Category: Sermon

Dec. 16 — Advent Violence

All day Friday, I was holed up in my study writing the bulletin and working on this sermon.  I heard the last few seconds of a news cast about a shooting at lunch.  I had no idea until I switched on the news at 5 pm that yet another mass shooting had happened that morning.
I am not a put-my-head-under-the-sand kind of guy when it comes to this stuff.  But by the time I heard the news, I was glad I hadn’t heard it earlier.  It was impossible not to choke out a sob. . .  and for people I do not even know.  I was glad I had finished this sermon.  I won’t preach again until December 30 and I wanted to preach a Christmas Sermon.
I am going to preach that Christmas Sermon. It is not what it was at 4pm on Friday.  But it is a Christmas sermon, and I can’t think of what we need more than that at a time like this.
II.
There will be all sorts of news articles and stories about how the holiday for Newtown will be bleak — as though that were news.  But if I were the pastor of a church in Newtown, this shooting would not stop us from holding worship on Christmas eve and singing, of all things, “Joy to the World.”
Part of what happens, or should happen every time we talk about Christmas joy, is that we should reflect on the responsibility to which that joy is a response or a reward.  And when we do that we inevitably come face to face with a profound realization — We are free agents in a world that can be traumatic, and frightening and miserable.  To us is given a choice, by nothing other than the ultimate ground of life itself, to continue in that misery by feeling sorry for ourselves or violent or isolated or we can resolve to live with purposeful goodness, to do justice and to walk humbly in love in all that we do. That’s the responsibility for which joy comes as reward.
After the initial flood of grief and feeling of horror that choked me for a few minutes, I compensated.  My left brain took over and my grief and horror turned to anger.  For the third time in a month, a high profile public shooting has left our country reeling.  And yet what? What have we done?  It seems we don’t really care because most of the victims of this violence are minorities and children? Almost 50000 people die violent gun deaths each year in this beautiful country of ours. — 8 children a day, on average.
I can name that anger now in the fine words of Nicholas Kristoff, in whose op ed piece yesterday, I learned that to administrators of that elementary school, knowing they would likely get shot, charged the gunman to try to stop him.  Kristoff wrote: ” What do we make of the contrast between heroic teachers who stand up to a gunman and craven, feckless politicians who won’t stand up to the N.R.A.?”
III.
I am not going to use this Christmas sermon to preach about our desperate need for more brave people to stand up to the anti-gun control lobby.  As important as that might be. And as in line as it is with the gospel
There’s something else I want us to get about Christmas because it matters so much today, two days after this horror, because it matters today ten days before Christmas, and it’ll matter next month 30 days after Christmas. And that is that unless Christ is a thousand times born in our hearts, Christmas, December 25, means nothing.
Here’s what I mean.  Historically speaking the birth of Jesus is important — it has mattered to the history of the world.  But for you and for me?  The historical event of Christmas what happened and when, does not matter.  It doesn’t mathter whether we celebrate it today or next month does it.  “Christmas,” is not the point.
Only two of our five Gospel writers (including Thomas) say anything about the event of the birth of Jesus.  And what they say does not agree in historical specifics. (We’ll see that next week in the children’s Christmas pageant!)  But they absolutely agree on the story.
This story is complete with a whole cast of unlikely characters, starting with a pregnant teenager and her fiance who are too poor to help themselves.  The only visitors that Luke records are a couple of terrified shepherds from the nearby fields. This is no high-falutin Christmas in St. Paul’s Cathedral.  The story Matthew tells has some immigrants visit and tells of their own immigration to escape persecution.
Matthew’s and especially Luke’s story, re-directs the objects of our fascination away from celebrity culture or from high art or abstract ideas, to the real life of most of us — complete with anxiety and poverty and glamourlessness  — to the moment of now.  This gospel redirection, this birth narrative upsetting the cart reminds me of something terribly wrong that the famous American author William Faulkner once said — “The writer’s only responsibility is to his art. He will be completely ruthless if he is a good one. He has a dream. It anguishes him so much he must get rid of it. He has no peace until then. Everything goes by the board: honor, pride, decency, security, happiness, all, to get the book written. If a writer has to rob his mother, he will not hesitate; the “Ode on a Grecian Urn” is worth any number of old ladies.”  Here Faulkner’s idea of art falls so short of the life that that scene in the stable expresses about everything we would really value — humility and honesty, peace, new life, commitment  courage and hope, as to be absurd.  In the Christmas story, we see that our deepest, most abiding responsibility is to live a life that abides these things.
IV.
Except of course that Faulkner’s absurdity would be laughable if it weren’t so widely esteemed and emulated.  We live in a culture that wants easy figures to look at on screen, that vaunts high-society over hard work, and humble abodes.  We live in an age of fast, sleek, plugged-in and that tells us joy can only be found in the flattest television screen or the shiniest sports car.  We live in a culture that values the right to own guns over almost everything else.
This absurdity happens in religion too.  A constant temptation, observable through the history of the church, has been to turn the story of a birth meant to mock empire and royal births, into just that.  The temptation of the church has been to remove all of the breathing room in that stable, breathing room for peasant and magi, for shepherd and unwed mother, for the leper and the unwanted — to remove it and make it something processed, mechanical, and gilded — and do it violence.
The history of Christianity is a history of turning away from the peasant man, Jesus of Nazareth, who urged people to rethink their lives in the light of his radical call to love, toward a processed Jesuschrist miracle maker and problem solver of our lives. The history of Christianity, sadly, has been about removing the breathing room around Jesus; turning the man whom people had discovered as a window to God, into a set of beliefs to be accepted with a yes or a no.  “Yes,” and you don’t need to worry about joy, you’ve got it.  “No,” and well, that’s too bad.
V.
Our Advent and Christmas texts speak over again about joy.  But unless we can turn from Faulkner’s idea that little people do not matter in the larger picture, unless we can put aside the processed Jesuschrist miracle maker and create some breathing room for the widows and the pregnant teens, open up some space for the dirty, smelly shepherds in the church this joy will be as elusive and short lived as the treasure in the field would be if the farmer sold it.
We began worship this morning by reading about a different farmer.  He too had a treasure in his field.  But Wendell Berry’s parable is made more understandable because this farmer has a choice:  stay in bed, per the doctors orders — and take care of himself (one kind of treasure — the treasure that rusts) or tend to his sheep.  In the Dayspring, the farmer gets up out of sick-bed and heads out to the field.
Berry wonders: is this

