Month: September 2025

Finding Building Materials for a Better Life

September 28, 2025  First Congregational Church UCC, Brimfield MA

Psalm 91:1-6, 14-16 —
You who live in the shelter of the Most High, 
who abide in the shadow of the Almighty,,*
2 will say to the Lord, “My refuge and my fortress; 
my God, in whom I trust.” 
3 For he will deliver you from the snare of the hunter 
and from the deadly pestilence; 
4 he will cover you with his pinions, 
and under his wings you will find refuge; 
his faithfulness is a shield and defense. 
5 You will not fear the terror of the night 
or the arrow that flies by day 
6 or the pestilence that stalks in darkness 
or the destruction that wastes at noonday. 
14 Those who love me, I will deliver; 
I will protect those who know my name. 
15 When they call to me, I will answer them; 
I will be with them in trouble; 
I will rescue them and honor them. 
16 With long life I will satisfy them 
and show them my salvation.

1 Timothy 6:6-19 —  6 Of course, there is great gain in godliness combined with contentment, 7 for we brought nothing into the world, so that we can take nothing out of it, 8 but if we have food and clothing, we will be content with these. 9 But those who want to be rich fall into temptation and are trapped by many senseless and harmful desires that plunge people into ruin and destruction. 10 For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil, and in their eagerness to be rich some have wandered away from the faith and pierced themselves with many pains. 

11 But as for you, man of God, shun all this; pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, gentleness. 12 Fight the good fight of the faith; take hold of the eternal life to which you were called and for which you made the good confession in the presence of many witnesses. 13 In the presence of God, who gives life to all things, and of Christ Jesus, who in his testimony before Pontius Pilate made the good confession, I charge you 14 to keep the commandment without spot or blame until the manifestation of our Lord Jesus Christ, 15 which he will bring about at the right time—he who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords. 16 It is he alone who has immortality and dwells in unapproachable light, whom no one has ever seen or can see; to him be honor and eternal dominion. Amen. 

17 As for those who in the present age are rich, command them not to be haughty or to set their hopes on the uncertainty of riches but rather on God, who richly provides us with everything for our enjoyment. 18 They are to do good, to be rich in good works, generous, and ready to share, 19 thus storing up for themselves the treasure of a good foundation for the future, so that they may take hold of the life that really is life.

Luke 16:19-31 — 19 “There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and who feasted sumptuously every day. 20 And at his gate lay a poor man named Lazarus, covered with sores, 21 who longed to satisfy his hunger with what fell from the rich man’s table; even the dogs would come and lick his sores. 22 The poor man died and was carried away by the angels to be with Abraham. The rich man also died and was buried. 23 In Hades, where he was being tormented, he lifted up his eyes and saw Abraham far away with Lazarus by his side.,* 24 He called out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am in agony in these flames.’ 25 But Abraham said, ‘Child, remember that during your lifetime you received your good things and Lazarus in like manner evil things, but now he is comforted here, and you are in agony. 26 Besides all this, between you and us a great chasm has been fixed, so that those who might want to pass from here to you cannot do so, and no one can cross from there to us.’ 27 He said, ‘Then I beg you, father, to send him to my father’s house—28 for I have five brothers—that he may warn them, so that they will not also come into this place of torment.’ 29 Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the prophets; they should listen to them.’ 30 He said, ‘No, father Abraham, but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.’ 31 He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’ ”

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.

Monsalvat Farm in Barnard VT has been put up for sale.  400 acres. Two ponds. Equestrian facilities, riding trails, a helipad… the main house is custom-designed, 10,000 square feet of living space… with two bedrooms, four full bathrooms, three powder rooms, and eight functioning wood-burning fireplaces.  Oh, and an auxiliary house with more bedrooms, a gazebo, and a horse barn.  Beautiful views, open fields, forests, mountains, the whole package, and all for only $39 million dollars.

The article in the Boston Globe doesn’t mention how many servants you need to keep the house and grounds running, but from the pictures, I’d guess you’re going to need at least one person doing nothing but mowing grass, and with seven bathrooms and eight fireplaces, never mind anything else – another full time person to keep those rooms clean.  Fireplaces make for a lot of soot.  A horse person for the horses… probably a cook, when in residence, and a couple of other groundskeepers… so four to six people at least, and that doesn’t include security.  

