The Union Church In Waban

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March 25, 2012.  Rev. Stacy Swain

“The days are surely coming’

Jeremiah 31:31-39

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.

I don’t think there is anything that parents of young children dread  more, than hearing from the back seat, on a long car ride the words — “Are we there yet?”

“Are we there yet?” means that the kids are getting tired, bored, uncomfortable.

“Are we there yet?” means pretty soon they are going to start picking a fight with each other just to have something to do.

“Are we there yet?” meant for Mark and I, that Mark would hold the steering wheel steady while I climbed over front seat, wedged myself between the two car seats and I reached  into the toy bag hoping for something to distract or entertain.

“Are we there yet?”  Why aren’t we there yet? This is the cry of the Hebrew people in the book of Jeremiah as they traversed their long and arduous journey of faith.  Jeremiah speaks his words to a people who are beaten down and world weary from the Babylonia conquest and exile.  They are beaten down and world weary out not only by the enemy that is upon them but for what they believe to be the enemy within.  For they understood the loss and destruction of Jerusalem and hardship they now face to be the consequence of their transgressions.  God had given them the law that day long ago when Moses went up to Mt. Sinai and was given those holy tablets to instruct and govern how we are to walk in the way of righteousness.

But the human heart proved defiant, difficult, prone to picking fights.  Call it human will, call it sin, call it whatever you want but there is something within that cannot seem to help but to act out.  The Apostle Paul puts it this way “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.  For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I do.”

Given this propensity of the human heart,  if God’s grace was measured out to only those who proved themselves worthy to receive it, then the storehouses of heaven would be overflowing for there would be no one on earth who could ever deserve what it is that God is ready to give.

But despite this. Despite the reality of the world and the state of the human heart, Jeremiah turns to the tired and world weary people and says.  “The day is surely coming”  “The days are surely coming” he says and he reaches down into the faith not to distract or entertain but to inspire for what he finds there is promise. A promise rising out of the covenant that God has made with the people.  A covenantal promise that pledged God’s care to the people.  The eternal God of the cosmos pledged to be with them in the struggles and joys of their lives and to work in and through history for the healing and salvation of all the world.

The day is surely coming says Jeremiah when God will forgive all our failures to live up to the lives God asks of us. When God will forgive our iniquities and remember our sin no more.  And when this time comes, God will write God’s love on our hearts.  It will become a part of who we are, part of the very organ that circulates our blood, that organ that keeps us alive. God’s love will be there.  God’s love with be our life force.

And in that time, it will no longer be necessary for some to teach

others about who God is, for all of us will know God.  All of us will know what it is to have God’s hand upon us, molding us, shaping us, leading us.  We will no longer have to wonder and worry, we will know.

This is the promise  Jeremiah finds in his faith. That all of creation all of us together may move towards a time when Eden will be restored, when all will be right again. This God of ours is in it for the long haul, says Jeremiah.  This is the promise that Jeremiah lifted up to those world weary people that day”

