First Congregational Church of Kittery Point United Church of Christ

June 12th/Pentecost Sermon

2011-06-13T09:23:00.000-04:00

First Congregational Church of Kittery Point, United Church of Christ
June 12, 2011
Sermon—“God’s Swirling Spirit”—Rev. Dr. Jeffrey M. Gallagher, Pastor
Pentecost; Based on: Acts 2:1-21

The Rev. Bob Marrone, a classmate of mine at Andover Newton Theological School, and pastor of the First Congregational Church of Monson, Massachusetts which lost its steeple in last week’s devastating tornado, was interviewed in the aftermath of the storms by the Boston Globe, as saying: “I’m confident that we will see bold new things that will come out of this.” In the article he then goes on to suggest that he hopes the church will use the shattered wood of their steeple to create a cross or a Christmas manger for the church. (1)

My good friend, Rev. Ian Lynch, pastor of the First Congregational Church in nearby Brimfield, Mass.—another community hit hard, though their church was spared damage—had this to say about his church’s response in a blog post he wrote: “When the decision was made to open the church to serve food and become a hub for coordinating volunteer efforts, I had no doubt that the community would respond. I’ve seen the divine spark fanned into a powerful fire of the human spirit plenty of times before. I knew that God was present in the people of our church and beyond, so I knew that all we had to do was open the door. The massive flow of donations and volunteers quickly confirmed my faith in the people and the God they serve.” (2)

The Rev. Jim Antal, Minister and President of the Massachusetts Conference, United Church of Christ, responded to the tragedy with these words: “I find strength, candor, perspective and hope in the words of Psalm 46” (3) —a Psalm which begins: “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we should not fear.”

And then, closer to home, Rev. Sylvia Stocker, pastor of the Unitarian Universalist Church in Brunswick that was nearly demolished by a fire early on Monday morning, was quoted as saying: “I’m determined we’re going to have church Sunday somewhere in Brunswick.” (4)

With such difficult stories dominating the news of late, it has led me to wonder how people of faith can be so unwaveringly united in their confidence in the wake of tragedy, heartache, and devastation. With questions about the resources to rebuild, the whereabouts of loved ones, and the uncertainty of employment and community viability, how can people be so certainly optimistic and hopeful when it comes to monumental questions of faith like this? Well, it’s Pentecost Sunday, so let’s see if the insightful winds of the Spirit might blow some enlightenment into this place as we turn our attention to that Acts lesson we read a moment ago.

Now, I wonder if this morning’s lesson is a familiar one to you. Surpassed only by Christmas and Easter, Pentecost is one of the biggest liturgical days in the life of the church—yet one, because it has no secular foothold, that gains comparatively little attention. As such, I would guess that the story we just read is a little less familiar than the scene of Mary racing from the tomb on Easter morning, or of the shepherds quaking at the sight of the angels on the night Jesus was born.

So allow me to offer some background. “The Feast of Pentecost, or Weeks, as it is known in the Old Testament, marked the end of the celebration of the spring harvest, a liturgical cycle that began at Passover and during which devout Israelite families praised God for God’s grace and bounty. It also was the beginning of a period, lasting until the autumnal Festival of Booths (or Tabernacles), in which the first fruits of the field were sacrificed to [God].” (5)

Thus, it is for this festival that the disciples have gathered—perhaps as many as 120 of them, as the followers were numbered in Acts 1:15—all together working to fulfill Jesus’ mission and ministry. Yet understand that although this was a festival—traditionally a joyful time in the life of the Jewish people—I imagine a somewhat mournful crowd here.

After all, their leader, Jesus, has died. They are now stuck with the responsibility of living out Jesus’ message on their own. Not to mention, there are fears of further persecutions happening—as Stephen will become the unfortunate victim of in just a few chapters. So I could see the disciples gathered together, observing the festival as they were supposed to be doing, yet very much just going through the motions.

Now mind you, they may not have had their houses of worship destroyed by a tornado or fire, but I would bet the feelings of fear, uncertainty and helplessness were very much the same.

And then it happens. While they are all together, a sound like the rush of a violent wind came in and filled the place where they were sitting. God’s Spirit began to swirl. Then, divided tongues, as of fire, appeared and rested on each of them.

It’s a scene that is significant for two reasons. First, given “that elsewhere in Scripture fire is associated with divine presence or purification,” (6) what was happening here really could be called a close encounter of the divine kind. And second, that divine encounter is indiscriminate; it’s “an outpouring of God’s energy that touches every life present.” (7)

But interestingly, “not everyone responded to the winds and fires of new life . . . . in positive ways.” (8) Some mocked—thinking that others had had a little too much wine. This leads Peter to preach what some have called the very first Christian sermon. He takes a passage from the prophet Joel—who was talking about an apocalyptic, end-of-the-world scene—and modifies that to suggest that it is referring to the gifts, and the comforting and hopeful presence, that God’s Spirit has graced them with now.

And as such, I believe that this passage is one of the reasons why my colleagues, and people of faith in general, can be so certain and confident in times of trial—because just as God reached out to those struggling disciples, Jesus’ promise is that God will reach out to us as well—through God’s swirling Spirit—to bestow comfort, hope, and the gifts we need to keep on keeping on when we need God the most. And I believe that happens in two ways.

The first is through those inexplicable, miraculous moments that can only be attributed to God. My colleague Ian in Brimfield shares the following: “But there have also been tales of the miraculous that are jaw-dropping, like the fact that Becky was able to celebrate her birthday today by worshiping with us before helping a family pick through the rubble of what used to be their house. I made it clear in a public proclamation that God has plans for Becky. How could I be so sure? The house that is nothing but debris today was on top of Becky’s car on Wednesday. She was rushing to get home when the tornado hit dropping every tree in the area along with ripping this house off its foundation. Photographs after the fact show that the only section of roof on Becky's car not crushed down to the seats is the place where she sat behind the wheel!” (9) How can that be labeled as anything but miraculous?

And then there is the other way—through each one of us as we act as God’s hands and feet on earth. When asked where God was in the midst of the tornado, my colleague Bob in Monson responded: “God . . . . has been with all the people who went out and checked on their neighbors to make sure their neighbors were safe.” (10) God’s swirling Spirit, present in the caring and concerned.

This, my friends, is why people of faith can be so confident at times like these—because we have a history of God showing up in these ways—even and most especially when—times are the hardest for us, giving us what we need to get through.

It’s true, isn’t it? Just look at your own lives; you must have some personal experiences that testify to this as well, right? Think of those difficult roads you’ve had to travel. Think of those times of trial and tribulation. Think of those moments of fear and uncertainty. Now, with a bit of distance between you and those moments, you’re probably able to see that something new, or hopeful, has been birthed from those times. And certainly that was the case for those first disciples, which is why Pentecost is, accurately, labeled as a birthday. For today is the day we celebrate that God’s Pentecostal Spirit has a history of showing up and birthing hope and new life, when we need it the most.

It’s an action of the Spirit that has been described in this way: “Pentecost is the moment when gestation ceases and birthing occurs. Thus, it is both an end and a beginning, the leaving behind of that which is past, the launching forth into that which is only now beginning to be. Pentecost therefore is not a time of completion. It is a moving forward into new dimensions of being, whose basic forms are clear, but whose fulfillment has yet to be realized.” (11)

That certainly sounds like it could refer to those quotes we started the sermon off with, doesn’t it? We will rebuild. We’ll have church in Brunswick on Sunday, I just don’t know where yet. Perhaps the steeple can be resurrected into a cross. It’s the leaving behind of that which is past and the launching forth of that which is only now beginning to be—all courtesy of the Holy Spirit, which is promised to be with and to abide with each and every one of us.

Given this, I guess my message to you today is two-fold. If you find yourself in the midst of one of life’s challenges—whether it’s graduation into an uncertain job market, the loss of a job and the uncertainty surrounding your financial situation, an impending diagnosis that doesn’t look promising, the loss of a life partner, or a tornado ravaged home—place your hope in God. Trust that when the chips are down and times are tough, that’s when God is most present with you.

Now it may well be that you are not be able to discern such a presence at the moment. In fact, you may be angrily yelling at God, wondering why God’s not here. That’s okay. Just do yourself a favor and listen to these stories of hope—these stories of the ongoing, sustaining, uplifting presence of the Holy Spirit. Listen to them and be buoyed by them—trusting that you will feel that Spirit too. Trust it, because even though you may not be able to see where the Spirit is working now—and it may be some time before you’re able to tell—trust that someday you’ll be able to look back and see that this may be the moment in your life when God was the most active.

But then, if you find that you’re not in one of those moments. Perhaps things are settled in your life, those transitory moments are at a minimum, or you’re here to joyously celebrate Nolan’s baptism, and all seems right in the world. If that’s the case, first of all give thanks—because we all know how precious such moments can be.

But then look around you. Look at the faces beside you here today. Look at the faces on the street, in your neighborhood, at work. Listen to the prayers that were offered here this morning. In so looking and listening, pay attention, because I firmly believe that God’s Spirit is swirling; it is swirling and ready to carry you forward to become the hope, the love, the answer to a prayer that another is so desperately searching for—so long as you’re ready to rely on Gods’ guidance and direction, and are willing to ride on the wings of God’s Spirit.

May it be so. And may God’s swirling Spirit carry you—as it did to those disciples—to places and into new possibilities, that you never dreamed possible. Amen.

© 2011 by Rev. Dr. Jeffrey M. Gallagher, All Rights Reserved.

1. Taken from: http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2011/06/06/the_steeple_may_be_gone_but_this_church_is_unbroken/?page=2.
2. Taken from: http://networkedblogs.com/iLiEt.
3. Taken from: http://macucc.org/blogs/detail/37.
4. Taken from: http://www.sunjournal.com/state/story/1041875.
5. Walter Brueggemann, et al, Texts for Preaching, A Lectionary Commentary Based on the NRSV—Year A (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1995), 329.
6. David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, eds., Feasting on the Word, Year A, Volume 3, Pentecost and Season after Pentecost 1 (Propers 3-16) (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2011), 19.
7. Brueggemann, 330.
8. Ibid.
9. Taken from: http://networkedblogs.com/iLiEt.
10. Taken from: http://www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/2011/06/in_monson_a_tow.html?p1=News_links.
11. Brueggemann, 329.

June 5th Sermon

2011-06-06T09:37:00.000-04:00

First Congregational Church of Kittery Point, United Church of Christ
June 5, 2011
Sermon—“όμοθυμάδόν”—Rev. Dr. Jeffrey M. Gallagher, Pastor
Easter VII; Based on: Acts 1:6-14 & John 17:1-11

After living a full life, Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter died. When he got to heaven God was showing him around. After looking at many of the sights, they came upon a modest house with a faded Yankees flag in the window. “This house is yours for eternity,” God said to Jeter. “And understand that this is very special. Not everyone gets a house up here.”

Jeter, not surprisingly, did feel special as he looked at his house. Yet on his way up to the porch, he noticed another house around the corner. It was a beautiful, three-story mansion with a bright red and blue sidewalk. There was a 50-foot flagpole with a Red Sox flag flying on it in the side yard and a Red Sox logo on every window. In front of the house, just beside the walkway, there was a sign that read: “Welcome to Red Sox Nation.”

Jeter looked at God and said, “I don’t mean to be ungrateful, but I have a question. I have three World Series rings, I have won more awards than I can remember, and I went down in Yankees’ history as the greatest short stop to ever play.”

“So what do you want to know, Derek,” God replied.

“Well, I’d like to know why David Ortiz gets a better house in heaven than I do?” Upon hearing Jeter’s question God began to chuckle. “You don’t understand,” God replied, still laughing, “that’s not David’s house. That’s mine!”

Nothing like a little Red Sox-Yankees humor to get us going this morning! Yet I don’t offer it just to poke fun at our Yankee fan friends (although that may have been part of the reason!), but rather because it paints a picture of God that I think most of us believe is pretty fictitious. Although I used to joke—before the Red Sox won the World Series—that God had to be a Red Sox fan, because God understands suffering, the truth is that I—along with most people—don’t really believe that God has a rooting interest for one team over another, or better put, some people over others.

But what if I was to say that today’s lesson from John might call that assumption into question? Well, you’ll recall that John’s lesson comes just after the Farewell Discourse—the time in John’s gospel where Jesus is trying to impart as much information as he can to his disciples—has just finished. As such, Jesus has turned to God in prayer in what is commonly called the High Priestly Prayer. We only read part of that prayer this morning, but the part we read can be broken down into two sections.

In the first five verses Jesus prays for himself—not self-centeredly, mind you—but so that he might be glorified by God in order to help the disciples believe. Then Jesus turns the prayer around and prays specifically for his disciples.

While that may seem like a good thing to do, the specificity of this prayer has actually led some to question Jesus’ motives, as they’ve wondered why Jesus doesn’t pray for everyone here—speculating that this is “the fostering of a dangerous elitism among Christians,” (1) in thinking that Jesus prefers one group over others. But really that doesn’t seem to be Jesus’ intention here. Rather what seems to be happening is that Jesus recognizes the unique challenge that the disciples have before them, and as such, “petition[s] that [God] protect the church in its responsibility of being a distinctive, called out community.” (2)

So alas, it really isn’t Jesus picking sides—which is to say God probably isn’t just a Red Sox fan after all; rather, this lesson is an example of Jesus praying on behalf of the disciples. Yet that, in and of itself, says something significant.

For what we see here is that Jesus is concerned for his disciples. He seems to understand that he has given them a lot of responsibility, and the road ahead of them—once he has died—is not going to be an easy one. So he prays for the disciples. He prays that God might protect them, and then he prays the words that appear on the bottom of the United Church of Christ’s logo: “that they may all be one.” It’s a remarkable prayer, really, as Jesus asks that his followers be united as one in the same way that he and God are united as one.

And if we fast forward to the Acts lesson we read a moment ago, we’ll see that that actually becomes the case. For in the end of that Acts lesson we find the Greek word which serves as the title for this morning’s sermon. Anyone want to take a guess at what it means? Well, transliterated the word is homothymadon. It’s a word that “appears only one time in the New Testament outside of Acts . . . . [But] In Acts . . . . Luke uses it ten times. It is an adverb/adjective that describes a group acting/existing together in unanimity.” (3) Basically it means acting “with one mind.” (4)

And this word—used throughout the book of Acts—is how Luke described the early church. They were acting with one mind in devoting themselves to prayer. And as such it provides an amazing look at the early church—as a group united, with one mind, in prayer for each other and for the world.

It’s too bad that as we fast forward to the year 2011 that “It would appear that disunity is the defining notion in this church of ours,” (5) not homothymadon. For it would be hard to say that we are all one, or that we are acting with one mind, as we look at what the church has become.

And yet this, despite the fact that inherent in the last prayer that Jesus offered for those who would carry on the work of the church is: that they may all be one—that homothymadon might characterize who we are and what we are doing as the ones to carry on Jesus’ message and ministry.

As such, the question for us needs to be: how do we get there? How do we get away from the disunity—and sometimes even animosity—that separates us as people of faith from one another? Would it make any difference, one author ponders “how [our] self-definition would be changed if [we] took as [our] beginning point, ‘We are a community for whom Jesus prays’?” (6)

Well I, for one, think it would; because it shows that Jesus has a rooting interest for us—not one group over another mind you—not even one religion over another—but for all of us to figure this out together. Jesus has a rooting interest for us to figure out how to make homothymadon a reality. And in so rooting—in so praying for us—I think Jesus has shown us how to make it happen: prayer.

After all, Jesus prayed that we might all be one. The first Christian community used prayer to unite itself as it sought to do God’s work. As such, it seems to me that that’s where we need to start. If we want unity among our disparate bodies, if we want peace and understanding to ultimately reign, then I think we’d do well to start with prayer: prayer for ourselves and prayer for each other; beautiful prayers of thanksgiving eloquently prayed and heart-wrenching prayers of desperation uttered beside tornado ravaged homes; prayer in voice, incarnated prayer in deed, and prayers too fragile for the spoken word; prayers said in harmony with sisters and brothers of all faith persuasions.

My friends, if we can start here, if we can look past the petty theological differences that have divided us for so long and stand shoulder to shoulder with sisters and brothers in faith in this one area, then, I believe, we will begin to see each other as people of God—who are praying, with different words, in different languages, in different ways, under the guise of different religions—to the same God that we are. And that, I believe, is the first step towards making homothymadon a reality.

And then, if we remember that prayer is as much about—actually, perhaps even more about—listening, than it is about talking, then as we spend time in prayer, God’s still speaking voice might yet reveal how each one of us can take the next step towards realizing homothymadon here in 2011.

Too simple? Too pie in the sky? Too optimistic? Well, you’re talking to a glass-is-half-full kind of guy, and from where I’m standing, prayer has the power to fill all our cups to overflowing. Amen.

© 2011 by Rev. Dr. Jeffrey M. Gallagher, All Rights Reserved.

1. Walter Brueggemann, et al, Texts for Preaching, A Lectionary Commentary Based on the NRSV—Year A (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1995), 326.
2. Ibid., 327.
3. O. Wesley Allen, Jr., “Seventh Sunday of Easter,” in New Proclamation, Year A, 2008, Easter to Christ the King, Ed. David B. Lott (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2008), 60.
4. Geoffrey W. Bromiley, Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, Abridged in One Volume (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1985), 684.
5. David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, eds., Feasting on the Word, Year A, Volume 2, Lent through Eastertide (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2010), 541.
6. Gail R. O’Day, “The Gospel of John,” in The New Interpreter’s Bible, Volume IX, Ed. Leander E. Keck, et al (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1995), 798.

May 29th Sermon

2011-05-31T10:46:00.000-04:00

First Congregational Church of Kittery Point, United Church of Christ
May 29, 2011
Sermon—“A big enough God?”—Rev. Dr. Jeffrey M. Gallagher, Pastor
Easter VI; Based on: Acts 17:22-31 & 1 Peter 3:13-22

So Oprah Winfrey’s show came to an end this week. Did anyone watch? I confess that I’m not an Oprah watcher, though I know that she has done a lot of good and charitable work through her show, and I certainly applaud her for that. I also know that she’s not unwilling to put people on the spot, as she did a few years ago with author James Frey.

You might recall that Frey penned a book entitled A Million Little Pieces which was touted as his personal memoir of his time in a drug and alcohol rehabilitation center. When it was discovered that this was actually Frey’s fictitious creation, Oprah called him on the carpet because his book was one of her book club’s selections.

Despite this controversy, I can attest that it is an engaging read—as I’m working through it right now—and I wanted to share a little of his book with you this morning. The passage I’m going to read is from a time when the novel’s protagonist James is enjoying a moment of calm—a rarity in his rehab process:

“If there is anything I see it is this. The calm. If there is God or something Higher for me it is this. The calm. If there is something that will hold me when I need to hold it is this the calm. There is no anger, no rage, no Fury. There is no want no need no desire. There is no hatred no shame no regret. There is no grief, no sadness, no depression. There is no fear. Absolutely no fear. When one lives without fear, one cannot be broken. When one lives with fear one is broken before one begins to live. The calm I feel right now. What is it?

I am lost in the Woods but still on a Trail. I am seeking that which I have but will lose again. I have sought it before as a cure for the disease of myself. In a Church as a Child it did not come. I held my Parents’ hands and I felt nothing. Love only brought me loneliness and horror. In bottles and pipes I found emptiness and pain. At twenty-two after Jail and bond calm did not come. I have it now. Without God. I have it now.

The Wood fades into brittle brown grass and a slope carries me to a point where I can see all that surrounds me. I can see trees and Woods and Swamps and Lakes and birds and animals and men and women and the Buildings of the Clinic and the Sky and whatever is beyond the Sky. I can hear the wind and the water and the cries of flying birds and the screams of the Patients locked down and detoxifying. I can feel them and I can feel myself. I can feel the life in them and the life around me. I can feel it in the beating calm of my heart. It is not God and it is not something Higher. This feeling of calm is of me, within me, from me and created by me. It is not God. It is not something Higher.” (1)

Clearly these are words that speak of a powerful experience in nature—one that I’m sure many of us have had before. And believe it or not, they are words that connect, very much, with the ones written in the book of Acts—which we read a moment ago—recounting Paul’s time preaching to the people in Athens.

Now it must be said that the city of Athens was an interesting one in Jesus’ day. It was “a center of intellectual pursuits . . . . [the people] loved learning, and this insatiable desire drove their waking hours.” (2) Yet even though religion was among the topics that the Athenians conversed about, it must be said that the gods they worshiped “were often relegated to the sidelines of philosophical inquiry as being all but irrelevant.” (3)

But remember that these were intelligent folks in Athens, so they were smart enough to cover all their bases. Thus we learn from our Acts lesson that in front of the Areopagus—which is both the name of a judicial body in Athens and the name of the hill upon which that body met—there was an altar erected to “an unknown god,” “just in case they had missed a god in the creation of their pantheon of deities.” (4) Not a bad move, you might say, for if their intellectual pursuits revealed to them that there was a God that they should be worshiping, then this altar would hopefully cover them.

And so it is in this place that Paul addresses the people of Athens. Yet it doesn’t sound like Paul, does it? There’s no head-spinning, convoluted theological treatise here. “Rather, what is striking about Paul’s “sermon” is how little it sounds like a sermon or even like the writings we typically attribute to Paul. It is not until the very last verse that Paul even hints at the person and work of Jesus, and even then he gives no name.” (5)

So why is this, we might ask? Why does Paul not sound like Paul? Is he nervous? Is he green-behind-the-ears and still getting used to this preaching thing? Well, I actually think he’s up to something else here. I think, given the secular nature of Athens, that he’s meeting people where they are. He’s not talking in a religious language that would be foreign to them. He’s talking in the vernacular. He even quotes from two of their poets Epimenides and Aratus during his speech—all in an attempt, I believe, to get them to actually listen to what he has to say.

And it should be noted that even though “Paul does not cite Scripture and [he] uses language suitable for this academic setting and secular audience, the content . . . . is thoroughly biblical.” (6) For his purpose is to tell the people about God. It’s to tell the people that the unknown god that they have built this altar to is, in fact, the God that the Jewish people worship, the God that became human in the form of Jesus Christ, the God that is big enough to encompass all of their other gods—known and unknown.

So Paul’s job is to describe God to the people of Athens and then to call them to repent and believe in this God. In short, his work here is to evangelize them—for that was the primary role of the leaders in the early church as they sought to gain support for this Jesus movement. And Paul shows that there are a couple of ways to do that. One is to expect people to meet you where you are, and the other is to go and meet the people where they are. In this case, clearly, he opts for the latter.

And he does this because he makes the claim—in a phrase that has been hanging with me all week—that people “grope for God.” And I believe that to be the case. I believe that—even today—people are groping, looking, searching for God; but because they already have a fixed idea in their head of who God is, they often miss out on their chance to find God.

That’s what Paul was trying to say to the people of Athens. He was saying, “you see all these things that you have, the world and everything in it, the breath in your bodies, that’s from God.” It was clear to him that the Athenians didn’t quite get how God was working in their lives—their understanding of God wasn’t quite big enough, you might say.

And this is exactly where James, in the book we began with this morning, finds himself. While outside at rehab James has a feeling of peace come over him that he’s convinced isn’t from God. Why? Well, because when he was a child in church he didn’t feel such a presence from God, so he’s sure that such a feeling can’t be from God now. Now, I would argue that James’ view of God needs to be enlarged—because what he was describing that day is what Celtic Christians call a “thin place”—a place where heaven and earth come together and the presence of God is unmistakable.

It’s just that James doesn’t have a place in his experience and understanding to put such a notion that God can be found outside the church, in nature, and that God can bring the peace that was so elusive for James as a child. James’ understanding of God, like the Athenians, needed to be bigger. And I’d go so far as to say that the same is true for many in society today—people miss out on connecting with God because their image of God isn’t big enough.

And that’s a lesson we’d do well to heed (even for those of us who think we understand God): we should never think that we can understand God fully and completely—for God is always bigger than we can imagine. As such, as we go forth seeking to spread the word about the God we worship—which is what this text is about—we might try to convey that very message of God’s immensity, and we might do so by meeting people where they are.

In other words, instead of thinking that we have to talk “church” with people, or have to be like some doomsday prophet on the street corner, try instead to follow the advice that our 1Peter lesson gives us. For in that lesson—if we can wade through all the really bad theology about the necessity of suffering—the author basically tells people to respond to others’ needs by doing the works of God, being mindful, all the while, of why we do them. And then it’s when people ask why we are doing what we’re doing, that we then share with them that it’s our faith that compels us to do what we do. Thus perhaps in so living and so sharing we can help the world to see that God’s love is bigger, God’s blessings are bolder, and God’s grace is broader than they have imagined.

In short, we can do this by allowing our lives and our actions to become the sermons we’re called to preach. So that when we raise our voice against injustice, stand on the side of the poor and disenfranchised, and live out the tenets of our Open and Affirming statement, people will see that we worship a God who loves and cares for all people—a bigger understanding of God’s love and inclusion than many people have.

When we donate our time and energy to help our sisters and brothers, who have been devastated by the recent tornadoes and flooding, recover and rebuild—as I sincerely hope we can get a group of us to do in the not too distant future—we’ll show people that our God is not simply about getting us to blindly adhere to a set of rules, as many believe God to be, but rather one who wants us to live out our faith in action.

When we refuse to engage in actions and dialogue that suggests that other religions are inferior, we’ll show people that our God is big enough to offer all the religions of the world a pathway to salvation.

And when we show people that we connect to God through nature, through yoga, through Buddhist meditation, through running and walking, through playing with our children in the backyard, we’ll show people that our understanding of communion with God is bigger than the limits the historic church has sought to place on God.

In short, living this way, my friends, I believe we will meet people where they are—in the real world, addressing needs and issues that are important to them. We will speak a language that they can hear, and thereby live out our experience that the strong mother God, warm father God, old aching God, young growing God, and great living God never fully known (7) —as we sang earlier today—is bigger than they have imagined.

And in so doing, we’d do well to remember how effective Paul was in gaining followers. Do you recall? Well, the text says: “When they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some scoffed; but others said, ‘We will hear you again about this’.” (8)

In short, Paul wasn’t wildly successful, but a few were interested enough to learn some more. Should our results be the same, I’d say we’d be doing just fine. Amen.

© 2011 by Rev. Dr. Jeffrey M. Gallagher, All Rights Reserved.

1. James Frey, A Million Little Pieces (New York: Anchor Books, 2003), 230.
2. David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, eds., Feasting on the Word, Year A, Volume 2, Lent through Eastertide (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2010), 472.
3. Walter Brueggemann, et al, Texts for Preaching, A Lectionary Commentary Based on the NRSV—Year A (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1995), 302.
4. Bartlett and Taylor, 472.
5. The Clergy Journal, January 2008, Volume LXXXIV, Number 3 (Inver Grove Heights, Minnesota: Logos Productions Inc., 2008), 33.
6. Robert W. Wall, “The Acts of the Apostles,” in The New Interpreter’s Bible, Volume X, Ed. Leander E. Keck, et al (Nashville: Abingdon, 2002), 250.
7. From Brian Wren’s hymn Bring Many Names, Copyright © 1989 Hope Publishing Company.
8. Acts 17:32 (NRSV).

May 22nd Sermon

2011-05-23T08:55:00.000-04:00

First Congregational Church of Kittery Point, United Church of Christ
May 22, 2011
Sermon—“I guess we’re still here . . . .”—Rev. Dr. Jeffrey M. Gallagher
Easter V; Based on: John 14:1-14

So, I guess we’re still here, huh? Anyone notice anything funny happening last night? And I don’t mean people laying out sets of clothes on the roadside as was being suggested on Facebook!

Well, as far as I know there were no earthquakes. No cars mysteriously abandoned on the highway. No bodies rising upward into the sky like a Macy’s Thanksgiving parade balloon gone awry. And I’m pretty sure that Harold Camping’s website donation page is still open for business. So I guess we’re still here for a little while longer, which must mean that the rapture didn’t occur. Here’s hoping none of you went out on shopping spree yesterday!

Taken from the obscure scripture verse 1 Thessalonians 4:17, the rapture, as you may know, refers to what some believe Jesus’ return to the earth will look like—a time when worthy souls will literally be hoisted up into the air to spend eternity with God, while others will be left behind here on earth to face a very dire and difficult future.

The prediction, as described by an NPR news report, was that: “On May 21, “starting in the Pacific Rim at around the 6 p.m. local time hour, in each time zone, there [would] be a great earthquake, such as has never been in the history of the Earth,” . . . . . The true Christian believers . . . . [would] be “raptured”: [They’d] fly upward to heaven.” (1)

Such scenarios have actually been predicted to occur on many different dates throughout history, with a man by the name of Harold Camping—president of Family Radio—recently gaining national attention for this most recent prediction. Incidentally, this follows Camping’s prediction of a rapture in 1994, which obviously didn’t happen—he says due to a mathematical miscalculation.

So why May 21st? Well, in Camping’s view it’s because yesterday was, supposedly, 7,000 years to the day from when God shut the door on Noah’s ark. Camping’s formula for figuring this out is interesting, to say the least, and way more complicated than I want to give time or breath to today. But nonetheless, he believes that last night was the beginning of the end of the world, which will ultimately happen on October 21, 2011. Here’s how one website describes the events that last night was supposed to kick off in more detail:

“By God’s grace and tremendous mercy, He is giving us advanced warning as to what He is about to do. On Judgment Day, May 21st, 2011, this 5-month period of horrible torment will begin for all the inhabitants of the earth. It will be on May 21st that God will raise up all the dead that have ever died from their graves. Earthquakes will ravage the whole world as the earth will no longer conceal its dead. People who died as saved individuals will experience the resurrection of their bodies and immediately leave this world to forever be with the Lord. Those who died unsaved will be raised up as well, but only to have their lifeless bodies scattered about the face of all the earth. Death will be everywhere.” (2)

Cheery and uplifting (bad pun, I know), isn’t it? But I actually don’t bring this up this morning to be funny. For, even though Matthew 24:36 says plainly that we cannot know when Jesus will return to the earth, believe it or not, “A 2004 Newsweek poll revealed that 55 percent of Americans believe in the Rapture.” Not only that, but “books like the “Left Behind” series [which talk about what those left behind after the rapture undergo in graphic detail, have] sold more than 60 million copies.” (3) Which means that, as Christians, we’d do well to have an understanding of what everyone is talking about—and John’s gospel lesson, that we read a moment ago—is a perfect place to start.

Now, although John’s motive in writing his gospel was not to share the events of Jesus’ life in chronological order, most scholars do believe that chapter 14 represents a shift in John’s gospel. For after describing the scene of washing the disciples’ feet—as a part of Jesus’ final meal with the disciples—John relays three chapters worth of Jesus’ teachings known as the “Farewell Discourse”—teachings that Jesus wants to be sure to share with his disciples before he leaves them at the time of his death, which is soon at hand.

So our text, then, is set during a time when the disciples are struggling to understand what Jesus is telling them about having to die. Here’s how one author describes their mindset: “The disciples who gather with Jesus for the farewell meal certainly have a measure of heartburn. Their hearts and torn and disquieted as they hear Jesus say a long good-bye. They have been following Jesus since he began his public ministry, but they are, at best, adolescent in their understanding of his message, vision, and mission.” (4)

And it’s to such a struggling band of disciples that Jesus tells them not to be troubled or to be afraid. In a sense, “Jesus means to reassure his disciples that his death is not the end but the beginning of the “way,” whose destination is the room he is making for them in God.” (5) Such is the reason why those opening verses are often read at funerals, because they show the disciples that even though Jesus is about to die, death is not the end for him—nor is it the end for any of us.

But as is so often the case, the disciples don’t really get what Jesus is saying. So when Jesus says that they know “the way” to the place that he is going, they respond that they do not. This, then, launches Jesus into that oft repeated—and I would dare say, favored verse among Christians like Harold Camping: “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” It’s a verse that needs quite a bit of unpacking.

For when Jesus says “the way” here, it really is “a metaphor to describe a life lived either in accordance with the law or the will and desire of God.” (6) Now you’ll notice that there’s nothing there about proper belief or being saved or guaranteeing your seat in the rapture bus—it’s about action. Might it be, then, that when Jesus says that no one comes to God but through him, that he’s really saying that no one comes to God unless they live a life like Jesus’? Eugene Peterson’s translation of this text is helpful here, as he translates this as Jesus is “the Road” (7) —in other words a path of life to follow. This, then, removes this text from its favored place “as a litmus text for Christian faith” (8) by gauging proper belief, as so many are wont to use it, and places it as a text that is all about living the life to which Jesus has called us.

And yet, while that redeems the text a little, it still can become problematic if we’re not clear that Jesus’ words here are “not . . . . the sweeping claim of a major world religion, but [rather, they are] the conviction of a religious minority in the ancient Mediterranean world.” (9) As one author puts it: “It is a dangerous and destructive anachronism to cite [this text] as the final arbiter of the relative merits of different religions’ experiences and understandings of God. The Fourth Gospel is not concerned with the fate, for example, of Muslims, Hindus, or Buddhists, nor with the superiority or inferiority of Judaism and Christianity as they are configured in the modern world.” (10)

Rather, what we have here is a gospel writer looking to gain support for this fledgling Jesus movement within Judaism, and the way John tries to gain support for that is by saying that emulating Jesus’ life is a way to reach God. Makes sense, right? The problem comes when we put words in Jesus’ mouth to say that he is making this a once-and-for-all declaration that he is only way to God, and that those who don’t believe will suffer eternal damnation. For when we do that, we turn “these words into a weapon with which to bludgeon [our] opponents into theological submission.” (11) In a sense, we reincarnate that Acts lesson of the stoning of Stephen, by using our scriptures to harm and to hurt instead of how they were intended: to help and to heal.