stubbornness or bravado?
No. Only an ordinary act
of profoundest intimacy in a day
that might have been better. Still
the world persisted in its beauty,
he in his gratitude, and for this
he had most earnestly prayed.

An ordinary act.
In the argument that has ensued, once again, over gun-control, we’ve forgotten this.  We get tied up in knots about policy and about whether there is constitutional ground or about the number of guns already out there or about the fact that only criminals will have guns or that only mental illness plays a role. And we’ve forgotten our responsibility to the ordinary — the the knowns and the unknowns alike.
Yes, all of those  are true and difficult.
But we are called away from this debate today, to put the breathing spaces back into our narrative.  To allow ordinary acts of profoundest intimacy to guide our thinking about the big policy issues around guns we need to be making.
Twenty children were killed on Friday and 6 adults.  Eight more on Saturday and eight more today.
For these we earnestly pray.

Dec. 2 — Show us Your Face

The morning after thanksgiving, I was awake before anyone else, so I drove down the street to the neighborhood Starbucks to get a cup of coffee and a bowl of oatmeal. About a half an hour into the most vapid, insipid Christmas music imaginable, the gentleman sitting next to me said, “sit here any longer and I’m going to go nuts. I hate Christmas.” I had to sympathize with him.  Though I don’t hate Christmas, I do indeed find the processed Christmas of Starbucks, be it the day after Christmas with its obvious Black Friday marketing purpose or at a more reasonable midway point through December, offensive.
I am currently reading a book about the dysfunction of the three branches of our government, called It’s Even Worse Than It Looks.  The authors are offended. They’ve been students of the constitution and observers of an increasingly broken process since the 1980’s.  In the first half of the book they give vent to their frustrations and in the second, offer proposals to return function to the two houses of Congress and the White House.  Their proposals seem sound. And it is clear they are passionate about them. They are as offended by what they observe in Congress as I am by the Christianity pedaled in Starbucks on Black Friday.
I found myself pondering the similarities between me and the authors of the book I’m reading.  They’re passionate about government and I’m passionate about Christianity and all of us are offended by current manifestations of the object of our passions.  They use political theory to propose processes whereby the common good can be bolstered and I preach religious ideas in the hope of building new community. The problem of course, is that both discourses have been greatly discredited by their out-of-touch manifestations.
. . .
A month ago, as I was planning worship for Advent, I thought I might preach on the lectionary texts for this first Sunday in Advent —  not because they inspire me, but because they offend.   All of the texts for today are about the hope of a coming of judgement day, a second coming replete with fear and fire and destruction and fury.  I can’t tell you how frustrated I am by this vein of our tradition.  On so many levels it has crept into our thinking and corrupted it.
But instead of offering a mini version of It’s Even Worse Than It Looks, instead, let me ignore the noise, block out Bing Crosby and the Red Nosed Reindeer that offer empty promises, an easy path through the fog to Christmas, and a hollow feeling on the 26th — and return to the longing of the heart that is known (or was known) as Advent.
II.
Our main text for this morning, as for so much of Advent, comes from the Old Testament.  In this case a psalm of lament, a song longing for restitution.  It too, like the political book I’m reading, is a cry for wholeness of nation, a longing to be united again, and functioning.  For years, Israel has been raided by opposing forces, almost at will, her people taken into slavery, her cities and temples ruined.  Life is a mess.  And the people cry, “O God of hosts, restore us; show your favor that we may be delivered.”
That’s the way the Tanakh, the official Jewish translation has it.  The King James Version has it, “Turn us again, O God, and cause thy face to shine; and we shall be saved.” and the New Revised Standard Version does not much differ: “Restore us, O God; let your face shine, that we may be saved.”
The all express a longing, and a longing for a presence.  But what the heck does it mean to long for God’s shining face?  Here we are back to the out-of-touch-religion business.  The only people that see shining lights or glowing faces are in trouble.
The answer lies, as it so often does in a translation issue.  In the fourth century, one of the great church fathers, St. Jerome took upon himself the task of translating the entire Bible into Latin.  It is known as the Vulgate.  He and two others that I know of, translated the last phrase of that verse this way: “Show us your face and we shall be saved.”