Now all of this is well and good, but does it answer the question rising up out of the back seat, the question of when?  When are we going to get there?

~~~~~

          When I answered my kid’s question, “Are we there yet?” with “Almost”  or “soon” — it never worked.  They just pressed me further.  When?  “By the time I count to ten?” they’d ask?  “By the time I close my eyes and open them again?” they’d demand?

We may very well feel like this too in this faith journey that we walk.  Our teachings and preaching are full of assurance of God’s love for us and the life of abundance that God promises.  But when?  Are we there yet? We look out the window and things do not look so good out there. The world is broken and we are a broken people. Innocent children are shot, we are putting away snow shovels away and putting on shorts in March, that cannot be right.  We may have hope that the day is surely coming but it surely is not now.

Or is it?

That’s were hope comes in. In this covenantal relationship we have with God we too have a role to place.  And our role has everything to do with hope.  For hope is not about airy optimism, it is not about wishful thinking, or passive wondering about  something that one has no power to affect.  As if to say “I hope but I don’t really know.” That is not our hope.

No, our hope has muscle.  Our hope is generative.  Our hope has the power to birth into the present reality the promised future for which hope longs.  Because we have hope in a future that is promised by God, the way that we live now changes.  Instead of living in fear, we live in faith. Instead of living cautiously, we live boldly. Instead of living to protect what is ours we live to share what we have.  And in living this life based on the hope of the future that is promised, we actually partner with God to transform the reality that is now, bringing that future promise into our now.

It is this kind of hope that is at the very heart of Gospel living.  This is what Jesus has been talking about in his ministry with us as he speaks of the kingdom of God being at hand,  of the kingdom of God drawing near.  Instead of being frozen in fear that there would not be enough, Jesus tells the disciples to gather the five fish and two loaves and together they transform that reality, feeding all five thousand that were gathered.  Instead of leaving blind Bartimaeus along side the road, hushing him into silence, Jesus tells the disciples to go to him and bring him up among them.  It is in their midst that Bartimaues is healed, that his life is transformed.   Living in a hope that enfleshes God’s promise now is what following Jesus was and is all about.

We may not be there yet.  The world may be broken and we may be a broken people, but hope is ours.  And when we live in hope the insistence and relevance of the question “Are we there yet?” falls away and in its place arises another.  Another question that has the power to transform what will come.  And that is “How will we live in hope now? The days are surely coming, the day most surely is now.  Amen.

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March 18, 2012

Rev. Stacy Swain

“True to the purpose for which we are made”

John 2:13-22

Let us pray

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

Where were you that day?  Were you a disciples?  Jesus was already up when the rest of us emerged from our night’s sleep.  He seemed on edge.  We did not really have a clue why, but he said he wanted to head up to the Temple straight away.  And so we went.  It was early, but already the narrow streets were packed with the day’s pilgrims.  It was Passover.  Thousands were going up to the Temple.   But Jesus set out through it all like Moses parting the Red Sea.  We followed in  his wake as best we could.

He passed through the outer gate and then took the steps two at a time.  It took us a moment to catch up with him.  When we emerged onto the courtyard there was already quite a commotion.  At first we didn’t even recognize him.  He looked more like one of the fiery prophets of old.  He had fashioned some sort of whip out of cords and was driving out the cattle and the sheep,  pouring out the money and overturning their tables and all the while shouting “Take these things out of here!  Stop making my Father’s House a marketplace!”    We were dumbfounded.  I remember thinking “What in God’s name is he doing? What in God’s name are we to do?”

~~

 Where were you that day?  Were you a money changers or sellers of cattle?  We knew it would be a busy day for it was Passover and thousands were making their way through the gate and up the steps.  So we got there in that outer court yard of the temple early.  We set up our tables.  Made ready the animals. We knew how it is done for we have been doing this for years.  It’s a good job.  The pilgrims come with their Roman coins, coins with the face of Caesar upon them, and because no Roman coin can be used in the temple to pay the temple tax.  So we set up our tables to exchange the Roman coins for one without any graven image. One OK’d by the temple priests. And of course there is a charge for the transaction, but that’s OK, it how it is done.

And if the pilgrim wants to give a gift to God, wants to sacrifice an animal, Holy law says the animal must be unblemished. How could anyone expect an animal brought from far away to make the journey unblemished and so it makes sense for the doves and cattle and sheep to be there.  And of course there is a charge for the transaction, but that’s OK, it how it is done.

We were all just about ready for the day when in he stormed in.   He crossed the space between us in two strides.  I thought at first Jeremiah has risen from the dead.  He had that look of a wild prophet about him. With a whip in one hand, he grabbed my table with the other and hurled it to the floor, coins went rolling in all directions.  Mayham set in as the cattle start to stampeed and the doves took to the air.  And all the while he was shouting  like he owned the place: “Take these things out of here!  Stop making my Father’s House a marketplace!”  We were alarmed.  I remember thinking “What in God’s name was he doing? What in God’s name will I do now?”

