Dear Friends in Christ
I have publicly mentioned my friend and colleague Michael Caine several times. Formerly, the Regional Conference Minister in the Metropolitan Region of the New York Conference, Michael is currently the transitional pastor (A.K.A. Covenant Minister) at the Old First Reformed United Church of Christ in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. As many of you know, Michael was also a classmate of the Rev. Mr. Jim Hollister, the previous pastor in Norwich, when they both attended Colgate.
In the church blog the Rev. Mr. Caine recently wrote about a challenge he suggested to the Old First Reformed congregation. This is the question he asked: “Who Will Be Our Witnesses?” One parishioner suggested the church could use the fence in front of the building this summer to share the God Is Still Speaking message of the United Church of Christ.
Doing that could certainly be a witness. Graphic red and black posters and banners with the God Is Still Speaking message are available. Unquestionably these can provide a passerby a peek into the faith community and publicize the prophetic and progressive witness of the United Church of Christ which this national identity campaign provides.
Michael shared that plan with Ron Buford, the original architect of the Still Speaking Initiative. Ron said: “Michael, what do you think would happen if members share their personal stories with each other alongside the broader, overarching promises of the denomination?”
That certainly put a different spin on what real witness is about, wrote Michael. This is what he said in a church blog: “If we back up what, otherwise, may sound like the surprising, even ‘almost too good to be true’ invitation of the United Church of Christ (the invitation which insists God Is Still Speaking to us today) with real stories of real life from real people, our message of God touching the life of people (no longer sounding like just wishful thinking) could really hit home!”
Michael suggested that if the people of Old First started to share their own stories with one another, then it’s possible folks beyond that community might hear about this sharing and begin to perceive the same wonder and grace the people at Old First are starting to realize, just because they have started to share the stories with each other. A number of people have sent in stories to Michael and he has started to publish them in the church newsletter.
They are not stories about conversion or stories about big events. They are simple stories about relationship. Here are a couple of those stories.
***
A woman who moved to Philadelphia with three small children. She needed a church, searched the yellow pages for a congregation and found Old First. When she arrived with her three children in tow, someone in the congregation invited this woman and her children to sit with them during worship. They became best of friends.
One person wrote: I don’t want to be the grumpy old lady music snob! I loved the Bernstein song in worship last week, but I’m guessing there were some whose response was “Um, that’s sort of different.” The next week after that one of the offerings featured drums. And next week, I know there will be something by Handel. I love a church where no matter what music you love, you might hear it on a given Sunday morning!
Yet another wrote that the initial welcome they received at Old First was warm and genuine. But the most wonderful moment during that first visit was when they realized that their family didn’t raise an eyebrow. Two-moms-and-a-daughter was no big deal at Old First. You can’t imagine how great that felt. They still appreciate and cherish this sense of belonging and “okay-ness.”
****
I want to suggest God Is Still Speaking. And God speaks through us. Unless we speak out about how God is speaking through us, this Speaking God still talks but the voice becomes so small it is nearly silent.
We need to share our stories about God who still speaks. We need to share our stories about God who still speaks with each other. We need to share our stories about God who still speaks with the greater community.
I suppose the challenge is obvious. Do we believe God Is Still Speaking? Do we believe God can speak through us? Or do we think the voice of God is so tiny that it can barely be heard?
All the bright colored banners and fancy posters and snappy slogans won’t mean a thing unless they have something and someone behind them. That something is our story. That someone is you and me— us.
As another colleague of mine says: “See you in church!”
In Faith,
Joe Connolly
P.S. If anyone wants to submit some stories about God speaking through them in this church for the Newsletter, I would be happy to publish them.
Monday, June 28, 2010
ANNUAL REPORT TO THE CHURCH
PASTOR’S REPORT 2009-2010
Many of you know that with my Annual Report I try to look toward the future, not at the past. Striving to illuminate the past is not the place on which people in positions of theological leadership should dwell. That, having been said, let’s look ahead.
***********************************************************
It is a key question for any church at all times: to where is this church called? Most people do not hear that vital question correctly. The thing most people hear when the question ‘to where is this church called?” is another, very different question: ‘To what is this church called?’ (Some would say “how is this church called” rather than “to what” but either will do.) I want to suggest that answering “to what is this church called” is close to useless. “To where is this church called” might be a helpful pursuit.
Why would I say that? Dwight D. Eisenhower, the 34th President of the United States put it this way: “In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.” Which is, obviously, not to say any church should fail to plan. I cherish plans. It is to say ‘where’ supercedes ‘what.’
I had a pastor friend who, many years ago, started an organization called The Institute for Clergy Renewal. It is still running. The sole purpose of the organization was to offer clergy who had ‘burned out’ by being overly involved in ‘action’ in ‘what’ to be involved in a spiritual retreat for an extended time— about three months. In those retreats they would be given an opportunity to become renewed by concentrating on issues of faith. Why? Issues of faith are the ‘where’ to which any person and any church is called. You see, without the ‘where,’ without faith, the ‘what’ becomes meaningless. And, when we pursue goals without having a spiritual grounding, the action to carry out those goals become meaningless.
So, to where are we called? I think that answer is pretty clear: we are called to be a community of faith. One becomes a community of faith and, indeed, one renews faith through a combination of the intentional study of Scripture and intentional worship.
I cannot overstress how important the study of Scripture is. But I also need to note that simply reading Scripture is not studying Scripture. Further, if you are studying Scripture alone and not in a group, I cannot overstress how important it is to have multiple commentaries (which show a variety of viewpoints) available for that study. Which, of course, argues for studying Scripture in a group because those kinds of resources are more likely be available.
That brings us to “intentional” worship. What is “intentional” about worship? There are two things members of a church need to do to practice intentional worship. The first is to strive to be, each Sabbath, the community of faith gathered together to worship the One, Triune God. The second is to make a personal commitment to each other, to the other members of the community of faith, to be present at the normally scheduled service of worship, each week, once a week, no matter what. To be intentional means that a parishioner lets nothing, lets no one, lets no other commitment get in the way of that commitment and that intentionality. I cannot overstress how important “intentional” worship is. To be clear: these two aspects of church, together— study and worship— show where our personal priorities lie.
Now, I know some will say: “O.K. that’s the ‘where’ but I am a ‘nuts and bolts’ kind of person. You really have to show me a ‘what’ or I won’t believe a ‘where’ is there.
O.K.— the ‘what’— there is a fairly popular and successful program many churches use called Five Practices of Faithful Congregations. These are the five steps. Please note: these are practices. These make recommendations about what to do, about what you can do. These all address ‘what.’ These emphasize the faithful behaviors necessary to be a vital congregation.
The Practice of Radical Hospitality
Radical hospitality happens when Christians offer the absolute utmost of themselves, their abilities, and their creativity to welcome others into the faith.
The Practice of Passionate Worship
Passionate worship is when the community explores how the ingredient of passion can transform a worship service and offers insights and ideas on how to have worship that deeply touches souls and changes lives.
The Practice of Intentional Faith Development
Faith Development is an exploration of high quality learning experiences for all ages that matures the spirituality and faith of congregational participants.
The Practice of Risk-Taking Mission and Service
We do sometimes need to be reminded that by reaching out and taking risks, churches become the resources God uses to change lives and transform the world.
The Practice of Extravagant Generosity
This has been a given throughout the history of humanity: generosity enlarges the soul, realigns priorities, connects people to Jesus, and strengthens congregations to fulfill the ministries of Christ.
************
So, there you have it: a ‘where’ and a ‘what.’ And I hope you noticed the significant degree of overlap between the two.
I’d like to end with a couple of thoughts about church on which I invite you to meditate. They are not mine. They are all taken from the writings of the late Rev. Dr. William Sloane Coffin, Jr., a Presbyterian Pastor and writer, who held standing in the United Church of Christ. At different times in a long career Coffin was a CIA agent, a chaplain at Yale University, a leader in the civil-rights and peace movements of the 1960s and 1970s, a member of the secret society Skull and Bones and, finally, the Senior Minister at the Riverside Church in New York City.
“All of life is the exercise of risk.”
“To be avoided at all costs is the solace of opinion without the pain of thought.”
“I love the recklessness of faith. First you leap, and then you grow wings.”
“The world is too dangerous for anything but truth and too small for anything but love.”
“It is often said that the Church is a crutch. Of course it’s a crutch. What makes you think you don’t limp?”
“Diversity may be the hardest thing for a society to live with, and perhaps the most dangerous thing for a society to be without.”
“When a man is drowning, it may be better for him to try to swim than to thrash around waiting for divine intervention.”
“The temptation to moralize is strong; it is emotionally satisfying to have enemies rather than problems, to seek out culprits rather than the flaws in the system.”
“Hope is a state of mind independent of the state of the world. If your heart’s full of hope, you can be persistent when you can’t be optimistic.”
The Rev. Mr. Joseph Connolly
Pastor and Teacher
Many of you know that with my Annual Report I try to look toward the future, not at the past. Striving to illuminate the past is not the place on which people in positions of theological leadership should dwell. That, having been said, let’s look ahead.
***********************************************************
It is a key question for any church at all times: to where is this church called? Most people do not hear that vital question correctly. The thing most people hear when the question ‘to where is this church called?” is another, very different question: ‘To what is this church called?’ (Some would say “how is this church called” rather than “to what” but either will do.) I want to suggest that answering “to what is this church called” is close to useless. “To where is this church called” might be a helpful pursuit.
