The Open and Affirming Ministry Team of the Minnesota Conference UCC presents the annual Open and Affirming celebration Saturday, April 9, at Linden Hills Congregational United Church of Christ. Workshops begin at 1 p.m. A 2:30 p.m. worship service features preaching by the Rev. Lawrence Richardson, minister for digital evangelism for the United Church of Christ, and choral music by Mizpah United Church of Christ of Hopkins.
By Rev. Anne Swallow Gillis — We don’t know the actual context in which Jesus taught his followers the Lord’s Prayer. They may well have been in the middle of eating together. Perhaps a relaxed evening meal or a hastily consumed mid-day snack as they walked from one town to the next. “Give us this day our daily bread.” What kind of “bread” do you picture in your mind’s eye as you hear this petition? When I pray this part of the Lord’s Prayer, I remember the squishy white sliced marvel of my childhood: Wonder Bread! My sister and I loved to tear off the crust and mush it into a ball, which we would slowly nibble as we wandered the neighborhood. A far cry from the flat pita-like bread that Jesus ate in his day. “Give us this day our daily bread”: it seems so obvious, but what are we doing when we pray this part of the prayer?
The whole issue of daily sustenance, and our relationship with food, has become increasingly complicated. Food is so over-consumed in our part of the world that we live in culture of fad diets, rising obesity, various eating disorders and diet-related diabetes. And some popular diets suggest that bread is fattening and bad for us. Perhaps we should pray, “Keep us away from our daily bread!” But we know all too well that as many of us walk miles to burn off calories from bread, others around the world walk miles to just find bread and food calories for their families.
We pore through glossy food magazines, watch hours of TV celebrity chef shows of other people cooking. We obsess about nutritional value and the sourcing of our food, but as a nation it is now a well-documented fact that we are spending less and less time cooking. Food policy researchers have noted that while the price of an increasing abundance of processed food has plummeted since World War II, the price of fresh fruits and vegetables has skyrocketed. Is it any wonder that those with limited food budgets eat too much processed food, fast food, junk food? The powers and reach of agribusiness, industrialized feedlots, and GMOs continue to grow and overwhelm our supermarket aisles, and their products are being increasingly marketed to underdeveloped countries. All while we are painfully, if we can stand to pay attention, painfully aware of the exploding number of people in the world who are hungry. Over 800 million a day, with about 35,000 dying daily from hunger-related illnesses. “Give us this day our daily bread.” How does God envision that we relate to our need for daily sustenance with the needs of others?
As we considered the first part of this prayer in the last few weeks, I suggested we imagine “God the Father” as the Divine Head of the World Household (John Dominic Crossan’s phrase, from “The Greatest Prayer: Rediscovering the Revolutionary Message of the Lord’s Prayer”). As a just and merciful gender-inclusive Householder, head of a multigenerational estate. God looking after God’s whole house, seeing that everyone, even the most vulnerable, gets enough. “May your kingdom, your reign of peace and justice, come.” We considered how we are called to be coworkers, partners in helping heal the broken House of God’s world. Today’s brief petition about daily bread moves us into the nitty-gritty of how life should go in God’s House of the World. And it is not just about me as an individual: not, give me my daily bread. Maybe this is the first piece Jesus wants us to understand: that we see ourselves in this need for sustenance together. As in the paraphrase of the prayer by John Philip Newell: “May there be food for the human family today and for the whole earth community.” If you don’t have food, this should be a problem for me.
But it is a huge challenge to maintain this awareness on a daily basis, to bring it to the consciousness of our children, to find ways to be around and work with and for hungry people. I’m beginning to think this is one of the most challenging spiritual practices there is today: what might I do daily that addresses world hunger, near and far? Might I pray about this a few times a day? Pick a country with food shortages and read about it, make a donation on a website, talk with my family about it? Find a food policy issue that worries me and pepper my congress people with letters about it? Help my children to choose three items for the local food pantry each time we shop together and deliver it? Really put a few more moments of attention to slow and careful table blessings said together at each meal? Grow some food – anything; cook some food mindfully? What would a daily spiritual practice of engaging our daily bread look like for each of us?