~~~

 Where were you that day?  Were you a priest of the temple, maybe even Caiaphas the High Priest?   We were in prayer in the silence of the innermost court yards, the place just outside the holies of holy, that privileged place where only we are allow when we heard the noise.  It sounded like a riot was breaking out and so we made our way back out to the outer most court yard as fast as we could.  We emerged to see that man called Jesus, upturning in seconds what we have worked so hard to secure.  Who did he think he was turning all this on end, all of this that has given us so much and that has given Rome no reason to worry?  We were infuriated. I remember thinking “What in God’s name is he doing?”  What right does he have in this place?”

~~~~

 What in God’s name is he doing?  It may be hard from our vantage point in these pews today to grasp how provocative and evocative Jesus’ actions were that day.  For the repercussions from those tables hitting the stone floor of that great court yard echoed through the halls of power all the way to Rome and set in motion a wave of retaliation that would carry Jesus to the cross.

So what in God’s name was he doing?

Let us be clear about one thing.  Jesus is not overturning the temple because he thinks it no longer matters.  Just the opposite is true.  Jesus loved the temple, he loved it fiercely.  He loved it from that first time when he was twelve years old and his parents had taken him up to Jerusalem for the Passover feast.  That time when he had sat himself down in the temple courtyard and was so riveted by the teachings and so riveting to those who were teaching that he did not notice that Mary and Joseph and the others had long left.  He loved the temple so much that three days later when his frantic parents retraced their steps and finally found him in the temple he said “ Why were you searching for me?  Did you not know that I must b e in my Father’s house?” (Luke 2:49).

For Jesus, the temple was home.  There was no other place on the earth where he felt more himself.   For there in the innermost holy of holies the presence the one he called Abba, the presence of God’s glory resided.  The temple was the meeting place of heaven and earth and as such the it was the epicenter of what it meant to be Jewish. To go up to the temple was to go home.  To return to the touchstone of faith.  And at Passover, to go up to the temple was to come home to the truth of who the people were.  It was to come home to the foundational story of the Exodus of how God delivered God’s people from bondage, of how God claimed God’s people as God’s own, of how God was leading them even now into God’s promised future.

One went up to the temple burdened by the loss of a job, worried about what was coming next, consumed by self doubt, but there in the presence of God, all of that was lifted off his shoulders, disappearing like the smoke from the offerings up into the air.  Going up to the temple he was burdened but coming down he was delivered; delivered  into the value of who he is and whose he is and the future promise that is yet to unfold.

One went up to the temple burdened by loss, grieving a relationship that will be no more, consumed by shame but there in the presence of God all of that was lifted off her shoulders, disappearing like the smoke from the offering up into the air.  Going up to the temple she was burdened but coming down he was delivered; delivered into the value of who she is and whose she is and the future promise is yet to unfold.

One may have been poor but one was beloved, one may have been under the thumb of Rome but one lived in the palm of God’s hand, one’s life may have been hard but one’s future was secure.

That was what it meant to go up to the temple.

The only problem was the temple had ceased to be that place.  It had ceased to be true to the purpose for which it was made.  Instead of being a the means through which the people experienced the deliverance of God in their lives, the temple had become a part the problem, part of the system that enslaved the people. Instead of being a means to God’s end the temple had become an end in itself.

The temple was to be a place apart, but it had become a place within the economic, political and social ruling realities of the day.  The temple priests, particularly the High Priest who himself was appointed by Rome, cooperated with Roman rule, working to assure that the Jewish people complied with roman requirements; making sure that the uneasy peace and often unseemly was maintained. Temple practice had become a kind of business onto itself rather than a place to encounter a God who was in the business of transformation and liberation.   And so like those great prophets of old who loved the people too much to let them turn away from the God that loved them, Jesus set about sweeping out the clutter, over turning misconception, up ending that which enslaves.

~~~

 It is no wonder that we read this passage during Lent. For Lent is to be for us a crucible time of winnowing, clarifying and purifying a time to return our true selves and our home with God.

And so I ask us to really take time and consider.  Where are we this day?  Is there something of the disciple in us?  Are we  ready to do our best to follow in the wake of Jesus liberating presence even if that liberation brings with it disruption and challenge?  Perhaps there something of the money changer in us.  Are we so busy with the busyness of the day that we do not have the time or energy to come home to the God that is ready to give us more than we could ever earn?  Perhaps there is even something of the High Priest in us?  Is there something that understands full well the cost to others of the prosperity and privilege that is ours, but because we are so well served,  we are willing to ignore that cost preferring things just the way they are?

Where are we?  I wonder.  But one thing is clear.  We know where Jesus is.  Jesus is coming through that doorway of our life together and Jesus is coming through the doorway of our hearts. He is over turning upending, scattering all that is keeping us from being true to the purpose for which we are made.  All that is keeping us from doing justice, loving kindness and walking humbly with our God (Micah 6:8).  Why?  Because he loves us too much to let us turn away from God’s love.   So let the repercussions from those tables hitting the stone flour of that great court yard echo all the way through the halls of this place and through the walls of our hearts setting in motion a wave of love that is even now delivering us into the truth of who we are and whose we are and into the promise of a future that is to unfold..  Thanks be to God.  Amen.

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Preached by Heidi Ward

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March 4, 2012

Psalm 63

Mark 8:31-38
“The Myth of Mastery” by Rev. Stacy Swain

One of the things that David, one of our trip leaders, told us over and over again in the months leading up to our time in Nicaragua was that when we were there, we would need to be flexible.  We would need to be willing and ready to set down all of our expectations about how we thought things should  be in order to experience what was.

And he was right.  On more than one occasion, we came expecting one thing but finding something quite different.   Whether it was showing up at the community baseball clinic expecting to be meet a local partner  only to realize that we were on our own and would have to figure it out ourselves, to arriving at a work site gloves on and ready to go only to discover that the materials needed to do the work were nowhere in sight.  At first when this happened we were a bit frustrated and perplexed asking each other “what in the world is going on,  This wasn’t the plan.”  But as the trip unfolded we saw over and over again how things had a tendency to come together, different than what we had thought but that they worked all the same and often times for the better.

