reallifepastor

Next Friday is my first anniversary as your pastor.  What a year we’ve had!  As we continue getting to know each other, I want to share with you some more of my MO as a pastor.       A big part of the reason I accepted the call to be your pastor is your strong commitment to social justice.  Jesus didn’t get killed because he was a good teacher or preacher.  Jesus got killed because he challenged structures of privilege.  Jesus got killed because he spoke truth to power.  Jesus got killed because he championed the poor.

I accepted the call to be your pastor because you understand Dom Camara Helder’s statement:  “When I fed the poor, they called me a saint.  When I asked why they are poor, they called me a communist.”  I am here because a faith ensconced within the walls of the church is no faith at all.  We must speak power to truth.  We must name and stand against corruption and evil when we see it.  We need to serve the poor, and we must ask why they are poor.  That is our calling as followers of Jesus.  I am here because I am called to live that faith in the world…and to lead a congregation that does the same.

Here’s the thing I want to share with you today.  I also am called to help us work at deepening our community.  The true gift of the church to the world, the means we have of acting the world into wellbeing in Jesus’ name is the work we do as a community.  If we’re all out marching, or challenging the government, or serving the poor…if we’re doing all that but neglect the health of our community, we won’t have the spiritual resources we need to sustain the important work we’re doing out in the world.  This is the place where we breathe in God’s love.  This is the place we connect with our deepest selves and with God, where we gain access to all that will sustain everything we do outside this place.  Outside this place, we seek to save the world.  Inside this place, we remember what we’re saving it for.  

Paul understood this connection between how we live God’s love inside the church and how we live it in the world.  Exhibit A—his first letter to the Corinthians.

The church at Corinth was a happening place.  Full of energy.  Full of diversity.  Full of egos.  The more powerful people in the community began prioritizing spiritual gifts; they deemed some gifts more important than others.  Deep divisions and chaos ensued.  Paul knew that if the community didn’t work some things out, their purpose for being—sharing God’s love with others—wasn’t going to happen.

Paul’s answer to the discord?  Mr. Potato Head theology.  If the community is to fulfill its mission of living God’s love in the world, it’s going to need every person using his or her unique gifts–“To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good,” right?  “If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be; if the body were a mouth, where would smelling be?”  See?  Mr. Potato Head.

One thing I do find perplexing is where Paul goes at the end of today’s passage.  Listen:

Now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.  And God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers; then deeds of power, then gifts of healing, forms of assistance, forms of leadership, various kinds of tongues.

Does that not sound like a hierarchy of spiritual gifts?  Then he says, “But strive for the greater gifts. And I will show you a still more excellent way.”  The greater gifts?  I thought all gifts were created equally!  What gives?  This is a guess, but I wonder if the “greater gifts” are those that help the community work together for the common good.  If so, then maybe in this coming together of our diverse gifts is where we’ll find the “still more excellent way.”

Have you ever thought about giving up on church?  I thought about it a lot my first year of grad school.

Just a couple months after fleeing the Baptist battles at my seminary, one sunny fall day I found myself standing under the chapel on the Emory University campus.  Deeply wounded by my experiences of church to that point, I had become dangerously disillusioned.

As I stood there, I thought:  “You don’t have to do this.  You don’t have to stay in church.  You don’t even have to remain Christian.  You can leave.  Do something else entirely.  Why stay?”  I stood there thinking for a long while.

Then, as he is wont to do, Jesus came to mind.  I thought about all the things Jesus said, all he did.  I thought about how he spent time hanging out with the hurting people of the world, the outcasts, the oppressed, the abused.  And I thought of how he helped those people to see and experience the deep, abiding, non-judgmental love of God.

And in that moment, I decided that if a community tries to follow Jesus–they don’t even have to succeed…If a community just tries to follow Jesus—the world will be transformed.  That day under the chapel, I committed myself to leading a community that would try—just try—to follow Jesus.

A year into my tenure, I can say with confidence:  You are exactly the kind of community I dreamed of that day under the chapel.

That doesn’t mean we get it right all the time.  Living in community is hard.  At some point, someone’s going to make you mad.  At some point, someone’s going to disappoint you.  At some point, you’re going to be afraid you’ve done something irreparable and unforgiveable.

When she welcomed new members into the Church for All Sinners and Saints, Pastor Nadia Bolz-Weber reminded them that at some point, the community would let them down, that she “would say or do something stupid and disappoint them.  Then she encouraged them to decide before that happened if they would stick around after it happened.  If they left, she told them, they’d miss the way God’s grace comes in and fills in the cracks left behind by our brokenness.  And that’s too beautiful to miss.”  In another place, Bolz-Weber says:  “Church is messed up.  I know that.  People, including me, have been hurt by it.  But … “Church isn’t perfect.  It’s practice.”

THAT is what I’ve witnessed here over the last year.  We aren’t always successful in following Jesus, sometimes we disagree, sometimes we even hurt each other…but even in the midst of all the messiness of being a Christian community, because we continue to try to follow Jesus as best we can, the world is being transformed.  Because we are working together, because we are honoring—and calling out—each other’s spiritual gifts and using them for the common good, we are beginning—just beginning—to get a glimpse of God’s kin-dom here on earth, a kin-dom we are helping to create.

It’s appropriate today to focus on strengthening our FCUCC community.  It’s Annual Meeting day!  After worship, we’ll gather downstairs to vote on the budget, among other things.

When you read my annual report, you’ll learn that a key part of my role as pastor is overseeing the church’s ministries.  Based on how often I lose my glasses and forget to turn on the microphone, it might surprise you to learn that I like to organize things.  I’m not as good with minute details, but I do like to get processes and groups organized…in a big-picture kind of way.

Now that I’ve been here a year, ideas are emerging about the most effective way to organize our congregation’s ministries.  In your bulletins, you’ll find a list of the 8 suggested Ministry Areas.  Within each area is a list of related ministries.  None of these ministries is set in stone.  Some have been going for a long time; others will serve their purpose for a season then disband.  All of that’s part of the normal process of being church.  Consider this sheet a worksheet.  If you have ideas for other ministries that would fall in any of the Ministry Areas, write them down.  Likewise, let us know if there’s a Ministry Area we’re missing.  I invite you to write your suggestions on the sheets of paper posted on the west wall of Friendship Hall.

Here’s the exciting thing…there are many ways in which we’re already living as the body of Christ as Paul imagines it.  We’re already living Mr. Potato Head theology here.  I convened a gathering of folks for our security team this past Wednesday.  After two minutes, I realized out was out of my element….which was fine.  Because the other people in the room were in their element.  Wow!  I just sat back and watched the magic happen.

Another example.  The last couple of weeks, the Lent planning team has been dreaming up all kinds of experiences that will help us make strong connections between our Lenten liturgy and social justice.  I’ve never been this excited about Lent.  Stay tuned.

Some established groups here at FCUCC are experiencing a revival—like Deacons and Faith Formation—while new groups are emerging—like the Health Advisory and Racial Justice teams, as well as the WISE team, whose purpose is to offer support for people struggling with mental health and for those who love them.

Here’s one of my favorite stories.  A couple of weeks ago, I posted some help wanted ads—the Desperation Edition.  The first item on the list was hospitality.  Someone came to me this week and let me know that she and someone else—independently—had the idea of taking that on.  “Somehow” they found each other…which, of course, means Spirit drew them together.

That’s how ministries work in a church.  We open ourselves to the needs of the body, we ask how our unique gifts might meet those needs, then we serve…for the common good.

How might your unique gifts serve the common good?  How might we better use our collective gifts to build up the body of Christ in this place?  How might we find the still more excellent way…then live it in the world?  I can’t wait to see what this second year will hold.

In the name of our God, who creates us, redeems us, sustains us, and hopes for our wholeness.  Amen.

Kimberleigh Buchanan  ©2019  (with parts from 2015)

During a sabbatical in 2014, I drove from a monastery in Indiana to a music camp in New Hampshire.  After crossing Ohio, I took a right at Erie, Pennsylvania, then began the long trek across the state of New York.

            Late in the afternoon, fighting pre-supper drowsies, I passed a sign that woke me up:  Seneca Falls, Women’s Rights National Historical Park.  Hello!  I thought.  That sounds like a place I’d like to visit.  But not now.  Music camp awaits!  I drove another hour and a half to Utica and checked in to a Days Inn.  But I couldn’t stop thinking about Seneca Falls.  One-time home of Elizabeth Cady Stanton?  Site of the first Woman’s Rights Convention?  How could I not visit?  The next morning, I drove back to Seneca Falls.  My visit did not disappoint.

