tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-165252982024-03-13T08:17:17.060-04:00Reverend MomCynthiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16189485834914559162noreply@blogger.comBlogger580125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16525298.post-3579399852514330722015-09-23T21:13:00.001-04:002015-11-28T10:20:32.766-05:00A new look, a new name, a new blog<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I've blogged as Reverend Mom for ten years now. When I started, I was working part-time and staying home with my two daughters.</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">They are now almost 19 and 16. One is a sophomore in college; the other is a junior in high school.</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;"><span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">When
I was in college, a professor of mine who knew I was going to seminary
called me the irreverent reverend. It's time I owned those early roots
of my call to ministry.</span></span></span> </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">It's time for a new name: </span></span></span> <a href="http://irrevrent.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Irrevrent</a><br />
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">Go check it out. </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">I hold many things in reverence, but I try not to take myself too seriously. Plus, believe it or not, I have a wicked sense of humor.</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: "verdana" , sans-serif;">It's time to lighten up AND get serious at the same time. </span></span></span><br />
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<br />Cynthiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16189485834914559162noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16525298.post-41102001786231040972015-09-08T23:30:00.000-04:002015-09-15T11:30:06.719-04:00Letting ourselves be seen<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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</xml><![endif]--><span style="color: #a2c4c9;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=308768659" target="_blank">Mark 7: 24-37</a> <br /><a href="http://newarkucc.org/" target="_blank">New Ark United Church of Christ, Newark, DE </a><br />September 6, 2015</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span><span style="color: #a2c4c9;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Every now and then the gospel writers allow us to see Jesus being fully human. Not just flesh and blood. Not only loving, compassionate, sad, or forgiving, but angry, tired, cranky, impatient, and stubborn. Not only determined and surrounded by crowds of people but wanting to hide and have some privacy, like any parent of young children scrambling for the bathroom and locking the door. Here he’s losing his cool, letting loose with an ethnic slur, holding on to an old prejudice, backing up, trying again, and allowing a sigh to escape his lips as he loosens the tongue and opens the ears of a deaf man. All without social media coming down on him like so much fire and brimstone. Just human. No more, no less, and without shame.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #a2c4c9;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Being human is something we allow more for ourselves than we do for others, and even then we skimp on the grace. In the Star Trek universe, Captain Kirk said to his half-human, half-Vulcan first officer, “Spock, you want to know something? Everybody’s human.” To which Spock replied, “I find that remark…insulting.” It’s hooray for our side when our humanity shines through our compassion, forgiveness, justice, generosity, acts of great courage and small kindnesses. But when we’re scared or scarred (or someone else is), when we do something stupid or hurtful (or someone else does), we shame others and ourselves, and we shrink the circle of grace.</span></span></span><br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-1qPzlnan1aA/Ve-mBG3pPII/AAAAAAAADM4/W5-mDLHQrwo/s1600/ChurchHospital.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-1qPzlnan1aA/Ve-mBG3pPII/AAAAAAAADM4/W5-mDLHQrwo/s200/ChurchHospital.jpg" width="200" /></a></div>
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<span style="color: #a2c4c9;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"> Letting ourselves be seen, all of who we are, our goodness and our meanness, our gifts and our flaws or somewhere in between, requires that we be vulnerable. Author Brené Brown defines vulnerability as “uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure”. These are the very things we try to avoid on a daily basis because they can make us feel weak. And yet following Jesus is full of uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure. Or at least it was for the disciples. Lately, the Christian church has become notorious for its certainty, risk-avoidance, and emotional martyrdom.<br /><br /><br /> It’s not easy for a church to allow itself be fully seen; it’s not easy for we who serve the church to allow ourselves to be fully seen, with our gifts and our flaws, our goodness and our meanness or somewhere in between; to be authentically human. I wonder if this is one of the reasons why we don’t like prayers of confession, why words like ‘sin’, ‘savior’, and ‘salvation’ disturb us, why it’s difficult to listen or deliver a message like this. We’re the proverbial Eve and Adam, naked before our Creator, yet clothed in our shame.<br /><br /><br /> Shame is something we all have; we fool no one but ourselves if we say there is no shame in us. When someone shames us, we feel as though we don’t belong, that we are unworthy of belonging, and we experience disconnection from others. When we shame another human being, in effect, we are saying they don’t belong, that they are unworthy of love and connection. When we are vulnerable (and when are we not), we are at risk for shame and disconnection.<br /><br /><br /> And yet, vulnerability is also the wellspring for joy, creativity, connection, courage, love, and the ability to be open, authentic, to be fully seen. Being vulnerable is like walking a tightrope without a net. Still, the church is called to be the net, that place of safety and trust, with appropriate boundaries, so we can be vulnerable without fear, without shame, with our whole hearts.</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #d0e0e3;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /><br /><span style="color: #a2c4c9;"> We’re called to be the net, but let’s be honest; we don’t always behave that way. Sometimes we let people fall through. Maybe we’re one who’s let someone slip by or we dropped them. Maybe we’ve been one who’s fallen through. Maybe it’s happened more than once, yet we still keep giving church a second chance, feasting on the crumbs under the Table. Maybe there are times we feel alone in a room full of people who profess to care about us. There are some who are not in church for these very reasons.<br /><br /><br /> Feeling disconnected, feeling alone in a faith community is probably one of the worst feelings, and we can feel shame because of it. How do we speak of our loneliness to people from whom we feel disconnected? <br /><br /><br /> In the two healing stories from Mark, both the woman and her daughter and the deaf man were outsiders; she, a Gentile, and he, because of his speech and hearing impediments. Jesus would not have met them had he not traveled beyond his homeland, walking a great distance. God calls us to have the courage to allow ourselves to be seen, to bridge the distance, to make the first move and reach out to one another with our whole hearts.</span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-8Sho6r0Xl7M/Ve-mBSv3cGI/AAAAAAAADM0/TzZxcDGneXM/s1600/liberation.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-8Sho6r0Xl7M/Ve-mBSv3cGI/AAAAAAAADM0/TzZxcDGneXM/s320/liberation.jpg" width="198" /></a></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><br /><br /> <span style="color: #a2c4c9;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">We make it so complicated; we place such high expectations on ourselves and on each other. Jesus said it doesn’t get any more complicated than this: to love God, to love one another, to love ourselves. Everything else hinges on these three things. It’s all about connection and staying connected to each other, especially when it is difficult. For it is love and connection that make it possible for us to be fully seen, fully authentic, fully human, and ultimately realize, we are also fully divine, each one of us an image of God.<br /><br /><br /> The Rev. Bob Degges, of Bethany Christian Church in Fort Washington, MD, proclaimed in a recent newsletter, “God has created people as mysteries, not as problems to be solved.” You, me, every living soul, we are wondrous, human mysteries. And here at this Table we meet again and again the mystery of mysteries. Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again. The One who was fully seen, fully vulnerable on the cross can be fully seen in you and me and the gospel lived out in our lives. Lord Jesus Christ, open our lives. Amen.</span></span></span><br />
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Cynthiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16189485834914559162noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16525298.post-91818368698543156192015-09-03T17:00:00.002-04:002015-09-03T17:02:21.247-04:00Invite someone<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="color: #a2c4c9;"><span style="font-size: small;">Here's our new invitational video for the New Ark.</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="color: #a2c4c9;"><span style="font-size: small;">Share it with a friend!</span></span></span>Cynthiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16189485834914559162noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16525298.post-62489575785631524252015-09-01T16:05:00.000-04:002015-09-01T16:05:15.060-04:00Getting our hands dirty<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<![endif]--><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><a href="http://bible.oremus.org/?ql=308136339" target="_blank">Mark 7: 5-8, 14-15, 21-23 </a><br /><span style="color: #a2c4c9;">New Ark United Church of Christ, Newark, DE <br />August 30, 2015</span></span></span><br />
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><img class="irc_mi" height="266" src="http://theintelligentnest.files.wordpress.com/2013/01/sf-little-girl-with-muddy-hands.jpg" style="margin-top: 0px;" width="400" /> </span></b></div>
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<b style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;"><span style="font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%;"> </span></b></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="color: #a2c4c9;">Hear
these words from UCC pastor and poet</span> <a href="http://marthaspong.com/2012/08/27/dirty-hands/" target="_blank">Martha Spong,</a> <span style="color: #a2c4c9;">entitled “Dirty Hands”:</span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #a2c4c9;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">They smudge the screen,</span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #a2c4c9;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">leave prints on the doorjamb</span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #a2c4c9;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">with their unwashed hands.</span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #a2c4c9;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">I send them to the sink,</span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #a2c4c9;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">call, “Did y’all<span> </span>use soap?”</span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #a2c4c9;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">But Jesus says, “Come. Eat.”</span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #a2c4c9;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span> </span>Don’t
we all have this rule in our homes?<span> </span>Wash
your hands before you come to the table.<span>
</span>Every time we use a restroom in a restaurant, fast food place, grocery
store, or gas station we see the sign:<span>
</span>“Employees must wash hands before returning to work”.<span> </span>Many places of business have hand gel or foam
dispensers for their patrons.<span> </span>Hospitals
depend on it.<span> </span>We really wouldn’t want
any of these folks breaking this rule.<span>
</span>The scribes and Pharisees don’t sound that unreasonable.<span> </span>Why is Jesus getting on their case?</span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #a2c4c9;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span> </span>Ritual
handwashing was more of a human tradition than a commandment from God.<span> </span>Yes, there were purity laws regarding full
immersion as a common practice, but this was mostly in Judea.<span> </span>Handwashing became a way of imitating the
mikvah bath and remembering that what God desires is a clean heart.<span> </span>The Pharisees and scribes, however, seemed to
be of the mind that it would be preferable for these unwashed disciples to go
hungry than to eat with them and their dirty hands.<span> </span>These power brokers have no desire to enable
the disciples and their seemingly sinful ways.</span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #a2c4c9;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"> </span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #a2c4c9;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span> </span>I
want to talk about enabling when it comes to ministry and helping others.<span> </span>I’ll begin with a story.<span> </span>The week before we left for Pipestem, WV,
church groups from Monroe, CT and Granby, CT left for their mission trip to
work on the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cheyenne_River_Indian_Reservation" target="_blank">Cheyenne River Reservation</a> in La Plant, South Dakota with their
mission partner, <a href="http://www.simplysmiles.org/" target="_blank">Simply Smiles.</a><span> </span>Most of
their work focused around the community center: they continued construction on
a large greenhouse and playscape area, as well as the interior of a new
home.<span> </span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #a2c4c9;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span> </span>The
pride and joy of the week was a new archery range.<span> </span>As part of his final project, an Eagle Scout
led the construction of the range, including a platform and backdrop
screen.<span> </span>Both kids and adults went
through a rigorous series of safety lessons, and before the week was out, the
arrows were flying.</span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #a2c4c9;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><img alt="" class="spotlight" height="266" src="https://scontent-lga1-1.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-xtf1/v/t1.0-9/11745816_864789213570874_4906622745705826744_n.jpg?oh=587d134304676e6eed301d7083a053d7&oe=56629F3C" width="400" /> </span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #a2c4c9;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"> </span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #a2c4c9;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span> </span>While
the kids were testing out their archery skills, Steven, one of men from the
reservation, remarked, “Usually, when something like this gets built, kids
would come and set fire to it.<span> </span>There’d
be nothing left in the morning.”<span> </span>Worried
that this might happen to the archery range, my friend Debbie asked, “Is that
what’s going to happen?”<span> </span>Steven replied,
“Not now.<span> </span>Five years ago, maybe, but not
now.”</span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #a2c4c9;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span> </span>People
have asked my friends why they help those who live on the reservation.<span> </span>If they can’t get a job or if their house is
falling apart, why don’t they move?<span> </span>If
they drink too much or take drugs, why bother building them a safe, warm
house?<span> </span>If they’ve got diabetes and can’t
eat right, why plant them a garden and build a greenhouse?</span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #a2c4c9;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
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<span style="color: #a2c4c9;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span> </span>The
reason why the archery range won’t be burned down, but would have five years
ago is because of relationships.<span> </span>Five
years ago people who came to help on the reservation were suspect.<span> </span>Maybe they were do-gooders, come to feel good
about themselves and their work and then leave.<span>
</span>Maybe they were going to tell folks on the rez how to live, clean up
their lives, disrespect their culture.<span>
</span>Maybe it hurt too much to open up and hope again.</span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #a2c4c9;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span> </span>Instead
people on the reservation were asked “What do you need?<span> </span>What would you like?<span> </span>What do you want?”<span> </span>So they built a house for a man who drinks
too much and a few other houses.<span> </span>Every
summer there’s guitar camp for all ages, and everyone gets a free guitar. <span> </span>On Wednesdays anyone can come to a community
dinner or breakfast. <span> </span>Each morning
there’s a Walk On at the school track.<span>
</span>In the spring not only does the community garden get planted, but anyone
who wants to can take a garden class and learn how to start their own vegetable
garden. </span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #a2c4c9;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span> </span>Even
so, none of this guarantees anything.<span>
</span>Many folks still drink too much, abuse drugs, and use violence to solve
their problems.<span> </span>Some still take their
own lives, unable to see any other way out of their pain.<span> </span>My friends arrived the week after a 15 yr.
old girl took her own life.<span> </span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #a2c4c9;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span> </span>When
we’re worried about enabling someone, what we’re really scared of is being
vulnerable, of being hurt, being used, of not really being able to help someone,
being powerless.<span> </span>There’s an old
proverb:<span> </span>Love me when I least deserve
it, because that’s when I really need it.<span>
</span>Love is not love when it involves a quid pro quo or an expectation.<span> </span>Last night I heard a song lyric: “Did I make
myself weak so someone else could be strong?”</span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #a2c4c9;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span> </span>Worrying
about enabling can sometimes disable ministry, and ministry is all about
relationships—imperfect, human relationships.<span>
</span>Life and love and following Jesus—all of it is messy.<span> </span>We’ve made and we’ll continue to make
mistakes, but the mistakes are a sign that at least we’re trying.<span> </span>As for being hurt, being used, that’s why we
have Jesus so we can keep learning how to forgive seventy times seven, to
forgive as we have been forgiven, receive our daily bread, ask that God’s will
be done on earth as it is in heaven, lead us not to the time of trial but
deliver us from evil.</span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #a2c4c9;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span> </span>All
of us have dirty hands on this one.<span> </span>If
we’ve loved someone, helped someone, we’ve left our share of grimy smudges; our
fingerprints are everywhere.<span> </span>What
matters is our hearts, and what’s in our hearts when we’re asked to give.<span> </span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #a2c4c9;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span> </span>We
need to let go of the outcome.<span> </span>We can
pray this prayer:<span> </span>“O God, you know what
this person, this situation, this community, this world needs today.<span> </span>You know what is needful for this person to
do what you would have them do, to be the person you would have them be.<span> </span>If I am needed, I am here.<span> </span>I trust you, God.<span> </span>Help them to trust you.<span> </span>Thank you, God.<span> </span>Amen.”</span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #a2c4c9;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span> </span>Ultimately
it’s about enabling God to do what God will do.<span>
</span>God works through connection and relationships.<span> </span>And what God does is love, unconditionally,
without limit, fully and fearlessly.<span> </span>O
God, use us to be a part of your fearless work of grace.<span> </span>Amen.</span></span></span></span></div>