I think that this experience of having our best laid plans turned upside down is a large part of what makes traveling outside of our comfort zone, whether to Nicaragua or Zambia or Dorchester so valuable.  For those of us who are used to being in control — used to having clear expectations and seeing those expectations play out according to our plan, it is tremendously formative to have an experience of being out of our element and having to try out new ways of being and interacting with what is unfolding around us.

But being flexible, being ready to set down one’s expectations and take up a new reality all together can be difficult.  Just ask Peter. This talk of Jesus suffering, this talk of picking up our cross was the last thing in the world that Peter expected.  Peter was expecting that the redemption Jesus would bring for the people would be one won with the sword.  A military and political victory, the tumbling of Roman rule to finally take back the kingdom of Israel.   Peter thought they were all headed down that road, and then Jesus said,” no if you are going to follow me you must walk in this new way.” The way defined not by the powers of the world, but by God.

So if we are to follow Jesus and step off into this way of God, if we are going to set down the sword and take up the cross, what exactly does that look like?  What new ways of being and acting does taking up one’s cross and following Jesus require?

In his book, Lighten our Darkness, Canadian theologian Douglas John Hall sees the way of the cross requiring three movements.  The movement from mastering to serving, from grasping to receiving, from independence to interdependence.  (183

Now when I read Halls work this week, I was particularly struck because these three movements characterized much of what we experienced in our week in Nicaragua.

The first, the movement from mastery to service is that of setting down a way of being that sees competition not collaboration at the heart of human interaction.  We are conditioned to a culture of rivalry where we have to look out for number one and think strategically about how to best advance our own interest; how to get ahead.  Moving from such a mind set of mastery to one of service requires thinking as much of others and of our selves. Of seeing the benefit to ourselves not of guarding our own but of freely giving of ourselves in service to others.

Nicaragua gave us that experience.  There on the worksite we were equals, shoulder to shoulder with our new friends learning how to use a matchete to cut bark off trees for ceiling rafters; learning how to mix a manure into a compost rich enough to sustain newly planted fruit trees through the dry season.   Having no investment in what we were going to get out of the project but only in what we were able to give.

The second movement that Douglas John Hall sees in the way of the cross is a movement from grasping to receiving.  Another way of saying this may be the movement from fear of scarcity to confidence of abundance.  Much of our consumer culture here in the states, I believe, is driven by a fear of scarcity.  We get the message that there is not enough for everyone so you better go out there and get what you need before someone else takes it from you.

But remember the example of Jesus that day with the five fish and the two loaves of bread, how not only was everyone satisfied but that there were leftovers that filled twelve baskets?  Transforming scarcity into abundance.

We had our own fish and bread moment in Nicaragua.  We had brought lots and lots of school supplies down with us.  Suitcases and suitcases of supplies, but after seeing the need in the schools I was suddenly afraid that it was not nearly enough. On the day we were to give out the supplies at the Azul y Blanco school, I was particularly nervous.  There were lots and lots of kids and the pile of notebooks just looked far too small.  What if there wasn’t enough for everyone.  What if the kids all started piling over each other trying to grab a notebook before they ran out.  But before I could do a thing or think of an alternative plan, the kids in our group had begun handing out the notebooks to the school children as they filed out of the classroom.

There was not havoc, no one piled over each other to grab what was theirs.  Instead it seemed akin to communion as our kids and the kids of the school gave and received together.  When the last child turned to go back into their classroom, I was shocked to see that there was a stack of notebooks remaining.   More than enough for even those who had not made it to school that day.

The third movement writes Hall in the walk of the cross is from independence to interdependence.  It strikes me that if the purpose of Jesus’ ministry was solely about salvation, solely about repairing the breach in the relationship between God and humanity with the forgiveness of sin, solely about the mystery of what happened between Good Friday and Easter Sunday, than there would have been no need for Jesus to have spent three years creating a community of disciples and followers.  Jesus could have done it all on his own.  For me, following Jesus is also about repairing the breach in the relationships we have with one another.  Learning to see each other not as rivals but as companions, to realize our interdependence with each other and creation.  Learning that all are to get gathered together in love and fellowship around the communion table where new community is forged.

