Scripture - Philippians 2:1-11; Mark 6:7-13, 30-31
Mark 6:7-13, 30-31 7 He called the twelve and began to send them out two by two, and gave them authority over the unclean spirits. 8 He ordered them to take nothing for their journey except a staff; no bread, no bag, no money in their belts; 9 but to wear sandals and not to put on two tunics. 10 He said to them, “Wherever you enter a house, stay there until you leave the place. 11 If any place will not welcome you and they refuse to hear you, as you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet as a testimony against them.” 12 So they went out and proclaimed that all should repent. 13 They cast out many demons, and anointed with oil many who were sick and cured them. 30 The apostles gathered around Jesus, and told him all that they had done and taught. 31 He said to them, “Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while.” Philippians 2:1-11 2 If then there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy, 2 make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. 3 Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility regard others as better than yourselves. 4 Let each of you look not to your own interests, but to the interests of others. 5 Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, 7 but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, 8 he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death-- even death on a cross. 9 Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Stewardship Moment Sermon This is the second week of our Stewardship Campaign - A Future with Hope. Last week we explored what the word Stewardship means - and how we as participants in God’s economy both give and receive - much like breathing, like the very name of God YHWH - what we give out into the world is received as blessing and abundance, just as that blessing and abundance returns to us. We talked about how all that we have and all that we are has its source and origin in God, and stewardship is the management of the resources God has placed at our disposal, and the question sometimes isn’t so much about how much we give to God - because it’s all God’s - but how much do we keep for ourselves? And we’re having this conversation in the context of one of the most tumultuous periods in human history - where the pandemic continues to impact the lives of millions around the globe, even as we’ve moved out of the challenging period where we were physically separated from one another...and where we face a crisis of catastrophic proportions that affects every human living on this planet, and that is climate devastation. In the Stewardship letter the church sent out almost two weeks ago, we referenced the rhythm of exile and return - of separation and dispersing and reunion and gathering. We’ll explore that rhythm more deeply next week during Giving Sunday and how hope is the thread that weaves it all together. But this morning I want to explore two passages that evoke this rhythm of exile and return, but include a very important third component that is essential to the nature of the church and is essential in how we understand ourselves as disciples and how we understand the ways we participate in the ministries of this church. Have you ever been sent out on assignment? Perhaps you’ve worked a job where this was a normal part of a company’s practice - I remember my first job was as a teller for People’s Heritage Bank, and I was mostly stationed at the branch on Forest Ave by the Burger King and Oakhurst Dairy. But from time to time, I was sent out to fill in at the branch further down Forest, or the branch on Congress, depending on who was out sick or what the needs were for the day. It was a job that I could do wherever they sent me, even if the customers were different or the branch was different. I had the skills and was equipped for the work that needed to be done. Or those who have done mission work can also connect with the idea of being “sent” - and I know that there have been many from this congregation and this island who have been sent to Guatemala from this church to work alongside others providing medical care to the vulnerable populations living in the mountains. In the church, we understand that part of the life of faith isn’t just for our own personal growth and well-being. We’re also a sent people - the word in the church is “commissioned” - we are a people commissioned for ministry; we move out into the world, sent by God, to be a people of hope and healing. It makes me think of that line from Blues Brothers, where Dan Akryod’s character famously says, “We’re on a mission from God.” As Christians, that’s true wherever we are. To help us think about this some more, and to connect it back with the language of exile and return that is framing our Stewardship season, I’m going to start with our Philippians passage, with what some scholars believe is one of the earliest hymns to Christ. Paul, the author of this letter, refers to God’s self-emptying love and the choice to be incarnated - born, embodied - as a human being. The word in verse 7 that gets translated as “emptying” is “kenosis” - and it’s a word that comes with it the image of pouring out. In essence, this is a story of exile - a self-exile that God experienced in the person and body of Jesus. Jesus, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, 7 but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, 8 he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death-- even death on a cross. Jesus, though divine, denied the privilege that his divinity gave him - saving himself from the cross, healing only the rich and powerful, using his Godhood to curry favor with the empire - Jesus did none of that. God in Jesus became human - exiled from the fullness of divine power - for the sake of radical solidarity and love of humankind. God entered into the reality of human experience in an entirely new way, for the sake of relationship and love. This exile was for the purpose of reconciling all of humanity - all of creation - into God’s own being - a path that let to resurrection and exaltation - a reunion with God not just for Jesus, but for each and every one of us. The Incarnation - the self-emptying love of God in Jesus Christ - brought us into a new unity and experience of life with God. The semantics get a little strange if you think about the Trinity and God sending a part of God’s own self into the world in Jesus and yet Jesus still being fully God and fully human, but the important part for our reflection this morning is while we can understand this on the one hand as a kind of exile that Jesus undertook for our sake, we can also understand it as God’s sending forth - God going out into the universe as a human to demonstrate the extent of divine love and desire for connection with us as part of God’s created world. God is a sending God - even so far as sending Jesus into the world - to bring -- and to be -- hope and healing for all humanity. Our Mark passage points more directly at this notion as Jesus commissions the twelve disciples to do the work of proclaiming the kingdom, inviting people to repentance, and healing others. He gives instructions as to what they are to do, what they are to take with them -- even what to do if a village isn’t receptive to them or to the message they have. He gathers them together, sends them out, and then they come back around him to share their experience, to talk about what they did - and to take a rest from their labors before heading back out into the world. Jesus sends his disciples out - separating them from him - for a purpose - and then there’s reunion and rest before the work continues. I think Sunday worship functions similarly -- it’s the time when the disparate community comes together after having lived out in the mission field for a week - it’s the time when we remember who we are as God’s people...and whose we are -- a time to remember our grounding in God, the source that gives us life, energy, hope, that gives our life together purpose. All that we do is at God’s direction -- on the one hand, it is for us ...but it’s for us so that we can be a sent people, being a people of hope and healing wherever we find ourselves - at home, in our corner of the island, at our jobs, on the ferry or in the grocery store, in our conversations with friends and family. It’s all-encompassing. It all ties in with our life of faith - all goes back to the fact that we are making choices how to allocate the time, energy, resources, funds that God places before us. If we understand ourselves as a sent people - a people on a mission from God to be hope and light in the dark places, to be present to those who are suffering and in pain, to be witnesses of a love greater than we can fathom - we learn how to live more fully by God’s invitation, to align ourselves more fully with God’s purposes, to see everything around us as part of what God has placed under our care. As a people commissioned for everyday ministry in the world - as people who are sent by God’s blessing - we grow in how we give of ourselves and what we have to this larger picture of God’s kingdom of hope and peace - not just here on this island, but wherever we are...and around the world. Next week is Giving Sunday - we’ll consecrate our pledge of financial gifts for 2022 together next week...and I want to invite you to spend some time in prayer around this. God of course wants us to be able to have a shelter, to eat, to use these resources to sustain ourselves and our households...and I want to acknowledge that there are lots of ways to give back to the church - but I’m going to challenge you this week to think about being a person sent by the church on God’s mission of hope and healing. And to consider if that changes the way you spend your money this week. Are you using the money that you are responsible for in a way that builds up God’s purposes in the world? What would you change about the way you related to your finances if you could bring them into greater alignment with how God might want you to manage them? Are you sending your money out into the world - through this church or in other ways - to bless others? Where may God be inviting you to grow as you step out in faith to make a commitment to the work of this Community Church - this church that we worked so hard to bring about? God loved humankind so much that God sent God’s own self to come experience life as one of us to bring hope and healing and wholeness to all of us. Jesus sent his disciples out to proclaim this message of grace and new life in the abundance of God’s love. As we leave this place as a sent people, may we go forth knowing that we live as God’s people, whether we are gathered here in this place for worship, whether we are separate from each other during the week - and that we live as witnesses to God’s great love in all that we do, and may we return again together having been blessed by the richness of God’s abundance of grace and love. May we do this all so that we can grow with generous hearts in our living and in our giving of ourselves to Christ’s work in the world - for the sake of this island and for our world. Amen.
