Sermon 1-22-12
The First Congregational Church in Stoneham - January 22, 2012
The Reverend Meredith A. Allen, Pastor
Jonah 3:1-5, 10
Mark 1:14-20
The Only Known Photograph of God
When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil ways, God changed his mind about the calamity that he had said he would bring upon them . . . Jesus said to them, "Follow me and I will make you fish for people."
Thomas Merton was a beloved and prolific 20th century author and Trappist monk. His path to the priesthood was circuitous, to say the least. His father was Anglican and his mother was Quaker, but Merton himself was a questing, curious agnostic throughout his youth. Sporadically he attended either Protestant or Catholic church services, but when he did, he was often indifferent to what was going on in worship. From time to time he would pray, then he’s abandon the practice all together. Merton also did his share of wild living, drinking and smoking too much, and womanizing. But, somehow, a vague yearning to encounter God intersected his youthful experiences again and again. This yearning wove its way like a red thread throughout his early years.
When Merton was 23 and doing graduate work at Columbia University, a friend introduced him to a visiting scholar from the University of Chicago; this scholar happened also to be a Hindu monk. Merton was deeply impressed with how the monk’s life was centered on God. And Merton was surprised when, rather than exhort the graduate students to investigate Hinduism, the monk suggested that they reconnect with their own spiritual roots.
So Merton decided to reconsider Catholicism, and he began to read voraciously on the topic. As he read about the conversion of poet Gerard Manley Hopkins, Merton was suddenly seized by the conviction that he, like Hopkins, was called to the priesthood. Ultimately, Merton was accepted as a monk into a Trappist abbey in Kentucky. From then on, Merton’s spiritual journey blossomed.
Merton used prose, poetry and painting to seek God in eastern as well as western religious traditions. He also loved to capture the world through a camera lens. Merton once snapped a picture that he described, provocatively, as “The Only Known Photograph of God.” The name itself is a grabber, of course. Can you imagine what this picture is of? A gorgeous sunrise lighting the eastern sky, maybe? Or a mighty Douglas fir tree towering toward heaven? Or a mother and her infant? The possibilities seem endless. It can be kind of fun to think up a picture to go with that title, “The Only Known Photograph of God.”
So what’s the actual subject of Merton’s picture? It’s a massive metal hook, the sort of hook that hangs from a crane. Picture a length of steel cable in the center of this black and white shot. The cable holds a humungous cylindrical weight. Beneath that weight is suspended a giant hook. This is the kind of hook that moves steel beams and other impossibly heavy items. It looks sort of like a massive upside down question mark. At construction sites you see cranes with these hooks dangling from them all the time; the Boston skyline was chock full of them during the Big Dig.
The title Merton gives his photo is interesting, isn’t it? The hook seems non-threatening. It doesn’t have a sharp tip, the way a fishing hook does, for example. It doesn’t look dangerous, or terrifying, or intimidating. The hook merely looks receptive as it hangs suspended against the sky. And the more I think about this image, the more it intrigues me.
The hook seems like a metaphor for the God who is revealed to us in our scripture readings this morning. In Jonah and in Mark we encounter a God who chooses to beckon people, to invite them to follow. And God beckons people willy nilly, all sorts of people – people who have made terrible choices, people who are cowardly and who flee, people who are embroiled in their own busyness. Disregarding their hapless lives, God chooses to lure such people. Merton’s hook becomes a kind of giant crooked finger.
Maybe the oddest thing in today’s readings is that none of these people is looking to be rescued or saved. But maybe, like Thomas Merton – like us – they feel a vague uneasiness, a restless longing.
Commentator Barbara Brown Taylor makes an interesting observation. These stories, she says, are really miracle stories. Miracle stories because they’re full of God’s power. The main point of these stories is not how people respond – not that the Ninevites repent or that the disciples immediately drop their nets and follow Jesus. Rather the point of these stories is God’s persistent desire to call us. To call us to transformation. To wholeness. To connection with one another and with our God. I love how Taylor puts it. She says that God sneaks up on people when they’re not thinking about God at all; they’re just thinking about lunch. But God sneaks up on them and God smacks them upside the head with glory. Upside the head with glory!
Merton’s hook becomes eloquent witness to God’s longing for us. It’s not a beautiful image. But it’s strong, it’s dependable, it’s sturdy. It invites you to hang your cares there. Or maybe your whole life for safekeeping. The hook becomes the image of our finally being swept into the curved embrace of God’s will for the world. And we will follow the call, Taylor says, because we simply cannot take our eyes off the one who calls us. Because this one who calls us seems to know what we hunger for. And because we will fall in love.
The image of God as a hook. What image works for you? What image will impel you to fish for people – to share God’s love – because you simply have to? Amen.
Sermon 1-15-12
The First Congregational Church in Stoneham - January 15, 2012
The Reverend Meredith A. Allen, Pastor
Psalm 139:1-6, 13-18
John 1: 42-51
Truth and Truthiness
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. Nathanael said, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” Philip said to him, “Come and see.”