Though I could go on and on I will share one final example from our trip.  It was the last day.  We would be getting on a plane in the morning.  We were at the work site in San Antonio de Baston.  We were going to make some pressed earth blocks for the walls of the new outdoor kitchen and eating area of the school.  Jennifer and Darling, two women from the town who had been with us all week were working with us.  I’d shovel in the dirt mix into the mold, Jennifer would set the press, David would pull down on the long metal lever that squeezed the water from the mix and formed the block, Joanie would carefully carry the newly formed block over to a drying area in the sun.  We were making what would soon be a new comedor but we were also making new connections with each other, breaking down division of culture, language, class and experience and coming together not as independent isolated individuals but as new friends depending on and sharing with each other, working together to live into being a new community.

I do not think I would be overstating it to say that something redemptive happened for us all during that time in Nicaragua.  I think in one way or another, each of us caught a glimpse of a way of being for and with each other that had the glow of the kingdom of God upon it.

Now it may be that walking in a new way with Jesus and with each other is easier in a place like Nicaragua where everything is already so different.  But in many ways this season of Lent is itself a journey through a new land.  It is a time when we are invited to a new flexibility in our walk with each other and Jesus,  invited to set down expectation of how things should be and engage in new ways what is.  So in the weeks to come, I invite us into these three movements from mastery to service; from grasping to receiving; from independence to interdependence and into most of all into the unexpected joys that following Jesus brings.  AMEN

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February 26th, 2012

“Leaning on the Everlasting Arms” by Heidi Ward

Psalm 25:1-10

Genesis 9:8-17

Many of you know that when I am not here with all of you, I share my life with my fiancé in Southern Vermont.   It is a beautiful area of God’s creation, full of trees, rivers, and crisp mountain air.   Some of you know it well.  It has become a wonderful place to call home.

This summer our little Green Mountain State was suddenly rocked to its core by a once in a century event.  It was the end of August of 2011.  A particularly gorgeous summer was in full effect.   The weather reports had started to come in.   Hurricane Irene was in full swing and heading toward New England.  Like many of you, we watched the reports with a careful eye and they all had the same overarching message.   The coastal areas were in danger of a bad storm, but we were too far inland to be worried.   There was no need to be afraid.   As the storm grew closer, just to be safe, many of the churches in our area canceled Sunday services.

Thanks be to God that they did, because the weather reports were wrong.  As I opened the front door that Sunday morning, the river in our front yard had almost crested its banks at 8 AM.   By late morning, we had lost power, and surrounding towns had lost running water.  The calls came fast and furious from friends and neighbors across the county throughout the day, surrounding towns were literally underwater.

The mountain that we live on was impassable.  Buildings and roads were literally washing away.   There were already reports that it would be weeks before direct roads on and off the mountain would be passable.  The destruction came fast and furious, sparing no one and nothing in its path.   We had heard Wilmington, the next town over was one of the worst hit in the state.

The night of the storm, we attempted to go to Wilmington.  After an agonizing drive, we finally were able to get close enough to walk into the village.

I wish I could tell you that we walked into town that night to breathe a sigh of relief that the reports of damage were vastly exaggerated.  They weren’t.   It looked like a war zone.  Our mouths hung open in disbelief.  We stood in the center of town clasping hands with people we knew and even those we didn’t, tears streaming down all of our faces, crying out to God silently and aloud.   How could this have happened to our little town?  What would we do now?  Where was God?

I immediately empathized with the people of the Ancient Near East ias I read this morning’s Scripture passage.  This section of the book of Genesis can be dated near the time of the post-Babylonian exile around 530 B.C.E.  The post-exilic people would have been looking for a sign of covenant with God and God’s presence.  Their society and life as they knew it was in turmoil.   They had already experienced the demise of their government, and upheaval of their religious life.  Life was in chaos, and God was fed up.

Heart broken over humanity’s hard heartedness and lack of care of one another and creation, God has had enough.  And so, the creator of heaven and earth, the one who moved across the deep and breathed everything into creation, has returned the world to nothingness through a once in a lifetime flood.  In the Ancient Near Eastern world, water (particularly such violent, turbulent water) was the symbol of ultimate chaos.

And yet in the wake of chaos, this is where the story really gets good.  The text tells us that God sets God’s bow in the clouds.  In ancient civilization, the rainbow was imagined as God’s weapon (or literal bow) from which his arrows were shot.  God literally lays down God’s proverbial weapon against humankind in the sky as a sign of covenant and peace.  The Holy One turns away from vindication, and toward forgiveness, patience and love, even knowing that the human heart will always be imperfect.   We will continue to battle against God, creation, and one another, but God covenants with us never to destroy the earth again.  God has begun a new creation with those that were on the ark.

