Feel the Rhythm! Feel the Rhyme! Get On Up, It's Bobsled Time!

Here is my message from Sunday. The text was 1 Samuel 17:1a, 4-11, 32-49:

In preparation for the Olympic Games in Atlanta in 1996, Nike put up a billboard that said “You don’t win the silver, you lose the gold.” According to Nike, it was supposed to be inspiring, but for US wrestler Townsend Saunders, an Arizona State alum, when he walked out of the arena wearing a silver medal, he said those words stung. “It’s not terrible for everyone else to read” he said, “It’s just terrible for every silver medalist.” He went home depressed thinking he should have given more effort and won gold. “It was an honor to represent my country,” he said, “but to have come so close.” Eventual he came to terms with his loss and realized that not very many people have a silver medal either.[i] And really, the billboard seemed to be in opposition to many of the things the Olympics represent.  Baron de Coubertin, the founder of the modern Olympic Games, said “The important thing in the Olympic Games in not winning but taking part. The essential thing in life is not conquering but fighting well.” And that, I think, is one of the things that make the Olympics great. Because while there are certainly those who win, who mark themselves as great, that we celebrate, people like Jesse Owens or Simone Biles or Michael Phelps, we are often just as amazed by those who give everything even know that they have little chance of winning. The Olympics are just as much, or maybe even more about those athletes. And so perhaps with that idea it’s appropriate that today’s film is Cool Runnings about the Jamaican Bobsled team who first participated in the 1988 Olympics in Calgary.

In trying to find films for this series, I was looking for a film about someone who was expected to win and didn’t, but there aren’t a lot of them out there. And so the next best option was films that celebrate the mere act of competing and there are some good films that do that, and this is one of the best. But, we do have to be honest and say that it says that this is based on a true story, and that is true. There was a bobsled team from Jamaica, and there are a couple of other things that are true from the story, but most of the rest of it is made up for entertainment purposes, and so that does mark this story as different from other Olympic films. It’s still very entertaining, but don’t take this as what actually happened, and in it also has a bigger connecting to the story of David and Goliath.

You Can Run. You Can Jump. But, Can You Win?

Here is my message from Sunday. The text was 1 Corinthians 9:24-27:

Last week as we began our worship series on the gospel message to be found in movies about the Olympics we looked at the movie Miracle, about the 1980 US hockey team who won gold. To help them prepare for that, their coach told them they were going to work harder than they had ever worked before, and wanted to know that they were actually going to be dedicated enough to actually get it done? That is often the difference between success and failure not just in sports, but in most aspects of life. How much are you willing to put into it? Are you willing to put in everything you have, and even more, or do you want to just do enough to get by? And more importantly in our faith lives, what are we willing to do? Paul really asks the Corinthian community, are you putting everything you have in to win the race of faith, or is your desire and wants somewhere else?

And so today we look at the movie Race, which is about Jesse Owens who is arguably one of, if not the greatest Olympic athlete of all time, having won 4 gold medals at the 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin, and I hope that didn’t ruin the surprise for anyone. There is so much we could talk about this film including that the movie’s title has sort of a double meaning to it, not only being about the races that Owens won as a track star, but also about the realities of being a black man in America and in Hitler’s Olympic games. But today we are going to focus on the fact no one gets to the Olympics by just talent alone. Talent will get you only so far on its own, but it takes more than just talent to be your best and especially the best in the world. And so Owens, whose family moved to Ohio from Alabama when he was a boy, goes to Ohio State University to run on their track team, at a time in which their football team was still another 7 years away from being integrated. And when he gets there, his coach, Larry Snyder, wonders what he has. Take a look…

The Name on the Front of the Jersey is More Important Than the Name on the Back

Here is my sermon from Sunday. The text was Galatians 3:23-29:

Since the summer Olympics are set to start in less than two weeks, a year late and many billions of dollars over budget, and unlike any Olympics we’ve ever seen before. I thought now would be a great time to begin a new worship series which will go for the next four weeks looking at the gospel message, or the Christian message, we can find in films about the Olympics. And please notice that this is not the gospel according to the Olympics, as we have only four gospels we use, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, but the gospel in Olympic films. That is seeing Christian stories or themes, or finding them, in areas in which we might not ordinarily think to look. We start with one of the best, and more recent Olympic films, and that is the film Miracle, about the 1980 US Olympic hockey team who, against all odds and expectations, and 40-year-old spoiler alert, defeated the Soviet hockey team, probably one of the greatest hockey teams ever to play, having won gold at the last four Olympics. And while the film certainly tells the story of that game, and does it extraordinarily well in my opinion, it’s the story of how they got to that point that makes the difference and leads us to what we are going to explore today.

