Do Lent, or not do Lent

by Rev. Talitha Arnold, Senior Pastor, United Church of Santa Fe

“What the heck is Lent?” a friend asked. “What’s with the ashes, the morose songs, the somber colors? I thought the United Church was for happy Christians. Why do we have to do Lent?”

Truth be known, we don’t. “Doing Lent” or giving up something for the next 40 days isn’t required at the United Church of Santa Fe. As part of the United Church of Christ, we’re in the reform Protestant tradition (Congregational, Disciples of Christ, Baptists, etc.) that historically didn’t “do” Lent. In fact, many “free church” Protestants looked with suspicion on Lent. Some still do. Lent was something those Catholics, Lutherans, or Episcopalians did. The ashes, giving up meat or candy, all that purple was a bit too Popish or liturgical for our tastes. As my friend said, we were supposed to be happy Christians.

Other Protestants didn’t mark Lent, because as one friend observed, in her church it was Lent all the time. With all the rules against dancing, drinking, and card playing, they didn’t have anything to give up!

So technically, we don’t have to do anything or give up anything for Lent at the United Church of Santa Fe. But many of us have found that Easter has deeper meaning, if we set aside Lent’s 40 days for something other than life or business as usual.

If we wanted to sing in a concert, we’d need to set aside time to rehearse. To compete in a basketball tournament, we’d take time to practice our free throws. The same is true for our experience of Easter. To know new life in any form—spiritually, physically, intellectually—we need to take time to practice. Setting aside the 40 days of Lent for study, prayer, silence, and other spiritual disciplines is a way to engage new ideas, new feelings, new possibilities.

Sometimes to let in new life, we also have to let go of some things. Before you start a new project, you might need to clear off your desk. Before you ran a marathon, you might want to shed some weight. The same is true of our souls. Sometimes we need to clean out and shed extra baggage to make room for something new.

Observing Lent is not required for admission to Easter at the United Church. Come Easter morning, you’ll be as welcome at United as you are any morning.

But perhaps if we take the 40 days of Lent to practice new life or if we set aside time to remember the sacredness of our lives and all life, then maybe, just maybe, Easter might have a new meaning for us this year. We don’t have to “do Lent,” but we might be surprised what’s possible if we do.

Fasten your seat belts—Lent has come!

Get ready—because Easter is on its way!

Lent: It’s the most wonderful time of the year!

by Rev. Deb Church

“…for dust you are and to dust you will return.” (Genesis 3:19b, NIV)

You may or may not know that this coming Wednesday, February 22, 2023, is Ash Wednesday… which marks the beginning of the season of Lent…which will take us, before we know it, to Easter. Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! 

But wait—first, Lent. Woo hoo! Everyone’s favorite time of year! Who doesn’t look forward to this season set aside for deep self-examination and grim-faced repentance? Who doesn’t love this period reserved for turning away from (bad!) fleshly debauchery and turning toward (good!) spiritual disciplines? 

Who doesn’t count down the days until it begins–this opportunity to focus intentionally on our sinful nature and our need for repentance? 

Lent–say (sing??) it with me: “It’s the most wonderful time of the year!” 

Wait…that doesn’t seem quite right…

Or maybe it is… 

What if we thought of Lent not as a forced opportunity to focus on our sinful nature, but instead as a chance to claim more deeply our true identity as God’s beloved, and consider what are the parts of our personality that are keeping us from embracing that more fully? 

What if we thought of Lent not as a period reserved for begrudgingly giving up something we do that’s “bad” for us and equally begrudgingly taking on something that’s supposedly “good” for us, but instead as a window of opportunity during which we’re given permission, and in fact encouraged, to recognize and step away from the things that keep us fractured and frantic and broken, and make choices instead for what brings us healing and wholeness and peace–which, yes, might possibly include allowing more space for the Divine Source of our being in our day-to-day living? 

What if we thought of Lent not as a season of somber self-examination and grim-faced repentance, but instead as a recurring invitation for honest and humble reflection on who we are, who we want to be, who God is calling us to be, and how we’re living our “one wild and precious life?” (from Mary Oliver’s poem, This Summer Day) as one (and a collection) of God’s beloved?? 

Is it possible that Lent is the most wonderful time of the year?? 

Maybe, just maybe…

May God’s Holy Spirit, and an openness in our human spirits, be with us all as we prepare to enter this holy season, in all of our glorious humanity!

Attributes of God: Free from Anxiety

by Rev. Teresa Blythe

Don’t know about you, but I, like millions of others right now, have anxiety issues. “Generalized Anxiety Disorder” is the technical term my therapist writes down in their little notebook. I’m not ashamed to admit this. In some ways, when you look around at all that is going on in the world, like…

  • Mass shootings
  • Raging war in Ukraine
  • Wildfires, drought, floods, the shrinking ice caps in the Arctic
  • Lack of affordable housing
  • Inflation
  • Political division and threats of civil war

Well, if you’re not a little bit anxious, you just aren’t paying attention.

