Author: tobelieveistocare

January 19, 2025  First Congregational Church UCC, Brimfield MA

Is 62:1-5; 1 Cor 12:1-11

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.

There are moments, these days, when I feel lost between the choices of yes and no – where both options, or neither, appeals.  And I’m not thinking particularly of what to have for lunch… that’s an easy, even pleasant, problem… shall I have this or that.  I’m thinking more of the big challenges of life.  

In 2026, we in Rhode Island will be electing a governor.  Now, as it happens, I think my current governor’s best characteristics are that he’s tall and has curly hair…. And his worst characteristic is that he doesn’t seem to be concerned that the eastbound 195 bridge through Providence and East Providence, the gateway to Cape Cod, has been closed, re-routed, since December of 2023, and there’s no timetable for re-construction.  

One of the probable candidates running against him is the former head of CVS… well, she sounds good, but CVS was heavily involved in the opioid epidemic, it’s a terrible place to work – or so I hear – the stores are really tatty, and of course, CVS receipts are famous for their length.  But if CVS  is in trouble, what does that say about her potential as governor?  Choices, choices…

Now, Rhode Island’s a small state where every vote, at least statewide, can make a difference.  It’s a place where I can feel as though I have some power. But that’s not always true, we’re in Massachusetts, and way too often, it can feel as though we have no power at all.  We are in an in-between time, a liminal time, where, no matter where we are, we often feel powerless.  Our world feels broken and we don’t think we can make a difference.

It’s a funny place to be on this weekend dedicated to the memory of a man who — starting from a position of absolute powerlessness – unable to vote, barred from public facilities like rest rooms or water fountains, required to use the back door if he was welcome to enter, at constant risk of public humiliation  or physical attack, even death.  If anyone were every powerless in the US it was a Black man in 1950, north or south.  And yet, this man found the lever to change our world.  He found the courage to wield the power of moral indignation.

Martin Luther King, Jr., was not a perfect person.  He wasn’t even a perfect pastor.  But perfection is not one of the requirements to make a difference.  What he was, was a man who dared to exercise the moral power he had, the power of his faith, the power of the church, the power of being in the right.

Yes, Dr. King changed laws but in a deeper way, a more important way for lasting change, he made it impossible for white people to close their eyes to the realities of the world.  Now, that kind of change doesn’t happen overnight.  But it happens, slowly, substantially…. When I was a high school senior in a segregated school system, all my friends knew that segregation was wrong, stupid, immoral.  But what we didn’t know was that it was possible to name it, to make the wrongness public – mostly, I think, what we knew for sure was that it would be dangerous to name our beliefs in public.  Dr. King changed things.  He ripped the curtain down, and yes, like the wizard behind the curtain in Oz, showing for all the world to see how desperately fake the whole structure of racism was.

What he showed us in the 1960s turned out to be only the upper layer of a deeply embedded sickness.  It turns out that you can unsegregate a school without changing the basic mindset of the people in the system.  Unsegregating – which we white people thought was the beginning of the end, turns out to only be the end of the beginning.

Now, these days, we are engaged in the work of digging deeper, of coming to understand the ways in which our unexamined assumptions contain thoughts and actions that are evil.  They used to be jokes, but now they’re not funny any more.  

That’s hard work, and there’s slow progress and it’s times like this weekend, where we have Dr. King before us, and unsettling times to come, when it’s helpful to look again at that foundation on which Dr. King stood.  Because he built his way on the foundation of his faith in God and Jesus Christ.  So will we, if we are to build in a way that brings folks closer to the moral values of our faith.

Dr. King quoted Unitarian pastor Theodore Parker when he said, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.”  We are not yet where we are going, but we are definitely on the road.

What do our Scripture lessons for today offer us?  Isaiah the prophet wrote in today’s lesson that God will not keep silent, will not rest until the vindication of Zion’s way shines out like the dawn.  It reminds us that we have been at this for a long time.  The path is challenging, sometimes we find ourselves doubling back, re-taking that same path again because we’ve gotten lost, or forgotten the way.   But God is always there, offering us a way, giving us courage, showing us what is to come.  

The lesson from First Corinthians is about not getting lost because we think we’re the only ones.  Remember how I said that back in my high school years, we knew segregation was wrong?  We thought we were alone; it wasn’t until we understood that we weren’t, thanks to the heroism of Dr. King and those who stood with him, that ordinary people were empowered to stand up too.  We are each an important part of the whole, and the whole doesn’t work as well if we are not all on board.

And the gospel lesson, about turning water into wine, reminds us that sometimes we need to make big statements.  Personally, I’m a big fan of small statements, holding doors open, treating everyone I meet with love and generosity, but just as Jesus announced his ministry at a big feast, sometimes there’s a need for that demonstration at the State House, or a march down Main Street.  If we can’t stand up together in public, how will others know we are there?

It looks these days as though the road may be more difficult in the days to come.  That was true in Isaiah’s time, just as it is now.  We are able to stay the course because we are focused on that moral universe.  And we are able to stay the course because we are in this together.

What ties us into union isn’t the uniformity of our political opinions, but rather the uniformity of our moral commitments.  When we’re united in our commitment to kindness, generosity, welcome, mercy, justice, love —  then we can work together on what is best for our church, community, our world.  

It is love which is our power… love lived out every day of our lives, love that quietly keeps going, whether or not it looks like it’s making a difference.  

Amen.

