Welcome

      Jesus said: “Whoever welcomes you welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me. Whoever welcomes a prophet in the name of a prophet will receive a prophet’s reward; and whoever welcomes a righteous person in the name of a righteous person will receive the reward of the righteous; and whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these little ones in the name of a disciple — truly I tell you, none of these will lose their reward (Matthew 10:40-42).”     

      Outside a little white Presbyterian Church between the lakes not far from here is a sign: “Visitors Welcome… and Expected!”  I love that sign, since it goes an extra step from the polite, socially-correct “Visitors welcome.”  With just a twist of a phrase to catch drivers’ attention, it reminds the folks who walk through the doors every Sunday that they have an active role in preparing for and anticipating new attenders.  After all, everyone has a first Sunday at a church!  And there is more than just having the door open when a newcomer yanks on the handle: there is genuine commitment to make a person feel part of the family of faith, to be one of us.

      Jesus this week adds another level beyond just saying, “Hi!  Welcome to First Church, Anywhere.  Here’s a bulletin.”  We share figuratively and perhaps literally a cup of cold water with the souls thirsting for God’s presence.  Perhaps we long in a church forget how soul-parched one can feel out there in the beating sun of life; perhaps we need to remember that finding the water of life is like downing a cold cup or bottle of water on a hot summer afternoon after working or weariness.  When we do, we are like the volunteers reaching the water out to the runners at the marathon, giving them something to gulp or pour over their faces.  Walking into a church should be like that.
    
      It is common now in certain circles to press church behavior from “welcoming” to “inviting.”  Welcoming is sort of passive; it unlocks the church door and waits for someone to walk in.  Inviting begins outside the door, beckoning folks in, mentioning that your church is a place of refuge or of spiritual growth or a place from which to launch mission and ministry.  Inviting happens Monday through Saturday; it happens at work, around the dinner table at home or in a restaurant.  It walks around the mall or coffee shop.  Inviting gets out there.  It is often used in conjunction with people disaffected by conventional religion or simply unaware of religion’s benefits in “ordinary” life and interactions.  Lots of those folks wouldn’t walk through a church door unless someone walked in with them as a friend.

      But an invitational, expecting stance is also part of the UCC’s various affirmations about our generous, extravagant welcome as a denomination and as local congregations.  Over the years the UCC has opened our door to… and welcomed… and invited… those from multiracial and multicultural backgrounds, tried to be accessible to all, open and affirming, peace with justice church.  Anyone who needs cool water from Christ!

       From my first interview here as a potential interim pastor, the non-passive, active, invitational, encouraging nature of this church was stressed to me, a point of great significance I feel and try to project each Sunday at the start of worship: “No matter who you are or where you are on life’s journey, you are welcome here.”  This Sunday (and every Sunday of the summer, and every Sunday after that) invite someone you know to experience that invitation!

                                                                          In Christ,
                                                                        
                                                                            David


Many thanks to the children and youth and their families for presenting me with Letters to Children by C.S. Lewis and What Are People For? by Wendell Berry.



Texts For Sunday Worship:
      From the Hebrew Bible       Genesis 22:1-14
      From the Epistles               Romans 6:12-23
      From the Gospels               Matthew 10:40-42

School’s Out for Summer *

      But not church!!!

      Honestly, I have a festival of ambivalence in my soul this time of year.  I kinda like shifting into summer gear, having things slow down, having a chance to rest up and recover.  As the spouse of a public school employee, the end of the school year is really welcome.  So I like “summer break.”
Having served churches in two communities known as recreational destinations, Watkins Glen and Penn Yan, summer is the busy season.  Traffic increases tenfold in those towns, maybe a hundredfold on NASCAR weekend, and the places are crawling with people enjoying the lakes and the scenery.  Downside: most of the residents (and churchgoers!) are so busy they work Sunday mornings, which means attendance drops somewhat despite the hordes of people.  But it’s exciting over the summer there.

