Church on the Hill, UCC Lenox

written and preached by Rev. Natalie Shiras

May 12, 2013      Acts 1:1-11

Ascension poses a particular challenge for us. Jesus is lifted up out of sight and everyone stands gazing up to heaven. This description of Jesus’ ascension by Luke in the Book of Acts has been depicted in all the great religious art, showing Jesus just above the clouds. (See the painting by Rembrandt on the cover of this morning’s bulletin for Jesus’ ascension). In these modern times it feels like his ascension from earthly ministry is the equivalent of a rocket launch, lifting up a few hundred miles above the earth. “Beamed up” as they say in Star Trek.

Where does Jesus go? This is an age old question for all of us after someone dies as it was for the disciples.  My mother has shown me where she is from time to time in the nearly five years since she died in June 2008. I’m not sure where she goes. But I do know when she comes.

My mother has made many visits to me since her death. This is not explainable in scientific terms or even in material terms.  And it is not like seeing a ghost. A ghost usually comes when there is something unresolved in that life and there is sometimes an attempt by the living to bring rest to that spirit.   My mother was at rest, was at peace at the end of her life and in her death.

I do know that right after she died she was with all of us in the family for several days as we grieved her sudden death. I told my father, “Dad, I feel her unconditional love palpably in the house and in the trees and in the spaces between the trees.” He could feel her too. She was all around.

A few weeks later I was paddling my kayak on Laurel Lake in Lee and there she was in the sky and clouds above the lake. It was comforting. I sang out loud the Christian shape note song:

“The dead lift me up,

In brightest sky the clouds before me race.

The dead lift me up.

I see them face to face.”

I got busy after that and did not feel my mother’s presence for several months. In a quiet moment she came to me and I heard her voice and felt her presence. “I have been waiting for you to notice”, she explained. I realized what she meant. I had been so busy that I had not realized she visited me from time to time. I was sitting in my study at home and felt happy in her presence. Then she was gone.

Two months later I was sitting with a friend and there was my mother again. She came right in through the sliding screen door that was open to catch the summer breeze. I caught her presence and I told my friend Gayle that there she was. Gayle and I welcomed my mother and we kept talking and my mother stayed right with us for about an hour. I felt happy. Then she was gone and I released her presence. That is the way she comes to me from time to time.

Is she lifted up? I describe it as being all around. But I certainly am lifted up by her visits, comforted in her regard for me.  I lost her in the flesh but I have gained another kind of presence.

Last June marked the fourth anniversary of her death. In the Native American tradition it is a custom to remember the life of a loved one with a ceremony. Since my mother was very active with the Native American tribes inMaineand helped pass a state law that would add Native American studies to the social studies curriculum in the public schools, I felt it would be meaningful to have a ceremony. It so happened that the whole immediate family who were together when my mother died, except my father of course who has died since, were gathered in Maine for my son Alex’ graduation celebration from law school. I suggested we have a ceremony for my mother sometime during the weekend and serve my mother’s favorite food, crabmeat salad. As everyone is enthusiastic about Maine crabmeat and were willing to go along with a little ceremony, we agreed.

At lunch I made a huge crabmeat salad for the twenty of us—my kids and my brother and his family and aunts and uncles and cousins. Some were a little skeptical and laughed, especially when, in the Native American custom, I set a place for my mother with her photo and her favorite shawl draped over the chair and a couple mementos. I served her a portion of the crabmeat salad and welcomed her to the table and then passed the crabmeat around to everyone else. I invited people to speak about her and what she meant to them. It took a while to warm up and then stories poured out I had never heard, like the first time my aunt, my father’s younger sister, saw my mother and father kissing while they were dating. It was a delightful window into my mother’s life and I felt her palpably with us, smiling. Afterwards, my son Alex and his wife, Petula and my daughter Annie and I took her portion of the crabmeat down to the shore where she swam everyday into her 80’s, and let  the crab wash out with the tide.

My mother showed us unconditional love in her death and in her presence with us. Jesus showed the disciples unconditional love through his ascension. Jesus promises that he will always be with us and the Holy Spirit will be coming to show the way. Just as Jesus knows the joys and trials of our lives, so do I feel my mother knows my trials and joys. It is especially comforting because she and I did not always have an easy and loving relationship when she was alive. Her presence now lifts me up.  

I know some of you feel your loved ones comforting presence in the same way because you have told me. You can feel through this thin veil that is explained in the poem, “Ascension” in our worship bulletin this morning.

“And if I go,

While you’re still here,

Know that I live on,

Vibrating to a different measure

Behind a thin veil you cannot see through.

You will not see me,

So that you must have faith.

I wait for the time we can soar together again,

Both aware of each other.

Until then, live your life to its fullest.

And when you need me,

Just whisper my name in your heart.

I will be there.

Colleen Corah Hitchcock

I imagine there are others of you who can feel through this thin veil, aware of your loved ones. Jesus assures us of his presence through that veil.

May this day of ascension remind you of how you are lifted up by your loved ones. May you know that Jesus lifts you up through your prayers and thoughts. Jesus is never absent, just as our loved ones are not absent.  Happy Mother’s Day, Mum! Happy Mother’s Day to all mothers both who are earth-bound and those who have ascended. Amen.

written and preached by Rev. Natalie Shiras

May 5, 2013                  John 14:23-29

Every Wednesday at 4 pm in the chapel of Church on the Hill I lead a small group that gathers for weekly centering prayer. We keep silence for about 30 minutes. I share with the group something about the practice of centering prayer. One way to practice is to imagine being on a rock in the river. The rock is your anchor, your focus. As a thought arises in your mind, you watch the thought float down the river on a leaf or a twig. As soon as you are aware of your thought, you catch yourself, and release the thought, letting the thought on that twig or leaf continue to float down the river. Then you return to your rock until the next thought arises which you catch and release.

In the last month I have had plenty of time to sit and focus, catch and release, while I have been healing. I pay attention to the clouds, to the birds in my bird feeder, and to the coming and going of snow, rain, sleet, and sun. It’s been a calming and relaxing time to catch a bird or cloud in my vision and then release it as it flies away.

The Holy Spirit is this way. In today’s scripture when Jesus told his disciples that he would be leaving them, he assured them that they would not be alone. He assured them that they would catch the Holy Spirit and release Jesus to God. Catch and release. It’s a relaxing contemplation.

