Month: May 2024

First Congregational Church in Auburn MA (UCC), May 26, 2024

The Rev. Dr. Virginia H. Child, preaching

John 3:16-17:  “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. “Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world but in order that the world might be saved through him.

Second Inaugural Address of Abraham Lincoln – – With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O God, our Rock and our Redeemer.  Amen.

I want, today, to talk about the ties that bind — and the ties that divide — this country on this day, on the weekend in which we are called to remember those who have died to make all free. And I want to talk about the power of God’s love to change our world.

In long-ago days, Memorial Day was a fixed holiday, focused on the Civil War, always celebrated on May 30, and marked by parades in which elderly veterans of that war tottered down the streets of our larger cities, or rode in the back of automobiles in long and somber parades.  Speeches were made, and if there were picnics, they were at the cemetery where the graves of our honored dead were decorated with flowers.

Today, Memorial Day has been altered to remember all those who died in the service of their country, and for many, it has morphed into the first raucous summer celebration.  But it is still worth remembering that terrible war and what it has to say to those of us who seek to live in peace.  For it is in nurturing peace that we give the best respect to those who died in war.  

The world has changed; the celebrations have changed.  But let’s not lose the lesson that is stored away in this weekend.  Let’s honor the dead and remember, sometimes war must happen, but that doesn’t mean it’s all good.  War is dark and terrible; it destroys people; it destroys community.  War makes us want to see each other in sharp distinction, as if one side is all good and the other all bad.  And that’s just not how it is.

Abraham Lincoln wrote, in his Second Inaugural Address, that both sides of that terrible war, read the same Bible and prayed to the same God.  We might add that they spoke the same languages, belonged to the same churches and often were members of the same family.  Despite all the ties they had in common, the union broke apart.  Churches were torn apart — Baptists north and south created new organizations – the Southern Baptist Convention and the Northern Baptist Convention — as did the Presbyterians in our country.  Families were destroyed.  

The conflict which began in 1860 was not just about states’ rights, or slavery, but at its foundation about how human beings treat one another.  And the struggle which tore our country asunder in those days, continues today, because we’re still not sure that all people are really created equal.

We can look back and say, “look, we no longer segregate our schools.  We no longer put signs in the windows saying no <fill in the blank> need apply.”  But that’s not the end of things.  Just last winter a black man was stopped for driving through West Hartford, the police were called, just because a homeowner knew he couldn’t possibly belong there.  We are sophisticated and educated and yet we sometimes stumble over the pre-conceptions and assumptions of our society.

It’s no wonder that in the wider world, more people stumble than get it. There are two basic human assumptions that keep us from getting it.  The first is simple:  our way is best.  

What we like is right…. the right name for that drink with milk and ice cream is a frappe, right?  Except, in Rhode Island, that’s a cabinet. . . and where I grew up in Florida, it was a milk shake.  

Our way, what makes us feel good, is best.

The second assumption is that people who do things differently, especially if it’s very differently, are less capable than those who do things our way.  “Their” food isn’t as good; their “color sense” is tasteless; “they” don’t do this, think that, whatever. . . 

The first assumption makes those who are different feel unwelcome.  The second assumption makes them feel unworthy of being welcomed.  Together they are the foundation of the toxic stew we call racism.

And racism — rejection of the other simply because they are other is one of the gravest wrongs a Christian can commit.  

Our text for the day is one many of us know by heart – for God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have ever lasting life… but that’s not the whole of it… it goes on … for God sent not his son into the world to condemn the world, but that the world, through him, might be saved.

What does that have to do with war – it is, at least, this – that even as we fight with one another, we must recognize that we are all children of God, we are all loved by God, we are all sisters and brothers under the skin. 

And when we fight – which we will because we are not perfect – we have to recognize and respect our commonalities.  My colleague, Jan Edmiston, who is a denominational exec for the Presbyterians, writes:  naming our enemies as savages 

. . . is the time tested way of othering our neighbors whether we are talking about Hutus and Tutsis, Bosniaks, Serbs, and Croats, Native Americans and colonists, slaveholders and enslaved, or Republicans and Democrats. “Savages” are also known as “vermin” or “deplorables.”

Name-calling is dangerous if for no other reason than it breaks down the unifying love of our neighbors and makes it possible to hate one another.

