Words on a mountain

      Achoo!  Bless you…

      There are not very many ways we refer to the act of blessing these days.  Sure, we understand very well what it means to have something happen or be given to us such that we “count our blessings.”  But passing on a special, deep, nearly physical, spiritual blessing is not really part of what we do much.  About the closest thing is the quaint asking the parents of your intended if they will “give their blessing” to your marriage.  Sometimes we joke that we want a committee’s “blessing” to start a new project.  We tend to think of that as both a permission to go ahead and as an expression of support, psychologically and sometimes practically.

      Biblically and in olden times, there was a significant transfer of power and authorization and a passing of autonomy to the blessed person from the blessor.  Think of Jacob diverting Isaac’s blessing from Esau.  Jacob became the primary inheritor of Isaac’s possessions and power instead of the firstborn.  To be blessed was to have a piece of the blessor detached, as it were, to you and your use, almost a living inheritance.

      This Sunday we encounter Matthew’s account of Jesus’ preaching on the mountain to the crowds, focusing on what we call the Beatitudes.  “Blessed are the….”  Jesus’ spin is his selection of unlikely recipients for God’s blessing.  Then as now, people call the shining examples, the sports heroes, the titans of business, the entertainment stars the blessed of society.  Jesus elevates the meek, the poor, the hungry, the persecuted, the least of society.  Those are the ones singled out for God’s special blessing.  This fits Jesus’ prophecies of the coming divine inversion of top and bottom.  Those now well-off will get knocked down a peg while the down-and-out will be elevated, will be blessed by God.  (Luke 6 has corresponding “Woes” to emphasize this point.) For many of us in the progressive mainline traditions, this leads to outreach, service, assistance, and advocacy for the least of our neighbors as we seek to be the hands of God touching and blessing those Jesus calls blest.  If you look at the annual report, you can see how by personal involvement, church programming, and contributions, we take this very, very seriously at First Congregational.  We are the conduits for Jesus blessing the poor, the mourning, the meek, the hungering and thirsting (for righteousness, but also truly hungering and thirsting through Feed My Starving Children and the Kitchen Cupboard and through Agua Clara water projects).

      And, we pray, by sharing blessings with others, we, too, will receive God’s secondary blessing.  Pass blessings along!

                                                                                    In Christ,

                                                                                
                                                                                    David


This is “Scouting Sunday,” and while I’m not as familiar with your way of celebrating Boy Scouting and Girl Scouting, I’ve always encouraged everyone who participates or has participated in some form of scouting to show off scouting “stuff,” whether from the US or other nationality.  Maybe your old uniform doesn’t fit, but if you have something you can bring to show our children, that would be cool!  Or bring an emblem, pin, or other jewelry.  I’d love it if you could bring a sash— even if the badges are hot-glued on instead of sewn.  Scouting is an important blessing to many in this congregation; let’s celebrate!
                                                                                                                                                  
Texts For Sunday Worship:
      From the Hebrew Bible           Micah 6:1-8
      From the Epistles                  1 Corinthians 1:18-31
      From the Gospels                  Matthew 5:1-12

fishin

      It’s a well-loved scripture passage, and certainly often preached, Jesus’ invitation to the two pairs of brothers in their fishing boats to follow him and become fishers for people.  The most important piece is that following Christ is about helping Christ attract new followers.  Jesus calls Andrew and Simon and James and John to pull more into the boat, not to sit in the boat relaxing now that they are disciples.  Being Christian is not a final product, it is a calling to serve God.  The church is a working fishing boat, not a cruise ship.

      Certainly, it’s not as easy in our modern context to share the gospel with the vast variety of people around us.  It’s a lot harder getting them in the boat!  Much as been written, and lots has been said (some by me!) about what appeals to our neighbors, friends, and family to interest them in trying out the church.  And beyond that, trying out this congregation.  Some fish are caught in huge nets by industrial trawlers.  Some fish are caught on baited lines.  I’m intentionally leaving out recreational fishing (sorry to all my fly-fishing friends!) because the point there is enjoying oneself or challenging oneself, and so the focus is on the fisher’s experience, not a big catch as in commercial fishing.  Some churches (mostly big evangelical congregations) use a big net and try to scoop up whatever is out there, not so far from what the Zebedee brothers were doing in Galilee and what Jesus was repurposing them to make a wide appeal to the Galilean population.  Others use specific bait for specific species, which may be more appropriate for First Congregational.