Jesus’ disciples would have heard this part of the prayer as they chafed against the control of the Roman Empire, where life for many within the Jewish community was precarious at best. People were conscripted for military duty, lost their land and were dealt taxes and tariffs on most aspects of their lives. This also included the local fishing industry, which was of particular concern to many of those meeting Jesus. Rome made commercial dealings more profitable for those in power, but far less so for everyone else, like the local fishermen. The fish you caught were taxed, as were your boat and your nets, and the materials used to repair your nets and vessel (see John Dominic Crossan).
So, the context for Jesus’ prayer is a tinderbox. But what is so incendiary about: “Give us this day our daily bread?” These words would resonate with the Exodus story for his Jewish followers: Their ancestors had fled slavery in Egypt and struggled with starvation during their years of traveling through the wilderness on the way to the Promised Land. But they were blessed with the appearance of “manna,” a substance that would last for about a day before spoiling, with which they could make bread. Enough was provided just for that day. Jesus’ prayer would seem to make a tidy circle, reminding them to trust God. Just pray for this day…don’t get greedy. Simple enough.
Not so simple and innocent, writes the New Testament scholar, John Dominic Crossan. He contends that this part of the prayer about daily bread may be the most dangerous part of Jesus’ teaching. “Jesus dies not for demanding charity or generosity of hospitality,” says Crossan. “(Jesus will be killed) because he insists the world and its food belong to God and not Rome.” Over and over, Jesus would use both bread and fish to illustrate this reality: He would multiply not just wine, but loaves and fishes, politically dangerous acts where the Romans are standing by ready to tax all of any extra food production! Jesus spoke of himself as “the bread of life,” blessed and broke bread as symbolic of his own body and spirit that will nourish his followers. The resurrected Jesus stood on the beach directing his followers where to productively fish, then grilled them fish for breakfast. In front of everyone, Jesus kept enacting a living parable of God as Householder of the world. The Emperor of Rome is not ultimately in charge here; God is.
I wander the aisle of the supermarket and wonder to myself: what does it mean that God is in charge of all this plenty? What do I need, what is enough? I was eating blueberries one recent summer while serving in another church in northern Virginia. I was proud that I had not eaten blueberries flown in from Chile during the winter. I had waited for seasonal fruit to arrive. ”New Jersey blueberries,” I read on the plastic box. Pretty close-by to where I was living, but I wonder what it’s like to pick these things? My few minutes on the Internet revealed that there were ongoing labor violations in the New Jersey blueberry industry. Haitian migrant workers come up from Florida, enduring overcrowded and unsanitary labor camps, unsafe bus transportation. The Farmworkers Ministry of the Catholic Diocese of Camden had recently been established to provide a social justice ministry of outreach and advocacy among these farmworkers. Not in my backyard? Well, I’m eating the blueberries they pick, wasn’t I?
God the Householder of the World wants food security, enough bread and fish, for everyone. If your child is starving, you become insecure, angry and desperate. Might we learn more about the places of food insecurity in our Twin Cities? What are the choices facing these families? Paying for medicine or utilities or paying for bread. As hard as it is for us to imagine, many of these people are already working several jobs.
Maybe it’s our own anxiety about our own future that complicates our relationship with food. God is ready to partner with us, to guide and empower us and our choices, and we stay stand-offish. We stay muddled in our own worries and insistence that we figure this out ourselves. Perhaps we might try a new rhythm this week. Perhaps some more mindful tasting, savoring the things we eat each day, and giving thanks. And as part of this rhythm, then learning more about where it comes from, the environmental impacts of our food production, who is hungry and why.
Yes, this church has a long history of collecting food and food money for those in need. Meals on Wheels, sandwich making and food serving for those without food and shelter, financial support of our denomination’s hunger programs. We have started providing weekend food for kids in need at our elementary school down the block. But God and the whole food reality is much bigger than this. What could be the new spiritual practices we will engage around our own food consumption and the wider questions of food justice? As individuals, as families, as a church community? Begin by praying like this, said Jesus: “May there be food for the human family today and for the whole earth community…give us this day our daily bread.” Amen.