The extravagance is mind numbing.  All to purchase something beautiful.

It’s made me think about what makes something beautiful.  Now, I’ve lived in Vermont; like around here, it’s darned hard to make any place “not beautiful”… it’s just not necessary to have a custom-designed $39M house to make that happen.

Today’s scripture lessons are, you see, about beauty, but a different kind of beauty.  It’s not the kind you buy; it’s the kind you live.  It’s the kind of beauty that Timothy is talking about in that first lesson. 

Pretty things are great, but true beauty is something different… pretty is, as pretty does… is the way we in the Christian way understand the beauty that endures.  Timothy writes:  “… the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil… but as for you… pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, gentleness.”

It’s not so much that wealth is bad, or even that it’s wrong to have a 10,000 square foot house, but that it’s right when – no matter how wealthy or poor we are – we build our lives on living out the values of love, godliness, faith, endurance, gentleness.  

This is particularly important in a world filled with anger and hatred as ours is these days.  These days, it’s as if we’ve all been told that our first reaction to anything is to jump into criticism, to react with contempt.  It doesn’t matter what the subject is – it can be majorly important or totally picayune.  It’s the kind of reaction that just shuts down conversation – maybe when you thought you were just saying that Road Runner cartoons are funny, and someone tries to start an argument about South Park.

In the Gospel reading this morning we heard the story of the rich man and the poor man named Lazarus.  You may have heard this as the story of “Dives and Lazarus” – Dives is a name for a rich man in Latin –  so Lazarus was the homeless guy at the gate to Dives’ estate, begging for crumbs from the table, always hungry, always out in the weather.  In the story, Lazarus dies and goes to heaven.  It turns out that Dives has also died, but he’s gone South, to the Hotter place.  He looks up and sees Abraham up in Heaven and begs him to send Dives down to bring him some water.  Abraham, though, tells him that he got his good stuff while he was alive and now he’s paying the price.  So Dives begs that Abraham send Lazarus to Dives’ family to help them change their ways.  But Abraham says, if they don’t get it from what they hear in church, even someone coming back from the dead won’t change their minds, their behavior.

Whether or not you believe there’s a literal Heaven and Hell, the story is clear – our behaviors have consequences.  Dives didn’t help Lazarus even a little, even tho in his world, that’d been the right thing to do.  He just walked on by. And then he paid the price.  

One of the other things this set of lessons reminds us is that there’s something about “having”, being wealthy, or even just better off than most, that can make it harder to be generous, welcoming, loving of those who don’t have what we do.  And it’s not just about having money.  

Those of us who have better educations sometimes struggle to understand a different way of living that’s not focused around study, those of us with a clearer vision perhaps, of our future, are puzzled with those who don’t automatically agree with them.. the better cooks don’t always understand those who just don’t like to cook, and so on.  So embedded in this lesson is one, not just about money, but about understanding and difference, and God’s welcome of all, no matter their skills or gifts.

No matter who we are, where we’ve come from or where we think we’re going, Gods call is for us and for all. God calls us, doesn’t just offer a passing chance, but calls, ordained, equips and expects us to be kind to all people.  God wants us, even when people think we’re fools for doing it – God wants us to do the right thing, and to do it knowing that we will not always be respected.  God wants us to keep our tempers, to understand that everyone won’t always agree on anything, must less everything; God wants us to share, to be generous, generous with our money, our time, our skills – not so that we’ll be appreciated but so that the work of God will continue.  

That’s the lesson for today.  What we do, how we live, matters.  We have the power to change our world for the better, simply by refusing to participate in contempt, anger, dismissal – and by living as people of love, justice and mercy.  So, let us go forth to live in God’s way.

Amen.

© 2025, Virginia H. Child

Fear of the Lord?  Fear of the future?

Proverbs 1:1-7

2 For learning about wisdom and instruction, 
for understanding words of insight, 
3 for gaining instruction in wise dealing, 
righteousness, justice, and equity; 
4 to teach shrewdness to the simple, 
knowledge and prudence to the young— 
5 let the wise, too, hear and gain in learning 
and the discerning acquire skill, 
6 to understand a proverb and a figure, 
the words of the wise and their riddles. 
7 The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge; 
fools despise wisdom and instruction.

