Which One?

      Yikes!  It’s almost Christmas!!! I’ve been seeing Christmas decorations since Columbus Day! “Santa Claus is coming to town” earlier and earlier.  Some years, I can’t even tell who to expect!  Santa Claus?  Scrooge? ...or the Grinch?!

      About every two or three years, it all gets on my nerves and I retreat into my “Scrooge mode,” grumping around at how all the moneymaking has obscured the true spirit of the season, how “wishbooks” and singing fish plaques and artificial trees and comic movies about Santa Clauses and his relatives(!) have turned the holiday into utter humbug.  Acquisitiveness runs rampant!

      In my anti-commercialism mood, my favorite figure is “a mean one... Mr. Grinch!” (The only Christmas television special I will watch is the animated Dr. Seuss “Grinch!”)  We all relate to the Grinch’s annoyance at the effervescent materialism of the merchants in Whoville and how you can’t get sappy seasonal songs out of your head.  If we’ve had a bad year, we hate everyone who’s happy and carefree; if we can’t enjoy Christmas, we don’t want anyone else to, either.  Dr. Seuss picked a perfect “jealousy green” for his furry felon.

      Another gripe constricting our “too small” hearts is our suspicion that lots of our neighbors are only in it for the presents and stuff.  If joy irritates the Grinch, joyful hypocrisy irritates the Grinch-y Christian in us even more!  We distain the superficial happiness of “the consumer Christmas,” grousing that money seems to be “the reason for the season.”  OK, so we don’t actually want to steal all the materialistic trappings of everyone’s celebration like the Grinch, but we, like him, have a hard time seeing much of anything beyond materialism in most of the faces at the mall.

      However, in a good year, we do, in fact, discover that there really is a strong, hope-filled, truly joyous spirit in the hearts around us, a depth of understanding which surpasses the carol sung by the Whos around their empty tree.  Mercifully, we in the church are not as baffled by discovering a genuine “Spirit of Christmas” out there as the Grinch.  If anything we’re rather relieved that it hasn’t been totally submerged by the mass merchandisers and advertisers.

      In a very good year, we can help some scroogely grinch we know discover the wonder of the holiday, or at least, like Max the dog, look on with amused satisfaction while someone’s heart grows a couple of sizes.

      But this year, maybe we can look beyond the shadows cast across December 24th by the jolly old elf and his gift-laden sleigh and by Ebenezer Scrooge and by the Grinch and lift our eyes high enough to see the star in the East casting its holy light over all the earth.  We’ll know anew the birth of Jesus in our souls.

      It’s not the gifts, it’s not a saccharine secular “Spirit of Christmas,” it’s not humbug, it’s not the ghost of past, present, or future, it’s not trees and lights, but it’s the presence of the God who loves us enough to be born among us.  It’s not at the mall; it’s at the stable.  It’s not a cartoon character; it’s the real hope of the world.

      But deep down inside us, we know that already, don’t we?

                                                        In the true Spirit of Christ,

                                                                          
                                                                                    David

Texts For Sunday Worship:
       From the Hebrew Bible          Isaiah 2:1-5
       From the Epistles                  Romans 13:11-14
      From the Gospels                  Matthew 24:36-44

Thanking Give

      This is the week when we as families and a nation take a moment to pause and express our thankfulness for what we have.  Even people who don’t necessarily come from a religious background who thank the divine for their well-being celebrate the Pilgrim’s 1621 celebration of harvest.  Many may not believe their blessings flow from God, but they certainly will appreciate that they have them.  Whether as a fall harvest festival or as gratitude to the Almighty, many feel thankful for what they have.

Of course, not everyone is in a good place from which to be thankful.  Many people have had hard years, with troubles and difficulties.  Many are economically beaten up.  Their celebrations are modest, sometimes helped by others.

This year’s huge holiday irony is the Ohio Walmart having a food drive for its own workers who cannot afford Thanksgiving meals.  Low wage employees are being asked to help low wage employees while six members of the Walton family collectively are worth $144 billion, more than the bottom 42% of US families combined.  There is something not right in our national social contract when both the stock market and the numbers of people hungry and homeless and un- or under-employed are at all-time highs.  