First, I toured the museum, which tells the story of the convention in 1848.  It all started on July 9, 1848.  That’s the day Jane Hunt invited Elizabeth Cady Stanton to her house for tea.  A Quaker, Hunt also invited three other Quakers—Mary Ann M’Clintock,  Lucretia Mott, and Mott’s sister, Martha Wright.  What started as a tea party, ended up as a planning session for our country’s first Woman’s Rights Convention.

On July 18, 1848, hundreds of people descended on Seneca Falls for the convention.  On July 19th, 300 people signed the Declaration of Sentiments, a strong statement for women’s rights modeled on the Declaration of Independence.  July 20th, 200 of the original 300 quietly removed their names from the document.  They were supportive, but feared the fall-out if their signatures were discovered.

As I left my last stop in Seneca Falls that day–Elizabeth Cady Stanton’s house–a park ranger invited me to return the following week, July 18th and 19th.  Each year, on the anniversary of the first Woman’s Rights Convention, the park celebrates Convention Days.  “You’d really like it,” she said.  I told her I wished I could, but music camp awaited.

That night—back in Utica—I called Allen.  “Seneca Falls is the place I’ve needed to visit all my life!” I told him.  I was overcome with respect for those strong women (and men) who–170 years ago–got the struggle for women’s equality.  Those people were articulate, passionate, and fully committed to justice for women.  I was inspired.

When the music camp in New Hampshire fizzled—they might be in a better mood up there if they ate some grits once in a while—I drove back to Seneca Falls for Convention Days.  It rocked!  That year, the focus was equal rights for Muslim women.  After processing through town, we all signed a Declaration of Equality for Muslim Women.  It was a moving experience.

Energized by the visits to Seneca Falls, I began reading up on the Woman’s Rights Convention and the women’s suffrage movement.  In my reading I discovered much of which I was proud.  I also discovered a lot that disturbed me, particularly regarding racism.

Frederick Douglass participated in the Convention and signed the Declaration of Sentiments.  His presence and support were significant.  It was, after all, 1848.  Slavery still was practiced widely in the southern states.  How could people–including abolitionists–devote time and energy to fighting for women’s rights when 2 million people still were enslaved in the South?  The tension between abolitionists and suffragists was intense.

Then I read about the Women’s March of 1913.  Coinciding with the inauguration of President Woodrow Wilson, Suffragists marched in support of women’s right to vote.  Seeing pictures of all those women in long white dresses made me happy and proud.  Then I read the footnote:  leaders of the march asked African American women to march at the back of the parade.  When journalist Ida B. Wells was sent to the back of the line, she wept in disbelief.

Throughout history, black women largely have fallen through the cracks of justice efforts.  In 1848, the debate was whether to move first to get the vote for black men or to get the vote for white women.  Getting the vote for black women?  Not so much a part of the conversation.

Another case.  In 1976, several “black women sued General Motors for discrimination, arguing that the company segregated its workforce by race and gender:  blacks did one set of jobs; whites did another.  According to the plaintiffs’ experiences, women were welcome to apply for some jobs, while only men were suitable for others.  This was of course a problem in and of itself, but for black women the consequences were compounded…because the black jobs were men’s jobs, and the women’s jobs were only for whites.

“Thus, while a black applicant might get hired to work on the factory floor if he were male; if she were a black female she wouldn’t be considered.  Similarly, a woman might be hired as a secretary if she were white, but wouldn’t be considered if she were black. Neither the black jobs nor the women’s jobs were appropriate for black women, since they were neither male nor white.”

Guess what happened?  The case was dismissed.  Why?  Because the court believed “black women should not be permitted to combine their race and gender claims.   Because they could not prove that what happened to them was just like what happened to white women or black men, the discrimination that happened to these black women fell through the cracks.”

It was in studying this case that a young law professor named Kimberle Crenshaw coined the term “intersectionality.”  In describing intersectionality, she says, “Many of our social justice problems like racism and sexism are often overlapping, creating multiple levels of social injustice.”  Certainly, it’s important to focus our justice efforts.  Participating in a women’s march would be very different from participating in a march for, say, middle-aged, middle class, straight white Southern women preachers.  So, focus is important.

The danger comes from assuming that speaking from one identity addresses the experiences of every person…for instance, white women designing a women’s movement out of their experiences as white women and assuming their experiences are normative for all women.

The gift of MLK weekend and the Women’s March coming at the same time, is the invitation to think about intersectionality, to think about how working for justice in one area connects with working for justice in other areas.  It also invites us to analyze our personal justice commitments for bias and/or privilege.  To ferret out our blind spots.

The women’s march here in Asheville has sparked some controversy.  Some folks are protesting national Women’s March organizer Tamika Mallory’s speech at UNCA today.  She and at least one other organizer have been accused of anti-Semitism.  Carolina Jews for Justice issued a statement saying they strongly support free speech and that Mallory should receive a hearing.  Others find her statements in interviews troubling enough they don’t believe she should have a hearing.  Two of our members emailed this week dismayed that our church is supporting the march.  Others agonized over whether to attend worship or participate in the march, because both are so important to them.

An acquaintance of mine, a Jewish man who joined SNCC–the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee—in helping register voters in Forest City, Arkansas, in the early 60s, tells the story of a boycott being planned by SNCC.  When asked which stores in town should be boycotted, one of the African American organizers said, “Oh, it doesn’t matter.  They’re all Jew stores.  Let’s boycott them all.”  The statement was a blow to the gut of my friend.

I don’t mean to guilt trip anyone.  I’m just inviting us to look at everything happening around us this weekend and see what God might be saying through it all.  Two things might help our considerations—a word from Paul and an idea from Martin Luther King, Jr.

The word from Paul doesn’t need elaboration.  In his first letter to the Corinthians, in the section that celebrates diversity within the body of Christ, Paul says, “To each has been given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.”  The common good.  Remember that concept?  Working for the common good begins by acknowledging–and celebrating–our diversity…. which means that Paul was preaching intersectionality before it was even a word. J  My liberation is bound up with your liberation, right?  Until all of us are free, none of us is free.

The year before he died, Martin King wrote an essay called “The World House.”  In it, he writes of a famous novelist who died.  “Among his papers was found a list of suggested plots for future stories, including this one:  ‘A widely separated family inherits a house in which they have to live together.’  This is the great new problem of humankind,” King writes.  “We have inherited a large house, a great ‘world house’ in which we have to live together—black and white, Easterner and Westerner, Gentile and Jew, Catholic and Protestant, Muslim and Hindu—a family unduly separated in ideas, culture, and interest, who, because we can never again live apart, must learn somehow to live with each other in peace.”

My mom moves in with us this week.  Allen and I have been preparing the house as best we can for her arrival.  We’ve set up her room in ways we think will be welcoming.  Of course, there are some things we can’t anticipate.  Most issues of co-habiting won’t emerge until we’re actually living together under one tiny roof.  There will be negotiations.  There will be adjustments.  There will, no doubt, be family meetings.  I suspect there will be disagreements.

Because of our commitment to and love for one another, though, we’ll do the work.  We’ll do the work because we’re family, because the three of us want nothing more than for everyone in the family to be happy and well and whole.

What if the human family did this same kind of work in our world house?  What if, out of love for all our family’s members, we gave ourselves fully to the work of negotiating and adjusting and talking through our disagreements?  What if we sat down together at the kitchen table and listened to each other, told each other our stories, and worked together to find a way forward?  Might we learn to live with each other in peace?  Might we learn better how to act each other into wellbeing?  Might our building and moving into our world house be the way to establish and work for the common good?

What say we give it a try?

In the name of our God, who creates us, redeems us, sustains us, and hopes for our wholeness.  Amen.

Kimberleigh Buchanan  © 2019

When I made the switch from the Baptists to the UCC, there was only one theological issue I had to work through–infant baptism.  How many Baptists do we have in the room?  Disciples?  Both Baptists and Disciples practice believer’s baptism.  That means you’re only baptized after you consciously decide to follow the way of Jesus.  In the conservative Baptist churches I grew up in, infant baptism was anathema.  How can a baby decide to follow Jesus?

So, I spent some time thinking and praying about the practice of infant baptism.  When I read the liturgy in the Book of Worship, especially the part about the church claiming the child and promising to help the parents raise the child in the Christian faith until the child could choose—or not choose—the path for themselves, I thought, This is a no brainer.  The greater emphasis on the community in infant baptism really appealed to me.

That’s true, in part, because it took me a while to get the hang of believer’s baptism.  My first baptism happened in a Methodist church when I was 12 or so.  Sprinkled with a carnation.  My second baptism–this time by immersion–happened when I was in high school after our church’s pastor took me down the “Roman Road.”  My third baptism happened when I was teaching school…again, by immersion.