© 2025, Virginia H. Child

January 12, 2025  First Congregational Church UCC, Brimfield MA

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 lectionary, the master calendar of Bible readings we follow, this is the time each year when we remember the beginning of Jesus’ ministry – his baptism at the hands of John the Baptist.  And at the same time, we remember our own baptisms, and think together about what it means that we, too, have been set apart for service to God.

The lessons we’ve just heard are attempt to describe the meaning of baptism.  They’re not literal descriptions, of course… the waters we pass through, the fires which consume are the trials of everyday life – wars or peace, trials of family life, work challenges, election results – whether good or bad, and all those other things that can fill our hearts with pain.

Baptism starts with water; in its most literal understanding, it is as if we are buried in the water and then brought out of that water into a new life…. We have been “saved” for a purpose.

I have to add that it is true that we, like many Christians, have – over the centuries – abbreviated the amount of water considerably.  There have been many reasons for this, and this isn’t the time and place to go over them – it’s better done as a coffee hour conversation, I think – but I want us to be clear, when it comes to the meaning of baptism, or its effects, or how we can understand it in the light of our lives – the amount of water doesn’t matter.  In our baptisms, we have been dedicated to God’s service.

On Thursday, here in this space, we honored the memory of John Hilker.  At almost the same time, down in Washington DC, they were honoring the late President, Jimmy Carter.  President Carter is for us an example of one life dedicated to living out a baptismal call to be a good person.  President Carter may not have been the greatest President the US has ever had, but there has never been a President more dedicated to doing good for as many people as possible, or a President less impressed with himself and his glory. 

A day or two after the service, I had an opportunity to read the eulogy President Carter’s grandson, Jason, shared.  Jason told folks his grandfather, a nuclear engineer by training, struggled to learn how to use a cell phone, that he still lived in a normal-sized house where the phone was connected by wire to the wall… but just listen to what Jason said:

Maybe this is unbelievable to you, but in my 49 years, I never perceived a difference between his public face and his private one. He was the same person, no matter who he was with or where he was. And for me, that’s the definition of integrity.

That honesty was matched by love. It was matched by faith. And in both public and private, my grandparents did fundamentally live their lives in effort, as the Bible says, to do justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with their God.

Sometimes I feel and felt like I shared my grandfather with the world. Today is one of those days. But really, he shared the world with me. The power of an atom. The beauty and complexity of a south Georgia forest. When we fished, he celebrated the majesty of everything from the smallest minnow to that grand circulation of waters. And he shared this love with my boys, taking these Atlanta public school kids out into the fields to show them about row crops and wild plums.

In the end, his life is a love story. And of course, it’s a love story about Jimmy and Rosalynn and their 77 years of marriage and service. As the song says, they were the flagship of the fleet. And rest assured that in these last weeks, he told us that he was ready to see her again.

But his life was also a broader love story about love for his fellow humans, and about living out the commandment to love your neighbor as yourself. I believe that that love is what taught him and told him to preach the power of human rights, not just for some people, but for all people. It focused him on the power and the promise of democracy, its love for freedom, its requirement and founding belief in the wisdom of regular people raising their voices and the requirement that you respect all of those voices, not just some.

That’s the way of the baptized, to be love wherever we are.  And you don’t have to step aside for the famous or powerful, like Jimmy Carter.  There’s a place for each of us in God’s vision of the world; so here’s a story of a woman I knew and admired greatly: 

When I first moved to Rutland, Vermont, I wasn’t any kind of church person. My husband and I were looking for a new place to set down roots after his retirement from the Marine Corps and Rutland was the place for us.  And then life interfered.  My marriage broke up and one Sunday I found myself sitting in a church, Grace Congregational UCC.  As I looked around I recognized a number of the people I saw there – particularly the kind, sensible ophthalmologist I’d been to when I failed the DMV’s vision test… and that woman from the First National Grocery Store, the one whose line was always the longest in the store.

Dot wasn’t a slow checker, not by any means.  In fact, the reason her line was always so long is that people wanted to go through that line – because when you brought your groceries to her, she took you seriously.  When she said hi and asked how your day had gone, she really wanted to know.  It wasn’t empty words.  After I got to know her she told me that she’d early figured out that for many of the people who came to that store, she was the only human being they knew, the only person they talked to in the week.  It was Dot who taught me about the hidden poor of Vermont, the men and women who lived alone, who survived on cat food tuna.  Dot paid attention to the people who came through her line; she lived out her baptismal call.

On this day, when we remember that we are baptized followers of the way of love, the challenge laid out before us is clear.  How can we live out our lives so that we are, like Jimmy Carter and Dot Potter, people who radiate God’s love to all?  What will we do, today, this week, this year, so that our world knows that it is the power of love that will  create a better world?

Amen.

© 2025, Virginia H. Child

January 5, 2025, First Congregational Church of Brimfield MA UCC

Jeremiah 31: 7-14 — For thus says the LORD: Sing aloud with gladness for Jacob, and raise shouts for the chief of the nations; proclaim, give praise, and say, “Save, O LORD, your people, the remnant of Israel.”

See, I am going to bring them from the land of the north and gather them from the farthest parts of the earth, among them the blind and the lame, those with child and those in labor together; a great company, they shall return here.

With weeping they shall come, and with consolations I will lead them back; I will let them walk by brooks of water, in a straight path where they shall not stumble, for I have become a father to Israel, and Ephraim is my firstborn.

Hear the word of the LORD, O nations, and declare it in the coastlands far away; say, “He who scattered Israel will gather him and will keep him as a shepherd does a flock.”