Herb Brooks, played by Kurt Russell, was the coach of the University of Minnesota hockey team and was hired in 1979 to coach the Olympic team after several others had turned it down because they didn’t think they could compete, certainly with the soviets, but Brooks had a different idea, and a different way of constructing his team. He wasn’t necessarily going to take the best players, as he said “All-star teams fail because they rely solely on the individual's talent. The Soviets win because they take that talent and use it inside a system that's designed for the betterment of the team.” The only way they could beat the soviets, he said, was to play the best team hockey they could, not just having the best players they could get. And so rather than having tryouts as normal, Brooks instead handpicked all the players for the team. But that didn’t mean it was easy going because these were guys that had played against each other at the highest levels of college hockey for national championships, and so there was some bad blood existing. Take a look…

In-Person and Digital Worship

Several months ago we cut the cord on our cable (or actually our satellite dish). We had been talking about it and looking at all the different options and when the price was going up, and the company offered to upgrade me to a more expensive package, but not cut the price, we decided to bite the bullet and do it, and we haven’t really looked back. And we are not alone.

There were an estimated 25 million people who had stopped using cable or satellite by 2017. This year that number is supposed to reach 50 million, with another 5 million added next year, and still growing beyond that. Netflix now has more subscribers in the US than cable and satellite combined. Additionally cable viewership of those between 18-49 is down more than 27% in the past two years, even with people being locked up at home. This is the reality of the world in which we live, and it will only continue.

We live in an on-demand world. Other than for sports, or very special shows, people don’t want to have to wait until a specific time to watch a show, and then not be able to catch it again until much later. They want to be able to see it when they want to watch not when someone else says they can watch it. And then there is the whole issue of binging a whole series or season at once. Some entertainment companies have recognized this reality and embraced it, others are working towards it, and others who resist will simply disappear.  

This is not true just for TV, but for many other things that used to demand everyone to be in one place at the same time. While I do still “attend” workshops and trainings that are at a particular time and day, most of the things I attend or see offered that I might be interested in are on demand. I do the work when it’s convenient for me and interact with others who are doing the same thing at the same time. There may be time limitations, that is the class is only happening during a period of dates, but it still works on my schedule. Just look at what universities are doing in online classes and you’ll see how true this is becoming.

Now until the past year most churches have been anything but doing that. We offered worship at a particular time and if you couldn’t make that, then you were out of luck. And other than perhaps watching or listening to the sermon later, which even then was a rarity in most churches, there was no way to catch up. That is not conducive to a culture that wants things differently, and wants them when they want them. McDonalds now offers breakfast all day for a reason.

Now all this does not mean you can’t still offer things at a particular time, but unless you are really special, again think sports, people want other ways to interact when they want. Our streaming allows us to do this because you can now access our worship service any time after it happens, as well as to just watch the message if you want. I haven’t heard of anyone bingeing an entire worship series at one time yet, but I do know many people who are watching the worship service at a time that works better for them for many reasons.

Now one of the things that people get stuck in is either/or thinking, rather than both/and. It’s not that we are going to preference those in the sanctuary over online, or vice versa. Both are constituents of the congregation. As Phillip Ortega keeps saying, which I encourage, “we need to meet people where they are.”

You cannot make people do what you want them to do, but that they don’t want to do. If you are a parent or own cats you know is true. It’s about thinking of ways of being church in new ways in order to reach new people. We have people worshipping with us online on a regular basis, and sometimes just once, who don’t even live in New Mexico, let alone Los Alamos. Our possibility of growth online also becomes exponential over what we can do here.