In our continuing exploration of the attributes of God found listed in the apocryphal book of Wisdom (7:22-24), our lovely Wisdom passage tells us that the Divine is free from anxiety. 

For Wisdom, the fashioner of all things, taught me…

…there is in her a spirit that is free from anxiety.

This is also something Jesus —  a New Testament Wisdom figure — told us: “don’t be anxious about anything,” in Matthew 6:25-31.

What would it be like to be free from anxiety? To have hope that God, working through all of us, can bring about a more peaceful, sustainable, and just world?

This attribute of God is one reason I attend worship. In my congregation, we never ignore the injustices of the world but at the same time we always emphasize God’s grace and the hope for change. It is this hope that has the ability — if I allow it — to calm my anxious spirit.

Anxiety can easily raise my blood pressure. This morning, as I prepared for the day and did my daily blood pressure check, it was borderline high. So, I took 15 minutes to sit, breathe and be in the presence of God (the one free from anxiety!). After finishing, I rechecked and sure enough, my blood pressure was back to normal.

We can’t singlehandedly make the world a more just and sustainable place. We can, however, sometimes lower our anxiety-produced-high blood pressure if we…

  • Check in with ourselves. Ask “what do I need right now?”
  • Take several slow, steady, deep breaths.
  • Let go of anxious thoughts with our favorite mantra or just saying “I let it go.”
  • Allow God to absorb our worries and burdens for the time being.

Knowing that God is free from anxiety can be inspiration for us. We won’t be free from concerns and anxiety all the time (we need some of it for self-preservation), yet we can give ourselves the breaks we need to continue our work toward a better, more just world.

Balanced

This is Conference Minister Rev. Dr. Bill Lyons’ message preached at First Christian Church UCC/DOC in Las Cruces on Sunday, July 24, 2022.


38Now as they went on their way, he entered a certain village, where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. 39She had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to what he was saying. 40But Martha was distracted by her many tasks; so she came to him and asked, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me.” 41But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; 42there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.” Luke 10:38-42

Martha is fussing, and Mary is listening. Martha is wrong and Mary is right. Right? Or maybe, Martha is doing what a woman is supposed to do (serving) and Mary is doing what a man is supposed to do (learning)[1] so when it comes to the cultural norms and gender expectations of their day, Mary is wrong, and Martha is right. Or maybe, Martha is attending to the needs of others, and Mary is doing something more like what the priest and Levite were doing in the story just before today’s text, focusing on things above. And in that story – the story of the Good Samaritan – someone neglecting the needs of people, especially hurting people right in front of them, in favor of focusing on things above got scolded by Jesus. And in today’s story, that response is reversed. Jesus scolds Martha who is attending to the needs of others and the honor of her house, and he commends Mary. One thing that is certain about this passage is there’s nothing simple about it! A second certainty is that the story of Mary and Martha opens a profound window for understanding the Realm of God as Jesus understood it, and as Luke and the early church tried to live it.

The Rev. Dr. Niveen Sarras is a Hebrew Bible scholar and pastor at Immanuel Lutheran Church of Wausau in Wausau, Wis. She was born and raised in Bethlehem, Palestine. About Mary and Martha she writes:

In my culture and in first-century Palestine, hospitality is about allowing the guest to share the sacredness of the family space. The women’s role is to do all of the cooking and food preparation. It is very unusual for Palestinian women to join male guests before they are done with all the food preparation. In my culture and Jesus’, failing to be a good hostess means disrespecting the guest. 

The traditional interpretation of Luke 10:38-42 presents the narrative as a problem between Martha and Mary, but it is about the two kinds of ministries: diakonia and the word. Marta represents the ministry of diakonia, and Mary represents the ministry of the word. Jesus does not prefer the ministry of the latter over diakonia. Instead, Jesus does not want the diakonia to be at the expense of the ministry of the word. Both ministries are important.[2] 

Luke’s point in chapter 10 is that hospitality quintessentially marks membership in the people of God. When the seventy received their mission, a community’s hospitality was the proof of participating in the Kingdom of Heaven. Hospitality defined the Samaritan as a good neighbor. And in the next chapter, Luke 11, the tell of a friend is their willingness to give you good things when you ask for them, even when doing so inconveniences or costs them.

Jesus told the story of the Good Samaritan when he met a man skilled in Biblical study who had trouble living God’s Word in relationship to his neighbors. Luke “shock[ed] [his readers] because they did not expect a Samaritan, an enemy…, to be their neighbor and succeed in what their religious leaders failed to do.” [3]  In this story Jesus met a woman so busy serving others that she wasn’t listening for God’s Word.[4]  Luke shock[ed] his audience again” when he welcomed Mary as a student.[5] 

Recovering the symbiotic relationship between the ministry of service to a broken and hurting world and deeply listening to the words of Jesus can be a step toward healing the divisions in today’s Church and empowering us for being Kin-dom of God friends, Realm of God neighbors. Notice that “Jesus does not ask Martha to give up the ministry of diakonia; instead, he intends to relieve Martha from her anxiety and exhaustion by inviting her to join her sister in learning from him. Then, she can resume her hospitality with her sister.”[6]

