Advent Candle Liturgy

I wrote the following liturgy for Advent candle lighting. (If you’ve used any of my previous liturgies, this one drew from one I did several years ago.) This one, however, incorporates the O Antiphons. I got the O Antiphons from Laurence Hull Stookey’s book Calendar Christ’s Time for the Church.

Feel free to use this if you wish. I wrote each unison prayer to fit the context of the congregation where I’m currently serving. The congregation is small and sits in chairs facing each other. Though I will list them in the bulletin as North and South, I used Group 1 and Group 2 for this one. You can change the context of each prayer to make it more consistent with your ministry and your congregation. Of course, you can decide when to light the candles. If you use this, please cite the following: Used with permission by Rev. Quentin Chin

First Sunday of Advent – December 3

Group 1: O Immanuel, our ruler and lawgiver, the expectation and savior of the nations

Group 2: Come and set us free, O Lord our God.

Psalm 80:1-7, 17-19

Give ear, O Shepherd of Israel, you who lead Joseph like a flock! You who are enthroned upon the cherubim, shine forth before Ephraim and Benjamin and Manasseh. Stir up your might, and come to save us!

Restore us, O God; let your face shine that we may be saved

O Lord God of hosts, how long will you be angry with your people’s prayers?  You have fed them with the bread of tears, and given them tears to drink in full measure.  You make us the scornof our neighbors; our enemies laugh among themselves.

Restore us, O God; let your face shine that we may be saved

But let your hand be upon the one at your right hand, the one whom you made strong for yourself.  Then we will never turn back from you; give us life, and we will call on your name.

Restore us, O God; let your face shine that we may be saved

Group 2: O Wisdom, coming forth from the mouth of the Most High, reaching from one end of the earth to the other: You order all things well with strength and gentleness.

Group 1: Come and teach us the way of knowledge.

Unison Prayer:

The world is in chaos. Our souls are crushed, O God, by seemingly ever-present violence whether wars or mass shootings. We watch in dismay as climate change upends communities with torrential rains, severe droughts, destructive hurricanes, and all-consuming wildfires. We feel powerless when we survey our communities. People without shelter or food on their tables. People struggle to find support to rid themselves of their addiction. People are plagued by their mental health because there isn’t enough treatment. Liberate us from this chaos. Come into our turbulent world and save us. Amen.

Second Sunday of Advent – December 10

Group 1: O Adonai, leader of the house of Israel: You appeared to Moses in the burning bush, and at Sinai gave him the Law:

Group 2: Come and redeem us by your outstretched arm.

Isaiah 40:1-11

Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and cry to her that she has served her term, that her penalty is paid, that she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins.

Reveal to us your glory, O God.

A voice cries out: “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain. Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”

Reveal to us your glory, O God.

A voice says, “Cry out!” And I said, “What shall I cry?” All flesh is grass;             their constancy is like the flower of the field. The grass withers; the flower fades, when the breath of the Lord blows upon it; surely the people are grass. The grass withers; the flower fades, but the word of our God will stand forever. Get you up to a high mountain, O Zion, herald of good news; lift up your voice with strength, O Jerusalem, herald of good news; lift it up, do not fear; say to the cities of Judah,       “Here is your God!”

Reveal to us your glory, O God.

See, the Lord God comes with might, and his arm rules for him; his reward is with him and his recompense before him. He will feed his flock like a shepherd; he will gather the lambs in his arms and carry them in his bosom and gently lead the mother sheep.

Reveal to us your glory, O God.

Group 2: O Root of Jesse: You stand as a signal before your people. Monarchs close their mouths because of you; to you all nations shall bow.

Group 1: Come and deliver us without delay.

Unison Prayer

We await your coming, O God. When will the prophet come who will assure us that you will be among us? The media bombards us. A miasma of anger engulfs us. Disasters fixate our attention. Suffering is inescapable. Help us to listen for the voice that breaks through the noise. Open our eyes to see, perhaps even a wild man, who will assure us of who is to come. We anxiously await the savior’s coming. Amen.

Third Sunday of Advent – December 17

Group 1: O Key of David and scepter of Israel: You open and no one shall shut; you shut and no one shall open.

Group 2: Come and release from the prison house those who sit in darkness, in the shadow of death.

Psalm 126

When the Lord restored the fortunes of Zion,we were like those who dream.  Then our mouth was filled with laughter, and our tongue with shouts of joy; then it was said among the nations, “The Lord has done great things for them.”

The Lord has done great things for us, and we rejoiced.

Restore our fortunes, O Lord, like the watercourses in the Negeb.  May those who sow in tears reap with shouts of joy.  Those who go out weeping, bearing the seed for sowing, shall come home with shouts of joy, carrying their sheaves. 

The Lord has done great things for us, and we rejoiced.

Group 2: O Dawn from on high, splendor of God’s light and sun of justice:

Group 1: Come and enlighten those who sit in darkness, in the shadow of death.

Unison Prayer

Is it us, O God? In the middle of the battlefield. In the glare of a shelter fluorescent light. In the aftermath of a natural disaster. We look for you. We need your presence and assurance that peace is possible. We need hope to carry on. Is it us, O God, who are the prophets? Are we your prophetic voice to bring hope where there is none? Are we your prophetic voice to tell the world that peace is our only choice. Are we your prophetic voice to remind the world that we are your Creation’s stewards? Amen.

Fourth Sunday of Advent – December 24

Group 1: O Ruler of the Gentiles, their treasure and cornerstone that binds them in one:

Group 2: Come and save those whom you formed from the dust.

Luke 1:46b-55

My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked with favor on the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name.

My spirit rejoices in God my Savior

His mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation.  He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts.  He has brought down the powerful from their thrones, and lifted up the lowly; he has filled the hungry with good things, and sent the rich away empty.

My spirit rejoices in God my Savior

He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, according to the promise he made to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants forever.”

My spirit rejoices in God my Savior

Group 2: O Immanuel, our ruler and lawgiver, the expectation and savior of the nations

Group 1: Come and set us free, O Lord our God.

Unison Prayer

O God of our salvation, you have never been far away. Though we might despair, your sheltering love brings us peace, even amid turmoil and chaos. Jesus taught us that love is the power to transform this world. This is love born of the spirit. Prod us. Remind us that your Holy Spirit dwells in each of us. May that spirit move us to be your prophetic voice. May that spirit make us your instruments of peace and justice. May your sheltering love radiate from us out to our community and our world. Amen.

Christmas Eve – December 24

Psalm 98

O sing to the Lord a new song, for he has done marvelous things. His right hand and his holy arm have gotten him victory. The Lord has made known his victory; he has revealed his vindication in the sight of the nations. He has remembered his steadfast love and faithfulness to the house of Israel. All the ends of the earth have seen the victory of our God.

Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth.

Sing praises to the Lord with the lyre, with the lyre and the sound of melody. With trumpets and the sound of the horn make a joyful noise before the King, the Lord.

Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth.

Let the sea roar, and all that fills it; the world and those who live in it. Let the floods clap their hands; let the hills sing together for joy at the presence of the Lord, for he is coming to judge the earth. He will judge the world with righteousness, and the peoples with equity.

Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth.

Unison Prayer

Today, we sing a new song, O God. A song of hope. A song of liberation. Though turmoil and chaos remain, we have seen pockets of hope and peace where love prevails. Projects to adopt families who have daily struggles. Massive efforts to feed people who are food insecure. A pause in warfare to release hostages. New awareness and new technologies to reduce environmental stress. All of these are signs that Jesus’ promise of salvation is real. We’re grateful that we have done our part to be your hands and feet. Alleluia! A new day has dawned. Amen.

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[1] The O Antiphons, also known as the Great Antiphons, are a set a prayers, the authorship and date of completion are unknown. They were, however, already in use in the 8^th Century. The translation in this liturgy comes from Calendar Christ’s Time for the Church by Laurence Hull Stookey. (Abingdon Press: 1996) pages 130-131

Memorial Day Litany

As Memorial Day is this weekend, I wrote this litany for worship services this weekend. You are free to use this litany in your services providing that you include the following citation: Permission granted for liturgical use, including dissemination via streaming services, by the Rev. Quentin Chin

Memorial Day Litany

Eternal and gentle God, we pause today to remember with grateful hearts the men and women who responded to this nation’s call to service. They donned this nation’s uniform and dedicated their lives to this higher calling. Some gave their last breath to serve us. We remember, O God,

May your perpetual light shine upon them.