Why would I say that? Dwight D. Eisenhower, the 34th President of the United States put it this way: “In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.” Which is, obviously, not to say any church should fail to plan. I cherish plans. It is to say ‘where’ supercedes ‘what.’
I had a pastor friend who, many years ago, started an organization called The Institute for Clergy Renewal. It is still running. The sole purpose of the organization was to offer clergy who had ‘burned out’ by being overly involved in ‘action’ in ‘what’ to be involved in a spiritual retreat for an extended time— about three months. In those retreats they would be given an opportunity to become renewed by concentrating on issues of faith. Why? Issues of faith are the ‘where’ to which any person and any church is called. You see, without the ‘where,’ without faith, the ‘what’ becomes meaningless. And, when we pursue goals without having a spiritual grounding, the action to carry out those goals become meaningless.
So, to where are we called? I think that answer is pretty clear: we are called to be a community of faith. One becomes a community of faith and, indeed, one renews faith through a combination of the intentional study of Scripture and intentional worship.
I cannot overstress how important the study of Scripture is. But I also need to note that simply reading Scripture is not studying Scripture. Further, if you are studying Scripture alone and not in a group, I cannot overstress how important it is to have multiple commentaries (which show a variety of viewpoints) available for that study. Which, of course, argues for studying Scripture in a group because those kinds of resources are more likely be available.
That brings us to “intentional” worship. What is “intentional” about worship? There are two things members of a church need to do to practice intentional worship. The first is to strive to be, each Sabbath, the community of faith gathered together to worship the One, Triune God. The second is to make a personal commitment to each other, to the other members of the community of faith, to be present at the normally scheduled service of worship, each week, once a week, no matter what. To be intentional means that a parishioner lets nothing, lets no one, lets no other commitment get in the way of that commitment and that intentionality. I cannot overstress how important “intentional” worship is. To be clear: these two aspects of church, together— study and worship— show where our personal priorities lie.
Now, I know some will say: “O.K. that’s the ‘where’ but I am a ‘nuts and bolts’ kind of person. You really have to show me a ‘what’ or I won’t believe a ‘where’ is there.
O.K.— the ‘what’— there is a fairly popular and successful program many churches use called Five Practices of Faithful Congregations. These are the five steps. Please note: these are practices. These make recommendations about what to do, about what you can do. These all address ‘what.’ These emphasize the faithful behaviors necessary to be a vital congregation.
The Practice of Radical Hospitality
Radical hospitality happens when Christians offer the absolute utmost of themselves, their abilities, and their creativity to welcome others into the faith.
The Practice of Passionate Worship
Passionate worship is when the community explores how the ingredient of passion can transform a worship service and offers insights and ideas on how to have worship that deeply touches souls and changes lives.
The Practice of Intentional Faith Development
Faith Development is an exploration of high quality learning experiences for all ages that matures the spirituality and faith of congregational participants.
The Practice of Risk-Taking Mission and Service
We do sometimes need to be reminded that by reaching out and taking risks, churches become the resources God uses to change lives and transform the world.
The Practice of Extravagant Generosity
This has been a given throughout the history of humanity: generosity enlarges the soul, realigns priorities, connects people to Jesus, and strengthens congregations to fulfill the ministries of Christ.
************
So, there you have it: a ‘where’ and a ‘what.’ And I hope you noticed the significant degree of overlap between the two.
I’d like to end with a couple of thoughts about church on which I invite you to meditate. They are not mine. They are all taken from the writings of the late Rev. Dr. William Sloane Coffin, Jr., a Presbyterian Pastor and writer, who held standing in the United Church of Christ. At different times in a long career Coffin was a CIA agent, a chaplain at Yale University, a leader in the civil-rights and peace movements of the 1960s and 1970s, a member of the secret society Skull and Bones and, finally, the Senior Minister at the Riverside Church in New York City.
“All of life is the exercise of risk.”
“To be avoided at all costs is the solace of opinion without the pain of thought.”
“I love the recklessness of faith. First you leap, and then you grow wings.”
“The world is too dangerous for anything but truth and too small for anything but love.”
“It is often said that the Church is a crutch. Of course it’s a crutch. What makes you think you don’t limp?”
“Diversity may be the hardest thing for a society to live with, and perhaps the most dangerous thing for a society to be without.”
“When a man is drowning, it may be better for him to try to swim than to thrash around waiting for divine intervention.”
“The temptation to moralize is strong; it is emotionally satisfying to have enemies rather than problems, to seek out culprits rather than the flaws in the system.”
“Hope is a state of mind independent of the state of the world. If your heart’s full of hope, you can be persistent when you can’t be optimistic.”
The Rev. Mr. Joseph Connolly
Pastor and Teacher
Fifth Sunday after Pentecost
06/27/2010 ~ Fifth Sunday after Pentecost ~ Proper 8 ~ 13th Sunday in Ordinary Time ~
2 Kings 2:1-2, 6-14 or 1 Kings 19:15-16, 19-21; Psalm 77:1-2, 11-20 or Psalm 16; Galatians 5:1, 13-25 (Used: Galatians 5:13-18, 22-25); Luke 9:51-62 ~ Annual Meeting.
“...the fruit of the Spirit is this: love, joy, peace, patient endurance, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.” Galatians 5:22.
Would you do me a favor? Just for a moment, would you close your eyes and try to place yourself among the disciples of Jesus on the day after Pentecost?
Now, what you need to remember as you try, is this: none of the Gospels have been written. No one knows who Paul is. None of the Epistles have been written. The term Christian has not been invented or even heard.
So, just close your eyes and try to put yourself there, the day after Pentecost, with the disciples of Jesus. (Pause.) Now, my bet is you can’t really do that. That’s because we know their future and it is impossible for us to remove that knowledge from our sensibilities. You just can’t do it. We know what’s going to happen.
The disciples, on the other hand, don’t know a thing about their future. They do not know what would happen. Did they worry about the future? Yep. Still, they moved toward the future.
What is, perhaps, even more difficult for us to understand is the writings called the New Testament are not a history of what happened and were not meant to be a history. The New Testament is not a set of facts, akin to the data we find in history. The New Testament is about the feelings and the responses to their story— the story about what happened to them.
The writers are not addressing the facts of what happened, but what it felt like. So, when Paul writes, he is interested in what it feels like to be a follower of Christ.
(Quote): “...the fruit of the Spirit is this: love, joy, peace, patient endurance, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.” (Slight pause.) And here is how the disciples were able to live through those uncertain times (quote): “...those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified their ego with its passions and desires.” (Pause.)
Well, we are, today, in many ways in the same place as the disciples of Jesus the day after Pentecost. We do not know what our future will bring.
But in telling us how the disciples lived through those times with an unknown future and what it felt like, Paul is giving us some important guideposts for our times, today. (Quote): “...since we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit.” (Slight pause.)
We do not know a thing about what will happen in our future. Do we worry about the future? Yep. But we need to move toward the future.
So the challenge for the church today and tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow is clear: can we, you and I, the church, live our lives not knowing the future and submitting our ego to the work of the Spirit, trusting the Spirit? Trusting the Spirit— that, my friends, is a definition of church. Amen.
United Church of Christ, First Congregational, Norwich, New York
06/27/2010
ENDPIECE: It is the practice of the Pastor to speak after the Closing Hymn, but before the Benediction. This, then, is an précis of what the pastor said before the blessing: “This church was incorporated in 1814. A building went up on approximately the space occupied by this nave, this worship space in 1819. In February 1858 that structure burned to the ground. The brick church, this space in which we now worship, was dedicated in June of 1862. In 1860 this church calls the Rev. Samuel Scoville, son in law of Henry Ward Beecher, pastor of the Plymouth Church in Brooklyn and brother of Harriet Beecher Stowe and, literally, the most famous man in America at that time to be the pastor. Being the denomination who started the Civil War, as we Congregationalists are since we were key in the movement to abolish slavery in American, Sam says we will build the town Meeting House. So, in 1874 the building was expanded to its present size and the nave expanded to seat 1,300. In 1958 the size of the worship space in which we now stand moved back to its original design and renovated in 1984. It actually says in one write up that the worship space was reduced because the town did not need a meeting house any longer. All that is history. It is factual data. It says nothing about how we feel about being a community of faith. Telling our story as a church does not mean listing factual data. It means saying something about how we feel.” [1]
[1] Note: the meditation was brief because the Annual Organizational Meeting of the Church was held within the context of the service of worship.
2 Kings 2:1-2, 6-14 or 1 Kings 19:15-16, 19-21; Psalm 77:1-2, 11-20 or Psalm 16; Galatians 5:1, 13-25 (Used: Galatians 5:13-18, 22-25); Luke 9:51-62 ~ Annual Meeting.
Stories and History
“...the fruit of the Spirit is this: love, joy, peace, patient endurance, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.” Galatians 5:22.
Would you do me a favor? Just for a moment, would you close your eyes and try to place yourself among the disciples of Jesus on the day after Pentecost?
Now, what you need to remember as you try, is this: none of the Gospels have been written. No one knows who Paul is. None of the Epistles have been written. The term Christian has not been invented or even heard.
So, just close your eyes and try to put yourself there, the day after Pentecost, with the disciples of Jesus. (Pause.) Now, my bet is you can’t really do that. That’s because we know their future and it is impossible for us to remove that knowledge from our sensibilities. You just can’t do it. We know what’s going to happen.
The disciples, on the other hand, don’t know a thing about their future. They do not know what would happen. Did they worry about the future? Yep. Still, they moved toward the future.