Luke 8:22-25 One day he got into a boat with his disciples, and he said to them, “Let us go across to the other side of the lake.” So they put out, 23 and while they were sailing he fell asleep. A windstorm swept down on the lake, and the boat was filling with water, and they were in danger. 24 They went to him and woke him up, shouting, “Master, Master, we are perishing!” And waking up, he rebuked the wind and the raging waves; they ceased, and there was a calm. 25 Then he said to them, “Where is your faith?” They were terrified and amazed and said to one another, “Who then is this, that he commands even the winds and the water and they obey him?” and amazed and said to one another, “Who then is this, that he commands even the winds and the water and they obey him?

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.

We’re in a funny spot these days…. About half way through the interim period, creeping up on that great day when our profile will go public and we will begin to receive candidate profiles (resumes)

But it all feels so slow, and it’s not easy to see.  Much of what we’re doing these days isn’t easy to see, you know.  Your leadership is moving into a new way of discerning where God would have us go, and different ways of making things happen.  I suspect that, for many of us, the results are either invisible or innocuous… that is, either so obvious as to not seem like much of anything, or seeming so unimportant as to not really be anything at all.

And if it’s hard to see what has happened, or challenging to realize what radical changes we have made, it must be about time for us to be thinking “we’re not doing enough”…  

We’re at that place like the kid who is down by the creek, in the water, and gets knocked over by the current and thinks he’s drowning, because he can’t swim – but he’s only  in 2 feet of water and is tall enough to wade, if he can only stop thrashing around and stand up.  Maybe he’ll have to pull himself out of the current, but he can make it.

We’re that kid.  

It’d be easy to say, oh we don’t have enough people.. because you don’t have enough people to sustain programs the way you did years ago.

It’d be easy to say, we’re not solving this problem right now… because it’s the one on my list, when we’re learning to prioritize and plan.

It’d be easy to say our problem is that we don’t have enough money, and we don’t have enough money because we have a woman pastor, or because we welcome gay people, or because we belong to the United Church of Christ.  But those are the kinds of fears we hear when we’re still looking back to the successes of decades ago, instead of looking forward to the opportunities of today and tomorrow.

Here’s what we’re doing to make a difference, to prepare ourselves for the next pastorate, for the next ten years or so…

Because without plans, yes our fears will take over.  But with plans we have a future. 

And we have plans:

The first plan takes advantage of our physical space, and our financial planning, to provide good ministry to our children.  Off and on, almost every month I’ve been here, someone has talked with me about children.  Your leaders, the Moderators and the Council, have put together a workable plan that uses our resources, doesn’t ask of us things we don’t have, and is an effective way to reach out to the youngest among us and their parents.  

In some churches the children’s program is run by volunteers, and even the pastor, but that’s not in our wheelhouse.  But what we do have is a good, dedicated child space, that – because it’s right here in the worship space is a safe space for children – and because it’s right here in the worship space, allows the smallest among us to be present in worship – and which is convenient and attractive.  So the plan is to put together a job description, and hire someone to watch over the children in the Prayground, freeing their parents to focus on the worship service.

I bet someone here is saying, so what are you going to do about the youth.  One of the lessons we’ve been working on is that we need to start out at a level we can keep up with.  If you’re just learning how to cook, you start with something easy, not Thanksgiving dinner for 20.  We’re starting with our youngest children.  When that’s running well, we will add a program for the grade 1 through about 6 kids – a Messy Church experience.  Again, we’ll look around for someone, this time, hopefully an experienced Christian educator, who will come once a month to do this program with our children.  

As Messy Church begins to stabilize, we’ll then look for a more formal program for our youth.  In the meantime, we’ll be inviting them to help at Messy Church or on Sunday mornings.  We’ll encourage them to think about being a Scout, because that’s a great program.  This will give your new pastor time to get to see the resources in the area and to figure out what combination of activities will be the most worthwhile for our children and give us the most bang for the buck.

Do you see what our leaders have figured out?  They’ve learned that you don’t need tons of people to make a mark, to have an effective experience.  They’ve figured out that good planning doesn’t just count money, it’s also counts people.  And they’ve figured out that the best plans pay attention to what people need and aim to provide it.

You’ve heard me talk about the trip our leaders made to the Elementary School a few weeks ago.  It’s a perfect example of the kind of right-sized, right-focused outreach that is so good for us.  Here’s why it did a superior job of sharing the love of God with our teachers.