We shall not forget that in their service many left home, some to distant lands we cannot find on a map, to proclaim, to support, and to defend the principles upon which our forebears founded this nation. We remember, O God,

May your perpetual light shine upon them.

We recall some of the places where they lost their lives: Manassas, Gettysburg, The Somme, the Argonne Forest, Iwo Jima, the Normandy Beaches, Heartbreak Ridge, Chosin Reservoir, Hamburger Hill, the Citadel, Mosul, Tora Bora, and other places where they fell. We remember, O God,

May your perpetual light shine upon them.

We shall not forget that when they left their families to deploy, they had their final kiss before losing their lives. Many of them were in the prime of their lives and now their faces are forever young etched on the hearts of their loved ones and now known to You. We remember, O God,

May your perpetual light shine upon them.

We remember that many came home carrying the heavy grief of comrades who died. They did not, however, leave those memories of the fallen behind as they moved on with their lives. We give thanks for their contributions to our community. We remember the veterans who have died and pause now to lift their names to You ……………. They have rejoined their sisters and brothers who went before them. We remember, O God,

May your perpetual light shine upon them.

O God, let us not forget the sacrifice others have made for us and continue to make for us now. May we remember with thanksgiving their unstinting generosity and ask your blessing upon them now and forever. Amen.

 

Between Good Friday and Easter: What was and what is to come

This is my April column in the church newsletter. We just published it today.

The church is closed through the month of April. It is a disorienting time for everyone.  This essay undoubtedly was influenced by Easter’s approach.

I’m writing this on Saturday, the end of the second week of our collective restrictions on public gatherings. I’m certain your life has been overturned as has mine. And this life change has happened with stunning rapidity. It’s as though it were overnight.

How do we make sense of this? We’re unsure how long this will last. We may be wondering if there will be another surprise, as if waiting for the other shoe to drop. We find our social interactions awkward because we can’t do something normal like shake hands, hug, or even bump elbows. We also may be scared.

I’m not going to say, “Don’t worry. God will protect you,” because believing in God does not inoculate us against Covid-19. (And yet, there are clergy who will maintain this.) We should continue to practice frequent hand washing, avoid touching our faces, keep at least six feet from the next person, and limit our trips into public spaces.

Maybe I’m too focused on Easter, but I had a thought the other day. I wondered if this is what Saturday felt like to the Jesus followers in Jerusalem following Friday’s crucifixion. Their world completely changed when Jesus died on the cross. In Matthew 16:15 Peter said, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God,” in answer to Jesus’ question, “But who do you say I am?”

Imagine how shocked they were that the Messiah died. Furthermore, the Messiah died in a most gruesome manner, powerless against the authorities of their day. Why did Jesus submit to them? Why didn’t Jesus come down from the cross? What they had hoped and what they had understood was ripped away from them.

Their Saturday could very well have felt as we’re feeling now. We have no idea when this uncertainty will end. We have fear. Whereas the disciples might have feared their arrest, we fear for our health. Is that scratchy throat a sign that we have Covid-19? What about those sniffles? Following recommendations, we’re holing up in our homes not unlike the disciples holing up somewhere. Scripture doesn’t tell us where.

The disciples didn’t have to wait too long, just from 3:00 PM on Friday to dawn on Sunday.

The world changed on Easter. What was was over. What would be remained to be seen. It unfolded in the weeks ahead. Over the next forty days, Jesus continued his ministry with the people until his ascension. Ten days after the ascension the Holy Spirit blew through Jerusalem and tongues of fire touched the believers, the beginnings of the church.

While I can’t say what will be, I’m reasonably certain that the world we knew at the beginning of March will no longer be. This virus is a wake up call to the world. It reminds us that we are inextricably linked with one another. It shows us that compassion, kindness, and love are more valuable to us than weapons of violence and destruction. It affirms that human life is far more important to us than the stock market. It tells us that in this tightly interconnected world, we all lose when we believe we have no obligation to care for one another.

Maybe I’m dreaming or perhaps, I am too optimistic. I hope this is a wake up call to reorder our priorities to place human life, humanity, above materialism. I hope that our political factions will cease their hyper-partisanship and recognize that winning in politics is a short term gain for a long term loss which no one wins. I hope that people will realize that practicing and ordering our lives according to Jesus’ teachings will lead to the beloved community, the kingdom of God, where shalom, peace and justice rooted in love will prevail.

We are in this together, and together we will see this through. We’ll have better days than others. We will have challenges. We also have each other. We don’t have to live through this alone. Please call one another, even if it is only to say, “Good morning.”

Easter will come. Though we will celebrate Easter, the Resurrection, on April 12, the Easter I’m thinking will come at some point. It will be when we can gather again face-to-face to share the joy of surviving this uncertainty and fear following Good Friday.

Friends, there is good news. Please keep faith.

 

Living Water and Hope

We suspended worship today. I was hoping that we could gather for one last service before suspending worship for awhile, but it was not to be. The virus is spreading and the congregation is substantially at risk due to age and other age-related issues.

Rather than a worship service, I modified the sermon and prayers to be an extended reflection and then posted it on the church’s web site.

The texts this morning were Romans 5:1-11 and John 4:5-42.

Opening Ourselves to God

When the world seems wild, unpredictable, and uncertain, we turn to you, O God, our rock and our salvation. We pause in our journey to find refuge in You.  Feed us and slake our thirst with living water. Lead us out of the storm to find true peace.

Prayer of Confession

Gracious and generous God, when we suffer, when we struggle, we forget whose we are. We bemoan our suffering. We lament that the world is against us. We can’t see because we’re lost in our own darkness. Lift our darkness, O God. Open our eyes to see anew and show us your way. Forgive us our despondency. May we find hope from our suffering. Open us to possibilities we did not know before. Amen.

Scripture Readings

Romans 5:1-11 (NRSV)

Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have obtained access to this grace in which we stand; and we boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God. And not only that, but we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.

For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. Indeed, rarely will anyone die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person someone might actually dare to die. But God proves his love for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us. Much more surely then, now that we have been justified by his blood, will we be saved through him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more surely, having been reconciled, will we be saved by his life. But more than that, we even boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

John 4:5-42 (NRSV)

So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon.

A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink.” (His disciples had gone to the city to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, “How is it that you, a Jew, ask a drink of me, a woman of Samaria?” (Jews do not share things in common with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” The woman said to him, “Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water? Are you greater than our ancestor Jacob, who gave us the well, and with his sons and his flocks drank from it?” Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.”

Jesus said to her, “Go, call your husband, and come back.” The woman answered him, “I have no husband.” Jesus said to her, “You are right in saying, ‘I have no husband’; for you have had five husbands, and the one you have now is not your husband. What you have said is true!” The woman said to him, “Sir, I see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you say that the place where people must worship is in Jerusalem.” Jesus said to her, “Woman, believe me, the hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we know, for salvation is from the Jews. But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father seeks such as these to worship him. God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” The woman said to him, “I know that Messiah is coming” (who is called Christ). “When he comes, he will proclaim all things to us.” Jesus said to her, “I am he, the one who is speaking to you.”

Just then his disciples came. They were astonished that he was speaking with a woman, but no one said, “What do you want?” or, “Why are you speaking with her?” Then the woman left her water jar and went back to the city. She said to the people, “Come and see a man who told me everything I have ever done! He cannot be the Messiah, can he?” They left the city and were on their way to him.

Meanwhile the disciples were urging him, “Rabbi, eat something.” But he said to them, “I have food to eat that you do not know about.” So the disciples said to one another, “Surely no one has brought him something to eat?” Jesus said to them, “My food is to do the will of him who sent me and to complete his work. Do you not say, ‘Four months more, then comes the harvest’? But I tell you, look around you, and see how the fields are ripe for harvesting. The reaper is already receiving wages and is gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice together. For here the saying holds true, ‘One sows and another reaps.’ I sent you to reap that for which you did not labor. Others have labored, and you have entered into their labor.”

Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I have ever done.” So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them; and he stayed there two days. And many more believed because of his word. They said to the woman, “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Savior of the world.”

Reflection

Brothers and sisters in Christ, I lament that we could not worship as one body today. During times of uncertainty, we need to come together to sustain each other with courage and strength. Because we are of like mind in Christ, let us take comfort in knowing that we are bound together by the Holy Spirit, even as we are apart from each other.