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Cynthiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16189485834914559162noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16525298.post-54709807109951875272015-08-27T08:31:00.000-04:002015-08-27T08:31:25.451-04:00Waiting for the gift<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+6%3A+56-69+&version=MSG" target="_blank">John 6: 56-69 </a><br /><a href="http://newarkucc.org/" target="_blank">New Ark United Church of Christ, Newark, DE </a></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #a2c4c9;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">August 23, 2015</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"></span></span><span style="color: #a2c4c9;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">This is the fifth Sunday we hear Jesus telling his disciples that he is the Bread of life, that if we eat his flesh and drink his blood, we will have eternal life. Jesus is the stuff we need to be fully alive. The Catholic and Protestant scholars who put together the lectionary readings wisely knew that it would take at least more than one hearing of this particular word in order for it to sink in. Jesus says it himself: “Does this throw you completely?” In other words, you think this teaching is hard to understand? Or in the NSRV: “Does this offend you?” What would happen if we saw the Son of Man ascending to where he came from? Would that make it easier to believe, if Jesus did something supernatural, right in front of our eyes?</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #a2c4c9;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"> </span></span></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /><br /><span style="color: #a2c4c9;">It helps if first, we don’t take Jesus literally but we do take him seriously. Just as when God said God would write words of love and commitment on human hearts, it didn’t mean God would engrave them with hammer and chisel. So too Jesus isn’t recruiting an army of cannibals, vampires, and zombies. I like Eugene Peterson’s use of the phrase ‘make a meal of me’. Jesus says, “In the same way that the fully alive Father sent me here and I live because of him, so the one who <i>makes a meal of me</i> lives because of me.” <br /><br /> <br /><br />Usually when we say someone ‘makes a meal’ of something, it means they’ve spent more time and energy than what is needed. “I asked for a few bullet points on the subject, but she made a meal out it.” Funny thing is, that’s precisely what Jesus wants us to do with him. Jesus doesn’t want us to sum him up in a few bullet points or sound bites. He doesn’t want us to skim the surface; Jesus wants us to go deep, to make a meal out of him, to take him seriously, and become alive through him. </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="color: #a2c4c9;">But even then, it’s not a guarantee for faith, for trust, for going where Jesus is going. And so we need to hear this message not just once or twice but over and over again, because trusting in Jesus and having faith that can carry us forward is no easy thing. Sometimes we try to muscle our way through, soldier on, will ourselves (and a few other people) headlong into the fray of living. Other times we turn around, head the other way, leaving Jesus in the dust. After all, he can be one frustrating dude. But Jesus tells us that none of this works. Muscle and willpower can’t make faith happen. We can’t come to Jesus on our own. Jesus says we get to him only as a gift from God. <br /><br /> <br /><br />The journey of faith is not a linear one. Like life itself, faith ebbs and flows, up and down. Sometimes the ebb comes with a wicked undertow, and we get thrashed about. Sometimes we wait a long time for the flow of faith to return. Some of us may still be waiting for it to return, wondering if it ever will. If faith is a gift, why must we wait for it? If God’s grace is unconditional, why doesn’t it flow freely? Why can’t we feel it all the time? <br /><br /> <br /><br />Near the scripture in your bulletin, draw a wavy line. On that wavy line, put an X where you are right now in your relationship to God, with Jesus, in the Holy Spirit, however it is you relate to the sacred in your life. Are you at the top or the bottom of the wave, ascending or descending somewhere in the middle? <br /><br /> <br /><br />The bottom of the wave is the hardest place to be, especially when we can’t see the upward slope that’s coming. Or maybe we’re on that upward slope, but it feels like Sisyphus continuously rolling that heavy boulder uphill. We’re muscling our way up the stairway to heaven. Maybe we’re coasting on the downhill. It’s hardest when we’re waiting: waiting for something to change, something to happen, something to feel different.</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="color: #a2c4c9;">I don’t know about you but I stink at waiting. At least it feels like I’m no good at it. I get frustrated. I cry but probably not as much as I need to. Sometimes I rail at God because she’s the only one who’ll let me. At some point I despair because being powerless is just unacceptable. When it gets bad, there are times I have turned to poetry and I write it out. This poem is from a few years ago while I was searching for a church.<br /><br /> <br /> <br /><br />The Waiting Room <br /><br /> <br /><br />Random. <br /><br />Capricious. <br /><br />No guarantees <br /><br />whatsoever. <br /><br />You sure you want this? <br /><br />You might not <br /><br />even get what you need. <br /><br />Your best intentions <br /><br />won’t matter. <br /><br />Your actions will <br /><br />be like atoms colliding <br /><br />in a galaxy <br /><br />you may have the luck <br /><br />to live in. <br /><br />Others will offer <br /><br />what they can: <br /><br />in God’s time, <br /><br />if it’s meant to be, <br /><br />but they can’t always wait with you. <br /><br />You will look to blame <br /><br />someone <br /><br />but find only yourself. <br /><br />Whatever it is <br /><br />you can’t forgive <br /><br />set it down like a stone <br /><br />or hurl it into space. <br /><br />Gravity will turn out <br /><br />to be stronger than <br /><br />you are and infinitely <br /><br />more patient. <br /><br /> <br /><br /> Way to bring down a room, huh? Can you hear the anger in that? Have you ever felt like that? What are you waiting for right now? Where in your life are you having difficulty being patient? Where do you need God to show up? Write it down near your wavy line. <br /><br /> <br /><br /> So how do we stay connected to the holy, to God, when we’re not feeling it, when we’re waiting for God to show up, when we’re in the ebb, waiting for the flow? When the rest of Jesus’ disciples heard that they needed God’s help to get to Jesus, they left. But the Twelve stayed, saying, “Where would we go? You have the words of real life. We’ve already committed ourselves, confident you are the Holy One of God.” <br /><br /> <br /><br /> The Twelve gave Jesus their unconditional trust. We talk a lot about the unconditional love of God. But we don’t talk about offering God the same. Not blind faith, but unconditional trust and love. We can love God, trust God, even when we’re in the ebb, even when Jesus is teaching something we don’t understand, even when the well of the Spirit feels as though it has run dry. </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="color: #a2c4c9;">One way we can do that is just showing up: showing up in prayer, in reading the Bible, serving and giving, and yes, coming to church for worship. It’s like any other love relationship. We may not always feel loving, but we show up anyway and do the loving thing. We trust that the way things are now will change, because change is the way of all things. What ebbs will flow again. One of the major themes of the Bible is how God shows up again and again for God’s people, especially when they think God has given up on them. The other major theme? God never gives up on God’s people. <br /><br /> <br /><br /> Lately, in the morning, I have been praying this simple prayer: “God, you know what I need for today. You know what is needful for me to do what you want me to do, to be who you want me to be. I trust you. Thank you, God. Amen.” How have you been showing up in your relationship to God? Write down one or more ways you can show up daily in your relationship to the holy, to the sacred in your life. Then commit to showing up every day this week, with God’s help. And let’s all not be too hard on ourselves. <br /><br /> <br /><br /> The life of faith is simply this: We can’t do it, life, loving, forgiving, making peace, creating justice, without help. At the very least we need each other. So while we’re waiting, we might as well wait with each other. Which means maybe we’ll learn to trust each other, lean on one another, realize we’re not alone. Thanks be to God. Amen.</span></span></span></div>
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="278" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/gowi31zGyQA?rel=0" width="495"></iframe>Cynthiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16189485834914559162noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16525298.post-30301735163865230762015-08-18T16:24:00.000-04:002015-08-27T07:50:53.946-04:00Be the Bread<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span></span>
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<![endif]--><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="color: #999999;"><a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+6%3A+51-58++&version=NRSV" target="_blank">John 6: 51-58 </a><br /><span style="color: #a2c4c9;"><a href="http://newarkucc.org/" target="_blank">New Ark United Church of Christ, Newark, DE</a> <br />August 16, 2015 </span></span></span></span> <br />
<span style="color: #999999;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #999999;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></span><img class="irc_mi" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-jJnxPdnTxRw/T5oD7pLHSMI/AAAAAAAAAvI/oN3VHyUJQyA/s320/REESE'S+MASTER.png" style="margin-top: 0px;" width="242" /><br />
<span style="color: #999999;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /><br /><span style="color: #a2c4c9;">You’re hungry. You want something right now. You’re lacking in some way. This is the assumption of most advertising. We’re wanting. We come out of the womb wanting. Even though we might not need whatever is being sold, just the very act of putting something in front of us can create desire. So we listen and look. Sometimes we are entertained, yet we are not filled. In fact, we may want it even more. </span></span></span></span><span style="color: #a2c4c9;"> <span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /><br />Jesus said, “Follow me.” But we also follow Facebook, Tumblr, Reddit, Mashable, Jon Stewart, Donald Trump, Oprah Winfrey, Weight Watchers, the Wall Street Journal, numerous news outlets, and any other number of gurus to help us with our hunger. </span></span> <span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /><br />What do you want right now, what do you hunger for? Are you tired, wish you could go back to bed? Is your stomach rumbling? What are you thinking about, where’s your mind right now? Is there something weighing on your heart? Do you want a drink or a smoke? Are you restless or worried—restless or worried about what? Does something hurt inside? Write it down in your bulletin, somewhere near where the scripture is printed. </span></span> <span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /><br />Often these hungers are substitutes for what really lights our fire: knowing who we really are, where we belong in the world, what our purpose is. </span></span> <span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /><br />It seems almost tasteless to speak of hunger in these terms when millions of people don’t have enough to eat. How dare we afford ourselves the luxury of these existential hungers. But we who are indeed rich need to get our spiritual act together in order to help feed the world, both physically and spiritually. In our mostly middle to upper middle class suburban culture, what we once needed in order to survive—food, shelter, clothing, relationships, education, a source of income—have now become things we want in order to feel satisfied. </span></span> <span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /><br />But being satisfied is a loaded gun in a culture built upon the concept of wanting but not always getting more. We’re wanting on the inside, and there’s a whole machine at work with the response, “You can have it all. Here it is.” We are surrounded by advertising: on the radio, television, newspaper, billboards, and now every page we look at on the internet. It’s become a habit to fill our internal emptiness and despair with external answers. Hungry? Here’s some fast food. Tired? Here’s the best bed you’ll ever sleep on OR here’s a pill or a snack or whatever to give you energy. Overweight? Here’s a buffet of diets to choose from. Have a want with no name on it, just some gnawing desire inside you that you can’t ignore? We’ll come up with something (or many somethings) that we’re sure will seem to fill that aching hole inside you. </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #999999;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><img alt="https://marcuswing13.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/advertising-billboards-004.jpg" src="https://marcuswing13.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/advertising-billboards-004.jpg" /></span></span></span> <span style="color: #999999;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /><br /><span style="color: #a2c4c9;">And what is that aching hole? Often our hungers are open wounds in need of healing. Needs that never got filled. Feeling like we’re not enough. Not knowing who we really are. Not knowing why we’re here, what’s our purpose in this life, and feeling like we’re running out of time to find out. </span></span></span></span><span style="color: #a2c4c9;"> <span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /><br />While I was on vacation, I was living the life of Riley. I don’t even know who Riley is, but I know it means I was taking it easy, detached from my usual life. For three of the four Sundays, I didn’t go to church. I slept in, ate a late breakfast, did a little work in the garden, went for a walk with my husband, spent time with my family. Which seemed reasonable, since for me, church is my work, my vocation. </span></span> </span><span style="color: #999999;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="color: #a2c4c9;"><br /><br />Last week I thought it would be a good idea to go to church, to sort of ease back into the practice. I went to</span> <a href="http://www.ssam.org/" target="_blank">Saints Andrew and Matthew Episcopal Church</a> <span style="color: #a2c4c9;">in Wilmington, a church I admire for its ministry to their neighborhood. </span></span></span></span><span style="color: #a2c4c9;"> <span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /><br />The supply preacher, a Lutheran pastor with Episcopal chops, preached on the lectionary: previous verses from the gospel of John about Jesus being the Bread of life. As I listened to his words, about how God promises through Jesus that God will be with us without telling how, just that God is indeed with us, tears began to roll down my cheeks. And they kept coming, through the end of his message and into the liturgy for the Eucharist, as I got on my knees and said the familiar words, “Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again.” </span></span> <span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /><br />I realized I had been hungry for church, not just for words of forgiveness and promise but how these become the very food that sustains me. </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #a2c4c9;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Christ has died. Christ is risen. Christ will come again. I don’t know how this is supposed to happen. That’s why we call it the mystery of our faith. But I know it has happened in my life. Time and again God has reached into my life of dead ends and raised me up. When has God reached into your life and raised you up? Write down a few words about that near the scripture. If you think God has not reached into your life and raised you up, think about the people who have loved you no matter what. Write down a name or three. Maybe one of them is in this room. </span></span> <span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /><br />And when I doubt if it’ll happen again, I need to not only hear those words of promise but eat the bread and drink the cup that bears that promise. What does Communion mean to you? Whatever it is, write it down. Even if it’s a question mark, write it down. </span></span> <span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /><br />Now look again at what you’re hungry for, what you want right now. Are there any dots to be connected there? From your hunger, what you want, to what God has done in your life, to this Table? </span></span> </span><span style="color: #999999;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="color: #a2c4c9;"><br /><br />Jesus said, “I am the living bread.” As in, “I am who I am.” The God whom we do not see, but we do get to see what God is doing and being and becoming. Jesus, the one who lives in God, who lives the message, who is the message, is the living bread, that which does not satisfy but sustains, always leaving us hungering for more…and there always is more.</span> </span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #999999;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><img class="irc_mi" src="http://www.ournakedaustralia.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Healthy-Mc-Donalds-food.jpg" height="320" style="margin-top: 29px;" width="317" /></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #999999;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /><span style="color: #a2c4c9;">But it doesn’t end there. We are made in God’s image. “I am who I am.” You are who you are. “I am the living bread.” You are the living bread. “Do this in remembrance of me.” Remember who you are. When we partake of the living bread, it becomes a part of us; we become a part of the living bread. Whenever we feast of God’s good things, they become a part of us. “We are what we eat.” We are what we consume. Are we merely consumers? Or are we hungry for something else? Something that not only sustains but transforms us into living bread for the world. I once read, “Life is the Mass. And you are the Eucharist.” Life is worship and being in the presence of God. We are the body of Christ, living bread for the world. Be the bread. Amen.</span></span></span></span></div>
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<![endif]--><a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm+85%3A+1-13&version=NRSV" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Psalm 85: 8-13 </span></span></a><br />
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">New Ark United Church of Christ, Newark, DE </span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">July 12, 2015 </span></span></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><img class="irc_mi" src="http://park-school.s3.amazonaws.com/files/pages/njefferson-rehabed.jpg" height="122" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; margin-top: 80px;" width="400" /></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Build-a-Block, Habitat for Humanity of the Chesapeake</td></tr>
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"> It was 1988. I was in Baltimore, MD for my first mission trip. I was a seminarian at <a href="http://www.hancockchurch.org/" target="_blank">Hancock United Church of Christ in Lexington, MA.</a> Each year the youth group traveled to a different destination and worked with a variety of mission partners during their April break. This year it was Habitat for Humanity, before they changed the age limits of volunteers. We were assigned to work on a row house in one of the poorest sections of Baltimore. Many of the row houses were empty and condemned. Habitat had purchased a number of them to gut and renovate. Our task? Sheetrock the interior of the house. </span></span></span> <span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /><br /> Did we know what we were doing? Sort of. We had some direction and guidance but we were pretty much left to ourselves. The only power tools we had were electric drills to fasten the sheetrock to the wall studs. We cut the sheetrock with X-Acto knives. Let’s just say our technique was not always so precise. </span></span></span> <span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /><br /> One group was given the job of putting sheetrock in a closet. The trouble was, the closet was on the second floor, over the stairs. The floor of the closet was sloped upward to the back wall. It made for some interesting angles to measure and cut, let alone then put into place. We also had a limited supply of sheetrock and had to make due, even with mistakes. </span></span></span> <span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /><br /> The left back corner of this closet was cut just a bit too large for the space and shattered the bottom corner of the sheetrock when it was shoved into place. A finger-sized piece of sheet rock broke off and with it, dashed the morale of the group. Their hearts were in this full-weight. They knew this would be a warm, safe home for a family. They wanted to leave their mark on this house but not in this way. </span></span></span> <span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /><br /> One of the group ventured, “You know, it’s only a closet. Once it gets painted and someone starts hanging stuff in here, no one will even notice it.” So the piece was put into place with a light layer of joint compound and that was that. </span></span></span> <span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /><br /> But then other small mishaps would happen, none of which I can recall. But I do remember the same wisdom applied to the closet would be used on whatever inconvenience or frustration at the moment. Again and again the refrain was used, “It’s only a…”. It’s only a sandwich. It’s only a t-shirt. It’s only a dollar. It’s only a traffic jam. </span></span></span> <span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /><br /> We realized that we could apply this wisdom to many disappointments and add some levity and detachment to just about any situation. And that it was our privilege that allowed us to do this. The only exception was God. We found we couldn’t say “It’s only God” or “It’s only the Holy Spirit” or “It’s only Jesus”. It would be like saying “It’s only love” or “It’s only justice” or grace or peace or righteousness or faithfulness. The word “only” can mean “merely” or “barely” or “no more than”. But God’s grace is extravagant, unconditional, infinite. God can’t be contained in box or a closet. </span></span></span> <span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /><br /> What we don’t hear in the reading from Psalm 85 are the beginning verses, words of longing and despair over the plight of God’s people, interpreted as God’s anger. What we do hear is that, despite the despair and longing, God’s people still have hope that what was lost will be found: steadfast love and faithfulness will meet, righteousness and peace will kiss. They trust that God will make a way out of no way: God will give what is good. They know it to be true, that no matter what they have done that caused them to feel separate from God, God is not separate from them: righteousness goes before God and makes a path for God’s steps—God’s steps toward God’s people. </span></span></span> <span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /><br /> God’s people were always and still are on a mission trip. God leads, we follow. Sometimes we get lost. It’s not always easy working together. Not everything goes the way we hope it will. But God’s hopes are full because we’re still together at the end of the day. For God will never say, “They’re only my people”. Thanks be to God. Amen.</span></span></span>Cynthiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16189485834914559162noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16525298.post-44756790598923997352015-07-09T16:26:00.000-04:002015-07-09T16:41:39.616-04:00The Jesus we don't know<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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</xml><![endif]--><span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Mark+6%3A+1-13+&version=NRSV" target="_blank">Mark 6: 1-13 </a><br />New Ark United Church of Christ, Newark, DE <br />July 5, 2015</span></span></span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">(c) Mark Brunner/Getty Images, 1996</td></tr>
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">In 1996 the Ku Klux Klan held a rally in Ann
Arbor, Michigan, hometown of Keshia Thomas.
She was 18 years old. It was a
strange place for the Klan to rally. Ann
Arbor has a reputation as a progressive, multicultural community. Hundreds of protesters turned out to tell the
white s<span class="textexposedshow">upremacist group that they were not welcome
in this liberal college town. A few protesters
noticed a man with a SS tattoo and wearing a t-shirt decorated with a
Confederate flag, standing on the protesters' side of the fence. A small group began to chase him. He was
quickly knocked to the ground and kicked and hit with placard sticks.</span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">People began to shout, "Kill the Nazi!"
