Everywhere a sign

When we are driving down the road, and see in our rearview mirror the flashing lights of an ambulance, we know it’s time to slow down and move out of the way.
When we hear the whistle blowing, we know it’s time to look out for the train.
When we are at home, lying in our beds, and we hear the ear-piercing “beep,” we know it’s time to get up and change the batteries in the smoke detector.
So many signs, so many signals. Our response to most of these signs is so automatic we barely notice the process of interpretation. The alarm clock rings, the toast pops, the coffee-pot gurgles, time to begin a new day.
There are always signs.
Here are some signs:
The vast majority of weddings I have conducted over the past 19 years have been for non-church-members. Most of those couples, usually in their 20’s, had not attended church except for occasional holiday services. Most of their parents, usually in their 40’s, were not members of any church. To find any church members in their family, they have to go back to their grandparents’ generation, and then they might have one out of four grandparents who is an active member of a church.
A recent study of American religious congregations found that every Christian denomination was shrinking. Evangelical churches and mainline churches are all losing members. The fastest growing demographic is “no religious preference.” Also growing in number is the group of people who say they are “spiritual, but not religious.”
These are signs of the times. But how do we interpret them? And what should we do? We know how to interpret the flashing lights and the train whistle and the alarm clock, and we know how to respond to them. But what about these signs of the times? What change in behavior do they require of us?

Most "signs" are identified in hindsight.

It’s hard to say. Most really big events, which become known as signs of the times, are only identified in hindsight. As I wrote in my newsletter article: The birth of Jesus changed everything. But when Jesus was born, who knew what was happening? Most people had no idea that a child was being born who would change the world. If the innkeeper in Luke’s story knew, he would have made room in the inn.
Just so, most events that are considered signs of great change are identified only after the fact. Consider the Guttenberg press. This technology—the printing press—signaled the dawn of a new age of enlightenment. It enabled people to print their thoughts and share their ideas more broadly and quickly than ever before, and this sharing of ideas enabled the development of other technologies which eventually grew into an industrial revolution. That printing press changed the world.
But at the time, who knew? Guttenberg’s neighbors probably complained about the horrible racket this new contraption made. Some people were probably worried that this printing press be a threat to “family values.” If anybody could get their ideas printed, for anybody to read, well, who knows what might happen?

Changing the Conversation: A Third Way for Congregations. by Anthony B. Robinson

Some of us have been reading a book called “Changing the Conversation.” In it, the author writes about a monumental change in culture, a sea-change, he calls it. The world has changed, and the church has changed, and we know this is true, and most of the change is for the best. Think about the world of Dick, Jane and Sally, those characters who taught us how to read. Some of you only had Dick and Jane—but I came in late to the series and so Sally was a part of that family too, by then. And Spot. “See spot run.”
In Dick, Jane and Sally’s world everyone went to church. Everyone. Some of our neighbors went to different churches, but everyone went somewhere. The shops weren’t open, so there was nothing else to do anyway. And when we went to church, men wore suits. And ladies wore dresses, and hats, and white gloves. Remember the gloves? Maybe if we started wearing gloves to church again we could shake hands without worrying about the flu virus. Maybe we should bring glove fashion back. But the rest of it, the suits and the dresses and the hats, they are gone, and most of us think it’s a good thing.
So, this group that has been meeting, and reading, we have been considering how to be the church in a new world. How might we respond to the signs of the times, these signs of a missing generation?
One common response to this information (I have heard it so often!) is to say, it’s normal that young people leave church for a time. They will come back once they have children of their own. Well, right away I can identify a couple of flaws in this logic.
First, most of that missing generation have no church to go back to. They never were involved in church. Their parents didn’t take them to church. It’s not even something that they consider “normal.” It’s not that they don’t like church, they just don’t think of it at all, except as a place to go for weddings and funerals. The kids are not coming back, because most of them were never here in the first place.

Dick and Jane don't live here anymore.