And that’s what, I believe, Harold Camping is doing with his rapture preaching. He’s using the Bible as a weapon—a weapon to inflict fear and pain and a weapon to divide. And yet, this is clearly is not how Jesus intended his words; rather, I would say that’s how the church has chosen to interpret Jesus’ words, turning them into the weapon they are today.

Which then begs the question, which you’ve probably all been thinking: why should we care? Why should we give voice and breath to these radical and harmful teachings? Shouldn’t we just ignore them altogether?

Well, I actually don’t think we can turn a blind eye to all this, for a few reasons. First, I think such a lesson offers a cautionary reminder that both the scriptures and our beliefs can be as harmful as they are helpful. For just as Camping and company are hurting people—who have liquidated bank accounts and killed their pets to get ready—by suggesting that they are going to be damned to eternal punishment if they don’t shape up and believe, if we’re not careful, our beliefs—even the Open and Affirming statement we adopted last week—can be used for harm and not good.

For anytime that we believe we are entirely in the right—and judge others as inferior because they don’t believe the same way we do—we are treading on some very tenuous ground and need to watch where we’re headed. After all, if Jesus’ words are all about proper action, then I’d say that treating others as inferior stands contrary to Jesus’ words.

Second, such beliefs paint a really bad picture of Christianity. They suggest that Christianity is, first and foremost, about believing properly in order to secure your reward in heaven—and that if you don’t believe correctly, you’re automatically excluded from the party. Many of us disagree with and dislike this kind of thinking and theology, and yet many people believe this is precisely what the church is all about. Being able to refute such theology enables us to show people that we believe in, and practice, a different kind of Christianity. But it takes us opening our mouths, and living our lives in such a way that we are courageous enough to demonstrate that.

And finally, I think we need to pay attention to the idea of Jesus’ return because it is scriptural. There are multiple passages in our Bible that suggest that Jesus is going to return—yet we need not let the one “rapture text” delude us into believing that this is the way it’s going to happen, with Jesus returning as some Rambo-like Savior in a wild fit of vengeance and violence.

Rather, I think we need to look seriously at the fact that Jesus may have already come—in human form or in some other manner—and we’ve missed him. Maybe we’ve even killed him or crucified him for his radical beliefs again, as we have done with so many leaders and prophetic voices over the centuries.

Or maybe we need to listen to what Jesus is also saying in this text: “Do you not believe that I am in [God] and [God] is in me?” In other words, God was a part of Jesus, as a fully human being. And if God was a part of Jesus as a fully human being, then doesn’t that mean that God is a part of us? And if God is a part of us, it seems to me that we ought to be living our lives in such a way that we realize that Jesus returns to our lives everyday in the myriad of faces we meet.

Now I don’t know about you, but for me, that’s more of an incentive to get to work than even the scariest rapture predictions. Amen.

© 2011 by Rev. Dr. Jeffrey M. Gallagher, All Rights Reserved.

1. Taken from: http://www.npr.org/2011/05/07/136053462/is-the-end-nigh-well-know-soon-enough.
2. Taken from: http://www.ebiblefellowship.com/outreach/tracts/may21/.
3. Taken from: http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2011/05/17/my-take-may-21st-doomsday-movement-harms-christianity/.
4. David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, eds., Feasting on the Word, Year A, Volume 2, Lent through Eastertide (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2010), 466.
5. Ibid., 467.
6. Gail R. O’Day, “The Gospel of John,’” in The New Interpreter’s Bible, Volume IX, Ed. Leander E. Keck, et al (Nashville: Abingdon, 1995), 742.
7. Eugene H. Peterson, The Message, (Colorado Springs, Colorad0: NavPress, 2002), 1950.
8. O’Day, 743.
9. Ibid., 744.
10. Ibid., 744-745.
11. Ibid., 743.

May 15th Sermon

2011-05-16T09:04:00.000-04:00

First Congregational Church of Kittery Point, United Church of Christ
May 15, 2011
Sermon—“Open and Affirming”—Rev. Dr. Jeffrey M. Gallagher, Pastor
Easter IV; Based on: John 10:1-10

It is our practice here in this church, a few times each year, to invite the Church School children and teachers to come back into worship, after leaving for Church School, so that we, as a congregation, can celebrate communion together. When we did this a couple of weeks ago, it was fun to watch the kids come in—looking around as if they were doing something a little mischievous in getting to see what we grown-ups do while they are usually in Church School.

Then as the elements were served it was a joy to watch the eager and expectant eyes follow the bread and cups as they made their way towards the pews where the children sat. And then, I couldn’t help but smile as Moms, Dads, and Grandparents whispered instructions to the children: “Don’t eat it yet,” I could almost hear them saying, “Rev. Jeff will tell us when we can eat and drink together.” Joyously, I had the best seat in the house to watch all of these interactions.

But that wasn’t the only thing that happened as we gathered around the table. You might recall that our youngest son Jacob—who has Down syndrome—walked up to the front of the sanctuary while all of this was happening. What you may not have seen, though, is what preceded that—Kristen and I giving each other the eye: “Is it okay that he comes up front?” “Yes, of course it is.” All of that accomplished with a few raised eyebrows and subtle head nods.

So Jacob, just finding his walking legs, did make his way down front. He sat right at the foot of the table, resting his head on the step, as we shared the bread and cup. And then, when we broke into song, I bent down, picked Jacob up, held him as we sang the last hymn together, and then allowed him to greet some of you at the door before Kristen took him back over to the Parish House following worship.

Many of you afterwards said that you were touched by the scene—of Dad and son standing in front of the church, singing together. And I thank you for those words, but more than that, for allowing that to happen. It was one of the most meaningful communion services I have presided over here in the church. But it’s one that—if we were in a different church—may never have had the opportunity to happen. And the reason why has everything to do with that convoluted text we read from John’s gospel just a moment ago.

Now, to say convoluted is probably to be kind to John here. For this text is full of a wealth of metaphors that is “probably due to an uneven uniting of sources.” (1) So there’s that; but if that’s not confusing enough, we also don’t know who these words are directed at. It could be the religious leaders that Jesus was criticizing in the chapter prior to this, it could be the disciples, or it could be that “John purposefully left the identity of the hearers unclear.” (2)

That last possibility speaks to me, because, like so much of the Bible, it allows these stories and teachings to take on a timeless quality such that they can pertain to us today. The problem with that is, however, that these timeless words have been misinterpreted countless times.

You see, while we can debate what the metaphors mean in this text, Jesus leaves no doubt in saying that he is the gate. So that’s the metaphor I’d like to focus on here this morning. Reading the text as such, one author writes: “Gate brings to mind something that separates those on the inside from those on the outside, for purposes of protection and privilege. For two thousand years, the church’s proclamation of Jesus as the gate has served both purposes.” (3) The problem is, I think the latter of those two interpretations misses the point.

But let’s first look at the former: the gate provides protection. First century listeners would have understood that for “an enclosure for the sheep . . . . There would be one gate or entrance, usually able to be locked shut to prevent anyone coming in to steal the sheep.” (4) Thus the gate’s role was to provide protection: “Whether the thieves and bandits are Pharisees, false prophets, [or today we might say] drug dealers, or advertisers who endanger appropriate body image, Jesus’ point is clear: beware of those outside who would call you away from the gate that leads to abundant life.” (5)

As such, Jesus suggests that he is the gate that protects the sheep—acting like the shepherd of the 23rd Psalm who would lay down in front of the entrance to a cave to ensure no sheep left and no animal came from the outside to harm the sheep inside.

Okay, so far so good. The problem comes in the other way the church has interpreted this text—with the gate serving as a barrier, something to define who is privileged to enter the “flock,” if you will, and who gets shut out from it. And, to make matters worse, oftentimes the church has served as the gatekeeper, pushing people away before they even get to the gate which is intended to serve “as [an] entry point rather than [a] roadblock.” (6)

Such a theology of exclusivism, I believe, misses the point of this text and misses the overarching message of Jesus’ gospel. For Jesus’ message was never about deciding who was left out—it was always about all being welcomed into the flock so that all may benefit from the love and care of the shepherd.

Yet, that’s not the way churches have interpreted and put texts like this into practice. As such, in some places, the scene of Jacob and I at the front of the church would have been an impossibility. Now, I don’t intend this to be antagonistic, but there are some churches which—whether they say so outright or not—have very clear rules who’s in and who’s out. And a young boy finding his legs during the worship service will be viewed by many, clearly, as someone who should not be in.

Crazy, you may say. Impossible, you may think. But many of us say that from inside the gate looking out. If you’ve ever been on the outside of the gate looking in—as others of you seated here have—you’ll know that this is not only possible, it’s a reality.

With this in mind, my friends, in just a few moments we will gather together as a faith community to vote on a proposed Open and Affirming Statement. This statement is the product of two years of inquiring conversation, tearful sharing, careful Bible study, and much more. During this time as I sought to offer a pastoral ear to all of you, the most common question I heard was: “Why do we need to declare ourselves to be Open and Affirming, when we are already?”

While I have many answers for this question, let me share just a few. First, I believe firmly that people shouldn’t have to wonder whether or not they will be welcome in this place. Just the same as we say that we are a United Church of Christ congregation, we should also declare Open and Affirming plainly for all to see. For that phrase—whether you know it or not—is a catch phrase in many marginalized communities; it’s one people look for on our website before they even think about darkening our doorstep.

For too often churches throw around the word “friendly” and expect that will welcome people. Well let me tell you that it doesn’t. There are many stories of people being hurt and excluded by “friendly” churches. I’ve had people share with me horror stories of that happening—even coming to me, in private, asking if it would happen to them in this place. Saying we’re Open and Affirming means that we have done the work, given this prayerful thought, and have discerned who we are. That way no one has to wonder how they will be received when they come through that door.

Second, our children. We often talk about the fact that we have a growing Church School here. And we do. It’s a wonderful thing. But you know what? Percentages say that some of our children are gay or lesbian, some will be diagnosed as autistic, some have other differing abilities that may marginalize them from their peers. How vital is it, then, when those children are struggling in school and in life, for them to know, for certain, that they don’t need to worry about whether they’ll be accepted for who they are at their church? It might just be—and I don’t say this lightly—the difference between life and death for a young adult who has come to the end of their rope.

And third, this is an issue of justice. If there are people in this world who are not being afforded the same rights, privileges, and opportunities as others, then our faith calls us to do something about it. Declaring ourselves to be Open and Affirming does that. It says: while the rest of the world may want to treat you differently, when you come through that door on Sunday mornings, or come to one of our gatherings, we welcome you as you are—no matter who you are or where you are on this journey of life.

My friends, today we have an opportunity to put all this in writing—to declare openly what many feel is who we are and what we’re doing already. And you know what? I have to admit that this is an opportunity that has become very personal for me over the years.

When I sat down with the Search Committee that called me in 2003, I asked them whether they thought the church would be going through the Open and Affirming process some day; they said that they did. Since then I have dreamed of standing here, at the end of a process well conducted, preaching these words to you. Back then I thought I’d be doing it for you—for those of you who have been marginalized and excluded in life—because as a heterosexual, white, male, I have had little experience walking in those shoes.

But today I stand here saying that I’m preaching and voting for my family. And I would venture to guess, if we all looked at our lives, we could say the same. That’s what has become plain to me throughout this process—Open and Affirming touches all of our lives; and if you don’t think it has yet, look closer, or just wait, it will.

Personally, Jacob has changed the life of my family in such a way that I can no longer see the world the same. I now see the world through the eyes of a child with differing abilities. And as the parent of such a child, if I were church shopping, I’d want to know that he would be welcomed into the “full life, ministry, joys, and responsibilities” (7) of participation in that church, as our proposed statement says. Today we can vote on a document that, for a parent like me, would leave no doubt in my mind that that was the case.

For Open and Affirming means that we are open to, and affirming of: the little boy with Down syndrome who finds his legs during communion; the young man with Tourette’s syndrome who has unexpected outbursts during worship; the gay couple who are looking for a safe space to raise their newly adopted son; the elderly man who ambulates differently, and takes a long time to make his way to his seat; the transgendered young adult who isn’t sure that there’s a seat at the fellowship table for him anymore; the single Mom, who can barely afford to put food on the table, and realizes that it’s going to take a church to raise her child; the young adult who is thinking about taking her life, because her family won’t accept her now that she’s come out, and the countless others whose stories we will learn when they cross our life’s path.

My friends, that’s what Open and Affirming means. And when we vote today, that’s what we’ll be saying. It’s a vote that will take only a few minutes, but it’s a statement that will take a lifetime to live out, as we strive to ensure that that gate stays open, so that, “all,” as Jesus says “may have life, and have it abundantly.”

Today I’ll be voting so that Jacob—with his newly found legs—can walk through that gate alongside all of you. Amen.

© 2011 by Rev. Dr. Jeffrey M. Gallagher, All Rights Reserved.

1. Walter Brueggemann, et al, Texts for Preaching, A Lectionary Commentary Based on the NRSV—Year A (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1995), 288.
2. Scott Black Johnston, “Fourth Sunday of Easter, Year A,” in The Lectionary Commentary, The Third Readings: The Gospels, Ed. Roger E. Van Harn (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 2001), 525.
3. David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, eds., Feasting on the Word, Year A, Volume 2, Lent through Eastertide (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2010), 443.
4. Ibid., 445.
5. William H. Willimon, Pulpit Resource, Vol.36, No.2, Year A, April, May, June 2008 (Inver Grove Heights, Minnesota: Logos Productions, Inc., 2008), 10.
6. The Clergy Journal, January 2008, Volume LXXXIV, Number 3 (Inver Grove Heights, Minnesota: Logos Productions, Inc., 2008), 31.
7. Taken from the proposed Open and Affirming Statement.

May 8th Sermon

2011-05-09T09:02:00.000-04:00

First Congregational Church of Kittery Point, United Church of Christ
May 8, 2011
Sermon—“Take, Bless, Break, Give”—Rev. Dr. Jeffrey M. Gallagher, Pastor
Easter III; Based on: Luke 24:13-35

As you all well know, it was just about three weeks ago that the 115th running of the Boston Marathon took place—a marathon that is as steeped in prestige and difficulty as it is in history and tradition. Begun in 1897, the marathon has seen many changes over the years: from a different course length, to scandals requiring more sophisticated timing techniques, to it morphing from a small local affair to the worldwide phenomenon that it is today.

And yet, even despite this, the marathon has also seen its fair share of constants over the years: from Johnny Kelly who has completed a record 61 Boston Marathons, to the raucous greeting runners are afforded by the girls of Wellesley College, to the infamous heartbreak hill, to a team of runners—that I’m not sure everyone here knows—named Rick and Dick Hoyt.

Born in 1962, Rick Hoyt—son of Dick and Judy Hoyt—was born as a quadriplegic with cerebral palsy due to oxygen deprivation at the time of his birth. Yet Rick’s physical challenges did not deter his parents. Told that he would never live a “normal” life, the Hoyts helped to push others to see that there was a person behind those physical limitations, by integrating him in public schools, teaching him the alphabet, showing others that he could learn and communicate, and even taking him sledding and swimming.

Little did they know, however, that their lives would change in 1977. Rick told his Dad that he wanted to participate in a 5 mile run to benefit a lacrosse player that had been paralyzed. Although Dick was hardly an athlete, he agreed to push his son in the race. Together the team finished all five miles, coming in second to last. But it was what Rick said to Dick after the race that changed it all. He said: “Dad, when I’m running, it feels like I’m not handicapped.”

The rest is history. Team Hoyt has competed in over 1,000 races including marathons, duathlons, triathlons, and even 6 Ironman Triathlons—that’s a 2.4 mile swim (during which time Dick pulled Rick behind him in a boat), a 112 mile bike ride, and a 26.2 mile run. (1) If you’re looking for inspiration, this team offers it in spades. They have become one of the greatest Boston Marathon traditions, and one that, perhaps, gets the largest marathon cheer every year.

Yet the reason why I bring up the Hoyts this morning is to get back to Rick’s words after that first race: “Dad, when I’m running, it feels like I’m not handicapped.” There was something about running that made Rick recognize who he truly was. Rick knew that his differing abilities didn’t define him. He clearly wasn’t differently-abled in mind or spirit—as he has shown throughout his life—just in body. But it took participating in that activity for Rick to understand, and recognize, who he was—not a person who is defined by his differing abilities, but someone who simply struggles to do what many of us take for granted.

I’d ask you to keep Rick in mind this morning—we’ll come back to him in a minute, after we travel back in time some 2,000 years to two men on a different journey to a village called Emmaus. And in so doing, we return back the first Easter again. Now, I know John says that the disciples were locked away in a room on Easter evening, but Luke tells a different story.

Now, what’s interesting about Emmaus (where the disciples were headed) is that it “was a little noted town.” (2) In fact, scholars are unable to even locate where it was. We only know, according to Luke, that it was seven miles from Jerusalem. We also don’t know why these two disciples were headed there. “They may have been going there on business, or . . . . to get away from the terrible things they had witnessed in Jerusalem.” (3) Or perhaps they were “headed back to fishing nets, tax offices, missed appointments, and merciful routine” (4) —a clear signal that this Jesus thing had failed and they were going back to life as usual.

But regardless of where they were going, or why, our story begins with them on this journey. And it’s while they’re on their way that they encounter Jesus, although they don’t know it, because Luke says that “their eyes were kept from recognizing him.” This is a curious phrase that I have come to believe means that it was their pain, their grief, their sadness, and their frustration over Jesus’ death that kept them from recognizing Jesus in their midst. You know what that’s like, don’t you? When you’re mired in sadness and grief, you sometimes don’t even know your own name, let alone the identity of a stranger who greets you on the road.

Such an understanding led author Frederick Buechner to surmise that Emmaus is not a physical place, but rather, “the place we go to in order to escape—a bar, a movie, whatever it is we throw up our hands and say, ‘Let the whole damned thing go to hang. It makes no difference anyway’.” (5) So we might simply say that the disciples were headed to get away from all the grief and pain they had stood witness to in Jerusalem.

And you know what happens next. Jesus asks them what’s going on. They are shocked that he doesn’t know what has happened in Jerusalem—because everyone else seems to know. He then helps them understand the scriptures they have been taught. And then, because it’s getting late and first century hospitality would have required it, they invite him to spend the night with them. And that’s where the story changes.

It suggests that the three share a meal together, and that it’s when Jesus takes, blesses, breaks, and gives the bread to them, that “their eyes were opened, and they recognized him.” Now why, we might ask, did these actions help the disciples finally figure out who their companion was? Well, these are actions that Jesus has done three times, according to Luke’s gospel: the first, in chapter 9, when he takes five loaves and two fish and feeds five thousand; the second, in chapter 22, when he shares the last supper; and here after he has risen from the dead. Which is to say that perhaps it took Jesus doing something that they were familiar with—something, we could say, that was a part of who he was—to enable them to finally recognize him in their midst.

And this makes sense, doesn’t it? As we saw with the example of Rick Hoyt this morning, sometimes it is an activity that helps us define who we truly are. For Rick it was running. For my wife Kristen it’s when she’s mothering our boys. For some of you it may be when you’re wrist-deep in dirt in the garden. For others it may be while playing an instrument, writing poetry, or fixing your car. We all have those activities that help us be who we, most truly, are.

And as such, if we want to recognize who another person is, it makes sense that we would need to witness them doing such an activity, or better yet, participate in that activity with them—to walk a mile in their shoes, we might say—to truly recognize them and understand what life is like for them. That’s what the disciples did by breaking bread with Jesus, and that’s why they recognized him. Jesus was doing something that was instrumental to who he was—actions that really defined what his ministry was all about—and it was in participating in that that the disciples’ eyes were opened and they recognized him.

Now this leads many to believe—and rightly so—that today we can recognize Jesus when we celebrate communion—for just as the disciples recognized Jesus in the breaking of the bread, so too can we recognize Jesus when we share communion in community with each other.

But you know, as I was reading this text, I felt there was more to the story than just communion. After all, Jesus first performs this action well before that last supper was on the disciples’ radar screens. As such, it was those four verbs that jumped out at me: take, bless, break, and give. And it led me to wonder that if we’re looking to recognize Christ in our midst—which is what today’s lesson is all about—then do those verbs have anything to say to us? Well, let’s take a look.

Take. As defined this verb, in Greek, means to acquire, “to take to oneself,” “to receive,” or “to collect.” (6) It’s a verb that conjures up a number of images for me: the idea of taking the concerns of another to ourselves, to take those to heart, to be empathetic; the image of receiving into our arms one who may not have a place in this world, one who needs to be loved and comforted. In short, for me this word is about receiving another into our lives in such a way that we love, welcome, and care for them.

Bless. This word means to speak well of someone, to speak to God on their behalf. Quite simply it means, to me, lifting up another in prayer, saying nice things to other people, offering praise for good work where praise is due. This is using our voices in the best way that they are able to be used—to speak well to, or on behalf of, another.

Break. For me this conjures up two very different images. The first refers to the bread Jesus is breaking. When we have something for ourselves, and we take that, and break it in half, or into multiple pieces, and offer that to our neighbors so that they may be as blessed and sated as we are, that is breaking at its finest. The other image is more metaphorical. When there are walls put up, barriers erected, stereotypes built up, we have a job to break those down to help ensure that God’s vision of this world comes to fruition.

And finally: Give. This one is the easiest to define, yet perhaps the hardest to do. It’s the giving of our time, talent, and treasure to benefit another human being in this world. When we take the material possessions we have, the hours in the day we have been granted, or the gifts we have been blessed with by God and we use them to serve another or to, in some way, make this world around us better, we are giving over some of ourselves—precisely what this word means.

Take, bless, break, and give. If today’s lesson is all about recognizing Christ in our midst, then I believe the best way we’ll accomplish that is to do that which was integral to who Jesus was as a human being, to do that which helped him define his mission, message and ministry: to take, bless, break, and give.

For I have no doubt, that in so doing, we won’t have to wander in sadness, wondering where Jesus is in this world—we’ll see him in the faces and smiles of those whom we reach out to serve, and in our very own hands that we use to do such service.

And then, when we recognize the living Christ, let us not revel in that experience alone, but rather, take a cue from the disciples’ reaction. For when they recognize Jesus, and he vanishes from their sight, despite the fact that it is evening, they change their course and race seven miles back up the road to Jerusalem to tell the others what they have experienced. They tell others that they know what it is to recognize the Christ.

And it might just be that in so racing they came to learn a little more about themselves, just like Rick Hoyt. I pray that the same may be true for us as well. Amen.

© 2011 by Rev. Dr. Jeffrey M. Gallagher, All Rights Reserved.

1. Information taken from: http://www.teamhoyt.com/about/index.html.
2. R. Alan Culpepper, “The Gospel of Luke,” in The New Interpreter’s Bible, Volume IX, Ed. Leander E. Keck (Nashville: Abingdon, 1995), 481.
3. Ibid., 482.
4. David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, eds., Feasting on the Word, Year A, Volume 2, Lent through Eastertide (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2010), 419.
5. Culpepper, 482.
6. Geoffrey W. Bromiley, Theological Dictionary of the New Testament (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1985), 495.

May 1st Sermon

2011-05-02T09:21:00.000-04:00

First Congregational Church of Kittery Point, United Church of Christ
May 1, 2011
Sermon—“Believing is Seeing”—Rev. Dr. Jeffrey M. Gallagher, Pastor
Easter II; Based on: John 20:19-31

It was October of 2004. The Red Sox and Yankees had advanced to the American League Championship Series, with the winner set to earn a spot in the World Series. You might recall a little something about it.

It began in Yankee Stadium for games one and two. The Sox dropped the first one 10-7, and the second one 3-1—neither loss unexpected, as they were away from home. But that put a lot of pressure on the Sox in game 3 at Fenway Park. It was a game that started out okay, with the teams tied 6-6 through three innings. But then the game got ugly—real ugly, like a 19-8 loss ugly. The Sox were down three games to none, and most everybody was preparing to read that familiar headline in the newspaper, courtesy of Ernest Thayer’s poem: “There is no joy in Mudville.”

And so it was that the team came out to play game four. As the camera scanned across a rather subdued Fenway Park crowd, as I recall it, many were still wearing those sullen and forlorn faces from the night before. And I admit, that while I am a “never say never” kind of person, I wasn’t super optimistic that this series was going to end any better than the ALCS in 2003 did (and we don’t need to go there this morning).

And then I saw it. As the camera scanned through the crowd, it focused on someone holding up a sign, which read: “You’ve got to believe it to see it.” An interesting turn on a familiar phrase, I thought to myself as the camera panned on. Yet as the game continued I couldn’t get that sign out of my head. As Dave Roberts stole second base—keeping the Sox hopes alive when they trailed in the eighth—and then as they went on to tie the game, win the game in 14 innings, and then win the next three, before sweeping the World Series, that sign never left me: “You’ve got to believe it to see it.”

It’s a sign that I always think about when this John lesson comes around—as it does each year on the Sunday after Easter—because this lesson really is all about believing and seeing. Recall the scene with me, if you will. It is the evening of the day Jesus rose from the dead, the first Easter, and where are the disciples? Well, they’re not out and about spreading the good news that Mary Magdalene had raced from the empty tomb to tell them. No, they are all by themselves, with the door locked to the outside world, cowering in fear.

Now why are they afraid, we might ask? Wouldn’t they be happy and excited that Jesus had risen from the dead? Well, the text doesn’t really give an explanation for their fear, but we can assume it might be that they didn’t believe Mary’s news, and were thus afraid that someone had stolen the body. Perhaps they were still nervous about being arrested as Jesus’ followers. Or it might even be that they were afraid that he actually had risen from the dead because of what that would mean for them—more on that later.

But regardless of why they are afraid, Jesus comes to be among them—for even though they are behind the “fearfully locked doors . . . . [they] cannot keep out God’s grace.” (1) It’s an appearance that has a dual purpose. First, it’s intended to show the disciples that what Mary has told them is true—that Jesus has, in fact, risen from the dead. And second, it’s so that Jesus can speak a word to them—a word that recalls “the words of comfort that [Jesus] had spoken at the Last Supper.” (2) In short, it’s so that Jesus can offer the disciples his peace.

Now this latter action is sort of a mini-Pentecost. This is Jesus imparting his Spirit to the disciples. In essence, “He commissions his disciples to be in the world to continue his ministry.” (3) Yet notice that in so doing he doesn’t chastise the disciples for their unbelief. Now, I intentionally didn’t say their “doubts” there, because the word translated as doubt throughout this passage is really a misinterpretation. The better way would be to say “do not be unbelieving.” (4) And we all should know that the opposite of belief is not doubt, but despair, or fear.

So there’s no criticism for their unbelief here. Really Jesus is telling the disciples not to be afraid to go out and continue on his work—and he’s blessing them to be able to do just that. But look what happens. The story continues a week later when Thomas arrives on the scene and the disciples are still in that room, away from the world, not doing their work, with the doors shut. And Thomas, having not seen what the others have seen, is in disbelief that Jesus has actually risen, just like the others were.

Which is to say that Thomas should not be singled out for his fear, or lack of belief. For “None of them believed without seeing, whether it was the women at the tomb, or the other disciples. Thomas is just like them and like us, too.” (5) In other words, it’s not just Thomas; we all have trouble believing without being able to see.

Which is why John offers that pastoral message at the end of this story as some encouragement—blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe—a message that “puts Christians of all times and places on the same level before God as the original disciples.” (6)

And really, that’s what this lesson is all about. As such there are all the traditional messages to garner from this text: that Jesus blesses us all with God’s Spirit to do God’s work; that unbelief is not a bad thing that we are to be chastised for, but a normal part of faith; that the disciples should have been out spreading the good news in the world—as we should all be doing as Jesus’ followers—and not locked away. You’ve, no doubt, heard such messages before; as such, I’d like to spin this story a little for us this morning.

For if, as the text says, we are blessed because we have believed without seeing, then does that have anything to do with that Red Sox sign we began this sermon with: “You’ve got to believe it to see it?” Well, given that the sign is essentially a summation of Hebrews 11:1: “Now faith is the assurance of things hopes for, the conviction of things not seen,” it seems to suggest to me that believing can lead us to see things we hadn’t seen before.

And if that’s the case—and if we have the faith to believe that God did raise Jesus from the dead, and that the resurrection was not a one time event, but an example of what God is seeking to do all the time—then can’t that belief help us to see that resurrection is all around us?

The flowers bursting through the cold earth and tree buds popping to new life; a woman who has battled cancer for years and is suddenly declared cancer free when all signs were against it; the mending of a relationship between family members that once seemed hopeless; the unexpected pregnancy of a couple trying for years to have children; the gaining of equal rights for a group that has been oppressed; a new job, at just the right time, when the bank account was nearly empty—these are all moments that we can see for what they truly are—resurrection moments—if we have the faith to believe that resurrection happens.

The problem is that we often struggle to believe the good news that we heard proclaimed on Easter Sunday and that we hear proclaimed all throughout this Easter season. Sure we sing our “alleluias,” but deep down, I would venture to guess, many of us struggle with resurrection. And that’s not only because we have a hard time imagining the details of what Jesus’ resurrection was like; but also because, I would argue, that sometimes we don’t need to believe, and other times we don’t want to believe.

Think about it. If life is going well for us; if we have a good job, a happy and healthy family, and life is void of any major problems, we don’t need to believe in resurrection because there are no real dead places in our life that need new life breathed into them.

It also may be that we don’t want to believe—either consciously or subconsciously. For if the resurrection is true, and if God is resurrecting all around us—that is, doing the work of bringing new life where there is death—and if God is calling us to participate in that work, that puts quite a responsibility on us, doesn’t it? Just look at the disciples. If Jesus had been raised, then that meant that they needed to do some serious, dangerous, and scary work to keep his message alive. So perhaps they didn’t want to believe it was true, because they knew what that meant. The same might be true for us. If we don’t want to be involved in the tough work of bringing new life where there is death and decay, we might not want to believe it’s true either. And all of that can hurt us from seeing where resurrection is—and where resurrection needs to—happen.

Which is why we come back to this story every year for one purpose: to encourage us to believe.

So I guess my message to you today is to take a leap of faith. In this Easter season—even though you may not have all the subtle intricacies figured out—believe that God has, and continues to, resurrect this world. For assuming that Jesus is not going to walk through those doors in the next couple of minutes and show us his hands and side, it’s incumbent upon us to take such a step forward in faith. Instead of waiting to see the proof that will enable us to believe, why not find it within us to believe, and trust that such faith will allow us to see God’s resurrection spaces and places anew in our lives.

For I believe that if we have faith that resurrection is happening, then, amazingly, we’ll start to see it. If we believe resurrection can happen, we’ll see where it needs to happen some more. And if such beliefs mean that we’re going to be called into service to help make it happen, I believe we can trust that our resurrecting God will not abandon us as we do that which we have been called to do. Which is to say, if we’re sitting around, inside a locked room, waiting for proof to believe, we’re missing out on seeing some pretty amazing work that God is already doing in this world.

With this in mind, to close this morning I want to leave you with a provocative prayer from author Walter Brueggemann. This prayer gets into this idea of those of us who don’t need to see resurrection vs. those who believe wholeheartedly and are desperately waiting to see it in our lives. It’s called “We are baffled”:

“Christ is Risen
He is risen indeed!
We are baffled by the very Easter voice we claim.
Your new life fits none of our categories.
We wonder and stew and argue,
and add clarifying adjectives like “spiritual” and “physical.”
But we remain baffled, seeking clarity and explanation,
we who are prosperous, and full and safe and tenured.
We are baffled and want explanations.

But there are those not baffled, but stunned by the news,
stunned while at minimum wage jobs;
stunned while the body wastes in cancer;
stunned while the fabric of life rots away in fatigue and despair;
stunned while unprosperous and unfull
and unsafe and untenured . . .
Waiting only for you in your Easter outfit,
waiting for you to say, “Fear not, it is I.”
Deliver us from our bafflement and our many explanations.
Push us over into stunned need and show yourself to us lively.
Easter in us honesty;
Easter in us fear;
Easter in us joy,
and let us be Eastered.” (7)

In other words, resurrection is happening. If we have the faith to believe it, I have no doubt that we’ll see it. Amen.

© 2011 by Rev. Dr. Jeffrey M. Gallagher, All Rights Reserved.

1. David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, eds., Feasting on the Word, Year A, Volume 2, Lent through Eastertide (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2010), 399.
2. Ibid., 394.
3. Arland J. Hultgren, “Second Sunday of Easter, Years A, B, C,” in The Lectionary Commentary, The Third Readings: The Gospels, Ed. Roger E. Van Harn (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 2001), 596.
4. Gail R. O’Day, “The Gospel of John,” in The New Interpreter’s Bible, Volume IX (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1995), 850.
5. AHA! Creative Resources for Preachers, April/May/June 2005, Vol.14, #3 (Inver Grove Heights, Minnesota: Logos Productions, Inc., 2005), 6.
6. Hultgren, 597.
7. Walter Brueggemann, “We are baffled,” in Resources for Preaching and Worship, Year A, Compiled by Hannah Ward and Jennifer Wild (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2004), 133-134.