Keshia, a high school senior and an
African-American, witnessing the mob mentality, decided to act. She threw herself on top of the man,
protecting him from the crowd. When
asked why she defended him, she said, "Someone had to step out of the pack
and say, 'this isn't right'... I knew what it was like to be hurt. The many times that that happened, I wish
someone would have stood up for me... violence is violence - nobody deserves to
be hurt, especially not for an idea."</span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Keshia never knew what happened to the man
after that day but months later, a young man came up to her to say thanks,
telling her that the man she had protected was his father. For Keshia, learning
that he had a son brought a deeper meaning to the risk she had taken. She reflected, "For the most part, people
who hurt... they come from hurt. It’s a cycle. Let's say they had killed him or
hurt him really bad. How would his son feel? Would he carry on the violence?"</span></span></span></span></div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-TdQbh1mGxl8/VZ6-FTwMf0I/AAAAAAAADKw/snNPHziSHJk/s1600/Keshia3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="245" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-TdQbh1mGxl8/VZ6-FTwMf0I/AAAAAAAADKw/snNPHziSHJk/s400/Keshia3.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;"><span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"> In response to those who argued that the man
deserved a beating or more, Pulitzer Prize-winning commentator Leonard Pitts
Jr. offered this brief reflection in <i>The
Miami Herald</i>: "That some in Ann Arbor have been heard grumbling that
she should have left the man to his fate, only speaks of how far they have
drifted from their own humanity. And of the
crying need to get it back. Keshia's
choice was to affirm what they have lost. Keshia's choice was human. Keshia's
choice was hope."</span></span></span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=16525298#_edn1" name="_ednref1" style="mso-endnote-id: edn1;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[i]</span></span></span></span></a></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Jesus
came to his hometown, met by a large gathering of family and extended
family.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>No doubt they had heard about
his fame, the healings, and the mobs of people who followed him from place to
place.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>At first they were impressed by
him, astonished at his ability—perhaps because they didn’t expect that much of
him.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Nazareth was a peasant village,
from which no one expected anything good to arise.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>After all, Jesus was just a carpenter, a day
laborer, his mother’s boy rather than his father’s son.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Didn’t they know him from when he was just a
kid?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Just who does Jesus think he is?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Jesus Christ Superstar/do you think you’re
who they say you are?”</span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /><br /> Jesus calls himself a prophet, casting himself in a long line of God’s rejected truth tellers. It was a saying at the time, from the Greek philosopher Plutarch: “The most sensible and wisest people are little cared for in their own hometown.” Jesus couldn’t accomplish much, even among his own kin, because they had already summed him up and found him lacking. They thought they knew him, but as the gospel of John notes: He came to what was his own and his own people did not accept him.<br /><br /><br /> The only power that Jesus has to liberate us is for him to be not like us. The only Jesus that can liberate us is the Jesus we don’t know. He’s young and female and black and throws herself in the way of her hometown crowd, those who would do violence in the name of righteousness. Jesus doesn’t look like most of us, he doesn’t live like most of us. A white Jesus can lull us into thinking that he’s like us, we are like him, thus we have no need of liberation, deliverance, what we used to call salvation. A white Jesus can get us thinking we don’t need Jesus at all. He’s a good guy we can all agree with rather than our Lord and Savior.</span></span></span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/04/18/book-design-second-person-singular_n_1429811.html" target="_blank">Rejected Covers: Second Person Singular</a></td></tr>
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /> <a href="http://www.patheos.com/blogs/godlessindixie/2015/06/26/upon-the-legalization-of-gay-marriage/" target="_blank">Mark Caddo,</a> a writer and activist, said, “The problem with being privileged your whole life is that [after] you have had that privilege for so long, equality starts to look like oppression.” Perhaps we don’t experience equality as oppression, or we don’t think of ourselves as oppressors. But we who have lived with privilege our whole lives need to be liberated just as much as those who suffer from never having had privilege and the denial of rights that goes with it.<br /><br /><br /> We don’t know if Jesus was gay, but we need a gay Jesus. We don’t know if he was transgender, but we need a trans Jesus. He wasn’t an immigrant, but we need a foreign Jesus. He wasn’t sick or in prison or naked or hungry, but we need a sick, imprisoned, naked and hungry Jesus. He wasn’t a Christian; he was a devout Jew living in Roman-occupied Palestine. It’s not the historical Jesus or the mythical Jesus we need or the one we’ve fashioned in our own minds. We need the biblical Jesus, the one who preached about money and the power that goes with it more than he did anything else. We need the biblical Jesus who was called a drunkard and a glutton because he hung out with tax collectors and prostitutes, eating and drinking with them.</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /> We need the biblical Jesus who was and who is also Christ, the Messiah, both of which mean the Anointed One. What does it mean for Jesus to be anointed? In Luke’s version, when Jesus is rejected in his hometown, Jesus says that “[the] Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has <i>anointed</i> me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” This is what is means to be a Christian—to follow and learn from the One whose work is justice for those who suffer and liberation for those who are not free.<br /><br /><br /> This isn’t just the Jesus we don’t know, but the Jesus we left behind, that we forgot about; the Jesus that was co-opted by the religious right and our silence; the one we thought we knew and yet truly we knew him not. <br /><br /><br /> It’s time to meet Jesus all over again, not as we think we know him but as a complete stranger. To offer him an extravagant welcome, to follow where he goes, to go where he sends us, to encounter him in scripture, in prayer, and on the street, to claim him as Lord and Savior, teacher and healer, as firstborn from the dead, as the One who can transform our lives and liberate us from ourselves.<br /><br /><br /> This Table is one place, one way that we can meet him again for the first time. To welcome him as both host and guest, to re-member him in the breaking of the bread and in sharing the cup, to honor these gifts in how we make the gospel visible with our lives.<br /><br /><br /> To the Jesus we don’t know: welcome. We need you.<br /><br /><br /> Amen.</span></span></span></div>
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<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=16525298#_ednref1" name="_edn1" style="mso-endnote-id: edn1;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[i]</span></span></span></span></a>
Adapted from <a href="https://www.facebook.com/amightygirl/photos/a.360833590619627.72897.316489315054055/647802188589431/" target="_blank">A Mighty Girl</a></div>
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Cynthiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16189485834914559162noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16525298.post-67962503456748376462015-06-28T20:54:00.001-04:002015-06-28T20:55:37.032-04:00Changing our minds<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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</xml><![endif]--><span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Mark+4%3A+35-41&version=NRSV" target="_blank">Mark 4: 35-41</a> <br />New Ark United Church of Christ, Newark, DE </span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">June 21, 2015</span></span></span><br />
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know that bumper sticker (that Gandhi didn't say) “Be the change you wish to see in the world”?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Most of us know that changing ourselves isn’t
as easy as we might think it might be.</span></span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /> This video illustrates how complex our brain algorithm is for riding a bike. Imagine the brain algorithm for faith. Or for church. Or for how we perceive race. And for each of us it’s different. What if we had to change the way we think about church and faith and each other because the ways we have been doing and being church aren’t working the way they used to?<br /><br /><br /> In the gospel of Mark, this story of Jesus and the disciples isn’t so much about the storms of life that come with change, so much as it is about the most violent storm, the biggest change of all time. The gospel of Mark was written around the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem in 70 CE – about 40 years after the death of Jesus. For Jesus’ followers it wasn’t just a rocky boat they were in; they weren’t sure they were going to make it to the other side. Everything they knew that gave their lives shape and meaning was gone. And to top it off, Jesus was asleep in the boat. It was like he wasn’t there.<br /><br /><br /> The apparent absence of God is a part of our faith most of us don’t talk about. When we can’t sense God, when we don’t feel God’s presence or hear God’s voice; when we can’t see God working in our lives or in the lives of others, then God is not there. We blame ourselves. We blame God. Sometimes we blame church. We want God to be strong because we feel weak and powerless, especially in the face of violence. And yet our God is one of weakness and vulnerability: like a prayer group that welcomed a strange young man, like the survivor who forgave that young man after he took the lives of nine precious human beings.<br /><br /> <br /> Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote these words not long before he was executed in Nazi Germany: “God would have us know that we must live as [those] who manage our lives without him. The God who is with us is the God who forsakes us. The God who lets us live in the world without the working hypothesis of God is the God before whom we stand continually. Before God and with God we live without God. God lets himself be pushed out of the world onto the cross. [God] is weak and powerless in the world, and that is precisely the way, the only way, in which [God] is with us and helps us.”</span></span></span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://iocproject.ning.com/photo/jesus-calms-the-storm" target="_blank">Jesus Calms the Storm, Daniel Bonnell, 2011</a></td></tr>
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /><br /> Sounds a lot like that backwards bicycle. Right is left; left is right. God with us; us without God. God who has the power to stop a storm; God who can’t stop someone who hates from killing. God who gives life; God who came to die.<br /><br /><br /> Faith is not something that keeps us safe. Whether God is present or not offers us no guarantees. For the last 20 or so years we’ve seen our human institutions fail us, from banks to voting, to Congress and healthcare, to the economy, to the security of our nation, to the decline of faith communities, to our color- and power-biased justice system. It’s as if we've been asleep in the boat ourselves, only now waking up to the painful truth that racism continues to be a deep wound in our nation and white privilege is a very real problem. </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"> David Hayward, an online theologian, wrote, “The mind first believes something, then bends the whole universe to conform to and confirm those beliefs. This is suffering.” And yet God is bending the universe toward justice, toward wholeness by bending God’s self into this world and onto a cross to die. This is how God wakes us up, how God changes our minds and hearts, and realigns that algorithm in our brains that says we know the truth.<br /><br /><br /> God’s algorithm, God’s answer to hate and fear is love—radical, unconditional, life-upending, fearless love. Love that engenders peace and stillness and calms raging storms; love that forgives even the unthinkable, because we really don’t know what we are doing. <br /><br /><br /> The only way we get there is every day, with God’s help, we love. Every day we put ourselves in Love’s way. We let go of what we think we know and train our minds and hearts to a different way. In the words of the poet Wendell Berry, “[Every] day do something that won’t compute. Love the Lord. Love the world. Work for nothing. Take all that you have and be poor. Love someone who does not deserve it. …Be joyful though you have considered all the facts.” </span></span></span><br />
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<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="281" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/bWUWozGfj40?rel=0" width="500"></iframe>Cynthiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16189485834914559162noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16525298.post-70548955350984866852015-06-16T12:51:00.004-04:002015-06-16T12:54:00.614-04:00An evening at the Table<a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Mark+4%3A+26-34&version=NRSV" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Mark 4: 26-34</span></span></a><br />
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">New Ark United Church of Christ, Newark, DE</span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">June 14, 2015</span></span></span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i>The Sower</i>, Vincent Van Gogh, 1853-1890</td></tr>
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">This past Sunday we had our second evening worship service with dinner and Communion, called "An Evening at the Table".</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">We read the scripture from the gospel of Mark, then discussed around the dinner table these questions:</span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">What brings you joy? What makes that seed that God has planted within you come alive?</span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">In what aspects of your life do you do ministry of some sort?</span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">How would you describe your spiritual gifts?</span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">As our invitation to the Table we watched this movie clip from <i>Phenomenon</i>, starring John Travolta:</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">We then shared plates of fruit with one another: apples, grapes, strawberries, blackberries, and pineapple. This too is Christ's body broken for us, seeds of new life within, that become part of us.</span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">We are the seeds of God's future. Thanks be to God!</span></span></span>Cynthiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16189485834914559162noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16525298.post-69963202562783647132015-06-09T13:49:00.002-04:002015-06-09T13:50:04.733-04:00Walking like a duck<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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</xml><![endif]--><span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Mark+3%3A+20-35&version=NRSV" target="_blank">Mark 3: 20-35</a> <br />New Ark United Church of Christ, Newark, DE <br />June 7, 2015</span></span></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ZDCBdcJKc4Y/VXchpVuw6rI/AAAAAAAADJQ/3Y3cqaXPlxU/s1600/leelah1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ZDCBdcJKc4Y/VXchpVuw6rI/AAAAAAAADJQ/3Y3cqaXPlxU/s400/leelah1.jpg" width="345" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/MyVanityFairCover?src=hash" target="_blank">#MyVanityFairCover</a></td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> <span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"> </span></span></span></span><span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Earlier
this week I encountered the first of what would become an onslaught of
reactions to <a href="http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2015/06/caitlyn-jenner-bruce-cover-annie-leibovitz" target="_blank">Caitlyn Jenner’s coming out photos,</a> most of which have ranged from
mixed to critical to vehemently negative.<span>
</span>Oddly enough, it was a letter to the <i>New
York Times</i> from a female UCC colleague.<span>
</span>While acknowledging that she is an Open and Affirming minister and at
the same time, that Jenner espouses a more conservative point of view, my
colleague went on to state that Jenner, as a woman, was now on her ‘turf’.<span> </span>She then proceeded to initiate Jenner into
this dubiously-desired club by criticizing her appearance:<span> </span>makeup, push-up bra, perfectly-coiffed hair,
stiletto heels; that these undermine everything feminism has struggled
against.<span> </span>And then unthinkingly she
declared, are we not all beautiful in the forms <i>we arrived in</i> on this planet.</span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span> </span></span></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">In effect, my colleague was asking if Jenner could have debuted as enlightened as the rest of us who were born in the forms we also identify with. Caitlyn Jenner was not born in the form she identifies with, which she now wishes to show off with abandon. Who can blame her? Well, apparently, plenty.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span> </span></span></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /><br /> Already some feminist and transgender advocates have resoundingly rejected Ms. Jenner as any kind of hero or role model. The media gave her the same <a href="http://thedailyshow.cc.com/videos/oekklq/brave-new-girl" target="_blank">sexist treatment</a> as they would any female celebrity on the red carpet. There are some who are even <a href="https://www.change.org/p/international-olympic-committee-revoke-caitlyn-jenner-s-olympic-medals" target="_blank">petitioning</a> the International Olympic Committee to strip Jenner of her gold medal from the 1976 Olympic games. <br /><br /> <br /><br /> Whenever a transgender person comes through their transition, however they manage to do so, however imperfectly, what we are witnessing is a birth. But rather than an infant, what comes into being is an adult living through yet another adolescence. Author Jennifer Finney Boylan, in her memoir <a href="https://muse.jhu.edu/journals/tip/summary/v043/43.2conley.html" target="_blank"><i>She’s Not There: A Life in Two Genders</i>,</a> writes, “Transsexuals going through transition resemble nothing so much as gawky, wonder-struck teenagers, amazed and perplexed by their bodies, startled by an awareness of themselves as men or women, as if they have invented the whole business single-handedly then and there. …It does no good to tell a transsexual that this is all old ground and to get over yourself, any more than it does to tell this to a fifteen-year-old.” <br /><br /> <br /><br /> In essence, Ms. Jenner is celebrating that in a major aspect of being human—gender identity—her outsides finally match her insides, something that hopefully all human beings aspire to. It’s just that for most of us it doesn’t require surgery. And you’d think if that it looks like a duck, talks like a duck, walks like a duck, it would in fact be accepted as a duck, inside and out. An authentic human being. A child of God. <br /><br /> <br /><br /> In this morning’s reading from the gospel of Mark, there are some that think that Jesus is out of his mind. The scribes start a story that he’s in the service of Beelzebul or Satan. Everyone has a different expectation of what a Messiah is supposed to look like, talk like, walk like. Jesus’ family even goes so far as to do an intervention, trying to restrain him, sending for Jesus and calling out to him. <br /><br /> </span></span></span><br /><span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><img height="300" src="http://tobystevens.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/02/lk08_202-300x225.jpg" width="400" /></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"> Jesus’ one purpose was to do the will of the One who sent him: to do justice, to love kindness, and to walk humbly with God. Jesus labored with his whole being to have his outsides match his insides, to be an authentic human being, a child of God, and Jesus calls us to do the same. Whenever we do God’s will, whenever we do justice, or love kindness, or walk with God and each other as humbly as a duck, we are Jesus’ sisters and brothers, and we get to claim as family anyone else who does likewise. There is no turf but God’s turf. <br /><br /> <br /><br /> This Table is where we make our transition, where our inside image of God becomes our outward being. We won’t get a Vanity Fair cover for it. No one may even take notice. Or we might even get accused of being out of our minds or working for the evil one. No one ever said it would be easy walking like a duck. </span></span></span></div>
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Cynthiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16189485834914559162noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16525298.post-53911478304847028352015-06-03T13:14:00.000-04:002015-06-03T22:48:42.512-04:00Inconceivable!<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<![endif]--><span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Isaiah+6%3A+1-8&version=NRSV" target="_blank">Isaiah 6: 1-8;</a> <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+3%3A+1-17&version=NRSV" target="_blank">John 3: 1-17</a></span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">New Ark United Church of Christ, Newark, DE<br />May 31, 2015</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">“Inconceivable!”</span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>“You
keep using that word.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I do not think it
means what you think it means.”</span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Jesus
said to Nicodemus that we must be born from above, or what has become a
Christian idiom, born again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We keep
using that phrase, but I don’t think it means what we think it means.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When I was planning worship with Terri and
EJ and Lisa and MT, EJ said that an idiom is a phrase that means
something other than the literal meaning of the words.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Both she and MT said that they learned this
in school, that when we say “It’s raining cats and dogs”, it’s not literally
raining mewing kitties and howling dogs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Rather, we know it’s a heavy, soaking downpour.</span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>So
when Jesus says we must be born from above or born again, it’s as if Nicodemus
declares “Inconceivable!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jesus, you keep
using that phrase ‘born from above’.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>And Jesus replies, “Nicodemus, it doesn’t mean what you think it
means.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Don’t take me so literally.”</span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>Don’t
take Jesus so literally.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Sometimes I
think we’ve translated that into “don’t take Jesus so seriously”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Because if we did, that phrase “born from
above” or “born again” wouldn’t just rankle us but rattle us down to our bones.</span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>The
Greek phrase that the gospel writer uses means “to bring forth or to conceive
from the source or beginning”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In order
for something to be reborn, born again, born from heaven or from its source or
beginning, it first has to die.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This
isn’t just the center of the Christian faith; it’s the whole of the natural
world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Every spring we witness the earth
return to life, but every winter we witness a death.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Seeds fall into the earth and die before they
sprout a tender green shoot.</span></span></span></span></div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-N_Cj1uoLHok/VW80VhmBjwI/AAAAAAAADIg/tHS_BPoLNAQ/s1600/SeedCracks.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-N_Cj1uoLHok/VW80VhmBjwI/AAAAAAAADIg/tHS_BPoLNAQ/s320/SeedCracks.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Even though we are people
of faith who live in hope of the resurrection, we avoid death—talking about it,
planning for it—like the plague.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Our
culture desensitizes us to death, but still we glorify it in war and violent
entertainment.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We do not make friends
with death.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Yet St. Francis of Assisi
went so far as to call death his sister.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Acknowledging and accepting death as his daily companion allowed Francis
to discern what was essential to living and freed him from fear.</span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Today is a day for celebrating
our teachers, our graduates, and our third graders receiving their Bibles.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Why on earth am I talking about death?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Couldn’t it wait for another Sunday?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Because the Church doesn’t have that kind of
time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Because this message has been
pressing on my heart for a few years now, and I love church too much to wait.</span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">If the Church is to be
born from above, if Church is to be renewed, reborn, then first it must
die.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Church echoes the life of Jesus
in most ways except this one.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This past week
one of the <a href="http://www.ucc.org/daily_devotional_breathe_on_us_breath_of_god" target="_blank">devotionals</a> from the United Church of Christ asked the question, why
anyone would want to lead a dying church.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>And I could not believe the naiveté of the response: “I don’t believe
that God will let the church die.”</span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">God let Jesus die on the
cross.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>God lets every single one of us
and every living thing die.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We believe,
we trust, we hope that death does not have the last word, but it does have the
second-to-last word. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We suffer loss
through death and yet it is also a portal, a transition, from one form of life
to another.</span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">In the often-quoted John
3: 16 Jesus says that we will not perish but have eternal life—another
Christian idiom.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Greek word for
perish means utterly destroyed, something different from death.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>If we believe in Jesus, that is, if we trust
Jesus, follow him and his way of compassion, justice, and love, then we need
not fear death.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We will not fear death
because Jesus teaches us how to live.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We
will not be utterly destroyed in death.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Rather, life will continue eternally.</span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">We know this now from
science.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Quantum physics tells us that
energy can never be destroyed; it can only change form.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Everything we know, everything that exists is
made of the same energy, is made up of different combinations of atoms.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The energy or the content continues to
exist—it’s the form that changes.</span></span></span></span></div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-xcKW32cZuOs/VW80VaqTLGI/AAAAAAAADIk/UlAC1OkpQW0/s1600/PassionateChurch.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-xcKW32cZuOs/VW80VaqTLGI/AAAAAAAADIk/UlAC1OkpQW0/s400/PassionateChurch.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Church as it currently exists
has been coming to the end of its life for some time now.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And just we treat our own death by using more
resources at the end of our lives and forestalling the inevitable, we have been
doing the same with the Church, the Body of Christ.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We’ve reformed and split the Body into
different versions of itself.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We invest resources
and time and energy to keep it viable.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>We institute programs and activities and attend workshops on how to do
church so others will come and join us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We
even have a <a href="http://progressiverenewal.org/" target="_blank">church renewal organization with the acronym CPR.</a><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And much of our motivation has been fear and
the survival of the Church rather than inviting people into a relationship that
will change their lives.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>(Which, when you
think about it, is a lot of what’s wrong with our healthcare system.)<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">The question we need to
be asking ourselves is, “How has the church changed <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">my</i> life?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>How <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">could</i> the church change my life?” <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And I can only tell you how the church has
changed my life, and I don’t just mean by giving me a vocation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Church reveals to me the way of compassion
and forgiveness.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Church teaches me how
to be not just generous but open-hearted.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Church informs me that I’m not the center of the universe.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Church is where I begin to recognize that
everything is sacred and that God is present everywhere.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Church is home, the place where they take you
in, no matter what.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Church is where
justice begins, the workshop for the kingdom of God.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Church is how I learn to love and work with
people who are different from me</span></span></span></span><span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">—</span></span></span></span>which is everyone.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Church
is where I discover that I am a whole person—body, mind, and spirit—made in