What is, perhaps, even more difficult for us to understand is the writings called the New Testament are not a history of what happened and were not meant to be a history. The New Testament is not a set of facts, akin to the data we find in history. The New Testament is about the feelings and the responses to their story— the story about what happened to them.
The writers are not addressing the facts of what happened, but what it felt like. So, when Paul writes, he is interested in what it feels like to be a follower of Christ.
(Quote): “...the fruit of the Spirit is this: love, joy, peace, patient endurance, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.” (Slight pause.) And here is how the disciples were able to live through those uncertain times (quote): “...those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified their ego with its passions and desires.” (Pause.)
Well, we are, today, in many ways in the same place as the disciples of Jesus the day after Pentecost. We do not know what our future will bring.
But in telling us how the disciples lived through those times with an unknown future and what it felt like, Paul is giving us some important guideposts for our times, today. (Quote): “...since we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit.” (Slight pause.)
We do not know a thing about what will happen in our future. Do we worry about the future? Yep. But we need to move toward the future.
So the challenge for the church today and tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow is clear: can we, you and I, the church, live our lives not knowing the future and submitting our ego to the work of the Spirit, trusting the Spirit? Trusting the Spirit— that, my friends, is a definition of church. Amen.
United Church of Christ, First Congregational, Norwich, New York
06/27/2010
ENDPIECE: It is the practice of the Pastor to speak after the Closing Hymn, but before the Benediction. This, then, is an précis of what the pastor said before the blessing: “This church was incorporated in 1814. A building went up on approximately the space occupied by this nave, this worship space in 1819. In February 1858 that structure burned to the ground. The brick church, this space in which we now worship, was dedicated in June of 1862. In 1860 this church calls the Rev. Samuel Scoville, son in law of Henry Ward Beecher, pastor of the Plymouth Church in Brooklyn and brother of Harriet Beecher Stowe and, literally, the most famous man in America at that time to be the pastor. Being the denomination who started the Civil War, as we Congregationalists are since we were key in the movement to abolish slavery in American, Sam says we will build the town Meeting House. So, in 1874 the building was expanded to its present size and the nave expanded to seat 1,300. In 1958 the size of the worship space in which we now stand moved back to its original design and renovated in 1984. It actually says in one write up that the worship space was reduced because the town did not need a meeting house any longer. All that is history. It is factual data. It says nothing about how we feel about being a community of faith. Telling our story as a church does not mean listing factual data. It means saying something about how we feel.” [1]
[1] Note: the meditation was brief because the Annual Organizational Meeting of the Church was held within the context of the service of worship.
Sunday, May 30, 2010
05/30/2010 ~ Trinity Sunday ~ Proverbs 8:1-4, 22-31; Psalm 8; Romans 5:1-5; John 16:12-15 ~ Memorial Day Weekend ~ Hymn Sing In Place of Prelude ~ i.e.: 5th Sunday.
“When the Spirit of truth comes, that Spirit will guide you into all the truth; for the Spirit will not speak independently, but will speak whatever the Spirit hears, and will announce to you the things that are yet to come.” — John 16:13
A few weeks ago, I was sharing some time with a colleague who asked if there was a specific incident to which I pointed as the initiation of a call to ordained ministry. As it happened, there is. So I shared it with him.
I have shared the story about that incident here before, but not in a long, long time. So, some of you may have heard it. Others have not. Hence, I’d like to share it again, especially for those who have not. (Slight pause.)
I have been a church member, involved in church work across several denominations since I was a teen. When I moved to Maine from New York City to marry Bonnie, I joined First Parish Church, United Church of Christ, in Brunswick.
Having done so, I became aware of Bangor Theological Seminary. Since the day it was established in 1814, the same year the Norwich Church was incorporated, Bangor has specialized in people like me, those who enter ordained ministry as a second career.
Frankly, I always did have some sense of a call to ordained ministry. And I always did my best to ignore it. Still, I decided to get on the Seminary mailing list.
Probably after the Admissions Office sent me too many flyers without a response, they sent me a letter asking if I wanted to remain on that list. I answered “yes.” They sent me a catalogue. For some reason, they had not done that before.
I set aside some time alone to sit and read through it. And, as I read boring course descriptions, I found myself crying. At that point I remembered an Episcopal priest friend who said when she realized she had a ‘call to ministry’ she cried for three hours. I knew something was up, so I went to see my pastor, Bill Imes.
Together, we formed a Discernment Committee made up of church members. After working with them, sorting out as many issues as possible, treating the possibility of a call to ordained ministry in a serious way, a year and a half later I entered Bangor Seminary. (Slight pause.)
The kind of story I just offered is often called ‘personal testimony.’ Such narratives are not meant to exclusively be about what happens in a call to ordained ministry. Many are also called to do the work of the church as members of the laity. Those kinds of stories— stories of being called by God to do all kinds of things from committee work to being a member of a choir to being an usher to spending time staffing the Food Pantry— those stories need to be shared.
Now, any kind of personal testimony raises a number of questions. Among them are: ‘is God still speaking to us?’ ‘Is it possible that sometimes God speaks and we fail to hear?’ ‘Is God only a personal God, a God who just speaks to an individual or does God speak to whole communities of faith?’ ‘Can this God, who we claim is a God of all people, be somehow described by all of us, collectively?’
Those questions address three kinds of calls: the call of God to the individual, the call of God to the local church and the call of God to the whole church. That poses another obvious question: ‘what is church?’ (Slight pause.)
I quoted a definition of church offered by Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, in the Newsletter published Friday. Many of you probably have that Newsletter already.
“Church,” said Williams, “is a distinctive social body given coherence by the action of God in Jesus.” As I said in my article, I find both the breadth and the precision of this definition appealing.
In its breadth, it encompasses each individual, the local church and the greater church. In its precision, it recognizes the unifying (quote): “action of God in Jesus.”
But what does this stuff about church, the collective, mean to us, as individuals? What does it mean to be church, together? And, indeed, don’t definitions, themselves, and even gathered groups like churches, make things less personal, more distant, obtuse? (Slight pause.)
The Rev. Dr. John Buchanan is a Presbyterian pastor at a large church in Chicago. In a recent edition of The Christian Century he reminisced about church when he was a teen. Confirmation class consisted of memorizing the questions and answers in The Westminister Shorter Catechism— 107 questions and answers.
The church elders (all, quite literally, elderly men) made sure the task had been accomplished by questioning the teens because they questioned the Confirmands. After all, one becomes a Christian on the basis of what one knows about salvation, God, Jesus, the Trinity— right? (Slight pause.)
Well, it’s more than that. Faith, Buchanan says, is also defined by following Jesus, thereby becoming a part of the people of God. Faith is certainly not defined by rote learning. That truth came home to him when, last Easter, he laid hands on each person in a current Confirmation class.
The class included his granddaughter Rachel. Rachel has Down Syndrome. During a year of Confirmation classes, that class learned together in the classroom, prayed together, served meals to the homeless together, experienced the church as a place of service and celebration of the God of the Trinity, this God, Buchanan knew only in rote answers as a teen. This God we call Trinity— Creator, Redeemer and Spirit— became personalized.
Yes, the class still reviewed the catechism questions about the God of Trinity. There is no doubt this is a necessary piece. But they also came to a place where they felt the definition. [1] (Slight pause.)
So, who is God? What is church? How are they intertwined? Is it possible God is personal and Church impersonal or is God is impersonal and church personal?
And what is this personal call and personal witness stuff about, anyway? How does the church witness? How do we, you and I, witness as individuals and how do we witness together?
Also, how do we integrate feeling and knowing? How can we come to both know about and feel— experience— God who is still speaking, this God defined as Trinity? (Slight pause.)
I believe God calls each of us to be a member of a community of faith. I believe God then calls each us to do specific work within that community of faith. And I also believe that God calls us to be together within the community of faith, calls us to a mission of mutual respect, love and commitment and, thereby, to witness to our individual faith and our collective faith.
After all, God has no hands but ours, no feet but ours, no mind but ours, no heart but ours, no voice but ours to act in this world God created. If we are not aware of these calls of God on our lives, nothing of God gets done. Therefore, God calls all of us, no matter what our gifts and talents, whatever they are.
And we Christians do give voice to what we feel in naming God Trinity— Creator, Redeemer and Spirit. That is historically true. Indeed, in a couple of minutes we will recite The Nicene Creed, a document which has spoken to Christians for some 1,700 years— this description of God as Trinity. On the other hand, wasn’t that document, literally, written by elderly men way back in the 4th Century?
So, how can that be personal? Why would and why should we recite it? Did those elders in ancient times know what they were saying? (Slight pause.)
Actually, they did know what they were saying. The words they proposed merely describe their experience of God. It is, therefore, our responsibility to examine it with enough depth to attempt to see what they are trying to say to us. After all, if it has lasted this long, perhaps we need to honor it enough to strive to see if it is as personal as they believed it to be.
And that, that may be the deepest of truths: personal relationship of any kind is not just about or only about feeling. A personal relationship of any kind does not happen and does not develop without work. Any relationship does not become truly personal unless we do the work which nurtures that relationship.
Therefore, The Nicene Creed or any creed or any church cannot be personal unless we strive to do the work which nurtures relationship. Doing the relational work helps and, indeed, ensures that this God who is defined as Trinity will also be felt, experienced. (Slight pause.)