Easter Meditation

2011-04-25T11:59:00.002-04:00

First Congregational Church of Kittery Point, United Church of Christ
April 24, 2011
Sermon—“This is the beginning”—Rev. Dr. Jeffrey M. Gallagher, Pastor
Easter; Based on: Matthew 28:1-10

Note: This original story was offered without manuscript on Easter Sunday, so the following are intended as notes—and have not been proofread as thoroughly as they might have been otherwise! So please excuse any and all typos!

So who here has a good imagination? Great! I knew that would be the case this morning, and I’m glad because I need you to imagine with me this morning. Imagine that you are living in the time of Jesus, in Jerusalem, and imagine the following story with me.

It was a dark evening, just before the festival of the Passover in Jerusalem. As he always did, Aaron went to work while most of Jerusalem was sleeping. He grabbed his dusty boots, grabbed his crimson robe—the one that told everyone in town that he was one of Pilate’s guards—he grabbed his helmet and set off to work.

Tonight Aaron’s job was to walk the streets of Jerusalem. There were lots of people in town for the festival, and so Pontius Pilate—Aaron’s boss and the Roman governor—wanted to make sure that people behaved themselves. It was Aaron’s job to make sure that happened.

So he walked the streets that night, with nothing significant happening until he felt someone grab his arm. Startled, he turned ready for a fight, only to see a face he recognized, another guard, telling him that has was needed in the Garden of Gethsemane—a place he knew well, a spot where troublemakers often went, just outside the city walls.

Running to get there, by the time they had arrived there wasn’t much left to do. They told a few people hanging around the garden that it was time to go home and go to bed. It was then that Aaron was told that they had just arrested a man named Jesus. They asked him if he knew who he was. Aaron said that he didn’t. The only thing was, that he did.

You see, after he worked at night, Aaron had, just recently, been stopping by the home of a man named Nicodemus. You’ve heard that name before, right? Nicodemus was a man who started to believe in Jesus, but didn’t want other people to know—because it might jeopardize his job as a member of the Sanhedrin—a group of judges who worked for Pilate in Jerusalem. So Nicodemus starting inviting people to his home, late at night, to talk about this guy named Jesus and all that he was teaching and preaching about. Jesus preached an interesting message, and so Aaron had started attending to learn more.

Nicodemus said that Jesus was the Messiah—the Savior that the Jewish people had been waiting for—and that if people wanted to be certain that they would spend eternity with God, then they had to believe in Jesus. And those ideas made sense to Aaron, which is why he kept coming night after night. He was hoping that one of these days he’d get a chance to talk to Jesus in person, as Nicodemus kept promising that Jesus would be coming by.

But tonight he realized that things had changed. Jesus had been arrested.

After making sure that no one was left in the garden, Aaron walked back to town with the other guards. It didn’t take long for news about Jesus to spread among the guards. Jesus was actually standing trial already that night—strange because trials were never held at night. Then they heard that Jesus was found guilty. He was sentenced to death—to happen the very next day!

Needless to say, Aaron was sad. He knew now that he would never get a chance to tell Jesus that he believed in him. It was too late. Jesus was going to die, and that meant that Aaron had missed out on his chance of getting to spend eternity with God. He was a sad, sad man.

And those feelings of sadness stayed with Aaron all day, the next day, when Jesus died. In fact, just a few days later, the first day of the week, a still-sad Aaron was coming home from work in the early morning hours. Instead of going home, or to Nicodemus’ house, however, he thought that he would go to where they had placed Jesus’ body. Something told him that he needed to be in that space, that something about being there might help.

As he approached the tomb, however, he noticed that two women had arrived ahead of him. One of them he recognized as a woman that Jesus spent a lot of time with; the other one he didn’t recognize. So just as Aaron was about to go up to these two women and say something to them, the earth began to tremble. This was a strange feeling, as nothing like this happened in the area around Jerusalem. The earth began to shake very violently, so much so that Aaron grabbed on to a nearby tree so that he wouldn’t fall down.

It was then that he noticed that the women were not alone. For someone—though he couldn’t make out who it was—was there with them. Someone dressed in bright, bright white. Someone—a man, a woman—he couldn’t be sure. And in fact, he didn’t spend too long thinking about it, because Aaron couldn’t believe what was unfolding in front of his eyes. That other person with them took the huge stone that had been placed in front of where Jesus’ body was laid, and rolled it back. That’s right, that person—who must have been an angel—rolled the stone back!

Now you can imagine how shocked Aaron was. But he wasn’t as shocked as the two guards—men that Aaron knew from work—who were standing guard at the tomb and actually passed out when they saw what was happening. Aaron might have fallen too, if he wasn’t still hanging on to that tree. In fact, he was hanging on so hard that some of the bark was coming off in his hands. He had never seen anything like this before.

For the person dressed in white came over to the two women—who were obviously shocked as well—and started talking to them. Aaron couldn’t hear what was being said, but it was clear that the women were being asked to look into the tomb. Curious, Aaron looked closer and couldn’t help but be shocked by what he saw—or better yet, by what he didn’t see. For the tomb was empty! No body, no grave clothes, nothing—just an empty tomb! What on earth was going on, he wondered.

But he didn’t have time to think long. For soon the two women were racing off—running—from the tomb. Aaron watched them go. When he looked back at the now empty tomb, he noticed that that person in white was gone as well. The guards were still passed out. Quickly he decided that he’d better follow the women.

Keeping quite a pace, Aaron caught up to the women and actually grabbed the one he recognized by the arm. Upon turning she shrieked and asked him not to harm her. Aaron had forgotten that he was still dressed in his work clothes, and clearly the women figured that he had chased them to arrest them as well.

But, once he caught his breath, he assured them that wasn’t the case. Aaron had no desire to arrest them. He just wanted to know what had happened. He wanted to know what happened to the body. Was it stolen? He wanted to learn more about Jesus. He wanted to tell them that he was a believer. And he wanted to know if he was too late. Had he missed out on his chance to spend eternity with God now that Jesus’ life was over? Especially since his body was gone?

Clearly not wanting to spend too much time talking with him, the women responded in haste, still jogging along as they talked. “Don’t you get it? Jesus’ body wasn’t stolen. God raised him from the dead to show all of us that we, too, can spend forever with God—because God doesn’t stop loving us when we die, God’s love continues on forever. All those stories he told us were true!”

“Then I’m too late,” Aaron responded, starting to cry. “I missed my chance to tell Jesus that I believed in him. I missed my chance to spend forever with God. This is the end. Whatever shall I do now?” And with that he sunk to his knees.

With that the women stopped running, and walked back to where Aaron had sunk to the ground. Reaching down and putting her hand underneath his now tear-stained chin, one of the women raised Aaron’s head up and looked into his eyes. And in the softest, gentlest voice she could, she spoke:

“This isn’t the end. This is the beginning. And that’s why we’re so excited. Jesus’ message to us wasn’t to believe in him so that we could gain the reward of God’s love. Jesus’ message was that we have all been given the love of God—that God’s love is for all of us—and that we are to live our lives in response to that gift by loving others as much as God has loved us. This isn’t the end, this is the beginning!”

And with that, they raced off together, clearly heading into town to tell people this good news. And Aaron couldn’t be sure, but as he watched them running, it appeared that they were not alone—another seemed to be running by their side.

“This isn’t the end. This is the beginning.” Aaron said those words over and over in his head. He knew his life now had to be different. He knew that he couldn’t keep living the way he had been. He knew that today had changed everything for him. And so he took off his helmet he took off his bright crimson robe, he even took off those old boots, and he tossed them onto the dusty road below. Excited, he soon noticed that he, too, was now barefoot and running, eager to get started with the beginning of his new life.

My friends, a lot of people out there will tell you that you need to do the right things, you need to say the right things, you need to believe the right way in order to earn God’s love. But that’s not what this Easter story is about.

This Easter story is told so that we remember that God’s love can overcome even the worst of human sinfulness. That God showed us that God’s love for us doesn’t stop when we die—that God’s love for us continues forever.

And this is not a gift to be earned or a prize to be won. If we don’t believe the right things, or don’t act perfectly, God is not going to whisk this gift away from us—because that’s not what a gift is. A gift is something that is given freely, generously, and joyously. And that’s what God has done for us today—given us the gift of God’s love for eternity. It’s a gift that we have all received.

The question we need to consider is, having received this gift, how will our lives be different?

For today is not the end of the story—this is the beginning. This is the beginning for us, and a reminder that we can be like Aaron. We can shed what we have done yesterday to reach out and grab our new lives today—living our lives, then, not to earn God’s love, but to say “thank you” for the love that God has already given to us.

And so I hope, and pray, that’s what you will do on this day of resurrection, this day of new beginnings. Celebrate this gift that has been given to you—no matter who you are, what you have done or haven’t done, no matter where you find yourself on this journey of life—this gift has been given for you. Live now in response to that gift.

Who knows, you might just find yourself running out of here, as eager as Aaron to get started. Amen.

© 2011 by Rev. Dr. Jeffrey M. Gallagher, All Rights Reserved.

April 10th Sermon

2011-04-11T09:03:00.000-04:00

First Congregational Church of Kittery Point, United Church of Christ
April 10, 2011
Sermon—“Use Your Words”—Rev. Dr. Jeffrey M. Gallagher, Pastor
Lent V; Based on: Ezekiel 37:1-14

Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me. Know that one? Of course you do. I bet we all learned it as children as a way to deal with those who might end up making fun of us as we grew up. Too bad the sing-song isn’t true. For if I were to ask for a show of hands of how many here today have been hurt by words, name-calling, or teasing in their life, I’m sure that virtually all of us would raise our hands. I know I would. And I’m sure you can remember those words and those hurts as if they happened yesterday. For the truth of the matter is that while sticks and stones may break our bones, names and words really do hurt us.

Today we call it bullying, and it is the real deal. And I’m not just talking about physical bullying, but perhaps more so, emotional and verbal bullying. Gaining national attention—and rightly so—bullying, and now cyber bullying, have caused a number of youth to take their own lives, and to even resort to trying to gain revenge on those who have harmed them. Such an incident was the subject matter of a recent novel by author Jodi Picoult entitled Nineteen Minutes. Here’s an excerpt:

“You can feel people staring; it’s like heat that rises from the pavement during summer, like a poker in the small of your back. You don’t have to hear a whisper, either, to know that it’s about you.

I used to stand in front of the mirror in the bathroom to see what they were staring at. I wanted to know what made their heads turn, what it was about me that was so incredibly different. At first I couldn’t tell. I mean, I was just me.

Then one day, when I looked in the mirror, I understood. I looked into my own eyes and I hated myself, maybe as much as all of them did. That was the day I started to believe they might be right.” (1)

Those are the heart-wrenching words of the novel’s main subject, Peter Houghton—a bullying victim for over twelve years—who ended up going on a nineteen minute rampage of violence in his school, unable to take the harassment any longer. Needless to say, it is a chilling work of fiction. It’s just too bad that is isn’t fake.

For incidences like this are happening. Our kids are hurting, like Peter. Ask any one of the youth who was up here for the Children’s Sermon this morning and they’ll tell you. Ask your own children and grandchildren. Ask the educators in our midst. Bullying is real, and only serves to underscore just how powerful our words can be.

The power of words. Keep that in mind this morning as we turn our attention to that wild vision from the book of Ezekiel that we read a moment ago.

So our lesson for this morning—often referred to as the dry bones vision—is the third of “four . . . . visions contained within the Book of Ezekiel.” (2) It’s a prophetic vision which Ezekiel “spoke . . . . to his fellow exiles in Babylon over a period of about thirty years (approximately 593-563 B.C.E.).” (3) But Ezekiel is not just any prophet. He’s also a priest.

And this point is significant given what transpires in this story. For Ezekiel is called by God—Eugene Peterson translates this as “God grabbed [Ezekiel]” (4) —and set Ezekiel down in this valley of dry bones. Just imagine very white bones, absent of marrow, littering the ground as far as the eye can see. Now while such an image might turn our stomachs and we could say that we wouldn’t want to be there, the fact is that Ezekiel, as a priest, couldn’t be there.

For “the high priest could not defile himself by going near a human corpse, even if it was the funeral of his mother or father . . . . Thus the vision . . . . is not only a matter of queasiness about being in an open human graveyard but also a matter of the severest condition of ritual impurity and contamination.” (5) So even though, according to Jewish purity codes Ezekiel could not be in this space, that’s exactly where God grabs him and places him.

And it’s in this space that God asks Ezekiel a question: “Mortal, can these bones live?” Being the astute priest that he is, Ezekiel answers the question well: “O Lord God, you know.” In other words, Ezekiel is not going to be tricked here by saying that God can, or cannot, do something. And that’s a good thing, because God makes it clear that these bones can rise. In other words, God makes it clear that God can do anything.

For these bones will rise through the breath of God. The Hebrew word here is ruach and can also mean “wind,” or “spirit.” (6) It is the same word that is used to describe the breath that was blown into Adam to give him life. As such, it’s really the life-giving force of God. Today we might call it, the Holy Spirit, the third person of the trinity.

And so Ezekiel is told to prophesy to these bones—to tell them that they can live—and that’s exactly what happens. Ezekiel prophesies and the bones come to life. Now it must be said that while “the modern, critical reader will inevitably raise questions about the historicity [in other words, the historical accuracy of such a story, the story is simply intended to] . . . . testify to the belief that the power of God could triumph over death.” (7) And not only that, but it’s not supposed to be taken literally.

For the text goes on to explain that the bones are a vision, and all of this is a metaphor for the house of Israel—the people who have been exiled from their homeland and feel as though they are dead, lifeless, and hopeless.

One author puts it bluntly: “Ezekiel’s vision is not about a literal resurrection of dead individuals. Rather, it is a vision of a communal resurrection of people frozen dead in hopelessness, feeling totally cut off. This is a community that sees no way forward. They are without resources, without energy, without motivation, without a plan, and without hope.” (8) And it’s to those people that God tells Ezekiel he must prophesy.

In a sense, then, the vision of the dry bones was practice—training camp, if you will—for Ezekiel, before he goes and tests his ability on his own people who need to hear this word desperately. Now notice what is implied there—“the [life-giving] breath of God will come through a human priest/prophet speaking the word of [God] in ordinary human language.” (9) In other words, this brings us right back to where we started this morning: the power of words—the power of words to do incredible good, in the case of Ezekiel, and also, as we saw with Peter Houghton, incredible harm.

And that’s where I want us to focus our attention here this morning—on the power of words. Oftentimes when I get up here and say that we need to make a difference in this world, I talk about doing this or that—establishing justice, loving the unloved and hardest to love, serving our brothers and sisters. And I would venture to guess that you fill in those blanks as to how to make that happen with action.

But I wonder how often those actions involve speaking words. Use your words we often say to our children when we want them to express their feelings and desires in a more productive way than hitting their brothers and sisters. So maybe that’s the message we need to hear today: use your words. And if so, the good news is that Ezekiel gives us a road map for how to do just that.

For you’ll recall that Ezekiel is told to prophesy to the bones not once, not twice, but three times. And each of those words that he speaks to the bones accomplishes something different. In the first word he tells the bones to come together. And so they do come together as a body, but without any life in them.

So the second word he says gives them life—again through the breath or life-giving spirit of God. And that breath causes them to begin to live. Having done this, then, we might think his job is done—for Ezekiel has helped the bones come together and given them life. But there’s one more word that needs to be spoken. Ezekiel needs to tell them that in this new life that they have with God, that there is hope to be found.

As such, as we go forth seeking to use our words in this world, these are three words that we’d do well to remember. And they are three words—that if truly heeded—give us some pretty tall marching orders.

For first remember what happened to Ezekiel at the beginning. He was grabbed by God and dropped into a place that not only did he not want to go, but a place that he thought he shouldn’t go. And God says to him, “Ezekiel, I don’t care what you think. You need to be here. There’s work to be done.” As such, we need to take that into our own lives. As you look around you, where are the dead and lifeless places—in need of resuscitation—that you don’t want to go, the places that you shouldn’t go, the places that you couldn’t possibly go, thank you very much?

Is it working with a population of people that might be dirty, or scary, or off-putting? Is it raising your voice against a perpetual injustice that’s happening that you know is going to be hotly contested and raise emotions? Is it dealing with that person, or people, who have harmed you in the past and you don’t want to deal with again? Is it opening the door and walking into a room in this world that you desperately know needs some spring cleaning? Is it raising awareness around an issue that troubles you to your core, but you’re too scared to mention? Or maybe it’s working for understanding, acceptance, and inclusion among our children so that bullying no longer hurts the ones we love?

Or maybe you’re in that place already. Maybe that place is the church, and as one of our new members—or new attendees—you’ve realized that God has placed you here for a reason. My friends, what is the valley of dry bones that God is grabbing you and trying to place you down in?

Once you figure that out, Ezekiel shows you what’s next. You are to look around you at the scene. Look at whatever has transpired, whatever has made the scene lifeless, and you’re to identify the possibilities. You’re to use your words and say, “I see what’s going on here, and here’s how I see that it could be different.”

Then, you’re to pray to God—notice that Ezekiel is told to “prophesy to the breath,” or prophesy to the Spirit—and you’re to say, “God, I can’t do this alone. This has to be a team effort. I need your help to make this happen.”

And then, when infused with the Spirit of God, it’s your job to point out where the hope is to be found. Point out how, where, and why—when the possibilities are realized and God’s spirit is present—things can be a whole lot different.

In short, it’s all about using your words, my friends—for when we’re called to make a difference in the world—to bring hope to the hopeless and life to the lifeless—they may be the single most powerful tool we have. Amen.

© 2011 by Rev. Dr. Jeffrey M. Gallagher, All Rights Reserved.

1. Jodi Picoult, Nineteen Minutes (New York: Atria Books, 2007), 161.
2. Richard L. Eslinger, “Fifth Sunday of Lent,” in New Proclamation, Year A, 2007-2008, Advent through Holy Week, Ed. David B. Lott (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2007), 203.
3. Dennis T. Olson, “Fifth Sunday in Lent, Year A,” in The Lectionary Commentary, The First Readings: The Old Testament and Acts, Ed. Roger E. Van Harn (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 2001), 460.
4. Eugene H. Peterson, The Message, (Colorado Springs, Colorado: NavPress, 2002), 1557.
5. Olson, 460.
6. David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, eds., Feasting on the Word, Year A, Volume 2, Lent through Eastertide (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2010), 125.
7. Joseph Blenkinsopp, Ezekiel, Interpretation, A Bible Commentary for Teaching and Preaching (Louisville: John Knox Press, 1990), 173.
8. Olson, 462.
9. Ibid., 461.

April 3rd Sermon

2011-04-04T09:49:00.000-04:00

First Congregational Church of Kittery Point, United Church of ChristApril 3, 2011
Sermon—“Look instead for what God can do”—Rev. Dr. J.M. Gallagher, Pastor
Lent IV; Based on: John 9:1-41

As I was preparing for today’s sermon I came across a commentator who wrote, in response to the John lesson we just read: “In a sense, the story needs only to be told, not preached on. It makes its own theological claims.” (1) As such, I was thinking to myself, “hey, that’s not a bad idea—especially since we have such a full service today.” I could simply read the scripture, sit down, and then bask in all the wonderful comments post-service: “Jeff, that was the best sermon you’ve ever preached.” “Pastor, if you keep that up I’ll be here every Sunday!”

And you know, I seriously thought about doing this, but then I decided that I just couldn’t go through with it. I know, sorry to disappoint you! Why, you might ask? Well, even though the story is captivatingly told, I get hung up, theologically, on verse three: “Jesus answered, ‘Neither this man nor his parents sinned; he was born blind so that God’s works might be revealed in him’.”

Now, I’m okay with that first part of the verse—as I do not believe that a person born differently-abled is the result of their own or their parents’ sins; it’s the second part I get hung up on. God made this man to be born blind so that God could reveal God’s works through him? Really? That would mean that God created this man to be differently-abled so that God could show off how great God’s works are. If true, the implications would be astounding.

We just had an earthquake and tsunami in Japan—did God cause those? A child is diagnosed with leukemia—is God the cause? Our son Jacob was born with Down syndrome—is God behind that too? And was all of this done just so God could show off? I don’t know about you, but that sounds like a pretty sadistic God to me. It conjures up an image of God sitting above us like some child with a magnifying glass, deciding which ants should be burned next by the sun’s light. That’s not a flattering picture of God, and as a result, I don’t agree with theologies that portray God as such.

So I was about ready to give up on this text. But then I read Eugene Peterson’s translation of that same verse in The Message. He writes: “You’re asking the wrong question. You’re looking for someone to blame. There is no such cause-effect here. Look instead for what God can do.” (2) Look instead for what God can do. In other words, instead of seeing this as a story about who is to blame for this blind man’s condition, we’d do better to look at what this says about where God is at work in this man’s life.

And when we do that, we see that God heals the blind man. And yet still, I don’t think the point of that healing is to show how powerful God is; rather it is to show how blind others are to the ways God is working around them. As one author writes, “the question is . . . . whether the rest of us are sufficiently able to discern what God is saying and doing through [the lives of those who are differently-abled.] For those with eyes to see and ears to hear, the charisms of the Spirit will surely be manifest through the witness of the [differently-abled].” (3) And as we see in this story, there are plenty of folks who don’t see, or who are too afraid to admit, where God is at work in their midst.

Look at the neighbors. When they see the man who used to sit on their street and beg, they wonder whether or not this is really the same man. As such, we can ask: “Why do they fail to recognize him after he is healed? Is it because the only marker of his identity was his blindness? Has the fact that he was differently abled been the only thing they could ever see in him?” (4) I would say so, for they only saw him as a blind man, not a person. As such, now they cannot see God at work in his life.

Then we see that the Pharisees are focusing on finding proof. They question Jesus’ sinfulness for healing on the Sabbath. They even call the man’s parents—who are too fearful to say anything themselves—to see if this really is the man who was born blind. And then, to top it all off, they finish by driving him out of the city.

In a dramatic twist in the story, those who have eyes with which to see are the most blind to the way God works in the world. And the man who just recently gained his sight is the most perceptive of all! For he knew what the others didn’t—that’s it’s often in the places that are the most challenging in this world that God is to be found working the hardest.

Now let me be clear here that I don’t think this means that God needs to be working to cure all those who are differently-abled. People who are blind, and people with intellectual or physical challenges are not in need of fixing. In fact, if you ask people who are differently-abled, they’ll often say that they don’t want to be “cured” or “fixed.”

Take this one exchange with a woman with Down syndrome:

“Don. Let’s talk a little bit more about Down syndrome. You say you like it. What do you like about . . . . it?
Beth. It’s just a part of me. That’s what I like about it.
D. If you could get rid of your Down syndrome, would you?
B. No.
D. Do you really want it to be a part of you for the rest of your life?
B. Yes. Anyway, I can’t get rid of it because I was born with it.
D. But if you could, would you want to?
B. No, it’s just a part of me, it’s a part of my life, and I want to be a part of it.” (5)

I believe one of the reasons why Beth wouldn’t want to cure herself of Down syndrome is not only because it makes her who she is, but because it’s in those places of challenge in her life that she, no doubt, senses God most clearly at work.

And I believe that’s the message we need to take from today’s text. So often in our lives we wonder where God is at work in the world—is God the cause of this plane crash, is God the cause of that earthquake? While the answers to those questions, I believe, are an emphatic “no,” this text reminds us that we’re asking the wrong questions. For God is not to be found in the cause. Rather God is to be found in the response.

God is to be found in the rescue workers pulling a woman alive from beneath the rubble in Japan, three days after the tsunami hit. God is in the joy we have received and in the amazing compassion we have seen showered on our little Jacob. And God is at work in your lives, as well, in your challenges, your differing abilities, your lingering hurts and pains.

That is to say, my friends, that if you want to know where God is at work in the world, it’s in those most challenging places that we need to be looking.

Look instead for what God can do. For when we do that—and stop worrying about why things happen and blaming God when they do—I’m sure we’ll all start to see a pretty amazing picture of a pretty amazing God. Amen.

© 2011 by Rev. Dr. Jeffrey M. Gallagher, All Rights Reserved.

1. Walter Brueggemann, et al, Texts for Preaching, A Lectionary Commentary Based on the NRSV—Year A (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1995), 216.
2. Eugene H. Peterson, The Message (Colorado Springs, Colorado: NavPress, 2002), 1937.
3. Amos Yong, Theology and Down Syndrome (Waco, Texas: Baylor University Press, 2007), 219.
4. David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, eds., Feasting on the Word, Year A, Volume 2, Lent through Eastertide (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2010), 118.
5. Yong, 79.

March 27th Sermon

2011-03-28T11:44:00.000-04:00

First Congregational Church of Kittery Point, United Church of Christ March 27, 2011
Sermon—“Is the Lord among us or not?”—Rev. Dr. Jeffrey M. Gallagher, Pastor
Lent III; Based on: Exodus 17:1-7 & John 4:5-42

In The God Delusion, Richard Dawkins’ frustratingly maddening attempt to disprove the existence of God, the author tells the following story:

“Once, as a child, I heard a ghost: a male voice murmuring, as if in recitation or prayer. I could almost, but not quite, make out the words, which seemed to have a serious, solemn timbre. I had been told stories of priest holes in ancient houses, and I was a little frightened. But I got out of bed and crept up on the source of the sound. As I got closer, it grew louder, and then suddenly it ‘flipped’ inside my head. I was now close enough to discern what it really was. The wind, gusting through the keyhole, was creating sounds which the simulation software in my brain had used to construct a model of male speech, solemnly intoned. Had I been a more impressionable child, it is possible that I would have ‘heard’ not just unintelligible speech but particular words and even sentences. And had I been both impressionable and religiously brought up, I wonder what words the wind might have spoken.” (1)

In the margin next to the story I wrote in: “maybe the voice would have told you not to be such an [insert your own choice word here . . . . and actually mine was cleaner than you might think, thank you very much!].” Anyway, you probably have a feeling where I stand with Dawkins’ writing. But let me be clear here that this aversion is not simply because I disagree with Dawkins, who firmly comes down in the camp that God is a delusion that we have created to soothe and pacify ourselves.

I find it maddening because contemporary theological debate to him is circa the 18th century, and also because the Christian “authorities” he quotes are the likes of Pat Robertson, the Jehovah’s Witnesses, Jerry Falwell, and evolution-denying fundamentalists—people that many of us would probably disagree with as well. Contemporary theologies that actually address the issues he raises don’t even fly across his radar screen. But I digress . . . . my point here is not to offer a refutation of Dawkins’ book.

My point here is to raise the question that Dawkins raises, which is identical to the question that ended our Exodus lesson a few moments ago: “Is the Lord among us or not?” Is the Lord among us or not? In other words, is God a living and present being who is active in our lives, and if so, how do we know, for sure, that what we’re experiencing is God’s presence and not our own delusions? Well, let’s start our exploration with Moses in the wilderness of Sin.

So as we encounter the Israelites in today’s lesson, they are on their 40-year journey from Egyptian captivity to the promised land. You can, as you well should, let the “are we there yet” jokes begin—for this is not a happy group of travelers. In fact, their unhappiness has many of them thinking that they would have been better off in captivity—for at least there they were granted a reliable source of food and water.

But this hasn’t been the case during their sojourn. First there were issues surrounding food—leading God to give them manna—and now the issue is water, as they have arrived at Rephidim and water is nowhere to be found. So they begin to take their anger out on Moses, asking him why he has taken them into the wilderness to die of thirst. Moses then, fearful of what they might do to him, turns to God and asks for help—a sign from God, if you will—that God has not abandoned them, and that God will, in fact, provide the water they need. And it is, through the actions of Moses, that God gives them such a sign—water gushing forth from a rock.

And yet still the place is named Massah and Meribah—which means test and quarrel—because the Israelites did quarrel with God and did test God to see if God was still with them and still could provide for them. In our Psalm for the day, which formed the basis for our call to worship, the Psalmist makes the claim that such testing was bothersome to God—but not for the reasons we might think. The author writes:

“What irked the Lord the most was not that [the Israelites] asked the question [Is the Lord among us or not], but that they asked it so often. Their faith was fleeting and their memory weak. Even after all that the Lord had done for them, they still fall into a whiny panic when things did not appear to be going as they wished.” (2)

And therein lies the key to this story. The people of Israel missed God, I believe, because they were too busy whining that God had not done enough for them lately. In the midst of their complaining and feeling sorry for themselves, they had forgotten all the things that God had done for them all along. And isn’t that, so often, the case with us as well? When things don’t go the way we’d like them to—be it in a personal situation or in a catastrophic world-wide event, like what’s happening now in Japan—we often wonder whether God is asleep on the job, forgetting the many, many other ways in which God is present with us.

Which then begs the question: when looking at those other ways, how do we know—for sure—that God is, in fact, with us? The Exodus lesson seems to offer little help. For assuming that someone among us isn’t going to strike that pew over there and make water gush forth, how can we know, for sure, that God is with us? Well, the best way, I think, is to take a trip to meet the Samaritan woman at the well.

Now, to examine the meaning of this entire story would take much longer than we have time for here today. So I just want to focus in on a couple of parts in particular. Early on in the story, after Jesus explains that he is the one who can offer the Samaritan woman living water that will forever quench her thirst, Jesus asks the woman to call her husband and come back. Upon doing this, we learn that the woman has been married five times and is living with a man who is not her husband. Let the rumor mill start turning—and it most certainly has.

But one author cautions against this, writing: “The popular portrait of the woman in John 4 as a woman of dubious morals, guilty of aberrant sexual behavior, derives from a misreading of John 4 . . . . The text does not say, as most interpreters automatically assume, that the woman has been divorced five times, but that she has had five husbands . . . . Perhaps the woman . . . . is trapped in [the customs of her day] and the last male in the family line has refused to marry her.” (3)

In other words, we don’t know what has happened in this woman’s history, but what we do know is that Jesus knows and yet passes no judgment on her for whatever she has, or hasn’t, done. This causes the woman to be “able to see Jesus with new eyes” (4) and exclaim that Jesus is a prophet—understanding that he is no ordinary man.

Fast forward a bit in the story, after their exchange continues, and we see that the woman leaves her bucket which she has brought to the well to fill with water—symbolic that she is ready to drink the new water Jesus is offering—in order to go back and tell her townsfolk about this man whom she now suspects is the Messiah. And notice what she says to them: “Come and see a man who told me everything I ever did . . . and loved me anyway!” (5) To be fair, those last four words are not found in the text, but as one author goes on to say, they are clearly implied by the woman’s excitement to spread the word about Jesus.

And so with this said, then, we have two clues, I believe, from the Samaritan woman’s interaction with Jesus that show us how we can trust that God is in our presence. First, an encounter with God enabled her to see things in a new light. After speaking with Jesus, she is able to see both him, and herself, with eyes that she was unable to before. And the same is true for our encounters with God as well. We can trust that we have been in the presence of God, when an experience causes us to see the world—and our place in it—with new eyes.

And second, the woman knew she was in God’s presence because God knew things about her—intimate details that she hadn’t shared with anyone—and yet loved her anyway. For the fact that she was going to the well during the daytime—away from the crowds who would have been there in the coolness of the morning—suggests that this woman had few friends, and was loved by fewer. “She is almost totally an outsider.” (6) And yet Jesus saw through that and loved her anyway with a love that had to be divine—for it was a love that no human was capable of.

Once again, the same is true for us. When we have a feeling that we are understood for who we are—deep down to our core—and yet not loved despite of who we are, but because of who we are, we can trust and know that that kind of love can only come from God.

Yet these are not the only proofs we have of God’s presence in our lives. We often talk about the love that we feel from a friend or loved one in a hug offered at just the right moment, the feeling we get when we stand in awe of creation—like on the shores of beautiful Lake Cobbosseecontee at our beloved Pilgrim Lodge—the feeling of being supported by unseen arms in life’s most trying times as evidence of God’s presence—and I believe those moments are. But let me offer a few other, less obvious, ways in which I believe we can trust God’s presence is among us as well.

When we feel as though an inner voice, and inner tug or pull, is challenging us, prodding us, pushing us to do or say or be something that we fear becoming or had never thought of doing before—that’s God’s presence.

When we have that unexpected, overwhelming feeling of peace and placidity—that even though all may not be well, that we can still make it through—a feeling that can come from everything from a prayer prayed, to a poem read, to the warmth of the sun on our backs—that’s God’s presence.

When washing the dishes, cleaning the bathroom floor, going to the supermarket, or even pouring ourselves a glass of water becomes a thinly transparent place where the ordinary moments of our lives are transformed into something extraordinary—that’s God’s presence.

When a moment of clarity washes over us—intimately defining who we are and using that knowledge to call us to be who we could become—that’s God’s presence.

When we are immersed in a moment in worship, in prayer, in the breath just before the sun crests above the horizon, and we feel we have drank deeply from spiritual water that refreshes us unlike any other we have tasted before—that’s God’s presence.

Now clearly we could go on and on with many more examples here this morning. Surely you have some in your own lives, or you probably wouldn’t be here today. The task for us is simply to keep our eyes, ears, hearts, and minds open enough to be able to notice those moments when they arrive, so that our murmuring and complaining will not lead us to wonder: Is the Lord among us or not?

And then what we do with those moments is simple—we bask in them, we give thanks to God for them, and then we do like the Samaritan woman did—we tell others about them. We spread the word, using the testimony of our personal experiences to help others see the ways that God may be present with them as well.

And who knows, if enough of us do it, we might even win over our old friend Dawkins. Then again, probably not, but I’d sure love to hear his response if we gave it a try. Amen.

© 2011 by Rev. Dr. Jeffrey M. Gallagher, All Rights Reserved.