These past several weeks I’ve spent a significant amount of time offering a progressive Christian witness in the public square. Listening to the stories of our neighbors about the impact of unaffordable health care and resulting medical debt has been heartbreaking. Listening to the anger and determination of young activists whose communities have been targeted by voter suppression laws has been inspiring. Crafting public statements and working on ballot initiatives in what the UCC Statement of Faith calls “the struggle for justice and peace” is exhausting! Sitting at the feet of Jesus listening deeply to his words grounds us, calms us, reminds us why we are doing ministry in the public square. Without the doing – the struggle, the risks, the solidarity with and accompaniment of our neighbors, “faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.”[7]

Last Saturday while moderating a webinar to inform, educate, and mobilize progressive churches for reproductive rights I heard both Rev. Dr. Cari Jackson with the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Right and Brittany Fonteno, executive director for Planned Parenthood AZ say they were engaged as Christians in the fight for abortion rights not in spite of their faith but because of it. They are women who model for me the ministry of hospitality – neighborliness, and friendship – built upon a foundation of sitting at the feet of Jesus and deeply listen.

More than that, these women are the voice of Jesus for me. The Word of God that Mary was drawn to was not written on the scrolls in her synagogue. The Word of God that engaged Mary was the Word of God embodied and the words he spoke. Balancing the tasks of hospitality with the ministry of the Word means sitting at the feet of our neighbors and listening to them too, for they have a Word from God for us told in the stories of their lives. Jesus always taught us about the Realm of God through the lens of human experience. Jesus was focused on people not issues. He always interpreted the issues of his day through the lens their impact on people’s lives. And when challenged with a decision between what his Bible said and doing the compassionate neighborly thing, Jesus always chose hospitality.

Martha, thank you for opening your home to us this morning. Mary, thank you for your calm non-anxiousness in the midst of swirling surges of busy-ness and doing. Jesus, thank you for affirming countercultural gender roles, and for reminding us that actions related to loving mercy and doing justice and spending time in your presence listening deeply are two sides of a balanced life for everyone invited to your banquet table.

“If we censure Martha too harshly, she may abandon serving all together, and if we commend Mary too profusely, she may sit there forever. There is a time to go and do, there is a time to listen and reflect. Knowing which and when is a matter of spiritual discernment. If we were to ask Jesus which example applies to us,” Martha or Mary, “his answer would probably be, “Yes.”[8]


[1] Swanson, Richard W. Provoking the Gospel of Luke: A Storyteller’s Commentary. P. 167.

[2] Sarras, Rev. Niveen. https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-16-3/commentary-on-luke-1038-42-5

[3] Ibid.

[4] Craddock, Fred B. Luke (Interpretation: a Biblical Commentary for Teaching and Preaching. P. 151

[5] Sarras, Rev. Niveen. https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-16-3/commentary-on-luke-1038-42-5

[6]Ibid.

[7] The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version (Jas 2:17). (1989). Thomas Nelson Publishers.

[8] Craddock, p. 152

Pick Up Your Mat and Walk (Part 2!)

by Rev. Deb Worley

Jesus said to him, “Stand up, take your mat and walk.” At once the man was made well, and he took up his mat and began to walk. (John 5:8-9, CEB) 

For those of you who were here last Sunday, you may be wondering if I forgot to change the Gospel passage for today, and accidentally read the same passage as last week! Whoops! That’s embarrassing!! 

Except, I didn’t forget to change the Gospel passage. I chose to stick with this passage for another week. When I went home last Sunday, after worship and then the “God Sightings” discussion, I felt like there was more to consider, more that needed to be said. Which is true, of course, with every scripture passage, always! There’s never a time when everything has been said that needs to be said about any one scripture passage. It’s the Living Word. There’s always more to say…because God is still speaking. 

But with this passage in particular, at this particular time, I felt the need to have another go. So…here we go! 

Because not all of you were here last week, and because this past week has been…well, it’s been quite a week…I’m going to start with a very quick review of the gist of last week’s sermon.  (Part 1)

Those of you who were here will likely remember the story I began with, about growing up on a farm in upstate NY, and a specific memory of my dad asking my then-teenaged brother, one wintry day, if he’d like to help him bring in some wood for the wood stove, and my brother saying, “Umm, no,” and my dad getting mad and my mom telling my dad that if he wanted my brother to help him, then to just tell him to help him, don’t ask him! Remember?? 

Well, as you can see and have heard, all three of those family members are here this morning! And all three of them will confirm the veracity of that story after the service, if anyone was thinking I made it up…  

But then I shifted from the question my dad asked my brother, to the question Jesus asked the man in today’s passage: “Do you want to get well?” 