So, is God still speaking? Yes. But we need to do the work which will ensure that we are listening to God. John Buchanan’s granddaughter, Rachel, did that work. Each of us can do that work. And, as it happens, the work of relationship which needs to be done is the kind of work which places God at the center of our lives. Can we do the work which places God at the center of our lives? (Slight pause.)
So, perhaps the vital point is very simple: are we willing to do that work, work which will allow us to listen for the movement of the Spirit. After all, Scripture tells us the Spirit is moving and does move. Scripture tells us God is still speaking.
How do I know God is still speaking? Indeed, is what it says in the Gospel we have come to know as John (quote): “When the Spirit of truth comes, that Spirit will guide you into all the truth; for the Spirit will not speak independently, but will speak whatever the Spirit hears, and will announce to you the things that are yet to come.” God is still speaking. Amen.
United Church of Christ, First Congregational, Norwich, New York
05/30/2010
ENDPIECE: It is the practice of the Pastor to speak after the Closing Hymn, but before the Benediction. This, then, is an précis of what the pastor said before the blessing: [Before speaking the Pastor placed a small device on a pedestal at the head of the center isle, a device which had been used in the Children’s Time. It was a perpetual motion like machine (powered by a battery) which moved back and forth. The visual effect matched what the pastor said. The Pastor started the device and stopped the device upon getting to the word ‘silent’ in this brief statement.] “Personal testimony is when we talk about our relationship with God. I want to suggest, if we do not talk to one another about our experience of God, God becomes silent and impersonal.”
[1] The Rev. Dr. John M. Buchanan; The Christian Century, June 1, 2010; Volume 127, Number 11; From the Editor’s Desk, Page 3.
God Is Still Speaking
“When the Spirit of truth comes, that Spirit will guide you into all the truth; for the Spirit will not speak independently, but will speak whatever the Spirit hears, and will announce to you the things that are yet to come.” — John 16:13
A few weeks ago, I was sharing some time with a colleague who asked if there was a specific incident to which I pointed as the initiation of a call to ordained ministry. As it happened, there is. So I shared it with him.
I have shared the story about that incident here before, but not in a long, long time. So, some of you may have heard it. Others have not. Hence, I’d like to share it again, especially for those who have not. (Slight pause.)
I have been a church member, involved in church work across several denominations since I was a teen. When I moved to Maine from New York City to marry Bonnie, I joined First Parish Church, United Church of Christ, in Brunswick.
Having done so, I became aware of Bangor Theological Seminary. Since the day it was established in 1814, the same year the Norwich Church was incorporated, Bangor has specialized in people like me, those who enter ordained ministry as a second career.
Frankly, I always did have some sense of a call to ordained ministry. And I always did my best to ignore it. Still, I decided to get on the Seminary mailing list.
Probably after the Admissions Office sent me too many flyers without a response, they sent me a letter asking if I wanted to remain on that list. I answered “yes.” They sent me a catalogue. For some reason, they had not done that before.
I set aside some time alone to sit and read through it. And, as I read boring course descriptions, I found myself crying. At that point I remembered an Episcopal priest friend who said when she realized she had a ‘call to ministry’ she cried for three hours. I knew something was up, so I went to see my pastor, Bill Imes.
Together, we formed a Discernment Committee made up of church members. After working with them, sorting out as many issues as possible, treating the possibility of a call to ordained ministry in a serious way, a year and a half later I entered Bangor Seminary. (Slight pause.)
The kind of story I just offered is often called ‘personal testimony.’ Such narratives are not meant to exclusively be about what happens in a call to ordained ministry. Many are also called to do the work of the church as members of the laity. Those kinds of stories— stories of being called by God to do all kinds of things from committee work to being a member of a choir to being an usher to spending time staffing the Food Pantry— those stories need to be shared.
Now, any kind of personal testimony raises a number of questions. Among them are: ‘is God still speaking to us?’ ‘Is it possible that sometimes God speaks and we fail to hear?’ ‘Is God only a personal God, a God who just speaks to an individual or does God speak to whole communities of faith?’ ‘Can this God, who we claim is a God of all people, be somehow described by all of us, collectively?’
Those questions address three kinds of calls: the call of God to the individual, the call of God to the local church and the call of God to the whole church. That poses another obvious question: ‘what is church?’ (Slight pause.)
I quoted a definition of church offered by Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, in the Newsletter published Friday. Many of you probably have that Newsletter already.
“Church,” said Williams, “is a distinctive social body given coherence by the action of God in Jesus.” As I said in my article, I find both the breadth and the precision of this definition appealing.
In its breadth, it encompasses each individual, the local church and the greater church. In its precision, it recognizes the unifying (quote): “action of God in Jesus.”
But what does this stuff about church, the collective, mean to us, as individuals? What does it mean to be church, together? And, indeed, don’t definitions, themselves, and even gathered groups like churches, make things less personal, more distant, obtuse? (Slight pause.)
The Rev. Dr. John Buchanan is a Presbyterian pastor at a large church in Chicago. In a recent edition of The Christian Century he reminisced about church when he was a teen. Confirmation class consisted of memorizing the questions and answers in The Westminister Shorter Catechism— 107 questions and answers.
The church elders (all, quite literally, elderly men) made sure the task had been accomplished by questioning the teens because they questioned the Confirmands. After all, one becomes a Christian on the basis of what one knows about salvation, God, Jesus, the Trinity— right? (Slight pause.)
Well, it’s more than that. Faith, Buchanan says, is also defined by following Jesus, thereby becoming a part of the people of God. Faith is certainly not defined by rote learning. That truth came home to him when, last Easter, he laid hands on each person in a current Confirmation class.
The class included his granddaughter Rachel. Rachel has Down Syndrome. During a year of Confirmation classes, that class learned together in the classroom, prayed together, served meals to the homeless together, experienced the church as a place of service and celebration of the God of the Trinity, this God, Buchanan knew only in rote answers as a teen. This God we call Trinity— Creator, Redeemer and Spirit— became personalized.
Yes, the class still reviewed the catechism questions about the God of Trinity. There is no doubt this is a necessary piece. But they also came to a place where they felt the definition. [1] (Slight pause.)
So, who is God? What is church? How are they intertwined? Is it possible God is personal and Church impersonal or is God is impersonal and church personal?
And what is this personal call and personal witness stuff about, anyway? How does the church witness? How do we, you and I, witness as individuals and how do we witness together?
Also, how do we integrate feeling and knowing? How can we come to both know about and feel— experience— God who is still speaking, this God defined as Trinity? (Slight pause.)
I believe God calls each of us to be a member of a community of faith. I believe God then calls each us to do specific work within that community of faith. And I also believe that God calls us to be together within the community of faith, calls us to a mission of mutual respect, love and commitment and, thereby, to witness to our individual faith and our collective faith.
After all, God has no hands but ours, no feet but ours, no mind but ours, no heart but ours, no voice but ours to act in this world God created. If we are not aware of these calls of God on our lives, nothing of God gets done. Therefore, God calls all of us, no matter what our gifts and talents, whatever they are.
And we Christians do give voice to what we feel in naming God Trinity— Creator, Redeemer and Spirit. That is historically true. Indeed, in a couple of minutes we will recite The Nicene Creed, a document which has spoken to Christians for some 1,700 years— this description of God as Trinity. On the other hand, wasn’t that document, literally, written by elderly men way back in the 4th Century?
So, how can that be personal? Why would and why should we recite it? Did those elders in ancient times know what they were saying? (Slight pause.)
Actually, they did know what they were saying. The words they proposed merely describe their experience of God. It is, therefore, our responsibility to examine it with enough depth to attempt to see what they are trying to say to us. After all, if it has lasted this long, perhaps we need to honor it enough to strive to see if it is as personal as they believed it to be.
And that, that may be the deepest of truths: personal relationship of any kind is not just about or only about feeling. A personal relationship of any kind does not happen and does not develop without work. Any relationship does not become truly personal unless we do the work which nurtures that relationship.
Therefore, The Nicene Creed or any creed or any church cannot be personal unless we strive to do the work which nurtures relationship. Doing the relational work helps and, indeed, ensures that this God who is defined as Trinity will also be felt, experienced. (Slight pause.)
So, is God still speaking? Yes. But we need to do the work which will ensure that we are listening to God. John Buchanan’s granddaughter, Rachel, did that work. Each of us can do that work. And, as it happens, the work of relationship which needs to be done is the kind of work which places God at the center of our lives. Can we do the work which places God at the center of our lives? (Slight pause.)
So, perhaps the vital point is very simple: are we willing to do that work, work which will allow us to listen for the movement of the Spirit. After all, Scripture tells us the Spirit is moving and does move. Scripture tells us God is still speaking.
How do I know God is still speaking? Indeed, is what it says in the Gospel we have come to know as John (quote): “When the Spirit of truth comes, that Spirit will guide you into all the truth; for the Spirit will not speak independently, but will speak whatever the Spirit hears, and will announce to you the things that are yet to come.” God is still speaking. Amen.
United Church of Christ, First Congregational, Norwich, New York
05/30/2010
ENDPIECE: It is the practice of the Pastor to speak after the Closing Hymn, but before the Benediction. This, then, is an précis of what the pastor said before the blessing: [Before speaking the Pastor placed a small device on a pedestal at the head of the center isle, a device which had been used in the Children’s Time. It was a perpetual motion like machine (powered by a battery) which moved back and forth. The visual effect matched what the pastor said. The Pastor started the device and stopped the device upon getting to the word ‘silent’ in this brief statement.] “Personal testimony is when we talk about our relationship with God. I want to suggest, if we do not talk to one another about our experience of God, God becomes silent and impersonal.”
