Believing is seeing

    This Sunday we have another of the extensive readings from the Gospel of John about one of Jesus’ encounters with people on his travels, including religious authorities and scholars.  Sunday’s readings from John 9:1-41 are about a man born blind whom Jesus healed.
Clearly John means this to be an impressive healing, since someone blind since birth is a very difficult case; this is not about recovering sight but giving it where it never existed.  So Jesus is showing some pretty impressive skills on this one, raising him well above the typical wonder-working prophet.  In fact, creating vision in the man has resonance with God’s creation out of nothingness.  We, the readers, recognize that implication even if the participants don’t.

      Jesus then deftly deflects the objections of the religious powers-that-be and begins an extensive riff on spiritual blindness taking off from the physical blindness.  Not being able to recognize… or even see… how God is at work in the world is the worst sort of blindness to John, and Jesus is really, really sarcastic toward the leaders who are willfully blind to God’s new things.  Clearly, if one is unwilling to believe that God is breaking into human life in Jesus, you just can’t… or just won’t be able to grasp the good news.  In this case, you have to be willing to believe in order to see what’s in front of you.  Another problem with the authorities is how they get all upset over Jesus healing the man on the Sabbath, not imagining that their insistence on following the fixed, narrow rules might be blocking them from a new revelation of God’s ongoing grace.  They obsess over the details and don’t get the wider picture.

      In my usual search for connecting the weekly lessons to the ongoing overall life of the congregation, I’m intrigued at this context for electing the Search Committee this Sunday.  In fact, much of the Search Committee’s first work will be trying to discern, trying to see ahead to where God is going with this congregation.  If a Search Committee takes its task merely as finding a qualified applicant for a position description without also seeking to discern the overall direction and vision for a congregation, rooted in God’s call to that congregation, it will have, a least, poor eyesight, if not downright blindness to God’s light.  But it will take some time for our Search Committee to pull all the data from our congregational self-study into focus, to see God’s calling.  Firstly, give the Committee lots of time to do that work.  And to do it right!  Help them by working with them if they ask the congregation for more of your thoughts or want to bounce their developing ideas off you.  Be good partners in the process.  Secondly, don’t crowd them as they crystallize the vision.  Don’t be on their case like the Pharisees were on the man’s case!  When you are feeling impatient, take a deep breath and instead of asking what’s taking so long, pray for their vision and efforts.  Believe that when they figure out what they are seeing, they will help you see it too.

      And believe that somewhere, in due time, someone will see what the Search Committee sees about this church and will want to join you in your walk forward into God’s future.  Believing is seeing.

                                                                          In Christ,
                                                                   
                                                                           David            

Please attend the congregational meeting this Sunday after worship to elect our Search Committee.  And stay for the luncheon sponsored by the Women’s Ministry after that!

Texts For Sunday Worship:

      From the Epistles              Ephesians 5:8-14
      From the Gospels             John 9:1-41

 

It was an hour, actually.

      On Saturday, March 26, 1949 at 10 pm, there was a radio broadcast sponsored by the major protestant denominations, called “One Great Hour,” to aid postwar recovery and rebuilding in Europe.  Notables like Gregory Peck and Ida Lupino and President Truman participated. The broadcast closed with a request that listeners attend their local church the following morning and make contributions.  It was the culmination of an idea by the Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church in 1946 when there was a goal of a million dollars for the Presiding Bishop’s Fund for World Relief.  On radio he challenged to raise “one million dollars in one hour.”  It worked.  American churchgoers responded.  They shared.

      As important as the money was, it was just as amazing that many major mainlines participated, and the united effort set the groundwork for much mission giving since.  A distinctive feature is that the relief work of the separate denominations is supported under the overall umbrella of One Great Hour of Sharing.  The ecumenical banner, theme, interpretation, and, well, “branding,” provide a unified invitation, despite denominations’ separate agencies delivering the aid.  Much of the coordination is with Church World Service, the relief, development, and refugee assistance arm of the National Council of the Churches.  OGHS works with the U.S. Catholic Bishops’ Relief Fund and the Jewish Passover Appeal.

      As an example, the same campaign will nourish the UCC’s Neighbors in Need offering and the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)’s Presbyterian Disaster Assistance.  Even more, when Superstorm Sandy hit NYC, NJ, and Long Island, both the UCC and PDA responded in partnership.  After the Sandy Hook school shooting, the UCC Churches called on PDA’s response teams who had expertise in community traumas because such assistance was not available through UCC in the area.  There are amazing stories of other inter-denominational relief response beyond the two I am most familiar with.  It is a far deeper and richer meaning for “sharing” than merely sharing offering money; it is sharing help and hope.

      Like many congregations, First Congregational has a deep and faithful history of sharing through OGHS, and I will simply remind you of the good works done through this offering over the years and encourage you to be generous yet again this year.

      I’m also going to suggest that you take an hour (see what I did there?!?) to explore http://onegreathourofsharing.org and http://www.ucc.org/oghs/ (of course, I love the background from onegreathourofsharing.org/the-history-of-one-great-hour-of-sharing/) and learn about all the ways people all over in difficult situations have been helped through OGHS.  And, obviously, I hope that inspires you share more generously in March to FCC’s offering.  Use the envelopes in the pews or mail it to the church office.  Sharing is incredibly powerful.  Share.

