Interim Pastor’s Ponderings

    This week we observe the last week in the holy season of Lent.  Spiritually and psychologically it is a slow, meditative walk uphill, a time to think thoughts you don’t usually think about, thoughts about your life, your faith, your church, yourself, your self.  It is, historically, a time to change your behavior, to begin or deepen a spiritual discipline, to do something more engaged in serving the community and world, to reflect on what you don’t do so well and resolve to do better.  Lent is thinking and talking and praying about the reason Jesus turns his footsteps to the long walk uphill in Jerusalem: human sin and evil of which we are all part.  It is the last grey days of late winter before spring really arrives.

    So why?  So why “do” Lent?

    To be ready for the next act of the cosmic drama: Holy Week.  Lent is pre-season practice, it is chopping up the vegetables before cooking, it is turning the pieces over before doing the puzzle, it is tuning up or warming up before playing.  It is getting ready for the big thing.
          
    If you don’t “do” Lent, you don’t really appreciate the Biblical story of Holy Week, nor can you really appreciate the psychological and spiritual “mood swings” that accompany our holy journey.  Being inside a dim building (or inside your own head!) and stepping outside makes you blink in the bright sunlight.  That shock of light flooding the world is exactly what Easter is!
          
    So I encourage you to put the worship services here on the calendar on your refrigerator, on your office wall, on your computer, on your phone… on your mind, and participate in the whole drama of Holy Week.  We will begin with the triumph of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday at morning worship.  We commemorate the Last Supper and hear the scripture of the last words in the darkening sanctuary on Maundy Thursday at 7:30 pm, and the tale of the Passion on Good Friday at 5:30 pm.  Then we gather for the Sunrise Service on Easter morning at 6:30 am at Lakeview, and have the two celebrations of the Resurrection at 9 and 11 am, with time to share fellowship.
          
    Why have we “done Lent?” To rejoice in the Easter tidings, “He is risen! he is risen indeed!”  Come join us in the joy of new life in Christ Jesus our Savior!
                                                                                                          
In Christ,
 
David


Texts For Sunday Worship:
Isaiah 43:16-21
Philippians 3:4-14
*Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32

Time Change!

One of my very few recurring nightmares comes this time of year when we adjust to Daylight Saving Time.

We've all seen people nonchalantly arrive at church at the end of the service, having forgotten to move their clocks ahead the night before, only to suddenly realize they are an hour late.  Probably more than a few of us have been the person arriving late, which makes us check and re-check the clocks in our house and worry about the one on the car dashboard.

But what makes my nightmare is when I arrive at church just in time for the benediction.... which I am supposed to be pronouncing.  I wake up in a panic that I am the one who is late.  Mercifully, with the cable box and my phone and computer adjusting automatically, time changes are much easier on me now.

Of course, the whole Standard and Daylight Saving thing is a human construct, a human-made way of delineating time.  For eons time was local and solar; the sundial in the town square set noon, and people just worked with when the sun came up or they popped awake and did things until it got dark and they got sleepy.  With the invention of hourglasses you could break the day up into watches or for hours of prayer, and mechanical clocks became useful.  But the town clock was still regulated by when the sun was highest in the sky, keeping the rhythm of nature.  We started imposing human constraints on "God's Time" in the 1840s with British railways, and in the U.S. in the 1870s with standardized time zones.  Changing an hour ahead to use longer summer days began during World War I, and now we have our vast, interconnected, international, atomic clock system.
 

Yet we cannot forget that it is a pretty much artificial system, designed by humans to impose human "control" on the natural progression of life through time.  And the "adjustments" like DST that are necessary to make it all work out only seem to be making the sun conform to our wishes.  We are only inventing ways to get our rigid system to fit better with planetary motion, whether you describe it with astronomical calculations or the stories in Genesis.  We happily like to believe we are in charge of time.  But in our better moments we realize time does its own thing!  It still snows after the groundhogs see their shadows.
 

Something like this happens between called pastors.  We have constructed all sorts of plans and calculations for calling a new pastor, but in reality, many of those are just labels we like to put on the Holy Spirit's true sense of time.  Self-studies and profiles and searches happen "in their own good time," even if we like to solemnly write things solemnly on a church calendar.  That is fine if we remember that, like the flowers coming up in the spring are responding to nature's time, that we are not really "in charge" of this time in between.
 

So we will be doing both, setting our watches and planning dates and times, yet like the ancients, we still need to look at the skies, watch stars, watch the way the wind moves the trees, and wait for the crocus and  daffodil to emerge.  God will look out for our time together.  The whole time!  I trust that.

 

Still......... my first Sunday here at FCCI is, ironically, the day we spring our clocks ahead... hmmm...

Come to worship and see if I make it "on time!"

Peace,

David

 

Texts For Sunday Worship:
Joshua 5:9-12
Psalm 32
2 Corinthians 5:16-21
*Luke 15:1-3, 11b-32

Note: The texts in bold type will be read in the worship service and the one with an asterisk will be used as the focus for the proclamation of the word.

Rev. Richard S. Tosh

The Rev. Richard S. Tosh retired from Parish Ministry in June 2005 and from Nursing Home Chaplaincy in May 2007.  He was born in Pittsburgh, educated at Allegany High School (Cumberland MD), Franklin and Marshall Collage (Lancaster PA) and Princeton Theological Seminary.

He has served in ministerial leadership in American Baptist and United Church of Christ congregations in Connecticut, Vermont, North Dakota and New York.  He now lives in Trumansburg, while waiting for his new home to be completed in the third neighborhood at EcoVillage of Ithaca.