The Holy Spirit is all around us in the sanctuary here and in each one of us and through the windows in the trees and clouds. Take a moment to catch sight of something, notice it, then release it. Catch sight of something else, notice it, then release it. For example, I am catching sight of the clock, noticing it, then releasing it. I am now catching sight of John Cheney, our organist, noticing him, then releasing him. Wherever your eyes or heart take you. Catch and release. Notice the relaxing rhythm. Let’s take a moment to catch sight of something, notice it and release it. Then do it again—and again—for about a minute. 

This technique is used in physics classrooms at Amherst College to heighten student awareness of the subject matter. The students focus attention on a power point slide or on a subject. Then they release it. This exercise expands their minds to make larger connections. This exercise is also used as a contemplation technique in grief groups, to catch the grief and contemplate it and then release it. Catch and release.

This is a daily practice of catching a moment, noticing it and then releasing it. This is one route to knowing God, to make real the living presence and love of God. As Jesus takes leave of his disciples, he tells them that they will know him through love, that Jesus has made his home in them. They will know him as the Holy Spirit dwells in them. They do not need to feel alone. They do not need to be afraid. They are assured through peace and calm.

I find this assuring. As I heal, more slowly than I anticipated from the hip surgery, I know God’s grace and love flowed through me. I feel Jesus’ peace in me. I feel that peace in your prayers and your presence with me.  How long it takes to heal relates to putting trust in God’s timing. Catching and releasing in God’s time.

 I went away to California for a retreat on contemplation. I learned more about “catch and release” as we studied the work of the theologian Miroslav Volk. Before he emigrated to theUnited Stateshe lived in Communist Yugoslavia. Because of his Christian beliefs he was arrested for being a spy, interrogated and tortured for eight months. He called his torturer Captain G.

When Miroslav Volk was finally let go from prison because they could not prove he was a spy, he had a choice—either live with the terrible memories of torture or move forward into the future. He knew that if he didn’t release those memories that he had caught in prison, it would be a certain inner death by allowing his Communist interrogator and torturer, Captain G, to forever define him. He had to catch the memory and then pass through the memory of wrongs suffered. His identity as a Christian stemmed not from the evil done to him nor from his innocence that justified him. Rather his identity stemmed from his being beloved by God.

He came to a time when he released the bitter and fearful memories, when the evil he suffered no longer came to mind and haunted him. Both wronged and wrongdoer were forgiven and immersed in the love of God. Catch and release.

Anxiety, fear, and troubled hearts are on our minds these days. We continue to feel angry and sad about the bombings on Patriot’s Day in Boston. We pass through the actions of these wrongdoers to remember the peace given by Jesus. When we give one another the sign of the peace, we do so after the confession and assurance of grace. Sin is acknowledged so that we might be right with the world. Catching the peace of Christ and releasing fear and anxiety.

Today is the first Sunday of the month when we celebrate Communion and acknowledge our need for God’s presence and Jesus’ healing in the bread and the cup. Jesus offered bread twice to the disciples after his resurrection, once on the road to Emmaus when the disciples recognized Jesus in his breaking of the bread in their house and once on the shores of the Sea of Galilee when he blessed and broke the bread. Catch sight of the loaf of bread on the altar. Gaze on it for a moment. Then release your attention. Notice whatever image remains, whatever echo remains. We catch the bread and release it. The disciples caught a glimpse of Jesus on the shore of Galilee and at the house in Emmaus when he broke the bread and then the vision released when he disappeared.

We are Christians in constant need of the Holy Spirit’s presence and teaching. It’s a continual process. The Holy Spirit is the animating energy in all things—in nature, water, wind, plants, trees, animals and human beings. The reading from Revelation promises us that there is a river of water flowing through the streets and the trees produce fruit and leaves for healing. God blesses the earth through the Holy Spirit.

Jesus said to his disciples in today’s gospel, “those who love me will keep my word”. (John 14:23). As the Holy Spirit promised by Jesus instills in us that animating energy, then we will take responsibility for God’s creation—taking care of the earth and all God’s creatures. Members of our church   planted trees in Lenox on Arbor Day thanks to the leadership of Scott Harrington and other members. Keeping the word of Jesus means caring for creation. Our experiences are like streams of water and air flowing. Catch your experiences, notice them, then release them….knowing the Holy Spirit is in everything. Amen.

written and presented by Shirley Benson April 21, 2013

During Advent way last December, I got a request from Zoë asking if I would please be the lay preacher on April 21. Well, at my age I don’t buy green bananas, but oh well it was the season of light, so I was hopeful that in April I would still be around to do it, and so I said yes. But alas, none of that light reflected on anything I might preach about. Through the years I had talked about the horrendous effect that Aids had on individuals that I had cared for and how sad it was that they were cut off from their families. I had talked about the sudden illness and almost death of one of our parishioners but for all the little miracles that brought her back to us. I had talked about what a revelation it was for me to happen upon a book in a store at Cape Cod that helped me work through and eventually overcome my grief so that the tragedy of my husband’s death could allow me to grow and not let that grief define who I was. I had talked about Outreach and the ripple effect it created for all of us. But now I could think of nothing else to base a sermon on. And so, last December, I was thinking, “Why oh why did I say yes to this request. However, it was almost the beginning of a new year and I couldn’t let anything happen to darken my spirits. This was a season of joy!

But, then came the fears. The fear that on Friday, the 21^st. of December, the world as we know it was coming to an end! Fear of “Falling off the Financial Cliff”, and the finger of blame. Then came that horrendous tragedy in Newtown, CT. And that one lone incident brought out many more fears and concerns, and anger. Concern for everyone’s safety—“Ban all guns, or arm everyone?” Anger—anger at the person who did it, anger at the health care industry for not treating the mentally ill sufficiently, anger at a mother who was aware that her son was ill and allowing him access to her gun collection, anger at the town or the state, for not keeping our schools safe, and yes anger at God. Anger at God for letting this happen. Why be angry at God? Did God make that man mentally ill? Did God put that gun in his hand? Okay, so then where was He while this, and now the recent Boston tragedy were happening? I believe He was there, and weeping right along with us.