By Rev. Anne Swallow Gillis — “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” Let’s consider what we are asking for when we pray this part of the Lord’s Prayer. As the saying goes, different people really do approach life differently: Some see life, events around them, as a “half-empty glass” and some see it “half-full.” I wonder how life seems to you this morning? As you take a broad view, beyond your own daily encounters, do things seem to be getting better or are things getting worse in human history? This question hasn’t just perplexed our contemporary world. Ancient Greek and later Roman philosophers contributed to the half-empty/half-full debate: world getting worse, getting better? According to Biblical scholar John Dominic Crossan (“The Greatest Prayer: Rediscovering the Revolutionary Message of the Lord’s Prayer”), beginning about the mid-second century before Jesus’ birth, Biblical writers came up with a unique version of “glass half-empty or half-full.” They started claiming that the “glass” of human history was actually “cracked” and desperately in need of repair (p. 74). Something about God’s plan for the world had gone seriously awry. Their people were repeatedly under siege or conquered, and in times of peace and self-rule, justice and mercy no longer prevailed in their own land.
Around this time, the Book of Daniel spoke to this need for “world repair.” The book is filled with dreams and visions describing the four preceding empires that had decimated the Jewish people. Depicted as wild beasts, these empires were symbolically portrayed as horrendous creatures rising “up out of the sea,” the ancient mythological origin of watery chaos. The original audiences for this story would have laughed at the way some 21st century Christians take this imagery literally. They knew this was powerful poetic language that personified these seemingly permanent, imperial regimes as bizarre, bloodthirsty and dangerous wild animals. Babylonians who carted the population off into exile, destroying the Temple and Jerusalem. Medes who conquered the Jews upon their return to Palestine, followed by the marauding Persians. And finally Alexander the Great and the Macedonian Greeks, who were so innovatively brutal with their new-fangled weaponry and war tactics that Daniel only calls this beast as hellishly “different” – iron teeth, claws of bronze, trampling, breaking into pieces, devouring the whole earth. (And we give this Bible to children?).
According to Crossan, the author of Daniel is one of the first to articulate this idea that God planned an everlasting kingdom that would be vastly different from these beastly, inhuman and temporary kingdoms: “The God of heaven will set up a kingdom that will never be destroyed.” This was to be a fifth kingdom, not time-limited, but everlasting. God’s kingdom or reign was to be personified not by beasts but by a person, the “son of man.” Or, as Crossan describes: “a transcendental Human one who has been entrusted with (the Kingdom) by God, the transcendent Ancient One.” The kingdom will be given to this “son of man” for the benefit of all humans. This is the start of the vision of “tikkun olam,” the Hebrew words for “healing the world” and the Jewish vision of a Messiah who would usher in this reign. And eventually Jesus will use this title, “son of man,” “son of the human one,” to describe his own ministry and purpose.
When we move to Jesus’ time, Israel is under the thumb of a “beast” of proportions that Daniel never could have imagined: the Roman Empire. It is both Daniel’s visions and this new Roman imperialist rule that are the context for Jesus’ self-understanding and the Lord’s Prayer. Our current and treasured divisions between politics and religion are frankly too simplistic to understand their world. Politics and religion were all intertwined. Nor do these contemporary distinctions help us imagine how Jesus envisioned the cracks in the glass being mended, the world being healed. For Jesus, God’s kingdom wasn’t a place (like up in heaven), it was more a verb. God reigns in a different manner than corrupt human rulers.
But what would this look like? Last week we explored the opening parts of the Lord’s Prayer, “Our Father/Abba, intimate papa, who art in heaven/in the whole universe, hallowed be thy name.” Consider the idea of God being like the head of a large household, the parental leader over a large, multigenerational estate. John Dominic Crossan suggests that Jesus understood God to be the head Householder, taking loving and just care of everyone, in a worldwide “household” where there was peace and everyone was to have enough. The frail and vulnerable and the needy were to get special attention. So Jesus taught his followers to pray like this: “May your kingdom come and your will be done, here on earth as it is in heaven.”
What are we asking for when we say to God, “thy kingdom come, thy will be done?” This kingdom language may seem a bit strange for us in this country. Our nation’s founders were very much opposed to any kind of monarchy or absolute rule of a king or queen. We live in and celebrate our participatory democracy. The Hebrew people in Old Testament times did not have a very good experience of kings and kingdoms either. These were independent tribal clans, constantly on the move with their flocks and families. Years later, after the Jews fled Pharaoh’s oppressive reign in Egypt, they were not too keen on a king with absolute power. They built a community based on their covenant with God: known most intimately with the giving of the Law on Sinai. They understood God to be their leader, and this would distinguish them from other surrounding nations and empires of their day. And within that covenant agreement with this ruling God, the people agreed to follow God’s laws, which taught an unusual sharing of power and resources among the people.
