Tuesday, March 12thThroughout the year, the Massachusetts Conference of the United Church of Christ produces the Daily Lectionary for use by churches. These are the suggested readings for March 12th: Psalm 17; Zechariah 3:1-10; and 2 Peter 2:4-21. I would encourage you to read these short selections as part of your Lenten practice.
Yesterday, today and tomorrow the Lectionary directs us to read Psalm 17. When this is done, its purpose is to let the words sink in and to give us the time to consider them more deeply. This Psalm may be interpreted as a Psalm of Innocence. We can imagine a person claiming innocence and not finding justice. According to the Mosaic Law, such an aggrieved individual could take his or her case to a higher authority, to the Temple of God in Jerusalem. (Deut. 17:8-11) The court of last resort was God Himself and this Psalm is a prayer for vindication: “Hear a just cause, O Lord; attend to my cry; give ear to my prayer from lips free of deceit. From you let my vindication come; let your eyes see the right.” Since we are asked to read this Psalm during Lent, let us imagine its prayer on the lips of Jesus before His Passion. Maybe even in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus may have resorted to these familiar words: “If you try my heart, if you visit me by night, if you test me, you will find no wickedness in me; my mouth does not transgress. As for what others do, by the word of your lips I have avoided the ways of the violent. My steps have held fast to your paths; my feet have not slipped.” Jesus is sure of His blamelessness and a prayer for justice is not hard to imagine in the terror before His arrest. The Psalm gives voice to a faithful assurance that justice will be granted by God. The almighty will intervene to “confront” and “overthrow” the false accusers who threaten the person of innocence. This is the normal expectation one would expect when reading the Holy Scriptures. Imagine, then, the scandal of the perfectly innocent man Jesus dying on the cross. As the Father must look away on Good Friday, justice is replaced by sacrifice and mercy. Is it that at some point in a conflict one side must forsake justice in order to give peace a chance? Retribution feels right, but does it ever reach a conclusion? As Mohandas Gandhi is purported to have said: “An eye for an eye will leave everyone blind.” Does God in Jesus Christ accept the injustice that God would not foist upon any other than Himself in order to make reconciliation possible? Is this our salvation? I like to hope that the traumatized Jesus who may have prayed these words lingered over its parting message: “As for me, I shall behold your face in righteousness; when I awake I shall be satisfied, beholding your likeness.” May our Lenten meditations bring us ever closer to Jesus who loved us so unconditionally. ------------------------------------------- If you are interested, our Bible study group meets this evening and we are reading from Mark’s Passion. We meet at the church starting at 7:00pm.
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Monday, March 11thThroughout the year, the Massachusetts Conference of the United Church of Christ produces the Daily Lectionary for use by churches. These are the suggested readings for March 11th: 1 Chronicles 21:1-17; Psalm 17; 1 John 2:1-6. I would encourage you to read these short selections as part of your Lenten practice. It is all right to raise your eyebrows and your blood pressure when reading the Holy Scripture. It doesn’t make it any less holy when we read the Bible as thoughtful people of faith and find ourselves less than inspired by some passages. God has blessed us with minds to think not only to memorize. Appreciation for the Word of God is not a blind devotion to the Bible’s literal, inerrant, unchanging words. The Bible is a person’s and a community’s struggle to express Mystery, and that expression of Mystery continues to unfold through our engagement with those biblical words and the eternal Word behind them. I hope it has not become colloquial within the United Church of Christ for truly “God is still speaking.” This unleashes the ever-present mystery of the Bible’s inspiration. Let’s take today’s reading from 1 Chronicles as an example. Chronicles is a later work within the Jewish Scriptures. Its purpose is to retell the earlier histories of the Books of Samuel and Kings, but with a more rarefied theology that reflects the concerns of Temple priests and functionaries.
