“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)

Back in the day I was a terrible athlete.  I mean a God-awful terrible athlete.  I remember playing basketball during one gym class.  My teammates were really into this game.  I, on the other hand, leisurely meandered from one end of the court to the other.  I’d talk to people on the bench during the game.  I liked to talk a lot more than I ever liked playing basketball. 

The reason I remember this particular game is that my meandering actually paid off.  While everyone else was down the other end of the court, my team stole the ball, somebody threw it toward me.  I don’t know what that kid was thinking.  I’m all by myself at the other end of the court and lo and behold I threw the ball up and I made the basket.  I’m pretty sure that was the only time I ever scored anything in gym class – ever.

It only makes sense that if you can barely endure a gym class you sure aren’t going to be playing on any JV or Varsity sports team for your high school.  What I missed out on, wasn’t the sports.  I wasn’t that big a fan.  But I missed out on the experience of being a part of a team.

I even hear this message of mutual support in Jesus’ tormented words of separation.  His anguish sounds so unfamiliar that it can startle us with its honesty:  “‘Do you think that I have come to bring peace to the earth?  No, I tell you, but rather division!’”
 
Jesus knows firsthand what being different can do.  There are a good number of indications in the Gospels that Jesus’ unorthodoxy divided Him from His own family.  We know that His ministry caused His neighbours in Nazareth to disown Him.  We read over and over how leaders challenged and rebuked Him, even claiming that Jesus was possessed by the devil. 
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Jesus didn’t belong anywhere, it seems.  Jesus knows all about the pain of separation, and that’s the anguish in His words this morning.  And I think that reality made Jesus cherish even more the hope and promise of belonging, of community, and what will eventually be called of church. 

I think this is what lies behind the beautiful passage that Carol shared with us this morning from an early Christian sermon that “we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses.”  We are taking our place now in this timeless community of faith that reaches back to pastors and congregations of long ago like I tried to impress upon our young people, that reaches back to Jesus, that reaches back to the heroes of the Old Testament, that reaches back to creation. 

We are a link in the chain of that “cloud of witnesses.”  Those who came before us are still a part of us, and what we do now as church adds us to the cloud of witnesses for those who will come after us.  What a beautiful promise that is.  This is our team.  We’re all here for each other.

We remember the mass shootings of a couple of weekends ago I'm sure.  One of the victims was Margie Reckard.  Her husband worried that he would have to bury her alone.  He had no family except for Margie.  The funeral home extended an open invitation on its FaceBook page letting any and all know that they would be welcomed.  The response was amazing.  They filled the chapel and hundreds more waited outside to pay their respects. 

One woman waited for two hours in that visitation line so that she could tell the grieving husband, in her words, “that for every crazy nut, there are thousands of us that love him.”  The funeral director said, “This is about a community coming together to be there for him, to hold him up.”  That’s a glimpse at the “cloud of witnesses” that surrounds us suddenly made visible.  When it appears out of nowhere, it reminds us that it’s bigger than we often imagine.    https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/14/us/el-paso-massacre-funeral.html

It reminds us that God’s people are not this or that church, this or that people.  It’s all people.  Churches should preach this message loud and clear.  Jesus knew and we know that separation is a reality, but Jesus knew and we know that we’re called to something better. 

It may be an ideal.  It may be idealistic.  But it’s not impossible.  That’s probably how we know it’s from God and not from us.  It’s unfamiliar and unexpected.  

This is why it’s important for us to be a part of events like the CROP Hunger Walk.  Take a look at the poster in the dining hall during Chat and Coffee.  Look at the map and the faces of the people.  Church World Service helps people in need to help themselves all over the globe because all people are a part of God’s people.  Do you think Jesus doesn’t care about the guy in Cambodia, the woman in Guatemala or the child in Serbia because maybe they’re not Christian?  They’re a part of our team, our amazing “cloud of witnesses.” 

​We know the reality of our world.  We know the harm and violence that plagues human history and still thrives today, but let us never allow it to blind us to the glorious fact that “we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses,” witnesses to something better, witnesses to the fact that we’re all on the same team.  And for this may we pray 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)

A couple of Sunday’s ago Sharon and I were up in Ogunquit, Maine on vacation and we went to church in York, Maine.  I was surprised to hear the Minister of that beach town church talking to her congregation about chances to get away and relax, not on the beach, but at the lake. 

I thought people who lived in beach communities were there because they loved being on the coast and by the beach.  But in the sermon, these beach people were connecting the thought of vacation not with the shore, but with some lake up in the mountains.