      I will confess that at a certain point I have a problem with Jesus’ fishing metaphor.  I think he probably was using a deft turn of phrase for those particular four men that particular day to hook them.  He might have riffed on healing souls with Luke for all I know.  But like many metaphors it can go awry.  That the fish get netted and pulled in to the boat is ok, if you think of pulling new believers into the church.  I have problems about the fish then dying and getting eaten.  Not so edifying.  So, tender-hearted me likes to modernize the parable to catch-and-release.

      If we catch a soul with our example of the gospel and help the soul and maybe tag it to identify it as Christian and release it back into the stream, it can go live a productive life in its natural environment, swimming along with others who might get caught, too.  (Yeah, I can force a metaphor past the breaking point.)

      Yet the big point remains.  Jesus calls us to call others, multiplying his voice and his love.  And he calls us to do and be what we know already, to take our God-given skills and use them for this additional purpose: to witness to God’s love and invite them to share God’s embrace in ways comfortable and effective for us.  Doesn’t matter what we do; we just do it for God and others now.

      Longer ago than I like to admit, we had a new church development pastor in Geneva Presbytery.  Colin was fond of saying to the people in the start-up, “Be sure to invite your family and friends and neighbors to worship with us.  Heck, even invite people you don’t like very much.  It’ll be good for everyone!”  Use your God-given fishing talents to share that God loves them, too.  Here.  Now.

  And maybe bring them with you Sunday?

                                                                           In Christ,

                                                                      
                                                                                David


The Ithaca Area Jewish Community Invites you to a staged reading of the Israeli play, ‘Oh, God’ by Anat Gov, directed by Guy Ben-Aharon.  Sunday, Jan. 26 at 3 p.m. at Emerson Suites at Ithaca College and Monday, Jan. 27 at 7:30 p.m. at Risley Theater at Cornell.  Suggested donation $10, supporting Lunch and Learn, an afterschool tutoring program for Israeli children at risk, will be requested on 1/26.


Texts For Sunday Worship:
      From the Hebrew Bible         Isaiah 9:1-4
      From the Epistles                 1 Corinthians 1:10-18
      From the Gospels                Matthew 4:12-23

whatcha lookin’ for

    One of my primary purposes on the planet has appeared to be, for years, finding things for my disorganized ADHD son, and to a lesser extent, my overloaded wife.  I’m pretty good at it.  My wife and her secretary (even more overloaded than Marylee) are constantly losing track of one report or another as they are interrupted in the middle of things and put it down to respond to someone’s latest emergency.  You may remember from my New Year’s sermon that a UK research project estimated that people spend approximately six months of their lifetime looking for lost objects.

     So I admit, Jesus’ question to two of John the Baptizer’s disciples, “What are you looking for?” suckers me in instantly!

    Andrew and his brother Simon were “looking for the Messiah,” and met him on the road.  They followed Jesus for the rest of their lives and beyond.

    We cannot forget that is the same thing many people around us, today, in zip code 14850, are looking.  Looking pretty much for the same thing, albeit they rarely use that kind of religious language.  They are looking for their messiah, their hope, their direction, their spiritual community.  And such life-helping answers are still in the gospel of Christ Jesus as preserved and lived in the community of faith which is the church.  The community of faith which is First Congregational, Ithaca.  Our job is to help our family, neighbors, coworkers, and friends find what works for them, what they are looking for.  Whatever “it” is.

    But we know the catch: people are not asking the same questions many churches have familiar stock answers to.  The answers of the past are between irrelevant and dumb to folks around us.  Honestly, they don’t work for most of us in the congregation, either!  What does work is honesty about others’ searches and honesty about what we have found when we looked ourselves.