The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. once preached a sermon in which he described the sleepless anguish he felt after he received a late night bomb threat at his home. King wondered if he should give up his struggle for racial equality. Alone and discouraged, he sat at his kitchen table, and he prayed. And as he prayed, a quiet message came to him. King recalled, “… it seemed at that moment that I could hear an inner voice saying to me, ‘Martin Luther, stand up for righteousness, stand up for justice, stand up for truth. And lo I will be with you, even until the end of the world.’”
What compelling yet comforting words! King took encouragement from that inner voice. He chose peacefully and courageously to pursue his vision of justice despite reactions of violence, hatred, and rage. I simply cannot imagine what it must have felt like to face hordes of screaming white people who clung to a version of the “truth” that differed so shockingly from his.
King’s truth. The screaming people’s truth. That’s the funny thing about truth – it can be so elusive and hard to come by. Sometimes we forget that King was a Christian minister. The source that shaped his vision of truth was the Hebrew and Christian scriptures. Biblical justice says that we all belong together as God’s children. We are all of us equally precious in God’s sight. We are meant to share in power. Nothing from the bible could ever have defended the violent hatred of King’s opponents.
Figuring out what is true, listening for what is true, speaking what is true . . . this is hard work. Discerning the truth requires effort on our part. Author Tony Robinson has written a wonderful piece in which he says that we often settle for an odd substitute for truth, something called “truthiness.” Robinson didn’t make up that word. It was evidently the “Word of the Year” in 2006. Truthiness represents a muddying of truth, a bending of truth to suit one’s own purposes, a perspective on truth that represents your own particular angle. Its being named “Word of the Year” simply reflects our human tendency to frequently settle for half-truths.
To help distinguish truth from its many facsimiles, from truthiness, Robinson cites some characteristics of truth. Listen to these characteristics. Turn them over in your mind. Explore how they appeal to your gut.
Truth is not two-sided; it’s many sided.
Truth flickers.
Truth burrows in the body.
Truth comes on little cat’s feet, and down back alleys.
Truth lives in the library and on the subway.
Truth invites you back for another look.
If you connected on a visceral level with any of these characteristics, you have a sense of what truth is compared to truthiness. Truthiness is something that merely sounds true. It’s something we maybe wish were true, but isn’t actually.
For example, truthiness might hold that, as Christians, we are never supposed to have enemies. That we are supposed to be popular and likable and always show a sunny disposition. The truth, however, is more complicated than that. The truth is that if we live a life that’s faithful to the gospel of Jesus Christ, we might make some enemies. Or, at the least, some vocal opponents. Say we speak up for the rights of illegal aliens, or we vote to approve a tax override to build a new school, or we insist on marriage equality for all persons. We might be surprised to find others who oppose us, who even get angry at us.
This raises an important question. Do we dare to live a life so faithful to Christ that we might tick someone off? The point is not to make enemies, of course. The point is to live a life so centered in God and God’s way that maybe it could happen. And our scriptures this morning affirm that point. Psalm 139 tells us that our destiny is always in the hands of an intimately loving God – a God who loves all creatures. The gospel reminds us that Christ calls you and me, no less than he called those first disciples, to be such faithful followers that we help to bring God’s kingdom to this earth.
Peter Gomes, the late chaplain of Harvard University, also has something to say about truthiness. In his book entitled The Good Book, he describes the “imposter syndrome” that he says afflicts us. We spend our days, he writes, in image building. We try to hide our weaknesses from one another, whether on the athletic field, on the battlefield, or in the boardroom. We dress a certain way, use body language and speech in a certain way, and pile on the credentials to somehow prove we are “good enough.” It’s as if we want to remain ignorant of our true selves because self-knowledge can be painful. We prefer the pleasure of illusion. That’s truthiness.
Well, Gomes says, there’s some good news here. The indisputable fact is that we are created and formed and patented in the image of goodness itself. In the image of goodness itself. Gomes writes, “People may take everything away from you, they may deprive you of everything you have and [you] value, but they cannot take away from you the fact that you are a child of God and bear the impression of God in your very soul.” That’s truth.
Martin Luther King chose to confront the evil of a social system that demeaned people. That isn’t something unique to the 1950s and ‘60s, it’s the universal calling of the gospel. We may disagree about what justice should look like. But biblical truth shows us that it includes equal access to respect and to power for all people. That’s the truth that King’s heart clung to.
There’s a story about the great Hasidic master Rabbi Zusya that may shed light on our search for truth. When Rabbi Zusya grew old and he knew that his time on earth was nearing its end, he called his students around him. Timidly one of them spoke up and asked Rabbi Zusya what he was most afraid of about dying.
“I am most afraid of what they will ask me when I get to heaven,” he answered.
“What will they ask you?” the disciples were eager to know.
“They will not ask me, ‘Zusya, why were you not like Moses?’” he answered. “They will ask me, ‘Zusya, why were you not Zusya?’”