We had driven about 150 miles to get to that very beach to relax.  We hauled a car and a roof-rack worth of stuff 150 miles to vacation.  They were hauling their stuff away from the beach for theirs.
   
I guess it isn’t so much about the place as it is about the attitude we bring to the place, whatever the place may be. 

I think this is part of what Jesus is trying to tell us this morning with His parable of the rich fool.  The man has done very well for himself.  He makes plans to store up so much wealth that he can lead the rest of his life leisurely, without a care or concern. 

He’s packed his proverbial car and added a trailer behind because he’s figuring all he needs, is stuff he can buy.  That’s the “tear down his old barns and build bigger ones” of the parable.

You can see that with wealth.  Sometimes it never seems to be enough.  There’s always the desire for more.  Wealth can become addictive and addiction can become abusive.  Then it doesn’t matter how the wealth is gathered.  It doesn’t matter that others have less and some have none.

It doesn’t matter that there is a grotesque divide in our country and throughout the world between the rich and the desperately poor.  This kind of wealth is not 401K-planning for retirement.  This kind of attitude toward wealth is an addiction and it’s abusive. 

And Jesus asks us today in His parable to consider the way we think about wealth.  Jesus wants us to ask ourselves what happens when the place changes and the stuff is no longer valuable?  Where is our worth found then?

What do we bring on our life’s journey that doesn’t depend on place?  What do we care about that has value here in this life and also will transfer to the life to come when we move from one place to another?

Jesus is using wealth to convey the comparison between how much we think about and prepare for this place, and how blind we seem to be when it comes to our immortal place.  Jesus even uses the word fool to describe this one-sidedness, this expectation that the purpose of life is to fill bigger and bigger barns.  

So this past Monday I had the pleasure of doing my prep for a regular colonoscopy.  You must be all excited to hear about this.  On Tuesday Sharon drove me over to Cooley Dickinson.  I’ve done these procedures before, so I know what to expect.  I think it’s kind of cool the way the anesthesia works.  I remember looking up at the clock.  I recall the staff starting to put on their blue gowns.  Then I remember it getting cloudy and I knew I was starting to go under. 

The next thing I know they’re waking me up after everything is all done.  I don’t remember what the anesthesiologist said to me, but he was trying to wake me up.  When I came around, I was startled and the first thing I said to him was, “What are you doing in my bedroom?”  I think that experience is so interesting.  One second you’re here, the next you’re gone.  There are all of these people working on your body and you’re just gone.

Another friend of mine, just saw him Wednesday, had a much more eventful trip to the hospital.  He actually died on the table.  He told the story to us at a religious gathering a number of years ago.  He floated above his body and he watched the doctors work on his body. 

When they revived him, he was able to tell the staff about what was going on when he was clinically dead.  When they gave me the anesthesia, they could have had a marching band come through the room and I wouldn’t have known.  This guy died on the table and he told the staff what they were doing.

We are all going to “fall asleep” as Paul so casually refers to death in First Thessalonians.  And we are going to wake-up on the other side.  I hope I don’t embarrass myself by saying something like, “What are you doing in my bedroom?”  I don’t want to start off eternity like that.  But there is another truth, another reality, another future.  And to not give that other life any consideration is the reason behind Jesus’ parable of the rich fool.  What do we value that isn’t dependent upon place, that means something important here and now, and keeps that value in the next place?

Bill shared with us a reading from the Epistle to the Colossians.  What I love about this reading is that it connects the here-after with here.  They’re not as separated as we tend to imagine. 

Clothe yourself with a new self, says Colossians.  And when we do, all of a sudden, those differences that we think are so darn important, the differences that separate us whether they be the colour of our skin, the places we were born, the differences of gender, the different choices we make on how to love and to vote and to worship, and the amount of money we have or don’t have, all of these are stripped away, and instantaneously in our new self we can see the lasting truth that “Christ is all and in all!”

That’s a vision that has value here and after-here.  It’s a message of unity that transcends place.  It gives us meaning wherever we are.  

Let’s heed both Jesus’ warning about the rich fool, and let’s celebrate Colossians uplifting message that we are born anew so let’s live like it already.

Now let us gather around the Lord’s Table to share in the sacrament of Communion, a table set both here in front of us, and simultaneously in front of Jesus in heaven.  Let this boundary-breaker remind us that we are in this world and also of the next, already.

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)

Let’s jump right into this morning’s Gospel.  I think it has to be the most famous of all parables –  the parable of the Good Samaritan.  And it begins with a question.  The answer, which is the Good Samaritan parable, is so familiar that it can capture all the attention, and then the question gets ignored.  But it’s the question that sets the stage for everything that follows.