There is a good reason that this Latin translation did not win out.  And you’ve probably already guessed it — God does not show his face.
It put it that way on purpose for these two things, God’s masculinity and God’s invisibility, go together in our history.
The philosophical traditions of Greece and Rome have played an important role in the development of Christianity. It was the Roman Stoics in particular who argued that God is a father because Fathers are remote and strong.  A fatherly love was demanding.  It’s ideal of love because the Church’s ideal for God.
John Calvin, one of those who accepts the Vulgate translation of Psalm 80:3, is a product of his time, and to no one’s surprise, talks about God as Father.  What is surprising though is that he also reflects on God’s motherliness and seems to think that this is a better way to think of God.  Calvin thinks that the strength of God’s care is not really about overwhelming power, as our usual reading has it, but about the kind of love a mother expresses toward her newborn that no father can come close to matching.  What for the Greek and Roman philosophers was a weaker kind of love, for Calvin was THE love to emulate and therefore the real strength of love.
Calvin’s voice, like the Vulgate’s voice, has been drowned out, by a clamoring for a God of power and might.  A remote God on high, who is in control of his world.
III.
Our psalm for this morning does reflect some of this remoteness.  You can hardly go anywhere and not get hit over the head by this patriarchal insistence on God’s almighty power.  When Moses works with God in the desert and on the mountain, he faces God, he pleads with God, he stands in the breach — all relational images — but what’s the image you remember most?  “You cannot see my face, for no one shall see me and live!”  The anger of God against human foibles is famous and need not be recounted.  In the New Testament Jesus preaches about God’s love, about God’s care even for the lilies of the field and the birds of the air — but he also, probably not his words, but the words of the Gospel writers, says that no one has ever seen God.  The letters carry this theme further.  Timothy writes, “God dwells in an unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see.”  We could go on.  You get the point.  Out of touch religion.
But buried within it, for those with ears to hear, are snatches of the original, primal sense of a God who cares, that matters, who is related to us.
An extraordinary example of this is from the book of Genesis.  Jacob has cheated his brother Esau out of his birthright and dreads meeting him face to face.  Hearing that Esau is coming to meet him with four hundred men, Jacob divides his own people and their possessions into two groups.  That way, one may escape while Esau attacks the other.  He sends a diplomat out to meet Esau bearing gifts.  To his astonishment, Esau leaves his four hundred men behind and runs to great Jacob, he embraces him, and he calls him “brother.”  He says to him, “I have enough, brother, keep what you have for yourself.  Not trusting, Jacob presses Esau to accept his gifts — for when the gift if accepted, some obligation, he feels entails.  But Jacob refuses, perhaps because he is already obligated — as his next word to him suggests — “To see your face is like seeing the face of God.”
Not only does Bing Crosby and Rudolph assail our senses when we walk into stores, worse, we see all around us appalling scenes of hatred and bigotry and violence.  It is despairing.  It’s even worse than it looks.
But then a face appears in the crowd — to you — and in that intimate moment, you are reminded of justice and mercy and goodness, as they are written into the very consitution of our world.  There shining in the face of a stranger to whom you’ve winked or nodded or offered a hand, there in the familiar face of a spouse or child or parent.  And suddenly the pattern of events is refigured. Suddenly the lead story in the Wall Street Journal tells of a police officer, off the record, but recorded  by a passing tourist’s cell phone camera, offering a pair of boots and warm socks to a barefoot homeless man. The police officer, we discovered once he became known, had purchased the boots and socks at a nearby store.  He said in an interview by the paper, “When I brought out the shoes, it was just a smile from ear to ear,” the police officer said. “It was a great moment for both of us.”
IV.
One final word.  There is no denying that God is sometimes just plain hidden from us.
I believe that this is less a theological issue and more a psychological issue.  The fact of the matter is that we are beset by desires — people place expectations on us we can never meet, or things before us that we year to have, our own minds are battlegrounds of competing wants and temptations.  Some of these desires are not good for us and they blind us to the face of God.
Advent, with its insistence that we let the light shine out of darkness, functions like prayer.  Advent is a purposeful opening of our souls, our hearts, our minds to the face of God so that we can be the kinds of people we really want to be — grace-filled presences to one another. Amen.

