Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me: An Oddly Informative Sermon Quiz

23 October 2011

                I am not Peter Segel or Carl Kassel. I am not even Paula Poundstone. For three consecutive Sundays we have poked fun at ourselves through a spoof of the NPR news quiz, Wait, Wait, Don’t Tell Me. The skits were written by Erik Steen and enacted by our talented troupe of Stewardship Committee members. But today it’s just me, offering you one more opportunity to play the quiz. Whether win or lose, and I assure you, you can’t lose, you will be rewarded.

                So, here is your first multiple choice question in a game called “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Budget Meeting.” You will play as a group; shout out the answer when you think you know it.

                Other churches take their giving very seriously, but for the past three years at First Congregational, we have been celebrating the Stewardship season with comedy. The scriptural basis for this change in philosophy is

                A. From the book of Exodus, “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s ass.” Because what could be funnier than that?

                B. From the Book of Genesis, “God has brought laughter to me, now everyone who hears will laugh at me,” which is what Sarah said when she found out she was pregnant at age 90.

                C. From Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians, “The Lord loves a cheerful giver,” because the word translated cheerful is literally hilarious.

                That’s right, it is C. The context of the quote is that apparently the people of the church in Corinth had pledged to make a donation to the church in Jerusalem, which was suffering severe persecution, but they had not yet come through with the gift. Paul reminded them that the people from the much poorer community of Philippi had already made good on their pledge, so don’t let them make you look bad. But no pressure, don’t let me guilt trip you, for the Lord loves a cheerful, or in the Greek language of the day, “hilarious” giver.  At First Congregational we have been testing the limits of hilarious by poking fun at our relationship with wealth.

                Actually, there is another scriptural basis for this change from somber to silly. It is the first commandment, “I am the Lord your God, you shall have no other Gods before me.” We rarely think about the commandment against idolatry as relating to money. But what else threatens to take the place of God in our lives? The pursuit of wealth is a national pastime, if not a national obsession. As the folktale, The Emperor’s New Clothes, reminds us, the best way to upset a pompous ruler is to laugh at him. By laughing about our relationship with wealth, we make profane what wants to be sacred.

                Next question: At First Congregational United Church of Christ we encourage members to pledge to the General Fund, which is for all the operating expenses of our local church. We also encourage you to give a “tip” to OCWM; like figuring the tip for your server at Applebees, move the decimal one place to the left and add that on to the bill. Ten percent to OCWM which stands for:

                A. Owls, Crows, Wrens and Mallards: a consortium of bird charities.

                B. Old Codgers of Wrestle Mania: a retirement fund for Jesse Ventura types.

                C. Our Church’s Wider Mission, the basic support for the United Church of Christ.

                Too easy, I suppose. The gifts that you give to Our Churches Wider Mission are forwarded to the Minnesota Conference of the United Church of Christ. The Conference keeps a portion for their ministries, and forwards the rest to the national office of the United Church of Christ in Cleveland Ohio. In Minnesota, our Conference provides training and support for clergy and for churches in transition, hosts an annual meeting so we can have fellowship with other United Church of Christ congregations in our state, and brings church members together for cooperative ministries of justice and witness, outdoor ministries, and other ministries that we can do better together.

                The Cleveland office coordinates the ministries of Conferences, and provides resources to congregations. We have offices of Communication and Publication, Stewardship, Education, and Global Ministries, to name a few. Our gifts to Our Church’s Wider Mission help share the good news of God’s stillspeaking voice, all around the world.

                Final Question: How much should I, personally, pledge to the church?

                A. You are our pastor, you give your whole life, we don’t expect you to pledge!

                B. Ten percent of your gross income.

                C. The national average: 1.5% of your net income.

Or           D. Work it out for yourself, prayerfully.

                The answer for me and for everyone is D. Being a pastor does not exclude me from the joy of giving. Generosity is a Christian virtue, it is one of the virtues we all must practice, like prayer, and service, and patience and gentleness.

                Some churches do expect their members to give ten percent of their income (gross or net, I’m not sure which). But we are not biblical literalists in any other matter, so we certainly aren’t going to be legalistic on this point. Some people may be able to give more than 10%. Others may struggle to reach the nation’s average rate of generosity, 1.5% of their annual income.

