Come back and visit our website to watch the video of this morning's worship.  It will be up on Monday evening or definitely by Tuesday.

“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)

It’s closing in on nine years since a friend of my daughter’s was involved in an accident on River Road in Whately.  It was a bad one.  I remember visiting her at Baystate Medical Center.  It was touch and go.  She survived, but was left paralyzed. 
A lot of people would have given up.  She was so active, and now she needed help to do everything.  I would have understood depression.  Instead, this strong, young woman grabbed life with more gusto than anyone I know. 

She plays basketball.  She wheel-chaired up Mount Washington.  She’s gone white water rafting.  She skies.  She’s fearless with her wheelchair.  She’ll go anywhere.  If she wipes-out, she picks herself back up, and off again.  And she mentors others who have been injured like she has and helps them physically and emotionally.

She’s the one you may have seen in the Baystate Medical Center commercials and billboards.  When I’m driving north on 91 in Northampton, I see her looking at me and as it says on the billboard, “I will not let a spinal cord injury define me.”  What an amazing attitude. 

Or how about the story of Paul and Silas that Amy shared with us today.  They’re dragged into the center of town.  A mob has gathered.  Paul and Silas are strangers and they’re talking about some strange new religion.  People don’t like that.  It gets them all worked up. 

The politicians go along with the mob.  Paul and Silas are stripped of their clothing and beaten with rods in front of a crowd who loves the spectacle.  They’re thrown into a miserable prison cell and their feet are locked into a stockade. 

Do they give up?  Just the opposite.  You know the way that girl wouldn’t let being paralyzed define her, how she drew on some inner strength and is far more adventurous than I would ever dare, well, Paul and Silas are like that too.  They would not let their situation define them.

It’s the middle of the night.  They’ve been beaten and people enjoyed it.  They’ve been locked up in some dirty, cold prison.  And they’re singing, says the Bible. 

Their faith gave them the freedom to not be overwhelmed by anything in this world. 
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Faith was liberating and powerful.  Thrown into prison – didn’t matter.  Beaten – didn’t matter. Despised – didn’t matter.  They were singing hymns at midnight because their faith set them free no matter what.  Now that’s the power of faith!

Jesus hears the singing and Jesus needs them to keep preaching so miraculously they’re freed from their chains, and the doors of all the prison cells swing open.  The jailor thought all the prisoners had escaped.  Back in that day, if they escaped it was his life that made up for the loss. 

He was ready to kill himself, but Paul yells from inside the cell, “We’re all here.”  It didn’t matter if they were in prison or had escaped into the night they were already free.  The jailer was so moved by this strange and powerful faith that he and his family were baptized.

Victor Hugo once said:  “There is one thing stronger than all the armies in the world, and that is an idea whose time has come.” 
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I wonder if it’s the time again for Jesus’ gospel.  I wonder if His gospel is the idea whose time has come – again.

Jesus’ gospel is not just Matthew, Mark, Luke and John – the Gospels.  It’s the entirety of Jesus’ message and life, and what comes from it.  Looking at the way the world is today, crass, selfish and violent, Jesus’ gospel is as strange now as when Paul and Silas upset the people in ancient Philippi. 

The gospel is as radical and uncompromising today as it was when it got Paul and Silas beaten and imprisoned.  We don’t have to be led by our fears though.  The gospel leads us by our dreams.  It lets us sing no matter what. 

And you know why?  Because the Good News, the gospel, is that Jesus believes in the good in us.  Jesus is so optimistic about who we are that we even have trouble hearing it. 

Think back to today’s Gospel.  Jesus proclaims that He and God the Father are one.  This is one of the key texts that led eventually to the teaching of the Trinity.  But then Jesus continues and says, “So that they [,Christians] may be one, as we are one.” 

Think about that.  …  Jesus and the Father are one.  Jesus shares that same glory shared between Father and Son with us:  “‘The glory that you [Father] have given me – I have given them.’”

That’s an amazing statement and we don’t really hear it because we’re so used to being told that we’re sinners.  But the gospel, the Good News is that we are like God. We share something of the divine nature.  And isn’t that the same message that the Bible begins with in the book of Genesis?  Isn’t it a consistent and optimistic message? 