In-person worship and gatherings are not going away, but neither is the digital, and both can inform and build on each other, as well as increase engagement, and as one person I recently read said, if we don’t embrace the digital, “your church will probably continue to function like a mall in the age of Amazon.” Malls are dying and to quote a book title, I refuse to lead a dying church.

But that’s just a start, and I’ll expand more in the next few weeks. So I want to know from you, where do you see opportunities for us in the digital world that we are not currently using, what are your concerns, and how do you think you might be able to assist?

With Liberty and Justice for All

Here is my message from Sunday. The texts were Deuteronomy 10:12-13, 17-21, John 8:31-36 and Galatians 5:1, 13-25:

Today is the day we, as a nation, celebrate our independence, or achieving our liberty, from Great Britain. Although technically I agree with John Adams, that we should probably celebrate on July 2 because that was the day that the continental congress actually passed the resolution declaring independence. They then spent the next two days debating the wording of the declaration, which was then adopted on July 4, although it’s possible some signed it on July 4th, most didn’t start signing it until nearly a month later, and several never signed it at all. But as I was thinking of today and what I might talk about, I was thinking about the last line of the pledge of allegiance, “with liberty and justice for all.” And those are terms that have a particular meaning for us as Christians, that may be, and probably are different than those that we think of as a country and a culture, even though the writer of the pledge, Francis Belamy, was a Baptist minister. He was also a socialist and was removed from his church after denouncing the evils of capitalism. But what makes the story even more interesting is the fact that the first place that really published and pushed the pledge was a publication entitled The Youth’s Companion, but their motive was to encourage schools to buy flags for all of their classrooms, and of course who was selling those flags? The Youth’s Companion. I’m telling you you can’t make this up.

But anyways, we hear much in the Bible about justice, and in particular about God’s justice, which is part of that passage we heard from Deuteronomy, and the prophets have a lot more to say about it, because often the reason that Israel is being punished is because they are not upholding God’s justice. And what God also makes clear is that because Israel is God’s chosen nation and people, that they are held to a higher standard. That because they know of God’s justice that their acts of justice, or how they live out justice, must follow the same standard of that of the divine. And what is that? Well we don’t have time to go into that in detail, and one of the reasons I wanted to talk about it today was for me to begin thinking about it in greater detail for a possible worship series on God’s justice, and what that might look like and entail. And so Moses tells the people, sort of summarizing the law, or at least how it’s lived out, that God is impartial and takes no bribes, the sort of basics of what we might think of what justice in the world looks like, especially amongst judges, the police, prosecutors and politicians, those who carry out human justice, after all we say that justice is blind right? That she is blind so that everyone gets a fair shot, even if we might not actually live into that, that’s the ideal. Which is also being set out here.

Life Is A Powerful Force: I Miss My Dog

Life is a powerful thing. Life wants to keep going. And regardless of what we witness in movies on and TV, killing someone, or something, is hard to do. Life wants to fight back and hold on. Just think of all the weeds that keep coming back. This week we had to put one of our dogs down, and his life just kept holding on. The vet actually had to give a second shot, and she said that sometimes they just don’t want to let go. And perhaps we should have seen that all along in Toby.

We got him six years ago from the shelter in Albuquerque. We had been looking at the possibility of getting a second dog, and I was on their website and saw that they had a Shetland Sheepdog available. We had a Sheltie when I was an infant, although she died before I was old enough to remember her, but grew up hearing about what a great dog she was and how good Sheltie’s were with kids and families, and so I called Linda and we went to see him.

Long story short, they didn’t know much about him and all the strange things he was doing while we were there we explained away as him being stressed of having his life turned upside down and not knowing what was going on in ending up at the shelter. They also said that purebreds didn’t come in very often and if we didn’t take him then, he would be gone by the morning, and so we got ourselves a new dog.

But, when we got him home, we discovered through his behavior that he had been either severely abused or completely ignored in his last home. When he went outside he would run to a small, tight corner where two fences came together and hide. When he came into the house, he would run into the bathroom behind the toilet and hide. That was his existence.