This Covid-19 virus situation has fallen upon us. A few days ago we could not have imagined how it presses down on us and disrupts our lives. Events cancelled. Schools dismissed. Performances suspended and theaters dark. Museums closed. No sports events. Like us, many congregations are not gathering for worship today.

Call it what you will, lives upended, rug pulled out from under our feet, within a span of days our lives have changed. Let’s add that this change comes about from a potentially lethal virus that has spread rapidly across the globe. Although in fairness, we don’t know how lethal as scientists are studying it now. Nevertheless, there are no known therapies specifically for it and a vaccine to inoculate people is a year to eighteen months away and that’s optimistic, thus mortality looms.

It is disorienting and generates anxiety and fear. What seemed certain as recently as a week ago is no longer. When we get a spate of bad news, an antidote is some sort of diversion. Except, those diversions … well, maybe we can curl up in a fetal position and binge watch on Netflix because everything else is cancelled.

Frustration. Anger. We can’t really plan for what comes after this passes because we don’t know when it will end. We have no models to follow. We’re managing as we fly by the seat of our pants. We hope for the best.

We may not think of this as suffering, but we are. Covid-19 weighs upon our hearts and minds. It has broken our normal rhythms of life. We don’t want this suffering or any suffering for that matter. Paul, however, offered that it is redemptive, “we also boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.” (Rom. 5:3b-5)

Where do we find hope in times of suffering? We’re consumed by the pain, anxiety, uncertainty, and fear. We focus on wanting it over and finished. We know this is undeserved.

What saves us is living water. Jesus told the Samaritan woman that she will never thirst when she drinks living water. Living water is the lessons of our faith. We know it through Jesus’ teachings, life, and ministry. It regards all people, even the Samaritans in our lives, as worthy of love and compassion. It weaves humility and gratitude into our daily living. It calls for patience. It reminds us that a lot of life is beyond our control.

Beyond washing our hands and not touching our faces and avoiding large gatherings and refraining from hand shaking, we can put living water into action.

Practice deep prayer remembering that prayer is not our requests of God, but our conversation with God. Sometimes we need to stop talking to God and listen for God. Let’s also acknowledge that there are different prayer practices so if you’ve not felt a lot of success with one prayer practice, try another. Some people will engage scripture and prayer together, such as through a practice known as Lectio Divina.

If prayer doesn’t work, try meditation, which is more than just sitting still. Meditation is a way to still our entire being. Just like different forms of prayer, there are different types of meditation. Sitting and concentrating on the breath. Guided meditation with imagery. Walking meditation. There are even meditation apps for your phone.

Meditation intertwines with mindfulness. A discussion on mindfulness is its own dissertation. A shorthand description, though, is being intensely present in the moment. We can practice mindfulness wherever and whenever. When we sit in meditation and concentrate on our breath, feeling the breath as we draw it in and as we exhale it out takes mindfulness. During our walking meditation, we are mindful as we pay attention to how we move from heel to toe. When we’re mindful, we let go of all that weighs us down over which we have no control. As an example, the administration’s response has been inadequate at best, but it’s futile for me to be angry about it because I need to concentrate on what I can do now. Furthermore, though I am concerned about what lies ahead and will try to plan for it, I can’t obsess over it either because I honestly have no control over it. A different example. Suppose you wake up earlier than usual and you see dawn. You can swear and curse that you got up too early or you can sit in awe of dawn’s beauty.

And that’s another way to manage this present virus situation. Instead responding negatively to suffering, we can reframe it as a positive. So, the typical distractions, such as performances, museums, or sports events, are cancelled or closed. Maybe we can take a walk and during that walk be completely aware of our surroundings: bird songs, cloud shapes, the breeze on our face. Maybe we become attentive to the color of the light. Doing this we find grace, which elevates the pedestrian experiences of life into moments of beauty and awe.

Reframing opens us to seeing our present suffering from a different perspective. Sometimes it lends itself to humor, which can relieve anxiety. I can attest from experience that working in hospice can be grim. I use humor with families when it seems right. I remember several years ago working with two older women whose mother was dying. They wondered because their mom loved her pets if animals went to heaven. I replied:

Every person and every animal that dies goes to heaven where God awaits them at the gate. When they arrive God asks them to tell their story about life in this world.

One day a cat came to the gate. “Tell me about your life,” said God. “I was a barn cat. I slept on the straw and had to chase small animals like mice for my food. It was usually too cold or too hot.

Upon hearing that God said, “Follow me.” God took the cat down a long corridor and showed him a satin pillow. “This pillow is yours for all eternity.” Well, the cat was very grateful. It circled the pillow a couple of times and then settled upon it with a big smile.

Upon returning to the gate, three mice came up. “Tell me about your life,” said God. One of the mice said, “We don’t eat a lot of food, but we’ve got to eat. When the woman saw us in the kitchen, she chased us with a broom and swatted at us. We were always running away.” God thought for a moment and gave them roller skates. They took off down the corridor.

About a week later God checked on all the new arrivals. When he got to the cat, he asked, “How are things?” The cat replied, “I can’t believe this is mine. It’s so soft and smooth. The temperature here is perfect and those meals on wheels are a nice touch.”

Reframing also takes what is a terrible situation and plants a seed of hope. We’ll find that seed when we press pause in the midst of our suffering to open ourselves to hear God and to see possibilities we didn’t imagine. For me, politically, I hope that this medical situation underscores the inadequacy of our present healthcare system and that our political leadership will take clear steps to get us much closer to universal healthcare and to ensure every worker gets paid sick leave. More importantly, though, I hope that this situation makes clear that we are all in this life together. There is no distinction between rich and poor. There is no distinction between race and ethnicity. There is no distinction in sexual identity. No distinction between nationalities. No distinction between those with power and those without. This situation makes clear that our best protection is each other and that should always seek to support, nurture, and sustain the common good.

Though Covid-19 poses a significant threat and is a looming presence in our daily lives now, when we embrace the common good by living it out, we resist the virus. This resistance does not ensure our inoculation, rather this resistance reminds us and our community that we are stronger than this virus. We can actively resist when we live compassionately and let love guide us and keep our fears at bay. We can support people, family and friends, who are quarantined. We can be present by completely enjoying the company of friends and family, who are healthy, over a meal or even a walk together. In short, when we offer each other living water, we will not thirst and hope will abound.

Closing Prayer

Loving and merciful God, may we share the living water we received from Jesus with all the people in our lives and all the people we meet. Amen.

What Does the Lord Require of Us?

Atypically, I’m posting this before I preach this sermon later this morning. The texts are Micah 6:1-8 and Matthew 5:1-12. In light of what’s going around us, I felt the urge to preach on humility.

Micah was a prophet who lived during the latter part of the eighth century BCE around the reign of Hezekiah. He came from Moresheth, a village southeast of Jerusalem. His name translates approximately as Who is Yahweh? or Who is the Lord?

At that time, economic inequality in Judah was highly pronounced. The wealthy elites had accumulated power and wealth at the expense of small farmers. The wealthy were large landowners as well as officials, the military, and merchants. Traditionally, small farmers were economically self-sufficient, but a market-oriented surplus economy developed by the wealthy class put them in an economically tenuous situation. Add to that the tradition of dividing land among heirs and a growing population, their economic security became more precarious, which diminished their financial cushion to weather bad harvests. The normal obligations of taxation and forced labor led farmers to take out loans, which compounded their burdens. Ultimately, it forced small farmers into perpetual poverty.

Of course, the wealthy class was their source of credit. Thus, they increased their wealth at the farmers’ expense further exacerbating the division between rich and poor. They exploited their inherent advantage and made the poor economically dependent upon them. Consequently, this exploitation and disparity upset society’s social stability.

The wealthy, however, did not intentionally break laws to enrich themselves. Rather, they used the existing legal system and the existing structural weaknesses to their advantage. Furthermore, holding a theological understanding that their prosperity and financial success and security were signs of God’s blessing, they did not question the moral underpinnings and ethical implications of their decisions and actions.

At the same time, Assyria, one of the surrounding nations, began an aggressive expansion campaign through the region, which created a political crisis. It added to the problems pertaining to the economic situation. Hezekiah ultimately had to capitulate, which included paying a hefty tribute to the Assyrian king. This tribute included stripping the gold from the Temple doors (2 Kings 18:13-16). The elites, trying to preserve their power, advantage, and privilege, sought to play one side off the other, but failed. The result destroyed political morality and imposed of an oppressive burden the population.