Why all these baptisms?  That, too, is a no brainer:  I was afraid of going to hell.  As Allen calls it—baptism as fire insurance.  A question I often heard in my conservative Baptist churches was:  “Do you know that you know that you know if you were to die tonight, you’d go to heaven?”  I’m not a black-and-white thinker.  I never knew that I knew that I knew.  I got baptized all those times to cover all my bases.

So, when I learned about infant baptism–especially its greater emphasis on the community’s role in baptism– I took great comfort in it.

When the Search Committee took me on a tour of the church back in October 2017 and I saw the baptistery…I’m not saying I started shaking or hyperventilating or anything, not much, anyway.  But it did give me pause.  A baptistery in a UCC church?  That’s when I learned the building originally was built by the Disciples.  Because they practice believer’s baptism by immersion, all Disciples churches have baptisteries.  In the UCC, we don’t have anything against baptism by immersion—at all; it’s just that infant baptism is more common.

I am happy to report that we now are using our baptistery regularly.  With all the work they’re doing on the building–power-washing external walls that remain porous and susceptible to seepage, the humidity in this room is elevated.  The contractor recommended getting a dehumidifier.  The dehumidifier needs to be in a place where it can drain the water it soaks up.  What better place for a humidifier than a baptistery?  🙂

Do you know that for several centuries, new Christians were baptized in the nude?  They underwent a year of instruction—think, Confirmation–then those wishing to join the church (usually on Easter Sunday) would be baptized.  Naked as the day they were born…Which was the point, right?  Baptism represents new birth.

Beyond the symbolism of being re-born in the same state in which we’re born, coming to baptism with nothing on reminds us that, as one writer says, “our worthiness isn’t based on our decorations.  It has nothing to do with the way we look or don’t look, what we can or can’t do, our successes or failures, even our talents or inabilities.  We are reminded that we are known and loved in our diverse quirks and eccentricities.”  We are known and loved for ourselves.  Period.

When Jesus emerges from the waters of baptism, God speaks:  “You are my child, my beloved.  With you I am well-pleased.”  We hear similar language in today’s text from Isaiah:  “I have called you by name.  You are mine.  And I love you.”  Just as we are, God loves us.  Just as we are.  God.  Loves.  Us.  If each of us could believe that, deep down to our cores…if each of us could allow ourselves to receive the gift of God’s profound love for us, it’s my firm belief that the world would change.

Back in the mid-1990s when I was a graduate student at Emory University, I had the opportunity to sit in on a class Archbishop Desmond Tutu also was visiting.  During the class, the Archbishop told us about something that had happened the previous day.

He’d been speaking to a large group for a while when he noticed that nearly every student had their head down, intent on capturing down every word he spoke.  At that point, the Archbishop said, “Stop!  Put down your pens!”  all eyes were on him.  “Don’t you know that God loves you?”  The archbishop knew what the students had forgotten—that each of them was deeply loved by God…that Desmond was no more important than anyone else in the room…that the only thing that mattered was that each person in the room was God’s beloved child.

I had a similar experience the first night we gathered for the clergywomen program I’m involved with called Women Touched by Grace.  As we were leaving a meet-and-greet gathering and Sr. Luke was giving us our final instructions for the next day, she said this:  “We just want you to know how precious you are.”  We all stood there, stunned.  Precious?  Us?  Most of us are still trying to take in all that love over a decade later.

Preaching in this church is about the most fun I’ve ever had.  There is so much you all get about the Gospel, about living it in the real world.  I’ve never been part of a community that so wants to change the world, to create the kindom of God anyway we can.

A big part of the reason I accepted this call is that strong commitment to justice work.  Because of that commitment, sermons often focus on justice issues.  This week, we could take our pick of issues, couldn’t we?  The injustice to hundreds of thousands of federal workers because of an unnecessary, capricious government shut-down; the daily injustices associated with trying to live in this country as a person of color; families being traumatized at our southern border; the ongoing struggle for equal rights for women; the climate change crisis; the injustice and cruel absurdity of ongoing wars that never should have been started in the first place.  There is no shortage of justice issues that can and should be addressed from this pulpit.

In addition to addressing directly specific justice issues, though, another calling of this pulpit is to remind us of the resources our faith gives us for engaging in the work of justice.  Perhaps the most empowering resource we have for the work of justice is the one we celebrate today:  our baptisms.  Jesus’ vital work of acting the world into wellbeing in God’s name only began after his baptism.  Before he began teaching and speaking truth to power and over-turning tables in the Temple, Jesus needed to know of God’s love for him.  Even Jesus needed to hear:  “You are my child, my beloved.  With you I am well-pleased.”  Our baptisms remind us that if our justice work doesn’t begin with love, we are, as Paul will write later, a clanging cymbal.  We’re all noise and little substance.  We’re also at a much higher risk of burn-out.

So, today, as the dire and multiple needs for justice loom at the front door, I invite us all to rest in this moment, to remember our baptisms, to receive the profound gift of God’s love for us.  I invite us all to remember just how precious we are.

Precious, precious, you are precious in God’s eyes,

You are precious in God’s heart.

Precious, precious, you are precious in God’s eyes,

You are precious in God’s heart.

In the name of our God, who creates us, redeems us, sustains us, and hopes for our wholeness.  Amen.

Kimberleigh Buchanan  ©2019

I’d like to start this morning by passing around the offering plates.  Be not afraid!  We aren’t taking up two offerings this morning.  And we’re not moving the collection of gifts to a different place in the service.  (Out of curiosity, which of those things would cause greater distress?  Let’s do some research!  Let’s start by taking up two offerings.  Ready, set, GO! 🙂

So, why pass the offering plates at the start of the sermon if it’s not to change the order of the service or to add another collection?  Today, with this first go ‘round of the offering plates, we aren’t going to give; we’re going to receive.  Don’t get excited!  We aren’t receiving money.  We’ll be receiving something else.

Today, we celebrate Epiphany, the time when we retell the story of the magi bringing gifts to the toddler Jesus.  Most nativity sets include the magi at the manger.  While it’s nice to have all that ethnic, religious, and economic diversity represented at Jesus’ birth, in Matthew’s narrative, the magi come later.  Note that they enter “a house” to see Jesus, not a stable.

(Back in Georgia, we lived near a church with a large front yard.  Every year when they put up their life-size wooden cut-out nativity set, the magi were set up on the edge of the property, a long distance from the manger.  Every few days or so during Advent and Christmas, the magi would move just a little closer to the manger.  Were we in Woodstock, Georgia, this morning, outside that church, we’d see a manger scene with all the cast of characters, including the magi.  It does my little liturgically correct heart good!)

The Epiphany story is familiar.  Wise people from the East see a star.  Somehow, the star’s appearance reveals that a ‘child has been born king of the Jews.’  The magi journey westward until they come to Jerusalem.  While there, they ask Herod–the de facto king of the Jews–where the baby born king of the Jews is.

Herod’s scared…and because Herod’s scared, the people are scared.  He calls together his wise people and asks what the prophecies say about the location of such a birth.  The wise people say, “Bethlehem.”  Herod sends the magi to Bethlehem with instructions to report back to him after they’ve made their visit.

When the magi depart Jerusalem, the star they’d been following still twinkles brightly…it continues leading them on…until it stops over the place where the child is.  Matthew tells us that when the magi “saw that the star had stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy.  On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother; and they knelt down and paid him homage.”

The part of this story we remember best happens now.  “Opening their treasure chests, they offer the child gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.”  Ah, yes.  The magi’s gifts…. inspiration for our own generous giving, right?

Well, yes.  But…

Have you ever thought about why the magi did what they did?  Why did they give?  Why did they travel so far and so long with such precious gifts for a child of another nationality, a child they didn’t know?  In our eagerness to focus on the gifts given by the magi, it’s easy to gloss over the gift received by the magi–the star…a sign of hope, a sign of promise, a sign of their connection to something bigger than their own small worlds, a sign that, as the Dalai Lama says, “we are all same human being.”  A sign that we’re all connected.

The magi gave–they gave joyfully–because they had received the gift given to them.

How do you feel about giving?  It’s a dicey question to ask at budget time.  But I’m your pastor.  It’s my job to ask dicey questions….so, how do you feel about giving?  If giving is a joy for you, terrific!  You have permission to check out of the sermon momentarily and bask in the joy.

If giving isn’t such a joy for you….if giving makes you feel resentful (then guilty for feeling resentful), might it be because what your spirit most needs right now is to receive?  (The happy people just checked back in.  🙂

We give a lot.  This congregation gives a lot…money, time, talent.  Service in the wider community.  Contributions in the work of justice.  You all have had to give a lot the past several years through all the transitions that have happened here at FCUCC.  As we say our goodbyes to Kevin today, we’re aware that the transitioning continues.  This community has asked for many of your gifts and you have given them–faithfully, extravagantly.  And because you have, this community is strong and much more vibrant than it would have been without your many gifts.  As your pastor, I am deeply grateful for the gifts of every person in this congregation.

