A Space for Witness

Welcome one another, therefore, just as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God. 

 

(Romans 15:7, NRSV)

In mid-November 2012, I had the privilege of traveling to Zimbabwe to experience the ministry and mission of our partner church, the United Church of Christ in Zimbabwe.  While there, we traveled to Mt. Selinda, the birthplace of the church in Zimbabwe.  It is a beautiful place with a sanctuary and parsonage, school, hospital, and children's home.  The ministry of the church is visible everywhere at Mt. Selinda.

 One of the most memorable times in that trip was our visit to the Daisy Dube Children's Home at Mt. Selinda.  There I saw children--tiny babies, toddlers, and teenagers all living in with a fervent hope for the future.   The children were a community that looked after one another.  Staff members were present and engaged, but the staff-to-child ratio was not what we might expect in the United States.

At Daisy Dube, as we opened several large bags that were filled by partnered churches in the New Hampshire Conference, I initially felt very uncomfortable.  Would these toys and trinkets get in the way of a real relationship with these children?  Would we be perceived to be Western benefactors, as rich white folks, who share superficially with the poor little children of the world while never engaging deeply, prayerfully with them?  I worked through that feeling, but it still lingers with me.  How do we show the care and compassion of Christ?  What gifts do these children really need if they are to embrace the future that God has for each of them?

Several years ago, when I was a local church pastor in the Missouri Mid-South Conference, I heard Tony Campolo speak at our annual meeting.  Campolo, a powerful speaker with an evangelical heart, challenged us to care for the children of the world who are dying of hunger and hunger-related diseases at an alarming rate.  He invited us to give him a scrap of paper with our names and addresses, which he forwarded to Compassion International, a ministry based in Colorado that serves the needs of children across the globe. I responded to that "altar call," and for many years gave monthly to support a child named Zonia in Bolivia.  At the time, I did not realize our own church--the United Church of Christ--also had a child sponsorship program that is underwritten by Our Church's Wider Mission (Basic Support), so that every dollar donated for a sponsored child goes to that child's care.

 

In April 2013, Zonia turned 18 and was no longer able to remain in a sponsorship program.  She became an adult.  We pray that she is making her way in the world.  At that time, we switched our child sponsorship offerings to the program of our denomination; and we specifically requested a child in Zimbabwe.  Imagine my joy when the child who was identified for us lived at the Daisy Dube Children's Home at Mt. Selinda--a place whose children I had visited just five months earlier. 

This month we received a letter of thanks from the Global Ministries Child Sponsorship Program.  In it was a picture of our child, who is named Witness, a thirteen-year-old boy.  We are told that Witness enjoys reading books and playing ball with his friends, including his best friend, Kelvin. He is in school, and wants to be a business man or administrator when he grows up.  Sadly, Witness says that he does not know about his family members because he was brought to the Children's Home as a very young boy.  "I don't know a thing about my history or my parents."

 I have taken Witness to heart.  A small monthly donation is sent to Global Ministries for his support--a symbol of the care and love I feel for this child, whom I may never meet.  I pray that his dreams and hopes will be realized--that he will become the person that God calls him to be.  There is a space in the world, a space in my heart, for Witness.

 

O God, send your Spirit upon Witness, your beloved child.  Help him to grow in your friendship and grace, that his future may be filled with sustaining memories and abounding hope.  Guide him in his life's journey that he may reach his goals and offer his own gifts for the life of your world.  Thank you for this child and for all the children of the world.  Amen.

And Then . . . . An Angel Sneezed

I remember Christmas in California, Missouri, a community with a lot of civic pride and hope.  We did "Christmas California Style" on a Sunday night in December.  The event was a curious merging of  expression of community spirit, public piety, and commerce.  The city park became our little town of Bethlehem for that night of celebration.   There were carols echoing in the night.  There was light in the darkness.  There was a moment of ecumenical togetherness amid dogmatic divisions.  We braved the winter winds to welcome Christmas.  Almost everyone went to the park to keep Christmas together.

For several years, the United Church of Christ was asked to do the live nativity during the city's celebration.  We had a formal schedule and had several shifts as I remember it.  One's knees can only kneel for so long at the manger.  Other costumed characters were ready to take the place of those who grew cold or faint.    For several hours, laborers and managers were together in costumes at the manger.  It was a holy time of togetherness with our focus on the baby in Mary's arms.

But one Christmas celebration was more special than all the rest for me.  That year, an organizer from our church decided everything needed to be absolutely perfect in our depiction of the nativity scene, as perfect as a glittery Christmas card.  We practiced posing as figurines in the stable.  We barely breathed.  We dared not whisper.  Youths were admonished about chewing gum and giggling.  This was to be a somber, sacred display. 

