely label and define what is.  Words are also revelatory and have the power to create, to crack open the moment and open it up to what can be. .

          It is this contrast between representational language and revelatory language that we see in the Gospel text this morning.  The Pharisees are so sure they see all that there is to see.  They believe that what they know and understand defines what there is to know and understand. And so this young Rabbi from the back waters of Galilee must be nothing more than a young Rabbi from the back waters of Galilee.  They are so sure that they are right that it follows then that Jesus must be wrong.  In their closed certainty, language becomes a weapon used to defend what is perceived to be what is real.  Language becomes a tool of control.

          And so they ask him, “Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?" not so because they are sincerely interested in his opinion on the matter but in order to ensnare him, in order to trip him up. 

~~~

          These days, it seems that much of our public discourse is offered up in the same way.  It is a bit like listening in on the piranha tank.  Language has become a tool that we like the Pharisees use against each other, like a weapon in a verbal sparring match of who gets to define what is.  Have you listened to the pundits on TV. Points are scored for blows to the other not for insight.  I even heard one say at the end of an interview how much he appreciated his opponent not for what he said but “for staying in the fight” as he put it.  Is that what our civil discourse has become?  A fight?

          Have we forgotten that language can be used not to shut others down but as a way to open more fully to what is possible – to the moreness that lies within each moment?

          For this is exactly what Jesus does.  He sees clearly the bait that the Pharisees have put out there for him, but he side steps it completely.  He shifts the tenor of the discourse to revelatory language saying  "Show me the coin used for the tax." So they bring him a denarius. Then he said to them, "Whose head is this, and whose title?"  They answered, "The emperor's." Then he said to them, "Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor's, and to God the things that are God's."   Jesus’ words disarm the Pharisees for through them he breaks open an either /or power struggle with the Pharisees and reveals  new possibilities and wonderings.  The people are left wondering  “If the coin caries the imprint of the Emperor, what is it that carries the imprint of God?”  “If taxes are the way we give the emperor what is his, how is it that we give to God what is God’s?”  Jesus’ words open thing up, through his use of language the moment holds more than what it had before. 