                Each year, I hope to be able to grow in generosity as well as in other spiritual gifts. We each have to work it out for ourselves, considering our responsibility to care for ourselves, our families, and others.

                Well, that’s all for today’s quiz. You are 3 for 3, so you have won a fabulous prize: a pancake breakfast, served by members of the Stewardship committee to thank you for your faithfulness!

Out of the Depths I Cry: The Birth of the Blues

I got one of those forwards today, that I usually don't read, but I guessed where it was going, and I knew I would have to reply. The email attributed the hymn "Precious Lord" to the big band leader Tommy Dorsey. WRONG! Thomas Dorsey and Tommy Dorsey were both musicians but the similarity ends there. So it must be time to reprint this sermon, from the Wednesday Lenten series on Songs of our Faith. First preached in 2004.

            This Lenten Season our Wednesday night services will focus on the music of our faith, the beloved hymns of the church. Tonight, the featured hymn is “Precious Lord Take My Hand,” by Thomas Dorsey, a blues musician who became “the father of Gospel music."

I have included in this service the recitation of a psalm, because the psalms contain the oldest hymns of the faith. The Book of Psalms is the hymnbook of the bible. Psalm 130 is one of many psalms of lament. Psalms of lament are honest, unguarded expressions of grief, and yearning. The psalms of lament, like The Blues, were born of suffering, captivity, enslavement. The people of the psalms were enslaved in Egypt, and held captive in Babylon; the people of the Blues were slaves in these United States, and captives to the laws of segregation. The dehumanizing effects of slavery and deprivation gave birth to the blues. It wasn’t the breeze in the trees singing sweet melodies after all. The Blues was born of suffering.

             At the beginning of the 20^th century, music was as segregated as everything else in American society. There were separate washrooms and separate drinking fountains and separate neighborhoods and separate hospitals and separate churches. And folks had their own separate music, and separate places to get together and enjoy music.

            In our separate churches, we had our separate music, the churches of black America singing the spirituals in call and response style, songs which came from the merger of the faith of the new land with the rhythm of the homeland. The churches of white America were singing songs of praise to the tunes of classical European composers. Like today, churches then were slow to change, and though folks might sing the blues or listen to country music on Saturday night, they wouldn’t think of singing that same kind of music on Sunday morning. It would be unseemly.

            So when “Precious Lord, Take My Hand,” was first published (in 1932) by the well-known blues musician, Georgia Tom, folks though it was “too secular” for church, too sensual. Thomas Dorsey, who had been a minister’s son but had strayed from the flock, and sought after the things of the flesh, could not possibly be up to any good. Folks thought this must be his way of trying to lure people into the speak-easies by introducing them to his music in church.

            But Thomas Dorsey’s faith was sincere, and the song, which was born of the grief of losing his wife and child, endured, and it has touched the hearts of generations of the faithful. “Precious Lord, Take My Hand” expresses the need we all feel for the Savior’s touch, in times of darkness and doubt and pain. It is a song for the world-weary, sick woman reaching out to touch the hem of his garment. It is a song for and by the prodigal son, wishing to return home, but uncertain of the welcome.

Thomas Dorsey’s return to the faith of his childhood was complete, and it transformed the church. The Blues Musician became the Father of Gospel Music, which is a style bright and hopeful. Gospel is Blues music infused with hope, and lifted by the faith that God will work all things together for good, in time.

“Precious Lord, Take My Hand” became a source of strength when the civil rights movement began. When protesters were jailed and beaten, this song was sung by supporters outside the prison. The song was sung by Mahalia Jackson at the funeral of Martin Luther King Jr., and by Aretha Franklin at Ms Jackson’s funeral a few years later.

This is the song that I find myself singing, when tired, weak and worn, and it always lifts me up. Thanks be to God for this gift of music. Let us sing.

Love is the Maple Syrup; Gratitude is the Pitcher

16 October 2011

1 Thessalonians 1:1-10

Away We Go is a movie about Burt and Verona, two thirty-something professionals who go on a road trip to find home, that is, to find just the right place to raise the daughter they are expecting (Verona is hugely pregnant), staying with friends and family as they go. I stole a line from this movie for my sermon title. In Montreal, Burt and Verona stay with college friends Tom and Munch, and their four children. Late at night, after putting the kids to bed the four are at a diner together talking about life and love and marriage and children, and Tom, to illustrate a point, makes a house of leftover pancakes for sugar cube Burt and Verona and their baby, and he says:

“Look at that, is that a home? Is that a family?”