That said, it’s important to acknowledge “giver’s fatigue.”  Sometimes, if we give and give and give without taking time to receive, our giving becomes perfunctory, routine, even grudging.  When the epistle writer said that “God loves a cheerful giver,” they meant it.  God loves cheerful givers…because God understands that joyful giving acts us into wellbeing.  Grudging giving?  Grudging giving makes us grumpy.

Much will be asked of us in the coming year, especially here at FCUCC.  In addition to our regular ongoing financial commitments, we’re also making some badly needed capital improvements.  Though a third of the needed funds already have been promised–Yay!–we’ll need the other two thirds to complete the work, including refurbishing these beautiful stained glass windows.

We won’t be asked to give only money, though.  As we live our way through our transitions, we’ll be asked to offer service as well.  In coming weeks, you’ll hear more about our newly organized ministry teams and opportunities for service.  Stay tuned for that.

This is an active congregation.  We have lots of folks who still work.  We also have lots of folks who are retired.  I read an interview once with a woman who recently had retired from teaching.  She said that when she was working, people at church constantly asked her to do things.  Because of her heavy work schedule, she wasn’t able to say yes to much.  She looked forward to the day when she could retire and do more work for the church.  Then she retired.  The minute she retired, the requests for service from her church dried up.

We won’t make the same mistake here that that retired teacher’s church made!  All of us will be asked to continue serving and to serve anew in this coming year.

Before we discern what our gifts to the church this year will be, I invite us to take a moment to receive.  Cue the offering plates.

I’ve recently learned about this newish Epiphany Sunday tradition.  You might have experienced it before.  The offering plates contain stars.  Each star has a word printed on it.  (Thanks to Terry Kaesar for the print work!)  You’re invited to close your eyes and pull out one star.  Let the star choose you.  Here’s the invitation.  The invitation is to let that word guide you the coming year.  Put it on the refrigerator, in your Bible…make it your Facebook profile picture….The invitation is to keep the word in front of you this year and let it guide you.

It’s just an invitation.  Feel free to recycle it or use it as a bookmark.  But if you can, receive the gift of this star.  Let it nurture you.  Let it surprise you.  Let it lead you to God-with-us in more profound and practical ways.  Before the onslaught of requests for giving–and yes, they will come–give yourself the gift of simply receiving.

So, settle in, say “hello” to this moment, breathe in God’s love, breathe out God’s love…and prepare to receive this gift to you.  (Silence)

In the name of our God, who creates us, redeems us, sustains us, and hopes for our wholeness.  Amen.

Kimberleigh Buchanan  © 2019

(Song:  “Canticle of the Turning”)

IS the world about to turn?  Doesn’t really seem like it, does it?  The rich keep getting richer; the poor keep getting poorer.  Tyrants still rule, money still rules, the hungry poor still weep for the food they can never earn.  Spears and rods…and guns and tear gas….they aren’t so much crushed by God as upgraded and used with alarmingly greater frequency.

The world seems about as resistant to turning as it’s ever been.

…which is pretty much how things were in 1st century Palestine, especially for poor Jews like Mary and Joseph.  Centuries before, the Jewish people had lost their sovereignty, which means they were a subjugated people, an oppressed people.  Without Roman citizenship, they had few rights.  The only way to break out of poverty was to work for the Roman government, either as a tax collector, like Zaccheus, or as a Tetrarch, like Herod.

So, it’s to this poor, young, pregnant-but-not-yet-married Jewish woman that God’s message of turning the world comes.  It’s hard to imagine someone in that culture with less power…maybe an old, childless, Jewish widow…with leprosy…  Why in the world would God entrust God’s message to someone with so little power by the world’s standards?

Maybe it’s because–as someone with little power–Mary knew of her need.  One of the downsides of privilege is that you lose touch with your neediness.  That’s the point of privilege, right?  To be able to do things for yourself, to have the power to create your own world?  A message of love, justice, and wholeness isn’t going to mean much to someone who already experiences those things.  Who’s going to really appreciate a message of love, justice, and wholeness?  Someone who deep down knows her need for them.

A couple of years ago, I began to wonder if I had the capacity to understand Scripture.  The Bible–especially the Gospels–was written for people with little power, people on the margins, people who know of their need for a loving God, not to make life more pleasant, but simply to make life possible.  As a white, middle class, educated American, I ooze privilege.  How could I possibly understand a text that was written to and for those without power?

I prayed about it.  Had to.  Can’t preach the Bible if you don’t understand it.  Okay.  That’s totally possible.  But still…I prayed.  Here’s where I ended up:  as a person of privilege, I am called to read Scripture as if I am a person with less power, less privilege.  Reading Scripture from the perspective of someone who desperately needs the good news it proclaims?  It’s like I have an entirely new Bible!  Now when I read Scripture, I see it in a whole new light.

One of the things that has helped in this process is a book called The Gospel in Solentiname.  In the mid-1960s, Catholic priest Ernesto Cardenal led a Bible study for campesinos (peasants) in the Nicaraguan village of Solentiname.  The Gospel of Solentiname contains transcriptions of those Bible studies.  The class’ members were part of what’s known as a base community.  Base communities were designed for peasants to learn together, to organize, and to advocate for themselves in the face of intense oppression.  As villager Alejandro said, “The people can’t be liberated by others.  They must liberate themselves.  God can show the way to the Promised Land, but the people themselves must begin the journey.”  Base communities helped campesinos begin their journeys toward liberation.

Here’s what some of the campesinos said of Mary’s song.

1:         “God chose Mary because she was poor.”

Cardenal asked what they thought Herod would have said if he had known that a woman of the people had sung that God had pulled down the mighty and raised up the humble, filled the hungry with good things and left the rich with nothing.

2:         “He’d say she was crazy.”

1:         “That she was a communist.”

As you might guess, the campesinos spent a lot of time talking about the sharp divides between rich and poor.  Here’s a snippet of one of those conversations.  Referring to those whom Mary names as having “proud hearts,” old Tomas said:

3:         “They are the rich, because they think they are above us and they look down on us…since they have the money.  A poor person comes to their house and they won’t even turn around to look at him.  They don’t have anything more than we do, except money.  Only money and pride.  That’s all they have that we don’t.”

4:         “I don’t believe that’s true.  There are humble rich people and there are proud poor people.  If we weren’t proud we wouldn’t be divided, and us poor are divided.”

1:         “We’re divided because the rich divide us.  Or because a poor person often wants to be like a rich one.  He yearns to be rich, and then he’s an exploiter in his heart, that is, the poor person has the mentality of the exploiter.”

2:         “That’s why Mary talks about people with proud hearts.  It’s not a matter of having money or not, but of having the mentality of an exploiter or not.”

Of Mary’s song, one woman says,

1:         “Mary says that God is holy, and that means ‘just.’”

When Cardenal asked what a holy society would be, Laureano said:

4:         “The one we are seeking.  The one that revolutionaries want to build, all the revolutionaries of the world.”  (17)

What does the world revolutionaries want to build look like?  What does the world Jesus showed us how to build look like?  What does the world of which God dreams look like?

What would that world look like for children?  For the poor?  What would it look like for girls and women, boys and men, for gender-non-conforming folks?  What would a holy and just society mean for the otherly-abled?  For those who are addicted… to drugs, to alcohol, to power?  What would it mean for housekeepers, farm workers, and factory workers?  What would the world of which God dreams of mean for Earth and all her creatures?

It’s been said of Chreasters—folks who faithfully attend church on Christmas and Easter—that they come those Sundays because “those are the only parts of the story they know.”…which proves just how amazing Chreasters are.  Those are the two hardest parts of the story we have!  Easter?  Rising from the dead and all that?  Yeah.  You’ll have to come back in April for that one.  (And I hope you will!  April 21^st.  We’ll save you a seat.  J)

On the face of it, Christmas seems pretty easy— angels, shepherds, Mary and Joseph, and that cute little baby…On the surface, Christmas is all sweetness and light.

But when you read the lyrics of pregnant Mary’s song…about lifting up the lowly and bringing down the powerful, about feeding the hungry and sending the rich away empty… creating that world?  It probably will take a revolution.  Mary’s song—sweet, young, powerless Mary–calls us to nothing less than a radical revolution in this world, an upending of the ways things are.  Mary calls us, sings us to a revolution of love…a revolution that will turn the world right side up again—a world where everyone has enough food to eat and a place to live…a world without war and where all people strive together for the common good…..a world where every person knows their full worth as a beloved child of God.