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Scripture - Deuteronomy 6:1-9
Deuteronomy 6:1-9, The Message 6 1-2 This is the commandment, the rules and regulations, that God, your God, commanded me to teach you to live out in the land you’re about to cross into to possess. This is so that you’ll live in deep reverence before God lifelong, observing all his rules and regulations that I’m commanding you, you and your children and your grandchildren, living good long lives. 3 Listen obediently, Israel. Do what you’re told so that you’ll have a good life, a life of abundance and bounty, just as God promised, in a land abounding in milk and honey. 4 Attention, Israel! God, our God! God the one and only! 5 Love God, your God, with your whole heart: love him with all that’s in you, love him with all you’ve got! 6-9 Write these commandments that I’ve given you today on your hearts. Get them inside of you and then get them inside your children. Talk about them wherever you are, sitting at home or walking in the street; talk about them from the time you get up in the morning to when you fall into bed at night. Tie them on your hands and foreheads as a reminder; inscribe them on the doorposts of your homes and on your city gates. Stewardship Moment Sermon We’re in the beginning of our stewardship season here at the Chebeague Community Church - like many congregations do during this time of year. We set aside a few weeks at the end of the year to pause and give thanks for God’s faithfulness, to consider what God might be inviting us or challenging us to give to the church in the coming year, and to celebrate generosity. Many churches do it at this time of year because it lines up with the fiscal calendar, and receiving pledges or estimates of giving for 2022 helps with making budgetary decisions. It connects up with the themes of gratitude and thanksgiving - which are on everyone’s minds as so many people make gratitude an intentional practice for each day in November and as we celebrate Thanksgiving Day here in the United States. But why do churches and congregations call it “Stewardship?” Why not call it a pledge campaign? Or a future giving campaign? If you look the word stewardship up in the dictionary - I used Webster’s - you’ll find this definition: stewardship is the “conducting, supervising, or managing of something, especially : the careful and responsible management of something entrusted to one's care.” In a Stewardship campaign in a church, we’re taking the time to consider how we as people of faith, manage resources. Money, to be sure, but also time and energy and talents. But the key thing to remember in the word stewardship is not just the word “manage” - but the ownership of the things we are managing. To whom do our resources ultimately belong? As part of a life of faith, we understand that all of who we are, all that we are giving, everything that makes us has its source and beginning in God. Our money? Not really ours, but God’s. Time and energy? God’s. Talents? God’s. We have been entrusted with these things, to manage and supervise as God invites and directs. And so in this Stewardship season we do talk about money and resources and stuff so that we can come into a greater alignment with God’s purposes for us and for our relationship with the world around us, including the resources we have at our fingertips. We see this kind of relationship pointed to in our passage from this morning, a portion of the Hebrew Bible that begins with the “Shema” - a commandment that is translated into English as “hear”. The Shema is “4 Hear, O Israel: The Lord is our God, the Lord alone. 5 You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might.” or as we heard it this morning, “4 Attention, Israel! God, our God! God the one and only! 5 Love God, your God, with your whole heart: love him with all that’s in you, love him with all you’ve got!” The command stated that the people should inscribe these words on their hearts, put them on their doorposts, teach them to their children, talk about them all the time - first thing in the morning and last thing at bedtime, out in the streets, in the home, on your hands and foreheads - that this was the one most central thing - that they are to love God with all of who they are because this God made them who they are - this God who brought them out of Egypt, who fashioned them into a people, who was about to give them a Promised Land long hoped for and dreamed for - this God who was the source of their being and the grounding for everything, whose name YHWH - spelled in the Hebrew as Y H W H - is literally like the sound of breath. Normally the name Y H W H is not pronounced; over time, people have added vowels so we hear it as Yahweh or Jehovah - but Rabbi Arthur Waskow invites to experiment to pronounce the word YHWH as it is with no vowels - and what you get is the sound of breath moving out - the movement of air. Rabbi Waskow writes, “For me, YHWH as Breath of Life is not just a neat understanding of the four-letter Name, but a profound metaphor and theology of God. God as the Breath of Life, in-and-out breath, that which unites all life, that which is beyond us and within us. Words are physical breathing shaped by our intellectual consciousness into emotional communication...What we do when we pray or study Torah or share words of compassion is breathe our selves into the Breath of Life….Prayer is aimed at what unites each separate breath into a unity of breathing, a con-spiracy of life. The process by which what we breathe out the trees breathe in; what the trees breathe out we breathe in.” He goes on to share an interpretive translation, that says [read from commentary] What the Shema does for the Israelites - as well as the command to literally surround themselves with its words -- and what it invites for us today, is to consider that place that we have in the grand scheme of things, where we are part of God’s great economy in such a way as what we exhale becomes part of another beings inhale - that the crunch of leaves beneath our feet helps turn them into soil - that our every action ripples out into the world to be received by others - plant, animal, down to the smallest phytoplankton. God suffuses our being, suffuses creation - all that we have has its origin and source in God - and praise God that we are brought into that beautiful cycle of life and death and life again, and that out of that wonderful dance we can love the Lord of God with all our heart, our mind, our soul, our strength, with every fiber of our being down to the very mitochondria within our cells. Since we are God’s down to the very depths of our being...all that we have has its source in God...and we lift up our selves, our resources, our energies, our talents, our gifts for God’s use in the world. We love God with all of who we are and all that is at our disposal. That’s not just a personal or emotional or abstract or emotional love - something that we experience individually - but one that is embodied and collective. The Hebrew word that gets translated as soul is “nefesh” - breath...life-breath...throat...something that lives in the body - something that is the passage for nourishment and life...something that calls out and cries out...something that inhales and exhales. It’s a commandment that isn’t just about our own personal connection with the divine, but how that gets lived out in all of what we do - our thoughts, our emotions, our responses, our actions - the decisions we make about how to prioritize our lives, the consequences of how we interact with our neighbors, how we choose to move and carry ourselves in the world, and how we relate to our possessions, our gifts, our talents, our treasure. So the question as we think about stewardship isn’t just about how much we give to God. It’s not about reaching a benchmark and dusting our hands off because we’ve made it. It’s not about obligation or checking a box. Because it’s all God’s to begin with. The question is - how much do we keep for ourselves? We are part of God’s economy - one of abundance - that there is more than enough for every living creature - what one gives as unneeded waste becomes necessary sustenance for life for another. What gets decomposed one season is fertile ground for next year’s seed. What we receive in our wealth - not just money, but giftedness, worthiness, belovedness - we pass on in hope to bless and grow goodness, kindness, peace, justice, love -- God’s kindom -- all around us. We do so at God’s invitation -- in a reflection of the rhythm of creation all around us. I’ve been using resources from enfleshed lately to prepare our worship gatherings, and these words were from the Invitation to the Offering, and I find them to work well as the conclusion for this sermon: “Today we can be like the trees, we can be like the phytoplankton, we can be like the mushrooms on the forest floor: we can take what we have been given and offer abundance back to the community of living things….for in our interdependence, we have life.” As we enter this Stewardship Season let us remember that YHWH - the Breath of Life - gives us life...and that life flows through us and through all that we have to bless the world. Let us be attentive to the ways that we are invited to breathe in harmony with all of creation - to be stewards of all that God has charged us with - using them to be Christ’s body for this island and for the worth - through this congregation at the Holy Spirit’s leading. Amen. Scripture - Ruth 1:1-18; Mark 12:28-34
Ruth 1:1-18, New Revised Standard Version 1 In the days when the judges ruled, there was a famine in the land, and a certain man of Bethlehem in Judah went to live in the country of Moab, he and his wife and two sons. 2 The name of the man was Elimelech and the name of his wife Naomi, and the names of his two sons were Mahlon and Chilion; they were Ephrathites from Bethlehem in Judah. They went into the country of Moab and remained there. 3 But Elimelech, the husband of Naomi, died, and she was left with her two sons. 4 These took Moabite wives; the name of the one was Orpah and the name of the other Ruth. When they had lived there about ten years, 5 both Mahlon and Chilion also died, so that the woman was left without her two sons and her husband. 6 Then she started to return with her daughters-in-law from the country of Moab, for she had heard in the country of Moab that the Lord had considered his people and given them food. 7 So she set out from the place where she had been living, she and her two daughters-in-law, and they went on their way to go back to the land of Judah. 8 But Naomi said to her two daughters-in-law, “Go back each of you to your mother’s house. May the Lord deal kindly with you, as you have dealt with the dead and with me. 9 The Lord grant that you may find security, each of you in the house of your husband.” Then she kissed them, and they wept aloud. 10 They said to her, “No, we will return with you to your people.” 11 But Naomi said, “Turn back, my daughters, why will you go with me? Do I still have sons in my womb that they may become your husbands? 