God’s image, and that God calls the whole person, the gifts and the flaws, to
be God’s hands and feet in the world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Church is the place, the people where I don’t do all this perfectly but
only with God’s help. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Church introduced
me to the vulnerable heart of God, to Jesus and to resurrection, when my old
life, the one that wasn’t working, died and a new life rose in its place.</span></span></span></span></div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-2JJsjunNMQ8/VW80TMpDUAI/AAAAAAAADH8/4ttbivfK-uI/s1600/HittingtheMark.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-2JJsjunNMQ8/VW80TMpDUAI/AAAAAAAADH8/4ttbivfK-uI/s320/HittingtheMark.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">God will do what God will
do.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The Church is in the midst of an
evolution. Other institutions formed by covenants—family and marriage—have
changed and continue to change over time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>And yet life and love persist.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>John’s
gospel was written 30-50 years after the destruction of the temple in
Jerusalem—what in effect looked like the destruction of Judaism.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And yet, inconceivably, Judaism and the
burgeoning movement called the Way—what would eventually be called
Christianity—evolved and continued.</span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Church is not about its
own survival.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s about changed lives
and a changed world.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s about being compelled
by the image of God within us and recognizing that image in everyone else and
lifting it up.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s about accepting the
reality of life which includes death and life that goes on.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s about conceiving how to live as faithful
people in this time, in this place, not for ourselves but for the last, the
least, and the lost.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s about taking
risks for the sake of the gospel.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s
about taking Jesus seriously.</span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Church is about being
born again.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Inconceivable?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I do not think that word means what we think
it means.</span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Amen.</span></span></span></span></div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-m0CELNQ0pM0/VW80VYC96_I/AAAAAAAADIc/SnPP4cN4aE4/s1600/SeatToMyself.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-m0CELNQ0pM0/VW80VYC96_I/AAAAAAAADIc/SnPP4cN4aE4/s320/SeatToMyself.jpg" width="271" /></a></div>
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Cynthiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16189485834914559162noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16525298.post-38185551469198977212015-05-26T10:46:00.003-04:002015-05-26T17:48:02.851-04:00The unexpected God<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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</xml><![endif]--><span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Acts+2%3A+1-21&version=NRSV" target="_blank">Acts 2: 1-21</a> <br />New Ark United Church of Christ, Newark, DE <br />May 24, 2015 – Pentecost Sunday</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span><span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">A colleague of mine called Mr. W. “spooky”. Hasn’t that been our relationship with what we used to call the Holy Ghost? Hasn’t the Holy Spirit been misunderstood in our mostly-white, mainline Protestant enclave? In its unpredictability, we can experience the Spirit as annoying. This holy wind gets on our nerves. Sometimes the Spirit can be intense, can come on too strong. Sometimes I think the Holy Spirit just wants to play, but we often don’t know how. And this image of the Spirit as wind that gets lonely because the wind is unrecognized, unappreciated, undervalued—that God’s Spirit is trying to get our attention in the only way it knows how—conveys to us that this Holy Ghost is indeed a friendly one.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"> </span></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">What would it look like if the church—that community created long ago by the Holy Spirit, and this one created not so long ago by the Holy Spirit—what if we sat down with that same Spirit, shook hands, and accepted this mercurial, whimsical, change-loving God, just as God has been, is, and will be, in all of God’s glory?</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"> </span></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">What happened on that day of Pentecost so long ago was not what was expected. Jesus’ disciples and many others had gathered for the festival that celebrated the harvest and the giving of the Ten Commandments 50 days after the exodus. God had been known to be disruptive and showy in the past: thunder and lightning and a thick cloud on Mt. Sinai, God descending like fire, shaking the whole mountain with God’s unearthly presence; Moses’ face shining like the sun and the moon after speaking with God; Jesus’ clothing and body transfigured into a dazzling spectacle, keeping company with prophets of the past, long since gone.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"> </span></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">These were mostly revelations to a select few, a holy and intimate confab. But different languages zooming around the room, all understood, tongues of fire alighting on the heads of these Galileans for all to see—it was almost like that lyric in “American Pie”: “Oh and there we were all in one place/a generation lost in space/with no time left to start again”. This was a sight for all the sore eyes of Jerusalem and beyond. The author also takes pains to remind us that these were not just Jesus’ disciples but Galileans—what we would call hicks or hillbillies…or <a href="http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=slower+lower+delaware" target="_blank">lower and slower.</a> Jerusalem was where the educated elite gathered, the movers and the shakers. Once again, God upends human trends and expectations. #Thereisnohashtagforthis. Just as Jesus was born in a shed and worshiped by poor migrant shepherds, the Holy Spirit filled the hearts of backwater illiterate peasants, and it would be they who would spread the good news of Jesus.</span></span></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-SXJ0OvosaVk/VWSFktQhVLI/AAAAAAAADG8/j0_vZ_qgoN4/s1600/PentecostSunday.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-SXJ0OvosaVk/VWSFktQhVLI/AAAAAAAADG8/j0_vZ_qgoN4/s400/PentecostSunday.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Pentecost, from <a href="http://parish.rcdow.org.uk/somerstown/" target="_blank">St.Aloysius' Church,</a> Somers Town, London, UK.</td></tr>
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"> </span></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Again and again God goes to the margins of human experience and calls to us from that wilderness, “Over here!” Just when we think we’ve got church figured out, the church needs reforming. We’ve heard that we are living through another great reformation, what some are calling the Great Emergence. This can be difficult to imagine when what we are witnessing is the decline of not only Christianity but of religious community and affiliation in general. In fact, this emergence is about 40 years old by some folks’ reckoning. This church, most likely without realizing it, was part of that emergence—the desire to witness to one’s faith in a new way of being community, with fresh winds of the Spirit.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /> Thirty-five years later the New Ark, for all intents and purposes, has settled down and into some of the same ruts other United Church of Christ congregations find themselves in. We have the same amount of ministry, tasks, and roles to be filled as a congregation twice our size. We have similar expectations of church for a congregation twice our size. We have an increasing retired segment of our church as well as empty nesters and families with one or two working parents with not much time for volunteering. Everyone is busy and facing their own challenges, teetering on the verge of being tapped out. The emerging church ship has sailed. “Geez, Cynthia, when you put it that way, it sounds worse than I thought it was.” <br /> <br /><br /> How are we to be church in this 21st century, given our ruts and our challenges and each of us with our own take on reality? How are we to be church, with the still-increasing rise of those who are spiritual but not religious, the unaffiliated seekers and believers and those hurting from what can truly be called spiritual abuse and church bullies? Where is the unexpected God in all of this? From what far corner is the Holy Spirit gusting? From what margin is God calling?</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"> </span></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">As always, ironically, God is calling from the center of our faith, the whole of the gospel, the good news of Jesus Christ. It’s we who have pushed the gospel to the margins, to the edges of our spiritual experience, of our religious community. We cherry-pick the gospel as much as anyone else. Marcus Borg wrote that when we read scripture in worship, we ought to conclude the reading with the injunction “Hear what the Spirit is saying to the Church”. What is the Spirit saying to us through the good news of Jesus Christ? By what authority do we truly live? What difference does this church make in our lives and in the life of this community and the communities we live in?</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"> </span></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Molly Phinney Baskette, senior minister at <a href="http://www.firstchurchsomerville.org/">First Church UCC</a> in Somerville, MA, says that their church exists for the last, the least, and the lost, right out of the gospel, directly from Jesus’ lips. Jesus said that the last shall be first and the first, last; that those who minister to the least of these have ministered to him; that he came for the lost sheep.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"> </span></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">A new neighborhood of apartments is going in behind us. We need to be able to speak clearly what difference the gospel makes in our lives, not only for ourselves but those who need a church like this one. When the gospel is visible in our lives and in our life together, we will have the renewable energy to serve that gospel and to be church, not just for ourselves but for the last, the least, and the lost. When we get to know the spooky Spirit and accept the abrasive, life-upending parts of our faith as well as what comforts and sustains us, the Spirit’s potential then becomes our potential as well.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"> </span></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Where in the gospel does Jesus give us sass? (The youth in our church call <i>The Message</i> by Eugene Peterson, the Sass Bible, because Jesus gives people sass.) What is it about the gospel that annoys us, gets on our nerves, that comes on too strong, is too intense? Let’s go <i>there.</i> </span></span></span></div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-9yFA4hLGL8c/VWTp_cFjOiI/AAAAAAAADHM/UeJ7GlK6Mz4/s1600/SimonPeter.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-9yFA4hLGL8c/VWTp_cFjOiI/AAAAAAAADHM/UeJ7GlK6Mz4/s400/SimonPeter.jpg" width="285" /></a></div>
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Cynthiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16189485834914559162noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16525298.post-37867890175997175542015-05-20T14:21:00.002-04:002015-05-20T14:26:50.739-04:00Village people<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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</xml><![endif]--><span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+Corinthians+12%3A+12-27+&version=MSG" target="_blank">1 Corinthians 12: 12-27 </a><br />New Ark United Church of Christ, Newark, DE <br />May 17, 2015</span></span></span><br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-fpUEqOzCkJo/VVzKE0-tALI/AAAAAAAADGE/LBeg8_rC4ao/s1600/MyStory.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="265" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-fpUEqOzCkJo/VVzKE0-tALI/AAAAAAAADGE/LBeg8_rC4ao/s400/MyStory.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span><span style="color: cyan;">I’ve
started making a habit of having lunch at Klondike Kate’s on Wednesdays.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>It’s half-price sandwiches and salads. I sit
at the bar, so as not to take up a table.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>The bartender, Andy, always wears Red Sox cap, so of course we struck up
a conversation.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>He’s from the Boston
area and still has a touch of the accent.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>It turns out his wife is from Danbury, CT, so he knows where Monroe is,
my former town.</span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="color: cyan;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span>A
couple of Wednesdays ago I came in for lunch as usual.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I chat up Andy about the changes going on at
the empty Mojo Main down the street.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I
say, “It’s going to be <a href="http://www.delawareonline.com/story/pulpculture/2015/05/07/grain-craft-newark/70938110/" target="_blank">a craft beer hub,</a> with over a hundred different kinds of
beer.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I saw an article about it this
morning in the News Journal”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="color: cyan;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"> A gentleman sitting a few
feet away says, “That’s me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>That’s me
and my partner.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We’re doing that.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Andy turns toward him, “Really?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>What a coincidence.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The man, whose name is Jim, says, “Yeah.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Hey, nice Red Sox cap.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You from the Boston area?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="color: cyan;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"> Andy says, “Yeah. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>“Yeah, I’m from Taunton.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I pipe
up, “I know where Taunton is.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Andy
gestures toward me and says, “Yeah, her too.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>“Oh yeah?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Where?”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Marshfield”.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>“Oh yeah.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Actually, I’m from
Raynham but usually nobody knows where that is.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>By the way, both Taunton and Raynham are not
far away from Rehoboth…Massachusetts, that is.</span></span></span></span></div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-vBW01N8WYM8/VVzL_4Sv4hI/AAAAAAAADGo/O4lTY_PGocY/s1600/Mojo.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-vBW01N8WYM8/VVzL_4Sv4hI/AAAAAAAADGo/O4lTY_PGocY/s400/Mojo.jpg" width="240" /></a><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="color: cyan;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"> </span></span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="color: cyan;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"> I’ve been reading the
teaser messages on the marquee in front of Mojo, intended to generate interest
in what’s coming next.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>They’ve certainly
worked their magic with me.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>One in
particular, though, I wanted to take issue with, and as luck would have it, I
was face-to-face with one of the guys who was responsible.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Hey, you know that sign you had that read
‘Remember the cantina in Empires Strikes?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Nothing like that.’<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The cantina
wasn’t in <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">Empires Strikes Back</i>; it
was in the original movie.”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Hah!” Jim
said.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“That was my partner.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I’m gonna text him right now and tell him.”</span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="color: cyan;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"> What are the odds?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>I just happened to see the article.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Jim probably came into Kate’s to check out
the competition.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And yet it’s moments
like those that make us wonder, and we cue the theme song from <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Twilight Zone</i>.</span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="color: cyan;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"> Then there are the
stories that can make the hair rise on the back of the neck.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>In the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/16/nyregion/adopted-sisters-find-each-in-columbia-university-writing-class-after-30-years.html?_r=0" target="_blank"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">New York Times</i> this past Friday:</a><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Two
women, strangers to each other, enrolled at Columbia University, sign up for
the same writing class.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>When they went
through the introductions around the table, they discovered that they are
sisters, given up for adoption over thirty years ago.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“You are members of one body, and
individually, members of one another.”</span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="color: cyan;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"> In the mechanical,
Newtonian universe, there is a reason for everything, there is cause and
effect.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But in the quantum universe, in
the subatomic realm, the same laws do not apply.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Light can exist as a particle or a wave.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Water can exist as vapor, liquid, or solid
and yet it is still the same molecule—H2O.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="color: cyan;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="color: cyan;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="color: cyan;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"> Barbara Brown Taylor, in
her book of essays entitled <a href="http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/2007/03/09/march-9-2007-barbara-brown-taylor/1792/" target="_blank"><i>The Luminous Web</i>,</a> recounts an exchange between the physicists Richard Feynman and John
Wheeler as they discussed string theory.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Wheeler exclaimed, “Feynman, I know why all electrons have the same
charge and same mass!”<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Why?” Feynman
asked.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>“Because they are all the same
electron!” Wheeler replied.<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=16525298#_edn1" name="_ednref1" style="mso-endnote-id: edn1;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[i]</span></span></span></span></a></span></span></span></span></div>
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<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2kTUCjsSE2Y/VVzKHyvWKTI/AAAAAAAADGU/sDubDzUlkFM/s1600/spong-living.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="193" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-2kTUCjsSE2Y/VVzKHyvWKTI/AAAAAAAADGU/sDubDzUlkFM/s320/spong-living.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="color: cyan;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="color: cyan;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"> What if what appears as
diversity is really oneness, wholeness?<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>We all may behave differently, but at the deepest level we are the same
substance.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And when we make the
conscious effort to associate with one another, despite, even because of our
differences, we create connections and relationships—we begin to witness
inklings of this unity.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We become aware
that we are not so much building a body, but that we were already a part of the
one body.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>And when we make promises to
each other and join in covenant, we become part of the body’s healing.</span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="color: cyan;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="color: cyan;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"> And so it is with what
has become known as the Village at this church.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>Though perhaps it may have been a tacit covenant, through the common
bond of parenthood and childhood, you were the architects and citizens of a
village—a network of parents and children and many others in which everyone looks
out for everyone else, shares responsibility and wisdom, play and
learning.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You were and continue to be an
incarnation of God’s love—what we call in churchy language, the Body of Christ.</span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="color: cyan;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="color: cyan;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="color: cyan;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"> In that Body, there are
no strangers.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Recall that weekend about
a year and a half ago when we first met each other.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>My daughters were worried that the ‘kids
down here’ wouldn’t accept a pair of geeky sisters.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>The youth group here wondered if a couple of
preacher’s kids would get along with a geeky group of teens.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Surprise!<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;">
</span>You all made room for each other, opened wide the way into the Village,
because that’s what you do when connections are made, when oneness recognizes
oneness.</span></span></span></span></div>
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<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-TJguaD7X0N8/VVzKHmqWyHI/AAAAAAAADGQ/_6VyZVoBiOU/s1600/Ubuntu.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-TJguaD7X0N8/VVzKHmqWyHI/AAAAAAAADGQ/_6VyZVoBiOU/s320/Ubuntu.png" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="color: cyan;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="color: cyan;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"> [Confirmand names]—you are the Body of Christ, and individually, members of one another
and each of us.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>Each of you is a
likeness, an image of God, which calls us to see the sacred in all life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As you have grown, I hope you have witnessed
this image of God within you and these village people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We who have watched you grow—it was and is our
sacred and glad calling to help you realize that image of God within you and
allow it to unfold in your life.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>As you
continue to grow, you too will be given opportunities to help others realize
the image of God within them, that their lives are sacred and worthy and just
as precious as yours.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>This can be hard
work—making those connections, building relationships.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>But it will be your healing as well as theirs;
your joy as well as theirs.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>You are
builders of the next Village, the next incarnation of God’s love, and so be
true to that image of God within you.</span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="color: cyan;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-indent: .5in;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="color: cyan;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"> It not only takes a
village to raise our children; it will take a village to heal our planet—one
village at a time.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A village where we
are one Body, and individually, members of one another. <span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>A village where we all realize the image of
God within us and within everything living thing.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We all everyone must share the burden.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We all everyone will share the joy.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We are village people.<span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span>We are Church.</span></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="color: cyan;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"> Amen. </span></span></span></span><br />
<br /></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="color: cyan;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
<div style="mso-element: endnote-list;">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="color: cyan;"><br clear="all" /></span></span></span>
<br />
<hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" />
<div id="edn1" style="mso-element: endnote;">
<div class="MsoEndnoteText">
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="color: cyan;"><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=16525298#_ednref1" name="_edn1" style="mso-endnote-id: edn1;" title=""><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoEndnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Calibri","sans-serif"; font-size: 10.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-ascii-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-bidi-theme-font: minor-bidi; mso-fareast-font-family: Calibri; mso-fareast-language: EN-US; mso-fareast-theme-font: minor-latin; mso-hansi-theme-font: minor-latin;">[i]</span></span></span></span></a>
Barbara Brown Taylor, <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">The Luminous Web</i>
(Boston, MA: Cowley Publications, 2000), 53.</span></span></span></div>
</div>
</div>
Cynthiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16189485834914559162noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16525298.post-18893365433877682322015-05-15T11:21:00.000-04:002015-05-15T11:22:53.463-04:00A thousand other loves<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<![endif]--><span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+15%3A+9-17+&version=NRSV" target="_blank">John 15: 9-17 </a><br />New Ark United Church of Christ, Newark, DE <br />May 10, 2015</span></span></span><br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-X4oVF3QKyB0/VVYNsCwV2FI/AAAAAAAADEs/0Uax4WQSnaQ/s1600/BeautifulandTerrible.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-X4oVF3QKyB0/VVYNsCwV2FI/AAAAAAAADEs/0Uax4WQSnaQ/s320/BeautifulandTerrible.jpg" width="256" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span><span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Sometimes the way we read the language used in scripture can get in the way of, as Marcus Borg put it, what the Spirit is trying to say to the Church. So I’d like to unpack some of the biblical baggage we carry around with us.</span></span></span></div>
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
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<span style="color: #999999;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">[Jesus said:] "As
the Father has loved me, so I have loved you; abide in my love. If you keep my
commandments, you will abide in my love, just as I have kept my Father's
commandments and abide in his love. I have said these things to you so that my
joy may be in you, and that your joy may be complete.”</span></span></span></span></div>
</blockquote>
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">First off, let’s deal
with John’s use of the word ‘Father’ for God.
When the gospel of John was written, some 60 to 90 years after the death
of Jesus, calling God ‘Father’ was a radical notion. For more than two thousand years, Israel
referred to God as YHWH, a name that one did not speak, because how does an
individual or a faith community address the creator of the heavens and earth,
of the whole cosmos? ‘Father’, on the
other hand, implies intimacy, vulnerability, and yet a sense of one’s place in
the creation. When Jesus used ‘Abba’,
which translates as ‘Daddy’, he went a step further and implied a childlike
dependency and trust in the One who was also <i>Adonai</i> or Lord and <i>El Shaddai</i>,
the God with the power of a mountain.
There really isn’t an inclusive version of this relationship, other than
‘Mother’ or ‘Mommy’. ‘Parent’ does not
convey quite the same level of intimacy as ‘Papa’ or ‘Mama’. Many Native Americans refer to the Spirit
that created humankind as Grandfather or Grandmother, recognizing the wisdom of
our elders and yet implying that same sense of tenderness and closeness.</span></span></span></span></div>
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Since we are celebrating
all families, of shapes and sizes, with a variety of relationships, we could
read it this way:</span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #999999;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">"As the One upon
whom I am dependent for everything has loved me, so I have loved you; abide (or
live, make a home) in my love. If you keep my commandments, you will abide in
my love, just as I have kept the commandments of the One upon whom I am
dependent for everything, and I live in, I have a home in that love. I have
said these things to you so that my joy may be in you, and that your joy may be
complete.”</span></span></span></span></div>
</blockquote>
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Now for the word
‘commandment’. The Greek word <i>entolé</i> means ordinance, injunction, or
command but with a little twist. It is a
command more concerned with the outcome than with just obedience. The outcome is that we love one another as
God has loved us. The outcome is to have
a deep and abiding, that is, live-in relationship with Jesus, a lifelong
friendship.</span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #999999;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">"This is the outcome that must follow from my loving you, that you love
one another. No one has greater love
than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends. You are my friends if you
do what I command you. I do not call you servants any longer, because the
servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends,
because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father.