Then came our Church’s Annual Meeting. Lots of good news, but also a few  concerns and yes, a few fears! A falling membership, a drop in the pledges, not enough people willing to serve on boards and committees, updates on our emergency preparedness that needed to be done, and with the budget already strained to the max, we now have a serious leak in the chapel roof. Conversation and concern continued after the meeting over refreshments. “We need to spend more wisely, we can’t afford money for missions, we’ll have to concentrate on service, we can’t always depend on generous gift-giving, we need to rid ourselves of the Chapel or the Church, we need to find new members, we need more young people. What are WE to do—what’s to become of US if we don’t start to grow? What will become of Our church?” And the key words in each of those questions? WE, OUR, and US.

Aha—a sermon subject!

Through all the years that I have been a member of this church, we have struggled always with Christian education—too many children, not enough teachers wanting to give up going to church, then too few children— with growth—never too many, often too few,— and with mission—never enough money to be as generous a we wanted to be. Sometimes the efforts to remedy all of these things have been heroic—for the people who have been involved. And the results have been good or bad depending on what our expectations were.

So why do we have these constant struggles? Maybe it’s because we see education, growth, and mission as three separate tasks rather than a call from God to BE THE CHURCH, a call to BE God’s PEOPLE. How do we answer that call?

To begin with, we need to understand who we are as a church. I suggest that we need to think less in terms of numbers, and more about ACTION, a people with a Story to tell, a story to be LIVED. But we need to be honest. We need to get that story straight. What does that mean? Well, should we just assume that everyone knows what it means to belong to the UCC? What it means to have faith? What difference can it possibly make to us anyway? Do all of US really know what having Faith means? The truth is, many of us have many questions about the meaning of that word, what it’s really all about, what we truly believe, and what a difference it does make.

So if many of US still have questions, how do we treat those people who come to our church seeking answers to THEIR questions? Do we ask them if they’d like to join our church before they know what we’re all about? And how do they get to know what we’re all about at Church on the Hill? When do they get a chance to read our By-laws, our Statement of Faith, our Purpose, our Policy, our Covenant? When’s the last time YOU read them? So how DO they get their questions answered? Do we provide classes for the 24 and up age group? Or do we say why? Who would come? Do we provide Sunday School classes for children or do we say, it’s not worth the effort for just one or two. Do we provide nursery care for the toddlers and babies or do we just turn around and look at them and smile while their Moms try to keep them quiet? Besides, where could we do this if we wanted to—Parents want their little ones close by, not down the hill, and we certainly have no room up here. We have no room—hmm. The inn at Bethlehem had no room either, but look at what happened there.

Do we expend too much energy in preserving our traditions? Many of us hate the thought of change. We all remember our beloved Marge Ceder, and how upset she was when we took down those awful green folding doors at the chapel, how reticent she and others were at making the parlor a bit smaller. Bless her heart. I remember the day we were done and were hanging the mirror in the parlor and Marge walked in. I said, “Well, Marge, what do you think?” And with a smile, she said “It’s very nice—I guess.” A new way of doing things is difficult, but change can lead to growth. What change? Well, do we want communion always served to everyone, or by intincture a few times a year? Do we want our Pastor always up behind the altar preaching, or down on the floor amongst us once in a while? Do we provide music for all generations with guitars and up beat songs or just for those of us who like the old time gospel hymns with piano and organ? Do we ignore change or do we embrace it? Think about it. I’ve thought about it, and I find some of our traditions wonderful and almost sacred, as do many of you. And, I’m also aware of how we are becoming open to some changes—closing the church for the winter, renting space in the chapel, the pre-school, recommending our pastor do ¾ time and how well we have adjusted to those changes. However, those changes serve only to earn and to save money. I would like to think that we are capable of embracing changes that would help us to serve, not just survive. So let’s not let our traditions keep us from a positive and productive future.

As I said earlier, we need to get our story straight. To do that we need to know who We are and what We believe as a church. We must learn to teach and be taught, to care and to be cared for, to listen and to be listened to. Perhaps then we will be able to TELL the story. But first, we must really listen to others, listen to who they are, listen to their hurts and their hopes. In other words, we must reach out, we must get involved, we must invite, not only as individuals but as a church community. I wouldn’t be here today if it wasn’t for a neighbor who over fifty years ago reached out to me in my anguish over being new to Lenox and unhappy in the church we were attending. She invited me to come here to her church. She said a bit about its history, but honed in on the friendliness of the people, the church suppers, the couples club, the busy Sunday School. I came, and a boy scout troop and I were the youngest ones here! But, the church community made me feel so welcome and so at home, and here I am 54 years later standing here as your worship leader! Yes, reaching out does work.

Then we must BE the story. We need to be a community where new people feel comfortable, where same sex couples are not just allowed, but WELCOMED, where differently abled people are accepted for who they are. We need to be a community that TOGETHER feeds the poor and visits the sick, shares our wealth, serves our neighbors in need, knits and delivers Prayer Shawls. These needy human beings allow US to be truly human and God-like in our commitment to care for them, to love them. I firmly believe that the difference between existing and living is giving. The one great thing that any one of us can do while on this earth, is being able to change just one life.

So, BEING the story means we must move into the community as a whole, representing our faith and God’s love. It means being a community of people who have a common bond, a common identity, and still recognize the beauty of differences. Being the story means to encourage dialogue, to live our Covenant of Faith. Being the story means that we have to stop thinking of things as impossible in our small church. I think if we all trust God and start taking action together, we’ll be surprised at how much of those impossible things we can accomplish. Think about the doors at your supermarket. They stay shut when you keep your distance, but when you take action and approach, they open wide. How about our church doors? What do we have to do so they open wide—and stay open? There seems to be plenty of activity here at Church on the Hill. I know that to be true because I read our Annual Report—I know how busy we are here, how much we already do, and it’s a lot! But, we have to remember that we are more than a building, and our goal should be to strengthen the life within the church and become good disciples of our faith. Working within will increase our ability to reach out—only then will we begin to grow. It takes personal compassion and collective commitment to make that happen.   

So back to the WE, the OUR, and theUS. WE have a story to tell, and we have to get it straight, it is OUR story to tell, and in order for us to do that, we have to BE that story—it’s up to all of US to do that as a community.

GETTING THE STORY STRAIGHT— TELLING THE STORY—BEING THE STORY. Such a commitment will require all of our spiritual strength—

ALL OF US TOGETHER—no one can be spared—no one. AMEN

Let us pray: O God, may the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts give wings to the faith in you that lies so deep within each of us here this morning, my Strength and my Redeemer.