Thus, the prophets: Isaiah, Hosea, Amos, and Micah. Though not exceedingly wealthy, they were in a better financial position than the farmers they openly supported and on whose behalf they advocated. Thus, Micah could severely critique those who held power and wealth.

He did not accept the wealthy and powerful’s theological complacency. He did not condone their offerings as sufficient to absolve them of their complicity in creating and sustaining the economic oppression which plagued the farmers and poor people. He believed theologically that God led the people out of their oppression in Egypt and that to leverage a system to oppress the people violated God’s intentions.

This morning’s reading from Micah is a poem in which he spoke God’s lament. “O my people, what have I done to you? In what have I wearied you? Answer me!” (v. 3) We might expect Micah to speak harshly to the powerfully wealthy. Yet, he did not accuse them of being a prostitute as Hosea did. Or threaten fire upon them as Amos did. Micah gave voice to God’s weariness that those in power have forgotten God’s grace in their lives. They forgot that God led them to freedom and sustained them for forty years in the wilderness. Micah’s words did not threaten.

Rather, he declared that all the Lord requires is “to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with God.” Not a threat, but a simple and clear commandment.

Arrogance and hubris, greed and self-centeredness. They are easy by-products of power. The wealthy used a legal system to accumulate power and amass wealth. They used this system for their own ends and ignored the burden their desires imposed upon the people from whom they extracted their wealth. But the power they accumulated was not enough for them. They wanted more, and so, worked to gain more until it all came crashing down.

People who hold power must use it responsibly. Indeed, the more power we have, the greater the responsibility required of us. Underlying that responsibility is humility. Micah essentially told the powerful that God is paramount and the apex of all life, theirs included. We, as recipients of God’s gracious generosity, should never lose sight of our relationship with God and that relationship calls upon us to remain humble.

Jesus essentially said the same when he stood before the crowd and preached the Beatitudes, the beginning of the Sermon on the Mount. When he spoke of the kingdom of heaven, he turned this world on its head. Essentially, Jesus’ message proclaimed that to find true peace and justice rooted in love, we cannot find it when we live by the rules of this world. We must live by God’s laws and commandments. Power, then, in the kingdom of heaven comes from humility. Power necessitates our full awareness of how and what we do impacts all those around us and its consequences seen and unseen. It was true then, and is true now.

Jesus told the disciples and the crowd around him that in their humble lives, they are God’s servants. They are blessed because they are loved and in response to that love must be merciful, must be pure in heart, must be peacemakers. In response to God’s love they should stand with the oppressed in spite of hate and persecution directed at them.

Blessings come in our humility and our faithfulness to God’s desires for us, which are to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with God. We won’t find blessing or happiness when we think and act for our own self-interests, pursue our own self-seeking schemes, strive to become fabulously wealthy, allow fear to replace love, or trust weapons of violence and destruction to achieve peace.

Humility leaves space for gratitude, which allows us to remember that what we have is God’s. It allows us to acknowledge that our spiritual gifts enable us to succeed and that real success comes when everyone around us is lifted up too. Humility acknowledges that we don’t have all the answers and are hardly perfect, thus leaving room for doubt and questions even when we are confident of ourselves. Humility embraces the belief that demonstrations of real strength come through restraint. Humility defines leadership as service, not domination. Humility accepts that we have no control over the lives of others or even our own. Humility finds awe in even the simple and oftentimes pedestrian aspects of life.

Who is Yahweh? It’s not us. To live as though we are, we will fail. The fallout could harm people around us. Dwelling in the kingdom of heaven means we must live humbly. We will find true peace and justice rooted in steadfast love when we submit to God’s ways and trust in Jesus’ teaching. Then, the blessings of the kingdom of heaven will be upon us.

A Christmas Story

Last month I bought a book of Christmas short stories. As I read them, I began to think about the structure of Christmas stories and decided to attempt one on my own for Christmas Eve. This was my Christmas Eve homily tonight.

James and Alison were friends in college and became a couple shortly after graduation when they both got jobs near each other. Married for 12 years, they had two children, Maddie, age 10 and Jacob, age 7. Their house was in a good neighborhood in a small New England city. The city itself was emerging from a major economic downturn after the mill at the edge of town closed twenty years before. Stores and new businesses were opening across the city and plans to develop the old mill site were underway. It was a good place to raise a family. Yet, it had its problems, including many homeless men and women.

One day in late spring Maddie asked James, “Daddy, where is your daddy? You have to have a daddy. Everyone has to have a daddy.”

“I’ve told you before, Maddie, I don’t know my father. I grew up with people who loved me, though. You know I was a foster child and lived with three different families until I went to college. I kind of look at your grandpa, Mommy’s daddy as my father,” said James.

“I know that. But I want to meet your real daddy. I want to know where you came from.” she said.

James’ voice began to quiver, “This is very hard for me to talk about. My father left me when I was about four years old. My mother died and after several months, my father took me to some office. He signed some papers and walked out. I never saw him again.”  He went silent for a moment and hugged Maddie very hard. He didn’t want her to see him cry.

The family were members at the Open Table Church and actively participated in its ministries. James helped once or twice a month serving the community supper on Tuesday nights. Open Table was one of five churches in the city, which took turns to provide a hot meal to people who needed a place to eat on weeknights. Many of the people who came were among the city’s homeless.

One evening Maddie joined James at the community supper. James filled the plates and Maddie brought the food to each guest. As many people who worked the supper were church members, James didn’t have to watch Maddie too carefully. Occasionally he looked for her just to be sure she was OK. He noticed that she was deeply involved in a conversation with one of the guests.

As they were driving home, James asked, “Who was your friend?”

“His name is Old Ollie. He’s a nice man,” said Maddie. “He was in the army, and he’s lived all over the world. He’s a good storyteller.”

“He comes often to our meals. He’s a regular,” James replied. He went on to say, “You’ve got to be careful, Maddie. Don’t tell him too much about yourself and don’t leave the room with him. Actually, I’d be more comfortable if you didn’t talk to him too much.”

“But, Daddy, he’s so friendly. He’s lonely, too. He has no family, and this is the only real meal he gets on Tuesdays,” Maddie said.

“I think it’s great that you made friends with Old Ollie, today. Still, be careful, Honey. I don’t want anything bad to happen to you.” James tried his best to hide his deep reservations.

A couple of weeks later James was at the supper dishing out food. Maddie brought Old Ollie’s plate to him. Noticing that this time Maddie was sitting across the table from Old Ollie, James watched Maddie more intently. As they were clearing dishes, Maddie came to James. “Daddy, I think Old Ollie is your father.”

“Maddie,” he said quietly, “he can’t be. My father walked out of my life. He never called me or wrote me a letter. Plus, I grew up on the other side of the country, why would my father be here?”

Maddie answered, “You and Old Ollie have the same nose and the same color eyes. If you talk with him, you’ll see.”

Figuring that if he went to Old Ollie to talk with him, Maddie would leave him alone. James went to Old Ollie and extended his hand, “Hi, I’m James Carson, Maddie’s father.”

“Oliver Murphy. Pleased to meet you. You’ve got a bright girl here. She asks a lot of good questions,” Ollie said.

“I’m sorry she was bothering you.”

“No, she wasn’t. I don’t get to talk with many people. Being homeless, a lot people don’t want to talk with me. Or when they do, they keep their distance. Maddie made me feel like a real person.” Ollie continued, “You’re raising her right.”

“Thanks,” said James. “You want to know something funny, Oliver? Maddie thinks you’re my father. She said I have to meet you because you and I have the same eyes and nose.”

Ollie laughed and went to stand next to James. “Are our eyes and noses really the same, Maddie?” he said. He said looking at James. “I don’t have any children.”

Over the next few months James would greet Ollie by name and Ollie in turn introduced James to some of his friends from the street. After the meals, Ollie stuck around a bit longer to help clean up. He and James would talk. He learned that Ollie served in Vietnam. When James asked him what he did there, Ollie told him, “I was a tunnel rat.” James looked at him a little puzzled. Ollie explained, “I crawled through the tunnels to clear them out.” He paused, “I’d rather not talk about this, it’s not a story to share.” During those months, when Maddie came with James, she would bring two plates to Ollie, one for him and one for her.