And I pointed to how the man didn’t respond with yes or no, but with some of the reasons he hadn’t gotten well up to that point, some of the reasons he was still sick after thirty-eight years of sitting by the side of the pool…

And I imagined some of what the man might have been feeling: hopelessness, discouragement, despair. I imagined that he might have felt like being well would take more courage than he had, that doing things differently than he had done them for his whole life would take more strength and commitment than he had, that stepping into a new way of living would be hard and uncomfortable and scary–even if that way of living led from sickness and a diminished self to healing and wholeness–and that changing, even for the better, would take more patience and practice than he thought he could find.

And I imagined how Jesus might have responded, from his heart to the man’s heart, taking into account his fears and his despair, his excuses and his stuck-ness, his reluctance to say, “Yes! I want to be well!”… And I wondered if we, too, might need to hear that response, because we, too, can be reluctant to commit to being made well; we, too, aren’t always sure that we have the courage and strength we need to be made whole; we, too, can doubt that healing is worth the hard work and discomfort and commitment that are required… 

And just quickly, here’s what I suggested Jesus might have communicated to the man by the side of the pool in his hopelessness, and what he might also be communicating to us in our own stuckness: 

Yes, it will be hard to be well. Harder than it has been to be sick. 

Yes, it will require courage. Remaining stuck is easy.

Yes, it will require strength. It takes no effort to keep doing what you’ve always done.

Yes, it will require patience and commitment and practice. I will get you started; you will have to keep choosing to be well. Day after day, hour after hour, moment by moment.

Yes, it will be uncomfortable and unfamiliar and scary. 

And it will be hard! Or did I mention that already?? 

Get up. Pick up your mat and walk.

Stop watching others participate in the world around you, and step more fully into living yourself. Live life more deeply and be who God created you to be more fully. 

Get up. Pick up your mat and walk.

What you’ve been doing all these years that’s comfortable? Do less of that. Leave that behind.

What you’re considering doing right now that feels uncomfortable? Do more of that. Walk toward that. 

Those thoughts of “It’s too hard. I’m scared. It doesn’t feel good!”? Acknowledge them, name them, say them out loud. And let go of them. They are not going to make you well. 

Get up. Pick up your mat and walk.

Walk forward. One foot in front of the other. One step at a time.

Walk toward healing. Toward wellness. Toward being whole.

And step into Life.

Get up. Pick up your mat and walk.

So, a lot of that was me taking literary license. Imagining what might have been going on in the man, and, yes, in Jesus. Imagining what it might have been like for someone who had been sick, who had been incapacitated, who had been diminished in his self, in some way, for 38 years, most of his life–and at that point to be offered healing… And I imagined what that healing might have looked like, what that healing would feel like, what, really, it was that Jesus was offering. 

And we are told, after Jesus said to him, “Stand up, take your mat and walk,” that “At once the man was made well, and he took up his mat and began to walk.” (Jn. 5:8-9)

And again, I can’t help but wonder!! Did it really happen like that? Was the man completely healed, once and for all? Able to walk with confidence and strength, without a single stumble or misstep, without needing to rest? Simply getting up and stepping into this new way of being, with no looking back? 

“Stand up,” Jesus told him. “Take your mat and walk.” And “At once the man was made well, and he took up his mat and began to walk.”

I wonder…because in our lives and in our world, we need healing. Desperately. In our lives and in our world, we need to be made well. There’s so much pain, so much brokenness, so much suffering, so much chaos, so much darkness…

We need healing, so that as people of faith we can stand up.

We need healing, so that as people of faith we can stand up and begin to walk.

We need healing, so that as people of faith we can stand up and speak up.

We need healing, so that as people of faith we can stand up and be light in the darkness.

We need healing, so that as people of faith we can stand up and fight for justice.

And, we need courage. And strength. And commitment. And patience. And practice. Because while maybe the man in today’s passage was completely healed, once and for all, never to stumble again, my experience has generally been otherwise, and I suspect yours has been, too. 

We can say yes to healing and stand up–with God’s help–and begin to walk toward healing–with God’s help–with courage and strength and commitment–with God’s help–and we still stumble. We still take missteps, maybe even falling flat on our faces. We still need to rest from time to time. 

But then we can say yes to healing again–with God’s help. And we can stand up again–with God’s help. And we can begin to speak up, with courage and strength and commitment–with God’s help! And then we stumble and misstep and fall and need to rest. Again.

And then we can say yes to healing again–are you seeing the pattern??–and stand up again, and be light in the darkness and fight for justice–all with God’s help. 

All, and always, with God’s help. 

With God’s help, always.

With God’s presence, always.

With God’s power, always

Hear these words once more, from God’s heart to ours, knowing that as God reaches out to us and offers healing and wholeness, God knows our fears and our despair and the comfort we find in our familiar stuckness. And God continues to call us to new life:

Yes, it will be hard to be well. Harder than it has been to be sick. 

Yes, it will require courage. Remaining stuck is easy.

Yes, it will require strength. It takes no effort to keep doing what you’ve always done.

Yes, it will require patience and commitment and practice. I will get you started, and will be with you; you will have to keep choosing to be well. Day after day, hour after hour, moment by moment. Again and again and again.