It was right-focused – our goal was to do something explicit to tell our teachers they mattered.  So our leaders used their contacts to find out what would make a difference to them.  And when the word was that they’d most appreciate Clorox Wipes and Expo dry-erase markers, we listened to what had been said.  We gave them what they wanted, even when it felt like an odd thing to bring them.

It was right-sized – we only tried to bring two things.  There are other things we might have brought.  We hear they like Puffs tissues – good, soft and strong for little kids.  But we measured our capacity and felt as though two things could be done well, but three would be too much.

The gifts worked well, but did you hear what happened next?  While we were at the school, distributing the supplies (and the donuts and pastries we brought), we had at least half a dozen conversations.  We got the word out that this church exists and cares about them.  We helped the music teacher make a connection with the Senior Center for a Christmas Concert.  We listened closely to the school secretary talk about other needs, to see if there was anything else that fit with our skills and abilities… and it turned out there was.  Now our Knitting group is aiming to make hats and mittens so the school office has a supply of warm, dry stuff to give little kids with cold, wet hands…  It didn’t occur to the school to call us up and ask for mittens – why would it?  But when we said we might be able to help with that, our offer was gratefully received.

That whole project, which told about 30 people at the school that we cared about them, took about 2 weeks of time – time to advertise it, time to collect money, time to order stuff from Amazon, and then time to load it all into Deb Christensen’s car, and for Deb, Debbie Gran, Kitty Lowenthal and me to ride over to the school.  In other words, it was right-sized for our financial and human resources.

I’ve heard concerns that we’re going to have problems getting parkers for the 2026 season… here’s how our updated planning is going to deal with that issue.  Your leaders know it’s time for us to expand the group of people who park.  And they also know that we don’t have to make any decisions about how we’re going to do that until early next year.  So we’re setting aside any major energy about the challenge. The time between now and then will be spent listening to our parking crew and letting ideas and opportunities mature in our minds.  We’re learning that it’s better use of our time and energy to make plans and decisions at the right time… which often is not “right this minute”. 

Right now we’re gathering information; when it’s time, we will move forward, well-informed and ready to choose from among our opportunities.

If we take counsel of our fears, if we let the challenges overwhelm us, we will struggle.  But as our leaders take advantage of our many assets, you will see more and more evidence of the way we are moving calmly, confidently and faithfully into the future.

For never fear, God has a future for this congregation. 

Amen.

C 2025, Virginia H. Child

The Shadow of Pain

September 14, 2025  First Congregational Church UCC, Brimfield MA

Romans 8:28-39: We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose. For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn within a large family.,* And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified. 

What then are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us? He who did not withhold his own Son but gave him up for all of us, how will he not with him also give us everything else? Who will bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? It is Christ who died, or rather, who was raised, who is also at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us. Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will affliction or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword? As it is written, 

“For your sake we are being killed all day long; 
we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered.” 
No, in all these things we are more than victorious through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

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.

Pain is a present part of our lives these days.  Maybe it’s the pain of a broken leg, or some other physical ill.  Maybe it’s the pain of a broken heart, or a broken dream.  One of the things that makes pain hard to bear is how, so often, there’s some sense of betrayal there.  We didn’t expect to be sick, we didn’t expect a marriage to break up, we didn’t expect this or that piece of destruction.  Betrayal is right at the core of pain, and this has been a week of betrayals.

It was the 24th anniversary of 9-11 this past week.  I doubt there’s anyone here who couldn’t tell you where they were when they heard about those horrific attacks.  I was living in Grand Rapids MI, where I’d just permanently closed the church I’d been serving, when I got an email from a friend in Australia who told me to turn on my tv….  It was a day of horror.  

For many of us, 9-11 always brings back our memories of other shootings, especially Sandy Hook and the death of children.  There’s been a lot of that lately… and then on the eleventh, along with the recollections of 9=11, there were two more  betrayals – a shooting at Evergreen High School in Evergreen, Colorado – and the murder of Charlie Kirk, live on tv.

That’s a lot of pain.  That’s a lot of betrayal.

Add that pain to our usual lives – frustrations, illnesses, angers… struggles to stay even…

It’s been a hard week for many of us.