1. Richard Dawkins, The God Delusion (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2006), 90-91.
2. David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, eds., Feasting on the Word, Year A, Volume 2, Lent through Eastertide (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2010), 83 & 85.
3. Gail R. O’Day, “John,” in Women’s Bible Commentary, Ed. Carol A. Newsom & Sharon H. Ringe (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1998), 384.
4. Ibid.
5. Bartlett and Taylor, 97.
6. Ibid., 92.

March 20th Sermon

2011-03-21T09:18:00.000-04:00

First Congregational Church of Kittery Point, United Church of Christ March 20, 2011
Sermon—“Gestating Christians”—Rev. Dr. Jeffrey M. Gallagher, Pastor
Lent II; Based on: John 3:1-21

Although there are a lot of things that I have forgotten from my days in seminary, there are some nuggets of wisdom that seem to come back to me all the time. One such nugget comes back every week when I sit down to write the sermon. I can hear one of my professors saying: “And please, even though you’ll be tempted to do so, don’t use yourself as a sermon illustration every week—the church didn’t come to hear about you! And that goes double for your kids—they’re off limits too!”

Well, remember what I said last week about temptation? That we’ll all fall victim along the way? Well . . . . guilty as charged today because you’re going to hear a little something about Noah. But first, a little background.

Last week our church received a mailing from Pilgrim Lodge—the summer camp of the Maine Conference of the United Church of Christ. Included in that envelope—along with the Pilgrim Lodge brochures and schedules (which you can, and should, check out in the Parish House)—were a number of candid pictures from the 2010 Pilgrim Lodge season, with litanies of prayer written on the back.

Paging through these, our Office Administrator Lisa Harris picked out one to hang on the bulletin board in the Parish House. It showed a very excited young man—probably no older than five—in orange shorts, a gray sweatshirt, and red Patriots hat with a huge smile on his face and his arms stretched to the sky. Behind him was a young woman—a camp counselor—holding the exact same pose. And behind her, the trees on the shore of beautiful Lake Cobbosseecontee.

Thinking it was a cute picture, Lisa hung it up and thought nothing of it until her daughter Isabella came in one day after school and said, “Hey Mom, did you see that picture of Noah out there?”

Yup, that’s right. If the orange shorts weren’t a give-away, the picture I described was of Noah, taken at the day we spent at Pilgrim Lodge last summer. Noah had been asked to participate in the opening worship—where they were talking about the creation of the earth—and where he was asked to show what it looked like when God made the sun—hence the arms raised to the sky and big smile on his face.

It’s a picture, that I have to say, is one of the best I have ever seen of Noah—no silly smirks or anything like that. And the reason why I think that is all tied up in that lesson we read from John’s gospel a moment ago. So let’s turn to that lesson now and I’ll explain why Nicodemus and Noah are now inextricably linked in my mind.

So, John’s gospel lesson. Perhaps one of the most latent-with-association texts that we have in our entire Bible. For who hasn’t heard the phrase “born again” at some point in their lives? And who hasn’t seen a rabid fan holding up a huge John 3:16 sign at a football game? I’m sure we can all answer in the affirmative to both.

Given this, one commentator writes the following: “Some texts are so familiar and so loaded with . . . . a muddle of associations to manage, and that complicates things . . . . This means that before a preacher has any room to do her job, she has to muck out a lot of stalls.” (1) Well . . . . I guess with that said, it’s time to let the mucking begin!

So let’s start with that phrase “born from above,” or in its more loaded translation: “born again.” What comes to mind when I say that phrase? Perhaps an in-your-face theology that we are not comfortable with? Some sort of “a slogan and rallying cry for an entire segment of contemporary Christian experience” (2) that rubs us the wrong way? A spiritual litmus test in which the question: “’Are you born again?’ is code language for ‘Are you saved, like us?’” (3)

You know what I’m saying here, and I’m sure you’ll agree that this is not a phrase that we use very often because of these associations. But the question is: are these contemporary uses being faithful to John’s original intent? Well, the Greek word in question here can be translated both as “born again” and “born from above”—so in that respect the word is being used correctly. Where I think those uses fall short, however, is where it is suggested that being “born again” is a one-time event, a choice to be made of our own accord, a decision on our part to make a confession of faith that guarantees us eternal blessing in God’s eyes regardless of what we do in life

For a better way to read those words here is not “as a command”—you must be saved now, or else!—but rather “as an invitation” (4) —an invitation to acknowledge the presence of, and to begin to work with God, who is already present and working in our lives. For I think the invitation to be born again is “not so much about what one does with one’s mind as about what one does with one’s heart and one’s life.” (5) More about that later.

And what about verse 16? For God so loved the world that God gave the world Jesus so that all who believe in Jesus may have eternal life. You know that one too. So again, is this a one-time belief thing here? Confess Jesus as Lord and Savior and you’re good to go with your crown in heaven all set? Well, not exactly.

You see, John uses the phrase “eternal life” in his gospel “to describe the change in human existence wrought by faith in Jesus . . . . [As such] “Eternal” does not mean mere endless duration of human existence, but is a way of describing life lived in the unending presence of God. To have eternal life is to be given life as a child of God . . . . Eternal life is not something held in abeyance until the believer’s future, but begins in the believer’s present.” (6) Which is to say, again, that this isn’t about securing a reward to come, but about a change in how life is lived now. This is all heady theological exploration, I know—but then, no one ever said this mucking stuff was easy! Just keep these understandings in mind and we’ll see if we can’t pull all of this together.

So let’s talk about the story John offers here. Nicodemus “has come to check out the new rabbi in town . . . . He is a Pharisee—a person of religious piety. He is a leader of the Jews, perhaps occupying a seat on the council of elders—the Sanhedrin. Despite these credentials, however, Nicodemus arrives at night, under the cover of darkness, to conduct his investigation after the public eye has shut.” (7) So what does all this mean?

Well, although some people like to paint Nicodemus in a negative light, I’m actually pretty sympathetic to Nicodemus. I like him. I believe that Nicodemus is a faithful Jew who is beginning to question just who Jesus is and whether he’s worth believing in, yet he’s embarrassed to do so in public, thereby necessitating his arrival at night.

And so he opens up the dialogue with Jesus with a faith statement, saying that he has observed Jesus doing all these wonderful signs around the area. To which Jesus responds, in less than Jesus-like fashion, by provoking a somewhat-argumentative conversation. Now let me say a word about this. I believe that what we see in this conversation says more about John (the gospel writer) than Jesus. For John is attempting to get people to believe in Jesus through his (my opinion) overly-theologized gospel, and I think sometimes that cause John to make the people in his gospel—including Jesus—sound a bit harsher than their words might actually have been.

Regardless, though, I think Jesus’ message is important here. For Jesus starts by suggesting that Nicodemus needs to be born again—not a salvation guaranteeing answer to a question, remember, but a change in his entire life. However Nicodemus doesn’t understand what Jesus is asking, wondering how a person can climb back into their mother’s womb to be born a second time. So Jesus clarifies, suggesting that there is a distinction to be made between birth from the flesh and birth from the Spirit, and that Nicodemus needs to concern himself with the latter. In other words, Nicodemus needs to be spiritually born anew. He needs to move away from a faith of questions secretly pondered in his head, to a faith that is a life lived in the light.

I love how one author explains this point about Nicodemus’ journey, expanding it to include all of us as well: “God conceives us as Christians and nurtures us in the wombs of our faith, safe and warm and secret. At some point, like any pregnant woman who is close to full term, God gets impatient with gestation and wants to get on with it; God wants to push that baby through the birth canal into greater maturity, into fullness of life, into a faith lived wholly in the world. That is what Jesus talks about in this text. Jesus thinks it’s time Nicodemus came through that spiritual birth canal.” (8)

The author’s point, I hope, is clear. There is a time when all of us—not just Nicodemus—need to stop being gestating Christians, too scared to live out our faith in the light, and be born anew, into a new life of faith that sees us living out our faith—in that light—in ways that we may have been too scared to do before. Thus, being “born again,” or “born anew,” or “born from above,” is not a one-time event; it’s the beginning of a life-long process of living a life that outwardly shows where our ultimate allegiance in life lies.

And that brings me back to that picture of Noah. On the side of the picture is the Pilgrim Lodge mission statement which reads, in part: “Together we seek to overcome fears and frustrations, and to experience the joy of giving and receiving love.” And that’s what that picture shows to me. It shows a young boy who is not afraid to live his life of faith—to stand up in front of a group of strangers and say, “I’m not afraid, in fact I’m proud, to stand up here and show what I believe about God.”

Now I’m sure Noah wouldn’t articulate it in that way, but that’s what that picture says to me. And I love it because, I fear, there will come a time in his life—as has probably been the case with all of us—when that fear will creep back in. As he gets older and it’s not cool to talk about God or admit he attends church, or as he goes off to work in the world and doesn’t want to offend someone by talking about why his faith compels him to live the way that he does, that fear may well creep back in. And you know, I think that’s where most of us find ourselves.

I think that as individuals and as a church we are, in many respects, gestating Christians. We’re willing to talk about our faith in certain spaces (like when we’re surrounded by others whom we know believe the same) and we’re willing to live that faith out, sometimes—often in safe, pre-defined settings.

And while that’s good, the reality is that Jesus is calling us to more here. For the fact of the matter is, if the world is full of gestating Christians who are unwilling to overcome their fear of living their faith in the light—where other people might actually see them and be influenced by them—then the world is going to have some problems, darkness is going to prevail.

Which is to say that this world could certainly benefit from a group of people—even a church like us—who are willing to move from darkness to light, who are willing to stop gestating and start living, who are willing to begin a new life of faith and service in the brightest light of day. In other words, the world could use us, my friends, to open our eyes, take our first deep breath of air, and start living in this world as the children God has created and called us to be.

Which is to say that today, the first day of spring, when new life is beginning to sprout and emerge all around us, might just be a pretty good day to celebrate a birthday. Amen.

© 2011 by Rev. Dr. Jeffrey M. Gallagher, All Rights Reserved.

1. David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, eds., Feasting on the Word, Year A, Volume 2, Lent through Eastertide (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2010), 69 & 71.
2. Gail R. O’Day, “The Gospel of John,” in The New Interpreter’s Bible, Volume IX, Ed. Leander E. Keck, et al (Nashville: Abingdon, 1995), 554.
3. Bartlett and Taylor, 71.
4. Ibid., 70.
5. Ibid., 72.
6. O’Day, 552.
7. Scott Black Johnston, “Second Sunday in Lent, Year A,” in The Lectionary Commentary, The Third Readings: The Gospels, Ed. Roger E. Van Harn (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 2001), 495 & 496.
8. Bartlett and Taylor, 72.

March 13th Sermon

2011-03-14T09:23:00.000-04:00

First Congregational Church of Kittery Point, United Church of Christ March 13, 2011
Sermon—“Love Wins”—Rev. Dr. Jeffrey M. Gallagher, Pastor
Lent I; Based on: Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7

You may have heard that there’s a new religious book coming out on Tuesday that is grabbing some attention in the literary community. Entitled Love Wins: A Book About Heaven, Hell, and the Fate of Every Person Who Ever Lived, this book by Rob Bell was actually ranked number 34 on the Barnes and Noble best seller list at one point this week. That’s not number 34 in the religious section, that’s number 34 overall—pretty much unheard of for a religious book.

So what makes this book so intriguing—aside from its title? Well, allow me to offer you Bell’s own words of introduction to the book, as offered in a video posted on Barnes and Noble’s website:

“Will only a few select people make it to heaven? And will billions and billions of people burn forever in hell? And if that is the case, how do you become one of the few? Is it what you believe, or what you say, or what you do, or who you know, or something that happens in your heart, or do you need to be initiated, or baptized, or take a class, or converted, or be born again?

How does one become one of these few? And then there is the question behind the questions, the real question: what is God like? Because millions and millions of people were taught that the primary message, the center of the Gospel of Jesus, is that God is going to send you to hell unless you believe in Jesus. And so what gets taught is that Jesus rescues you from God.

But what kind of God is that, that we would need to be rescued from this God? How could that God ever be good? How could that God ever be trusted? And how could that ever be Good News?

This is why lots of people want nothing to do with the Christian faith—they see if as an endless list of absurdities and inconsistencies. And they say: “Why would I ever want to be a part of that?” You see, what we believe about heaven and hell is incredibly important because it expresses what we believe about who God is and what God is like.

And what we discover in the Bible is so surprising and unexpected and beautiful that whatever we’ve been told or taught, the Good News is actually better than that, better than we could ever imagine. The Good News is that: Love Wins.” (1)

Intriguing, isn’t it? In fact, I have already ordered Bell’s book and reading it is going to be a part of my Lenten devotion this year. Yet not all are as excited as I am to read what Bell has to say. Take this one criticism in a New York Times article: “It is unspeakably sad when those called to be ministers of the Word distort the gospel and deceive the people of God with false doctrine.” (2)

Love Wins is a false doctrine of God? Well, some will argue as such, and I believe that today’s lesson from Genesis has a role to play in this conversation. So keeping Bell’s book in mind, let’s journey back to the Garden of Eden this morning, and I’ll show you where all of this is headed.

Now, I didn’t read our Genesis lesson to you yet intentionally—we’ll read it in a minute—because I want to ask you a few questions about it. So what is the temptation that’s offered in the Garden of Eden? What kind of fruit is it? Who is the one that tempts Adam and Eve? And what is the punishment God says will be inflicted if Adam and Eve disobey? And what is this scene often called? The what? Ok. Let’s see how you did. We’ll read Genesis 2:15-17; 3:1-7 now.

Read the Genesis text.

Interesting isn’t it? Not as you might have remembered the scene. The temptation offered “is the desire to make ourselves the arbiters of good and evil, assuming for ourselves the role of God.” (3) The fruit is just a fruit—not an apple as artistic renderings portray it. The one who tempts Adam and Eve is not the devil, but a serpent (the idea of Satan actually doesn’t emerge until the period between the composition of the Old and New Testaments). The punishment for disobeying is that Adam and Eve notice they’re naked. And the scene is often called “The Fall.”

So how did we come to get all of these associations with this text—some correct and some not so much? Well, as one commentator writes, “Such language [and I would add, such theological interpretations and understandings begin] to emerge only in post-OT interpretation, both in Judaism . . . . and in Christianity . . . . and [have] been a staple of Christian theological reflection through the centuries.” (4) In other words, we understand this text based on what people have told us it means. It’s the same phenomenon that Rob Bell is arguing is happening when others try to interpret Jesus’ message for us.

So today I thought we’d do well to take a closer look at what this text is actually saying, so that way we can make up our own minds as to what it’s all about.

So, first things first, it has to be said that the actual historical veracity of this text—in other words, the belief that the world began in the exact way this story says—is not a view held by many. I, among many others, believe that this is a tale told to elicit meaning, to share a lesson, not to scientifically explain how we came to be where we are. Reading the text as such, one author writes: “the present text is largely derived from two collections of oral traditions . . . . one group was concerned with the actual creation of human beings, the other with the meaning of human existence, what characterizes it, the fact that it is a created state, and consequently with its limitations.” (5)

As such, the text we have before us is the blending of two traditions with an agenda, if you will, a goal of sharing a message about the God who created us and the world we live in. And that message starts with the fact that God created humanity—a male and female who “are not presented as sinless, just innocent” (6) —with a specific purpose: to till and keep the Garden of Eden. In other words, as humanity, “We are called to serve as caretakers in God’s good creation—stewards of a world we did not make and can receive only as a gift held in trust.” (7)

And in this garden, “the freedom God ordains is expansive but not boundless.” (8) God allows Adam and Eve to eat of every tree in the garden except for the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. If they eat of that tree, the text says, they will die. However, “Even though this mission is compelling and should be all-consuming, [humanity shares a] propensity for distraction. In the midst of caring for the garden, we will inevitably find fruit, and we will think that the fruit looks good to eat.” (9)

And so Adam and Eve do eat of the fruit—together. Sorry guys, no blaming Eve, as she didn’t steer Adam off course. Rather, both “are equal in their rebellion. [For] This is not a story about how a woman led the man into sin, but how the first humans, when given half a chance to rebel, rebel together, seeking to be as wise as God.” (10)

And so that’s what they do—they rebel, they slip up, they push the limits, they get distracted. They want to know how to discern good from evil—not necessarily a bad thing; but that type of discernment, this story attempts to show us, is for God alone to know, not us. As such, there’s a consequence for Adam and Eve’s disobedience. But here’s the amazing thing, it’s not what God said it would be! For God says in Chapter 2 that if they eat of the fruit of the tree, then that day they will die. But that’s not what happens is it?

No. Adam and Eve don’t die. Instead they notice that they are naked. And while you could say—as one of our astute Bible Study attendees suggested on Monday—that their innocence died when they ate the fruit, they, themselves, did not die. So what does that mean?

Well, I think it means that they are called to be accountable for their actions—because there is a punishment—but even in that punishment “God still cares for them” (11) —as in the subsequent verses God makes clothing for Adam and Eve to cover themselves with. It means that God is not itching to kill Adam and Eve or to damn them into some eternal punishment. It means—already, in a text that “could be as old as the tenth century B.C.E., among the oldest parts of the Bible” (12) —we see that God’s grace abounds. It means, as Rob Bell would be wont to say, that from the start of our scripture the message is that: Love Wins.

It’s a message that we’d do well to remember. For as we continue on this Lenten journey, there will be distractions along the way for us. We may have a devotional schedule planned, we may be intending to attend the Lenten series on Sampling Spirituality here, we may be hoping to go to the Wednesday night services, we may think we can give up chocolate for 40 days, we may be sure that we can do one nice thing a day, we may just be hoping to get through without messing up too much! But enticing fruits will pop up along the way, temptations of food, spectacle, power, and more—like those Jesus endured in the wilderness—will present themselves.

And unlike Jesus—but like Adam and Eve—we will succumb. We will fall victim to temptation and distraction. We will be led off course. We will do things we ought not to have done and leave undone things we ought to have done. It will happen. And it’s our responsibility when those slips occur, to notice them, acknowledge where we have gone off course, and then try to get back on track.

And in so doing, we can trust and believe that God’s arms of grace and love will be there to help us do just that—to pick us up from the ground, dust us off, and help us start all over again. Which is to say that maybe the message from the story of Adam and Eve isn’t that humanity fell from grace at the hands of an eager-to-punish God when they ate the fruit—as theologians have long argued; maybe the message is that humanity fell into grace. (13) Maybe it’s another reason to believe that, in the end this text shows us that Love Wins.

And so, my friends, I guess my message to you today—on this first Sunday in Lent—is two-fold. First, remember that as you undertake this journey to Jerusalem—or as you do anything in life—you will not be perfect, you will get distracted, you will slip up, but that’s okay, because grace abounds, God forgives, and in the end Love Wins.

And knowing that leads to the second piece of today’s message: there’s a whole world out there that doesn’t know that message. There’s a world out there that thinks that those of us who attend worship on Sunday mornings are hypocrites, that we’re all about excluding people from God’s love and not about showing them that God’s arms are big enough to hold us all, that we’re judgmental, that we worship a God who delights in tormenting people and scaring people to blindly follow or otherwise risk eternal damnation in hell, that God is somehow punishing the people of Japan for their disobedience.

We, however, know another story. We know that while some may try to interpret the Bible and God in other ways, the overarching message is that Love Wins. And so, if we want this church to grow, if we want to share the message of our faith, if we want people to know that we worship a different God than they may think, then in all that we do, in all that we say, in all that we are, we need to exude God’s message: Love Wins.

Because in the end, that’s what this text is about, that’s what our Bible is about, that’s what our faith is about, that’s what our God is about, so that should be what our life is about: Love Wins. The only question for us is: how will we show that as we move on further in our journey to Jerusalem? Amen.

© 2011 by Rev. Dr. Jeffrey M. Gallagher, All Rights Reserved.

1. Transcribed from a video found at: http://search.barnesandnoble.com/Love-Wins/Rob-Bell/e/9780062049643/?itm=1&USRI=love+wins.
2. Taken from: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/05/us/05bell.html?_r=1.
3. David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, eds., Feasting on the Word, Year A, Volume 2, Lent through Eastertide (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2010), 28.
4. Terence E. Fretheim, “The Book of Genesis,” in The New Interpreter’s Bible, Volume I, Ed. Leander E. Keck, et al (Nashville: Abingdon, 1994), 367.
5. Richard L. Eslinger, “First Sunday of Lent,” in New Proclamation, Year A, 2007-2008, Advent through Holy Week, Ed. David B. Lott (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2007), 141.
6. William H. Willimon, “First Sunday in Lent, Year A,” in The Lectionary Commentary, The First Readings: The Old Testament and Acts, Ed. Roger E. Van Harn (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 2001), 8.
7. Bartlett and Teylor, 26.
8. Ibid.
9. Ibid., 31.
10. Wiilimon, 8.
11. Nan Duerling, ed., The Word & You, Volume 2 (From Proper 17, Year C, to Proper 16, Year A) (Cleveland, Ohio: United Church Press, 1998), 128.
12. Willimon, 7.
13. AHA! Creative Resources for Preachers, Jan/Feb/March 2005, Vol.14, #2 (Inver Grove Heights, Minnesota: Logos Productions, Inc., 2004), 31.

March 6th Sermon

2011-03-07T09:22:00.000-05:00

First Congregational Church of Kittery Point, United Church of Christ
March 6, 2011
Sermon—“Get up and do not be afraid”—Rev. Dr. Jeffrey M. Gallagher, Pastor
Epiphany IX; Based on: Matthew 17:1-9

During my time in Seminary, while I was completing Clinical Pastoral Education (also known as student hospital chaplaincy, or as we liked to call it: Spiritual Boot Camp), during this time I remember, very well, an interaction I had in the hospital late one night.

Serving as the on-call chaplain, my pager went off, summoning me to the Emergency Department. Upon arriving there I was greeted by a nurse at the desk who was overjoyed to see that a chaplain had arrived on the scene. For she went on to tell me that a young woman had been in a very serious motorcycle accident, and her fiance was in the waiting room, looking for someone to talk to. And apparently I was the one chosen to go in.

So I walked over to the waiting room and was directed not into the waiting room proper, but into a little side room that was often used for private consultations. It was a suffocating little room with one door and no windows. Not knowing what to expect, I swallowed hard and opened the door.

Now I don’t like stereotyping people, but if you were to think of your stereotypical motorcycle rider, this was that man—somewhat heavy-set, tall, with a long beard, and tattoos. He was clearly very upset when I opened the door. So I introduced myself and asked him to tell me what happened.

He then went on to recount the details of the accident—which I honestly don’t recall—and finished by saying, “God won’t let her die, right? Promise me God’s not going to let her die!” As I was still reeling from the shock of these questions, he started to become agitated, to the point where I was beginning to fear that I was going to bear the brunt of this quite-large man’s anger.

So after doing my best to assure him that I couldn’t make promises for God, and then letting him cool down for a moment while I went to check for him at the nurse’s station and grab him a glass of water, I walked back into the room and offered to pray with him. And so we prayed. And, remarkably, the man calmed down quite a bit. He composed himself, and essentially said to me that he was going to be okay.

Now, I don’t credit any of that to the stumbling and bumbling prayer I offered that day. What I do credit is the fact that this man was finally able to quiet down and take a deep breath—for it was in that moment, I believe, that God reached out and did some pretty miraculous and transformative work. It’s an experience—for obvious reasons—that is well etched in my memory. And it’s one that I couldn’t help but think about this week as we read that familiar lesson from Matthew’s gospel.

So, the Transfiguration. A story, I’m sure, that most of you know well and have heard many times before, but one that still, it must be said, is a rather fantastic story, isn’t it? For the text says that Jesus took Peter, James, and John with him up a high mountain. Now, whenever you hear, in the Bible, that someone is going up a mountain, a little bell should sound in your head, because mountains are always associated with holy, divine encounters.

But not necessarily for the reason you might assume. For as I discovered this week: “Biblical cultures assumed going to the mountaintop was a way to be closer to God, not because it was a higher place to stand, but because mountaintops were fertile places in a desert landscape. While valleys fluctuated between rocky crevices and flash flood channels, olives and fruits grew on mountain trees. For neighboring fertility religions, mountaintops were miniature divine places.” (1)

And so it is to this holy, fertile space that the men climb. It’s there we hear Matthew describe that Jesus was miraculously transfigured before them, as his face and his clothes became dazzling white.

Now, at this point I think it’s rather futile to try and explain exactly what happened up there. Those of you who have had take-your-breath-away, knock-your-socks-off experiences in your life know that more often than not they defy words. For how do you describe falling in love or holding your very first child moments after she was born? You can’t. These moments defy explanation.

Which is to say, then, that neither the specific details—nor the factuality of this scene—really matter too much for me here. But there are a couple of things we do need to take notice of. First, as a part of this vision, Moses and Elijah appear with Jesus. This is a significant point. For remember that Matthew was writing this gospel for a Jewish audience, trying to convince them that Jesus occupied as important a place in history as these two major forerunners.

As such, this whole scene is really intended to be reminiscent of Moses receiving the Ten Commandments—our Exodus lesson for today. For it is said that Moses’ face shone brightly when he came down from that mountain—much like Jesus’ face shone. And the cloud-cover, the light, the voice of God, are all intended to evoke similar associations.

The second point for us to note, is that on that mountain the disciples got a glimpse into what was to come for Jesus. The best way I have heard this described is that on that mountain the disciples saw Jesus in his fully resurrected glory—that is, they saw what was to ultimately come for Jesus, complete with the hard road of suffering that he would have to endure in the weeks ahead to get there. Needless to say, that would have been quite a vision.

Now what’s interesting to note is Peter’s immediate reaction to this. Do you recall it? He decides that this is a pretty important moment, so they ought to commemorate it somehow. Now I know we often talk about the disciples being slow to catch on, but give Peter credit, he recognized that something significant was happening here, even if he didn’t understand all the implications of it. If he were living today, he might have pulled out his cell phone and taken a picture, knowing that this was a Kodak moment to be captured and preserved.

But no sooner does Peter suggest building some booths than does the divine voice bellow from above: “This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!” Now these words ought to sound familiar, as they are the very words that God uttered when Jesus emerged from beneath the baptismal waters of the River Jordan—that is, with one exception. Here God adds the words: “listen to him”—and they are a significant addition.

For as soon as God says those words, the disciples fall to their knees, paralyzed in fear. So what happened here? How did the disciples go from wanting to commemorate this moment, to being unable to move with fear?

Well, what we need to remember is that in the chapter just prior to this one, Jesus had already told the disciples what was to come for him. He told them that his road ahead was not going to be easy—he would have to undergo suffering, be killed, and then rise from the dead.

Peter couldn’t believe this, and said that it could never happen to Jesus. But Jesus disagrees, telling them that this is, indeed, true, and that as his followers they should take up their own crosses and follow him. And so they do follow him up this mountain—a place that, I would think, Peter thought they could stay to avoid all the nastiness that Jesus said was coming. But, of course, that’s not an option. And the fact that God reiterates that to the disciples—telling them that Jesus is divine and that they need to listen to what he has told them because it is true—is what causes the disciples to cower in fear.

For they can’t imagine what life will be like if this happens. They thought this journey of leaving everything and following Jesus was going to have a happy ending. They didn’t want to hear that Jesus’ life was going to end violently, or, even worse, that they, too, would have to suffer as his followers. As one author writes, the Transfiguration “begins to give the disciples eyes to see God’s light in the chaos to come: death, loss, fear and resurrection, the work of the early church. The challenge to the disciples is to live in a world without Jesus’ bodily presence.” (2) It’s no wonder, then, that they are paralyzed on that mountain, unable to move with fear.

But notice what happens next. Jesus comes over, touches them, and literally says: “Be resurrected”(3) —that is, “Get up and do not be afraid.” Get up and do not be afraid. A simple touch and simple words that give the disciples the ability to raise their eyes from the ground, and muster up the strength to go back down the mountain and head off on this journey before them. It’s almost as though “The mountain was the way for God to prepare a human band of companions for the sacred journey, to offer something to hold onto when they descend into the crushing reality of the world below.” (4)

Get up and do not be afraid. Words said to the disciples, and I cannot help but think that those might just have been the words that God uttered in that Emergency Room that night—words that gave that scared and saddened biker the ability to get up and face whatever was to come his way.

And I do believe that God speaks the same to us today. For just think of a moment in your life when you were so overcome by sadness or fear and felt as though you would be unable to chart the course before you. The day your child was going in for surgery. The time you had to say your final goodbyes to a loved one, dying under Hospice’s care. The day you were bullied for being different to the point that you didn’t think you could handle another insult. The afternoon you had to give the presentation at work that would, very likely, determine whether you kept your job. The day after your spouse died and you needed to face the prospects of living life on your own. September 12, 2001.

My friends, I’m sure you can all recall a time when you just weren’t sure whether your fearful legs would let you walk another step or your saddened heart would beat another beat.

And yet obviously they did, because you’re sitting here. Somehow, someway you got up from your knees and gave your son a good luck kiss on the operating table. You hugged your grandmother for the last time. You rose from the ground one more time. You marched into the board room. You figured out how to adjust to sleeping in a bed alone. You shed tears with a country in mourning.

My friends, the skeptics and non-believers among us might say that we’re able to do this of our own volition and own power. I prefer to think that it was that still, small voice of God whispering: “Get up and do not be afraid” that transfigured a seemingly impossible situation into something possible.

And so as we prepare to remember Jesus’ journey, by sharing this bread and cup, standing as we are, on the precipice of this Lenten road—a road that calls us to look at our mortality and to open up the pages of our lives to chapters we’d rather not read—may we recognize God in our midst. It may not be in the same way God encountered Peter, James, and John, it may not be a touch on the shoulder, but I have no doubt that in those times of trial and tribulation, God is standing poised and ready to do the miraculous work of transfiguration—to say, “Get up and do not be afraid” when we need to hear it most. Amen.

© 2011 by Rev. Dr. Jeffrey M. Gallagher, All Rights Reserved.

1. The Clergy Journal, May/June 2010, Volume 87, Number 3 (Inver Grove Heights, Minnesota: Logos Productions., Inc., 2010), 96.
2. David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, eds., Feasting on the Word, Year A, Volume 1, Advent through Transfiguration (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2010), 454.
3. Herman C. Waetjen, “Transfiguration of our Lord,” in New Proclamation, Yea A, 2007-2008, Advent thought Holy Week, Ed. David B. Lott (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2007), 117.
4. Bartlett and Taylor, 456.

February 27th Sermon

2011-02-28T09:54:00.000-05:00

First Congregational Church of Kittery Point, United Church of Christ February 27, 2011
Sermon—“What Faith is Not”—Rev. Dr. Jeffrey M. Gallagher, Pastor
Epiphany VIII; Based on: Matthew 6:24-34

As part of my Doctor of Ministry studies at Bangor Theological Seminary, we were asked to read a book called Thirst: God and the Alcoholic Experience by James Nelson. Written as a first person reflection on Nelson’s struggles with alcohol, and the resulting faith reflections that emerged from those struggles, this book was incredibly thought-provoking. So to start us off today I’d like to share a few of Nelson’s words with you:

“The day before my admission into the treatment center, in great embarrassment I called a good friend. She was a law school professor in whose class I had agreed to lecture the previous day. I had anticipated that event for several months, but because I was drunk that afternoon I had completely missed it. She received my labored but candid apology. She also heard me report my decision to enter treatment immediately. Then she said two wise, unforgettable things based on her own experience of years in recovery: “Jim, you won’t believe how much power you will discover by going deeply into your powerlessness. And you’ll never believe the energy you will have when you are no longer struggling to control your drinking.”

I heard her words but did not understand them. They went counter to all of my masculine conditioning. What I needed was more power, not less. What I needed was more control over my drinking, not giving up. Gradually I have absorbed her truth.” (1)

It’s a truth that, I think, can be summed up in the first three—of the 12 steps—that those in Alcoholics Anonymous subscribe to. Perhaps you know them. Number one: “We admitted we were powerless over alcohol—that our lives had become unmanageable.” Number two: “Came to believe that a Power greater than ourselves could restore us to sanity.” And number three: “Made a decision to turn our will and our lives over to the care of God as we understood [God].” (2)

These are powerful words that are uttered by our sisters and brothers—some of whom may be sitting with us this morning—about the focus they have in their lives, and how such a shift of perspective and trust—from placing their faith in alcohol and their own abilities to placing their faith in God—can make a huge difference. Yet this needn’t only be about those who have struggles with alcohol.

For we could easily replace alcoholism with sex, pornography, gambling, over-eating, or a host of other addictions that many of us suffer from. But then, the conversation need not be only about addiction either. We could replace the quest for fame, climbing the corporate ladder, or even the desire to accumulate money as that which causes us to misplace our trust and loyalty in this world.

These are all very real conditions that I would venture to guess, if they don’t happen to impact our immediate personal lives, do have an effect on our families and our circles of friends. Which suggests to me that the words we heard from Jesus a moment ago have particular relevance to us, because you could say that they deal with exactly what we’ve been talking about here this morning. So let’s turn our attention to Matthew, and we’ll see where Jesus’ words connect with all this.

So, having moved further on in the Sermon on the Mount, today Jesus offers some words that are intended to deal specifically with the disciples’ personal lives of faith. As such, “Jesus clarifies faith by clarifying what it is not.” (3) To do this, rather curiously it could be said, Jesus begins by noting that a person cannot serve two masters—that God and wealth (the Aramaic word for which is Mammon) cannot be served together. Why?