Yes, it will be uncomfortable and unfamiliar and scary. 

And it will be hard! Or did I mention that already?? 

All of that is true. And I am here, I am with you, and I want you to be well!

Get up. Pick up your mat and walk.

And this morning, hear these additional words:

Get up and walk–and when you stumble, which you will, reach out for me and steady yourself, and keep going. Get up and walk–and when you take a misstep, which you will, look for me and reorient yourself, and keep going. Get up and walk–and when you fall flat on your face, which you will, let me help you up and brush you off, so you can take a breath, and keep going. Get up and walk–and when you need to rest, which you will, rest. Find the sacred in your rest. And when you’ve rested, keep going. 

Get up. Pick up your mat and walk. 

And know that I am with you, always. 

May each of you, and me, and all of us, and our world, find the healing we so desperately need, the healing God offers us in Jesus Christ. 

Amen.

Mothering the World Right Now!

by Kay Klinkenborg

Climate change, war in Ukraine, starvation in Yemen and Afghanistan to name a few places that is happening. And a world pandemic continues.  The world is not the same.  We will not be returning to ‘normal’…whatever that was.   Pastor Paul Whitlock on April 3 gave a powerful sermon on FOMO…FLOP…FOMO.  I was quite taken with his creativity.  Fun On Moving Onward (FOMO) was his challenge.  Now what was I to do with that?  Instantly my feminine energy kicked into gear.

Mothering.  Creation has been ‘mothering’ since the beginning.  God speaks of ‘we’ in Genesis; not alone as Creator. Then other Hebrew Scriptures speak of Sophia, Wisdom; which has been interpreted by highly respected theologians as the feminine side of God. 

The Talmud also introduces the term Shekhinah to connote God’s presence in the world. Though the term is grammatically feminine, in the Talmud it is not explicitly gendered, though in some passages it refers to moments when God shares in human experiences of loneliness, loss, and exile.1

 In the case of Jewish thought, grammar at times meets theology in as much as impersonal Hebrew nouns are gendered, so that words like hokhmah (wisdom) and shekhinah (presence) over time lent themselves by virtue of their feminine.1

In fact, the personal name of God, Yahweh, which is revealed to Moses in Exodus 3, is a remarkable combination of both female and male grammatical endings. The first part of God’s name in Hebrew, “Yah,” is feminine, and the last part, “weh,” is masculine.2

I am pleased that I can attest to many men I know that use ‘mothering characteristics’ in their relationships and interactions.  I am not suggesting that this is a woman’s task at all.  In fact, I think history and biblical interpretations show us that feminine traits are revered.  And our world right now needs that kind of love!.

Remember the famous song: “What the World Needs Now is Love, Sweet Love.”  One word most will resonant with to describe that is a verb:  mothering.

Since the beginning of time…’mothering’…to nurture…to care for…to watch after’ has and does occur.  It had to have occurred or evolution would not have sustained, extended or be continuing.  As the human species evolves our archeological discoveries tell us that ‘mothering’ occurred.  It is nature’s form of care taking, survival of the species.

One major thing I have learned more about these past three years… ‘getting out of God’s way’.  My instinctual need to control, be in charge is being challenged.   I am learning more about the spiritual discipline of surrender.  Let God evolve.   There is no surprise that we have a pandemic. There have always been pandemics, disasters, wars, a disappearance of life as we understand it.  That there is a new virus is not news.  Our ownership that this can happen to us is what is new.  This is nature. This is the evolving of life in this known Universe.

I have found myself ‘shoulding’:  I should do this; I should say that; I should not be having this fear and anxiety.   A sampling of my should list.   What about ‘mothering myself’?   What about starting there in order to have the energy and compassion to extend to others?   If I can have compassion for my own journey/feelings during this extraordinary time in history, will not that enable me to understand/hear and have compassion beyond myself.  Then I am ready to extend ‘mothering’.

Only in self-compassion and owning my own emotions in this particular journey will I then have the energy and compassionate response to others to be mothering the world.  Mirabai Starr writes in her book Wild Mercy: Living the Fierce and Tender Wisdom of the Women Mystics, “…we need a mothering of the world together right now.”    We need that feminine energy that is male and female brought forth to face these challenges.

I want to explicitly point out the fact that women who have not born children… mother; men… mother,  It is part of our innate design if we own that part of ourselves.  A friend taught me a profound lesson about mothering;

One particularly Mother’s Day, I was quite depressed; estranged from our son and blaming myself for his adult choices. A friend sent me a text that day that knew of the circumstances.  “Kay, you have been mothering people your entire adult life.  As a nurse, friend, manager, counselor, consultant and the list goes on.  So today claim all the mothering you have and do. Let that bring comfort.”

So I am challenging myself as I write to this audience, let my ‘mothering show forth’; let my love be visible and make me an instrument that releases a song of ‘Love, Love, Love…’

Going on without denying any aspect of the human drama is what strength is all about. We are carved by life into instruments that will release our song, if we can hold each up to the carving.
Mark Nepo
 

1”Feminine Images of God”:  Yehudah Mirsky, Jewish Women’s Archive.