A lawyer, a man of precise definitions and expectations, is the questioner.  A good contract lays out what is expected and what is paid.  This congregation, for example, has a contract with me.  It explains what the church expects and what I can expect in return from the church. 

The lawyer’s question of “‘What must I do …?’” asks Jesus what he is obligated to do in a virtual contract with God.  In return for doing his part, the lawyer expects to be paid, which is the second part of his question:  “‘What must I do … to inherit eternal life?’”  The lawyer, as a lawyer would, approaches his faith as a contract of obligations and payments.

This guy is not like Peter, Andrew, James and John who immediately left their fishing businesses behind to follow Jesus.  He’s not like Matthew who left a lucrative tax collecting job to follow Jesus. 

He’s not impassioned.  He only wants to know what must be done, just enough in other words to fulfill the contract, and then “‘inherit eternal life’” for himself.

The lawyer has no qualms or questions about love God completely.  What he needs Jesus to clarify is this notion of “love your neighbour.” 

Let’s try and think about this in terms of paying taxes quarterly.  We approximate as closely as possible how much we’ll owe on April 15th.  Then imagine though that our taxes need to be paid in full or face a heavy, harsh penalty, but that there will be no tax refund for anything we overpay.
 
Imagine how upset we would be if we overpaid and wouldn’t get it back.  That’s sort of like the logic of the lawyer.  He wants Jesus to tell him what must be done so he can get into heaven, but he doesn’t want to go overboard with this love-your-neighbour-stuff.  So he asks a second question:  “‘And who is my neighbour?’”

I have heard amazing sermons based on this parable that Jesus gives as His answer.  I’ve heard it told from the perspective of the Good Samaritan, of the man who has been left for dead, and even from that of the priest and the Levite.  But for me, at least for me right now, the key to unlocking this perfectly Christian parable is the context, that it is an answer to the question “‘What must I do to inherit eternal life?’” 

In answer, Jesus offers something completely, radically unexpected. 

Let’s give the priest and the Levite the benefit of the doubt that they are not completely uncaring men.  Maybe we’ve been in situations ourselves where to help seemed dangerous.  Maybe seeing someone hitchhiking on a dark road, for example.  Do you stop or do you continue on wondering about the possibility of being robbed or worse?

The priest and the Levite think through the options and choose not to do anything, but the Good Samaritan helps immediately, without thinking.  He acts spontaneously, naturally.

What the Good Samaritan did cannot be expressed in the language of “What must I do ..?” and the Good Samaritan does not act because of some reward about getting into heaven.  The Good Samaritan acts because he can’t not act. 

When Jesus finishes the parable and tells the lawyer “Go and do likewise,” it’s a broad rejection of the whole idea of loving God and loving neighbour as a contract, if I do this then God gives me that. 

The parable speaks to Jesus’ expectation that there’s a better self within every person.  The Samaritan would not have been accepted as a religious person by the Jews around Jesus or even as a good person, but here he is held up as the one who gets what God is all about, and what God hopes us to be all about.

This had to be disconcerting.  It’s really a whole new way of looking at humanity and human nature.  It’s hope-filled.  It's in no way contract.

​Apollo 8 was the first time human beings left earth’s gravity and ventured out into space.  It was the first time we left home in a sense.  Some science historians consider this to be even more important than Apollo 11’s landing on the moon.  It was our first step that would take us to the moon, the planets and then beyond. 

When the astronauts came around from the dark side of the moon, they captured the first-ever image of an Earth-rise.  That’s this picture.

Against the barren landscape of the moon and the darkness of the sky, one of them mentioned that the earth was the only colour out there in space.

When we look at our home from this perspective, I hope we realize that we all live in the same house.  We’re all in this together.  In God’s eyes, we’re all one people, more similar than we’d like to admit. 

Maybe in the Good Samaritan parable Jesus is asking us to try and see like this, like from space, like from God’s perspective.  Maybe our ideas of borders would become more all-encompassing. 

Maybe this perspective helps us humans become more humane, and maybe that’s what the parable of the Good Samaritan is trying to help us see, our shared humanity.

Can we accept a new way to see?  To see like God sees, that we are a glorious mess of colour all mixed together haphazardly, but oh so beautifully.  Can we see that others and us aren't all that different, and can this Good Samaritan insight inspire us to compassion and empathy?