Nov 11 — Carla's Sermon

I feel privileged to be able to share my thoughts with you this morning. Peter and I met this past Friday to talk about how to tie the service together between my message, the scripture and the hymns. I told him that it taken me weeks to get my thoughts down on paper with some semblance of organization. I have a deep respect for all that Peter does on a week to week basis and for how he connects all aspects of the service together. Thank you Peter.
The informal title of my message today is ‘Reflections on 2011 and The White Meeting House’ or ‘It’s Not Just a Church’.
I’m going to talk to you today about my experiences and reflections in the months following Tropical Storm Irene. But first, I would like to ask you for your prayers and support for our brothers and sisters all along the eastern seaboard that were hit by Hurricane Sandy. In talking about that storm at my office, we were all feeling guilty and helpless as the storm turned towards the coast knowing that in hoping and praying that it dodged us, it would ultimately slam into other communities.
I am part of the pledge committee this year, along with Jeff & Jill Loewer. In our pledge letter, we asked that you respond by way of sticky notes to some thought provoking questions about our church. I thought it only fair that I answer those questions from my perspective this morning. I’m going to put myself right on the spot.
And although it is late in 2012 I’m going to start by reflecting on last year.
The year started quietly and uneventfully. As Waterbury Town Clerk and presiding officer at elections, I was mindful that it was an odd numbered year. For me, that meant there was only one election on Town Meeting Day, whereas in even numbered years like this year, there are three election cycles, the third of which was this past Tuesday. Even numbered years are crazy, especially when they include a presidential election. The odd numbered years are a lot less stressful in terms of my work, for sure.
And then in late April, Polly’s nephew passed away following a tragic accident at his home. Taber was 11 years old and in the 6th grade at Crossett Brook Middle School. He was a creative, imaginative, incredibly intuitive child. In addition to his parents and brother, Taber left behind 3 great grandparents, 4 grandparents, countless aunts, uncles, cousins, friends, and his One Studio and school communities, with grief that was nearly impossible to bear
While hearts were still trying to heal, along came Tropical Storm Irene on August 28th. We have talked about the storm here, on the streets, in the grocery store, at home and work, time and time again, but it was a lifeValtering event that deserves discussion and remembrance. It changed the course of everyday life in Waterbury, and it threatened to change me.
The Municipal Office where I work was flooded, along with over 200 homes and businesses in Waterbury. On the day following the flood, we set up shop in a classroom at Thatcher Brook Primary School. For the next 2 months, we worked from there, doing our best to perform our municipal functions, but spending the majority of our time on flood related activities. Steve, Community Planner and fellow choir member, took on the very difficult task of coordinating volunteers. I went to work early in the morning each day, to copy and collate information that was distributed daily to flood affected people. We refrained from calling them ‘victims’ early on due to their resiliency, and started calling them ‘floodies’ instead. I spent the rest of the daylight hours manning the phone and doing my best to be of service to those that needed a reassuring voice.
I laid awake many nights wondering how and where I was going to move the contents of the Town vault while still making the records accessible to the public. We’re talking about almost 250 years worth of Waterbury’s history – 300 volumes of land records (do you have any idea how heaving those books are?), over 1,000 survey maps, well over 100 books containing vital records, town proceedings, and other essential municipal documents. It was a daunting task and thanks to my colleagues, in particular Alec Tuscany and the public works crew, we ultimately found a solution. Then, in early November of 2011, we moved to our 2nd temporary location at the Main Street Fire Station which is where we will be for the foreseeable future.
I will confess – it was a very difficult and trying time for me, and by virtue of that, for Polly as well. I had too many moments, hours, and days to mention, where I was tired, stressed, aggravated and downright ugly. I hold an elected office where it is my job to serve the public, and in the course of doing that, be pleasant. Prior to the flood, I loved my job and performed it with enthusiasm.
In the months following the flood, my job became a chore and I lost something within myself. It truly was a trying time for our entire community.
And now, for the brighter side and the real message I want to share today, which is not entirely about Irene, or me, but is about a clarity that came to me in the months after the flood.
The morning after the flood, we came into the Village and walked around. It was a beautiful, sunny, warm morning, in stark contrast to the day before. Water was still receding and we initially made our way down South Main Street. We circled back, and ended up standing in front of the church, assessing the flood damage to the North V from the Stagecoach Inn further up North Main Street. The church look surreal – pristine in its beauty, but surrounded on three sides by water, debris, river muck and smells of oil, propane, and other nasty stuff. I pictured that scene in my mind’s eye repeatedly in the months following the flood.
In addition to the support I received from Polly, my family, and my co-workers, there was something else that did not waiver during my post Irene days: this place, atop the knoll in the Village of Waterbury, and all of the consistency and connectivity that it provided for me. Jeff Loewer suggested a few weeks ago that to him, “this place is one of the few consistent threads that has continued through his sometimes disjointed and inconsistent path.” I couldn’t have said it better.
Our pledge letter asked you to reflect on the following questions:
• What made you come to this church for the first time?
• What are your favorite things about the church?
• What makes this church special to you?
• What does this church mean to the community at large?
• Why do you keep coming back?
So here it is from my perspective:
What made me come to this church the first time? I took a little hiatus from church attendance after college, around 20 years or so. When I really think about it, I came to this church for 4 main reasons: because there was an emptiness in me spiritually; because I was raised in the congregational church tradition so this seemed like the logical choice; because I was living in Waterbury; and because on the few times that I did attend services here, I discovered that the choir was so darned good that I wanted to be a part of it. What a great choice I made
What,are,my,favorite,things,about,this,church? One of my favorite things is that this is not just a church to me. It is the place that I frequent on Thursday nights to pray through song with my choir friends; where I go on Sunday mornings to take an hour out to ease my mind, settle into prayerful worship, listen to and participate in beautiful music, reflect on Peter’s sermons and scripture readings, give praise to our God for my many blessings, and be with all of you. Every week, flood or no flood, come hell or high water. (I actually googled this phrase, and it means ‘come what may’, ‘no matter what happens.) Or as we say here: come join us, no matter