Artist:  Ben Wildflower

            So, is the world about to turn?  It’s a serious question.  Is the world about to turn?  Or maybe the more important question is this:  How are we going to help the world turn? What are we going to do to create the world of which Mary sings?  How will we address our own leaders who are addicted to power?  How will we help to transform unjust and exploitative systems?  How will we lift up the lowly and fill the hungry with good things?

In truth, some of us have been working at these tasks for decades.  Some of you have probably already written a letter to your representative while we’ve been sitting here.

Even for those of us who’ve been working for justice for a long time, those of us who, when we hear the Magnificat always whisper to Mary, “You go, girl!”  Even for us who get it, I still think Mary has something to say to us…perhaps especially in our current context.

When Mary arrives at her cousin Elizabeth’s house and announces her news, the older also-pregnant woman says:  “As soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy.  Blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by God.”  That might be the most radical, the most miraculous part of this story:  Mary was able to do her part in turning the world because she believed it could turn.  She believed the world could turn.

Do you believe the world can turn?  It’s hard…when you work and work and work for justice and strides made from that work keep evaporating.  That might be the hardest part of justice work—believing it can make a difference.

And yet that is what Mary calls us to—Mary calls us to believe that the world of which God dreams is possible.  One of the women in Solentiname said it this way:  “Mary recognizes liberation…We have to do the same thing.  Liberation is from sin, that is, from selfishness, from injustice, from misery, from ignorance–from everything that’s oppressive.  That liberation is in our wombs too.”   That liberation is in our wombs, too.

We focus a lot this time of year on what—on who—will emerge from Mary’s womb.  Maybe we should focus instead on what is emerging from our own.  To what are we giving birth?  What liberation will come because of us?  What revolutions will start because of us?

What I’m asking, Church, is, How will we help the world to turn?

In the name of our God, who creates us, redeems us, sustains us, and hopes for our wholeness.  Amen.

Kimberleigh Buchanan  ©2018

In every church I’ve served, the big Christmas music program has happened on the third Sunday of Advent–Joy Sunday.  The scheduling has been more logistical than liturgical.  The third Sunday in Advent gives you the maximum number of rehearsals before everybody leaves town for the holidays.

But it makes sense, doesn’t it?  What better way to express our joy than through music?  Singing, music…takes us out of ourselves to a happier place, a deeper place, a place where we feel more whole.  And when we sing with other people?  Few things help us feel more connected with others than singing with them.

The country of Estonia lies between Siberia and the Baltic Sea.  Because of its prime location, the small country has a long history of being occupied by other countries.  After decades of brutal occupation by the Soviets, Estonia declared independence in 1988.

During decades of occupation, the Estonians had one source of resistance that empowered them more than any other—communal song.  As a contemporary Estonian says, “We have no more weapons than singing.  Being together, singing together–this was our power.”

Since 1869, every 5 years, on the outskirts of Tallinn, tens of thousands of people gather for a singing festival.  A choir of 20,000 people sings songs of Estonia–in four part harmony, led by one conductor.  Somehow, that choir of 20,000 stays together.  And the sound?  It’s difficult to describe how beautiful it is.

The singing festivals continued during the Soviet occupation, but instead of Estonian music, the choirs were forced to sing songs of Soviet propaganda.  In Russian.

At the 1947 festival, one song got past the Soviet censors.  “Land of My Fathers, Land that I Love,” a song composed by Gustav Ernesaks based on a century-old poem by Lydia Koidula.  After two days of singing Russian propaganda, tens of thousands of Estonians sang of their love for their country in their native language.  In that moment, “Land of My Fathers” became the unofficial national anthem for the country.

In 1969–the 100th anniversary of the Singing Festival–the people gathered again to sing. At the end of the festival of solely Russian propaganda songs, the choirs refused to leave the stage.  As one, the people shouted out, “Land of My Fathers, Land that I Love!”  At last, the people began singing.  The officials told the brass bands to drown out the singing, but it didn’t work.  The people continued singing–without a conductor.  Of the experience, one person observed, “20,000 people start to sing, even without a conductor, you cannot shut them up.  It’s impossible.”  The Soviets were forced to let the composer take the stage and conduct the song.

Of her country’s passion for singing, one woman says:  “This singing tradition goes from heart to heart, from family to family, from mother to daughter.  You can’t describe it.  They want to sing…and they sing.  And we are very happy for it.”

For Estonians, song has been their power.  And throughout their history, the joy singing has brought them has been their resistance.

Has today’s music brought you joy?  Have singing and ringing and listening stirred something deep within you?  Has it empowered you?

Are there things in this world that are calling us to resist?  How might we resist with joy?  How might we resist with song?

I leave you with this important reminder of the power of song from Nadia Bolz-Weber:

“Singing in the midst of evil is what it means to be disciples. Like Mary Magdalene, the reason we stand and weep and listen for Jesus is because we, like Mary, are bearers of resurrection, we are made new. On the third day, Jesus rose again, and we do not need to be afraid. To sing to God amidst sorrow is to defiantly proclaim…that death is not the final word. To defiantly say, once again, that a light shines in the darkness and the darkness cannot, will not, shall not overcome it. And so, evil be damned, because even as we go to the grave, we still make our song alleluia.  Alleluia. Alleluia.”

Rejoice!  Rejoice!  Emmanuel shall come to you, O Israel!

In the name of our God, who creates us, redeems us, sustains us, and hopes for our wholeness.  Amen.

Kimberleigh Buchanan  © 2018

Today we hear Jesus’ last words to the crowds before his death.  It’s a familiar passage.  In the context of a parable, the righteous are invited into paradise because, the fictional king says, “I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, ³⁶I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.”   Likewise, the unrighteous are cast into hell because they did not feed, water, welcome, clothe, care for or visit the king.

(I know.  That “eternal fire” language makes us uncomfortable.  Just remember that this is a story and not a factual report.  Hear the words in the context of the story.)

This passage often is held up as a to-do list.  Want to get on God’s good side?  Want to help establish God’s kin-dom here on earth?  Here’s your check list.  Get cracking!

As spiritual checklists go, it’s a good one.  It’s a whole lot better than:  Stop dancing, drinking, and cussing, right?  And it’s obvious the king in the story more highly values the actions of the sheep than the goats.

But here’s the thing.  While the righteous do good things and are rewarded for doing them, in this parable, they are just as clueless as the unrighteous.  “When did we feed, water, welcome, clothe, care for, or visit you?” they ask.  “Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these, you did it to me.”  Except for the insertion of one “not,” the unrighteous ask Jesus the same question:  “When did we NOT feed, water, welcome, clothe, care for, or visit you?”  Jesus’ response also is similar:  “Truly I tell you, just as you did NOT do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.”  See?  Righteous, unrighteous—in this parable, everybody’s clueless.

Don’t you think if Jesus were trying to pat the righteous on the back for doing good, they’d know why they’re doing it?  Don’t you think they’d have a clue that feeding the hungry and all the rest is the best way of meeting God?

But they don’t know.  They’re doing all the right things…they’ll even receive a reward for the good they’re doing… but they don’t know why doing good is good.  They’re engaging in THE activities that, more than anything else, will draw them closer to God, but they’re missing the point!  They’re caring for the least of these, but they’re missing God.

Yes, of course, it’s important to act the least of these into well-being; that’s a key part of establishing God’s kin-dom here on earth…but it’s not the only part.  The goal of everything—of everything Jesus taught, of all the prophets said, of every hope God has for every living thing—the goal of it all is for us to throw ourselves into God’s outstretched arms, to rest in God’s presence, to take God’s love into the deepest parts of ourselves, and to let it make us whole.

Remember, these are the last words Jesus speaks to the crowds before the events that lead to his death.  This is his last lecture, the one where he says what he most wants his students to remember.  And the one thing he wants to say is this:  the goal of it all is to meet God, to experience in your deepest self the reality of God’s love.  Doing good is great…but knowing why you’re doing it?  Understanding that serving the least of these is the best way to draw close to God?  That’s what I’ve been trying to teach you, Jesus says.  If you get that, you’ll have everything you need to keep going after I’m gone.  If you get that, you’ll have everything you need to establish God’s kin-dom here on earth.

All this sounds good—do good, act the least of these into well-being, and meet God in those actions….it sounds good, but it’s not always easy to do, is it?  Sometimes, it takes work—sometimes a lot of work–to get clued in to why doing good is good.

You’ve probably heard the story of first grader Ruby Bridges.  In 1960, Ruby integrated the Frantz School in New Orleans.  She was the first African American child to attend the all-white school.  Outraged, white parents kept their children out of school for months.  Each day, they protested outside the school, spewing venom at the 6 year old as she climbed the steps–surrounded by guards–to work with her teacher.