They were troubled by the words of 2 Samuel 24: 1-9 so they told it again, but with a slant toward their current perspective. The older book professed that Yahweh was the one who incited King David to take a census of the Israelites. God, in other words, provoked David to act so that God could then punish David for acting. The priests and Temple authorities were troubled by this divine set-up. They, therefore, created Satan to take the onus off of God. The inspired author of 1 Chronicles interpreted the earlier inspired author of 2 Samuel. There remains, however, the unsavory message that the powerful man responsible for the act that God judged sinful emerges unscathed while the innocent and powerless suffer by the tens of thousands. History repeats this travesty constantly. The powerless too often end up paying the price for the faults of the powerful. It doesn’t help me to feel any better about this injustice to see it in the pages of the Bible, and this is why the Bible is a mystery that needs to be continually read and interpreted. I appreciate the corrective found in the verses of 1 John. God, in Christ, is now our advocate more than our judge. Rather than being tempted into sin, we are called upon “to walk just as [Jesus] walked.” Rather than God’s angel with unsheathed sword, Jesus is our “atoning sacrifice.” And each person is judged on his or her own merits, and power or position do not protect from the divine accusation of “liar” when the righteousness claimed simply does not match-up with the way a person lives. Lent is a perfect time to go back to the Bible and read it again and not expect to know already what it says, but to let its mystery keep speaking to us and guiding us. First Sunday of Lent“May the words of my mouth and the meditation of our hearts be acceptable to you, O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.” (Ps 19:14) The Season of Lent always begins with the story of Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness. That can get us a bit too comfortable with the story, and comfortable is the opposite of what the temptation in the wilderness is all about, and it’s the opposite of what Lent is all about. So let’s start somewhere else. Let’s start with the Old Testament tradition about offering the first fruits to God. I was reading the other day about a guy and his dog who were stranded out in the woods in his car. The car got stuck in the middle of a snowstorm. He tried to walk out of the woods, but the snow was too deep for the dog, and the guy would not leave his dog behind. They went back to the car and hunkered down. Overnight it snowed again to the point that he couldn’t even open the car doors. All he had was a few packets of taco sauce to eat. He knew by now that people would realize he was missing. He was a builder and he had missed work. He trusted that people would be out looking for him, but how could he not worry sitting in a car buried in the snow? In such a situation, imagine how precious a package of even taco sauce becomes. When there is nothing much to eat, everything is delicious. Now let’s imagine we’re subsistence farmers in ancient Israel. We grow enough to feed ourselves and nothing more. Not because we’re lazy, but because even this takes all of our efforts and skill. As winter lingers, food supplies dwindle. Spring arrives. We plant, but still must wait. We’re hungry and at the point where even taco sauce is delicious. Finally, the first fruits mature. There’s not a lot, but there’s at least something. Now imagine taking those first fruits and giving them to God. What does God need with the first fruits? He’s not hungry. Is this just mean-spirited? Is this just a tradition of subservience? Or is something else going on here? What about trust? Can the offering of the first fruits be a dramatic symbol of unwavering trust in God? In an age when a bad harvest wasn’t covered by farmers insurance, when too much rain, rain at the wrong time, too little rain, damaging storms, even literal swarms of locusts could lead to starvation, the offering of those first fruits to God were a powerful statement of trust. I’ve told farmers around here that I would have ulcer on top of ulcer if I were one of them. No matter how hard you work, it can all turn to nothing because of so many factors outside of the farmer’s control. Imagine what it must have been like when a bad harvest meant that there was nothing to feed your family, not even taco sauce. In this kind of situation, the offering of the first fruits was an act of trust that God cared enough to help. We shouldn’t take this insight for granted, this insight that God cares enough to help. Maybe you remember your days in school reading Greek mythology. The gods could be mightily selfish. Maybe a hero or a beautiful woman would catch their attention for a while, but for the most part, the gods didn’t care. The gods used to watch the battles of the Trojan War, the old myths tell us. It was their entertainment. The injuries and deaths didn’t cause them much concern at all. Then came along these subsistence farmers of ancient Israel and they started professing belief in a God who cares enough to help. They trust in this God who knows who they are, these ordinary folk, these families scattered throughout the hills of the ancient Promised Land. These become the people and the traditions of