Texts For Sunday Worship:
Isaiah 55:1-9
Psalm 63:1-8
1 Cor 10:1-13
*Luke 13:1-9

Rev. Tom Lenhart

Our guest preacher this Sunday, The Reverand Tom Lenhart has been the Senior Minister at the First Congregational Church of Chappaqua, since June 2006. Tom graduated from Columbia University in 1968 with an A.B. In 1972, he graduated from Columbia Law School, where he was a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar. Upon graduation he became a Law Clerk to two United States District Judges in New York City. From 1973 through 2002 Tom was an Associate and then a litigation Partner with the law firm of Shaw Pittman (now known as Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman, LLP), in its Washington, D.C. office. In the early 1990s he briefly served as an Adjunct Professor at Cornell University Law School.

In 2002 after 30 years in legal practice, he felt a different call and entered Harvard Divinity School, graduating with a Masters in Divinity degree in 2005. Tom was a student minister and then a ministerial member of the staff at North-Prospect UCC in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Since 2004, he has been on the Board of the "Outdoor Church"– an ecumenical church to the homeless in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He is also President of the Chappaqua Interfaith Council and member of the Ordination and Standing Committee of the Metro Association of the UCC’s New York Conference.
Tom's wife Lynn has been a Christian Educator for 18 years, and currently serves First Church Congregational in Fairfield, Connecticut. They have three adult children, Amanda, James "JJ", and Abigail.

Texts For Sunday Worship:
Micah 6:1-8                               
*Luke 9:18-26

Rev. Barbara Blom

Our guest preacher this Sunday will be the Reverend Barbara E. Blom. She is a long time resident of Ithaca along with her two sons and two dogs. She is an avid skier, having taught skiing for 30 years and now serves as Pastor and Teacher at St Paul’s Evangelical Lutheran Church of America in Spencer, New York.

Texts For Sunday Worship:
Deuteronomy 26:1-11
Psalm 27
Romans 10:8b-13
*Luke 4:1-13

Blessings and Peace

Dear Friends,

This will be my final Weekly Word to you. I want to take the opportunity to thank you all for the lovely and kind words, cards, and blessings you have shared with me, and a special thank you for the generous cash gift, the chalice and rice bowls (thanks to Tom Roach's artistry!), and prayer shawl. My leaving is bittersweet - I am excited about new things to come for myself and for you, and I also will miss you all.

In worship on January 20, we offered one another gratitude and forgiveness, and we released each other from the pastoral relationship.  It is my hope that you will warmly embrace and support your new Interim Pastor and other pastors who will come to partner in ministry with you.  So that you can freely do that, it is common ministerial practice to have some shared understanding of boundaries as I depart. I am grateful for your encouragement in my continued ministry, and I offer my support to the interim minister and all your future ministers. Part of that support means that I can no longer be available for pastoral care or to help you process the goings-on in the life of this church. I have no doubt that the Caring Committee, Stephen Ministers, and future pastors will provide excellent care.

Healthy goodbyes help us be open to the new things that God has in store for all of us. Syed and I will no longer attend worship or other church functions for at least a year (and after that only at the invitation of the current pastor). I will also be limiting my Facebook and online interactions with the members and friends of this church. This is all part of my intentionality and love for you, and though it can be difficult, it is important. We may run into each other around town (as this is a small town!), but it will be important for us to avoid talking about your feelings and experiences related to this congregation.

I hope you will take the time to read the annual reports that have been carefully prepared. In my final annual report, I have reflected on our two years of ministry together and shared with you some of my wishes for your future. I will hold you in prayer and trust that God will continue to nurture, sustain, and challenge you as you live into God's future.

Blessings and peace to you,

Manda

Texts For This Week:
Nehemiah 8:1-3, 5-6, 8-10                                        
Psalm 19                                                                    
1 Corinthians 12:12-31a 
Luke 4:14-21

I Am Because You Are

In my early 20's, I read a book called The Hidden Wound by Wendell Berry, who has become one of my favorite authors. In the first chapter, Berry writes, "If the white man has inflicted the wound of racism upon black men, the cost has been that he would receive the mirror image of that wound into himself....This wound is in me, as complex and deep in my flesh as blood and nerves." This thoughtful, reflective book (really an extended essay) helped me give words to some of what I had seen and experienced - certainly growing up, and also in my college experience in Arkansas and my time in Boston (which is more segregated than many of us would like to admit).

I find Berry's thoughts also echoed in the words of Martin Luther King, Jr., from Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community? "From time immemorial men have lived by the principle that 'self-preservation is the first law of life.' But this is a false assumption. I would say that other-preservation is the first law of life. It is the first law of life precisely because we cannot preserve self without being concerned about preserving other selves." This is also the South African principle of Ubuntu, as Desmond Tutu writes about: "I am because you are."

I am because you are.

We, as human beings, are interdependent on all others and also on the earth and all her creatures. We are because they are, because she is, he is, it is. And ultimately, we are because God is.

This Sunday will be my final Sunday with you, and I'm so glad that it is also the Sunday when we celebrate the life, ministry, witness, and legacy of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. In many ways, I am the person and the pastor I am today because of the person and the pastor he was. And I am because you are. In the time we have shared together, we have shaped each other's futures. Join us this Sunday as we reflect on our time together, the work of justice, and my fervent hope that you will continue to expand and live into God's extravagant welcome - a welcome that breaks down barriers and builds up the self by affirming others.

Love and blessings,
Manda

Texts For This Week:
Psalm 36:5-10
John 2:1-11