03/25/2012 ~ Fifth Sunday in Lent ~ Heart and Soul

03/25/2012 ~ Fifth Sunday in Lent ~ Jeremiah 31:31-34; Psalm 51:1-12 or Psalm 119:9-16; Hebrews 5:5-10; John 12:20-33 ~ Feast of the Annunciation of the Christ ~ Isaiah 7:10-14; Psalm 45 or Psalm 40:5-10; Hebrews 10:4-10; Luke 1:26-38 ~ Used Jeremiah 31:31-34, Psalm 51:1-12 (Keyed to the Anthem) and John 12:20-33 (All ILV).

Heart and Soul

“...this is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says Yahweh: I will put my Law within them, in their minds, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.” — Jeremiah 31:33


The late Rollo May was psychologist who was and is known for being the author of several influential books in that field. But he also had a background in theology and was a close friend of the great Twentieth Century theologian Paul Tillich.

Indeed, after attaining a Bachelor’s Degree at Oberlin College— and by the way Oberlin College is a college associated with the United Church of Christ— he went to Union Theological Seminary— by the way, a Seminary associated with the United Church of Christ— for a Divinity Degree. Only after that did he go to Columbia University for a Ph.D. in clinical psychology.

In one of May’s books, Freedom and Destiny, he looked at issues of freedom. In that writing he took note of one example of predictable behavior in a large group. When the temperature reaches 90 degrees on a Summer day in a major costal city, we have the ability to forecast, he wrote, with great accuracy, what percentage of the population, will go to the beach.

Then he stated the potential obvious problem with that kind of projection. When we get to the point where we can determine not just how many will go to the beach but who will go to the beach, we will have lost our freedom. (Slight pause.)

Just eight years ago (it seems like eight light years), as the campaign for the presidential election of 2004 was in full progress— to be clear this was the George W. Bush/John Kerry election— weeks before any votes were actually cast or counted, I read a New York Times article about statistics and the upcoming election. The article made two things plain.

First, strictly from the standpoint of numbers, from the standpoint of looking at an election as a horse race, why someone voted for a particular candidate did not much matter. But exactly who voted did matter.

As to precisely who would vote for whom, as to which individual voted for Bush and which individual voted for Kerry— that could not be determined. On the other hand, what could be determined is, given a specific population, how many votes would be likely to go to one candidate or the other. And early on the data showed that the race was very, very close.

Indeed, the article actually said the election probably came down to just a few voters. Who would win that election came down to this: ‘for which candidate would some 10,000 swing voters in Ohio cast a ballot?’

As has been well documented, who voted for whom in the rest of the country did not matter. After all the votes in the rest of the country had been counted, the election was a dead heat. Now, the article had only one thing wrong in what it presented, those weeks in advance of the election.

You see, the election did not come down to which candidate some 10,000 specific swing voters in Ohio might cast a ballot. The election came down to which candidate some 50,000 specific swing voters in Ohio did cast a ballot. (Slight pause.)

Over 121 million votes were cast and weeks before the election it was known that swing voters in Ohio would decide the national result. I think 10,000 or 50,000 is, in this case, a negligible difference. (Slight pause.)

When we know not just how many but who, we will lose our freedom. That statistic makes it seem like some bean counters were painfully close to knowing not just how many but who, does it not? (Slight pause.)

I don’t know about you, but habits are my friends. When, for instance, my morning routine is somewhat changed— somehow changed, altered or upset, it’s not just that my coffee gets too cold. The whole day seems to go awry.

In fact, there is a lot of research which says habits are good. Why? We get into a routine and we can do that routine without giving it serious thought.

I recently read that when people back out of driveways they do so based on developed habit. In short, people often back out of driveways without thinking. Sounds dangerous, doesn’t it?

In fact, the danger of habit and nearly the definition of habit, is doing something by repetition, doing something so often that it allows for an absence of thinking. Habit can be thought of as things we do on automatic pilot.

Question: does the fact that our votes can be easily and closely tracked mean people vote on automatic pilot? Does the fact that our votes can be easily and closely tracked mean people are voting by habit, voting without thinking or does it simply mean people are following some kind of herd instinct? And even if it is a herd instinct, is that not a habit? (Pause.)

And these words are from the work known as Jeremiah: “...this is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says Yahweh: I will put my Law within them, in their minds, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.” (Slight pause.)