[1] The Rev. Dr. John M. Buchanan; The Christian Century, June 1, 2010; Volume 127, Number 11; From the Editor’s Desk, Page 3.
Thursday, May 27, 2010
JUNE NEWSLETTER - LETTER TO THE CHURCH
Dear Friends in Christ,
It is a perennial question: ‘What is church?’ We, in the United Church of Christ tend to insist the basic unit of the church is the local church gathering. On the other hand, we also insist all Christians are called to be one in Christ.
Indeed, that is what produced our denomination, this call to be one in Christ. We, in the denomination, are a union of four distinct strands— Evangelical, Reformed, Christian and Congregational.
One of the central beliefs among us is that we are “called to be a united and uniting church.” Indeed, because of these sentiments our denomination, the United Church of Christ is involved in Churches Uniting in Christ, an organization seeking to establish full communion among nine Protestant denominations in America. The denominational motto found emblazoned on the logo of the United Church of Christ “That they all may be one” is taken from John 17:21. If you are unfamiliar with that logo go to the United Church of Christ Wikipedia page and it is on the right side of that page:
Another thing is often said in our denomination: “In essentials— unity, in non-essentials— diversity, in all things— charity.” Again, this presents a willingness to be one.
These United Church of Christ mottos are a part of our core values, a belief that we are all brothers and sisters in Christ. These affirm a belief that we are all one in Christ, that at the Communion table we recognize each other’s reality and each other’s humanity. These affirmations recognize that we are willing to listen to the call of God on our lives and the lives of our brothers and sisters in Christ.
It has been said our overarching creed is love. United Church of Christ pastors and teachers are known for their commitment to excellence in theological preparation, interpretation of the scripture and advocacy for justice. Even so, love and unity in the midst of our diversity are our greatest assets.
Coming back to the initial question: ‘What is church?’ I recently came across a definition offered by one Rowan Williams, (A.K.A. the Archbishop of Canterbury) which I think is sound. “Church,” says Williams, is “a distinctive social body given coherence by the action of God in Jesus.” I find both the breadth and the precision of this definition appealing. It is broad because it encompasses the local church and the greater church. It is narrow because it recognizes our unity in “the action of God in Jesus.”
All that brings me to what we will be doing with our brothers and sisters in Christ at the Methodist Church on Sunday June the 20th. As a community of faith, we shall join with another community of faith. We will gather at the Broad Street United Methodist Church at 10:30 a.m. to celebrate the fact that Nancy Jill Hale has been ordained.
The special guests at this service will include a combined choir and handbell choir (with members of both the Broad Street Church the United Church of Christ choir and bell choir) offering some wonderful music. The Rev. Dr. Karen Westerfield Tucker, professor of liturgy at Boston University School of Theology and Nancy’s doctoral advisor, will bring the message. The Rev. Beth Spaulding, one of Nancy’s fellow doctoral students, will share her wonderful vocal gifts. Steph Budwey, another doctoral student at Boston University and an outstanding organist, will play several pieces. Bill Ellis, Nancy’s CART (captioning) reporter, will provide live captions for the service.
Last, at this service, Pastor Nancy will consecrate Holy Communion for the first time as an “Ordained Elder” of the United Methodists. After the service, members of the United Methodist Women will provide refreshments in the fellowship hall. This will be a special and very joyous celebration!
All of which is to say we will join with the Methodists in celebrating these outward signs of our unity in Christ. Joining with them means not just that we do this because it is within our tradition of reaching out. It means celebrating with our brothers and sisters in Christ, celebrating the work of the church as that work is acted out in ordained ministry.
So, as I often say, “see you in church.”
In Faith,
Joe Connolly
P.S. June is filled with special Sunday events. See the schedule on the cover of this newsletter. Also note: we will put out a newsletter toward the end of June with the Summer Schedule.
It is a perennial question: ‘What is church?’ We, in the United Church of Christ tend to insist the basic unit of the church is the local church gathering. On the other hand, we also insist all Christians are called to be one in Christ.
Indeed, that is what produced our denomination, this call to be one in Christ. We, in the denomination, are a union of four distinct strands— Evangelical, Reformed, Christian and Congregational.
One of the central beliefs among us is that we are “called to be a united and uniting church.” Indeed, because of these sentiments our denomination, the United Church of Christ is involved in Churches Uniting in Christ, an organization seeking to establish full communion among nine Protestant denominations in America. The denominational motto found emblazoned on the logo of the United Church of Christ “That they all may be one” is taken from John 17:21. If you are unfamiliar with that logo go to the United Church of Christ Wikipedia page and it is on the right side of that page:
Another thing is often said in our denomination: “In essentials— unity, in non-essentials— diversity, in all things— charity.” Again, this presents a willingness to be one.
These United Church of Christ mottos are a part of our core values, a belief that we are all brothers and sisters in Christ. These affirm a belief that we are all one in Christ, that at the Communion table we recognize each other’s reality and each other’s humanity. These affirmations recognize that we are willing to listen to the call of God on our lives and the lives of our brothers and sisters in Christ.
It has been said our overarching creed is love. United Church of Christ pastors and teachers are known for their commitment to excellence in theological preparation, interpretation of the scripture and advocacy for justice. Even so, love and unity in the midst of our diversity are our greatest assets.
Coming back to the initial question: ‘What is church?’ I recently came across a definition offered by one Rowan Williams, (A.K.A. the Archbishop of Canterbury) which I think is sound. “Church,” says Williams, is “a distinctive social body given coherence by the action of God in Jesus.” I find both the breadth and the precision of this definition appealing. It is broad because it encompasses the local church and the greater church. It is narrow because it recognizes our unity in “the action of God in Jesus.”
All that brings me to what we will be doing with our brothers and sisters in Christ at the Methodist Church on Sunday June the 20th. As a community of faith, we shall join with another community of faith. We will gather at the Broad Street United Methodist Church at 10:30 a.m. to celebrate the fact that Nancy Jill Hale has been ordained.
The special guests at this service will include a combined choir and handbell choir (with members of both the Broad Street Church the United Church of Christ choir and bell choir) offering some wonderful music. The Rev. Dr. Karen Westerfield Tucker, professor of liturgy at Boston University School of Theology and Nancy’s doctoral advisor, will bring the message. The Rev. Beth Spaulding, one of Nancy’s fellow doctoral students, will share her wonderful vocal gifts. Steph Budwey, another doctoral student at Boston University and an outstanding organist, will play several pieces. Bill Ellis, Nancy’s CART (captioning) reporter, will provide live captions for the service.
Last, at this service, Pastor Nancy will consecrate Holy Communion for the first time as an “Ordained Elder” of the United Methodists. After the service, members of the United Methodist Women will provide refreshments in the fellowship hall. This will be a special and very joyous celebration!
All of which is to say we will join with the Methodists in celebrating these outward signs of our unity in Christ. Joining with them means not just that we do this because it is within our tradition of reaching out. It means celebrating with our brothers and sisters in Christ, celebrating the work of the church as that work is acted out in ordained ministry.
So, as I often say, “see you in church.”
In Faith,
Joe Connolly
P.S. June is filled with special Sunday events. See the schedule on the cover of this newsletter. Also note: we will put out a newsletter toward the end of June with the Summer Schedule.
Sunday, May 23, 2010
05/23/2010 ~ Day of Pentecost ~ Acts 2:1-21 or Genesis 11:1-9; Psalm 104:24-34, 35b; Romans 8:14-17 or Acts 2:1-21; John 14:8-17, (25-27).
“Those who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God.” — Romans 8:14.
What’s in a name? (Slight pause.) Here’s why I ask this question, ‘what’s in a name’: it happened again last week. And it happens over and over and over again. I’m getting tired of it.
What is this “it” I’m taking about? For some public function or in a personal correspondence, someone will misspell my last name.
It happens at least once a month, if truth be told. Last week, I offered the invocation at the Boy Scout Dinner which honored Darrel Forsythe. Nothing against Darrel or the Boy Scouts, but the program for the evening had my name wrong, misspelled.
Now, I suppose that’s my fault. After all, it is my name. And, after all, there are about two dozen ways to spell Connolly. CONNOLLY is how I do it. Or as I like to say [at this point the pastor sings the tune by George Cohan Harrigan, which fits the name “Connolly” perfectly] C-O DOUBLE NN O L-L-Y SPELLS CONNOLLY— for those of you who remember George Cohan.
As you probably realize, here are all kinds of variations on that spelling. You can spell it with an ‘E’ or with one ‘N’ or one ‘L’— sky’s the limit— all kinds of ways to do it.
So, since it’s my name, why don’t I just have the common sense to change that name to something else, something easy. Jones? Smith? Or, perhaps, Scott.
Scott, you see, is Bonnie’s maiden name. How often do you see Scott misspelled? There are only two ways to spell it: one ‘T’ or two. So, it probably would have saved a lot of trouble if, instead of Bonnie changing her name to ‘Connolly,’ I had just changed my name to ‘Scott.’
Indeed, when I go into a restaurant and they ask for a name to call out when a table is ready, I never say “Connolly.” I always use Bonnie’s name. I say “Scott.” I tell them my name is ‘Scott’ even when Bonnie isn’t there.
And no maitre d' ever asks how to spell ‘Scott.’ They know. And no one mispronounces it when a table is ready. The name ‘Scott,’ is easy to pronounce, easy to understand, easy to hear over the din in a crowded restaurant. Life would be so much easier. (Slight pause.)