    But the tough part of that honesty is that few souls now are looking for institutional, religious answers, the stuff churches have been so good at in the past.  Real community knitting people together, expansive welcomes, intellectual curiosity, worship touching heart and soul and mind yet propelling us out into the world, hugs and caring instead of platitudes when life gets tough, and a bright view of heaven and the landscape and people around us here on earth, those are living answers to what folks are looking for.

    Be listening to what people you love and know are looking for, and, like the scripture lesson says, “Come and see!”  And maybe bring them with you Sunday?

                                                                           In Christ,

                                                                      
                                                                                David

Be sure to come Sunday yourself as we unpack the results of the U.S. Congregational Life Survey we took in November during our all-church congregational self-study after worship and lunch on the 19th.  Hope to see you there!


Texts For Sunday Worship:
      From the Hebrew Bible         Isaiah 49:1-7
      From the Epistles                 1 Corinthians 1:1-9
      From the Gospels                John 1:29-42

"…from afar… and nearby”

I’m still having a hard time visualizing it.

Even when I was being interviewed, I’ve been hearing about “The Kings.”

Each time followed by a description tumbling out of the speaker’s mouth about their size and that they are so tall and that they need so many puppeteers and pages and they walk all the way around and there’s a star on a fifteen-foot pole and and and…

But despite seeing some pictures, I can’t quite wrap my head around them.  They kind of defy my imagination.

I do kind of get the feeling of anticipation about the wonderful transit of the magi which must have rippled along each town they traveled through.  Just wait until you see them!  Just wait!  There are not many things in this modern world which inspire that sort of wonder and expectancy, so I’m enjoying this tiny moment of “ooh, ooh! This is cool!  You have got to see this!”

Although Matthew makes a big thing about the distance the magi travel, we need to remember that meeting the Child is just as big a deal for folks right around here, too.  Many people have “heard of” God’s love in Christ, but only intellectually or from afar, not nearby and personally.  They know that the Bible says Jesus loves them, but it’s impersonal data, sort of like Albany is the capital of New York State or Bethlehem is the capital of Judea.  True enough, but so what?  They need to experience the effect for themselves, to have the interaction and the connection, to meet Jesus like the magi did two-thousand-plus years ago in Bethlehem.  And that happens in this day and age best of all in the context of church community, our church community.  Folks nearby meet Jesus best through us.  You know that old line, “I guess you kind of had to be there?”  Well, you kind of have to be here!  So I really encourage you to start the year out offering gentle invitations to the people you love to come to First Congregational to encounter the God who loves them… wherever they, like the magi, are on their journey.

So help me out this week: I want to “get” it, if you will show me the marvel of the magi.  But still, I hope you mark our Epiphany Sunday celebration of Jesus’ first guests by inviting a bunch of guests from nearby to come with you.  Or even non-guests who haven’t attended recently.  Help everyone follow the light of Christ!

                                                          In the ongoing light of Christmas,

                                                                      
                                                                                David

And a last note to thank all of you deeply for your Christmas generosity to my family this year.  I admit that I got cards and notes separated from some of the gifts of cookies and breads and treats, but whoever baked whatever: they were all delicious.  Thank you.  I think I will take your likewise generous monetary gift and treat myself to some local products from local vendors and to pick up some music from local bands.  Ten square miles of generosity!  Many thanks and our best wishes for 2014.


Texts For Sunday Worship:
      From the Prophets                 Isaiah 60:1-6
      From the Gospels                  Matthew 2:1-12 

Tell me the old, old story...

…of Jesus and his birth.  Luke’s words are super-familiar.

My favorite telling of the natal story was prepared by a Portuguese web presence firm Excentric in 2010.  It’s called “Nativity 2.0” and is at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GkHNNPM7pJA. Go there.  Now.  I’ll wait for you to watch it and come back.