      Let’s have a great month of sharing!
                                                                                   
                                                                          In Christ,
                                                                   
                                                                           David            



Texts For Sunday Worship:

      From the Hebrew Bible         Exodus 17:1-7
      From the Epistles                 Romans 5:1-11
      From the Gospels                John 4:5-42

Moving on

      Nicodemus has the odd distinction of being most Christians’ favorite Pharisee.  We also like Joseph of Arimathea, who provided the burial tomb for Jesus, but in general we are not fond of Pharisees!  They come off kinda badly in the Gospels, but that may, in fact, be something of a sibling squabble.  The Jesus-followers and the Torah-followers were very similar in ethical teachings, and both had the theological underpinnings which could carry past the Roman’s destruction of the Temple.  Christianity (especially as further developed by Paul) and Pharisaical Judaism, from which most contemporary Judaism descended, are both “portable” religions.  Neither depends on a particular holy place, such as the Temple in Jerusalem, which, when it fell, pretty much ended the Sadducees, who no longer had the Holy of Holies.  If you had a scroll of Torah and a quorum, you could have a synagogue.  If you have the New Testament and two or three gathered together, you have a church.  We are both people of the book, trying to apply the holy writ to our daily lives.

      Incidentally, our first lesson this week is the story of Abraham responding to God’s summons to go to a new land, which connects us to the third great people of the book, Muslims, as the three “Abrahamic Faiths.”

      Because of the theological similarities, Nicodemus is well on his way to grasping Jesus’ point when he shows up that night, although he does seem a bit dense about the whole being born anew thing.  Honestly, if any of us had (before the events of Holy Week revealed the width of Jesus’ being) been trying to puzzle out the birth and rebirth imagery, we would be just as baffled.  But Nicodemus got the gist, that what Jesus was offering, what Jesus was calling people toward was a new reality, one somehow superimposed on what we normally experience, but not totally dissimilar.  But dissimilar enough to strip Nicodemus’ faith gears!  And Jesus is deep into simile territory here with birth and wind and all.  This is still a passage to get theologians and preachers all tangled up, even now, so I’m willing to allow Nicodemus a lot of slack as he grew into appreciating Jesus parabolic invitation.

      Jesus’ consistent point in his conversation with Nicodemus is that there is something else going on with faith above, beyond, through, in, because of, yet different from the ordinary, whether he uses the “born anew” phrase or the effects of the invisible wind or the sly dig that there is another way of knowing and thinking than Nicodemus’ beloved book-learning.  God’s Spirit may move within all those things, but it is not confined to familiar things.  It’s jarring.  But it is connected.  But it’s jarring.  It is under and through everything.  It’s always fresh.  It’s always moving.

      Lent is not about standing still.  It picks up on the forty years in the wilderness, which though not direct, was time of movement and growth and learning.  Lent leads up to Holy Week; it is a time of preparation and looking forward.  That’s a good spirit to be in as we gather a search committee and as we look forward to the next phases of First Congregational’s life.  The Spirit blows where it will.  Let’s move with it!

                                                                          In Christ,
                                                                   
                                                                           David            


Texts For Sunday Worship:

      From the Hebrew Bible      Genesis 12:1-4a
      From the Epistles               Romans 4:1-5, 13-17
      From the Gospels              John 3:1-17

Changing Clocks; Changing Souls

This is the first Sunday in Lent.  It is also the weekend when we change our clocks ahead.

Beginning with this week’s scriptures about Jesus’ temptations in the wilderness, Lent is the church season of penance and preparation before Holy Week.  It is a time of reflection and repentance for our failures, failings, and shortfalling in faith.  It is also a time to sort of “clean house” in our spirits, to sweep out the cobwebs of our souls and air our spirits out in preparation for the springtime of Easter.  Many people undertake Lenten disciplines partly because it is an historical tradition but also because Lent’s forty days are long enough to develop a new habit or try out a new devotional or faith practice or to become involved in some sort of service to neighbors.  Many people test drive journaling or a morning prayer or Bible reading time in Lent and find it worth continuing afterward.  Give something like that a try.

Much Roman Catholic Lenten discipline has been about “giving something up for Lent,” although many more people are changing that to “giving something for Lent” and helping with community needs or donating time or money to missional projects.  I rather like giving to others as a healthy Lenten practice.  The Outreach Committee and a quick internet search for area opportunities can get you hooked up with something both helpful and spiritually renewing.

Most people don’t like the self-reflection and introspection Lent; it sort of messes with our internal stasis.  In a way, it’s the Church (and God) telling us, “It’s time to get resynched to the holy.  It may be jarring, but it’s good for you!”  The switch to daylight saving time is likewise jarring (at least physically for most of us!), and it’s the industrial world saying, “Getting your clocks reset is good for you!”  It takes a while to rebalance and assimilate internally to the change of the clocks and of the spiritual discipline, a couple of days for time changes, but perhaps a couple of weeks to internalize the reflective nature of Lent.  But we do get used to it and get recalibrated to what is really important— the love of God dwelling among us in the life, death, resurrection of Jesus.  And we are then prepared for the trajectory toward Holy Week.  Winter will pass; spring will arrive.  Death will pass; life will triumph.  Lent gets us ready for Easter.  Take some time to get synched up with God this Lent.

Spring ahead!

                                                                          In Christ,
                                                                   
                                                                           David
            

A special encouragement this week to attend worship: Cornell music professors Judy Kellock (soprano) and Mike Compitello (percussion) will perform a piece for voice and handbells by the late Sir John Tavener, who just died late last year, called “Lament, Last Prayer and Exaltation.”  It comprises three haunting prayers by women of faith from different periods of church history.






Texts For Sunday Worship:
      From the Hebrew Bible         Genesis 2:15-17, 3:1-7
      From the Epistles                 Romans 5:12-19
      From the Gospels                 Matthew 4:1-11