St. Paul says, in the Letter to the Ephesians, that Christ is our peace, that he has broken down the walls that divide us one from another.  It is Christ’s hope and God’s plan that we be one people in all things that matter, united in our recognition of a common humanity, even while separated by taste and habit, custom and ethos.

It’s all about love.  It’s not about closing doors; it’s about opening them.  It’s not about throwing people out; it’s about inviting them in.  It’s not about saying “no”, but about saying “yes”.

And there’s the clue; there’s the pointer on the way, the guide to let us know how we can join the conversation, how we can take our part in the creation of a world where “whoever you are or wherever you are on life’s journey, you are welcome here.”

The answer is love, and the way is conversation.  The task is to love those we do not love, to listen to those whom we do not like, to reach out to those we fear.  It’s a wonderful feeling to experience those dividing walls falling down.

Every other year I attend the General Synod of our denomination — the biennial meeting of delegates from all across the church.  I’ve rarely actually been a delegate, but visitors may participate in much of the preliminary work, and we’re always welcome to sit around and listen to the many conversations — because, you know, even at that national meeting, decisions are made after a LOT of conversation, and just about nothing is cut and dried.  

In 2003, at the Synod meeting in Minneapolis, I found myself on a Committee formed to decide whether or not our Gay/Lesbian Caucus would be allowed to change their name from Gay/Lesbian/Bisexual to Gay/Lesbian/Bisexual/Transgendered.  Now I thought this was close to the dumbest assignment I’d ever had.  First of all, I didn’t understand why the Synod should be wasting time deciding what one small group should call itself.  And secondly, I didn’t care what they called themselves, and if they wanted to list “Transgendered” in their name it was fine with me.  

So, off I went to the meeting, assuming that this would take 10 minutes, we’d all be in agreement, and we’d be free for the afternoon, for more interesting things – like visiting the used book stores in and around Minneapolis.  There’s no such thing as too many books, you know!

Of course, it didn’t turn out the way I thought.  And I was annoyed for a while.  I really didn’t want to spend a beautiful afternoon in that over air-conditioned committee room.  But then I began to listen to the stories of the people who were there to explain why it was so important to them that their existence be recognized in the name of the group.  And, gradually, I realized that — for me — the experience was not about giving them permission to have their name mentioned, it was about giving them the gift of my listening ear, about hearing, really hearing, how unwelcome transgendered people are, about getting to know the people behind the exterior, about building the connections which break down those dividing walls. 

I hadn’t even known the wall existed.  I didn’t think I was walling them off, and I don’t know that I was, even now, but I do know that they thought there was a wall, and it was only by taking the time to listen, really listen, that they experienced that wall being destroyed.  And by being there and seeing that happen, I shared the joy.

God calls us in many ways. . . sometimes it’s a whimsical committee assignment that opens our eyes. However it happens, when God calls us our curiosity perks up and we want to know more — who are these people; how could the same man do that and say this. . . and in the exploration, in the conversation, we break new ground.

Recognizing and accepting difference as good and valuable is God’s call for us today.  Seeking to build bridges, talking with and listening to those with whom we disagree, is holy work for holy people.  Listen once again to Abraham Lincoln:

With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan, to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.

Amen.

© 2024, Virginia H. Child

First Congregational Church in Auburn UCC, May19, 2024, Pentecost Sunday

Acts 2:1-21:  “They’re speaking our languages, describing God’s mighty works!”

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O God, our Rock and our Redeemer.  Amen.

In the story of Pentecost, we hear how the Spirit of God came upon the gathered believers.  You can just imagine the chaos as those folks, perhaps gathered just as we gather, quietly chatting with their neighbors, gradually realized that others were getting more and more excited, and quickly it all sounded incoherent; people were now speaking other languages, all describing God’s mighty works.

It was so chaotic that people began to mutter that the speakers were drunk.  Not so, said Peter; it’s only 9:30 in the morning.   Rather, this is the sign that God is doing great things, that there’s been a radical change and something new is happening.

That was then; this is now.

Is this just another historical story? Is it only about something that happened when the believers held their first big gathering after the resurrection?  Whatever it was then, what does it mean now?

Is the Holy Spirit of God still active in our churches today?  Because, let’s be clear, if a group of people came here this morning and started shouting in excitement, so that we thought they were rambling in German or Korean, or Navajo, and that maybe, probably they were total drunks, we would be both shocked and offended.  As, I’d bet, folks felt on that first day.