Well, because “God and Mammon offer opposing worldviews. One worldview maintains that your well-being, your very psyche (life, soul), is dependent on your ability to accumulate, by cleverness or hard work or the accident of birth, wealth and status.” (4) In this worldview “Wealth is not simply a possession but can function as a deity people serve.” (5)

Contrasted to this is a second worldview which suggests that “Mammon as lord is an illusion. Wealth is impermanent and vulnerable . . . . All the treasure in the world cannot cause you to live and grow. By contrast, God can do those things for the world and for every living thing in it.” (6) For wealth can offer amazing highs when we have it, yet devastating lows when we do not. As such, such an unstable commodity is not a replacement for God as to where we should be putting our faith and trust.

And this is precisely what Nelson suggests in the book we began with this morning. He writes: “Alcohol gave me a sense of well-being and connectedness—and wasn’t that an experience of God?” (7) Like wealth, alcohol became a controlling god for Nelson, and he makes it very clear—as Jesus would agree—that it can be a dangerous road to travel if that’s where our ultimate loyalty rests.

So after that brief intro to our lesson this morning, Matthew then transitions us to the next section with the word “Therefore”—suggesting that what we have just read is going to be connected to what we’re about to read. And as such we begin to delve into Jesus’ words on worry.

And so perhaps the best way to explain this is to raise that question of what faith is not. For, as one author writes: faith “is not “worry about your life.” . . . . [Rather] “faith” is fundamentally a matter of trusting God, leaning on God—not so much believing that God exists as believing that God actually is an intimate, caring parent and a trustworthy deliverer, and moreover, that this care and deliverance is for me, for you, for us, for all.” (8)

When we worry, then, I would argue, we are ones of little faith, as our text says, unwilling to put our faith in God. For when we worry, are we not putting our trust in our own efforts, are we not putting our trust in those gods—like wealth, alcohol, you name it—that we think hold the ultimate key to how successful and happy our lives will be? And in so doing, are we not putting our trust in that which is fleeting, that which is impermanent, that which cannot possibly sustain us when life’s trying times hit? Indeed we are. And that’s a perfect recipe for worry.

Which is to say that where we put our ultimate allegiance, our ultimate trust, our ultimate faith is what’s going to determine whether our lives are full of worry or not. It is, as one author writes: “a radical call to decide to move away from cultural values to a life of trust and obedience.” (9)

Now I know what you’re going to say, “this is simply one of those pie in the sky texts. There’s no way we can eliminate worry from our lives, nor can we believe that God is going to magically make everything all right.” And you know, that’s true. But you’ll notice that this text never says that we should eliminate worry from our lives completely. What this text does say is that we shouldn’t worry about frivolities like what we will wear or what kinds of food we will eat—for that kind of worrying will do us no good.

Nor are we to worry about what’s to come tomorrow, in other words, that which we have no control over. Instead of this, we’d do better to give up our need for that control, and put our faith and trust that God will be with us no matter where the road ahead leads. For God has a track record of caring for humanity—just look at the history of the Israelites (as seen in our Isaiah lesson), or the birds of the air, or the lilies of the field. Such examples show us that we can have faith in the fact that God will care for us as well.

But let me throw out a cautionary note here: this does not mean that everything in life is going to be fine. This does not mean that by placing our trust in God we will have everything we need and want in life, that sickness and sorrow will be no more, that peace on earth will magically prevail. What this text is saying is that when life’s storms hit—which we all know they will—we’re going to be in a much better place, and have less to worry about, if we have put our faith in the stability of God—who cares for us in all seasons of our lives—rather than the instability of wealth, fame, alcohol, or our own limited abilities.

It’s a message that I think has some very definite applications to our personal lives. For there are plenty of things, weighing heavy on our hearts and minds, that we have brought with us to this place today. Will we be able to navigate through this uncertain economic climate, will my relationship with my spouse get better, will my children stay healthy, am I going to succumb to the same disease that took the lives of my parents? There are a host of things that we can, rightly so, be concerned with.

The question we need to ask ourselves, then, is where does our loyalty lie when we wonder about such things? Are we putting faith in the fact that we will have enough money to buy the best treatment if a loved one becomes sick, are we putting our trust in our own talents and abilities to keep our jobs, are we suggesting that the success of our relationships is all about our talents? If that is our mindset, then I can tell you now, that that is tenuous ground to be standing on—for so much of that is beyond our control. We’d do better to put our trust in God—again, not that everything will be perfect—but that God will serve as that anchor in our lives when those challenges come.

And we can also look at this from the perspective of our church community. This is Annual Meeting Sunday—the day when we look ahead to the upcoming year to plan what our ministry will look like in this place. And you don’t need me to tell you that there are things that we could be worried about.

Anyone who was here at the 10am service last Sunday will recall that our furnace doesn’t sound too healthy. We have a deficit budget proposed. The world around us continues to try and tell us that the mainline church is dying, and that we’re fighting an uphill battle to do what we’re doing. Secular activities and calls for our attention continue to put a strain on the work and ministry that we can do together.

With this in mind, we could worry about what the future looks like. We could think that all of this is in our hands to fix, that it’s up to us to solve all of these problems. Instead, might not a better move be to put our faith and trust—not in our efforts—but in our God? In our God who is, everyday, speaking a new word to us that can show us how to undertake ministry together in this new age in ways that we couldn’t possibly have dreamed up on our own.

For faith is not anything but putting our trust and loyalty in the fact that God is with us no matter where our course of life may take us. It’s a shift in perspective, a journey down a new road of faith and trust that this text is inviting us to undertake.

With that said, I’d like to close with some more of Nelson’s words as he speaks about walking down this new road of faith in God in his life as a recovering alcoholic. I think you’ll see that they have some pertinence for us as well:

“The journey God has begun with us gives us realistic hope. It is not a hope that says everything will turn out well, but a hope convinced that things will make sense regardless of how they turn out. After all, in the gift of recovery God has been helping to make sense of our addiction, and that is no small miracle.

So we keep on keeping on, with gratitude for each new day, one at a time.” (10)

I have no doubt that with our faith and trust in the right place, that same gratitude—not worry—will be ours as well. Amen.

© 2011 by Rev. Dr. Jeffrey M. Gallagher, All Rights Reserved.

1. James B. Nelson, Thirst: God and the Alcoholic Experience (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2004), 97.
2. Taken from: http://www.aa.org/lang/en/en_pdfs/smf-121_en.pdf.
3. David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, eds., Feasting on the Word, Year A, Volume 1, Advent through Transfiguration (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2010), 405.
4. David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, eds., Feasting on the Word, Year A, Volume 3, Pentecost and Season after Pentecost 1 (Propers 3-16) (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2011), 69.
5. Ronald J. Allen, “Eighth Sunday after the Epiphany, Year A,” in The Lectionary Commentary, The Third Readings: The Gospels, Ed. Roger E. Van Harn (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 2001), 42.
6. Bartlett and Taylor, Volume 3, 69 & 71.
7. Nelson, 31.
8. Bartlett and Taylor, Volume 1, 405.
9. M. Eugene Boring, “The Gospel of Matthew,” in The New Interpreter’s Bible, Volume VIII, Ed. Leander E. Keck, et al (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1995), 214.
10. Nelson, 190-191.

February 21st Sermon

2011-02-21T08:57:00.000-05:00

First Congregational Church of Kittery Point, United Church of Christ February 20, 2011
Sermon—“What could happen?”—Rev. Dr. Jeffrey M. Gallagher, Pastor
Epiphany VII; Based on: Matthew 5:21-26 & 33-48

As most all of you know, my favorite movie of all time is The Wizard of Oz. Now this is for many reasons—which I could bore you with all day—not the least of which is the image of that utopia-like Emerald City of Oz. And although L. Frank Baum’s book doesn’t describe the city in quite the same way in which the movie portrays it, Baum actually does give a description of the city in The Emerald City of Oz—one of his other tales about this enchanted land and quirky inhabitants. I’d like to share his description with you this morning:

“I suppose you have read so much about the magnificent Emerald City that there is little need for me to describe it here. It is the Capital City of the Land of Oz, which is justly considered the most attractive and delightful fairyland in all the world . . . .

Altogether there were more than half a million people in the Land of Oz—although some of them, as you will soon learn, were not made of flesh and blood as we are—and every inhabitant of that favored country was happy and prosperous.

No disease of any sort was ever known among the Ozites, and so no one ever died unless he met with an accident that prevented him from living. This happened very seldom, indeed. There were no poor people living in the Land of Oz, because there was no such thing as money, and all property of every sort belonged to the Ruler. The people were her children, and she cared for them. Each person was given freely by his neighbors whatever he required for his use, which is as much as any one may reasonably desire. Some tilled the lands and raised great crops of grain, which was divided equally among the entire population, so that all had enough . . . . Each man and woman, no matter what he or she produced for the good of the community, was supplied by the neighbors with food and clothing and a house and furniture and ornaments and games. If by chance the supply ever ran short, more was taken from the great storehouses of the Ruler, which were afterward filled up again when there was more of any article than the people needed.

Every one worked half the time and played half the time, and the people enjoyed the work as much as they did the play, because it is good to be occupied and to have something to do. There were no cruel overseers set to watch them, and no one to rebuke them or to find fault with them. So each one was proud to do all he could for his friends and neighbors, and was glad when they would accept the things he produced.

You will know by what I have here told you, that the Land of Oz was a remarkable country. I do not suppose that such an arrangement would be practical with us, but Dorothy assures me that it works finely with the Oz people.” (1)

It’s an interesting picture of the city, isn’t it? And, I think, rather intriguing. So what is it about utopias like this that so captivate our attention—from Baum’s vision to writers ranging from Sir Thomas More to Plato to John Milton? They are—whether you agree with the details of what they think utopia is like, or not—provocative imaginings, for sure, but ones, as Baum says, that often just don’t seem practical or attainable to us. Well, I’d invite you to keep that idea of a utopia in mind this morning, while we turn to our gospel lesson, which some will argue, if fully lived out, is about as utopian as it gets.

So let’s begin where we skimmed over last week. In starting out this latest segment of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus addresses the issue of anger, suggesting that not only is it wrong to murder, but that even those who get angry are liable to God’s judgment. So, remembering that Jesus’ strategy here is to take a lesson from the past and update it to make sense in his present circumstance, what’s he getting at here?

Well, I think it should first be noted that “The prohibition of murder . . . . expresses God’s intention that humans do no damage to one another.” (2) Clearly taking someone’s life is doing damage to another, so that much makes sense to us. Yet anger, as one commentator writes, actually “destroys relationships in a way [that is] akin to murder.” (3) With that said, though, let’s be clear here that “The text does not prohibit anger as such. Anger is a feeling that simply comes up in a person.” (4)

So we can’t control when anger arises. What we can control, however, is what we do with that anger—and Jesus is clear here to spell out what’s expected. Anger is not to be held onto. Rather, if you are angry with another person, or holding an angry grudge against them, your first step, Jesus says—even before worshiping God—is to work at reconciling that relationship. For un-reconciled anger can destroy relationships as surely as murder. This means that a person can “avoid the destructive results of anger only by restoring broken relationships.” (5) A lofty challenge, to say the least.

After then delving into the issue of sex—which, sorry to disappoint you, we’re not going to talk about again today—Jesus addresses the fact that in “antiquity people often swore by God when they needed to guarantee the truth of what they said about serious matters.” (6) Do we not do the same today? I swear on blankety-blank that I’m telling the truth.

We do say this, and as such, Jesus’ words should be simple for us to understand, for “It is God’s will that men and women be absolutely truthful in their words and faithful to their commitments.” (7) In other words, mean what you say, say what you mean, and if you promise to do something, do it! For if people can trust your words and your actions, there will be no need to swear by anything—they’ll know you’re telling the truth.

Next up, things get a little harder, as Jesus addresses the issue of retributive violence, with his famous turn the other cheek saying. Some background here is warranted; for what you may not know is that “At one time unlimited retaliation was a part of life in the ancient Near East. If someone gouged out [your] eye, [you] could retaliate by removing both of the offender’s eyes and the eyes of everyone in the offender’s house . . . . [As such,] the idea of “an eye for an eye” is an attempt to limit retaliation. The offended party [could only] inflict the offending party in proportion to the offense.” (8) So those words in Exodus, Leviticus and Deuteronomy—which we take to be encouraging violence—actually were intended to limit violence. Seeing that they didn’t, Jesus took those words a step further.

Now we could, at this point, get lost in exactly what Jesus means by turn the other cheek—as some will argue that, due to cultural norms, turning the other cheek made “it impossible to be . . . . slapped again.” (9) That may be the case, but such conversations, for me, miss the point. For really Jesus is arguing to not return violence for violence, plain and simple. Yet his instructions should not be misconstrued as walking away from the issue at hand. For this is a lack of action that “is actually rooted in a profound resistance, an unexpected refusal to play the opponent’s adversarial game.” (10) So Jesus is saying not to stoop to the level of those who would seek to do you harm—a strategy that has worked, throughout history, from Mohandas Gandhi, to Martin Luther King, Jr., even to present day Egypt.

And finally, Jesus tells us not to love our neighbor and hate our enemies, but rather, to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us—perhaps the hardest word that we have heard from Jesus yet. For this last instruction goes against most of our natural inclinations. Although we would like to think that we are loving people, how many of us actually love and pray for those who actively persecute us—and not in an “I pray you get run over by a car” kind of way?

Not many of us, I assume. And remember, this isn’t just asking us to pray for the person at work with whom we’ve had a disagreement about an upcoming project. It is that, but it’s so much more. It’s asking the Israelites to pray for the Egyptians, the slaves of the 19th century to pray for their captors, the anti-Mubarak demonstrators to pray for their ousted leader. It’s asking you to pray for that person in life that caused you so much harm. This goes against who we are and what we’re inclined to do, and that’s exactly the point, for these are actions that are intended to “[reflect] the character of God.” (11)

Now, one quick caution here . . . . reflecting the character of God is not—let me repeat that, it is not—“a justification for docility and obedience.” (12) This does not mean allowing people to walk all over you, or take advantage of you, or simply excuse the wrongs done to you, as these lessons have been used to perpetuate cycles of abuse and subjugation throughout the centuries. It simply means to live, not as the world lives or would expect us to live, but as God would expect us to live—and that means trying to love those that are the hardest to love.

With that, Jesus concludes this section of the Sermon on the Mount calling on the disciples to be perfect as God is perfect. And therein is where many of us finally check out, saying, “you see, I knew this was too impossible, too utopian to achieve—none of us are perfect like God” and as such, we simply fail to try, or write all of these words off as being unattainable.

The problem with such a reading is, that I don’t think that Jesus intended this to be unattainable. In fact, it was quite the contrary. For you see, the word perfect “has to do with wholeness and authenticity of relationships.” (13) So Jesus is arguing that the disciples—and by extension, all of us—need to seek a similar wholeness of relationship with each other, in the same way that God seeks wholeness of relationship with us.

As such, let’s think about this: what would living this way look like? What would happen if we let go of anger? Would it mean that we’d have to work hard to reconcile relationships with our sisters and brothers, many of whom we’d rather just write off than have to deal with? What would happen if we told the truth always? Would it mean that we’d actually have to live out what we say?

What would happen if we didn’t allow ourselves to think in terms of retribution, violence, and getting even as a response to an injustice perpetrated against us? Would we actually find that our demeanor, and our world, became more peaceful? And what would happen if we loved our enemies? Would we begin to see them as people, and not simply as the “other,” as stereotypes to be demonized?

What would happen, or perhaps better phrased, what could happen? That’s the question before us today. The answer, then, lies in whether we actually believe this image of a world—and the way people conduct themselves in that world—is possible; and whether we are willing to risk the change that will come over our lives—which living this way will necessitate—to make it happen.

My friends, it’s a high standard, no doubt; but it’s way of living and being in the world that, I believe, can make the impossible possible. For I do believe we could live in an Emerald-like city—where what Baum described, where what Jesus describes, where what we might describe as a better-than-what-we-have-now world, could happen. I just believe, in many respects we’re too scared to risk the work, the vulnerability, the apprehension, the fear, to do what needs to be done to make it happen.

Which is to say that a utopia, living in the merry old Land of Oz, isn’t impossible—it’s just up to us to get over the fear of making it happen. Amen.

© 2011 by Rev. Dr. Jeffrey M. Gallagher, All Rights Reserved.

1. L. Frank Baum, “The Emerald City of Oz,” in L. Frank Baum: 15 Books in 1 The Original “Oz” Series (UK: Shoes and Ships and Sealing Wax, Ltd, 2005), 205.
2. Douglas R.A. Hare, Interpretation: Matthew (Louisville: John Knox Press, 1993), 51.
3. David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, eds., Feasting on the Word, Year A, Volume 1, Advent through Transfiguration (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2010), 359.
4. Ronald J. Allen, “Sixth Sunday after the Epiphany, Year A,” in The Lectionary Commentary, The Third Readings: The Gospels, Ed. Roger E. Van Harn, (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 2001), 34.
5. Ibid.
6. Ibid., 36.
7. Hare, 54.
8. Ronald J. Allen, “Seventh Sunday after the Epiphany, Year A,” in The Lectionary Commentary, The Third Readings: The Gospels, Ed. Roger E. Van Harn, (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 2001), 38.
9. Bartlett and Taylor, 380.
10. Ibid., 383.
11. Walter Brueggemann, et al, Texts for Preaching, A Lectionary Commentary Based on the NRSV—Year A (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1995), 154.
12. Taken from: http://www.ucc.org/worship/samuel/february-20-2011-seventh-sunday-1.html.
13. Brueggemann, 154.

February 13th Sermon

2011-02-14T09:04:00.000-05:00

First Congregational Church of Kittery Point, United Church of Christ February 13, 2011
Sermon—“Let’s Talk About Sex”—Rev. Dr. Jeffrey M. Gallagher, Pastor
Epiphany VI; Based on: Matthew 5:21-32

In discussing this morning’s, shall we say, interesting sermon title, I was talking with our new Office Administrator Lisa Harris and was commenting that crafting today’s liturgy was a bit of a challenge, given that there aren’t a whole lot of prayers and hymns—not to mention Children’s Sermons—that focus on sex, adultery, and divorce as their subject matter. Surprise, surprise!

It was then that Lisa reminded me, although not necessarily for the liturgy, of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s classic work The Scarlet Letter. Given that I did college and grad school work in Salem, Massachusetts, where the book is set—even taking a whole course in Hawthorne—you’d think I’d have remembered what is probably the most famous work to blend religion and adultery!

But alas I have Lisa to thank for getting me to open up Hawthorne’s book again, for it was there that I was taken by an exchange that happens very early in the novel. A group of five church-women, as they are described, are talking about Hester Prynne’s offense—adultery—and the resulting punishment that she has received:

“The magistrates are God-fearing gentlemen, but merciful overmuch,—that is a truth,” added a third autumnal matron. “At the very least, they should have put the brand of a hot iron on Hester Prynne’s forehead. Madam Hester would have winced at that, I warrant me. But she,—the naughty baggage,—little will she care what they put upon the bodice of her gown! Why, look you, she may cover it with a brooch, or such like heathenish adornment, and so walk the streets as brave as ever!”

“Ah, but,” interposed, more softly, a young wife, holding a child by the hand, “let her cover the mark as she will, the pang of it will be always in her heart.”

“What do we talk of marks and brand, whether on the bodice of her gown, of the flesh of her forehead?” cried another female . . . . “This woman has brought shame upon us all, and ought to die. Is there no law for it? Truly there is, both in the Scripture and the statute book. Then let the magistrates, who have made it of no effect, thank themselves if their own wives and daughters go astray!”

“Mercy on us, goodwife,” exclaimed a man in the crowd, “is there no virtue in woman, save what springs from a wholesome fear of the gallows? That is the hardest word yet! Hush, now, gossips; for the lock is turning in the prison-door, and here comes Mistress Prynne herself.” (1)

And such begins the tale of Hester Prynne—marked with the scarlet “A” for adultery—and the struggles of Rev. Dimmesdale who eventually admits to having been Hester’s accomplice in the act. But it’s the women’s exchange here, specifically, that I want to focus on, because it does raise the question as to just what our faith and scriptures have to say about all this. Well, as luck would have it, Jesus addresses adultery—and more—in our gospel lesson for today. So let’s turn to Matthew’s gospel lesson now, and spend a little time this morning talking about sex.

So, after beginning with a conversation about anger—which we’ll come back to in a moment—Jesus uses this section of the Sermon on the Mount to talk about adultery. And in so doing, he begins by quoting the prohibition against adultery that is found in Exodus and Deuteronomy—both versions of the Ten Commandments.

Now, it’s important to note here that “In Judaism adultery referred to sexual relationships between a woman who was married (or engaged) and a male other than her spouse.” (2) Now, notice what I said there, adultery referred to the actions of a married or engaged woman. Although the man would also be guilty, there’s no emphasis here on the man. And that is because “Adultery was considered a violation of the husband’s exclusive right to his wife and the assurance that children born to her were his own.” (3) In other words, in adultery, guilt primarily rested on the woman’s shoulders.

So Jesus begins his remarks on adultery with what will become a very common linguistic device for this part of the Sermon on the Mount. He says, “You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall not commit adultery.’ But I say to you that everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery with her in his heart.”

This linguistic device has often been referred to as “antithesis,” “that is, statements in which the teachings of . . . . Jesus are antithetical to [in other words, against] those of the [Old] Testament. [However,] This way of speaking and thinking is misleading. For . . . . Jesus does not declare the tradition dead.” (4) Instead, Jesus affirms the teaching and then expands on it to make it say more.

In other words, Jesus is saying that women who engage in a sexual relationship with someone they are not married to are committing adultery; but then he expands this to focus specifically on the men by saying that men who look lustfully upon another have also done the same. As one commentator helpfully points out: “For Jesus . . . . adultery involves not merely the physical act but also the desire for it. By collapsing the distinction between thought and action, this extension of the law against adultery to include lust suggests that no one should be regarded as a sex object. The burden here is placed on the man: women are not seen as responsible for enticing men into sexual misadventures.” (5)

So you see what Jesus does here. He doesn’t remove the woman from guilt, but he expands the prohibition to ensure that men would understand that this spoke to them as well; then delving into the realm of hyperbole, by suggesting that the men ought to remove parts of their bodies rather than be punished for such offenses.

Now again, let’s be clear here what this prohibition is. “It is [not a] . . . . sin for a man to look at a woman. What is prohibited is looking at a woman “for the purpose of lusting after her” . . . . [for] Jewish literature was well supplied with warnings that in sexual matters the thought is father to the deed.” (6) In other words, “lust in the heart destroys community as surely as physical acts of adultery. Lust is sexual desire for another person without regard for covenantal commitment that causes relationships and community to collapse.” (7) It is, no doubt, a high standard that Jesus is calling the disciples to.

From there Jesus moves on to the issue of divorce. Recalling the words in Deuteronomy 24:1, Jesus, again utilizing the same linguistic device, says “It was also said, ‘Whoever divorces his wife, let him give her a certificate of divorce.’ But I say to you that anyone who divorces his wife, except on the ground of unchastity, causes her to commit adultery; and whoever marries a divorced woman commits adultery.” A little background is warranted.

You see, in Jesus’ day “Conservative Jews [from the school of Shammai] forbade divorce except on the grounds of adultery, whereas more liberal Jews ([from the] school of Hillel) allowed divorce for reasons ranging from warts to inability to cook to excessive talking. [So here] Jesus stands with the conservative school, making divorce more difficult.” (8) And again, like his teaching on adultery, he puts the onus here on the man, not on the woman, calling the disciples to a higher standard. In so doing, “Jesus takes marriage seriously and teaches against easy divorces based on frivolous grounds; he also seeks to prevent women from being treated as property to be passed around.” (9)

So that’s what Jesus has to say about adultery and divorce to the disciples some 2,000 years ago. The question is, are those words intended to be definitive rules for all time, and whether they are or not, what does that mean for all of us, dealing with similar issues in our own lives, today?

Well, let me first say that I don’t think Jesus intended to set a specific ethic to be followed for eternity with his words here. For just as I would not take medical advice based on the Bible’s prescriptions—for I know that skin diseases, like leprosy, have better cures today than those that involve slaughtering lambs and birds (10) —I also believe that Jesus’ words were culturally and situationally specific. He was offering an ethic that would work in that time and that place.

But notice how he does so—he takes words that were given by Moses to the people of Israel years before, and he expands and updates them in a way that is more fitting to the context in which he is preaching—based, likely, on what was happening around him. Thus, I would venture to guess that if Jesus were to come among us today and teach on these same issues, he’d probably employ that familiar linguistic device: “You have heard it said . . . . but now I say to you,” to offer a word that would speak, more specifically, to this time and place.

But that does not mean, however, that we should simply write off everything Jesus says here. For I think that Jesus’ intention was to get people to look beyond the letter of the law, to analyze the intents behind, and repercussions of, their actions. And even though we might believe that the specifics for how he would speak about these situations might be different for us today, Jesus does touch on a number of overarching themes, that I believe, are still very relevant.

First of all, we see that Jesus is arguing for equality and justice. In a society that was male dominated—and in which it is clear that the women bore much of the guilt for offenses like adultery (think Hester Prynne again)—Jesus called for equitable responsibility within those relationships and a just treatment of all those who have done wrong, regardless of their gender. That, I think, is not a bad standard to be held up in any day and age.

Second, I think Jesus is advocating for healthy relationships here—relationships that foster love, honesty, and integrity. And he makes it clear that thoughts, actions, and deeds—even anger, which we haven’t talked about, but which Jesus starts off this teaching with—are a threat achieving those qualities within a relationship.

Third, I think it must be said here that Jesus is calling us to a higher standard within our relationships. He’s calling those of us who are married and in committed relationships to stay true to the covenants and bonds we have formed with our partners. And he’s also calling us to take marriage seriously—this, especially, in a day and age when divorce is as readily available as ever.

However, with that said, I concur wholeheartedly with one author, who writes: “While [Jesus’ words point] . . . . to God’s ultimate will for men and women, there are numerous instances in which a marriage is no longer real, whether because of infidelity, neglect, abuse, failure to communicate, or simply unresolved tensions regarding reciprocal expectations. While every effort should be made to redeem fractured marriages, some must be acknowledged as beyond repair. In such cases divorce may be not only the lesser of two evils from the point of view of God’s ultimate will but also a positive step.” (11)

And finally, we need to remember in all of this, that God promises us forgiveness. I have a hard time with Matthew’s insinuation that God punishes us eternally for such transgressions. For I believe that if we have slipped up or have not lived up to that high standard God has for us in our relationships, we need to remember that we worship a God who promises that we can ask for—and be granted—forgiveness.

And so, my friends, while we may not have specific prescriptions for how Jesus would respond to the issues we face today, I do think this text has some relevance for us. And in the end I think that the church should stand for what Jesus stood for: healthy relationships built on love, honesty, and integrity in which all parties are valued as equals. If we start there, then I think Jesus’ words have a lot to say: on adultery, divorce, and marriage, yes, but beyond that, to premarital sex, to same-gender relationships, to talking about sexuality with our youth, to abusive relationships, to remarriage, and a whole host of other contemporary questions and issues that we can bring to this topic.

And so, recognizing that today was just the tip of the iceberg—and that neither the Bible nor Jesus shies away from these topics—let’s keep talking about sex from a faith perspective—I have no doubt that all our relationships will benefit because of it. Amen.

© by Rev. Dr. Jeffrey M. Gallagher, All Rights Reserved.

1. Nathaniel Hawthorne, “The Scarlet Letter,” in The Norton Anthology of American Literature, Fourth Edition, Volume 1 (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 1994), 1275-1276.
2. Ronald J. Allen, “Sixth Sunday after the Epiphany, Year A,” in The Lectionary Commentary, The Third Readings: The Gospels, Ed. Roger E. Van Harn, (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 2001), 35.
3. M. Eugene Boring, “The Gospel of Matthew,” in The New Interpreter’s Bible, Volume VIII, Ed. Leander E. Keck, et al (Nashville: Abingdon, 1995), 190.
4. Allen, 33.
5. Amy-Jill Levine, “Matthew,” in Women’s Bible Commentary, Ed. Carol A. Newsom and Sharon H. Ringe (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1998), 342.
6. Douglas R.A. Hare, Interpretation, Matthew (Louisville: John Knox Press, 1993), 53.
7. Allen, 35.
8. The Clergy Journal, May/June 2010, Volume 87, Number 3 (Inver Grove Heights, Minnesota: Logos Productions, Inc., 2010), 92.
9. Ibid.
10. See Leviticus 14.
11. Hare, 54.

February 6th Sermon

2011-02-07T11:16:00.000-05:00

First Congregational Church of Kittery Point, United Church of Christ February 6, 2011
Sermon—“Is God on our side?”—Rev. Dr. Jeffrey M. Gallagher, Pastor
Epiphany V; Based on: Psalm 112:1-10 & Matthew 5:13-20

As you well know, today is, perhaps, one of the biggest secular holidays we have in the United States: Super Bowl Sunday. Which means that later this afternoon, I, along with many of you—and millions of others across the world—will tune in to watch some football, or probably better said, to see which company comes up with the best commercial! We will eat lots of food and, unless you have roots or ties to Pittsburg or Green Bay, we’ll probably just be hoping to see a good game.

But if you are loyal to one of those two cities—or more so if you actually happened to be living in one of those cities—your feelings would likely be a little bit different. You’d be rooting, cheering—perhaps even praying—for your team to have more points than the other when those final seconds tick off the clock.

Recognizing that there can often be a fine line between faith and sports, author Josh Tinley wrote an interesting book entitled: Kneeling in the End Zone: Spiritual Lessons from the World of Sports. And in that books opening pages, Tinley begins with a word about Super Bowl XXXIV, between the St. Louis Rams and Tennessee Titans. I’d like to share a portion of what he had to say with you now:

“Sadly, the Titans finished Super Bowl XXXIV one yard short of sending the game into overtime . . . . During the postgame celebration, the broadcast team handed [Kurt] Warner [the Rams’ quarterback and] the game’s MVP, the microphone. “First things first,” Warner told the crowd in Atlanta and the millions watching on television. “I have to give thanks to my Lord and Savior up above. THANK YOU, JESUS!”

To be entirely honest, I have to admit that Warner’s inspirational grocery-clerk-to-Super-Bowl-MVP story gave me chills. But while I could appreciate his faith and his perseverance, I took exception to Warner’s crediting Jesus for his Super Bowl win. I suppose one could argue that God willed the Rams to victory so that Kurt Warner’s story of transformation and perseverance could inspire some of the millions of Super Bowl viewers to accomplish seemingly impossible feats for the glory of God. But as someone who hoped that the Titans would win . . . . I cannot accept that God was somehow working against my team. The thought of Christ wearing a Kurt Warner #13 Rams jersey, thrusting a blue-and-gold foam finger . . . . seems absurd, as does the notion that the deity would cheer with “pep and vim” . . . . for any team or player.” (1)

Now, don’t worry, we’re not going to spend the whole sermon talking football—maybe if the Patriots were playing, but not today. Rather I bring this up as an example simply to raise the question as to whether or not we believe that God is on our side—in sports, in life, you name it.

Now, you might be surprised to hear me say that my answer to that question is actually: yes. To find out why, though, we need to spend a little bit of time exploring the Psalm we read together a moment ago.

So, Psalm 112 is commonly referred to as a Wisdom Psalm. Echoing the wisdom tradition of books like Proverbs, Job, and Ecclesiastes, Wisdom “psalms project a world in which those who obey God are happy, while those who disobey are miserable.” (2) And that is, after all, the way the Psalm starts: “Happy are those who fear the Lord.”

Now, when the Old Testament uses the phrase fear the Lord, it does not mean to be terrified. Rather fear of the Lord is more like being “awestruck in the face of God’s immensity.” (3) And while I guess you could say that being awestruck is a kind of fear, it’s more like a healthy respect or reverence for God. These are the people, the Psalmist says, who are happy.

And just listen to the reason for their happiness: “Their descendants will be mighty in the land; the generation of the upright will be blessed. Wealth and riches are in their houses, and their righteousness endures forever.” Clearly, they will receive much for both their fear of the Lord and for the good acts that they have engaged in, as the Psalmist goes on to describe, like: being a light in the darkness, being gracious, merciful and righteous, giving to the poor, being generous, and so on. These people are happy, says the Psalmist, and they are the ones who “will look in triumph on their foes.”

As for their foes, it is a different story. For verse 10 suggests that “The wicked see [all this] and are angry; they gnash their teeth and melt away; the desire of the wicked comes to nothing.” So you can see what the Psalmist believes is going on here. Those who do the good work that God asks will be rewarded—gaining victory over their foes, even—while those who choose an alternate path will experience something very different.

In other words, this is just another way of saying that God is on the side of the people of Israel, the side of those who fear God and who do the work that God commands them. This is much the same thing as saying that God was on the side of Kurt Warner and the Rams.

And you know what? I actually believe this. I actually believe that God was on the side of the people of Israel, that God was on the side of the Rams, and that God will be on the side of whoever lifts that trophy later on this afternoon. But in so believing, I think a follow up question needs to be asked: for if God is on the side of the winners, does that mean that God is not on the side of—or even would punish—the losers? My answer to that is a resounding “no.”

You see, many of the problems we experience with a text like this Psalm is due to “the hyperbolic nature of the language with which the wisdom tradition speaks. The strokes on the canvas are made with quite broad brushes, and it is left for others to sketch in the details.” (4) In other words, broadly speaking, it’s a great rhetorical device for the Psalmist to say that God is on the side of those who do God’s work. It makes sense to suggest that there is a correlation between the work we do and the resulting love God shows to us. It’s the same line of thought that fuels people who use God to justify wars, and with movements like the prosperity gospel—which suggest that if you live, act, and pray correctly, God will be on your side and reward you for your efforts.