Jesus. This brave new idea that God cares enough to help even an ordinary, easily overlooked subsistence farmer was a foundation of Jesus’ religious upbringing. This is the seed of His spirituality. This is what was growing in Jesus’ soul throughout all those years up until the time we meet Him in the wilderness in today’s Gospel. We hear today that Jesus is by Himself struggling to figure out His calling. Life in Nazareth was not the answer. Joining John the Baptist was not the answer. Now we read that Jesus has wandered deeper into the wilderness and that He has been alone and struggling with questions of identity and purpose for 40 intense days. If we are willing to understand Jesus’ temptation by the devil as an analogy for Jesus’ own inward struggles, we see Jesus wrestling with the question of who He is: “Am I to become a provider so that wants disappear? That’s the temptation of the bread. Am I supposed to be powerful so that fears disappear? That’s the image of the kingdoms. Am I to perform miracles so that doubts disappear? That’s Jesus jumping from a Temple tower. But Jesus rejects all these paths and really, these identities. We’re not told what He does accept, but right after this self-examination Jesus returns to Galilee and He explains His ministry by reading these words from Isaiah: “‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.’” And we’re back to the surprising notion of the God who cares about everyone. I think it’s only natural that we would wish Jesus had chosen otherwise. How amazing it would be if He could provide for all our physical needs, no more hunger or poverty. If He could be powerful enough to end wars and conflicts. If He could swoop down and perform constant miracles so there would be no more sickness or accidents. But instead, Jesus chose differently. Instead, Jesus reveals a God who cares about everyone and then goes out and preaches this message and shows it in how He lives and even how He dies on the cross, and then importantly, essentially really, Jesus asks us to follow Him by also committing ourselves to the same message that God cares about everyone. In a way Jesus’ temptations are also our temptations. Can we accept God without the bread, the kingdoms and the miracles and see Him instead in His call for us to work with Him and care for everyone, the forgotten, the ignored, and the ordinary, to help Him let the ones who may not believe, trust that God can set them free, and to proclaim with wholehearted enthusiasm: “Whoever you are, you are welcome here.”
We had a visitor in church last Sunday who saw this message on our sign outside and she smiled throughout the Service. Now she’s back home in Philadelphia, but she’s taking a picture of our sign to show her pastor. Maybe our Lenten journey can start by thinking about what a blessing it is to be able to deep down trust in a God who cares about everyone, and what a blessing it is to belong to a church that puts that gospel message on her sign for everyone to see, and maybe since Jesus even went to the cross to prove it, maybe we can continue His ministry of sharing this message of God cares about everyone with all whom we meet. For this may we pray in Jesus’ name. Amen. Collection Date: Sunday, March 31stOne Great Hour of Sharing® is the Lenten Offering of the United Church of Christ that supports disaster, refugee, and development activities. From the UCC One Great Hour of Sharing Offering and Endowment Fund:
"Thank you for your past support. Because of your generosity, in 2018 we were able to respond to a number of disasters worldwide. We provided disaster relief in places you most likely heard of in the news. We responded to: Hurricanes in Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, North Carolina, Texas and Florida; Fires in California; Earthquakes in Mexico, Indonesia, and Haiti, Flooding in El Salvador, Hawaii, and South India; and Volcanos in Guatemala, just to name a few. We helped people who were displaced from their homes due to conflict and violence, while providing sustainable solutions in places lacking adequate education, agriculture or health, internationally. The impact that the OGHS offering makes in the world has done more than we could imagine. But now more than ever, it would be easy to focus our attention on the places and people near and dear to us. If you are like me, you don’t have to look far to see a need that requires your help. Natural disasters have impacted many communities, the cost of almost everything continues to rise, and money just doesn’t seem to go as far as it once did. We may want to help, but think there is only so much we can do. Yet, there is more that needs our attention. Jesus calls us to love our neighbor, to feed, clothe and visit those whom the Bible calls the least of these. And it isn’t supposed to matter where people live. They are still our neighbors. They are still within our reach through our desire to help, through the arms of this church, and through the One Great Hour of Sharing offering." Saturday, March 9thThroughout the year, the Massachusetts Conference of the United Church of Christ produces the Daily Lectionary for use by churches. These are the suggested readings for March 9th: Psalm 91:1-2, 9-16; Ecclesiastes 3:1-8; and John 12:27-36. I would encourage you to read these short selections as part of your Lenten practice.