Awed by her resilience, psychologist Robert Coles interviewed Ruby several times.  In one of those conversations, he asked Ruby about the time she stopped and addressed the crowd before she entered the school.  “What did you say to them?” Coles asked.  “I was praying for them,” Ruby said.  “Praying for them?” he asked, incredulous.  Ruby looked at him and said, “Well don’t you think they need praying for?”

The story of how Ruby integrated the Frantz School is well-known.  Less well-known is the story of what got the white students to return to the school.

The boycott was broken when a woman who once had spewed as much venom at Ruby as anyone else, brought her children to school one day.  When Mrs. Conner and her children showed up that first morning, the crowds turned their venom from Ruby to them.  “Her children were so loudly threatened and insulted that Mrs. Conner began going from home to home in her white neighborhood, pleading with parents to stop the protests and return their children to the Frantz School.  She became a community organizer.  Perhaps more than anyone else in the city of New Orleans, except for the federal judge who’d ordered the desegregation in the first place, she was responsible for the actual school desegregation.”

Coles got to know the Conners.  One evening at a party, he asked Mrs. Conner what had happened that morning when she sent the boys back to school.  “Oh.  I don’t want to talk about that,” she said.  After Coles pressed her, she finally told him the story of that fateful morning and her motivation for sending her children back to school.

“I never intended to send them,” she said.  But “I woke up one morning at 6:00, a little earlier than usual, because I heard something break in the living room.  So I got out of bed and found that my two oldest children–8 and 9 year old boys– were squabbling and had knocked over a lamp, a lamp I had just bought.  I was furious!  I shouted at them to go back to bed.  I cleaned up the mess and went back to bed myself.

“Ten minutes later they were up again, now fighting in the bathroom.  In the midst of the fighting, one boy dropped a glass that shattered on the floor.  Now I had to go in there and clean that up.  This time I screamed at them to go sit at the kitchen table.

“As I started preparing breakfast for everyone, the two boys started in with the drone of ‘You’re this’ and ‘You’re that.’  One of the boys punched the other.  While moving his hand away it somehow got into his eye so the boy’s eye got teary and he claimed he couldn’t see.  I was making French toast.  I left the stove to attend to the boy with the hurt eye.  I determined it was all right and went back to cooking.  They immediately started squabbling again, whereupon I picked up the frying pan, slammed it down on the stove, turned to the boys, and said, ‘That’s it!  I know what I’m going to do with you two.  You are going back to school!”

Sometimes it’s the small, seemingly inconsequential moments that can change the world.  The morning Mrs. Conner took her sons back to school was just such a moment.  Though it was hard and scary for a while, “eventually other families followed the lead set by Mrs. Conner and began to initiate a shift of behavior on the part of many whites in New Orleans.  By returning to the Frantz School and by talking to others about their experiences and those of their children, they helped others start to think about themselves—what they thought, what they wanted out of life,” what they thought about a little girl and how they’d been treating her.  “Indeed, now they could identify with Ruby, because their own children were going through what she had gone through.”  (Robert Coles, Handing One Another Along, 131-134)

Though Mrs. Conner did a good—and brave—thing by taking her children back to school, initially she didn’t have a clue why she was doing it.  “When did we feed the hungry?  When did we integrate the schools?”  But as she lived into the new reality she’d set in motion, the full impact of what she was doing sank in.  That’s how it goes for us, too, sometimes.  Sometimes we do good things and—only in the doing of them—do we discover the reason why the thing we are doing is good.

Today is the last day of the church year.  It’s the “The End” to the Christian story.  We’ll begin the telling all over again next week when we start Advent.  But before we say “The End,” we, too, have one more lesson to learn, the same one Jesus taught in his last lesson:  serve the least of these—feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, clothe the naked, visit the imprisoned.  And in your serving, prepare to meet God…because that is where God chooses to dwell:  with the least of these.

by Fritz Eichenberg

In the name of our God, who creates us, redeems us, sustains us, and hopes for our wholeness.  Amen.

Kimberleigh Buchanan  ©  2014

A woman is barren, prays for a child, then—at last!– conceives.  In response, she offers a beautiful song of thanksgiving to God.  A great story!  Hope-filled!  Miraculous!  Inspiring! Annoying.

Don’t get me wrong.  I’m happy for Hannah.  She really wanted a baby.  And she prayed until she got one.  Hannah has a lot to teach us about faith in God….and about offering thanks for answered prayer.

But what about the rest of us?  …those who pray for children and never get them…those who pray for jobs that never materialize….those who pray for healing but seem to end up attending funerals anyway?  What does Hannah’s story say to those of us whose prayers have not been answered or have been answered with a firm no?  Hannah sang her song of thanksgiving because her prayer had been answered.  How do you offer thanks when your prayers aren’t answered?  How do you give thanks when it’s the last thing on earth you feel like doing?

In December of 2007, John Kralik found himself in a pretty thankless place.  His law firm was losing money and its lease, and was being sued; John was going through an acrimonious divorce and was in danger of losing custody of his young daughter; his adult sons were growing distant; he was completely out of money; he was living in a tiny, stuffy apartment with little furniture; and the woman he’d been seeing had broken up with him.

The morning after his girlfriend broke up with him, John’s friend, Bob, met him for breakfast at a chain restaurant whose inexpensive prices were still too pricey for John.  Of that morning, John writes:  “The man Bob saw across the chipped Formica table was 52 years old, forty pounds overweight, pasty, and tired, with a terrified sadness in his eyes.  After 28 years of work as a lawyer, I had little more to show than I’d had when I started—and the little I did have was in jeopardy.”  (K 86)

New Year’s Day 2008, John traveled to an area outside of Pasadena for a hike he originally had planned to take with his girlfriend.  As often happens when we get away from everything and out into nature, John gained some clarity about his life—pretty much, he saw just how far into the toilet it was.  His inner voice intoned a painful mantra:  “Loser, loser, loser.”

After he’d been walking a while, slipping even more deeply into hopelessness, John heard another voice.  It said:  “Until you learn to be grateful for the things you have, you will not receive the things you want.”  John couldn’t explain the voice or the words it said… (K 208) ….but the words stayed with him….

…and led him to a memory of his beloved grandfather.  When John was a boy, his grandfather had given him a silver dollar.  “He promised that if (John) wrote him a letter thanking him for this silver dollar, he would send another one.”  John wrote the thank you letter and received another silver dollar.  He never got around to writing the second thank you letter… and thus received no more silver dollars from his grandfather.

As he hiked back to his car that New Year’s Day, John’s thoughts strayed to mundane offices matters—like all the envelopes he’d just bought for his law firm that were now useless because they contained  the address of the office from which the firm had just been evicted.

As his thoughts about the invitation to be thankful, his grandfather’s silver dollar lesson, and the unusable envelopes coalesced, John formulated a plan:  He would “try to find one person to thank each day of the year.”  In that way, he would practice gratitude and use up all those envelopes.  “If my grandfather was right,” John writes, “I would have a lot more of what I was thankful for by the end of the year.  If the voice was right, I would begin to get the things that I wanted.  And if not, well, I had little more to lose.”  (K245)

John’s book, 365 Thank Yous:  The Year a Simple Act of Daily Gratitude Changed My Life, recounts his year of writing thank you notes.  He begins with a thank you note to one of his sons for a Christmas gift.  He thanks clients who pay their bills on time.  He even thanks his ex-wife once.  One day, uncertain of who to thank, he writes a note to the barista at Starbucks.

This might sound hokey, but the discipline of practicing gratitude really does change John’s life for the better.  He reunites with his girlfriend; he works through the divorce settlement with his wife amicably; his business gets back on its feet; he gets healthier.

In January 2009, he asks his friend Bob—the one who’d paid for breakfast a year before– if he had noticed any differences in John after 365 thank you notes.  ‘A lot,’ Bob said.  ‘You are a different and much better person.”  (K 2186)

Could expressing gratitude really make that big a difference?  Could the simple act of thanking others really change your life for the better?  Thirteenth century Christian mystic, Meister Eckhart, once said:  “If the only prayer you ever say in your whole life is “thank you,” that would suffice.”  Would it really?  Could it possibly?

Let’s try something.  Take a minute, get comfortable where you are…and reflect on your life.  Is anything stressing you out?  Is something not going well?  What is the one thing you pray for over and over?  Or maybe it’s the one thing you’ve stopped praying for because you’ve given up hope that you’ll ever receive it.