While Israel sometimes ignored these laws, the intent was for as little disparity as possible between the rich and the poor. Given the current debate about income inequality in our nation, particularly as to how this divides along racial lines, we might want to pay particular attention to where Jesus is going with this. The intent of Jewish law was that there be some kind of equity among everyone. Digging through the remains of these ancient communities, archaeologists have discovered that their houses, up until the time of the monarchy period, were pretty much the same modest size. But after the monarchy period starts in 1020 BCE with King Saul, archaeologists have found an increasing array of palatial dwellings (McMansions of the day) as well as hovels (p. 10, Crossan). Eventually later prophets start proclaiming that now Israel looks much like all the other foreign powers through history…power-hungry, vast economic disparity among the people, not caring for the poor and marginalized in their midst. I find there is something chillingly familiar and relevant about this critique.
Jesus was picking up on the prophets’ call for a return to God’s reign, style of ruling, with equity for all. Jesus was not just talking about some interior moral kingdom in our hearts; and this is were we get distracted in our life together as Christians. Paradoxically, he taught that “the Kingdom of God is within you,” an animating force already inside of us. But he also described a world around us in which fairness and justice for everyone must rule. And this world would come about not with violence, like the imperial beasts of Daniel’s time or Rome’s military might. Its power would come through nonviolence and mutual compassion. Jesus gets into trouble and is eventually executed because his preaching is a direct challenge to all kinds of domination systems of his day: systems like the violent, repressive rule of the Roman Empire. And systems of privilege and prestige within his own religious tradition.
Why pray for God’s will to be done? Some Christians will talk about “God’s will for your life” like it is a pre-set blueprint. And it sounds harsh, judgmental, and probably not much fun. We reduce “God’s will” to individual morality, or expand it far enough to say it is “God’s will” that a certain sports event, battle or war has been won for our side. But it is God’s will that the world be healed. In fact, according to Crossan’s research, the word “will” here actually means, “good will or good pleasure.” It is God’s good pleasure, God’s wish or deep yearning, for us to be living differently: in harmony, in fairness and peace. That is God’s will.
The Kingdom of God, God’s will done among God’s people on earth….it is happening and it is not fully happening yet. So pray for it, says Jesus. Pray for it with all your heart. But look out! Part of Jesus’ uniqueness was introducing this different paradigm through which to understand God: God doesn’t swoop in and intervene. God calls us to collaborate with God, partner with God’s good pleasure. And this partnering is going to change us. Jesus invites us to pray ourselves into this transformation of the world and ourselves.
How does this work? We pray it and then we watch for the opportunities to partner with God. And they will pop up. “Kingdom come/will be done” – use this as a breath prayer through the routine of your day, waiting for the elevator or while you’re on hold on the phone, while chopping carrots, pumping gas, sitting in a meeting at work. Then watch for the invitation to collaborate with God’s leveling, healing forces as God heals the world. What will it be? Will we speak up when a word of truth is needed? Will we read the news differently, vote differently? Will we stop complaining about something and find a solution? Will we spend our money in different ways? Will we finally forgive someone this week that has really hurt us? We dare not pray this part of the prayer unless we are willing to be changed, transformed into kingdom-bearers, partners in God’s reign. Amen.
By Rev. Anne Swallow Gillis — One of the things pastors love most is when other people pray, not us. Seriously, one of the most frustrating things is to have people assume that I am the only one in the room who can pray…out loud…appropriately. Over these next five weeks of Lent, I’m inviting us to take an honest look at our prayer lives. Not so much so we will start doing it “right” – whatever that might mean. I don’t believe prayer is simply about asking for a pony, or a new computer game, or even grownup things like a pay raise or a date, or even a miracle cure. I’m not talking about praying more efficiently or accurately, so God will change God’s mind and grant our wishes more often. I’m talking about prayer, words and silence, breath and movement that connect us most deeply with ourselves and with God who dwells within us. Prayer that connects us with this present moment, with all its joy and hurt. Prayer that enables us to maintain a sense of equilibrium, a certain flexible stance, while delights, success and surprises, and failure and suffering come into our lives. Lent is a good time to bore down into our prayer lives, and see what is or what is not going on for each of us.