As I have said here before, I did not learn to drive a car until I moved to Maine, relatively late in life as those things go. After I had been driving a couple of years, a friend at work said he occasionally saw me drive in and drive out of the parking lot and he could see how careful I was as I drove.

He then said people who learned to drive as he had, when they are in their teens, didn’t pay attention at all while they were driving. They drove by habit. I told him I found that really, really, really frightening— driving by habit. (Slight pause.)

Is our relationship with God simply or only a habit? Is our attendance at church to worship God as a community of faith simply or only a habit? Is there such a thing as a habit of the heart or does real relationship, real love, real heart, require more of us than a habit, more than an unthinking response to a repetitive situation? (Slight pause.)

There are, unquestionably, parts of relationships which fall under the realm of habit and even demand some form of habitual interaction. On the other hand, when relationship is simply habit— ritual— if it does not consist of something deeper, richer, wider than habit can it be called relationship? (Slight pause.)

Put another way: is God real for us? Or is God simply a matter of practice, ritual? Or is God someone with Whom we actually interact? (Slight pause.)

You’ve heard me say this many times: it all comes down to this— love neighbor, love God. I said it so often Tom Rasely wrote a song about it and credited me with the lyric. After all, I said it.

But, let me posit this: loving God and loving neighbor is about living life fully. And if we are to live life fully we need to be aware that the world around us is constantly changing. Hence, we need to be ready for change, ready to change.

So, if we are to be ready for change, loving God and loving neighbor cannot simply or only be about habit, can it? Unquestionably, when it comes to relationships, relying simply on habit can be dangerous— a little like backing out of a driveway without thinking. (Slight pause. Referring to his spouse, the pastor says:) Oh, I’m sorry Bonnie, I just backed into you. (Slight pause.)

Let me put that in yet a different way. We need to engage our whole being, both our body and soul, our mind and spirit, in relationship— in a relationship with God. Said differently yet again, we need to free our emotions from habitual responses so they may be open to new life. Indeed, it is only when our emotions are free from the trap of habit that they can become fully engaged, fully involved in relationship. (Slight pause.)

My good friend, the Rev. Dr. Susan Polizzi, formerly of the First Baptist Church of Norwich across the street, put a portion of a poem by John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, J. R. R. Tolkien, I Sit And Think, on her Facebook page this week. It seemed to me that, in a quiet way, the poem something about engaging in relationship over time. So, I’d like to end with that poem.

I sit beside the fire and think
of all that I have seen,
of meadow-flowers and butterflies
in summers that have been;

Of yellow leaves and gossamer
in autumns that were there,
with morning mist and silver sun
and wind upon my hair.

I sit beside the fire and think
of how the world will be
when winter comes without a spring
that I shall never see.

For still there are so many things
that I have never seen:
in every wood, in every spring,
there is a different green.

I sit beside the fire and think
of people long ago,
and people who will see a world
that I shall never know.

But all the while I sit and think
of times there were before,
I listen for returning feet
and voices at the door.

(Slight pause.) Relationship— love, body, soul, wholeness. Or as it says in Jeremiah: “...I will put my Law within them, in their minds, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people.” Amen.

03/25/2012
United Church of Christ, First Congregational, Norwich, New York

ENDPIECE: It is the practice of the Pastor to speak after the Closing Hymn, but before the Choral Response and Benediction. This is an précis of what was said: “It probably would not surprise any of you to know I am a fan of the plays of William Shakespeare. But I have seen more Shakespeare preformed poorly than I care to mention. Why? The actors did not understand what they were saying. They were saying it by rote. By rote is not the way we should be engaging in a relationship with God. We need to engage with God fully, with our whole self, body and soul.”

BENEDICTION: God has written the law of love within us. We are empowered to live according to that law, through the Redeemer, Jesus. In Christ, we experience God’s presence together. Where Christ leads, let us follow. Where God calls us to service, let us go. And may the peace of God which surpasses all understanding keep our hearts and minds in the knowledge of God, the love of Jesus, the Christ and the companionship of the Holy Spirit, this day and forevermore. Amen.

SERMON ~ 03/18/2012 ~ By Grace

03/18/2012 ~ Fourth Sunday in Lent ~ Numbers 21:4-9; Psalm 107:1-3, 17-22; Ephesians 2:1-10; John 3:14-21.