But then, just as a crowd of pilgrims came to view the nativity, an angel sneezed from up high atop a hay bale into the cold night air.  It was a high-pitched, Achooooo!  For an uncomfortable moment, the spell was broken because an angel sneezed.

Nearly a decade later, I still remember that moment when the angel sneezed.  Why?  Probably because I was identifying with that organizer who wanted everything to be just perfect.  We were trying so hard to live up to his version of Luke's Christmas story. We were all striving for perfection.  That angel's sneeze brought me to a deeper awareness.  Jesus was not born among stiff statues whose hearts were hardened like concrete.  Perfection has to do with being human--even as God became human, enfleshed for the likes of us.

Here's the humbling and hopeful thing about all of this:  When I'm tempted to be the perfect disciple and impose a rigid, frozen perfection on everyone around me, some angel will sneeze or hiccup or sing off key--and it will still be Christmas because God makes it so.  God still comes to save me from my illusions of perfection.  God moves me to laugh with old Sarah at a birth we thought incredible and impossible.  And, the scene will still be sacred and beautiful and a blessing.  It is so because God is in it.  God makes it so.  So, God, let your miracle happen again.  Let Christmas come anew!

Blessed Christmas!
 

The Risk of Relationship

I just finished addressing the Christmas cards, an annual ritual of the Advent season in our home.  Each year I wonder whether this will be the last year that I spend the time pouring over a list of names and addresses that I have maintained meticulously throughout the year.  It takes lots of energy to maintain that list and to hold all those people in my heart.  Our list has names of family members and friends--both near and far--who have been with us over many years.  Though we seldom see them, yet these are people who have shaped our spirits.  I cherish the memories as I address each envelope and sign each card.  A prayer ascends as the ink is applied and dries.  I remember the relationship in a profound way.  I am anchored anew in great gratitude and love.

But, it also occurs to me as I write each address that this holy time summons me to build enduring relationships for today.  Advent invites a new risk--the risk of relationship.  When God came into Bethlehem's manger, an amazing risk was involved.  Jesus was born a stranger in our midst.  He didn't know a soul, yet came to save every soul, every life and every creature, all of creation.  God risked a relationship of love. The Gospel prologue puts it this way, "He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him.  But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God."  My Jesus lives and dies with arms outstretched, reaching up, extending out for embrace--for relationship.

My prayer tonight is that someone somewhere will discover in me the outstretched arms of the Christ and know that his, her, our lives are not intended to be lived in loneliness and isolation.  It's not really about the card, but the care--the openness to reach out, to be vulnerable, and to stay connected.  The risk of relationship . . . I have seen it modeled well in a little baby, the Holy Child of Bethlehem.  It is revealed in the God who always finds a way to be with us, to embrace us, and love us to new life.

Our God, come!  Please come . . . soon!

 

Ah, Advent!

The period from September through November has not been easy.  The speed at which things have appeared and disappeared on my desk and in my schedule has been disorienting.  Maybe my age is catching up, mortality is settling in.  As I write today, I remember Abe, an outspoken church leader with a big, generous heart.  He said once after Sunday morning worship, "Reverend, if you ever lose your mind, we're all in trouble."  I took that as a compliment in 1993.  Truth be told, I probably did lose my mind back in those days of parish ministry and still am in the process of losing (and finding) it again in this crazy thing called conference ministry.  I also recall a service of installation in one of our churches early in my ministry in New Hampshire.  It was during the reception following the service that a short, elderly woman peered up at me over her the rim of her teacup to ask, "Now, who are you and why are you here?"  Such is life as a Conference Minister in the Untied Church of Christ:  Who am I?  Why am I here?

All this is prologue to Advent.  Ah, Advent, the beginning of something wonderfully new.  The old is passing away; God's newness is near.  There is more to come than what I have previously experienced.  The lost things are secure and will eventually be found.  All will be revealed for what it really is.  God is coming to judge and to save, to set things right, and to bless the world with hope. 

Yesterday, as I worshipped with the Congregational Church of Hooksett, I saw a single  purple candle that was lit in the Advent wreath.  It was designated, "The Candle of Hope."  Somehow the flickering flame brought home for me the gift of hope.  Amid gray and cloudy days in my soul--and the soul of our nation--there is hope.  God is coming!  God is coming!  God is coming!