The second flaw in the logic is that even the young people who were raised in a congregation live in a different world from the one which formed our reasoning. Back when “Dick and Jane” went to church in their suits and hats and white gloves, it was a different world. In Dick and Jane’s world, young people graduated from high school, went to work, and got married. Then they started having children about 9 months and 10 minutes later. So that period of being “out” of church, between high school graduation and parenthood, was only a few years.
But today, today we have different expectations. Today, we don’t want our children getting married after high school. We want them to go to college, and then get established in their careers. Then maybe when they are about thirty, they can have their first serious boyfriend or girlfriend, and then get married, and then a few years after that, when they are ready, they might have children. Or not.
So, if we accept it as “normal” that children will leave church after confirmation, at age 15, and come back after they have children, that could be, what, 20 years later? That is a long time to go without the support and love of a congregation.
That’s why it is urgent that we begin to find new ways to be the church, in a new world. It is urgent. But I want to make it perfectly clear that there is a difference between urgency and anxiety. I'll say it again.

There is a difference between urgency and anxiety.

Anxiety is a worthless emotion. Anxiety interferes with our ability to think creatively. Anxiety causes a change in our brain chemistry, which diverts blood flow from our cerebral cortex, the problem solving part of the brain, and sends it to the brain stem, the basic animal brain, the part of the brain that gets the body ready to fight, or run away. So anxiety is no good, because it starves this beautiful cerebral cortex that God designed for reasoning and creating, and we will need all the reason and creativity we can muster.
What did Jesus say, time and again? “Be not afraid.” Do not be anxious. The signs of the times, the change that is coming, is not something to fear. In the gospel lesson today Jesus says when you see the signs, Look up! Because your redemption is drawing near! Freedom is drawing near! Salvation is drawing near! It’s not the end, it’s the beginning, it’s new life!
Like I said, Jesus changed everything. Jesus changed the way people thought about their religion. That’s why he was always in trouble with the religious authorities, the good, upright and pious people of his day. The Pharisees, the scribes, the leaders of synagogues accused him of being irreligious, because he and his disciples didn’t follow all the traditions. What Jesus taught was that some traditions are not essential. Some traditions, in fact, just get in the way of being in a right relationship with God. The essential tradition is mercy. Jesus said to the Pharisees and scribes, “Go learn what this means, I desire mercy and not sacrifice.” It is mercy, love, and forgiveness that really matter, and the rest is like the chaff that the wind drives away. Let it go. Hold on to mercy, forgiveness, distributive justice, and love.
And be not afraid. There is a future, with God. Behold your redeemer comes! Thanks be to God, for the signs of the times.

The Day the World Changed

When Jesus was born in Bethlehem, as the story goes, most people had no idea that the world was about to change. Day-to-day life continued, as usual. Farmers planted grain, vintners tended vines. The sun set and rose, night and day, the grain grew, the fruit ripened, the harvest came and went, the cycled continued.
And yet… and yet, everything changed. The coming of the Christ changed the world. The one who was born and grew up to be Jesus of Nazareth, who went about doing good, healing people who were ill, feeding people who were hungry, he is the one who “brought down the mighty from their thrones and lifted up the lowly.” The movement leader who sent his followers into the world to proclaim the good news of God’s forgiving love, and to teach people that love is the fulfillment of God’s law, he is the one through whom we know the salvation of God. This man, who disarmed the disciple who was ready to fight for him, who did not lift a hand in self-defense, even as he was taken away to his death, he is the one who, throughout the ages, has been lauded as the Prince of Peace.
Everything changed. Only a few perceived it. Mary, Zechariah, Simeon and Anna, these are the few who, like human Richter scales, felt the earth move, and their songs are recorded in the gospel according to Luke.
The world is changing. At the dawn of this third millennium of Christianity, the world is changing. Though the rhythm of life remains essentially the same-- we wake, we work, we love, we eat, we sleep—the world in which we live is shifting tectonically. What does this mean for us? How does this change affect the way we see ourselves, and God, and our church in relation to God’s mission in the world?

Bending Toward Justice

Every year at this time, as we near the end of the church year, we read from the texts associated with end-times in general. The church year begins in Advent, 4 weeks before Christmas, and ends in November, and so November brings us the poetry of the end times, which seems particularly appropriate here in the northern latitudes.