So it seems to me a bit facile for many of us in good places of thankfulness to simply thank God for our blessings.  “Giving thanks” may not be enough when our neighbors are stressed.  So my challenge to us this thanksgiving week is to go further and give and give thankfully.  Take the recognition that (as the psalmist says) the lines have fallen pleasantly for us, be thankful, and express your gratitude for God’s goodness by doing for the least of our neighbors (remember Matthew 25:31-46?).  And do at least one thing seriously, more than the usual token donation to the myriad of causes clamoring for our dollars between now and Christmas.  Do one thing (yes, “do,” not just write a check.  Do something.).  And give something substantial, something over and above, something that you will notice.

To get you thinking of ways you might respond thankfully, I’ll remind you of the various causes available, beginning with the gifts of conscience and compassion and justice like through the Church World Service or Heifer gift catalogs.  Other things are happening denominationally.  Help with Philippines Relief; the UCC is supporting early response and recovery efforts of partners in the ACT Alliance and the United Church of Christ in the Philippines.  To see how you can help or make a donation, go to http://www.ucc.org/disaster/philippines_typhoon_appeal.html or write a check to our church and indicate that it is for Typhoon Haiyan, and we will send it to the conference.  Feed My Starving Children Philippines relief effort: To read about the efforts being made by FMSC and to donate toward additional meals in the Philippines, visit https://www.fmsc.org/Philippines. There are simple things really close to home.  Christmas Shoeboxes for Catholic Charities of Tompkins County should be returned to the church by Sunday, December 8 for the youth to gift wrap the boxes.  Thanksgiving Meal Basket Project: Children’s Ministries is collecting food items to create six Thanksgiving Meal baskets to be distributed to local families through Family and Children’s service of Ithaca.  Heifer International fund raiser: The youth will be selling organic and fairly traded chocolates, coffees, teas, dried fruit and nuts from Equal Exchange during Advent. Please support sustainability and make a difference in the lives of small farmers and artisans across the globe.  Look for their display in the Narthex starting Sunday, Nov. 24.  Heifer gift cards will also be available for sale. Our Warm Wooly Tree is up earlier than usual this year because we want to get warm items to the folks who need them before cold weather hits.  Bring in new hats, mittens, gloves, scarves and socks for kids and adults to decorate our tree. At the end of the month, the items will be donated to community members in need through the Salvation Army.  There are individuals you may know who could use a bit more money, or some time with you being a friend, or a ride somewhere or some few minutes or hours of your time.  Something will nudge at you this week or month; respond in thankfulness.  Stretch yourself a bit this season.  Do and give to others because God has been good to you.  God has made a difference in your life; make a difference in someone’s life.

                   It’s more than thanksgiving.  It’s thankfully giving!

                                                                          In Christ,
                                                                          
                                                                                    David

Texts For Sunday Worship:        

From the Hebrew Bible          Jeremiah 23:1-6
From the Epistles                  Colossians 1:11-20
From the Gospels                  Luke 23:33-45

When I Survey the Wondrous…

            I admit that I am not a big fan of all the telephone or online surveys that pop up in front of my face.  For most, I tend to hang up or click the window closed with no twinge of guilt!  Some seem worthy, and I will do them.  I was selected one year as a pastor respondent to the Presbyterian Panel, for which questions ranged from “what statement best matches your theological perspective,” to how often you exercise and do you have pets.  If a company I do business with asks, or certain organizations ask and really make a good case that my input matters, I will make an effort.  And, honestly, if filling out a customer survey on a register receipt might get me a gift certificate or enter me into a drawing for a free iPad, I’ll do those, too.

            The U.S. Congregational Life survey we will take this Sunday during worship falls into my well-worth-doing category.  It is a clear, relatively short, well-normed, broadly-based instrument which will give us not only useful demographic data but a very useful thumbnail sketch of our congregation, our composition, and our thoughts about our faith community.  What sets it apart from most other processes is that it shows us where we are on the spectrum for several key factors.  We see where we fit among other congregations and denominations in the U.S.  I find it one of the clearest, sharpest mirrors in which to see ourselves and our expectations.  As I have said often, the Ithaca community is rather unlike most other communities(!), and this survey gives us a national baseline to measure ourselves against as we prepare to undertake a national search for a pastor.