      Two other jobs were in cities from which many of those summer folks came, Elmira and Corning.  After the huge influx and high energy of the lake communities in summer, I was actually sorta surprised at how things just dropped off the scale as people left town… and church.  One elder in Elmira asked (I think jokingly), “aren’t we excused over the summer?”  And you could watch the plastic bags blowing down the city street in silence after school ended.  I felt lonely, and the sanctuary was nearly as vacant.  Things are dull over the summer there.  So that part is not so great to me!

      Many ministers and church newsletters have, about this week of the year, a reminder (or plea maybe) that “God doesn’t take the summer off,” hinting that we shouldn’t either.  Count this as my reminder (or plea maybe) that the life of faith doesn’t end on the last day of school.  But I’m practical as well, and instead of whining about everyone going to church here all summer, I’ll just point out that most places you might travel in the next couple of months do, in fact, have worshipping communities you could pop into.  Staying current with your giving (or daresay, paying ahead?!?) will soothe the finance committee’s minds.  In any case, I hope you open Highland Highlights every week to keep up with our ongoing life as a congregation.  We also have the full audio of the service posted on fccithaca.org so you can hear the service and the assorted guest musicians even if you are elsewhere or otherwise busy.  A quick look at a Bible or a devotional booklet every day might be good for your spirit.  And I highly recommend some of the online devotionals like the UCC’s Still Speaking series for a little refresher for your soul during a long hot summer.

      So I wish you a recreational and re-creational time, balancing it with spiritual well-being, no matter where you may be any given Sunday, but remember we’re still a full service congregation open all year round.  Maybe we’ll see you!


                                                                          In Christ,
                                                                        
                                                                            David


*With apologies to Alice Cooper
And I love to see bulletins from your travels if you save them.


 Texts For Sunday Worship:
       From the Hebrew Bible       Genesis 21:8-21
       From the Epistles               Romans 6:1-11
      From the Gospels                Matthew 10:24-39

It’s Trinity Sunday! Remember to wear triangles!

      After all the celebration of Pentecost and our children and youth ministries last week and all the bright colors and cool images of flames and wind and all, the week after Pentecost is a bit of a bringdown.  I admit it: Trinity Sunday is not very exciting.

      We go from one of the most positively emotional and fun days on the church calendar to perhaps the most theological and cerebral concepts in the history of Christendom.  Easter is a high point, Christmas a high point, Palm Sunday is a high point, Pentecost is a high point.  Trinity? Not so much.

       But it is, in fact, the crucial affirmation of orthodox Christianity, the central doctrine that distinguishes us from other world religions, especially the other Abrahmic religions, Islam and Judaism.

      The doctrine of the Trinity, that God is one being in three persons, arose from experience of God in three kinda different ways.  From our perspective centuries later, it is an experience of history, too, as we see the millennia described by the Hebrew Scripture and running from the nomadic clan of Abraham in the desert through the Exodus and settlement of the trans-Jordan to become Israel through the great kingdoms of David and Solomon to the divided Israel and Judea through the occupation by Rome.  Then we experience the life and ministry and life, death, and resurrection of Jesus of Nazareth, very clearly a person in a clear historical context, described and interpreted by the Gospel writers and approached by people of piety as God.  Then, following the tale of Acts 2 about Pentecost, the long historical season of the early church through until today.  Some like to identify the persons of the Trinity as Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, other as Creator, Redeemer, and Sustainer, and a whole slew of variations.  You just have to read hymn titles and books of human composure to see the range of ways humans appreciate God’s presence in our lives.

       The trick, for the early church, was to take those experiences of God in God’s mysterious differences and uphold the belief that God is One and Only.  The discussion (sometimes rancorous and schismatic and tinged with heresy) ended up in the Nicene Creed as the doctrine of the Trinity.  God is One.  God is Three.  There are thousands of illustrations of how that can be described, but no theologian actually claims it can be “explained.”

