Hey! First Congregational Church got a gold star for our faithfulness to One Great Hour of Sharing!  Yep, the OGHS report for last year had FCCI listed in the “Top 100” congregations in the UCC in sharing for 2014.  One of two in New York State.  The Outreach Committee actually posted a gold star on the lectern in celebration.  Way to go, us!

    It confirms in my mind the deep and wide stream of generosity flowing through this congregation and its history of reaching out and caring and giving and sharing.  It just comes naturally to this community of disciples to concern itself with others near and far.  When the letter came to the Outreach Committee, it was a complete surprise because no one has ever thought about being even noticed for just doing what we naturally do, share.  Yet it feels good to learn our generosity and caring has made a significant difference in people’s lives around the world.

    Through its expression in the UCC, One Great Hour of Sharing supports health, education, refugee, agricultural, and emergency relief initiatives the globe over, many in conjunction with national churches and agencies on the scene.  Although mostly an outreach of the major mainline Protestant denominations, OGHS works in conjunction with the U.S. Catholic Bishops’ Relief Fund and the Jewish Passover Appeal.  It is one of the longest-running combined assistance offering in the U.S.

    And it was an hour, actually, at first.  On Saturday, March 26, 1949 at 10 pm, there was a radio broadcast called “One Great Hour” to aid postwar recovery and rebuilding in Europe.  It closed with a request that listeners attend their local church the following morning and make contributions.  Its goal was “one million dollars in one hour.”  American churchgoers responded and shared.  The united effort set the groundwork for much mission giving since.  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 “branding,” provide a unified invitation, despite denominations’ separate agencies (along with Church World Service) often delivering the aid.  There are amazing stories of inter-denominational relief response.  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 as we end our month-long emphasis on Palm Sunday, 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.  Not for the recognition, but for the benefit of those aided.

   I’m also going to suggest that you take an hour to explore onegreathourofsharing.org and www.ucc.org/oghs/ 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.  Use the envelopes in the pews or mail it to the church office.  Sharing is incredibly powerful.

    I’ve written much this Lent about forms of prayers, finally last week encouraging you to take some action based on your faith in the world.  While we do not often think of our financial resources as a form of devotion arising from our spiritual discipline, they really are an expression of our faith.  When it comes to helping Christ’s care-worn sisters and brothers, our contributions are powerful prayers of intercession.  Our money works on behalf of the Gospel.

    Prayer works… particularly if you work at it!  Particularly when you share it.

                                                                                                                    In Christ,
                                                                                                               
                                                                                                                     David
                                                 
 
Texts For Sunday Worship:
     From the Epistles            Philippians 2:5-11
    From the Gospels            Mark 11:1-11

Prayer IV

      Through this Lenten season I’ve been writing about kinds of prayer.  Recapping yet again: prayers are categorized as “adoration,” “supplication,” “confession” or “repentance,” “intercession,” and “thanksgiving.”  Or less formally I said: “Wow, you are wonderful, God,” “Could you help me/us with this,” “We made mistakes,” “Can you help so-and-so with something,” and “Thank you for what you have done for us” prayers, respectively.

      This last week of Lent I want to break out of our tendency to conceptualize prayer primarily as conversation with God, spoken or unspoken, to pick up a somewhat counter-church-cultural notion of praying by action.  There is a strand of Christian tradition which sees the work we do in the world, the service we do for others, the activities we undertake, as a form of non-spoken prayer.  This strand invests every action with prayerful reverence, every bit as much as a reciting a prayer or speaking and listening to God in a silence.  You can find echoes of this in some of the monastic writings when nuns and monks and friars count planting seeds or making bread or copying manuscripts as prayers through actions done reverently and for God’s glory.  But this strand is also woven through social action ministries, done reverently and for the sake of Jesus’ least siblings.  And you probably learned a prayer at summer church camp which used gestures along with the words.  All forms of praying and interacting with God through the actions of our bodies, not just our minds and souls.

      So, for your consideration these dwindling days of Lent 2015: act out!  Act out some of your prayers.  Do something, and do it as part of your devotional life, as part of your ongoing conversation with God.  Plant a seed to witness to new life and resurrection.  Paint a picture and when you are done say, “There, God, that’s for you!”  Spend time at Loaves and Fishes feeding Christ’s sisters and brothers with needs.  Play your instrument and end with thanksgiving, “Amen!” Read a story to a pre-schooler or volunteer on Sunday morning with the Children and Youth Ministries.  Bake some cookies for the IC campus ministry not just to refresh the college students after their meeting but as a prayer for their mission.  Make a Church World Service Health Kit as an intercessory prayer.  Rake the winter’s debris from your yard as a penitential prayer to sweep the shortcomings out of your soul.  Walk a labyrinth as a prayer of supplication, and try it without words, just letting go and letting God in.

      We can get so intellectual, so “heady,” so wordy that we don’t let our bodies in on our spiritual life.  My final invitation to you this Lent is to imagine some sort of prayer-by-doing, some tangible, active, bodily expression of your devotion to God who loves us.  I encourage you to find one physical expression of each of those classic forms of prayer, and act it out, even just to try it one time.

      Further, keep this thought going as you experience Holy Week.  Take note of the physicality not only of the Bible story but of our worship.  We will wave palm branches; feel their texture.  On Maundy Thursday we will hold bread in our fingers and taste the grapes.  We will shiver a bit before dawn on Easter Sunday at sunrise.  We will walk into the sanctuary for the Easter service and be hit by the smell of the flowers, and we will feel the vibrations of the organ and tympani thundering that Christ is risen, risen indeed.  Our bodies and not just our minds will be involved in worship.  Our faith will have substance.  Our prayers will have action.

      Prayer works… particularly if you work at it!
 

                                                                                                  In Christ,
                                                                                        
                                                                                                   David



Texts For Sunday Worship:

      From the Hebrew Bible         Jeremiah 31:31-34
      From the Epistles                  Hebrews 5:5-10
      From the Gospels                 John 12:20-33