2CBE (cbeinternational.org) (Christians for Biblical Equality). “The Feminine Imagery of God in the Hebrew Bible.” Joan P. Schaupp | October 30, 2000.

Good Enough Faith Keeps Coming Back

by Southwest Conference Minister, Rev. Dr. Bill Lyons, as preached at Scottsdale Congregational UCC on Easter Sunday, April 17, 2022

Easter presents real challenges. It has from the very beginning.

How exactly were the troops going to explain the disappeared body on their watch? Are they really going to tell their superiors: there was suddenly a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord, descending from heaven, came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow.

How were the women going to move the stone? And when they found the tomb opened already, imagine their shock and agony and fear!

Mary Magdalene didn’t wait for explanations. John tells us “she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.” Resurrection didn’t even enter Mary’s mind when she first visited the open tomb. The other women went inside and were perplexed. Messengers – one or two, no one quite remembered – on the stone or inside the vault, that got mixed up too – it’s tricky – but everyone agrees – messengers in dazzling clothes appeared out of nowhere and said, “Don’t be afraid. I know why you are here. The one you watched die three days ago is alive and He told you this would happen. Remember his words? By the way, he’s heading to Galilee and you can see him there.”

That last line in the angels’ message sounds like a set up. Go to Galilee?! Where Herod ruled and John the Baptizer lost his head?! Jesus’s followers had been in hiding for the last three days. They had plenty of examples of what Roman troops did to the friends of people who had been crucified. And now with the body missing, who do you think the troops identified as ‘people of interest’ in connection with all of this? That’s more than tricky!

Two disciples took the risk and ventured out – back to the cemetery. One went inside; one didn’t. No telling who was in there waiting for them. No angels this time, just a pile of grave wrappings and a shroud folded neatly on the niche where Jesus’s body should have been. Well, part of the women’s story was accurate, anyway. I wonder if they looked at Mary who stood outside the tomb and thought. “Did you women stage this? How did you manage it? Where did you put the body? Do you realize what will happen if the troops find out?!”

Nobody believed the women. The first resurrection sermon had no takers. Talk about a problem with Easter!

Mary stayed at the tomb after everyone else left. It’s the last place she’d see her Lord. She was looking for answers. She was looking for Jesus, albeit a dead Jesus. When she found him she couldn’t see him even when the living Jesus, a man she’d spent years following and living in community with, stood right in front of her talking. Her faith wasn’t ready for that. But she’d come back. And when Jesus said her name, she believed!

It took Mary two visits to accept the living Christ. It’s not how many visits it took that mattered. What’s important is that she came back, kept looking, kept listening.

It’s not always in church that we find ourselves re-visiting his tomb or that we hear Jesus say our name.

Ambulance attendants wheeled him into room 14 – the resuscitation suite. He had been found in a doorway of a downtown building unresponsive. The clinical signs told us he had been dead for quite some time. Still, the ER team did everything possible. Then the moment came to stop the effort, and a time of death was pronounced by the attending physician.

An hour or so later the deceased man’s family members and friends began arriving at the hospital and I was called to meet them. They cried and held each other and began to pray and to sing. Their pastor arrived and anointed the body. Then she turned to me and said in broken English, “You tell doctor shock him and he will live now.”

In the break room the attending physician looked at me with wide eyes. “WOW! Chaplain, if they can bring him back with prayer, I’ll start going to church.”

“Doc, I go to church because I know one man God brought back after three days. But right now, I need you to come in and explain to his family that this man has already been shocked and is gone. I’ll take it from there.”

The doctor shook his head. He was well aware that only doctors were permitted to share medical information with families. So, he explained the reality of the team’s resuscitation efforts and the certainty of biological death compassionately and succinctly. The pastor looked right at him and said, “We prayed. You shock him and he will live now.”

Usually when docs finished that kind of conversation, they left the room and let the support team facilitate a grieving process. But this time the doc stepped back, leaned against the wall, crossed his arms, and was as attentive as every family member there. I offered my sincere respect and appreciation for the family and the pastor’s faith in a God who could raise the dead. I too believed in that God. I knew in the end everyone who died trusting Jesus will live again. And I also knew that sometimes, as possible as a resurrection is, God takes a person to live where God is. Silence. Startlingly the pastor responded with jubílense, “¡Alabado sea Dios, se ha ido a casa!” “Praise God, he’s gone home!” and she began to pray.

I heard his pager go off during the prayer, and when I looked up the doc was gone. He found me later and said he didn’t mean to be rude and walk out in the middle of a prayer. I said to him, “What I noticed was this time you stayed for the spiritual explanation of your patient dying.” He looked at me and smiled. “You noticed that, did you.” And then one of our pagers went off…

I wonder, how many trips to Jesus’s tomb we make over time? How have your expectations or questions about what you’ll find there changed since your last visit? Maybe you decided to visit Jesus’s empty tomb this morning wondering. “How?!” Or maybe you’re at the empty tomb again not having thought much about what you’d find – an obstacle or an opening, the expected or a surprise.