You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear
fruit, fruit that will last, so that the One upon whom I am dependent for
everything will give you whatever you ask in my name. I am not asking you but giving
you these commands because I desire with my whole life that you love one
another."</span></span></span></blockquote>
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /><br /> We who have a thousand other loves—God desires that we excel at one love: that we love one another. </span></span></span><br />
<br />
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"></span></span></span><br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-OoC7V6ohMAI/VVYNt6cZY5I/AAAAAAAADFE/_YdxP1UYZao/s1600/ThreeThingsMatter.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-OoC7V6ohMAI/VVYNt6cZY5I/AAAAAAAADFE/_YdxP1UYZao/s320/ThreeThingsMatter.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></span>
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"></span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"></span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"></span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /> But it’s not just a love that improves our own lives. Friday morning I had a Facebook conversation with a friend of mine who posted a quote from the 19th c. Unitarian clergy and author William Henry Channing: </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: #999999;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">“To live content with small means; to seek elegance rather than luxury,
and refinement rather than fashion, to be worthy, not respectable, and wealthy,
not rich; to study hard, think quietly, talk gently, act frankly, to listen to
stars and birds, to babes and sages, with open heart, to bear all cheerfully,
to bravely await all occasions, hurry never. In a word, to let the spiritual
unbidden and unconscious grow up through the common. This is to be my
symphony.”</span></span></span></div>
</blockquote>
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">While all of this is
beautiful and laudable, it is a sentiment born of privilege. Love is not love if it does not impact those
whom the world deems unlovable. Jesus
said that if we love those who love us, what is that? Anyone can do that. The love that Jesus desires we impart to one
another is a love that goes hand in hand with justice. Not that we just get along with each other,
but that we love one another in a way that liberates the oppressed, heals the anger
of our enemy, pays a living wage, and sends the rich away ready to serve.</span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span></span></span><br />
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</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">But this is not a love we
can give with the intention that it change someone else’s life. Like prayer, unconditional love is something
that changes us. Unconditional love
gives us the courage to effect change in systems and communities and policy; to
raise our voice, go out and vote; to keep company with and give what we can to those
who are starved for a love that holds hands with justice. To love with the intent that our love will
hopefully change someone’s life is to impose a condition. Unconditional love changes us and transforms <i>our</i> lives. If it’s going to change another person, then it’s
up to them to figure that out.</span></span></span></span></div>
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-iT5ZK4E94YA/VVYNs5E_XSI/AAAAAAAADE8/xh4z1tQI7lQ/s1600/LoveFree.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-iT5ZK4E94YA/VVYNs5E_XSI/AAAAAAAADE8/xh4z1tQI7lQ/s320/LoveFree.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
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</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Earlier this week I was
reading a blog post written by a mother giving advice to her daughter, who was
trying to decide whether to keep dating a certain boy. She was unsure as to whether this boy loved
her. The mother quoted 1 Corinthians 13
and asked her daughter, is he patient and kind?
Is he envious, boastful, arrogant, or rude? The mother counseled the daughter to use this
passage as a way of discerning whether or not this boy’s love was worthy of
her.</span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">If 1 Corinthians 13 is to
be used as a measuring stick, then we use it to measure ourselves and the love
we give to others. Am I patient and
kind? Am I envious, boastful, arrogant,
or rude? When was the last time I
insisted on my own way? Have I been
irritable or resentful? Do I cheer
louder for wrongdoing or for the truth?
How am I doing at bearing all things, believing all things, enduring all
things?</span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">No one can pass this test
with flying colors. There’s always room
for improvement, which is why we have grace.
With the thousand other loves in our lives, the only one that really
matters is how we’re doing loving others.
The outcome that must follow from God loving us is that we love each
other, no strings attached, no yardstick to measure. It’s this kind of love that transforms us
into lifelong companions of Jesus and creates a family that spans across color
and creed, sexual orientation and gender identity, ability, ethnicity, culture,
and socioeconomic class. As it reads on
the door out front, we love. We are
Church. </span></span></span></span></div>
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6RCz5bET4-w/VVYOzhwkE4I/AAAAAAAADFo/Wikd-q6prsM/s1600/FrontDoor.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6RCz5bET4-w/VVYOzhwkE4I/AAAAAAAADFo/Wikd-q6prsM/s320/FrontDoor.jpg" width="240" /></a></div>
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</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Jesus said that people
will know who we are by our love. And
yet two-thirds of the younger generations who are not in church think that
either white mainline Protestants do not welcome LGBT folks or they don’t know
that we do. So many people who are not
part of a faith community but have a spiritual life do not know that there is a
church, the United Church of Christ, that extends an extravagant welcome to
everyone—to all families and people seeking a family. This is why we are commanded to love and
where we need to do more work, not just so we will love each other but that
others might know that there is a powerful love waiting for them—love that can
heal and transform a human life.</span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">So I leave you with a
question: how can we work on loving each
other that we would be known by that love?</span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">May it be so.</span></span></span></span></div>
Cynthiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16189485834914559162noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16525298.post-86713015409444416602015-05-06T12:26:00.000-04:002015-05-06T12:27:08.231-04:00Stretch<a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=1+John+4%3A+7-21&version=MSG" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">1 John 4: 7-21</span></span></a><br />
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">New Ark United Church of Christ, Newark, DE</span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">May 3, 2015</span></span></span><br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-whF1Xc0zEhY/VUo_Yb35HdI/AAAAAAAADCs/CvkjICOVb7M/s1600/IntenseLove.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-whF1Xc0zEhY/VUo_Yb35HdI/AAAAAAAADCs/CvkjICOVb7M/s1600/IntenseLove.jpg" height="320" width="310" /></a></div>
<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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</xml><![endif]--><span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"></span></span></span><span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /><br /> Some of you may recall that my word for this year is stretch. Though there are days I may forget this word, this theme for the year, it has not forgotten me. If I choose not to do my sun salutation in the morning, or at least try to stretch out the morning kinks, the universe has many other opportunities for me to stretch in a variety of ways, most of them having to do with forgiving, accepting, and loving others.<br /><br /><br /> Author and psychologist M. Scott Peck defined love in this way: The will to extend oneself for one’s own or another’s spiritual growth. In other words, love is the willingness to stretch beyond our self-imposed limits that we might know and experience the immense and unconditional love God has waiting for us and for all.<br /><br /><br /> God is the one who makes it possible for us to love as God loves us. God stretches toward us each and every moment, open-handed, open-hearted. God extends to us the extravagant invitation to move in and live in this love all of our days.</span></span></span><br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-TL4kHFCS__Y/VUo_YqxNBjI/AAAAAAAADC4/gFTy83kS7h8/s1600/Heal.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-TL4kHFCS__Y/VUo_YqxNBjI/AAAAAAAADC4/gFTy83kS7h8/s1600/Heal.jpg" height="264" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /> </span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"> There is nothing we can do or are required to do to receive this gift. God’s love comes to us unbidden, unshackled, unreservedly. We don’t have to get our ducks in a row, eat all our vegetables, be the most valuable player, finish our to-do list, clean our house, give the appearance of being put-together. We can be our messy, feeling-broken, at-our-worst selves. God’s not waiting for us to pick up the phone and call. We don’t even have to believe in God for God to love us. That’s what unconditional means.<br /> </span></span></span><br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-6lqTW74-9Gg/VUo_YJUkYwI/AAAAAAAADCo/phZHGa4iEIU/s1600/BeforeYouJudge.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-6lqTW74-9Gg/VUo_YJUkYwI/AAAAAAAADCo/phZHGa4iEIU/s1600/BeforeYouJudge.jpg" height="284" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"> Some things are true whether we believe in them or not. And why wouldn’t we want unconditional love in our lives? Unconditional love makes it possible for us to let go of shame and guilt. Unconditional love shows us how to put aside our grudges and forgive ourselves and others. Unconditional love softens our hearts and our eyes, takes away our need to be right and replaces it with kindness. Unconditional love removes our need to judge, to see what’s wrong with someone else and replaces it with the courage to examine the log we’ve been carrying around in our own eye. Unconditional love casts out our fear, our pain, and tears down the boundaries human beings have built between ourselves. Unconditional love makes what seems impossible, possible.<br /><br /><br /> Presbyterian minister and biblical commentator Matthew Henry wrote in 1700, "It is a sign that our love is far from perfect, when our doubts, fears, and apprehensions of God, are many." If our love is far from perfect, or complete, then we have an imperfect, incomplete idea of who God is. God is love. No one has ever seen God. But God can be seen through Jesus, who Jesus loved, how he lived and how he died. Even from the cross Jesus forgave those who cried out for his execution, those who carried out, and those who did nothing to stop it.<br /><br /><br /> It is also a sign that our love is far from perfect, when our doubts, fears, and apprehension of others are many. This past week we have seen images and heard stories of violence and looting in Baltimore, MD. We have heard the news that the state attorney general has brought charges against the six police officers connected with the death of Freddie Gray. Many have been quick to judge both the mob and the police. Occupying a place of righteousness takes away the need for us to change anything about ourselves, thus changing anything at all.</span></span></span><br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Q2M_3_8cIok/VUo_Z774dLI/AAAAAAAADDU/i7gzCRQh7GI/s1600/PowerfulLove.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Q2M_3_8cIok/VUo_Z774dLI/AAAAAAAADDU/i7gzCRQh7GI/s1600/PowerfulLove.jpg" height="320" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /> The question that seldom gets asked is, “What would it look like for us to love these police officers, to love this angry mob, to love the disenfranchised among us, to love those who profit from others’ misery?” Talk about a stretch. It would mean we all have work to do. More listening. More understanding. More giving. More holding accountable, beginning with ourselves. <br /><br /><br /> Not only do we need more of us engaged in honest conversation about race but about justice, power, and money. Money has become our moral currency as well our monetary currency. Money shows us what’s important to us, what we love, and where we have begun to calcify and shrink rather than stretch and be willing. Love is what makes it possible for us to stretch, to be willing, to be open, to listen, to be honest with ourselves. Love <i>is</i> the stretch.<br /><br /><br /> And this Table is where it begins. Here Jesus reaches out to us and calls anyone who would approach this table his friend. Here we gather the strength to love the way God loves. Through bread and the fruit of the vine Jesus showed us the way of love that is willing to lay down life for friends. Mother Teresa wrote, “Intense love does not measure. It only gives.” At this Table we come to know the intensity of God’s love for each and every one of us. It is immeasurable. God’s giving never ends. Amen.</span></span></span><br />
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Cynthiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16189485834914559162noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16525298.post-48945781277203121152015-04-30T09:07:00.003-04:002015-04-30T09:07:46.514-04:00Planting a seed<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">On Sunday, June 14, we'll be having another Evening at the Table.</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">We'll be using different elements for Communion.</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Can you guess?</span></span></span><br />
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<![endif]--><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm+23&version=NRSV" target="_blank">Psalm 23;</a> <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+10%3A+11-18+&version=MSG" target="_blank">John 10: 11-18 </a><br /><span style="color: cyan;">New Ark United Church of Christ, Newark, DE <br />April 26, 2015 (Good Shepherd Sunday) </span></span></span><br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-fvjQanMxDxA/VUEOYayJ62I/AAAAAAAADBo/0QlHxyX2GqE/s1600/JusticeUnaffected.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-fvjQanMxDxA/VUEOYayJ62I/AAAAAAAADBo/0QlHxyX2GqE/s1600/JusticeUnaffected.jpg" height="320" width="303" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span><span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">It never fails. Sooner or later, the scripture goes to work. God not only speaks but engineers, conspires, and shows me yet one more time, that though God may not be in control, I certainly am not. Again and again I am given opportunities to be compassionate, to take a risk, to struggle, to get it wrong as much as get it right, to ask for help and to give help where it is needed. </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"> </span></span><span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">The Lord is my shepherd; meaning, I am not. I shall not want. I certainly want for nothing. And so when I am asked to provide out of my means by someone who has no means except to ask repeatedly for help, why do I struggle so? Green grass grows freely in my yard, and I can pay someone to mow it. Clean water flows from my tap, and it's cheap. Restoration for my soul is there for the asking. I can even afford to make mistakes in judgment. There are times I think I know which is the right path, but sometimes it can be the road less traveled.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"> </span></span><span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">I’ve been listening to the news reports about migrants in Africa making the treacherous crossing to Europe, willing to risk their lives and some of them perishing in the process. It’s not enough for the Lord to be named a shepherd in our times. We’ve romanticized the shepherd and flock with pastoral images right out of the psalm for today. In the Middle East, shepherds were nomads who lived with their flocks, sleeping out in the elements, always seeking the next pasture, the next water source. With climate change on the rise, the number of migrants will only continue to increase. And so earlier this week I rewrote the 23rd Psalm, thinking of those seeking a better life in another land.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #999999;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">The Lord is a migrant<br /> who only wants to live.<br />Greener pastures always somewhere else;<br />Who is made to choose <br /> between suffering and unsafe passage;<br />To not drown in the waters to be crossed <br /> or die in a shipping container <br /> or turned back at the border by armed men<br />but be restored to wholeness and justice.<br />What is the right path </span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #999999;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"> when the way is not open to you?<br /><br />The migrant’s path<br /> is a death march.<br />Evil is all around;<br /> There is much to fear.<br />Bruised and broken<br /> by smugglers’ rod and staff.<br /><br />No one wants you.<br />Surrounded by enemies,<br /> the table is bare.<br />When was the last time<br /> soap and clean water and a soft towel<br /> touched this body, this head?<br />Yet millions of hands are cupped in hope</span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #999999;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"> of being filled.<br /><br />One day</span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #999999;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"> will the mercy of our lives<br /> spill over into</span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #999999;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"> the life of the migrant?</span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: #999999;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">How shall we follow one who has no home</span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">?</span></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /><br /> The One who leads us is one who is powerless, who has no voice, who suffers relentlessly. Jesus was a migrant. In Matthew’s gospel he tells his disciples: “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” When we welcome the migrant, when we have compassion for those with no homeland or no home, we welcome Jesus and open our hearts to him. <br /><br /><br /> In Deuteronomy, a book from which we read only nine times in the three-year lectionary cycle, verse after verse, we hear of how God commands God’s people to treat strangers, widows, and orphans as valued members of the tribe, to share with them a tithe of the harvest, to not deny them justice, to do all of this as worship to Yahweh. In a patriarchal society women and children who were alone were defenseless because there was no male presence to protect them. Strangers were outside the covenant, yet still part of God’s creation. Therefore, knowing human nature, God commanded that God’s people become their protection, because once God’s people were slaves and knew what it meant to be powerless. </span></span></span><br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-cALqXXQcGg4/VUEOYqiXcUI/AAAAAAAADBw/GFWv2u-8HH8/s1600/Endure.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-cALqXXQcGg4/VUEOYqiXcUI/AAAAAAAADBw/GFWv2u-8HH8/s1600/Endure.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /> Most of us in the United States don’t know what it means to be powerless. We live with the illusion of control and we relish it. And so it is often difficult for us to surrender, to obey, to be led by a homeless, migrant shepherd. Even so, we know the problems around us are overwhelming, to the point of paralyzing us, which has become our powerlessness. Indeed, how shall we follow one who has no home?</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"> </span></span><span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Chris Hedges, in his collection of essays entitled <a href="http://www.truthdig.com/worldasitis" target="_blank"><i>The World As It Is</i>,</a> writes this about battling evil, cruelty, and injustice: </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #999999;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"> “Perhaps in our lifetimes we will not succeed. Perhaps things will only get worse. But this does not invalidate our
efforts. Rebellion—which is different
from revolution because it is perpetual alienation from power rather than the
replacement of one power system with another—should be our natural state. And faith…is a belief that rebellion is
always worth it, even if all outward signs point to our lives and struggles as
penultimate failures. We are saved not
by what we can do or accomplish but by…our steadfastness to the weak, the poor,
the marginalized, and those who endure oppression. We must stand with them against the
powerful. …[The] struggle to live the
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /> When we surrender to the One who would lead us, one who is weak and powerless in the world, it is an act of rebellion, of subversion. The world would have us believe that it is the powerful who are in charge, who have control, who determine the fate of the world. This is the way of empire, and we’ve heard this bedtime story before. Even though we might get it wrong, once again God is giving us the opportunity to be compassionate, to take a risk, to struggle, to ask for help and to give help where it is needed. Our God of second and third and fourth chances sets before us the ways of life and death, and shows us, through life, death, and resurrection, that when we surrender, we rebel against the ways of empire and choose not only life, but love. </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /><br /> Even though it feels as though what we do does not make much of a difference; even though our efforts can often be flawed and imperfect; even when it looks like we’re being used; even though to all appearances things just might get worse; to continue to stand with the powerless against the odds—this is what we call faith and being faithful. This is what it means to follow Jesus the Good Shepherd. Nothing was promised that looks like what the world defines as success. The only thing that Jesus promised is that we would learn to love well: to love God our creator with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and to love our neighbor as ourselves. </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /> American theologian Frederick Buechner wrote "What's lost is nothing to what's found, and all the death that ever was, set next to life, would scarcely fill a cup." Our cup spills over with abundant life. Lord Jesus, you are our shepherd. We want for nothing. Show us the way. Amen.</span></span></span></div>
Cynthiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16189485834914559162noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16525298.post-57082068903137983402015-04-23T15:13:00.000-04:002015-04-23T15:53:59.678-04:00Saint Food<a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke+24%3A+36b-48+&version=NRSV" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Luke 24: 36b-48 </span></span></a><br />
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">New Ark United Church of Christ, Newark, DE </span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">April 19, 2016</span></span></span><br />
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<![endif]--><span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"> For a long
time I didn’t know I was a ‘foodie’. I
thought I was just someone who loves to eat and eat well. I’m not quite as adventurous as some (I don’t
go for things like squid and wouldn’t go near haggis unless offered to me by a
native Scot), but I love Indian, Thai, Vietnamese, and Chinese cuisine. I’m also a fan of Mediterranean foods: Armenian, Lebanese, Greek and Turkish. I’ve also tried Japanese, Korean, Filipino, Cuban,
Spanish, Moroccan, and Ethiopian fare, and enjoyed each one. I’ve eaten local dishes while visiting the
Bahamas, Jamaica, Costa Rica, Mexico, France, Belgium, Germany, Italy, and
Holland. When I lived in Ohio, I would
go with a church group to an annual Hungarian dinner at a UCC church. My mother’s family is from Mississippi, so
running through my veins is a fondness for my mother’s cornbread dressing, collard
greens, fried chicken, biscuits and gravy, shrimp gumbo, cornbread, and
grits. And anything barbecued makes my
mouth water (how’s yours doing right now?).</span></span></span></div>
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"> But one of my favorite meals is the
church potluck. It exudes the aroma of
the incarnation, the embodiment of the divine.
Everyone usually prepares their beloved and best dish. And there are always some standard
offerings: the ubiquitous lemon squares,
broccoli salad, baked beans, green bean casserole, baked ziti (name your own
preference). Worship is a lot like a
potluck supper: some things you can
count on; some surprises; some things you wouldn’t go near but someone likes
it; some stuff doesn’t get touched at all; too much dessert or not enough, but
it’s good just to be together and to have some nourishment, forget about
business and put aside our differences for a while.</span></span></span></div>
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">My
husband and I had a potluck supper for our wedding reception. Some folks balked at the idea of bringing
both a wedding present <i>and</i> a covered
dish but we could not afford to pay for dinner for about 300 people: there were members of the church where I was
the associate pastor and the church where David was a member, scads of
children, plus our family and friends.
David and I provided shrimp cocktail for everyone and four different
sheet cakes besides a small ceremonial wedding cake. My church provided lemonade, iced tea, and
coffee. And we ate and talked and danced
and ate some more, under a tent on a beautiful June afternoon. It was like a piece of heaven. </span></span></span></div>
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">I
have often wished that there was a restaurant where everyone who came for
dinner would bring a dish or dessert to share.