By Grace

“For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God— not the result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are what God has made us, God’s work of art, created in Christ Jesus to do the good things, which God prepared for us to do beforehand, from the beginning, to be our way of life.” — Ephesians 2: 8-9.

Friday morning those of us in the theology business woke to news of a change in personnel, a change in staffing— so to speak. Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury— the position fondly referred to by clerics as ABC— has decided to step down at the end of this year.

The popular press insisted the Archbishop was retiring. He could have, after all, stayed on at least another eight years before a mandatory age limit would catch up with him. Williams would have nothing of that retirement claptrap.

He insisted he’s simply trading one position for another, has decided to do something different, not retire. He will become reacquainted and more involved with academia. He will be a college professor.

Williams is no stranger to that arena. He has two doctorates and was a full professor by the age of 36, very young to achieve that rank in the British education system.

His new post will be Master of Magdalene College, Cambridge. There is no real equivalent to that position in American colleges but, besides teaching, the duties include being responsible for the running of the College and being the chair at meetings of the College Council. So, it is somewhat but not quite like being a college president.

In an interview the Archbishop, a well known theologian and teacher before he took on the duties of leadership for the Anglican Communion, offered a number of justifications for moving on. Among them are the end of this year will mark 10 years in the post of Archbishop and just over 20 as a bishop.

He genuinely feels after 10 years it’s proper to pray and to reflect on and to review options. In doing so he realized there are a number of initiatives he started as Archbishop which will have run their course by year’s end.

Additionally, every 10 years whoever is Archbishop of Canterbury convenes a Lambeth Conference, a gathering of Bishops in the Anglican Communion. The next conference is on the docket is for 2018, the year he would be required to retire. Further, he knows from experience that these conferences take five years to plan. Hence, if he leaves the post now, the person who follows will have five years to prepare.

Having offered a number of reasons for this decision, Williams said the bottom line is not just that he felt it’s time to move on. It’s that if he does so now, he will be acting in a very professional manner. He will be honoring the institution he serves and giving a successor the time to take the reins of the job and be successful. (Slight pause.)

And we hear these words in Ephesians: “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God— not the result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are what God has made us, God’s work of art, created in Christ Jesus to do the good things, which God prepared for us to do beforehand, from the beginning, to be our way of life.” (Slight pause.)

I confess clergy often speak of being called to our profession, to being called to do what we do— in effect being called by God to be pastors... or Archbishops. I have never been particularly comfortable with this terminology. After all, the term is used nearly exclusively for pastors. Therefore, it’s always seemed way too limiting to me.

It is beyond me why, for instance, we cannot say everyone is in some way called. We are called be nurses, bankers, assembly line workers. I believe people are called to all kinds of work.

To be clear, we may not like what we are doing or what we wind up doing. We may feel we need to get out of what we’re doing.

In fact, in cases where we have a low comfort level with a job, my bet is we are not called. And, if we are working at something to which we not called, it’s likely we will do our best to get out of it.

But, to be realistic, it may take time to extricate ourselves from what might be termed for lack of a better phrase ‘simply work’— not something that we feel comfortable doing but something which keeps bread on the table. In short, doing something that is simply work is clearly not a calling but it can be a necessity. And what we do to survive, for most of us, is not who we are, really.

Indeed, the famous composer Richard Rodgers, who wrote some of the most memorable music of the Twentieth Century, said the mistake people most often made when they met him was to confuse who he was as a person with his music, his work. Work is a part of us, but we should never let it define who we are. Work is what we do, not who we are. (Slight pause.)

Of all the things God does for us, the fact that God showers grace upon us is paramount. We, all of us and each of us, possess an abundance of grace, an abundance of God given talents. With the movement back to academia, Archbishop Williams is about to embark on putting a set of talents he had not been fully using back into play.

Indeed, if you think your talents might be underutilized in your current work, the Archbishop would sympathize. Williams expressed some of those frustrations with the position of Archbishop. He sees himself as a teacher and he did not see himself as an administrator or diplomat, the prime talents needed by an Archbishop of Canterbury, although he did have the talent to be an administrator, to be a diplomat. He did these things well.

