tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4404423212308226452024-03-20T08:12:16.348-07:00IrrevrentCynthiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16189485834914559162noreply@blogger.comBlogger375125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-440442321230822645.post-62203540431103934182024-03-13T10:29:00.000-07:002024-03-18T07:43:25.945-07:00Lost and found<div style="text-align: left;"> <table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgb-E_nW0NcpJIIq86tpAYR6fiD9nZR-i33cxGewEAwJEkVKHlN6Z3uosubu9qOB9bNMYDXrE32WE26-of9GfdDuHn8q-pO5i6r5SFOJENf3QCq8Ax70QUq_M75WX8x30sbq0ELGwWDNoQw3231QTSwwCXc_fXLvOdRsh5y_-W05HTJhEGGBLQ_Eh2KIvJO" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1383" data-original-width="1844" height="472" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgb-E_nW0NcpJIIq86tpAYR6fiD9nZR-i33cxGewEAwJEkVKHlN6Z3uosubu9qOB9bNMYDXrE32WE26-of9GfdDuHn8q-pO5i6r5SFOJENf3QCq8Ax70QUq_M75WX8x30sbq0ELGwWDNoQw3231QTSwwCXc_fXLvOdRsh5y_-W05HTJhEGGBLQ_Eh2KIvJO=w640-h472" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A towel laid on a kitchen counter with about five dozen shells on it, mostly scallops of varying sizes and hues (blues, grays, calico, cream, brown, one gorgeous large orange/peach one), two incomplete large whelks, a couple of nautilus shells, some small white scallop shells, and a few of what I call slipper shells because when you turn them over, they look like bed slippers.<br /><br /><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;">I can hardly walk a beach</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;">without looking down</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;">colors </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;">textures</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;">treasures</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;">as light and water play</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;">over</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;">under</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;">rattling shells and rocks</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-size: x-large;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet;">like </span><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet;">teeth chattering</span></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;">ice cubes tumbling</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;">dice rolling</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;">maybe I'll get lucky</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;">this time a shark eye</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;">moon snail</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;">scallop</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;">whelk</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;">I dropped one </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;">while picking up another</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;">then retraced my steps</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;">to find it again</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;">Doesn't matter where I am</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;">New Zealand</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;">Kauai</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;">Lewes</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;">Cape Cod</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;">I look as if I've</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;">lost something</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;">don't have enough</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;">ah but the joy that comes</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;">when attention has been given</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;">I look down</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;">for the same reasons</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;">others look up</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;">wonder</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;">beauty</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;">delight</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;">a whole other world</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;">hope</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;">and hope once more</span></div>Cynthiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16189485834914559162noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-440442321230822645.post-62203580364612628122023-12-28T15:40:00.000-08:002023-12-28T15:40:19.523-08:00Every child, a universe<p> </p><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><a href="https://bible.oremus.org/?ql=570805728" target="_blank">Luke 2: 1-16</a><br /><a href="https://fb.watch/pdLgY3dkKj/" target="_blank">New Ark United Church of Christ, Newark, DE</a><br />Christmas Eve 2023</span><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjxP1stbfqN3Nbcm1Yxsy2Lr4Ta0fCZka6535oniixbfjzUmUMuuRwvY5SFy5s4PEaUz6en2BxNHvXADcAqnY3k0ShhnSV2Gdm9uCxQAuSErswEupGS3tigIuS80KzaY0wlDSNHjkxbwQFZkyDZXF6vcQOPI9qgy85Yx9hfYthl5kTZHFnqGTo4GP2_bIgT" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="683" data-original-width="1024" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjxP1stbfqN3Nbcm1Yxsy2Lr4Ta0fCZka6535oniixbfjzUmUMuuRwvY5SFy5s4PEaUz6en2BxNHvXADcAqnY3k0ShhnSV2Gdm9uCxQAuSErswEupGS3tigIuS80KzaY0wlDSNHjkxbwQFZkyDZXF6vcQOPI9qgy85Yx9hfYthl5kTZHFnqGTo4GP2_bIgT=w640-h426" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo of the nativity scene at Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church in Bethlehem. A baby doll wrapped in a keffiyeh lying in a pile of rubble with a candle burning and wooden figurines of Mary, Joseph, a shepherd, three Magi and a sheep look on. <a href="https://time.com/6550851/bethlehem-christmas-sermon-nativity-rubble/" target="_blank">Original photo can be found here.</a></td></tr></tbody></table><br /> <br /><br /><br />When I first started in ministry as a young associate pastor, my colleague Bill Youngkin and his wife Betty, who was a professor at the University of Dayton, would invite me over to their house every now and then for lunch after church. Sometimes their young adult children, Molly and Jeremy, would be there, home from college or graduate school. I remember being intrigued at the way Betty and Bill would talk with Jeremy and Molly, not like their offspring but like separate and independent adults, as though they were speaking with colleagues or close friends. <br /><br /> <br /><br />I couldn’t remember ever having witnessed parents speaking to their young adult children like that. Sorry, Mom, I’m too close to be objective in our case. It made such an impression on me that I promised myself that I would do the same, that I would raise my children with the knowledge that they are separate and independent people and not an extension of myself or my ego. Of course, I haven’t always succeeded. From the moment our children enter our lives, they begin their path away from us and we are continually learning to let go in big and small ways. <br /><br /> <br /><br />I recently read a poem entitled <a href="https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php/?story_fbid=256133056934520&id=100076134828159" target="_blank">“Just Let Them” by Cassie Phillips</a> and it’s about parents who are alienated from their children but it’s also about letting go of our needs when it comes to our children. <br /><br /> <br /><br />If they want to choose something or someone over you, LET THEM. <br /><br />If they want to go weeks without talking to you, LET THEM. <br /><br />If they are okay with never seeing you, LET THEM. <br /><br />If they are okay with always putting themselves first, LET THEM. <br /><br />If they are showing you who they are <br /><br />and not what you perceived them to be, LET THEM. <br /><br />If they want to follow the crowd, LET THEM. <br /><br />If they want to judge or misunderstand you, LET THEM. <br /><br />If they act like they can live without you, LET THEM. <br /><br />If they want to walk out of your life and leave, <br /><br />hold the door open, AND LET THEM. <br /><br />Let them lose you. <br /><br /> <br /><br />Aaaand once again, you may be saying to yourself, this is pretty depressing, this is not why I came to church tonight, and yet Christmas is about two parents who raised a child who was utterly not theirs. A child who stayed behind in Jerusalem when he was twelve and questioned the temple priests and scholars, rebuked his parents when they desperately went searching for him, and as an adult referred to his mother as “Woman”. <br /><br /> <br /><br />It was <a href="https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/notes-house-bondage/" target="_blank">James Baldwin who said</a> that the children are always ours, every single one of them, all over the globe, and that whoever is incapable of recognizing this may be incapable of morality. They are ours to care for, ours to provide safety and the secure knowledge that there is nothing they can do to lose our love for them, but they do not belong to us. Just as it is not good for a sapling to grow in the shadow of the mighty oak that produced it, so too the love that we give is one that gives light and space and freedom so that they can become themselves. <br /><br /> <br /><br />Every child, every human being is a universe unto themselves, waiting to be discovered, for us to be curious about them, their ideas, their unique view of the world and the gifts they have to bring to it. <a href="https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-art-now/201905/who-has-loved-you-being" target="_blank">Mister Rogers said,</a> “Love is at the root of everything. All learning. All parenting. All relationships. Love, or the lack of it.” And in all this time we have yet to bring love to our governance, to healthcare and housing, to education and to employment, to our foreign policy, to our neighborhoods. Every child lost to war, to violence, to hate and bigotry is a devastating loss not only to the here and now but to the future. Every Trayvon Martin, every Breonna Taylor, every Matthew Shepard, every Leelah Alcorn, every child at the border, every child in Palestine and Israel, in Sudan and the Congo, in Ukraine and Russia. <br /><br /> <br /><br />Christmas could’ve been a story about a god-man who came with the heavenly host, an angel army to defeat the powers of evil. Or an earthly army joined in a war against the occupying Roman Empire. That is what some people want now. <br /><br /> <br /><br />Instead, Christmas is a story of courage and ordinary human beings who give love and safety to a child in such a way that when he is grown, he can give himself to the world and change it, change people’s lives. Would that we do that for every child, for that is certainly what they need and deserve. Jesus placed a child in the midst of his disciples and said, “Truly, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kin-dom of heaven...and whoever welcomes one such child, welcomes me.” <br /><br /> <br /><br />This morning we prayed these words: “We pray for our children, which is every child everywhere, by undoing our complacency in their demise. By throwing sand in the machine of their destruction. By co-creating a world where gentleness is our guide and our movements across the earth are so reverent that we dare not wake a sleeping child. For when children are free, we all are free.” Amen.</span></div><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br />Benediction – <a href="https://rachelhackenberg.com/advent-iii-fire/" target="_blank">Rachel Hackenberg</a><br /><br /><br />Light the lamp of gladness.<br />Burn the fire of freedom.<br />Bring candles aplenty<br /> so that no one in despair lacks comfort.<br />Fuel thanksgiving like a beacon for praise.<br />Spark goodness for warmth<br /> when the night runs too long and cold.<br />Testify to joy,<br /> now and always,<br /> until dawn’s light is eternal.</span>Cynthiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16189485834914559162noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-440442321230822645.post-70113888317900565622023-12-27T12:34:00.000-08:002024-01-05T06:20:47.314-08:00God dressed up as our lives<p> </p><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><a href="https://bible.oremus.org/?ql=570706749" target="_blank">Luke 1: 26-38</a><br /><a href="https://fb.watch/pceD2wVXdH/" target="_blank">New Ark United Church of Christ, Newark, DE</a><br />December 24, 2023</span><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div><div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicEzMDXXnBZKny0gbKLRr1yKDfcgXYHc0pesy0_qBJeFqWfx2hk8ztpEygW1XUpXs0agFweHeUPAsvlmYZOxp0RFogZ71g4e6mF5OswEn3Jnmpm52hES5AbAm1y47UOY0t4ww-rxGzDXhM_OoQ6M3EIG9uNRg0kGMk82-opoyHS46t3FjzLfMnvD1hiIB_/s960/OhCrap.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="618" data-original-width="960" height="412" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEicEzMDXXnBZKny0gbKLRr1yKDfcgXYHc0pesy0_qBJeFqWfx2hk8ztpEygW1XUpXs0agFweHeUPAsvlmYZOxp0RFogZ71g4e6mF5OswEn3Jnmpm52hES5AbAm1y47UOY0t4ww-rxGzDXhM_OoQ6M3EIG9uNRg0kGMk82-opoyHS46t3FjzLfMnvD1hiIB_/w640-h412/OhCrap.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://nbc24.com/news/local/virgin-mary-shown-with-positive-pregnancy-test" target="_blank">Painting from a billboard in New Zealand, 2011,</a> of a White woman dressed in a blue head covering, brown robe, red hooded tunic over a white undergarment, blue skirt, looking at a pregnancy test wand with her hand over her mouth and a thoughtful look on her face.</td></tr></tbody></table><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /><br /><br /><a href="https://www.redbirdfoundation.com/about/" target="_blank">Author Paula D’Arcy</a> wrote, “God comes to you disguised as your life”. So, because we’ve heard the story year after year, perhaps it’s not hard to imagine God disguised as a conversation between an angel and a young woman about how God will come disguised as baby who will change the world. But even Mary was perplexed by the angel’s greeting, the <a href="https://biblehub.com/greek/1298.htm" target="_blank">only time this word occurs</a> in the Bible. Sure, people have been troubled, confused, bewildered, afraid, hesitant and resistant when God showed up and told them how their lives would change because God had something for them to do and be. But Mary is the only one who gets to be perplexed, and as the younger generations say, yeah, that tracks. <br /><br /> <br /><br />So, she asks a question, <i>the</i> question: “How can this be?” It can be tempting to think of Mary being meek and accepting but remember she’s talking to an <i>angel</i>. A being of power and agency. I’m thinking she comes back at this angel with an attitude of “You’re the reason I’m so perplexed, so explain yourself”. God may be disguised as her life, but she’s the one who will carry this baby amidst gossip under the gaze of everyone. Mary is humble, but she is also self-possessed. <br /><br /> <br /><br />Over the years people have wondered and asked, <a href="https://www.facebook.com/profile/100001199607005/search/?q=her%20body%20her%20choice" target="_blank">“Did Mary have a choice?”</a> Did she really have the freedom to say no? After all, pregnancy is always a risk, especially in that time for someone so young and as yet unmarried. If we read this through the lens of patriarchy, then no, she didn’t have a choice, rather she was obedient. Which kinda makes God into a monster who’s into power and control when it comes to the bodies of those who can give birth. But if we read it through the lens of liberation, Mary is a willing participant in the deliverance of her people, not only a servant of the Lord but an instrument of God’s peace, a driver of God’s justice. In Eastern Christianity she is Theotokos: one who bears, wears God into the world. <br /><br /> <br /><br />And yet God coming to us disguised as our lives doesn’t mean everything that happens to us—both good and bad—is God. Like the so-called prosperity gospel that says that God rewards faith with wealth and well-being. Or that God disguised as our lives means everything happens for a reason. Or that there’s a silver lining in everything. Or that there’s a purpose for or redemption in our suffering. Nope. That’s not the theology of liberation, but one that keeps us in our place, whatever that place is. It keeps the privileged in power and the oppressed thankful for what they have. <br /><br /> <br /><br />God coming to us disguised as our lives has more to do with what God can do through us, when we bear God, wear God into the world. Sometimes when God shows up disguised as our lives, it’s at a time when we have no choice at all, when our life has been changed beyond our control. <br /><br /> <br /><br />Two pink lines on that home Covid test. <br /><br />What do you mean, I have cancer? <br /><br />Come quickly if you want to say goodbye. <br /><br />There is a tornado warning in your area. <br /><br /> <br /><br />And then God comes to us disguised as the keening sound of grief, as the fervent one-word prayers of help, please, and the raw angry ones too, as stunned silence, and as our questions: “How can this be? Where are you, God? Who am I now?” <br /><br /> <br /><br />Once again, you may say, “This sounds pretty depressing, this isn’t why I came to church today”, but if it’s one thing Advent is about, it’s love, and love is messy and heartbreaking as much as it is beautiful and life-giving, and so is Christmas. And so God comes to us disguised as our lives but also as love. And community. As generosity and giving. As friendship and belonging. As people disrupting their lives for us and ours for them. God coming to us disguised as our lives has more to do with what God can do through us, when we bear God, wear God into the world. <br /><br /> <br /><br />God disguised as our lives, the emptying of God into human lives, God comes to us dressed up as an immigrant and a refugee, as a drag queen and a non-binary person, as a trans teen and a young Black mother, as a disabled person and a drug user, as queer old man and an autistic toddler, as a gun-violence survivor and a homeless veteran, as Palestinian children and as victims of antisemitism, into lives whose choices have been limited by others. <br /><br /> <br /><br />Your healthcare is banned because of your gender or gender identity. <br /><br />We have money for war but not for your housing or mental health. <br /><br />We need you to wait just a little longer to raise the minimum wage. <br /><br />You are not welcome here because of the country you come from. <br /><br /> <br /><br />God comes to us dressed up as our lives, as love, as community, because there are people who don’t know that God, the holy, the sacred mystery of being, is disguised as their lives and that they are good news for God’s people. That they are enough. That they are worthy. That they are not broken, the world is, and we all have a part to play in its repair and its wholeness. God comes dressed up as our lives so that we can be willing participants in our liberation, in the deliverance of all people, including the privileged and the powerful from their self-interest and that includes us. <br /><br /> <br /><br />When we begin to understand that the holy is dressed up as us, each one of us, that we bear, that we wear God into the world, we begin to understand how Mary could come to a place where she could say “Let it be with me according to your word”. Where it’s not just me, it’s not just you, it’s everyone, everywhere, all at once. Where we no longer have to compete for the truth because it’s all true and none of it gets near the truth. Where if we can’t recognize God dressed up as the next person we meet, we might as well give up (Gandhi). Yet God doesn’t give up on us, so long as we don’t up on each other. <br /><br /> <br /><br />I have faith in God, in the holy, in the sacred mystery of life and love that hums through all of us. Where I lack faith is in my faith in humanity—in humanity’s ability to recognize God dressed up as our lives. And so, God I believe—help my unbelief. But I can only do that one person at a time. Here am I, servant of the Lord. Let it be with me according to your word. Amen. <br /><br /> <br /></span><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: 115%; margin-bottom: 0in;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;">Benediction – enfleshed.com (adapted) <br /><br /> <br /><br /></span></p><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;">The Christ Child is born under rubble<br />and we have work to do to free ourselves<br />from systems of violence that make this possible.<br />So go forth changing your life and being changed by others’ lives.<br />Go forth knowing and hoping<br />God comes to us disguised as our lives. Amen.</span><br /> <span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"></span></div></div>Cynthiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16189485834914559162noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-440442321230822645.post-43756183213172612152023-12-19T09:48:00.000-08:002023-12-19T09:49:24.540-08:00Mary made it happen<span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><a href="https://bible.oremus.org/?ql=570007509" target="_blank">Luke 1: 46b-55</a><br /><a href="https://fb.watch/p1zIgf909f/" target="_blank">New Ark United Church of Christ, Newark, DE</a><br />December 17, 2023</span><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNtWkKTUW78Uy4ISMlDCM2Sv87ap8CIvJKIr1EjJC6YaozpQgC7B8-z71whTXHd8aF_-gkjg7olQSsmWoleSDd9f56831LsmIBaOfcEOBNfl_TO75NMv9lc1pm-dCkVwJT_ExH1fEcyQ7LUcwudLkJZqN4PDjS4ch1O_qcJYghyphenhyphenosq0CxRfDMF7OdIS6A6/s3000/Itsawonderfullife-videoSixteenByNine3000.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="1689" data-original-width="3000" height="360" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNtWkKTUW78Uy4ISMlDCM2Sv87ap8CIvJKIr1EjJC6YaozpQgC7B8-z71whTXHd8aF_-gkjg7olQSsmWoleSDd9f56831LsmIBaOfcEOBNfl_TO75NMv9lc1pm-dCkVwJT_ExH1fEcyQ7LUcwudLkJZqN4PDjS4ch1O_qcJYghyphenhyphenosq0CxRfDMF7OdIS6A6/w640-h360/Itsawonderfullife-videoSixteenByNine3000.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Still shot from the movie "It's a Wonderful Life". From the last scene at George and Mary's house. Mary and George are surrounded by their children, George's mother and Mary's mother, as they all look at Uncle Billy.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">Every year, some time between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day, I watch the beloved film <i>It’s a Wonderful Life</i> and inflict it on my family. I say that only because no one loves it like I do. Perhaps because of its popularity the film has received a fair amount of criticism, that the source of George’s angst is that he only thinks of himself, or that the only official Black character in the movie is Annie, the Bailey’s housekeeper, or that the movie is more depressing than uplifting.</div><br /> <br /><br />The one part about George not being born that always bugged me, that Mary would become what was called “an old maid”, mousy and dowdy, working in a library, as though that was tragic. I think we now know that librarians are superheroes. Which is also true of Mary Hatch Bailey. If it wasn’t for Mary, this story would not happen. <br /><br /> <br /><br />It’s Mary who sets her heart on George and loves him no matter what. It’s Mary who wants to live in the old Granville house and fixes it up. It’s Mary who brings out the honeymoon money to help save the Building and Loan. It’s Mary who sends people out all over town asking the townsfolk to help George. <br /><br /> <br /><br />George needs the inbreaking of God through the guidance of an angel named Clarence to discover that he already has a wonderful life. Mary is the one who makes the wonderful life happen. If anyone deserves to get their wings, it’s Mary. <br /><br /> <br /><br />The same holds true for Mary the mother of Jesus. It was Mary who said “yes” to the angel Gabriel. It was Mary who first risked her life for Jesus. It was Mary who sang a song of joyful justice, in a long line of women who sang songs of how the world will change because God works through the lives of the oppressed and marginalized. <br /><br /> <br /><br />Mary made the joy happen. Not a giddy, happy joy but a joy that propels us forward like a river current. Not a joy of the moment but a deeper joy that can sustains us through a lifetime. Not a joy that wipes away sadness but a joy that sits next to our sadness and our anxiety and our weariness. A joy that invites us to seek out what is possible.</span></div><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /><br /> The joy that Mary sings of is one that lifts up the lowly and feeds the hungry with good things. A joy that not only says the world can be different from this, but that it should be different from this. A joy that moves us forward. A joy that says if we are lowly, we will be lifted up. If we are hungry for justice, we will be filled. If we are rich, we will be sent away empty-handed, which is a joyful thing to participate in the healing and restoration of God’s creation. If we are questioning our place in God’s kin-dom, we need to know we are blessed, favored, and loved as we are. And Mary made it happen. Thanks be to God.</span></div><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /><br />Benediction – enfleshed.com <br /><br /><br />The Holy waits for us in the morning like a cup of tea.<br />They wait for us in the day like the bridge of a song who wants to be sung.<br />They wait for us in the evening like a lover.<br />The World to Come beckons us—do you sense Her invitation?<br />Let us meet Her with Wild Hope.<br />Let us meet her with Joy.