I’m suggesting a journey through the Lord’s Prayer as our way in this year. Not because it is a magic formula that will get us what we want, but in large part because Jesus said something like: “Okay, you want to know about prayer? You wonder what I am up to when I retreat from the crowds, and go away by myself for some quiet, to talk with God? Here…start with this.” Which I find helpful, because it isn’t about having a correct belief to start with, or even a really firm sense that God is there listening. It’s sort of “do this and see what happens.”
The Lord’s Prayer. You may have said this prayer a thousand times over your lifetime, or it may be entirely new to you. Those who grow up in the church probably learn it as children, and it sure can seem pretty rote as we just rattle it off each Sunday. You say it at a rapid clip and finish it in less than 20 seconds,15 if you use the words “debt” instead of “tres-pass-es.” Jesus created this prayer at the request of his disciples, drawing on the beliefs, cosmology and mysticism of his first-century Judaism. It’s probably the best summary we have of his own values and unique perspective on the life well-lived. During the next few weeks I will offer some different lenses through which we might see this “inherited treasure” that has come down to us through the centuries (phrase from Neil Douglas-Klotz, “Prayers of the Cosmos”). I urge us to soak in these words through each week, and to work and play with them in some different ways.
In Jesus’ time, it was not unusual for teachers, rabbis, healers to teach a certain prayer to their followers. Jesus replied to his disciples’ request by saying: “When you pray, say: Father, hallowed be Your name.” This is probably closest to the original words of Jesus, although the version from Matthew’s gospel may sound more familiar to us. (Take a look at the front of your bulletin, where we have included the references in three of the Gospels. Gospel of John records long prayers of Jesus, but it doesn’t mention this one!) The Matthew version, written in the later part of the first century well after Jesus died, is a bit expanded and was commonly used by the early churches in their worship life together. “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name,” which is our focus this morning.
In ancient times, one’s name had a certain power: it proclaimed your selfhood. Jesus starts by naming God: our Father. Immediately there is a communal piece to prayer with this word “our.” Apparently, we don’t do praying, or following Jesus, alone. We’re all connected in this act, to one another and to this Being. And the name gives us a clue about who this Being is. “Father” is a name for God rooted in the Jewish tradition, but Jesus adds something new we’ll consider in a moment. I included this Exodus reading this morning, from the Hebrew Scriptures, because these sacred Jewish writings are foundational to understanding the name and nature of God. These are anchor texts for Jesus’ life and ministry. This story of Jesus’ ancestor Moses and Moses’ encounter with God is the backstory to how Jesus understood God. Moses, born and raised in Egypt, is now in hiding as a shepherd because he killed an Egyptian foreman who was brutalizing a Hebrew slave. In this interaction with a burning bush, this encounter with an angel and finally with God’s voice, Moses is told that God wants to free the Hebrew people from oppression in Egypt and take them to a new land. Moses will lead them and God will go with him in this ominous task. Unconvinced that this is a good idea, Moses finally asks, “Look, I can tell them it is the God of their ancestors who has sent me, but they’re going to want to know your name.” God replies, “Tell them I AM has sent me to you.” Literally, “I AM WHO I AM,” or even more accurately, “I WILL BE WHO I WILL BE.” Whoever it is – whatever – God’s name and nature is not static. By implication, there is going to be an evolving understanding in this relationship between God and God’s people, between God and all humanity, perhaps even an evolution in the very nature of God over time.
Jesus’ understanding of God reflects this evolution of that comes down through the Jewish Law and the Prophets. This is not a distant, capricious God, who punishes and rewards at whim. This is a forgiving God of steadfast mercy. And Jesus is going to push this tradition, like any mystic sage who also happens to be a creative and prophetic reformer. He will address God by an unusual name.