~~~~

          The text from Exodus takes this revelatory power of language even further.  The context of the conversation is that Moses and God are at odds.  Moses is upset with God because God has decided that the people should go on alone with just an angel as their guide not with the presence of God’s self.  God is angry with the people because they made an idol, the golden calf to worship.  So when the text begins today, Moses is mad at God and God is mad at Moses.  But unlike the Pharisees, Moses honestly engages God.  God and Moses are willing to be open to hearing the other and they work it out.  They reach a place of understanding but that is not the really remarkable thing.  What is remarkable is that Moses leans into this moment and asks that God make it more.  Asks that God show Moses more of God’s glory than he has seen before.  And God does!  Not only is the conflict between God and Moses resolved but through it Moses deepens his relationship with God and is privileged to an intimate encounter with God unlike any he had ever experienced.

~~~~

          Where do you find yourself in these stories this morning?  How do you speak and how do the words that you use affect what you experience and how you relate to those around you? Are you like the Pharisees, quick to ensnare in a winner take all power struggle?  Or are you disarming, like Jesus, using words to break open what is to revelation, to new understandings and possibilities?  Do your words lead to a deepening of relationships, to wonderful new levels of intimacy that were previously unknown?

          As we go into our week, let us be mindful of how we use the words we speak.  Let us engage those around us in ways that draw out the fullness of what the moment can hold.  And let us do so especially in those difficult conversations, in times of conflict when we feel the piranha in us begin to stir, let us instead engage the creative revelatory power of language to open ourselves and those we are with, to new insights and the deepening of relationships.    AMEN

Have an hour or two to spare? Come to  clean-up day  at Union Church. October 15th and November 12th! from 9:00 a.m.  to noon. 

Nicaragua Trip Deadline Fast Approaching: Arrangements are being made shortly to purchase airline tickets, so if you are still considering going in February, please make sure to get in touch with David Spertner ASAP. dspertner@gmail.com

Help Zambian children by buying your autumn pumpkins at the Union Church. For the month of October, look for the Waban Pumpkin Patch on our lawn where every Sunday from 11:30 to 12:30 and every Tuesday from 12:30  to 1:30 we will sell pumpkins large and small, and much, much more. Proceeds will support a project to feed and educate AIDS orphans in Zambia.

Please register for Sunday School if you have not already done so. In addition to your child’s latest information, this year’s registration also includes

 a photo release which we need on file.

Bible study continues each Sunday from 8:00 to 9:00 a.m. in Stacy’s study.  We are currently reading through the Gospel of Luke.  All are welcome.  No previous theological study or Biblical literacy is needed.  Just come with an open heart and curious mind. Coffee and tea are provided.

Living Waters Prayer Group continues on Monday, October 17 from 7:30 – 8:15 a.m. in the Nativity Chapel.  All are welcome to join in this time of silence, prayer, and reflection.

The Disciples Bible Class meets this Monday, October 17, from 4:30-6:00 p.m.

The Lunch Bunch trip to Blue Hills has been re-scheduled for October 25th . We will be able to drive up to the top for beautiful views and a picnic lunch. Please rsvp to Stacy.

Book Club meets again on Tuesday evening, October 25 at 7:30 p.m. This month’s book is The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks.

Join the Union Church family for a fun evening at Game Night on October 28 at 6:30 pm.

Youth Group Lock-in on Veteran’s Day Eve (November 10 to November 11). Mark your
calendars and stay tuned for more information next week.

Rev. Stacy Swain

Nehemiah 2:11-20

Philippians 4:1-9

This morning, I’d like to tell you a story from ancient times.  Scholar’s believe this story is the first extant autobiographical account that was written by a common person, not a king.  This story is the memoir really of a man named Nehemiah who lived in Persia in the fifth century before the common era.  But before we begin, let us pray. 

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be acceptable to you, O God, our rock and our redeemer.  AMEN

Let me begin by setting the scene:

It was a time of challenge and upheaval.

It began when the Babylonians led by Nebuchadnezzar laid siege to the great city of Jerusalem.  Its mighty walls were tumbled.  Its gates were burned.   The Babylonians military strategy was not only to destroy the physical city, but also to destroy the way of life of the people that lived there.   And so when the walls of Jerusalem were in ruins, the gates were smoldering ash, the people of Israel were rounded up and marched off to exile in the foreign land, in the land of Babylonia.  Some Israelites were allowed to remain in Jerusalem, but those that were allowed to stay were considered to be rather nobodies, poor, of little threat.

Years passed in the wake of this Babylonian destruction and bit by bit, a tired and dispirited people tried to make their way.  

Then about 50 years later, with the might of the Babylonians weakening, a new superpower emerged.  Persia under the rule of Cyrus the Great rose up, defeated Babylon and became the ruler of what was called “the civilized world.”  But the political and military strategy of King Cyrus the Persian, was different than that of the Babylonians.  King Cyrus believed that a content people, not a displaced people, were easier to rule and so Cyrus issued a decree stating that all conquered people, including the Israelites were free to return to their homelands.  The Jews were free to return to Jerusalem to rebuild their temple and reinstitute their religious practices that framed their way of life.

The exile was over and those that had been displaced made their way back home.   But the Jerusalem they returned to was not the Jerusalem that they once knew.  The Babylonian invasion had broken the city and then years of neglect had ruined it further.  And those that returned met with resistance at best and animosity at worst from those that had remained. There was division among the people.   

 Now Nehemiah’s people were among those who were displaced to Babylon after the fall of Jerusalem, but unlike others, they chose not to return to Jerusalem when the Babylonian reign of terror had ended.  They decided to stay in the east and began to assimilate into the Persian culture. 