We are unique, you and I. We are not mass-produced but custom-made. And we are called – to love God and to love our neighbor as we love ourselves. For you, who are not Moses nor Zusya, but you, how are you meant to live that truth? Amen.
Sermon 1-8-12
The First Congregational Church in Stoneham - January 8, 2012
The Reverend Meredith A. Allen, Pastor
Epiphany/Baptism of the Lord
Genesis 1:1-5
Mark 1:4-11
“Chalking the House”
Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. And God saw that the light was good. And just as [Jesus} was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart . . .
I’ve just learned about a lovely old custom for observing Epiphany that I’ve never come across before. It makes for a memorable ritual as we mark the wise men’s visit to the child Jesus. This custom involves both a blessing and some writing in chalk. Let me explain.
The whole thing goes like this. First, you recite a blessing upon your house and upon all those who live in it. The blessing might read like the one printed in the box in your bulletin. Would you read it with me?
Peace be with this house and with all who live here.
Blessed be the name of the Lord, now and forever.
Today Christ is revealed to us
and his presence makes our home a holy place.
In the second part of this Epiphany ritual, you take a piece of chalk and you mark what appears to be a mysterious formula above your entryway, say, for example, your front door. This “formula” incorporates the current year, twenty twelve [2012], with the initials of the wise men. Now of course the actual names of the magi are not recorded in Scripture. But centuries of tradition have called them Caspar, Melchior, and Balthasar. So the formula looks like what’s also printed in your bulletin: 20 + C + M + B + 12.
I further learned that those letters CMB can stand for something else too: the Latin words Christus Mansionem Benedicat. That means, “May Christ bless this dwelling.” The typed “+” sign has also been used to signify Christ’s cross. So however you interpret it, this chalked formula acknowledges the presence of Jesus Christ and asks for his benediction.
It makes sense that such a custom would have arisen from the Epiphany story. This “chalking the house,” as it’s called, brings to mind the wise men’s journey to the home of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. When the magi visit the Holy Family, they kneel before the Child and they proffer their blessing. Through their worship of Jesus on bended knee and their presentation of priestly gifts, these wise men from a distant country make a radical declaration: divine royalty abides in this dwelling. The home of this new family is a holy place.
Our Scripture readings this morning also evoke the concept of home, though in strikingly different ways. Genesis affirms that in shaping the world God has, in fact, fashioned a home for the entire created order. And God pronounces a blessing on it: this created order is good. Our spinning blue and white gem of a planet glows brilliantly against the velvet darkness of the universe. This earth throbs with life. And it’s the only home we all have. Can you picture it from a God’s-eye view? I love to gaze at photos of Earth taken from outer space; God’s creativity is wondrous. From this distant perspective, hopeful possibilities for humanity seem boundless. It’s only when you draw in for a much, much closer view that ruthless inhumanity reveals all the deadly threats to our mutual home.
Mark’s gospel also speaks of home. But in this case Jesus leaves home – presumably the love, comfort, and routine he has known as Joseph the carpenter’s son – he leaves home to discern what God is calling him to do. For Mark, Jesus’ ministry begins with his momentous first step into the muddy waters of the Jordan in a sign of repentance. The theologian Karl Barth once made the observation that Jesus needed to be washed of sin – not his sin but our sin. Barth wrote, “No one who came to the Jordan was as laden and afflicted as [Jesus].”
At his baptism Jesus chooses to identify completely with our humanity. Jesus elects to be yoked with us, shoulder to shoulder under the same constraints. The baptism of Jesus signals a new creation. When the heavens are torn open, it’s as if God opens a window so light can pour onto our limited vision. Now we might see more clearly the realm of God’s grace. Now we might behold the home for us all that is lodged deep in God’s heart.
The year 2012, still fresh and full of promise, could also be viewed as our house, our home. A year’s time, after all, is also a space in which we live. This year will open countless doors to us. This year will offer blessings we cannot foresee. And always the year promises the certain presence of Christ.
If the new year is a home, how should you and I inhabit it? Can we enter this year with mindfulness and purpose and hope? How should we move through the different rooms of the coming months in a way that we leave blessing wherever we go? Can we chalk the year as we chalk our house?
Chalking the house declares that Christ is right here. Chalking the house – whether it be the dwelling we live in or the year we move through – renews our commitment to Christ. It reminds us that our God’s humble love knows no bounds. This God of ours could have remained far above it all. Could have stayed removed from the appalling messes we create. Yet, instead, our God has stooped, our God has bent, our God has even groveled to get as close to us as possible. And then paid a terrible price for it.
And still God loves us.
So, as we consider what it means to “chalk the house,” I invite you to rise as you are able and to join me in the creed that is printed in your bulletin. May these words strengthen our dedication to Christ and his place in our hearts. May these words help us be a blessing to the houses of others.
Let us pray together:
I believe in Jesus Christ and in the power of the Gospel which began in Bethlehem.