Summer turned to autumn and temperatures began to drop. One evening James asked Ollie how he would manage through the cold weather. Ollie told him that he tries to get to the cot shelter by 6:00 to get a bed for the night. “This city is one of the good ones.” Ollie said. “In many places you have to get to the shelter by 4:30 to get a bed, which means I don’t get to eat meals like this. At least here I can eat and have a chance to get a bed. And you know I have to leave every morning by 7:00 with my stuff because the shelter can’t hold a bed during the day. It’s first come, first serve.”

“What do you do during the day?” James asked.

“I have a part-time job breaking down boxes at the hardware store. It’s a couple of hours every day, which gives me enough money for coffee and a little food. They also allow me to get my mail there so I can get my government checks. And then, after I’m finished, I nurse a cup of coffee for a couple of hours at Burger King, except on Wednesdays when I go to Dunkin’ Donuts because the Episcopal church pays for coffee during our Bible study. I usually hang out at the library in the afternoon until it’s time for supper. I’ll read the paper there or try to nap.”

“What about getting more hours at work?” James asked.

Ollie motioned with his hands that he drinks too much. “Yeah, I sometimes drink too much, which means I can’t get into the shelter. It also keeps me from holding a steady job. But I will say this. Since Maddie started talking with me, I’ve had fewer bouts with drunkenness. These months have been the longest in about 40 years that I’ve stayed reasonably sober.”

James wasn’t ready for all that information. He never really thought about the way of life for someone who is homeless.

As James, Alison, Maddie, and Jacob were watching TV after Thanksgiving dinner, James asked the children, “What do you want from Santa this year?”

Jacob said, “I want a fire truck and a drum set.”

“What about you, Maddie?” asked Alison.

Maddie thought for awhile. “I’d like Old Ollie to have dinner with us.”

“Old Ollie?” Alison looked a bit puzzled. Turning to James, “Isn’t he that homeless man you’ve told me about?”

“Yes.” he replied. “Maddie, I’m not sure if Old Ollie will come to dinner. He’s got friends, you know. He might want to eat with them.” Though James had gotten to know Ollie, he was not comfortable asking Ollie to join them for Christmas dinner. Trying to change the subject he asked, “What else do you want?”

“Well,” she said, “I really want Old Ollie to come over. Besides none of the churches will be serving Christmas dinner.”

“Your father and I will discuss this later,” said Alison.

Alison and James talked about it for the next couple of weeks. She became more acquainted with homelessness and about Ollie, too. Finally, they agreed to extend Ollie an invitation for Christmas dinner. They also agreed that they will not serve alcohol and to pay for Ollie’s room for a night in one of the local motels because he would not get a bed at the shelter after supper. When they told Maddie, she was overjoyed.

On Christmas afternoon James picked Ollie up from the bus depot because it was the only place open. He brought Ollie to the motel room where he could leave his stuff. James gave Ollie a box. “Merry Christmas, Ollie.” He opened it to find new set of clothes.

“Man, James, dinner at your house and this room for the night … you didn’t have to do this. And how did you know my size?”

“Clothing labels. Last week at supper, I checked your stuff at the church. Listen take a shower and wear these to dinner. My in-laws are joining us for dinner, too, and I don’t want to freak them out. I’ll wait in the office.” James said.

About thirty minutes later Ollie came to the office. “Wow! You clean up nice.” joked James. “I think I’ll take you home.” They got in the car and in a few minutes arrived at the house.

When they walked into the house, Maddie shrieked, “Old Ollie! You’re here! This will be the best Christmas ever.” She ran to him and gave him a hug.

Alison and Jacob came out and James introduced them. He wanted to get Ollie settled before his in-laws arrived. Ollie thanked Alison for inviting him to dinner. She remarked, “Thank Maddie. I’m glad we can do this. After all it is Christmas.”

He replied, “I know this was not easy. And honestly, it’s not easy for me right now. I’m a little nervous. I haven’t been to a real Christmas dinner in decades.” Trying to make a tentative joke, “When we sit down to dinner, you’ll have to tell me which fork to use.”

Ollie began to scan the living room. There were many pictures: Alison and James’ wedding picture, a family portrait done at the church, various pictures of Maddie and Jacob. Pointing to another couple, “They are my parents, Marla and Tony,” said Alison. “They’ll join us for dinner. They’ll be here in about 30 minutes.”

As Ollie studied the pictures, he stopped and stared at an old picture. It was a small 3 x 5. In it was a picture of a young, beautiful woman with a toddler. James noticed that Ollie was studying it very intently. “That’s me and my mother,” James said. “It’s the only one I have of us.”

“What happened to her?” Ollie asked.

“She died when I was four. It was just my father and me for awhile and then he abandoned me and I became a foster child. I lived with three different foster families until I went to college where I met Alison.” James said.

“Where did you grow up?” Ollie was very curious now.

“Way out west in Idaho,” James replied. Now James was getting curious.

“Was your mother’s name Gail?”

“How do you know that?” James looked surprised.

Ollie reached into his pocket and pulled out a beat up old wallet. It was thick with scraps of paper. He sorted through them and pulled out a tattered wallet size picture. It was James’ mother.

Ollie began to explain, “She was my wife. We lived in Idaho. We met in high school and got married just before I went to Vietnam. I did two tours and came back a mess. I drank a lot. I couldn’t hold a job. We fought a lot. There were many times I’d walk out without warning and go camp in the woods for days. Finally, one day I left and never went back.”

By now Alison, Maddie, and Jacob were transfixed by Ollie’s story. “How long were you married?” Alison wondered.

“Well, two years during Vietnam and then another twelve years after I returned. I don’t know I guess twelve … fifteen years. I’ve kind of forgotten.” Ollie said.

James was too stunned to speak. He was trying to absorb this revelation. “Did you stay in touch at all with Gail?” asked Alison.

“Not really,” he replied. “My sister knew Gail and stayed in touch with her. I called my sister every few months from a pay phone. She would tell me about Gail. But she couldn’t tell Gail anything about me because I was wandering around the country. I wasn’t in one place long enough to be found. When I learned that Gail gave birth to a boy about eight months after I left her, I sent her some money without a return address. And then, I learned that about six months after my son was born that Gail moved in with a guy. He adopted my son. That was kind of about it. I lost track of the boy when my sister told me Gail died. My sister also told me that she never did like the guy who moved in with her. She said he didn’t seem friendly at all. He actually put some distance between her and Gail.”

James, looking surprised and confused, “I thought you didn’t have any children.”

Ollie replied, “Well, I never met my son. In some ways I’m not sure how true my sister’s story was. I can’t really wrap my head around this.”

“This is a lot for me to wrap my head around too,” said James. “Based upon what you’ve told us Ollie, I’m about the age of your son, now.” After a long silence, James asked, “If you could meet your son, now, what would you hope he would be?”

Ollie exhaled deeply. Slowly he said, “I would hope that he is OK, you know healthy. He’d be happily married with some good kids. He’d have a good job and a comfortable life. He would be kind and compassionate. Being a faithful member of a church and a respected person in the community would be nice, too. Like you, James.”

Silence. And then the doorbell rang.

Moving Forward

Today was my last day at the Trinitarian Congregational Church, United Church of Christ, in Northfield, MA.

I was with the congregation for six months as its interim pastor. We worked hard so the congregation can now see possibilities for its ministry. Like many congregations, they are small, about 40-45 in worship on Sundays. They are aging and they face financial stress. They are, however, a healthy congregation, and they willingly worked during our time together.

Typically, my last sermon for a congregation is a brief summary of our time together.

I used Deuteronomy 34:1-8 and Matthew 28:16-20

These were Moses’ last words to Israel as he stood on Mt. Nebo. He led Israel through the wilderness for forty years. The other side of the river was ahead of him, but he would not cross it. According to Matthew, these were Jesus’ last words to the disciples when they returned to Galilee. Today is my last words from this pulpit. I assure you I don’t have a Moses complex or see myself as Jesus. They seemed, however, apt.

I cannot tell you enough how much I have enjoyed my time with you at TCC. Most of you know my trip is 90 minutes each way between Pittsfield and here. Commuting three days a week means I spend about nine hours on the road, and it has been worth it. Admittedly, it has been tiring, but being here has been energizing.