</span>Cynthiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16189485834914559162noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-440442321230822645.post-32823082867378520122023-12-19T09:31:00.000-08:002023-12-19T09:33:23.015-08:00The ABCs of Christmas congregational play (adapted)<div style="text-align: left;"> <span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><a href="https://bible.oremus.org/?ql=570007105" target="_blank">Luke 1: 46b-55</a></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><a href="https://fb.watch/p1zm1uWWoP/" target="_blank">New Ark United Church of Christ, Newark, DE</a></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;">December 17, 2023</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiyMDhs9WP2lXiNR_WzyjRbIqObs767uNxAwVq0hpFm0JavmhP_C3Hd8TcHVBZbwG611ZPjzLrl9pDt8fdmB2xb90ZBgawGzpLfS6XIy1_jNTL-EUh_iec60XirRFzs6XDCw5lftdWhiugAs1k6BRra7Ga5kxJ9-562sc5SzCFYkRlnYQGTjcwvm52Dn1ep" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="510" data-original-width="919" height="356" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEiyMDhs9WP2lXiNR_WzyjRbIqObs767uNxAwVq0hpFm0JavmhP_C3Hd8TcHVBZbwG611ZPjzLrl9pDt8fdmB2xb90ZBgawGzpLfS6XIy1_jNTL-EUh_iec60XirRFzs6XDCw5lftdWhiugAs1k6BRra7Ga5kxJ9-562sc5SzCFYkRlnYQGTjcwvm52Dn1ep=w640-h356" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Still shot from a video of adults dressed as characters in a Nativity scene: Mary and Joseph, three wise ones, three sheep, three shepherds, and the star. <a href="https://youtu.be/suowe2czxcA?si=FjRwmrYcTZGJ6f50" target="_blank">The video can be found here.</a></td></tr></tbody></table><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><i>Every year on the third Sunday of Advent, we have done an original Christmas play. This year my co-playwright was exhausted from her work and so I decided to give us all a much-needed break by having worshipers read a short script, interspersed with Christmas carols. I taped the letters of the alphabet in order around the room and people sat where their part was labeled so the microphone could be passed easily. Three people in our Zoom room read the J, the O, and the Y parts...see what I did there?</i></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><i>The children and I did sound effects. Every time we heard the following words, we made a sound.</i></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><i>Angel(s): Aahhh (a single note)</i></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><i>Mary: *Sigh*</i></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><i>Joseph: Wow</i></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><i>Jesus: a soft baby cry</i></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><i><br /></i></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><i>What follows is an adaptation from these two sites: <a href="https://youngclergywomen.org/the-abcs-of-christmas-a-worship-service/" target="_blank">The Young Clergy Women International</a> and <a href="https://fatpastor.me/2013/12/19/interactive-christmas-eve-service-the-abcs-of-christmas/" target="_blank">Fat Pastor.</a></i></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /><b>A</b> is for an angel, named Gabriel, who began the story by telling Mary:<br /> <br /> <br /><br />“You are truly blessed! The Lord is with you. …Then the angel told Mary, “Don't be afraid! God is pleased with you, and you will have a son. His name will be Jesus.” <br /><br /> <br /><br /><b>B</b> is for Bethlehem, where our story takes place. People traveled from far and wide to get to Bethlehem, which was not a very big village but a busy place nonetheless.<br /><br /> <br /><br /><b>C</b> is for Census, which means counting all the people. The reason so many people filled the city of Bethlehem. <br /><br /> <br /><br /><b>D</b> is for the donkey that Mary and Joseph brought with them for the long journey to Bethlehem. <br /><br /><br /><br /><b>E</b> is for exhausted. That’s how everyone felt when they arrived – exhausted from all the traveling. <br /><br /> <br /><br /><b>F</b> is for family: Joseph and Mary, and their new baby Jesus, who was born that night in Bethlehem. <br /><br /> <br /><br />“…While they were there, she gave birth to her first-born son. She dressed him in bands of cloth and laid him on a bed of hay, because there was no room for them in the guest room.” <br /><br /> <br /><br /><b>G</b> is for Good News. Here is what the angels said: <br /><br /> <br /><br />That night in the fields near Bethlehem some shepherds were guarding their sheep. All at once an angel came down to them from the Lord, and the brightness of the Lord's glory flashed around them. The shepherds were frightened. But the angel said, “Don't be afraid! I have good news for you, which will make everyone happy. This very day in Bethlehem a Savior was born for you, who is Christ the Lord. You will know who he is, because you will find him dressed in bands of cloth and lying on a bed of hay.” <br /><br />Suddenly many other angels filled the night sky and joined in praising God. They said: <br /><br />“Praise God in heaven!<br /> Peace on earth to everyone<br /> with whom God is pleased.” <br /><br /> <br /><br /> Carol: "The First Nowell" (verses 1 & 2)<br /><br /> <br /><br /><b>H</b> is for Hope. Hope is having faith and working to make things better in this world. The birth of Jesus and the birth of every child is a source of hope. <br /><br /> <br /><br /><b>I</b> is for illumination, which means light, brightness. We celebrate Christmas with candlelight and Christmas lights. Illumination also means knowing something more about life and love and God. Jesus shows us more about what is important in life, how to love, and who God is.<br /><br /> <br /><br /><b>J</b> is for Joy. Today we light the Advent candle of Joy. Joy is a kind of happiness that is there even when life is hard. Joy keeps us going. Joy increases when it is shared. The birth of Jesus gives us joy. <br /><br /><br /><br /><b>K </b>is for kindness, for the relatives of Joseph who made room in their house for Mary and Joseph with the animals. <br /><br /><br /><br /><b>L</b> is for love. Jesus tells us to love God and to love our neighbor as ourselves. We share love with one another at Christmas and all through the year. <br /><br /> <br /><br /><b>M</b> is for manger, a place that holds hay for animals but also kept Jesus warm and safe after he was born.<br /><br /> <br /><br />Carol: "Away in a Manger" (verse 1)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /><b>N</b> is for Nativity, which means the place, the conditions, and the circumstances of being born. We put up nativity scenes to remind us of how Jesus was born. <br /><br /> <br /><br /><b>O</b> is for offering. There were gifts for Jesus when he was born. We give each other gifts at Christmas. Giving is a spiritual practice. We share what we have to help others.<br /><br /> <br /><br /><b>P</b> is for Peace. Peace is possible when we work for justice, when we listen to what people need to live whole lives. Jesus healed people, fed the hungry, told us to put down our swords, and love our enemies. <br /><br /><br /><br /><b>Q</b> is for questions. Did Jesus cry when he was a baby? Yes of course he did! What is frankincense and myrrh? Both are resins made from tree sap and they smell really nice when burned together. <br /><br /><br /><br /><b>R</b> is for reverence, which means to regard something as holy and sacred. The shepherds and the wise ones who brought gifts to Jesus had reverence for him and Mary and Joseph, which is why they kneeled before them. <br /><br /><br /><br /><b>S</b> is for star, the star that showed the shepherds and the wise ones how to find Jesus the night he was born.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br />Carol: "The First Nowell" (verses 3 - 5)</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /><b>T</b> is for togetherness, for gathering with family and friends, just as Mary and Joseph traveled to Bethlehem where Joseph’s family was from.<br /><br /> <br /><br /><b>U</b> is for unity, all different kinds of people brought together by Jesus’ birth to celebrate God’s love. <br /><br /><br /><br /><b>V</b> is for vulnerable. Vulnerable means “helpless, tender, and in need of care to be safe”. Every baby is vulnerable when it is born and needs to be protected and held. We all feel vulnerable throughout our lives and need love from God and each other and we need to give love. <br /><br /><br /><br /><b>W</b> is for wonder, like looking up at the night sky at all the stars and planets and the moon, looking at the world around us and how beautiful it is, realizing that we are small in this universe and yet there is no one else like us and we are not alone. <br /><br /><br /><br /><b>X</b> is for Christ. X is the Greek letter Chi, the first letter in the word “Christ”. The X is one of the most ancient symbols of Christianity. People have been using the letter X to stand for Christ for centuries.<br /><br /></span><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /><br /><b>Y</b> is for Yule, which is short for Yuletide, a winter festival from German peoples that was incorporated into our Christmas celebrations. For instance, carol singing is part of Yule. <br /><br /><br /><br /><b>Z</b> is for Zzzzzz and getting a good night’s sleep on Christmas Eve. Joseph, Mary, and Jesus fell asleep knowing they were safe and warm.</span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></p><p class="MsoNormal"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;">Carol: "Silent Night, Holy Night" (verse 1)</span></p><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"></span></div>Cynthiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16189485834914559162noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-440442321230822645.post-85172474184061559432023-12-12T11:41:00.000-08:002023-12-12T15:57:37.502-08:00The longest game<p> </p><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><a href="https://bible.oremus.org/?ql=569405358" target="_blank">2 Peter 3: 8-15a</a><br /><a href="https://fb.watch/oUnHK6wolP/" target="_blank">New Ark United Church of Christ, Newark, DE</a><br />December 10, 2023</span><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJg_maV4sncExr7W6gMv5mTqrvBzhNx3kZoVHia4lWxbmRf6i38j3DXUQmqViDkG0tI3LHy3yV5uTMgNl8jYQoUk5GUbjCuw5W0JJNbhnFrMkgXD-hAcrRdfpqgnXOSe8rOXm6ToF-VdMu1L4Z3Dly6mvEJ4-NqlQxQMGxKUmaQORgnMA1JTcSjpRGuCB9/s899/PowerofLove.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="899" data-original-width="620" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjJg_maV4sncExr7W6gMv5mTqrvBzhNx3kZoVHia4lWxbmRf6i38j3DXUQmqViDkG0tI3LHy3yV5uTMgNl8jYQoUk5GUbjCuw5W0JJNbhnFrMkgXD-hAcrRdfpqgnXOSe8rOXm6ToF-VdMu1L4Z3Dly6mvEJ4-NqlQxQMGxKUmaQORgnMA1JTcSjpRGuCB9/w442-h640/PowerofLove.jpg" width="442" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">B&W photo of a young person of color holding a protest sign that reads: "When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace."</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div></span><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div><div><div><span style="font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><span style="color: #444444;">Afrofuturist and author Octavia Butler was a more accurate prophet than the author of 2 Peter. In her 1998 book </span><a href="https://www.octaviabutler.com/parableseries" target="_blank"><i>Parable of the Talents</i>,</a><span style="color: #444444;"> she predicted that by 2025, 2030 the United States would be experiencing an affordable housing crisis, climate collapse, the threat of Christian nationalism, and a pervasive gun culture. But then the certainty of Christ’s return expressed in 2 Peter isn’t a prediction but really an expression of fervent hope. Biblical scholars say that 2 Peter probably wasn’t written until sometime after 100 CE. The hope of Christ’s return was becoming something of a joke, people scoffing at the promise of God’s delivery from oppression and instead indulging themselves and their fear, their despair.</span></span></div><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /> <br /><br />Not much has changed in two millennia. Every so often a prediction of Christ’s return, of the rapture and the end of the world will get trotted out as a literal date rather than a hope, a call for authentic change. The last one predicted was in 2021. A few others have been projected for 2026 and 2028. Tragically a few desperate people lose their savings or end their lives or both and the world keeps on turning with nary a bump in the road. <br /><br /> <br /><br />Ironically, biblical literalism—the idea that we should adhere to the exact letter or literal sense—did not arise as a problem until the mid-18th century in response to the scientific revolution, as part of the search for literal, factual truth. Over and over again, human beings have been impatient for truth. We would rather force the answers rather than sit with our questions. Greed, violence, hatred and so much evil comes from this, and it feeds the long game for control and dominance that we see being played out right before us. <br /><br /> <br /><br />Again, you may be thinking to yourself, this is pretty depressing, this is not why I came to church today, but Advent is about waiting and not the easy kind but the really hard kind. Waiting for test results. Waiting for chemo to be over. Waiting for an organ transplant. Waiting for a phone call, a text, for someone to care. Waiting for a living wage. Waiting for people to not only use your pronouns but for them to really see you, know you. Waiting for the Americans with Disabilities Act to actually be followed and enforced. Waiting for the patriarchy to be smashed. Waiting for land to be returned. Waiting for the hungry to be filled with good things and the rich sent away empty. Waiting for the incarcerated and the oppressed to be set free. Waiting for justice and mercy. Waiting for wholeness. Waiting for peace. <br /><br /> <br /><br />But waiting sounds so passive, and evil, greed, violence, and hatred are anything but passive. For decades now, there are those who have been playing <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/15/books/review/democracy-in-chains-nancy-maclean.html?unlocked_article_code=1.FU0.U6yA.BCU_LbYtOGaA&hpgrp=k-abar&smid=url-share" target="_blank">the long game to undermine democracy</a> so they can change the rules: to <a href="https://www.westernjournal.com/op-ed-conservatives-win-evangelicals-play-long-game/" target="_blank">dismantle the right</a> to a safe and legal abortion, to eradicate transgender and non-binary people, to marginalize people of color and those who identify as LGBTQ, to suppress voting rights, to end social safety nets and increase wealth inequality, to polarize any national debate into “us” and “them” and kneecap our government and institutions, to establish their brand of Christianity as the only religion of this country, all paid for with billions of dollars of secret and not-so-secret money. <br /><br /> <br /><br />A democracy works when we believe that most people are reasonably decent and are willing to compromise and negotiate in good faith with those they disagree with. Aristotle called it “political friendship”. Here in Delaware, it’s called the “Delaware Way”. But lately there has been no such thing as “both sides”. Those with power are working to enshrine it and acting out of their own self-interest. Corporations are price-gouging to increase their profits which go to their shareholders. Child poverty skyrocketed after the expanded child tax credit was allowed to expire. Even though the Pentagon failed its audit for <a href="https://twitter.com/MorePerfectUS/status/1731750305539244219" target="_blank">the sixth year in a row,</a> still the U.S. government funds their budget request every year. As the Roman Empire used to say, “If you want peace, prepare for war”. <br /><br /> <br /><br />On Friday, the UN Security Council held a vote to adopt a resolution that would have called for an immediate humanitarian unconditional ceasefire in Gaza. The U.S. was the only nation to vote against it and heavily criticized for doing so. <a href="https://usun.usmission.gov/explanation-of-vote-on-a-united-arab-emirates-drafted-un-security-council-resolution-on-the-situation-in-the-middle-east/" target="_blank">Ambassador Robert Wood thought</a> the resolution was rushed and did not go far enough toward a durable peace. As Dr. King said, “True peace is not merely the absence of tension, it is the presence of justice.” <br /><br /> <br /><br />And yet more bombs, more deaths, more violence, more pain does nothing toward a durable peace either. We will do anything to save lives but not sustain lives into a livable future. We will do anything to secure our own future at the expense of the future of those we oppose. We will dehumanize whoever we need to in order to justify our actions. Over 7,000 children dead is a monstrous injustice. Hamas has said that they will repeat the horrors of October 7th again and again but that will not give them the justice they seek. The Israeli Defense Force thinks that it can eradicate Hamas but every day of continued violence and occupation ensures that Hamas will continue. <br /><br /> <br /><br /><a href="https://www.ucc.org/at-u-n-commemoration-makari-condemns-ongoing-human-rights-violations-against-palestinians/?utm_term=&utm_campaign=" target="_blank">Dr. Peter Makari,</a> UCC executive and the current Global Relations Minister for the Middle East, on the UN International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian People, said, “Only when all people of the region are properly respected and humanely treated—with their rights, equality, and dignity—can peace with justice prevail.” As Pope Paul VI reminded us, “If you want peace, work for justice”. <br /><br /> <br /><br />Jesus has been coming soon and the time has been near for peace with justice for so long it is like a dream that fades when we wake. Again, there are <a href="https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/political-commentary/gaza-war-evangelical-leaders-cheer-end-world-1234884151/" target="_blank">those who are trying to force God’s hand</a> by taking him, yes him, at his literal word and this war plays right into it. In order for Christ to come again, Israel must be whole and complete, and Christ will then initiate God’s apocalypse and the end times. We have taken land that is not ours to own and human lives and stories of humanity’s relationship with the divine and turned them into justification for violence. <br /><br /> <br /><br />And yet this second letter of Peter says that with God one day is like a thousand years and a thousand years are like a day. God is playing the longest game of all, that of peace through justice, because God doesn’t want to lose anyone. God doesn’t want to lose anyone so that maybe, just maybe, we won’t want to lose anyone. God wants to give everyone space and time to change. <br /><br /> <br /><br />This isn’t revolution but evolution. There are times like these, when humanity resembles more the <a href="https://youtu.be/ypEaGQb6dJk?si=gsZjbfQNPpgZswEo" target="_blank">opening sequence</a> to <i>2001: A Space Odyssey</i>, when one group of primates asserts its dominance with violence. And so Peter exhorts his readers to lead lives that show the way to holiness, to wholeness; that as we wait for that new heaven and new earth, where righteousness is at home, that we be at peace. <br /><br /> <br /><br />And what gives peace but seeking the peace and justice of others in our lives and in our communities? Showing up in friendship, protesting for peace through justice for both Palestine and Israel, advocating for things like inclusionary zoning and affordable housing, speaking out in favor of things like gun violence prevention and the restoration of abortion rights, divesting ourselves of wealth and privilege and de-centering Whiteness, being generous with our lives and with ourselves in rest and self-care, community care. <br /><br /> <br /><br />I don’t want us to burn it all down. I want us to give it all away. Every day let us do what we can for peace and for justice, then we pass it on. In this way, Christmas isn’t one day, but every day.</span><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /><br />Benediction </span><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;">–</span><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"> adapted from <i><a href="https://youtu.be/438GyWUW8kU" target="_blank">I Choose Love</a></i> by Mark A. Miller<br /> <br /><br /><i>In the midst of war, let’s choose peace<br />In the midst of war, let’s choose peace<br />In the midst of war, hate and anger keeping score<br />We will seek the good once more<br />We choose peace </i></span><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><i>We choose peace</i></span></div></div></div></div>Cynthiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16189485834914559162noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-440442321230822645.post-72805776199155401502023-12-05T10:16:00.000-08:002023-12-05T10:16:36.198-08:00Baby on board<p><br /></p><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><a href="https://bible.oremus.org/?ql=568797771" target="_blank">Isaiah 64: 1-9</a><br /><a href="https://fb.watch/oL6otMPcT-/" target="_blank">New Ark United Church of Christ, Newark, DE</a><br />December 3, 2023</span><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgmiGdWLWRNTtXjbu7BJMxuKa6y6_pkrZIgTZ2RCu_IA5pzaHctArkK9pr7yJQMW1jQWLlcGvPWIpDek-LvJcqod7h404dDrbgJqRmIGPIMIloCtql_ZCbwn6uvb5J6lYArrRD7SeRXFGPZYNPJ4mBFMIxtk7dHwOXAaT576jqx8kIMV7WphsScqphqDO1t" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="761" data-original-width="615" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgmiGdWLWRNTtXjbu7BJMxuKa6y6_pkrZIgTZ2RCu_IA5pzaHctArkK9pr7yJQMW1jQWLlcGvPWIpDek-LvJcqod7h404dDrbgJqRmIGPIMIloCtql_ZCbwn6uvb5J6lYArrRD7SeRXFGPZYNPJ4mBFMIxtk7dHwOXAaT576jqx8kIMV7WphsScqphqDO1t=w517-h640" width="517" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Screenshot from <a href="https://www.instagram.com/combatants4peace/" target="_blank">Combatants for Peace Instagram</a> account. NY Times article: "Five Miles and a World Apart, Younger Activists Dream of a New Peace Process: A younger generation of Israeli and Palestinian peacemakers want to be part of the dialogue about the 'day after' the war, when Israelis and Palestinians must grapple again with how to live side by side." Photo of a young woman walking in between a small building and broken concrete and dirt under a blue sky.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /> <br /><br /><br />Wherever there is instability, conflict, and violence, children, youth, and young adults suffer the most. We speak of children and young people being the future, but what future is there if we do not provide safety, stability, acceptance, and wholeness today? <br /><br /> <br /><br /><a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/12/02/us/columbia-university-students-israel-hamas-war/index.html" target="_blank">Across college campuses in the United States,</a> students on all sides of the Israel-Hamas war are experiencing ever-widening cracks in campus life because of the fierce arguments and protests that have arisen in the past few months. No one feels heard or taken seriously, especially by school administrations. Some feel pressured to take a side and if they don’t, they are excoriated for being silent. Some students feel they don’t know enough about a conflict that may or may not affect them personally. Universities that are usually a place of learning and sharing multiple points of view are becoming fraught with distrust and disorder. <br /><br /> <br /><br />For many of us but especially children and young people, this war triggers the fight, flight, or freeze response. This on top of increased housing and healthcare costs, inflation, underpaid work and long hours, the climate crisis, an already contentious presidential campaign, and living with Covid-19 and its attendant grief and fear for the past four years. <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/04/27/1172544561/new-state-laws-are-rolling-back-regulations-on-child-labor" target="_blank">Legislation that makes it legal for children</a> to work in auto factories and meat packing plants or <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/06/06/politics/states-banned-medical-transitioning-for-transgender-youth-dg/index.html" target="_blank">makes it illegal for trans children and youth</a> to get healthcare or play a sport or use a public bathroom. We’re all anxious, on edge, and our children and young people are carrying the brunt of it. <br /><br /> <br /><br />You may be thinking this is pretty depressing, this isn’t why you came to church today, but it’s much like the grief and sadness, the fear and anger of those who heard Isaiah’s words. In chapter 10, Isaiah cries, “Woe to those who make unjust laws, to those who issue oppressive decrees, to deprive the poor of their rights and withhold justice from the oppressed of my people.” Imagine if this prophet was speaking through the voices of children. O God, would that you tear open the heavens and come down and stop the bombs, the killing, and liberate all who are being held against their will. If only you would come down and comfort the cries of children who only want to live in peace. If only you would tear open our hearts and come down and knock some sense and compassion into adults. <br /><br /> <br /><br />If only. Isaiah knows that God is not going to tear open the heavens and come down. When it all comes crashing down, we shake our fists at the heavens: “How could you allow this to happen?” And the question echoes back to us: “How could you allow this to happen?” Poet Ellen Bass in her poem <a href="https://www.ellenbass.com/books/the-human-line/pray-for-peace/" target="_blank">“Pray for Peace”</a> wrote this startling line: “Fold a photo of a dead child around your Visa card”. Heck, fold a photo of a very much alive child around your Visa card. What if that was our human shield? What if every decision we made was informed by its effect on children and youth? What if every decision we made was informed by its effect on the earth and its creatures? <br /><br /> <br /><br />Humanity lives as though God is not looking, that God has turned away from us, that there is no God and so we think we can do what we want. Who now sounds like children? Lately it feels like people don’t care one way or another the effect they have on the world, but I wonder if it’s more like, it feels like it doesn’t matter if we’re kind, if we drive slower and more carefully as if there’s a baby on board not just our car but every vehicle. It doesn’t matter if we take time grieve, feel all the difficult feelings. It doesn’t matter if we try to hold onto hope, the world is just going to steamroll over us anyway. And we wonder how good people allowed fascism to take root right under their feet. <br /><br /> <br /><br />One of the <a href="https://twitter.com/RavMABAY/status/1730725339943297532" target="_blank">rabbis I follow on Twitter</a> wrote this on Friday before sundown: “Praying for a Shabbes of radical peace and well-being for Jews, Palestinians, and every creature on this planet” and he posted it with a photo of his two children. For the most part, we all want the same things for our children: a life of abundance and justice and free from violence. We will not get there with more violence, more animosity, more vitriol. <br /><br /> <br /><br />We begin Advent with hope because even on our best days we need to be shaped by the mystery that created us. One of the reasons I think hope drives us nuts is because hope asks us to surrender. Surrender our need for control and our fear of change, surrender our striving so hard to be good and righteous and enlightened and better than, surrender our notions about how and when the holy should break into the daily, surrender our dread, our desperation, our despair. <br /><br /> <br /><br />Hope is what led to the civil rights movement, to marriage equality, to the end of apartheid, and the fall of the Berlin Wall. Hope was and is the main course at this Table: hope that death and violence and injustice do not have the last word. A Child of God is the host at this Table and invites us all to come to this Table as children, as ones in need of love and forgiveness, acceptance and wholeness. Thanks be to God. Amen.