       So we live with a delicious tension that the One God is apprehended in Three Persons, that Three Persons are One Being, all a mystery.  So we speak and sing and draw and paint pictures of the Trinity or symbols of it, and we love and are loved by the Triune God, whose presence we know even if we cannot fully explain it.

      This week, wear triangles to celebrate the Trinity! Actually, Celtic triquetras are a lot more decorative than plain old triangles, if you have ’em.

       So I invite you Sunday to worship “God in Three Persons, Blessed Trinity!”

                                                                                    In Christ,
                                                                                 
                                                                                         David

And, yes, I messed up adding in prayers for Father’s Day last Sunday! For the record, on my drive over I saw a firehouse with a “Father’s Day Breakfast” on their signboard, and a lot of cars (probably totally unrelated in retrospect) and kinda sorta panicked and added them in.  Incorrectly, it turned out, as a large number of people reminded me at refreshment time.  Mercifully, most of the reminders were sweet, although a couple of people were startled and panicked in their turn.  A couple of you made good fun of my mistake.  But to be sure, Sunday June 15 is, truly, actually, really Father’s Day.  I’ll try to check my calendar next year…!

Texts For Sunday Worship:     
     From the Hebrew Bible       Genesis 1:1-2:4 (selected verses)
     From the Epistles               2 Corinthians 13:11-13
     From the Gospels               Matthew 28:16-20

It’s Pentecost! Remember to wear red!

      Pentecost is a wonderful, multilayered celebration for the Christian Church.  It marks the day when the Holy Spirit descended on the disciples, giving them the wherewithal and energy to spread the Good News of Christ into the whole known world. It is, in that way, the “birthday of the Church.”

      The richness of the story continues with imagery of the dancing tongues of fire upon the disciples, the rush of a mighty wind (that great Hebrew and Greek pun that the same word means spirit, wind, and breath), the speaking in different languages, and the sharing of the Gospel in words and shortly in deeds.  So the Church has picked up the themes of celebration, birthday, wearing bright reds to worship, moving air, and flames.  Congregations have waved pom-poms, decorated birthday cakes for the Church, floated helium balloons, whirled pinwheels, jingled wind chimes, tossed red paper airplanes, fired up big fans, tweeted those little party favors, thrown streamers, and danced in the aisle, all to get into the “spirit” of Pentecost.

      It makes for a delightful, enthusiastic celebration, a bit different from most congregations’ rather staid typical Sunday worship.  And when you add in our congregation’s tradition of Celebration Sunday led by the Children and Youth Ministry Team, it will be a wonderful week for us.  I hope you can make it to the party!
 
      Preachers, theologians, commentators, and such have for a long time reminded us that we followers of Christ are “Easter People,” people of resurrection and hope and confidence in God’s love.  A few years ago I found my spirit stirred by someone saying that even more, we Christians are a “Pentecost people.”  It adds a sense of moving outwards in the world, of spreading the Good News more and more widely, of being empowered and emboldened to make a difference, of celebration and power and joy.  (And, frankly red flames are just cooler to me than white Easter lilies!)  It is that outward impulse, into the world, that I most resonate with as a Pentecost person.

      With a combination like the children doing a skit about Pentecost, celebrating the Sunday School and youth group year, having our children and youth sharing their music, the stirring story of Pentecost, a birthday cake for the church, and general flame-bedecked festivities, I hope you can pull out some red clothes (or at least a red scarf or tie or bright red shoes) and get into the Spirit of Pentecost this Sunday.

      Have a wild and wonderful Pentecost!

                                                                   In Christ,
                                                             
                                                                    David


Texts For Sunday Worship:

From the New Testament      Acts 2:1-21
From the Gospels                 John 20:19-23

Hard to see

      There are a lot of people going through life with problems that most people don’t see.  Many of the conditions which make life difficult are not visible from a distance.  Honestly, most of us have (at least a few times) seen someone get out of a car in a handicap space and wonder, so, I wonder what that person’s story is; I don’t see anything wrong.