Fun, huh?  It’s filled with internet in-jokes and memes, but it’s still pretty good theologically despite the liberties it takes with the scriptural story and with two millennia of church traditions.  Here’s my serious point, though:  If the story of God’s incarnation of love doesn’t live and breathe and move and evolve, Jesus is just a tiny porcelain figure tucked away for 11 months and not a savior, guide, and friend, not an incarnate God-with-Us for every moment of our lives.

We have to keep Jesus real.  That’s hard, because even the nativity 1.0 stories are suffused with legend and intended to be edifying and picturesque.  That’s why so many preachers and movies over the years have reminded us that the pretty tableau smelled like a barn, that childbirth is a sweaty, painful, tedious, blood-and-amniotic-fluid-streaked process even in a 21st century hospital, much less for a young mother two millennia ago.  In this culture, it’s hard to keep the story real, but that’s the only way it has any meaning for us… for our families… for our neighbors… this week, 2013.  Thursday night at the Words and Music service we heard a reading from The Best Christmas Pageant Ever by Barbara Robinson which riffs on the too-often sanitized, child-friendly un-reality show in most churches by interjecting a very human element into a memorable reenactment.

Recasting the old, old story into new words is, of course, the ongoing business of Christianity.  Mary and Joseph have traveled through time as much as through Palestine, through minds and hearts, and there has never been a single reference point for Christmas— despite what modern commentators would like— but a series of snapshots in a 2016-year-old family album.  Now we tell this life-giving story on computer screens.  Now Joseph and Mary and magi would carry smartphones.  Now our neighbors google Christmas on their smartphones.  But Tuesday we need to help them look up from their smartphones and look up at God’s star and around at other worshippers; we need to get them actually into worship.  So take your smartphone and text their smartphones and send them the link to our building so they can follow yonder maps to our living version of the Christ Child’s arrival.  The old story, new approach, new souls.

I like that web video retelling exactly for the reason it brings Mary and Joseph and their thwarted travel plans into our context… and imaginatively puts us in their sandals, bringing their story into our experiences, so they seem real… for this really real world.  Jesus is not frozen in porcelain but still alive in Ithaca, in our hearts.

I hope you will invite your family, friends, and even acquaintances to our Christmas Eve candlelight worships (family service at 6 pm and traditional service at 8:30 pm).  Help the light of Christ shine!

                                                                 In the Joy of Christmas,

                                                                      
                                                                                David


Texts For Sunday Worship:
      From the Hebrew Bible         Isaiah 7:10-16
      From the Gospels                 Matthew 1:18-25

What’s Up with the Different Color Candles??

      A slightly lighter word this week!

      People keep asking me about why there is a pink candle in the Advent wreath.  And lots of people are confused when it turns out to be the candle lighted on the third Sunday of Advent; most figure it is the last one.  Or the first one.  But not the third one.  And why pink??? What’s up with that?

      Well, it goes back before the middle ages, when the third Sunday of Advent was celebrated as Gaudete Sunday, Latin for “Joy” Sunday.  The Scripture lessons in the Lectionary tend to include words like “joy,” and “rejoice” and “exult.”  Many traditions use Mary’s world-overturning joy in what we now call the “Magnificat,” named because she starts, “My soul magnifies the Lord.”  And the introit to Roman Catholic Mass this week begins with “Rejoice!”  (Or in Latin: “Gaudete!”)  It corresponds to Laetare Sunday at mid-Lent, which also refrains on “Joy” in the middle of the penitential season and also often uses rose for vestments and paraments.

      Most liturgies for Advent and for lighting the four candles on the wreath use variations on peace, hope, joy, and love, but while the other ones may move around depending on the congregation, we all observe Joy Sunday on the third week.  Incidentally, although the season of Advent is attested in the fourth century as preparation for Jesus’ birth, the wreath traces back to 16th century Lutherans in Germany (home of the Christmas tree, too) but quickly was adopted by protestants and Catholics and enjoyed something a renaissance in the US in the 60s and 70s to become our beloved custom.