Maybe the resurrection seems “like an idle tale” – dazzling extraterrestrials, a three-days-dead corpse walking and talking – the same way the testimony of the women fell on the ears of the disciples.

Maybe you’ve been trying to “remember what he told you,” a faith from childhood, lessons from catechism, or a loved one’s witness.

Perhaps the angelic questions resonate with you. “Why are you looking for the living among the dead?” “Who are you looking for?” [pause] “Who are you looking for?”

Maybe you’re waiting for an invitation to “come and see,” to take a closer look at this place where Jesus is supposed to be found.

Perchance, like Peter,– you’ve seen and still aren’t ready to step in. Or maybe like John – you believe but just aren’t sure how to explain it all.

Or like Mary, you’ve been here before. You’re back because wondering why Jesus isn’t where you thought he’d be, asking questions, making bargains.

It’s even possible all of this leaves you at a loss for words and afraid.

It’s equally possible you heard Jesus say your name once, and you just want to hear it again.

Maybe Easter, is, for you, a day to say, “Alleluia! I’ve seen the Lord!!

Whatever brings you to the empty tomb this time, wherever you find yourself in the story, what matters is you are here! That’s good enough!! Surely there’s room for all of us to grow in our faith. Easter is for celebrating that whatever faith we have in the living Jesus, that’s good enough. Because whatever else we aren’t sure of in our faith, we can be certain of this: Jesus is alive enough to have brought you back. How much more alive does he need to be? Easter faith is good enough when it keeps us coming back. Christ is risen!

He is risen indeed!!

On Seeing Bucha

by Rev. John Indermark

Seeing Bucha

            On Sunday, its liturgy was blasphemous

                        An old man lying alongside his bike

                        Plastic ties around wrists that preceded the kill shot

                        A hand and a foot exposed from the sand half-filling a trench

Seeing Bucha

            The very name stung with reverberations

                        In German, buche is the word for “beech tree”

                        In German, wald is the word for “forest”

                                    In Germany, Buchenwald carried out the genocidal fever of Nazis

                                    In Ukraine, Bucha endured the same

Seeing Bucha

            Recalled for me the story told by Elie Wiesel in Night

                        A teenager himself imprisoned in Auschwitz,

                        Wiesel and the rest of the camp witness the hanging of three prisoners

                                    One of them is a boy

                                                Whose dying exceeds half an hour because of his small size

                        As the agony stretches on, a man behind Wiesel asks outloud

                                    For God’s sake, where is God?

                        Wiesel reports that he then heard a small voice inside him answer:

                                    Where is He? This is where – hanging here from this gallows . . .

Seeing Bucha                       

            God is seen – in an old man, in bound wrists, in a sandy trench                        

For if God is not there, God will never be seen.

The Art of Blessing

by Rev. Lynne Hinton

One Sunday at church a parishioner brought me a ball cap with her favorite NASCAR racer’s name embroidered on it. She wanted me to bless it because she was worried about the driver. She was only teasing and I simply heard her story and held the hat for a second. I didn’t so much try to ease her concerns with a prayer as I did listen to her, but her request did remind me of the real reason I love being a pastor.

If I were to explain why I most enjoy being an ordained minister, it wouldn’t be the preaching or the administrative responsibilities; it wouldn’t be the pastoral visits to the hospitals or nursing homes or the teaching of scriptures. I enjoy being a pastor because I love being called upon to bless things.

In the more than 25 years since my ordination into professional ministry, I have been called upon to bless lots of things and all kinds of events. I have blessed marriages and unions, meetings of the many and the few, animals of all shapes and sizes, life arriving and life passing, houses, doorways, and even a porch swing for a hospice patient afraid of some evil spirit that hovered near. I have blessed barren fields in winter and bountiful summer harvests, rain and sun, honorable choices to leave and to stay, foreheads on Ash Wednesdays, mended hearts, surgeries and the healing of every kind of disease and discontent. I have touched fevered brows and small cherub cheeks, skinned knees and burdened backs. I have blessed cookies and milk, pots of green chile stew, and long tables filled with casseroles, Jell-O salads, barbeque, fried chicken, and a variety of frosted cakes. And in all that time, it has always been my deepest pleasure to lead a person or a gathering into the consideration of being blessed.

I don’t bless because I think I am more qualified than anyone else to pray over potluck suppers, community gatherings, or crying babies. I do not consider myself more special or more knowledgeable than anyone else. In fact, much of the time, when I am called upon for a blessing I glance around the room and find many others who could do and have done a better job than I. But blessing stuff comes with the territory when you are a minister. Just as we look to the nurse or doctor to step in when someone faints or we look to a teenager for help with the computer, just as we ask the mechanic for tips on engine maintenance for our automobiles, we expect the minister to bless us.