Very early tomorrow morning Daylight Savings Time returns, which means that we all need to push our clocks ahead one hour before retiring this evening. This does save daylight, but I hate losing that hour of sleep. Plus, it’s always on a Sunday morning that this takes place. How often have we seen someone arrive at church as the Service is ending because they forgot about “Spring ahead”? I wonder if the time-change has anything to do with the choice of our biblical selection from Ecclesiastes that we read today. The familiar refrain of “For everything there is a time …” ties in nicely with this semi-annual clock adjustment. Ecclesiastes is obsessed with time and its futility. The same fate awaits all people no matter who they are or what they do. Mortality stifles purpose: “What has been is what will be, and what has been is what will be done; there is nothing new under the sun,” (Eccl. 1:9) and therefore, “all is vanity.” And you do not want to read chapter 9 on a rainy, dreary day. The poetry of today’s Ecclesiastes selection speaks to this futility in as positive a manner as “the Teacher” can muster. As you read its verses, watch as the emphasis moves back and forth from beginning with a positive (i.e., born, plant) to beginning with a negative (i.e., kill, break). This recurs throughout. There’s no preference given to good or bad; there is only reality’s disinterest of “For everything there is a time …” Time is cyclical. Nothing new ever happens. Just embrace the moments of joy or purpose with gusto because time is a coin-flip that will not let them last. And then there’s Jesus. Everything changes. Time opens-up to the ineffable. The eternal-beyond-time breaks into the temporal and all that is bound by time. This does not make time irrelevant. It endows time with purpose and creativity. Those first Christians who gave us the New Testament were impressed with the fact that in Jesus all is made new. (cf. 2 Cor. 5:17; Rev. 21:5) Jesus experienced the reality of mortality and time. He was born and in today’s selection He knows that death is not far off. But … He knows there is more and the cycle of futility bound by time dies when Jesus conquers dying. Jesus gives us the hope of breaking out of the cyclical repetition of time, and offers instead the purpose of direction, of salvation. We’re on our Lenten journey, movement is involved. If we stand in place as time moves forward, we fall behind. Jesus is calling us forward. We must keep moving. Think back to His words: “‘’” Darkness will engulf the one who stands in place so instead we must walk while we have the light. Our light is Jesus and Lent is the sacred time when we have the chance to follow Him more deliberately. Let’s not let this time pass unheeded. Friday, March 8thThroughout the year, the Massachusetts Conference of the United Church of Christ produces the Daily Lectionary for use by churches. These are the suggested readings for March 8th: Exodus 6:1-13; Psalm 91:1-2, 9-16; and Acts 7:35-42. I would encourage you to read these short selections as part of your Lenten practice.
Today’s readings allude to the Exodus. This is the journey from Egyptian slavery to the freedom of the Promised Land. It lasted 40 years and this time of wandering became the time of Israel’s formation. The hardships and deprivations were real, but the shared experience united the twelve tribes. Furthermore, whenever they encamped or were on the move, the presence of God was at their center, literally and figuratively. The journey, not the destination, defined the People of God. The 40 years of the Exodus is a remote standard for Lent’s 40 days. We, likewise, are on a journey. We have been given time to relinquish our spiritual chains and prepare anew for the coming freedom of the Promised Land of Easter. Lent can be a time for our spiritual formation, a time to know Christ better, and to acknowledge His presence at the center of our lives. It is stated in the Book of Exodus selection for today that God revealed Himself previously, but now He has revealed Himself more personally through the sharing of His holy name, Yahweh, “I Am Who I Am” or even “I Will Be Who I Will Be.” God’s identity is existence itself, or maybe more daringly in the context of the Exodus, it is God’s becoming in His relationship with us. This idea of a closer, developing relationship with the divine is an important aspect of Lent. We move from formality to relationship. Religion becomes personal. God’s “name” is revealed in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, His "becoming" is incarnate in Jesus. The cross is not only our pass into heaven, but an intensely emotional bond with a Saviour who loves us more than Himself. If Lent accomplishes no more than this move from stagnant formality to the journey of relationship, then Lent will be successful. Most of our journey lies ahead of us. Let’s make the most of it. March 7thThroughout the year, the Massachusetts Conference of the United Church of Christ produces the Daily Lectionary for use by churches. These are the suggested readings for March 7th: Exodus 5:10-23; Psalm 91:1-2, 9-16; and Acts 7:30-34. I would encourage you to read these short selections as part of your Lenten practice.