Just as an aside about names, I’ve also never really wanted to do too much ancestral research about my name. Why? Well, this much I know for sure: the presence of the Connolly clan— that is, the specific brand of Irish immigrants who are my ancestors, whose DNA I carry and spell the name CONNOLLY— can be traced in the environs of New York City back around the time just before the Civil War, the 1850s.
And, as I am sure you know, the most notorious set of scandals ever in New York City, a place well known for scandals, was when the so called “Boss Tweed” administration was in control. They had the power when it came to the politics of the city in the 1860s and the 1870s.
Well, the Comptroller of the City of New York at that time, during the Boss Tweed Administration, was one Richard “Slippery Dick” Connolly— CONNOLLY. Am I related? I don’t know and I don’t want to know. But considering the number of ways there are to spell “Connolly” the odds are pretty good some kind of relationship is present. (Slight pause.)
Well, that having been said... what is in a name? Certainly not scandals or spellings or mispronunciations. (Slight pause.)
And these words are found in the work known as the Letter to the Church in Rome: “Those who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God.” (Slight pause.)
What’s in a name? What do names tell us? Notice, I did not ask ‘what do names say about us?’ but ‘what do names tell us?’ I want to suggest names, quite specifically, tell us about the people to whom we are related, related by DNA or related by marriage. (Slight pause.)
Bonnie’s brother, Jack, married a woman who already had a daughter, Heather. Heather was only three when Jack and Susan got married. Jack raised Heather. But that did not make Jack a blood relationship. There was no DNA involved— in fact, even no adoptions. Jack simply raised Heather.
Still, Heather, now at age 39, knows what the real relationship is and what the real relationship is about. She regularly calls her birth father, the one to whom she is connected only by DNA, by his first name. On the other hand, she calls Jack ‘Dad.’ Jack is the one to whom she is really related, not by DNA but by choice and by the closeness of how she relates to him.
So, I think this is clear: names say something about blood relationships. Names say something about to whom we are related by DNA or by marriage. But names say absolutely nothing about to whom we relate. (Slight pause.)
When this work known as Romans says (quote:) “...God has adopted you as children...” this is not about blood relationship. It is about how God relates to us. God relates to us by choice. This addresses the claim God has made about the closeness of the relationship. (Slight pause.)
So, shifting gears just a hair, what is Pentecost about? Pentecost is about a choice God makes. The choice God makes is that we are all children of God. The question that brings up for me, however, is this: do we believe it? Given the promise of Pentecost, do we believe we are all children of God? (Slight pause.)
As pastor friend of mine recently pointed me to a video on the internet about Pentecost. And I’d like to share that video with you.
And, no, I don’t have a screen on which to show it. But don’t worry. The video contained words— only words, and I can share those. The video tells not just the story of Pentecost but also tells the story of our legacy because of Pentecost. And this is what the video said. (Slight pause.)
Go ahead. Admit it. You are all wondering about the future. Everyone is. And you are maybe even wondering: do we have a future? Will the church survive? Will our children have faith? Will our faith have children?
There are so many challenges. Money. Divisions. Arguments. We are getting older. How are we going to pay the bills?
We don’t know the people next door anymore. Why would they want to come to this church? People pass by. We don’t know them. No one comes in. They are outside. We are inside.
And so we wait, inside. And we watch, the outside. And we worry. We don’t know what to do. Won’t someone come and help us? (Slight pause.)
These are big questions. But we are not the first to ask them. Did you know there’s a story in the Bible that is exactly like this? Do you remember?
There were only a few left. People passed by... outside. They were waiting, watching... inside. They did not know what to do. And then it happened— wind, fire, noise... then silence. (Pause.) But what happened... really? What did they do... really?
After all, no one came and took away their problems. Divisions, arguments, all their problems still existed. Instead, the Spirit came and created a new problem. That’s right— the Holy Spirit showed up and created a problem.
They could not stay inside. They had to go outside and tell and share and preach and serve and care and hold and listen and feed and teach and witness and pray... and love.
They just could not help it. And that was Pentecost. So, I’ve got some bad news and I’ve got some good news. The bad news is: there is no one coming to fix the problems. The good news is: the solutions you seek are all around you. The Spirit is present. You have the strength and courage and compassion to do that. And you have a story to tell.
Indeed, the good news can get even better. Here’s how: let’s just imagine one person reaching out to another and then another and then another to tell and to share and to preach and to serve and to care and to hold and to listen and to feed and to teach and to witness and to pray... and to love.
Why? Because we can’t help it. It’s Pentecost. (Slight pause.) End of video (Slight pause.)
So, what does it mean to be children of God? It means God chooses us. It means the Spirit of God is with us.
And it also means reaching out to another and then another and then another to tell and share and preach and serve and care and hold and listen and feed and teach and witness and pray... and love. (Pause.)
Why? How? (Quote:) “Those who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God.” Amen.
05/23/2010
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 Benediction. This, then, is an précis of what the pastor said before the blessing: “The Pentecost event also, of course, asks a difficult question: ‘do we care about the presence of the Spirit.’ If we do, then we will reach out to one another and tell and share and preach and serve and care and hold and listen and feed and teach and witness and pray and love.” [1]
[1] I did alter the text in the video slightly, but not drastically. There is a soundtrack on the video, but the words are not spoken. The following is the URL and it is a product of the folks behind the web site known as: .
Adopted
“Those who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God.” — Romans 8:14.
What’s in a name? (Slight pause.) Here’s why I ask this question, ‘what’s in a name’: it happened again last week. And it happens over and over and over again. I’m getting tired of it.
What is this “it” I’m taking about? For some public function or in a personal correspondence, someone will misspell my last name.
It happens at least once a month, if truth be told. Last week, I offered the invocation at the Boy Scout Dinner which honored Darrel Forsythe. Nothing against Darrel or the Boy Scouts, but the program for the evening had my name wrong, misspelled.
Now, I suppose that’s my fault. After all, it is my name. And, after all, there are about two dozen ways to spell Connolly. CONNOLLY is how I do it. Or as I like to say [at this point the pastor sings the tune by George Cohan Harrigan, which fits the name “Connolly” perfectly] C-O DOUBLE NN O L-L-Y SPELLS CONNOLLY— for those of you who remember George Cohan.
As you probably realize, here are all kinds of variations on that spelling. You can spell it with an ‘E’ or with one ‘N’ or one ‘L’— sky’s the limit— all kinds of ways to do it.
So, since it’s my name, why don’t I just have the common sense to change that name to something else, something easy. Jones? Smith? Or, perhaps, Scott.
Scott, you see, is Bonnie’s maiden name. How often do you see Scott misspelled? There are only two ways to spell it: one ‘T’ or two. So, it probably would have saved a lot of trouble if, instead of Bonnie changing her name to ‘Connolly,’ I had just changed my name to ‘Scott.’
Indeed, when I go into a restaurant and they ask for a name to call out when a table is ready, I never say “Connolly.” I always use Bonnie’s name. I say “Scott.” I tell them my name is ‘Scott’ even when Bonnie isn’t there.
And no maitre d' ever asks how to spell ‘Scott.’ They know. And no one mispronounces it when a table is ready. The name ‘Scott,’ is easy to pronounce, easy to understand, easy to hear over the din in a crowded restaurant. Life would be so much easier. (Slight pause.)
Just as an aside about names, I’ve also never really wanted to do too much ancestral research about my name. Why? Well, this much I know for sure: the presence of the Connolly clan— that is, the specific brand of Irish immigrants who are my ancestors, whose DNA I carry and spell the name CONNOLLY— can be traced in the environs of New York City back around the time just before the Civil War, the 1850s.
And, as I am sure you know, the most notorious set of scandals ever in New York City, a place well known for scandals, was when the so called “Boss Tweed” administration was in control. They had the power when it came to the politics of the city in the 1860s and the 1870s.
Well, the Comptroller of the City of New York at that time, during the Boss Tweed Administration, was one Richard “Slippery Dick” Connolly— CONNOLLY. Am I related? I don’t know and I don’t want to know. But considering the number of ways there are to spell “Connolly” the odds are pretty good some kind of relationship is present. (Slight pause.)
Well, that having been said... what is in a name? Certainly not scandals or spellings or mispronunciations. (Slight pause.)
And these words are found in the work known as the Letter to the Church in Rome: “Those who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God.” (Slight pause.)
What’s in a name? What do names tell us? Notice, I did not ask ‘what do names say about us?’ but ‘what do names tell us?’ I want to suggest names, quite specifically, tell us about the people to whom we are related, related by DNA or related by marriage. (Slight pause.)
Bonnie’s brother, Jack, married a woman who already had a daughter, Heather. Heather was only three when Jack and Susan got married. Jack raised Heather. But that did not make Jack a blood relationship. There was no DNA involved— in fact, even no adoptions. Jack simply raised Heather.
Still, Heather, now at age 39, knows what the real relationship is and what the real relationship is about. She regularly calls her birth father, the one to whom she is connected only by DNA, by his first name. On the other hand, she calls Jack ‘Dad.’ Jack is the one to whom she is really related, not by DNA but by choice and by the closeness of how she relates to him.
So, I think this is clear: names say something about blood relationships. Names say something about to whom we are related by DNA or by marriage. But names say absolutely nothing about to whom we relate. (Slight pause.)
When this work known as Romans says (quote:) “...God has adopted you as children...” this is not about blood relationship. It is about how God relates to us. God relates to us by choice. This addresses the claim God has made about the closeness of the relationship. (Slight pause.)