Who do you think of when I describe a man who lived not long ago, back in the early part of the 20^th century, and who has a white mane of unmanageable hair, a big white moustache, dressed in a rumpled short sleeved dress shirt with a bowtie, standing by a makeshift barracks converted into a clinic, by a big muddy river in Africa?

It could only be Albert Schweitzer.  He spent fifty years (off and on) in Lambarene (Gabonin West Africa) where he took his young wife Helena in 1915. This he did after a career as a world-class organist.  During the Africa years, he traveled extensively to raise money for his hospital by giving organ recitals.  In the course of his healing ministry, Schweitzer was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1955.  All this he did after having published in 1905 what was to become a landmark work of biblical study that is still read and studied today: The Quest for the Historical Jesus.  S had a theological doctorate and considered being a Lutheran preacher while teaching at Lausanne, France. Yet he wrote a book of as yet unsurpassed scholarship—and imagination.

Yes, I hold up this book for you this morning as a testament to the imagination.  What is the imagination?  It takes our imagination to conceive a whole made from many disconnected parts.  It is what is required to pull together the many fragments of our own lives into a coherent whole.  It is what is required to be a judge of others’ character, based only on fragments.  This is what Schweitzer (and all the biblical critics, for that matter) has done with the Jesus of scripture.  He fashioned a Jesus of his own, and not somebody else’s.  In it, he seeks to reconstruct what can be reliably known about Jesus from the gospel texts and corroborating history.  S. was the original Marcus Borg and John Dominic Crossan.  What he produced, of course, was a work of advanced scholarly erudition, but without the imaginative faculty, it would have been nothing.

In addition to his own imaginative reconstruction of Jesus, S. goes on to chronicle the works of other writers in the 19^th century who also attempt their own reconstructions, some 20 such.  He has entire chapters devoted to “Imaginative Lives of Jesus.”  Some of these imaginings are historically based.  Many are not, being works of “fiction” that portray the Jesus that emerged for each of them from the New Testament.  Each reached into the gospel story and extracted a Jesus of his own, and not somebody else’s.

For all the work that went into his historical work, S. ends his book with a beautiful paragraph stating the most basic existential reality for all who read the NT.

“He comes to us as One unknown, without a name, as of old, by the lakeside, he came to those men who knew him not.  He speaks to us the same word: “follow me!” and set us to the tasks which he has to fulfill for our time.  He commands.  And to those who obey him, where they be wise or simple [scholars or church members], he will reveal himself in the toils, the conflicts, the sufferings which they shall pass through in his fellowship, and, as an ineffable mystery, they shall learn in their own experience who he is.”

The task for Schweitzer was to extricate Jesus from the gospel texts.  His tools were scholarly, but his method was imaginative. 

Now let’s take another figure, this one from literary history, from about the same period.  This man comes from the English intelligentsia, a boy genius who gained great erudition as a classics student at Oxfordin the 1870’s. A high flying hedonist and sensualist, also a homosexual in a time when it was seriously illegal.  This man wrote some famous novels and plays, among them The Picture of Dorian Gray and The Importance of Being Ernest.  His name is Oscar Wilde, and he was a wild man indeed, both in his social carousing and in his almost athletic participation in the intellectual and artistic debates of late 19^th centuryEngland.

Why am I bringing him up?  Because this unconventional, nominally Anglical, self-proclaimed agnostic wrote a wholly unexpected testament to Jesus and he wrote it—in prison.

Wilde got into a public fracas with his society which led to his suing the father of his spoiled, aristocratic boyfriend for libel.  This backfired and resulted in his being counter-charged with homosexual acts.  He was tried publically with disastrous effects to his reputation, then convicted and was sentenced to two years of hard labor.  While in prison, he wrote a letter to Lord Alfred Douglas, this very young dandy who had been Wilde’s lover.  This letter contains the confession of a very different kind of love affair, one with Jesus whom he reimagined in the depths of his remorse and suffering in prison.

For Wilde, Jesus was the Man of Sorrows, because “sorrow and all that it teaches me, is my new world.”  He goes on:

After terrible struggles and difficulties, I have been able to comprehend some of the lessons hidden in the heart of pain.  Clergymen, and people who use phrases without wisdom, sometimes talk of suffering as a mystery.  It is really a revelation.  One discerns things that one never discerned before.  One approaches the whole of history from a different standpoint.

And Jesus knew sorrow.

There is still something to me almost incredible in the idea of a young Galilean peasant imagining that he could bear on his own shoulders the burden of the entire world:  all that has been already done and suffered, and all that was yet to be done and suffered: the sins of Nero, of Caesar Borgia, of Alexander Vi, and of him who was Emperor of Rome and Priest of the Sun; the sufferings of those whose name is Legion and whose dwelling is among the tombs, oppressed nationalities, factory children, thieves, people in prison, outcasts, those who are dumb under oppression and whose silence is heard only of God: and not merely imagining this but actually achieving it, so that at the present moment all who come in contact with his personality, even though they may neither bow to his altar nor kneel before his priest, yet somehow find that the ugliness of their sins is taken away and the beauty of their sorrow revealed to them.

All this came to Wilde as he worked out his sentence.  Pain and suffering are not a virtue, nor do they lead to virtue.  They are not to be sought, or wished upon anybody.  But if they are your fate, if you can meet them with Christ, they will yield a clarification of yourself. 

But does it take going to PRISON??  My life as a minister never entailed that kind of suffering, of course, and yet I know what Wilde meant by the simple self-development, spiritually and morally, which comes from bringing your struggles under the light of Christ.  But it takes having a Jesus of your own, and not somebody else’s.

With only the tools of memory and imagination, he carved out his own image of Jesus, and not somebody else’s.  How are you doing?

Here are some things you can do—I give you part I today, the part you can do privately, and I will give you Part II next month when I return, the part that is public: 

Look out the window, not your front window.

15 minutes a day for a week, let’s say.

Have the Bible open beside you, but not read it, though.

Have some paper handy.

Put down Jesus’ name (have you ever written it?)

And see what comes to your mind.

Whatever happens, even if you don’t write a poem, or paint it, or sculpt it, or compose a sonnet, it is worthy.   Whatever happens has led to your meeting Jesus as he emerges from the pages of the Bible using your memory and the imagination.  It is like a prayer—but more, it will be an experience of salvation.