God sees us for our dreams not for our fears.  He sees the good we are capable of.  There’s nothing stronger than “an idea whose time has come.”  I think and I hope it’s the time again to hear for the first time the strange message of the gospel, of the good we are capable of in Jesus.

It’s time to figuratively sing hymns in the prison, to realize that nothing in this world is stronger than our faith.  Let’s now come together at the Communion Table to feed our souls so that we are strong enough to be like God and to go out and startle the world with this new gospel.

In Jesus’ name we pray.  Amen.

“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)

A guy walks into a restaurant and the day's special is beef tongue.  He says to the waitress, "I don't want anything that came out of an animal's mouth.  That’s gross.  I'll have two eggs instead." 

I love steamers in the summer, but who was ever the first person to eat one of them.  They look ugly.  Or what about raw oysters?  Whoever slid one of them down the throat for the very first time? 

But somebody had to be first. 

Two wrongs, it’s said, don’t make a right, but two Wrights make an airplane. 
Somebody had to come up with the preposterous idea of human beings flying through the air, and Orville and Wilbur Wright were brave and smart enough to be the first. 
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I know a Minister who loves to travel to exotic locations that she’s never been to before.  She’ll go through the flight schedules for Logan Airport, find a non-stop to a place she’s never been, and off she goes.    
In a couple of weeks, she’s flying to Cape Verde off the Atlantic coast of Africa for the first time because of that very reason – it will be her first time there.  She loves the thrill of first time experiences.

And today we hear about some really important firsts.  The church was born in Jerusalem on Pentecost, and from there it began to spread.  People moved on and as they did they told others about Jesus.  The most successful of them all was a man by the name of Paul.

He was like my minister friend who’s going to Cape Verde.  Paul would go anywhere new.  He planned his trips by making sure that no one had gone there to talk about Jesus before him. 

One night Paul had a dream.  He felt called to cross over to a new continent.  He decided it was time to start talking about Jesus in Europe for the very first time.
He immediately heads off for Philippi.  This is all brand spanking new to Paul. 

He takes a chance and on the Sabbath goes down to the river suspecting that this may be a place where Jews would gather for prayer since they needed the water for ritual cleanings.  He was planning according to the expected. 

There is a gathering, but it’s of women.  Where are the men?  This isn’t a worship gathering after all.  Maybe this is a group of women washing clothes and enjoying the chance to talk with each other because they’re seldom allowed out of their homes unaccompanied. 

But the unexpected does not scare off Paul.  He doesn’t go looking for the men.  He joins the women.  He sits down with them. This is simply not done. 

On top of that, Paul doesn’t patronize them.  Paul preaches to them about Jesus.  Paul preaches to these women like they matter.  This is something radically new.  Religion was men’s business.  But Paul really believed Jesus when He said, “See I am making all things new,” like we talked about last Sunday. 
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Paul’s Christianity was a radical and disruptive equality and he had no problem breaking through the old rules and talking about Jesus to a group of women, and the church grew. 

And then we are told that Lydia believed, and for the first time Europe has a Christian.  Lydia was a strong woman.  Independent.  Not afraid to be a first.  In a day when men ruled their women, Lydia owned her own business.  And Lydia listened to Paul. 

She heard this message of a strange kind of God who loved His people so much that He died for them.  She saw how this man Paul treated her like she mattered in a world where this would not have been common.  And the newness of this message so impressed Lydia that she chose to become a part of it.  Faith was liberating and empowering. 

Think about this for an extra moment.  Think about what the biblical author is telling us.  Last Sunday I mentioned that no one who had read only the Old Testament could ever have expected Jesus. 

Now we hear that the first Christian in Europe was not a man as would be expected.  The first Christian in Europe was converted by an apostle who dared to talk to women like they mattered, and that first convert was a free-thinking business-woman. 

Paul shouldn’t have done what he did.  Lydia shouldn’t have done what she did.  And Christianity shouldn’t have barged into Europe among a group of women washing clothes.  But this story is told because Christianity’s message is anything but ordinary or expected.  It is filled with the courage and conviction of firsts and first-timers. 

It offers us God’s new and different, and what a shame it is when the faith settles for anything less, when it loses its thrill of exploration. 

Jesus needs us to take those first time opportunities to be like Paul did when he spoke to those women about his faith. 

That respect for each other no matter who the other is central to our faith.  It should be obvious in the way we live.  And what a pleasant change that would be in our world today.  Respect.  The meanness has become tiring. 

