07/15/2012 ~ Ceremony of Shalom for Tom Rasely ~ Proper 10 ~ Fifteenth Sunday in Ordinary Time ~ Seventh Sunday after Pentecost ~ 2 Samuel 6:1-5, 12b-19; Psalm 24; Amos 7:7-15; Psalm 85:8-13; Ephesians 1:3-14; Mark 6:14-29.

Chosen and Adopted

“Before the foundation of the world, before the world began, God chose us in Christ to be holy and blameless and to be full of love.  God, likewise, intended us, through Christ, Jesus, to be adopted children— such was the pleasure and will of God” — Ephesians 1:4-5.

Twenty-five years ago, on July the 11th... this year that date was last Wednesday... twenty-five years ago, on July the 11th I was on that island in Penobscot Bay, Maine, which many of you have heard me talk about.  When I came ashore on that day, there she was: Bonnie Scott.  Little did I know one year and six weeks later we would get married.

At the time I was working on Wall Street at L. F. Rothschild, Unterberg, Towbin.  But it was 1987.  You may remember that year in October the market had a little  incident, a little meltdown— 500 points of meltdown— in one day.

If you google L. F. Rothschild, Unterberg, Towbin and check the Wikipedia entry, you will see it says the firm suffered heavy losses in that crash and was acquired by Franklin Savings Association.  It also says, despite the take over, the firm filed for bankruptcy less than two years later.  In short, after the crash the firm I worked for was in the process of going ‘belly up.’ [1]

I could see that ‘belly up’ handwriting on the wall since in less than a year the company went from employing 2,200 to just about 600.  I was one of the 600.

But I knew Bonnie and I were getting married in September of '88 and I also knew she was not moving to New York City.  I was moving to Maine.  So in June, before the full ‘belly up’ happened, I asked my boss to lay me off.  So he did.

Now, Bonnie always says when she got married she did not know she was marrying a pastor.  But I didn’t know that either.  However, by the Fall of 1991 I was taking classes at Bangor Seminary and then, in November, Bonnie’s job as a newspaper photographer was eliminated in a 10% cutback.  Who knows?  Maybe Wall Street would have been safer.

In any case, that is when we decided to move to Bangor.  I entered seminary full time and Bonnie looked for work there.

While we were at the Seminary, Bonnie held a series of temp jobs before landing a permanent one.  We lived in three different apartments as the seminary kept moving us around.  Bonnie’s mother died and I was called to be an Associate Pastor at the Waldo County Cooperative of churches.  (Slight pause.)

It is sometimes said that moving, marriage, changing jobs and the death of a parent or spouse are the four most of the most stressful things which happen to people.  In the eight years from when I moved to Maine until we came to Norwich, we had moved a total of seven times, Bonnie’s Mom died and Bonnie and I, together, had about fifteen different jobs.

I offer this litany not to suggest that we had it hard.  We did not.  Stressful?  Probably.  Hard?  No.

Many people go through situations much more difficult than what I just outlined— being unemployed for long stretches, health issues, losing multiple relatives or friends in a short span of time.  Our stress pales in comparison to what others have endured.

I offer my litany to make one point: change happens.  Change is a part of life.  Some changes are more stressful than others.  But at some point we all have or we all will face moving, changing jobs, the death of someone close.  If you think you can escape change, you are flat out wrong.  (Slight pause.)

And these words are from the work known as Ephesians: “Before the foundation of the world, before the world began, God chose us in Christ to be holy and blameless and to be full of love.  God, likewise, intended us, through Christ, Jesus, to be adopted children— such was the pleasure and will of God”  (Slight pause.)

Have I mentioned things change?  (Slight pause.)  And yet... and yet... “Before the foundation of the world, before the world began, God chose us...”  That statement gives us only two choices: either it is delusional or it makes total and unequivocal sense.  (Slight pause.)

Our niece, Phoebe— the doctor in Los Angeles niece— recently posted a New York Times article on her Facebook page. [2]  The article was about friends and how, over time, the mix of friends and the mix of friendships change.

As the article pointed out Phoebe— and perhaps this is why she posted it— is at a pivotal age when it comes to friendships.  She is in the workplace for the first time— a real job as some of us like to call it.  Many of us, most of us, statistically at least, make deep and lasting friendships in high school and college and only some after that.

The friends we make after getting to a mature age, said the article, come and go as these friends are often work related and/or children related.  That is, you make friends through the workplace and with the parents of your children’s friends.

On the other hand the article went on to say, those who become real friends at no matter what age or what time in your life, those who become real friends, are the ones with whom we bond deeply.  And no one really can explain which of will bind, which person will become a friend.  They just are.  They just happen.  But it certainly seems there are more to these deep ties than mere accoutrements, more to these deep ties than surface attributes.  (Slight pause.)

Have I mentioned things change?  And yet... “Before the foundation of the world, before the world began, God chose us...”  (Slight pause.)

God, you see, is always with us.  God is with us always. God, the prime mover, chooses to befriend us.  And then God takes this extra step.  The writer of Ephesians calls it adoption— we are adopted by God.  God declares us children.

What does it mean— that we are adopted by God?  (Slight pause.)  It does not mean that we will fail to have cares and fail to have stress.  It does mean that God is always there, present to us, listening to us.  In that, the tie is deeper than mere friendship.  It is familial.  We are a part of the family of God.  And that is a binding tie.  (Slight pause.)

Have I mentioned things change?  (Slight pause.)  Tom Rasely has been our good friend.  I suspect that will not cease.  Frankly, I suspect if either we or Tom allow distance to shatter our friendship, we will all have some explaining to do in front of Saint Peter.

So, in a couple of minutes, we will have a Ceremony of Shalom for Tom as he goes off to Indiana.  But, and I have made us all aware of this in the past and as recently as out Children’s Time, Hebrew is a very different language than English.  Words in Hebrew have multiple meanings and change meaning before our eyes. [3]

Shalom is no exception.  It does, in fact, mean ‘goodby.’  But as you heard it also means ‘hello.’  Shalom also means ‘welfare’— welfare as in well being, safety.  Shalom also means ‘peace,’ as in transcendent peace, and ‘quietness,’ and ‘to restore,’ and ‘prosperity,’ and ‘wellness,’ and ‘rest,’ and ‘completeness.’ [4]

Given all these meanings— meanings each of which have to do with connectedness— and given the fact that we are all children of God, all related, all family, I want to suggest the promise of Scripture is simple.  God is with us always.  Why?  God loves us.  And God invites us to love one another in the same way God loves us— as family.  Amen.

07/15/2012
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: “We are not called to church.  We are called to be church.  We are church when we raise each other up in love and when we support one another’s gifts and talents.”

BENEDICTION: And let us, above all, surround ourselves with the perfect love of God, a love which binds everything together in harmony.  And may we love God so much, that we love nothing else too much.  May we be so in awe of God, that we are in awe of no one else and nothing else.  Amen.

[1]  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L.F._Rothschild

[2]  http://www.nytimes.com/2012/07/15/fashion/the-challenge-of-making-friends-as-an-adult.html?_r=1

[3]  At the Children’s Time the pastor had addressed the multiple meanings of the word Shalom and suggested that God is constant.

[4]  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shalom