This is where our story of today begins.  Nehemiah has become so at home Persia that he has actually found employment in the high court of the Persian King. Nehemiah this Jewish man living in Persia, not only found employment in the high court of the King but was actually the King’s cup bearer.  The cup bearer was the one who was literally in charge of the King's cup since death by poison was a popular form of assassination at the time.   And so to be a cup bearer, one had to be one of the most trusted and highly valued people in the King’s inner circle. 

One day, as Nehemiah was going about his duties in the court, his kinsmen Hanani approached him and told him that a delegation of Jews had come from Jerusalem and spoke of the “great trouble and shame” of the brethren there.   There was division and discord among the people.  And the people felt exposed and threatened by hostile neighboring kingdoms to the south.

When Nehemiah hears all that is going on in Jerusalem he is deeply troubled.  Despite all of the years and the distance, he feels care and concern for the people.  But it is hard for Nehemiah, for he has made a life for himself — a good life.

His people may be living with deep insecurity and want, but he is well off and secure.  His people may be being scorned as nobodies in their own land, but he is well respected and trusted in the court of the Persian King.  Why has this news come to him? 

I can appreciate the mix of emotions with which Nehemiah struggles.  Sometimes I find myself in a place of protective denial, that if I just don’t read the news then I will be freed from the struggle of wondering how I am to respond to it. 

But instead of just shutting this news out and going on with his daily routine, Nehemiah takes his struggle to God.  The text tells us that he prayed and fasted listening for what God would have him do.

I do not think that we individually are called to respond to all of the needs that we hear about.  How could we?  To do so would be to succumb to what Thomas Merton calls the “violence of activism”  where we do so much that we end up being so  frazzled and spent that we are not much use to anyone.   But I do believe that there is a particular call for each of us.  There is a place where the need of the world and our own passion intersects and it is to that place we are called.[1]

There are some in this congregation whose passion intersects with issues of violence and lack of educational opportunity especially for urban youth.  Do you feel that passion?  Will you join them?  There are some in this congregation whose passion intersects with the people with disabilities and the need to be seen not as “other” but as people deserving and seeking full inclusion in our communities.  Do you feel that passion?  Will you join them?  . 

For Nehemiah this place where the worlds’ need and his passion intersected was Jerusalem.  He was moved by the plight of people which whom he discovered he felt kinship even across all this time and distance.  And so Nehemiah goes to the King, and the King sees such sadness on Nehemiah’s face, sadness the King has never before seen. The King asks Nehemiah what is troubling him.  Nehemiah then tells the King about all of the hardships that the people in Jerusalem are suffering.  And the King, saw the suffering in Nehemiah and was moved and so when Nehemiah finished the King asked him, what is it that you would like?

Nehemiah knows.  From his praying and fasting, his going to God, he knows what is the need on his heart.  He feels a deep need to go to Judah and work to rebuild the city. And he goes on to ask that the King send him with letters to the governors of the region to make safe passage for him and for a letter to the keeper of the King's forest giving Nehemiah permission to take timber to make beams for the gates.

And so with the blessing and letters of the King, Nehemiah after years returns to his homeland, returns to a city, he himself had never seen.  

 And now it is night, Nehemiah approaches the once great city. He is on the back of a horse or mule perhaps and he wants to see for himself what has become of Jerusalem. You see he is not “Polly Annaish” about his hopes and dreams.  He is a realist and wants to know the scope of what he faces.   The city is in such ruin that the sure footed mule cannot even find safe footing so he leaves the animal and continues on foot. Picking his way in the half light of the moon.  Running his fingers across the great stones that lie in heaps.  Touching the hinges where the great gates once hung.  It is a silent walk of mourning and a pilgrim’s walk of reimagining.  By the time morning's dawn alights Nehemiah has circumnavigated the city and  his own soul,  he knows well the scope of what must be done and what he and the people are up against. But rekindled in him is also the memory of who the Jewish people are.  God’s beloved.  Called and blessed to be a light to all nations, not scared and crumbling, fighting among themselves and forgetting who and whose they are.  

And when the sun has cleared the hills, he calls the people.  I imagine his face glowing with the same light that shone on Moses' face when Moses came down Mt. Sinai after having received the covenant of God.   There amidst the rubble, Nehemiah calls the people together and says “you see the trouble we are in, Jerusalem lies in ruins with its gates burned. Come let us rebuild the walls of Jerusalem.  For we are not alone, God is with us and we are not without resources.  

Sometimes it takes someone with a vision to reawaken the passion that lies dormant on the people’s heart and realign it with the need that lies before them.  For when those that gathered  heard Nehemiah’s words and felt the warmth of the rising sun on their faces, they replied, “Let us start rebuilding!” and as another translation states, they “committed themselves to the common good.” 

And they did.  It was hard.  They faced the scorn and threat of the War Lords in the surrounding region and more than once they were so scared and tired that they thought about stopping.  But they didn’t.  In fact, once when they learned of a plot to come and destroy all that had been rebuilt, the people themselves stood in the breach in the walls, becoming in their bodies the gate that had not yet been rebuild.  They committed not just their labors but their lives to the preservation and thriving of the vision they held now together. 

 And Jerusalem was rebuilt. And the people re-gathered and the truth of God’s grace was rekindled, and the glory of the LORD shone through them.

 What a story!  A story from so long ago but surely a story for us now.