If that’s what the manifestation of God’s Holy Spirit always looks like…. well, I’m not so sure we would be able to deal with it.  Fortunately, this isn’t the usual way we experience the Holy Spirit – unless, maybe, we go off to Association or Conference Annual Meeting or to our national General Synod.  But here, in this church, here we experience the Spirit in homier ways.

We know the Spirit in more home-made ways.  Instead of loud, boisterous assemblies, we see the Spirit in action when one or another of us is surrounded with love in a time of need.  We experience the Spirit, when we gather around tables at Coffee Hour.  We participate in the Spirit’s work when we sing together.

The key signs of the Spirit in action in our fellowship are these – that we care for one another, that we reach out in love to serve our community, that we praise God together in song, and that we are ready for something amazing to happen.

We care for one another.  Over and over, I hear that our church is known for the love we show one another.  We care, we reach out in friendship, we support and love.  This love is one of the essential qualities of a church, and we have it in abundance.

Pentecost reminds us how important it is that we love one another.  It reminds us that there is a time when that is not true – that in our world today, it is not always easy to know where we are truly welcome, much less loved.  At its best, our church provides a breathing space where we can reach across the divisions which so mar our world.  At our best, this is a place where it is safe to admit our pain and know that others will care.  This trust is one of the fruits of God’s Holy Spirit.

God’s Holy Spirit calls us to reach out beyond the community of people we know , to serve the world beyond our doors.  You’ll remember that when Jesus told the story of the Good Samaritan, he wanted us to know that the people outside, the strangers, those with whom we differ, they are our neighbors.  Our neighbors are not just those people whose homes and businesses surround this building, not just the current inhabitants of Auburn, not even just the folks in Worcester who struggle to make a stable life in difficult times.  Our neighbors are the whole of the world.

God’s Holy Spirit calls us to worship God regularly, joyfully and prayerfully.  You know, what we do here on Sunday morning, is done to please God, to respond to the call of the Spirit.  Sure, we want to enjoy what we’re doing – God does not want us to be gloomy worshippers!!  But the first purpose of our time together is praising God.

You can often see that purpose in the music we sing, in our hymns.  We opened today with “Come, O Spirit, Dwell Among Us”.  If our worship is about the Holy Spirit, then it makes good sense to begin with a song which calls that Spirit to be here with us.  And you may have noted, the words of the hymns we sing teach us about the substance of our faith.  And after the sermon, we’ll sing “How Can I Keep From Singing?”, because our common song together is the powerful engine of our work together.

I was raised in a denomination which feared the power of music, which thought singing led us astray.  It was when I joined the United Church of Christ that I realized that belief was both true and false.  Music has power, singing together makes us one body in ways that are hard to understand until we’ve experience it.  But that  power is not inevitably bad; in fact, in this place it is the voice of God speaking to us.  It is in music and song that we are so often drawn in new ways. 

Song helps set the tone of the service – so sometimes the music is somber, sometimes it’s really upbeat.  Always it is intended to help convey the truth of the Gospel to all of us.

All of these things help prepare us for the final tasks of the Spirit – to open us to that which is part of our evolving world. Now it’s part of the human condition to always be best ready for the last big thing.  

Have you ever heard of the Maginot Line?  It’s a system of forts and defenses that the French built along the French-German border in the 1930s.  Building on their experiences in World War I, they planned for a future invasion, expecting that it would run about the same as the one in World War I.  And they expected that people would move in the same ways; they paid no attention to the advances in military equipment.  So, when Hitler invaded France at the beginning of World War II, the Germans simply drove their powerful tanks around the Maginot Line; they went through Belgium, and the Maginot Line turned out to be useless.  

The Holy Spirit calls us to constantly pay attention, to know when we’re living in yesterday and when we’re paying attention to tomorrow.  It’s about asking questions – what does it mean that we are, as a people, engaged in thinking through how the structures of our society reflect our assumptions about people?  Do we define other people through our own assumptions and beliefs or is it ok that they have different assumptions and conclusions?  Unless, of course, they support the Yankees? 

Last week, for instance, a football player gave a Commencement Address in which he declared that women should not have careers.  He belongs to a conservative Christianity which teaches that there is a line of authority which governs the world, where authority comes from God to men, and then men exert their authority over women.  Women only have authority over their children, and only to the extent that their husbands allow.