</span></div><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div><div><br /></div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br />Benediction<br /><br /><br /><i>With an everlasting love I’ll love you<br />All through trials I will be beside you<br />Still there’s nothing that can hurt or move you<br />And the high place I’ll bring down <br /><br /><br />When you go and lose your way I’ll lead you<br />On the produce of the land I’ll feed you<br />And a home within my heart I’ll deed you </i></span><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><i>And the high place I’ll bring down</i></span></div>Cynthiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16189485834914559162noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-440442321230822645.post-50742263648506862122023-11-21T10:29:00.000-08:002023-11-21T10:29:18.050-08:00Heaven is a house<p> </p><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><a href="https://bible.oremus.org/?ql=567591130" target="_blank">Matthew 25: 14-30</a><br /><a href="https://fb.watch/osI0g6t3J0/" target="_blank">New Ark United Church of Christ, Newark, DE</a><br />November 19, 2023 – Pledge Sunday</span><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh_9pnvH37dG79uLE1qaF9sHImE7Uk6i3vVOzJUJDytmgrBAxuoCfAc4Qhrvw0OhCT8neP-E30CDoIpLdIitWDiMHOAERXAa7BIC5C0p7pyo6Ldq-tG3IGKYepMLYfDSiDWdkPDbpHeXItFNxRVJr4j6F2Su-lXa0RY5cvS5tfkon0RYA6hwqTe5KVPxNnd" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1127" data-original-width="1170" height="617" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEh_9pnvH37dG79uLE1qaF9sHImE7Uk6i3vVOzJUJDytmgrBAxuoCfAc4Qhrvw0OhCT8neP-E30CDoIpLdIitWDiMHOAERXAa7BIC5C0p7pyo6Ldq-tG3IGKYepMLYfDSiDWdkPDbpHeXItFNxRVJr4j6F2Su-lXa0RY5cvS5tfkon0RYA6hwqTe5KVPxNnd=w640-h617" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo of a tent with the words "Housing is a human right" on it in big red letters. Caption: "Criminalization is an expensive way to make homelessness worse." - David Peery, Miami Coalition to Advance Racial Equity</td></tr></tbody></table><br /> <br /><br /><br />Here we have yet another parable that troubles us, and it should. Professor of New Testament and Jewish Studies and author Amy-Jill Levine writes that, “The parable should disturb. If we hear it and are not disturbed, there is something seriously amiss with our moral compass. It would be better if we perhaps started by seeing the parable not as about heaven or hell or final judgment, but about kings, politics, violence, and the absence of justice. If we do, we might be getting closer to Jesus.” <br /><br /> <br /><br />It’s too easy to listen to a story we agree with, that affirms what we think we know, we nod our heads and move on to the next thing. When scripture bothers us, when we disagree with it, we’ve started a conversation, an argument, a debate with it, which as a rabbi is what Jesus would’ve expected. It is through these challenges to our assumptions and what we know so far that then we grow. <br /><br /> <br /><br />When we read scripture, we read from our own experience, through our individual lives, from what we know—including study and knowledge. Which, when you think about it, is a very limited way of reading scripture. Though we do not usually think of ourselves as narrow-minded, we have many implicit biases. Skin color, gender, sexuality, and privilege are chief among them. Most of the time when I read scripture, I don’t think, “I’m reading this as a White, graduate-degree, middle-class, middle-aged, English-speaking, able-bodied, heterosexual, married, cisgender female.” And yet I should. This is part of my privilege, and my arrogance: that I can read the Bible and assume that this passage is speaking to me or to us as a faith community, that the message is one intended for us. <br /><br /> <br /><br />But it really isn’t. Most of the Hebrew and Christian scriptures are stories about the ones who don’t have a voice, who are on the bottom of society, who have no power. And the word “ability”—as in “each according to their ability”—is the Greek word <i>dynamis</i>, which means power, might, strength. Each was given according to their ability, their power. The person who received the one talent was given according to their power. If any one of us was employed by someone as harsh and unethical as this, with very little power of our own, we would probably do the same thing. <br /><br /> <br /><br />In the inclusive language version of this parable, master and servant have been replaced with landowner and worker. I’ll use landowner and worker in a bit, but for now let’s go with master and servant. Traditionally the master has been interpreted as God or as the second coming of Jesus. The master is generous—check. The master rewards faithfulness—check. The master invites these servants into abundance and joy—check. But according to one servant, the master is also harsh and reaps profits where he did not invest and takes credit where he did not plant the seed and thus, inciting fear in those who serve him. The master then punishes the one with the least by casting them out. This hardly sounds like the God of justice and mercy but more like a ruthless businessman with a reality TV show. <br /><br /> <br /><br />This story could just as easily be called the parable of extreme wealth. A talent is a weight measurement of silver, worth about 6,000 denarii, the equivalent worth of approximately 16 years of day labor, about $4,000 in today’s money—tens of thousands more if we adjust for inflation. Five times that sum would an eye-popping amount of money for Jesus’ listeners. For these servants to bring back returns on such sums would signify only one thing: that these returns were achieved by dishonest means: extortion, exploitation, fraud, or moneylending, all of which were prohibited by the laws of Moses, even investing with bankers to receive interest. <br /><br /> <br /><br />Not only that, the Greek word for servant or worker translates more accurately as slave. Those enslaved by the Roman Empire had no ownership rights, just as in the establishing of this nation, freedom was equated with property ownership. These enslaved people were handling the kind of wealth that they could never dream of. <a href="https://twitter.com/JStein_WaPo/status/1725228522040406193" target="_blank">The bottom 50% of this country owns 2.5% of the wealth.</a> The top 1% owns 31%. <br /><br /> <br /><br />So when I hear this parable as about a landowner and workers, I also hear a land developer who <a href="https://twitter.com/ahouse4all/status/1723760455007772917" target="_blank">builds housing that outprices the very workers</a> who assist the landowner in acquiring even more wealth. Two of the workers buy into this prosperity gospel, get lucky with this multi-level marketing scam, buy their own hotels in the neighborhood of Boardwalk and Park Place. But the third worker, the one with the least power, the one entrusted with the least, which is still a lot of capital, doesn’t buy into this but also just buries it in the ground. Which was a thing people did back then to keep money safe. <br /><br /> <br /><br />And yet risk is what faith is all about. In that third worker I hear my own impoverished response to the gospel. The times I have not been willing to risk not only my privilege but my power; when I allow fear to rule my heart and my head. My own resistance to change and the self-imposed restraints that I have grown accustomed to and keep me comfortable where I am. I give and I think I am generous, but I lose not one inch of my power. Once again, the spiritual challenge of our time: we want the world to change and we want to keep what we have. <br /><br /> <br /><br />What if the kin-dom of heaven was like a land developer who worked with faith communities to build affordable housing? There are churches across the country that have closed and the property sold to land developers only to have them build market-priced housing. And yet what about active churches who have that one talent, keeping it safe for their own use? In many places, churches are both the landowner and the third worker. <br /><br /> <br /><br />The United States has a shortfall of 3.79 million housing units. No matter how many times a city clears away tents, <a href="https://twitter.com/ahouse4all/status/1724962758637289652" target="_blank">those who are unhoused still cannot pay rent.</a> In recent years there has been a <a href="https://www.planning.org/planning/2023/spring/transforming-empty-churches-into-affordable-housing-takes-more-than-a-leap-of-faith/" target="_blank">developing movement of active churches</a> turning their buildings into affordable housing with church on the first floor, working with a non-profit that provides much-needed services to residents. It’s a different kind of collective stewardship, one that invites community partners to join not just in the church’s mission but for the whole community to be in service to the underserved and those experiencing community instability. <br /><br /> <br /><br />Today is Pledge Sunday at the New Ark. So why am I talking about affordable housing? What if we decided to have conversation about joining this movement of church becoming affordable housing? Collectively we are that one talent, that one worker, and we have options before us, none of which are small things. Being Church in these times requires hope and courage on a good day. And let me just name it honestly, we are tired. The last few years have been hard on all of us, and yet I think we have done brilliantly. Not perfectly, not easily, but more importantly, we have done so lovingly, thoughtfully, faithfully. This church has done amazing and generous things in its 44 years. Have we got strength inside us for yet another one of God’s dreams? <br /><br /> <br /><br />Let’s pray on it, think about it, talk about it, Church. There is joy to be had.</span></div><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div><div><br /></div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br />Benediction<br /><br />Our lives and our life together—<br />all that we are and all that we have<br /> —is not ours to possess,<br /> for it is a trust from God.<br /> It is a loan from the sacred mystery of life,<br /> not to be kept safely <br /> but to work with as best as we can,<br /> according to our ability and power.<br /> May the Holy One give us the courage<br /> to continue to serve the homeless and the unhoused<br /> with all that is in us,<br />Following the way of the one who had no place to lay his head, <br /><br />Amen.</span>Cynthiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16189485834914559162noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-440442321230822645.post-45514059807890612662023-11-15T09:36:00.000-08:002023-11-15T09:36:35.011-08:00Tending the way forward<p> </p><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><a href="https://bible.oremus.org/?ql=567067736" target="_blank">Matthew 25: 1-13</a><br /><a href="https://fb.watch/okJ89idViU/" target="_blank">New Ark United Church of Christ, Newark, DE</a><br />November 12, 2023</span><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEifkkFviVN_0qIJc0BteOTZbVTldAkrHlWzvfYX1FUeb9fg5NeUpNkN4EqVjtuopNuY1q9-T796xARk4whgO91eFWNeW9fMUjSOOFMckILeSDAqCQxzB4_b0VvL8UquSI3g1792dkwVKihjEa55-LddhZQ4HO6gvdk2g6nOfYQ4da7Rh3p7Z1SYZEArx6-v" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="750" data-original-width="500" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEifkkFviVN_0qIJc0BteOTZbVTldAkrHlWzvfYX1FUeb9fg5NeUpNkN4EqVjtuopNuY1q9-T796xARk4whgO91eFWNeW9fMUjSOOFMckILeSDAqCQxzB4_b0VvL8UquSI3g1792dkwVKihjEa55-LddhZQ4HO6gvdk2g6nOfYQ4da7Rh3p7Z1SYZEArx6-v=w427-h640" width="427" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo of a terra cotta oil lamp with a single flame. Photo is hues of yellow, gold, and brown.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /> <br /><br /><br />I have a bone to pick with these bridesmaids, both the foolish and the wise. This story has always gotten under my skin. It flies in the face of “if you’ve got two coats, give one away”, “to those whom much is given, more will be required”, and “where your treasure is, there will be your heart also”. It smacks of entitlement and the fear of enabling. It’s more like selfish care rather than self-care: “Hey I earned this, I bought what was necessary and you didn’t; don’t expect me to carry you, be responsible for once, will you?” This is supposed to be about the kingdom of heaven, where someone finds treasure buried in a field and sells all they have so they can buy the field, or a merchant who sells all they have for that pearl of great price. And that ending is harsh: “I don’t know you”? What about the One who sent Jesus, who said, “I have redeemed you, I have called you by name; you are mine”? <br /><br /> <br /><br />Those who originally heard this story wouldn’t have thought it was about sharing resources. Oil is used here as a metaphor for righteousness and good deeds, in that, like the wisdom of God’s Word, the light from the lamp leads people to do justice and love mercy. The theme on the bulletin cover is “Tending God’s Light” but God is also present in the darkness and guides us when we can’t find our way. And so I prefer to use language that charges us with tending the way forward, with righteousness and good deeds, as we wait for the fulfillment of God’s purpose and justice. <br /><br /> <br /><br />But then I think, “Wait?? Wait for what??” Palestinians have been told to wait for humanitarian pauses, to wait for a ceasefire. Over two hundred hostages are still waiting to be released. Palestinian scientist and author Mazin Qumsiyeh declared, “Countries would be sending their armies to stop such genocide in any other situation. How much more slaughter will it take for them and all people to say enough is enough?” Who are the foolish bridesmaids now with no oil of righteousness? <br /><br /> <br /><br />Disabled people are told to wait for businesses to grant accessibility and reasonable accommodations. Workers are waiting for wages that will allow them to live and housing they can afford. <a href="https://www.destatehousing.com/FormsAndInformation/Publications/2023_housing_needs_executive.pdf" target="_blank">Delaware residents are waiting</a> for over 21,000 housing units. People experiencing community instability—those who have no community to help them—are waiting for financial assistance and someone to listen. The vulnerable are waiting for the powerful to care. The earth is waiting for human beings to repair what we have done for profit. <br /><br /> <br /><br />If the bridegroom is Jesus, and we’re waiting for Jesus to show up, how else does Jesus show up if not in human suffering, human needs, but also through human hands, human will, human hearts? Author and activist Sonya Renee Taylor wrote, “Outrage without action is just privilege comforting itself.” The spiritual challenge of our time is that we want the world to change but we want to keep what we have. <br /><br /> <br /><br />Are our lamps trimmed and burning? Are we ready to meet injustice with justice? Are we ready to meet hunger with food security? Are we ready to meet despair with hope? Are we ready to meet hate with love? Are we ready to meet gender with appropriate pronouns? Are we ready to meet brute force with soul force? Are we ready to meet fear with courage? Need with generosity? Loneliness with companionship? Pain with compassion? As the Rule of the Order of the Holy Cross states, “Love must act as light must shine and fire must burn.”</span></div><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVJmhlw_XzoFAmME2zKd2-OIJtGZdVm_Tf09HszD2rkGw-T21XyVQ7o9hi0hlRzg_IMnRpRMojt0LibAEotH0FXfe42MpRnECmwS8PNVy1PYFQRN1NO-wF1qDHVllkm-_QW7wYLYGa3bxneJraIedulLGMIdQRcczT8BgB05v8DxbBK6c58-ZXQSkBdHJF/s960/LoveMustAct.jpg" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="720" data-original-width="960" height="480" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVJmhlw_XzoFAmME2zKd2-OIJtGZdVm_Tf09HszD2rkGw-T21XyVQ7o9hi0hlRzg_IMnRpRMojt0LibAEotH0FXfe42MpRnECmwS8PNVy1PYFQRN1NO-wF1qDHVllkm-_QW7wYLYGa3bxneJraIedulLGMIdQRcczT8BgB05v8DxbBK6c58-ZXQSkBdHJF/w640-h480/LoveMustAct.jpg" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo of an illuminated calligraphy print of the Rule of the Order of the Holy Cross. The letter L is golden yellow with a cross shining in the empty space with green and yellow rays. Below the L is an oval encircling a heart aflame as though it is an oil lamp.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /> <br /><br /><br />And yet at the same time we must also learn to know and accept our limits. As we tend the way forward, we remember that we do not do any of this alone. We are also stewards of that oil of righteousness that resides in our life together. Sorry, Jesus, but we do pour our oil into each other’s lamps in our care for each other. Ready or not the future is coming. Ready or not we need to take care of each other so we can move forward as one human race. In truth, there is only one side: God’s side, Love’s side, the love your neighbor side, and we are all selfish and foolish and wise and woefully late and just in time. <br /><br /> <br /><br />Hear these words that were on the back of a bulletin from the United Church of Christ: <br /><br /> <br /><br />If the Gospel is about nothing else, it is about hope.<br /> Hope in a better world.<br /> Hope in the compassion of human beings.<br /> Hope is a gift from us to the future.<br /> What do we need to do,<br /> What do we need to give<br /> So the future will receive its gift from us?<br /> Who will benefit from the gift or pledge we will make?<br /> It’s not what we give up,<br /> It’s what we give to.<br /> What will this church mean to the future<br /> What do we imagine that future to be?<br /> The future is asking. <br /> <br /> Amen.</span></div><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/2Jy5R-3sDA4?si=ZXGN5z6PPCnU47g1" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe><br /><br /></span><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;">Benediction – <a href="http://enfleshed.com">enfleshed.com</a> (adapted) <br /><br /><br />May your grief, your pain be honored<br />and your anger have a safe place to land,<br />that your compassion may rise<br />and gentleness, too, may reside in your heart.<br />For the way of the Living God moves<br />like the sunrise glowing pink on the horizon,<br />like a hand reaching for another hand.</span></div>Cynthiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16189485834914559162noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-440442321230822645.post-48352767022098848712023-11-09T11:47:00.003-08:002023-11-09T11:47:58.154-08:00We make bold strides<p> </p><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj9WPRGKDerfHYo-GUw18nVHIBkWulO5KlNjyKKHvSpI1qdydAATOqQ8P2w16BA4Ey9Eezymi8yBfhYWH_aVHy0Z8X1tpcdjzJfNxZC0pGRScvNR6K2lsQE9C5O_FsA1dZua9Uli5EXLae4enji5nuAN3xuXCP-cj085yn6ZjHurPYUXr-XfOA0ZO-rSJoW" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="2716" data-original-width="2037" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEj9WPRGKDerfHYo-GUw18nVHIBkWulO5KlNjyKKHvSpI1qdydAATOqQ8P2w16BA4Ey9Eezymi8yBfhYWH_aVHy0Z8X1tpcdjzJfNxZC0pGRScvNR6K2lsQE9C5O_FsA1dZua9Uli5EXLae4enji5nuAN3xuXCP-cj085yn6ZjHurPYUXr-XfOA0ZO-rSJoW=w480-h640" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo of Rev. Freeman Palmer speaking at the 59th Annual Meeting of the Central Atlantic Conference of the United Church of Christ. Minister Kecia Munroe, Associate Moderator, is seated to his left.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><br /></span><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;">Last month I attended the Central Atlantic Conference meeting in person at the Evangelical Reformed UCC in Frederick, MD. It was my last board of directors meeting as vice president. It was good to be with friends and colleagues in person and yet I felt the familiar tug that I experience every Sunday in that I miss those who attend online. I miss the feeling of us all together in one room, but I’m still learning that, like the kin-dom of God, rooms of people can exist across time and space and that it is ableist of me to expect all of us to be physically present. And so I must make the effort to be spiritually present to those who attend online. <br /><br /> <br /><br />It was not my first time in the worship space at ERUCC, but it had been at least 5 or 6 years since the last time I had been there. As I listened to Freeman give his State of the Conference address and talk about the very real threats of Christian nationalism and White supremacy, I was struck by the symbols and imagery in the chancel area behind him. To his left was the American flag and to his right, the Christian flag. Above him, situated between two Roman columns, was the beautifully crafted mosaic of Christ the King—Christ depicted as White and blond-haired. Contrasted with an address given by an African American conference minister who is same gender loving. <br /><br /> <br /><br />To me it was a perfect snapshot of the United Church of Christ and most progressive mainline churches. Our conference brought a resolution before General Synod this summer, for the Church to become a White supremacy-free zone. A resource devised by conference staff members is currently being tested for congregations to use to work toward becoming anti-racist. The 59th CAC annual meeting took place in an Open and Affirming church with an extravagant welcome. We make bold strides to move forward even as we hold onto symbols and imagery (and resources) of Christendom long since passed. We are getting in our own way. <br /><br /> <br /><br />Christian nationalism and White supremacy are not only threats <i>to</i> the Church, they are <i>baked into</i> the Church. The spiritual conundrum of the progressive church is that <b>we want the world to change and we want to keep what we have.</b> Racism and nationalism are more about self-interest than they are about hate. Hate is what helps keep self-interest in power. We now have a Speaker of the House who is a Christian nationalist. The Church has bigger fish to fry than to trying to decide whether or not it’s time to break up with White Jesus.</span></div><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><i>(This was the reflection for the CAC Happenings, Nov. 9, 2023)</i></span></div>Cynthiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16189485834914559162noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-440442321230822645.post-18902739128012617972023-11-07T11:44:00.000-08:002023-11-07T11:44:18.342-08:00Enemy pie<p> </p><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><a href="https://bible.oremus.org/?ql=566372422" target="_blank">Psalm 42: 11 – Psalm 43</a><br /><a href="https://fb.watch/oa5WprRZMR/" target="_blank">New Ark United Church of Christ, Newark, DE</a><br />November 5, 2023</span><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjuVAR0QAiQmaUSqlZuzHaCxNtZqQeGBkZ4tdPN8WwXBXjMyYepgo68CIX6XWtNSaBRNiv5G25BDUv7j4L9kIKc3jVBJk3XsoA8Z4aaXSjAswp0cuZUsphurdBWwGAh2Oqhxkl8y4M-ghXDVX06D8bjYsN9zT_4ohGgsow2YIBqf8i8mhRBT7Q2VOsyrRgV" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="754" data-original-width="811" height="595" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjuVAR0QAiQmaUSqlZuzHaCxNtZqQeGBkZ4tdPN8WwXBXjMyYepgo68CIX6XWtNSaBRNiv5G25BDUv7j4L9kIKc3jVBJk3XsoA8Z4aaXSjAswp0cuZUsphurdBWwGAh2Oqhxkl8y4M-ghXDVX06D8bjYsN9zT_4ohGgsow2YIBqf8i8mhRBT7Q2VOsyrRgV=w640-h595" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo of the graffiti on the West Bank wall. <br />One message is front and center: "Make hummus not walls."