For we, like Nehemiah, are living in a time where much in our national life together has crumbled and lies in ruin.  The Babylonians are gone but our people still feel under siege by economic, political, social uncertainty.

 And I am convinced that we, like Nehemiah, have a role to play.  Part of the purpose of the church is to call us as individuals to a life of faithful living, but the purpose of being church is also to speak with the voice of the prophets calling the world to faithful living, calling the people, as Nehemiah did to commit ourselves again to the common good.

 I was reminded by one of you this week, that it was out of the Quaker and later Congregational Church that the call for the abolition of slavery first came.  And Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr, stood rooted in his faith as he called the country to full civil rights for all people. 

In this our time of challenge and upheaval, I wonder how we like Nehemiah may wander through the rubble learning and seeing for ourselves what the needs really are.

 I wonder what are the breaches in our walls, in the structures that frame, define and support our society, and how may we be called to stand in that breach?

 And I wonder, how not only this church but people of faith across traditions may lead and inspire people to once again work for the common good.

 Hear again, these words from Paul’s letter to the community at Philippi,

           “The Lord is near.  Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation by prayer and petition, present your requests to God. And the peace of God which transcends all understanding will guard your hearts and your minds.

          For whatever is right, whatever is admirable – think about such things.  Whatever you have learned or received or heard  put into practice.  And the God of peace will be with you.”

           In this time of upheaval and challenge, may our passion and the world’s needs intersect not just for ourselves but for the common good.  AMEN

“Becoming Given”

Exodus 20:1-4, 7-9, 12-20.

Matthew 21:33-46

             Over these last few weeks, we have considered that the purpose of our faith journey is not to prove our worth to each other or to God.  Nor is it about earning God’s grace, even though we around here we have the tendency to joke about awarding God points every good deeds, every time we weed the garden or move a couch out of the Sunday school class room,. 

            Instead we have considered that the purpose of our faith journey is to know that we are beloved.  T.S. Eliot has a wonderful line out of his poem Little Giding in the Four Quartets where he says, “ the end of all of our journeying is to arrive at where we started and to know the place for the first time.”   What if the purpose of our journeying is to arrive at where we started on the dawn of creation, to arrive at the truth of our belovedness and to know that belovedness again, for the first time.

            Will you pray with me?  May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be acceptable to you, O God, our Rock and our Redeemer.  AMEN.

             For these past several weeks we have been following the journey of the Israelites from the book of Exodus. We have heard of how God chose them as God’s beloved people and freed them from the bondage of Pharaoh.  We have heard about how these beloved people discovered their own brokenness in the wilderness of the Sinai desert as they turned on Moses and turned from God as they struggled with hunger and thirst.  And we have heard how God has been with them through it all, ministering to them in their needs, coaxing them to uncurl themselves from a closed up posture of self preservation and to open again to trusting in God. We have seen how this journey as been as much a spiritual journey as it has been a physical one.

            Today’s passage from the book Exodus is a familiar one.  The people are gathered around the foot of the mountain. Moses has gone up into the clouds to receive the word of God, the 10 commandments.  We know them well right?  All of those “you shalls”  and “you shall nots”.  Now for most of my life, I have thought of the ten commandments as a kind of holy rule book. Following them would earn one God’s favor.  Disobeying them would earn one God’s wrath.  They were posted on the wall in my Sunday school classroom and I remember thinking that they were like the rules posted by the doorway in my elementary school, rules that were to keep us well behaved insisting that we walk in single file, don’t talk in the hallways, that we do not ever chew gum.  

            But reading the words over and over this week I began to hear something I had not heard before.  I began to hear in these words from the Book of Exodus an echo of the same voice that spoke on the dawn of creation.  I began to hear not rules but the re-creation of God’s people.   

            God speaks from the power and might of the mountain top to a people whose journeying has prepared them for this moment, a people who have opened themselves to be re made as God’s people.  Just as it was in the beginning when God called forth the form and shape of all creation, so too is it now as God’s words from the mountain call forth the form and shape of God’s new people, of how they are to be in the world.  This is a genesis moment.

              To borrow the words of TS Eliot, the people today gathered around the mountain are returning to their starting place and knowing it for the first time.  In the power and might of God’s vision for their life, God is creating them anew.  Returning them to the place before the oppression of  Pharaoh, before the destruction of the flood, back before the rivalry of Cain and Able.  With these words of formation, God is taking the people back to the time when God first took the dust of the ground and formed into the beloved human being, back to the time when God breathed into this beloved human being and gave it live, back to the time when God first spoke God’s word of instruction Adam and Eve about how they were to live in the sweet shalom of the Garden.  And  so is it now as God speaks the 10 commandments to the newly reformed beloved people, God tells them how they are to live in the sweet shalom of this new land they were about to enter. The journey out of slavery and into new life with God is a journey of regeneration, of rebirth.

            Today we gather with the people of the world for our own mountain top experience, our own genesis moment of being once again being formed and shaped as Gods beloved.  Gathered around the glow and power of this communion table and we will take Jesus life and teachings into ourselves as bread and wine and we will be re-newed as God’s people.      