And, despite having two doctorates, Rowan seems to be a down to earth fellow— have you seen his picture?— all bushy beard and eyebrows about two inches in length— and I suspect the clerical office he filled had way to much pomp and circumstance for him. As a comparison and on a personal note, when people introduce me as the Rev. Joe Connolly, I stop them short and say, “No, no. I’m irreverent Joe Connolly.” (Slight pause.)

Well, all that brings me back to who we are. (Slight pause.) By now, this quote from Marianne Williamson has been repeated so often it’s become cliché. But that does not mean it fails to resonate.

(Quote:) “Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, ‘Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous?’ Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God.”

“Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do.”

“We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It’s not just in some of us; it’s in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others” (unquote).

And that, my friends, brings us back to the quote from Ephesians. All the talents we have— and they are a myriad— are gifts from God. We are children of God. We are (to quote Ephesians quite exactly): “God’s... work... of... art...” (Slight pause.)

Today we accepted the all church offering known as One Great Hour of Sharing. That offering, among all those we accept, should be a reminder to us that we are not alone. It should a reminder to us that we are simply one of all God’s children. It should a reminder to us that God showers grace on everyone.

It should a reminder to us that God calls us— there’s that word again– calls us— to seek justice, to work for the freedom of all God’s children. And it should be a reminder to us that God calls us to be one, to live in unity, to live in harmony and to love. (Slight pause.)

Yes, God surrounds us with grace. God surrounds us with love. And God calls each of us to walk in the will of God, to love one another as we remember each of us is a child of God, filled with grace. Amen.

03/18/2012
United Church of Christ, First Congregational, Norwich, New York

ENDPIECE: It is the practice of the Pastor to speak after the Closing Hymn, but before the Choral Response and Benediction. This is an précis of what was said: “To paraphrase what I said earlier: ‘What scares you more— the voice within us that speaks of our shortcomings, or of our true power? And by “true power” I mean our identity beyond mere egotism— power which comes from God.’”

BENEDICTION: There is but one message in Scripture: God loves us. Let us endeavor to let God’s love shine forth in our lives. For with God’s love and goodness, there is power to redeem, power to revive, power to renew, power to resurrect. So, may the love of God the Creator which is real, the Peace of Christ which surpasses all understanding and companionship of the Holy Spirit, ever present, keep our hearts and minds in God’s knowledge and care this day and forever more. Amen.

SERMON ~ 03/11/2012 ~ Signs, Miracles and Wisdom

03/11/2012 ~ Third Sunday in Lent ~ Exodus 20:1-17; Psalm 19; 1 Corinthians 1:18-25; John 2:13-22 ~ Dedication of the Quilts from the Chenango Piecemakers Quilt Guild for Use at the Roots and Wings Domestic Violence Program and for Newborns at Chenango Memorial Hospital.

Signs, Miracles and Wisdom

“Those who are Jewish demand signs, call for miracles; Greeks look for wisdom.” — 1 Corinthians 1:22.

I think we, in the church, can get a little possessive, a little unbending when it comes to our own territory. I think about that possessiveness every time I hear someone use the word “unchurched.”

Unchurched— I don’t even know what that word means. Unless it means someone else worshiping in a way which does not have the approval of the individual, of the person, using the word “unchurched.” In short, it often it sounds as if it is being used as a pejorative, a put down.

Well, I suppose I have a fairly broad definition of church. And to my way of thinking, I’m satisfied to let someone choose their own way of being church.

There is, however, something else to be considered here. And that actually comes back to the definition not of ‘unchurched’ but of ‘church.’ What is church? Perhaps the secret is in how I just put it: being church— not a noun— not a naming but a verb, an action word.

You see, church is not something which is. But it is something you do. And, rumor to the contrary, church is not something you do alone. Hence, church, by definition, means community.

And church is not just a community of people you like or a community of people who are just like you, although that may, in fact, be both why and how a church initially gathers. If truth be told, that’s how the early church, the New Testament Church, gathered. So being church means being community.

Now, we do need to turn to theology, the study of our understanding of God, and away from the sociology, in this case the study of how people gather. Community, in the theological sense, means there are all kinds of people, in all shapes and all sizes and all ages and all persuasions and all ethnicities who gather together to form church, to be church.

And among those in the gathering you, individually, might like some of the people and might not like others. And you might be like some of the people and you might not be like others.

Which, to be blunt, means someone might claim that going off in the woods to commune with nature is church. Indeed, that’s a definition of church I’ll bet we’ve all heard. But it is not church.