12 Turn back, my daughters, go your way, for I am too old to have a husband. Even if I thought there was hope for me, even if I should have a husband tonight and bear sons, 13 would you then wait until they were grown? Would you then refrain from marrying? No, my daughters, it has been far more bitter for me than for you, because the hand of the Lord has turned against me.” 14 Then they wept aloud again. Orpah kissed her mother-in-law, but Ruth clung to her. 15 So she said, “See, your sister-in-law has gone back to her people and to her gods; return after your sister-in-law.” 16 But Ruth said, “Do not press me to leave you or to turn back from following you! Where you go, I will go; where you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God my God. 17 Where you die, I will die-- there will I be buried. May the Lord do thus and so to me, and more as well, if even death parts me from you!” 18 When Naomi saw that she was determined to go with her, she said no more to her. Mark 12:28-34, New Revised Standard Version 28 One of the scribes came near and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, he asked him, “Which commandment is the first of all?” 29 Jesus answered, “The first is, ‘Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one; 30 you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ 31 The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” 32 Then the scribe said to him, “You are right, Teacher; you have truly said that ‘he is one, and besides him there is no other’; 33 and ‘to love him with all the heart, and with all the understanding, and with all the strength,’ and ‘to love one’s neighbor as oneself,’—this is much more important than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices.” 34 When Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, “You are not far from the kingdom of God.” After that no one dared to ask him any question. Sermon I love the pairing of these two passages together - and I think they work so well to talk about All Saint’s Day - and I think it’s neat that we’re talking about saints on Halloween, where kids - and maybe adults - get to dress up as somebody different. A lot of times we dress up as people or characters we admire or want to emulate. With kids it’s a chance to be a hero for a night - or something or somebody really special. There’s a magic about taking on a different persona, even if it’s just for an evening. When I was a kid, I didn’t really have any heroes. If you were to ask 10-year old me, “Melissa, who is your hero?” I’d shrug and have no idea what to tell you. I didn’t look up to any athletes -- which in retrospect might have been a good thing. I didn’t admire comic book characters or Disney princesses -- again, that might have been a good thing. The stories of famous men and women I might have found inspiring, but again, I wouldn’t have called any of them my heroes. Maybe it was because all those people were so distant and untouchable, and I didn’t connect their stories to my own life. As I’ve grown older, I’ve discovered that I do, in fact, have heroes, but they aren’t famous or athletic and they aren’t made up in some fantasy tale. My heroes are the people who have shown me what it means to live life well - grandmothers and grandfathers, parents, old church ladies and children, community organizers and farmers and authors and friends. Some of these heroes are no longer with us...many of them are. Many of these people I know well...and some of them I have never met. Each, however, has had an impact on my life - how I live out my faith or has given me a glimpse of the person that I want to become. Sometimes that relationship lasted over years, and sometimes it was only for a season. We in the church have a special word for these kind of heroes -- saints. Saints nowadays typically refer to those who have passed on before us, but in the early church -- every follower of Christ was considered a saint -- and if you read the New Testament, the letters are full of references to “the saints” - “the saints in Jerusalem” or “the saints living at Lydda” or as we find here in our reading from Ephesians - “The gifts he gave were...to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ.” The saints -- are the body of Christ. Every Christian is a saint...and every Christian is called to be a saint. And every one of us has people who has acted like a saint for us (Christian or not) at different times of our lives - whether that person was an author whose writing impacted you in a profound way and changed your perspective on something, whether that person was a community member you admired and wanted to emulate, whether that person was a family member who always took time for you, or whether that person was a dear friend who walked with you in a difficult season of your life. We talked about the story of Ruth earlier this summer, when we did our summer worship series on asking questions for transformative community - exploring the final question “where do we go from here?” We explored how committed Ruth was to her mother-in-law Naomi, so much so that she left her homeland, her people, her religion - everything - to be with her. What we don’t often realize, though, in this story is that Naomi has lost everything as well - her husband, her two sons - and while Ruth is young enough to reestablish herself, she chooses Naomi, and stays by her side - and is a reminder to Naomi that she is not alone, that she is worth companioning, that she is worthy even in a culture that would have deemed her worthless because of her circumstances. There’s a beauty in the relationship between these two women that is life-saving - for both of them. It is the very embodiment of what Jesus is talking about in the Mark passage - “love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.’ 31 The second is this, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.” The church is called to be this kind of community for people. To be a community of saints - not ultra perfect in our piety, not distant and shiny, but down-in-the-dirt, I-go-where-you-go, your-pain-is-my-pain, life-is-messy-and-beautiful kind of saints. The kind of community where when life and death is on the line - metaphorically and literally - we know who we can count on - we count on Christ as Christ shows up in each other in those moments of hardship, in those moments of joy and beauty, in those moments of tender grief, in those moments of fierce love. I love this quote from Alok Vaid-Menon, who is a gender non-conforming author and performance artist. They shared these words about the world they envision about how people can relate to one another: i want a world where friendship is appreciated as a form of romance. i want a world where when people ask if we are seeing anyone we can list the names of all our best friends and no one will bat an eyelid. i want monuments and holidays and certificates and ceremonies to commemorate friendship. i want a world that doesn’t require us to be in a sexual/romantic partnership to be seen as mature (let alone complete). i want a movement that fights for all forms of relationships, not just the sexual ones. i want thousands of songs and movies and poems about the intimacy between friends. i want a world where our worth isn’t linked to our desirability, our security to our monogamy, our family to our biology. To me, this is a beautiful vision of what the church can be - of what the saints can be - of who we can be together and how we can live out Jesus’s invitation to love God with all of who we are and to love our neighbor in the same way. To be that kind of community bound together - as we look for how Christ was embodied to us in the saints of the old - and in the saints of the not-so-old -- as we look for how Christ is embodied for us in the here and now -- and as we look for how Christ will be embodied for generations yet to come. (Spoiler alert...we get to do that - we’re the saints that our children will one day speak of). We’ll have an opportunity to name those saints in our Communion Liturgy later - but I invite us to take the time to bring to mind a person - or persons - who were saints to you. Perhaps they are from your childhood, or maybe a mentor later in life, or someone who you wish could be that voice of wisdom for you now...maybe someone who represented joy and perseverance or resilience and peace. Bring those folks to mind….and hold them in your heart as we light these candles of comfort and compassion. Note - I am grateful to Journey with Jesus and enfleshed for the lectionary resources upon which I drew heavily for this week's sermon!
Scripture - Job 42:1-6, 10-17 Job 42:1-6, 10-17 42Then Job answered the Lord: 2“I know that you can do all things, and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted. 3‘Who is this that hides counsel without knowledge?’ Therefore I have uttered what I did not understand, things too wonderful for me, which I did not know. 4‘Hear, and I will speak; I will question you, and you declare to me.’ 5I had heard of you by the hearing of the ear, but now my eye sees you; 6therefore I despise myself, and repent in dust and ashes.” Don’t read this: 7After the Lord had spoken these words to Job, the Lord said to Eliphaz the Temanite: “My wrath is kindled against you and against your two friends; for you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has. 8Now therefore take seven bulls and seven rams, and go to my servant Job, and offer up for yourselves a burnt offering; and my servant Job shall pray for you, for I will accept his prayer not to deal with you according to your folly; for you have not spoken of me what is right, as my servant Job has done.” 9So Eliphaz the Temanite and Bildad the Shuhite and Zophar the Naamathite went and did what the Lord had told them; and the Lord accepted Job’s prayer. 10And the Lord restored the fortunes of Job when he had prayed for his friends; and the Lord gave Job twice as much as he had before. 11Then there came to him all his brothers and sisters and all who had known him before, and they ate bread with him in his house; they showed him sympathy and comforted him for all the evil that the Lord had brought upon him; and each of them gave him a piece of money and a gold ring. 12The Lord blessed the latter days of Job more than his beginning; and he had fourteen thousand sheep, six thousand camels, a thousand yoke of oxen, and a thousand donkeys. 13He also had seven sons and three daughters. 14He named the first Jemimah, the second Keziah, and the third Keren-happuch. 15In all the land there were no women so beautiful as Job’s daughters; and their father gave them an inheritance along with their brothers. 16After this Job lived one hundred and forty years, and saw his children, and his children’s children, four generations. 17And Job died, old and full of days. Sermon So this is the part of Job I don’t like. I remember a class in seminary where we had to take a look at this passage and argue whether the ending was a good one or a problematic one. On the one hand, Job’s fortunes are restored, he goes on to have more children -it’s a happy ending. On the other hand, do new children ever replace the ones that were lost? Why does his restoration come after his acknowledgment of humility? Did God really think Job was going to forget his suffering? What do we do with it? Debie Thomas: “I think we’re meant to engage it, talk back to it, question it, lament it. As with the rest of the Bible, we’re invited to approach Job’s story honestly, trusting that God’s Word doesn’t need our pious shielding.” So let’s dive in. Last week we mentioned how a lot of times the book of Job is framed as a book that explores the question “why do bad things happen to good people?” It’s written like a fairytale; Job is not a real person here, but rather a hypothetical scenario meant to explore a principle - as Min. Candace Simpson puts it, “once upon a time there was a man whose story is going to reveal something about the human condition and our concept of God.”