~~~

            Now across many faith traditions and spiritual practices there is a phenomenon that is fairly consistent.  And that is as one draws closer to the that place of resting again in the hands of God, of returning again to the starting place of belovedness, that there arises a powerful desire to give and to be of service.

            Theresa of Avila, a kind of hero of mine who was a Spanish nun living in the 16^th century writes in of her own spiritual formation and says that the end of all her journeying is to arrive at a place of pure communion with God.  Where she is perfectly at peace and full of the same love that animates the entire universe.   And it while resting in this profound place of peace that she experiences an eruption of irrepressible joy and desire to give. It is like a spring, she says that rises up within her any rushes out into the world.  Communion with God and service to the world are two sides of the same coin she says.

            And this of course is Jesus teaching the parable this morning from the Gospel of Matthew.  Jesus indicts the Chief Priests and Pharisees by comparing them to tenants who hoard the bounty of the vineyard for themselves.   To think that we are to receive God’s grace only for our own enrichment and well being is to miss the Gospel message completely.

             So it is no wonder then that Henri Nouwen writes that the final movement in the spiritual journey to being the beloved that we are is to be given.  Jesus took bread and blessed it, he broke it and gave it to them.  Nouwen says our humanity comes to its fullest bloom in giving.[1] He says our deepest human desire is to give ourselves to each other as a source of physical, emotional and spiritual growth. P. 89

            We at the Union Church, whose front lawn is covered with pumpkins to raise money for Zambia, who children gave of themselves on Thursday as they prepared back to school supplies and clothes for children in need.  We at the Union Church know what it is to give not to earn God’s grace but because it is an expression of who we are.  Spiritual formation and mission are two sides of the same coin here at the Union Church.

            I invite you to take the learning up the learning of these last few weeks.  And to think about how you over the course of this coming year will move closer to the truth of your belovedness.  What practices will you engage to help you discover your choseness, to accept your brokenness, to move into that place of communion where the renewal of belovedness can begin.   Will it be prayer?  Bible study?  Worship? Or a gathering of fellowship?

            And how will you share the gift of being beloved with the world around you. How will you become bread for those that hunger to know that their lives matter, that they are chosen by God, forgivine and given by God to also be bread for a hungry world.  How will you become the cup of blessing for those that are thirsty for justice.  How will you address injustice, and labor for the day when all will have enough?

             “Jesus took bread and blessed it, broke it and gave it to them” May our journey of becoming beloved,  and of becoming bread, Christ’s body in the world, begin today.  AMEN

September 25, 2011

Exodus 17: 1-7

Matthew 21:23-32      

            Today we continue our journey towards becoming the beloved that we are.  We continue to walk with Henri Nouwen through his book “Life of the Beloved” and we continue to listen as he speaks to us of how he found the movement of his own spiritual journey in the movement of communion, in the words:  “Jesus took bread and blessed it; he broke it and gave it to them.   

