Advent

As the season of Advent approaches, we prepare to celebrate God’s generous gift to the world in the birth of Jesus.

We prepare by decorating homes, stringing lights, and lighting candles against the darkness of longer nights.  The light of the world is being born, and the darkness of the world will not overcome it.

We prepare by planning meals, travel and visits, and watching our favorite holiday movies (It’s A Wonderful Life is just one of the annual movies to be watched at our house this month). 

We prepare by being generous: sending cards to family and friends, making and buying gifts for loved ones, and giving money to the numerous groups who work year round to give a hand to people who have had tough breaks in life.

On All Saints Day this past year, I found myself thinking especially of my maternal Grandmother, Donna Harper, who died in 1998.  When I was growing up, I would often receive two kinds of Christmas gifts from my grandparents.  The first would be a toy I wanted, and the second would be a donation given in my name to a cause that worked to alleviate poverty, or to promote justice and conservation.  The package I unwrapped would include information about the people who would benefit, and a note of recognition.

At the time, you may guess that I paid more attention to the toy than to the donation.  But today, I remember the donations, not the toys, that she and Grandpa gave me.  In these gifts, they also gave me a moral compass, and this ingrained value: that we are responsible to each other in this world.  These were gifts to remember.

Sermon - Well Planted

Preached on May 20, 2012 – Seventh Sunday of Easter and Confirmation Sunday, at First Congregational Church of Tallmadge, Ohio, UCC.

Scripture Psalm 1

¹ Happy are those
   who do not follow the advice of the wicked,
or take the path that sinners tread,
   or sit in the seat of scoffers; 
² but their delight is in the law of the Lord,
   and on his law they meditate day and night. 
³ They are like trees
   planted by streams of water,
which yield their fruit in its season,
   and their leaves do not wither.
In all that they do, they prosper. 

⁴ The wicked are not so,
   but are like chaff that the wind drives away. 
⁵ Therefore the wicked will not stand in the judgement,
   nor sinners in the congregation of the righteous; 
⁶ for the Lord watches over the way of the righteous,
   but the way of the wicked will perish.

Sermon

“Happy are they whose delight is in the law of the Lord.  They are like trees planted by streams of water, which yield their fruit in its season, and their leaves do not wither.”

If you have lived a long time in this area of northeast Ohio, or in the wooded hills of Pennsylvania, West Virginia, you get pretty used to the landscape.  Several years ago, I found myself driving through Pennsylvania with my son and his friend, a college student who had grown up in Albuquerque, New Mexico.  It was the heart of summer, and she reminded us, at every turn of the highway, of what we’d gotten used to.

“That is beautiful!”  “Look at all the green!”   “The mountains are covered in trees!”  
“Yeah,” we said.

But her enthusiasm won us over, and we remembered what a wonderful landscape this is.

The psalmist who wrote about trees planted by streams of water, living in Israel, would have been even more shocked by the sight of forested mountains.  We’re used to trees growing just about anywhere.  But if we are to hear the word of this psalm, we have to become like a native of Israel, or New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada.  Where trees hardly grow at all except along the banks of a stream, their leaves form a curving highway of shade through a dry and hot landscape where little green can grow.  Become that person, and then we can read the psalm.  If you haven’t read the psalm with a heartsick longing for the shade and the fruit of one good tree, then you haven’t seen Shakespeare the way its meant to be performed.

Sermon - Testimony to the Resurrection

Preached on April 15, 2012 at First Congregational Church of Tallmadge, UCC.

Scripture   Acts 4:32-37

Now the whole group of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one claimed private ownership of any possessions, but everything they owned was held in common. With great power the apostles gave their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all. There was not a needy person among them, for as many as owned lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold. They laid it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need. There was a Levite, a native of Cyprus, Joseph, to whom the apostles gave the name Barnabas (which means “son of encouragement”). He sold a field that belonged to him, then brought the money, and laid it at the apostles’ feet.

Sermon

It is only a very short time between the evening of his resurrection when Jesus visits the disciples in that locked room and the day when the disciples are leading people who share one heart and soul and all that they possess.  Disciples hiding out in a locked room, and then, with the courage and passion of the risen Lord burning inside of them, they are described in the book of Acts giving, with great power, testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus.

Testimony to the resurrection.  Some of that testimony was in words, telling the story.  But what gave their testimony power is what it says in the very next line.  “There was not a needy person among them.”  With great power the apostles gave their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus.  There was not a needy person among them.  And I believe that the strength of their testimony, the reason it was convincing and compelling to others, was in the simple fact that there was not a needy person among them.

The Roman empire in which they lived was a society of extreme inequality.  The empire had great wealth, and built incredible structures that we marvel at to this day, but they were built on the backs of the poor.  In the empire, especially in Israel, there were needy people everywhere.  Right in the middle of that context, here is a group of people who share all things in common so that there is not a needy person among them.  Some people needed help, and others were well off, so their wealth was distributed among those who had need.  What a powerful alternative was the kingdom of God, a place of common good.  It was testimony to the resurrection.