For this may we pray 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)

A friend of mine plays occasionally at 30 Boltwood in Amherst, the old Lord Jeff in the center of town.  A week ago Thursday was his last night until sometime again in the Fall so I definitely wanted to be there. 

Sharon and I try and go see him when we can.  Last Thursday though was the choir party.  Sharon went there, and I went to 30 Boltwood all by my lonesome.  On my way through the hotel lobby, I grabbed their copy of the New York Times.  I was all set to sit at the bar, listen to a little jazz, read the newspaper and enjoy a beer. 

My friend’s musical partner came over to say hello to a friend of his, Peter, and then to me.  That common denominator introduced us to each other and also started our conversation.  It started off casually and then I mentioned that I am the pastor here in Hatfield.  From that moment forward, our conversation, at the bar, was all about religion.

I imagine we were the only ones at 30 Boltwood talking about Jesus, but what’s even more rare is that we were two people talking about religion who looked at the faith from very different perspectives, and we were enjoying each other’s company.  

Keeping that story in mind, let me now turn to when I met Rev. Brenda this past Monday.  One of her favourite Smith College professors was her New Testament professor who was also my thesis advisor at Smith. 

We have a similar orientation when it comes to the Bible, partly from sharing a similar education journey, and our conversation reflected this.  And again, what a pleasant encounter.

But now back to 30 Boltwood.  It’s a whole different animal when you talk religion with someone who thinks, believes and practices differently.  What I ended up mentioning to Peter was that it was so healthy to be able to have a pleasant conversation about a hot-topic-subject like religion, to be able to disagree about it, and still to be able to enjoy each other’s company

It’s easy to relate to someone who is like you.  It’s almost like patting yourself on the back.  But it’s just as nice relating to someone who is unlike you and in the process discovering that different doesn’t have to mean anything other than different.  Good can be reflected in different ways.  

The other day I ran across a story that quoted William F. Buckley, the late conservative columnist.  He told his son about the moment he heard of a friend’s death.  Buckley said, “It came to me last Thursday when the news of Clurman’s death reached me just after midnight, that I have always sub-consciously looked out for the total Christian, and when I found him, he turned out to be a non-practicing Jew.” (Stealing Jesus, p. 322) 

You know, Jesus didn't look at designations or titles.  He looked at the person.  That’s the whole story of the Gospels told one way or another.  And it’s told to us today in the story of the Samaritan village. 

To get from Galilee in the north to Jerusalem in the south you have to pass through Samaria.  The Jews and the Samaritans are not friends.  The people of a particular Samaritan village will not welcome Jesus because He is Jewish and is heading to Jerusalem for the Passover. 

John and James, two disciples, respond in kind.  They want to call down God’s wrath on all the people of this village for their insult.  They want them dead. 

Instead, Jesus rebukes the disciples.  His followers are not to imitate the prejudices and anger of others.  They’re to set a better example.  Jesus will not allow for differences to separate.  Jesus simply moves on to the next village and tries again.  And all those people in the second part of today’s Gospel, are they Samaritans?  Are they impressed by Jesus to the point of almost leaving everything behind for Him?

It is in this spirit that the church should operate.  It is according to this example, that we should act.  And this is why we should be proud of our church’s extravagant welcome.  Understanding that difference doesn’t have to lead to separation is pure Christian gospel.

Friday was the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riot in New York City.  It is considered now to be the beginning of the Gay Pride Movement.  I’m not certain if this anniversary is the reason, but today, in the United Church of Christ, we celebrate Open and Affirming Sunday. 

We are an Open and Affirming congregation, which means, as we print in our bulletin every week that “Whoever you are, young or older, gay or straight, single or partnered, believer or seeker, this is God’s House and all of you are most certainly welcome here.” 

Open and Affirming, in other words, is not limited to any group.  “Whoever you are … you are most certainly welcome here.”  To anyone who may feel unwelcomed or even persecuted by church because of who they are, they are welcome here. 

When Jesus accepted the prostitutes, the tax collectors, the diseased … the Samaritans, He gave us an example of extravagant welcome to follow.

Non-Jews were once persecuted in the church and then Jews were; women were insulted by the church; slavery was once accepted by the church.  We grew out of these mistakes by continuing to listen to Jesus’ gospel of extravagant welcome.  And now as an Open and Affirming congregation we continue to move forward in this direction.  We don’t let how someone loves define them as immoral.  Jesus was much more attuned to the immorality of hatred.

Marty read for us the story of Elijah and Elisha.  Once Elijah had been taken into heaven, Elisha picked up his mantle and continued Elijah’s work.  That’s the symbol for what we are supposed to do as Christ’s presence in the world today. 