</td></tr></tbody></table> <br /><br /> <br /><br />Hebrew scripture scholar Walter Bruggemann as well as many Jewish scholars believe that at one time Psalm 42 and Psalm 43 were a single poem, split into two for reasons unknown. In both psalms is the repeated refrain: “Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you disquieted within me? Hope in God, for I shall again praise [them], my help and my God.” Undergirding these psalms is a taunt as well as a plea: “Where is your God?” and the psalmist waiting and hoping to see if God will show up. <br /><br /> <br /><br />“Where is your God?” is the taunt of an enemy, an oppressor, but also one who has made God in their own image. Where is your God? Your God is not my God, and my God is on my side. The transphobe taunts the drag queen. The antisemite taunts Jews. The Islamophobe taunts Muslims. The Christian nationalist and the White supremacist taunts, well, everyone. <br /><br /> <br /><br />Yet we can also hear the oppressed saying the very same thing. Your God, the god of the oppressor, is not my God, and my God is on my side. From the play titled “The Normal Heart” we are reminded: “New oppressions are always forming from the ashes of the old.” Then there is the confusion of who is the oppressor, who is the oppressed. Confusion, some will rebuke, there is no confusion! There is no “both sides”! <br /><br /> <br /><br />And yet Muslims, Jews, and Christians all claim the psalms as scripture and prayer. As much as we try to deny it, we are kindred, siblings from the same source. This psalm could be prayed by any one of us: “Vindicate me, O God, and defend my cause against an ungodly people; from those who are deceitful and unjust, deliver me!” Ungodly. From there to unworthy. From there to inhuman. From there to violence. From there to unspeakable acts of terror. A road that humanity has not been able to resist, in fact, it is the road well-traveled. <br /><br /> <br /><br />In truth, we are all victims and bullies. Let’s not get into a contest or debate about who has suffered more, who has abused more, who thinks they never could do what others have done. How many people have to be forcibly removed from their land for it to be wrong? How many children, how many hostages, how many generations in a family wiped out? How many have to die for the violence to be wrong? Beating the drum of having the right to defend ourselves begins to sound like “stand your ground” laws and those who are ready to die on the hill of the Second Amendment. If there is something we are prepared to kill for, we are no better than those we rail against. <br /><br /> <br /><br />The biggest problem is that <a href="https://www.huffpost.com/entry/amaryllis-fox-undercover-cia-video_n_57600d31e4b0e4fe5143afc6" target="_blank">we all think we’re the good guys,</a> especially the United States. We think we’re the scrappy rebels rather than the evil empire. We use words like terrorist and freedom fighter, conveniently forgetting our colonizing, settler beginnings, taking land that was not ours, separating children from their families and their culture, killing the American buffalo within inches of extinction so as to eliminate the people whose very lives depended on it. As I heard recently, “We shoot today and kill tomorrow.” Labor, skill, and ingenuity that should’ve been building African nations was instead enslaved to build this nation. <br /><br /> <br /><br />How dare we call out Hamas, how dare we call out the Israeli government, as if our sensibilities have so demonstrably evolved? Reservations without water rights is violence. Debt and poverty is violence. Redlining, gerrymandering, and voter restrictions are violence. Anti-trans laws are violence. Not banning assault weapons is violence. Secret money in our elections is violence. $14 billion dollars for war but not for healthcare or affordable housing is violence. <br /><br /> <br /><br />We look at everything as a zero-sum game, including how we use power. It’s as if power is a limb or a vital organ or the very air we breathe. If we have power, we must wield it. If others have power, we must destroy it. <br /><br /> <br /><br />Pacifism is not inaction when we take resources intended for war and seek to right the wrongs that lead to conflict and violence in the first place. Which is why Jesus said things like feed the hungry. Clothe the naked. Welcome the stranger. Love your neighbor. Love your enemy. Put away your sword. Blessed are the peacemakers. <br /><br /> <br /><br />For quite some time in our liturgy we have passively said, “On the night of betrayal and desertion” when what we really ought to say is “On the night when Jesus was betrayed and deserted by those closest to him”. At this Table Jesus welcomes both victim and bully, betrayer and deserter. Jesus welcomed one who tried to force a solution and another who tried to deny the truth and others who would avoid the question altogether. <br /><br /> <br /><br />When we come to this Table, we come with empty, open hands, ready to receive, ready to serve. Jesus serves us a heaping helping of <a href="https://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/enemy-pie-derek-munson/1003950722" target="_blank">enemy pie,</a> and there is more than enough to go around. “You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies.” Maybe, as James Baldwin reminds us, when we are ready to stop hating, we can then face our pain and the pain we have inflicted. When we learn to listen to our enemy, to their hopes for their children, maybe that will be the day we learn to live in peace. When both the oppressed and the oppressor are liberated and we know that we are kindred.</span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/IugyK8XZDDE?si=oftM1zV7Faa7jT5Z" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;">Benediction - Prayer for the Decade of Nonviolence</span></div><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;">We bow to the sacred in all creation.</span></div></div><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;">May our spirits fill the world with beauty and wonder.</span></div><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;">May our minds seek truth with humility and openness.</span></div><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;">May our hearts forgive without limit.</span></div><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;">May our love for friend, enemy, and outcast be without measure.</span></div><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;">May our needs be few and our living simple.</span></div><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;">May our actions bear witness to the suffering of others.</span></div><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;">May our hands never harm a living being.</span></div><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;">May our steps stay on the journey of justice.</span></div><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;">May our tongues speak for those who are poor without fear of the powerful.</span></div><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;">May our prayers rise with patient discontent until no child is hungry.</span></div><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;">May our life's work be a passion for peace and nonviolence.</span></div><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;">May our souls rejoice in the present moment.</span></div><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;">May our imaginations overcome death and despair with new possibility.</span></div><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;">And may we risk reputation, comfort, and security to bring this hope to children everywhere.</span></div><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;">- Prayer by Mary Lou Kownacki, OSB</span></div>Cynthiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16189485834914559162noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-440442321230822645.post-4201928886339234452023-10-31T09:48:00.002-07:002023-10-31T09:52:15.762-07:00Just to love is holy<p> </p><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><a href="https://bible.oremus.org/?ql=565769204" target="_blank">Lev. 19: 1-2, 15-18; Matthew 22: 34-40</a><br /><a href="https://fb.watch/o0UW6MhBKh/" target="_blank">New Ark United Church of Christ, Newark, DE</a><br />October 29, 2023</span><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhD9l_olAeoRH0OuO6YKqsiCeCYy-9Ae6wKACSTkVNConlG2Xvec6M9Yd0tbQcaVlEnTn4zYPWOmPPwqjKE4nyvk8yUXDzrDb2O-yFsKiULOpCoVzVJrPv3xWDqE4uh2Yk2CBjsti-9z1hKsDoKyDTps2NSfrW5pdNO_d6S8-qA6tAhCmfBxsbRW6tp2pdx" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="562" data-original-width="500" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhD9l_olAeoRH0OuO6YKqsiCeCYy-9Ae6wKACSTkVNConlG2Xvec6M9Yd0tbQcaVlEnTn4zYPWOmPPwqjKE4nyvk8yUXDzrDb2O-yFsKiULOpCoVzVJrPv3xWDqE4uh2Yk2CBjsti-9z1hKsDoKyDTps2NSfrW5pdNO_d6S8-qA6tAhCmfBxsbRW6tp2pdx=w571-h640" width="571" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Black and white Polaroid photo of a person wearing a black Calvin Klein (cK) t-shirt, dark shorts and a light colored protective mask, walking in a protest march, carrying a sign that reads "Love your neighbor as yourself".</td></tr></tbody></table><br /> <br /><br /><br />Earlier this week a young woman made a TikTok video about her first full-time job out of college and how difficult it is for her. She commutes more than an hour each way by train. In tears she talks about how she doesn’t have any energy when she comes home to cook dinner or work out. She says it’s the 9 to 5 schedule plus the time it takes to get to work and come home, all of it is draining and tiring. “How do you even find time to go out on date or go out with friends?”, she cries. She knows she sounds dramatic; she just can’t believe how upset she is. <br /><br /> <br /><br />The video was <a href="https://twitter.com/Endthemisery1/status/1717015702115344641" target="_blank">shared on Twitter</a> with, ironically, an account by the name of “End the Misery” and the tweet went like this: “Omg, poor baby has her first job. Like…she has to commute?? Like…she has to cook dinner?? Like…no time or energy to work out?? Like…she’s working in person not remote?? Like…She. Has. To. Work. 9. To. 5??? What??” <br /><br /> <br /><br />How many of us were having the same thoughts? Just because we’ve gotten used to the grind of daily life doesn’t mean a young person should just have to suck it up and get used to it like we did. Our whole society begins to sound like the folks who don’t want to help with other people’s student loans. As one person commented, “If you suffered in life and want other people to suffer as you did because ‘you turned out fine’, you in fact did not turn out fine.” “Why should I do for others what was not done for me” is a plague upon humanity and it foils us every time.</span></div><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhO7zMXbwneWGVJV9q1g7YZxe-wq0pddpc_L-RAbeYS_yRwu4LErf-mk2xP1jzLNKTn3jQ7Xp9f2Y1SovlJHKESaCL8zwbCxprPJ_tJ8OqAFzBW-mjrReduKy--Bf_6J3u6Q1CC8xEwhRCdlDoOuO_3YAPtrluuCZGYzjDB6s0FpHVl6p0V1feWM3VDh55B" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="473" data-original-width="748" height="253" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhO7zMXbwneWGVJV9q1g7YZxe-wq0pddpc_L-RAbeYS_yRwu4LErf-mk2xP1jzLNKTn3jQ7Xp9f2Y1SovlJHKESaCL8zwbCxprPJ_tJ8OqAFzBW-mjrReduKy--Bf_6J3u6Q1CC8xEwhRCdlDoOuO_3YAPtrluuCZGYzjDB6s0FpHVl6p0V1feWM3VDh55B=w400-h253" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Screenshot of a tweet by Daniel Shipwreck (@daniel_swensen) that reads "If you suffered in life and want other people to suffer as you did because 'you turned out fine', you did not in fact turn out fine."</td></tr></tbody></table><br /> <br /><br /><br />It reminds me of another song by George Harrison. <br /><br /><br /><i>Isn't it a pity?<br /> Isn't it a shame<br /> How we break each other's hearts<br /> And cause each other pain?<br /> <br /> How we take each other's love<br /> Without thinking anymore<br /> Forgetting to give back<br /> Isn't it a pity?<br /> <br /> Some things take so long<br /> But how do I explain<br /> When not too many people<br /> Can see we're all the same?<br /> <br /> And because of all their tears<br /> Their eyes can't hope to see<br /> The beauty that surrounds them<br /> Isn't it a pity? </i><br /><br /> <iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/GdcSGxXJ8vM?si=vm7UyDM4jSUFRVDY" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe> <br /><br /><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><a href="https://cac.org/daily-meditations/transforming-pain-2018-10-17/" target="_blank">Fr. Richard Rohr wrote,</a> “If we do not transform our pain, we will most assuredly transmit it, usually to those closest to us: our family, our neighbors, our co-workers, and invariably, the most vulnerable, our children. Scapegoating, exporting our unresolved hurt, is the most common storyline of human history.” <br /><br /> <br /><br />Not only our pain but our anger, our anxiety, our fear, our grief, our sadness, and most importantly, our unacknowledged trauma. When these unresolved emotions and unhealed wounds live inside us unacknowledged, untended we are not whole people. I think this is one reason why God gives God’s people a holiness code, holiness having the same root as the word wholeness. God’s people have lived through the trauma of being enslaved, the trauma of exile, the trauma of the return trip home. How can they be whole, how can they be one as God is one, how can they be holy, how can they be set apart when they have been torn apart from each other, from the land? How can they love their neighbor in a way that is life-giving? <br /><br /> <br /><br />William Butler Yeats wrote, “But Love has pitched [their] mansion/in the place of excrement. For nothing can be sole or whole/that has not been rent.” Or as Daniel Saint wrote in his book <i>The Monster Within</i>, “If you want to be a warrior, prepare to be broken. If you want to be an explorer, prepare to get lost. If you wish to be a lover, prepare to be both.” It is not good for us or for anyone else for us to love out of our pain and grief, some of it generational, inherited from those who raised us, including our culture, our country. We witness this daily in those who seek to wield power and control others, in bullying and acts of vengeance. Yet the very act of loving guarantees that we will encounter pain and grief, that the love that can make us whole will also most likely tear us apart. <br /><br /> <br /><br />And so God commands that we practice holiness, that we practice wholeness as we strive to love in our messy imperfection. To be holy is to be set apart from others, that is, to live according to God’s way of love and justice. To be set apart from the trauma we inherited, the dysfunction we were raised in. To be set apart from that which causes pain and injustice, from racism and sexism, from ableism and patriarchy, from homophobia and transphobia, from antisemitism and Islamophobia, from violence and bullying and control, from grudge-bearing and withholding that which makes us feel alive. <br /><br /> <br /><br />To be holy as God is holy is to love unconditionally, unmerited, undeserved, unlimited, especially those that the world does not love and devalues. To love in such a way as puts us at risk for the same ridicule and derision, the same discrimination. Pastor Stan Mitchell said, “If you call yourself an ally to a group of people and you aren’t getting hit by the stones thrown at them, then you aren’t standing close enough.” When we shrink from Love, when our love shrinks, so does our hope and the hope of those around us. When our hope shrinks, so does our ability to love expansively. <br /><br /> <br /><br />And so Jesus, knowing how human beings look for loopholes, tells us to love God—what is good, holy, and true—with our whole heart, mind, and strength: wholeheartedly. And to love our neighbor as ourselves. That should tell us something right there. Everything else about life hangs on those two commandments. Love is a spiritual practice, probably the hardest one there is, so every day we must engage our practice of Love. <br /><br /> <br /><br />Here again are some of my favorite words on this planet by the poet Wendell Berry and they bear repeating, like a spiritual practice: <br /><br /> <br /><br />“Love the quick profit, the annual raise,<br /> vacation with pay. Want more<br /> of everything ready-made. Be afraid<br /> to know your neighbors and to die.<br /> And you will have a window in your head.<br /> Not even your future will be a mystery<br /> anymore. Your mind will be punched in a card<br /> and shut away in a little drawer.<br /> When they want you to buy something<br /> they will call you. When they want you<br /> to die for profit they will let you know. <br /><br /><br />...So, friends, every day do something<br /> that won't compute. Love the Lord.<br /> Love the world. Work for nothing.<br /> Take all that you have and be poor.<br /> Love someone who does not deserve it.<br /><br /><br />...Ask the questions that have no answers.<br /> Laugh.<br /> Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful<br /> though you have considered all the facts.<br /> Practice resurrection.”</span></div><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;">Benediction</span></div><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;">So, friends, every day do something<br />that won't compute. Love the Lord.<br />Love the world. Work for nothing.<br />Take all that you have and be poor.<br />Love someone who does not deserve it.<br /><br />Ask the questions that have no answers.<br />Laugh.<br />Laughter is immeasurable. Be joyful<br />though you have considered all the facts.<br />Practice resurrection.</span></div><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjNcKFkryjhTA5sxgsOdsHJI8efeFr73Uu78vZdLS7CRxXFm_MPmv21qzPCSQfuVzgODhVOCKsxaG3KjR72LtjBF7cGyBBkkb5vBUvp88g4BRtEKozi4qR2DTebSV4vqh1z1Fs0qHcW_gmK0yG6cGrXQ3N7IP8GTPoFhfak4Yr-Tl7c6LZyVfRexaCg3jNj" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="630" data-original-width="1200" height="336" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjNcKFkryjhTA5sxgsOdsHJI8efeFr73Uu78vZdLS7CRxXFm_MPmv21qzPCSQfuVzgODhVOCKsxaG3KjR72LtjBF7cGyBBkkb5vBUvp88g4BRtEKozi4qR2DTebSV4vqh1z1Fs0qHcW_gmK0yG6cGrXQ3N7IP8GTPoFhfak4Yr-Tl7c6LZyVfRexaCg3jNj=w640-h336" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Quote by Abraham Joshua Heschel: "Just to be is a blessing. Just to live is holy." Quote is superimposed over a darkened muted photo of looking upward at tall trees in the fall covered with yellow leaves under a blue sky.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /></span></div>Cynthiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16189485834914559162noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-440442321230822645.post-24505316851443588402023-10-24T11:10:00.001-07:002023-10-24T11:55:57.608-07:00Being seen<p> </p><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><a href="https://bible.oremus.org/?ql=565169953" target="_blank">Exodus 33: 12-23</a><br /><a href="https://fb.watch/nTLKoxvGkp/" target="_blank">New Ark United Church of Christ, Newark, DE</a><br />October 22, 2023</span><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhw3z2PaLFNh2qrudR2JuinoFMd6RawzT3WDbMWU63Bf9-yAbWAKCBAurkzyhvM4aZGm2Ejg3Naz1yc9yIo-B_NnrK1NsBx0C3hlCuvFXWH34rtjnx6jDXLd5qBItix-IPKfZA8HDV1_a-jeWkKJg5QZYxSFLQd7oR5viWV1DmyH4c2eXAfdxIaPsviHOud" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="751" data-original-width="815" height="591" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhw3z2PaLFNh2qrudR2JuinoFMd6RawzT3WDbMWU63Bf9-yAbWAKCBAurkzyhvM4aZGm2Ejg3Naz1yc9yIo-B_NnrK1NsBx0C3hlCuvFXWH34rtjnx6jDXLd5qBItix-IPKfZA8HDV1_a-jeWkKJg5QZYxSFLQd7oR5viWV1DmyH4c2eXAfdxIaPsviHOud=w640-h591" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo of a partial solar eclipse as seen through special disposable sunglasses. A tiny red-orange crescent can be seen through the dark lenses held against a blue sky with wispy cirrus clouds.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /> <br /><br /> <br />Every week in our doxology we sing the words “Praise God made flesh with Jesus’ birth” and yet the idea of God having a body was not born with Jesus. Throughout the Hebrew scriptures God protects God’s people with a strong arm, God’s hands enfold us, God’s eye watches over us, we are held in safe in God’s bosom. <br /><br /> <br /><br />In the book of Genesis, God is introduced as El Shaddai, which has been traditionally translated as the Almighty or God with the power of a mountain. A more accurate translation tells us that the mountain is actually breasts, The Many-Breasted One or God with Breasts. Whenever we read of God’s mercy, God’s compassion, the word used is the Hebrew word for womb, as in before we were born, God loved us and knew us. <br /><br /> <br /><br />Moses has been tasked with leading God’s people through the wilderness and wants to know who this God is who liberates the oppressed but does not reveal the divine Presence. In this intimate conversation between Moses and God I hear a more modern, well-known plea: <br /><br /> <br /><br /><i>My sweet Lord,<br />Oh my Lord,<br />My sweet Lord <br /><br />I really want to see you<br />I really want to be with you<br />I really want to see you, Lord<br />But it takes so long, my Lord<br /><br />My sweet Lord,<br />Oh my Lord,<br />My sweet Lord <br /><br />I really want to know you<br />I really want to go with you<br />I really want to show you, Lord<br />That it won’t take long, my Lord <br /><br />My sweet Lord </i><br /><br /> <iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/1EORbL8N-R8?si=7O_Vv49_4jxbFeXR" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe> <br /><br />Moses wants reassurance that he does not do this hard thing alone and yet built into this relationship is this feeling of God is too awesome, God is too vast, God is too much for human beings to hear, to see, to comprehend. The people want Moses to speak to and for God because they are afraid that if God speaks to them directly, they will die. After all, this is the God they invoke upon waking and before sleeping with the prayer called the Shema: Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One. That Lord being the Creator of the heavens and the earth and their very lives. The psalmist says “who are mortals that you should be mindful of them, human beings that you care for them? Yet you have made them a little lower than God and crowned them with glory and honor.” It is a humbling place to be, a tiny speck in an infinite universe. <br /><br /> <br /><br />Moses on the other hand wants a full reckoning, like Job in the whirlwind, like Mother Teresa in her dark night of the soul, like any of us when we are going through the worst we’ve lived with, when we feel utterly alone on a planet with 8 billion people. But instead of revealing the divine Presence, instead of a face-to-face encounter, God places Moses in the cleft of a rock and covers Moses with the tender part of the hand until God has passed by so that Moses sees only God’s back but not God’s face. <br /><br /> <br /><br />God’s face cannot be comprehended in just an instance. God’s face is the face of every child, every woman, every man, every person that has ever been, that ever will be. God’s face is in every animal, every creature of the sea, every bird and insect, every tree and blade of grass, every root and flower, vegetable and fruit, every rock and grain of sand, every star and planet. God’s face is in clouds and rain, snow and wind, storm and calm, sunlight and moonlight. Where else would we find God if not in all that is but also beyond all that is? <br /><br /> <br /><br />Mahatma Gandhi said, “If you don’t find God in the next person you meet, it is a waste of time looking any further.” All of us want to be seen for who we are and yet not seen for who we are. We carry around so much shame and fear yet also so much yearning and hope. Wouldn’t we all like to pull back the veil and know something more of the how and the why of it all and our place, our part in the story. It’s daunting to remember, to embrace that on any given day we might be someone else’s glimpse of the divine presence. <br /><br /> <br /><br />A little over a week ago I had the honor of officiating at the wedding of two women. When I asked them to provide a word to describe their relationship, they replied with the word “natural”. Naturally I responded with “You make me feel like a natural woman” but I also heard something more than that. I heard authentic, trustworthy, true. What a gift to be in a relationship, whether it is friendship or marriage, at work or school, at home or in community, in which we can be our natural selves, we can be seen, without fear, all of who we are, and know that we are safe and we belong. By the way, that’s the gay agenda right there. It’s the same one we all have, the human agenda. What a gift that is to give to someone else, for them to know that with you they are safe and they belong. What a gift that is to give to ourselves, to know that within ourselves we belong. As I have said and will keep on saying, the unbreakable, unshakeable covenant of being human together. <br /><br /> <br /><br />Being human together can mean being joyful together but it can also mean being flawed together. Does humanity have the courage, do we in our small corner have the deep love to not only <a href="https://uscatholic.org/articles/202305/toward-a-theology-of-a-queer-god/" target="_blank">see all God’s beloveds</a> for all of who they are, but to allow ourselves to be seen in all our imperfect glory? <br /><br /> <br /><br />Violence and conflict are the language of the oppressed when injustice goes unseen, when cries go unheard. Violence and conflict are also the language of the oppressor when we refuse to see the humanity in those we seek to control. What we human beings will do to each other rather than look at ourselves, look at each other, see each other, see ourselves as no better, no worse than anyone else, all of us images and reflections of the divine presence, the mystery of life and death and love. <br /><br /> <br /><br />I found this piece of wisdom on the internet. I have no idea who wrote it but it sounds like they’ve read 1 Corinthians: “The truth is that the more intimately you know someone, the more clearly you’ll see their flaws. That’s just the way it is. This is why relationships fail, why some marriages fail, why children are abandoned, why friendships don’t last.” (I’ll add, why some faith communities and clergy go their separate ways, why some people leave faith communities.) <br /><br /> <br /><br />“You might think you love someone until you see the way they act when they’re in stressful situations, when they’re out of money or under pressure or hungry, anxious, or when they’re under depression. <br /><br /> <br /><br />“For goodness’ sake…Love is something different. Love is choosing to stay and try your best to work it out. Love is choosing to be with someone in spite of their unstable, filthy, yet caring and loving heart. Love is patient and kind, love is deliberate. Love is hard. Love is pain and sacrifice. Love is choosing someone to struggle with. It’s seeing the darkness in another person and defying the impulse to jump ship. <br /><br /> <br /><br />“It’s seeing the imperfection in someone and yet you’re choosing to love every bit of their soul, one day at a time.” <br /><br /> <br /><br />It may be the hardest thing we do, to see others and allow ourselves to be seen, without control, without coercion, without judgment. Yet when we do, there is a joy and a hope from which nothing can separate us, a good that we realize is worth fighting for. <br /><br /> <br /><br />I see you, Church. I hope you see me. Beloved, I hope you see yourselves and each other the way God sees you. What a gift to give each other. Amen.