But back to Job - one of the points that the author makes is that Job was a wealthy man. The author even goes so far as to enumerate some of that wealth in terms of livestock and land and servants. So when Job loses that wealth, it’s not like he was an administrative assistant or like a cashier at the grocery store who loses their job. He was more like a Wall Street executive who loses everything when the market crashes - and much like happened in the days following the stock market crash of 2008 when banks were deemed to big to fail and we watched as Wall Street was restored, Job here at the end regains everything again and more than what was lost. It raises uncomfortable questions, right? What happens for those who don’t have safety nets around them when their suffering hits? The unexpected diagnosis? The lost job? The unjust firing? The eviction? What happens if what others have lost don’t get “restored” in the way that is hoped or longed for? Or - what happens when there is such incredible social, political, spiritual even pressure to “get over” our suffering as quickly as possible and get back to “normal” living. I was listening on Friday afternoon and NPR's Sarah McCammon talked with Patricia Oliver on All Things Considered. Patricia Oliver is the mother of Joaquin Oliver, a 17 year old who was killed in a shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla in 2018. The gunman pled guilty this past Wednesday. During the interview, Patricia talked about the wonderful healing work that had occured for her through a non-profit that she and her husband started called Change the Ref to bring awareness to the impact of gun violence through art. And yet - as Patricia was asked about the upcoming sentencing, she talked about the daily absence and suffering she and her husband experienced not physically having their son with them - and that no law or no punishment would ever fill that absence. Nelba Marquez-Greene, a mother who also lost a daughter to gun violence at the 2012 Sandy Hook shooting, and who is also a therapist specializing in grief, loss, and trauma, writes: “We are not good at sitting in the suffering of people, especially when there is no resolution for example in gun violence and other tragic losses.” In the face of deep suffering - even when things look normal again, even after and in the midst of healing - the suffering still exists. The loss and its impact will never go away. The truth of the matter is - even though Job is this wealthy man who has so much more restored to him than what he lost - he still lost and suffered. The replacement of his wealth, the birth of additional children, does not negate the suffering he experienced; Job will carry that experience with him for the rest of his life. Perhaps, in this way, the ending is meant to sound ridiculous - like everyone knows that life actually doesn’t turn out this way, despite our very human desire to have a nice, happy, rainbow ending at the end of every difficult stormy period in our lives. Perhaps the author of Job writes this ending to provoke this reaction in us. The ending is not prescriptive of the human condition; we’re not meant to take our suffering before God in humility so that God can bless us and restore us beyond our wildest imaginings because we know that this is not how life works. Perhaps, then, the ending reveals how futile it is to have this desire...and invites us to reflect on why it is we want that so much -- and what, instead, can God do about it? And what, instead, can we do about it? I think, instead, about resurrection - resurrection as something wholly different than restoration. We think of restoration as getting back to normal - something that was broken is now whole. Something that was missing a piece -- that piece has been found. Resurrection is something different entirely. We look at Jesus and we look at his resurrected body, a body transformed by God, raised to new life -- and yet he still had the physical evidence of his crucifixion scars. Restoration would have erased the evidence of those scars - brought him back to “normal.” Resurrection instead takes those scars and enfolds them into part of a larger story. Suffering, pain, loss, trauma, grief - they stay with us, even as we heal. Those who have lost a loved one know this. Those who have worked through traumatic experiences know that these things never go away. They are embodied - the spiritual and emotional trauma I went through this summer lives in my body as well as in my memory. Resurrection doesn’t erase the past - but makes a way forward that honors the suffering and hardship that we carry and enables us to bear them with resilience and hope - and in this we witness to a God that redeems, that brings forth life out of dead and barren places, that transforms the scars into a witness of something greater than we can ever fully articulate. Resurrection is a gift if we are open to receiving it. And I have to wonder - and perhaps the author of Job wanted readers to think about this too - is...what does life look like on the other end of deep suffering? What if we are invited to live again - and what if we take that invitation? Ellen Davis, author of Getting Involved with God: Rediscovering the Old Testament, writes, “This book is not about justifying God’s actions; it is about Job’s transformation. It is useless to ask how much (or how little) it costs God to give more children. The real question is how much it costs Job to become a father again. How can he open himself again to the terrible vulnerability of loving those whom he cannot protect against suffering and untimely death?” We see a Job, at the end, fully engaged with the present, though I am sure he carried the wounds of his suffering with him to the end of his days. Job chooses life. Courage. Love. Generosity - the bible specifically mentions that he gave his daughters an inheritance - a right normally reserved for sons. What does choosing life look like when suffering has so long endured? What does choosing life look like for those for whom suffering is a constant companion? Debie Thomas ends her reflection on this passage with these words, and I thought what she says is a helpful reminder - I know it has been a source of comfort for me this week, as this week, the pain and wounding of Annual Conference was a close companion. I hope it is a helpful reminder and a source of comfort for you as well. She writes this: “This is the choice that lies before us, too. When suffering comes, when loss shatters our belief in a predictable world and a “safe” God, what will we do? Will we opt out? Will we close our hearts around our wounds and never risk life again? Or will we participate in the lavish, unbounded love of God, who adores a created cosmos that includes contingency, chaos, destruction, and disorder? We are free to choose — just as God is. We are free to risk our hearts or not — just as God is. Can we love what we do not control? Job is a remarkable book. A difficult book. A book to struggle with. What I’ve found in these last few weeks of wrestling with this timeless story is that God meets me in my resistance and doubt, just as much as God meets me in my trust and surrender. The Spirit is more than equal to everything I bring to the pages of scripture, because my wrestling is always in the arms of God — and so is yours.” May we know that in all things - times of struggle and challenge, times of suffering and hardship, times of faith and abundance - that we are all held and carried by the God who knows and loves and carries us and all of creation - that the suffering of one is the suffering of all - and that we are bound together with our creator as we move toward a world of hope, flourishing, and resurrection for each one. Amen. Scripture - Job 38:1-7, 34-41
Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind: 2“Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge? 3Gird up your loins like a man, I will question you, and you shall declare to me. 4“Where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth? Tell me, if you have understanding. 5Who determined its measurements—surely you know! Or who stretched the line upon it? 6On what were its bases sunk, or who laid its cornerstone 7when the morning stars sang together and all the heavenly beings shouted for joy? 34“Can you lift up your voice to the clouds, so that a flood of waters may cover you? 35Can you send forth lightnings, so that they may go and say to you, ‘Here we are’? 36Who has put wisdom in the inward parts, or given understanding to the mind? 37Who has the wisdom to number the clouds? Or who can tilt the waterskins of the heavens, 38when the dust runs into a mass and the clods cling together? 39“Can you hunt the prey for the lion, or satisfy the appetite of the young lions, 40when they crouch in their dens, or lie in wait in their covert? 41Who provides for the raven its prey, when its young ones cry to God, and wander about for lack of food? Sermon There was an image I saw this week on Facebook - it was something that someone had shared on Twitter a couple years ago. If you don’t know anything about Twitter, here’s a quick run down - if Facebook is where people tend to share pics of their kids and grandkids, interesting articles, etc - Twitter is where you get more of the humor and satire and edginess. So here’s the Tweet - an imaginary conversation between Job and God: Job: Hey god you killed like literally all of my kids what’s up with that God: How dare you speak that way to the inventor of the hippopotamus It’s a little flippant...a little irreverent...but it does capture the essence of how things shake down in Job’s story. In case you aren’t familiar with it, here’s the quick rundown: It starts off with Job, an upright man who does all the right things - fears God, shuns evil. He’s got 7 sons and 3 daughters, a lot of livestock and servants and wealth. He was so righteous, that when his children would throw feasts, he’d offer proper sacrifices on their behalf in case they sinned. One day, God and Satan - which isn’t, by the way, the devil with a pitchfork and red horns, but rather something more along the lines of “tester” or “adversary” - have a conversation in which God brings Job to Satan’s attention. Kind of boastfully - like, “have you seen how good this guy is?” And Satan is like - of course he’s good, you’ve protected him and blessed his hard work -- but if you take all that away from him, he will curse you to his face.” So God says, “well fine then - you have free reign to do whatever you want to what he has, but you are not allowed to lay a finger on him.” Satan takes away his livestock, kills his servants, kills his children - in this doesn’t sin by laying the blame at God’s feet. So after a second conversation with God, in which God gives permission to harm Job as long as he doesn’t die, Satan gives Job these painful sores and boils. Job’s wife tells him to curse God and get on with it, but Job does not. His three friends hear about Job’s troubles and come and sit with him in silence for seven days. The rest of the book is one long conversation between Job and the three friends in which the friends try to give him advice about why he’s going through this and Job laments and gets frustrated and angry - but again, never once sins against God. This goes on for 37 chapters. Then, in the 38th chapter, God weighs in. And doesn’t respond to any of Job’s questions. Not one. Instead, God has a few questions for Job. Like, “where were you when I created the world? While the stars sang as I laid its foundations? Can you call forth lightning? Count the clouds? Make rain fall from the sky? Know the rhythms of the animals - like when they are hungry or give birth or where they live and how they grow? All of them?” Can you imagine how Job might have felt with this barrage of divine power on display? I mean, how can you possibly deal with the immensity of one who tells you: “29From whose womb did the ice come forth, and who has given birth to the hoarfrost of heaven? 30The waters become hard like stone, and the face of the deep is frozen. 31“Can you bind the chains of the Pleiades, or loose the cords of Orion? 32Can you lead forth the Mazzaroth in their season, or can you guide the Bear with its children? 