I was so impressed by the pictures I saw of Danielle and Brian and their supporters outside of Town Hall on election day.  Two candidates competing against each other for a spot on the School Committee, but with respect for each other.  Maybe politicians higher up the ladder could learn from this, and what a wonderful first that would be. 

And Jesus needs us to be also a first like Lydia.  Don’t let others define who we are and what we’re supposed to do or be.  That limits God and it limits us, and that doesn’t work for Jesus.

Jesus gives us the courage to be ourselves and it simply does not matter what anyone else says or thinks.   Jesus made us who we are, and He loves us like this.  There’s only one of each of us so whoever we are becoming is a first.  That’s why we need to be like Lydia.  Jesus lets us be happy being our own first.   

Paul went into Europe when no one knew who Jesus was or what a Christian was supposed to be, and I think a lot of people today don’t know what our faith is all about.  I think even some Christians have defined Christianity in strange ways, filled with judgment, anger and violence.

Maybe people are just tired enough of the usual ways of the world and of that kind of religious message to be ready to listen again for the first time to the startling new and liberating message of Christ and church. 

May this be our prayer in Jesus’ name.  Amen.

“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)

I’ve always enjoyed the biblical story of Tabitha.  I think one of the reasons I’m drawn to it is that Tabitha’s Greek name is Dorcas.  She lived in Joppa, which is a coastal city of ancient Israel. 

Any of these port-cities would have had a large number of foreigners, and Greek was the shared language among all of them.  It’s like today you can go almost anywhere in the world and find someone who speaks English. 

So Tabitha was also known by her Greek name of Dorcas.  Her story is beautiful, but I don’t know of anyone today who is so impressed by it that they would dare name their daughter Dorcas.  It would be brutal in elementary school with that name. 

Tabitha was a saintly woman.  It is said of her in the Bible that she “was devoted to good works and acts of charity,” and that she was a disciple, which means she was one of those first-generation followers of Jesus. 

When she passed away, the community gathered around her and mourned her death wailing in sorrow.   They send for Peter who is in a neighbouring town.  They show him all of the clothes that Tabitha had made for them over the years.  Peter is so moved by Tabitha’s Christian charity that he ushers everyone out of the room.  Now it’s just Peter and the deceased Tabitha.  And Peter prays to Jesus for a miracle.  Peter prays that Tabitha may come back to life.  The Bible then only tells us that this is exactly what happens, and Peter presents the re-animated Tabitha to all the mourners who rejoice.  But the Bible leaves out the reaction of Tabitha when she was alone in that room with Peter, and this leaves an opening for our own imaginations. 

Tabitha had been a tireless saint, constantly doing for others.  She would be hot and sweaty, dirty and tired, but she found a way to help everyone around her.  When she died, those who loved her washed her body clean and laid her comfortably to rest on a bed.  On the other side, she met Jesus.  She witnessed the wonders of heaven and felt the reward of rest and peace that comes after a life well led.  She was so happy. 

Then there’s an intrusion into all of this heavenly paradise.  Peter’s voice can be heard booming through the tranquility of heaven’s streets.  It’s a passionate prayer that Tabitha be returned to earth.  Jesus looks at the startled woman with tenderness and a little regret, and the next thing she knows she opens her eyes and she’s back in Joppa. 

There’s Peter smiling, but it’s not hard to imagine her closing her eyes tightly again and trying to fool Peter and maybe sneak back to heaven, but Peter knows.  He waits, and eventually she peeks at him and then says something like,  “Just let me lie here for a while, I’m exhausted.  It’s so nice to be clean and the bed is so comfortable.”
But Peter takes the bewildered woman by the hand and leads her out to all of those she had served so tirelessly.  It reminds me of when Jesus healed Peter’s mother-in-law.  It’s one of Jesus’ first miracles. 

He heals the woman and then the Bible says she got up and served all of them.  Peter’s mother-in-law was made well enough to cook and serve 13 guys dinner.  I wonder if she was really happy about that.
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I wonder if the same kind of thing is going on with Tabitha.  She was in Paradise, rested, clean, time to herself.  Now Peter brings her out to the people who always needed something.  I wonder if Tabitha was grateful to Peter or maybe a little upset.  