</span></div><div><br /></div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /><br />Benediction – Karen Drucker <br /><br /><br />Look at one another and repeat these words after me: <br /><br />You are the face of God.<br />I hold you in my heart.<br />You are a part of me.<br />You are the face of Love.<br />Amen.</span><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/rH-BKtAP2q4?si=itLCBJUlkJVziBh8" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe>Cynthiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16189485834914559162noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-440442321230822645.post-13093745819971546322023-10-18T12:20:00.004-07:002023-10-21T12:11:14.742-07:00Natural<p> </p><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;">(<i>Last</i> <i>week I had the honor of officiating at the wedding of two women and the best part was when the dad of one of the brides spoke about how happy he is that his daughter is happy. And that right there my friends is the gay agenda.</i>)</span></div><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhyiPvnsD09cMCVJfIniq3sGgVsFkw89q5wREkaxr46XlE-UQXNbpREPUlxjAYPpXJjD_jWGOPXhM3Hb2gGo9WcU05vrtQ-UgR-SdYoK2qscnYdVHbfguIFdb3rtT3fpbw-67rrBAGPWmV7tAq2Yg_0tIsVg8ONHnrUmNZvJ0r3-cJAT5ZL-ftGHUJg3BbP" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="334" data-original-width="500" height="428" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhyiPvnsD09cMCVJfIniq3sGgVsFkw89q5wREkaxr46XlE-UQXNbpREPUlxjAYPpXJjD_jWGOPXhM3Hb2gGo9WcU05vrtQ-UgR-SdYoK2qscnYdVHbfguIFdb3rtT3fpbw-67rrBAGPWmV7tAq2Yg_0tIsVg8ONHnrUmNZvJ0r3-cJAT5ZL-ftGHUJg3BbP=w640-h428" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo of a person with breasts wearing a yellow top with spaghetti straps, showing their natural body hair in their armpits.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /></span><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div>When I asked J* and J* for a word to describe their relationship, a theme for this marriage ceremony, they replied with the word “natural”. Naturally I answered with “You make me feel like a natural woman” but I also heard something more than that. I heard authentic, trustworthy, true. What a gift to be in a relationship, whether it is friendship or marriage, at work or school, at home or in community, in which we can be our natural selves without fear, all of who we are, and know that we belong. What a gift that is to give to someone else, for them to know that with you they belong. What a gift that is to give to ourselves, to know that within ourselves we belong. The unbreakable, unshakeable covenant of being human together. <br /><br /> <br /><br />And yet having the gift of being natural with one another does not mean there will be no conflict, that life will not be messy. In fact, it guarantees the opposite. Which is one of the reasons why sometimes we hide who we are or deny ourselves, why we harm each other and ourselves. We’ve been taught to avoid conflict rather than grow through it. To be sure, there are times that a relationship has come to an end or it must end for the sake of everyone involved. Yet we mustn’t kid ourselves that a healthy relationship lacks conflict. Being human together can mean being joyful together but it can also mean being flawed together. Do we have the courage, the deep love to not only see our beloved for all of who they are, but to allow ourselves to be seen in all our imperfect glory? <br /><br /> <br /><br />I found this piece of wisdom bouncing around on the internet. I have no idea who wrote it but it sounds like they’ve read 1 Corinthians: “The truth is that the more intimately you know someone, the more clearly you’ll see their flaws. That’s just the way it is. This is why relationships fail, why some marriages fail, why children are abandoned, why friendships don’t last. <br /><br /> <br /><br />“You might think you love someone until you see the way they act when they’re in stressful situations, when they’re out of money or under pressure or hungry, anxious, or when they’re under depression. <br /><br /> <br /><br />“For goodness’ sake…Love is something different. Love is choosing to stay and try your best to work it out. Love is choosing to be with someone in spite of their unstable, filthy, yet caring and loving heart. Love is patient and kind, love is deliberate. Love is hard. Love is pain and sacrifice. Love is choosing someone to struggle with. It’s seeing the darkness in another person and defying the impulse to jump ship. <br /><br /> <br /><br />“It’s seeing the imperfection in someone and yet you’re choosing to love every bit of their soul, till the end of the time.” <br /><br /> <br /><br />Which is why marriage vows are not just about the good stuff we get to enjoy, but the difficult stuff we cannot predict or imagine. In truth, we really don’t know what we’re getting into when we join our fate to someone else’s, when we join our fate to community, and yet we do it anyway. Thank goodness we don’t have to do it alone. We gather our friends and our families together, in effect, saying we can’t do this without you, we wouldn’t be here without you. We invoke the love of God, in effect, saying that this love is bigger and deeper and more mysterious than anything we can comprehend. It is a love that is holy and makes us want to celebrate with our whole selves. <br /><br /> <br /><br />And so, J* and J*, our deep thanks for inviting us to bear witness, to be reminded of our own love commitments, to be community for you, and to celebrate your love and this new family with you. Amen.</span>Cynthiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16189485834914559162noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-440442321230822645.post-56761321937327820992023-10-11T13:26:00.000-07:002023-10-11T13:26:02.222-07:00The art of shaping a shared life<p> </p><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Exodus+20%3A+1-4%2C+7-9%2C+12-20&version=NRSVUE" target="_blank">Exodus 20: 1-4, 7-9, 12-20</a><br /><a href="https://fb.watch/nCJJiq_ymS/" target="_blank">New Ark United Church of Christ, Newark, DE</a><br />October 8, 2023</span><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgHob0DVA5_cc8ziGK9vpVtbp6ZPdGQkItcyY2FLiNfJSvrkAr5FNidsZqYFJ6TsaYPhmGm5D_XMmZB7w7W4QE7cKsVenBcSKiLuSa2VZCnwNbVwTSjRt4GQyt_FLdDIfeiSfuk_XYTY-b7sCHfHXG-Ka5bfx8jzc3AgfeBn4uv43VBU8ozCULgGx-fUaai" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="2831" data-original-width="1887" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgHob0DVA5_cc8ziGK9vpVtbp6ZPdGQkItcyY2FLiNfJSvrkAr5FNidsZqYFJ6TsaYPhmGm5D_XMmZB7w7W4QE7cKsVenBcSKiLuSa2VZCnwNbVwTSjRt4GQyt_FLdDIfeiSfuk_XYTY-b7sCHfHXG-Ka5bfx8jzc3AgfeBn4uv43VBU8ozCULgGx-fUaai=w427-h640" width="427" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Close-up photo of the Statue of Liberty, showing the folds of the upper long tunic, revealing the petticoat skirt below, in shades of light and darker teal.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /> <br /><br /><br />When human beings live together in community, whether it is a city or a neighborhood, a marriage or a friendship, a government, a 12-step group, or a faith community, we need a shared agreement on how we will live together peaceably. We need a covenant. <br /><br /> <br /><br />Sometimes a covenant includes prohibitions, things we can’t or really shouldn’t do if we want to live peaceably. Though some people bristle at the idea that we are all sinful, I think we can agree that within human nature we all have impulses we need to resist. Covenants are intended to liberate us, to free us from evil that we may live toward the good. <br /><br /> <br /><br />Some people have trouble with all those ‘shall’s’ and ‘shall not’s’ in the Ten Commandments. Folks just aren’t used to talking in those terms. So, in middle Tennessee they translated the King James version into ‘Jackson County’ language. Internet legend has it that this is posted on the wall at Cross Trails Church in Gainesboro, TN. <br /><br /> <br /><br /><ul style="text-align: left;"><li><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"> Just one God</span></li><li><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"> Put nothin’ before God</span></li><li><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"> Watch yer mouth</span></li><li><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"> Git yourself to Sunday meetin’</span></li><li><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"> Honor yer Ma & Pa</span></li><li><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"> No killin’</span></li><li><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"> No foolin’ around with another fellow’s gal (I guess us gals are on our own)</span></li><li><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"> Don’t take what ain’t yers</span></li><li><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"> No tellin’ tales or gossipin’</span></li><li><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"> Don’t be hankerin’ for yer buddy’s stuff </span></li></ul><br />Now that’s plain an’ simple. Y’all have a nice day. <br /><br /> <br /><br />A 4th grade Sunday School class in Monroe, CT chose to put the Ten Commandments in positive, contemporary language: <br /><br /> <br /><br />1. Remember that God is holy.<br />2. God is the only God – worship God and nothing else.<br />3. Say God’s name with love.<br />4. Keep the Sabbath for rest and worship.<br />5. Parents and children: love and respect each other.<br />6. Care for each other.<br />7. Show love to the person you marry.<br />8. Share with each other.<br />9. Be truthful to each other.<br />10. Appreciate what you have. <br /><br /> <br /><br />Unitarian Universalist minister Robert Fulghum said that everything he needed to know about living in community he learned in kindergarten. <br /><br /> <br /><br />1. Share everything.<br />2. Play fair.<br />3. Don't hit people.<br />4. Put things back where you found them.<br />5. CLEAN UP YOUR OWN MESS.<br />6. Don't take things that aren't yours.<br />7. Say you're SORRY when you HURT somebody.<br />8. Wash your hands before you eat.<br />9. Flush.<br />10. Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you.<br />11. Live a balanced life - learn some and drink some and draw some and paint some and sing and dance and play and work every day some.<br />12. Take a nap every afternoon.<br />13. When you go out into the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands, and stick together.<br />14. Be aware of wonder. Remember the little seed in the Styrofoam cup: The roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why, but we are all like that.<br />15. Goldfish and hamster and white mice and even the little seed in the Styrofoam cup - they all die. So do we.<br />16. And then remember the Dick-and-Jane books and the first word you learned - the biggest word of all - LOOK.” <br /><br /> <br /><br />LOOK. As in, pay attention. As in, be curious, not judgmental. LOOK, as in, try to understand the situation from someone else's perspective, especially those who are oppressed, marginalized, and hurting because of their skin color, their gender, their identity. Covenants are about relationships and being in equal partnership with whole human beings, with all of who we are as individuals and as community members. <br /><br /> <br /><br />Living in covenant doesn’t mean we will never be in conflict. In fact, the more we are able to be our authentic selves, the more likely we will have disagreements. <a href="https://www.awakin.org/v2/read/view.php?tid=2476" target="_blank">Henri Nouwen once quoted someone</a> who said that community is the place where the person you least want to live with always lives. Funny, we never think of ourselves as being that person! Being in covenant helps us resolve conflicts without injury or violence. When we hurt one another, we tear away not only at our communal shared covenant but also at that unbreakable, unshakeable covenant of being human together. <br /><br /> <br /><br />A covenant requires everyone to voluntarily give away some of their power. Covenants happen by mutual consent. In God’s covenant with the Israelites, God in effect is limited by giving them the space to be human and to make choices. By the same token, human beings limit their freedom to do whatever they want. In the United Church of Christ<i> Book of Worship</i>, the marriage vows begin with the words “I give myself to you” rather than “I take you”. When new members join this church, we use reciprocal, mutual language. Everyone promises to lovingly challenge each other to be the best version of themselves, to help one another live up to the things we say we believe. We promise that we will allow ourselves to be shaped, changed, and transformed by each other, living into our called identity as a beloved community of God. <br /><br /> <br /><br />Living in covenant means that we laugh with each other, cry with each other, celebrate together, forgive each other, be accountable to each other. Which means we don’t have to hide from each other. Unless of course our community doesn’t feel safe to us. Which is why we continually need to work on being safe space for everyone, especially for those who don’t feel safe in this world. Living in covenant calls us to work on our recovery from our privilege and power, from normalizing our experience of being human, and centering the experiences of the oppressed. Living in covenant liberates all of us from supremacy, hierarchy, fear, greed, and violence so that all of us are free to live, to love, and to be at peace. <br /><br /> <br /><br />Kindred One, lead us from death to life, from hate to love, from war to peace. The kin-dom is always close. May we live as if it is so. Amen.</span></div><div><br /></div><div><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div><div><br /></div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br />Benediction – stanzas from <a href="https://www.ellenbass.com/books/the-human-line/pray-for-peace/" target="_blank">“Pray for Peace” by Ellen Bass</a><br /><br /><br />Pray to whomever you kneel down to:<br /> Jesus nailed to his wooden or plastic cross,<br /> his suffering face bent to kiss you,<br /> Buddha still under the bo tree in scorching heat,<br /> Adonai, Allah. Raise your arms to Mary<br /> that she may lay her palm on our brows,<br /> to Shekhina, Queen of Heaven and Earth,<br /> to Inanna in her stripped descent. <br /><br /><br />Make the brushing of your hair<br /> a prayer, every strand its own voice,<br /> singing in the choir on your head.<br /> As you wash your face, the water slipping<br /> through your fingers, a prayer: Water,<br /> softest thing on earth, gentleness<br /> that wears away rock. <br /><br /><br />And if you are riding on a bicycle<br /> or a skateboard, in a wheelchair, each revolution<br /> of the wheels a prayer as the earth revolves:<br /><i> less harm, less harm, less harm. </i><br /><br /><br />Pull weeds for peace, turn over in your sleep for peace,<br /> feed the birds, each shiny seed<br /> that spills onto the earth, another second of peace.<br /> Wash your dishes, call your mother, drink wine. <br /><br /><br />Shovel leaves or snow or trash from your sidewalk.<br /> Make a path. Fold a photo of a dead child<br /> around your Visa card. Scoop your holy water<br /> from the gutter. Gnaw your crust.<br /> Mumble along like a crazy person, stumbling<br /> your prayer through the streets.</span></div><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/D1Be7pJwpgo?si=hrgJIm5zJAEU_-z8" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe>Cynthiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16189485834914559162noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-440442321230822645.post-7783285520966544632023-10-03T12:05:00.000-07:002023-10-03T12:05:03.804-07:00The authority of love<p> </p><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><a href="https://bible.oremus.org/?ql=563354844" target="_blank">Matthew 21: 23-32</a><br /><a href="https://fb.watch/ns31cTw-u6/" target="_blank">New Ark United Church of Christ, Newark, DE</a><br />October 1, 2023 – World Communion Sunday</span><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgDiC26ZcUfxzN-4Zm3-NV1jfDG7v8nlOsQe4DsQBpeH9bWf2QLCtVrkJbU4ofa7mG9u56ZNbWFv5OjtcrA7jkNcCcx-68on8w3G4EmREgmHsKw38hI310gBthQ2oG8uOxN1yjYvYujTWGF9R7y42LTQQFJdBV2x4s3iVfHQUltW-wwfaOYboWLvBGjUUoY" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="758" data-original-width="810" height="600" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgDiC26ZcUfxzN-4Zm3-NV1jfDG7v8nlOsQe4DsQBpeH9bWf2QLCtVrkJbU4ofa7mG9u56ZNbWFv5OjtcrA7jkNcCcx-68on8w3G4EmREgmHsKw38hI310gBthQ2oG8uOxN1yjYvYujTWGF9R7y42LTQQFJdBV2x4s3iVfHQUltW-wwfaOYboWLvBGjUUoY=w640-h600" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo of a painting on the side of restaurant or home. Stucco wall painted blue with the figure of Pope Francis seated on a llama. Table with a red checkered tablecloth and a white tablecloth over it set with plates, glasses, and silverware. Bright red door. Light blue bicycle. Bars painted red over the window.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /></span><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">World Communion Sunday originated 90 years ago in 1933 with the Rev. Dr. Hugh Thomson Kerr who was pastor of the Shadyside Presbyterian Church in Pittsburgh, PA. He wanted to bring churches together in a spirit of Christian unity, to inspire congregations and remind us that we are all interconnected. It was adopted by the US Presbyterian Church and quickly spread to other denominations. In 1940 it was endorsed by the Federal Council of Churches, now the National Council of Churches, and from there it spread worldwide.</div><br /> <br /><br />It is also important to acknowledge the reason World Communion Sunday can exist at all is because Christianity joined hands with empire and gave itself the authority to colonize the world. It is a foundational part of church history that we rarely own up to, not unlike our nation’s aversion to being accountable to the painful reality of Columbus Day and Thanksgiving or the generational effects of the trauma of slavery still felt to this day. All of which were supported theologically and funded in part or entirely by the Church. <br /><br /> <br /><br />It is necessary that we acknowledge all of our history because it demonstrates our relationship with authority. By what authority do we do these things, or anything for that matter? In the Christian scriptures the Greek word <i>exousia</i> (ex-oh-<u>see</u>-ah) is most often translated as “authority” and it is the word Matthew uses in his story of Jesus teaching in the temple. <br /><br /> <br /><br />When the elders and chief priests use the word ‘authority’ they speak of something external to ourselves, as in, who gave you permission. It’s as if they are saying, “May we speak with your supervisor?” We may not always like gatekeepers and watchdogs because of the power they wield, but when they do their job well, they hold us all accountable in keeping people safe. My authority as a pastor comes from the <a href="https://www.ucc.org/" target="_blank">United Church of Christ</a> and the <a href="https://www.cacucc.org/" target="_blank">Central Atlantic Conference</a> but most importantly it comes from being in covenant and relationship with you, the local church I serve. Our authority as a church comes from our relationships in the community, especially with the most vulnerable. <br /><br /> <br /><br />When Jesus uses the same word, we can rightly assume he is using authority in a larger sense, authority as in author, origin, cooperating with the author, the origin, the creator of the heavens and earth. Too often, human beings have abused that to mean that God is on our side. That whatever power we have, whether it’s land or wealth or information or technology, indicates that we are favored in some way and therefore have the right to do with what we have as we please. Some call this liberty. Yet there are those who enshrine their power by whatever means deemed necessary who then use their power to control the liberty of others. Some think this is government. <br /><br /> <br /><br />Jesus operates out of an authority of love, love that is undeserved, unmerited, unlimited. But we have <a href="https://twitter.com/RevJacquiLewis/status/1708483081353429478" target="_blank">cheapened and sentimentalized love</a> to a point that we scoff at the idea that love can have authority in community. We have made love conditional and transactional, as though it comes to us as something earned rather than a gift from within us. Love that gives us that sense of belonging and well-being. <br /><br /> <br /><br />Robin Wall Kimmerer in her book <i>Braiding Sweetgrass</i>, tells the story of working with graduate students in a writing workshop on relationships to the land. All of the students said that being in nature is where they experience a sense of belonging and well-being the most. Without hesitating they said that they love the earth. Kimmerer then asked them, “Do you think that the earth loves you in return?” No one answered her. They were stymied. So she rephrased her question: “What do you suppose would happen if people believed this crazy notion that the earth loved them back?” If love had authority in their relationship with the earth. One student put it very well: “You wouldn’t harm what gives you love.” <br /><br /> <br /><br />Many Americans say that they love this country. How would we know this country loves us in return, that this country is governed by an authority grounded in love? <br /><br /> <br /><br />Children would never have to worry about gun violence at school or in their neighborhood or homes ever again. <br /><br /><br />Trans and non-binary youth would have unfettered access to gender affirming healthcare. <br /><br /><br />Anyone who needs an abortion would be able to get one. <br /><br /><br />Disabled people would have the same access and agency in public spaces as everyone else. <br /><br /><br />Everyone would have clean drinking water, clean air, and the availability of affordable fresh food. <br /><br /><br />Everyone would have access to affordable housing, education, and healthcare. <br /><br /><br />Everyone would know that their thriving is inseparable from the thriving of everyone else. Everyone would know a sense of belonging and well-being. <br /><br /> <br /><br />This Table is how we know Jesus’ authority is one of love. The Rev. Dr. Jacqui Lewis at Middle Collegiate Church in New York City tells <a href="https://twitter.com/RevJacquiLewis/status/1707015527913123920" target="_blank">the story of the first time she had Communion</a>. Her mother gave her a piece of bread and said, “This means that God will always love you.” Then she gave her juice and said, “This means God will never leave you.” Undeserved, unmerited, unlimited love frees us to be the people God created us to be. People who use their power and share it to take care of the land and each other, people who respect each other, are accountable to each other, learn from each other, forgive each other, love each other, no matter what. Inseparable. Belonging and well-being. Amen.</span></div></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;">Benediction – enfleshed.com <br /><br />The Spirit moves all around us and also within us<br />May we not be afraid to claim the power God has given us<br />To recognize the Wisdom of God in our neighbors<br />And to practice an authority that calls us to brave convictions<br />That our lives may be guided not by dictations from on high<br />But by lineages of love and liberation, calling on us to live</span><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div><div><br /></div><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"> </span> <iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/I1xJQw7Rvek?si=rnWPkYInJqx4Zrvo" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe></div>Cynthiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16189485834914559162noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-440442321230822645.post-70133449266675308732023-09-26T10:35:00.003-07:002023-09-26T10:56:33.711-07:00Soul, work, worth<p> </p><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><a href="https://bible.oremus.org/?ql=562748662" target="_blank">Matthew 20: 1-16</a><br /><a href="https://fb.watch/niP1tQXzMH/" target="_blank">New Ark United Church of Christ, Newark, DE</a><br />September 24, 2023</span><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhMvDRW-mSmAVgDZ8-CyB2BaxcyR-DwgKupqyhHLljS7siH5PwoLfRP_NxIozQIp8ZdPa81ad1McTfChAWYP0JTI5gag1TXSF1BvIgVyJJ-sU9pvXNwmzQH0j7y62P2YJnIaKxFioU5qVMsoSt8FhFkv7m7ssP4mmZzeUgTSSwIgXNeNXo3yKSyKwCvXjs-" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="1099" data-original-width="736" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEhMvDRW-mSmAVgDZ8-CyB2BaxcyR-DwgKupqyhHLljS7siH5PwoLfRP_NxIozQIp8ZdPa81ad1McTfChAWYP0JTI5gag1TXSF1BvIgVyJJ-sU9pvXNwmzQH0j7y62P2YJnIaKxFioU5qVMsoSt8FhFkv7m7ssP4mmZzeUgTSSwIgXNeNXo3yKSyKwCvXjs-=w429-h640" width="429" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo of the cover of the Ladybird edition of The Little Red Hen and the grains of wheat. The red hen is walking down the street away from the baker, who is waving, and she is carrying with her beak a freshly baked two-tiered loaf of bread in a netted sack.