All you’d have to pay for would be your beverage and an overhead
charge. Every night it would be
something different. Every night would
be a different crowd, and the name of the restaurant would be “The Church
Potluck” or “The Potluck Supper” so as to be non-sectarian. I know health codes wouldn’t allow such a
thing but I’d like to think that such an enterprise could help change the
world.</span></span></span></div>
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Jesus
knew about this bond between food and community, how it seems you can’t have
one without the other. Jesus made use of
meals and food as a way of serving up justice and building community, that
commonwealth known as the kingdom of God.
In the feeding of the multitudes he demonstrated that there is more than
enough for all. A mandate was also
given: “You give them something to
eat”. He ate with prostitutes, tax
collectors, sinners and other outcasts, revealing God’s desire that all be
welcome at the table. At the last supper
Jesus illustrated with bread and wine that there is no greater love than this
than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.</span></span></span></div>
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">In
the reading from the lectionary in the gospel of Luke we enter into the middle
of an Easter meal with Jesus and his followers.
Just a few verses earlier Jesus shared the first course of bread with
two disciples on the road to Emmaus. Now
he is taking part in some broiled fish.
Bread and fish take us back to the feeding of the multitudes and other
humble suppers where the presence of Jesus and God’s love brought new life to
those present.</span></span></span></div>
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Jesus
eats this fish, and shows his scars once again, to give witness to his
resurrection. The disciples thought they
were seeing a ghost, an experience of the dead rather than of the living. The good news here is that the incarnation
did not end on the cross. The risen
Christ is the Jesus who died. Jesus
Christ is God’s love in living, breathing flesh and bone. We are also made of the same flesh and
bone. The resurrection hallows our
fleshy existence and restores us to the image in which we were created, despite
what we may perceive in the mirror.</span></span></span></div>
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span></span></span><br />
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<br />
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">For
some of us this is a thorny issue, that being in the flesh is a good thing. Some of us have real problems with food. Most of us have turned to food for comfort at
one time or another. The term ‘comfort
food’ doesn’t conjure up certain images in each of us for nothing. Other times we punish ourselves by denying
particular foods or we try to bulk up our self-esteem by refraining from
indulging our secret cravings. Some of
us analyze every morsel that passes our lips while others of us don’t think
twice, let alone remember what we ate.
So for Jesus to make plain the resurrection through the flesh of his
body and eating of food so as to build this budding faith community can sound
problematic at best to us who have issues with food.</span></span></span></div>
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Sometimes
when we eat, we want to satisfy a deeper hunger than the one in our
bellies. And this is what Jesus is
getting at. He has a poor man’s supper
with the disciples but then he moves on to the meat of it all. He teaches them again the scriptures to show
them the consistent faithfulness of God.
God’s love shown through the resurrection should come as no surprise to
them; it is part of the thread of grace that runs throughout the entire Bible. And it is this grace, this unconditional
love, which fills our longing that has no name, our appetite for the ineffable,
our yearning for transcendence.</span></span></span></div>
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span></span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
<br />
<br /></div>
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span></span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Jesus
isn’t about convincing them of the resurrection for the sake of believing. Jesus witnesses to the disciples so that they
would bind themselves together as a body resurrected from their grief, to
remember all that they had been taught, all that they had seen and heard so as
to share it with others. Talking about
faith over a good and simple meal is as good as it gets in my opinion. We are nourished in both body and spirit,
fully satisfied by God’s good gifts.</span></span></span></div>
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span></span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
<br />
<br /></div>
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span></span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Though
the organic food movement dates as far back as the 1920’s, to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rudolf_Steiner" target="_blank">Rudolph Steiner</a>
in Germany, we have been slow to connect what we eat, how it is grown and
harvested with not only our physical health but with our spiritual
well-being. <a href="http://www.environmentandsociety.org/exhibitions/silent-spring/overview" target="_blank">Rachel Carson in her book <i>Silent Spring</i></a> declared loud and clear
how we are damaging the earth’s ecosystems and our own body systems by how we use
pesticides. In the <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1286537/" target="_blank">2008 documentary <i>Food, Inc.</i></a> we learn that our food is more
engineered than grown, and more of our food is produced by a small handful of
corporations. When we eat, it’s not
often that we realize that we’re eating dirt, water, sunlight, and a great deal
of hard work. Everything we eat comes
from the earth or depends on it in some way.
Truly we are eating elements of resurrection: a body broken and blessed, given for us, that
has the power to bring us to new life.</span></span></span></div>
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span></span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
<br />
<br /></div>
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span></span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">We’ve
forgotten what it means to live by the 1970’s slogan <a href="http://brewershideaway.com/" target="_blank"><i>Know your farmer, know your food</i></a> and to appreciate God’s good gifts
in their season. Of course, Jesus and
his disciples lived in a time when all food was local. They would probably look at our ways of food
production and think us disconnected from the divine itself.</span></span></span></div>
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span></span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
<br />
<br /></div>
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span></span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"> We celebrate Easter whenever we join around a
table, give thanks, pass the plates, and by eating together, create new life
and new joy. How much more does eating
food grown in our own backyard, or on a local farm, add to that new life and
new joy! </span></span></span></div>
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span></span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
<br />
<br /></div>
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span></span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">When
was the last time we had a potluck supper after worship, when most folks would
be able to stay? Do we need to recommit
our efforts to shop at farmers markets, the local co-op, or <a href="http://brewershideaway.com/csa/" target="_blank">sign up for a CSA share,</a> and to have local foods present when we gather? Have we ever considered having a raised
vegetable garden on the church grounds? Jesus
shows us just how ‘fleshy’ he is; how ‘fleshy’ is Jesus in this church? Is he a ghost or a real flesh and bone Jesus
made alive in each of us and in our life together? How do we connect our “feeding of the hungry”
with our own feeding at the Communion table?
If we celebrate Easter with eating, how does that influence other meals,
like the family dinner, the business lunch, the midnight snack, the guilty binge, the drive-through
quick-fix, the commuting breakfast?</span></span></span></div>
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span></span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
<br />
<br /></div>
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span></span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">When
we the Church realize how significant and how deep the resurrection is,
authentic community, life-sustaining, life-creating, justice-serving community
comes into being. Jesus said “Love one
another as I have loved you”—love that is not a feeling or a good idea but
action made in our flesh and bone. Jesus
told Peter “Feed my sheep”, that we be fed and feed each other in such a way as
to transform us and the earth, the kitchen table and that church potluck into
the heavenly banquet where all are welcomed, restored, nourished, accepted,
resurrected. Saint Food, make us
instruments of your peace. Amen.</span></span></span></div>
<br />
<br />
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/YABG6QT5Tjw" width="560"></iframe>Cynthiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16189485834914559162noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16525298.post-64565444268117148102015-04-14T17:10:00.000-04:002015-04-14T19:51:23.476-04:00How to survive the Zombie Jesus apocalypse<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<![endif]--><span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+20%3A+19-31&version=MSG" target="_blank">John 20: 19-31</a> <br />New Ark United Church of Christ, Newark, DE </span></span><br />
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">April 12, 2015 (Bright Sunday)</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span><span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">First off, I have to give credit for the title of this little meditation to our very creative administrative assistant, Barbara Graham. A few weeks ago I was describing to her the scene in the gospel of John with Jesus’ disciple Thomas, his morbid request to put his hand in Jesus’ resurrected side, and that this scripture always falls on the Sunday after Easter, when we now celebrate Bright Sunday with humor. Without so much as a beat or batting an eyelash, she said, “Sounds to me like how to survive the zombie Jesus apocalypse!” Then a little light bulb went on above my head.</span></span></span></div>
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-hK-NiSGlESg/VS2AZ1qPuII/AAAAAAAADA8/ioV0HoeYJyA/s1600/Backforyourbrains.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-hK-NiSGlESg/VS2AZ1qPuII/AAAAAAAADA8/ioV0HoeYJyA/s1600/Backforyourbrains.jpg" height="320" width="212" /></a><span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"> </span></span><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Zombie culture is popular right now and has been for the last decade or so. It went underground (if you’ll pardon the pun) in the mid ‘80’s after enjoying another decadent decade following the shocking debut of the 1968 movie “Night of the Living Dead”. Turns out that currently there are many who look at Easter as that day when Christians worship a zombie Jesus, that the resurrection is nothing more than zombie Jesus back from the dead. There are websites, videos, comics, even swag proclaiming Zombie Jesus Day. One photo I saw online was of a young woman dressed as a zombie nun, holding a sign that read, “Jesus died for your sins. He’s back for your brains.” I’m sure there are many who think that we who see truth in the resurrection have checked our brains at the door and handed them over to Jesus.</span></span></span></div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-SSu2x0BTaQY/VS2BGvbaQmI/AAAAAAAADBU/eLiOsa0FEWs/s1600/PeterDeniesJesus.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-SSu2x0BTaQY/VS2BGvbaQmI/AAAAAAAADBU/eLiOsa0FEWs/s1600/PeterDeniesJesus.jpg" height="320" width="232" /></a><span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"> T</span></span><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">o some of you this may sound more than just irreverent but sacrilegious. The whole notion of Bright or Holy Humor Sunday can be unseemly to some Christians. But for centuries, in Catholic, Orthodox, and Protestant traditions, Easter Monday and Bright Sunday were observed by the faithful as “days of joy and laughter” with parties and picnics to celebrate Jesus' resurrection. Parishioners and pastors played practical jokes on each other, drenched each other with water, sang and danced. It was a time for clergy and laypeople to tell jokes, with no other agenda than to worship God by having some fun. The custom of Easter Monday and Bright Sunday celebrations were rooted in the musings of early church theologians such as Augustine, Gregory of Nyssa, and John Chrysostom, that God played a practical joke on the devil by raising Jesus from the dead. Easter was "God's supreme joke played on death," when Jesus became the Life of the party. The early theologians called it "Risus paschalis - the Easter laugh.” <br /><br /> <br /> One component of humor is to push at the line of what’s funny, especially at our own tradition, our own expense. What it does is to make a little more room inside us: room for love, forgiveness, acceptance, peace, joy. So how do we survive this zombie Jesus apocalypse?</span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /><br /><span style="color: cyan;"> Well, first of all, the risen Jesus wishes them peace. Zombies never do this. They wreak havoc and terror instead. Jesus also breathes the Holy Spirit, the breath of life, on to his disciples, giving them the power to forgive sins. For the gospel of John, this is the Pentecost event. Zombies are more into murder and mayhem. Nope, no zombies here. <br /><br /> <br /><br /> But Thomas wants to see the mark of the nails, to touch Jesus’ wounded hands, and put his own hand in Jesus’ side. That does sound pretty zombie-like. Jesus is also quoted in the gospel of John as having said, “Those who drink my blood and eat my flesh, live in me and I in them.” Yuck! That’s about as close to <i>Night of the Living Dead</i> as I want to get. </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"></span><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /><br /> <span style="color: cyan;">The risen Jesus isn’t a zombie back from the dead or just some high-minded ideal or a philosophical concept. He is risen in a living, breathing body. In all the stories of the resurrection, his body is missing from the tomb not because of literal reasons but because of experiential ones. Death is not the last word. Resurrection, new life, is experienced in the body, in our bodies, imperfect as they are—now, as we are living and breathing. Every day we experience resurrection when we wake up in the morning, and we breathe in and out. It’s just that most days we take it for granted. There are times we go through our days like zombies, mindlessly performing our routine, going through the motions, forking over our brains without thinking. Why do we seek the living among the dead? We forget what a miracle we are, the miraculous world we live in. <br /><br /> <br /><br /> We experience resurrection not only in our bodies but corporately, in this body, the Body of Christ, imperfect as it is. A couple of weeks ago I had a dream about us, about this church. We were standing in our closing circle, but in a room where the walls were painted a warm, golden color. I was moving around the inside of the circle, each of you with prayer hands, and I was holding your hands in mine. My hands were hot, like irons, and I felt compelled to share this fire inside me with you, or else I would become flame. As I held each of your hands, the warmth, the heat from my hands spread to yours, warming the blood in your veins and arteries, flooding your whole body, your faces flushed with warmth. With each of you I could see in your eyes that what you were experiencing, what you were feeling, what was flowing through your whole being was tenderness, love, compassion, welling up from within you, for you, a holy love for yourself. Some of you were skeptical, some of you were tentative. You weren’t sure what was happening—<i>I</i> wasn’t sure what or how it was happening. But we were all hungry for it; it felt like resurrection, like new life. <br /><br /> <br /><br /> Jesus wasn’t a zombie, and we don’t have to be either. Easter isn’t just one day. (Here’s a spoiler: neither is Christmas.) Every day we are blessed to be in this body, and in this Body, is Easter. Every day is a second chance. Every day is resurrection day. Yes, yes, and yes!</span></span></span>Cynthiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16189485834914559162noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16525298.post-81648549014714406012015-04-07T11:06:00.001-04:002015-04-09T21:47:22.078-04:00The story within our story<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<![endif]--><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Mark+16%3A+1-8+&version=MSG" target="_blank">Mark 16: 1-8 </a><br /><span style="color: cyan;">New Ark United Church of Christ, Newark, DE <br />April 5, 2015 (Easter Sunday)</span></span></span><br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-TfaePG2C8Jg/VSPwvvo7WNI/AAAAAAAADAY/k4Aygleo2Pc/s1600/numinous.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-TfaePG2C8Jg/VSPwvvo7WNI/AAAAAAAADAY/k4Aygleo2Pc/s1600/numinous.png" height="263" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /><br /><span style="color: cyan;"> Native American storytellers often begin with these words: Now I don’t know if it happened this way or not, but I know this story is true.</span></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span></span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Of all the Easter stories
in the gospels, this one is my favorite.
Stunned by the emptiness of the tomb and the young man’s declaration
that Jesus has been raised from the dead, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome run out of
the tomb as fast as they can, saying nothing to anyone. And yet they must have told someone at some
point. It’s a story that begs to be
told, just for the shock value alone.
And then there’s the reality check:
did this really happen or are they losing their grip in their grief? Even though Jesus said he would be raised on
the third day, it didn’t seem like his friends expected it to happen. “Sure, Jesus, whatever you say. Just don’t get yourself killed.”</span></span></span></span></div>
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">It’s one of the big
stories we tell every year when our tribe gets together, our semi-annual
reality check. Did this really happen or
are we losing it in our post-modern, scientific world? I don’t know if it happened this way or not,
but I know this story is true.</span></span></span></span></div>
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span></span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span></span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">We all have family
stories we tell when our tribe gets together, and they always seem to get more
fantastical, more embellished every time we tell them. But it doesn’t make them any less true.</span></span></span></span></div>
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span></span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">One of my favorite family
stories comes from my southern side of the family, of my Uncle Sunny when he
was a boy. Sunny’s real name was
Frederick James Keener Gilmore, but everyone called him Sunny because he was
the golden boy in the family. Sunny had
a pet rabbit. Every day just as the
grocery store was closing, Sunny would ride his bike to pick up the wilted
lettuce that would get thrown out. He’d
toss as much of it as he could in the basket on the handlebars and bring it
home for his rabbit. Since his family
didn’t have a lot of money, this was how he could afford to keep a rabbit.</span></span></span></span></div>
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span></span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Sunny’s father, my
grandfather, was a postal carrier. Every
day Daddy Mutt (as in the early 1900’s cartoon “Mutt and Jeff”) would walk to
the post office, pick up his mail sack, and he would deliver the mail on
foot. Then he would walk home, tired and
hungry, just aching to put his feet up.
In my grandfather’s house, everyone knew they had to be home before
Daddy, which was usually before dark.
Daddy did not want to be kept waiting for his dinner. Daddy wanted to walk in the door, all six
children home, and they would all sit down together to dinner. If you were late, well, let’s just say you
never wanted to be late.</span></span></span></span></div>
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span></span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">One evening, when the sun
was well on its way down and all the shadows had turn to twilight, Sunny was
hurrying home on his bicycle with lettuce for his rabbit. He was pedaling hard to make it home before
Daddy. It wasn’t quite dark yet, but it
was getting hard to see exactly where he was going. All of a sudden, Sunny ran into something and
hit it hard. He had hit someone with his
bike and knocked him over. Sunny was
about to see if the man was okay when he heard, “Dag nab it! You sonofa….!
Who the #@&$ do you think you are?!” etc.
Sunny realized he had hit his father walking home from work! He got back on his bicycle as fast as he
could and pedaled till he thought his feet would fall off. He skidded into the yard, chucked his bike
onto the grass, threw the wilted lettuce at the rabbit in his hutch, and hauled
tail into the house, sitting at his place at the table, his heart racing like,
well, like a rabbit’s.</span></span></span></span></div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-wTU1a5t0MKU/VSPwvL4PAsI/AAAAAAAADAU/hYly81ebm-U/s1600/Resurrection.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-wTU1a5t0MKU/VSPwvL4PAsI/AAAAAAAADAU/hYly81ebm-U/s1600/Resurrection.jpg" height="320" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Just a few minutes later,
my grandfather came stomping in the door.
“Dag nab it! Some idiot hit me
with his bicycle! Didn’t even stop to
see if I was okay! Just left me there in
the middle of the dag burned road!”
Sunny didn’t confess to what he did, not that day, not until all the
kids had grown up and left the house, and come back for Thanksgiving, when it
was first told as one of those stories we tell when our tribe gets together. Much like those women at the tomb: a story
waiting to be told.</span></span></span></span></div>
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span></span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<br /></div>
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span></span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Inside every story is
another story waiting to be told. The
story within Uncle Sunny’s story is the rabbit.
None of what happened would have happened if it hadn’t been for that
poor, hungry rabbit who just wanted some lettuce to nibble on.</span></span></span></span></div>
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Inside the story of the
terrified women running from the tomb is the story of Jesus. In effect, the
young man in the tomb tells them to go back to where the story began, to
Galilee, and it is there they will find Jesus, in the stories of baptism in the
river Jordan, calling Peter and Andrew, James and John from their nets, stories
of healing and forgiveness, and the stories that Jesus himself told, parables
about a sower and a mustard seed.
Stories of their teacher and rabbi; stories of their friend. Stories, that whether they happened that way
or not, they were true nonetheless.</span></span></span></span></div>
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</span></span></span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-BFPBhziWDAY/VSPwu98sDiI/AAAAAAAADAM/o6JbGVDWfPs/s1600/ExtraordinaryLove.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-BFPBhziWDAY/VSPwu98sDiI/AAAAAAAADAM/o6JbGVDWfPs/s1600/ExtraordinaryLove.jpg" height="320" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span></span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Inside each of our
stories, and inside the story of this church, is the story of Jesus, waiting to
be told. The story of how we first heard
a call to something larger than ourselves.