But what’s new here? God had been called “Father” in Hebrew Scriptures. One of the problems in understanding Jesus’ original intent is that he and his followers spoke Aramaic, the native Middle Eastern language of ordinary people at the time. After Jesus was killed and his followers experienced his resurrected presence among them, his sayings and stories about him continued to circulate in oral form in Aramaic. These were eventually recorded in Greek, which is the language of the New Testament. And as usual, some things have gotten lost in translation. Aramaic scholar Neil Douglas-Klotz, in his book “Prayers of the Cosmos,” claims that we have lost considerable “heart consciousness and prophetic juice” of the original Aramaic tongue. His work is controversial but compelling. He points to other familiar teachings of Jesus such as “be you perfect” – frankly, words that tend to set my teeth on edge. This scholar’s translation from the Aramaic suggests that Jesus was saying not “be perfect,” but “be you all-embracing.”
Douglas-Klotz draws our attention to the name “Father” at the beginning of the prayer. This name has become a bone of contention in many congregations: “Father,” in Aramaic, “Abba.” This traditional, patriarchal language is a real problem for some of us, and for others of us it is a comforting and well-loved title for God. But think for a moment of how Jesus could have started this prayer: “Our high and mighty one” or “Our Judge,” or “Our warrior king,” titles also used in the Hebrew scriptures. But Jesus uses the word “Abba” to address God. In Aramaic, this word was a child’s word: it meant Daddy or Papa. It suggests closeness, warmth, dependency. I have learned an additional piece about this word abba from reading John Dominic Crossan’s book “The Greatest Prayer: Rediscovering the Revolutionary Message of the Lord’s Prayer.” The author claims that in their male-dominated society, the word “father” was often shorthand for “parents” – at that time, commonly father and mother. So the word “Abba” was not only intimate, relational language, but it also referred to what my kids used to call “the parental units.”
There’s one other new learning about this Aramaic word for “Father,” “Abba,” that I find fascinating. The root of the word also means “rises and shines, vibrates, in space.” I can feel my brain synapses crackle as I imagine this reality. Jesus wanting us to know that this shining vibratingness, the Oneness of God, was not something far away but includes every center of every activity and place we experience, and that has the potential for being. Vibratingness. I can’t help but think about the recent scientific discovery of gravitational waves emanating from the collision of two black holes in a far corner of the universe, billions of years ago, finally washing over our earth and being recorded! “Astronomy has grown ears,” proclaimed one theoretical physicist (Lawrence M Krauss, New York Times, 2/14/16). Could we be sensing, hearing, God’s vibratingness in a new way?
Of particular interest to me is that the Aramaic word for “heaven” actually means “the universe.” What looks like a geographical spot separate from us and our planet, “our Father who art in heaven,” is actually a place all around and within us. Ponder this for a minute; put on this different lens about “heaven.” Heaven is not a place separate from us, with angels strumming their harps and golden streets, and some kind of stern guy at the front gate with a book full of our personal sins. Heaven is a place all around us and within us. Filled with vibrating waves! God is in all this, shining, rippling, washing over and through our very being. This is sacred stuff moving through us, within us – holy, hallowed be God’s name!
Play with this first part of the prayer this week. Say it when you wake up in the morning. Set it to some vibrating sound as you say it. Sing it on one note: our Father who art in heaven hallowed be thy name. Try out the translation we will pray together in a few minutes, roll it around on your tongue: Ground of all being, Mother of life, Father of the universe, Your name is sacred, beyond speaking. Try just this first part as a breath prayer, while stopping at a traffic light: Our Father / who art in heaven/ hallowed be/ thy name. In and out. While washing dishes, shoveling snow, bathing the children, walking the dog, before checking your email. This is Jesus’ gift to us…let’s start to soak in it. Amen.
On any given night in Minnesota, 4,000+ youth and young adults are homeless and on their own. Beginning on Valentine’s Sunday, we will have the opportunity to open our hearts to some of those kids by donating to a Minneapolis organization called Avenues for Homeless Youth. Melissa Peterson, Community Engagement Manager at Avenues, will tell us about their work during a moment for mission in worship on Feb. 14.
Avenues provides emergency shelter, short-term housing and supportive services for homeless youth in a safe and nurturing environment. We have previously held gift drives at Christmas, and last summer Avenues was the recipient of water bottle and towel donations in honor of Rachel Flaherty’s 30th birthday.