It will produce a moment, perhaps like the one experienced by the disciples who gathered around the campfire on the shore, eating the fish Jesus had offered them, without their daring to say a word to him, but knowing who he was.

 And so, too, you will be among those gathered around the throne giving glory to God for the sake of the Lamb of God who is Jesus.

Just take a lesson this morning from Schweitzer and Wilde who in their very different ways, as they walked very different paths, imagined Jesus for themselves.  You can too.

written and preached by Rev. Richard Chrisman

Easter Sunday, March 21, 2013 

“Why do you look for the living among the dead?”

Let us pray: O God, may the words of my mouth and the meditation of all our hearts, give wings to the faith in you that lies so deep within each one of us here this morning, my Strength and my Redeemer.

Welcome to the kingdom of joy, the kingdom of God which Jesus preached about Welcome to the land of the living, the land where angels admonished the women and disciples to look for Jesus, but not in that musty tomb!

Welcome to the land of the actually-living, not just the look-like-they-are-living-when-they-are-really-dead-on-their-feet world.

Welcome to the world of possibility, where the principle possibility is joy!

There is a distinction we have to make here right away, a distinction between joy on the one hand, and happiness, and giddiness, and partiness, on the other.

Americais all about the pursuit of happiness, giddiness and partiness.

Which is good, we are lucky that way.

Yet, happiness is a balloon that bursts when loss strikes.

When I lose my job, I am not happy.

When I lose my health, I am not giddy.

When I lose my girlfriend or boyfriend, I don’t feel like partying.

Joy is fundamentally different somehow, it’s a mysterious quality deep in us.

Joy survives great losses.

Many books about joy have been written.

The Joy of Cooking and the Joy of Sex, famously for instance.

Many, many more can be found on Amazon.

In fact, if you go by initial letter, they list between 5 and 10 per letter.

The Joy of Art, of Baking, of Drawing, of Gardening, of Kosher, of Living, of Loving, of Nature, of Painting, of Pregnancy, of Running, of Retirement, of Work, and of course, of Yoga!

Sometimes ten for every letter of the alphabet!

But what if you took away the cooking or drawing or reading?

Would there be any joy left?  where would be the joy in it, once taken away?

Maybe all the authors really meant was not joy but the Happiness of Cooking, the Intense Pleasure of Cooking, the Exceeding Great Delights of Cooking . . . and all the others.

But in the kingdom of God, joy survives the loss of all these things.

After all, it survived the loss of Jesus himself!

Why?  How can this be?

The kingdom of God survives losses like these and more for three reasons and they all begin with “J”:

ONE, because Jesus was joy himself.

He came speaking and preaching and eating with the people, always with joy.

He was joy on wheels, though maybe not exactly on a skateboard.

TWO, he gave us something to be joyful about:

Jesus gave us forgiveness.

And, THIRD, Jesus gave us the key to joy.

He taught that we could forgive others.

And there lies the ultimate joy divine!

Once we had this key to joy, even the trials of pain and death could not take that kind of love away.

We know this because of the Easter story we celebrate today.

Pain and death are exactly what Jesus went through on Thursday and Friday.

Yet the pain and death that Jesus endured could not take away the joy his community learned from him.

Now, if what you know about Jesus you got from Hollywood movies about him, you will certainly miss this.

Hollywood movies treat Jesus either like a hero or a sorry saint.

Especially if what you saw was the Gibson movie called “The Passion of the Christ.”

This was the movie I watched as my Lenten discipline.

I took it on because I had avoided it since it came out almost 10 years ago, for all the infamous reasons.

But I felt the need to give it its due, for personal and professional and vocational reasons.

And I just did, last week.

I will spare you the long list of beefs I have with this gruesome movie.

My main sadness is that Gibson missed what Easter was about.

He put a microscopic focus on the details of Jesus’ agony.

He spent 95 % of the movie on this.

It was not just the violence depicted which was a problem for viewers like me.

It was the fact that by starting so late in the story, at Gethsemane the night before his trial and execution, Gibson left out all of the joy and the reasons for which there is joy.

There were flashbacks to his teaching days, yes, but they were always close-ups of his face as he spoke and these shots always missed the surrounding people, people in need who were transformed in his presence.

I asked myself afterward—what could anyone who did not know the rest of the story from reading the gospels or going to church imagine that the distress was all about?

Why did this man matter?  What was the fuss about?

This was not just a good man, the Son of Man, he was a joyful man. And where was the joy of any of it in this telling?

Where was the community that sprang up in joy around his revelations and his compassion?

Finally, the Resurrection scene itself was just a man getting up from his shroud, leaving out the community, as if the Resurrection was a resuscitation of Jesus’ body.

We do not know what happened to Jesus’s body, nobody does.  But we know what happened to the community.

Not to beat a dead horse any longer, I use this example as a warning to keep the whole story in mind.

But having said all this, having said that the joy of Jesus surmounts the arbitrariness and cruelty of human life, I want to conclude by saying that this kingdom you have entered this morning has many other benefits—smaller tender benefits.

Because Jesus not only triumphs over death, Jesus triumphs over those little dead spaces inside us caused by past joys having been trampled by experience.

The resurrection of Jesus can also mean the recovery of lost joys in life, past joys that were squelched in school hallways, past joys lost in unfulfilled hopes of grander jobs before the economy tanked, past joys lost in the twists and turns of our personal stories with our loves and marriages and divorces and re-marriages, joys dashed when our hearts felt disappointed that we weren’t smarter, or richer, or happier.

Some of them have to be kissed good bye, of course, because they are joys that derive from foolish illusions that have to go—immortality, that one had to go out the window.

But we can recover here today many of the other joys we lost while life had its way with us—even the death of the loved ones memorialized in these Easter lilies this morning.

Yes, in the kingdom of Jesus where we sit this morning, we can accept those disappointments and be freed from sadness, freed from spiritual paralysis, freed from moral blindness, and freed from chronic denial.

We can embrace our losses with a smile, not the smile of glee or giddiness, obviously, but with the very particular, solemn but real smile that comes with joy.

So if by this point in your lives you have concluded that you are joy-deficient that you just can’t find the joy accelerator, you have come to the right place.

You have landed somewhere between happiness and giddiness—in the Resurrection zone.

By virtue of just gathering here this Easter morning of 2013 in the year of our Lord, we are proof of the Resurrection.