Help me, O Coming One, to bask in this Advent time, to allow it to challenge and to change me in profound ways.   Prepare me to receive your eternal life.  Move me to be a child of your grace.  Grant your church space to reflect, to lay down all our preconceived notions and opinions as we listen long for your Word.  Keep us alert and awake,  so that we may be surprised and rejoice at your appearing .  O God, come!  Amen.

A Dwelling Place for God

This summer I was invited to preach at the Lee Church Congregational, a congregation of the United Church of Christ in the New Hampshire Conference.  That was a very special day, as we met in the church's fellowship hall for worship.  We worshipped in that space because something new was happening in Lee: the sanctuary was being renovated.  The fellowship hall was a bright, inviting space for the Sunday morning service.  A different kind work--a labor of great love and deep devotion--was happening in the regular worship space.

Following worship, I was taken on a tour of the sanctuary.  It had been stripped back to the studs.  The attic was exposed.  It was amazing to perceive the old in the midst of the new that was emerging.  Other hearts had sensed the stirring of God's Spirit.  Other hands had generously given.  Other bodies had labored long to make that sanctuary a reality.  And now, in our own time, Pastor Gail Kindberg and the congregation that is Lee Church Congregational are joining that work in a very special, even sacred way.  They are building for the future, building in faith, hope, and love on the foundational work of those who have gone before.  Theirs is an act of devotion and love.  They will leave a beautiful worship space for the generations that will come to call this sanctuary home.  A refrain in a recent article by the Pastor rings with joyful gratitude, "We are richly blessed."

As I write today, I note that the congregation will move into the renovated sanctuary for a first service on October 27.  If you seek a sanctuary and a community of Christ's people, where God's Spirit stirs hearts and minds, where resurrection hope is real--here's one!  The New Hampshire Conference of the United Church of Christ is also "richly blessed" by the loving devotion of our local churches and the courage and compassion with which they serve God in our time.

A text springs to mind in the midst of my gratitude: 

So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God, built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets with Christ Jesus himself as the cornerstone.  In him, the whole structure is joined together and grows into a holy temple in the Lord; in whom you also are built together spiritually into a dwelling place for God.  (Ephesians 2:219-22, NRSV)

 

An End of Summer Reflection

I have learned that summer is short in New England.  The growing season passes swiftly.  The heat of summer, though perhaps intense for a time, is short-lived.  In recent days, the mornings have been cool.  The days are getting noticeably shorter.  An ending is coming.

A text from Jeremiah, caught my eye last night.  This is one of the readings in the lectionary for September 22, 2013, which is the Eighteenth Sunday after Pentecost (Cycle C).   I am scheduled to preach in one of our churches that morning, but I will likely not bring this text into the pulpit with me.  Even so, I know it will be lodged in the depths of my heart.

Here's the text that speaks to my spiritual depths in these waning days of summer:

My joy is gone, grief is upon me,

     my heart is sick.

Hark, the cry of my poor people

     from far and wide in the land:

"Is the LORD not in Zion?

     Is her King not in her?"

("Why have they provoked me to anger with their images, with their foreign idols?")

"The harvest is past, the summer is ended,

     and we are not saved."

For the hurt of my poor people I am hurt,

     I mourn, and dismay has taken hold of me.

Is there no balm in Gilead?

     Is there no physician there?

Why then has the health of my poor people

     not been restored?

O that my head were a spring of water,

     and my eyes a fountain of tears,

so that I might weep day and night

     for the slain of my poor people!

--Jeremiah 8:18-9:1, NRSV

This is not a cheery, carefree kind of text!  It is so heavy, so gloomy, so deeply down.  Yet, this text is where I dwell in these days.  Even in the light of  a new day, I relish this text.  The subtext is a dose of stark reality:  "The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved."  There is unfinished business, and the season for salvation appears to have come and gone. We missed it.  It is over.  We are not saved.  We are not healed, as we had so fervently hoped.  Many hearts still ache and break.  A river of tears wells up and flows out like a fountain.    We are a long way from the New Jerusalem where we hear the voice, announcing, that God is in the midst of her, that tears and death and mourning and pain and death all over.  No more!  In God's good time it will be so; but for now, all is still not well with God's world: 

Syria poses a deadly, international dilemma.  How then shall shall the world respond? 

Medicaid expansion is freighted with paralyzing political posturing and rhetorical talking points, while the poor people are silenced, pushed aside, left to fend for themselves, . . . left to die.

The changes in the earth's climate are accepted as inevitable and natural when human influence is clearly involved.  We are complicit in the crisis.  Our actions and attitudes have consequences that will affect our generation and those yet to come.