When it all gets too hard, we come here.  When it all gets too bad, we come to God.

Together we comfort one another, name this space as one clear open to God.  Together we rage at the injustices of the world, share our grief, our anger, our pain with God.  Together we live out our faith that life has meaning and purpose, that God intends love to triumph over evil, that  as the hymn says, “though the wrong seems oft so strong, God is the ruler yet.” 

Why, though, do we hold on to that hope?  If God has any power, why can’t we make the shootings stop?  If God is in charge, why are people so mean to each other these days?  We hold onto our hope that God is in charge, that pain is not pointless, that evil will not triumph because, in the first place, God promises that it is true, and in the second place, we see signs that good does make change happen.

God promises that good will triumph.  In the letter to the Romans, Paul wrote:

28 We know that all things work together for good for those who love God, who are called according to his purpose. 29 For those whom he foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, in order that he might be the firstborn within a large family.,* 30 And those whom he predestined he also called, and those whom he called he also justified, and those whom he justified he also glorified. 

31 What then are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us? 32 He who did not withhold his own Son but gave him up for all of us, how will he not with him also give us everything else? 33 Who will bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. 34 Who is to condemn? It is Christ who died, or rather, who was raised, who is also at the right hand of God, who also intercedes for us. 35 Who will separate us from the love of Christ? Will affliction or distress or persecution or famine or nakedness or peril or sword? 36 As it is written, 

“For your sake we are being killed all day long; 

we are accounted as sheep to be slaughtered.” 

37 No, in all these things we are more than victorious through him who loved us. 38 For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, 39 nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. [1]

And if that’s not enough, there’s more.  Paul lists a whole set of bad things – and then says that not one of those has enough power to totally destroy us.  Nothing has the power to break our connection with Christ, the power of Love made a living human being.  Nothing – not sickness.  Nothing – not distress.  Nothing – not false accusations, not poverty, not danger, not the evil aggressions of enemies.  Nothing.

As Paul says:  I am convinced that neither death, lor life, no angels, nor rulers, no things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.

My morning reading these days has been Rick Atkinson’s excellent new history of the American Revolution.  The fighting was hard, we lost battle after battle, especially in the early years.  More than once our Founding leaders thought the jig was up and that they would all, at best, end their lives on Tower Hill in London, executed for treason.

But looking back on the entirely of the struggle, it was almost certain from the very beginning, even before maybe the first person died, that it was just about impossible for England to keep us as colonies if we persisted in the fight.  Even the English leaders who thought the war unwinnable didn’t really believe they were right enough to speak out, even when it was clear that the war was destroying the English economy.

As hard as that was for them, it’s even harder to hold onto faith that even when you’re on your fourth trip to the emergency room in the last 2 months, when you know that each trip brings you a little closer to that final trip when your heart stops.  It’s hard to hold onto faith when you realize that one of your 3rd grade students is almost certainly being abused and you know it’s not going to be easy to do something.  It’s hard to hold onto faith when it feels like the world is falling apart, when one more public shooting happens – at a speech, at a school… wherever.

And yet, we endure. God promises that love will win.  So prepare to share in that heavenly meal we will soon celebrate, knowing that it is a tangible expression of God’s love, food and drink to nourish body and soul.  And know when you leave here, you will be sustained by God’s love.

Amen.

[1] New Revised Standard Version: Updated Edition (Friendship Press, 2021), Ro 8:28–39.

FIVE GREAT THINGS ABOUT GOD

September 7, 2025 First Congregational Church UCC, Brimfield MA

Jeremiah 18:1-11  The word that came to Jeremiah from the Lord: 2 “Come, go down to the potter’s house, and there I will let you hear my words.” 3 So I went down to the potter’s hous, and there he was working at his wheel. 4 The vessel he was making of clay was spoiled in the potter’s hand, and he reworked it into another vessel, as seemed good to him. 

5 Then the word of the Lord came to me: 6 Can I not do with you, O house of Israel, just as this potter has done? says the Lord. Just like the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand, O house of Israel. 7 At one moment I may declare concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will pluck up and break down and destroy it, 8 but if that nation, concerning which I have spoken, turns from its evil, I will change my mind about the disaster that I intended to bring on it. 9 And at another moment I may declare concerning a nation or a kingdom that I will build and plant it, 10 but if it does evil in my sight, not listening to my voice, then I will change my mind about the good that I had intended to do to it. 11 Now, therefore, say to the people of Judah and the inhabitants of Jerusalem: Thus says the Lord: Look, I am a potter shaping evil against you and devising a plan against you. Turn now, all of you, from your evil way, and amend your ways and your doings.