A more nuanced—and I believe, more faithful—look, however, is to take another step to say that just as God is on the side of those who do God’s work—the righteous ones, as they may be called—God can also be on the side of those who don’t quite live up to God’s expectations, the losers, if you will. Which is to say that God can be on everyone’s side.

I believe this because I believe that God is a part of each one of us, that God resides in each one of us. So whether we are a Packers fan or a Steelers fan, whether we are doing God’s work or not, whether we are a Democrat or a Republican, whether we are pro or anti-Mubarak in Egypt, whether we are Christian, Jew, or Muslim, I believe that God resides in each one of us, and is actively working, urging, rooting, cheering even, for us to choose the course in life that helps make God’s vision of the world become a reality.

In this way, I believe God is on everyone’s side. And if this is the case, then asking whether or not God is on our side is rather a moot point. Which is to say that maybe we’ve been asking the wrong question here? Maybe we shouldn’t be asking whether or not God is on our side, but rather, are we on God’s side?

So what does that mean, to be on God’s side? Well, I think we have a couple of perfect examples of that in our gospel lesson this morning. For you’ll recall that Jesus says to his disciples: “You are the salt of the earth” and “You are the light of the world.” Now, notice that Matthew doesn’t say: you need to be salt or the light of the world. He says that the disciples already are salt and light—they were created with the God-given qualities and abilities already within them to act as salt and light in the world.

What matters, then, is how the disciples choose to use their saltiness and light. And if you envision that God is working within them, urging them to use those gifts in certain ways, then how they respond, I would argue, is what determines whether or not they are on God’s side.

Now we could, at this point, close out the sermon with some traditional understandings of what it means to be salt and light in the world—understandings that would have made sense to the disciples in Jesus’ day; but since there are many ways to play out these metaphors, I’d rather give you a couple of non-traditional examples of what this might mean to get you thinking about this in a new way.

So salt. Think rock salt. You’ve all encountered that a little bit lately, haven’t you? So what’s the purpose or rock salt? It breaks up those icy nuisances, those places that cause people to slip, stumble, and hurt themselves, those unseen spots that can knock a sister or brother off their feet (it can even bring others to God, as our Children’s Sermon said). Utilizing our salt in this way certainly would be a good use of our God-given abilities.

As for light, some lyrics from contemporary singer Katy Perry and her song “Firework” come to mind (as I said, non-traditional):

Do you ever feel like a plastic bag,
drifting through the wind
wanting to start again?
Do you ever feel, feel so paper thin
like a house of cards,
one blow from caving in?

Do you ever feel already buried deep?
6 feet under screams but no one seems to hear a thing
Do you know that there’s still a chance for you
‘Cause there’s a spark in you

You just gotta ignite, the light, and let it shine
Just own the night like the 4th of July

‘Cause baby you’re a firework
Come on, show ‘em what you’re worth
Make ‘em go “Oh, oh, oh”
As you shoot across the sky-y-y

Baby, you’re a firework
Come on, let your colors burst
Make ‘em go “Oh, oh, oh”
You’re gonna leave ‘em all in awe, awe, awe

You don’t have to feel like a waste of space
You’re original, cannot be replaced
If you only knew what the future holds
After a hurricane comes a rainbow

Maybe your reason why all the doors are closed
So you could open one that leads you to the perfect road
Like a lightning bolt, your heart will glow
And when it’s time, you’ll know. (5)

You will know, my friends, because as your coach, fan, encourager, God is on your side—God is on all our sides—residing within us, asking us if the world is going to be dangerous and dark, or ice-free and well-let on our watch. Which is to say, God is asking us: are we going to be the rock salt and firework of light that God created us to be, so that the world is a better place because of our efforts? In other words, are we going to be on God’s side? Amen.

© 2011 by Rev. Dr. Jeffrey M. Gallagher, All Rights Reserved.

1. Josh Tinley, Kneeling in the End Zone (Cleveland: Pilgrim Press, 2009), 4-5.
2. David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, eds., Feasting on the Word, Year A, Volume 1, Advent through Transfiguration (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2010), 321.
3. Ibid., 323.
4. Walter Brueggemann, et al, Texts for Preaching, A Lectionary Commentary Based on the NRSV—Year A (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1995), 131.
5. Taken from: http://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/katyperry/firework.html.

January 30th Sermon

2011-01-31T11:35:00.000-05:00

First Congregational Church of Kittery Point, United Church of Christ January 30, 2011
Sermon—“A New Perspective”—Rev. Dr. Jeffrey M. Gallagher, Pastor
Epiphany IV; Based on: Micah 6:1-8 & Matthew 5:1-12

Shortly after our second son Jacob was born, and diagnosed with Down syndrome, we were blessed to receive a number of books and resources from others intended to help us out as we began to journey down this new and unexpected road. I confess, however, in the midst of the surgeries and the simple challenge of adjusting to life with two children—because as all of you with kids know, one child plus one child does not equal two—in the midst of all this I didn’t read much of what was given to us.

So it wasn’t until just recently that I started paging through a book entitled Gifts: Mothers Reflect on How Children with Down Syndrome Enrich Their Lives. And in so paging, I came across a story about Chelsea. While I can’t relate Chelsea’s entire story to you—as told through her mother’s eyes—I do want to offer you an excerpt from Carey’s reflections on her life with her new daughter:

“At four days old, the initial testing confirmed that Chelsea had an extra chromosome. Any hope that there was an awful mistake was gone. It was true. I was crushed. I had already planned my life, and my family. I didn’t ask for this.

I sobbed as we walked through the waiting room after receiving the confirmation of the diagnosis. I could feel everyone staring at us again. They had no idea what it was like. They all had healthy children . . . . and I hated them for that. They had no idea how lucky they were . . . . [she continues on a bit later] . . . .

Six months have passed now and she still holds onto my finger and watches me as she eats. She smiles at me when she wakes up in the morning, and even leans in to give me kisses when I ask. She laughs at her big brother’s silly faces, she rolls around the floor to get her favorite toy, and she even sits up by herself to listen to a story. One would never know just from looking at her that she has an extra chromosome. She’s just a baby. I understand now that children with Down syndrome do not spend their lifetime suffering; they are just like all children. They love us, and they need our love and acceptance in return.

While Chelsea has grown tremendously in her short lifetime, it is possible that I have grown even more. My new plan is to live the life I have been given to the fullest. I still feel people staring at us when we are in public, but now I smile and think to myself, If they only knew how lucky we are!” (1)

I couldn’t help but get the story of Chelsea and Carey out of my mind as I read this morning’s lesson from Matthew’s gospel. So let’s turn to that lesson now.

So the Beatitudes—one of the most well known scriptures in the entire Bible. A scripture that has been cross-stitched, quilted, and painted thousands upon thousands of times, and which probably even dons the walls in some of our houses. So what is there that can be said about this text that hasn’t already been said? Well, let’s start by looking at what we have here, and we’ll go from there.

So the first thing we need to say is that the Beatitudes are the very first part of a long section of Matthew’s gospel—running from chapter 5 all the way through chapter 7:29—called The Sermon on the Mount. This is a long series of teachings offered by Jesus that may or may not have been preached all at once. (If it was all at once, it would have been quite a sermon!) What’s more likely is that these are a series of sermons, or teachings, that are grouped together by Matthew into one longer sermon.

So who was this sermon preached to? Well, if you read Matthew 7:28 you’ll see that it says: “Now when Jesus had finished saying these things, the crowds were astounded at his teaching.” So it would seem that this was a sermon to a large group of people. However, remember how today’s lesson—the beginning of the sermon—starts: “When Jesus saw the crowd, he went up the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him.” This indicates that Jesus was speaking to his disciples only.

Obviously this is all further evidence that we may have more than one sermon going on here, but either way, I’d like us to simply focus on our text this morning. And what I want us to hear is that in this first lesson that Jesus chose to preach to the disciples after calling them, he chose to preach the Beatitudes.

So what is a Beatitude? “A beatitude (Latin) or makarism (Greek) is a statement of an indicative mood beginning with a form of the adjective makarios [which means “fortunate,” “in a privileged situation,” or “blessed”] declaring certain people to be in a privileged, fortunate circumstance.” (2) In other words, they are “a sort of category of proverb . . . . sort of an everyday statement about the way things are . . . . statements about the way things work in the real world.” (3)

Now, if you’re thinking to yourself: “Huh? Did I just hear that right? Statements about the way things are in the real world? That doesn’t make sense,” if you’re thinking this, then you’re in good company. For did you hear what Jesus said: “Blessed are the poor in spirit . . . . Blessed are those who mourn . . . . Blessed are the meek.” None of that, describes the way things work in the world does it?

No. And that’s exactly the point. This doesn’t describe the way people would have viewed the world—not back then, and certainly not today. For to be mourning or to be persecuted is not to be blessed. Those are the people we feel sorry for. Those are the people we look at and think, “oh, how sad to be one of them.” That is, after all, the way we see things. But that’s not the way God see things.

As such, these Beatitudes are intended to “push us from where we are perched, viewing the world as the world loves to view itself, toward viewing the world as God sees us.” (4) In other words, they are intended to get us to see the world from a new perspective.

Now, in so doing, let’s be clear here that this does not make the Beatitudes a list of imperatives. In other words, these are not commands to be met: to be meek, to be in mourning, to be persecuted, and the like. They are not a list of accomplishments to be achieved so that we can secure divine favor with God. Rather, a beatitude is “a blessing promised by God to those people who already are what the beatitude describes . . . . In their predicament they are singled out by the blessing of God and are renewed in their hope of the future.” (5) They are “statements of fact.” (6)

And so, remembering that these statements of fact are shared with the disciples as they are beginning their ministry, we can get a sense of what Jesus is up to here. He’s not telling the disciples that they need to be and do all of these things. Rather, he’s saying that when they go out into the world and encounter people while doing their ministry, this is how they need to see the world. They need to see the world as God sees it. So that way, when they come across someone mourning, or who’s hungering and thirsting for righteousness, they will know that in God’s eyes, these are the people whom God has drawn extra close to, who are especially blessed by God. It’s all about shifting their perspective and getting them to view the world in a new way.

Which is not unlike Carey’s story that I began with. Immediately when she heard the diagnosis of Down syndrome, she thought she knew what that meant. She thought that was a terrible tragedy that was going to burden her for the rest of her life. She thought that because, I would imagine, that’s the way most of the world sees it.

But then she began to live that life, and she began to realize that there are special blessings that come from walking in her shoes that are unable to be garnered by people who are charting a different course. She began to realize something that we found out very quickly in our lives with Jacob—there are special ways in which God lives and moves during very difficult, trying situations in order to turn them into unparalleled blessings.

And so I hope that you will hear this text for what it is, my friends. This text is not a call to action in the traditional sense. This is not a call to get out there and act meekly or do what you can to get persecuted for righteousness’ sake. That’s right, I’m telling you that this is a sermon—and listen closely, because you’ll seldom hear me say this from the pulpit—this is a sermon that really isn’t calling you to any significant action. This sermon should be heard, as the Beatitudes are meant to be heard, as a blessing.

That is to say, if you find yourself in one of these circumstances of mourning or being poor in spirit, then know that God is poised and ready to offer a special blessing in store just for you—a blessing that you cannot experience unless that is your situation in life. A blessing that is yours, alone, for the taking. The challenge for all of us, then, is to notice and receive that blessing, all while trying to view the world through these eyes always, that is, trying to view the world always as God sees it.

And you know, I have a feeling about that. I have a feeling that if we are all able to begin to see the world as God sees it, then it may just have a very direct impact on the way we live, move, and work in this world. For if we no longer see those with the most talent, the most fame, the most friends, the most accolades, the most possessions—the most you name it—as the ones God loves, or blesses, the most, then it’s going to change the way we act in this world. It’s going to cause us to better pay attention to, to understand the situation of—and thereby care for—all of God’s children.

In other words, it’s going to cause us, I would argue, to do exactly what that Micah text we read this morning asks us to do. For in that text the author wonders what God requires of us: sacrifices, our first born? God’s response is simple: “what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God.”

With a simple shift of perspective, I believe: we will do justice by living to ensure that this view of reality is transformed into a practical reality; we will love kindness by being faithful to, loyal to, and caring of all those in society—especially those who have been dealt a difficult hand; and we will walk humbly with our God by understanding that we can do nothing in this life apart from the love and blessings of God.

My friends, I believe we can—and will—do all of that, simply by gaining a new perspective on the world. Which is to say that we don’t need to worry about doing anything this week except for shifting our perspective a bit to God’s perspective—I have no doubt that the rest will take care of itself. Amen.

© 2011 by Rev. Dr. Jeffrey M. Gallagher, All Rights Reserved.

1. Carey Branam, “Lucky,” in Gifts: Mothers Reflect on How Children with Down Syndrome Enrich Their Lives, Ed. Kathryn Lynard Soper (Bethesda, Maryland: Woodbine House, 2007), 209-210 & 211.
2. M. Eugene Boring, “The Gospel of Matthew,” in The New Interpreter’s Bible, Volume VIII, Ed. Leander E. Keck, et al (Nashville: Abingdon, 1995), 176.
3. William H. Willimon, Pulpit Resource, Vol. 30, No.1, Year A, January, February, March 2002 (Inver Grove Heights, Minnesota: Logos Productions, Inc., 2001), 21.
4. Ibid., 22.
5. Walter Brueggemann, et al, Texts for Preaching, A Lectionary Commentary Based on the NRSV—Year A (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1995), 125.
6. Ronald J. Allen, “Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany, Year A,” in The Lectionary Commentary, The Third Readings: The Gospels, Ed. Roger E. Van Harn (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 2001), 27.

January 23rd Sermon

2011-01-24T09:50:00.000-05:00

First Congregational Church of Kittery Point, United Church of Christ January 23, 2011
Sermon—“Abandoning”—Rev. Dr. Jeffrey M. Gallagher, Pastor
Epiphany III; Based on: Matthew 4:12-23

It’s January. Snow has been falling all week, it seems. The sunlight hasn’t quite returned as much as we’d like it to. It’s been cold, very cold. We’re kind of in that post-Christmas, pre-Lenten malaise that often hits this time of year, so I thought the time was right to push us all a little bit this morning—maybe generate a little bit of our own heat and energy to warm things up today.

Given this, let me throw out a disclaimer. What I’m going to do is to challenge us to think, theologically, about some things that we may not have thought about before—recognizing that some of this may be challenging to hear. So as you listen please know that my attempt is not to convince you to think the way I do. In fact, I’m going to do my best to keep my personal feelings out of this. My intention today is simply to open the door to a debate that is being had in contemporary theology, in the hopes that you will do some prayerful thinking and reflection on this, and that some positive dialogue, conversation, and perhaps even action will emerge from this exploration.

So here goes . . . . perhaps the hottest topic in theological studies today is that of Christianity and empire. For there are many who contend that Jesus was incarnated on earth in order to offer people a different way of life than was being promulgated by the first century Roman empire—the “first territorial empire in the history of the world.” (1) The staggering power of Rome’s empire has been described as follows:

“Rome’s military power was based on legions, each with six thousand fighting engineers at full complement . . . . Rome’s economic power grew along and upon that same infrastructure [of roads, which were] Built for military use . . . . [but were] thereafter available for travel and trade, contact and commerce . . . . Rome’s political power was established through a self-consciously Romanized aristocracy created across the empire that allowed some high local elites to be members of the Roman Senate . . . . [And] Rome’s ideological power was created by Roman imperial theology.” (2)

And this imperial theology can be summarized as: “the practice of religion, worshiping the appropriate gods, to secure a blessing for a war that resulted in victory and secured peace on land and sea.” In other words, Rome’s imperial theology was “peace through victory.” (3)

Jesus’ theology—as you well know—was a little bit different. For instead of trying to gain peace through victory in battles and war, Jesus came to believe, and to show, that the key to establishing peace was to first establish justice. (4) And, as people began to believe in Jesus—and his alternative way of life—soon titles like “Son of God,” “Lord,” and “Savior of the World,” (5) which had previously been given to Caesar, were now being given to Jesus. As such, Jesus became, in effect, the anti-Caesar, and his message became anti-Roman empire.

So that’s where this conversation of Christianity and empire begins. What scholars wrestle with, however, is how Christianity—which began as this counter-cultural movement—soon came to become the official religion of—and supportive of the practices of—empires like Rome, and even, some now claim, the present day United States.

Listen to what one author writes: “In the view of most Americans . . . . empires are something Europeans or Chinese or Japanese have, but not Americans. Nevertheless, if it looks, walks, and quacks like a duck, chances are it’s a duck . . . . America has few direct colonies or territorial possessions in the classic manner of the Britain and Japan of the past. But empires are also measured by their ability to protect power, to compel or entice others to do their bidding, to set and enforce the rules, and to establish social norms. If we look at how the United States stacks up in that regard . . . . the unmistakable visage of a duck begins to appear.” (6)

The contention of some scholars, then, is this: the United States has become an empire the likes of which Jesus would have risen up and spoken against. I’d invite you to reflect on that idea for a moment, as we turn our attention to the lesson we read in Matthew’s gospel a moment ago.

So our lesson today, I would guess, is a familiar one to many of you: the call of the disciples. As I mentioned earlier, each gospel writer tells this story in a different way, with Matthew uniquely starting out with a quotation from the book of Isaiah: “the people who sat in darkness have seen a great light.” Although Isaiah’s text would have referred to the troubled Israelites in the past, Matthew is using the text to suggest that the people to whom Jesus was preaching—the first disciples and beyond—are the ones “who are now going to receive the light in the person of Jesus.” (7)

Matthew then suggests that Jesus went around preaching: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near,” probably using such a message to call Simon, Andrew, James, and John—all of whom willingly follow. Now we could, at this point, spend time talking about what got the disciples to follow: was it eloquent preaching on Jesus’ part, was he just so charismatic that they had to follow, or had he been preaching before this, so that when he calls them they know him well enough to follow?

All of these are possibilities, for sure, but the truth is, we’ll probably never know the real reason. We just know that they left everything and followed. As such, the circumstances of their leaving lead some to argue that “The essential transformation in this scene involves abandonment. Simon and Andrew abandon their nets. James and John abandon their father. Both acts of separation are surprising and set up the audience to hear Matthew’s story as a story of sharp division.” (8)

And that same theme is found in the line Jesus had been preaching: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” Now, there are two parts to that sentence. In looking at the last part first, we need to understand what the phrase: “kingdom of heaven” means. So let me say that this is not referring to the afterlife to come, as we normally associate the word heaven. “For Matthew, ‘Heaven’ was simply a euphemism for ‘God,’ the Dwelling used interchangeably with the Dweller, as when we say, ‘The White House announces…’ when we mean, ‘The president announces…’.” (9)

So what this means, then, is that Jesus is saying that God has come near, that God—in the form of Jesus—has come to the earth to institute what one author calls “the Great Divine Cleanup of [the] world.” (10) In other words, Jesus had come to make some changes.

So that’s the latter half of the sentence. In the first part we hear the word repent, which means, to many of us, seeking forgiveness and righting our wrongs. And to be sure that is a part of repentance. However, in this use, “Repentance . . . . means more of a changed direction, the gaining of a new set of values, the readiness for life under the reign of God.” (11)

In other words, repentance is about abandoning the old ways in favor of the new ways of Jesus. So do you see what Jesus’ sermon is about then? It’s as if he is saying: “Repent, that is, abandon your old ways, because the Great Divine Cleanup of the world has begun, and I want you to come and be a part of it.” And that’s just what those first disciples did.

Now, as I said, this leads many scholars to believe that one of Jesus’ prime motives in this was to get people to abandon the old ways of the Roman empire for the new ways of a life lived with God. Thus, some people hear the text speaking the same message to the United States and to all those who would seek to believe that Christianity supports an empire-like mentality. If this is the case, then perhaps the text is urging us to look at new ways of conducting ourselves, both personally here in the country and nationally with other countries around the world?

But then, perhaps the text does—and should—mean more than that. As such, I would like to challenge all of us to think about what it means to abandon something in our own lives. In other words, as you hear this text and think about your own life, what may the voice of God be encouraging you to abandon?

Perhaps it’s speaking to us as a church. As we sit here in the 21st century, pundits keep saying that the mainline church is dying, that we will not be around in a few years. While I have a hard time believing that to be the case, I don’t think it’s ever a bad thing to look critically at ourselves. So are there things that we need to abandon—ways of doing and being the church—that we need to let go of as we chart the course of this new century? Is it time to abandon business as usual in favor of new ways of worshiping together and organizing ourselves to do God’s work in this world? If so, what do we need to let go of, and how can you be a part of the solution to making that happen?

Or perhaps this text is speaking to us on a more personal level, speaking about something that we need to abandon in our own lives. Perhaps there are some bad habits or bad practices in your life that you need to let go of. It might be that your drinking has gotten out of control, you need to finally quit smoking, or you are overeating to the point that your health is at risk. Perhaps it speaks to the way you are conducting yourself in a relationship—with your spouse or children—and the unhealthy practices therein that are hurting you and the ones you love.

But then maybe you’re on the other side of that coin. Maybe you are in the midst of such an unhealthy relationship, and you are being called to muster up the courage to abandon that and start down a new road. Or maybe it’s your job. Maybe things are so bad at work that it’s bleeding over into your personal life, creating an unhealthy environment, and now is the time to make a change.

Or maybe you’re one of those people who just can’t say “no,” and have bitten off more than you can chew. If so, then perhaps this text is urging you to look closely at all you’re doing, so that you can abandon that which is just taking up time and space, and focus on that which gives you the greatest joy and fulfillment in your life.

Or maybe it’s fear that you need to let go of: fear of taking a certain step, fear of trying something new, fear of the unknown. We haven’t even talked about the fact that Jesus calls the disciples to be “fishers of people” in this text—in other words, to evangelize. So maybe this text is a call to abandon your fear and start spreading the word about your church and your God to others.

My friends, this text could speak to any of these, or a plethora of possibilities that we haven’t time to mention. My hunch is that you know where that voice of Jesus is calling you to look. So my hope and prayer is that you will muster up the courage to look there—knowing that it may well mean abandoning things in your life, the way things have always been done, in favor of something new.

For that is what the task of discipleship is all about; and that is what the disciples were called to do. They were called to abandon—and they did. They abandoned everything they knew: their work, their livelihood, their families, in order to participate in this new thing Jesus was doing. It may be, in some way, that we are called to do the same.

I think one author puts it best: “The call to discipleship demands more than an assent of the heart; it invites an uncompromising break with business as usual, which is a truth of high importance for the church in this and any day.” (12)

Which is to say, my friends, that we’re on the lakeshore and the voice of Jesus is calling. So what is it that you are being called to abandon so that you too can follow? Amen.

© 2011 by Rev. Dr. Jeffrey M. Gallagher, All Rights Reserved.

1. John Dominic Crossan, God & Empire (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 2007), 12.
2. Ibid., 12 & 13.
3. Ibid., 23.
4. Ibid., 29.
5. Ibid., 28.
6. Jack Nelson-Pallmeyer, Saving Christianity from Empire (New York: Continuum: 2005), 6.
7. David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, eds., Feasting on the Word, Year A, Volume 1, Advent through Transfiguration (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2010), 287.
8. Richard W. Swanson, Provoking the Gospel of Matthew (Cleveland: Pilgrim Press, 2007), 90.
9. Crossan, 116.
10. Ibid.
11. Walter Brueggemann, et al, Texts for Preaching, A Lectionary Commentary Based on the NRSV—Year A (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2005), 116.
12. F. Dean Leuking, “Third Sunday after Epiphany, Year A,” in The Lectionary Commentary, The Third Readings: The Gospels, Ed. Roger E. Van Harn (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 2001), 26 (emphasis mine).

January 9th Sermon

2011-01-10T11:32:00.000-05:00

First Congregational Church of Kittery Point, United Church of Christ
January 9, 2011
Sermon—“Living Wet”—Rev. Dr. Jeffrey M. Gallagher, Pastor
Epiphany I/Baptism of Christ; Based on: Matthew 3:13-17

To begin today I’d like to share a poem with you by former United States poet laureate Billy Collins entitled “On Turning Ten”:

“The whole idea of it makes me feel
like I’m coming down with something,
something worse than any stomach ache
or the headaches I get from reading in bad light—
a kind of measles of the spirit,
a mumps of the psyche,
a disfiguring chickenpox of the soul.

You tell me it is too early to be looking back,
but that is because you have forgotten
the perfect simplicity of being one
and the beautiful complexity introduced by two.
But I can lie on my bed and remember every digit.
At four I was an Arabian wizard.
I could make myself invisible
by drinking a glass of milk in a certain way.
At seven I was a soldier, at nine a prince.

But now I am mostly at the window
watching the late afternoon light.
Back then it never fell so solemnly
against the side of my tree house,
and my bicycle never leaned against the garage
as it does today,
all the dark blue speed drained out of it.

This is the beginning of sadness, I say to myself,
as I walk through the universe in my sneakers.
It is time to say good-bye to my imaginary friends,
time to turn the first big number.

It seems like only yesterday I used to believe
there was nothing under my skin but light.
If you cut me I would shine.
But now when I fall upon the sidewalks of life,
I skin my knees. I bleed.” (1)

I don’t know what it is about this poem—the loss of innocence the poem portrays, perhaps—but it just seems to get me, in a powerfully emotional way. And although I don’t like to dwell on this idea of children going through such transitions—especially when I look at my children Noah and Jacob—it seemed important for me to share this with you on this day when we are talking about baptism.

Now I know you’re probably wondering how this poem and Jesus’ baptism are related . . . . we’ll get there. For now I’d like to take a moment and envision, with you, what a typical baptism might look like for us today. You can picture the scene, can’t you?

A child very often—but not always—under the age of one comes forward in their parents’ arms, perhaps wearing a white gown that has been passed on from generation to generation. The adoring, and somewhat nervous parents stand behind the font of water often with a couple of equally nervous godparents.

The sacrament begins, I say some words, ask a few questions, take the child in my arms and make the sign of the cross on his or her forehead three times with water; and then I parade the child around the church—much to the delight of picture-taking relatives—usually causing everyone in attendance to grin from ear to ear, all while the choir offers their blessing with a verse from “Child of Blessing, Child of Promise.”

Did I get that right? If so, then I ask you, what does that have in common with what we just read in Matthew’s gospel? Think about it, as we take a closer look at Matthew’s version of Jesus’ baptism, and we’ll see what comparisons we can make.

Now, admittedly, it’s hard to hear this story in one gospel writer’s words without automatically inserting all that we know from the other three baptismal accounts into the story. As such, I want to zero in, this morning, on that one detail that makes Matthew’s gospel unique: “the insertion of a dialogue between Jesus and John that is found in no other Gospel.” (2)

Listen to how one author translates that exchange: “Jesus then appeared, arriving at the Jordan River from Galilee. He wanted John to baptize him. John objected, “I’m the one who needs to be baptized, not you!” But Jesus insisted. “Do it. God’s work, putting things right all these centuries, is coming together right now in this baptism.” So John did it.” (3)

Now, aside from the fact that—according to Matthew’s chronology—Jesus and John have had no contact with each other before this scene, we assume that the two knew each other. But regardless, the point is clear that John knows who Jesus is now, and doesn’t feel that he should be baptizing the Messiah.

This leads many scholars to comment that Jesus answers the way he does because “Jesus is submitting to scriptural necessity.” (4) In other words, John asks the question, and Jesus submits to the baptism, because of the prophecies which suggest that this is what the Messiah needs to do. While I don’t disagree with that interpretation, I have begun to wonder if there is something else afoot here. As such, I hope you’ll go with me for a moment.

You’ll recall that John the Baptist’s parents were Elizabeth and Zechariah, as recorded in Luke’s gospel—both of whom were quite elderly, and, as such, were surprised when the thought-to-be-barren Elizabeth became pregnant. This leads some to believe that John may well have become an orphan—given that his parents were so old—and could possibly have been raised by a group called the Essenes, both because “the Essenes cared for orphaned children of priests [of whom Zechariah was one, and because] John’s attire and message were similar to that of the Essenes, as was his practice of baptism.” (5)

Now what’s significant about the Essenes—a group “who numbered more than 4,000 . . . . [and] cultivated a holy form of life”(6) —is how they lived. For the Essenes: “lived together and had no private property but rather a community of goods such that everything was placed at the disposal of each member of the group. In this manner they met the needs of all, including the sick and aged.” (7)

So given this, here is my speculation: could it be that John’s objection to Jesus being baptized is because of his understanding of what baptism meant? You see, if people were being baptized by the Essenes then wouldn’t it be so that they could both “participate in the long-awaited new thing that God was doing in the world” (8) and be a part of a group that would care for each other as they set out to journey down this new road before them? And might John have objected, then, thinking that Jesus didn’t need all of them to care for him?

If this is the case, then Jesus’ response may simply be to correct John, saying: “John, I hear you, but I am one of you, a human being, and I need your support—and the support of this community too—as I set off on this journey before me.” And it’s quite a journey that he sets off on, isn’t it? For no sooner does Jesus get baptized than does he begin his ministry with 40 days of temptation in the wilderness. In short, this is the “official” beginning of Jesus’ ministry, his discipleship, and he knew that he needed people behind him, supporting him on this road before him.

And that, my friends, really is what baptism is all about. Baptism is about discipleship. It’s not the end of a journey, it’s the beginning of a journey—the beginning of “living wet” as the baptized life has been called.” (9) The beginning of living life in such a way that we remember—like Jesus—that we are God’s beloved children, and as such, need to answer the call to discipleship that God places upon us all.

Now, truth be told, this isn’t an aspect of baptism that we lift up during our “traditional” baptisms here at the church. Although we ask a question about the parents’ discipleship, we don’t harp on this idea of baptism as the beginning of a child’s discipleship, because, really, it’s hard for a seven-month-old to become a disciple as we might understand that. What we, instead, talk about, is the idea that this child is blessed specially by God—reminded that he or she is a beloved son or daughter—and that blessing begins his or her relationship with the larger church community into which he or she was baptized.

Now here’s where—I hope—all that we’ve talked about today should start to come together for us. For if baptism is the beginning of a new relationship with a community, and if we understand that community to be operating, in some sense, as John understood it, then that puts a great onus on all of us, now, doesn’t it? For as those witnessing the baptism—as members of the community into which that child is being baptized, and disciples by virtue of our own baptisms—the onus is upon us to care for, nurture, and help raise that child—spiritually, emotionally, and physically. It’s all in those words we say: “we promise our love, support, and care.”

In short, each and every baptism we take part in should be a reminder to us that we are beloved children of God, yes, but also that we are called to live wet as Christ’s disciples, doing the costly work of discipleship. And perhaps there’s no bigger piece to play in discipleship, than caring for the least of these in our midst.

For just think about it: we are called to provide for the spiritual, emotional, and physical nurture for our children—all those we baptize before us. That’s a huge responsibility, and not one that we should take lightly. For that means that we need to provide a loving atmosphere and space to grow for that child, so that—as the Collins poem we started with suggests—when that child turns 10, or whatever age that they begin to lose some innocence or understand what the world really is like, then they have a place in which to turn and know that they will be loved, supported, and nurtured unconditionally.

For you don’t need me to tell you that the world outside these doors can be a scary place—just look at our news yesterday. Think of how scary that was for you when you were, say, 10 years old. Now add something to the mix. Your parents are getting divorced. You have just moved into town and are the “new kid” without many friends. You were born with a physical or developmental challenge that makes you appear and act “different” than others. You’re beginning to wonder if you’re gay. Your father just lost his job, and now you’re eating at Table of Plenty and frequenting Footprints once a month.

Think of how challenging the world would be if that was your situation. And yet think of how much of a difference we could make in such a child’s life, if we took that role of living wet, of being the community that can shape, hold, mold, love, and nurture those children, unconditionally. What if 10-year-old Billy Collins—as he sorrowfully looked outside his window at his bike and tree house—knew that he had a place that he could come to, each week, and be reminded by surrogate parents and grandparents that even though the world might be a scary place, he was held and loved by a community that knew him, valued him, and cared about him? Might his transition in life have been a little easier?

And therefore, by extension, might that not have an impact in lessening the instances in which a youth who feels misunderstood goes in and kills his classmates and teachers, or a politician he disagrees with? Might that not stop some of those children who decide that taking their own life is the best course of action, when the world bullies them for being different? Might that not allow a 13 year old youth, who is working a job to help put food on the table, find some comfort and solace in life? Might that not have implications for this world that we haven’t yet begun to understand?

My friends, you know that the answer to all of those questions. Which is why I hope and pray that on this day when we remember Jesus’ baptism, we also might remember the responsibility of our own baptisms. Hear, and remember, that you are a beloved child of God, loved by your Creator because of who you are, not in spite of who you are. And hear, also, the call to discipleship, to living a wet life, a life which includes caring for this community of children who are baptized in our midst.

Remember that today as you come forward to dip your hands in the water. Remember that as we celebrate the baptism of little Sylvie next week. Remember that, every day, as you step, wet, from the shower each morning—that we are called to be the living wet in this world.

And in so doing, never, never, underestimate just how high—and important—a calling that is. Amen.

© 2011 by Rev. Dr. Jeffrey M. Gallagher, All Rights Reserved.