For the LORD has ransomed Jacob and has redeemed him from hands too strong for him.

They shall come and sing aloud on the height of Zion, and they shall be radiant over the goodness of the LORD, over the grain, the wine, and the oil, and over the young of the flock and the herd; their life shall become like a watered garden, and they shall never languish again.

John 1: 10-18 — He was in the world, and the world came into being through him, yet the world did not know him. He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him. But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.

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 prophet Jeremiah wrote to his fellow Jews in the years around 570BCE, just about 2600 years ago, in a time when his land was constantly being overrun by enemies.  He wrote in a time when there was constant dissention and a continual stream of less-than-competent, honest or courageous leaders for the kingdom of Judah.  And, of course, this got him in trouble = he was arrested, people tried to kill him, and he likely ended his life in exile in Egypt.

Jeremiah wasn’t just a political columnist, though.  He saw his people in a religious crisis, being in a place where it was maybe better to step away from active faith, who were maybe going to conform to the religion of the winners just to get ahead… like the people I read about in Saturday’s NY Times, who were converting to Catholicism from Islam, to better express their Albanian identity.  It’s not about faith, it’s about political fighting.  Jeremiah wanted something better, something more faithful, more God-focused for the people of Judah.

And so do we want something better for people here and now as well.

That’s why his description of God’s intention for us is so important.  He doesn’t say, this political party or that party will win.  He doesn’t say get rich because that’s what God wants.  He says God welcomes the people who cannot see, the ones who have difficulty in walking.  God welcomes those who are expecting children == in his world, the least productive people are the most welcome.  God welcomes those who are most left behind.  God reaches out to those who are scattered, and brings them back together into community.  That’s the goal of faith – to have us all living in community, welcoming one another, recognizing the importance of every individual.

But it’s one thing to say we welcome everyone, in spite of whatever makes them different than what we think is usual or normal or every day.  That’s because really welcoming people means really recognizing them as good, as people whose differences are something our community needs to be fulfilled.

Now, I’m not talking about being excited about the local member of the Governor’s Council joining the church because now we will have governmental influence.  I’m talking about becoming, growing into a true reflection of God’s intention for us.  

Here’s what I mean:  I am not completely naïve; I expect that even before the UCC became Open and Affirming at the national level around 1985, there were LGBT+ members.  In fact, I know there were, and I know they were rare enough that we remember the names of the few who found it possible to be open….  Bill Johnson, and Anne Holmes, and up in New Hampshire, Bob Wood. They were there, but they were quiet, not silent, but not entirely welcome… Then in 1985, the Synod voted to be ONA.  The next Synod was different… LGBT+ people were there, and clearly felt as though now they belonged, that this was _their_ place, that they were no longer guests, there on sufferance.  And the Synod itself was different, more vibrant, more colorful, more relaxed, more just what God is calling us to be.  

Every time the Synod has acted to explicitly welcome another group, the whole Synod has changed in exciting new ways.  I remember when they started formally arranging for 12 step meetings every day, instead of expecting our AA people to create something after they arrived.   It didn’t change the outward appearance of the group, but it removed the tint of shame from a condition so many of us try to manage.  And when one color of shame is taken away, it frees us to re-examine other ways of making people feel unwelcome and then welcome.

God is calling us to be a community where people can bring their whole selves, where they don’t have to hide who they are, where those of us who are already here let go of that “but this is my church” kind of feeling, because it’s not, you know.  It’s God’s church.

It’s not that we don’t already do that; the chair lift is one sign of our welcome, our ONA stand is another, for sure…. Here, tho, I want us to be clear that we are doing this because it’s what God has called us to do and to be.  Where is God calling us today?  Is our welcome true?  What is our work today?

From time to time we get to spend some time talking together about who we are right now, and about who might not feel welcome here.  That’s one of the conversations we always have during the interim period, and we’re going to be starting that process next Sunday after church, eating together and exploring who we are and how we’re following God.  Put it on your calendar, make it an important date, and help us begin discerning where God is calling us.

Amen.

© 2025, Virginia H. Child

December 15, 2024  First Congregational Church of Brimfield UCC

Zephaniah 3:14-20 Sing aloud, O daughter Zion; shout, O Israel! Rejoice and exult with all your heart, O daughter Jerusalem! The LORD has taken away the judgments against you; he has turned away your enemies. The king of Israel, the LORD, is in your midst; you shall fear disaster no more. On that day it shall be said to Jerusalem: “Do not fear, O Zion; do not let your hands grow weak. The LORD, your God, is in your midst, a warrior who gives victory; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will renew you in his love; he will exult over you with loud singing as on a day of festival.” I will remove disaster from you, so that you will not bear reproach for it. I will deal with all your oppressors at that time. And I will save the lame and gather the outcast, and I will change their shame into praise and renown in all the earth. At that time I will bring you home, at the time when I gather you; for I will make you renowned and praised among all the peoples of the earth, when I restore your fortunes before your eyes, says the LORD.

Luke 1:39-45  In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, ⁴⁰ where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. ⁴¹ When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit ⁴² and exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. ⁴³ And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? ⁴⁴ For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy. ⁴⁵ And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.” 

⁴⁶ And Mary said,  “My soul magnifies the Lord,  ⁴⁷ and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior,  ⁴⁸ for he has looked with favor on the lowly state of his servant.  Surely from now on all generations will call me blessed,  ⁴⁹ for the Mighty One has done great things for me, and holy is his name; ⁵⁰ indeed, his mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation. ⁵¹ He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the imagination of their hearts. ⁵² He has brought down the powerful from their thrones and lifted up the lowly; ⁵³ he has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty. ⁵⁴ He has come to the aid of his child Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, ⁵⁵ according to the promise he made to our ancestors, to Abraham and to his descendants forever.” ⁵⁶ And Mary remained with her about three months and then returned to her home. 