who you are or where you are on life’s journey. You are welcome here. Or maybe, as I felt in the months following Irene, when your journey seems too difficult and you can’t find the energy to go on.
What makes this church special to me? When I was young and my parents forced me to attend the First Congregational Church is Essex Jct., I tried to tell them that I could be closer to God skiing at Glen Ellen on a Sunday morning in the wintertime. I have friends who claim they don’t need a structured environment or need to attend a church service to proclaim that they are spiritual; they can meditate or recreate or commune with nature to connect with a higher power. They haven’t convinced me, not by a long shot, just as I couldn’t convince my parents all those years ago (thank you Mom and Dad for not giving in).
What I need is this . . .this place on the hill, out of the flood plain where I can spend time with all of you. We have a connection. I see you in my office, or in the grocery store. Your kids may not recognize me out of context, but when we remind them I’m in the choir and tell them where I sit, they smile and show that spark of recognition. I may not know you that well personally or socialize with you, but we have a bond and that is the willingness to take the time to be involved and worship here, together.
What does this church mean to the community at large? I often see people, leaf peepers in particular, stopping on Main Street to take a picture of our church. It is quintessential New England beauty, after all. On the wayhome from church a few weeks ago, I passed a car stopped on the ramp, way up by the northbound
entrance to I89. It was obvious to me that they were taking a photo of the Village, most likely a photo with the church steeple as its focal point. I love it when I witness that event, because they aren’t just taking a picture of an historic, lovely, building; they are taking of picture of a place that is special to me; a place that I am a part of and that is a part of me. It is a beautiful building, most worthy of a picture for a tourist, but what they don’t see through the lens of their camera is the beauty on the inside – all of you, the music, the murmurs, hugs, and smiles on any Sunday morning, the children’s rapt attention on Peter’s stories (and science experiments ), the beautiful flowers, the smell of apples and chicken pie; a place where we meet, worship, and work, all for the better good.
A couple of weeks ago, Peter mentioned this church’s importance in our wider community: a place where people pick up their food from CSA, where high schoolers at risk for dropout are tutored, where musicians practice and perform, and where students can meet to talk about bullying and being a leader for civil rights in their schools, just to name a few.
This is a place where we are all served through our various Boards:
• Christian Education V where our children and confirmation classes are challenged to think for themselves, learn, and be creative;
• Deacons – who keep our services running smoothly each Sunday with help from all of you in greeting, ushering and coffee (I’m sure there is room on the board in the back of the sanctuary to sign up );
• Outreach – who serve our wider community through projects like OIKO Credit and other and mission activities;
• Parish Administration and Pastoral, better known as Lesley and Peter – who see to the very busy day to day activities of the church and move us through each week in worship;
• Stewardship – the caretakers of this building; and
• Finance – the overseers of our financial well-being.
Let us not forget Circle II, whose members work feverishly most of the year to raise money that they in turn give away; to Camp TaKumTa, Habitat for Humanity, the Food Shelf, to youths for mission activities, to help defray the cost of furnace repairs, or to purchase new carpeting and a heating system for the church, to name just a few.
And don’t even get me started on the talents of Erik and Mary Jane and the gifts they generously share with our entire community.
Last week, Kelly Hackett spoke about the impact that the church had on her when her home and daycare business was flooded. While she ran her daycare from the church classroom, she witnessed daily how widely this church is used and its importance within our community. Her children learned firsthand that this building is not only a place to worship, but a place where they can feel safe and a place that provides a sense of love and is a symbol of community strength.
I told you in the beginning that I would answer every question that we asked of you, and this is the last one. So finally, why do I keep coming back? How can you not want to be a part of it all? We have collected sticky notes over the past several weeks as a visual reminder of the all of our blessings. Here are some of the thoughts you expressed:
• The philosophy of openness and inclusion helps to keep me on a path I value;
• I like all the giving that happens within this church;
• The sermons recharge my energy for the week;
• I look forward to the message every Sunday. It is a time of thoughtful reflection on ideas that are often new; • Singing with my choir ‘family’;
• The flowers are a weekly gift of beauty, passion, and courage;
• My thinking is stirred, my soul is rested;
• I like eating sweets after church;
• The church is generous in sharing its building with community groups;
• I love the quiet time of worship and miss it when I have to miss a Sunday – I love it when I’m back.
• I might add creative worship, like the memorial service we had on the Winooski Bridge on the 1st anniversary of Irene.
There is something here for everyone and the simple fact is that our support is critical not only in maintaining but enhancing our programs and all that we enjoy within them. Support comes in a variety of forms: our participation in volunteer and fundraising efforts which is an integral part of our calling within this church; our involvement in activities, like the upcoming human food chain, that radiates our presence throughout the wider community; and the heart of the matter today — a thoughtful reflection on the church’s financial needs and a commitment to support those needs through pledging.
A couple of weeks ago, Peter suggested that I would be speaking from a different perspective than I might have during my seven years as church treasurer. I hadn’t thought about it that way until he said it, but he’s right. If you are not worrying about budgets, and expenses, and pinching pennies, you can open yourself up to all this church has to offer. We can let the Board of Finance and the Treasurer worry about the finer details, but we need to help them by giving generously out of our many blessings. There is abundance in all that we receive in doing so, and as our pledge card states, our God loves it when the giver delights in the giving.
Polly and I cancelled a couple of vacations in the aftermath of Irene because we knew that we needed to be here, helping in our community. This past April we finally took a vacation far away from Waterbury and the flood, and I came home with a peaceful energy and a renewed faith that everything is going to be okay. I came back with that piece of me that went missing in the months following the flood. I can’t help but think – in fact I know V that my church and the multitude of ways that worshipping here fills my heart and feeds my spirit, brought me to that better place. Okay, and maybe a couple of weeks in southern Arizona!
–Carla Lawrence