Psalm 139: 1-6, 13-18
1 O Lord, you have searched me and known me. 
2 You know when I sit down and when I rise up; 
you discern my thoughts from far away. 
3 You search out my path and my lying down 
and are acquainted with all my ways. 
4 Even before a word is on my tongue, 
O Lord, you know it completely. 
5 You hem me in, behind and before, 
and lay your hand upon me. 
6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; 
it is so high that I cannot attain it. 
for darkness is as light to you. . . .
13 For it was you who formed my inward parts; 
you knit me together in my mother’s womb. 
14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. 
Wonderful are your works; 
that I know very well. 
15 My frame was not hidden from you, 
when I was being made in secret, 
intricately woven in the depths of the earth. 
16 Your eyes beheld my unformed substance. 
In your book were written 
all the days that were formed for me, 
when none of them as yet existed. 
17 How weighty to me are your thoughts, O God! 
How vast is the sum of them! 
18 I try to count them—they are more than the sand; 
I come to the end—I am still with you.

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.

God makes us.
God knows us.
God loves us.
God protects us.
God is with us to the end.

For the past month I’ve been talking each Sunday about where we are – about the challenges we face, about the opportunities we have, about how we can proceed.  Today, we’re going to change focus.  Instead of what we can do, or should do, or don’t have to do, I want to talk a little about why we do this, why the time and effort and — let’s be clear — the money we put into keeping this church on the path is worth it all.

There’s no doubt that we’ve been putting a lot into this work. And there’s little doubt that the busyness of all we do can sometimes make it hard to remember why we do it.  So, let’s take a pause and think together about our “why”.

We are here this morning because we have chosen to follow God.  Back in the days when this church was called together, everyone knew there was God, and that it was good to follow God. Today, that’s more of an individual decision, but we have that determination in common with our religious ancestors.  We follow God.

We follow God because we believe that God is the ultimate source of all things.  That doesn’t have to mean that we think God is some sort of master carpenter, who literally makes everything.  That would just reduce God to a functionary, like the person who gives me my driver’s license.  And if there’s one thing we’re sure of God — and heaven — are nothing like the Registry of Motor Vehicles!  No, what I’m talking about is that creativity is one way to see God.  The ability to make things is a gift from God.  That human beings can make more human beings is a way of understanding God’s creative power.  That human beings can tell stories, is part of God’s creative power.

Stand before an amazing painting and you will be standing in the presence of God’s creative power, as understood by the artist.

This creative God is who we follow.

God not only is creative, God knows us. 

Years ago, I had a friend who was struggling with our classes at college.  He’d often come to me and ask me what I thought the textbook said, because to him it just didn’t make sense.  We went through this for a couple of semesters, until I began to feel used, and finally pushed him on why he always did this.  Turned out he was dyslexic.  He’d hidden his problem because he thought that since I read so easily I wouldn’t want to be friends with someone who couldn’t read much at all.  But, you know, we didn’t really become friends until the day he felt free to admit his challenge and I had the opportunity to really understand what was going on.  

I don’t know how many places most of us find we can’t be who we really are…. Even when we don’t realize that’s what’s going on.  But parents learn to say they know what’s what when their first child learns to ask “why”…. At work we have to act as if we really know everything.  We have to seem honest, and kind, and considerate.. all kinds of things.  The constant need to present our best side is exhausting.  

But here, in God’s presence, we are who we are.  We don’t need to hide from God.  Here, with God, we can be honest with ourselves about where we are, and with that freedom comes the freedom to grow into a better person.  It’s a friendship that just gets better and better.  My college friend and I never saw each other after we graduated, but God’s friendship never ends.

God’s friendship never ends because it’s based on God’s love for us and for the world.  God knows us and because God loves us, that knowledge is good and can help us grow in love for all the world.

When I was a little kid, I thought all grownups were happy, free to follow their hopes and dreams.  If I’d thought about it, I’d have assumed that when you grew up, you got a job you loved, married someone who loved you, had good children, and in your old age, were surrounded by happy, loving children and grandchildren. 