“Yeah,” Burt replies.

“NO!” Tom counters. “That’s just the raw materials. The people, the walls the furniture, that’s just stuff. That’s not a home. That’s not a family. What binds it all together is this.” And he holds aloft a pitcher of maple syrup.

“This is Love. Your patience, your consideration, your better selves. Man, you just have no idea how good you can be. But you have to use all of it. All of it…. The love, the wisdom, the generosity. The selflessness. The patience. Patience.”

And Tom continues to pour maple syrup all over the pancake house until it fills the platter and overflows onto the table.

Love is the maple syrup, the mortar, the glue, the stuff that transforms people into family, and a house or apartment into a home. Love is the stuff that sticks us together.

But what holds the love? What keeps it from dissipating into thin air or spilling all over the floor? Love is like a liquid; it takes the shape of its container—a pitcher, a bottle, a thimble—a person. A person who cannot communicate love is like a pitcher without a spout or a corked bottle that can’t be opened. There may be goodness inside, but, it has to come out somehow to do any good.

Don’t be like Olie, who loved Lena so much, he almost told her. (Ba-da-bump, cha!)

A man named Gary Chapman wrote a book several years ago expounding on five languages of love, and they aren’t English, French, Spanish, German and Italian. No, they are the languages of physical touch, acts of service, giving and receiving gifts, the language of presence, and words of affirmation. Some of us are more conversant in one of these languages; of course it is best to be multi-lingual in love.

The apostle Paul was particularly good at speaking the love language of affirmation, by expressing his gratitude for the people to whom he wrote his letters. “We always give thanks to God for all of you and mention you in our prayers, remembering your faithfulness.” (I Thes)

“I thank my God every time I remember you, constantly praying with joy in every one of my prayers for all of you….” (Philippians)

“I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love towards all the saints, and for this reason I do not cease to give thanks for you as I remember you in my prayers.” (Ephesians)

The bonds of love between the apostle and the congregation were strengthened by these words of gratitude. Each was reminded of the other’s faithfulness. Gratitude is the pitcher or the spout through which the love flows. Love builds up the church, strengthens the body of Christ, and cements the relationships of brotherly and sisterly affection between members. Paul was writing about the church, but of course, the same is true for families.

I know that I often take my family for granted. I was reminded of this by my Korean foreign exchange student, fifteen-year-old Min Young, whom we hosted several years ago. After dinner, every evening, as he stood to clear his plate, he offered a courtly little bow and thanked me for the delicious supper. Even when Richard did the cooking, he thanked me. It is probably something his mother and father insisted he do, and it was very sweet. It made me realize, however, how many times I had risen from the table without thanking anyone.

How simple it is to say “thank you.” Each word of gratitude is like a dollop of love, sweet goodness, sticking us together. A word of gratitude says: I see you; I know you; my life is better because of you. It’s not simply good manners: expressing gratitude is a spiritual discipline, which opens our eyes to the goodness and Godliness all around us.

Love is the maple syrup, gratitude is the pitcher with the spout that lets the love pour out over us, to stick us together. Love sticks us together and makes us family. Love sticks us together and builds us into the body of Christ, the church.

Because God has poured love over us, we have love to share, a pitcher that is never empty. Thanks be to God! Amen.

Blessings Overflow

Sunday, October 9
Psalm 23; Luke 6:27-38

                About 10 years ago, when looking for ways to economize, I convinced my husband to let me cancel the cable. I knew this would be harder for him than it would be for me. I wasn’t sure what he would do on Sunday afternoons without the Golf Channel. I was looking forward to weekday afternoons without the struggle to unplug my 10 year old from Digimon and plug her into her math homework. I was expecting tears, I was prepared for arguments, I was looking forward to saving $50/month.

                What I wasn’t expecting was immeasurable blessing, from one so-called sacrifice. After the adjustment, after the tears and the arguments, came an unanticipated peace that was more than the absence of noise. It was contentment. Without television, we were no longer reminded of what we lacked; we were no longer driven by images of what we should want. It’s not just the advertising, it’s the programming itself, the glittering images that cannot compare with unpolished, unproduced reality. In the absence of screen entertainment we discovered blessings all around.