            Last week we talked about the first movement, of being taken and blessed and we explored that it is when we accept that we are chosen by God, when we are able to see that God is invested in who we are and how we are, that our hearts open to seeing that God’s generous grace does not exclude, that God is also invested in who and how the other is.   And we explored how being chosen by God is not a neutral thing — that God chooses us so that we will join God and each other as laborers in the vineyard, working for the day when all will have enough.

            Today we will engage the second movement of this spiritual journeying – becoming broken.   Jesus took bread, blessed it; and then he broke it.

            But first, Let us pray:  May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all of our hearts be acceptable to you, O God, our rock and our redeemer.  AMEN. 

            For our honeymoon, Mark and I took a trip to Alaska.  We brought our tent, sleeping bags, cook stove and back packs and headed into the back country wilderness.  Have any of you been to Alaska?  It is unlike anywhere else.  Sweeping valleys, soaring mountains, dirt roads turning in to dirt paths and then disappearing all together. Awesome beauty, staggering vastness.  

            Now as a child my family did a lot of camping and I am very much at home in the woods. In fact, there is no place I’d rather be than surrounded by birch trees, Norway pines and blue spruce.  

            But being in the wilds of Alaska is an entirely different matter all together.  The first night Mark and I camped, there was a posting on the sign board as we drove into the campground saying that a grizzly bear had been spotted in the area the day before and it warned us to be particularly careful with our storing and cooking of food.

            That night, I do not think Mark and I slept at all.   We lay in our little nylon tent rigid with adrenaline.  With every drop of a pinecone or snap of a twig we sat bolt upright scanning woods around us in the dusty half light of the Alaskan midsummer night.  We were completely unnerved knowing that there was something out there in the wildness of the woods that would not think twice about having us for breakfast.

~~~~

            “From the wilderness,” begins the passage from Exodus this morning.  From the wilderness –  a vast and wild place. 

            The wilderness of the Sinai is unforgiving.  It is hot and dry, with little shelter, and lots of sand and rock.  And the Israelites are feeling the strain of such a harsh landscape. Last week they were hungry, very hungry.  This week they are thirsty, very thirsty.  Journeying from this wilderness is not easy. 

            That sleepless night for Mark and I was certainly taxing. But the threat we faced was purely an external one.  The bear that threatened us was in the woods and not in our souls.  The external landscape was unnerving but internally, our hearts and our spirits were steady and full of joy knowing what our new life with each other was sure to bring.

            But things are different for the Israelites. They face the challenges of not only an exacting external landscape of hunger and thirst, of heat and want.  But they also face an exacting internal landscape full of fear at not knowing what their new life with each other and with God is going to bring.   

            For the text tells us that the people quarreled and complained, that they turned on Moses and most fearsome of all that they tested the Lord saying “Is the Lord among us or not?”  The Israelites are thirsty yes, but more than that they are afraid.  They are afraid that God is no longer with them in their suffering.  They fear that they are alone, exposed.  They know that the life they had before is no longer but they cannot yet imagine what life looks like now and they do not like it one bit.   

            I see some of you nodding your heads.  You know that wilderness don’t you?   At one time or another or perhaps even right now we all have been there.  We have been in a place of vulnerability where we feel exposed and cannot yet imagine what life on the other side of all of this will look like.

·         Some of us know the wilderness of losing some one so dear that we really don’t know how we will even go on breathing. 

·         Some of us know the wilderness of what it is to feel the pain and loss as bit by bit our body wilts under the burden of aging, or disease.

·         Some of us know the wilderness of being seized with a worry that edges on panic as we tuck our children into bed at night fearing for their future, fearing for the world we are leaving them.   

·         Some of us know the wilderness of wandering through an empty house wondering who we are now that our children have left.  

            But as unnerving as all of this can be, there can be an even more fearsome threat.  Nouwen goes so far as to call it a curse.  And this is that we can begin to think that we are all alone in this wilderness of ours.  Hurting and frightened, we have the tendency in these wilderness times to turn in upon ourselves in an instinctive posture of self protectiveness.

            Now I was told that if one does encounter a grizzly bear, one is suppose to fall to the ground, curl up in a fetal position with one hand slung over ones head to protect the vulnerability of the neck and play dead.  In that prone posture, we are told one has the best chance of surviving an attack.

            But, the only problem with this fetal position, of curling in on one’s self, is that it is hard to see.  Our gaze is so deeply within and our heart so tuned to self preservation that we cannot see much around us.  And because of that, it is easy to think that we are on our own, that God is gone, that our friends have fled and that we are left alone to be devoured by that which wounds us.

            And then worst of all, as we lay all curled up, we might even begin to think that we deserve this pain, that somehow we must have brought it on our selves, because we are so deeply flawed.  

·         My marriage failed because I am not loveable.

·         My child is having a hard time because I am a failure as a parent.

·         My career is going nowhere because I don’t have what it takes.  

            Nouwen writes “we see our pain as confirmation of our negative feelings about ourselves.  It is like saying, “I always suspected that I was useless or worthless [or flawed in some deep way] and now I am sure of it because of what is happening to me.”[1]  The fear, isolation and self absorption that over takes us in these wilderness times are signs of our brokenness, not the wilderness itself.  What makes the wilderness in the Exodus account a wilderness of Sin, of brokenness, is not the fact that it was a harsh landscape, that it was hot and the people were thirsty.  What makes this wilderness a wilderness of Sin is that the people turned from God. They turned from the truth that they were God’s beloved, chosen and blessed by God. They turned back into themselves so much so that they no longer could even see God. 