I believe in the One whose spirit glorified a small village, of whose coming the shepherds saw the sign, and for whom there was no room in the inn.
I believe in the One whose life changed the course of history, for whom the kings of the earth had no power, and who was not understood by the proud.
I believe in the One to whom the poor, the oppressed, the discouraged, the afflicted, the sick, the blind and the leprous gave welcome and accepted as Savior.
I believe in the One who, with love, changed the hearts of the proud, and with his life, showed that it is more important to serve than to be served, and that the greatest joy is in giving your life for others.
I believe in peace, which means justice among all peoples and nations and love among all.
I believe in reconciliation, forgiveness and the transforming power of the gospel.
I believe that Christmas is strength and power, and that this world can change if, with humility and faith, we kneel before the manger.
I believe that I must be the first one to do so.
Amen.
Sermon 12-11-11
The First Congregational Church in Stoneham - December 11, 2011
The Reverend Meredith A. Allen, Pastor
Luke 1:46b-55
Must Holy Places Be Dark?
I will greatly rejoice in the Lord, my whole being shall exult in my God. “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.”
Into our world as into Mary’s womb, come, Lord Jesus. Into the forgotten places as into the stable, come. Come into the lives of all of us who live in darkness, and fill that darkness with yourself. So come into these words and into all our thoughts. Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly! Amen.
I never thought I’d actually see Stonehenge. But see it I did when my daughter Meg and her husband Tim were living in southwestern England for six months. I’m sure you’ve seen pictures if not the real thing: Stonehenge is this amazing circle of giant stone monoliths that rises in the middle of a windswept plain.
These enormous rocks testify to humanity’s fear of darkness. At least 2000 years before Jesus was born, people were conducting religious ceremonies at Stonehenge, presumably to mark the rising and setting of the sun, especially on the shortest day of the year. Our ancient ancestors were terrified of losing the sun all together in the winter. So they erected these towering stones and devised rituals that were intended to stave off whatever dangerous powers threatened to take away their daily light. Now, of course, we know that our solar system’s personal star is not going to disappear. It will eventually rise higher in the sky again – we only have to endure a few more months of winter.
Annie Lamott, who writes with humor and irrepressible joy about her faith, observes that all better religions have a holy season as the days grow shorter. That’s the season when we ask ourselves, Where’s spring? Will it really come back this year? Will spring manage to break through our terror and our cluelessness? Left to our own devices, alas, no, probably not, Lamott answers with a sigh. And she concludes, all we can do in this dark season is stay close to God and stay close to our friends. We can’t help but notice the darkness, so we might as well light a few candles and scatter some seeds of light.
For us Christians, Advent is most definitely the holy season of darkness. Every single day now the TV weatherperson announces with almost glee that the sun is rising later and setting earlier. Darkness can come to seem like our enemy.
But this morning, let’s think about darkness as a metaphor for spiritual growth. Metaphor has been called a “way of holding the most truth in the least space.” The most truth in the least space. So maybe darkness is something more meaningful than the absence of light or “the enemy.” Maybe darkness is fertile soil in which our spirit is cultivated. Maybe darkness can teach us to rely on all of our senses, not just our sight. Maybe darkness is a place where we can begin to value what our hearts feel as much as what our heads think.
Surely there is darkness in the story of Mary, the mother of Jesus. When Mary hears Gabriel’s news of her pregnancy, she is immediately plunged into the darkness of not knowing. Mary cannot possibly grasp what lies ahead: not the vast changes in her own body nor how this child will forever change her life. Thank God she cannot know that her precious child will die before her. Instead, trustingly, amid the metaphorical darkness of the annunciation, Mary simply invites God to take over. Her song of acceptance, the Magnificat, reveals a joyful, lively faith.
Luke tells us that Mary has been overshadowed by the Holy Spirit to conceive this child within her womb. So the conception itself suggests darkness, a mystery that takes place in shadows. Shadows are familiar and comfortable territory to the Spirit. There is, after all, no place where God is not. Our Redeemer enters our world sustained in the dark nurture of Mary’s body and sheltered in the dark unknown of her courage to say yes to God.
Annie Lamott describes her own modern-day version of facing the unknown. When her son Sam was about 14, Lamott and Sam flew to Vancouver together so Sam could meet up with his dad and be introduced, for the first time, to his half-brother, who was his dad’s first son. Lamott had had almost no contact with Sam’s dad for the first eight years of Sam’s life. But the three of them had since developed a “quirky” and loose sense of family. If, however, you’ve ever had to deal with an ex-spouse, a partner’s ex-spouse, an ex-spouse’s new partner, step-kids or sundry unrelated “relatives” – then you know how snarled the web called “family” can be. And you can imagine Lamott’s anxiety over this meeting Sam was about to have with his new half-brother and a tangle of other related folks.