Nov 4 — Kelley's Talk

To begin with I would like to thank everyone for giving me the opportunity stand before you and share with you all how The Congregational Church has impacted myself, family and community.

My husband and I have lived in Waterbury for 8 years. During that time we have not be avid church goers as it has logistically not worked out with our schedule. We immediately fell in love with the look of the Church and then later the belief and community of the Church. We would often come to Church on High Holidays and a few other times during the year. Then, we began coming more often after our second child was born. I was looking for support and peace within the community as my husband worked long hours during the weekends. This quickly ended as my eldest was unable to be separated from me.

Then 14 months ago, we were again reunited with the Church when a firefighter came to our home, and told us we had an hour to leave or we would be stranded, due to Tropical Storm Irene. That was when we turned to the Church for a place to stay for the night. Although we did not end up staying the night at the Church, it would again come to our rescue.

Fast forward a week after Irene and cleaning our mudified home and thinking of returning back to work. For those of you who do not know me I have a Registered Home Childcare here in Waterbury. I quickly learned that my home was not in compliance with the guidelines to provide child care after the flood and I needed to find an alternative solution. For two weeks I moved my business to a friend’s home until I could either fix my home or find a more permanent space suitable for eight small children. I knew this was going to be difficult as there were other childcare programs in the area that were also looking for alternative space. After speaking with them, and learning that some of them were looking to the Churches for help I immediately remembered the sweet space held for the children during Church services. Knowing the other programs were larger than mine and the space would be too small for them I went straight to Peter and asked if those other programs decided to not use the space then I would be interested. He assured me that he would contact me asap.

I was so grateful when I received a phone call from Peter stating that the daycare space was mine if I still wanted it. After the State inspected the space and gave me a variance to use the space for work I was eager to begin moving in! I quickly gave the daycare a facelift moving in toys and supplies, making it my classroom, for which I have been so thankful for. During our 10 months at the Church we became the front face of the Church, as we were so close to the entrance. Folks frequently popped their heads into the classroom to say Hello or ask for directions, or looking for the office. It was a pleasure to see so many faces!

I was truly amazed at how well used the Congregational Church was. It seemed that everyday something was happening at the Church! Mondays were the quietest days as the office was usually closed, but that didn’t stop folks from coming and seeking assistances, requesting space to hold a meeting, training or my favorite a musical rehearsal

Tuesdays –Fridays tutoring occurred,

Wednesdays- CSA Share drop off and pick up and Wic came to use the church,

Thursdays – were the days the children all looked forward to as the Ladies met for their social group and luncheon, which we were often invited to and they would read to the children!

Fridays- seemed to be the day of meetings.

This is all just what I saw during my scheduled business hours. This doesn’t even include the meeting that occurred after I left such as the AA meeting, musical recitals and many other activities.