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.

It all started with a question.  At Bible study last Tuesday, we asked ourselves “was Mary the first chosen one the Angel Gabriel approached?  Would it make a difference if thirty-one other women had said “no” first?”

What if the first woman had said yes, but she wasn’t really the right person?  What if Gabriel came to Mary not because he was sure she was “the one”, but because she was the last one, at the end of the list?

Over the week, I kept coming back to the question – what difference did it make that Mary said “yes”?

You know, as an interim pastor, I see a lot of churches in the process of choosing pastors.  Most have a pretty clear idea, by the time the profile is finished, of what they’d like to have.  And most have no idea who’s out there looking for a new church.  Often, the person they end up calling is not the person they went out looking for, and sometimes it’s because the first two or so candidates said “no”.  Like Gabriel, who – we imagine – might have ended up with the Virgin Louise, we might well find ourselves with someone we never thought of at first.

But it’s not just about the process of searching for a new pastor.  It’s really about life.  We make lists, check them twice, planning as well as we can (knowing that some of us just really don’t plan much at all)… 

We go off to college planning to major in history, but by the time we graduate, we have a BS in accounting.  It’s not what the plan was; it’s what life is.

Now, as it happens, I believe that Mary was God’s choice from the beginning.  Give how self-important some of us feel (and who more than one of God’s chief angels??), I can imagine that Gabriel looked Mary over and thought God had made a mistake.  

Why choose a poor girl from a nowhere town, when God could have chosen one of the daughters of the high priest? Someone from the right side of the tracks, someone who knew how to welcome rich folks??

Well, here’s my suggestion.  What God wanted in the way of a mother of the Messiah was not someone who was up to date on the latest social trends, but someone who knew pain when she saw it.  God didn’t want someone who thought looking good was better than being good.  

God wanted the kind of woman who would sing that Magnificat we heard… who would loudly and persistently proclaim that God would pull down the powerful from their thrones. 

I read this story yesterday, and as you listen to it, ask yourself what that long-ago Mary said… 

Eli McCann told this story about his great-grandfather…… He was around 13 years old, meaning this happened, I guess, right after World War I. Constantly on the verge of homelessness, he was living with his mother and siblings in a run-down hotel room, helping to scrape together enough pennies each week to keep the family somewhat fed and warm. This was a particularly frigid winter in Iowa, per his telling.

Members of his family didn’t really celebrate Christmas because they didn’t have money for gifts. It was easier to try to ignore the day and its annual reminders of their poverty.

That Christmas morning, his mother gave him whatever change she had and asked him to go down to the corner market to buy an item — in repeating the story, he never could remember what the item was. He set off to the store, passing the homes of families keeping warm and exchanging presents.

He arrived at the corner shop, bought the item he was sent to retrieve, and then stepped back onto the icy street wearing whatever rags for clothes he had used to bundle up. As he began to walk away, the store owner came outside and called for him. “He knew our situation,” great-grandpa used to say as tears filled his eyes. “He knew what it was like at home.”

Great-grandpa turned around and paced back to the shopkeeper, who reached out and dropped a handful of nuts into his little palms. “Merry Christmas,” the man said, before turning around and retreating into his store.

Great-grandpa would sometimes say the handful of nuts was the only Christmas gift he ever remembered receiving, and the kindness from the shopkeeper, who apparently had little to spare himself, always stuck with him.

We tend to think about poverty, about homelessness, around this time of year more often than any other time. People struggle outside of the holiday season, of course, but, for some reason, that struggle is more on our collective minds as the snow falls and the wreaths appear on front doors.

Maybe the changing season and the dropping temperatures make it harder to not imagine what it might be like to have nowhere warm to go. Maybe the opulence of the commercial aspects of the holiday celebrations shine a subconscious light on the unfairness of relative privilege and the cruelty in the way it tends to skip a lot of people. Or perhaps the general spirit of giving that permeates December naturally causes us to think about who most needs to receive. I don’t know.

Mary sang:

He has brought down the powerful from their thrones and lifted up the lowly; 

he has filled the hungry with good things and sent the rich away empty. 

Mary knew God would feed the hungry.  

Mary knew God would help the lost.  

Mary knew God would be merciful to those who had no way to buy themselves a place at the table.

Maybe Gabriel really did have a list of prospects, and maybe he went to the ones he thought best first.  Maybe he skipped Mary at first because she was poor, and a little angry.  Maybe Gabriel was messing up big time because he didn’t listen to God.

But God chose Mary because it was time to turn the expectations of a greedy and power-hungry world upside down.  And we still remember Mary and her song today because she is such a great example of how we are to live and because we, too, live in a greedy and power-hungry world that desperately needs to be turned upside down.

Our first job, our real calling, is to build a world where love is the only answer.  Let us live out Mary’s picture of God’s world.

Amen.

© 2024, Virginia H. Child

December 8, 2024  First Congregational Church UCC, Brimfield MA

Malachi 3:1 -4  See, I am sending my messenger to prepare the way before me, and the LORD whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple. The messenger of the covenant in whom you delight—indeed, he is coming, says the LORD of hosts. But who can endure the day of his coming, and who can stand when he appears? For he is like a refiner’s fire and like washers’ soap; he will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the descendants of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, until they present offerings to the LORD in righteousness. Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the LORD, as in the days of old and as in former years.