We are the Body of Christ, the Resurrected Body of Christ, the community brought back to life again by the joy of knowing God’s forgiveness and by committing ourselves to learning what  that forgiveness means on a day by day basis.

Go—rise and shine in the light of the joyful Word of God.

                                                          written and preached by Rev. Natalie Shiras

                              March 24, 2013 Luke 19:28-40

I am grateful to William Willimon, a United Methodist bishop and writer for preachers for his ideas about the connection between politics and Palm Sunday in this morning’s sermon. For Palm Sunday is one of the most politically charged Sundays of the church year.

Politics is about power, power to do good or do evil, power to change the world. Christians claim that in Jesus Christ we see the power of God at work and the claim of God upon the world. The man who enters Jerusalem on the back of a donkey is our Lord.

The crowds shout “Hosanna”, a greeting for royalty.  This is not the usual way for a king to make an entry into the holy city, on the back of a donkey. Jesus’ entry with a few of his followers and a mix of people on the margins waving palm branches is almost a parody of the usual royal entrance.

Is Jesus riding on a donkey in order to contrast his power with worldly powers? Is he teaching his followers about what the kingdom of God is really about? Once again he is overturning the expectations of the people in their definitions of power.

According to historical accounts, Pontius Pilate, the governor of Judea during Jesus’ time was a military leader. His grand procession into Jerusalem when he was appointed governor in 26 C.E. by the Roman emperor took two hours to complete. At the head of the parade were a thousand legionnaires followed by four hundred recent captives bound in chains as a sign of his military power. Through the city streets as drums beat and trumpets blared rode Pilate, the grand commander, on a pure white war horse. He was arrayed in silver armor. He rode the horse into the heart of the city, right up the steps of Herod’s great temple. He dismounted and made an hour long speech about how fortunate were these captive Jews that at last they were to be ruled under a strict and orderly government of Rome. Then Pilate made an offering to the Roman god Apollo, a sign that this Roman commander was in power.

In the year 33 C.E. Jesus paraded into Jerusalem. His was a political move to show who was king, to show that the God of justice and God of love reigned. That is what Jesus was passionate about.

I know that generally we do not mix politics with church. I know it sounds strange to say “political” when we think of Jesus. Jesus never held political office and did not do politics as we know it. In the newspaper we read about politics as elected officials and others who get power and use power. That’s our politics. Politics tends to be the primary means of security inAmerica, our protector from cradle to grave and the primary way to get things done. Jesus was overturning that notion when he came into Jerusalem on a donkey.

The people ofIsraelalways wanted a king. They prayed to God, “Lord give us a king like King David who can overthrow the Romans  and set us up as the great nation we are meant to be.” The prophets of old proclaim, “Behold your king”. Our king is coming to save the people. Hosanna in the highest!

But then comes Jesus on the back of a donkey, a young colt that has never been ridden before. Jesus, a young unemployed, unarmed man without an army, a parody of our definition of power.

Later this week we will watch the powerful governor of Judea, Pontius Pilate stare at this bedraggled, whipped, tortured Jesus and ask, “Are you the King of the Jews?”

Jesus was crucified because he was not the king that everyone wanted, the king that everyone expected, the king everyone thought they deserved. The people wanted a king who could take charge and the perception was that the only way to take charge was through power and politics.

Here we are as Americans with the largest military budget for the largest army in the world which we take for granted. And here is Jesus who has no army and is unarmed, pointing to a God of peace, a God of nonviolence, in the midst of Roman military and political power. What he is doing by preaching a gospel of peace has grave and deadly political implications.

In fact, the multitude of disciples echo back Jesus’ message of peace by blessing what they see as Jesus rides by:

“Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!

Peace in heaven and glory in the highest heaven!”

This is an announcement about what God makes possible through Jesus. God makes peace possible and this is their peace song!

Peace on earth. Peace in heaven. We hear peace in the happy triumphal hymns. But then we hear Jesus say, “Jerusalem! If only you knew the things that make for peace, but you do not know them. They are hidden from your eyes.” Jesus’ words interrupt this happy scene, reminding us of the tragic days to come. The people don’t yet know what peace is. Peace is hidden from their eyes.

What are the things that make for peace? Peace is hidden from our eyes. Our nation believes the way to peace is to initiate a war. We believe that the strong are strengthened by holding off the weak. At the Lenox faith forum on gun violence last week I heard people who believe that the way to peace and safety is to buy a gun and keep it in the dresser drawer. Most everyone in the room expressed fear—some fear that their gun will be taken away by the government, others fear about being shot by a gun owner. People fear one another.  Jesus rides his lowly donkey, unarmed, through all of it.  He chooses to enter a deadly situation without force or protection. He gives himself freely without fear. This is a sign of God’s love, which risks everything and promises to gain all. This is the means by which God creates peace.

Jesus wept over the city, wept over the ignorance of the people not knowing peace and over the fear of the authorities who sought to destroy him, who would be arresting him and trying him and then executing him in the Roman way of execution on the cross. The Roman government believed the way to peace was through crucifixion. So we have the two contrasts, Pax Christi, the peace of Christ which is God’s way, or Pax Romana, the peace of Rome which is the world’s way.  

The peace that Christ brings takes patience and acceptance and willingness to be defeated in the ways of the world. Dr. Paul Farmer, a professor at Harvard University talks about the “long defeat” in the book written about him by Tracy Kidder, Mountains Beyond  Mountains, It describes his medical work in Haiti. Toward the end of the book an emaciated young man from Haiti is flown to Boston for emergency surgery with funds that Paul Farmer’s  non-profit organization has raised. Later the young man would die and one of the staff at his organization questioned Paul Farmer, wondering if  that was an appropriate expenditure of the $20,000 to fly this man to Boston.  Paul Farmer replied that sometimes it adds up to a long defeat. This is how he put it:

“ A long defeat. I have fought the long defeat and have brought other people on to fight the long defeat, and I’m not going to stop because we keep losing. Now I actually think that sometimes we win….you know, people from our background, we’re used to being on the victory team, and actually what we’re really trying to do is to make common cause with the losers. Those are two very different things. We want to be on the winning team, but at the risk of turning our backs on the losers, no, it’s not worth it. So you fight the long defeat.”