With the help of some medicine to start, and then a dog trainer, and a lot of work, especially by my wife, we got him to become somewhat sociable and acclimated to his surroundings and his family. But, while there were glimpses of a normal dog inside of him, they were fleeting. You could also see that he was trying desperately to try and overcome his past. As he improved when we would come near to him, he might still try and flee, but then would stop and start running in circles trying to overcome his anxiety. Or he would see us and run towards us, and then start circling before coming too close. We actually called him circle dog for a while because that was our interactions.

By the end of his life, we could actually walk him on a leash, he would sit on the couch and come seek an ear rubbing if we were lying in bed, and he played with the children. On his best days, he would even let me walk up to him and let me scratch his ears, but he never really did well with men, which makes me think it was an abuse issue.

In looking back now, I can see his powerful claim of life working its way through. He could have just given up, curled up in a ball refusing to eat or drink and just been done. But he didn’t. He fought, maybe not as effectively as we may have wanted, but from where he was on his first day to where he was on his last day was the difference between night and day. Others, who spent time around him, may have still seen how “off” he might be, but he had made enormous progress. And before we went to the vet on Monday I was able to groom him, a little, and scratch his ears and tell him not only thank you, but also that I was sorry for what he had been through and that we were never able to get him fully over it all, which was not his fault.

On Monday evening I told Linda that what was hitting me hardest is that I missed the idea of Toby. Not in the When Harry Met Sally way of “Maybe I just miss the idea of Helen. No, I miss the whole Helen.” But that I wanted something specific from him, and he and I could not make that happen. I wanted him to be more than he could be, and in that isn’t he like all of us, living in our brokenness? And yet the power of life shone through him to the end. I miss the idea of Toby, but I also just miss my dog.

Connecting In a Divided World

Here is my message from Sunday. The text was Romans 13:8-14 and Matthew 18:15-17:

On May 22, 1856, in what is considered one of the low points in the history of the US Congress, Preston Brooks, a pro-slavery representative from South Carolina, entered the senate chambers and attacked Massachustes senator Charles Sumner with a cane beating him within inches of his life for an anti-slavery speech that Sumner had delivered two days before. The violence was seen as the beginning of the “breakdown of reasonable discourse”, contributing even more to the polarization of the country around the issue of slavery, and a precursor to the increasing violence that would lead to the civil war. And yet many historians say that the civil war became inevitable several years before that when the churches began to split, including the Methodists and later the Baptists, which is the reason we have a southern Baptist church over slavery. That when churches could not stay together, people believe, there was little chance for the country itself.

And so most of you here are probably aware of the issues now swirling around the Methodist church and the potential, or maybe likely, schism, which has been postponed at least until next year. And if you’ve been paying attention to the southern Baptist gathering this week, you also know that there was considerable debate there about actions that could lead to many or most African-Amercian congregations, and many others as well, leaving that denomination. This has led to some speculation about what churches splintering again means for us as a country. And then what the last election showed us is that 100% of the country believes that 50% of americans have lost their minds. And so it probably isn’t surprising that one of the things that several people have asked me to talk about, or just asked for advice itself, is how, in these troubled and divided times, we are supposed to deal with, let alone get along with, people who are on the opposite side of some issue, especially if they, or maybe even us, resort to anger and name calling and other derogatory behavior to make their point.

State of the Church

Here is my message from Sunday. The passages were Joshua 24:13-15 :

It has been my tradition, to take one Sunday a year, typically in June, or right around then, to give a state of the church message. To talk about where we have been, what some of our accomplishments have been in the past year, perhaps where we were not as successful as we had hoped, and what opportunities and challenges we’re, things to focus on and occasionally some challenges to the congregation of things we could, or maybe should, be doing. I do it around this time of year because it represents for me, the completion of an appointment year and an anniversary of my time here. Now we didn’t do this last year, because as I said in my preview video sent out in our Friday worship email, I really had no idea what the next week, or month, might bring, let alone trying to forecast what the next year would bring. In some ways that’s still true, although we are coming closer to normality. Additionally, while we had made some good goals for 2020, most of them got put on hold because of the onset of Covid. And that has also sort of put me, and many other clergy in an unusual situation, in that I am now completing the end of my second year being here with you, I don’t really have two years of experience with you all. I have 8 or so months or sitting with you, and visiting with you and working with you, of doing hospital visits and funerals, and the other things that happen in the normal life of a church. And then many more months of doing things very differently than most of us have ever done before. There are some disadvantages in that reality, but there are probably some good opportunities for us to do things differently as we move forward.