Luke 1:26-38  The Birth of Jesus Foretold ²⁶ In the sixth month the angel Gabriel was sent by God to a town in Galilee called Nazareth, ²⁷ to a virgin engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The virgin’s name was Mary. ²⁸ And he came to her and said, “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.”^,* 29 But she was much perplexed by his words and pondered what sort of greeting this might be. ³⁰ The angel said to her, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. ³¹ And now, you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. ³² He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High, and the Lord God will give to him the throne of his ancestor David. ³³ He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” ³⁴ Mary said to the angel, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?” ³⁵ The angel said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God. ³⁶ And now, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son, and this is the sixth month for her who was said to be barren. ³⁷ For nothing will be impossible with God.” ³⁸ Then Mary said, “Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” Then the angel departed from her.

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.

What is our world coming to?  Just a few weeks ago, the Archbishop of Canterbury was forced to resign because he’d ignored a damning report [that] concluded that he had failed to pursue a proper investigation into claims of widespread abuse of boys and young men decades ago at Christian summer camps. (NY Times)

Scams abound – emails from (supposedly) your pastor asking you to purchase, say, five $100 Apple gift cards for me to give to people in need….

An insurance company puts a time limit on the amount of anesthesia that can be used for a specific surgery – and when the time runs out, well, I imagine that means the patient starts paying the entire cost – …  well, that last one was real,, but right after the head of United Health Care was murdered in NYC, the company changed its mind and will now cover the entire cost of the anesthesia.

<deep sigh>  And then there’s the story, from yesterday’s NYT, about the woman in Mississippi who got so frustrated as an elementary teacher that she quit her job and started up a teeny private school for kids in her area, kids who’d found the public school filled with bullies, kids who were slipping through the cracks.

She rented an empty storefront, found desks and equipment in trash piles and discard dumpsters, and she now has 50 children, pre-k to high schoolers, who are studying and learning in this new setting.  Tuition is $300 a year, the staff, such as it is, gets paid, but the woman who started the school has not yet taken a salary.    Her pay is watching the children learn.

Yes, there’s a lot that’s bad in our world, but we are not here today to focus entirely on that.  We are here to remember that in the midst of the worst the world can send us, God is sending us something entirely good.

Today’s Gospel lesson tells the story when it reports Mary saying to the angel, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?” ³⁵ The angel said to her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be holy; he will be called Son of God.

The story, at least on the surface, is about how Mary became pregnant, and yes, that’s important.  More than that, however, it’s the explanation for how it is, in the midst of absolute awfulness, God’s love breaks through.  When we are in need, the Holy Spirit will come upon us and change things.  

Now this isn’t one of those instantaneous miracles.  The Holy Spirit doesn’t force a change upon us; it prepares a way we may choose to follow.  That’s the way of love… love offers opportunities, it does not compel.  

Sometimes, things are so tough that it’s hard to see beyond the pain, the fear, the costs of life.  God’s love, the story of God’s advent in the midst of turmoil, gives us the strength to lift our vision beyond that pain, into the possibilities of our future.

We thought we’d signed up to follow a clear path, one well-marked, where our intention to follow would make the following easy.  It turns out that’s not the way it goes.  

The way is often difficult, sometimes almost impossible, but what will never change is the steadfast companionship of our loving God, who comes to us as an infant, the living embodiment of God’s love.

Amen.

© 2024 Virginia H. Child

November 17, 2024     First Congregational Church UCC, Brimfield MA

Galatians 3:28-29 —  There is no longer Jew or Greek; there is no longer slave or free; there is no longer male and female, for all of you are one in Christ Jesus. And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise.

1 John 3:1-3 — See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called childrren of God, and that is what we are. The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is. And all who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure.

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable to you, our Rock and our Redeemer.  Amen.

When I was just a toddler, my mother began to read me stories from Mary Alice Jones’ book Tell Me About God.  In some ways, I think, it was an odd book…. Tho hugely popular among mainstream Protestant parents, it focused on God.  Most kids’ faith-oriented books these days are about Jesus, or about ways to live… God barely gets a mention, much less whole stories…

And yet, God, and how we understand God, is the foundation of how we construct our lives together in community, how we create and maintain families, how we interact with others.  It feels as though God is not only unseen, but also unmentioned. So, today, I want to tell some stories about God, that we might meditate together on how that God forms our world.

God is Good.

God is good.  This is the foundation of the whole story.  Our entire understanding of our world, we believe, is built on the idea that God is good.

Not all gods are good, you know.  We believe there is only one god, but many other belief systems teach there are multiple gods, and just about always, one of those god is not good.  Maybe a trickster god, and even sometimes a god that is purely evil.

But Christians believe that God is good.

We struggle with it, especially when we’ve had tough stuff in our lives.  I worked once with a church which had almost split over the interim’s (not mine) use of the call and response God is good all the time/all the time God is good.  Every single person who hated the phrase (and also the interim) had lost a child.  They were all mad as blazes with God.  In some cases the death had been maybe 30 years previously, but their pain and betrayal almost broke the church.

So, let’s look a little more at what it means that God is good.  