                “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.” We are so familiar with the Psalm that we fail to recognize the radical message, the counter-cultural world it proposes. The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want. I shall not need. I have it all, already. Green pastures, still waters, restoration for the soul. A banquet table, a luxuriant anointing, an overflowing cup. Goodness and mercy. This is abundant blessing.

                The beatitudes of Jesus, “Blessed are the poor, the hungry, those who mourn,” might be a sermon on Psalm 23, a meditation on God’s faithfulness. In the gospel of Luke, the beatitudes are followed by this promise of abundance: the measure you give will be the measure you get, pressed down, shaken together, running over… running over, like that cup in the psalm. Cups running over, grain spilling into your lap.

                Sometimes, our preoccupation with our wants robs us of our sight. We become blind to the blessings that overflow. So now, I want to lead you in an exercise (adapted from David Lose, “Dear Working Preacher” Oct. 2, 2011) which I hope will help the scales fall from our eyes.

1. Take your pink bulletin insert. Turn it over. On the blank side, divide the sheet into two columns.

2. Write down in one column five to ten blessings for which you are most grateful.

3. In the other column, write down five to ten things you want or lack.

4. I don’t think God is insensitive to our wants. But we like children, sometimes want things inappropriately-- like the 14 year old who wants a car, or like the five year old who wants a horse. Sometimes we want impatiently, and sometimes we want magically. What we want may be exactly what we need; and if that is the case I am confident that in time, all will be supplied.

Bearing all that in mind, consider the question: If you could have everything on one list and nothing on the other, which would you choose?  Have you any doubt now, that the Lord is your shepherd, you shall not want?

 “A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap….” Thanks be to God.

Count Yourself Blessed

Sunday, October 2, 2011

I was a very quiet child. I liked the luxury of solitude. For the youngest of three children, solitude was a luxury. I enjoyed those wonderful days when I got to go to grandma’s house by myself, without my brother or sister and without my cousins, when I was left on my own to discover the wonders of Aunt Gerry’s room or grandma’s pantry. Sometimes grandma’s friends or neighbors would stop by and because I was such a quiet child, they sometimes forgot I was there. And they got to talking as if there wasn’t a child in the house.

I overheard a lot of things I wasn’t meant to hear, much of it unintelligible and mostly boring. One thing I learned about grown-ups is that they were not very happy most of the time. Or maybe, it just seemed that way because in Grandma’s parlor, or at her kitchen table, people felt free to tell her how they really felt. Sometimes, when someone finished their litany of complaints against the world, a long pause was followed by a sigh and someone would say, “Well, count your blessings.” Oftentimes, that was followed by a chuckle, and sometimes a confusing—to a five-year-old anyway—blend of laughter and tears together. And a little more hot water for your tea.

When I was a teenager, I was old enough to sit at the table in grandma’s kitchen and recite my own litany—my list of disappointments, my case against my parents, my sister, Ronald Reagan, the universe, and everything. When I was finished, grandma would say. “Debbie (she’s the only person in the world allowed to call me Debbie so don’t even try it), you have to count your blessings. Now would you like some more hot water for that tea bag?”

But I was too young and far too earnest to laugh. The injustice of the world was too great to be eased by a little gospel, that’s what I thought at the time anyway.

            But the truth is, Jesus and grandma were right. All things must pass away… and all things have, including my parents, my sister, Ronald Reagan and grandma, and I miss (almost) all of them dearly.

            The apostle Paul wrote to the church: I know what it is to have little, and I know what it is to have plenty. In any and all circumstances I have learned the secret of being well-fed and of going hungry, of having plenty and of being in need.  (Philippians 4:12)

            And the secret is in counting ourselves blessed, in any and all circumstances.

            Blessed are you who who are poor, for all God’s creation is yours. ‘Blessed are you who are hungry, for you will eat and be satisfied. Blessed are you who weep and mourn, for the time will come again when you will laugh. (Luke 6:20-21, paraphrased).