      Of course, just because someone is not using a wheelchair or a white cane or carrying oxygen or limping doesn’t mean that person is healthy.  From a distance cardiac disease, respiratory issues, healing surgeries, and the like have no external signs.  Mercifully, most of us move seamlessly from impatience to consideration by the time we drive by the parking space, but there are just enough times when we want some sort of proof to justify out sympathy.

       And, mercifully, most of us most of the time do have true sympathy for people who may have troubling ailments.

       But society is still lagging on some of the other difficulties people can have that may not be physically based.  Brain disorders and mental illness and like conditions have not found the sympathy and support they deserve.  I don’t think it is lack of awareness, for our daily conversations are filled with references to mental illnesses, brain disorders, personality issues, traumatic events recent and past, addictions, obsessions, abuse, developmental delays, emotional troubles, and such, and most people can grasp that there are neurological and biochemical and physical things that can impact a person.  We know that events or conditions or bad experiences or problems at birth or before birth can cause problems for years or a lifetime.  At least we know intellectually that such things exist.  But they make us very uncomfortable and standoffish.  Maybe because things that can happen unbidden to others’ brains are especially scary and confusing to most of us precisely because they happen to our brains.  Perhaps it is confusion.  Perhaps it is shame.

       We are still very poor responding to and supporting individuals with mental illnesses or brain disorders or emotional conditions.  And part of that is how few of them manifest themselves on the outside of a person.  That’s why some call them “invisible disabilities.”   My son’s ADHD and anxiety were overlooked or downplayed when he was a child because he didn’t look like anything was wrong with him, other than he acted really zoomy.  But his brain has some processing snarls and miswiring that cause issues other than hyperactivity which he has had to learn to work around and with.  Several people I am related to or very close to have been dealing with depression and anxiety, but most people wouldn’t know that about them.  As a pastor dealing with families for many years, I know for sure that more families have members with diagnosed or suspected mental health issues, but most cope in hidden silence.  It is still uncomfortable to talk about.  And it is hard to get help and support.

       All of which makes me reassured and hopeful as we have been observing May being Mental Health Awareness month with resources from the UCC’s “Wider Welcome” emphasis and our local Family and Children’s Services of Ithaca.  Sunday, Karen Schachere from F&C will lead our AfterWord, and I encourage you to attend and to avail yourself of the resources in the narthex and online.

      It is time to be kinder, more supportive, and more caring of those with “hidden” disabilities and the people who love them.


                                                                          In Christ,
                                                                       
                                                                           David


Texts For Sunday Worship:
      From the New Testament         Acts 7:55-60
      From the Epistles                   1 Peter 2:2-10
      From the Gospels                   John 14:1-14

Mothers Day????

      I’m not the first person writing a church column disinterested in the big commercial to-do around Mother’s Day.  I can get pretty scathing about the modern observance of Anna Jarvis’ memorial for her mother Ann in 1905.  (Although I have to admit Ann Reeves Jarvis was quite a person, a peace activist who tended the wounded on both sides of the Civil War and who founded Mother’s Day Work Clubs to address public health issues.)

      Without ignoring the fathers and grandfathers also rearing, loving, supporting, and protecting children, this is a very tough time for mothers right now.
    
      Hundreds of mothers in our near vicinity are trying to keep families together without enough resources— money, food, housing, medical care, education— every day, not just Sunday, May 11.  Some have suddenly found themselves in circumstances that have changed.  Some are young and single parents coping with hardly any supports from the beginning.  We know they are around, but mostly we keep them off to the side of our thoughts.  This week, let’s remember their hard work.