• It means that, no matter how bad things are, we are never left alone.
• It means that, no matter how small our resources, we always have opportunities to share love

When I was three, my sister was born and died.  I was mad at God.  I mean, really, who else can you be mad at when you’re three?  Not my mother, not my father; they were as devastated as I was.  And at 3, the health care system wasn’t much more than vague “hospital” mentions.  It was no where on my horizon that my sister could have died because of their incompetence.  And, I have to add, her death wasn’t the hospital’s fault; she was born on the edge of survivability.  But I thought a good God’s job was to protect us from all harm.  

That’s when I was three and struggling to make sense of a world where my sister had died, my parents grieved, and I was increasingly chronically ill.

Over the years, however, I began to notice that in the  Bible, when things went bad, God still was there.  I realized that “things going bad” is part and parcel of the reality of life.  We are not kept super safe, wrapped in cotton and protected from all harm.  

Last week, when I was sick, I ordered groceries delivered.  That head of iceberg lettuce I looked for arrived as a head of cauliflower.  That was not God sleeping on the job, but what someone at the store was a reasonable substitution.  They were wrong, but they tried.

God is with us.  When we are broken by our lives and have no one else to rage with, God is there.  

The Bible agrees.

Today’s readings are all about love.  “See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God”, and the lesson from Galatians which makes it clear that God has called us into one human family.  There is no longer Jew or Greek; there is no longer slave or free; there is no longer male and female, for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.

All throughout the journeys of Paul, he testifies to the power of the presence of God in his life. Even when he’s under arrest, transported to Rome, and then facing execution, God is with him.

God is good; God is love. 

In the past few days, we’ve begun to come to grips with the truth that, no matter which way you slice our electorate, an awful lot of us are in a terrible state of fear and anticipation.  It would have been that way no matter who won, you know.  I think the overarching emotion of this election was terror, and for many of us the choices boiled down to something like, who’s the least frightening.  I’m not going to march us through a list of what scares each of us the most, tho I will suggest that if you can’t figure out what the other side is worried about, that might make a good personal research project.

What I am going to say is that this is a good time to remember that God is good, God is reliable, strengthening.  God is love. 

There were a lot of good little stories in that book I read, but this was the most important one.  If you remember nothing else about God, remember that God is love.  Remember that we are never abandoned, never condemned, but always loved, always “at home” when we are with God.

Amen.

© 2024, Virginia H. Child

November 3, 2024    First Congregational Church UCC, Brimfield MA

Wisdom 3:1-9 — the souls of the righteous are in the hand of God, and no torment will ever touch them.   In the eyes of the foolish they seemed to have died, and their departure was thought to be a disaster and their going from us to be their destruction,  but they are at peace. For though in the sight of others they were punished,  their hope is full of immortality. Having been disciplined a little, they will receive great good, because God tested them and found them worthy of himself; 

John 11:32-35– When Mary came where Jesus was and saw him, she knelt at his feet and said to him, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.” When Jesus saw her weeping and the Jews who came with her also weeping, he was greatly disturbed in spirit and deeply moved. He said, “Where have you laid him?” They said to him, “Lord, come and see.” Jesus began to weep.

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.

For all sad words of tongue and pen, the saddest are these, “It might have been.” – John Greenleaf Whittier

It might have been… Whittier’s poem was about two young people who thought they might be a couple, but who never took the first step… and so spent their lives dreaming of what might have been…instead of reaching out

I know you’ve heard the line – if I hadn’t done this, then that would have happened – or if I had done that, then the other wouldn’t have happened….   Sometimes that’s true, of course.  If I didn’t eat that ice cream. . .  or, if I hadn’t gone 80 mph on the Pike, I might not have gotten that expensive ticket.  That’s one aspect, but there’s another, nastier way I hear that being used – used as a way to blame.

My closest cousin was born with Prader-Willi syndrome, a chromosomal malformation that meant she had numerous physical and cognitive issues.  I don’t know how often people came to my aunt and uncle suggesting that if they’d only done this, or not done that, Char would have been “normal”.  I don’t know how often people tried to blame them for the random action of dividing cells.  I do know that it was a long time before they stopped blaming themselves.

Maybe you’ve heard that another way:  if I’d disciplined my child better, they wouldn’t have …. Or if I hadn’t asked so much, or hadn’t worked so late, or whatever.  And it’s always a kind of blame that makes us wish… it might have been different.

That’s so hard, especially when someone dies.  We remember that this weekend when it’s All Saints Sunday.  Oh how I wish I could have another conversation with my father; why didn’t I do more?

Could I have been more loving, kinder, less critical…  Could I have said one more word?  Is there something I could have done to change the outcome?  Could I have made it different?

One of my favorite poem is Otherwise, by Jane Kenyon

I got out of bed
on two strong legs.
It might have been
otherwise. I ate
cereal, sweet
milk, ripe, flawless
peach. It might
have been otherwise.
I took the dog uphill
to the birch wood.
All morning I did
the work I love.
At noon I lay down
with my mate. It might
have been otherwise.
We ate dinner together
at a table with silver
candlesticks. It might
have been otherwise.
I slept in a bed
in a room with paintings
on the walls, and
planned another day
just like this day.
But one day, I know,
it will be otherwise.

When things don’t go the way we want, it’s all too easy to fall into “it might have been”.  It’s so tempting to think that if we had done just one more thing, or done something just a little differently, it would all have turned out differently.

Our lives are our lives.  We live them the best we can in the moment.  Sometimes that’s not so good, sometime it’s darned close to perfect.  We might wish they had gone better, or that we’d had one more good day together.  We often miss those who are gone and wish we could go back.  That’s real, that’s our love speaking, our sorrow.  