And that’s probably a good place to start, because while some people can’t wait to get back to normal, or the way things used to be, we shouldn’t be so quick to just go back to doing what we have done before. This is a great time to evaluate everything and make sure it’s what we want or need to keep doing. So for example, going to online worship is not just a temporary thing. Online worship represents a huge opportunity for us to reach new people in new ways, and many people will feel much safer seeing what our worship is like from the comfort of their own homes than coming here for the first time. And so we are going to keep streaming worship. But that will require us to think differently about worship and what it means to have people here and also people online, some of whom don’t even live in Los Alamos. How do we build community there? How do we deepen relationship and faithfulness in both places? And it’s not even that we can think that our primary purpose is here and that what we do online is just for convenience for some people, because that’s not the way the world works anymore.

For Thine Is the Kingdom and the Power and the Glory Forever. Amen.

Here is my message from Sunday. The text was Acts 2:1-21 and Matthew 6:5-13:

Today is Pentecost Sunday which represents the beginning and end of many things. The first is that it represents the end of the season of Easter and the celebration of the resurrection and the beginning of what is known as ordinary time. ordinary in this sense not meaning common, but from the word ordinal, or number, and so next Sunday is the first Sunday after Pentecost, and so on all the way until we reach Christ the King Sunday and the beginning of Advent in November. It also represents that end of Jesus’ in person ministry on Earth and the beginning of the mission and teaching of the disciples through the formation of the church. It is the end of one way of the disciples experiencing God, through the person of Christ, and a new way of experiencing and knowing God through the gift of the Spirit, because Jesus said that when he ascended to the Father that he would not leave us alone, but would send the Spirit, the advocate to be with us. And so the gift of the Spirit represents a new beginning, and when we receive the Spirit what did Jesus say we would also receive? Power. And that will become even more important in a moment. And as we celebrate our graduates today we recognize that graduation is the end of one phase of life, whether high school or college, and the beginning of something entirely new. Something different. And so these beginnings and ends are also seen as we complete our series on the Lord’s Prayer, not only because we end the series, but because the last part of the prayer leads us from prayer into the world.

As I’ve been saying the Lord’s prayer is typically seen as having six petitions, after the opening of our Father, or literally the Father of us. There are three petitions about God, for God’s name to be hallowed, for God’s Kingdom to come and for God’s will to be done. And then there are three petitions about us, for our daily bread, for forgiveness and for God to lead us and deliver us. And then we close with what is known as the doxology, “for thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever” or sometimes “forever and ever. Amen.” And I’m hoping that you all noticed that this part of the prayer was not included in the prayer as we have heard it from Matthew’s version every week for the past six weeks. Nor is it included in Luke’s version of the prayer found in chapter 11. And why it’s not in the gospels but is found as we say it as Protestants begins to be encapsulated in why it’s called the doxology.

For us know, when we hear the term doxology, many of us think immediately of the song that gets sung after the offering, and it sort of has the same purpose. A doxology is a hymn or phrase added to the end of a psalm, canticle or hymn in praise of God. This has roots in Jewish practice, and so would have been very familiar to Jesus and the disciples. And for most of us, hearing the Lord’s Prayer without the doxology just seems rather strange, and it’s a rather abrupt end. This has led some scholars to speculate that it probably didn’t originally end this way, that because doxologies were used in Jewish prayer that the Lord’s Prayer probably included something similar, even if it wasn’t these exact words, but that his ending wasn’t known to either Matthew or Luke, or more likely to the source from which they got their material. And yet, for those of you who were raised Roman Catholic, it doesn’t sound strange at all because you were used to praying it without the doxology being there.