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /> <br /><br /><br />This is one of my favorite parables. It reminds me of one of my own (bad) jokes. <br /><br /> <br /><br />Why are morning people in charge of almost everything?<br /><br />Because they got up before everyone else. <br /><br /> <br /><br />This parable also reminds me of another story, one with a completely opposite meaning, <i>The Little Red Hen and the grains of wheat. </i><br /><br /> <br /><br />You know the story. Once upon a time, there was a little red hen who lived in a farmyard. <br /><br />One day the little red hen found some grains of wheat. <br /><br />She took them to the other animals in the farmyard. <br /><br />“Who will help me to plant these grains of wheat?” asked the little red hen. <br /><br />“Not I,” said the cat. <br /><br />“Not I,” said the rat. <br /><br />“Not I,” said the pig. <br /><br />“Then I shall plant the grains myself”, said the little red hen. So she did. <br /><br />And the story continues in the same way when the hen needs to cut the wheat, when she needs to take the wheat to the mill to be ground into flour, when she needs to take the flour to the baker to be made into bread. No one will help so she does it herself. <br /><br />We know the ending too. <br /><br />When the bread was baked, the little red hen took it to the other animals in the farmyard. <br /><br />“The bread is now ready to be eaten”, said the little red hen. “Who will help me to eat the bread?” <br /><br />“I will”, said the cat. <br /><br />“I will”, said the rat. <br /><br />“I will”, said the pig. <br /><br />“No, you will not”, said the little red hen. “I shall eat it myself”. So she did. <br /><br /> <br /><br />The story is an American fable that first appeared in print in 1874. It was intended to teach children the value of hard work and the importance of personal initiative. Over the years <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Little_Red_Hen" target="_blank">it has been adapted</a> to suit different purposes. When he was seeking the presidency, Ronald Reagan used this story in a speech in which a farmer declares that the hen is being unfair and so forces her to share the bread, thus removing her incentive to work and causing the farm to fall into poverty. In another version the hen promises a slice of bread to each of the animals if they make the bread but she keeps the biggest slice for herself even though she didn’t do any of the work. In yet another version the hen is praised because she kept the fruits of her labor. <br /><br /> <br /><br />Jesus tells his parable of the workers in the vineyard because he’s talking about the kingdom of heaven and the extravagantly generous heart of God. There is no landowner, there are no workers, except when we read this, they absolutely exist. With both stories, with any story about work, or about rest for that matter, we react viscerally. Generations of work before us have trained us to react this way. We’ve witnessed this in the reactions to affirmation action and its demise, student loan forgiveness, and the animosity directed at so-called ‘welfare queens’. We equate work and productivity with worth and with morality, ultimately with the purpose of life. We don’t want to work ourselves to the bone but we don’t want to see someone else getting more for doing less. <br /><br /> <br /><br />We expect fairness in a system rigged against workers in a nation that was built with enslaved people. Since 1973 <a href="https://www.religionrevolt.org/latest/they-need-us-they-owe-us" target="_blank">hourly wages have increased only 9.2%</a> while productivity has increased by 74.4%. For the same time period, housing costs have risen over 100%, not to mention food, healthcare, and education. And yet we still hold onto the myth that with enough hard work and personal initiative, if you put enough muscle into hauling up those bootstraps, anyone can achieve the American dream. And among the core values of the American dream are property ownership, self-sufficiency, independence, while the values of the kin-dom are mutual care, interdependence, and the sufficiency of enough. <br /><br /> <br /><br />We started to learn these lessons at the beginning of the pandemic. In 2020 the U.S. government provided three rounds of cash payments to tax filers, totaling $3200 for each tax filer and $2500 per child—essentially a temporary version of universal basic income. Not only that, the <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/personalfinance/poverty-rates-have-risen-since-the-boosted-child-tax-credit-expired/ar-AA1h0ctM?ocid=socialshare" target="_blank">expanded Child Tax Credit</a> that recently expired lifted nearly 4 million children out of poverty and restored food to their tables. It turns out that a lack of money can be solved by <a href="https://prospect.org/economy/2023-09-13-poverty-yo-yo/" target="_blank">giving money to people who need it.</a><br /><br /> <br /><br />Yes, we say, but only because it was an emergency, but what else would we call millions of children raised in the trauma of poverty? What about disabled workers who are still <a href="https://www.newsweek.com/disabled-workers-earned-26-percent-less-non-disabled-2020-report-1699898" target="_blank">paid on average 26% less</a> than non-disabled workers? What of many in this present generation who cannot afford to buy, let alone rent, their own home at a similar age to when their parents purchased a home? Additionally, we’ve linked the ability to work with health insurance, retirement programs, and even the ability to feed ourselves. And many people are working themselves literally to death. <br /><br /> <br /><br />Which is why we have a commandment to observe the sabbath, to have a day of rest, a day of our lives given over to the Source of life. Yet even then there are times we turn the ministry of the Church into tasks and work to be done. I keep reading <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/religion/2023/09/15/christianity-church-attendance-decline/" target="_blank">article after article</a> about <a href="https://www.christiancentury.org/article/first-words/why-aren-t-people-coming-back" target="_blank">why people are leaving church,</a> or at least not participating as much, when I think for many folx it is as simple as a deep need for rest, recovery, and restorative time spent with family and friends. <br /><br /> <br /><br />Whether we consciously acknowledge it or not, our bodies, our minds, our souls are responding to the collective trauma of the past three and half years. Devon Price in their book <i><a href="https://drdevonprice.substack.com/p/laziness-does-not-exist" target="_blank">Laziness Does Not Exist</a></i> writes, “When you lose power over your own life, you don’t have much reason to stay energized and motivated. So, you protect yourself emotionally by checking out and giving up.” Church is not the place where we want to reinforce this feeling of not having power over our own lives but the people with whom we want to experience and work for deep connections and liberation. <br /><br /> <br /><br /><a href="http://WilmingtonNewsJournal_20230924_A22_1.pdf" target="_blank">What is the work your soul must have?</a> What is it about Church that your soul must have? What is the work of this church that its soul must have? What is the soul of this church, of our life together? Jesus says that God is generous with all of us. How can we be generous with ourselves and each other, each in our own way? Generous with our imaginations, generous with our time, generous with our resources, generous with rest, generous with our expectations, generous with forgiveness, generous with love. <br /><br /> <br /><br />In the words of the <a href="https://hey-bug.tumblr.com/post/698855308490162176/a-queer-seminarian-christianity-for-heathens-by" target="_blank">poet Jay Hulme,</a><br /><br /><br />i.<br /> Love everyone as if everyone is holy,<br /> as if everyone’s intrinsically worthy,<br /> as if the streets are strewn with Christ<br /> taking naps in empty doorways. <br /><br />ii.<br /> Love yourself as if you are loved,<br /> as if you were never an accident,<br /> as if everything you were meant to be<br /> waits for you to claim it. <br /><br />iii.<br /> Love the world as if it were a gift,<br /> as if you were made as part of it,<br /> as if you were meant to tend to it —<br /> every inch of earth is Holy Ground. <br /><br />iv.<br /> Love justice, and kindness, and truth,<br /> as if everything depends on it,<br /> as if everything depends on it.<br /> Everything depends on it. <br /><br />v.<br /> You were given a gift, and trusted.<br /> Love it all, love it all,<br /> love it always. <br /><br />?.<br /> Know this, if you know anything at all:<br /> Life is no challenge, nor test;<br /> life is love. <br /><br />∞.<br /> Reflect it back in abundance.</span></div><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/D6hIMsd6BlQ?si=5z73NRQUOhIlgBdV" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe></span><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;">Benediction - Jay Hulme<br /><br /><br />iii.<br /> Love the world as if it were a gift,<br /> as if you were made as part of it,<br /> as if you were meant to tend to it —<br /> every inch of earth is Holy Ground. <br /><br />iv.<br /> Love justice, and kindness, and truth,<br /> as if everything depends on it,<br /> as if everything depends on it.<br /> Everything depends on it. <br /><br />v.<br /> You were given a gift, and trusted.<br /> Love it all, love it all,<br /> love it always. <br /><br />?.<br /> Know this, if you know anything at all:<br /> Life is no challenge, nor test;<br /> life is love. <br /><br />∞.<br /> Reflect it back in abundance.</span></div>Cynthiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16189485834914559162noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-440442321230822645.post-62592113816519926542023-09-19T15:54:00.000-07:002023-09-19T15:54:05.718-07:00The gospel according to Ted Lasso<p> </p><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><a href="https://bible.oremus.org/?ql=562163019" target="_blank">Romans 14: 1-12</a><br /><a href="https://fb.watch/n9T4Tlocz_/" target="_blank">New Ark United Church of Christ, Newark, DE</a><br />September 17, 2023</span><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhE0Qvqigtxy-80fmtdhwTaOT1ZH8PkqoArcR8t_88dSsIFQSJrVeODTkjbJ3Sf0jM-mqQ9AQzEm8SP6Zdc-UUNpBnjwDYa_soFw1kaQ_4h6VEfehlLNsnCwzYpRRIDkRpW9eOmxgOa_N3vJ25F6e4ZFyJ4J0-fIf5lW7g0J78-kBKsmhxiHuCrtrdQnkEw/s1134/BelieveSign.PNG" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="775" data-original-width="1134" height="438" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhE0Qvqigtxy-80fmtdhwTaOT1ZH8PkqoArcR8t_88dSsIFQSJrVeODTkjbJ3Sf0jM-mqQ9AQzEm8SP6Zdc-UUNpBnjwDYa_soFw1kaQ_4h6VEfehlLNsnCwzYpRRIDkRpW9eOmxgOa_N3vJ25F6e4ZFyJ4J0-fIf5lW7g0J78-kBKsmhxiHuCrtrdQnkEw/w640-h438/BelieveSign.PNG" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Screenshot of the torn up, reassembled "Believe" sign from the TV series <i>Ted Lasso</i>. Yellow paper with blue capital letters.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /> <br /><br /><br />Ever since I can remember I have been drawn to hopeful stories that require believing in some fashion. Bible stories like Moses in the bulrushes and Jesus healing just about everybody caught my attention at an early age. <i>Star Trek</i> is about believing that humanity has a hopeful future, despite or maybe even because of our weaknesses. The movie <i>Field of Dreams</i> is about listening to and believing in that inner voice that calls us to healing and forgiveness. You probably have your own list of go-to stories when you need some uplifting. <br /><br /> <br /><br />And then there’s the popular television show <i>Ted Lasso</i>, from whence this torn up and reassembled poster hails from. If you’ve never seen it, one, you must. And two, I’m sorry, I’m about to ruin some of it for you, but the message is just too good to pass up. <br /><br /> <br /><br />Ted Lasso is an American college football coach hired to coach a British professional football team, aka soccer, of which he knows nothing about. One of the first things Ted does after he arrives is to make this “Believe” sign and hang it up in the locker room over the doorway to his office. The sign becomes not only a source of motivation for the team but a talisman to be touched before going out on the field, a good luck charm, a symbol of the team’s cohesion, hope, self-work, and success. <br /><br /> <br /><br />After a conflict with one of the coaching staff, Ted finds the sign on his desk torn in half. He restores it to its rightful place without telling the team. After a difficult game, Ted gives some words of encouragement, telling them they just need to believe, and half of the sign falls away from the wall, causing the team to gasp in shock and horror, one player crying out, “It’s a sign!” Ted then takes down both halves of the sign and says, “The fact is, it is just a sign” and tears it in half again, twice. The team erupts again. Ted reminds the team that believing doesn’t come from hanging a sign on a wall. It comes from within, our heart, our mind, our gut. But we all have so much stuff inside us like envy, shame, and fear that we get in our own way. Ted is tired of living that way and the team agrees they are too. Ted says that he would rather mess around with the belief that he matters, regardless of what he’s able to accomplish or not. Or the belief that we all deserve to be loved, whether we’ve been hurt or we’ve hurt somebody else. Or the belief of hope: believing that things can get better, that we all can get better. He says, “Believing in yourself and believing in each other, that’s fundamental to being alive. And when we do that, no one can rip that apart.” He then leaves the torn-up sign on a low platform in the middle of the locker room.</span></div><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /><br /> <iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/olPLvuvMcSE?si=eWSSRzePENUvuy6F" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe><br /><br /><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;">Now it’s the last game of the season and the team needs to come from behind. Ted says to the team that we don’t know what’s going to happen, none of us ever really knows. We don’t want to know the future; we want to be here right now. But if we just believe and he points to where the sign used to hang. If we do what we do, the peace of mind that comes from knowing we tried and did our best, that’s enough. Unbeknownst to Ted, each player had taken a piece of that torn-up sign, still a talisman but now something deeper, more intrinsic. One player brings out his small piece of the sign and lays it down, then another, and another until they have all the pieces. Then they reassemble it like a jigsaw puzzle, like distinct individual players each with their own flaws and strengths but something altogether different when they embrace one another. When they trust one another.</span></div><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /><br /> <iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/NB8MHxUQaz0?si=yGgys9s4jgtpNewG" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe> <br /><br /><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;">I think this is what Paul is getting at in his letter to the church in Rome. He’s not talking so much about a crisis in faith but more like a crisis in trust. And he uses the language these Romans are using against those who are new to following Jesus as a way of showing them they have some work to do. In an empire, the word weak is used to shame and demean, and strength is something to admire and attain, just as it is now. <br /><br /> <br /><br />In effect, Paul is saying if these Romans are so strong in following Jesus, wouldn’t they have enough strength to embrace those who are new to this way of life? Do they believe in themselves, do they believe in each other? Does not Christ live in them and in their life together? Do they trust themselves, flaws and all? Do they trust each other, flaws and all? These Romans would rather just quarrel about their differences and pass judgment than allow themselves to be changed, to become something new. <br /><br /> <br /><br />Which is the spiritual crisis we—the Church, this country—find ourselves in now, a crisis in trust rather than the crisis in faith that Christian nationalists are convinced of. The words “belief” and “believe” used to imply a sense of trust rather than an assent to a particular set of convictions. In an empire, to be strong in faith is more about certainty and adhering to rules, hierarchy, who’s in and who’s out. But in the kin-dom of God, to be strong in faith means believing that everyone matters, regardless of who they are, but especially those empire calls weak. To be strong in faith means that we all deserve to be loved, whether we’ve been hurt or we’ve hurt somebody else. To be strong in faith means the belief of hope: believing that things can get better, that we all can get better. <br /><br /> <br /><br />Paul was right. None of us live to ourselves nor do we die to ourselves. Ted was right. Believing in yourself and believing in each other is fundamental to being alive. It’s also fundamental to life lived in community. In the last twenty years or so we have had one painful, hopeful opportunity after another to build trust, solidarity, and community—September 11th, Black Lives Matter, marriage equality, the #MeToo movement, the peaceful transfer of power, the pandemic, the multitude of labor strikes, the climate crisis. In all of these we have betrayed and deserted one another, still messing with the envy, shame, and fear that we all carry inside us. We’ve convinced ourselves and each other that, depending on who you are, we can tear up that unbreakable, unshakeable covenant of being human together. <br /><br /> <br /><br />But no one can take that away from you or from us. Each of us has tucked away inside us that small slip of paper with the truth about ourselves on it. Forty-four years ago, three groups of people came together each, with their truth and their different expressions of believing, and trusted each other to become Church together. That Church trusted the United Church of Christ to be their covenanted partner in ministry. Over the years you have not only welcomed but embraced other travelers, people new to this Church but experienced in their own life and their own way of making sense of the world. It hasn’t been an easy road nor has it been free of struggle and conflict. After all, we really don’t know what we’re getting into when we join our fate to someone else, to community. We don’t know what’s going to happen, none of us ever really knows. As much as we want to know the future, what we need is to be here, right now. To be here, and work on our envy, our shame, and our fear. To be here, to trust God—what is good, holy, and true—trust ourselves, trust each other, believe in ourselves and believe in each other. Believe when someone tells us who they are. To be here, in this community and how we make a difference in the lives of others. <br /><br /> <br /><br />If we do what we do, the peace of mind that comes from knowing each day we try and we do our best, that’s enough. Leave the rest to God and to tomorrow. We’ll pick it back up again. One day at a time. Amen.</span></div><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div><div><br /></div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br />Benediction – enfleshed.com <br /><br /><br />May we go and co-create new spaces of radical hospitality, transforming and being transformed in community.<br /><br />May God expand our comprehension of Love, of connection, of all the joy and struggle we share.<br /><br />May we leave with hearts renewed by the grace of a divine belonging that holds all life, eternal and trustworthy.<br /><br />Believe it, my friends. Amen.</span><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/k7bT4qfeZRY?si=a66-MRK2Bxrq351k" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe>Cynthiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16189485834914559162noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-440442321230822645.post-47140893018126437162023-09-13T09:37:00.005-07:002023-09-13T09:57:40.882-07:00Members of one another<p> </p><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><a href="https://bible.oremus.org/?ql=561621912" target="_blank">Romans 12: 9-21</a><br /><a href="https://fb.watch/n1CM626WoX/" target="_blank">New Ark United Church of Christ, Newark, DE</a><br />September 10, 2023</span><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnXvR4Eh8RAb1myzX2s4Kan9TVktiotNWzSnln_PHFy9HE6xp8RshuB1k_Q8iwJuejBvfVIQTO3roCnGHajCu-8I8l7MBtaLzjhAgy6J0aJanXPg-BBT-I5JAwdo9kvFjxberxPRg0raRa3a8p2A65pnfJCjpAg5sOd3S1jQR80hTIN-JM23wCVoCK8qPw/s755/HandsonTree.png" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="755" data-original-width="500" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjnXvR4Eh8RAb1myzX2s4Kan9TVktiotNWzSnln_PHFy9HE6xp8RshuB1k_Q8iwJuejBvfVIQTO3roCnGHajCu-8I8l7MBtaLzjhAgy6J0aJanXPg-BBT-I5JAwdo9kvFjxberxPRg0raRa3a8p2A65pnfJCjpAg5sOd3S1jQR80hTIN-JM23wCVoCK8qPw/w424-h640/HandsonTree.png" width="424" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo of a tree, looking up at its limbs and green leaves, many hands of different flesh tones reverently touching the bark on the tree trunk</td></tr></tbody></table><br /></span><div><br /></div><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br />A friend of mine was volunteering at an event for a non-profit when a middle-aged husband and wife came up and asked, “Don’t you know who we are?” This couple informed my friend that they had donated to the non-profit a large sum of money in memory of a loved one, as part of a fund that would continue the mission of the non-profit, especially with youth. Through this generous donation they were seeking not only to give meaning to the life of their loved one but also community, that place, that people “where everyone knows your name”. But it’s not just our names we want people to know. We want people to know us. We want, we need people who are willing to disrupt their lives for us. <br /><br /> <br /><br />Eugene Peterson, in his paraphrase The Message, puts it this way: “Love from the center of who you are…run for dear life from evil; hold on for dear life to good. Be good friends who love deeply; practice playing second fiddle. Don’t burn out; keep yourselves fueled and aflame. Be alert servants of the Master, cheerfully expectant. Don’t quit in hard times; pray all the harder. Help the holy ones who are needy; be inventive in hospitality.” <br /><br /> <br /><br />But Paul doesn’t stop at loving one another and loving the stranger, which Jesus said is central to fulfilling the law. Even as he writes to a community living in the very large shadow of empire, the very one that crucified Jesus and anyone else who got in its way, in the same tone used for love, Paul reminds this congregation that they are to bless those who persecute them and not curse them. If your enemies are hungry, feed them. If they are thirsty, give them something to drink. This is something more than disrupting our lives for someone. It’s about disrupting our egos and the falsity of “us” and “them”. It’s about repairing and liberating all of humanity. <br /><br /> <br /><br />The other day one of you posted this story on Facebook, probably fictional but true nonetheless. <br /><br /> <br /><br />Legal Studies class. First lecture. <br /><br />A professor enters the lecture hall for their class. They look around. <br /><br />"You there in the 8th row. Can you tell me your name?" they ask a student. <br /><br />"My name is Sandra" says a voice. <br /><br />The professor asks her, "Please leave my lecture hall. I don't want to see you in my lecture." <br /><br />Everyone is quiet. The student is irritated, slowly packs her things and stands up. <br /><br />"Faster please" she is asked. <br /><br />She doesn't dare to say anything and leaves the lecture hall. <br /><br />The professor keeps looking around. <br /><br />The participants are scared. <br /><br /> <br /><br />"Why are there laws?" the professor asks the group. <br /><br />All quiet. Everyone looks at the others. <br /><br />"What are laws for?" they ask again. <br /><br />"Social order" is heard from a row. <br /><br />A student says, "To protect a person's personal rights." <br /><br />Another says, "So that you can rely on the state." <br /><br />The professor is not satisfied. <br /><br />"Justice", calls out a student. <br /><br />The professor smiles. The student has their attention. <br /><br />"Thank you very much. Did I behave unfairly towards your classmate earlier?" <br /><br />Everyone nods. <br /><br />"Indeed I did. Why didn't anyone protest? <br /><br />Why didn't any of you try to stop me? <br /><br />Why didn't you want to prevent this injustice?" the professor asks. <br /><br />Nobody answers. <br /><br /> <br /><br />"What you just learned you wouldn't have understood in 1,000 hours of lectures if you hadn't lived it. You didn't say anything just because you weren't affected yourself. This attitude speaks against you and against life. You think as long as it doesn't concern you, it's none of your business. I'm telling you, if you don't say anything today and don't bring about justice, then one day you too will experience injustice and no one will stand before you. Justice lives through us all. We have to fight for it.” <br /><br /> <br /><br />“In life and at work, we often live next to each other instead of with each other. We console ourselves that <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2023/09/us-culture-moral-education-formation/674765/" target="_blank">the problems of others are none of our business.