Just the other day, I was driving from Manchester CT back to Providence along Route 44 and thought – just for a moment – how much I would have enjoyed having my father in the car with me.  Woodstock CT was his homeland; he knew all the stories, all the people.  But he died before we would ever have had an opportunity for that ride, and just for a moment, I wondered what might have been.

You’ve been in that place as well.  It’s a good place, but it’s not a place to live.  Maybe God gives us “it might have been” to enjoy the possibility, or to imagine the continuation of a beloved relationship, but living there is no substitute for where we are now.

This is particularly important to hold in our hearts this week, as we face a general election for President of the United States.  No matter which way things go, we cannot maroon ourselves in “it might have been”.    Even if your candidate wins, even if every candidate you support gets elected, we all still need to move beyond “it might have been” … it might have been less contentious.  It might have been less angry.  Less filled with lies.  

Let me be clear.  I am not just talking from my side of the vote.  Almost everyone I know thinks the other side, whoever that may be, is lying, is angrier, hate-filled, misrepresenting reality.

Today’s lessons point us toward a different view of truth.  We only see partially, they tell us.  We see what matters to us in our particular setting.  Sirach wrote that “the souls of the righteous are in the hand of God and no torment will ever touch them”.  We see what is not, God sees all.  We see what we don’t have; God can see the whole picture.

We are worried about this election; whatever the result, we will still be followers of God.  We still will be able to tell right from wrong.  

If our candidate wins, we will still have the tough job of building community in our world.  If the other candidate wins, the job will still be the same.  

Most likely each of thinks our work will be easier, our lives better, if our candidate wins.  Here’s something to think about though:  no matter who wins, building trust, accepting difference, living out Christ’s call to love, whoever folks are, wherever they are on life’s journey, is still going to be a challenge.

Soon we will share the meal of Holy Communion with one another.  Let that time be a time for us to re-dedicate ourselves to the work of sharing Christian love with our community. Step from “it might have been” into this is what it is, and we can do this hard thing.  Let us be people of love, now and always.

Amen.

© 2024, Virginia H. Child

First Congregational Church UCC, Brimfield, MA    October 27, 2024, Proper 25

Jeremiah 31:7-9: For thus says the Lord: Sing aloud with gladness for Jacob, and raise shouts for the chief of the nations; proclaim, give praise, and say,  “Save, O Lord, your people, the remnant of Israel.”  See, I am going to bring them from the land of the north and gather them from the farthest parts of the earth, among them the blind and the lame, those with child and those in labor together; a great company, they shall return here.  With weeping they shall come, and with consolations I will lead them back; I will let them walk by brooks of water, in a straight path where they shall not stumble, for I have become a father to Israel, and Ephraim is my firstborn.

Mark 10:46-52     [Jesus and the disciples] came to Jericho. As he and his disciples and a large crowd were leaving Jericho, Bartimaeus son of Timaeus, a blind beggar, was sitting by the roadside. When he heard that it was Jesus of Nazareth, he began to shout out and say, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me!” Many sternly ordered him to be quiet, but he cried out even more loudly, “Son of David, have mercy on me!” Jesus stood still and said, “Call him here.” And they called the blind man, saying to him, “Take heart; get up, he is calling you.” So throwing off his cloak, he sprang up and came to Jesus. Then Jesus said to him, “What do you want me to do for you?” The blind man said to him, “My teacher, let me see again.” Jesus said to him, “Go; your faith has made you well.” Immediately he regained his sight and followed him on the way.

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.

Hasn’t this been a beautiful fall here?  The weather has been gorgeous, and the fall color great.  It almost kinda sorta makes up for all the other stuff.  We’ve hinted about the stresses of this particular fall, what with the presidential election next week….. but add to that the things you know about in your world.  I’ve several friends who’ve had major league health issues this fall, for instance.  Maybe you’ve had a child who’s been struggling, or your family has been passing a cold from person to person for the last six weeks.  Maybe you have struggles at work, like the folks at Hasbro, the game company in Rhode Island, that announced layoffs this week.  Maybe… well, there’s no need to list them all.  It’s just needful to say that each of us, all of us, know what it’s like to have bad stuff on the table in the midst of everything else.  And we know how stressful it is.

God knows how stressful it is.  And the scriptures for today help us see the way in which our faith in God can help us, even in the worst of times, to keep our equilibrium.  

The first text, the one from Jeremiah is written for people who have seen the worst.  Their country had been conquered; the land was no longer a good, safe place to live.  Their leaders had been forced into exile.  They’d always thought they would always have a king who would be a literal descendant of King David.   Think of the situation as being a lot like life in Cambodia in the 1970s when Pol Pot would execute anyone who even wore glasses or was educated.  Except that instead of being executed, the educated leaders where exiled.

In the midst of all that horror, Jeremiah offers hope to his hearers.  The missing people, he says, will return.  The missing will come back.  The city will be re-built, the Temple restored.  

It will not be the same, but it will be good.

Jeremiah’s words are a promise that there will be good in the future.  Maybe it’ll look different than we expect, maybe parts of what’s to come won’t bring us pleasure, but even so, there will be good.

Look again at the Gospel lesson for today, the story of the Blind man who gets healed.  But this time, think about what being healed did for him, how it changed his life.  We usually think that being healed like that is a complete blessing, but what it really is, is a complete change.

His new life is going to be good, but in different ways.  The thing is, blind or seeing, God is with him.