When I initially met with the Executive Committee, I asked that a significant portion of the congregation participate in this interim process, and you did. We’ve done a lot together. We had five community discernment sessions in which we delved into congregational identity, Northfield concerns, history, habits, and fundraising. We read Beyond Resistance in order to understand the church in a post-modern era. We went through the first 15 chapters of Acts and learned that the Church is practically a miracle due to the Holy Spirit’s power. And the weekly articles… I told colleagues, “I assigned homework.”

I’m not sure when things started to shift, but I sense that TCC sees how change is necessary for its sustainable future. You’ve probably heard “missional identity” said more times in the last six months than in the past several years. Thoughts about earning rental income from the underutilized space in the building are taking hold. Even the nebulous concept, post-modernism, no longer sounds weirdly foreign.

We know now that today’s context of the local church and its community is different than the 1960s to the mid-1970s when the American mainline church was in its heyday. Then, the local church had a prominent place in the community. It was a place for civic responsibility and engagement. Church membership was an imprimatur and to be a church trustee or a deacon elevated one’s standing in the wider community. Long established churches built annexes or enlarged their church houses while new churches came with every new housing development. Inside the church, the sanctuary was packed, and we measured Sunday School attendance by scores of children. Church was the center of a congregation’s social life. Volunteers gave their time throughout the week performing a variety of tasks: organizing and running fundraisers, teaching Sunday School, visiting parishioners, leading Bible study. Today, not so much. Sunday worship has more empty space than people. We’re ecstatic if we have five children in Sunday School and the classrooms have become storerooms for stuff we used to use and may one day possibly find a use for them again. We’ve dropped some fundraisers or else they’re not quite as extravagant as they were a generation ago. And we lament. We lament that we aren’t what we were. We lament that the number of people we once had is no more. We lament that the heyday is over.

But what if we see where the church is today not as a loss, but as preparing the ground for resurrection? Remember, Moses died on Nebo. Though he saw the Promised Land, he wasn’t going to get there. Someone else was going to found a great nation. And as Christians, we can’t overlook that all of Jesus’ teachings, which changed the world, probably would have faded into oblivion because he never wrote any of it down. He had to die on a cross.

As much as we love this church and all that it is presently, it will not last forever. What I learned serving here is that the church, which is the gathering of people, is ever-changing. Births and deaths. Comings and goings. Ebbs and flows. These are reassuring rhythms. However, they are internal to the church. And in the church’s heyday, they were sufficient.

We’re in a new era now when people feel they have no need for the church. Yet, we know the church matters. The church holds deep memories of life’s celebrations and milestones. The church gives us meaning and affirmation. The church offers grace. The church celebrates and weeps with us. Quoting from the UCC Statement of Faith, “God seeks in holy love to save all people from aimlessness and sin.”

We cannot freeze what is and hold it indefinitely because the church is never the same from month to month and year to year. We need to let die the belief that we can remain as we are. We need to let die the belief that people will come to us because of what we provide. We need to let die our memories of our past glory.

When we let die the belief that we can remain as we are, when we let die the belief that people will come to us, when we let die our memories of past glory, we will have new life. We are the fertile ground, but when we hold too tightly to our past, our habits, and our own perceptions of who we are and were, they are the weeds that choke new growth.

Over these months, we’ve been able to look at this field. Certainly, there are weeds. But weeds don’t grow if the ground is not fertile. Our fertile ground is timeless teachings and commandments of Jesus. Our fertile ground is people, like yourselves, who love this church and love to serve in the name of Christ. It is my hope that in our time together you have been able to look at TCC with a clearer eye. You see weeds that need to be pulled. You see habits and practices that need to die. You also see possibilities for your future that a year ago you didn’t imagine as seeds for new life.

We need to let die the notion that this is “our church.” The church was, is, and will always be God’s church. We don’t own it. We can’t even claim it for ourselves. Like Moses who would not cross the river, we might not see what our local churches will become, but, hopefully, we have prepared the ground to support new life to serve a new generation.

Jesus spoke to the disciples in the imperative, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.” Essentially, he told them they had to go out into the world; the world would not come to them.

Beginning from its earliest days, the church grew because it went out into the world. Disciples spread the gospel message in which the assumptions of this world are turned on their heads. We remember in Acts that when the Holy Spirit descended upon the believers that Pentecost morning, the church was born, and it spread out from Jerusalem. Paul set sail to start churches throughout the Mediterranean basin. Philip baptized the Ethiopian eunuch. Peter baptized Cornelius, a Roman centurion and a Gentile. I think of the words from Natalie Sleeth’s anthem, “Go ye, go ye, into the world and make disciples of all the people.” The gospel message is that God’s kingdom, God’s realm of peace and justice rooted in radical, inclusive love, is not for the end of our mortal days, but is made real in this world when we live as Jesus taught.

As the church, we have the task to make Jesus real. We are the body of Christ and thus, should incarnate Jesus so people who are not in the church know that Jesus is very much alive at TCC. Do not fear change. Do not fear because the Holy Spirit is with you. Do not fear death because resurrection is a promise.

Advent Candle Liturgy for 2019

Feel free to use this liturgy. If you do, please include the following: “Used with permission by the author, the Rev. Quentin Chin.” © Quentin Chin 2019

Advent Candle Liturgy – 2019

Advent 1 – Dec 1
Romans 13:11-14
Besides this, you know what time it is, how it is now the moment for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers; the night is far gone, the day is near. Let us then lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of light; let us live honorably as in the day, not in reveling and drunkenness, not in debauchery and licentiousness, not in quarreling and jealousy. Instead, put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.

One:    Today is World’s AIDS Day. Its theme is “Communities make the difference.” The UNAIDS website describes the theme this way: “Communities contribute to the AIDS response in many different ways. Their leadership and advocacy ensure that the response remains relevant and grounded, keeping people at the centre and leaving no one behind. Communities include peer educators, networks of people living with or affected by HIV, such as gay men and other men who have sex with men, people who inject drugs and sex workers, women and young people, counsellors, community health workers, door-to-door service providers, civil society organizations and grass-roots activists.”
Many: Life-giving and life-sustaining God, AIDS was once a virtual death sentence. Today, it is manageable for many people. We give thanks for a broad community of doctors, scientists, advocates, healthcare workers, and people with AIDS. Their work and ministry have lifted the death sentence. We continue to pray for people in parts of the world where AIDS remains problematic. May the darkness surrounding them come to an end so light will fill their lives. Amen.

Advent 2 – Dec 8
Romans 15:4-13
For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, so that by steadfastness and by the encouragement of the scriptures we might have hope. May the God of steadfastness and encouragement grant you to live in harmony with one another, in accordance with Christ Jesus, that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.  Welcome one another, therefore, just as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God.  For I tell you that Christ has become a servant of the circumcised on behalf of the truth of God in order that he might confirm the promises given to the patriarchs, and in order that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy. As it is written, “Therefore I will confess you among the Gentiles, and sing praises to your name”; and again he says, “Rejoice, O Gentiles, with his people”;and again, “Praise the Lord, all you Gentiles, and let all the peoples praise him”; and again Isaiah says, “The root of Jesse shall come, the one who rises to rule the Gentiles; in him the Gentiles shall hope.”  May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that you may abound in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

One:    We are a nation of many people from many places. We are a people born of many experiences. We are racially, ethnically, sexually, politically, generationally, economically, physically, and developmentally diverse. Our parochial interests, however, weaken us. We will have true community when we can turn aside our narrow self-interests. Then, God’s light will shine.
Many: Our community is fragmented, O God. Though we may differ in our races and ethnicities, though we may differ in our sexual identities, though we may differ in our politics, we are your children. Encourage us and prod us to find common ground. Grant that we might live in harmony with one another. And in that harmony may we have peace. Sustain us with hope for a new day. Amen.

Advent 3 – Dec 15
James 5:7-10
Be patient, therefore, beloved, until the coming of the Lord. The farmer waits for the precious crop from the earth, being patient with it until it receives the early and the late rains. You also must be patient. Strengthen your hearts, for the coming of the Lord is near. Beloved, do not grumble against one another, so that you may not be judged. See, the Judge is standing at the doors! As an example of suffering and patience, beloved, take the prophets who spoke in the name of the Lord.