Next month, I will travel once again to Boston with the 9^th grade students of the Confirmation class, because that is the birth place of the Congregational Church.  We will visit the historic places of the Pilgrims who founded Plymouth, and the Puritans who came a few years later to Boston Harbor and created that city, and also Cambridge, and the first college of the colonies, called Harvard.  Those early Congregationalists had in mind to do something very similar to the church in the book of Acts.  They came to create an intentional colony, an alternative society to the inequality of the corrupted European society.

John Winthrop was a leader of the Puritans in the Massachusetts Bay Colony, and he is perhaps best remembered for calling this new society a “City on a Hill” in a sermon he gave on the boat that took them to America.  City on a Hill – the phrase is often used these days as if it meant that America is especially blessed by God because of our unique qualities.  But that wasn’t what Winthrop was saying.  The sermon in which he used this phrase was titled “A Model of Christian Charity.  He was telling his fellow Puritans that they would create a society guided by charity toward one another, especially toward those whose need is greatest.  He posed the question “what rule must we observe [for those] in peril?”  And he answered “To give out of one’s abundance, but with more enlargement towards others and less respect towards ourselves.”

And then he said “we shall be a city on a hill.  The eyes of all people are upon us.”  In other words, people will see if there are or are not needy people among us.  They will see if we fail in the care of those most in need, most vulnerable, and if we fail, what kind of testimony would that be?  It would not be testimony of the resurrection.

Easter Sunday Homily

Preached in the historic sanctuary of First Congregational Church of Tallmadge, UCC, at daybreak on Easter Sunday, April 8, 2012.

Scripture   Mark 16:1-8

When the sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him. And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. They had been saying to one another, “Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?” When they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled back. As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man, dressed in a white robe, sitting on the right side; and they were alarmed. But he said to them, “Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.” So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.

Sermon

In Haiti, everyone knows how to carry things on their heads.  A jug full of water.  A large basket full of clothing, or groceries.  Most people walk wherever they have to go, and they have learned to carry things on their heads.  My nephew Rafe, all of twenty-two years old, was in Haiti for a week with a group from his church to lend their hands in building efforts: a school, damaged homes.  Rafe took pictures (and graciously allowed me to share some of them here with the sermon text) of the beautiful yet crumbling landscape: houses with giant holes in the roof and walls;  the old government palace - the dome of the roof tilted at a crazy angle, looking as if it will slide off the side of the damaged walls at any moment; and a cathedral that looks like the ruins of an old abbey in Europe, even though it was in use just over a year ago.  He took pictures of the pillars reaching up to a roof that isn’t there anymore, and of stone carved borders that used to hold stained glass, and of spray painted numbers on the remains of the outer wall.  The number was painted in the days after the earthquake, to tell how many people lay dead on the inside: a mark to say where the dead lay.

Palace Ruins

Cathedral Ruins

Number painted on the cathedral wall.

I wonder how Mary Magdalene Mary the mother of James, and Salome knew how to find the tomb where Jesus had been laid.  Was there a sign?  Had they followed Joseph of Arimathea, when he took the body to place in his own tomb?  Did they remember the way that the shrubs pushed against the left side of the entrance, or the irregular shape of the stone that was rolled into place to seal the body inside?  And did they make a mark of some kind: One lies dead here.  Jesus of Nazareth.

Faith and Movies - Oscar Nominees

The Oscars were awarded recently, and this is my cue to think about how our faith intersects with the movie theater.  The final Harry Potter movie wasn't nominated for any of the big awards (and didn't win any at all, not even make-up!), but I’d like to honor this impressive eight film series, filled with all the best British actors.  It is a tale of good and evil that has gripped a generation, and it imparts a sacred truth.  For all that Harry Potter and the villain Lord Voldemort have in common, their primary difference is that Voldemort sacrifices others for his own gain, and Harry Potter sacrifices himself on behalf of others.  In the climatic film that bears all the marks of the gospel, love triumphs over death.  Harry Potter’s last movie is a great one.

Spoiler Alert on this movie clip...

The Help

Best Picture nominee The Help, based on a novel about the African-American servants to wealthy Caucasion families in segregated Mississippi, asks some important questions.  While showing us the courage of people on both sides of the race line to confront the evil of prejudice and discrimination, The Help also shows us characters who agree that the situation is morally wrong, but don’t have the courage to act on it.  The movie reminds us that people with good hearts can do evil, and that sometimes we are captive to larger forces.  This is what the New Testament refers to as the “powers and principalities” of the world.  This is what causes good people to do bad things, when they feel caught in something that is out of their control, and it’s what the power of God works to dismantle.

Tree of Life

Good people doing bad things is a recurring theme in the most overtly religious best picture nominee: Tree of Life.  This movie is a meditation on the questions raised in the book of Job, why is there evil in the world, and why do we sometimes commit evil ourselves, against our own wishes?  Tree of Life is an unusual movie, told in beautiful fragments of memories and images, more like a poem than a story.  Centered on a couple raising three sons, the movie also reaches back to the creation of the universe in order to struggle with the two ways of life: the way of “nature,” doing whatever it takes to get ahead, and “grace” which finds strength in forgiveness.  Tree of Life is available to watch at home.  If you’re willing to try a different kind of movie, one that leaves you thinking without a clear resolution, Tree of Life is very rewarding.