Lamott writes that she holed up in a hotel room while Sam’s dad took Sam off to meet this half-brother. As Lamott waited she grew increasingly tense. What if Sam’s brother wouldn’t reach out to him? What if Sam fell into an adolescent funk? What if Sam’s heart got broken again? Lamott says she worried about anything that could go wrong that day. And then she moved on to worry about cosmic things like gum surgery and colon cancer. Don’t the minefields that exist within families beget emotional havoc!
Finally, Lamott tried to find something to hold on to within the darkness of her panic. So she got some Milanos out of the mini-bar. Then, with some chocolate-filled cookies and a deep breath, she celebrated her own version of communion to calm herself down. She prayed she could just keep the faith. And she remembered what a priest friend once said to her, that the opposite of faith is not doubt. The opposite of faith is certainty. Certainty misses the truth entirely. But faith? Faith notices life’s mess – the emptiness, the discomfort, the grief – and faith just allows the mess to be there until some light returns. Lamott also decided that faith meant reaching deeply within herself for the good sense she was born with. In this case it was the good sense to go for a walk, which she did.
“Why must holy places be dark places?” the author C. S. Lewis once asked. Maybe it’s because only in the dark can you see a glimmer of light.
Lamott arrives at an interesting conclusion as she works through her worry about Sam. She believes the problem is that we think we know what the light looks like. For example, she used to think the light looked like success, a good man, a child, even a Democratic president. But none of these were right. In Advent, she says, we have to sit in our own stuff long enough to understand what it means to be saved. And being saved means seeing everyone as family. If you follow Jesus, Lamott says, you have to believe that we are one family, we’re all sisters and brothers.
God’s desire is to create within our personal darkness a fertile, nourishing place. Will you let God swell with life inside you? Will you let your longest nights enfold miracles?
Will you look into the rough manger of this world and see all God’s children as family? Amen.
Sermon 12-4-11
The First Congregational Church in Stoneham - December 4, 2011
The Reverend Meredith A. Allen, Pastor
Isaiah 40:1-11
Mark 1:1-8
A Path and a Little Light To See By
“In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.” John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.
Author Annie Lamott has a chapter in her book, Traveling Mercies, entitled “Why I Make Sam Go to Church.” Sam is Lamott’s son. Alas, even though Sam has a great time when he actually gets to church, he’s not ever enthusiastic about having to go. Apparently he is the only one of all his friends who is “forced” to spend Sunday morning in church. Nothing is entirely sufficient to appease Sam – not the snacks Lamott packs, nor the art supplies she carts along, nor any young friend they can “lure into [their] churchy web.”
What I love, however, is that Lamott does not apologize for insisting that Sam attend church. She explains, “The main reason is that I want to give [Sam] what I found . . . which is to say a path and a little light to see by.”
Lamott says that most of the people she knows who have what she wants in life, things like purpose, heart, balance, gratitude and joy, are people with a deep sense of spirituality. They’re people in community, she says, people who pray and who practice their faith. They’re Buddhists, Jews, and Christians. And they band together so they can work on themselves and work for human rights. Lamott concludes that these people “follow a brighter light than the glimmer of their own candle; they are part of something beautiful.”
This morning we encounter two lights who are brighter than our own dim candle. Isaiah and John the Baptist both offer a little light to see by. Isaiah is called by God to “speak tenderly to Jerusalem,” to comfort a people who are exiled from everything that feels safe and familiar. The Hebrew in this passage actually reads that Isaiah should “speak to the heart of Jerusalem.” The heart was considered the organ for thinking, so to speak “tenderly to Jerusalem” more accurately means, to convince Jerusalem. Isaiah must convince the Hebrew people that the powerful God of Israel is also a tender shepherd, a God who will nestle his flock in his breast. Isaiah shines like a beacon of hope to a people in pain.
On this second Sunday in Advent we also meet up with John the Baptist. He’s wild-haired, roughly dressed, and he lives on a diet of bugs. If I saw his modern day equivalent in, say, Harvard Square, I’d avoid him like the plague.
Yet people respond in throngs to John’s call for repentance. Like moths to a light, they eagerly press upon him. What compels them to wade into the murky waters of the Jordan river for John’s ritual cleansing? Surely there’s a deep human need here. I believe it’s a longing for relationship, a relationship that will give meaning to their lives. Two thousand years later, that longing is no less forceful in you and me. Maybe the only difference is that we have more diversions and more “toys” to distract us from the truth of our need.
In this Advent season, we await the birth of a child who yearns to satisfy our longing for genuine relationship. We have all felt ourselves in a place of exile; some of us are in that place right now. Loss, illness, and disappointment remove us from the safe and the familiar, and we aren’t at all sure how we will go on. This morning’s scriptures urge us to sharpen our senses and to attune our hearts. Because we need to become aware of the infinite ways that God does enter our lives and the life of this world. God is always wanting to offer us relationship. You and I need to open ourselves to the holiness that envelops us.