And with the Tabitha-story now firmly in our thoughts, let me transition to Mother’s Day.  I saw a cartoon recently.  Mom gets up to feed the baby at 9:30, 12:30 and 2AM.  Dad gets up at 3AM.  Mom gets up again at 4 and 6AM.  The alarm goes off at 7AM and dad says to her, “I’m so tired.”  Mothers are the Tabitha’s of the world.  Mothers are asked to give of themselves for the ones they love.  Today we hopefully give them at least one day of rest.  But then mothers are back to being mothers again, which means doing for others.  

This is why when some of the biblical writers tell us of God’s compassion, they choose to speak of God in terms of motherhood.  Isaiah does so frequently, like when God says, “As a mother comforts her child, so I will comfort you.”  But the imagery of motherhood can also be forcefully protective as when God says to Hosea the prophet:  “Like a bear robbed of her cubs, I will attack them and tear them asunder.” (13:8)    

Jesus speaks at the end of His life of wanting to comfort and protect Jerusalem as a mother would (Lk 13:34).  The oldest piece of Christian literature is the First Epistle to the Thessalonians and there Paul explains that the apostles are sent to care tenderly for the people like a nurse cares for her own children.

Christian mystics through the centuries trying to convey the feeling of deep love they experience in God speak of God as Mother, and many feminist theologians today do the same.  They do so because the idea of the Holy Spirit reaches back to the vital breath of God that gave life to Adam, that gave birth to Adam.  Ever since, the Holy Spirit has been associated with the mothering aspect of God.  The Spirit creates, brings us together and holds us together. 

Back to Tabitha.  There are two ways of looking at religion and they are becoming quite distinct nowadays.  There is the religion of law and there is the religion of love.  Law emphasizes judgment.  There are those who follow the laws and get into heaven and there are so many, many others who don’t and they face eternal torment. 

Then there is the religion of love.  This is the faith of Tabitha.  She was a disciple of Christ, a follower.  What defined her as a disciple?  All we’re told is that she lived like Christ.  She cared for others.  She tried to provide for others. 

And since her name is familiar in both languages, Tabitha and Dorcas, this means that she didn’t only care and provide for one group as opposed to another.  She was known by the Jews and the Greeks.  She didn’t care about such distinctions.  She tried to help whoever was in need no matter who they were. 

The story of Tabitha made it into the Bible so that every generation of Christians would know what it means to be a disciple, a follower of Christ.  Every Christian won’t be a perfect Tabitha.  Every mother won’t be a perfect mother.  But our job is to try. 

So for all the mothers of our church, of our families and our community, a blessed Mother’s Day.  And for all of us trying to be better Christians, to be more like Tabitha, let us gather around the Communion Table so that we may be fed and nourished by a mothering Christ.

For all these things we pray in Jesus’ name.  Amen.

    The link below will take you to the video of our Music Sunday liturgy.  The entire Service was musical, including the announcements, the sermon, the invitation for the children to leave for Sunday School, the invitation for the offering and the dedication of the offering.  
   Our sincere thanks to our Music Minister, Anthony Tracia, all the members of the Chancel Choir, and to our guest string quartet consisting of violin - Amanda Stenroos, violin - Marijo Sherrill, viola - Brianna Rzeznik, and cello - Karl Knapp.
    It was a beautiful worship and we all hope you enjoy it as well.
​     Rev. Randy

“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)

After death, people go through a bureaucratic examination to determine where they’re going. One room has a clerk who inputs records of what each applicant did on his or her last day of life. 

The first applicant of the day explains that his last day was not a good one. "I came home early and found my wife lying unclothed in bed. She claimed she had just gotten out of the shower. Well, her hair was dry and I checked the shower and it was completely dry too.

I knew she was into some hanky-panky and I began to look for her lover.  I went onto the balcony of our 9th floor apartment and found this guy clinging to the rail by his fingertips.  I was so angry that I began bashing his fingers with a flower pot. He let go and fell, but his fall was broken by some awnings and bushes.

On seeing he was still alive I found super human strength to drag our antique cedar chest to the balcony and throw it over. It hit the man and killed him. At this point the stress got to me and I suffered a massive heart attack and I died too.

The clerk thanked him and sent him on to the next office.  The second applicant said that his last day was his worst. "I was on the roof of an apartment building working on the AC equipment. I stumbled over my tools and toppled off the building.