Women, in their minds, are subordinate to men – all men, not just their husbands.  For these men, it’s impossible to imagine a woman serving as a police officer or serving in the military, because then women would have to exert authority over a man, and that destroys the femininity of women and the masculinity of men.  Some of these men believe that it is immoral for women to divorce an abusive husband.

What does it mean in our world today that these kinds of ideas are being promoted?  What does it mean that we disagree with them, completely and absolutely?  We believe women and men, all people, are made in the image of God, that all people have equal authority and agency.   How does that difference affect our world?

The gift of the Holy Spirit, which we celebrate today is the guidance of God to discuss and discern, to be able to see what is needed and how we might go about meeting that need.

Today we celebrate that gift of the Spirit – the Spirit which teaches us to love, joins us in worship, calls us to service, makes our gatherings into church.  Let us continue to abide in that Spirit, now and always.

Amen.

© 2024, Virginia H. Child

May 12, 2024 First Congregational Church in Auburn (MA) UCC

John 17:20-22

“My prayer is not for them alone. I pray also for those who will believe in me through their message, that all of them may be one, Father, just as you are in me and I am in you. May they also be in us so that the world may believe that you have sent me. I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one. . . 

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O God our Rock and our Redeemer.  Amen.

Easy for Jesus to say that we are all to be one — and oh so hard for us to do.

As I write this I’m watching the dog agility competition at the Westminster Kennel Club – on my computer, I didn’t go to New York!  

Dog agility is really so much fun to do – when I lived in Grand Rapids, MI, my springer spaniel and I did it. You train your dog to navigate jumps and tires – and various other obstacles and at the competitions those parts are put together in various ways. No two courses are the same, and the dogs don’t know what will come next.  Here’s the thing – no matter how well trained the dog, no matter how skilled the human being, no matter how well they work together, stuff happens.

Westminster calls the best to come and compete.  Every dog who enters the “Masters Agility” Competition has won repeatedly at courses all across the country.  And  in every class, there’s a dog or owner who screws up.  They are literally the best of the best, and there they go – off course, running the wrong obstacle, going backwards… one I saw totally lost his concentration and ran around the ring trying to cuddle up to the ring steward, the photographer and a random guy walking alongside the ring.  

Doing what’s expected, what you’ve trained for, doing it again and again, right every time, is hard stuff…. Hard for dogs, harder for humans.  We have so many more distractions than they do!

I saw another example of this sort of complicated life on my way home last Wednesday.  My route takes me through the Rhode Island School of Design and Brown University campuses and on Wednesday there was a student demonstration in front of one of the main RISD buildings.  They’d found a place where traffic is always stopped, so they had maximum visibility.  They were loud, but didn’t try to block traffic. It was clear that the demonstration had been well planned.  

And yet, I really doubt that many of them had any idea how complicated the history of the Middle East is.  I doubt that many of them knew how complicated the idea that RISD would divest itself of any Israeli-owned stocks was in practice.  

And I’m sure that many of us, even those of us who do have some sense of the complexities, didn’t really get how upset the students are by our world today.  These demonstrations are gathering together feelings about a whole lot of things and focusing them on the Middle East.  

And here’s one last example of the complicated life:  today is Mother’s Day.  It’s a day to honor Mothers and those who are mothers to us; it’s a day when we all hope to be with our moms or our children; it’s supposed to be a day of joy.  But it’s not always what we hope and dream about. 

It’s not just that our moms may have died, but that perhaps they were never what we might have hoped for in a mom.  And maybe we have children, but we’re alienated from one another… or we’ve never had children and it’s a constant source of pain.  So for many this is a day of joy, but for others it is a time of excruciating pain.  It’s so complicated.

Now back to Jesus, back to our Scripture for today.

Today’s lesson is part of what is called the “Farewell Discourse” – or the last words of Jesus to his disciples.  It runs from chapters 14 through 17 in John’s Gospel; today we’re only reading part of the last section. And the key verses here for us today is this one:  I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one.   

It is our unity that matters most in this verse… despite the complications that threaten to pull us apart.  This is not a unity that depends on us all thinking the same, doing the same, believing the same.  If you think about it, that’d be too easy.  It’s much easier to demand uniformity than it is to recognize and appreciate the ways in which we differ.  In Galatians 3, Paul writes that our differences do not, cannot matter:  So in Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith, for all of you who were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ. There is neither Jew nor Gentile, neither slave nor free, nor is there male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus.