Throughout my time at the Congregational Church I learned that the Church was not only a place to worship and find peace, but it is an instrumental piece in our community! Some days I found myself closing my classroom door as the church was so well used that it was difficult to “play and work.” It was always so refreshing to see the faces and see the church alive! The children in my care also learned a value to being at the church. They learned about another safe place to go in their community, they also had the privilege of having many wonderful experiences with some terrific folks in our community. This happened by our many luncheon invitations, being read to by several “Grandmothers” and above all seeing how our community takes care of each other! We would often have discussions about where we might be or not be if we didn’t have the Church as our “new” school and how lucky we were to have a warm safe place to have a beautiful classroom while our old was being fixed. Even today the children point out and look for the Church on our walks and say I miss our old classroom at the church! This warms my heart as they too have felt the power of love, community and strength that we received from the church.

Over the years I believe Churches are forgotten as folks have too much to do and not enough time. We as people are over extended and sometimes having one more commitment seems to put us over the top. But during disastrous, difficult times people remember “Church” as I did. It is a constant unconditional love that you know will always be there with open doors during times of despair. I am not sure where I would be, my family. And the 10 families I serve if the Congregational Church was not around to have taken us in. This Church saved my business, my home, my family, and my emotional well being just by allowing me to use their space. Church has a trickle effect in so many communities and ours is no different as it has been demonstrated repeatedly. Even though my business in back in my home I am reminded of the church every day! The Congregational Church has so graciously lent me a table and chairs for my classroom. Every day 7-12 little bodies take pleasure in sitting in small chairs suitable for them and at a table where they can eat, draw, and learn!

Church is so much more than a place to worship the lord, it is a place to love your neighbor, and watch a community bloom! Thank you!

Nov. 4 — Relief

A person once gave a banquet and invited guests. When the time came for the banquet, he sent his servant out to summon the guests. And he came to the first guest and said, “Come for the banquet is ready.” But he replied, “Some merchants owe me money; they are coming to me tonight. I have to give them instructions. Please, have me excused from the banquet.” So he went to another and said, “Come for the banquet is ready.” But he replied, “I have just bought a house and I have been called away for the day. Please have me excused from the banquet.” And to a third he went and said, “Come for the banquet is ready.” But he said, “My friend is to be married and I am to arrange the feast, so I cannot come. Please excuse me.” The slave went to another and said to that one, “Come for the banquet is ready. That one said, “I have bought an estate, and I am going to collect the rent. Please excuse me.” So the servant returned home and reported to his master that all those whom he had invited had asked to be excused. And the master said to his servant, “Go out to the streets and bring back whomever you find there to have dinner.” — Thomas 64
 
Before we dig into this – I want you to recall for yourself the version of the story you likely know already. It comes from Matthew. In Matthew’s telling, the servant goes out to invite the guests, like in Thomas’. The invitees, however, not only refuse, some of them attack the servant and kill him. Upon hearing of this the king, who is throwing the feast is very angry and has these murders killed and their village burned.
 
Then he invites new guests from off the street. But the king gets angry again because some of these guests, come immediately without the proper dress. He kills these too. And wishes an eternity of torment upon them.
 
It’s one of those texts that makes a Christian, sensitive to the connection between violence in the world and violence in our religious traditions, want to crawl under a rock until its over.
 
But, if we read Thomas’ version carefully, we are surprised, and relieved. This is not the violent story we knew. In fact, Thomas’ telling of it is tender. There is no blame cast on those who could not make it and no resistance. They are like us – sometimes we can make a dinner date, sometimes we can’t.
 
Typical for a parable of Jesus’ the story is short and shocking. What is shocking in this case is not the anger and the violence, but the graciousness and the generosity. I have a feast prepared! Come and eat! Whoever you are! Wherever you are on life’s journey.
 
I don’t know about you, but the story is so dramatically different, so simply pure, so uplifting and hopeful, that when I read it, I wonder who would have messed with it. And I am sorry for our tradition, which strikes me in that moment to be the poorer for Matthew’s angry retelling.
 
So, I am interested in Thomas 64 for two reasons – first for its content. While I am not a pure pragmatist – that is I do not subscribe to the pragmatist’s notion that there is no telos, no end toward which the human spirit strives, I am a pragmatist when it comes to expressing the truth that leads us in that direction. Thomas’ insistence that what works here is just what works with respect to community. And the interesting thing is that what works has nothing, explicitly, to do with God. He is a pragmatist, not an idealist.
 
But the comparison between the two also provides an opportunity to remind ourselves of the nature of this Bible that we read.
 
II.
In 1906, Albert Schweitzer published a book that was to become a bestseller – superstar in the world of biblical criticism. It is the most read book on theology and the Bible. The Quest for the Historical Jesus, as it was called, was a response to some work that had been carried out years before but ignored. In it, Schweitzer argues that Jesus has to be understood from the framework from which Jesus himself operated – and that framework, Schweitzer argued, was the end of the world – or, as it is called in theology, eschatology. Nothing Jesus was about, could be understood apart from this idea.
 