Why? Going off into the woods does not even meet the simplest definition of church, that of community, so it is not an accurate description of church.

Or rather, that definition of church can only be accurate if, as you go into the woods, you bring a whole lot of people with you, some of whom you like and some of whom you do not like, some who are like you and some who are not like you and you are all somehow communing with nature, together. (Slight pause.) You think you can do that? Go off in the woods with a whole group of people? That’s a really big camp, isn’t it? (Slight pause.)

And these words are found in the work known as first Corinthians: “Those who are Jewish demand signs, call for miracles; Greeks look for wisdom.” (Slight pause.)

Perhaps the real question which needs to be asked here is what are true signs? What are true miracles? What is true wisdom? And, indeed, another question which should be central for us is what does it mean to be in community? (Slight pause.)

The one central and communal thing we do in the church, in theory at least, is worship. And, rumors to the contrary, worship is not and has never been something between the individual and God. That definition is a modern heresy.

Why? Worship can be logically described as private, but it can never be logically described personal. It is always communal.

So, perhaps that begs yet another question. What is our understanding of God, our communal understanding of God? What does the presence of God in our lives mean? Is it possible that, just like the Greeks, we have some pre-conceived notions about how God should behave and enjoy imposing that on others.

After all, just look around, just look at the headlines in the newspapers and you can see people from many walks of life using the words of Jesus to draw neat lines when it comes to what they think God looks like and what they think God wants. For instance, it is common for people to proclaim ‘if you are not for us, or with us, you are against us,’ thus misusing Matthew 12:30.’

That usage is nothing more than an attempt to demonize people, to split people into groups of ‘us and them,’ ‘clean and unclean,’ ‘acceptable and unacceptable.’ When this is done people are simply attempting to condemn other people who are not like them or do not think like them. This is a way of approaching life which rejects the possibility of equity, reject the notion that God might seek equity among people.

Further and again, just look at those headlines today and what do you see? And any questioning which probes an underlying belief is condemned, deemed as not permissible. This questioning is condemned, even though it seems evident that underlying beliefs often lead to specific behaviors, behaviors which run counter to the notion of equity. And, needless to say, it should be no surprise if those specific behaviors on the part of public people should somehow become specific policies— policies not just imposed on some people but imposed on all people. (Slight pause.)

Well, here’s an observation. It seems to me as if people are insisting— perhaps because of trying to impose things on others— humility might not be a vital and valid and vibrant part of true and deep faith. (Slight pause.) Friends, since when did humility stop being a vital and valid and vibrant part of Christianity?

The way I see it, a Christian understanding of who we are as a people of God says we are not to be swaggering or brash. A Christian understanding about who we are as a people of God says we are but one of many peoples in this world and, as such, are not sanctioned by God to be a sole voice of authority.

A Christian understanding about who we are as a people of God says we are not just to tolerate to our neighbors. We are to love our neighbors. A Christian understanding about who we are as a people of God says we are to love those who are not like us. A Christian understanding about who we are as a people of God, therefore, says humility needs to be a integral part of faith. (Slight pause.)

For a moment let come back to that definition of church. This is what the Rev. Dr. Rowan Williams, one Archbishop of Canterbury says— a definition of church: “No one can be written off; no group, no nation, no minority can just be a scapegoat to resolve our fears and uncertainties. We cannot assume that any human face we see has no divine secret to disclose: this includes those who are culturally or religiously strange to us, these people who so often don’t count in the world’s terms....” (Unquote) [Pause].

In a couple moments we will practice being church. How? We will dedicate the quilts made by the Chenango Picemakers, quilts to be distributed both to newborns the Domestic Violence program. And how is that being church?

It is being church not just because it is a symbol of our community. It is being church because it is a symbol of the greater community. It is inclusive. And that, you see, that is church: being community for everyone. Amen.

03/11/2012
United Church of Christ, First Congregational, Norwich, New York

ENDPIECE: It is the practice of the Pastor to speak after the Closing Hymn, but before the Choral Response and Benediction. This is an précis of what was said: “I’d like to come back to what I said in the sermon about going off into the woods and calling that church, since I’ve labeled it as ‘not church’ but I did not elaborate. My bet is the people who call ‘being in the woods alone’ church are not actually ‘unchurched.’ Their church might be going to sporting events or concerts or movies, places where you mingle with people, where you do have community. But, again, church is never done alone. (The pastor holds up a quilt which was among those dedicated at the time of prayer.) Which makes this church.”