1. Billy Collins “On Turning Ten” as quoted in: Marcus Borg, The Heart of Christianity, (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 2004), 115-116.
2. Douglas R.A. Hare, Interpretation: Matthew (Louisville: John Knox, 1993), 20.
3. Eugene H. Peterson, The Message (Colorado Springs, Colorado: NavPress, 2002), 1748.
4. Hare, 20.
5. The Clergy Journal, May/June 2010, Volume 87, Number 3 (Inver Grove Heights, Minnesota: Logos Productions, Inc., 2010), 84.
6. James C. Vanderkam, “Essenes,” in The New Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible, Volume 2, D-H, Ed. Katharine Doob Sakenfield, et al (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 2007), 316.
7. Ibid.
8. Richard W. Swanson, Provoking the Gospel of Matthew (Cleveland, Ohio: Pilgrim Press, 2007), 88.
9. F. Dean Lueking, “First Sunday after the Epiphany (Baptism of the Lord), Year A,” in The Lectionary Commentary, The Third Readings: The Gospels, Ed. Roger E. Van Harn (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 2001), 18.

January 2nd Sermon

2011-01-03T09:42:00.000-05:00

First Congregational Church of Kittery Point, United Church of Christ
January 2, 2011
Sermon—“The Revelation of the Magi”—Rev. Dr. Jeffrey M. Gallagher, Pastor
Epiphany; Based on: Matthew 2:1-12

I have to say that it’s not very often that I can stand up here and say that I have something brand new to share with you about one of our scriptures. After all, each of these texts has some 2,000 years worth of people saying all kinds of stuff about them. But today I actually have something new to share, thanks to our very own Gloria Guyette.

For just this past Sunday Gloria asked me if I had heard about a new book called “Revelation of the Magi.” I said I hadn’t, so Gloria sent me a video link to a story about the book, and immediately upon watching it, my interest was piqued.

For the book is, in part, an eighth-century manuscript, based on a story likely from the second or third century, which tells about the magi who followed the star to Bethlehem. So why is it just appearing now? Well, author Brent Landau, a professor at the University of Oklahoma, found references to this text while he was working on his dissertation. As he came to find out, a collector in the eighteenth century had discovered a text called “Revelation of the Magi” in a Turkish monastery.

That text was then given to the Vatican Library, where it remained archived away in relative obscurity. Landau got access to the text and then spent seven years analyzing it and translating it from Syriac, a dialect of Aramaic, into English. (1) The result is a book that just hit store shelves in November, and which sheds a great deal of new light on what has been, for centuries, a very mysterious story in Matthew’s gospel.

So let’s first take a look at what Matthew has to say about these magi, before we get into what Landau’s book may be able to add to this familiar tale.

Now, as I’ve shared with you before, Matthew’s gospel story of Jesus’ birth is very different than Luke’s version. There’s no innkeeper, no shepherds, no baby wrapped in bands of swaddling cloth here. No, instead Joseph has a dream to explain what is happening with Mary, and the birth of Jesus is mentioned, essentially, as a side note. The text then immediately turns to our lesson for today—the arrival of the magi.

Now I know what you’re thinking, who were these guys anyway? Were they magi, were they astrologers, were they wise men, were they kings? Well, I can tell you how they came to be known as kings. “Psalm 72:10-11 says, ‘May all the kings of Sheba and Seba bring gifts. May all kings fall down before him’.” (2) So it’s likely such an understanding of scripture that led people to name them kings, and create songs like “We Three Kings of Orient Are.”

The word magi, however, means something different. Magi “comes from the Persian magush, a category of fire-priests of Medean origin responsible for political religious worship and purity ceremonies. They espoused Zoroastrian traditions.” (3) So naming them magi is to say that they were religious men. Naming them as astrologers is because they understood the stars well enough to follow the star to Bethlehem, and the name wise men is probably derived for the same reason. All of this is to say that, really, no term is incorrect, as it’s hard to know exactly who these men were; we just know that they were from the East, and clearly not Jewish.

And were there three of them? Maybe, maybe not. “The tradition that there were three magi probably arose from the three gifts that were brought: gold, frankincense, and myrrh.” (4) As for them being named Melchior, Caspar, and Balthasar? Some say that those names come from “a Greek manuscript . . . . composed in Alexandria around 500 A.D,” (5) with the names becoming popularized by Henry Van Dyke’s The Other Wise Man. Regardless, their names come from extra-biblical sources, not the Bible itself.

As for Matthew’s story, I’m sure you know it well. The magi observe a star and go to see King Herod to find out what he knows about the child that has been born. He knows nothing, and becomes frightened by what he perceives to be a newly born threat to his rule. He encourages the magi, then, to let him know what they find out, so that—unbeknownst to them—he might remove the threat once and for all.

So the magi head off, arrive where the baby is—notice Matthew doesn’t say that it was a stable—and then the first thing they do is to kneel down and pay homage to the child. This is a significant point, as one author writes, for the Greek word for pay him homage appears no less than three times in this text. This might suggest that paying homage to Jesus is “far more important than whether there were three magi bearing three gifts. Paying homage to Christ gives the story its purpose, its direction, and its culmination.” (6)

And then, of course, you know the rest. After paying homage the magi give Jesus their gifts, and then—warned in a dream—they head back a different route, steering clear of King Herod. Which spawns Herod to institute the massacre of the infants—a text we read last week and don’t need to get into again today.

So that’s the text as Matthew offers it. And so now you’re probably wondering what that ancient “Revelation of the Magi” can add to or subtract from this. Well, that text suggests that the magi were descendants of Seth, Adam and Eve’s third son, and came from a land called Shir, likely China. When asked about whether such a journey from China to Bethlehem would have been possible, one scholar answers in the affirmative, noting that even though the road passed through deserts and mountains, the Spice Route, as it was called, was a commonly traveled way. Thus, it would not have been surprising to see men arriving from the East, traveling in caravans, possibly even on camels. (7)

The word magi in Syriac, Landau claims, means “to pray in silence,” which would suggest that the men were religious, not kings; and Landau also notes the fact that there are 12 magi mentioned in the story—not the three that we have become accustomed to. (8)

But the real interesting piece—and this is where I’m headed with all of this—is how the magi encounter the star. As the text reads: “And we saw [the star] . . . . in the form of an ineffable pillar of light descending, and it came to rest above the water. And we were afraid and shook when we saw it. And we cannot speak about the brilliance of the star of light, since its radiance was many times greater than the sun, and the sun could not stand out before the light of its rays (9) . . . .

And we saw the star enter the Cave of Treasures of Hidden Mysteries, and the cave shone beyond measure. And a humble and kind voice made itself heard by us, which called out and said to us: “Enter inside without doubt, in love, and see a great and amazing vision.” (10)

And so after they go in and come back out of the cave, the text reads: “And each of us was speaking about the revelations and visions that had appeared to him in the Cave of Treasures of Hidden Mysteries, but our visions did not resemble each other, and all the wonders of many forms appeared to us. There is one of us saying, “I saw a light in which there were many images that were amazing.” And there is one saying, “I saw an infant who had unspeakable forms.” And there is one saying, “I saw a youth who did not have a form in this world.” (11) And they continue on to describe many other visions—including one of a man on a cross.

Now it should be stated here that the text, obviously, is purported to be written by the magi themselves. However, Landau feels this is highly unlikely—given that the text, anachronistically, refers to writings composed years after Jesus’ death. (12) Yet that shouldn’t rob this testimony of its power. It could still be a story with roots in the oral tradition that was composed at a later date. And regardless, the text still sheds some very interesting new light on a story we all know quite well, causing us to hear it anew and rethink what it means.

And for me that’s no more true than when we talk about that image of the star changing shape for each magi that saw it. For let’s think about what that means, for a moment. First of all, that says what we say all the time, that God is still speaking, that God is yearning to find a way to connect with humanity—and this text even makes the claim that the baby isn’t the only way that God has sought to connect with humanity (which obviously raises some provocative affirmations about religious pluralism). Yet listen to what it also says: that such speech, such attempted encounters come in ways that we can see them and in ways that we need to hear—suggesting that God’s revelation is individual enough to be tailored for each one of us.

And I think that’s the lesson that I’d like for us to hang on to today. For this means that we don’t need to start doing things we aren’t fond of doing in an attempt to encounter God. Rather, it means that we need to keep doing what we’re doing, trusting that God will come to meet us where we are. For isn’t that the message of this Christmas story anyway? That God, yearning to connect with humanity, came to meet us where we were in a way that many would stand up and take notice of?

Which is to say that, even today, God may be poised to meet us anywhere. Maybe it will be here in worship. Maybe it will be as we break bread and share the cup in a moment. Maybe it will be on your morning walk. Maybe it will be in the eyes of the child that greets you at home each night. Maybe it will be in the sunset that takes your breath away. It could be anywhere.

And hearing that, let’s remember the example the magi set for us in how we should respond to such revelations of God. We shouldn’t try and take a picture, we shouldn’t immediately start thinking about what gifts we can give, we should simply acknowledge God’s presence by paying homage to God—literally “the custom of prostrating oneself at the feet of a king.” (13) That should be our first reaction—worship, praise, and acknowledgement that we are standing in the midst of something holy, something ineffable.

But then, the message is not to stay there. The message is that the magi gave God their gifts, after paying homage to God, and then went home by another way. Now clearly this is because they feared what Herod would do to them, but the metaphoric implications should not be lost on us. When we have these encounters with God, we shouldn’t then simply go back to life as we know it. We should be changed enough that we head back by another way, that is, as a changed individual for having had such an experience.

For I can’t help but think that if we all did this, then the world really would start moving closer and closer to how God intended it to be. So why not resolve, then, in this new year, to do our part to make it happen? Amen.

© 2010 by Rev. Dr. Jeffrey M. Gallagher, All Rights Reserved.

1. Information taken from: http://www.usatoday.com/yourlife/mind-soul/spirituality/2010-12-03-three-wise-men_N.htm.
2. David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, eds., Feasting on the Word, Year A, Volume 1, Advent through Transfiguration (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2010), 215.
3. Bruce J. Malina, “Magi,” in The New Interpreter’s Dictionary of the Bible, I-Ma, Volume 3, Ed. Katharine Doob Sakenfeld, et al (Nashville: Abingdon, 2008), 766.
4. Bartlett and Taylor, 215.
5. Taken from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Wise_Men.
6. Bartlett and Taylor, 213.
7. Information taken from a video which can be viewed at: http://news.yahoo.com/video/world-15749633/mystery-of-the-magi-23613928.

8. Information taken from: http://www.usatoday.com/yourlife/mind-soul/spirituality/2010-12-03-three-wise-men_N.htm.
9. Brent Landau, Revelation of the Magi (New York: HarperCollins, 2010), 50.
10. Ibid., 53.
11. Ibid., 56.
12. Information taken from: http://www.usatoday.com/yourlife/mind-soul/spirituality/2010-12-03-three-wise-men_N.htm.
13. Bartlett and Taylor, 215.

December 26, 2010 Sermon

2010-12-27T09:50:00.000-05:00

First Congregational Church of Kittery Point, United Church of Christ December 26, 2010
Communal Sermon—“Cloth for the Cradle”
Rev. Dr. Jeffrey M. Gallagher, Pastor
Christmas I; Based on: Matthew 2:13-23

Note: This sermon was conversational, as the entire congregation helped to shape the "message." The following are the notes used to guide the conversation.

Introduction
Now I’m sure, when you looked in your bulletins and saw “Communal Sermon” listed, you were probably wondering what we were up to today. And now seeing me down here from the pulpit, standing before you, you’re probably getting a good idea. Rather than do a traditional monologue sermon—as what I do on Sunday usually amounts to—I thought that I would bring everyone in on the sermon—that we all might have a chance to have a say in what message we take home from this place today.

Background Information
And so, to focus our attention, I really want us to talk about that lesson we just read from Matthew’s gospel. Now I know we didn’t read Matthew’s version of Jesus’ birth on Christmas Eve. Instead we opted for Luke’s version (which is different from Matthew’s version, remember). So let me remind you what Matthew says. (An important point to remember here, as one scholar notes, is that Matthew is more concerned with what things mean than how things happened.)

Matthew suggests that an angel came to Joseph to inform him of what was going on (that’s what we read on the Sunday before Christmas). Then Matthew merely says that Jesus was born, opting to then move to the story of the wise men coming from the East to offer gifts to the baby. Warned in a dream to not return home the way they had come (for fear of what King Herod might do to them), they chose a different route home. And that leads us to the story we just read from Matthew’s gospel.

Initial Reactions
• So what are your initial reactions to this story? Familiar? New to you? Do you have any questions about it?

• A fitting text to be read on the Sunday after Christmas, which is the day after Christmas?

• Does reading this lesson rob today of Christmas spirit? Do you wish we still had a “Christmas” story to read? Why does Matthew leave the “Christmas” story so quickly? Does this add/subtract to our understanding of the “Christmas” story?

• What is your reaction to the world into which Jesus is born? Different than our world?

• What’s the threat that Jesus poses? Why is Herod so concerned? Is his concern justified?

Dreams/Nightmares
Now clearly the action in this text is centered around three dreams: 1. go to Egypt; 2. go to Israel; 3. go to Galilee.

• What would you classify these dreams as? Nightmares? Why?

• And what do you think about these dreams? Believe they did/can/do happen? Going back to the Children’s Sermon, is this a way that God is still speaking in the world today? If so, then what do you think God is trying to say/show to Joseph through these dreams?

• And what do you make of the fact that Mary is hardly to be found here, and that the action moves through Joseph’s communication with God alone?

Jesus as Refugee
Because of the advice offered in those dreams/nightmares and the moving around Jesus and his family needed to do, one author calls Jesus a refugee—without a place to lay his head.

• What do you think of that description? Do you have a hard time with it?

• If Jesus is a refugee, and Joseph is having these nightmarish warnings, then what do you think Joseph’s dreams for Jesus would be? What would they look like?

Keeping the hope of the message alive
Well, the promise of Jesus’ birth is hopeful, is it not? Yet it’s easy to lose sight of that hopefulness in a text like today.

• And so I wonder, how do we keep that hope alive? How do we make Joseph’s dreams for Jesus come true?

• Could one way be to—like Joseph—listen to the ways in which God may be speaking to us during this Christmas season? I talked about that on Christmas Eve at the 11pm service. Could this be a time of the year in which God is seeking to connect with us?

• And so I wonder, could the things that we are being nudged to do in this world, by God, be a way in which we could keep the message of Jesus, the hope of Christmas alive? Could that be a way in which we “swaddle” the new born baby—that is, how we care for the baby—and could the way we do that, help to nourish those dreams and ensure they grow?

Transition to Cradle
Well, I have had an image with me since I read that part about Jesus becoming a refugee.

• I’ve been thinking, and what’s the one thing that refugees look for as they are moving around from place to place?

• Ok, clearly there are lots of things, but I keep having the image of a bed, someplace to lie in, someplace to rest at night. And so I wonder, do you think that Mary and Joseph might have taken that manger—that feeding trough—with them as they journeyed? Do you think they might have realized that that could be the best place their baby would have to lay his head?

Cradle Activity
If that’s the case—and if our work to keep the message of Christmas alive is a way in which we swaddle the baby—then I have an idea. You each should have received a strip of cloth when you came in this morning. If not, there are some in the back and the ushers would be happy to get one for you. You’ll also notice on the edge of each pew that there’s a pen.

And so, as we think about this story and this message—as we think about what it might mean for our dreams, our actions to be that which swaddles this new born baby—I thought we might visually make that happen. So I would encourage you to write something on that strip of cloth you have. Perhaps it’s a word, a short phrase, a simple picture, whatever it is, I want you to think of it as something that you’re feeling called to do, something you feel you’re capable of doing, something that you are pledging or promising to do as we walk into this new year and seek to keep the message of Christmas alive in our hearts.

It could be as simple as saying one nice thing to someone each day. It could be as bold as working on issues of social justice. It can be anything that you think will help to keep the message of Jesus alive in the year ahead.

When you have written your dream, your plan, your pledge, whatever you want to call it, I’d invite you to come forward and lay it in this manger that we have here. When we’re done, we’ll have a visual image of the message that I want you to take home from this service today: our dreams and promises of how we might bring them into fruition are what will swaddle the baby Jesus with, how we will nurture the child, and ensure that he—and his message—bear much fruit in this world. They are how we will take care of this child just born among us.

For we all have a part to play in caring for this child that has been born in our midst. So perhaps, this day, we can do something that will help swaddle this child, this love, this message, this hope, that has been born in our midst.

So take a minute—you don’t have to share what you’ve written with anyone—and then come forward and add your cloth to the cradle.

The congregation comes forward to add their strips of cloth to the cradle. Ask Audrey to play Red 137 “Away in a Manger” and people can sing along if they’d like.

Let’s pray: Incarnating God, you sent Jesus to the world, long ago, to show us that true love could be birthed in our midst—now it’s time for us to nourish and sustain that love so that it might bear fruit among us. May the cloths we have laid in this cradle serve to swaddle the baby—and may the dreams, the hopes, and the promises written thereon help to bring to fruition some of the possibilities that your love incarnated holds for us, our lives, our community, and our world. In the name of the one whose life and message we now swaddle in our arms, Christ Jesus, we pray. Amen.

© 2010 by Rev. Dr. Jeffrey M. Gallagher, All Rights Reserved.

Christmas Eve Candlelight Sermon

2010-12-27T09:48:00.000-05:00

First Congregational Church of Kittery Point, United Church of Christ December 24, 2010
Meditation—“Silent Night”—Rev. Dr. Jeffrey M. Gallagher, Pastor
Christmas Eve Candlelight Service

Listen to that for a second. Just listen. Do you hear that? Silence. It’s wonderful, isn’t it? No wrapping paper crinkling. No oven buzzers sounding. No cell phones ringing. No children asking how many more hours it is until presents can be opened. There aren’t even a lot of cars on the road outside. There’s just silence. Listen.

I have to say that I think this is one of the reasons why I love this service so much. After so much to do to get ready for Christmas, from shopping to wrapping to entertaining to traveling to a boisterous—and I do mean boisterous—5pm service, all of the sudden we have this: silence. And it’s wonderful, isn’t it?

And have you noticed how often that word silent, or this idea of quiet comes up in our hymns and our liturgy? “Silent Night, Holy Night,” “above thy deep and dreamless sleep the silent stars go by,” “come away from your noisy celebration to a place of quietness and peace,” or even this: “the world in solemn stillness lay to hear the angels sing.”

And yet, this shouldn’t really be surprising. For the hymns we’re singing tonight all have silence or peacefulness as part of their genesis. “O Little Town of Bethlehem” was written by Phillips Brooks as he came upon the town of Bethlehem at dusk, while he was enjoying a solitary, peaceful trip on a horse through the Holy Land. (1) “Silent Night” was written by Joseph Mohr during a winter’s walk, by himself, from his grandfather’s house to the church. (2)

Even Isaac Watts, author of “Joy to the World,” and Edmund Sears, author of “It Came Upon the Midnight Clear” penned their hymns while paging through the scriptures, alone, and one would assume, in quiet and peace. (3)

And so there we have it: Silence. Quiet. Stillness. What is it about this that so captivates us on this night, more than any other?

Well, believe it or not, it was actually a You Tube video that got me reflecting on this question. If you’re a fan of our church’s page on Facebook you may have seen the video I’m talking about, as I shared it there. It’s called “The Digital Story of the Nativity,” or “Christmas 2.0,” (4) and it suggests what the birth would have been like if Jesus had been born here in the year 2010.

The announcement that Mary is pregnant comes from Gabriel as a message to Mary on her iphone. Mary then emails Joseph that something has come up and that they really need to talk, right before she Mapquest’s directions from Nazareth to Bethlehem and rents a donkey—the only “vehicle” available—from an online rental site. Joseph then Tweets to his followers that he’s heading to Bethlehem for the census, checks in on Foursquare at the stable, and then updates his Facebook status—complete with a picture—to say that the baby has been born—which immediately gets, not surprisingly, thousands of likes!

Joseph then creates an event “Meet the Baby” to which three wise men reply that they will be attending. And so, seeing that the Bethlehem Star—which has its own Twitter page—is inviting people to follow it to see the baby, the wise men begin following the star, purchasing their gifts from, where else, but amazon.com. And from there the video comes to an end with the line: “times change, feelings remain the same.”

It’s really a clever video, intended to be entertaining, but which really proved to be, for me, quite provocative. For, quite obviously, times are different today than they were some 2,000 years ago when Jesus was born. And had Jesus been born today, who knows, Joseph might have been texting friends and Mary might have been taking iphone photos of the baby and uploading them to Facebook moments after he was born. That’s what happens all the time in today’s world, and so that’s what we’d expect in this age of media, and connectivity. Phones everywhere would be buzzing and beeping to say that no ordinary new baby had just been born.

But that’s not the story, is it? No, there’s no grand announcement that the baby has been born. Rather, this is an “unexceptional birth of another child to poor parents in a small, crowded backwater town in the empire. No one in any position of power would have noticed. There would have been no royal birth announcement. [So] In this sense, the birth was indeed a “quiet” one.” (5) Even the scripture gives it just one simple verse: “And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.”

Now granted the act of childbirth—both then and today—isn’t quiet, but the scene still is. For we’re not even told that anybody but Joseph and Mary are there to witness this birth—not even any animals (those are details we’ve added to the story over time). It was—save for the painful struggles of Mary and, perhaps, the pleading prayers of Joseph—a very silent scene.

And I think, in this hyper-connected world of today, there is something inside us that yearns for that type of simplicity, that silence, that quietness, because, so often, I believe those silences have stories to tell, lessons to teach us, wisdom to impart—silences that our loud, fast-paced world today so often causes us to miss out on. And it must have been such a pregnant silence that Mary and Joseph encountered on that night, must it not?

For even though they were told, prior to setting off for Bethlehem, that Mary was pregnant with no ordinary child, they are not told that shepherds would come racing to the stable, or that a choir of angels would sing, or even that a bright star would beckon those late-arriving astrologers from the East. And yet, when all this happens—as the story goes—neither Mary nor Joseph bat an eye. Which tells me that God must have shared something pretty special with them, in the silence of that night, telling them, ironically, that this child sleeping quietly in their arms was going to grow up to be anything but quiet.

It’s almost as though God came to Mary and Joseph and said, “I’m going to give you this time of quiet to enjoy your son, but starting tomorrow, his life is going to be one loud message to the world.” And with shepherds soon racing from that stable to spread the word—a loud enough word for King Herod to stand up and take notice of—it was clear that Jesus’ life was not going to be quiet for long.

But on that one, silent, sacred night in a stable outside the last dying lights of that little town of Bethlehem, it was quiet.

And so my friends, as we sit here tonight—in this moment, silently pregnant with possibility—may we savor that we have a similar time of quiet, respite from the world around us; and may we listen for what it is that God may be saying to us in this silence, what message, what word, and what good news may be poised to be birthed from the quietness of this place, tonight. Listen to and enjoy this silence that can speak wonders.

But don’t stay in this silence. Don’t think that love was birthed among us as a gift to be understood and kept to ourselves. Remember that love was birthed among us so that we might go forth—not silently, but joyfully, courageously, lovingly—shouting forth like the shepherds, singing like the angels the message that God promised to change the world, and on that night in Bethlehem, God did. A message of love which—both then, and today—has a power which we, still, haven’t begun to understand the enormity, or the potential, of.

My friends, may that message be born again, in our lives this night. May we hear—in the silence of this night—a word from God, a message. And may our lives be a loud enough witness to that message, that the world can’t help but hear our good news. Amen.

© 2010 by Rev. Dr. Jeffrey M. Gallagher, All Rights Reserved.

1. Taken from: Ace Collins, Stories Behind the Best-Loved Songs of Christmas (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Zondervan, 2001), 139-144.
2. Ibid., 152-156.
3. Ibid., 110 & 97.
4. The video can be viewed here.
5. David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, eds. Feasting on the Word, Year C, Volume 1, Advent through Transfiguration (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2009), 121.

Christmas Eve Family Service Sermon

2010-12-27T09:44:00.002-05:00

First Congregational Church of Kittery Point, United Church of Christ December 24, 2010
Meditation—“The true meaning of Christmas?”
Rev. Dr. Jeffrey M. Gallagher, Pastor
Christmas Eve Family Service

Note: The following story is original and was offered without manuscript on Christmas Eve; so the following are intended as notes—and have not been proofread as thoroughly as they might have been otherwise! So please excuse any and all typos!

It is so great to be with you again tonight! One of my favorite parts of the Christmas season is thinking about, and creating, a story to share with you that will help us all understand what the true meaning of Christmas—the birth of Jesus that we have come here tonight to celebrate—is all about. And so I figured this year I would go ahead and write a story that I’m calling—creatively enough—“The true meaning of Christmas?”:

Once upon a time there was a young, 10-year-old boy named Timmy. Now Timmy lived a pretty ordinary life, in an ordinary community, kind of like ours here in Kittery Point. His family wasn’t wealthy, but they weren’t poor either. His mother worked as a teacher’s aide in a local school, and his father worked in the office at a local insurance company. He had a younger sister Rachael and a teeny-tiny goldfish named Goliath.

As I said, Timmy was an ordinary boy from an ordinary family. He loved to build Legos. He played sports like soccer and basketball, and while he was good at them, he wasn’t the best on his team. He was learning to play the trumpet in the school band, and he went to church each Sunday with his family.

Well one week at church Timmy went up front for the Children’s Sermon as he always did. The minister sat down with the children and started talking about the season of Advent. The minster pointed out candles, and wreaths and all kinds of other things in the church and said, “Advent is the season when we get ready for Jesus’ birth.” And after explaining what the church does to get ready, the minister said, “And I want all of you to use this season to also get ready for Christmas.”

And for some reason—although Timmy didn’t always listen to what the minster had to say (hard to believe, I know)—he listened that morning, and he decided that he would use the season of Advent to figure out what the true meaning of Christmas was. That way he’d be ready to celebrate Jesus’ birth when Christmas finally rolled around.

So the first thing Timmy did when he got home from church was to sit down and watch some TV. “I wonder what the TV says Christmas is all about,” he thought to himself. And after seeing commercials for Best Buy and Toys R Us and cell phones and new cars and things the advertisers were trying to convince people they had to have, Timmy realized that this wasn’t going to work. I really don’t think that the meaning of Christmas is buying a bunch of stuff, he said to himself.

So Timmy, instead, decided to ask people what the true meaning of Christmas was. He asked his parents, he asked his Sunday School teacher, he asked his minister, he even—much to the chagrin of his parents—seemed to ask every cashier and person they bumped into while they were out doing all that the had to do to get ready for Christmas. And the most common answer Timmy got was: giving.

Okay, he thought to himself, giving is what Christmas is all about. So I’m going to start giving right now and not stop until Christmas!

Now Timmy was just 10 years old, and so he didn’t have a lot of money to go buying things in the stores. Plus the fact, he had decided that shopping and buying wasn’t what Christmas was all about anyway. So Timmy decided that he would go home and start making presents to give to his family.

So he thought of his sister and how she liked to play dolls. So Timmy went downstairs into the basement, scraped up some old pieces of wood, and some glue, and put together a nice little bed that one of her dolls could sleep in. “This will be great, he thought to himself.”

He thought of his Dad and how his Dad liked to go fishing, and so he drew a picture of he and his Dad fishing along the river, thinking that this would remind his Dad of those fishing trips and make him happy. Then he thought of his Mom, and how she liked candles, and so he grabbed an old jar in the basement and painted it, thinking that his Mom could put a candle in it, and the colors would light up the room and she’d think of him every time she saw it.

After finishing the gifts, Timmy was happy—and he knew his family would be happy with the gifts—but he still wasn’t sure he “got it.” He wasn’t sure his giving was going to make a difference. “Maybe I need to give more,” he thought to himself. So that day, after school, he asked his mother if he could come with her to help serve food at the soup kitchen—as she did every month. His mother thought this was odd, since Timmy had never wanted to come before, and even though he was a little young, his mother thought he could come—and put the silverware on the tables and things like that.

So Timmy went, he did his job, and he met lots of people who really needed the food that they were serving—they were hungry, some of them homeless. And many, many people thanked Timmy for helping out. This made him feel good, but still he wasn’t sure that he quite “got it,” or that his giving was really making a difference.

So that Sunday Timmy went to church and asked his Church School teacher what he should do. “Why don’t you volunteer to be in our Christmas pageant?” she said to him. Timmy thought that was a great idea. He could use his time to give the congregation a wonderful story about Jesus’ birth.

So Timmy volunteered for the pageant. Not only that, he volunteered to be one of the lead actors in the play: Joseph. And not only that, but Timmy agreed to spend the next couple of Saturdays helping to paint and build the back drop of the town of Bethlehem that would stand behind them when they performed the pageant. “This will certainly help me figure out the true meaning of Christmas,” he thought to himself.

And so for the next two weeks Timmy rehearsed the pageant, he memorized his lines, he helped make the backdrop for the pageant. And when the night to perform it came he was so excited. Not nervous at all, Timmy walked out in front of a packed church—with grandparents waving and smiling, cameras flashing, and smiles all around—and he performed his part perfectly. He said his lines loud and clear—he didn’t mumble like he did sometimes in practice—and the pageant was perfect.

After the pageant ended, Timmy went with all the other kids to the church hall where there were all kinds of goodies laid out, and everyone kept coming up to him and telling him how great a job he had done, and how this was the best Christmas pageant they’d ever seen. This all made Timmy feel good, but still something was missing. He still wasn’t sure that he understood the true meaning of Christmas—and time was running out.

So while everyone else was eating and laughing, Timmy headed back into the church’s sanctuary. And there, like he’d been taught in Church School, he prayed to God, saying that he was sorry that he hadn’t fulfilled his Advent promise of figuring out what the true meaning of Christmas was. And he started to cry. He felt so bad that he hadn’t done what he hoped to, that he cried in the sanctuary.

Just then, unbeknownst to Timmy, an elderly man in a wheelchair came up behind Timmy. This was a man Timmy knew—because he was in church every Sunday morning. Still, Timmy was surprised to see the man wheel up behind him. And then, without saying a word, this elderly man picked up Timmy, set him in his lap, gave him the biggest hug he had ever felt before, and let Timmy cry. And just being there, crying, and being hugged made Timmy feel really, really good.

After Timmy settled down and climbed off his lap, the man asked Timmy why he was crying. And so Timmy told him the story of how he had been hoping to figure out the true meaning of Christmas, and how he had given as much as he could, but he wasn’t sure if it made a difference.

And so the old man paused for a moment. He looked down at his legs—which obviously didn’t work well anymore—and he said to Timmy, “well, everyone who told you that the true meaning of Christmas is giving was right—but only half right. You see,” the man went on, “in order to understand what it means to give, you first need to understand what it means to receive.”

And so the man went on and told Timmy a story about how he used to attend another church, but when he was forced to use a wheelchair, it was no longer comfortable for him to go there. They space wasn’t very accessible, and the people seemed to not be as friendly as they were. He also couldn’t drive, and without anyone living at home with him, he had no way to get to church. So the old man said he had stopped going to church until, one day, his neighbor—with a nice big van, big enough to fit the old man and his wheelchair—offered to drive him to church.

Instantly the old man knew what a tremendous gift he’d been given. When he arrived the church was easy to get into. The people were friendly. They even invited him to be a Deacon—finding way that he could serve communion in his wheelchair.

“And so you see,” the old man said, “I didn’t understand what it meant to give until I was given something that I really needed—a gift that I couldn’t live without. Because once you understand what it means to receive something you really need, then you know why it’s so important to give.”

“And what was that gift you couldn’t live without,” Timmy asked, curiously. “It was love,” the old man simply replied.

With that the old man wheeled up the aisle, and a smile came over Timmy’s face. He thought of how that old man’s hug, and lesson, had given him just what he needed at that very moment: love. And then he thought about all that he had given—the hand-made gifts, the work at the soup kitchen, the pageant—and he realized that if his gifts made other people feel as good as that old man’s gift made him feel, then Timmy had really given something special. And with that, he raced downstairs to tell his parents the good news: he finally understood the true meaning of Christmas.

And so, my friends, I hope the moral of this story is clear. We don’t understand how important it is to give love until we know what it feels like to receive love. And that’s what Jesus’ birth is all about—showing us what it’s like to receive a love beyond all other loves.

As such, Christmas is about giving—not about presents, so much as it is about giving of ourselves, our lives, our talents, our love in ways that will help, serve, and love people who really need it.

And so I would urge you to spend some time thinking about what it means to receive the gift of Jesus, the gift of love. And as you understand what it means to receive, you’ll then understand why it’s so important to give that same love to others—and why that really is the true meaning of the season.

Merry Christmas and Amen.

© 2010 by Rev. Dr. Jeffrey M. Gallagher, All Rights Reserved.

December 12th Sermon

2010-12-13T11:53:00.000-05:00

First Congregational Church of Kittery Point, United Church of Christ December 12, 2010
Sermon—“A Song for the Ages”—Rev. Dr. Jeffrey M. Gallagher, Pastor
Advent III; Based on: Luke 1:39-55

I want to begin this morning with a poem that has been hanging with me all week since I happed across it doing research for this sermon. This is by contemporary poet Denise Levertov, and is entitled “The Annunciation”:

“We know the scene: the room, variously furnished,
almost always a lectern, a book; always the tall lily.
Arrived on solemn grandeur of great wings,
the angelic ambassador, standing or hovering,
whom she acknowledges, a guest.