      The last months have seen some terrifying events brutally impacting mothers.  There was the young mother whose mother and daughter were killed in the Washington mudslide.  The television cameras have dwelled long on the crying mothers of flight 370 and the Korean ferry sinking.  But we glimpsed again the mothers of the victims of last year’s Boston Marathon bombing.  The mothers who buried children because of gun violence still cry.  My heart is most broken for the mothers of the 276 girls stolen from school in Nigeria.  But it also breaks for mothers in war-torn areas and occupied territories.  Haitian mothers are still recovering.  Mothers in hospital and hospice cradle their children.  We know of mothers whose children have run away or have become hard to live with.  This month we are reminded of the families dealing with mental illness and brain disorders.  Mothers are addicted or impaired themselves or try to help children who are.  Sometimes it’s just the usual stresses and strains of just plain regular life that make motherhood hard.

      This is not the stuff of greeting cards and frilly jewelry.

      Days are brutal for mothers.

      It is incumbent on faith communities to be leveraging assistance and advocacy in support of mothers’ issues and needs.  There are many ways we can do that through church and community channels; but a moment’s search and you can find ways that fit your concerns and abilities.  In fact, since Ann Reeves Jarvis was herself a powerful worker for good, perhaps that would be a far more suitable celebration of Mother’s Day for us to undertake!

      So let’s get serious, not sentimental, about this Mother’s Day.

                                                                                        In Christ,
                                                                                    
                                                                                        David

Texts For Sunday Worship:

      From the Hebrew Bible           Psalm 23
      From the New Testament       Acts 2:42-47
      From the Gospel                    John 10:1-10

First Supper

      Fifteen evenings ago we gathered in the darkening sanctuary and observed the night when Jesus shared the Passover meal with his disciples, then moving beyond it with bread and cup instituting what we call the Last Supper.

      Sunday we will recount something that can, on first read, seem like not a big deal.  Two followers of the rabbi Jesus are walking off toward a little town of Hammat— Imwas in Arabic, Emmaus in Greek— about ten kilometers outside Jerusalem.  Another traveler falls in with them, and they converse about the events of the weekend.  Strange events. Worrying events.  Impossible to understand events.  But the traveler helps them understand.  Helps them not to worry.  And starts to move on.  The two invite him to supper, and it turns out he invites them into the mystery of resurrection and new life in a few tiny motions.  “He took the bread and blessed it and broke it, and they recognized him.”  It was as simple as that.

      I come from a tradition (like many) which begins the Lord’s Supper with those really simple words.  “When the risen Lord was at table with them, he took the bread and blessed it and broke it, and gave it to them, and they recognized him.”  That first supper after resurrection connected back to the Passover shared but two weeks prior, and it connects forward to every time we take the bread in Jesus’ name and bless and break it.  And recognize each other as table partners, as beloved, as those for whom Christ is still present and still nourishing.  Our hearts still burn within us, all because of a few gestures made at the front of churches ever since the road to Emmaus.

      I like the context of our common communion to be not so much the long, elaborate, crowded tableau of da Vinci’s “The Last Supper” and more three travelers at an inn at dusk sharing a loaf of bread and God’s love.  That same simplicity and intimacy is why I like earthenware cups and baskets of bread instead of ranks of gleaming silver communionware and mini-cubes of bread. What we do seems much more like supper with family and friends, the kind of meal which sustains us in grace.  Emmaus is our first supper.

      Come join us Sunday as we break bread together, meeting up with the merciful traveler wherever we are on our roads to wherever.

                                                                         In Christ,
                                                                      
                                                                             David                                                          

Remember that we will, providentially enough, be having our congregational roundtable discussion about worship and preaching and music here at First Congregational following worship this Sunday.  There will be a light buffet (cold cuts, etc.) available right after worship, so please make your lunch and bring it into the sanctuary so we can get started quickly.  (If you don’t plan on attending the roundtable, kindly wait until those who do can serve themselves before you start working on the leftovers!)



Texts For Sunday Worship:

      From the New Testament       Acts 2: 14a, 36-41
      From the Epistles                  1 Peter 1:17-23
      From the Gospel                    Luke 24:13-35