You may bring gifts for Avenues residents from the list below at any time during Lent. We will have a big box for your donations available in the church lobby. We are collecting:
Join us the next two Wednesdays, March 9 and 16, for Lenten Supper and Evening Prayer. These are simple meals of soup and bread. We’ll start serving at 6 p.m. (bring a dessert if you wish), then join us for informal singing, prayer and closing time. Suppers are sponsored by the Intergenerational Ministry Team. Contact Sue Gramith if you would like to help, [email protected].
During our Evening Prayer time, we have been gathering around the round coffee table for simple songs, scripture and engaging the “four elements” of nature. Pastor Anne leads us in exploring how we experience God through earth, air, and this week through fire and light. Small rocks, white feathers and battery-operated tea-lights have been our guides; next week, water. We conclude by 7 p.m. This is a great intergenerational worship time, and helpful for those needing some sensory input in their spiritual life.
The word “transformation” is used often today and is part of our vision statement. Have you ever wondered what it means to be transformed and how true transformation takes place? Find out what Richard Rohr, a Franciscan friar who founded the Center for Action and Contemplation in Albuquerque, New Mexico, has to say about transformation.
During the 9:30 a.m. First Hour on Sunday, March 6, 13 and 20, we will review a webcast teaching by Fr. Richard where he shares three key components to spiritual transformation and discusses why these are important for our growth as spiritual human beings. Conee Biggs will join Pastor Anne in leading this conversation.
The congregation of Falcon Heights Church held its Annual Congregational Meeting Jan. 31, 2016. It approved the slate of lay leaders for 2016, including Lynne Bradbury as moderator and Peter Duddleston as moderator-elect. Also approved was the 2016 budget and a proposal to allow the Executive Board to proceed with the sale of two parcels of land from the church parking lot. Ministry team reports were included in the 2015 Annual Report.
Come celebrate Mardi Gras, or Fat Tuesday, with us on Feb. 9. Food, games, mask making and lots of fun! At the end of the evening, we’ll have an informal Ash Wednesday observance for all ages. Join us from 5:30 to 7 p.m. in the Gathering Room.
By Rev. Anne Swallow Gillis —
Before I came to serve as your interim minister over a year ago now, I was leading a United Church of Christ congregation in northern Virginia, in the suburbs right outside of Washington, D.C. One of the members there shared an encounter with me that she had with her grandson who was active in our church ministries. Having received her permission to share this story, I will tell you that this grandmother and her grandson were spending the day together one winter snow day while his parents were at work. Somehow they had gotten onto the topic of “currencies.” An unusual conversation with even a precocious 6-year-old. After some discussion about how different countries have different types of currencies (dollars, yen, strings of shells, euros, pesos and such), the child decided to create some credit cards and debit cards. Which are often our current currency of choice these days, at least the one obvious to our children. After some mutual play with various pretend credit and debit cards, the boy announced it was time to make a “worship card.” “Hmmmm…that’s interesting,” said Grandmother. “Just what does a worship card do?” “Well, you can use it to get things, like you can buy goats to send for Heifer project like we do at church” replied the child confidently, “You can get food for poor people with it.” Apparently a loaded “worship card” can make good things happen and it is about getting things for other people.
Hearing this story, I was struck by this boy’s insight into how a “worship card” might function. This 6-year-old, through his few years in worship, hearing numerous children’s messages, involvement in Sunday School service projects, wider church food drives and meal packing for those in need, was on to something important about our life together as a church. He knew that any “plastic” has to have something loaded on it, be it a debit card, a credit card, gift card, for it to be worth anything. I suggest that a “loaded” worship card can do more than we know. It provides certain value: spiritual and emotional currency that, for starters, enables us to make life choices based on our values and beliefs. Might we receive something to draw on, some newly imagined way of being in the world, because of our worship life together? And…is this just about our own individual needs? Is weekly corporate worship simply a spiritual “7-Eleven” where we dip in for a quart of intellectual stimulation and a loaf of “feel-good” inspiration? Are we just privately “tanking up” here?