One:    The day of promise is almost here. While we wait, we must not cease to thicken the bonds of community. We must tell our stories. We must listen to them. Though our community fabric is tattered and frayed, compassion and kindness will repair it. New life will abound. Nevertheless, patience
Many: Steadfast and faithful God, we are your children. Teach us to listen with compassion. Teach us to speak in love. May we refrain from judgement. Grant us patience while we work to reweave the tattered fabric of our community. Give us courage to reach out to strangers. Remind us that when we put on the breastplate of love, we have no need to fear. Amen.

Advent 4 – Dec 22
Romans 1:1-7
Paul, a servant of Jesus Christ, called to be an apostle, set apart for the gospel of God, which he promised beforehand through his prophets in the holy scriptures, the gospel concerning his Son, who was descended from David according to the flesh and was declared to be Son of God with power according to the spirit of holiness by resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord, through whom we have received grace and apostleship to bring about the obedience of faith among all the Gentiles for the sake of his name, including yourselves who are called to belong to Jesus Christ, To all God’s beloved in Rome, who are called to be saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

One:    We have been waiting with expectant hope that a new day will come. On that day we will be one with another. Despite our differences, we will find common ground upon which we can lay the foundation for the beloved community. On that day, we will build a just world for all people, a world rooted in God’s radical, inclusive love.
Many: O Shepherd God, you lead us as flock. Seeking shalom, we have gone on our separate ways. Come among us. Gather us together. Remind us that true peace comes when we live together as the beloved community. Encourage us to have humility so that we can honor each other’s differences. Help us to restore our community so your peace and justice rooted in love can prevail. Amen.

Christmas Eve – Dec 24
Titus 3:4-7
But when the goodness and loving kindness of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of any works of righteousness that we had done, but according to his mercy, through the water of rebirth and renewal by the Holy Spirit. This Spirit he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior, so that, having been justified by his grace, we might become heirs according to the hope of eternal life.

One:    On this night long ago, a very young mother gave birth in a stable. This child grew to teach a radical vision of true community: power is humility, wealth is generosity, authority is servanthood. He taught that the world’s problems cannot be solved alone and that by working together, even with our differences, we can be the light of hope for those who live in darkness. Tonight we celebrate the birth of Jesus, Emmanuel, God with us.
Many: Holy One, on this night you came to us in a tiny baby. You grew to share our common lot. You called us to serve one another in love. Remind us, yet again, that true peace comes in breaking bread and sharing the cup. Prod us to seek common ground for the common good. May our ministries of grace bring healing and hope to this world and usher in your realm of peace. Amen.

Sabbath and Rest

I departed from the lectionary yesterday and preached this sermon about Sabbath.

The leadership in the congregation I’m serving has been thinking seriously about its future.  This congregation is like many: the average age in pews is increasing, its membership over the past several years is decreasing, its finances present a challenge to its ministry, and people are expressing fatigue.

Recently, some people have floated the idea to use 2020 as a Sabbath year.  The idea has generated some excitement.  Most significantly, people have suggested that we stop fundraising (we’ve had three fundraisers in three months and we’re planning another one for November) and redirect the work towards strategically reimagining its ministry.  Still, nothing has been definitively decided.

I decided to introduce Sabbath yesterday to prepare the congregation.  Besides, it is Labor Day weekend.  I used Leviticus 25:1-6 as my text.

Driving here on Wednesday, I saw school buses.  The speed limit by the school dropped to 20 MPH.  This weekend marks the unofficial end of summer.  Reflecting upon summer, or maybe the end of summer, I think of Ira Gershwin’s lyrics, “Summertime and the livin’ is easy.”

People took vacations, whether a respite from work, or to visit grandchildren who were out of school.  Others got away for a short visit to the lake or to the ocean or to the mountains.  Communities held street festivals where we could justify stuffing our faces with fried dough because “I’ll walk it off.”  Perhaps some people sat in the stands to watch baseball, a game without a clock.  Or maybe people gathered in a backyard drinking beer while hot dogs and hamburgers sizzled on a grill.

Cooking is simpler.  Freshly sliced tomatoes alternating with slices of fresh mozzarella cheese. Corn on the cob.  A bowl of berries with whipped cream.  Eating a peach for dessert as its juice runs down your arm.

Life’s rhythm in the summer is different.  Its pace seems slower.  We amble rather than run.  We stop to sniff the flowers because they’re in full bloom.  We watch clouds scuttling across the sky.

Rest and relaxation are summer’s prescription for our overworked and ofttimes frenetic lives.  We need time off because we’re not meant to nor capable of working all the time.  Although summer is probably our most obvious time off, it’s not our only one.  Weekends happen throughout the year.  How they evolved vary depending upon the source one reads.

Weekends came out of the Jewish Sabbath, Saturday.  A 19^th century English labor practice paid workers at the end of the week to give them Saturday evening and Sunday to spend with friends and family.  However, so many workers took off on Mondays to drink and gamble at public houses that the day became known as Holy Monday with soaring absenteeism.  Factory owners compromised and offered half-day Saturdays in exchange for work attendance on Monday.

Saturday and Sunday became an accepted norm when a New England textile mill in 1908 gave Saturdays to its Jewish workers.  As the mill was closed on Sunday already, its Christian workers, who were the majority, sought and received Saturday off as well.  The practice spread so that in 1938 President Franklin Roosevelt signed the Fair Labor Standards Act designating a 40-hour work week with Saturdays and Sundays as weekends.[1]

Though rooted in Sabbath, these rests, whether the weekend or summer breaks, are not necessarily Sabbath.  We typically treat them as “our time” as opposed to “our employer’s time.”  We fill “our time” with our activities: yardwork, shopping, home repairs, meal prep, kid’s sports events, and the myriad other things we have to do because we have so much to finish just to get to the next week.

In Judaism, Sabbath begins at sundown on Friday night and ends at sundown on Saturday night.  Sabbath, also known as Shabbat or Shabbos, is a cessation from work, but not just the work of 40 hours of employment. Depending upon how strictly one observes, a few examples of Shabbat (which its root means “cease” or “desist”) practices would be to refrain from cooking, to not ride in a vehicle, do not fix things or finish projects, and to not transact business (which means not spend money).  Shabbat in Ancient Israel was universal.  As noted (Exodus 20:9-11),

“Six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work—you, your son or your daughter, your male or female slave, your livestock, or the alien resident in your towns. For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but rested the seventh day; therefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day and consecrated it.”

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel contrasted space, which is the way we live our lives, to time, which is the sacredness of living.  He wrote, “The higher goal of spiritual living is not to amass a wealth of information, but to face sacred moments.”[2]  Heschel invited us to see Sabbath as a cathedral in time, thus enabling us to glimpse eternity.  He wrote, “What would be a world without Sabbath?  It would be a world that knew only itself or God distorted as a thing or the abyss separating Him from the world; a world without the vision of a window in eternity that opens into time.”[3]

Sabbath is not just time off, but time off with the intention of strengthening our relationship with God as we delight in God’s presence.  Like God, who on the seventh day rested after six days creating the world, observing Sabbath allows us to reflect upon what we’ve done the previous six days and perhaps even to believe that it was very good.

Sabbath, though, extended beyond humankind and animals.  It also included the land.  Every seventh year was a sabbath year for the land.  It allowed the land to rest.  Furthermore, Leviticus reminds us that the land is God’s, “When you sow in the eighth year, you will be eating from the old crop; until the ninth year, when its produce comes in, you shall eat the old. The land shall not be sold in perpetuity, for the land is mine; with me you are but aliens and tenants. Throughout the land that you hold, you shall provide for the redemption of the land.” (Lev. 25:22-24)

That the Torah commands a sabbath for the land, agriculturally it is a good practice, too.  By letting the land lie fallow, the land replenishes the soil’s nutrients that certain plants have leached out.  It increases levels of carbon, nitrogen, and organic matter as well microorganisms.  Following a fallow year, crop production from that field is higher.

We, however, don’t just stop our activities and call it Sabbath.  Sabbath practices are intentional. We don’t say, “I don’t feel like cooking today.”  Rather, we cease cooking today in order to dedicate our cooking time to God.  When we realize that Sabbath requires us to cease our daily tasks, we have to prepare in the days leading up to the Sabbath, such as making extra food to last through the end of the next day or making sure that the home repair project is done in order to have true rest, giving us time for God rather than the daily work that occupies our lives on all the other days.