BENEDICTION: This is the message of Scripture: God loves us. Let us endeavor to let God’s love shine forth in our lives. For with God’s love and goodness, there is power to redeem, power to revive, power to renew, power to resurrect. So, may the love of God the Creator which is real, the Peace of Christ which surpasses all understanding and companionship of the Holy Spirit which is ever present, keep our hearts and minds in the knowledge and care of God this day and forever more. Amen.

03/04/2012 ~ SERMON ~ Explaining the Impossible

03/04/2012 ~ Second Sunday in Lent ~ Genesis 17:1-7, 15-16; Psalm 22:23-31; Romans 4:13-25; Mark 8:31-38 or Mark 9:2-9 ~ Communion Sunday ~ Used Lent Communion Service Adapted from the Iona Community.

Explaining the Impossible

“Then Avraham fell on his face and laughed, and said to himself, ‘To a man who is a hundred years old can children be born? Can Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear a child?’” — Genesis 17:17.

They Might Be Giants is the title of a fairly obscure film released in 1971. Despite its obscurity, it had some very impressive people connected with it. James Goldman, best know as the writer of A Lion in Winter wrote the screenplay. Lion won Katharine Hepburn her third Best Actress Academy Award— three out of four.

Other people connected with They Might Be Giants included Joanne Woodward, the winner of an Academy Award for The Three Faces of Eve and George C. Scott, who infamously refused two Academy Award nominations, once for The Hustler and once for Patton. Needless to say, having refused the nominations, Scott never won an Academy Award.

The plot of the Giants film runs something like this: Justin Playfair, the part played by Scott, is a millionaire who seems to retreat into a fantasy life after the death of his wife. He imagines himself to be the legendary but fictional detective Sherlock Holmes.

He dresses the part, complete with a deerstalker hat and pipe. He acts the part by playing the violin and spending days at a time in a home-made criminal laboratory. Last, he seems to be constantly paranoid about plots he thinks are being hatched by an arch-enemy, a person he believes to be one Professor Moriarty, but is actually his brother.

Justin’s real brother, worried about Justin’s mental state, has the pseudo-Sherlock placed under observation in a mental institution and tries to get power of attorney. So, the aforementioned paranoia does not seem very misplaced.

A psychiatrist, the part played by Joanne Woodward, becomes fascinated by this case. Her name? Why, of course, her name is Dr. Watson. Get it? Sherlock Holmes, Dr. Watson? O.K. we’re on the same page there.

Dr. Watson has Justin released because he demonstrates a knack for deduction, just like Holmes. After all, he can’t really be crazy if he can do that, can he?

Well, I am sure you can figure out what happens next: Dr. Watson and Sherlock Holmes begin a search for Professor Moriarty. Together, they follow all manner of bizarre and (to Watson) unintelligible clues. Needless to say, the two grow closer and more fond of each other in the process. (Slight pause.)

Is the delusional Holmes character really crazy? I don’t think so. You see, there is one scene where the pseudo-detective explains exactly why he is sane and that scene also explains the title of the film. The character played by Scott offers this explanation which makes a reference to a famous episode in the novel Don Quixote.

The delusional knight, Quixote, tries to fight a windmill, thinking windmills are really giants. Windmills are, of course, not really giants. The old knight loses his fight to a windmill when one of the sails, one of those arms, swoops down and knocks Don Quixote to the ground.

The mistake the Don made, says the Holmes character, is to believe windmills are giants. That, insists the detective, is clearly delusional.

You need to understand, he says, it’s not that the windmills are giants. It’s that the windmills might be giants. Hence, the title of the film— They Might Be Giants— a film about someone who acts like Sherlock Holmes, who seems delusional but probably is not, and his psychiatrist, Dr. Watson. (Slight pause.)

And these words are found in the work know as Genesis: “Then Avraham fell on his face and laughed, and said to himself, ‘To a man who is a hundred years old can children be born? Can Sarah, who is ninety years old, bear a child?’” (Slight pause.)

I think those of us who have lived and live in the late Twentieth and Early Twenty-first Centuries have a tendency to try to explain things. That’s not a bad thing. Explanations are often both good and profitable.