And so then the question becomes, if Matthew and Mark didn’t know these words, or potentially didn’t know them, then where did they come from and where they originally a part of the prayer? And the answer is we simply don’t know. The majority of the early church fathers who wrote commentaries on the Lord’s Prayer, do not have anything about this ending, nor is it contained in the Vulgate, which is the Latin translation of the Bible. But, we do know that the doxology was known and can be dated to the early church because of a book that is known as the Didache, or sometimes also called the Teaching of the Twelve Apostles. As the second title indicates, it is a collection of teachings about the early church and it is broken into three parts. One is on ethics, the second is on the rituals of the church including baptism and the Eucharist, and the third is on the organization of the church. There is much debate about the dating of the document, with some speculating that at least parts of it date to as early as the council of Jerusalem in 49-50, which would make it one of the earliest documents we have. Others date it towards the end of the 2nd century, with a general consensus of most scholars now dating it the 1st century, but probably towards the end, or at least that being when it was compiled. But, the point is, the Didache also contains a version of the Lord’s Prayer, which it instructs people to pray three times a day, although the times for the prayer are not given. And the Didache says that we are to pray thus: “Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy Name, thy Kingdom come, thy will be done, as in Heaven so also upon earth; give us today our daily bread, and forgive us our debt as we forgive our debtors, and lead us not into trial, but deliver us from the Evil One, for thine is the power and the glory forever."

This passage is important then for several reasons. One is because even though the doxology is not found in our earliest and best manuscripts of Matthew and Luke, it is found here, and so we know that it probably dates to the earliest days of the church. Second, because this version is a little different than Matthew and Luke’s versions, which are different from each other, we also know that this prayer was circulating amongst many different Christian communities, adding credence to its probable origin with Christ himself. Which leads into the third point which is that we know that this prayer is not just important to us today, or it didn’t gain in importance over time, that it was important to the earliest church because the Didache instructs praying it three times a day. It doesn’t explain why Mark and John don’t include the prayer, at least not in the form we have it and pray it, but it clearly shows that the Lord’s Prayer was widely known and important to the church. And the doxology was also know. In the Orthodox Church, the doxology is offered just before communion. In the Protestant tradition, Luther included the doxology in his translation of the New Testament into German, and so he was obviously aware of it, as did William Tyndale in his English translation, which I have referred to several times on translation issues of why we pray it the way we do in English.

But let’s get to the rub of what this means for the prayer and for us, and to do that we return to what we also discussed last week in the petition about temptation and the temptation of Jesus in the wilderness. In either the second or third temptation, depending on which gospel we are reading, Jesus is taken up to the highest point in Jerusalem, and in Luke’s version says, “And the devil said to him, ‘To you I will give their glory and all this authority; for it has been given over to me, and I give it to anyone I please. If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours.’ Jesus answered him, ‘It is written, ‘Worship the Lord your God, and serve only him.’” And so, what the devil says here are all the kingdoms that could be yours, and we should ask what it means that here the devil says that they are his, and with them comes glory and authority, which I think we could also see as power. 

And so we should be seeing again a direct connection here between the Kingdom of God and the kingdoms of the world that we talked about when we petitioned for God’s Kingdom to come, and also remembering that I said that one of the reasons I think Reign of God is a better term is because we instantly think about geographical boundaries when we think Kingdom. That’s what the devil is offering. But the reign of God is not just about geography, it’s also about hearts and minds and lives. That we are going to be a part of the reign of God. We are participating in it through everything that we do; in seeking to do God’s will and seeking to bring glory to God’s name. And so what the doxology to this prayer reminds us of is that it’s not about us, or the Kingdoms of this world, it’s about God. Because it’s about God’s Kingdom and God’s power and God’s authority, and to know that those are different than the world.

And that should become clear because of what comes immediately before this right? Because what have we just prayed for? Bread, and forgiveness and leadership and delivery from temptations and evil. And again as we touched on, the kingdoms of the world, and in particular for the first hearers of this prayer the Kingdom of Rome. And Rome wants you to think they will do all of these things for you, but who do they bring that about? The same way that all kingdoms of the world bring it about through violence and repression. But God’s reign is different, and we are saying that whereas Rome may promise these things, they don’t and won’t always deliver and some days you may be on their good side, and some days you may not, and more importantly their promises are not forever. But God’s promises are forever. And so we read in 1 Chronicles, which may be where the doxology originated, or is at least inspired by, which has David proclaiming, “Blessed are you, O Lord, the God of our ancestor Israel, for ever and ever. Yours, O Lord, are the greatness, the power, the glory, the victory, and the majesty; for all that is in the heavens and on the earth is yours; yours is the kingdom, O Lord, and you are exalted as head above all.”  (1 Chron 29:10b-11) That is this has been a prayer of celebration for a 1000 years, and it continues not just in the prayer but we even hear a similar claim in Revelation.