33Do you know the ordinances of the heavens? Can you establish their rule on the earth?” It’s a moment, I imagine, where Job might have been blown away by it all - both in that the One who orders the universe has taken the time to address him and in that humankind is only one small part of creation...and Job only one small part of humankind. In the first case, God here engages with Job and Job is free to question and argue and wrestle with God. Humans are free to have this kind of relationship with God, where we challenge God and doubt God and question God. There is something unique and special about that kind of connection with the divine, and that God would bring attention to Job certainly merits a view of humankind where people are able to handle the immensity and responsibility of divine encounter. In the second case, God’s response to Job places things back in perspective - that Job and humanity by extension are important, but that God’s concerns aren’t just with human beings, but also with the stars and the lions and the hippopotamuses and the seas of the deep and so much more. As Debie Thomas writes, “Humanity’s place in creation is honorable but not exclusive, significant but not central. God’s perspective on justice for humanity is not bound by Job’s retributive calculus. Of course God cares for Job. But God also cares for the creatures of the forest, the movements of the planets, the patterns of the weather, the currents of the sea. God’s concerns are much wider, broader, deeper, and higher than Job’s puny mind can fathom.” We humans like to place ourselves at the center of the story - we do this as individuals, we do this as a species. When it comes to suffering, well - we like answers, we like knowing that it is the result of something we did - a direct consequence of our action or inaction. We like to think that if we get the inputs right (the right job, the right relationship, the right therapist, the right grades - whatever), that life comes out right and if life doesn’t come out right, if we are suffering or if we are having a difficult time, then something must have gone awry. We just need to figure out what happened...and fix it. Or think about the world’s problems - the right technology, the right amount of money, the right ideology - we can fix the problems in the world. Everything is within our control. Except it’s not. Things are laughably not in our control - and God’s response to Job here just draws that out. There are limits as we come up against the mystery of who God is and how God works. The issue of suffering here is not one to be fixed - it’s not something in our control. That isn’t to say God causes it or doesn’t cause it - it is to say, however, that it is a part of life, and the place where we do have control is how we sit with our suffering in relation to the whole of creation. Job isn’t an object lesson in the fact that someone’s always worse off than you are - that in my suffering, there is always someone who is suffering more. Job isn’t also about meaningless suffering - though it may look that way because he has almost nothing left in his world but himself, his wife, and his friends. Job is, however, about the context in which that suffering takes place. Our pain matters to God. Our suffering is seen by God, even as God has ordered, protected, sustained, nurtured, preserved, and cherished the entire cosmos. And I think God’s response to Job reminds him - and reminds us - that even as we navigate our own personal trials and hardships, that we are part of a whole - and that’s something I think it’s easy for us, especially in our culture, to forget. Theologian Sallie McFague says, “We have lost the sense of belonging in our world and to the God who creates, nurtures, and redeems this world and all its creatures.” We are not meant to relate to God solely through our individual lives and experiences. We are part of a glorious and wondrous whole that includes the ravens and the lions and the seas of the deep and the stars in their courses - we are caught in this inescapable web of mutuality and our personal suffering becomes one piece in the whole of creation which God cares for and tends. As enfleshed writes, when we suffer, our experiences can almost always be somehow tied to the whole. When someone has a certain form of a cancer, it’s impossible to disentangle that from our collective systems around food, medical care, production and pollution. When a single individual struggles to find to find housing or food, that’s part of an entire set of systems that has failed them/us. When someone’s life ends too soon, whatever the cause, it’s related to the actions of others whether those actions are morally good, bad, or neutral. Every storm that comes our way can be connected both to the realities of climate change in our time and to the simple fact of the ecosystem being what it is - a place where storms occur. There is simply nothing that happens in this life that is not related to the collective reality. In this text, we see a God who cares deeply for the individual - even the baby ravens hungry for a meal - but also for the whole of Life unfolding. And carefully, we can be reminded that we are held by the hand of God but not because we are the center of things, but because we belong to the whole of things.” It makes me think a bit about William Shatner this week - oddly enough - who became the oldest person to go into space. William Shatner, who played a captain of a spaceship on Star Trek Original Series - who went on the Blue Origin mission this week and had this transcendent experience - he was moved to tears by the vulnerability of the planet, the wonder of it, the beauty of the blue air transitioning suddenly to the blackness of space -- he said, “It has to do with the enormity at the quickness and the suddenness of life and death.” We are part of a whole. God’s response to suffering can never be reduced to an if/then statement...and neither can our lives. Life is complex - and we together bear the wounds and the joys and the sins and the suffering of it all - the impacts of the individual weaving together to form the whole. The beauty of it however is that God is present with us through it all - breathing in and through all of creation since before time, drawing us forward in pathways of love and justice - and we are held in this deep love...we are held in this deep beauty...we are held in this deep mystery in the midst of it all. My hope and prayer for us is that we take this knowledge with us into the world, that it may give us greater compassion for ourselves and for others as we consider the wounds of the world, that we may be reminded of the God who not only holds us all but came down as Jesus to experience those wounds in his very body, even unto death, that our hearts may be stirred to greater action as we are drawn to offer ourselves in love on behalf of those who suffer - and that God may raise new life from our endeavors. May we be held in God’s love this day and always. Amen. Note that I am very grateful for the UCC Worship Ways Intergenerational Service for September 26th, 2021 resource, upon which much of the inspiration for this service was drawn.
Scripture - Esther, selections, Psalm 124 Esther - Selections So the king and Haman went in to feast with Queen Esther. 2On the second day, as they were drinking wine, the king again said to Esther, “What is your petition, Queen Esther? It shall be granted you. And what is your request? Even to the half of my kingdom, it shall be fulfilled.” 3Then Queen Esther answered, “If I have won your favor, O king, and if it pleases the king, let my life be given me—that is my petition—and the lives of my people—that is my request. 4For we have been sold, I and my people, to be destroyed, to be killed, and to be annihilated. If we had been sold merely as slaves, men and women, I would have held my peace; but no enemy can compensate for this damage to the king.” 5Then King Ahasuerus said to Queen Esther, “Who is he, and where is he, who has presumed to do this?” 6Esther said, “A foe and enemy, this wicked Haman!” Then Haman was terrified before the king and the queen. 20Mordecai recorded these things, and sent letters to all the Jews who were in all the provinces of King Ahasuerus, both near and far, 21enjoining them that they should keep the fourteenth day of the month Adar and also the fifteenth day of the same month, year by year, 22as the days on which the Jews gained relief from their enemies, and as the month that had been turned for them from sorrow into gladness and from mourning into a holiday; that they should make them days of feasting and gladness, days for sending gifts of food to one another and presents to the poor. Psalm 124 1If it had not been the Lord who was on our side—let Israel now say-- 2if it had not been the Lord who was on our side, when our enemies attacked us, 3then they would have swallowed us up alive, when their anger was kindled against us; 4then the flood would have swept us away, the torrent would have gone over us; 5then over us would have gone the raging waters. 6Blessed be the Lord, who has not given us as prey to their teeth. 7We have escaped like a bird from the snare of the fowlers; the snare is broken, and we have escaped. 8Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth. Sermon So maybe this isn’t the most pertinent or relevant story from Scripture I could have picked for our celebration - after all, the story of Esther in the Bible is one full of political intrigue and wicked plots and less-than-ideal treatment of women and power-hungry eunuchs and potential genocide. What does that have to do with us on this tiny little island, celebrating our new beginnings apart from the United Methodist Church? The book of Esther tells the story of the survival of a religious minority - the fear of a cultural community that might not survive in the wake of large, oppressive structures. Certainly this is an important narrative for the Jewish people, who tell this story during Purim each year. We can also think of cultures in our modern era who would resonate with aspects of this story because of the threats faced to their survival - I think of especially our Indigenous peoples here in America as we honor and remember them this weekend. And the fear and questions of survival also resonate with many congregations who wonder - will the church be able to continue for future generations? What will it take not just to survive, but to thrive? What strikes me in the Esther story is how she was in the right place at the right time to work for the deliverance of her people. Her position - even though she came to it in a way not of her own choosing - meant that she could intercede on behalf of the Jewish people with the king. Her words and actions made an impact that lasted generations. What would have happened if she hadn’t done what she did? We get a clue from 4:14, which wasn’t included in our reading - words from Mordecai, Esther’s cousin, spoken to her: For if you keep silence at such a time as this, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another quarter, but you and your father’s family will perish. Who knows? Perhaps you have come to royal dignity for just such a time as this.” We don’t often get to know the impact we make on others - how our actions have ripple effects in the lives of others. We also don’t often share how others make a difference in our lives with them. This is no less true when thinking about how we are the church together. It makes me think a bit about the movie “It’s a Wonderful Life” where George Bailey has the opportunity to know the difference he has made by observing what his community would be like without him. We see story after story in the movie about how things would be different had he not been around. In the church, we rely on more than just the gifts of others - what people do or contribute - people matter for who they are. We depend on people of all ages and abilities - each person here has made an impact on our lives, on our church, on our community. Take a look around - and think about what your life and your community would be like without each person here in this space. Take a moment to draw the circle wider to include our seasonal friends who have already departed for the winter, to include folks who aren’t able to be here with us this morning. I’m going to give you a minute or two in silence to consider this - about what your life, this community, this church would be like without those people here…. Now take a moment and note two or three people that are here -- and we’re going to tell each other what impact they have. Without Cathy, we