Halfway down the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem is a small chapel in the shape of a teardrop. It is called in Latin, “Dominus Flevit”” which means “the Lord weeps”. I have been there. It is the traditional place where Jesus wept over the city because the people did not understand peace.  And today Jerusalem is a divided city with people of different faiths and cultures fighting over what it means to make for peace.

This is the city where Jesus bridged the terrible gap between the ignorance of the people and the peace he was showing them, the gap between their fear and God’s unconditional love. He took the bread and broke it and gave it to his disciples and said “Take and eat. For this is my body broken for you”. Then he took the wine and shared it saying, “This is the cup poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.” This moment is a moment to recall the great cost of peace and that God sent Jesus into the world to bring all of us back to Christ’s peace and to God’s powerful love.

“The peace of Jesus Christ be with you”.

How do you respond? With the words, “And also with you”.  Amen.

written and preached by Rev. Natalie Shiras

March 17, 2013 John 12:1-8

Jesus enters the city of Bethany on his way to Jerusalem and the cross. He stops by to see his close friends, Lazarus and Mary and Martha, and they give him a dinner party. Remember from last week’s story of the father with two sons how much Jesus approves of a party!  In this week’s story Jesus feels truly at home in the company of these good friends.

These three siblings were very close to Jesus. Jesus had already performed a great miracle at their home by raising Lazarus from the dead. The two sisters, Mary and Martha had sent for Jesus when their brother was ill. Jesus took his time to get there and by the time he did get to their home, Lazarus was already dead. The sisters were grieving. Lazarus was so dead that Martha told Jesus that her brother’s body was stinking. Jesus wept aloud and then next thing you know, at the word of Jesus, Lazarus came out of the tomb, like a mummy, ready to be released from his funeral cloths.

The religious authorities who believe in order, stability and decorum, were enraged. The raising of Lazarus was too much for them! They and the government authorities were determined to stop these troubling actions of Jesus and were trying to find a way to arrest him.

When Jesus arrived at the home of his three friends, it was busy in the kitchen. Martha was working hard to prepare the meal but Mary has disappeared from helping Martha who was now upset with her sister.  Where was Mary? This is Mary of Bethany, not to be confused with Mary, the mother of Jesus or Mary Magdalene. This Mary has the reputation of being the dreamy one, the quiet one. There she sat at the feet of Jesus, off in another world, listening and contemplating his every word.

In today’s scripture the dinner party begins. There must have been some awkwardness at the table.  Martha was serving and still tense that Mary had not helped her prepare and serve the meal. There was Lazarus, dead a few days before, sitting at the head of the table. And everyone must have known that the authorities were after Jesus.

Then Mary gets up and kneels at Jesus’ feet and breaks the neck off of a clay jar containing very expensive perfume. As everyone in the room watches, she performs four rather provocative acts.

1. She loosens her hair, letting it down, which no “respectful” woman would do in the presence of men.
2.  She pours the sweet smelling perfume all over Jesus’ feet. (In Israel kings were anointed with oil on their heads, but in public you did not smear sweet smelling oil on someone’s feet, particularly someone to whom you were not married.) Now the whole house is filled with the fragrance of the perfume.
3.  Then Mary touches Jesus, caressing his feet. Of course, this sort of act was never done in public.
4. And then with her hair she wipes Jesus’ feet, an intimate act right there at the table.

Here is love enacted, extravagant, sensuous, physical love that this woman is showing toward Jesus. Mary touches Jesus’ feet and touches his feet with her hair. And Jesus receives this loving act.  It is not that Jesus was unaware of his society’s rules limiting contact between men and women. It’s just that Jesus refuses to acknowledge that in this case it matters. The rules that govern conventional right and wrong are trumped by something much larger happening.

As Judas is quick to note, this time Mary has gone too far. Did she have to carry on so, he must have thought, right there at the table, letting her hair down and falling all over Jesus, to show the whole world that she loves Jesus? Judas exclaims, “She has wasted a huge amount of money here in rubbing all this perfume on Jesus’ feet! What a waste! The perfume could have been sold, and the money would have been taken and given to the poor!”

But Jesus dismisses Judas’ objections and tells him to “leave her alone”. Let her be even if it offends you. Then Jesus says, “You always have the poor with you but you won’t always have me.”

So often this comment of Jesus is taken to mean that we should not bother about the poor because they will always be there anyway. Not at all. We are still to take care of the poor as Jesus did, not only to take care of those who are impoverished, but to provide for them, especially the widows and the orphans, those who are ill or disabled.  In the poor lives Jesus.

But now Mary is ministering to Jesus and he is receiving her sacred and loving act. He is strengthened by her care and compassion. Mary is anointing Jesus for the day of his burial, tenderly, caressing the body as the Jewish women do in preparing the body for burial by anointing their extremities.  Mary knows that Jesus’ days are numbered because next week is Palm Sunday and Jesus will be riding into Jerusalem for the last time.

Mary understands the connection between her extravagantly loving act and Jesus’ death. You know, I visit the prayer shawl group every time I can when they meet in the chapel parlor on Thursday afternoons. This past Thursday as I visited with these women, they were knitting extravagantly beautiful and colorful prayer shawls. Then they give them to those who are ill or those who are grieving the death of a loved one. They say a prayer for the person receiving the prayer shawl that it may be a source of comfort with God’s blessings. Every time they give a prayer shawl, they are ministering to Jesus. They understand the connection between their loving act and the death of a loved one.

As I sat with these prayer shawl knitters, one of the women told of giving a prayer shawl to her five year old grand-daughter who was deathly ill in the intensive care unit. When the girl’s mother laid the prayer shawl over the little girl, this mother could not remove her hand from the prayer shawl draping her daughter as if God was keeping her hand there. Within the hour the girl was getting better and everyone, including the doctors said it was a miracle. This is the power of prayer, the power of God’s spirit, the power of ministering to Jesus.

In just a couple weeks Jesus will sit around another dinner table, but this time it will not be Mary kneeling at his feet. It will be Jesus kneeling at the feet of the disciples, washing their feet, preparing them to minister to other people after his death. As Jesus kneels before the feet of the disciples, someone may remember this scene at the home of Mary and Martha and Lazarus. Someone may make the connection between Mary anointing Jesus and Jesus anointing the disciples.

Jesus is getting ready to do something that is extravagant with self-giving love, as Mary did for Jesus.   When he is hung on that cross, he will say, “Father forgive them…” The most extravagant act in the world.  And Mary was the first to see the truth and to tell the truth.