In this covenant is something truly remarkable.  Humankind is not bound to any kind of behavior, norms, or even standards.  Think about that with me for a minute.  We have to do absolutely nothing at all, and yet God pledges to love us, and deliver us always. Our God covenants to hold God’s self to the highest standards of love and care, even when we do not do the same in return.  Our God is one who remembers us, even and especially in the midst of the greatest chaos.

I know that I am not the only one who is familiar with the feeling of chaos.  We see it all around us.  We see chaos in war, the breakdown in civil and political discourse, and natural disasters, to name a few.  But, hurricanes and natural disasters are far from the only way that chaos comes into our own lives.  We see it individually as well.  There is breakdown in relationship.  There is the pain and deep ache of grief, or loss.  There are the demons of addiction.   Indeed beloved, chaos can lead us to some dark nights of the soul.

But while this passage from Genesis begins with chaos, it does not leave us there.   Chaos is not the end of the story for the Israelites.  Nor is it the end of the story for us.  In the moments that we believe we will never feel joy again, that there is no hope for us, this Scripture tells us that a rainbow is coming (even if we cannot see it). Just as the exiled people came to know God as the “one who remembered” them despite the chaos, so too does God remember us.   God’s covenant promises that God will never leave us alone.

This Sunday marks the first Sunday of our Lenten journey into the wilderness with Jesus, and with one another.  I don’t know about you, but growing up Lent was a time of giving up my favorite things.  It became a contest ever year to see how long I could go without chocolate, ice cream, or some other 40-day forbidden treat.   Of course, as I got older, I began to understand more about the theology of why people gave something up.  I saw it as part of their walk with Jesus through the wilderness.

And yet, as I reflect on the passage this morning, I want to invite us to a deeper, or perhaps new understanding of Lent.  Jesus does not call us to suffer simply for suffering’s sake.  It is not about giving something up, simply because it is what we are supposed to do.  Setting down chocolate, or lattes for 40 days will not automatically bring us closer to the Divine.  It is about making room in our lives for God.  About letting go of things that have been taking up unnecessary space, perhaps creating chaos, and allowing God to fill that space.

True closeness with God requires trust.  It requires leaning into God’s everlasting arms, and trusting God enough to do the hard work we cannot do on our own.  As we walk through the Lenten wilderness, I think all of us are called to examine the places of chaos in our own lives and hearts. Where is our own heartedness, lack of care of one another or God’s creation keeping us from living fully into God’s promise for us?   What are the hard choices this Lenten season may be calling us to make to live more fully into relationship with God and one another?  Where in our own lives are we so lost in the chaos or wilderness that we cannot see God’s rainbow shining in front of us, calling us to new life?

Often in Sunday School, we hold forth the story of Noah’s Ark and God’s rainbow covenant as an overarching message of God’s Grace, promise, and love for our children.  We paint rainbows on the walls of our Sunday school classrooms, or give them as gifts for things like Baptism.  And yet, they are no less a powerful reminder for us whether we are four, or ninety-four.  I often wonder what it might be like to paint rainbows on the walls of our sanctuaries, offices, or favorite room in our homes to remind us of this holy promise, and the things it calls us to.

About 48 hours after Hurricane Irene blew through Wilmington, the bright summer sun has returned to the sky.  The sky was blue, and storm clouds were nowhere to be found.  As the dust blew heavily through the air, and the clean-up efforts began, a rainbow just as bright as the one I imagine God gave to the Israelites that day spread across the Vermont sky.

In the midst of our chaos, there came a reminder of God’s promise that chaos would not have the last word.  God’s covenant was made new again.  So too can it be for us.

This is the good news this morning beloved.   There is chaos in the world, and in our lives.  There are indeed hurricanes and dark nights of the soul.  But there is calm after the storm.  There are rainbows of hope and promise, if only we will make room in our hearts and our lives for them.  One of my favorite preachers, Rev. Dr. Susan Smith says it like this:  Joy comes in the morning, the psalmist tells us.  And thanks be to God, morning always comes.   May we trust enough to uncover the chaotic places in our lives and in ourselves this Lenten season, knowing that God’s covenant dawns new each morning.  Amen.

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February 19th, 2012

“Why I am a Christion” by Rev. Judy Brain

Luke 15:11-32

Today’s sermon was first written for a pulpit exchange with a UU church Lexington.  Many of the people who had found their way to that particular Unitarian Universalist meeting were folks who had been wounded by the Christian Church.  They had been made to feel worthless and guilty by excessively judgmental theology; they had been demonized because they were gay; or they felt intellectually stifled by dogmatism.  For them, these negative expressions of our faith became emblematic of all Christianity.