Schweitzer’s purpose was theological. This is easily forgotten in the excitement about the idea of recovering a history of Jesus. Schweitzer grew up in a Europe that was colonizing the world and he felt guilt for his role in it. He wrote:
 

“Who can describe the injustice and cruelties that in the course of centuries they [the coloured peoples] have suffered at the hands of Europeans? … If a record could be compiled of all that has happened between the white and the colored races, it would make a book containing numbers of pages which the reader would have to turn over unread because their contents would be too horrible.”

 
While his purpose was theological, his intent was in no way to undo the previous 50 years of critical, historical scholarship that had been done on the gospels. In fact, he wanted to use those ideas to further an argument he felt was left unsaid – that when we do historical research, we’ll discover that the Jesus of ancient Galilee was a serious upstart. That he was not someone who could be easily tamed for our 20th century and now 21st century sensibilities.
 
He will not be, he wrote in that now famous book,
 

“a Jesus to whom the religion of the present can ascribe . . . its own thoughts. . . . Nor will He be a figure which can be made popular by historical treatment . . . the historical Jesus will be to our time a stranger and an enigma.”

 
One of the ways Jesus was so strange and such a mystery was that he seemed to many of Schweitzer’s day to proclaim an end of the world, before which he called all followers to repent and for which no language was too strong, no violent imagery too inappropriate. The violence that would follow, if the hard sayings were not swallowed like a pill, would make the the old days seem like a walk in the park.
 
The parables become allegory. A simple substitution of God, Jesus and the non-believers for the characters makes it clear that the story is about the necessity of believing in God – Matthew takes the beautiful pragmatism of Jesus’ words and turns them into a warning about the way God will clean up, so you’d better believe in God.
 
III.
Another option – and one which I recommend – is to read these stories, first with an eye to how the author may have manipulated Jesus’ words to help him grind an axe or promote a personal agenda, and second to read them, however they come to us, as stories designed to get us to think, to make us feel uneasy, turned upside down. These are stories that are meant to get stuck in your craw, so to speak, to make you ponder about a kingdom in which all of the usual orders and valuations of the kingdoms we knew, are turned upside down, where love, not violence, is the principal motivating force.
 
Schweitzer’s work – on a most basic level got us to thinking about what life was actually like for Jesus and his Palestinian contemporaries. When we understand that — we can understand why each of the Gospel writers, in his own unique circumstance, wrote about him as they did, each with their own particular agenda.
 
Jesus told his stories to people about people in real, live, contexts. And most of his stories were told to those who lived in the back streets of a village or city, in other words, where-ever Jesus found himself.
 
And he often found himself forced outside too – to find food, perhaps, to scrounge up a bit of money for the family, he found himself, where the slaughterers hung out, the toll collectors, the prostitutes, the beggars, the homeless, the day laborers. Those who lived on the edges, rather than at the center of the village or city.
 
To hear the original story is to hear, in stark contrast to all the moralizing and spiritualizing of the story as we’ve grown up with it, a secular story. I mean by this, not only that God is never mentioned, nor is love, nor the temple or religion, but that positively put, it’s a story about what works – about what makes a civilization a civilization, its about what our better angels look like.
 
IV.
On Friday and Saturday, as New Yorkers and New Jerseyians began to regroup ofter Sandy came roaring through their populations, leaving a wake of destruction that we are now all too familiar with, news began to spread that New Yorkers and New Jerseyians were extending a the kind of nonsensical welcome that he ruler extends – people invited strangers in off the street to take a shower, those who had electricity snaked extension cords and power strips out of their apartments so that strangers could charge their phones on their dime.
The mayor of Newark at a press conference on Saturday reported that the Newark police had not responded to one incident of looting or to one incident of people taking advantage of others stricken by the storm.
It is easy to imagine a different scenario. A scenario where some might take advantage of the plight of others, or might continue in the anonymous way they’re so used to.
Instead a storm has handed New York and New Jersey its worst punch – and strangers have responded with a word –Yes. Yes, I’ll be there. Yes, I’ll help. Yes, we can.
That’s an upside down vision of community. If someone were to have told you last month that residents of Newark would be helping each other in such intimate ways, you might have wondered if it was a joke. Newark? Peaceful? Helpful?
Scott Simon made a point yesterday at the end of his news show on NPR. He said that of course,
Sandy has staggered the country with its death and destruction, and that the lives lost cannot every be taken lightly.
But he said,

“in a way, a great and terrible storm has reminded us that though politics can sometimes seem mean, dreary and dispiriting, there are people across the country who still give their lives to public service.”

If we feel, in the days leading up to the election, like the idealism of all the candidates has fallen flat – perhaps its because the tragedy known as Sandy, has awakened us again to another way – a way not run by rules or political scripts, or ideology – but run by care, by gratitude for what we have, and a huge welcome to the seekers of solace.