I managed to grab onto the balcony railing of a 9th floor apartment, but some idiot came rushing out onto the balcony and bashed my hands with a flower pot. I fell but hit some awnings and bushes and survived, but as I looked up I saw a huge cedar chest falling toward me. I tried to crawl out of the way but failed and was hit and killed by it."
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The clerk couldn’t help but chuckle as he directs the man to the next room.  He is still giggling when his third customer of the day enters. He apologizes and says, "I doubt that your last day was as interesting as the fellow in here just before you."  "I don't know," replies the man, "picture this, I'm buck naked hiding in this cedar chest..." 

We do not know how we’re going to die, hopefully it’s not as scandalous as any of the stories just shared, but we are all going to die.  Our mortality is a certainty.  After hearing about so many super rich people and corporations that don’t end up paying taxes, the old saying about “as sure as death and taxes,” is now just “as sure as death.” 

But what happens after we die is less than certain.  And I don’t say this as a Christian doubting the afterlife because I don’t personally doubt the afterlife.  I say this because believing in Easter is a choice.  It was, as we heard in today’s Gospel about doubting Thomas; it is still today; and it always will be a choice to believe. 

To believe in life after death is a matter of faith and that is something completely different than certainty.  For me one reason I believe in Easter is because something changed all of those scared and timid apostles. 

The ones who deserted Jesus at the cross because they lost their faith in Him are somehow the same ones who get called in before the council because they can’t stop talking about Jesus as we heard in Acts. 
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For me at least, the reason is Easter.  They realized forcefully that Jesus was no longer dead, and when they realized that He lives, these people were changed.

To believe in the resurrection means to trust, first and foremost in Jesus, to trust also in those first eye witnesses, and then to trust ourselves.  Maybe, hopefully, we’ve had those special, spiritual moments when we feel the reality of Jesus close at hand, and I hope church is a part of that. 

Maybe, hopefully, those encounters help us to trust Easter stories from 2,000 years ago because if the tomb was empty, then Jesus can be present in our lives now. So it’s not just their experience; it’s ours too.

In this social media age, we have to be more attuned than ever to the fact that we must choose whom we will trust.  Trusting Jesus, the eye-witnesses and our own spiritual experiences is a choice, and that’s why the resurrection can’t be a certainty.  Faith is always going to be a choice.
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And the choice to believe in life after death is really not a question that should wait until life after death.  If we believe in life after death, well, we should live like we do.  We have work to do if we’re really Easter people.  There’s no sitting around waiting for heaven.  We’re called upon to do heaven’s work now.  

I love the passage that Anita read for us today:   “The high priest questioned [the apostles], saying, ‘We gave you strict orders not to teach in this name [of Jesus], yet here you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching … But Peter and the apostles answered, ‘We must obey God rather than any human authority.’” 

“Filled Jerusalem with your teaching.”  How powerful is that?  The apostles knew what the world wanted.  They had to make a choice.  They knew there would be consequences if they preached Jesus.  They just witnessed what had happened to Jesus on Calvary.  But they stood up to power anyway. 

And it’s important to remember how they stood up to power.  It was by offering something better.  Too much of religion today is crass.  It can be unimpressive and embarrassing.  We don’t trust in its message enough to bring people in so we talk about the consequences of not coming in. 

I actually heard a preacher the other day on the radio, I think he was from San Antonio, Texas.  He was getting all excited about Jesus’ Second Coming and that there would be rivers of blood flowing for miles around Him as He raised His sword to save the righteous and to damn the wicked.  The preacher sounded giddy over the expectation.

That’s not the same Jesus I hear in the Gospels.  That’s turning Jesus into just another worldly power.

The apostles weren’t looking to get even.  They were looking to offer something better and they filled the world with Jesus’ gospel, and people chose to follow because it is beautiful and inspiring, and that changed the world.  

So if we’re people who have chosen to believe in life after death, we have stuff to do now.  We need to get Jesus’ gospel out there above all the hellfire and brimstone preaching and charges of sins and sinners. 
  
We need to offer a better example of extravagant welcome that invites people to choose to believe, because as the risen Jesus said to Thomas:  “‘Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.’”
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May the Easter mystery continue in us and through us as we strive to fill the world with Jesus’ message.  In His name we pray.  Amen.