Because of this undercurrent, there was a strong anti-Christian sentiment in the church.  UUs are all about open-mindedness.  One of their guiding principles is to respect and find value in many different religious traditions.  They embraced the teachings of Buddhism, Judaism, Hinduism, Native American spirituality.  But Christianity … not so much.

Christianity met with resistance—intolerance even—bordering on prejudice.  And to give them credit, they wanted to face this issue.  So they invited me to come and, in a sense, defend my faith.

While it seems like such a given, I realized that after more than 20 years in ministry, I’d never preached a sermon that specifically talked about why I am a Christian, so I met the challenge with enthusiasm.  But first, I needed to define my terms.  I like Jesus’ terminology—”I am the vine, you are the branches.”  I imagine Christianity as a vine or tree.

The roots are Jesus’ own Jewish tradition, the trunk, Jesus himself and the early “people of the Way,” then the ever-dividing branches.  Orthodoxy and Catholicism divide off the trunk, the Protestant Reformation sprouts off the Catholic limb, and from that Protestant branch, multiple outgrowths.  You couldn’t even name how many denominations and movements.

And here I sit on my particular twig—a liberal, progressive, UCC Christian; still connected to that trunk, but pretty distinct from all the other leaves and twigs in that enormous canopy.  If anyone claims to speak for all of Christianity, just roll your eyes and move on.

I didn’t really represent the Christianity most of those UUs rejected; we actually had a lot in common.  You probably know that old joke that UCC stands for Unitarians Considering Christ.

CHRISTIAN BY INHERITANCE

But, to answer the question, “Why are you a Christian?”  I would have to say that the bottom line is, I was born that way.  My parents were nominal Christians and sent me to church.  This was the only religion I knew.  Of course, that’s a wimpy motive.  I needed to do better.  Why would I continue to choose to be a Christian?  Many people in that UU congregation had turned their back on the faith of their childhood.

WHY DO I STAY IN THE CHURCH?

Why do I stay in the church?  Oh yes, I know that the church has a shameful history.  Great evils were perpetrated in the name of Christianity, but any institution can be exploited for corrupt ends.  Great harm has been done in the name of democracy, but we don’t abandon it; we keep trying to perfect it.

People have experienced cruelty within the shelter of a family, but we do not say, “Let’s do away with families!”  In spite of how unscrupulous people have distorted the teachings of Jesus, the church has much to offer, and to me, it is worth it.  I took from Christianity what I loved and what sustained me and left the rest.  And part of the goal of my ministry is to apologize for and correct those aspects that were oppressive and exclusionary.

So, what is it about this progressive Christian faith that I value so highly?  Here is my top 7 list.

#7           CHRISTIANITY is my spiritual path.

It is the means by which I approach the divine.  I love the music, the corporate worship, the stories that connect me to the past and give me guidance in the present.  The practices of Christianity lead me into prayerfulness.  When the Dalai Lama was asked by a pilgrim how to become enlightened, he replied, “Go deep into your own tradition.”

#6           IT PROVIDES ORDER AND MEANING

I love the shape that the Christian faith brings to life.  I thrive on its patterns of celebration and repentance, reflection and action.

I like Lent where we set aside time to look inward. Good Friday where we intentionally expose ourselves to suffering and death—a practice much avoided in our culture.

I love the idea of sabbath—rest, time out, renewal.  And not just a couple of weeks in the summer but a whole 24 hours every 7 days!  I like the way Christianity honors the whole of life: work and leisure, relationships and solitude, sorrow and pleasure.  Every bit of it is sacred.

#5            IT IS PSYCHOLOGICALLY HEALTHY

The starting place for my brand of Christianity is acceptance. Jesus teaches that we are loved no matter who we are or what we’ve done.

This does not mean we are not held accountable.  It means we are not cursed; we are not forever trapped in our sins.  There is always the potential to start over.  One of our most valuable beliefs is the doctrine of forgiveness.  We can be set free.

Christianity also provides a supportive community.  Isolation is a contributing factor in depression; we all need a helping hand now and then.  And we need to offer a hand to our neighbors.  Getting mixed up in a church can promote a balanced lifestyle.  There are studies that show it is even physically healthy to be a church-going Christian.  (I’m not sure about the cause and effect at play there; but I think there could be a health benefit from being part of a supportive faith community where you are cared for and extend care to others.)

#4           CHRISTIANITY GIVES PURPOSE TO MY LIFE

The Bible claims that everybody has been created in God’s image and called to be reflections of the divine.  Whoever you are, whatever you do, you have the high calling to be God-like in your actions—loving your self, your neighbor, and even your enemies.  What greater purpose could there be?  You are a part of something more profound than you are—something that calls you to become your best self.  And everyone is important and beloved. The CEO of a multimillion dollar hotel empire is no more valued than the woman who cleans toilets in his rooms.