wouldn’t have lovely pictures that share the joy and beauty in our gathering together. Without ____, we wouldn’t have So begin your sentences with “without you, we/I wouldn’t….” and go from there - we’re going to take a couple minutes to do this. [I Need You To Survive] We need each other to survive - and we need each other to thrive. That’s the beauty of church community together - and that’s the beauty of this moment as we celebrate the Chebeague Community Church. We are stepping into this future together because of the daring to envision a church apart from a denomination that caused harm to so many. Each one of us is a part of the tapestry that God is weaving with the stories of our lives, our gifts, our belovedness. We learn and grow from each person here in this space, from the youngest to the oldest...from the generations yet to be born to the generations long past. I want to turn back to our texts for this morning for a moment - both our story from Esther and the Psalm, which we haven’t really referenced in our time yet. It is interesting to note that in the book of Esther, God is not mentioned - at all. Queen Esther is proactive about her future and rescues herself and her people - while Psalm 124 praises God’s saving acts and rescuing us from danger. The tension between the two that we find - between making our own way and divine initiative - is part of our human experience, as we thank God for the opportunities that open up around us, as we understand God’s movement in the unfolding of the kingdom and as we make our own choices and responses in conversation with what God has placed before us. As we step into this moment together, I’m especially mindful of that tension - that God has given us this great gift of a new beginning, of a fresh start, to set a new future beyond survival for this congregation as the Chebeague Community Church...at the same time, it is up to us to make the most of that opportunity. It is how we respond to this moment, how we connect with friends and neighbors, how we set priorities and visions, how we carry ourselves, how we study Scripture together and learn and grow together -- it is up to us to be proactive in using the gifts God has giving us toward a future of our own flourishing. I invite us to hold these things - how we use our gifts and how we discern God’s leading - as we walk forward into the future to build the church together. Amen. Scripture - Mark 9:38 - 50
Mark 9:38-50 (New Revised Standard Version) 38John said to him, “Teacher, we saw someone casting out demons in your name, and we tried to stop him, because he was not following us.” 39But Jesus said, “Do not stop him; for no one who does a deed of power in my name will be able soon afterward to speak evil of me. 40Whoever is not against us is for us. 41For truly I tell you, whoever gives you a cup of water to drink because you bear the name of Christ will by no means lose the reward. 42“If any of you put a stumbling block before one of these little ones who believe in me, it would be better for you if a great millstone were hung around your neck and you were thrown into the sea. 43If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life maimed than to have two hands and to go to hell, to the unquenchable fire. 45And if your foot causes you to stumble, cut it off; it is better for you to enter life lame than to have two feet and to be thrown into hell. 47And if your eye causes you to stumble, tear it out; it is better for you to enter the kingdom of God with one eye than to have two eyes and to be thrown into hell, 48where their worm never dies, and the fire is never quenched. 49“For everyone will be salted with fire. 50Salt is good; but if salt has lost its saltiness, how can you season it? Have salt in yourselves, and be at peace with one another.” Let us pray - these words are written by Kathrine Hawker: God of the salt God of the fire God of anger God of laughter God of parables and riddles God of story and proclamation God of comfort God of affliction God of the salt God of the fire come now be now here now. Amen. Sermon I’ll always remember a conversation I had in a small group setting...probably about 10 years ago. I don’t remember the passage we were discussing, but somehow the distinction came up about being nice versus being kind. You can probably articulate the difference right along with me. Being nice is often related to being polite, agreeable, congenial. Being nice generally doesn’t ask us to extend ourselves in any meaningful way. It’s about manners and cultural currency like holding the door open for someone, or paying it forward at the tollbooth or coffee counter. There’s a place for being nice, but it’s often a surface level exchange. Leadership coach Banu Hantal notes this about the dangers of those who identify as being a “nice person”, when speaking of the difference between “nice” and “kind”, “They do not ask for what they need, they do not give crucial feedback and they enable dysfunctions of others by overcompensating for them – all in the name of being nice.” She continues: “Frequently, it’s the disguise of our selfish need to be liked. We want to think that we are nice, but more than that, we want others to think that we are nice. This kind of niceness makes us lose our voice and leads us to become inauthentic. When we stop speaking up on important issues because we are afraid to hurt or offend others (translation: when we are afraid they won’t like us or be mad at us), it locks us and others to the status quo. It rips off the chance for things to get better.” Kindness, on the other hand, costs more and proceeds from a deeper place within us. It’s about having our hearts in the right place for others and, oddly enough, for ourselves. Kindness is about authenticity and empathy. It’s about caring enough for people to face their reality and grow from it. It’s not about being liked, but it is about loving others enough to want what is best for them, even if it means sharing hard truths. Niceness is simple and easy. Kindness often is not. Sometimes there is overlap between the two, but sometimes, there is not. Now circling back to the conversation I was having in my living room 10 years ago about the difference between nice and kind...what was shared in that space was that the church is full of nice people, but not often full of kind people. This sentiment was shared by a group of young adults who knew this because they had experienced the general niceness of most church folk, but they had also witnessed and experienced the extreme lack of kindness from Christians in their lives, like Christians who were overtly judgmental (but who proclaimed grace and love)...like Christians who said they’d be there for you in hard times (but wouldn’t help out if you were in desperate need)...like Christians who said they’d love you, if only you changed your behavior. The biggest stumbling block for these friends of mine wasn’t Jesus...but other Christians. Our passage this morning gets at the heart of this hypocrisy, as we look at the witness of community, the pain of sin, and the call to be salted with fire. It’s not an easy passage and we definitely don’t get meek and mild Jesus here. Contrast this to last week, where we have Jesus embracing a child in this image of what it means to embrace and welcome the divine. Now we have severed limbs and drowning with millstones and fiery punishment. This is a hard teaching - certainly not a nice teaching - it’s one that contrasts the popular image of Jesus as a docile and distant teacher dispensing wisdom in placid, peaceful tones. No, this teaching comes from a Jesus that boldly names reality and one that does so for the sake again of the most vulnerable...for the most dismissed and overlooked...for the sake of the oppressed and exploited...for the sake of the voiceless and disempowered. It’s threatening. It’s painful. It is a warning shot to those who would even think about harming or being an obstacle to the “little ones” - and it’s a statement about how far we as a community of faith need to be willing to go to for the sake of life and liberation for others. It’s kind, but harsh. Definitely not nice. Jesus starts out in this story by putting John in his place because the disciples tried to disabuse someone for casting out demons in Jesus’ name - but he wasn’t one of the group. Jesus rebukes John for stopping this person and draws the circle wider - “whoever is not against us is for us” right? Jesus doesn’t want the disciples putting up barriers - nor does he want them policing the behavior of others. It’s like he says, “don’t pay attention to what they’re doing over there - I’m not concerned about what they are or aren’t doing, whether they do a deed of power in my name, or whether they give you a cup of water because you are one of mine.” “No,” he says, “tend to your own self. Look at your own behavior and what’s causing someone else harm -- and what’s causing you harm. Cut that stuff out of your life. If what you do puts blocks in the way of others - these children, these vulnerable ones, these disempowered ones - who are trying to embrace me, it would be better for you to drown. What are you willing to sacrifice for that to happen? How far are you willing to go to ensure life and liberation for these little ones...and for you?” Now I don’t quite know in what tone Jesus might have delivered these words, but I can’t picture him being dispassionate in his delivery. And he absolutely wasn’t being nice - and it may even be a stretch to say that he was being kind in this instance, but he certainly was more concerned with the welfare of the vulnerable and with the disciples not preventing those who are suffering or hurting from having access to him. In that way, he was doing a great kindness to those looking to get in on the abundant life Jesus was about - and he was doing a great kindness to the disciples in correcting their course, even if he had to use shocking images to do it. Because what Jesus says to the disciples is this: what you do - or don’t do - matters. Clear the things from your life that prevent access to me - either your access to me or another’s access to me. Don’t let anything get in the way. Sometimes, those things are personal individual things - and it can feel really painful to do, as painful as severing a limb -- getting rid of a toxic relationship; forgiving a friend who has deeply wounded you; breaking an addiction; changing a damaging habit, admitting when you’re wrong and confessing sin. Sometimes, those things are systemic and pervasive -- identifying your privilege and working to become more aware of it and helping others identify their own; decoupling yourself from the constant need to associate self-worth with productivity; changing your worldview from a whitewashed history to name the complexities and threads of Indigenous peoples, Black and Hispanic folx, Asian Americans and more. All these things point to a communal witness of an embodied love - that we as individuals and as a community are intentional about identifying and growing in love, about admitting when we’re wrong and seeking God’s reconciliation, about authentically showing up and being present to who we are and who God is calling us to be. In other words, we’re rooting ourselves in being kind - not nice. Because the world doesn’t need more nice people. But it does need more kind ones. The conversation held in my living room ended with a resolution - that the church we were creating, birthed in small groups and block parties and board game nights, would not be a nice church. The church would be a kind one - in the way that true kindness is hard and authentic, unafraid to name difficult realities, and deliberately centers others in their growth as disciples and in their wholeness as beloved children of God. I want to end with this poetic reflection shared by Steve Garnaas-Holmes entitled “Cut it off” - and it’s a beautiful reminder of how these painful separations are healing for ourselves and for others: The hand that causes you to stumble is not at the end of your arm. It’s deeper than that. What is the hand in you that reaches for what is not yours? Cut it off. There is nothing you need to grasp. What is the eye in you that does not look with love? Pluck it out. The eyes of love are good enough. What are the feet in you that that won't trust, that lead you away from the path of love? Cut them off. You don’t need to go there. Does it sound harsh? Don’t worry, they’re not part of the real you. Besides, they’ll grow back. The Teacher is not asking you to maim yourself. He is inviting you to name what interferes, and to take away its power. He's leading us out of the unquenchable fire of our fears, desires and attachments. Without our grasping, fearful, compulsive parts, perhaps then we will rely more on the eyes and hands and feet of Jesus. This pruning is how we become whole. May we ever be on that journey towards wholeness in God’s love and care - for our sake, for the sake of Jesus’ little ones, and for the sake of the world. Amen. Scripture - Mark 9:30-37; Proverbs 31:10-31