So, shifting gears just a hair, what is Pentecost about? Pentecost is about a choice God makes. The choice God makes is that we are all children of God. The question that brings up for me, however, is this: do we believe it? Given the promise of Pentecost, do we believe we are all children of God? (Slight pause.)
As pastor friend of mine recently pointed me to a video on the internet about Pentecost. And I’d like to share that video with you.
And, no, I don’t have a screen on which to show it. But don’t worry. The video contained words— only words, and I can share those. The video tells not just the story of Pentecost but also tells the story of our legacy because of Pentecost. And this is what the video said. (Slight pause.)
Go ahead. Admit it. You are all wondering about the future. Everyone is. And you are maybe even wondering: do we have a future? Will the church survive? Will our children have faith? Will our faith have children?
There are so many challenges. Money. Divisions. Arguments. We are getting older. How are we going to pay the bills?
We don’t know the people next door anymore. Why would they want to come to this church? People pass by. We don’t know them. No one comes in. They are outside. We are inside.
And so we wait, inside. And we watch, the outside. And we worry. We don’t know what to do. Won’t someone come and help us? (Slight pause.)
These are big questions. But we are not the first to ask them. Did you know there’s a story in the Bible that is exactly like this? Do you remember?
There were only a few left. People passed by... outside. They were waiting, watching... inside. They did not know what to do. And then it happened— wind, fire, noise... then silence. (Pause.) But what happened... really? What did they do... really?
After all, no one came and took away their problems. Divisions, arguments, all their problems still existed. Instead, the Spirit came and created a new problem. That’s right— the Holy Spirit showed up and created a problem.
They could not stay inside. They had to go outside and tell and share and preach and serve and care and hold and listen and feed and teach and witness and pray... and love.
They just could not help it. And that was Pentecost. So, I’ve got some bad news and I’ve got some good news. The bad news is: there is no one coming to fix the problems. The good news is: the solutions you seek are all around you. The Spirit is present. You have the strength and courage and compassion to do that. And you have a story to tell.
Indeed, the good news can get even better. Here’s how: let’s just imagine one person reaching out to another and then another and then another to tell and to share and to preach and to serve and to care and to hold and to listen and to feed and to teach and to witness and to pray... and to love.
Why? Because we can’t help it. It’s Pentecost. (Slight pause.) End of video (Slight pause.)
So, what does it mean to be children of God? It means God chooses us. It means the Spirit of God is with us.
And it also means reaching out to another and then another and then another to tell and share and preach and serve and care and hold and listen and feed and teach and witness and pray... and love. (Pause.)
Why? How? (Quote:) “Those who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God.” Amen.
05/23/2010
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 Benediction. This, then, is an précis of what the pastor said before the blessing: “The Pentecost event also, of course, asks a difficult question: ‘do we care about the presence of the Spirit.’ If we do, then we will reach out to one another and tell and share and preach and serve and care and hold and listen and feed and teach and witness and pray and love.” [1]
[1] I did alter the text in the video slightly, but not drastically. There is a soundtrack on the video, but the words are not spoken. The following is the URL and it is a product of the folks behind the web site known as
Sunday, May 16, 2010
5/16/2010: Ascension of the Lord ~ 05/13/2010 ~ Acts 1:1-11; Psalm 47 or Psalm 93; Ephesians 1:15-23; Luke 24:44-53.
05/16/2010 ~ Seventh Sunday of Easter and the Last Sunday in Eastertide ~ (If Ascension not observed here) ~ Acts 16:16-34; Psalm 97; Revelation 22:12-14, 16-17, 20-21; John 17:20-26.
05/16/2010 ~ Seventh and the Last Sunday in Eastertide, Sometimes Celebrated as the Sunday Closest to the Ascension ~ Note: Ascension Thursday Readings Were the Readings Used on 5/16/2010 ~ Used Ephesians 1:15-23, Psalm 47 as a Responsive Reading and Luke 24:44-53.
“Then Jesus opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, and said to them, ‘Thus it is written: the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day. And, in the Name of the Messiah, repentance for the forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. You are witnesses to all this.’” — Luke 24:45-48.
I think it’s likely most of us have had this experience: you are on a long, long car ride, going across the state or across several states, driving down an interstate three, four, five hours, maybe more. You are bored and you are hungry. One rest stop goes by. And another. And another.
Finally, you can’t take it anymore. You need to stop. Surely, among other necessities, you at least need to get out of the car and stretch, right.
But there is something else. You need to eat. Energy levels, especially when driving on a boring highway, need replenishing. And, even though you knew it would have been a good idea to pack a cooler and bring your own food and drink... you didn’t.
So, you look to pull into one of those ubiquitous rest stops. Food of some kind is to be had there and you need to give in.
Perhaps the very sign promising food and hovering over the highway, pushing into the sky, made you stop. The sign seemed to be, somehow, reaching out and beckoning you, pointing an invisible finger right at you.
Yes! Now, that’s a perfect alibi, isn’t it? It’s not your fault. Blame it on the sign. The sign lured you in. Besides, the place to which the sign summoned you is so... is so... familiar. It’s downright comforting, a known quantity.
And you are tired. The idea of making a serious decision or giving serious thought to what you should eat, is the about last thing you want to do.
And here’s the clincher: you know and I know, you don’t even have make a choice. What’s there at the rest stop is what’s there— Arbys, Burger King, McDonald’s— the familiar, the comfortable, the known and the limited.
Besides, if the kids are with you, you know they will eat this stuff. Bottom line? You don’t care and you don’t know and you don’t really want to know.
So, you park the car and do what you know you shouldn’t do what you then do. You have a burger... and fries... and a Coke— not the diet version— Coke, the real thing— sugar and caffeine. And, even if you try to be a little cautious and order some kind of chicken sandwich or a salad, who knows how long this stuff has been sitting there, just waiting for its unsuspecting prey— maybe a decade or two. (Slight pause.)
Now, that’s a slice of life here in the early Twenty-first Century, right? Even when you’re not on the road— not enough time, too much to do— that sounds normal, right? So, you choose the familiar, the comfortable, the known. Limiting choices seems wise.
But, in reality, most of the choices are already made for us, aren’t they? We’ve been told a hundred times over, in commercial after commercial, these familiar, comfortable, known, limited choices are all right, safe. We don’t have to think. What’s that tag line? Oh, I know. Just do it. (Slight pause.)
And these words around found in the work known as Luke/Acts in the section commonly called Luke. “Then Jesus opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, and said to them, ‘Thus it is written: the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day. And, in the Name of the Messiah, repentance for the forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. You are witnesses to all this.’” (Slight pause.)
I believe today many people find the study of Scripture challenging. And I believe one of the reasons people find that study challenging is society has sent us a plain but misleading message about Scripture: studying Scripture is simple. Read it. You’ll get it. You’ll understand it right away.
But for may of us, when we try to simply read it, if we bring even an ounce of reason to the project— meaning if we refuse to take Scripture literally which is, in fact, the message society really sends us about Scripture, take it literally— if we bring an ounce of reason to the project, we find studying Scripture is harder than we anticipated.
How hard? Well, let’s look at the Gospel story we heard today. Let me invite you to put yourselves in the shoes of the disciples for a moment. They have spent years with Jesus. They have studied with Jesus. After all, they call him Rabbi— teacher.
Then they see Jesus executed. Then they see Jesus raised from the dead. Yet, they don’t seem to understand Scripture. They can’t seem to connect the dots. So, the resurrected Jesus needs to open (quote): “...their minds to understand the Scriptures...”
Open their minds about what? Be open to the narrative found in what the disciples call Scripture, what we, today, call the Hebrew Scriptures, the Old Testament.
What does Jesus help them understand in these works? (Quote): “...the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day.” And because of that— because the Messiah suffered and was raised from the dead— they are commissioned to proclaim repentance to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. (Slight pause.)
Now, I do need to be clear about something you just heard: repentance does not mean being sorry or sad. Repentance means giving one’s heart to God. (Slight pause.)
So, why did Jesus need to open their minds to understand the Scriptures? Well, maybe the disciples had a long trip on the highway. Maybe they had seen too many commercials for fast food chains.
Maybe they were too overwrought with their busy everyday existence. Or maybe, just maybe, connecting all the dots, understand who God is and understanding who Jesus is and understanding what God has done in Jesus, even with the Scriptures as a resource, even with the resurrected Jesus standing there, is not easy. (Slight pause.)
An example of exactly how hard Scripture might be to understand is found at the end of this reading. (Quote): “While blessing them, the Savior withdrew from them and was carried to heaven.” O.K. Jesus leaves. Got that?
But then (quote): “...the disciples worshiped the risen Christ....” Jesus left. But the disciples are worshiping the risen Christ. Does that, therefore, also mean Jesus, having left, is still there, among them, with them? (Slight pause.)
Guess what? As confusing as that sounds and as hard as it is for us to make any sense of that paradox, this is exactly what we Christians have believed for two millennia. Christ died. Christ was raised. Christ is alive, among us, in our midst. (Slight pause.)
So, how do we, how can we get to a place of belief about the risen Christ, alive in our midst? (Slight pause.) I want to suggest the answer is twofold. First, we do need to study Scripture. We do need to take Scripture seriously. After all, Jesus took Scripture seriously.
The second part may seem counterintuitive to most people. Most people will tell you seek the place your heart lies and your mind will follow.