            The survey will have great utility for the search committee when we elect one, perhaps more than most surveys.  It will really help our self-study and our search to have the best information possible, and this has a lot of value for our process, so I really encourage you to add your information to our data.  Your input matters.  Really!  The more who participate, the better our results will be.  Yes, it is worth your time.  It will help!  It will give back a lot more to our congregation than a coupon for a beverage from doing a fast-food survey.

            Most people who have taken this survey have found it interesting and somewhat thought-provoking, and it is pretty quick to take.  Quite a few have mentioned, “I hadn’t thought of it that way” about some of the questions.  I was the interim at a church which needed to do a self-study survey, and while we were considering options, we were randomly selected by the U.S. Congregational Life Survey computer to be part of the original norming.  Providence.  After church, several of the members were so impressed by it that they came back on Monday to hand tabulate the questionnaires before the UPS truck came for them on Tuesday.  They didn’t want to wait the extra time for the computer to crunch all the national data!  Since then USCLS have even added powerpoint presentations of results to their excellent reports and charts. I have had very good experience with this and wish to reinforce how useful it is, even to a reluctant survey-taker like me!

            Well, yes, maybe sticking in a “Golden Ticket” in one survey for an Equal Exchange chocolate bar is more for fun than an actual bribe, but I truly encourage you to attend worship Sunday and help all of us view more clearly what and who we are as First Congregational.  We’ll see you then!

                                                                          In Christ,
                                                                          
                                                                                    David


Texts For Sunday Worship:

      From the Hebrew Bible          Isaiah 65:17-25
      From the Epistles                   2 Thessalonians 3:6-13
      From the Gospels                   Luke 21:5-19

Harvest Gratitude

      This is the time of year, leading up to Thanksgiving, when we in the mainstream northeast culture tend to get really nostalgic about our agrarian roots… at least decoratively.  Glorious piles of pumpkins and squashes and vegetables and different colored ears of maize tumbling from cornucopias perch perfectly on straw, perhaps with a few cornstalks in the background.  Makes us feel like the pilgrims at their first harvest celebration.

      Of course, what we really pick up in Tops or Wegmans is more prosaic, wrapped in plastic, generally.  And unless you live around really old-school Mennonites who sometimes do stack shocks of corn after handcutting it on smaller, more uneven patches, most of the corn is sucked up by big green John Deere harvesters and loaded in bulk transport trailers.  Even most of the Mennonites around Dundee use mechanical harvesters; the only difference is that they have steel lug wheels like their big green tractors.  So even agriculture is a lot different from the Thanksgiving season pictures.

      Supporting the work of the church has changed a lot from the images of the favorite thanksgiving and harvest hymns we sing.  The Biblical images of supporting the temple are based on hand- and animal-based agriculture which in the ancient near east was mostly year round, and the faithful brought foodstuffs and offerings to the temple or sent money with which the needs of the temple staff could be purchased in Jerusalem.  People brought a portion off the top to the temple, the “first fruits.”  There were alms taken for the poor, as well.  In the middle ages, and in more northern Europe, churches and abbeys and such owned land which was farmed and the produce stored, as well as monetary offerings, but a significant portion of church income came in late fall at the harvest, when farmers sold their crops or brought bags of grain or whatever to the church warehouses.  For much of church history, in fact, most income (cash or goods) arrived in the fall, and the church used that through the year.

      In the “new” world, without the establishment of church properties but with a by then very well developed currency and banking system, most churches in the American colonies were using offering plates passed during worship for mission and support of the poor and for paying clergy.  Building upkeep was typically paid by pew rentals.  And most congregations got their influx of giving with the first fruits of harvest, less in kind and more in coin, and still mostly in autumn.

      Lots changed with the industrial revolution.  For purposes of a history of church giving, the biggest was that more people were receiving weekly paychecks than getting seasonal farm income.  So instead of getting several hundred dollars in October from the landowners, things shifted to weekly donations from many workers.  Pew rents began to fall out of favor around the U.S. Civil War.  Personally, I think that had to do with central heating in sanctuaries in the northeast that got us away from box pews to the auditorium style seating of churches built since the Second Great Awakening.  Predictable paychecks meant predictable offerings and tithes through the year.

      In the 20th century, churches became more “businesslike” in their operation, and the managerial types wanted to be able to prepare annual budgets, and it helped to get indications from church members about how much they might contribute for the year.  With predictable family income, members could make annual pledges, and “cash flow” in general for most churches evened out, and we ended up with the system now familiar to us.