I have been a pastor for 34 years in two rather different church denominations, and during this ministry I have seen people struggle and even walk away from their faith because we proclaim “almighty God” without context. If God is almighty, people have a right to ask, then why do I or a person I care about have to suffer? Does this mean that God does not care? After all, does not the Psalmist profess: “Because you have made the Lord your refuge, the Most High your dwelling-place, no evil shall befall you, no scourge come near your tent. For he will command his angels concerning you to guard you in all your ways. On their hands they will bear you up, so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.” But the facts dispute this assertion. Good people of faith do suffer. It is plain to see and it is one of the easiest arguments to throw against maintaining belief in God. People of faith and especially churches need to be cautious in proclaiming “almighty God” out of context for it can ruin a person’s faith. This is not the time or place to enter into a full discussion about the blessing of freedom, that our choices are real and carry consequence, that our freedom is essential to our being made in the image and likeness of God, that freedom is the basis of morality and rationality, and that freedom requires a reality in which God does not control everything that happens, not because He is not “almighty,” but because God respects our ability to choose, to think and to believe. This means God must leave room for us to act in a world that makes our actions meaningful so that we can examine, discover and create. Such a world is governed by amoral (not immoral) laws. When a tornado strikes in Alabama, for example, and kills one person and spares another, this is not a matter of deserving life or death, and it also not a matter of God not caring. This is, however, a time and place to remember Jesus’ temptation in the wilderness, the story that stands behind Lent’s 40 days. In the allegory of the devil’s temptations, he quotes the above Psalm. Jesus’ response is not deeply theological or philosophical. It speaks, instead, of relationship, of trust. This is His context to speak of “almighty God.” Jesus answers the temptation with the modest notion that we should not put God to the test. In other words, we need to foster a relationship that trusts God. Jesus knows that there is dissonance between reality and the Psalmist’s idealism. It cannot be brushed aside or answered with logical gymnastics for these fool no one, but Jesus trusts God and finds reassurance in this. Jesus’ trust will take an entire Gospel to explain, an entire life-story of faith to flesh out, but at the end of His life when Jesus faces the extremes of suffering, the context of relationship is more powerful. There are hard questions to the faith, questions that may defy adequate answer, but the relationship of faith can rise above all of this. And this is a worthy objective of Lenten exploration as we proceed on toward our suffering Saviour. Ash WednesdayThroughout the year, the Massachusetts Conference of the United Church of Christ produces the Daily Lectionary for use by churches. These are the suggested readings for March 6th, Ash Wednesday: Joel 2:1-2, 12-17 or Isaiah 58:1-12; Psalm 51:1-17; 2 Corinthians 5:20b—6:10; and Matthew 6:1-6, 16-21. I would encourage you to read these short selections as part of your Lenten practice.
Today is Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent’s 40 days. This is the time of our self-examination. We are preparing ourselves to approach the holy cross. We are getting ready to stand as witnesses of Jesus’ brutal crucifixion. In the Gospel stories of the cross, we read that bystanders, soldiers, priests and criminals are all taunting Jesus in His last hours of life. They mock Him for preaching that He came to save others and yet He cannot even save Himself. The irony is plain to see for any Christian, and it is intentional. The cross is Jesus’ willingness to even sacrifice His very life, and the cross is His last and most compelling act of salvation. His life, mission and proclamation insisted on the prevailing power of love and forgiveness, compassion and empathy. When this gospel was put to its greatest test as Jesus’ enemies tortured Him to death, Jesus remained steadfast. He would not reciprocate hatred for hatred, violence for violence. Instead, He laid out His arms and allowed them to be nailed to the cross. And with that act Jesus has opened His arms to embrace all people in God’s love. It’s true that He would not save Himself, but by choosing to die Jesus did save all of us. Ours is not only to marvel at what Jesus has done (but how can we not?). Ours is to make Jesus’ gospel our gospel. In the Isaiah selection above, it is third-Isaiah we are actually hearing. The people of the exile are starting to return to their homeland. They have before them the opportunity to not only re-establish the old kingdom, but to create a just and generous new society. Yahweh reveals through His prophet that ritual alone is not enough. The faith must be lived out beyond the houses of worship and among the people. Therefore: “Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them, and not to hide yourself from your own kin?” The cross is not merely to get us into heaven. The cross is to create heaven on earth. May Lent help us to realize that this does not have to seem so preposterous. Due to technical difficulties with the audio, the only parts that are provided in this tape from our Sunday Service is the Children's Sermon and the Sermon. We hope to have our technical problems rectified by the next time we tape on March 17th. Sorry for the background noise and for not being able to share the music and the congregational prayers. Rev. Randy
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