In the Hebrew scriptures, which were the scriptures of the early church, the "end times" never signifies the end of the world. That would be unthinkable. The world God made is infinite and eternal, as God is. There is the story of the great flood, but the point of that story is that God promised there would be no do-overs. No more destruction. And God put the arc of the rainbow in the sky as a sign of peace, a sign of the promise never to destroy the earth, ever again.

So what the end times, or the day of the Lord, or the Messiah’s coming would mean to Jews like Jesus, is that the day would come when finally, evil would be punished, and good rewarded, and justice would roll and righteousness flow.

The end of suffering, the beginning of salvation. The end of hunger, the beginning of a feast.

So the end times which were announced by prophets and Jesus, these are not about the destruction of the earth, but about right-relationships restored on the earth. Not by bloody battle, but by the only thing which can restore relationship: love, repentance, and forgiveness.

I begin with this clarification because there seems to be renewed interest, in popular culture, in the end of the world. The violent vision of the destruction of the world seems to come in cycles, and gain special momentum in what we call “hard times.” It happened early enough in the life of the church to warrant a special mention in the gospel.

Just before the gospel of Jesus Christ was written down in the form that we now recognize as the Gospel according to Mark, Jerusalem was besieged by Rome, and the temple was destroyed. Marauding legions carried away everything that was valuable, burned what they couldn’t carry, and pulled down the walls, so that not one stone was left standing atop another. Over one million citizens were killed in the siege.

Let the reader understand, and the reader would understand—the destruction of the temple does not mean the end has come. Every generation since has suffered wars and disease and lamentable tragedies of its own kind, and some have said, this is it, this is the end… but, look around, here we are. It wasn’t the end after all.

The apostle Paul and Jesus (according to the gospel) said these are just the birth pangs. Birth pangs, not death throes. New life is coming.

“The universe is bending,” is a song from our new UCC book, “Sing!” The universe is bending toward justice, toward peace, toward righteousness. It may not look like it from one particular point in history, but from a God’s eye view, the whole span of history must arc like a rainbow. From creation, to conflict, to new creation, that is our story in a nutshell. God creates a world and declares it good. Then bad things happen. Evil triumphs over good, for a time. The righteous seem to be forsaken, for a time. The innocent suffer and the wicked thrive, for a time, but these are just the birth pangs. For eventually, we are promised, a new heaven, and a new earth, on this earth. And God will be with us and be our God. No one will have to say to another, “know the Lord.” For God will live right here with us, and wipe away every tear from our eye.

And in the meantime, we live in hope, we live in the hope of those who know that the victory is won, though violence persists. We are healed, though relapse may come. These are but the birth pangs. New life is begun. Thanks be to God. Amen.

Hope, well-spent

Jesus went to Jerusalem for the Passover. He was there with the festival crowd. He made his entry into the city a demonstration, a mock-triumphal entry. As the Roman governor came into the city from Caesarea, mounted on a war-horse and accompanied by soldiers bearing swords and shields—a display intended to shock and awe the citizens of Jerusalem, and squelch any thought of rebellion—at the same time Jesus was coming in from the opposite direction, mounted on a donkey, and accompanied by peasants and children waving palm branches.
The next day Jesus went to the temple and overturned the tables of the currency exchange and the vendors of sacrificial animals. The authorities, both religious and civic, would have arrested him then, but the crowds were with him, and they did not want to risk the embarrassment of a riot while the Roman governor was in town.
The presence of the crowd protected Jesus the next day as well. And it is on this day that Jesus was sitting opposite the treasury and watching the people come and go.

Beware of the scribes, he said. Be aware. They may look devout, they may sound devout, but watch what they do. They devour widows’ houses.
And then, as if to illustrate the point, here comes the widow, putting her little all into the temple treasury.