And what God is also willing and able to do is to share and call us to participate in that Kingdom, because what do we receive when the Spirit comes upon us? Power. The power of the Spirit comes upon us to do God’s work in the world, to bring God’s kingdom to the world, to do God’s will in the world, to bring glory to God’s name, by feeding the hungry and giving forgiveness and seeking to live always in God’s righteousness. And so what God’s Kingdom and power and authority remind us is that it’s not about us, and I know that’s really hard for many people to hear and so let me say it again. It’s not about you, it’s not about me, it’s not about us, it’s about God and seeing the world the way that God sees it and not just calling for the Kingdom of God to come, but seeking to bring it about, and we see that in the story of Pentecost.

Because Jesus has already told the disciples that when the Spirit comes upon them they will receive what? Power. And so tongues as of fire come upon them, and this is not destructive fire, this is the fire of life and the disciples are driven from the room in which they have been locked up in and go out into the world to preach the good news, to, quoting from the prophet Joel, dream dreams and see visions and prophesy about God. These are not their dreams and not their visions and not their words, these are the words of God that they are proclaiming, inspired by the Spirit and guided by the Spirit and empowered by the Spirit. And that word for power here is dynamis, from which we get words like dynamic and dynamite. This is to live into boldness of God. it’s like having the boldness of a child who has not eaten their dinner but just ten minutes later comes up and asks if they can have dessert or a snack. That’s bold. And so this is an engaged and active and explosive thing that we are called to, to participate in. And so Jesus says, when you receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you, here’s what you are going to do. The power of the Spirit we have is not for us. It’s for furthering the work of the Kingdom. So when you receive this power, Jesus says, you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all of Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth.

So let’s break that down just a little bit. They are to be witnesses to the Kingdom and power and authority of God, to proclaim the good news, first in Jerusalem, and where are the disciples when told this? In Jerusalem, so witness where you are at the moment. Then be witnesses in Judea, which is the territory in which Jerusalem is located, so go out to the surrounding areas, and then comes a harder one. Be witnesses in Samaria. Samaria is to the north of Judea and south of Galilee, in the in-between, which might be good in itself, witness in the in-between places. Except Samaritans and Jews hate each other. And so Jesus is saying go to those people that you don’t like, who don’t look like you, or think like you or act like you. God and be witnesses amongst those people. Sure they might be Red Sox fans and therefore have made bad choices in their lives, but offer them the good news. Offer them bread and offer them forgiveness and offer them love and offer them the Kingdom. In fact, offer them the power of the Spirit so that they too can be witnesses and work beside each other. And then, finally as if to make it even clearer, Jesus then says and be my witnesses to the ends of the earth. Witness to everyone, because that’s what the Spirit will give you the power to do.

Many years ago, someone gave me a poem, and I don’t know who wrote it, not for lack of trying to find out, but it says:

You cannot pray the Lord's Prayer and even once say "I."
You cannot pray the Lord's Prayer and even once say "My."
Nor can you pray the Lord's Prayer and not pray for one another,
And when you ask for daily bread, you must include your brother.
For others are included ... in each and every plea,
From the beginning to the end of it, it does not once say "Me." 

The Lord’s prayer is not about me or you, it’s about us as creatures made in the image of God seeking to turn our lives, all that we are and all that we have, over to God. to humble ourselves before God, in order to do not what we want, but what God wants, even taking the cup from which Jesus drinks and the baptism into which Jesus was baptized. It’s about that call to love God with all that we are and to love our neighbors as ourselves. It’s not our power, it’s not for our glory and it’s definitely not our Kingdom, because all those things are God. and to make that very clear, not only do we say those words, but then we close with Amen, which means something like this is the truth or may it be so. These are not just words that we day because we are taught to say them, or because it’s just what we’ve always done. These are the words of life. These are the words of discipleship.