Each month in our church newsletter, I describe our weekly worship as “the heart of our life together” here at Falcon Heights Church. What do we receive here in worship? What value loads up for us on our “worship card” that we don’t get elsewhere in our lives? It makes good sense to say that, in worship, we learn more about what God cares about—the hurts and needs of the world—so we can go out and do something about being God’s healing partners. But I also think that one of the most important things that get loaded up on our “worship card” is a deeper understanding about ourselves. And it is that transformed understanding of ourselves that eventually starts to make a real difference in our lives.
Our biblical forbearers spent a lot of time asking God to clarify their current situation: “Are you still with us?” they would demand of God during difficult times. “Things are a mess! Who are we to you, chopped liver?” In their worship and in their sacred writings, the community would recount where they had been and what it had meant: wandering Arameans were our father and mother and we were chosen as God’s own; we were slaves in Egypt and we were released and saved by God’s almighty hand; we were given a new land and taught to become a light of justice and compassion to all nations. As followers of Jesus, you and I stand within this tradition of those who would look back and remind themselves of God’s claim on them. In these words we just heard from the Jewish prophet Isaiah, we have been taken by and kept by God, in spite of our failings. We too have been given a covenant to be that Light and to open the eyes of the blind, release the prisoners. As we join in worship week after week, singing, pondering, praying together, our “worship card” gets loaded up with this deep awareness of who and whose we truly are.
Why does this matter? Because the world so often tells us otherwise. Our media tell us we are important if we look a certain way, are a certain age and own certain things. Bosses tell us we matter based on our productivity. Who are we; whose are we? Are we owned by our work, our hobbies, our debts, our past failures or mistakes? We come to worship and we hear a different message. We are reminded that we are created, formed, redeemed, owned by God. According to the prophet Isaiah, writing during the horrendous time of Israel’s capture and exile to Babylon in the 6th century BCE, we are each called by name: “You are mine,” says God. Whose are you, Anne? Who names and claims you? Well, I come from the Swallow clan, hardy New England stock, married into the Gillis clan, lived in a lot of places, sure do like to think that I own myself, have autonomy over myself, if I’m really honest. Empowered and independent, I am! Don’t nobody own me!
But scripture seems to indicate otherwise: “Anne, you are not your own. You are mine,” says God, “you are my beloved daughter.” All of us: We are God’s offspring, God’s children, sons, daughters of the living God. When we baptize our little babies and our adults, when you and I worship together, Sunday after Sunday, we are loading up this identity awareness on our “worship card.”
Early in the first decade of the first century, John the Baptist invited fellow Jews come to the rural outskirts of Jerusalem. He challenged them to reflect and repent, to turn their life around and be baptized as a sign of the forgiveness of their sins, of the new life they were choosing. We have no idea what suddenly drew Jesus to do this public ritual, to emerge from an obscure youth and young adulthood, and align himself with a radical prophet who was already in trouble with the local authorities. Did Jesus bring a sense of his own shortcomings, his own hesitancies, up to that point? “Who am I, whose am I, why does it matter?” might he have asked himself? Could he have possibly have been feeling spiritually dry himself? Was he seeking to quench some deeper thirst in those river waters, to ritually engage his past and his future as he entered into a dramatically public and dangerous path of teaching and healing? Here is someone who so clearly was able to convince other people of their essential worth and lovableness. This Jesus who, with baptism, knew himself to be worthy, loved and intimately connected to God, as he heard the words from heaven: “This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased.” Perhaps the question for each of us is similar: Do we know ourselves to belong to God, to be beloved sons and daughters? Do we truly experience that God is pleased with us?
The rigors of Christian life, with the constant call to self-honesty, generosity, openness and inclusivity, can be overwhelming. We load up our “worship card” each time we are together, with the stories of Jesus and the taste of God’s grace that we receive in one another’s’ presence. In worship together, we reimagine another possible world of justice and peace. We hear again that God is pleased with us, just the way we are…and that God desires more from us than to stay just the way we are. In baptism we receive the watery mark of God’s grace and we come to the Table to receive the taste and texture of God’s extravagant welcome. Through these sacraments, these holy acts, we boldly remember we are identified individually, named, by the Mysterious Creator of the Universe, and that this reality lays claim on us. We load up our “worship card” as we remember whose we are. And we once again head out into the world, strengthened and empowered by the value on that card. Thanks be to God. Amen.