We live our lives ministering to Jesus by caring for the poor, healing the sick through prayer shawls, and providing comfort for those who have lost a loved one. Like Mary these are our extravagant gifts of love.

Yet in order to love and give to others we also need to be able to listen and receive God’s love.  Last week we considered ways that God was guiding us on a path of reconciliation and forgiveness in the story of the father with his two sons. This week consider when you were the recipient of an act of forgiveness or of gracious ministry the way Jesus received Mary. When you could rest in someone’s care and compassion. What did you need to let go of in order to receive that ministry, that care and compassion? Take a moment to ponder how letting go allows you to move forward toward the cross……Amen.

 written and preached by Rev. Natalie Shiras

 March 10, 2013

 Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32

When Jesus was criticized by the Pharisees for welcoming and eating with sinners, Jesus told them a parable about a father and two sons and the welcome the father gave to his sinful younger son and the love he showed to his resentful older son.

The story begins when the younger son says to his father, “Give me my inheritance that will eventually belong to me, Dad.”  His father agrees, “Sure son”, and gives it to him. Perhaps he is unwise, giving his son the inheritance before he dies. Or perhaps he is giving the boy a chance to spread his wings and find his own way.

The son goes away and squanders everything. With all his inheritance now wasted, this young man is reduced to the level of a pig. He hides away in the pig field in shame. He is so lost. Eventually, after the hangover and the empty pockets, the boy comes to his senses. He realizes, “Hey, I don’t have to starve out here. I have a father and a home”. And he turns back home.

This younger son even writes a little speech for when he gets home. “Now look, Dad, er uh, I mean, Father. I have sinned. I am unworthy to be called your son. Treat me as one of your hired servants.”

But when he gets home the father isn’t interested in the boy’s speech. He’s simply overjoyed to have him home. The father runs toward his son and hugs and kisses him. The father sets about to plan a homecoming party.

Wow! Is this party for real? Yes, the boy was lost and is now found. The father is gracious to receive his wayward son home.  But does the father have to go overboard and throw a party?

Let’s put the parable in context. The Pharisees are angry with Jesus for eating and drinking (partying!)— with sinners. And so Jesus tells them a story about a big blow-out kind of a party for a wasteful son. It seems that Jesus would approve of this party!

 “So they began to make merry”.

Enter the older son. Nostrils flared, a look of indignation and hurt. Music. Dancing. Fancy food. Fancy clothes. He asks the servant what is going on. “Your kid brother is home. The old man has given everyone the night off and there’s a party”.

The older brother is incensed. “A party! Doesn’t that old fool know we have lots of work to do on this farm? How does he expect me to keep down the overhead when he blows all this money on a party for his son who blew all his father’s hard-earned money on prostitutes?” And the text does not even say the younger son spent time with prostitutes. This is what the older son is imagining!

The older son has been a dutiful son. He has stayed home and worked hard. “Dad, see what a good boy I am and see what this other son of yours has done. And now he gets to celebrate and you never gave me a party!”

Guests have been invited to the party to help ease the younger son back into everyone’s good graces. Everyone knows the reason for this happy occasion. But then comes the awkward part. The older son is angry and dishonoring the father by refusing to come to the party. The father has to leave the guests and go out to plead with his son to come in.

After a few minutes people begin to notice the father and older son are missing. Does the party continue as if nothing is happening? I bet everyone wants to pretend everything is all right. Nobody wants an ugly scene.

And that’s the end of Jesus’ parable. It leaves me wondering what happened. Does the older son continue to refuse his father’s plea? Does the father retire weeping when his older son refuses to go in? Does the younger son go out and try to convince the older son to come in? Does everyone just want this mess to go away?

Everyone is complicit. The younger son for going away. The enabling father who let the younger brother get away with it without even a rebuke. This thoughtless father who should have been paying more attention to his older son. The older son who is filled with resentment because he’s the responsible one. This older son who needs to relax and not be so uptight. Most of the time problems don’t go away when they are ignored.

Imagine for a minute something going on in your own family. Are there times that something may be happening that everyone is aware of and no one wants to acknowledge, perhaps including you? Are there estranged members of the family who nobody speaks with? But you don’t want to rock the boat because it might affect the equilibrium of the family.

What about the church family? Have there been times that you know something is going on in the church. Situations where you have attached blame? You don’t want to say anything because it may be trouble. Nobody wants to disturb the party with real life.

Jesus doesn’t end the story because this is the story that you and I have to finish for ourselves.  Imagine that the one who the father has been waiting for is you. Are you the younger brother who goes out on his own? Are you the older brother who lives responsibly by staying home and working, the one whom the father is begging to come in and join the party?

This story Jesus tells shows that you are not alone. That there is one who names you and claims you, has plans for you and waits for you, blesses you and invites you. Jesus wants you to be found. To come home. To be part of an extravagant party. Jesus’ love is extravagant, more excessive than the younger son’s loose living or the older son’s moral rectitude.

Jesus welcomes us home just as we are in good times and in bad times.  It’s a hopeful story of welcoming both the wayward younger son and the sulking older son. “You are always with me” says the father to the older son. You are deeply loved and completely accepted.

We may be loved and accepted, but what about those who have strayed? What about disagreements that have not been resolved? What about those who have left home or left church? Those who have become estranged?  How welcoming are we with the members who have fallen away from the church and may need to find a way home? Our tradition is to create a safe place for those who are estranged. This is a call for warm hearts and compassion. This is a call to overcome disappointment and hurt to demonstrate love that restores and reconciles. Life and faith are not just about doing what is fair, but also about being in relationships that are real and that are capable of being hurt and being put back together again.

Jesus’ welcome intends for nobody to be on the outside looking in. Jesus intends for us all to be on both the receiving end and the giving end of being home. For home is the place where we love and are loved– where everyone, including the younger son and the older son, is welcome.

I invite you now to take this footprint cutout to reflect on the direction you are called to. Where is the welcome in your life? Perhaps you want to visit a neighbor with whom you have not connected for a while, or a family member or friend or someone who has been estranged.  Perhaps you are being called to be in a quiet place. Or consider writing a letter to your 21 year old self, your young adult self, the age of the younger brother or the older brother. What would you say to your younger self? Let’s take a few minutes to reflect or write.   Amen.