~~~~~

            I find it incredibly moving to know that these Exodus accounts of wilderness and brokenness are the defining, foundational texts of the Jewish people.   These are the sacred texts that the people return to over and over again to deepen their understanding of who they are and how God is with them.  I find it deeply moving that these most beloved foundational texts are the ones that reveal so profoundly the brokenness of the God’s chosen people.   

            These identity forming texts reveal that becoming the beloved means accepting that we will have wilderness times and in their midst we will very likely experience brokenness.  Brokenness within ourselves, brokenness in our relationship with others, and brokenness in our relationship with God.  

            But to read these texts is also to remember that in the midst of this brokenness, God loves us so much that God will not leave us in a place of brokenness.  God is there whether we see it or not, God is there actively leading us from  the wilderness of Brokenness while at the same time dropping bread from heaven and drawing water from rocks.

            And this, of course, is the work of Jesus.  In the passage from the Gospel of Matthew this morning, Jesus is standing in the temple, the epicenter of Jewish religious authority and the religious leaders, those who pride themselves on being models of righteousness, devout followers of the law, are squaring off with Jesus about his authority to do and say what he does and what he says.   

            But Jesus sees right through their robes and vestaments and into their hearts, and into their brokenness that they do not face.  He tells them that tax collectors and prostitutes, those who were considered to be the most sinful, the most broken people of the day, will enter the kingdom before them, these chief priests and elders. For the tax collectors and prostitutes, like the first son in the parable, are not blind to their brokenness.  They see it and in their brokenness they have a change of mind,  which in Greek means metanoia, a turning and opening of mind, body and soul.

It is the tax collectors and prostitutes who have the courage to accept that they are broken people and in doing so to uncurl from a posture of self protection and isolation, and to turn instead to one of openness and receptivity to others and most of all to God.  

            It is changing of our minds that we practice every Sunday morning at the start of our service in our prayer of confession.  We practice accepting our brokenness and we practice uncurling our bodies.  We practice how to turn back to each other and to God.  For the journey out of the wilderness is one that we do together, loving and supporting, helping and carrying each other through the difficult times.   The wilderness may still be scary and hard, and like Mark and me that night we may get little sleep when we are in it, but with each other to lean on and with God to guide us, can find our way through these times of wilderness together and in wholeness, not brokenness.    

            I’d like to close with a story that one of our Sunday school teachers told me last fall after a lesson on how we can count on God when we are going through a hard time. The teacher told me that one of the kids in her class, a first grader at the time, who had just made the transition to the wilderness of elementary school said that yes, she knew what the lesson was all about.  Because the other day when she at recess when it was time to go back into the building, she did not know what to do.  And she was really scared because she could not find her teacher; she did not know what door to go through; what line she was supposed to stand in.  And then she saw a boy who was a few grades older that she knew from church.  And she said she was so happy to see him, because she knew that she did not need to be afraid any more.  She knew that he would help her, that he would show her the way. So she ran right over to him.  And that’s what God is like right? She said. 

May it be so for us and we be so for each other.  AMEN