Now, even as you keep this stressful, hopeless-seeming thing in front of you, think about the things you can give thanks for—I’ll suggest a few; they might or might not apply to you:  home, family, church family, health….For what are you thankful this morning?  It can be as simple as having running water or a functioning car or an eggshell that cracked the right way this morning….anything….just find something for which you can offer thanks…

Now, in the quiet of your heart, say thank you.  You can say it to God if you want.  Or if you’re angry with God or aren’t sure God’s around or exists or cares, say it to the universe or to yourself, or your hymnal, or the chair, or the air…just say the words, “Thank you.”

I doubt any of us have been miraculously changed in the last two minutes.  Feeling grateful when life is difficult takes time.  John Kralik’s story demonstrates just how hard and slow the process can be.  But maybe, just maybe, what we’ve done this morning can be a start.  As John suggests:  It couldn’t hurt, right?

In the final stage of her life, my great Aunt Inez was well into dementia.  The last time I saw her, there was only one phrase left in her vocabulary:  Thank you.  Now, she didn’t mean to express gratitude every time she said the words “Thank you.”  You could tell more what she was really trying to say by interpreting her tone of voice.  “Thank you.  Thank you!  Thank you?”

Of all the phrases for her brain to latch on to as her life was winding down, of all the things she’d said in her 90+ years of living, I found it fascinating that those two words—“Thank you”–were the only ones left.  Even as she neared death, confined to bed, devoid of mental faculties, completely dependent on others for everything—still, the words her brain chose to be her last were “Thank you.”

Is life hard right now?  Is little going right?  Are you slipping into hopelessness?  If so, perhaps you might make Aunt Inez’s last words your first:  Thank you.  If all the other prayers are going unanswered, maybe you might try shifting to the one sufficient prayer suggested by Meister Eckhart:  Thank you.  Even if it’s the last thing on earth you feel like doing, maybe it would be helpful this morning to say Thank you.  It couldn’t hurt, right?

In the name of our God, who creates us, redeems us, sustains us, and hopes for our wholeness.  Amen.

Kimberleigh Buchanan  © 2018  [2012]

Before I started hanging out with the nuns, I had an idealistic understanding of community life.  BNE–Before the Nun Era–I believed community to be a place where everyone  is welcome and gets along with each other.  As one of my clergy colleagues said last week, “Isn’t church just supposed to be full of happy people?”  Our laughter rang loudly.  And long.

In my BNE idealism, I struggled to find a community that lived up to the everyone-gets-along-and-is-HAPPY-all-the-time ideal I imagined.  With each disappointment, I’d leave and begin a new search for the “perfect” community.

My perspective on what makes a strong community shifted when I started hanging out with the nuns.  Each religious order has a charism or focus.  When people commit to the community, they commit to the charism, too.  For Jesuits, for instance, it’s scholarship.

Along with hospitality, the main charism for Benedictines–the order to which “my” monastery belongs–is community.  So, not only is Our Lady of Grace a community, but as Benedictine sisters, the community also reflects intentionally on what it means to be a community.  And what I’ve learned–and witnessed–in the ten years I’ve been going to Our Lady of Grace, is this:  community is hard work.

A case in point.  Sr. Luke–one of only a handful of extroverts in the community–once said, “Living with introverts is hell!”  When I asked her what she meant, Luke said, “Oh.  I am so sorry.  I should not have said that.  I was out of line.”  “But you did say it,” I told her.  “I’m curious to know what’s difficult about living with introverts.”  As an introvert, I already was well-acquainted with the difficulties of living with extroverts. J  Luke’s response?  “With introverts, you never know what they’re thinking!”  To which I thought, “And you never don’t know what extroverts are thinking!”

Yeah.  Living in community is Really.  Hard.  Work.  But it’s so important…and so necessary.  “I am because we are,” right?

In addition to vows of poverty and chastity, Benedictines also take a vow of stability. When you take a vow of stability, you commit to stay with the community for the rest of your life.  When I first learned about the vow of stability, I found it constrictive.  Why chain yourself to a particular community for the rest of your life?  It seemed extreme.

But then I thought about it.  If you make a vow to stay in the community–especially when things get hard–then you also vow to work things through no matter what.  Without a vow of stability, it’s easy simply to move on to another community when things get tough.  But committing to stay?  When we commit to stay, we commit to doing the hard work of strengthening and deepening the community.

It’s like Nadia Bolz Weber said when she pastored a church, “It’s my practice to welcome new people to the church by making sure they know that House for All Sinners and Saints will, at some point, let them down.  That I will say or do something stupid and disappoint them.  And then I encourage them to decide before that happens if they will stick around after it happens.  If they leave, I tell them, they will miss the way that God’s grace comes in and fills in the cracks left behind by our brokenness.  And that’s too beautiful to miss.”

The image of the tree offered by the prophet Jeremiah is an apt illustration of the vow of stability.  Blessed are those who trust in God…They shall be like a tree planted by water, sending out its roots by the stream. It shall not fear when heat comes, and its leaves shall stay green; in the year of drought it is not anxious, and it does not cease to bear fruit.

Except in the case of small ones, trees don’t have the option of moving somewhere else when conditions get hard.  They have no choice but to stay where they are and deal with and adapt to whatever happens around them.  And, as we learned last week, for trees in a forest or a grove, staying where they are is important…because trees live in community, communicating with each other and caring for each other.

One way to think about stability is “putting down roots,” which is at the heart of the prophet’s image of the tree—putting down roots, roots that shoot out to the stream, the source of water, the source of life.  And a tree that has strong roots, roots that reach out to the source of life?  Then, when hard times come, “it shall not fear when heat comes…its leaves shall stay green…in the year of drought, it is not anxious…it does not cease to bear fruit.”

I’m reminded of what the professor said during my first class in seminary.  He said, “Don’t try to find a community in a moment of crisis.  Work on building your community now so they’ll already be there when crisis comes.”  When we commit to community, when we put down roots, when we stretch out to our life source, then we need not fear when heat comes, our leaves will stay green, when drought comes, we won’t be anxious, we won’t cease to bear fruit.”

Our community has experienced another transition this week…one in a long line of transitions over the past three years.  Transitions are hard.  They can feel de-stabilizing.

That said, transitions also can be times of tremendous growth for communities.  Transitioning from who we’ve been to who we’re becoming invites deep reflection.  Of course, that kind of reflecting can happen during stable times, but the urgency ratchets up during times of transition.

Today’s theme was set many weeks ago.  As we prayerfully consider our financial commitments for 2019, the last two weeks we’ve looked at our past and our present.  This week, we look to our future.  That’s why I asked Byron to offer today’s stewardship testimony.  If we want to ensure a strong future for our congregation, we need to listen to those who will inhabit that future.

Have you heard about the lawsuit filed by 21 young people over the US government’s climate change policies?  Juliana v. United States was first filed in 2015.  The government has requested several times that the case be dismissed.  On November 2, the Supreme Court ruled that the case can move forward.  It could go to trial as early as this month.

“The lawsuit claims the federal government encouraged the production of oil, gas and other fossil fuels, causing the planet to warm and infringing on several of the plaintiffs’ fundamental rights—rights to clean water and air, to the pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness. The lawsuit lists examples that the government knew the Earth was warming as early as 1965, and it requests a court order for the government to decrease carbon dioxide emissions as well as the creation of a national plan to “restore Earth’s energy balance” and “stabilize the climate system.”  https://www.npr.org/2018/11/03/663887560/young-activists-can-sue-government-over-climate-change-supreme-court-says

In response to the November 2 decision, Kelsey Juliana, the oldest plaintiff at 22 years old, said, “I want to trust that we are truly on track for trial without having further delays, but these defendants are treating this case…and the security of mine and future generations like it’s a game.  I’m tired of playing this game.”

The youngest plaintiff, Levi Drenheim who is 11, said, “I love the environment and I love to be outside.  When I realized there was such a thing called climate change, I realized that I need to do something about it.”

(Hat)  Do you remember this hat?  My first or second Sunday, I asked the children what they thought we could do to help our church.  They quickly decided that we need to wear hats.  The following Sunday, many of us wore hats.  It was a playful gesture, but one that symbolized our commitment to listening to the children and teenagers in our midst.

Then, on February 14^th, a 17 year old gunman entered the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, in Parkland, Florida, and opened fire.  Seventeen people were killed.  As we and the rest of the country grappled with how to respond to the shooting, this hat became a symbol of listening to the young people.

Tuesday’s election demonstrated what can happen when we do.  Younger voters—many of them first-time voters—made the difference in many elections across the country.  In Georgia’s 6^th congressional district, Lucy McBath, the mother of a teenager gunned down in Florida for playing his music too loudly, was elected on a platform of reducing gun violence.  The Parkland students have had to put up with a lot of abuse from some quarters, but they have led us as a country to reflect on who we are and on what kind of future we are creating.