He’s not saying that we cease to be those things.  We are still male and female, but we are not separate.  We are still either Jews or Gentiles, but those differences no longer separate us. And in God’s world, we are still mothers and not-mothers, we are still Palestinian, Israeli, we are still  good dogs who do it all well and the goofy ones who run backwards through the obstacles.  

God loves us all, as we are.  All God asks of us is that we love one another the same way.  It is love for one another and for our world which unites us across all the dividing walls of humanity.

On this day dedicated to the love of mothers, let’s make our mothers proud as we practice the love that binds, breaking down the walls of ignorance and hate, bringing together people of all genders, all orientations, all races, clans and classes, all across the world.

Amen.

© 2024, Virginia H. Child

May 5, 2024  First Congregational Church in Auburn (UCC), Auburn MA

John 15:9-17

 “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. This is my command: Love each other.

Acts 10:44-48

While Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit came on all who heard the message. The circumcised believers who had come with Peter were astonished that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on Gentiles. For they heard them speaking in tongues and praising God. 

Then Peter said, “Surely no one can stand in the way of their being baptized with water. They have received the Holy Spirit just as we have.” So he ordered that they be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ. Then they asked Peter to stay with them for a few days. 

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight, O God our Rock and our Redeemer.  Amen.

The Gospel of Jesus Christ turned the world upside down.  

And that turning continues today.

Jesus was born into, preached to, and died for a world where people had their place and were expected to stay in it.  Whether they were rich or poor, educated or illiterate, they were not supposed to move out of their class.  Knight or soldier, priest or teacher, slave or Roman leader… everyone knew who they were, and no one was supposed to change.

It’s not all that different today.  Even now, we are born into different worlds and we’re supposed to stay there.  Sure there are those famous people who move from poverty to wealth, but have you noticed how those folks are held to a different standard of behavior than folks who were born wealthy?  And very few of our multi=billionaires came out of backgrounds of abject poverty, where they had to struggle to get enough to eat, or to own a book of their own.  This is just the reality of our world.

But Jesus said it was not the reality of his world.  And his teachings have created a space where those differences do not divide us.  Here in this community, we are reaching across those lines of social class, educational levels, kinds of work, marital status — and we’re growing into building real relationships across racial and ethnic divides, welcoming in gay, lesbian, trans people.  

The challenges we face in naming our work reflects the strength of these dividing walls in our world.  

But we stick to it, remembering stories like the ones we read this morning.  The portion from Acts recounts memories of the emergence of a fellowship that will, in the years to come, become the Christian Church, gathered in many places across the eastern Mediterranean.  And in all those places, these stories were told and retold, to remind them that here, in the church, dividing walls are not supposed to matter.

In Acts, we hear about a time when Peter was speaking, not just to the folks who already followed Jesus’ Way, but to a mixed group of believers and the curious.  The believers were all Jews, the curious were outsiders, gentiles.  They were people who really didn’t belong, and yet, when the time came, it was clear that all of them had been blessed, despite their differences.

Acts has a number of these stories – there’s Cornelius the Centurion, who responds to Peter’s preaching, the Ethiopian eunuch, not only a gentile, but a person of color.. and there are others, each one of them making it clear that in God’s world, everyone is accepted.

If it were not clear enough from Acts, we also have the words we heard this morning from the Gospel of John, where Jesus says, Love each other as I have loved you.  And later on he adds Love each other.

Can it be clearer?  We who follow the Jesus Way are called to create communities where everyone matters, where rich and poor sit at table together, where old and young craft friendships, where our color, our affectional choices, the clothes we wear, the jobs we do, or whether or not we were born here, are simply part of who we are, and not barriers to full participation.  

It is not just God’s dream, or Jesus’ dream – something to hope for in the maybe of our future.  It is our dream, if we claim it, to be that place where everyone is welcome.  

Now, how we do that will differ according to where we are, the nature of the community in which we live, our resources and so on.  It’s always going to begin with the small stuff – holding doors open, smiling at the checkout person, being kind to those who help us.  But what’s next?  That’ll depend on what’s going on around you, what the needs are in your world.  Most of it, that’s your challenge, today and in all our tomorrows.

Amen.

© 2024, Virginia H. Child