We are called upon and empowered to continue the ministry of Christ to all people.  We pick up Jesus’ mantle and we practice extravagant welcome.  We are an Open and Affirming congregation because Jesus didn’t turn people away and neither will we.

Whoever you are, you are most certainly welcome here.  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)

After hearing some of the really strange stuff that scientists keep discovering, the idea of the Trinity isn’t all that outlandish. 

[Light as  both wave and particle at the same time.] 

We know that two particles entangled respond to what’s happening to the other particle even though there’s no way to communicate fast enough between the two of them.

In a recent experiment, there were two exquisitely synchronized atomic clocks. One was moved high up a mountain where it was discovered that time had moved faster up there relative to the one at a lower elevation.

Push this to the extreme and if I could get on a rocket traveling close to the speed of light, turn around and come back, I could be younger than my future grandchildren.

All of this strangeness is emerging in experiments taking place with the things of this world. 

Compared to these sorts of natural realities, the idea of one God in three persons, of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, the Trinity, doesn’t seem so implausible. 
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[One and Three = light example.  Always together yet separate = entanglement.  Rocket = timelessness/eternity]

I would imagine that the nature of God, the perfect, infinite, eternal nature of God, is beyond our comprehension and even our wildest imagination.

This is why we often make God like us.  It’s easier.  Think back to the creation stories in Genesis.  God is out taking a stroll in His beautiful new garden.  Doesn’t that sound surprisingly similar to something we might do?

Or flip to the other end of the Bible.  Creation ends with the four horsemen of the apocalypse.  Why horses? Why swords?  Why not jets or tanks or even a Star Wars Death Star?  Because horses symbolized power and speed 2,000 years ago and swords were the most advanced weapon of that time.

We can’t grasp the fullness of God so we imagine that God is like us.

[God as “He.”] 
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And so the Trinity is our best effort to come to terms with God’s own self-revelation in a way that we can sort of understand. 

The Trinity is never mentioned in the Bible.  That’s why today we share readings like the one Carol read for us. 

It’s a short reading, but it mentions in quick succession God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit.  They’re all there, but bringing them together as Trinity was still 300 years away.

That 300-year span is why the church asks us to hear today’s other reading.  This is where we hear Jesus promise, “‘I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now.  When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth.’” 

That’s Jesus telling us that more is yet to come, and it’s going to take time for us to get ready to be able to process it, but the Spirit will be there right along.

The Trinity is a powerful example of the fact that “God is still speaking.”  As Jesus says to us today, “‘[The Holy Spirit] will declare to you the things that are to come.’”

Revelation continues, in other words, and always will.  Our lives as believers are fluid rather than set in stone. 

Last Sunday we shared the story that the Spirit comes upon the church on Pentecost.
Pentecost was a Jewish religious observance long before it was a Christian one.  It celebrated the giving of the Ten Commandments to Moses.  Remember, the two tablets of stone. 

When Acts says that the Spirit descends on Pentecost, it is a re-telling of the first Pentecost story.  It replaces unchanging stone with the fluidity of wind and fire.  This contrast inspires Paul to write “the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life.” (2 Cor 3:6) 

As believers we’re not locked into the unchanging of what was.  We have the liberty of imagining what will be.

Instead of making God into us, with the progress of time we have the option of making us more like God.  So what does the Trinity reveal about God’s nature? 

The Trinity emerged because it helped to explain the special nature of Jesus and own relationship with Him.  Christians wanted to more clearly convey how Jesus could be the carpenter and also the presence and power of God at the same time and in the same person. 

The Trinity was born of devotion. 

When Christians embraced Jesus because of His humanity – the humbleness of His life, the compassion He showed so easily, and His willingness to suffer and die because He loves us even more than Himself, they simultaneously embraced His divinity, and eventually the Trinity emerged. 

The Trinity is how we make sense out of the human and the divine in Jesus and how the Spirit keeps Jesus always among us.

This is then how we can see ourselves because as Carol read for us, “We boast in our hope of sharing the glory of God.” 

It’s not as important that we understand the how of the Trinity as we appreciate the why of the Trinity, and the why is to express the closeness of God to us in Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and the hope that since Jesus made God like us, maybe Jesus can inspire us to be like God.
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In Jesus’ name we pray.  Amen.

   During the months of July and August, our Sunday Service begins at 9:30am rather than the usual 10:00am.  Sunday School for the children continues throughout the summer with fun activities.  A flier is posted under "Events and Activities" listing each Sunday's activity for the youth.