I’m reminded of my dear friend Miriam. Once she was a skier, a world traveler, and a fierce advocate of Czech refugees like herself. Now Miriam is imprisoned in a wheelchair, barely able to move a muscle. But she has cultivated the wings of her spirit, and she makes herself intentionally open to the holy. Miriam chooses to look for God’s presence every single day. And so she finds it, in things as plain or simple as the birds that come to her window feeder, or the profusion of pale pink blossoms on her Christmas cactus, or some homemade soup brought to her door. Miriam chooses not to go down the path of hopelessness but to find a little light to see by, one day at a time. And, you know, her choosing such openness gives me confidence to seek light with the determination she models.
Lillian Daniel is a UCC pastor who writes for the Stillspeaking Devotionals online. Daniel tells a delightful story about her mother’s campaign to boost everyone’s self-confidence. “You are the greatest star,” her mom would say, not only to Lillian because she was a shy kid, but to just about anyone who needed a shot in the arm. “You are the greatest star.” After a while, Daniel says, it finally hit her that they couldn’t possibly all be the greatest star. Nevertheless, her mom continued to say it, casting her own bit of light, if you will.
Many people considered John the Baptist to be the greatest star. His fans followed him into the wilderness to be baptized and to hear him preach. But John was a wise enough leader not to believe his own publicity. He knew that another was coming who would make his star power pale in comparison. One whose sandal he wasn’t worthy to untie. And John was okay with that. John was just glad to offer a path and a little light to see by.
Christ is the Light that we seek. And you and I are a people who “follow a brighter light than the glimmer of [our] own candle; [we] are part of something beautiful.” What sort of road in your heart needs to be made straight to receive this One who is our Light? Amen.
Sermon 11-27-11
The First Congregational Church in Stoneham - November 27, 2011
The Reverend Meredith A. Allen, Pastor
Isaiah 64:1-4
Mark 13:24-32
What If You Only Had One Month to Live?
From ages past no one has heard, no ear has perceived, no eye has seen any God besides you, who works for those who wait for him. Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will not pass away.
What if you knew you had only one month left in your life? What would you change? It’s a provocative question! Would you finish up important matters at work? Would you try harder at school? Would you travel someplace you’ve always dreamed about? Cross some items off your bucket list?
Would you pray more? Would you go on a mission trip, maybe? Would you find particular ways to leave your mark on this world? Would you reconcile a fractured relationship? Would you make a more concerted effort to say “I love you” without worrying about what people might think?
If you’re like me, you probably answered yes to at least one of these possibilities. In answering yes, we are admitting that we would become better stewards than we are now of everything God has given us in this life. In the intensity of our last days, we would try to be better people. More generous. More focused on life’s most important things.
So here’s an even more provocative question: Why do we need to be under the threat of death to be better stewards of life? Why do we need to be under the threat of death to be better stewards of life?
Jesus has foretold the destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem, which happened in 70 A.D. Jesus has also warned his disciples of harsh persecution to come; historical references substantiate centuries of persecution. Now, Jesus promises that he will come again, in glory, at the end of the world. This promise we are still waiting and hoping for.
Jesus is speaking directly to us – here, today – in this gospel passage. Because we have to live in the meantime, the challenging meantime between the “already” of Jesus’ walking among us, and the “not yet” of Jesus’ longed-for return. We must bide our time. But we must bide our time wisely.
In a world where so much focus at Christmas is placed on giving gifts, sending cards, and going to parties, the season of Advent itself becomes a precious gift. Advent’s purpose is to take our gaze and direct it toward the astonishing ways that God has interacted with humanity over the millennia. Above all, Advent helps us remember the story of a peasant girl who gave birth to a child in a stable. That single child’s life would change the whole world.
Our world’s current busyness may seem to be pointed toward Christmas, but it is seldom, alas, pointed toward the coming Christ child. As you and I move through Advent toward the great celebration of the Incarnation, we’re going to encounter lots of people who merely want to profit from it. People Selling Stuff will take full advantage of our fears, our inadequacies, and our insecurities as they hock their magic solutions – a new car, a shiny diamond ring, a huge plasma TV . . . oh, just name your poison. But trying to calm our fears by buying stuff just flies in the face of Jesus’ words.
Jesus knows that life’s demands and our terrors can deaden our awareness of God’s movement among us. So Jesus urges us to live as if his return were just around the corner. In Advent we are meant to revel in the hope that God will break into the world again this year. That a new world will be born in our very midst. And make no mistake: you and I become midwives to the new inbreaking of God with every good thought, word, or deed. It kind of reminds me of the classic old movie, It’s a Wonderful Life, in which every peal of bells signals an angel getting her wings. Every good thought, word and deed signals a foretaste of Christ’s coming again.
Jesus did not come into our world to scare people into the reign of God. Jesus came to love people into God’s grace. The love of Jesus will move us gently and firmly into the new life of God’s realm. This new world beckons us to live in gratitude as better stewards of God’s gifts and to rejoice in the bounty of God’s love.
This Advent, may God help us to live freely and to love fearlessly as we wait for God’s reign! Amen.