Who is called to hallow God’s name? We are. Who is called to bring God’s Kingdom here and now? We are. Who is called to do God’s will on earth as it is in heaven? We are. Who is to bring everyone this day their daily bread? We are. Who is to seek forgiveness and give forgiveness? We are. Who is called to resist evil, injustice and oppression in whatever forms they present themselves, our baptismal vows? We are. But we don’t do it alone, because we have the power of the Holy Spirit guiding us and leading us, supporting us and pushing us, lifting us up and calling us to go forth even to the ends of the earth to not just spread the good news but to be the good news. We have heard that passage from Isaiah several times that the Spirit of the Lord is upon him. And the Spirit of the Lord is upon us, for we too have been anointed, and when we accept that Spirit, when we claim that Spirit, when we live in that Spirit, we receive what? Power. The Spirit of the Lord is upon us, and we have been empowered us to be God’s words and hands and feet in Jerusalem, where we are in all, Judea and Samaria, to friends and foes alike, and to the ends of the earth, so that one day every tongue will confess and ever knee shall bow down at the call of our Lord and savior Jesus’ Christ’s name so that God’s Kingdom will indeed come and God’s will will be done on earth as it is in heaven. I pray that it will be so my brothers and sisters. Amen.

Masks in Worship

The One Board has been in conversation about our policy for masks during worship. There was a general consensus, although not anywhere close to unanimous, to continue with requiring masks for this Sunday. They will be discussing it again at the meeting on Tuesday and coming up with a new policy and process moving forward. Because I am on vacation starting next week, I have asked that nothing be done to implement any policy changes until I am back in worship on June 13th so that our guest preachers are not dealing with those changes while they are here.

I do know that there are lots of opinions and feelings surrounding this issue, and many people have told me what they think about it. But, let us please keep in mind that we are a community and that means many voices and ideas need to be involved and heard and listened to and respected.

The Ask Amy column in the Washington Post recently had an answer around Covid precautions that I thought was helpful. She said: “Whenever you find yourself getting frustrated with people or the pandemic or the way people deal with the pandemic, try sorting it all out by the following guidelines:

·        Precautions are about the virus.

·        Feelings are about feelings.

·        Precautions are public.

·        Feelings are private.

Let's not conflate, confuse or commingle these in any way.”

Personally, I have three children who are unvaccinated, two of whom have received their first shot, and one who is not eligible yet. And so I will continue to wear a mask not only to protect others, including those with underlying medical conditions, but also to protect them, and they are all a part of our community. Will our other families with young children feel safe coming to worship if we don’t require masks? I don’t know. But I do think we need to take their concerns into consideration along with many others both for and against this potential policy change.

 At some point we will no longer require masks in worship. That may be on the 13^th, and it may be later. One Board will make that decision, and when that happens, it will be for those who are fully vaccinated. But, I am not going to be a cop when it comes to policing who is or is not vaccinated. And so here is the guidance I will give everyone: The Ten Commandments tell us not to bear false witness, Jesus says “let your yes be yes and your no be no,” or to put it more bluntly, as Paul says in his letter to the Colossians, “Do not lie to one another.” We live in community and when we do not treat each other with love and act and live in that love, when we deceive people, then our community will falter and break.

And just for clarification, any policy impacting masks in worship will not change the requirement of masks in the building during regular business hours because the Ark is still under a mandatory mask policy.

Along similar lines, the other question still being asked is around singing. Again, the guidance I have received is that we need to have at least 80% of the population vaccinated in order to resume. That time is approaching, and it may be here by June 13th as well. But, for others to feel safe, when we do resume singing we are going to ask that if you are singing to wear a mask.

I really wish there were easy answers for all of these concerns, but, unfortunately, they are not. As I have said many times, we are trying to do the best we can with the information we have to ease restriction as we can, while also trying to keep everyone safe. So please keep that in mind whether you agree or disagree with the decisions we make.