            Blessed are you when you are confused, for all things will become clear. Blessed are you when you are lost, for you will be found. Blessed are you broken hearted, for your heart will be mended. Blessed are you who have sorrow now, for you will rejoice.

            And I say to all who live and breathe: Count yourself blessed. Amen.

We Have Known Rivers; Rivers Have Known Us Too.

25 September 2011

Ezekiel 1:1-3 (by the Chebar the heavens were opened); Psalm 137:1-6 (by the rivers of Babylon)

Rev. 22: 1-5 (the river of the water of life); Matthew 3:13-17 (in the Jordan the heavens were opened) and

"The Negro Speaks of Rivers" by Langston Hughes

                When God began to create, the story goes, there was water, “the deep,” and the Spirit of God moved over the waters. Water is the basic element from which all else emerges. According to another story, the second thing God created was a garden, which was watered by a river, which flowed out from Eden in four directions and gave life to all the nations.

                Anthropologists have taught us, through our school books, that rivers created civilization: In the fertile crescent between the Tigris and the Euphrates people farmed. They no longer had to spend every waking moment hunting and gathering food, wandering ceaselessly. They could stay in one place, grow their food, domesticate their prey, build cities, make art, tell stories, sing songs. Rivers made us who we are today.

                We have known rivers. Our people have known rivers. By the Nile the Hebrew slaves built the storehouses of Pharaoh and called out to God in their agony. Moses turned that river to blood to demonstrate the power of God. The Jordan River stopped to let the children of those slaves cross through it, to enter into their promised land, and soon after that same river carried the blood of Jericho’s dead. By the rivers of Babylon our people sat down and wept when their tormentors demanded entertainment; and the rivers of Babylon heard their call for vengeance. Rivers have seen us at our worst. And still rivers brought us life, the water of life, fed us and washed us and watered our fields and our cattle.

                Rivers have also witnessed our communion with God. It was by the river Chebar in Babylon that Ezekiel saw the heavens opened; and in the Jordan River Jesus saw the heavens opened, and the hand of God was upon each in his own time and place.

                In our call to worship I mentioned two other rivers that witnessed our faith history. It was on the Humber River, near Hull, that the Pilgrim congregation waited for the opportunity to cross the North Sea to Holland; and it was in Leiden, on the Rheine they found refuge.

Consider the river which runs through our town. We are here in this place because of that river, because the men of the northern railroad decided here was a good place to build a crossing. We’ll need a town there. It will need churches. And because they were New Englanders, they said amongst themselves, let’s establish both kinds of churches—Congregational and Episcopalian. And here we are to this day, worshipping on the same lot given to our people one hundred and almost forty years ago, by the men who decided that here was a good place for the railroad to cross the river.

                If that river could talk, what would it say about how we have treated it, and each other, over the years? We owe that river our life, but we hardly notice it, as we cross over it in our cars day in day out. Like God, in a way. The mater and matrix-- mother and medium-- of life, God provides the gift of life and witnesses the best and worst of our aspirations and misdeeds, and we live and move in God hardly noticing how precious and precarious is life, until we do.

                The river gives us a clue once or twice in a lifetime or so, that we shouldn’t take its power for granted. When it floods its banks, or runs dry, then we notice, then we realize, that what we do to the river we do to ourselves.  Then we realize that our actions have ultimate consequences, for us and for generations after us. Then we realize that we owe the river our life.

                And the river is a metaphor for God, a flowing, living, life-giving metaphor for the one who gives us life, who carries us along in our little bulrush baskets, who receives our tears and absorbs our blood and cleanses our wounds and quenches our thirst and waters our fields and receives our dead and gives us life and repeats the cycle endlessly, from creation to new creation, eternally flowing, never spent. Blessed be the river, the water of life, and the source, now and evermore, Amen.

Bread in the Desert

18 September 2011

Exodus 16:2-15; Matthew 15:29-38

Last week I mentioned briefly how the gospel of Matthew is a value-added gospel. I mean that the author or authors of the gospel elaborated on the source material that they had received, as they set it down in writing for a particular community of Christians in a particular time and place. For the other gospel writers, one miraculous feeding was sufficient, but not for Matthew’s gospel. The story I just read is the second feeding miracle in the gospel: a reprise of the feeding of the 5,000, this one set not on a hillside beside the sea but in the desert wilderness.