In the coming days, weeks, and months as we navigate this latest transition here at FCUCC, as we reflect on who we are as a community, and as we discern where we are headed, we’ll do well to continue listening to our young people.  We’ll also do well to focus on our roots, to shoot them out to each other and to God.  If we do that, we’ll have no cause to fear when heat comes.  Our leaves will stay green.  When drought comes, we won’t be anxious.  And we will not cease to bear fruit.  Thanks be to God!

In the name of our God, who creates us, redeems us, sustains us, and hopes for our wholeness.  Amen.

Kimberleigh Buchanan  ©2018

Something I said a couple weeks ago might have puzzled you.  When Spence announced the sessions on church finances, I called the first class “fun.”  I also said finance committee meetings are among the most fun meetings I’ve attended since coming to FCUCC.  Our Treasurer Spence does run a good meeting, but that’s not what makes the meetings fun.

What’s fun about finance meetings?  All the theological dialogue, of course!  Thinking together about how to use our financial resources to share the good news of God’s love?  Discerning how to be good stewards of the resources we have?  In many respects, our church budget is one of the most deeply theological texts we have.  Nothing shows us so clearly what we value as a community.  Nothing demonstrates so well our commitment to our mission.

So, as a pastor, I find stewardship season each Fall…well, fun.  If you’re a guest with us today, please don’t let that last sentence scare you.  It’s not like we talk about money all the time.  But we do talk about it the couple of weeks leading up to our annual pledge drive… because it gives us the chance to reflect on our church’s mission, our own personal financial resources, and how we might pool our resources to fulfill our mission.

Want to know our mission?  Guests, sit back while our members recite together–from memory–our church’s mission statement.  Ready, church?   On second thought, we don’t want to be rude to our guests and exclude them. J Let’s just all read it together.  It’s on p.6 of your bulletin. Join me.

Our Mission:  We believe God calls us to:  *Embody a forward-thinking, courageous, and diverse Christian community.  *Follow the ways of Jesus the Christ as a grace-filled, spiritual congregation.  *Practice affirming and radical hospitality.  *Engage our local and global community with acts of love, mercy, peace, and justice.

What do you think?  Does the prospect of fulfilling that mission still energize you?  I hope so, because, as mission statements go, it rocks.  In fact, when I was discerning whether to come serve as your pastor, you pretty much had me at the mission statement.  Forward-thinking, courageous, diverse.  Following Jesus.  Grace-filled.  Spiritual.  Communal.  Practicing radical hospitality.  Engaging “our local and global communities with acts of love, mercy, peace, and justice.”  That is a great mission for a community of people trying to follow Jesus.  And this time of reflecting on our commitment to funding that mission?  Doesn’t that just sound fun?

The Bible talks a lot about money.  “Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s and unto God what is God’s.”  “God loves a cheerful giver.”  “Bring the full tithe into the storehouse.”

On the face of it, today’s text isn’t a traditional stewardship text.  It’s an image the prophet Jeremiah uses to call the people back to faithfulness to God….the image of a tree.

Trees and stewardship?  Well, there’s the money tree.  That might work.  Or the refrain of some church treasurers:  “Money doesn’t grow on trees!”  J  Let’s delve a little deeper into this metaphor of the tree and see what it might teach us about stewardship.

Recall the words of the prophet: “Blessed are those who trust in God…They shall be like a tree planted by water, sending out its roots by the stream.  It shall not fear when heat comes, its leaves shall stay green; in the year of drought it is not anxious, it does not cease to bear fruit.”

Painting by Lynn Dingle

If you’ve ever been to the Middle East, you’ll know what a radical image this vibrant tree is.  In most places in the Middle East, vegetation isn’t plentiful…and the vegetation that is in place either clings to Earth or is heavily irrigated.  To liken faith to a tree, sending its roots out to water—the source of life—would have been saying something to Middle Eastern listeners.

I’ve been reading up on trees.  Did you know that trees communicate with each other through their root systems?  If an insect attacks a tree in one part of a forest, it sends electric impulses through the root system to all the other trees so those trees can protect themselves. So, not only do trees send their roots toward water; they send them toward each other.

Allen and I were out at Diane Scott’s recently.  When Diane and Vic bought their house, their property backed up to 15 acres of trees. In the last 3 years, those acres have been developed.

A buffer of trees between the Scotts’ house and the new development was left…but in quick succession, three of those remaining trees fell onto the house.  Most of the buffer had to be removed.  Without the other trees, the trees that were left weren’t as strong.

One lesson from the image of the tree for stewardship is the recognition that no tree stands alone, especially trees in community (forests).  It’s not just that the roots of trees intertwine; it’s that they communicate with each other, care for each other, protect each other.

As we imagine together how we here at FCUCC might live into a vibrant future, I’d like to introduce you to the largest living organism on the planet—Pando.   Pando, who is thousands of years old and weighs 13-million pounds, resides on 106 acres in Fishlake National Forest in Richfield, Utah.  “Pando is a forest of one: a grove of 47,000 quivering aspen trees — Populus tremuloides — connected by a single root system, and all with the same DNA.”

In an article about Pando, JoAnna Klein notes that “Pando is constantly reproducing, which is essential to its resilience. Lacking genetic diversity, it relies on having trees of different sizes and ages. That way, if one layer or generation dies off, there’s another waiting to replace it.

“But,” Klein notes, “Pando’s critical demographics are out of balance.  A recent survey of the forest found that older trees were dying, as expected, but that, on the whole, young ones weren’t replacing them. ‘If this were a community of humans,’ one surveyor said, ‘it would be as if a whole town of 47,000 had only 85-year-olds in it.  Where is the next generation?”

Did a shiver just go up your spine?  Where is the church universal’s next generation?  Where is our church’s next generation?  We’ve got a terrific start with the children here this morning…but are the children here today enough to sustain our community into the future?  What can we do to ensure that the work and faithfulness of our members in the past and present bears fruit in the future?

In so many instances of ecological decline these days, the story we hear is grim.  There’s little hope in turning things around.  Happily, in the case of Pando, there is hope.

Pando’s decline can be attributed to two factors—the foraging of mule deer and cattle and poor human management.  The good news is that as scientists discover what’s contributing to Pando’s demise, they’re able to shift their management practices and help Pando thrive again.

What shifts might we need to make to contribute to our community’s thriving?  The church (universal) has been on cruise control for decades.  We no longer have the luxury of doing church without thinking about what we’re doing.  We have to think about it now.  Our survival—and especially our thriving—depends on it.

As our collective hearts continue to reel from last week’s shooting at the Tree of Life Synagogue, two ideas from the 1^st century BCE rabbi Hillel keep coming to mind.  The first is tikkun olam, literally, repair of the world.  Sometimes, Hillel said, compassionate action in the world is more important than following the letter of religious law.  Doing things as they’ve always been done, becoming entrenched in rigid interpretations of what it means to be religious– far from healing the world, those things only work to destroy it.  In this idea of tikkun olam, Hillel was inviting the faithful to a radical engagement of moral and religious imagination.  The fundamental question for Hillel was, How much more might we contribute to healing the world if compassion—rather than tradition or religious law—becomes our primary guide?

If tikkun olam is the mission statement, another quote from Hillel suggests a means of fulfilling the mission:  “If I am not for myself, then who will be for me? And if I am only for myself, then what am I? And if not now, tell me when?”

How do we repair the world?  How do we remain a vibrant community into the future?  If we follow Hillel, we’ll be for ourselves, that is, we’ll have a strong sense of our own gifts and power as individuals.  Then we’ll understand that none of us can repair the world by ourselves; that is a task for community.  I am because we are.  Just as Pando’s survival depends on all 47,000 trees working together, so does our survival depend on our 180+ members working together.  Each of us is because the rest of us are.  And figuring out how thrive into the future isn’t something to put off for the future.  Planning for the future is our task right now.

The best example I can think of right now for living the life of faith like Pando, like a tree planted, stretching out its roots toward water—and to other trees—is the two groups of Muslims who “teamed up to create a crowdfunding page that has been raising money for the victims and families of the shooting at Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh last week.”  As of two days ago, they’d surpassed their initial goal of $25,000 ten-fold.  The campaign page reads in part:  “The Muslim-American community extends its hands to help the shooting victims, whether it is the injured victims or the Jewish families who have lost loved ones.  We wish to respond to evil with good, as our faith instructs us, and send a powerful message of compassion through action.”  https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/muslims-raise-250000-for-pittsburgh-synagogue/

In these fraught days of divisiveness and incivility, the world needs faith communities “sending a powerful message of compassion through action.”  That is our calling.  That is our mission.  And if we use everything within our power, everything within our means to fulfill that mission…won’t that just be fun?

In the name of our God, who creates us, redeems us, sustains us, and hopes for our wholeness. Amen.

Kimberleigh Buchanan  © 2018