The gathering in Washington, D.C. to commemorate the historic March on Washington, which  happened fifty years ago this very week, reminds us that we have such a long, long road to walk for equality and freedom for all God's children in this land. Is there still a dream today or have we succumbed anew to the sin of a segregated society?

I know Jeremiah well; we are kindred souls.  He gets to the heart of things.  The harvest is past, the summer is ended, and we are not saved.  His words sound disturbing and depressing, but they move us toward a wider horizon, toward the horizon of hope, toward an empty tomb and a Holy City and amazing joy.

Is the Lord not in the Zion?  Is the Sovereign not in the city?  So, is there a balm in Gilead?  Is there hope to counter the weighty despair that underlies this holy text?  Answers do not spring forth quickly; but imploring questions abound.  And, in these piercing questions is where I find hope.  When people of faith are driven back to their questions and find their voice to ask them--this is a movement toward hope.  Questions become pleas and prayers for those who refuse to give up on God's promise.  Questions name the reality.  They give us pause and move us to listen for deeper responses.  Questions are expressions of faithful people, struggling to find their footing when all appears lost.  Indeed, I am grateful for the witness of every Jeremiah, who is moved to pray in questions in the midst of disappointment and despair.  It is there, near the bottom--near the end of summer--that hope is born.

O God, who joins us in our tears, our sadness, and our death: When easy answers elude and fail to satisfy our deepest longings, grant us courage to ask you the hard questions.  Grant us such faith that we may trust through the sorrows and the silences of life.  As this summer season ends, reassure us with the hope of restoration and resurrection.  In this ending, in your good time, let life sprout and spring forth.  Is there still a balm in Gilead?  Do you not care that we are languishing and perishing?  Will your poor people be remembered and healed?  See us through, O God.  Yes, see us through.

Engaging Faith

This morning we were in worship led by a colleague in the Missouri-Mid South Conference of the United Church of Christ.  Dale has been one of those memorable mentors in my ministry. He has been an influential figure in my life, a brother in Christ, who has served with great joy and a dash of holy irreverence in every setting where he has been called.  Dale has persevered as a pastor and teacher; ministry is clearly his calling.  He stays long--but never too long.  His life continues to be led by a joyful, even playful Spirit.  He connects with his congregants.

This morning's worship was a contemporary service.  It was powerful.  (I usually prefer "traditional" worship to "contemporary" worship.)  Today was different.  The whole service was about faith, grounded in scriptures from Hebrews 11:1-16 and Luke 12:32-47.  Dale reminded us of the Question 80 in the Evangelical Catechism:  What is faith?   The response:  "Faith is complete trust in God and willing acceptance of [God's] grace in Jesus Christ."  I memorized that answer in my youth, but now I am not convinced: Complete trust in God?  My trust is often fractured and scattered.  It is a long way from "complete."  When I think of complete trust in God, I hear Jesus cry out in victory in the midst of his dying, "It is finished!" (John 19:30)   I admire that kind of courage and confidence; I aspire to it.  My prayer includes a confession that my trust in God is incomplete and far from finished.  But God continues to be engaged and committed to love even through suffering and death.  That's complete faith!

Here, though, is what I took away this morning as I listened for the Spirit to speak through my friend Dale:  Faith is the resilience to remain engaged even when we are not sure where the journey may lead.  Faith is God's determination to stay engaged with us even when we are easily distracted and even oblivious to God's claim on our lives.  Faith is in our decision to stay connected with those we love and those we have not yet learned to love.  Faith is the joyful commitment to stay, even when we feel like giving up and running away toward the mirage of an  easier, carefree life.

Tonight I am basking in the glow of today's worship and continuing to reflect about what all this might mean in my own ministry.  It will soon be seven years since I began as the Conference Minister of the New Hampshire Conference of the United Church of Christ.  The days have been full, often stretching my spirit in ways that I could not have imagined when I began.   The years have gone so quickly.   Sure, there has been some personal sacrifice in this service; but mostly, there has been receptivity, satisfaction, and deep joy.  It is my calling.  God's Spirit has seen me through and will still see me through--of this I am convinced.  Faith is the predisposition to care enough to remain engaged, listening to the Spirit and loving those for whom Christ died and rose again.  I trust this to be so, and it is.

Great is your faithfulness, O God! 
     Great is your love and mercy! 
          Great is your call to life! 

Thank you for the gift of a Sabbath day and for your servant Dale.  May his ministry continue to be a source of strength and joy for so many of us.  May we be found faithful now, in the end, and always.  May it be so!  Amen.