Do you know what the problem with that is? The problem with that is fast food. If we thought for a moment about what fast food is— no matter how bored or tired or busy we were— if we would only think, we would not eat fast food. But the heart... is easily swayed.
So, paradoxically and therefore, the second step in taking Scripture seriously is, having studied it enough to take it seriously, we then to let go of the intellect. We need to give our hearts to Scripture. We need to give our hearts to God.
Why? What is the Easter proclamation? “Christ is risen!” While Scripture must first be studied, no part of the intellect, no part of the brain can understand those words— “Christ is risen!” Any understanding of those words must come from the heart.
On the other hand, if we say “Christ is risen” in an unthinking way, if we simply mouth them, repeat them, say them by rote, the words “Christ is risen” become fast food. The words are rendered... meaningless. (Slight pause.)
I invite you to remember this: Scripture is not fast food. Scripture is much more like a home cooked meal. You do have to work at it— put both your mind and your heart there.
So, let us allow our minds to be open to Scripture. Let us allow our hearts to be open to Scripture. Let us repent. Let us turn our whole being, heart and mind, toward God. Amen.
05/16/2010
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 Benediction. This, then, is an précis of what the pastor said before the blessing: “Perhaps the most challenging words for anyone in this reading from Luke are these (quote): ‘You are witnesses to all this.’ We are commissioned as witnesses to the reality of the resurrection, commissioned as witnesses to the reality of bringing both our hearts and minds to God. Needless to say, some folks think only the heart will do. Apologizing for sounding judgmental, but they are wrong. Some folks think only the mind will suffice. Apologizing for sounding judgmental, but they are wrong. I would suggest we cannot be witnesses unless we bring both our mind and our heart, our whole being, to God— the meaning of the word repent.”
05/16/2010 ~ Seventh Sunday of Easter and the Last Sunday in Eastertide ~ (If Ascension not observed here) ~ Acts 16:16-34; Psalm 97; Revelation 22:12-14, 16-17, 20-21; John 17:20-26.
05/16/2010 ~ Seventh and the Last Sunday in Eastertide, Sometimes Celebrated as the Sunday Closest to the Ascension ~ Note: Ascension Thursday Readings Were the Readings Used on 5/16/2010 ~ Used Ephesians 1:15-23, Psalm 47 as a Responsive Reading and Luke 24:44-53.
Opening the Mind
“Then Jesus opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, and said to them, ‘Thus it is written: the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day. And, in the Name of the Messiah, repentance for the forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. You are witnesses to all this.’” — Luke 24:45-48.
I think it’s likely most of us have had this experience: you are on a long, long car ride, going across the state or across several states, driving down an interstate three, four, five hours, maybe more. You are bored and you are hungry. One rest stop goes by. And another. And another.
Finally, you can’t take it anymore. You need to stop. Surely, among other necessities, you at least need to get out of the car and stretch, right.
But there is something else. You need to eat. Energy levels, especially when driving on a boring highway, need replenishing. And, even though you knew it would have been a good idea to pack a cooler and bring your own food and drink... you didn’t.
So, you look to pull into one of those ubiquitous rest stops. Food of some kind is to be had there and you need to give in.
Perhaps the very sign promising food and hovering over the highway, pushing into the sky, made you stop. The sign seemed to be, somehow, reaching out and beckoning you, pointing an invisible finger right at you.
Yes! Now, that’s a perfect alibi, isn’t it? It’s not your fault. Blame it on the sign. The sign lured you in. Besides, the place to which the sign summoned you is so... is so... familiar. It’s downright comforting, a known quantity.
And you are tired. The idea of making a serious decision or giving serious thought to what you should eat, is the about last thing you want to do.
And here’s the clincher: you know and I know, you don’t even have make a choice. What’s there at the rest stop is what’s there— Arbys, Burger King, McDonald’s— the familiar, the comfortable, the known and the limited.
Besides, if the kids are with you, you know they will eat this stuff. Bottom line? You don’t care and you don’t know and you don’t really want to know.
So, you park the car and do what you know you shouldn’t do what you then do. You have a burger... and fries... and a Coke— not the diet version— Coke, the real thing— sugar and caffeine. And, even if you try to be a little cautious and order some kind of chicken sandwich or a salad, who knows how long this stuff has been sitting there, just waiting for its unsuspecting prey— maybe a decade or two. (Slight pause.)
Now, that’s a slice of life here in the early Twenty-first Century, right? Even when you’re not on the road— not enough time, too much to do— that sounds normal, right? So, you choose the familiar, the comfortable, the known. Limiting choices seems wise.
But, in reality, most of the choices are already made for us, aren’t they? We’ve been told a hundred times over, in commercial after commercial, these familiar, comfortable, known, limited choices are all right, safe. We don’t have to think. What’s that tag line? Oh, I know. Just do it. (Slight pause.)
And these words around found in the work known as Luke/Acts in the section commonly called Luke. “Then Jesus opened their minds to understand the Scriptures, and said to them, ‘Thus it is written: the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day. And, in the Name of the Messiah, repentance for the forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. You are witnesses to all this.’” (Slight pause.)
I believe today many people find the study of Scripture challenging. And I believe one of the reasons people find that study challenging is society has sent us a plain but misleading message about Scripture: studying Scripture is simple. Read it. You’ll get it. You’ll understand it right away.
But for may of us, when we try to simply read it, if we bring even an ounce of reason to the project— meaning if we refuse to take Scripture literally which is, in fact, the message society really sends us about Scripture, take it literally— if we bring an ounce of reason to the project, we find studying Scripture is harder than we anticipated.
How hard? Well, let’s look at the Gospel story we heard today. Let me invite you to put yourselves in the shoes of the disciples for a moment. They have spent years with Jesus. They have studied with Jesus. After all, they call him Rabbi— teacher.
Then they see Jesus executed. Then they see Jesus raised from the dead. Yet, they don’t seem to understand Scripture. They can’t seem to connect the dots. So, the resurrected Jesus needs to open (quote): “...their minds to understand the Scriptures...”
Open their minds about what? Be open to the narrative found in what the disciples call Scripture, what we, today, call the Hebrew Scriptures, the Old Testament.
What does Jesus help them understand in these works? (Quote): “...the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day.” And because of that— because the Messiah suffered and was raised from the dead— they are commissioned to proclaim repentance to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem. (Slight pause.)
Now, I do need to be clear about something you just heard: repentance does not mean being sorry or sad. Repentance means giving one’s heart to God. (Slight pause.)
So, why did Jesus need to open their minds to understand the Scriptures? Well, maybe the disciples had a long trip on the highway. Maybe they had seen too many commercials for fast food chains.
Maybe they were too overwrought with their busy everyday existence. Or maybe, just maybe, connecting all the dots, understand who God is and understanding who Jesus is and understanding what God has done in Jesus, even with the Scriptures as a resource, even with the resurrected Jesus standing there, is not easy. (Slight pause.)
An example of exactly how hard Scripture might be to understand is found at the end of this reading. (Quote): “While blessing them, the Savior withdrew from them and was carried to heaven.” O.K. Jesus leaves. Got that?
But then (quote): “...the disciples worshiped the risen Christ....” Jesus left. But the disciples are worshiping the risen Christ. Does that, therefore, also mean Jesus, having left, is still there, among them, with them? (Slight pause.)
Guess what? As confusing as that sounds and as hard as it is for us to make any sense of that paradox, this is exactly what we Christians have believed for two millennia. Christ died. Christ was raised. Christ is alive, among us, in our midst. (Slight pause.)
So, how do we, how can we get to a place of belief about the risen Christ, alive in our midst? (Slight pause.) I want to suggest the answer is twofold. First, we do need to study Scripture. We do need to take Scripture seriously. After all, Jesus took Scripture seriously.
The second part may seem counterintuitive to most people. Most people will tell you seek the place your heart lies and your mind will follow.
Do you know what the problem with that is? The problem with that is fast food. If we thought for a moment about what fast food is— no matter how bored or tired or busy we were— if we would only think, we would not eat fast food. But the heart... is easily swayed.
So, paradoxically and therefore, the second step in taking Scripture seriously is, having studied it enough to take it seriously, we then to let go of the intellect. We need to give our hearts to Scripture. We need to give our hearts to God.
Why? What is the Easter proclamation? “Christ is risen!” While Scripture must first be studied, no part of the intellect, no part of the brain can understand those words— “Christ is risen!” Any understanding of those words must come from the heart.
On the other hand, if we say “Christ is risen” in an unthinking way, if we simply mouth them, repeat them, say them by rote, the words “Christ is risen” become fast food. The words are rendered... meaningless. (Slight pause.)
I invite you to remember this: Scripture is not fast food. Scripture is much more like a home cooked meal. You do have to work at it— put both your mind and your heart there.
So, let us allow our minds to be open to Scripture. Let us allow our hearts to be open to Scripture. Let us repent. Let us turn our whole being, heart and mind, toward God. Amen.
05/16/2010
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 Benediction. This, then, is an précis of what the pastor said before the blessing: “Perhaps the most challenging words for anyone in this reading from Luke are these (quote): ‘You are witnesses to all this.’ We are commissioned as witnesses to the reality of the resurrection, commissioned as witnesses to the reality of bringing both our hearts and minds to God. Needless to say, some folks think only the heart will do. Apologizing for sounding judgmental, but they are wrong. Some folks think only the mind will suffice. Apologizing for sounding judgmental, but they are wrong. I would suggest we cannot be witnesses unless we bring both our mind and our heart, our whole being, to God— the meaning of the word repent.”
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)