Stories of how we’ve experienced healing and forgiveness. The stories of how people have come into our
lives and saved us, and how we’ve been privileged to be a part of someone
else’s story. Stories of loss and pain
and exile. Stories of belonging and
connection and relationship. Stories of
transformation, what today, this day, we call resurrection. And the story within the story of this church
is the story of Jesus’ birth, life, death, <i>and</i>
resurrection. Without the resurrection
story, this church would not exist. Jesus’
story lives on in each of our stories and in the story of this church.</span></span></span></span></div>
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span></span></span><br />
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<br /></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<br /></div>
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span></span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Sir Terry Pratchett, a
master storyteller in his own right, who recently passed from this world, said,
“<span class="uficommentbody">No one is actually dead until the ripples they
cause in the world die away.” When was
the last time we told a story of healing and forgiveness, or of that time when
someone came into our lives and our lives were never the same? If the stories of Jesus are beginning to lose
steam in our lives and in our life together, perhaps it’s because we haven’t
allowed them to have the transformational power they have, regardless of
whether they happened that way or not, because they’re <i>true</i>.</span></span></span></span></span></div>
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span class="uficommentbody"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Eventually the stunned and frightened women must have told someone what
they saw and heard because they couldn’t help themselves. What would be the story we would tell someone
about our church because we couldn’t help ourselves? Let’s live into <i>that</i> story. Amen.</span></span></span></span></span></div>
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-19VQRW9aJ_E/VSPwvIebk8I/AAAAAAAADAQ/qFvl9c24tiE/s1600/PassionateChurch.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-19VQRW9aJ_E/VSPwvIebk8I/AAAAAAAADAQ/qFvl9c24tiE/s1600/PassionateChurch.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></a></div>
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Cynthiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16189485834914559162noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16525298.post-72048644284633532682015-04-02T13:20:00.000-04:002015-04-09T21:47:49.794-04:00A different kind of parade<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<![endif]--><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Mark+11%3A+1-11+&version=NRSV" target="_blank">Mark 11: 1-11 </a><br /><span style="color: cyan;">New Ark United Church of Christ, Newark, DE <br />March 29, 2015 (Palm Sunday)</span> </span></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-MrFS7bDbou0/VR11mnbbsnI/AAAAAAAAC_k/o_1tX1FyGKw/s1600/Brazil%2BGay%2BPride%2BParade-1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-MrFS7bDbou0/VR11mnbbsnI/AAAAAAAAC_k/o_1tX1FyGKw/s1600/Brazil%2BGay%2BPride%2BParade-1.jpg" height="225" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Gay Pride Parade, Sao Paolo, Brazil - May 4, 2014</td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span></span> <span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"> </span></span><br />
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">We aren’t given many opportunities to make procession in today’s world nor do we create many opportunities for them, either. The closest thing would be a parade and even then we save those for holidays and special occasions. One way that our nation used to honor someone was to give them a ticker tape parade in New York City. Astronauts, presidents, and other public figures have ridden in a shower of shredded paper through the financial district. And when anyone dies they are honored with a procession to the grave. Listen to this account of a funeral procession. </span></span> <span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /><br /> For more than six hundred years the Hapsburgs of Austria exercised political power in Europe. When Emperor Franz-Josef I of Austria died in 1916, his was the last of the extravagant imperial funerals. </span></span> <span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /><br /> A processional of dignitaries and elegantly dressed royalty escorted the coffin, draped in the black and gold imperial colors. To the accompaniment of a military band’s somber dirges and by the light of torches, the funeral procession descended the stairs of the monastery. At the bottom of the stairs was a great iron door leading to the Hapsburg family crypt. Behind the door was the Cardinal-Archbishop of Vienna. </span></span> <span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /><br /> The officer in charge followed the prescribed ceremony, established centuries before. “Open!” he cried. </span></span> <span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /><br /> “Who goes there?” responded the Cardinal. </span></span> <span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /><br /> “We bear the remains of his Imperial and Apostolic Majesty, Franz-Josef I, by the grace of God, Emperor of Austria, King of Hungary, Defender of the Faith, Prince of Bohemia-Moravia, Grand Duke of Lombardy, Venezia, Styrgia…” The officer continued to list the Emperor’s thirty-seven titles. </span></span> <span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /><br /> “We know him not,” replied the Cardinal. “Who goes there?” <br /><br /> The officer spoke again, this time using a much shorter and less ostentatious title reserved for times of expediency. </span></span> <span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /><br /> “We know him not,” the Cardinal said again. “Who goes there?” </span></span> <span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /><br /> The officer tried a third time, stripping the emperor of all but the humblest of titles: “We bear the body of Franz-Josef, our brother, a sinner like us all.” </span></span> <span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /><br /> And with those words, the door swung open, and the body of Franz-Josef was admitted to eternal rest. </span></span> </span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="color: cyan;"><br /><br /> Today we remember a procession not for an emperor but a peasant king, riding not on a horse, a symbol of power and might, but on a colt that had never been ridden before. And it is the task of two of the disciples to acquire this colt for Jesus. It is such a mundane and humbling thing to do, like the person whose job it is to follow the elephants in a circus parade. But the disciples should be used to these prosaic requests of Jesus by now: distributing food to the multitudes, collecting the leftovers; being sent out two by two, taking nothing with them except a staff; finding food and lodging and securing a room for the Passover feast. Perhaps Jesus even sent James and John to fetch the colt, those two who were quibbling just one chapter ago over who was going to sit at the right and the left of Jesus when he came into his glory. </span></span></span><br />
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<img src="http://media2.s-nbcnews.com/i/newscms/2014_42/713056/141013-st-louis-630a_8982489d1f6cb5b593a14c0da8076b0e.jpg" height="266" id="irc_mi" style="margin-top: 0px;" width="400" /><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Ferguson protesters march on St. Louis University campus (Photo: <a href="http://nbcnews.com/">NBCNews.com</a>)</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">When I was ordained into the Christian ministry, I heard the words that Jesus spoke to the disciples when they heard about what James and John had asked of him: “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles dominate them, and their great leaders exercise authority over them. It shall not be so among you; but whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must first be your slave.” And with those words I was invited to come forward and make my promises as a servant of the Church. </span></span> <span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /><br /> I had no idea that being a minister meant finding child care for a meeting, setting up chairs and tables then taking them down; driving from Dayton, OH to St. Louis, MO in a van full of young teens listening to “Smashing Pumpkins”; knowing where the unity candle holder was kept, buying ashes for Ash Wednesday, washing dishes and the stinky feet of junior high kids at a moving ceremony at the end of a week of camp. Being a part of church life sometimes means doing the stuff no one else wants to do, but without it, it wouldn’t be the church. </span></span> <span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /><br /> NPR commentator Richard Rodriguez pointed out in an <a href="http://02e1137.netsolhost.com/villages/hispanic/immigration/rodriguez_gracias041506.asp" target="_blank">essay</a> that in our nation’s debate over illegal immigrants, those who do the stuff no one else wants to do, the talk has been all about what more do these people want from us? Haven’t we given them enough already? Should we give them a green card? Grant them amnesty? Forget all this generosity and send them packing? But, he writes, not two relevant words have been said about what they do for us, so he says them: thank you. He then posits a litany of “thank-you’s” for all the mundane, ordinary, thankless, boring, tiring, demoralizing, even dangerous jobs that illegal immigrants do in this country: </span></span> </span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="color: cyan;"><br /><br />“Thank you for turning on the sprinklers, thank you for cleaning the pool and scrambling the eggs and doing the dishes; thank you for making the bed, thank you for getting the children up and ready for school; thank you for picking them up after school; thank you for caring for our dying parents; thank you for plucking dead chickens; thank you for bending your bodies over our fields; thank you for breathing chemicals and absorbing chemicals into your bodies; thank you for the lettuce and the spinach and the artichokes, the asparagus and the cauliflower, the broccoli, beans and tomatoes and garlic; thank you for the apricots and the peaches and the apples and the melons and the plums and the almonds and the grapes; thank you for the willow trees and the roses and the winter lawn; thank you for scraping and painting and roofing and cleaning out the asbestos and the mold; thank you for your stoicism and your eager hands; thank you for all the young men on rooftops in the sun; thank you for cleaning the toilets and the showers and the restaurant kitchens and the schools and the office buildings and the airports and the malls; thank you for washing the car, thank you for washing all the cars; thank you for your parents who died young and had nothing to bequeath their children but the memory of work; thank you for giving us your youth; thank you for the commemorative altars; thank you for the food, the beer, the tragic polka. Gracias.” </span></span></span> <img src="http://s3.reutersmedia.net/resources/r/?m=02&d=20070502&t=2&i=735817&w=644&fh=&fw=&ll=&pl=&r=735817" height="318" id="irc_mi" style="margin-top: 38px;" width="450" /><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"></span></span><br />
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">Pro-Immigration protest, May 1, 2007, Los Angeles, CA (Photo: <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2007/05/02/us-usa-immigration-losangeles-idUSN0236190420070502" target="_blank">Reuters</a>)</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Over the last decade or so we have seen a long season of protest. The Arab Spring: protests in Egypt, Syria, Yemen, Bahrain and Libya. Greece, Senegal, Morocco, Romania, Spain, Russia, and the UK have all seen protests in recent years. In this country alone we’ve had protests for and against illegal immigrants, for and against Obamacare, against Wall Street and the 1%, against big government, to bring awareness to climate change, and now the recent protests in the wake of the deaths of African-American young men and the deaths of police officers. </span></span></span> <span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /><br />It has become apparent that we don’t always trust the powers that be to follow their mandates and take care of ordinary citizens. Those who had been invisible to most of society have now become very visible in these protests. Brothers, sisters, sinners like us all. </span></span></span> <span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /><br />On that Palm Sunday long ago the Hebrew people were also demonstrating against the powers that be. It was not just a procession to welcome Jesus. The people were shouting “Hosanna”, which means “Save us”, and they were shouting it to a poor rabbi on a colt, with cries that hailed the coming kingdom of their ancestor David, a kingdom diametrically opposed to that of empire and all that it entails. </span></span></span> <span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /><br />The Romans barely tolerated the Hebrew people as residents of their own country and as second-class citizens of the Empire. They were a bug to be squashed should they become an irritant. They were the slaves and the servants, the little people in their own country. The procession that we celebrate today, as evidenced by what the crowd proclaimed, was a small but noticeable protest march against the occupying forces of the Roman Empire and a celebration of the Hebrew people’s hope and trust that God would one day bring justice to their demoralization and their slavery. </span></span></span> <span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /><br />The beginning of the gospel of Mark starts with the preparing of the way of the Lord. Reading Mark’s account of Palm Sunday through this lens gives us fresh insight. Preparing the way of the Lord means we who follow Jesus do so in the role of a servant and a slave and joining with those who are treated like servants and slaves and second-class citizens and non-citizens. Preparing the way of the Lord means us as individuals, as citizens, and as a nation recognizing our role in the continuation of our American empire. Preparing the way of the Lord means that all our mundane tasks, done by ordinary people, illegal or otherwise, are ultimately about the ministry and work of Jesus. </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /><span style="color: cyan;"><br />When someone washes your car, or roofs your house, or when they fill your glass, or keep a public bathroom clean for you to use, they are doing the work of Jesus. When you make the coffee or make something for others to eat, you are doing the work of Jesus. When you write your check for your pledge, put a few dollars in the plate, count the money, pay the bills, you are doing the work of Jesus. When you send a card to someone, you are doing the work of Jesus. When you set up tables and chairs, clean the kitchen, take out the trash, turn off the heat and the lights and lock up, you are doing the work of Jesus. When you visit someone who is not able to come to church, drive someone to church, listen to a complaint, a sad story, or a request for prayer, when you teach Sunday school or serve on a committee, you are doing the work of Jesus. You are preparing the way for him, as though you were laying down palm branches and the shirt off your back for him. </span></span></span><span style="color: cyan;"> <span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /><br />And probably no one will ever throw a parade in our honor because of doing the work of Jesus. We may do more than we think is our fair share. Many a time we may not even hear a “thank you”. But without doing this mundane work that is the work of Jesus, the church would not be the Church. And the way of the Lord would not be as prepared; we would not be prepared for the Lord’s way, which is love, which is the cross, which is resurrection. </span></span> <span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /><br />So this coming Holy Week, go the extra mile. Do something that no one else may feel like doing. You might not feel like doing it either but without it, the church would not be the Church. And when we’re all serving and doing and being the Church for each other and for the world around us, we make a procession of witnesses preparing ourselves to follow Christ, even unto the cross. And remember, whatever you do in the Church, at least you’re not following the elephants. Thanks be to God.</span></span></span><br />
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Cynthiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16189485834914559162noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16525298.post-15832366011398339932015-03-22T21:46:00.000-04:002015-03-22T22:22:22.738-04:00House of the rising sun<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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</xml><![endif]--><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Psalm+51%3A+1-12&version=NRSV" target="_blank">Psalm 51: 1-12;</a> <a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=John+12%3A+20-33&version=MSG" target="_blank">John 12: 20-33</a> </span></span><br />
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">New Ark United Church of Christ, Newark, DE </span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">March 22, 2015</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span><span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">No one really knows where this song comes from. Some say it traveled over from England, the tune bearing a resemblance to an English ballad, <i>Matty Groves</i>. The earliest recording was in 1934 by two Appalachian folk artists as a folk ballad. It’s had multiple incarnations, from <i>The Rising Sun Blues</i> to a French version, <i>Les portes du pénitencier</i>. It’s been recorded by hundreds of artists, including Roy Acuff, Glenn Yarborough, Bob Dylan, Woody Guthrie, Pete Seeger, Joan Baez, Nina Simone, Andy Griffith, and Dolly Parton. The subject of the song has been variable, sung from either a woman’s or a man’s perspective. Many have tried to interpret the song, to find the actual location of this house, either a brothel or a gambling hall. Others think it is a metaphor for a slave plantation or prison.</span></span></span></div>
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /><br /> The song finally reached international acclaim when it was rearranged and recorded by the British-invasion group, The Animals, in 1964. It’s about a life gone bad, of the inexorable pull of sin and degradation.<br /><br /><br /> Sin is not a word we like to use in progressive, liberal Christianity, as well as sinner and salvation. These words conjure images of fevered preachers like John the Baptist of old and dredge up emotions that can damage the human psyche, like shame and guilt. It’s difficult for us 21st century, post-modern middle class Christians to imagine that we sin. We make mistakes, we do things we’re sorry for, we leave tasks undone or do them halfheartedly, we may hurt someone unintentionally. We know we’re imperfect. Sin sounds more like what we hear on the news; Ten Commandment stuff like murder and killing, stealing, a politician caught having an affair or lying about it.<br /><br /><br /> Sin is anything that separates us from God and each other. And so the psalmist prays for God to remove whatever obstacles are preventing connection, relationship, wholeness with God. Not only that, but the psalmist welcomes God’s reproof, God’s word of challenge, to set us back on a path toward God’s righteousness. The writer of this psalm knew that in order to fully encounter God’s holiness and glory, to be restored to joy that first we must fully encounter our sinfulness. Or as Jesus would put it, a seed must first be buried in the earth and die before it can give new life. As we heard from the gospel of John, if we hold onto life just as it is, we will destroy that life, but if we let it go, reckless in our love, we’ll have real life, forever and eternal.<br /><br /><br /> Our lives exist just as they are in part because of sinful systems. Poverty, education, our justice system, how we grow our food, energy, the economy, the prison industry, the military industry, the inequality of citizens. Our nation was formed on the self-evident truths of human equality and unalienable rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, yet almost 240 years later we still haven’t figured out how everyone can live that way. Sin is both an individual and a collective reality. Some of our sin and suffering is due to our own deeds. Yet also for millennia human beings have suffered due to the domination system we created and live in.</span></span></span><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><span style="mso-spacerun: yes;"> </span></span></span></span><br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-jM8Q0RcWIHo/VQ9t7zjsAVI/AAAAAAAAC-k/YnsG_URmaog/s1600/ChangingYou.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-jM8Q0RcWIHo/VQ9t7zjsAVI/AAAAAAAAC-k/YnsG_URmaog/s1600/ChangingYou.jpg" height="213" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: 14.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-bidi-font-style: italic;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></span><span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /><br /> In their wisdom the biblical writers used imagery and metaphor for sin, such as blindness, paralysis, leprosy, hemorrhaging, exile, wandering, estrangement, a closed heart, and death. This is why when Jesus healed, he also offered forgiveness; why God allowed God’s people to suffer the circumstances of their actions but was always trying to bring God’s people home; why God’s shepherd left the ninety-nine in search of the lost one. God is always offering us the free gift of grace.<br /><br /><br /> German Lutheran pastor and anti-Nazi dissident Dietrich Bonhoeffer coined the phrase “cheap grace” as “grace that we bestow upon ourselves”. “Cheap grace is grace without discipleship, grace without the cross, grace without Jesus Christ, living and incarnate.” For God, grace is freely given. But for us it is costly. Before grace comes remorse and repentance. Grace comes with the call to follow Jesus. Grace compels us to surrender like a seed surrenders to the soil, to die, that something new might grow.</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="color: #999999; font-size: x-small;">(to the tune of "House of the Rising Sun")</span></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #999999;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><i><span style="line-height: 115%;">Amazing
grace, how sweet the sound</span></i></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #999999;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><i><span style="line-height: 115%;">That
saved a wretch like me</span></i></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #999999;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><i><span style="line-height: 115%;">I once
was lost but now I’m found</span></i></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #999999;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><i><span style="line-height: 115%;">Was blind
but now I see.</span></i></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #999999;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><i><span style="line-height: 115%;">‘Twas
grace that taught my heart to fear</span></i></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #999999;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><i><span style="line-height: 115%;">And grace
my fear relieved</span></i></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #999999;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><i><span style="line-height: 115%;">How
precious did that grace appear</span></i></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #999999;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><i><span style="line-height: 115%;">The hour
I first believed.</span></i></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></span><span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Not to put too fine a point on it, but the Church, the Body of Christ, is our house of the rising sun; not one where we find ruin and despair, but one where we can be found when we are lost, regain our insight when we have been blind to our sin. The church is supposed to be the safe place of both confronting our sin and the inexorable pull of grace and unconditional love.</span></span></span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo by Amy Myers</td></tr>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span></span><span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /> Part of our hubris is thinking that it all rests on our shoulders, what we do or don’t do, say or don’t say; that the choices, actions, or behaviors we engage in make all the difference in the world. That is partly true. But do we also trust that there is a power at work in the world that works not only through us but also through all of creation? Have we not known times of rescue, of being brought through the storm? Acknowledging that God is God and we are not means that we are not in charge, that we are servants, not masters. We are apprentices and disciples, and Jesus is our teacher, our guru, our rabbi, our prophet, our lama. <br /><br /><br /> The United Church of Christ is not exactly known as a “come to Jesus” kind of church. But that’s exactly what Lent is for. It’s a time to examine our sin and the sin of this world, how we participate in it, and through prayer and scripture, a relationship with Jesus can transform our lives and our life together.</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="line-height: 115%;"> </span></span><span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /><br /> What if we were transformed, in the words of Walter Brueggemann, “into a community of glad obedience”? Imagine what the Church would look like if we surrendered completely to the grace and love that God offers us. In order for this love to take hold within us as a community, our need for control and security needs to die. Any thought of success or fear of failure as a church has to die. Our worship of the past and our anxiety about the future has to die. Our reluctance to forgive and our unrelenting memories of those who have wronged us have to die. Our need to hold onto life just as it is has to die. In letting go of these things, we surrender to God’s reckless love. We are dead to sin in order that we may love and live abundantly, giving glory to the One who died for the sake of love. <br /><br /><br /> So, New Ark United Church of Christ, to what do we need to surrender, to obey, to die so that God might bring forth a new thing? What would it look like for God create a clean heart in us? What would it mean for us to renew a right spirit? What does it mean to each of us and in our life together that Jesus died and lived again?<br /> </span></span></span><br />
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"> O God, return to us the joy of your salvation, and let a generous spirit sustain our lives.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #999999;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Through many a danger, toil, and
snare</span></i></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #999999;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">I have already come</span></i></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #999999;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">‘Tis grace that brought me safe thus
far</span></i></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #999999;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">And grace will lead me home.</span></i></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #999999;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><br /></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #999999;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">When we’ve been there ten thousand
years</span></i></span></span></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;">
<span style="color: #999999;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Bright shining as the sun</span></i></span></span></span></div>
<div align="center" class="MsoNormal" style="margin-bottom: .0001pt; margin-bottom: 0in; text-align: center;">
<span style="color: #999999;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">We’ve no less days to sing God’s
praise</span></i></span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #999999;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;"><span style="line-height: 115%;">Than when we first begun.</span></i></span></span></span><br />
<br />
<br /></div>
<iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="276" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/0SmthYxI5aA" width="490"></iframe>Cynthiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16189485834914559162noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16525298.post-87927344934884044972015-03-03T13:56:00.000-05:002015-03-10T14:03:03.344-04:00Fearless losers<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<![endif]--><a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Mark+8%3A+27-38+&version=NRSV" target="_blank"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Mark 8: 27-38 </span></span></a><br />
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">New Ark United Church of Christ, Newark, DE </span></span></span><br />
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">March 1, 2015</span></span></span><br />
<br />
<br />
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-0Bl5jGxPOLo/VP8tfy3q_CI/AAAAAAAAC8I/HJ8SQJvlDo8/s1600/WhoAmI.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-0Bl5jGxPOLo/VP8tfy3q_CI/AAAAAAAAC8I/HJ8SQJvlDo8/s1600/WhoAmI.jpg" height="162" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;">The Cruciform Life</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><span style="color: cyan;">“Who Is Jesus?<br />
<br />
“And Jesus said to them, ‘But who do you say that I am?’<br />
<br />
“They replied, ‘You are he who heals our ambiguities and overcomes the split of
angst and existential estrangement; you are he who speaks of the theonomous
viewpoint of the <i>analogia
entis</i>, the analogy of our being and the ground of all
possibilities. You are the impossible possibility who brings to us, your
children of light and children of darkness, the overwhelming roughness in the
midst of our fraught condition of separation and brokenness, in the contiguity
and existential anxieties of our ontological relationships. You are my
Oppressed One, my soul’s shalom, the One who was, who is and who shall be, who
has never left us alone in the struggle, the event of liberation in the lives
of the oppressed struggling for freedom.’<br />
<br />
“And Jesus replied, ‘Huh?’”</span><a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=16525298#_ftn1" name="_ftnref1" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="line-height: 115%;">[1]</span></span></span></a></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">That is what is called in some circles
as “Jesus Jaw”. Over the centuries the
Church has heaped upon Jesus all the hopes, desires, deepest needs and fears of
what it means to be church. We have
simultaneously made him into Superman, Savior, and the Suffering Servant: our greatest hope and the hope of the world;
thus, he also has the potential to become less real to us and more likely the
world’s biggest disappointment and ours.