This despite the fact that I was in constant ill health, in and out of the hospital; despite the fact that my mother was not allowed to work as a registered nurse because she was married, that my best friend’s parents were not only divorced but distanced – she didn’t know her father at all…. In other words, even as a kid, I should have known that my dream was an illusion.

And when we’re little and we hear that God cares for us, I suspect most of us think that means that if we follow God we’ll never have to deal with hurt or pain, that our children will be good, our parents healthy, our jobs successful.  

Now, we all know that’s not true.  In fact, the more attention we pay to our world, the more pain we see.  It shows up in our own lives, in the lives of those whom we love.  We do our best and still fail.  Life, it turns out, is hard, sometimes painful, often disappointing.  And in the midst of all that, one thing upon which we can depend is God’s protection.  Not protection against bad things happening, protection against those things robbing our world of all that is good.

It’s a protection that helps you see in the midst of that which might blind you to so much.  You’ll remember, for instance, that last fall my back went out and I was in terrible pain for a while.  In the midst of all that I had to go to Charlton Hospital in Fall River for a scan, and I got lost, trying to find the closest parking lot.  I tried to enter the hospital through the emergency room, and fell into the hands of the tallest security guard I’ve ever seen.  It was the beginning of a great visit.  And I’m convinced it was God’s presence that helped me look beyond my pain and see his effort to help me as help.  It was God who helped me recognize the love in the care the medical folks took to get me back to my car and, for a needed return visit, find a better place to park.  

God didn’t get me exercising so my back wouldn’t go out.  God didn’t make the pain go away, but God helped me see help as help, to respond with kindness to kindness when irritability would have been far more likely.  And that’s why I say God protects us.

Finally, God is always with us, till the end.  No matter how that goes, we will not be left alone, abandoned by God.  On our deathbed, God will be with us.  

So – God makes, us, knows us, loves us, protects us, stays with us to the end.  It is the knowledge of this, and the way it brings worth and value to our lives that we have to share with our neighbors.  This is what makes our work as a church so important.  This isn’t just a gift for us; it’s a gift for everyone.

We matter.
God matters.
This church matters.

Amen.

c 2025, Virginia H. Child

What Does Success Look Like?

August 31, 2025  First Congregational Church UCC, Brimfield MA

Luke 14:1, 7-14 — On one occasion when Jesus was going to the house of a leader of the Pharisees to eat a meal on the Sabbath, they were watching him closely. . . 7 When he noticed how the guests chose the places of honor, he told them a parable. 8 “When you are invited by someone to a wedding banquet, do not sit down at the place of honor, in case someone more distinguished than you has been invited by your host, 9 and the host who invited both of you may come and say to you, ‘Give this person your place,’ and then in disgrace you would start to take the lowest place. 10 But when you are invited, go and sit down at the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he may say to you, ‘Friend, move up higher’; then you will be honored in the presence of all who sit at the table with you. 11 For all who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.” 

12 He said also to the one who had invited him, “When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers and sisters or your relatives or rich neighbors, in case they may invite you in return, and you would be repaid. 13 But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, and the blind. 14 And you will be blessed because they cannot repay you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”

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 can just picture it.  Think of it as like going to one of those dinners at a church convention.  You stand outside in the hall, waiting for the doors to open, then when the doors open, everyone rushes in at once, heading for their favorite table….  Some of us gather in the back, filling the table with friends we’ve not seen for a year or more.  But some of us rush for the table closest to the speakers, because we want to be seen, because maybe the speaker will say “hi” and everyone will know we’re important.  It’s all show, no substance.

Now of course, not everyone who rushes for the front table is trying to show off – some of us can’t hear well, or can’t see so well.  Some of us are real friends of the speaker and want to offer their support to the speech. Some of us have heard that it’s best to fill up the room from the front to the back, and some of us are only following the crowd.  But, just as Jesus points out in the reading, some folks want everyone to know they’re important.  That’s success for them, to be known, recognized.

I think most of us like being known, being in a community, a place where everyone knows your name.  But making a success of our lives is about more than just having your name known, being recognized when you come to church.

This past week I had a great conversation with one of our members – and success was part of the conversation.  What does success look like?  How do we get there?  Our conversation was really about what success looks like for churches, but still the same question is part of the discussion – is success about being “seen” or something else.