Perhaps she was emulating the widow of Zarephath, who gave all she had, or all she thought she had, to the man of God, Elijah. Once the widow of the temple gave up all she had to live on, what happened next? Did she go away to die? Or, did she find, upon retuning to her home, a jar of wheat and a vial of oil that would never fail? Or perhaps she found a different kind of miracle. Perhaps she was taken into a neighbor’s home, and cared for, as one of God’s children.

I like to think that she was, because that is who God is, according to the Psalm, “the Lord upholds the orphan and widow.”
Happy are those who hope in God. The psalms arose from the hard-earned wisdom of crushed hope, from the days of exile, when trust in princes proved foolish. The people of Israel learned that hope in their princes was wasted. But hope in God—hope in God is hope well-spent.

You Are Surrounded: A Sermon for All Saints Day

When I was a little girl, about 4 years old, my parents left my brother and sister and me in the care of some friends of the family, and flew to the Bahamas for a “business convention.” I was so thrilled at the idea of flying through the clouds, I didn’t waste any time being mad at them for leaving. Until after they were gone. I was really excited to have them come home and tell me what heaven looked like. Because I knew that it was up there in the clouds, where baby angels bounced on cloud beds and never got yelled at for it, where older angels played harps and sang, and where everyone was happy in the company of God.
I don’t know where exactly I got that idea of heaven… books or movies or television or Sunday school. It was a firm image, developmentally appropriate for a four-year-old, but too fixed to last.
Some people seem to think that because I am a religious professional, I should know just exactly what happens after death. As if some secret knowledge were conferred on me at my ordination. But I don’t know. Nobody knows for sure. Yes, I have studied scripture front to back and sideways, but I still don’t know, not with the certitude of a four-year-old. And that too is developmentally appropriate. Because as we grow older and (ideally) wiser, we realize that the universe is infinite mystery. The more we know, the more we know we don’t know nothing!
But I can tell you, that I don’t worry about not knowing. Because the witness of scripture is that whatever happens next, it is good. It is rest from our labors. It is reunion with God and with all that we have lost. It is peace.
And I certainly don’t worry about hell. Because I don’t believe in it. I believe that in every person is the capacity to love, and that love is eternal. Love is the main thing, love is the kernel of the wheat, and the rest is like the chaff that the wind drives away. I think the apostle Paul put it best in the 13th chapter of 1 Corinthians: everything will pass away, except love.

Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end. For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end.
…For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.

Love is eternal. The songwriting team of Lennon & McCartney summed it up perfectly when they wrote: “And in the end, the love you take, is equal to the love (pause) you make.”
The early church had the expression “the communion of saints,” which became a part of one of the earliest creeds. The communion of saints describes the experience of the living “sensing” the presence of the dead. They sensed this presence most distinctly--it is described in the book of Hebrews as a great cloud of witnesses that surrounds us and cheers us on. It is a sense that the difference between the living and the dead is an illusory difference, that if we could see with the eyes of God, we would see that we are all, in life and in death, God’s children, fiercely loved.
And the church spoke of that presence in the great thanksgiving, the prayer that preceded the meal which they shared whenever they came together, the meal that we call Holy Communion. “Communion” is not descriptive of the bread and the wine, communion is not descriptive of the meal itself, but of the spiritual experience of being around this table with the living and the dead, with Christ, and with God. We commune, we live together. “And so we join, with all the saints, in giving praise to you.”
This experience became profoundly real to me after my parents and my sister died. As I was sitting during communion one Sunday, while others were distributing the trays of bread and the little cups, suddenly, I heard my sister giggle, and my mother shush her, and my father, I just felt him beside me. It was a memory, but it was more than that. It comforted me. That is my experience of the communion of saints.
As we share this meal today, we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, who are with us in these photographs and mementos. With the help of these concrete reminders, I hope we will all be able to sense that presence, to hear those cheers, and to receive comfort in the assurance that we all live together, in the presence of God, whether alive or dead, we abide in God’s presence.
As we meditate upon these words, I invite you to write the name of someone you love, whom you wish to remember today, on that scrap of paper in your bulletin. I will ask the ushers to collect them up, and I will read the names aloud as we pray, as we commune with them today.