Mark 9:30-37 30They went on from there and passed through Galilee. He did not want anyone to know it; 31for he was teaching his disciples, saying to them, “The Son of Man is to be betrayed into human hands, and they will kill him, and three days after being killed, he will rise again.” 32But they did not understand what he was saying and were afraid to ask him. 33Then they came to Capernaum; and when he was in the house he asked them, “What were you arguing about on the way?” 34But they were silent, for on the way they had argued with one another who was the greatest. 35He sat down, called the twelve, and said to them, “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” 36Then he took a little child and put it among them; and taking it in his arms, he said to them, 37“Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.” Proverbs 31:10-31 (read from https://www.sefaria.org/Proverbs.31.10?ven=The_Rashi_Ketuvim_by_Rabbi_Shraga_Silverstein&lang=en&with=Translations&lang2=en) Sermon Ok, folks- how many of those characteristics could you check off the list, either for you or your spouse? Kind of daunting, isn’t it? I mean, what a laundry list of household management, economic investments, fashion designer, late-to-bed-and-early-to-rise, not to mention her personal characteristics of generosity and wisdom. Whew. I mean - there is no way that I can compare here and if I find a person who lives up to this standard, I’m going to sit them down and ask them to teach me how to balance it all. While this is one way to read the passage, we’re invited to look at it a different way as well. Proverbs is part of Wisdom Literature in the (along with books like Job or Psalms or Ecclesiastes or the Song of Songs) and throughout the book, the author personifies wisdom as a woman. She is the force in this book of scripture that was present at creation, a partner with God in creating the order of things (read Proverbs 8 for a lovely poetic description). So in this poetic sense, perhaps the “she” that’s referred to here - the “woman of valor” mentioned in verse 10 - isn’t just an ideal individual - but a personification of something else. What if we looked at the church in this light? Certain strains of Christian tradition refer to the church as “the Bride of Christ” - with the thought being that within the relationship between God and the Church, communities are invited to embody values that work in partnership with God, mirroring God’s presence, desires for justice, readiness for action, and steadfast lovingkindness in the world. Even if we took this as a laundry list of values for individual Christians, we’d all fall short - but if we look at it as virtues and characteristics for the Church as a whole - the body of Christ, of which we are all members - then the whole body can carry and embody these things together. AnaYelsi, writing at enfleshed, draws these points out: “As the bride of Christ, how are we as a community of believers living out the virtues of Proverbs 31, and what does our community need to do to look more like a Helpmeet [a partner] of God?” She starts out her reflection with some very interesting questions - for example, “how many of our churches are so noble in character that the members of our community are moved to respect and praise God at our city gates? Are they able to speak of the good we do, the harm we prevent, the portions we provide and the wisdom we speak? Are we recognized for our laughter and the strength of our communities, not just the charm of our buildings?” These are important questions for us to ponder as we consider how we carry ourselves forward as the Chebeague Community Church. We talk a lot about welcome and belonging and we spend a lot of time holding out our welcoming statement, and ensuring that folks know that there is a space for belonging here. These are words that I would wager many in our community are familiar with - that on the whole, people connected to our island know that we say that we want to embody that kind of welcoming culture - and we’ve put our money where our proverbial mouth is in that regard in a pretty big way. This is where our Mark passage dovetails nicely with our reading from Proverbs, even if on the surface they seem like two very disconnected passages. In this story, the disciples are bickering - as they are wont to do - over who is the greatest. Who is the best. Who has got it going on over all the other disciples. Maybe they were ticking off some biblical qualities personified in the psalms about kingship or leadership and who exemplified them the best. Jesus, keen on what they were discussing, talks about greatness not as the best...but as service to others, taking a backseat. In some ways, much like our woman of valor’s service to her household...much like the Church’s service to God. And then Jesus takes a child, and says 37“Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.” And in this welcome - it’s not one of being nice or kind. It’s not a welcome to create a safe space of belonging or because it’s the right and polite thing to do. As Debie Thomas at Journey with Jesus writes, Jesus challenges: “Do you want to see what God looks like? Do you want to find God’s stand-in, hidden here among you? Are you curious about the truest nature of divine greatness? Then welcome the child. Welcome the child, and you welcome God.” This isn’t the only time that Jesus makes welcome of children or the sick or the stranger or the imprisoned or the marginalized a direct comparison to experiencing God’s presence. Welcoming the Other - in this particular case, the child - is how you welcome God. We welcome others not because we are loving or generous - we welcome others because we want to see what God looks like...and in that encounter, God shapes us into the community we are called and invited to be. Both our Proverbs and Mark passages list these all these values and virtues - welcoming, intentionality of service, commitment to work and wisdom, not for self-acclaimed greatness or for making us strive for some unattainable goal - but to remind us that everything we are and everything we do is in service to God’s greater work and unfolding in the world. Our work as the church isn’t to be great - it’s to be faithful. It isn’t to build up ourselves, but to be reflections of God - and lead others into that awareness of God’s presence. It isn’t to look out for ourselves, but to look out for the most vulnerable among us. Our work isn’t about self-preservation, but to partner with God for the work of the kin-dom among us. If we keep these things in mind - that we do this work together for the sake of God’s greater work in the world, I think we’ll find the answers to the questions that we posed earlier...that we’ll be a community of radical welcome, of humble service, and great joy - that we will be “an inclusive, diverse and caring Christian community: worshipping, praying, witnessing, reaching out to all people on the Island and beyond, daring to grow and change as God calls us.” May it be so for us as we grow together as the Chebeague Community Church. Amen. Scripture - Selections from Isaiah 43
Readier 1: 43 But now thus says the Lord, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. 2 When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. Reader 2: 5 Do not fear, for I am with you; I will bring your offspring from the east, and from the west I will gather you; 6 I will say to the north, “Give them up,” and to the south, “Do not withhold; bring my sons from far away and my daughters from the end of the earth-- 7 everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made.” Reader 3: 8 Bring forth the people who are blind, yet have eyes, who are deaf, yet have ears! 9 Let all the nations gather together, and let the peoples assemble. Who among them declared this, and foretold to us the former things? Let them bring their witnesses to justify them, and let them hear and say, “It is true.” 10 You are my witnesses, says the Lord, and my servant whom I have chosen, so that you may know and believe me and understand that I am he. Reader 4: 16 Thus says the Lord, who makes a way in the sea, a path in the mighty waters, 17 who brings out chariot and horse, army and warrior; they lie down, they cannot rise, they are extinguished, quenched like a wick: 18 Do not remember the former things, or consider the things of old. 19 I am about to do a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it? I will make a way in the wilderness and rivers in the desert. 20 The wild animals will honor me, the jackals and the ostriches; for I give water in the wilderness, rivers in the desert, to give drink to my chosen people, 21 the people whom I formed for myself so that they might declare my praise. Reflection In the early part of the 19th century, Methodist missionaries visited Casco Bay. The story goes that the island matriarch was removed - “excommunicated” - from the Congregational church when she joined the Methodists. They held class meetings and built a small meetinghouse. There were 19 members in 1814 - members of the Hamiltons, Bennets, Curits, Hutchinsons, and other families. Most of those 19 members were connected to the Hamiltons. I bet that some of you in this room can trace your family back to some of those people who started something new over 200 years ago. God is about to do a new thing - it springs forth - do you perceive it? Things change and evolve. Families move on and off island, children are born and grow old, elders pass from this world to live on in memory and story. Legacies are forged, a heritage is fashioned, and roots deepen to nurture and feed the growth that buds on the tips of leaves and that pushes out the bark of the widening trunk. It is doubtful that any one of those people part of that first Methodist class meeting 200 years ago envisioned where we’d be today - but the seeds of this beginning have been nurtured from generation to generation - always blossoming, growing, changing, and dying - passed down in songs and story and ritual, some forgotten, some adapted, some fresh and new. God is about to do a new thing - it springs forth - do you perceive it? The community that first heard our passage from Isaiah was a community in transition - they were the descendents of those who had been taken away from Jerusalem when the Babylonians conquered Judah. They were a people who had grown up in a foreign land, but who had heard the stories of how God had brought the Hebrews out of slavery in Egypt - a people that had passed through the waters and experienced the challenges of settling in a new land. The people hearing these words would have most likely understood the reason for their exile as God’s judgment upon their ancestors and struggled with what faithfulness as God’s people meant. God is about to do a new thing - it springs forth - do you perceive it? God led the Hebrew people out from slavery and formed them into a new kind of community before entering the Promised Land - in this way, God did a new thing among them. That was part of the Israelites’ story. And now, in our text, we see God’s desire to gather the exiles back to Jerusalem and yet again fashion them into a new kind of community - and that all the trials and struggles they endured through their time of captivity - the waters and the fire, the uncertainties and anxieties, the disorientation and wonderings - God was yet present with them...and was making a way for the next phase of their life together. God is about to do a new thing - it springs forth - do you perceive it? I think about that with our own journey - about how God’s new thing worked in an island matriarch to start a class meeting here over 200 years ago...about how we are the heirs of the love and labor of the various incarnations of church here on this island throughout the generations - about how the church is never about individual people or pastors but is always about A People, living and breathing and working and loving together - A People bound and journeying together, open to being made and remade in God’s own image - A People claimed in the waters of baptism and who covenant together for the work of God’s unfolding kin-dom in this time and in this place. And that’s where we stand - at the threshold of something new -- even as we inherit the legacy of the church past -- knowing that we have been entrusted to partner with Christ in the work of peace and justice -- knowing that we do so to pass the seeds of hope and love to those who will receive it 200 years from now. God is about to do a new thing - it springs forth - do you perceive it? Part of being able to perceive God’s action in the world is through remembering - remembering that we are baptized - that we are God’s people, that God has fashioned us, claimed us, that God has redeemed us, called us by name, that we belong to God...and because we belong to God, we belong to each other. We have gone through the waters of baptism, we have been sealed with the flame of the Holy Spirit. We are not held back by obligation to the past even as we give thanks and acknowledge our history - but we are not bound by it, proclaims our God. And so as we are here as a people - even though we’re not in the same space, ready for God’s new thing - even though we may not know fully where that leads yet - to remember that we are baptized, to reaffirm our commitment to God and to each other, Today we come to the waters, to renew our commitments in each other's presence to Christ who has raised us, the Spirit who has birthed us, and the Creator who is making all things new. Scripture James 1:17-27, Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23