The scripture’s emphasis on justice forms the way I live—how I spend my money, what I do with my time, my attitude toward the environment, the causes I support, the values I pass on to my children and grandchildren, whose interest I have in mind when I vote.  Jesus calls me to be in solidarity with those women who clean hotel toilets.

#3           THE LIFE OF JESUS MOVES ME

Who can remain unaffected by the story of “the man for others” as Albert Schweitzer called him?  Jesus, the spellbinding teacher who caught the imagination of simple peasants and rich folks alike and welcomed them all into his circle; the powerful healer who reached out to the most feared outcasts; the wily rabbi who confounded the wise; the radical reformer who died because he loved his people and believed in his mission to set them free.

#2           THE STORIES OF JESUS ARE PROFOUND AND COMPELLING

Today, instead of beginning with scripture as I usually do, I’m going to end with it and tell you my favorite of all Jesus’ parables.  A story that captures the essence of Jesus’ message about God’s grace. It embodies the core concepts of our faith—grace, forgiveness, and redemption.  And it also hints at the cost.  The story of the loving father who forgives his wayward son.

#1         INHERENT IN THIS STORY IS MY NUMBER ONE REASON FOR BEING A CHRISTIAN:  IT’S ALL ABOUT GRACE

I have a friend who ran a mission school in Pakistan.  She said that until she lived in a Middle Eastern country, she did not have an appreciation for the radical message of this story.  In that culture, the society that formed Jesus, what happens in this parable would have been beyond anyone’s imagination.

A son who behaved like the one in this story would have been cut off with no questions asked.  Children owe so much deference to their parents, especially the family patriarch, that it would be unthinkable for a child to treat his father with such disrespect and even more absurd for the father to take the initiative in forgiving him and accepting him back into the family with a celebration instead of punishment.  The father would have been ridiculed and shunned, condemned for being weak and ineffectual.  In this shocking parable, Jesus tells us this is what God is like.  I’m not going to comment further, let’s just allow this beautiful story speak to us. 

The Parable of the loving parent Luke 15:11-32

Once upon a time there was father who had two sons.  The younger came to him and said, “Father, give me my inheritance so I can seek my fortune.  And so he did.

And the young man traveled to a far country where he wasted his inheritance on hedonistic and dissolute living.  When everything was gone, he found himself in need and he went into the country and hired himself out to a farmer who gave him a job no self-respecting Jew could imagine—feeding the pigs.

He grew so hungry that he would have gladly eaten the pods the pigs were eating.  And no one gave him anything.

But then he came to himself and thought, “How many of my father’s hired hands have enough to eat and more, while here I am starving.  I will go to him and say, “Father, I am no longer worthy to be called your son.  Just take me in as one of your servants.”

But while he was trudging down the road to his parent’s farm, his father saw him while he was still a far way off and was filled with compassion.  And the father ran to his wayward son and kissed him and put a robe on his back and a ring on his finger and called to his servants, “Hurry, kill the fatted calf, prepare a feast!  And let’s celebrate. This son of mine was dead is alive again.  He was lost but now is found.”

Sunday School observes the beginning of Lent with a One Room Church School focusing on the story of Noah’s Ark.

Observing Lent: Lent began February 22, and leads us on a six-week journey to Easter on April 8. The Christian Education program offers a number of ways for families to enter into the season. Download this  Lenten Calendar  to help kids mark the 6 weeks and 6 Sundays of Lent.  Use the spaces on the calendar to mark off the days, or write in prayers or good deeds done. Also available, the  pamphlet Lenten Disciplines for Family Life  which has many suggestions for observing Lent. 

On Wednesdays throughout Lent, the Sanctuary will be open and the Labyrinth set up  for a time of prayer and reflection from 5:00 to 7:00 p.m.  Following this, Heidi Ward will be leading an Adult Education program,  “Spiritual Practices”  from 7:00 to 8:00 p.m. in the Reception Room.

 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  and returns February 28. For pastoral needs, contact Deacon of the Month, Wanda Getchell (617-529-5001).

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

 Strategy will meet on Thursday evening, March 1st at6:00 p.m.

 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.

Traveling Light by Max Lucado is the next book for Book Group. The next meeting will be Tuesday, March 13 at 7:30 p.m.

To mark the beginning of the forty-day season of Lent there will be an Ash Wednesday service at 7:00 pm on Wednesday evening, February 22. The labyrinth will be set up in the side chapel and will remain there throughout Lent as a place for prayer and quiet mediation.

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.

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February 12, 2012

“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.