The American Heritage Dictionary defines blessing as “an expression of good wishes. A special favor granted by God,” and “anything contributing to happiness.” I think of a blessing as simply calling attention to that which is wonderful, to a person or event or animal or memory or dream that makes us smile. To be blessed is to acknowledge that even if everything around us is empty, we are able to see that actually our cups are running over. It is to stop everyone from brushing aside life. It is to keep us from missing the splendid. It is to say, “hey, wait a minute, this is fabulous life happening here! This is a moment you will want to remember! This, for all its ordinariness, this is sacred. This is blessed.”

I didn’t ask for favor on my parishioner’s favorite racecar driver when I took the hat from her, but I did smile and thank God that she has something in her life that brings her delight, something that connects her to the world, something that engages and pleases her. The fact that she has found a little pleasure is in itself a great blessing. And I am the fortunate one who gets asked to call attention to it.

Common Tables

by Southwest Conference Minister Rev. Dr. Bill Lyons; the following is his keynote at the Common Tables interfaith prayer and networking luncheon at the Arizona State Capitol on Tuesday, March 29, 2022

Inviting everyone to the table is something between a buzz phrase and an overused platitude these days. We say it with the best of intentions trying to counter a hyper-polarized culture and the long-practiced injustice of exclusion. But what do we really mean when we invite people to the table?

“JOIN US” – WE WANT THEM TO FIT IN

There are the “join us” invitations. Sometimes we invite people to table because the time has come to acknowledge and interrupt the prejudices and biases that have silenced the voices of our neighbors. We feel embarrassed by the racism, sexism, ageism, classism, or heterosexism any one of a host of other ‘isms,’ and we want to stop the privilege, supremacy, and outright hate that have othered people to the margins. Our invitation to join us is intended to be an expression of our commitments to equal opportunity and fair treatment.

When people accept our “join us” invitation, we are quick to celebrate demographic diversity and the promotion of fair and equal treatment. But the celebration often comes too soon – before anyone new at the table has a chance to say anything. It really wasn’t their voices we valued or wanted among us, it was their numbers, their bodies if I may be so bold, something we could count, not someone to whom we wanted to listen or who might possibly change us. We wanted them to join us, to join US. The expectation was that if people can just share a common table everyone will realize “they are just like each other.” What we hold in common is idealized. The ways in which we are different get subverted to preserve harmony and avoid conflict. The tacit assumption in an invitation to “join us” is that “’we are all the same’ or ‘we aspire to being all the same.’” Because, after all aren’t we all the same in our deepest humanity? And the answer to that is most assuredly no.

BRING A DISH TO SHARE – WE WANT WHAT THEY BRING WITH THEM.

Then there are times we invite people to table with what I call a “bring-a-dish-to-share” invitations. A leader notices that the world around them is becoming a more diverse place while the organization they lead isn’t. Think of the business that wants or needs new markets, the church that needs new members, or the party that needs new voters in order to expand, or to remain viable, or to survive. Fear takes root – the fear of losing. The objective of bringing more voices, new voices, diverse voices to the table is really to gain access to or legitimacy with a more diverse clientele or constituency. The very qualities, characteristics, competencies and contributions that lead to that access or legitimacy are pigeon-holed rather than integrated. Integrating new voices would mean changing the way we do things, or even changing ourselves. Instead, people are exploited rather than being affirmed to bring their whole selves – culture, language, art, beliefs, orientation, and identity – to t e table. When that realization sets in people begin to feel devalued. Bring-a-dish-to-share invitations are born out of the desire to win. Practitioners of access-and-legitimacy diversity fail to realize that they’ve lost the long game.

“COME AS YOU ARE” – ONLY WITH YOU CAN WE BE OUR BEST SELVES TOGETHER.

When we are at our best – faith leaders, business leaders, political leaders, any leaders – we invite people to table with “come as you are” invitations. We are intentional, asking people to bring their whole selves to the conversation. We listen for understanding, not for the best way to make our next point. Together we are mindful that “I cannot remain the same because you have joined me at table.” Differences are not simply valued; they are integrated into everything that happens around the table. And at our very best selves, we tear down the old tables and build new ones together – tables of different substance and different quality.

My faith teaches me that in my humanity I begin to hear the infinite God whom I serve and worship by connecting with and listening to the voices outside myself, as many of them as possible. No voice from the margins can be excluded from the table without risking an unheard word from God, for God has habit of siding with the oppressed.

Today we are being offered “come as you are” invitations. The goal is building relationships in which prophetic calls can be issued and just actions taken. This is a time to be our best selves, to listen one another into understanding, to integrate the differences among us, to set aside our need for a personal win and join the effort for a team victory – the human team, by committing ourselves to building new tables of substance and quality. This is time to break bread together, and without trying to break one another, to find ways of including rather than excluding and therefor silencing as many voices as possible in our democracy, beginning in voting booths, extending to our borders, through the forging an economy that promotes personal dignity, by creating opportunities for rehabilitation, offering forgiveness, and removing stigma. Come as you are. Bring your culture, language, beliefs, and experiences. Be courageous and vulnerable. Together let us end our time together today better for it.