James 1:17-27 (New Revised Standard Version) 17 Every generous act of giving, with every perfect gift, is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. 18 In fulfillment of his own purpose he gave us birth by the word of truth, so that we would become a kind of first fruits of his creatures. 19 You must understand this, my beloved: let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger; 20 for your anger does not produce God’s righteousness. 21 Therefore rid yourselves of all sordidness and rank growth of wickedness, and welcome with meekness the implanted word that has the power to save your souls. 22 But be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves. 23 For if any are hearers of the word and not doers, they are like those who look at themselves in a mirror; 24 for they look at themselves and, on going away, immediately forget what they were like. 25 But those who look into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and persevere, being not hearers who forget but doers who act—they will be blessed in their doing. 26 If any think they are religious, and do not bridle their tongues but deceive their hearts, their religion is worthless. 27 Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world. Mark 7:1-8, 14-15, 21-23 (New Revised Standard Version) Now when the Pharisees and some of the scribes who had come from Jerusalem gathered around him, 2they noticed that some of his disciples were eating with defiled hands, that is, without washing them. 3(For the Pharisees, and all the Jews, do not eat unless they thoroughly wash their hands, thus observing the tradition of the elders; 4and they do not eat anything from the market unless they wash it; and there are also many other traditions that they observe, the washing of cups, pots, and bronze kettles.) 5So the Pharisees and the scribes asked him, “Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders, but eat with defiled hands?” 6He said to them, “Isaiah prophesied rightly about you hypocrites, as it is written, ‘This people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me; 7in vain do they worship me, teaching human precepts as doctrines.’ 8You abandon the commandment of God and hold to human tradition.” 14Then he called the crowd again and said to them, “Listen to me, all of you, and understand: 15there is nothing outside a person that by going in can defile, but the things that come out are what defile.” 21For it is from within, from the human heart, that evil intentions come: fornication, theft, murder, 22adultery, avarice, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, folly. 23All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.” Sermon I’m sure that many of you have heard the phrase, “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me.” I know it’s a mantra that I learned as a child, and one that I’m sure a well meaning adult taught me to help insulate myself from the boys who would tease me on the playground and call me names or the other kids who would make fun of my clothes. Yes, I was one of those kids that was mercilessly picked on in late elementary and early middle school, and I always wished I had that superpower that I know some of you have that can dismiss someone’s hurtful or mean comments as not affecting you and I have to say that I deeply admire the good boundaries those of you who can do this demonstrate. Because the truth of it is - words can hurt us. Words can wound and demean and make us feel worthless. Words can also build us up and empower us and affirm us. What we say - and how we say it - comes out of who we are at our core. Out of the heart. The other phrase that came to mind for me was the one “actions speak louder than words.” The Christian version of this is attributed to St. Francis of Assisi, “preach the gospel at all times, and when necessary use words” - we won’t unpack the nuances of that particular statement for this morning. Suffice to say that the power of words - and the power of actions play key roles in both our passages from Scripture this morning. To start with Jesus, here he is having yet another conversation with the Pharisees, who have been critiquing his followers for not following the purity code. They weren’t following the prescriptions for ritual washing as observant Jews were expected to do. These codes and laws were meant to help preserve identity and tradition in the midst of a secular landscape - in this case, occupied Roman territory. The performance of these rituals helped define who was “in” and who was “out” - who is clean or unclean, who is part of “God’s people” and who is a Gentile or pagan. The Pharisees taught adherence to these codes, thinking that it is these practices and rituals, passed down from their elders and their elders’ elders and their elders’ elders’ elders as sacred tradition. Jesus laments that the Pharisees are missing the point - that they emphasize, in the words of Debie Thomas at Journey with Jesus, rite over mercy, heritage over hospitality, ritual over compassion….that these actions take priority over the freedom of loving God and neighbor fully. Even in this, Jesus doesn’t condemn them in their rule-following or in their desire for cleanliness before God - but notes that it isn’t what is on our hands or on our food or dishes that can defile - that can make us unclean or impure - but what comes out of us - the evil intentions that arise within our hearts are the problem. James also takes the time to talk about what comes out of us - words and actions - and using the language that Jesus used, noted that the actions that are undefiled before God are care for others - the orphans and widows, and to let our actions be sourced in God’s generous love - every generous act of giving with every perfect gift, coming from above, coming as its source, from God’s heart. In addition, James focuses specifically on words - knowing that words reveal something important about who we are - our beliefs, our motivations, our emotions - and expose us primarily to others, but also lead us to a greater awareness of ourselves. (For example, the more words you know that describe emotions, the greater capacity you have to understand and differentiate your emotional state of being). Words have so much power - they describe, name, blame, label, convict, lecture, explain, persuade, condole, console, counsel, eviscerate, heal - words can alarm, harm, uplift, inspire, degrade, or silence someone. In the language of James and Jesus - words can defile if they come out of that place of evil intention...words can also lead to healing and wholeness. Words can delineate - who is in and who is out….or words can liberate - setting all of us free. Where words have power, for James, actions give those words weight and meaning - they give our words life, they are the framework that underpins what we say, they are the means by which we are measured - there needs to be consistency between what we say and what we do...and for both James and Jesus, as we are drawn more deeply into the life of the kingdom, God becomes more fully the source of our words and actions, that we, in the language of John Wesley, are made more perfect in love. I think we know how hard that can be - even as we tend to look down upon the Pharisees and think that we wouldn’t make the same mistakes - that we wouldn’t mistake religiosity for true authentic worship (that we would never say the “right” words and perform the “right” actions but live lives out of alignment with God’s love and purposes). But we do - all the time. We cling to old traditions, we set up religious litmus-tests. We draw lines in the sand. We use words to hurt and injure. This is why we confess our sin each week in worship (and hopefully more often personally) to be honest with ourselves and with each other and with God so that our words and actions - so that our lives can be more in tune with God’s kingdom...and so that our words and actions can be truly life giving for others… and for ourselves. All we need to do is pay attention - the advice Jesus - and James - give is to notice what comes out of you. Notice your words. Notice your actions. Are they in alignment? Do they lead to hospitality and inclusion? Greater compassion and freedom? Do they, as Debie Thomas writes, “lead other people to feel loved and welcomed at God’s table? Make you brave, creative, and joyful? Prepare your mind and body for a God who is always doing something fresh and new? Facilitate another step forward in your spiritual evolution? Or do they make you small, stingy, and bored? Fearful, suspicious, withholding, and judgmental?” Moreover, we can ask these questions of ourselves as a faith community - we have words of welcome - do our actions and decisions as a church, especially as we soon move into a new phase of being as the Chebeague Community Church, lead us to make accommodations so that all are welcome? Do our times of worship, prayer, and study equip us to practice what James calls “pure religion” - radical love for those on the edges and a deep trust in a God who is always creating all things new? These are questions that invite us into a life of reflection - of paying attention, of discernment, of noting God’s movement in our life and in our church as we seek to become the people God created us to be. In that journey, we will be drawn ever more fully into the Source of all that is, the heart of God’s love, and we will find ourselves in that place where we are, as James puts it, “doers of the word” “practicers of pure religion” or as Jesus might name it, a place where our hearts are close to his. My prayer for us as we move forward today is that we find ways, with God’s help, to continually place our words and our actions before God - that they may be used to build a community of compassion and peace, forgiveness and hope, healing and justice. That we may move beyond our purity politics and religious litmus tests and to offer welcome at the Table for all who are hungry. That we may notice the kin-dom of God inbreaking among us and among this community...and in our world, and so be part of God’s redeeming work in this world. May it be so on this day and as we move forward together. Amen. |
AuthorPastor Melissa Yosua-Davis has been serving the community of Chebeague and its church since July 2015. She currently lives on the island with her husband and five year old son and 2 year old daughter, along with their yellow lab. Read here recent sermon excerpts, thoughts on life and faith, and current announcements for the church community. She also blogs at Going on to Perfection. Archives
December 2022
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