</span></span></span></div>
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span></span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Peter answered Jesus, “You are the
Messiah—the Anointed One”, but what Peter didn’t know was that being the
Messiah meant suffering, rejection, and death.
When we follow Jesus we run the risk of being perceived as one of the
world’s biggest losers.</span></span></span></div>
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><i>(reveal
front of t-shirt)</i></span></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-gUqFEBY26IM/VP8tgA1VmHI/AAAAAAAAC8U/pu6z-lrW0k0/s1600/loser.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-gUqFEBY26IM/VP8tgA1VmHI/AAAAAAAAC8U/pu6z-lrW0k0/s1600/loser.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">You can order a t-shirt like this one at <a href="http://store.yefonline.com/default/1word/t-shirts/loser.html" target="_blank">http://store.yefonline.com/default/1word/t-shirts/loser.html</a></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
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</span></span><br />
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Our hopes and fears are usually not in
clean little compartments but heaped together, and on some days we can end up
with more fear than hope. And it’s then that
fear winds our clock, plays the negative mp3 in our heads, holds our attention,
and makes us less real, less of our authentic selves.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Fear can be the source of perfectionism,
wanting to please others, and gain their approval. Fear is the source of stress that tells us we
have to have it done yesterday. Fear is
the source of scarcity, of not enough, of withholding. Fear is the source of addiction, that
bottomless void we try to fill with behaviors and substances that only leave us
feeling even emptier. Fear fuels our
anger and resentment. Fear blocks our ability to be real, to be true: loving, creative, trusting, forgiving, open to
all of the human experience. But fear also
tells us that we have something worth losing.</span></span></span></div>
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span></span></span><br />
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</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Our fears reveal what we value but in
the inverse. We hold dear the good
opinion of others but we fear losing it.
We love our family and friends but we fear losing them and our life as
we now know it. We like to be secure and
have enough to enjoy and to share but we fear losing that feeling of
security. We want to move into the
future but we fear losing the familiar comfort of what we know now. </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">At our most basic level we fear
change. We haven’t quite figured out how
to love change, how to embrace it. When change is coming, we can become
stressed because fear likes to peddle our hamster wheel. We’re afraid we won’t get everything done,
that something will fall apart because of it; that somehow our corner of the
world is resting squarely on our shoulders or on the shoulders of our leaders,
like a cross. </span></span></span></div>
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">In other gospel versions of this morning’s
story from Mark, we get to hear Peter’s rebuke:
“God forbid it, Lord! This (this
death, this tragedy, this failure) must never happen to you.” We hear
Peter’s fear of losing that which he loves most—this Messiah, this Anointed
One, who made a community out of poor fishermen, a tax collector, a zealot, as
well as the drunkards, prostitutes, and gluttons he hung out with.</span></span></span></div>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-KvO6Ox9PD28/VP8tfVe7HsI/AAAAAAAAC8E/_Ht_Kyv5x1c/s1600/Magic8Ballwho_am_I.gif" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-KvO6Ox9PD28/VP8tfVe7HsI/AAAAAAAAC8E/_Ht_Kyv5x1c/s1600/Magic8Ballwho_am_I.gif" height="320" width="320" /></a></div>
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</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">My favorite quote about church is
this: “The gift of community is to be
absolved of the burden to be complete.” We have nothing to lose but our fear when we surrender
to community, when we allow the community and God working through it to be what
we aren’t capable of at the moment.
Trouble is, we’re not very practiced in communicating our fears, our
honest fears, to one another, because we’re afraid of how we might appear to
others—weak, incapable, incomplete, imperfect—vulnerable. </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">When thoughts start racing, when we
begin the cycle of worry and dread, when we project into the future in a
negative way—that is when we need to stop and realize that we are setting on
minds not on divine things but on human things.
Fear is the source of that horrid feeling in the pit of our stomachs,
and that source is not the Source of All That Is, that Ground of All Being in
which all of us are found. </span></span></span></div>
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span></span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">There are very few people on this planet
who have mastered their fear and are solely focused on love, and even they have
their bad days. But that’s the
transformation we’re headed for. That’s
our salvation, our evolution. And that’s
why we need Jesus, the one whose deep love transforms our fear into a courageous
force of hope. If we’re going to master our
fear, we need a faithful, loyal Friend, especially one who has been through the
fire. And remember, he did say he would
rise again. Whatever we’re going through, we will rise again.</span></span></span></div>
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span></span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Denying ourselves and picking up our
cross can mean different things to each one of us. Ultimately, it is about leaving our fear
behind and shouldering the weight of love and trust and compassion. The cross is the way of transformation, the
way of becoming something altogether beautiful and new, the way of joy, the way
of becoming something like Jesus.</span></span></span></div>
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span></span></span><br />
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</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">And who is this Jesus? Who do we say that he is? That’s up to each of us to answer for
ourselves. The key then is to follow
that Jesus wherever he leads, even if, especially if it looks like we might
lose the life we now have, that we might gain the life of the gospel, the life
of the good news of transformation. </span></span></span></div>
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</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><i>(reveal
back of t-shirt)</i></span></span></span></div>
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<br /></div>
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-FhuhADMCy2w/VP8wNkPZkaI/AAAAAAAAC8g/bvPRF6Z46HQ/s1600/Loser2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-FhuhADMCy2w/VP8wNkPZkaI/AAAAAAAAC8g/bvPRF6Z46HQ/s1600/Loser2.jpg" height="180" width="320" /></a></div>
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><i> </i> </span></span></span></div>
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span></span></span><br />
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<br /></div>
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span></span></span><span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span></span></span><br />
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<br /></div>
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">What are our deepest fears
about being in community, in this faith community? Right now, in our hearts and minds, let us allow
them to be transformed into our greatest hope and let that hope be our prayer. By admitting our fear, its grip has been
loosened and it has become a part of the past.
Now, from this day forward, may we be filled with hope. Amen.</span></span></span></div>
<span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span></span><br />
<div style="mso-element: footnote-list;">
<br clear="all" />
<hr align="left" size="1" width="33%" />
<div id="ftn1" style="mso-element: footnote;">
<a href="https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=16525298#_ftnref1" name="_ftn1" style="mso-footnote-id: ftn1;" title=""><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="mso-special-character: footnote;"><span class="MsoFootnoteReference"><span style="font-family: "Times New Roman","serif"; font-size: 12.0pt; line-height: 115%; mso-ansi-language: EN-US; mso-bidi-language: AR-SA; mso-fareast-font-family: "Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-language: EN-US;">[1]</span></span></span></span></a>
<span style="font-family: "Verdana","sans-serif"; font-size: 9.0pt;">Bob Kaylor,
Senior Writer at <i style="mso-bidi-font-style: normal;">HomileticsOnline</i> and
Senior Minister of the Park City United Methodist Church in Park City, Utah.</span><br />
<div class="MsoFootnoteText">
<br /></div>
</div>
</div>
Cynthiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16189485834914559162noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-16525298.post-82617477788891114322015-02-24T10:00:00.000-05:002015-03-10T14:03:03.339-04:00Trusting God<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
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<![endif]--><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"><a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+9%3A+8-17+&version=NRSV" target="_blank">Genesis 9: 8-17 </a><br /><span style="color: cyan;">New Ark United Church of Christ, Newark, DE <br />February 22, 2015</span></span></span><br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ZPJ8k_xAh0w/VP8pcYA58eI/AAAAAAAAC7s/VprMmdTZBvk/s1600/TrustingGod.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-ZPJ8k_xAh0w/VP8pcYA58eI/AAAAAAAAC7s/VprMmdTZBvk/s1600/TrustingGod.jpg" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-size: 14.0pt;"><span style="mso-tab-count: 1;"> </span></span><span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">The summer I turned 15 I was enrolled at a day camp as a counselor in training. One of the requirements of our training was that we would take a course in junior lifesaving in the freshwater pond where the camp was located. I had had rigorous swimming lessons since I was 8 years old but mostly in clear, chlorinated, heated pools. I didn’t know any of my fellow CITs outside of that camp. And our instructor was a handsome, burly 19 year old college student from UMass Amherst who looked like he was 25. To say the least, I was a bit intimidated by the thought of learning how to rescue someone from drowning.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"> I
suffered through leg cramps, swimmer’s ear, sunburn, sunfish nipping at my
toes, and an endurance swim around the perimeter of the pond. Finally it came time for our final exam. Our class was divided into rescuers and
victims, each of us taking our turn being one or the other. I got to be victim to a girl I had become
friends with over the summer. Her name
was Lisa.</span></span></span></div>
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"> I
admired Lisa because she was a strong swimmer.
She had chutzpah and a healthy sense of self-deprecating humor. She had even managed to tow our nearly 200
lb. instructor Steve in a training exercise.
She impressed me because Lisa was only about 4 ft. tall.</span></span></span></div>
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"> When
it came time for us victims to perform our role, Steve would give a ‘thumbs up’
or ‘thumbs down’: down meant we would be
completely passive as victims, limp, floating, perhaps feigning
unconsciousness. Thumbs up meant an
active victim: thrashing, panicking, yelling, even attempting to grab onto our
rescuer. Steve game me a thumbs up. Since I was over a foot taller than Lisa, I
didn’t have the heart to grab onto her.
Instead I dunked her.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"> She
came up in the same spot in front of me.
I dunked her again. Her head
popped up right in front of me once more.
And I dunked her! This was more
fun than swimming with my brother. I was
actually given permission to dunk someone again and again!</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"> Finally,
Lisa remembered what she was supposed to do with an active victim. She swam away from me underwater, and from a
safe distance she instructed me with what she was going to do and what she
expected of me. She then pushed a
floatation device toward me, I grabbed onto it and she towed me to the dock.</span></span></span></div>
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"> I
had pushed her down, beneath the water.
Her head went down, the water closed in over her, the bubbles rising
above her. Not just once but three
times. Creator, Son, and Holy Spirit.</span></span></span></div>
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"> Life
can feel like that sometimes. We think
we’re doing all the right things, trying to be good people who sometimes cause
others grief. Then suddenly we’re under the
water, pushed down, what sustains us slowly leaking out of us.</span></span></span></div>
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"> Now,
not to trivialize the flood story, God drowning the wicked multitudes and
saving the righteous few, but life isn’t always a direct cause-and-effect
universe. Most of the time, we know
better than to blame God when our lives are pushed down. God promises Noah and his descendants that
never again will God flood the earth and destroy human beings. We no longer call a flood an ‘act of God’ but
an act of nature. Scientists would call
them random events mixed with the effects of a human population interacting
with the environment. Physicists would
quote the second law of thermodynamics, leaving God entirely out of the
picture.</span></span></span></div>
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"> But
for we who believe and seek a relationship with the divine, God promises ‘never
again’. What then does that mean? What does this covenant hold for us? That God’s justice will no longer look like
human revenge? That by putting God’s
bow up in the sky, our God is a God of nonviolence? That God will not punish but teach? Yes, all this and something much
simpler. ‘Never again’, laying down
one’s weapon and promising peace is a way of saying ‘you can trust me’.</span></span></span></div>
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ibyUeRNfFFw/VP8pd7-3LaI/AAAAAAAAC74/zGpOjq8Qgvw/s1600/Ubuntu.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-ibyUeRNfFFw/VP8pd7-3LaI/AAAAAAAAC74/zGpOjq8Qgvw/s1600/Ubuntu.png" height="320" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
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<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"> Love
requires total disarmament. The love of God requires the Almighty to be as
helpless and as trusting as an infant.
God becomes vulnerable with us and to us. God reveals the soft underbelly of the divine
heart, seeking a relationship, a connection—not only with human beings but with
all of creation. </span></span></span></div>
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span></span></span><br />
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<br /></div>
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span></span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"> But
the words ‘trust me’ are ones that we post-modern folk can often regard with
suspicion, even if it just happens to be the Almighty saying them. I have a plaque with a saying attributed to
Mother Teresa: “I know God won’t give
me any more than I can handle. I just
wish he didn’t trust me so much.” And we
can all think of those times when we’ve had more than we thought we could
handle. As if we had been pushed down
under the water.</span></span></span></div>
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span></span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt;">
<br /></div>
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span></span></span><br />
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">So what does it mean to
trust God? Well, think of the people you
trust, with whom you can be your most vulnerable self. What is it that makes them so
trustworthy? What qualities do they
possess? Usually these are folks we can
believe in, that is to say, they have integrity, their insides match their
outside—they are authentic.</span></span></span></div>
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span></span></span><br />
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<br /></div>
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span></span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">When we say we believe
in Jesus, what the Church ought to mean when it says that is that we believe,
we trust that he is the authentic, utterly faithful image of the fullness of
God. Recall these words from Jesus’
baptism: “And just as he was coming up
out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like
a dove on him. And a voice came from
heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.’” We look to Jesus, his actions, his teachings,
his authenticity as one who fully embodies God’s law and love.</span></span></span></div>
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span></span></span><br />
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<br /></div>
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span></span></span><br />
<div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0.0001pt; text-indent: 0.5in;">
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Due mainly to the
Enlightenment in the 18<sup>th</sup> century, the words ‘trust’, ‘believe’, and
‘faith’ have come more to mean to ascribe to a creed or doctrine or religious
code. Originally, these words had more
to do with loyalty and relationship than with any kind of test. The word ‘believe’ comes from an old English
word which means ‘to belove’. When we
say we believe in Jesus, we believe in God, we believe in the Holy Spirit, what
we’re really saying is that we belove them.
We have a relationship with them.
We trust them. We trust that when
a promise is made, that it will be fulfilled; that we are unconditionally
loved; that when we are reaching for the surface, we will be raised up; that
the kingdom of God truly indeed dwells within us and amongst us.</span></span></span></div>
<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">
</span></span></span><br />
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<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-p1UxLiLJKnY/VP8pcNdfiRI/AAAAAAAAC7o/9Dc8rpJaq1g/s1600/TrustGod.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-p1UxLiLJKnY/VP8pcNdfiRI/AAAAAAAAC7o/9Dc8rpJaq1g/s1600/TrustGod.jpg" height="320" width="320" /></a></div>
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">The opposite of faith
and trust is not doubt but anxiety, worry, panic, fear—the very emotions that can
lead to drowning. Think about how often
during the course of the day you are worried, anxious, fearful. Think about those times you have felt those
feelings at church. Are there people
here with whom you can share your anxiety, your worries, your fears? Is this a church where these feelings are
talked about openly and authentically or with only a few? Is this a church where we trust each other?</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Keeping our anxiety,
worry and fear to ourselves is what makes us feel like we’ve gone under the
water, is what drives apart community and gets us feeling as though we are in
the dark. When a community, a church
operates from within those murky shadows, all of the decisions made, even with
the best of intentions, contain within them an undercurrent of anxiety and
worry. Being open and honest about these
feelings takes away their power over us, bringing the light of God into that
shadowy place. Believing in one another,
being faithful in our commitment to each other, trusting that everyone is doing
the best they can with what they’ve got—this is how we rise out of the watery
depths, it’s what brings us together, and gives our life together meaning. This is what makes a church feel like home.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Jesus said, “Love one
another as I have loved you.” Said
another way, “Belove one another as I have beloved you. Believe in one another as I have believed in
you.” </span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">To trust God is to
belove one another, to believe in one another.
To trust God is to be who we really are, our authentic selves. To trust God is to go under that water
knowing that we will rise with the Spirit.
To trust God is to allow ourselves to be driven out into the wilderness,
to be tended to by angels, and to keep following Jesus, even as he heads toward
Jerusalem.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;"> A
life built on the trust of God may seem like a fairytale to some, crazy to
others, and there are days we wonder what’s in it for us. A life built on the trust of God certainly is
no rose garden. I’m not being flip when
I say Jesus trusted God and look what happened to him.</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">I’d like to share with
you a quote by one of my favorite authors, <a href="http://www.samirselmanovic.com/" target="_blank">Samir Selmanovic.</a> He grew up in what was Yugoslavia, the son of
a Muslim father and a Christian mother.
He was raised culturally Muslim but as for religion he was raised as an
atheist. At 18 he began his compulsory
service in the army and it was through a friendship there that he converted to
Christianity. His family disowned him,
throwing him out of the house, and it was years later before he was able to
reconcile with them. He is now a
Christian pastor and the founder of an interfaith community called <a href="http://www.faithhousemanhattan.org/" target="_blank">Faith House Manhattan.</a> He says this about what is
promised in following Jesus:</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">“Jesus offered a single
incentive to follow him…to summarize his selling point: ‘Follow me, and you
might be happy—or you might not. Follow me, and you might be empowered—or you
might not. Follow me, and you might have more friends—or you might not. Follow
me, and you might have the answers—or you might not. Follow me, and you might
be better off—or you might not. If you follow me, you may be worse off in every
way you use to measure life. Follow me nevertheless. Because I have an offer
that is worth giving up everything you have: you will learn to love well.’”</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Trusting God, trusting in
Jesus, trusting the unpredictable Spirit means we will learn to love well, to
be forgiving, accepting, and compassionate—even when we’ve been pushed under
the water. Because trusting God also
means that we will learn to be loved well, to be beloved, to know these words
to be true: “You are my child, the
Beloved. With you I am well-pleased.”</span></span></span></div>
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<span style="color: cyan;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif;">Amen.</span></span></span></div>
Cynthiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16189485834914559162noreply@blogger.com0