</a> We go home and are glad that we were spared. But it's also about standing up for others. Every day an injustice happens in business, in sports or on the train. Relying on someone to sort it out is not enough. It is our duty to be there for others. Speaking for others when they cannot.” <br /><br /> <br /><br />But as one person who commented on the post said, often it is not only that we aren’t affected by the injustice that keeps us from speaking up but that we are fearful that if we do speak up, we will suffer injustice as well. When Laura Anne Carleton was murdered for flying a Pride flag in front of her shop, I can imagine that many other allies thought about what might happen to them if they continued to raise their voices. In Atlanta, GA, 61 people who have been protesting the construction of Cop City or what police call a public safety training center have been arrested on RICO charges, <a href="https://www.jphilll.com/p/in-fascist-attack-on-the-stop-cop" target="_blank">their acts of mutual aid and solidarity criminalized,</a> and yet five people including a few clergy members still <a href="https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/activists-protesting-cop-city-rico-indictment-arrested-for-chaining-themselves-to-bulldozer/ar-AA1gprZs" target="_blank">chained themselves to a bulldozer,</a> then were arrested on trespassing and obstruction charges. <br /><br /> <br /><br />It is hard work speaking against injustice and loving the world these days. Yet when Paul wrote about blessing those who persecute you, he didn’t know that the Church would abuse children; that the Church would take his words rather than his actions literally when it came to women’s leadership role; that the Church would persecute its LGBTQ members; that the Church would be a source of pain to many; that the Church would break covenant with its own people and with the humanity of others. <br /><br /> <br /><br />I think that it is covenant that Paul is getting at in his letter to the Romans, covenant that makes us members of one another. When Walter Brueggemann addressed the 12th General Synod in 1979, he defined covenant this way: “…a way of being committed to each other as God is committed to us” and it is covenant, this way of being that helps us speak against injustice and love the world despite our fears. It is how the oppressed are able to reclaim their power. It is how the privileged are able to give up the power that benefits them. It is the unshakeable, unbreakable covenant of being human together that enables justice to live through us. <br /><br /> <br /><br />Today is Rally Sunday, the traditional day when we begin the church year anew. What if it could also be the annual occasion when we renew our covenant to one another, our commitment to one another and to God’s way of justice for all people? What if every year we re-membered ourselves to one another, remembered that we are members of one another? What if every year we restored our relationship with community with a day of celebration, extravagant welcome, and homecoming, just for the sake of being together? As the poet T.S. Eliot wrote, “What life have you if you have not life together? There is no life not lived in community. And no community not lived in the praise of God.” Amen.</span><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div><div><br /></div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br />Benediction – stanzas from “Continue” by Maya Angelou <br /><br /><br />My wish for you<br /> Is that you continue<br /><br /><i> Continue </i><br /><br />To be who and how you are<br /> To astonish a mean world<br /> With your acts of kindness<br /><br /><i> Continue </i><br /><br />To allow humor to lighten the burden<br /> Of your tender heart <br /><br /><i>Continue </i><br /><br />To remind the people that<br /> Each is as good as the other<br /> And that no one is beneath<br /> Nor above you <br /><br /><i>Continue </i><br /><br />To remember your own young years<br /> And look with favor upon the lost<br /> And the least and the lonely <br /><br /><i>Continue </i><br /><br />To put the mantle of your protection<br /> Around the bodies of<br /> The young and defenseless <br /><br /><i>Continue </i><br /><br />To take the hand of the despised<br /> And diseased and walk proudly with them<br /> In the high street<br /> Some might see you and<br /> Be encouraged to do likewise <br /><br /><i>Continue </i><br /><br />To plant a public kiss of concern<br /> On the cheek of the sick<br /> And the aged and unwell<br /> And count that as a<br /> Natural action to be expected <br /><br /><i>Continue </i><br /><br />To let gratitude be the pillow<br /> Upon which you kneel to<br /> Say your nightly prayer<br /> And let faith be the bridge<br /> You build to overcome evil<br /> And welcome good <br /><br /><i>Continue </i><br /><br />To dare to love deeply<br /> And risk everything<br /> For the good thing</span><div><br /></div><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div></div><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/4veh35--C1U?si=IdEmw-sTXmCxI-GD" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe></div>Cynthiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16189485834914559162noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-440442321230822645.post-50984986743913889352023-09-11T12:09:00.002-07:002023-09-12T12:18:28.147-07:00As we remember, never forget<p> <span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><i>(I was asked to provide the invocation at a community 9/11 remembrance ceremony)</i></span></p><p><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><i><br /></i></span></p><p><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><i><br /></i></span></p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgWndwuruG5Clx_VYUneTdArVm1tgqgBJw72mAJrjJ_QNZsxUEWhLfgVJmkqIGgDHpvjouO0iMCAbUOfLTb82wJYkpsJMIaTTXDdkb5vbuCLE4OgPA2-Dr4flF1K5D7Jayj-cbGC6qlcIDyyjVIzoolHWILjYPI2qrM15Osmfg9Yf7nz39eQjZg2bpgRyrQ" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="582" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgWndwuruG5Clx_VYUneTdArVm1tgqgBJw72mAJrjJ_QNZsxUEWhLfgVJmkqIGgDHpvjouO0iMCAbUOfLTb82wJYkpsJMIaTTXDdkb5vbuCLE4OgPA2-Dr4flF1K5D7Jayj-cbGC6qlcIDyyjVIzoolHWILjYPI2qrM15Osmfg9Yf7nz39eQjZg2bpgRyrQ=w467-h640" width="467" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.mvtimes.com/2016/09/07/never-forget-local-photographers-image-commemorates-twin-towers/" target="_blank">Photo by Paul Doherty</a> of the reflection of the pilings in Oak Bluffs Harbor that resembles the Twin Towers.</td></tr></tbody></table><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><i><br /></i></span><p></p><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /><br />God in community, holy in One,<br /><br /> <br /><br />As we remember the pain of that tragic September day 22 years ago,<br /><br />May we never forget the unshakeable, unbreakable covenant called humanity.<br /><br /> <br /><br />As we remember the bravery of those who chose the safety of others over their own lives,<br /><br />May we never forget that the loss of every human being to violence is a cause for grief and trauma.<br /><br /> <br /><br />As we remember this wound, this ache, this scar<br /><br />May we never forget what makes for healing, reconciliation, and restoration.<br /><br /> <br /><br />As we remember how vulnerable we all felt that day, how the world seemingly changed in an instant, and for those who lost loved ones, it actually did,<br /><br />May we never forget how the impact of our choices can affect the future of others.<br /><br /> <br /><br />As we remember how people in this country and around the world came together in a spirit of unity—watching our screens, comforting each other, donating blood, holding prayer vigils,<br /><br />May we never forget our Muslim and Sikh friends, our Afghan and Pakistani neighbors who still suffer from bigotry and hate.<br /><br /> <br /><br />As we remember an act of terrorism, which became a prelude to war,<br /><br />May we never forget that we can also be agents for peace and for justice.<br /><br /> <br /><br />Kindred One, as we remember this day may we never forget<br /><br />The interconnectedness and the sacredness of all living things<br /><br />Our willingness to disrupt our lives for others<br /><br />How to be curious rather than judgmental<br /><br />How good and pleasant it truly is when kindred live together in unity.<br /><br /><br />Amen.</span><p><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><i><br /><br /><br /></i></span></p>Cynthiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16189485834914559162noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-440442321230822645.post-9703450102993095722023-09-05T13:24:00.000-07:002023-09-05T13:24:59.867-07:00Turning toward God<p> </p><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><a href="https://bible.oremus.org/?ql=560944488" target="_blank">Exodus 3: 1-15</a><br /><a href="https://fb.watch/mTh7bS7bJM/" target="_blank">New Ark United Church of Christ, Newark, DE</a><br />September 3, 2023</span><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi2c1vXWDdlN31Mu2ENL7tDpQjU7mUmUTAchQiUu22Uwt5e9ONhNHuqQOr6G7L55IGodE6RzTShUHpDmG9UGsUGfoHpuIaFDEuM2menuBXWdaFyqae5ZJmqvwN4vhfxlKrkMBrKsZWW4jrLe67SOg7HYxuwzB57m3kd3j2WOXjDAHcTMS6ADZ6B8UykSJmi" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="749" data-original-width="500" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEi2c1vXWDdlN31Mu2ENL7tDpQjU7mUmUTAchQiUu22Uwt5e9ONhNHuqQOr6G7L55IGodE6RzTShUHpDmG9UGsUGfoHpuIaFDEuM2menuBXWdaFyqae5ZJmqvwN4vhfxlKrkMBrKsZWW4jrLe67SOg7HYxuwzB57m3kd3j2WOXjDAHcTMS6ADZ6B8UykSJmi=w427-h640" width="427" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo of a campfire. Wood is charred black and well-burned. Orange and white flames give rise to a shower of sparks popping up into the darkness.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /> <br /><br /><br />Sometimes it is easier to turn toward God—toward what is good, holy, and true—than it is other times. We find a nest with three tiny eggs wedged in between the front porch light and the side of the house, and we guard the nest, return to it often to check on their safety. The sound of thunder and raindrops on the roof at night. A super blue moon or a meteor shower. The touch of a loved one. The feel of water on our skin. The smell of pine needles warmed by the sun or bread baking or pumpkin spice—well, some of you anyway. The taste of a good meal or bread and wine or juice. <br /><br /> <br /><br />The belief that God is in the world and in all things and the world and all things are in God is called panentheism, and God introduces herself to Moses with a name that says this very thing. <a href="https://hebraicthought.org/meaning-of-gods-name-i-am-exodus/" target="_blank">“I Am Who I Am”</a> can also be translated as “I Will Be Who or What I Will Be” or “I Am the One Who Brings Things into Being”. There is no division between the divine and the creation, no limits. There is only relationship, beingness, and becoming. All are interconnected, all are one. Everywhere we are, there God is. <br /><br /> <br /><br />Sometimes turning toward God means turning toward injustice, suffering, and loss, because God is the God of the oppressed. In the story of Moses and the burning bush, God has already turned toward the suffering of her people enslaved in Egypt. God has witnessed the abuse of her people. God has heard their cry. God knows their pain. Now Moses must turn toward God in order that Moses would help free God’s people. So, a messenger from God, an angel of the Lord, gets his attention in the form of a burning bush, blazing and yet not consumed. God wants to set our hearts afire but not to the point of burnout. When we turn toward God, to witness what God wants us to notice, we realize we are on holy ground, that wherever we encounter the divine, we are on holy ground. And there, God is calling out to us in a voice we can ignore no longer. <br /><br /> <br /><br />Just weeks before his death, Trappist monk Thomas Merton addressed an audience of Asian monks at a conference in Calcutta with these words: “We are already one. But we imagine we are not.” This is what it means to be woke. To be woke is to be awake to the extravagance of diversity, the richness of what it means for each of us to be a whole person, for the earth to be whole in all its blazing glory. Thus, to be woke is also to be awake to the pain and suffering that follows when we are self-seeking, greedy, violent, dehumanizing, when we act as though we are disconnected from each other and from the earth. To be woke is to be in solidarity with suffering. <br /><br /> <br /><br />When was the first time you were aware that this world is infused with glory? When was the first time you were aware of an injustice, that something was wrong, and you felt connected to those who were affected? What was your burning bush that compelled you to turn aside and pay attention to a reality unlike your own? Not only that, but when did you first try to do something about it? <br /><br /> <br /><br />Thinking about the life of Jesus, I sometimes wonder if he had his own burning bush moment, when he knew he was called by God to liberate his people. In the stories we have, perhaps his parents told him about when they had to run for their lives to Egypt, to escape Herod and his wrath. Maybe it was when he was in the temple as a teenager and asked probing questions of his elders. Perhaps it was growing up on the underside of an empire, witnessing daily how cheap was human life and yet in the synagogue knowing we are all created in the image of God. <br /><br /> <br /><br />When we turn toward this Table, we turn our hearts toward the sacred and toward the pain and suffering of others and we know ourselves to be connected to the fate of all beings. At this Table we commune with <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2023/09/01/opinions/support-lgbtq-people-under-attack-wellness/index.html" target="_blank">queer, trans and non-binary siblings,</a> people seeking abortions across state lines and those forced to give birth, Black people killed because of their skin, disabled people still denied access and equality, the isolated and forgotten, the unhoused and homeless, the impoverished and those barely hanging on, the earth and its climate which are becoming a literal burning bush for humanity. <br /><br /> <br /><br />It can feel as though any or all of this could consume us yet let us <a href="https://reformjudaism.org/beliefs-practices/spirituality/3-jewish-reminders-when-world-seems-overwhelming" target="_blank">remember this rabbinic wisdom</a> from the Mishnah: “Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world’s grief. Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Move humbly, now. You are not obligated to complete the work, neither are you free to abandon it.” The movement of liberation is greater than us. It is an evolution. It is that long arc of the universe that bends toward justice and bends us with it, turns us toward God and God’s vision of wholeness and holiness. Each day we have breath, may it be so. <br /><br /> <br /><br />As my brother would say, Namaste.</span></div><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div><div><br /></div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;">Benediction – enfleshed.com <br /><br /><br />In a world where evil is woven into the ordinary,<br />may we linger with the unthinkable, unbelievable, and impossible.<br />May we find our worlds turned upside down<br /> with wisdoms strange and bewildering.<br />May we recognize the voice of God<br />in disruptions of daily life,<br />calling us toward something different, something brave,<br />something determined to fight for life - ours and everyone’s.</span><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span><div>
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ph1GU1qQ1zQ?si=GKGdZD-BJnfrUiQ2" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe></div></div>Cynthiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16189485834914559162noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-440442321230822645.post-70380156023433694352023-08-30T09:49:00.002-07:002023-08-30T10:14:21.266-07:00Who do you say Jesus is?<p> </p><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><a href="https://bible.oremus.org/?ql=560407008" target="_blank">Matthew 16: 13-20</a><br /><a href="https://fb.watch/mL4jG8ALVY/" target="_blank">New Ark United Church of Christ, Newark, DE</a><br />August 27, 2023</span><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjNJ6zqrIsikOVJszVU21P9_umexG4R6f8sF1W9-xH1npvz9itW1w_bjIL0-MfK188P_ks1hideuNVlffEyoTanWq6XCUa5UUHpyBimKgeacI3TbflZb67LxWMrmGgAW1P0CuKXHwoa6xCIDJnbc9M2LdGr6pJcnYkD-VGmR7oXNmbxXOcTUW6m1de_Axgv" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="960" data-original-width="778" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjNJ6zqrIsikOVJszVU21P9_umexG4R6f8sF1W9-xH1npvz9itW1w_bjIL0-MfK188P_ks1hideuNVlffEyoTanWq6XCUa5UUHpyBimKgeacI3TbflZb67LxWMrmGgAW1P0CuKXHwoa6xCIDJnbc9M2LdGr6pJcnYkD-VGmR7oXNmbxXOcTUW6m1de_Axgv=w520-h640" width="520" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Depictions of Jesus from different cultures and perspectives: Korean, Russian, Haitian, Native American, Hungarian, Mexican, Filipino, female, Croatian, Swedish, African American, Chinese, Mexican Indian, Japanese, West African, and European American.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /> <br /><br /><br />When was the last time you thought about who Jesus is to you? For many of us, it’s not something we think about often but it’s still there. Even so, we may hold some thoughts in common but we also probably have very different ideas about who Jesus is to us and yet we are still the <i>United</i> Church of Christ. We do not have creeds but statements of faith. What would be your statement of faith about Jesus? Has it changed over the years? Has it changed you? <br /><br /> <br /><br />For instance, for most of my life, probably yours too, Jesus was White. <a href="https://religionnews.com/2020/06/24/how-jesus-became-white-and-why-its-time-to-cancel-that/" target="_blank">Every picture, every illustration, every piece of art</a> I saw depicted a White, Anglo-Saxon Jesus, instead of the Palestinian Jew that he was. Jesus identified with the people he came to liberate: the captive and the outcast, the incarcerated and the oppressed, those who had no vision or hope, the enslaved and even the land itself in the year of jubilee. <br /><br /> <br /><br />For this reason, I want to remind us once again who this Jesus is, not as creed, but as faith, faith that liberates even the dominant culture. Remember that we are repenting, turning away from centuries of racism, White supremacy, and imperialism. So then first and foremost, this Jesus is not White. This Jesus is Indigenous, Asian, Black, brown. This Jesus is fat. This Jesus is poor, this Jesus is disabled. This Jesus is a drug user. This Jesus is queer and trans. This Jesus is aging out of foster care. This Jesus is neurodivergent. This Jesus lives with mental illness. This Jesus is a refugee and an immigrant. This Jesus is unhoused. This Jesus is everything the dominant culture is not. For some of us, this Jesus is everything we are not. <br /><br /> <br /><br />It's important that we look at <i>all</i> of who Jesus is, just as we want to be fully known, loved, and accepted. For someone to be fully authentic, embody their whole selves, requires a moral obligation from us, a commitment to right relationships. How we treat other people has a direct impact on their well-being, and what Christians believe about who this Jesus is has an enormous influence. <br /><br /> <br /><br />Imagine a few centuries ago the moral morass of the slave master who was baptized alongside those he enslaved, attended church with them, heard the same scriptures, and one day would reside in the same heaven as them. Poet Wendell Berry, in his book <i>The Hidden Wound</i>, wrote, “How could he presume to own the body of a man whose soul he considered as worthy of salvation as his own?” To keep such earthly concerns separate from heavenly ones, a split mind developed, dividing body and soul, divorcing social justice, human Jesus from heavenly savior miraculous Jesus. <br /><br /> <br /><br />Salvation became more about believing in Jesus rather than following Jesus, more about life in heaven rather than life on earth. The body became bad, the soul in need of saving. Rather than a moral obligation to not only one’s neighbors but also one’s enemies, to live right by them, instead the church preached against an immorality of sin, such as drinking, sexual depravity, not attending church. By condemning such sin and yet tolerating it at the same time (love the sinner, hate the sin), this particular brand of Christianity insured its future, for where your treasure is, there your hardened heart can be also. <br /><br /> <br /><br />Christianity has become not only racism’s best tool but also its most effective weapon. The same can be said for empire and capitalism, patriarchy and ableism, everything Jesus preached against used Christianity as a weapon. The same evils that would eventually end his life. <br /><br /> <br /><br />Fast forward to reconstruction and vagrancy laws to the Great Depression and the New Deal that was more White than right, to World War II and the internment of Japanese Americans, to Jim Crow laws and ‘Segregation Forever’, to the assassinations of Malcolm X, Medgar Evers, and MLK Jr., to Anita Hill and Clarence Thomas, to the election and re-election of our first Black president, to the present day and what do we have now but a backlash of “anti-woke” rhetoric, continued violence against people of color, and a shift to legislate against queer and transgender Americans. With a multiple-indicted demagogue as their <a href="https://sojo.net/articles/6-warning-signs-christian-nationalism-us-politics" target="_blank">political champion.</a><br /><br /> <br /><br />This is why it is important for us to say who this Jesus is and say it LOUD. For too long the progressive White church has been soft-spoken to silent when confronted with bigotry and hate from other Christians. We have harmed people seeking safe harbor by not being clear about our commitment to this Jesus who sometimes leads us where we’d rather not go. And yet lives depend on making our witness bold. Let me say it again. For someone to be fully authentic, embody their whole selves, requires a moral obligation from us, a commitment to right relationships. How we treat other people has a direct impact on their well-being, and what Christians believe about who this Jesus is has an enormous influence. <br /><br /> <br /><br />Bigoted theology that separates Jesus from his color, his poverty, his Jewish faith, his Palestinian culture, his commitment to liberating the oppressed, and Christianity becomes a weapon of the oppressor. When a person or group of people is publicly demonized to the point of inciting violence against them, that is <a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/how-stochastic-terrorism-uses-disgust-to-incite-violence/" target="_blank">an act of terrorism.</a><br /><br /> <br /><br />Who is this Jesus? She was <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/08/20/1194932544/lauri-carleton-california-store-owner-killed-pride-flag-lgbtq" target="_blank">killed for flying a Pride flag</a> outside of her clothing store. <br /><br /> <br /><br />Who is this Jesus? The <a href="https://www.advocate.com/transgender/transgender-deaths-2023" target="_blank">14 transgender and non-binary people</a> who have been murdered in the U.S. this year. <br /><br /> <br /><br />Who is this Jesus? The 3 Black people killed in a Jacksonville, FL Dollar Store <a href="https://www.npr.org/2023/08/26/1196195934/jacksonville-florida-dollar-store-shooting" target="_blank">in a racially motivated shooting.</a><br /><br /> <br /><br />Who is this Jesus? It’s teachers speaking out against book bans and whitewashing history. <br /><br /> <br /><br />Who is this Jesus? A Christian musician drag queen named Flamy Grant who sings these words: <br /><br /> <br /><br /><i>A good day to come back home<br /> You sent me away, but I was never alone<br /> You were afraid that there was not enough<br /> But you can’t run out of love<br /> So I’m here to stay and I’m dancing in the front row<br /> ‘Cause it’s a good day to come out of the shadow<br /> God made me good in every way<br /> So I’ll raise my voice to celebrate a good day </i><br /><br /> <br /><br />Who is this Jesus? It’s us when we’re finally ready to overthrow the power that benefits us.</span></div><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div><div><br /></div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br />Benediction – enfleshed.com <br /><br /><br />Beware, dear ones, of those too confident<br />in their definitions and doctrines of God<br /> There are many blessings in the teachings of our faith<br /> There are many dangers, too May we move humbly through our world <br /> with love and righteousness as our guides<br /> May a cosmos beyond our control and comprehension<br /> draw our lives ever deeper into wonder and awe</span><div><br /></div><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div>
<iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/esg5rnQ2i60?si=mbjSZC8i2xGn2FU8" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe>Cynthiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16189485834914559162noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-440442321230822645.post-21803745272514714912023-08-22T13:30:00.001-07:002023-08-22T13:32:40.650-07:00The sacredness of everything<p> </p><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><a href="https://bible.oremus.org/?ql=559723176" target="_blank">Isaiah 56: 1, 6-8; Psalm 133</a><br /><a href="https://fb.watch/mAErz0r9uU/" target="_blank">New Ark United Church of Christ, Newark, DE</a><br />August 20, 2023</span><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgcTQ98yTuxZR7e6FU7h4sKW4b_6m4mwQshu8ucfuDt17XyAKFRlCUVqSNZbO6-sBnfiiARF3iU_vv7yX3ZUqnQyXiAOoJQ1FkVC2GBWBc3bHgmlnKJ5fJtv3pnrTYTGiYuAE-1oCKIfgq0Na_rWh97nuxbbcdhGKhdPEfdS2WcjKZ0Rr67MId4MmHZQWjU" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="781" data-original-width="1170" height="428" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgcTQ98yTuxZR7e6FU7h4sKW4b_6m4mwQshu8ucfuDt17XyAKFRlCUVqSNZbO6-sBnfiiARF3iU_vv7yX3ZUqnQyXiAOoJQ1FkVC2GBWBc3bHgmlnKJ5fJtv3pnrTYTGiYuAE-1oCKIfgq0Na_rWh97nuxbbcdhGKhdPEfdS2WcjKZ0Rr67MId4MmHZQWjU=w640-h428" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo of a dandelion ready to seed from within. Overlapping light, airy white filaments in concentric circles with tiny light green stems in the outer circles and coral pink and peach stems in the inner circles</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><br /> <br /><br />Earlier this week I was contacted by a mother who lives in Dover who wanted me to baptize her baby girl who is in a NICU unit and coming along well. I asked her why she was calling a pastor in Newark as she lives about an hour away. She replied that she wanted her sister and her sister’s wife to be the godparents, but the Catholic Church, which she left, and other Christian churches will not allow same-sex couples to be godparents. She went on to explain that she is a spiritual person and is raising her children to have a spiritual life and baptism is part of that. I responded that in the United Church of Christ and in our congregation when a child is baptized it is a communal act. The congregation makes promises to the child and to the parents to love, support, and care for them. Baptism is an outward expression of the mystery that we are members of one Body, the Body of Christ. <br /><br /> <br /><br />In the end, what she was seeking was ritual but not <a href="https://nonreligiousspirituality.com/" target="_blank">community,</a> blessing but not connection, validation but not solidarity. I encouraged her to find a church home close to where she lives and so pointed her to a <a href="https://www.churchonmainde.com/" target="_blank">Presbyterian church</a> in Middletown whose pastor is a colleague and friend and to <a href="https://peopleschurchofdover.org/" target="_blank">People’s UCC</a> in Dover. <br /><br /> <br /><br />Even as <a href="https://www.christiancentury.org/article/first-words/why-aren-t-people-coming-back" target="_blank">people leave church community,</a> they are <a href="https://www.wwno.org/2023-03-06/how-to-question-your-religion-without-losing-your-faith" target="_blank">still seeking answers</a> to the same questions we all have: What is the meaning of life? How do you live a good life? Three of the big blockbuster movies this summer—Barbie, who asks “Do you ever think about dying?”; Oppenheimer, which confronts these questions in the decision to drop the bomb, and Indiana Jones, a 70-year-old professor at the end of his career—each in their own way invite us to ask these big questions of ourselves. <br /><br /> <br /><br />These questions are especially pressing when we are living through difficult times, in our own lives and in our life together. When God’s people were living in exile over generations, Jewish religious leaders struggled with how maintain faithfulness, integrity, and cohesion as well as communicate the depth of God’s love and care for God’s people in the midst of so much disconnection, suffering, and upheaval. What is the meaning of life when one is so far from home and feeling so far away from God? How does one live a good life when everything that gave life meaning has been taken away? <br /><br /> <br /><br />In this passage from Isaiah, in what is known as Third Isaiah, a wave of exiles has returned to their homeland. How shall they live? The prophet exhorts the people to keep justice and to do what is right. He then goes on to say that any foreigners, anyone who has left their home and their people because they married an Israelite or joined their fate to theirs, if these people will keep God’s covenant, these too will be God’s people. Then we hear a verse that Jesus quoted when he cleared the moneychangers out of the Court of the Gentiles in the temple: “For my house shall be called a house of prayer for all peoples”. God is one who gathers outcasts no matter who they are and calls them home. <br /><br /> <br /><br />These religious leaders realized that this God who gathers everyone but especially the oppressed, this God can be found anywhere, in everything. God is not constrained to a particular place nor is God’s love limited. The God of the oppressed is the God of everyone. God is liberator and protector. But when God is the God of the oppressor, as in Christian nationalism, God is the God of everyone through oppression and the elimination of diversity in the name of a perverse unity. <br /><br /> <br /><br />Passages like this one have been used by Christians to justify Christian supremacy, which is the absolute height of appropriation and hubris. Yet even those who call themselves <a href="https://thebiblefornormalpeople.com/episode-7-robin-parry-the-historical-roots-of-christian-universalism/" target="_blank">Christian universalists</a> can sound like they are beating a drum to the words of the apostle Paul: every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord. <br /><br /> <br /><br />If there is a cosmic Christ, a <a href="https://www.newyorker.com/news/on-religion/richard-rohr-reorders-the-universe" target="_blank">universal Christ spirit</a> beyond Jesus, would there not also be a cosmic Buddha, a cosmic Krishna? Isn’t cosmic just another way of saying hierarchy, superior, we had it right all along? <br /><br /> <br /><br />Thank goodness for the psalmist who reminds us that this unity that God offers is not about one people, one religion, one language. Unity is when we realize we are kindred and we live that way. The psalmist expresses their joy in a specific way, naming a particular priest, Aaron the brother of Moses, and a particular place, Mt. Hermon, with sumptuous, evocative language: oil running over his hair onto his beard, which was a sign of a good life, like the cup runneth over, and dew from the mountains saturating the land. And there in this unity we find God’s blessing—life forevermore. <br /><br /> <br /><br />Our specific joy might sound like this: How good and pleasant it is when kindred live together in unity! It is like <a href="https://www.newarkpostonline.com/news/sikhs-lead-interfaith-march-for-peace-tolerance-in-newark/article_ed5c3bf4-6bd7-513d-9a0f-3c6373b6c58c.html" target="_blank">a peace walk down Main Street</a> with Sikhs and Muslims, atheists and agnostics, Unitarians and Hindus, Jews and Christians. It is like <a href="https://www.newarkpostonline.com/news/interfaith-service-gives-thanks-for-neighbors-caring-for-neighbors/article_c527b9fe-3aaa-5caa-bb1c-bd5c9a0735f8.html" target="_blank">a community Thanksgiving service</a> with Jains and Baha’i, Quakers and Baptists. It is like an Ash Wednesday service with our Presbyterian and Baptist siblings. It’s not just about appreciating our differences but our differences making us better people. It’s about acknowledging that there are truths about reality that we can only learn from other people who think and believe and live differently than we do. <br /><br /> <br /><br />How good and pleasant it is when kindred live together in interdependency, when we recognize that our differences make for not only our survival but our thriving. None of us knows what it’s like to be another person, and sometimes it is only through being curious about someone else that we deepen our knowledge of the truth about ourselves. This is how we dismantle Whiteness, the patriarchy, ableism, homophobia and transphobia, all the ways we try to divide humanity. <br /><br /> <br /><br />What makes the least sense out of all of this, of trying to answer the meaning of life and how to have a good life, is when we try to find our answers apart from any kind of relationship to the earth. If we really want to appreciate the sacredness of everything, it has to begin there. To be curious about the earth and its creatures and what they can teach us about ourselves, that the earth is our first kindred. The earth is the first and truly the only house of prayer for all peoples.</span></div><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div><div><br /></div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br />Benediction <br /><br /><br />How good and pleasant it is when kindred live together in unity!<br />Sikhs and Muslims,<br />atheists and agnostics,<br />Unitarians and Hindus,<br />Jews and Christians,<br />Jains and Baha’i,<br />Plants and animals and fungi,<br />Birds and marine life,<br />Humans of all colors, genders, sexualities, languages!<br />In community we receive the blessing—life forevermore!</span><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;">Amen.</span></div><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span> <iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/VWiW_CXu2I4" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe></div>Cynthiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16189485834914559162noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-440442321230822645.post-2492692085182857722023-08-15T10:16:00.003-07:002023-08-15T10:17:12.069-07:00The seventh generation<p> </p><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><a href="https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Genesis+37%3A+1-4%2C+12-28&version=NRSVUE" target="_blank">Genesis 37: 1-4, 12-28</a><br /><a href="https://fb.watch/mrpzc8jkUb/" target="_blank">New Ark United Church of Christ, Newark, DE</a><br />August 13, 2023</span><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgTPIaICp4k3xHPdVCzGFJD4oLS3ukvp3luTwjI0YUgk6LmCI5Cb7SuhDf4MkFhW76Colsve4i30ZatcyXJr6YnSXPs3l-qoMSUZq5ji2LKzo3QzvxtHUa7qNLCfIWRnCcZsM_nrnsBq_v17HHO9JfW21lVuKHP_bdNmWASV8f9MyjdmYT9Y8f3mhIX-CPq" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="183" data-original-width="275" height="426" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEgTPIaICp4k3xHPdVCzGFJD4oLS3ukvp3luTwjI0YUgk6LmCI5Cb7SuhDf4MkFhW76Colsve4i30ZatcyXJr6YnSXPs3l-qoMSUZq5ji2LKzo3QzvxtHUa7qNLCfIWRnCcZsM_nrnsBq_v17HHO9JfW21lVuKHP_bdNmWASV8f9MyjdmYT9Y8f3mhIX-CPq=w640-h426" width="640" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo of a Black Lives Matter protest sign: "This is everyone's fight". Sign is held by a young Black teen with dreadlocks wearing a white mask and a t-shirt that reads "Ready Steady" and an adult White person whose hands can be seen. A young Black teen stands behind with very short black hair, wearing a black mask and a gray t-shirt with unreadable print.</td></tr></tbody></table><br /><br /><br />Earlier this week I was relating a childhood story to David but I couldn’t remember all of the details. Then I realized that I was now the only one who might remember anything connected to this story. My father and brother are gone, and I know my mother’s memories of this particular camping trip are sketchy at best. Even so, my mom reminded me recently that if there is anything I want to know about her life, now is the time to ask. <br /><br /> <br /><br />If our own personal histories are so dear to us, because they shape us and inform us and future generations of who we are, we know how vital it is to learn communal histories, whether it be a faith community or small town, a city or state, an entire nation or a whole people. <br /><br /> <br /><br />The author of this story in the book of Genesis has given us several clues to the communal or family history of Joseph and his brothers. This isn’t just a story about Joseph but about several generations. First, we are reminded that his father Jacob has had a name change, after striving with a divine being who then calls him Israel, because Jacob persevered and would not let go without a blessing. Next, we are told that Joseph tended the family flock with his brothers, the sons of Bilhah and the sons of Zilpah, the servant women to Leah and Rachel who became third and fourth wives to Joseph’s father. Remember that Joseph and Benjamin were favored children because their mother was Rachel, the woman that Jacob desired and loved most. <br /><br /> <br /><br />Whenever there is favoritism and hierarchy in a family, there are no benign characters and certainly no binary divisions like hero and villain. Everyone is complicated. Joseph winds up saving his family from famine but first they must suffer the ego of a spoiled child who rats out his brothers. The sons of Bilhah and Zilpah conspire to do Joseph harm yet consider what it’s been like for them to grow up and be raised in his oversized shadow. It’s pretty obvious that Joseph was given more than his brothers. In the end, the violence that they visit upon Joseph is to throw him into a pit, until Midianite traders find him, lift him out and sell him into slavery to the Ishmaelites. <br /><br /> <br /><br />Here too the text gives us clues to this family history. The Midianites are the descendants of Abraham and Keturah, Abraham’s second wife. The Ishmaelites are the offspring of Abraham and Hagar, who was a servant to Sarah, Abraham’s first wife—again both peoples are less-favored children whose mothers were servants or considered less-than. <br /><br /> <br /><br />The story of humanity in Genesis begins this way with Adam created first and Eve second, as though somehow that establishes a hierarchy rather than a partnership. Cain and Abel are the proverbial case study in sibling rivalry, God preferring Abel over Cain, beginning the pattern of the older overthrown by the younger: Isaac over Ishmael, Jacob over Esau, Joseph over his brothers. It also sets the stage for solving conflict with violence, the trauma of which echoes through generations after. There truly is no such thing as an isolated incident. <br /><br /> <br /><br />Last weekend there was an <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2023/08/07/montgomery-alabama-riverfront-brawl-video-explained/" target="_blank">all-out brawl</a> on the riverfront of the Alabama River in Montgomery. It began when a Black co-captain of a riverboat asked the White owner of a pontoon boat to move out of the way. After 45 minutes he not only would not comply but became vocally and physically belligerent, shoving and striking the captain. When the captain defended himself, four other White boaters came running and assaulted him. Black onlookers ran and one swam to his defense and soon an absolute melee broke out between White and Black people. <br /><br /> <br /><br />Now before any of us pass judgment about the use of violence to solve a conflict, I’m thankful that the only weapons that were used were fists and a folding chair. Did we consider that these Black defenders were trying to prevent what could be called a lynching? Is our discomfort also a sign of our privilege that prefers what Dr. Martin Luther King called “a negative peace which is the absence of tension rather than a positive peace which is the presence of justice”? Privilege isn’t just about what we’ve been given, but also the things we were never subjected to. <br /><br />This is likewise a time when <a href="https://theblackwallsttimes.com/2023/08/07/why-the-montgomery-riverboat-brawl-is-a-crucial-moment-in-history/" target="_blank">knowing communal history</a> is vital to <a href="https://twitter.com/keithboykin/status/1688684041082753025" target="_blank">understanding how a community and a people have been shaped.</a><br /><br /> <br /><br />Montgomery is 60% Black and for the first time in 200 years the city elected a Black mayor, Steven Reed in 2019. He said “this was an unfortunate incident which never should have occurred” but it was also one borne out of seething racism and White privilege disrespecting Black bodies going back generations. Because of the Alabama River, Montgomery was one of the busiest slave-trading cities in the South and was the first capital city of the Confederacy. It is where Rosa Parks refused to sit in the back of the bus. Alabama is where the civil rights march from Selma to Montgomery took place, Dr. King’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail”, four young Black girls murdered with a bomb in their church, Gov. George Wallace who vowed there would be “Segregation Forever”. And just recently Alabama <a href="https://twitter.com/AymannJames/status/1690399970153910272" target="_blank">closed 31 DMV locations</a> in counties that are home to poor and Black people, making it harder for them to obtain a driver’s license in a state that requires a photo ID to vote. <br /><br /> <br /><br />The stories in the book of Genesis remind us that beginnings are important because they shape the narratives that form us. This brawl didn’t begin last week but 150 years ago to the Civil War and 400 years ago to the beginning of this nation. Racism and White supremacy are baked into this country. They are literally in the air we breathe, the water we bathe in, and they affect all of us. <br /><br /> <br /><br />Many Indigenous peoples live by the concept of <a href="https://mollylarkin.com/what-is-the-7th-generation-principle-and-why-do-you-need-to-know-about-it-3/" target="_blank">the seventh generation,</a> that in our words, behavior and actions we are to consider the seven generations that come after us and to also remember the seven generations that came before us. It is a lived recognition that we are all connected—the earth, its creatures, all of us interdependent, past, present, and future. <br /><br /> <br /><br />And so when we consider what reparations might mean, let us <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/news/nbcblk/tulsa-massacre-survivors-appeal-dismissed-case-oklahoma-supreme-court-rcna98575" target="_blank">think about reparations generationally.</a> Knowledge and skills that should’ve been building African nations were stolen and they built this one instead. The generational trauma of that racism is still with us now. Imagine the effect of the decision to repair the past will have on seven generations into the future. Imagine the effect of the decision to repair the earth will have on seven generations into the future. Reparations, the work of repair, says “no” to hierarchy, “no” to White supremacy, “no” to systems of harm and “yes” to healing, “yes” to liberation, “yes” to the future. And this needs to be <a href="https://www.ncronline.org/opinion/guest-voices/election-cycle-cranks-christians-need-call-out-white-christian-nationalism" target="_blank">stated loud and clear</a> from White Christian pulpits and churches in a time when Christian Nationalism is on the rise. <br /><br /> <br /><br />We are the seventh generation, the inheritors of the decisions made before us, decisions that led to the systemic dehumanization of one people and the self-interest and enshrinement of violence in another. One day we will be the seventh generation remembered for what we have done. Activist <a href="https://valariekaur.com/revolutionary-love-project/" target="_blank">Valarie Kaur</a> wrote, “We will be somebody’s ancestors someday. And if we get this right, they will inherit not our fear, but our bravery.” May it be so. Amen.</span></div><div><br /></div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /><br />Benediction <br /><br /><br />Go forth into the world in peace.<br />Be of good courage.<br />Hold fast to that which is good<br />and render to no one evil for evil.<br />Strengthen the faint-hearted;<br />support the weak; help the afflicted.<br />Honor all people.<br />Love and serve God,<br />rejoicing in the power of the Holy Spirit.<br />The grace of our Savior Jesus Christ be with us all.</span><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;">Amen.</span></div><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span></div><div><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /></span><div> <iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/wEBlaMOmKV4" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe></div></div>Cynthiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16189485834914559162noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-440442321230822645.post-82196370067034544942023-07-23T08:25:00.004-07:002023-07-23T08:26:18.702-07:00Beloved<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;"><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><i>(the following is from the wedding I officiated this past Friday, for my uncle Chuck and his wife Catherine)</i></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: 14pt; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; font-size: 14pt; text-align: center;"><br /></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjie35h54j-yeWBrRYcIrURRO9wz62cllGhVnym81-M0EgWORGSzOeHHKMJdXNjiWUJ9rOAVEbq1_sjrdLOu4AtnT4XVVYD5KCX9foQdXGllDzI6h1iK53y3IwWL1PLrn6XURgDsWocOz1NZ38EHl2BdbbPHNTI_z6Qe7t2SaWUGqQV9-k0S0DEOoR09XJm" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" data-original-height="2146" data-original-width="1610" height="640" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/a/AVvXsEjie35h54j-yeWBrRYcIrURRO9wz62cllGhVnym81-M0EgWORGSzOeHHKMJdXNjiWUJ9rOAVEbq1_sjrdLOu4AtnT4XVVYD5KCX9foQdXGllDzI6h1iK53y3IwWL1PLrn6XURgDsWocOz1NZ38EHl2BdbbPHNTI_z6Qe7t2SaWUGqQV9-k0S0DEOoR09XJm=w480-h640" width="480" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Photo of the certificate from the Secretary of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts that authorized me to solemnize the marriage of my uncle and his wife, now my Aunt Catherine<br /><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /><span style="color: #444444; font-family: trebuchet; font-size: x-large;"><br /><br />One of the most amazing things about human beings is that we can create love when we need it. Sometimes that means we create and we change language because of that love. When a lawyer challenged Jesus about what it means to love one’s neighbor, Jesus expanded the idea of who is my neighbor to include anyone who shows compassion, even a perceived enemy. And then Mr. Rogers lived and taught that to whole generations of children. The apostle Paul wrote to fledgling churches populated with people who sometimes had difficulty loving each other and he addressed them using the word “brethren” to remind them that they were more than an affinity group or philosophy club. In our time we expanded that language to “brothers and sisters” recognizing that gifts for ministry and for faith expression do not solely belong to one gender. Now we understand that there are not only two genders, that gender is fluid, non-binary, transgender, intersex, and that gender expression is a social construct. So we use words like “friends and neighbors”, “kindred”, and “beloved” to signify that shared, unshakeable, unbreakable covenant called humanity. <br /><br /> <br /><br />Language in the marriage ceremony has also changed to reflect our evolving humanity. In a few moments you will hear Catherine and Charles <i>give</i> themselves to each other as husband and wife, rather than <i>take</i> one another. In every worship service there is an offering and in a wedding it is the very people who are joining their lives together, offering themselves to each other. Giving away the bride, using the word “obey”, and “if anyone knows any reason why these two should not be lawfully joined” are part of the patriarchy we are trying so hard to smash and so 19th century and so they are right out. <br /><br /> <br /><br />The traditional opening words, “Dearly beloved” have become so cliché as to be prosaic. Which is sad because wouldn’t we all like to be someone’s beloved, to be dear to someone’s heart. The word ‘beloved’ was first used in biblical language, from the Greek <i>agapétos</i> – divinely loved – and the Hebrew <i>yadiyad</i>: hand to hand, heart to heart. Now the word ‘beloved’ is coming back into church parlance as not only a way to be inclusive but expansive with language, especially for those who have been painfully excluded from community because of who they are. Sometimes it is not enough to say “friends and neighbors” or even “kindred” or “siblings” when the relationship we could have with the divine and with each other is one of belovedness, in which we reside in the heart of the divine, in the heart of those who love us. And those whom we love reside in our hearts. <br /><br /> <br /><br />And so to call one another “beloved” speaks to a covenant that goes deeper than any difference between us but to our shared humanity. Our belovedness helps to heal our relationships when we allow ourselves to become angry or pompous or rude or to seek after our self-interests. Our belovedness makes room within us for love to grow. Taking a page from Mr. Rogers, I invite all of us to think of those who loved us into being, into who we are, those who are beloved to us. Let’s take just a few moments to think of them and give thanks for them. <br /><br /> <br /><br />Whomever you’ve been thinking about, those beloved to you, know that someone has thought of you in that same way, that you are beloved, and you are the difference love makes in this world. Amen.</span><p></p>Cynthiahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/16189485834914559162noreply@blogger.com0