It’s an important question for us just now.  As I’ve been saying this month, this is a key time for our church.  It’s clearer and clearer that we cannot continue as we have.  The world has changed, people have changed, times are changing.  The old, tried and true ways of keeping our church going just don’t work anymore.  

When our church was first gathered, in 1721, pretty much every resident in town had to attend the church, and the town had to support the church financially in order to be officially recognized as a town.  We were more than a hundred years old before that changed.  In 1833, the Congregational Church was disestablished, and we had to put together a new way of financing our work; we could no longer count on people coming because it was required.  Over the years, we’ve met change, large and small.  Today is no different.

Well, maybe it is, because in times past, we could always count on the respect of the community, we could count on our children learning basic things about Christian practice in school.  That’s different now.  

In particular, one of the struggles we are dealing with is the general public disdain for religion.  Last week, there was an article in the Boston Globe about the First Church UCC in Somerville.  Now Somerville is “student-heaven”; that church has something like 85% turnover in membership every year, because so many of their members are students at MIT or Harvard or one of the many other colleges in the area.  First Church has extra space in their building; there’s a problem housing the homeless in Somerville, and they’ve proposed turning their basement into a handicapped accessible homeless shelter.  As you can imagine, the neighbors aren’t happy.

The article’s pretty good, but it’s the letters to the editor that are illuminating – people don’t want the homeless anywhere near them.  In any argument you’re going to hear someone slam Joe Biden, and someone else slam Donald Trump.  And at least a quarter of the people accuse the church of something – misusing their land, misrepresenting their purpose, being vain…   And this particular story is pretty well received.  Time and again, when a story about churches or pastors is posted on news sites, people respond by calling believers names.  This is also part of our current reality. For us, this means we cannot assume that everyone outside our doors understands what we do, or wishes us well.

So, what might success look like for us?  Living and serving Jesus in a world where we can’t assume respect, or where we can expect people to come to church when they have kids…  what is success?

There are a billion books out there telling us how to succeed – well, I exaggerate, but not by all that much.  

Do you want to succeed, they say, well here’s how to do it.  Have this kind of music… no, that kind.  And for heaven’s sake, never never use the other kind.

Focus your service about the particular interests of the people you want to attract…. Don’t try to have a church that welcomes everyone.  Just promote what appeals – the most important thing is bringing people in, not being faithful to the Gospel.

But the thing is, all those are only really about attracting people, because they all depend on first naming what’s important for you, not getting clear about what matters to God.  If we just adopted ideas from a book, without regard to how they line up with our beliefs about what’s important, we’d be in trouble for sure.

And that gets us back to that convention dinner and sitting down front.  Here’s the truth for us.  First, we need to be clear about what we think following Jesus means for us and our church.  And then we need to work on how we live that out.

Being a success is not about putting on the glitz and sitting down front.  It’s about being faithful to your beliefs and doing whatever we do, to the best of our ability.  Because, we’re small, not dead.  And we can still do powerful things.

Here’s this week’s example:  for the past few weeks, we’ve been collected money to purchase teacher supplies for the teachers over at Brimfield Elementary. This grew out of our commitment to the children of our town.  The council decided that we could most effectively help our children by helping their teachers, and we’d all been struck by how much our teachers do, how much of their own time and money they put into educating our children.  So we asked the school what would be most appreciated and set a date to come over there with munchies and gifts.  We didn’t get fancy.  We did what worked with our source of money and people.  

On last Tuesday, Deb C, Deb G, Kitty and I took them two huge piles of Clorox wipes and Expo markers.  Yes, we took name brand stuff, because it matters, because we hoped it would say “you matter”.  And it succeeded beyond our wildest dreams.  The teacher’s lounge was packed – maybe 37 people all together – they loved the treats, but what really was amazing was their reaction to those wipes and expo markers.  They were astonishingly grateful.  We had great conversations with half a dozen people there, some of whom we knew before, and some were new.  Some of the people didn’t know where our church was, but they all do now.  And they know it’s a church with friendly people who care about them.  

That’s what success looks like.  We succeed when we live out our beliefs, when we show others respect and love, when we plan and execute events that fit with our resources – our building, our land, our peoples’ time and abilities.

Amen.

© 2025, Virginia H. Child