Whatever’s going on in your lives, as you deal with the stress of this election, think about this – God is with us in good times and bad.  I don’t know that we can always absorb that.  Maybe the stress is so hard that you can only take in a couple of minutes of autumn beauty.  But it is always there, somewhere.  God’s presence is always there.

Institutions rise and fall, loved ones are with us, and then they are gone.  Robert Frost wrote in his poem, “nothing gold can stay” and it is the truth.  He knew, though, and we know, that something will come in its place, and that somewhere there will be glimpses of God to sustain us in the days to come.

Amen.

© 2024, Virginia H. Child

First Congregational Church UCC, Brimfield MA  October 20, 2024

John 18:33-39 (The Message) Pilate went back into the palace and called for Jesus. He said, “Are you the ‘King of the Jews’?” Jesus answered, “Are you saying this on your own, or did others tell you this about me?” Pilate said, “Do I look like a Jew? Your people and your high priests turned you over to me. What did you do?”

 “My kingdom,” said Jesus, “doesn’t consist of what you see around you. If it did, my followers would fight so that I wouldn’t be handed over to the Jews. But I’m not that kind of king, not the world’s kind of king.” Then Pilate said, “So, are you a king or not?”

Jesus answered, “You tell me. Because I am King, I was born and entered the world so that I could witness to the truth. Everyone who cares for truth, who has any feeling for the truth, recognizes my voice.”

Pilate said, “What is truth?”

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’d had something else on my mind, but early last week, with the choices of the election before us, I began to hear another question emerging… along the lines of “who can you trust, these days?  Who is telling the truth?”

Maybe it was the politician who sent me a begging email, claiming to be short on funds, when other sources said he was rolling in money.  

Or, how about the Providence tv station, an NBC affiliate, who showed a report from “our man in Washington” – and it turned out to be a far-right-wing employee of the corporation that owns the station, not an NBC correspondent.  

It surely wasn’t the colleague who told me she’d call me for a lunch “next week”… but didn’t…. but one way or another, this past week I’ve been pushed to think some more about truth – what it is, and whether or not it’s a necessary part of the lives we build together, necessary to form community.

It reminds me of the first time I enjoyed a Thanksgiving Dinner at my seminary.  Just before the holiday, Andover Newton would put on a feast for all the students and faculty… turkey, stuffing, and all the trimmings.  There was even a steamed pudding and hard sauce.  And that was where I learned that butter was a necessary ingredient for hard sauce.  You cannot substitute lard, or Crisco…it has to be butter, or it’s just not edible.

Without truth, can we have community?  Or do we just have a hard white lump that actually ruins the meal?

What is truth, Pilate asks, and it is not an idle question.  Truth is that which agrees with the facts.  It is true, truth, that our leaves are turning color right now.  That’s a fact.  It’s a fact that Route 20 east of Sturbridge is difficult to drive because of construction. 

Sometimes we confuse fact and opinion.  I have two friends who, right now, are arguing about whether or not the best cheese comes from Oregon, where one friend lives, or Wisconsin, where the other one lives.  I could jump in and say, no its Vermont…but that’s just my opinion.  

But what’s going on these days is not really about confusing fact and opinion…. It’s about offering as fact that which is untrue, turning lies into truth… If a person tells you that there is no problem driving Route 20, or if they tell you that there are no slowdowns on the Mass Pike, and you believe them, those untruths can cause you problems.

What is truth?  It’s not just facts.  Truth is the foundation upon which we build our world.  In Matthew 7, Jesus tells the story of the two carpenters – one built his house on the rock, a solid foundation, trustable, reliable.  The other built on shifting sands… and when the storm came – think of those houses in places like the Outer Banks that are falling into the sea…  Truth is that rocky foundation, unmovable, dependable.  

Without a reliable basis of truth, it is enormously difficult to build community.  We can see this all around right now.  Sure, we all agree, I think, that twelve inches makes one foot, but on other, less-factually-based issues, we find ourselves divided by what we believe to be true or false.  We are divided by our understandings of the meaning of truth.  There is, in short a difference between truth, based on facts, and truthiness, based on nothing much at all

Wikipedia says that:

“Truthiness is the belief or assertion that a particular statement is true based on the intuition or perceptions of some individual or individuals, without regard to  evidence, logic, intellectual examination, or facts.  Truthiness can range from ignorant assertions of falsehoods to deliberate duplicity or propaganda intended to sway opinions.”

Let’s be clear; we cannot build a good world, a healthy world, on the shifting sands of untruth, or opinions.  We can say we don’t “believe” in climate change, but those houses keep falling into the ocean.  People keep losing their homes.  Hurricanes keep getting more and more powerful. Truthiness destroys lives, people. Communities, and even countries.  Lying cannot change the basic fabric of society.

I wonder if the struggle we’re in isn’t really a struggle between a vision of a community, a world, built on truth – and a world built on assumptions – between truth and truthiness.  It can be difficult to tell the difference sometimes, but we have been given some guidelines on that by Jesus.  

We believe that Jesus was the living embodiment of truth, that truth which is revealed in the active practice of love – love of our world, love of our communities, love of one another.  That is a love which leaps across the wall between peoples and has the capacity to bring together enemies and transform them into friends.  

The ultimate truth of our world is a truth which is built on love, which seeks to build up the community, to make life better for us all, not just good for the top layer.  When Jesus says “I am the Way and the Truth and the Life” he is pointing towards a way of life which is built on truth and planned to bring people together, to create a community where all can thrive.

This, then is truth:  facts matter.  People are important.  God is about Love, not just some, but all of us, all the time.

Amen.

©2024, Virginia H. Child