Stretch Out Your Hand for Whichever You Choose
Rev. Thomas Cary Kinder
The Congregational Church of the United Church of Christ,
Bradford, Vermont
February 12, 2017   Sixth Sunday after Epiphany
Deuteronomy 30:15-20; Sirach 15:15-20;
I Corinthians 3:1-9; Matthew 5:21-24

The scriptures make our choice sound so clear. Deuteronomy says, “See, I have set before you today life and prosperity, death and adversity…. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live, loving the Lord your God, obeying him, and holding fast to him.”

The book of Sirach adds to Deuteronomy that, “To act faithfully is a matter of your own choice.”

The Apostle Paul says we can choose between being unspiritual and spiritual people. As long as we are jealous and quarrel, he says, we are choosing to be unspiritual, yet God created us to be loving members of a beloved community. All we have to do is choose.

Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount that it is not enough for spiritual people just to obey the commandment not to murder. We need to go beyond that negative to something positive. We need to choose to create the beloved community of God’s realm. Jesus is saying that we need to be reconciled through direct, healthy communication whenever we have conflicts or divisions.

It seems so simple. Choose life, not death. Choose love, not hate. Choose community, not division. As the book of Sirach says, “He has placed before you fire and water; stretch out your hand for whichever you choose.”

And yet of course it is not as simple as it seems. This congregation is considering the choice to become officially Open and Affirming or not. Here is the draft of the covenant that you are invited to discuss after worship today. Continue reading Sermon, February 12, 2017 →

They Rise in the Darkness as a Light
Rev. Thomas Cary Kinder
The Congregational Church of the United Church of Christ,
Bradford, Vermont
February 5, 2017   Fifth Sunday after Epiphany
Psalm 112; Isaiah 58:1-12; Matthew 5:13-20

This congregation has many gifts. The first thing that meets the eye is the impressive building and beautiful sanctuary. Second is your equally impressive group of lay leaders. My heart is full of gratitude and admiration and love, having seen how hard and selflessly you work and what amazing things you are able to do with the limited resources of a small congregation.

A third gift is the richness of the words that this church has inspired, including the Covenant that we read earlier and the poem entitled “The Lighted Window” by Thelma Belair that is printed on the insert of the bulletin. These words would mean nothing, though, if you did not match them with countless gifts of action.

The poem boasts,

From out my church there shines a light
That even on the darkest night
Proclaims to all who, passing by,
But chance to raise a doubting eye
That here within a country town
a love divine is shining down.
And as the hours grow more dark
still brighter glows that bold, brave spark,
Saying to all who will but see,
“Through love rise up and follow me.”

The power of those words comes from the fact that you have heard Christ say, “Through love rise up and follow me,” and you have loved and loved and loved—you have loved one another, you have surrounded with love those who have come here for the first time, and you have followed Christ out to do acts of love in the community and the world. Continue reading Sermon, February 5, 2017 →

One Thing I Asked
Rev. Thomas Cary Kinder
The Congregational Church of the United Church of Christ,
Bradford, Vermont
January 22, 2017, Third Sunday after Epiphany
Psalm 27; I Corinthians 1:10-18; Matthew 4:12-23

We tend to glide over the opening words of today’s gospel passage, and that is a huge mistake. It leads to a misunderstanding of the entire life and teaching of Jesus. We cannot comprehend what his call to discipleship involves if we do not pause and consider that it was “when Jesus heard that John had been arrested” that he launched his public ministry.

John was leading a mass movement, a populist uprising, with the slogan, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” The kingdom of Herod found John’s call to allegiance to the kingdom of heaven revolutionary and treasonous. According to the Jewish historian Josephus, “Herod, who feared that the great influence John had over the masses might put them into his power and enable him to raise a rebellion (for they seemed ready to do anything he should advise), thought it best to put him to death.”

Jesus heard John had been arrested and went back home, not to hide in safety, but to pick up where John left off, using the exact same slogan and recruiting a mass movement of his own.

Three years later Herod, the Jewish religious leaders and the Roman Empire joined together to execute Jesus as a revolutionary.

The crucial thing to realize is that everything Jesus did from his first day to his last was in this context where John had been arrested for doing and saying the same kinds of things that Jesus went on to do, critiquing the practices of society and its rulers and offering an alternative vision of how the nation could be run. Jesus knew that he was engaging in a political confrontation and that the government would see it as an attempt to undermine its authority and stir up opposition and possibly lead to the overthrow and establishment of a new government. Jesus knew his message was as political as it was spiritual and practical.

We do not know whether those first disciples knew what Jesus knew when they dropped everything and followed. It would not have taken long, though. “Jesus went throughout Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom and curing every disease and every sickness among the people.” Jesus had the power of the Holy Spirit in him. Great crowds were gathering. He called people to change allegiance to a different kingdom. And John had just been arrested for doing the same thing.

Those first disciples might not have known what they were getting into, but we know, if we read the gospel carefully. We know that Jesus is recruiting us into controversy and conflict with any government, institution, corporation or leader that does not operate by the laws of God’s realm.
Continue reading Sermon, January 22, 2017 →

You Have Given Me an Open Ear
Rev. Thomas Cary Kinder
The Congregational Church of the United Church of Christ,
Bradford, Vermont
January 15, 2017
Second Sunday after Epiphany
and Martin Luther King Jr. Sunday
Psalm 40; Isaiah 49:1-7; Luke 4:14-21

Someone accused Representative John Lewis
this week of being all talk and no action.
Few in Congress have put their life on the line
in courageous action as often as John Lewis.

During the Civil Rights Movement he was Chairman
of the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee (SNCC).
He was one of the original Freedom Riders.
He was beaten by mobs, hit in the head
with a wooden crate, put in jails
where blacks before him had died.
Nothing stopped him. He rode or sat in or marched again,
was attacked again, was jailed again.
He was the leader in front of the famous march in Selma
on Bloody Sunday. He had his skull fractured
by the club of a policeman on horseback and was tear-gassed
but refused hospitalization, insisting on going back
to the church to comfort and encourage the people.
John Lewis has been elected to Congress 13 times
by 70 percent or more of the vote in his district,
and has been extremely active,
working for peace, justice and human rights.
Most recently he took the bold action
of leading a sit-in in the House of Representatives
for greater gun safety after the shooting in Orlando.
Calling John Lewis all talk and no action is as ridiculous
as saying it about Martin Luther King Jr.,
and yet for both men, words were an essential part of action.
They heard the cries of oppressed and suffering
people around them, and those anguished words
inspired King and Lewis to action, including speaking out,
and their words inspired others to action.

We are currently considering adopting a set of words
that could declare this congregation to be
open to and affirming of people of all sexual orientations
and gender identities as well as other groups
that historically have been excluded or treated as inferior.
If this congregation votes to speak out, it will be because
we first heard and listened to their voices,
and because we hope that our words will inspire other actions. Continue reading Sermon, January 15, 2017 →