All of the additions to this gospel had a purpose. It wasn’t just to pad the gospel, to make it longer than all the other gospels; there was a theological purpose to the additional material. Like Matthew’s stories about Jesus’ birth, the feeding miracle was retold “to fulfill the scripture”—to connect Jesus to the prophets of the Hebrew scripture. The change in venue is significant-- bread in the desert—when was the last time the children of Israel received bread in the desert? This retelling casts Jesus as a prophet like Moses, the greatest prophet of all.

                As Moses himself had promised: “The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me from among your own people….” (Deut. 18:15) Moses provided bread in the desert, Jesus provides bread in the desert, therefore, Jesus is a prophet like Moses. “Never since has there arisen a prophet like Moses,” (Deut. 34:10) until now.

                The manna story itself has an underlying purpose. The reason the story of the manna was told and retold and set in writing is because it said something true about God, something that was not simply true at the time, but something eternally true about the nature of God. In the desert wilderness, God provides.

                The wilderness is a scary place, if you are lost and alone with no provisions. The wilderness is even scarier when you are lost, and not alone, but you are there with people who are dependent on you. Some of you saw a new profile picture on my Facebook page, which Richard of me took when I was out in the Badlands with the youth group. In the picture I appear to be in a posture of meditation, and in fact I was, and some of my friends commented that I looked very peaceful. But I was not. Actually I was praying that I would not faint dead away out there, and spoil the trip for the children in my care. We were taken for a hike in the Badlands in the middle of the afternoon, in August, when no people in their right minds would go out there. But we went because it was on the program, and we trusted our guides, the staff at Re-member. When we arrived at this great cavernous bowl of dust, and I had already drank all my water, I thought, O my God they have brought us out here to kill us. Who are these people, really? What do we know about them? I am going to die here and my youth group is going to have to carry my body out. And that will just ruin their week.

                Though at the time I questioned the value of that trip into the wilderness, I really should be grateful for the insight into the states of mind of the Hebrew people in the wilderness. Who is this Moses? What do we know about him, really? Maybe he is a glassy-eyed megalomaniac, who brought us and our children out here in this wilderness to die. Pharaoh wasn’t so bad. Yes, we have the scars of the overseer’s whip on our backs, but we also had bread, and fruit, and water, and our children were safe. Pharaoh’s bread was better than no bread at all.

                Pharaoh’s bread was better, until there was bread from heaven. Moses sent the people out to gather up bread from heaven, every day, just enough for that day and no more. Every day except for the Sabbath, God’s day of rest, the people gathered bread from heaven.

                Eventually, forty years later so the story goes, the people entered the promised land, and they ate the bread of the land of Canaan that year, they ate the bread of the land that God had promised to their ancestors. All the manna ceased on that day, because manna is only for the wilderness.

                Many generations later, the descendants of the Hebrew slaves once again found themselves eating Pharaoh’s bread. Not Pharaoh’s, literally, actually it was Caesar’s bread. The wheat may have grown in their promised land, Caesar claimed it as his own. Caesar requisitioned it and redistributed it under his own brand name, so to speak, in the imperial bread dole. As long as conquered people remained loyal to Caesar, they could eat his bread. Rebel, and the bread dole ceases. Thus the empire was held under Caesar’s power, through bread, and the legions, bread and the sword.

                Jesus came like Moses to lead the people to freedom: to demonstrate that God still had the power and the will to provide bread in the desert, to make a way in the wilderness.

                This is true, and can be trusted. This is a story for our time. When people at the bread of their own land, when everyone had, so to speak, their own vineyards and their own fig trees, when we were self-sufficient, perhaps then we didn’t need this story so much. But now, we live in a land of foreclosures. We live in a land of broken homes and broken dreams. We are afraid that we might watch our children suffer. We are afraid that our children might see us suffer. We are shadows of our former selves, we are exiled from the land of plenty in which we used to live and we pine for the days of plenty. But the way forward is not backward. We step tentatively into an unknown future.

                And we bless bread, and break it, and share it with one another to remind ourselves and each other, that we don’t need pharaoh’s bread, or Caesar’s bread. We bless bread and we break it to tell each other something true about God: God provides bread in the desert, fountains in the wilderness. God provides. This is true, and can be trusted. Amen.