      So why pink?  OK, the liturgy geeks point out that it is actually a rose candle, but low-church Presbyterian Ashby keeps calling it pink!  Well, it began informally as an option in the Anglican tradition to the four purple candles, as a reference to rose being the color on Laertare Sunday in Lent.  Purple is the color of royalty in anticipation of the King of Kings and the color of penance in preparation for our Savior.  Blue for advent became more common in Lutheran circles and in Anglican/Episcopalian circles in the last few decades, largely to distinguish Advent from the more sober Lenten violet.  And, to be honest, I believe many churches use blue candles for the other Sundays because it looks good!  And certainly, the striking blue quilted pulpit and lectern hangings and communion table cloth totally rock in our sanctuary!

      Spread some joy this week.  Be sure to come to church this week to enjoy (!) the sounds of the Ithaca College Brass in worship and the joyful pink candle as it is lit by a church family.  Further, I hope you will invite your family, friends, and even acquaintances to our Christmas Eve candlelight worships (family service at 6 pm and traditional service at 8:30 pm).  Let the light of Christ shine!

                                                    In the Joy of Christmas,

                                                                      
                                                                                David


Texts For Sunday Worship:
            From the Hebrew Bible              Isaiah 35:1-10
            From the Epistles                     James 5:7-10
            From the Gospels                     Matthew 11:2-11

Hymns of Heaven

      If there is anything that puts us in a Christmas frame of mind more than the aromas (baking, pine, candles) it has got to be music.  It’s everywhere, and it is a powerful emotional trigger, like tastes and smells of the season.

      We are starting to hum or sing along with Christmas hymns when we hear them. Of course, worship planners like me and Bill Cowdery try to minimize true Christmas hymns and emphasize the classic Advent hymns during Advent, but we even we can’t help it during the last few weeks before Christmas!  Then there are wall-to-wall Christmas carols everywhere you go.  Some are familiar ones celebrating Jesus’ birth that aren’t exactly churchy, and some are the silly songs enjoyed by children about reindeer and snow people and sleigh bells.  Some, like Adam Sandler’s Hanukkah Song and the Karlofian You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch just don’t quite fit any category but bring a smile.  Seasonal good fun.

      Until advertisers get a hold of them.  Each year there are cringe-worthy remakes or re-uses of holiday music to sell all sorts of… ….all sorts of….  of “stuff.”  I don’t talk back at the TV often, but those I complain to the screen about!  And the thing that really gets me snarling are Christmas hymns bastardized by advertisers.  This year’s horrible, very bad, misuse of Do You Hear What I Hear has me shouting, “Really?” during the ad.  I guess my line in the sand is that if it’s in a hymnal, it shouldn’t be used to sell things!  Not that JCPenney is taking my advice on anything.

      Such aberrations actually don’t bother me much because the power and the glory and the refreshment for the soul brought by so much Christmastide music is far more wonderful.  Little kids singing the simple children’s hymns remind us of the whole point of the Christ Child’s birth.  And that shining moment in history has inspired some of the greatest and most substantial music of generations of composers.

      This Sunday the First Congregational choir and guests will be sharing Vivaldi’s Gloria in worship.
           
            Glory be to God on high, and on earth peace, good will towards all.
            We praise thee, we bless thee, we worship thee, we glorify thee.
            We give thanks to thee for thy great glory
            O Lord God, heavenly King, God the Father Almighty.
            O Lord, the only-begotten Son, Jesus Christ.
            For thou only art holy; thou only art the Lord;
            thou only, O Christ, with the Holy Ghost,
            art most high in the glory of God the Father. Amen.

    I truly hope you can attend this week so you can get the right sort of music running around in your head to displace all the silly songs!

    And then, I hope you will invite your family, friends, and even acquaintances to our Christmas Eve candlelight worships (family service at 6pm and traditional service at 8:30pm).  That’s when we all join the heavenly chorus, echoing their joyous strains: Gloria in excelsis Deo.

                                                                           In the true Spirit of Christmas,

                                                                                      
                                                                                           David



 
Texts For Sunday Worship:
      From the Hebrew Bible         Isaiah 11:1-10
      From the Epistles                Romans 15:4-13