Sermon 11-20-11
The First Congregational Church in Stoneham - November 20, 2011
The Reverend Meredith A. Allen, Pastor
Matthew 25:31-46
Judgment’s Yardstick
“When the Son of Man comes in his glory . . . he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats . . .”
“We are all of us judged every single day. We’re judged by the face that looks back at us from the bathroom mirror, and we’re judged by the faces of the people we love . . . And by our dreams. Each day finds us at the junction of many roads, and we are judged as much by the roads we have not taken as by the roads we have.” That’s how theologian Frederick Buechner defines the word “judgment” in a theological ABC he wrote. Did you ever realize how constantly you and I are under the scrutiny of judgment?
Buechner is writing about the last judgment, that moment when God will bring down the final curtain on human history. Buechner goes on to say that our final judge will, of course, be Christ himself. But then Buechner points out the most important bit: the one who is going to judge us most finally happens also to be the one who loves us most fully.
The one who is going to judge us most finally is the one who loves us most fully. When we consider the daunting prospect of personal judgment we need to remember that. Our worship expresses the longing for Christ’s reign to come to our world, for justice and mercy and kindness to run rampant. But it’s clear in today’s passage that the return of Christ and his kingdom comes with the promise of judgment.
And judgment rakes up all kinds of conflicting and threatening feelings in us. Jesus teaches us simply not to judge one another. With a twinkle in his eye the Lord asks us, “Why do you see the speck in your brother’s eye but you don’t notice the log in your own?” Yet still you and I tend to make our own mental categories of specks and logs, the sins by which we judge others.
I remember, in my second year of seminary, being at the start of a devastating divorce. A classmate said to me, “Look, Merrie, just face the fact that divorce is a sin and move on with your life.” She was trying to encourage me, to remind me that if we ask, God will forgive us, regardless of the transgression.
But I couldn’t get past my sense of righteousness. I hadn’t wanted the divorce. I had done all I could to salvage the marriage. So how had I sinned? I felt judged. And I didn’t like it. It’s taken me a long time to own up to my part in the breakdown of my marriage.
Some Christians believe that the only thing they need to do to be “saved” at the final judgment is profess Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. Isn’t it interesting, then, that in today’s parable, Jesus doesn’t even ask the sheep or the goats if they confess faith in him?
So what does God call us to do to be ready for judgment? This question goes straight to the heart of what the goats in this story did: the goats did nothing. In other words, it’s what we neglect to do, rather than what we do, that will condemn us. It’s what we neglect to do. On Judgment Day, salvation will belong not automatically to those who say they have faith, but rather to those who do faith. True followers of Christ live Christ’s large-heartedness.
Rabbi Harold Kushner tells a wonderful story about a mother who sends her little boy on an errand. It takes him a very long time to come back home, and she begins to worry. When he finally comes through the door, she exclaims, “Where were you? I was so worried about you!” The boy answers, “Oh, there’s this kid down the street and his tricycle was broken. He was crying ‘cause he couldn’t fix it. So I stopped to help him.”
Now the mother looked skeptical, and she said to her son, “Come on, what do you know about fixing tricycles?”
“Nothing,” the boy answered. “I sat down with him and I helped him cry.”
“I sat down with him and I helped him cry.” Sometimes life is so broken it cannot be fixed. A tricycle, a relationship, a body, a dream. But even then there is something you and I can do. No one should have to cry alone. The yardstick on Judgment Day will simply be this, my friends: we will be measured by the depth of our compassion.
Theologian Barbara Brown Taylor reflects on the everydayness of being disciples of Jesus. “Sheep and goats alike,” she writes, “[the disciples] thought [Jesus] occupied one space at a time just as they did, and that the way they behaved in his presence was all that really counted.” That left them lots of free time to be with other people, including people who don’t count – the little ones, the least ones – like, say, waitresses, or nursing home residents, panhandlers, inmates, or strangers at the grocery store. What’s the biggest surprise to the goats? That these people – these little people – are equally known and beloved by the king. Maybe that’s the heart of this parable. What matters is how we behave when we think Jesus is not around.
Jesus asks us to care as passionately as he does. To drop everything to cry over a broken tricycle. Jesus invites us to work with him, to be his companions in mending the world. And it is risky business, to be sure. Risky to wear our heart on our sleeve. To make ourselves vulnerable to others, to their judgments and their problems. We’re afraid we might miss the signals of those in need. Or we remember with shame the times we’ve consciously put compassion on hold because it wasn’t convenient that day. And it’s risky to care because we know that the honest-to-goodness reward for a life of compassion may be crucifixion.
With the feast today of the Reign of Christ, we complete a full cycle of the Christian year as we voice again our profound longing for the fulfillment of Christ’s kingdom. Next week we begin to prepare for the greatest surprise in human history. God came to dwell with us in the form of a poor, helpless child, born in obscurity to peasant parents. God came to all of us as “one of the least of these.”