Sabbath is not just rest.  It is sacred rest.  Sabbath is not a vacation or a weekend away.  Sabbath is not to complete the business we couldn’t complete during the week.  Sabbath is not merely to stop and relax.  Sabbath is to cease the busyness of our lives and turn our lives over to God and in so doing see beyond tomorrow, beyond the next year, in order to see the splendor of eternity.

[1] https://bigthink.com/scotty-hendricks/who-invented-the-weekend-2 and https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/08/where-the-five-day-workweek-came-from/378870/

[2] Heschel, Abraham Joshua.  The Sabbath.  Farrar, Straus and Giroux: New York 1951, renewed 1979.  Page 6

[3] Ibid.  Page 16

Finding Our Way Home

I preached this yesterday at church.  I used the lectionary readings from Hebrews 11:1-3, 8-16 and then the gospel lesson, Luke 12:32-40.

I mentioned Rheinhold Niebuhr in this sermon.  Coincidentally, he had a home in Heath, MA, which is not too far from where I’m preaching these days.

Last weekend’s shootings in El Paso and Dayton were horrible.  Since then, we’ve endured a tsunami of news.  Emotions and speculations.  Anger.  Exasperation. Frustration. Powerlessness.  Finger pointing.  Inaction on gun regulations.  Charges of racism and white nationalism.  Mental illness.

Politicians weighed in.  Doctors diagnosed. Pundits pronounced.  Amid all the competing voices, we try to make sense of the senseless.

We need prayers.  Certainly prayers for the victims, their families, and their communities.  Certainly prayers for the first responders and medical teams.  We may even pray for sensible gun regulations and substantial help for people with mental illness.

As clergy, we don’t stand completely neutral.  I don’t believe in the simplistic beliefs on the extreme ends of the spectrum that removing all guns or equipping everyone with a gun will make us safer.  We need sensible and reasonable, evidence-based gun regulations recognizing that overwhelmingly gun owners are responsible and not mentally unfit.  I believe that racism shackles us as a nation and must be addressed.  Though we can blame irresponsible racial rhetoric by our political leadership for fanning its flames, we also have to acknowledge even some of the most well-intentioned people can be racially insensitive. And I know this from firsthand experience.  As for mental illness, while we will argue that more needs to be done for treatment, we should not overlook that traumatic experiences in childhood, such as living in a household mired in poverty or having a single parent or living where alcohol or drug abuse is present, can lead to mental illness later in life.

We also have to be honest.  We can pass the most stringent gun regulations tomorrow, but that won’t make El Paso and Dayton the last mass shootings when we have more guns in this country than people.  As horrible as mass shootings are, we should recognize that they make up a very, very small percentage of gun deaths annually.  In 2017 the CDC reported almost 40,000 gun deaths of which 60% were suicides and 37% were homicides.[1]

The missing voices this past week were theologians.  Where once theologians like Rheinhold Niebuhr were household names, today’s theologians seem to talk only among themselves.  At one time a preacher’s Sunday sermon might be a column in Monday’s paper, today most people in our communities don’t even know the name of the local clergy.  Theologians offer a different perspective often grounded in ancient wisdom.  They also offer a longer view.

Two short observations.  First, a few years ago I visited the Alamo in San Antonio, TX.  Panels inside the compound presented a history of Texas.  Texas was once part of the Mexican Empire which covered much of the present American southwest.  As this nation expanded from east to west, settlers of European descent began to establish themselves in what is now Texas and over the years changed the social fabric and racial mix such that the settlers agitated to establish their own republic independent of Mexico, which they did.

The second illustration is Carmi, IL.  A few years ago, Amy, Allegra, and I stopped for a couple of nights in southern Illinois.  One night we went to dinner in Carmi, a town of around 6500, which was way bigger than Grayville, where we were staying.  Driving through its downtown on Friday night, we saw lots of empty storefronts in what seemed to be a once prosperous community.  No nightlife, other than the Dairy Queen.

These observations gave me two insights into the state of our nation.  The first is social.  Immigration has added to the cultural churn which has been at work across our nation for two generations due to movements such as post-modernism, feminism, racial identity and awareness, and sexual fluidity.  The second is economic.  Globalization and technology have impacted almost every aspect of our industrial infrastructure and capacity, which have hollowed out once prosperous communities like Carmi and dashed economic security for millions of people as they face their retirement years.  Our nation today does not reflect what we imagined it would be 50 years ago.  Our nation today is incongruous with the myths we have created about ourselves and for ourselves.

Over 20 years ago, Walter Brueggemann, an Old Testament scholar, saw the trends in America and equated them to Judah’s exile to Babylon.  He maintained that we are exiles in our own homeland.  Brueggemann wrote, “…exiles experienced a loss of the structured, reliable world which gave them meaning and coherence, and they found themselves in a context where their most treasured and trusted symbols of faith, were mocked, trivialized, or dismissed.”[2]  He went on to describe six aspects of exile.  Though all are important, two stand out for me:  The greatest threat to exiles is the power of despair and the danger in exile is to become so pre-occupied with self that we cannot get outside of ourselves to rethink, reimagine, and redescribe larger reality.

I often think that Brueggemann’s assessment was far more accurate than anything else I’ve heard or read.  The displacement many people feel in this nation is a type of grief or mourning, which then gets manifested in ways that are not always healthy.  An extreme example is resorting to violence.  More subtle are the effects of stress that grief imposes upon our bodies and our psyches.

Without the certainty of the past and the absence of reliable cultural markers, we gaze into an unknown future, and that is frightening.  Our moorings are gone.

Scripture, our ancient stories, recounts many people who walked into their unknown future equipped only with their faith in God’s grace.  Abraham heard God tell him to leave his homeland with the promise that he will become the father of a great nation.  When Naomi returned to Bethlehem from Moab, Ruth chose to stay with her and, consequently, entered a foreign land.  Of course Moses led Israel from Egypt between walls of water to their freedom.  All of them had faith.  All of them trusted God.

Despair can lead to destructive behaviors because those who suffer have nothing to lose.  Those in despair believe they have lost their privilege and authority.  Their dreams evaporated.  The mythology that defined them proved false.

In a sense, they may see their loss as punishment for something they did not do.  We have no control over the economic wreckage due to globalization and technology.  How do we find meaning and coherence when social churn is relentless and unstoppable?  How many remember that immigration has been our nation’s story since its beginnings?  How many people have forgotten their own immigrant family histories or have mythologized it by claiming, “they came legally?”

Fear.  Fearing change.  Fearing the unknown.  Our instincts in response to fear lead us to freeze, fight, or flee.  But we can’t flee when we are home because as exiles we’re not home.  Then we freeze or we fight.  We freeze and don’t do anything as though we’re dead.  We want a savior to rescue us, to revive us, to restore what was.  We fight because we’re not going to accept this any longer.  We will take control by whatever means to stop the social and economic forces pressing upon us.

Seeking a savior to lead us.  Seeking control to stop the tsunami.  Those are not the unfailing treasure.  The savior to lead us is not someone we elect, whether Republican or Democrat.  That savior is Jesus, who told us to be dressed and have our lamps lit.  That savior is the one who will come to serve us.  Furthermore, we cannot stop the tsunami.  Believing we have control to stop it is a fiction we use to assuage ourselves.  The control we have is how we respond, not in fear, but in service, as slaves to one another and to the stranger and to the widow and to the orphan and to the alien among us.

Brueggemann proposed three possible responses to our exile.[3]  The first two, assimilation, which is what some Jews did during their exilic period in Babylon, and despair, which is the “grim resolve of Stoicism,” are forms of giving up and resignation.  The third response, however, is “fresh, imaginative theological work, recovering old theological traditions and recasting them in terms appropriate to the new situation of faith in an alien culture.”

In practical terms, we revisit, reimagine, and reclaim the fundamentals of our faith, Jesus’ teachings:  servanthood, compassion, generosity, love, forgiveness, gratitude, reconciliation, and peace.  Though they may look different, these are our moorings. We should open our eyes and unstop our ears so we can comprehend the forces pressing upon us in order to respond faithfully to the gospel.  I remember years ago serving communion and the deacon who brought the bread happened to bring a multigrain loaf.  It was delicious and a little startling from the usual bread the church served.  I noted that in my benediction saying, “Isn’t that truly the body of Christ?”

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/18/us/gun-deaths.html

[2] Brueggemann, Walter.  Cadences of Home Preaching Among Exiles. Westminster John Knox Press: Louisville, KY 1997 Page 2.

[3] Ibid. P. 116