Few things make us appreciate the warmth of our homes more than the kind of frigid windchill we’ve been experiencing off and on recently.  Few things make us appreciate the warmth, light, peace and beauty of our sanctuary more than a Lenten wilderness, whatever may be making us feel lost or tempted or tried. A pastor who did hard labor in Chinese communist prisons for decades said after his release that any Christian who has not truly suffered is an infant and cannot possibly know the true meaning of God’s love and grace.  One of the reasons 12 Step groups like Alcoholics Anonymous gain the loyalty of addicts is that they come there from rock bottom and find just the home and community and help they need to climb back into the light.

The church is that way, too, at its best.  This congregation has a history of welcoming people that other churches might have rejected and surrounding them with loving support.  This Sunday we will read scriptures where God and Jesus open wide the door of their salvation for all people who have the yearning and faith to seek it.  We will celebrate that in the midst of all our Lenten wildernesses  we always have this loving welcome waiting to comfort and nurture us.   Continue reading Service Notes, March 12, 2017 →

This Sunday is the climax of Epiphany, the season of light.  It began with the star over Bethlehem and the Magi seeing the manifestation of God in the Christ-child.  It ends with the disciples seeing Jesus Transfigured into a being of light and hearing God’s voice calling him the Beloved. We will fill with as much light as we can this Sunday in preparation for the season of Lent which will begin on Ash Wednesday next week.  Lent often coincides with Mud Season, and this year it also coincides with a time of turmoil in our nation and world.  We will find reasons to have faith and to rejoice always, an abundance of love and life and light to carry us through whatever trials may lie ahead. Continue reading Upcoming Service Notes, February 26, 2017, Transfiguration Sunday →

We are drawing near a historic choice for our congregation.  We will be meeting after worship this Sunday to discuss the drafts of documents that would declare us to be Open and Affirming, a covenant of promises that we would make and an implementation plan that describes how we would start fulfilling those promises. The lectionary texts this Sunday happen to be about choice, particularly choosing how to approach all our other choices in life–whether as what Paul calls “spiritual people” or as “people of the flesh, infants in Christ.” (I Corinthians 3:1-9)

On the one hand that is a simple choice–in every moment, every breath, we can choose to make God or Christ or the Holy Spirit our focus, we can choose to come from a spiritual place of love and compassion and kindness and connection, no matter how materialistic the choice may be before us. As the 17th Century poet and priest George Herbert puts it in the hymn the Choir will sing as an Introit,

Teach me, my God and King, In all things thee to see,
And what I do in anything To do it as for thee….
A servant with this clause Makes drudgery divine:
Who sweeps a room, as for thy laws, Makes that and the action fine.

On the other hand, the choice is complicated.  We will read from the wisdom book, Sirach, in the Apocrypha section of the Bible, which says that God “has placed before you fire and water; stretch out your hand for whichever you choose.” (15:15-20) But the Sufi poet, Rumi, says, Continue reading Upcoming Service Notes, February 12, 2017 →

We continue in the season of Epiphany until Ash Wednesday, March 1.  Epiphany is about recognizing the manifestation of God in Jesus and in the world and in ourselves.  This week we are seeing God made manifest in human acts of righteousness.  The scriptures stress again and again that righteousness is not about obeying rules or upholding traditions of the past.  We will hear Isaiah talk about the rigorous religious observances of the people including fasting, yet God’s response is, “Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them, and not to hide yourself from your own kin? Then your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up quickly.”  (Isaiah 58:1-12)

The health and vitality of the church today depend on it “rising in the darkness as a light” Continue reading Upcoming Service Notes, February 5, 2017 →

This Sunday’s service takes place in the context of political drama, and not just what is happening in Washington, DC.  The gospel passage from Matthew (4:12-23) reminds us that Jesus began his ministry just as John the Baptist was arrested.  Jesus took up the exact slogan of John–“Repent, for the realm of God is here, at hand.” Repent is the inadequate word we use to translate  metanoia in the Greek New Testament, meaning to undergo a change of allegiance, turning away from the authorities of this world and giving our loyalty to God and the way of Christ with all our heart and mind and soul and body.  It was a political message calling people to resist the ways of empire and corrupt wealth and power and to act instead as citizens of God’s realm alone, the realm of mercy, justice and peace, the realm where all are welcome and given sanctuary and equal standing, especially those who are oppressed or treated as outcasts by society.

The context of John’s arrest makes the courage of Jesus and the first disciples breathtaking, and at the same time it fills us with a warm feeling of gratitude and admiration.  It inspires us to lay down our lives as they did for the sake of love, to join the resistance that Jesus led, to be part of the movement that he picked up from John and the prophets before him and that continues around the world today, the daring movement to make all the earth as loving and caring and serving of those in need as God’s political and spiritual realm. Continue reading Upcoming Service Notes, January 22, 2017 →