      So that’s the long way around to why we have a fall stewardship push and pledge cards!

      The thing to remember, however industrialized our giving has become since the Plymouth colony, is that our human, spiritual impulse remains the same: sharing with others and God part of what we earn so that the gospel of God’s love and human justice and compassion are spread to others.
We share because we are grateful for what God has done for us and our families and our world.  That has not changed, no matter how we get those symbols of our thanksgiving to the front of our sanctuary.

      Be generous as God has been generous to us!

                                                                          In Christ,
                                                                          
                                                                                    David

      A quick reminder: on the 17th, we will be doing the U.S. Congregational Life Survey at the end of worship.  Please make an effort to attend on November 17 to contribute.  We can make special arrangements for you if you cannot attend that day, but even the blank surveys must be returned, so we have to make sure they are accounted for.   Call the office at 607-257-6033, and we will work something out for you.  In one of the surveys there is hidden a “Golden Ticket” for a chocolate bar from the Equal Exchange project the Youth Ministry Team is doing to support the Heifer Project.  How’s that for an extra incentive!?!


Texts For Sunday Worship:

      From the Hebrew Bible     Haggai 2:1-9
      From the Epistles             2 Thessalonians 2:1-5, 13-17
      From the Gospels             Luke 20:27-38

 

Looking in the Mirror

      In The Who’s rock opera, Tommy, there is a song called “Go to the Mirror.”  Tommy, for those of you not so steeped in classic rock history as some of us (well, OK, as people like me!) has shut down in a form of selective mutism, blindness, and deafness.  It takes a couple of more cuts for him to break out of his traumatized condition and break free.

      Mirrors are one of Paul’s illustrations, of course, and we interim's like to say we are holding up a mirror to the congregation so it can see itself as it is.

      The downside is that sometimes when we look in the mirror we are not so fond of what we see, but the fact is that mirrors are an accuracy check.  Once in a while, we may need to wipe the accumulated haze off our mirrors to see clearly.  If you shave or put on makeup, fogginess is not a good thing.  Nor is nostalgic haze good for a church.  Sometimes a bit of magnification of a blemish is distressing, but it helps you deal with things.  That’s also true for shaving and makeup!

      This Sunday, as part of our all-church self-study, we turn to who we are as a congregation now and what our general priorities are as First Congregational and the people in it moving forward.
A large part of our time Sunday will uncover the activities and programs and caregiving and such that we value, but we also have a few hopefully fun ways at learning more about who we are right now.  (Think of your favorite vacation places, favorite foods, and television show or music, and bring your phone downstairs with you.)

      Then, on the 17th, we will be doing the U.S. Congregational Life Survey at the end of worship.  This is a well-normed survey that will help us see where we are in the wider religious spectrum of the country.  It, unlike many surveys done during interim times, builds up from members’ responses instead of starting with lists of programs or activities in a congregation.  If you are the kind of person who groans when given a survey, this one should be more interesting than most, and the data is really, really, really valuable to our search process.  Most people find the questions thought-provoking and interesting.  So please make a serious effort to attend on November 17 to contribute.  We can make special arrangements for you if you cannot attend that day, but even the blank surveys must be returned to the data company, so we have to make sure they are accounted for.   Call the office at 607-257-6033, and we will work something out!  For what it’s worth, the last church-wide survey was in 2003.  Some things have happened since then.

      I remember when I realized that the image I had of myself from photographs was not looking back at me from the mirror, and I’m familiar with the sort of sigh and shrug church members have when they get clear on who the congregation actually is now.  Kind of the same.  For what it’s worth, I didn’t mind the graying at my temples, but the first gray hairs in my moustache made me wince.  But most days, the actual truth seems better than the out of date memory.

      Please join us as we look at ourselves a bit.  Even if you cannot stay for the discussion, please stay long enough to have lunch with each other!  I hear there may be ice cream for dessert…

                                                                          In Christ,
                                                                          
                                                                                    David

And remember to change your clocks back an hour Saturday night!!


Texts For Sunday Worship:
   From the Epistles          2 Thessalonians 1:1-4, 11-12
   From the Gospels         Luke 19:1-10