And God still comes now. “Just as you did it to one of the least of these . . . you did it to me.” How deep is our compassion? Amen.
Sermon 11-13-11
The First Congregational Church in Stoneham - November 13, 2011
The Reverend Meredith A. Allen, Pastor
Matthew 25:14-30
Stuffing God under the Mattress
“You ought to have invested my money with the bankers, and on my return I would have received what was my own with interest.”
Did you happen to see the Oprah show several years ago in which she handed out money to her audience? This wasn’t just one of her give-away sprees. Oprah challenged each audience member to do something wonderful for others with the money. Every person sitting in the studio that day received a debit card worth $1000. They also got a Sony Handycam so they could document on film what they did. In a kind of “pay it forward” spirit, the audience was given one week to fulfill the challenge.
In a later broadcast these same audience members came back and reported on how they had chosen to use their funds. TV viewers got to see some absolutely amazing and creative ideas come to fruition. In one case alone, a woman galvanized her entire town to assist a really sick dad and his family. This audience member multiplied her $1000 to $71,000!
The stories were heart-warming and breath-taking and inspiring. And I remember thinking, what would I have ever done with that money? The thought made me panicky: I would feel so responsible to take good care of the $1000. But I wasn’t at all sure I’d have been able to make the money grow. I kept thinking, better to use the $1000 responsibly than risk losing it. I just wouldn’t want to disappoint anyone!
So I really understand the actions of the third slave in the story Jesus tells this morning. Especially in view of the slave’s master, who had a reputation for being harsh. Yet it’s clear that the third slave fails miserably in his duty. “As for this worthless slave,” Jesus has the master say, “throw him into the outer darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” Ouch!
Do you, like me, feel some discomfort or confusion on hearing this story? It comes to us in the middle of a set of three parables that are about “last things.” First, there’s the story of the wise and foolish bridesmaids, which we read last week. And the separation of the sheep and the goats is next week’s gospel lesson. In each of them Jesus kindles our imaginations about how we are meant to invest our lives so that we will be ready for God’s final judgment.
So this parable of the three slaves is also about readiness. But this is a different kind of readiness. It’s not about being prepared to cope with a delay, as the bridesmaids had to. And it’s not about simply being prepared for the return of the master. After all, the third slave knows that his master will come back to retrieve what belongs to him. That’s why he buries that talent carefully and deeply.
So what is this parable about? Here’s what it’s about: he buries the talent carefully and deeply. That is the key. Readiness in this story is more than just being alert. It’s more than safeguarding possessions and provisions for a time of calamity. In fact, I think readiness in this story is counterintuitive. Because readiness means the willingness to take chances with what you have. Being prepared for the coming of God’s kingdom doesn’t mean battening down the hatches, safely and responsibly preserving the one talent. Quite the opposite, readiness means risk-taking.
And for those of us who shy away from risk-taking – who like to play it safe, steer a middle course, not make waves – Jesus’ parable kind of grabs us by the shirt as it confronts us with a whole different way of living.
Let’s imagine for a moment that the talents involved are not money, not gold or silver. Maybe they represent instead the talents we are born with and the talents that we cultivate. Our ability to sing, for example, or bake a mean pie, or sew up a wound or a pair of curtains, or be a listening ear. Let’s take it a step further. What if the talent we all possess is the Gospel itself? The Gospel is a treasure which we either generously share or keep covetously to ourselves. What if the talent we all possess is the gift of love?
We profess that God’s love never ends. So we could say that love is a kind of capital. We all have access to this capital because God gives love freely. God could then be compared to a kind of entrepreneurial multimillionaire. To push the analogy just one step further, let’s say that love can be invested. It can be multiplied. Love can make us and others richer. But only if we stop stuffing God under the mattress. It may seem innocuous to stuff your capital – your money – under the mattress, but really, even at the wretched interest rates that now prevail, would you do that to your money? John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, made a comment on this parable: Many of us see the third slave’s action as harmless. But it actually became the cause of his damnation. Again, ouch.
Courage! That’s what the third slave lacked. Courage.
Discipleship calls for courage. Our church council met last Sunday. The members of the council voted to officially undertake the ONA process here at First Church. In the United Church of Christ, ONA stands for open and affirming. And what does that mean? ONA parishes intentionally declare that they welcome all people. That includes especially those of different sexual orientations. We’ve had a beautiful, broad welcoming statement in our weekly bulletin for years, but the council has decided to make our ONA status official. To me, this action declares that we will not stuff God under the mattress. This action states that the gift of love in our church must be invested, multiplied, and shared in our effort to help heal a broken world.
Do you remember the classic Buddhist koan, “what is the sound of one hand clapping?” A koan, you may recall, is a question that you can’t find an answer to through rational thinking. Instead you have to rely on your intuition. On your heart. On your gut. Maybe we Christians could create a new koan. It would go like this: “Is the Gospel still the Gospel if it isn’t shared?”
“Is the Gospel still the Gospel if it isn’t shared?” Amen.