But then, when we come across things which seem to defy explanation, which seem impossible, we still do that. We try to explain them. We try to explain away the impossible. And I think we try to do that especially when it comes to Scripture.

Let me offer an example. I have a friend, a true scholar, who insists Avraham is a hundred years old and Sarah is ninety years old and they conceive a child. But then he explains this impossibility away in the next breath.

It means what it says, he continues, except in that era and in that place, each year there were two harvests. So, given the calculation recorded in the passage, the counting is determined by agricultural cycles, not by calendar years. Therefore, they count two years for every one calendar year.

This math, obviously, makes Avraham 50 and Sarah 45 at the time of the story. And while that is still fairly old to have children, it is not totally impossible. So, the impossible gets logically explained away.

I take issue with the premise that says count one year as two. Why? It ignores the idea that the writer of this story knew exactly how it was being told, that the writer of this story knew the details being offered were an impossibility.

In short, it explains away the impossible when the impossibility of the story may be the very point the teller of the tale is trying to make. This explanation also makes a very large and, I think, very invalid presumption. It presumes both the writer of the story and those who first heard the story did not understand the literary value, all the shades of meanings and all the possibilities, that convey in this story about Avraham and Sarah in terms of the impossible might present.

So, suppose we try to refrain from doing that. Suppose we try to refrain from simply explaining away the impossible. The way I see it, that leaves two options.

First, take the story in a literal way. The story happened exactly the way it says it happened. Avraham and Sarah were old, they had a child and, if you continue to follow the rest of the story as it unfolds, despite the fact that they were already old, they lived quite a long time after that. Maybe.

The second option? The age factor is here in this story on purpose. And the impossibility of the age factor is meant to tell us something that has nothing what-so-ever to do with age. I think this is the case on several counts.

As was mentioned when the reading was introduced, this story is not about the miracle of theophany, not a story about an experience of the real presence of God. Even though the story does tell us about the experience of the real presence of God, I don’t think this aspect of the story is central.

Further, I don’t think this story is about the miracle of two people conceiving a child well beyond the age at which that’s normal. So, even though the story does tell us about the miracle of two people beyond child bearing years having a child, that’s not central.

So, what is this story about? Again, this is a story about the covenant of God with humanity. In fact, what is the only miracle being addressed here? The real and only miracle here is that God insists on being in covenant with humanity, insists on being in covenant with us. (Slight pause.)

We, in the early Twenty-first Century, can be over-analytical in our thinking. We try to explain things away.

Indeed, that’s what those on the theological right do. They do it by insisting the stories in Scripture are to be taken literally. Insisting what we find in Scripture be taken in a literal sense is just another way of explaining the stories we find away.

We try to do that even though the the real meat and the real meaning of many of these stories is not about what happened. It’s about message of covenant.

So, just like the character George C. Scott played, we need to be at least a little wary of pinning things down. We need to be wary of seeing giants and presuming them to be real when the truth might be a little more subtle than that. (Slight pause.)

This morning we celebrated the Sacrament of Table. Some insist the bread and wine is the body and blood of Christ. Some say this is simply a remembrance. But I think a more fluid understanding, one which says God is present to us here and now and we are empowered to be present to one another as the sacrament is celebrated is both more paradoxical and more subtle. And maybe even more satisfying.

So, in the end, the message we find in Scripture is all of these: subtle and simple, a paradox and direct. And, yes— satisfying. That message? God loves us and wants to be in covenant with us. Amen.

03/04/2012
United Church of Christ, First Congregational, Norwich, New York

ENDPIECE: It is the practice of the Pastor to speak after the Closing Hymn, but before the Choral Response and Benediction. This is an précis of what was said: “It is sometimes said we are surrounded by Angels. If by that you mean what the word Angel really means, I agree. You see, Angel really means ‘messenger from God.’ And we get messages from God in many ways: subtle and simple, a paradox and direct. But the messages come at us from messengers more often and in more ways than we think. And the one message God is always sending is this: covenant.”

BENEDICTION: Do not be ashamed to question all that denies God’s reign. The promises of God are for all. Let us trust in the promises of God. Let us understand, believe in and hold to God’s covenant. Let us depart in confidence and joy knowing that God is with us and let us carry Christ in our hearts. Amen.