But we are told of meek obedience. No one mentions courage.
The engendering Spirit
did not enter her without consent.
God waited.

She was free
to accept or to refuse, choice
integral to humanness.” (1)

This is only part one of Levertov’s poem—we’ll get to the other two parts in a bit—but I wanted to stop here because I love the picture this paints. This is, quite obviously, the scene just prior to the one we encountered in our reading from Luke’s gospel a moment ago. This scene tells of the visit of the angel Gabriel to Mary—also known as The Annunciation, which means the announcement—that Mary is pregnant with Jesus.

Now we could, at this point, lose the rest of the sermon to an exploration of the virgin birth. Was Mary really a virgin as we understand it, or did that term just mean young woman? And how could God immaculately conceive the Messiah? While these are intriguing questions, I don’t want to get hung up there today. How conception happened, for me, is really beside the point. Rather I agree with one commentator who writes: “Luke’s language emphasizes divine agency without taking up issues of gynecology.” (2) In other words, rather than get sidetracked on how this could happen, I’d rather spend some time asking the what and why questions.

So we’re told, here, that Mary—a young woman, of marginal status in society—is visited by an angel who tells her that the baby growing in her womb is Jesus: “the Son of the Most High . . . . [who will] reign over the house of Jacob forever.” (3) Her response, however, is not as immediately joyful as many would like to portray it. It’s tentative. It’s a response I think Levertov captures well in her poem, portraying a hesitant Mary, who is given the choice to believe, or not believe, this news that has just been shared with her.

Mary responds by asking the angel a question: “How can this be?” To which the angel replies that the Holy Spirit will come and make this possible, even as the Holy Spirit works with her cousin, Elizabeth, to soon give life to Jesus’ cousin, and forerunner, John the Baptist.

To this, Mary doesn’t respond with an excited: “Here I am, send me!” as the prophet Isaiah once did to God’s summons. No, she responds—I envision her, meekly—saying: “Here I am, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word.” (4) That’s hardly an energetic and excited response. It’s more of a tentative, “Okay, God, I have faith in you, so I’ll believe this, but I really have no idea what’s going on.”

And so she decides to investigate. She went with haste, the text says, to find Elizabeth. And as one commentator points out: “There is nothing we should reckon odd in [Mary] seeking to confirm her faith by going to see the miracle [of Elizabeth’s pregnancy] which the angel has effectively brought to her notice.” (5) And one would have to say that Elizabeth’s pregnancy is miraculous.

For remember, Elizabeth—who is much older than Mary—was thought to be barren. Yet as her elder, we can see why Mary would want to consult with her—a mothering, mentoring figure. I can imagine Mary using some choice words to ask Elizabeth what in the world is going on. Only to then—after the two’s wombs are said to have an amazing connection—hear Elizabeth explain that God is doing something amazing in her life, and that even though things may not look all rosy (remember, she’s a young, expectant mother who is questioning the paternity of her baby), that she should still be moved to offer God her praise.

And—although we’re not told how long this takes to sink in for Mary—she does praise God. She enters into the Magnificat, a song for the ages—really a musical soliloquy in the midst of the gospel—extolling her praise for God. Now, we should say a few words about this song. First of all, it is believed that this “beautiful hymn was probably used in the worship of the early Jewish Christian church.” (6) Today we don’t sing these words exactly, but plenty of hymns—like the two we’re singing today—lift up the Magnificat’s sentiment.

Second, through this song, “This young, unwed, pregnant woman—a thoroughly marginal person in her culture—proclaims one of the most important prophetic words in Scripture . . . . [for] Mary proclaims the promised, topsy-turvy future of God as an already-accomplished fact—possibly because that future can already be glimpsed in God’s choice of Mary as the bearer of the Messiah.” (7) In other words, Mary’s song is essentially saying that because God has turned her world upside down through Elizabeth’s pregnancy and her pregnancy, God has the power—in fact is probably as she sings—turning the world upside down in many other ways as well.

For there are no fewer than five reversals that Mary sings about here. “The first is the reversal that Mary experiences herself . . . . Second, God has acted with a strong arm to scatter the prideful . . . . third, [God] has brought down the powerful from their thrones and lifted up those who are without status and rights . . . . fourth, God has filled the hungry and sent the rich away with nothing . . . . [and finally] Israel . . . . [often] the subject of God’s judgment . . . . is the recipient of God’s mercy.” (8)

It’s an incredible, prophetic song, that really extols what Jesus is coming to earth in an attempt to accomplish. It shows forth action—that by virtue of his conception alone—Jesus is already starting to bring to fruition. It’s amazing, isn’t it, how Mary could take what seems to be an awful turn of events in her life, and see the way God is working through them to bring forth a world of possibility? It’s a realization Levertov describes, in her poem’s third part, in this way:

“She had been a child who played, ate, slept
like any other child – but unlike others,
wept only for pity, laughed
in joy not triumph.
Compassion and intelligence
fused in her, indivisible.

Called to a destiny more momentous
than any in all of Time,
she did not quail,
only asked
a simple, ‘How can this be?’
and gravely, courteously,
took to heart the angel’s reply,
perceiving instantly
the astounding ministry she was offered:

to bear in her womb
Infinite weight and lightness;
to carry in hidden, finite inwardness,
nine months of Eternity; to contain
in slender vase of being,
the sum of power—
in narrow flesh,
the sum of light.
Then bring to birth,
push out into air, a Man-child
needing, like any other,
milk and love—

but who was God.” (9)

Although I would argue with Levertov’s suggestion that Mary understands all this instantly after speaking with Gabriel, there is no question that Levertov captures the feelings Mary eventually experiences after accepting the news. As such, I wonder how we would be—how we are—when such challenging announcements come into our lives? Touching on this, I want to offer you part 2 of Levertov’s poem:

“Aren’t there annunciations
of one sort or another in most lives?
Some unwillingly
undertake great destinies,
enact them in sullen pride,
uncomprehending.

More often
those moments
when roads of light and storm
open from darkness in a man or woman,
are turned away from
in dread, in a wave of weakness, in despair
and with relief.
Ordinary lives continue.
God does not smite them.
But the gates close, the pathway vanishes.” (10)

I love how Levertov lifts up the fact that we all have these moments—these announcements—in our lives. You’re pregnant. You have cancer. Your child is ill. You no longer are employed here. Your health insurance doesn’t cover that treatment. There’s nothing left we can do for you. Your spouse had an affair. Your aging parents want to move in with you. Your loved one has admitted an addiction. Your friend hasn’t survived the accident. We all have these announcements in our lives that, oftentimes, fill us—not unlike I see Mary’s reaction—with dread and fear.

But in those moments Levertov argues—and I think Mary reveals to us—there are possibilities, perspectives to be gained, pathways to follow, that we often miss out on. Just look again at Mary’s reaction. At first she’s nervous, upset, skeptical, even. But then she goes and converses with Elizabeth, and Elizabeth helps her to realize that what she may see as a misfortune, may actually be a wonderful blessing in her life.

And that’s what makes Mary’s song so incredible. For she has moved from a place of sadness to a place where she can see the possibility and promise in what has happened to her—so much so that she is moved to sing to God in joy.

And, my friends, I think there’s a message in that to all of us. As we sit here together—on this Third Sunday of Advent—many of us have conflicting emotions inside of us. The radio is playing, “It’s the Most Wonderful Time of the Year,” and while some of us may agree with that sentiment, life circumstances make it such that not all of us can sing such a joyful carol. And then we come to worship, and learn that this is the Sunday of joy, and those emotions continue to wrestle within us.

Given this, I would urge you today to heed the message of Mary’s story. Heed the message of this young, unwed mother, of marginal status in society, who learns that she’s pregnant, and questions who the father is. Heed the message of a woman who can turn that potentially life-ending situation into one in which she realizes that God may be using to birth a tremendous blessing full of possibility and promise.

Heed that message as you look at your own life situation—perhaps at whatever is making it hard for you to feel joyful today. Take whatever is troubling you and confide in a friend. Or, on the flip-side, offer to be the friend another can share their troubles with. And in that sharing, see if, together, you might be able to discern a way in which God is moving, working, lurking, touching—turning your life upside down—in a way you hadn’t noticed before.

It might just be enough to make you, like Mary, see that God can be at work even in what seems to be the most dire of circumstances. And it might just be enough to make you see that if God could birth Jesus from such a tenuous beginning, then God may be poised and ready to do something miraculous, from the deep difficulties and challenges in your life as well.

And so, my friends, as you set your sights on that star—getting brighter and brighter on the horizon—and as you take these nearly final steps to that Bethlehem manger, ask yourself this question: is it possible that God could be birthing something good—something joyful even—within my life?

Mary discovered it was possible. And boy did she have quite a story to share, and song to sing, when she figured out what God was up to. I pray the same may be true for us as well. Amen.

© 2010 by Rev. Dr. Jeffrey M. Gallagher, All Rights Reserved.

1. Taken from: http://saintcolumbkille.blogspot.com/2010/03/annunciation.html.
2. The New Interpreter’s Study Bible, Ed. Walter J. Harrelson, et al (Nashville: Abingdon, 2003), 1853.
3. Luke 1:32 & 33 (NRSV).
4. Luke 1:38 (NRSV).
5. David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, eds, Feasting on the Word, Year C, Volume 1, Advent through Transfiguration (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2009), 92.
6. Stephen Farris, “Fourth Sunday of Advent, Year C,” in The Lectionary Commentary, The Third Readings: The Gospels, Ed. Roger E. Van Harn (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 2001), 293.
7. Bartlett and Taylor, 95.
8. David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, eds., Feasting on the Word, Year B, Volume 1, Advent through Transfiguration (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2008), 82 & 84.
9. Taken from: http://saintcolumbkille.blogspot.com/2010/03/annunciation.html.
10. Ibid.

December 5th Sermon

2010-12-06T09:37:00.000-05:00

First Congregational Church of Kittery Point, United Church of Christ December 5, 2010
Sermon—“Advent: The New Spectator Sport?”
Rev. Dr. Jeffrey M. Gallagher, Pastor
Advent II; Based on: Isaiah 11:1-10 & Matthew 3:1-12

In many respects I think the season of Advent has become a spectator sport. Now, obviously I’m not talking about the frenzied start to our Christmas Fair on Friday, the madness of 3:00 a.m. Black Friday shopping, or the hustle and bustle of the malls—though on-line shopping has made those latter two a little less physical than they used to be. What I am talking about are all the opportunities we have to sit and observe while counting the days until Christmas arrives.

Everywhere you turn there are holiday concerts to take in and enjoy: jazz, candlelight, a cappella, even school productions (minus the mention of Christmas, of course). There are lights up all over the Seacoast—including a pretty impressive display at the Edwards’ house. Christmas specials—from my favorite, A Christmas Story, to Frosty the Snowman and everything in between—illuminate our living rooms at night. Even First Parish Church in York is planning their second drive-through nativity later this month—an opportunity for people to experience the Christmas story without leaving the warmth and comfort of their car.

And certainly all this observing this doesn’t exclude the vision we heard shared for us, from the prophet Isaiah, a moment ago. You could lose hours on the internet if you simply do an image search on the words: peaceable kingdom. You’ll see everything from Edward Hicks most famous painting of lions, lambs, children, and other animals resting together in peace, to children’s art work, to—and I’m not kidding—a painting of a lion and a lamb sitting down at a bar together drinking martinis. (Do the search, I’m serious, you can’t make this stuff up!)

Now, I don’t say any of this to be critical (save for the martini print), because much of this is actually stuff that I love. I love listening to Christmas music, I enjoy looking at Christmas lights, I love the Grinch TV special as much as anyone (though not quite as much as my wife Kristen), and I’m actually planning to take in the York drive through nativity this year to see what it’s all about. There’s nothing inherently bad about any of these things—in fact, many of them are quite good.

I simply bring this up this morning to raise the question as to whether or not we are missing something if we view this season of Advent as entirely a spectator sport. I’d invite you to hang on to that question as we turn to our two lessons for the day, starting with Matthew’s story of our old friend John the Baptist.

So this is a lesson that hardly needs much explanation. John the Baptist, a clothing-of-camel’s-hair-wearing, locust-and-wild-honey-eating, idyllic-manger-scene-destroying prophet, is out in the wilderness proclaiming the words of Isaiah, that all should be preparing the way for God. People in Jerusalem and all throughout Judea, the text says, were going out to confess their sins and to be baptized in the Jordan River.

What’s interesting about this is that, in this day and age, “if people wanted to get something or get something done, they would travel to a center city. The margins came to the center, but not the reverse.” (1) But that’s not the case here, is it? No, people are actually leaving the cities, we are told, in order to get what John is offering in the wilderness—which is saying something.

And we have to assume that this is no small number of people flocking to the Jordan, either, for Matthew says that even the Pharisees and the Sadducees—two entrenched groups of Jewish believers—were among those headed out to see John.

Now, what I have always thought is that these groups came out, also, to be baptized by John—because that’s what our text says. However, a commentary I read this week suggests that may not have been the case. For the meaning of the phrase that we just read “coming for baptism,” may actually mean “coming against baptism.” (2)

So it could be, then, that the Pharisees and Sadducees may have come out both to observe and to protest against what this crazy prophet was up to and what all these people were flocking out to him for. And they would have reason to do this, for as religious leaders themselves, they would have wanted to squash any kind of a religious movement that could pose a threat to the institutional empire—known as the temple—that they had in place in Jerusalem.

This, then, might account for John’s harsh words upon seeing the Pharisees and Sadducees. It would explain why John told them not to be too comfortable in thinking that having Abraham as an ancestor (in other words, simply being Jewish) was enough to ensure that they were in God’s good graces. And it would also explain why John likens them to a brood of vipers.

For John says all this, it seems, because he expected something from those who were coming out to see him. He expected repentance. That’s what his one sentence sermon is all about: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” (3) The kingdom of heaven, remember, refers to the presence of God—not an afterlife to come. So John is telling the people to prepare because the tangible presence of God will soon be at hand.

And he expected people to get ready for this by changing their ways, by repenting. Now I know that word rings sour in some of our ears—but really it’s not as bad as it may seem. For if we define the word sin as the things that we do that turn us away from God, then repentance is simply a reorientation, a recognizing of our misdirected ways, and a turning around to live life with God in our sights at all times. Those who had come out to the wilderness not to reorient, but just to look, to criticize, and to point fingers, John had no use for.

Which is to say that John understood that this was a time, not for observation, but for action. It’s sort of like cleaning your house in anticipation of company. You want everything to be perfect when company arrives—especially when the company is the Messiah. Thus, the people were told to start preparing, which meant actively looking, watching, and reorienting their lives.

Now, truth be told, we could stop our exploration of this text there, reading this as a good story about some people in the past who were preparing to receive the Messiah. And this is a big part of Advent, remembering the first time Jesus came to the earth. The other piece of Advent—the second Advent as it’s often called—is looking ahead to some time in the—usually we say distant future—when Jesus may return to the earth to usher in a new age. Those are the two Advents we normally talk about this time of the year.

However, neither of these usually evoke much urgency in the present. The past Advent is in the past, and that second Advent we’re really not sure that we’ll see, since it hasn’t come about in some 2,000 years. As such, Advent, for us, has really become a season of watching, of observing.

Given this, today I’d like you to think about a third Advent—not an Advent in the past, not an Advent in the we’re-not-sure-when-future, but an Advent of God right here in the present. An Advent of God that can come to us at any time, in any way—perhaps as unexpectedly as it did in that Bethlehem stable so long ago. An Advent of God that comes in the many and varied ways God reaches into our lives, today. An Advent that we are being asked to reorient our lives so that we might actually notice.

It’s an Advent of God that has the ability to change us in powerful ways, as alluded to by John in that “agricultural metaphor” Matthew offers, which has been explained in this way: “When farmers harvested wheat, they needed to separate the inedible chaff from it. So they “winnowed” it—throwing the wheat into the air and letting the lighter chaff blow out. The farmer would gather the wheat to the storehouse, but the chaff was useless except as fuel.” (4)

An interesting image, isn’t it? For many people take this image as one in which the coming God arrives in order to separate the good people (i.e., the wheat) from the bad people (the chaff). The good people—those who are bearing fruit—will be harvested by God, whereas the bad will be burned in the fire.

But I’m not quite so sure that’s what this image is intended to evoke. For if you understand the metaphor then you know that the chaff and the wheat are together, as part of the whole. So the image really is one in which God is coming to help remove the less than desirable parts from each of us, so that all that’s left is the good. This is a process that, I believe, God is poised than ready to help us with today—in this third Advent. But it’s an Advent that will only have the desired results if we’re prepared, if we have reoriented ourselves to see the ways in which God may be moving, speaking, calling, acting, through nature, through other people—you name it—in our lives.

For in so connecting I believe God is giving us the tools—effectively doing that work of separating the wheat and the chaff within us—to enable us to live lives that may just usher in a vision like that which Isaiah spoke of. Now, the specifics of that vision are really beside the point. What Isaiah is simply alluding to is a time of peace, a time of shalom, a time to be hoped for, whatever your specific vision of that might be.

It’s an image that Isaiah suggests is possible when the Spirit of God—the very same one that breathed life into that lifeless stump of Jesse—is allowed to move and work in our lives.

So I guess all of this is a long way of saying that as we stand in the midst of this Advent journey, we need to ask ourselves a question: who are we? Are we the Pharisees and the Saducees, viewing this as a season to sit and observe, or are we those who are reorienting our lives in order to receive the one who has the power to transform us and the world around us? Or do we believe any of this is even possible?

For Marcus Borg has suggested that the Latin word credo, from which we get the words creed and believe, actually means “to commit my loyalty to,” or to “commit my allegiance to.” (5) So I guess the question might better be put, do we believe this enough to commit our loyalty and allegiance to this work of preparation? Do we believe that God has the power to transform us and the world? Do we believe that God acted in this way, at one time, by birthing Jesus to a young Mary and Joseph? And do we believe God has the power to do it again, even today?

If so, it seems to me that we need to believe—which means, in no small part, doing the work of preparation, reorienting our lives, believing that if God can work those changes in us, and we can work those changes in the world, then anything—even a peaceable kingdom—is possible.

My friends, may you allow your beliefs to guide the steps you take to that stable in Bethlehem and beyond. Amen.

© 2010 by Rev. Dr. Jeffrey M. Gallagher, All Rights Reserved.

1. David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, eds., Feasting on the Word, Year A, Volume 1, Advent through Transfiguration (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2010), 45 & 47.
2. Ibid., 49 (emphasis mine).
3. Matthew 3:2 (NRSV).
4. Craig S. Keener, “Second Sunday of Advent, Year A,” in The Lectionary Commentary, The Third Readings: The Gospels, Ed. Roger E. Van Harn (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 2001), 14.
5. Marcus J. Borg, The Heart of Christianity (San Francisco: HarperCollins, 2003), 40.

November 21st Sermon

2010-11-29T13:36:00.000-05:00

First Congregational Church of Kittery Point, United Church of Christ November 21, 2010
Sermon—“A whole lot more to be thankful for”
Rev. Dr. Jeffrey M. Gallagher, Pastor
Pentecost XXVI; Thanksgiving Sunday; Based on: Deuteronomy 26:1-11

While I was doing some research for the church history presentation that Judy Smart and I offered after worship last Sunday, I came across something I hadn’t thought about since I studied church history back in seminary: the half-way covenant. And I’m guessing—given the blank looks on many of your faces—that this isn’t something you’re overly familiar with either, so allow me to explain.

Shortly after the Puritans made their way into New England, leaving the old world behind, the religious leaders felt that it was time to start reforming religious life and practices. You see, in the old world, “merely choosing to associate with the Puritans had set people apart” (1) ; however, in the new world “the Massachusetts ministers and magistrates agreed on a more visible measure of conversion than they had practiced in England. Now a new stress was placed on relating an experience of conversion as a prerequisite for full church membership.” (2) In other words, they had to stand up and publically share how God had come into their lives and changed them if they wanted to be a part of the church.

Now, I can almost hear what you’re thinking: “thank God those aren’t the rules today, because there’s no way I would become a member of the church!” And you know what? You’re thinking actually isn’t that different from the second generation of Congregationalists.

For the children of those first converts ran into a problem. After they had been baptized and grown older, “some followed the path of their parents [choosing to make a public declaration of conversion, but] others could not.” (3) This created a problem. For those children who had been baptized themselves—but were reluctant to make such a public declaration in order to become full members—were now bringing their own children forward to be baptized. But because they were not full members, their children were unable to be baptized.

However, given that the “stumbling block [here] was neither lack of belief nor absence of intent, but failure to find conscientiously within themselves . . . . a personal life-changing religious experience,” (4) the church knew something needed to be done.

So in 1662, clergy and congregational delegates met in Boston and decided that since the first generation was covenanted members of the church, by virtue of being born to these full members, the second generation’s children could, in turn, be baptized—without the parents having to offer a testimonial. They simply had to “assent to the doctrines of the faith and solemnly “own” the covenant” (5) of the church. (Much in the same way as people joined this church when we were founded.) As such, the halfway covenant of church membership was born.

Now what on earth does any of this have to do with Thanksgiving Sunday, you’re probably wondering. Well, let’s turn to our lesson from Deuteronomy and I’ll show you where I’m going with all of this.

So our lesson today brings us back to the time when Moses was leading the people of Israel through their sojourn in exile. They had left Egyptian captivity and, as one source says, “after thirty-nine years, eleven months, and one week in the wilderness, the Israelites [had] gathered on the plains of Moab, poised to enter the promised land.” (6) As such, today’s text is told “prospectively, that is, in a future tense that indicates Israel has yet to enter the land.” (7)

And so it is as they are poised to enter this land of “milk and honey” that they had dreamed of for so long, they are given instructions as to what they should do when they get there. First they are told that the firstfruits of the land and offer them to God. This meant that the “first ripe fruit on any tree was [to be] picked and offered (with a ribbon tied around the branch) at the temple.” (8) It was a way of saying “thank you” to God. For even though the Israelites would be settled on their new land, the land did not belong to them—it belonged to God—and they were just giving a portion back to God of what was God’s already.

Then the passage turns interesting. For in very vivid detail the Israelites are then instructed as to what they should say, liturgically, when they hand this offering to the priest at the temple. They are, essentially, to recount their own history—from their time as slaves in Egypt to their arrival in the promised land. As such, “the giving of the first fruit of the harvest and . . . . a recitation of the story of deliverance” (9) are to go hand in hand.

And so the question is, why? Why do the people of Israel have to give of the land and recount the ways in which God has worked in their lives? And the answer is simple: Thanksgiving. They are not only to give thanks to God for the provisions they are soon to grow here in the present, but also for the ways in which God has worked in their lives and blessed them in the past. In short, their thanksgiving needs to also include a testimony of faith—very similar to that which the Puritans had to give in order to join the church.

The difference is that the Puritans had to, specifically, offer a conversion story, whereas the people of Israel just had to talk about how God worked in their lives and in the lives of their ancestors. But regardless, the point behind both is the same: there is thanksgiving to be found in remembering the ways God has moved in our lives in the past. And you know, I think this is something we’re missing in our lives today.

Now don’t hear me wrong. I’m not advocating that Matt and Maryann should have stood up here and offered a testimony about their lives in order to have little Aiden baptized—that’s not what I’m saying at all. What I am saying, though, is that I think there is something to be gained—something that we might be missing—in not having an opportunity to share stories of the ways in which God has been at work in our lives, the ways in which we have noticed God, felt God’s presence, and sensed God speaking to us, you might say, that have impacted our lives.

And so, rather than just saying this, I want to show you what I mean by offering a little from my own life and experience. One of the most profound moments of sensing God’s presence in my life came on Easter Sunday, 2008. Since it was Easter, you’d assume that it was a moment right here in this sanctuary, but it wasn’t. For that Easter I wasn’t with you, because it was just 13 days after our second son Jacob had been born. As such, I was spending Easter morning, with Jacob, at Children’s Hospital Boston, while Kristen and Noah visited with our family.

Coming just four days after Jacob had been diagnosed with Down syndrome, amid all kinds of post-op tests and procedures, my emotions were all over the place—in no small part due to the fact that I wasn’t worshiping on Easter Sunday, but was sitting in a hospital room. You may recall that during that time I was keeping people posted on Carepages, as to what was happening with Jacob. Here’s a piece of what I wrote that morning:

“I have to say, if you had asked me six months ago what Easter Sunday was going to be like, I never—in my wildest dreams—would have imagined this. Instead of worshipping side by side with a house full of my brothers and sisters in Kittery Point, singing joyful Easter hymns, and smelling the overpowering aroma of lilies, I’m sitting in a quiet hospital room, with the sun shining brightly at my back (making the computer screen hard to see), watching little Jacob doze off to sleep. It certainly does give me a new perspective on the joy of Easter, and I know now that I will never look at Easter the same way again. But as hard as it is for me to be away from my spiritual home, I know that this is where I need to be, with the resurrected Christ very much with us in this holy place.”

There was something about that morning, that space, the feel of the sun on my back, watching Jacob sleep, that helped me know, for certain, that God was with me in that place, and that, regardless of what happened, we were going to be okay. That morning was one of the single most religious experiences of my life—one that still brings tears to my eyes today.

I share it with you now simply to say that I think our lives would be richer if we did more of this. Again, I’m not talking about sharing conversion stories—because that’s foreign to many of us—but simply stories of the ways in which we have felt God working and moving and speaking in our lives. What would it be like to share those? What could we learn about each other? How could our relationships be deepened? And what could we learn about the ways God works in the world by hearing how God has worked in the lives of our sisters and brothers?

Well, perhaps this Thanksgiving is the time to find out. Many of us, I know, will be heading off this week to share in a feast of abundance with family and friends. We will all—I hope—pause before the turkey is cut and gravy is poured to give thanks to God for the family and friends seated around the table, the roofs over our heads, and the meal spread before us (as well as for the land and for those who grew, harvested, prepared, and cooked the meal). In this way, we will do like the Israelites and give thanks for the present blessings we have received from God.

But what would it look like if we did the other piece of what the Israelites did, and shared a bit of how God has worked in our lives? What would it look like if—as we raved over the crunchy boiled onions and buttery mashed potatoes—if we shared a little bit about why we were thankful to God for something that God has done for us in the past?

The time when you were facing a diagnosis, fearful of the results, and yet you felt God’s palpable presence with you. The moment when you felt as if life was just too hard, only to be grabbed and held by a friend, in whose arms you felt God’s embrace. The drive home from work, after a long and stressful day, when the clouds parted just above the horizon to reveal God’s most glorious painted-sky sunset. The moment, as you grieved the passing of a loved one, when a word was spoken by a friend that seemed to come from the lips of God. The afternoon when the joy of a new life brought into this world, born before your eyes, made you understand what a miracle really is.

My friends, we all have those moments in our lives—those places in which we have, in some way, palpably felt the presence of God—otherwise I don’t think we’d be here today. And so what I’m saying is: don’t keep those moments to yourselves. Share them with your family. Offer them to your friends.

I have no doubt that in so doing, not only will your faith and relationships deepen, but you’ll see that you have a whole lot more to be thankful for this year than you may have thought. Amen.

© 2010 by Rev. Dr. Jeffrey M. Gallagher, All Rights Reserved.

1. Mark A. Noll, A History of Christianity in the United States and Canada (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1992), 42.
2. Ibid.
3. John Von Rohr, The Shaping of American Congregationalism, 1620-1957 (Cleveland: Pilgrim Press, 1992), 119.
4. Ibid.
5. Ibid., 121.
6. David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, eds., Feasting on the Word, Year C, Volume 2, Lent through Eastertide (Louisville: Westminister John Knox, 2009), 27.
7. David L. Tiede, et al, New Proclamation, Year C, 2007, Easter through Christ the King (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2006), 292.
8. Bartlett and Taylor, 29.
9. Ibid., 26.

November 14th Sermon

2010-11-15T09:26:00.000-05:00

First Congregational Church of Kittery Point, United Church of Christ November 14, 2010
Sermon—“Infinite Possibilities”—Rev. Dr. Jeffrey M. Gallagher, Pastor
Pentecost XXV; Stewardship Sunday; Based on: Isaiah 65:17-25 & 2 Thessalonians 3:6-13

Infinite Possibilities. As I hope you all know by now, that has been the theme of our Stewardship campaign this year. And as such, we asked you to offer some of your dreams for our church community. Here are just a few that came in: to allow the Spirit to move us to more meaningful ways of helping others; to keep up the good work and attract more families because we are important to the community; to breathe new life into what we’re doing by not assuming what we “should” do; to be so vital to the community that people couldn’t think of not supporting us; to be debt free; to provide better transportation opportunities for our members and friends; to declare ourselves to be Open and Affirming, stating outright what we already are.

Those, my friends, are some impressive dreams. But they’re not the only ones. Our kids also offered some dreams. And they were: have a pie-eating contest; have a train party; have more heat; help Jeff (thank you, and no I didn’t put that one in); have a pool and a hot tub (thank you again, and no I didn’t put that one in either!). And then there were a whole bunch that centered on three things: food, friends, and fun. Translation: our kids’ dream is to have a community to be a part of where they can enjoy themselves and be accepted.

What’s interesting about these dreams, however, is not only what they say, but the fact that the kids actually offered more dreams for this church than the adults. Now some will say that’s because the kids were allowed to do this as part of Church School—they didn’t have to take their dreams home and remember to bring them back in. However, I actually believe it’s because kids dream better than adults do.

For many of us, as we get older, this idea of dreaming becomes rather silly. “Why waste our time dreaming, when we have so many things in reality to worry about and to occupy our attention,” we say to ourselves. And as such, I believe, in some ways, we have lost the desire to dream as well as the belief that dreams might actually come true. Case in point: the Isaiah lesson we read this morning.

Now I have to confess that when I sat down to read this text with our Bible Study crew on Monday morning, my initial reaction was that this was simply one of those Old Testament, never-to-be-attained visions. Wolves living with lambs, no children dying, everyone having enough to eat, etc., etc. All of this seemed way too far fetched to me, a text that would be all too “simple to dismiss . . . . as a kind of pie-in-the-sky utopianism.” (1)

Why? Well, because none of this has happened yet, and we’re not close to bringing any of this to reality either! So I’ll admit, that was my initial thought. But then as I started doing some research into this text, I realized that the New Revised Standard Version of the Bible—the one I just read from—translates the verse about God creating differently than does the Revised Standard Version (the one you have in your pews) and other translations. For instead of saying that God is going to create new heavens and a new earth in the future, “the form [of the verb] here is a participle, whose predominant use is to connote a continuing action.” (2) In other words, this verse may better be translated that God is, right now, creating new heavens and a new earth as we speak.

This, then, gives rise to some interesting questions, doesn’t it? For if God is creating new heavens and a new earth already, then why doesn’t anything look different? Especially given the fact, as many will claim, that “there is nothing in all of creation, or in all that we imagine beyond creation, that is beyond the capacity of God to change.” (3) If God can do this, then why aren’t we seeing any results? Well, could it be that even though God could do this on God’s own, God hasn’t chosen that route? Might it be that, instead, God has chosen to engage us, in some way, to bring this vision to fruition?

But still, you might say, this vision is just too far-fetched. And the truth of the matter is, for us it may be. The vision Isaiah held for the future might not match up with what our vision is. But that is to say that we all have a vision. We all have a dream. Whether you filled out one of those clouds or not, whether you actually allowed yourself to dream or not, you have a dream. Don’t believe me?

Well, do you ever watch the evening news at night and wish the stories would be different? Do you ever see something happening—or not happening—in society that just seems wrong? Have you ever hoped for a solid faith foundation for your children or grandchildren? Those may not be pictures of wolves lying down with lambs, but they are, very much, dreams, my friends.

As such, what we need to remember is, as one author astutely notes, that “Along with that desire [or dream] comes responsibility.” (4) Which is to say, then, that perhaps the key to understanding our Isaiah text is to be found in our 2 Thessalonians text. For that text was a reminder that our lives are not about sitting around and waiting for God to do something for us, but rather, about doing something ourselves to help bring about the change that we so long to see in this world. And I think that stewardship is a perfect step in that direction.

But before we travel down that path, allow me to share something with you. The United Church of Christ produces something called Daily Devotions—an email sent out every day that offers a brief scripture and reflection following. They are short, often funny, and always poignant—a great way to start off the day (see me and I can show you how to sign up for them).

Well, about a week ago, Rev. Martin Copenhaver, pastor in Wellesley, Massachusetts, wrote the following: “I have a recurring dream, particularly this time of year. Someone calls me on the phone and invites me to lunch. Over lunch that person says, “Martin, I am aware that the church is pressed for funds, particularly in this financial climate, and the church has to spend so much energy to raise those funds. Well, I came into some money this year, so I want to cover this year's entire church budget with my own gift.”

First I try to catch my breath. Then I offer to pay for lunch. But the person goes on: “I ask only one thing,” I say, “Sure. Whatever. Would you like some champagne?”

“No, thank you,” he says. “All I ask is that you not accept any other contributions or offerings for the rest of the year. I want to do it all. My gift to the congregation.”

Then I take another deep breath and say, “I’m sorry, but I cannot accept your gift. I can’t do that to the people. It’s not just a matter of being able to pay the bills. We need to be able to respond to all that God is doing in our midst and to share in that work. We can’t be deprived of the opportunity to give of ourselves. To hear the promises of God and to receive the gifts of God, and to be unable to respond? Why, that’s a burden. We just can’t do that to the people.”

A contribution and an offering are different: We make a contribution because the church needs money. We make an offering because we need to give. Only some are able to give a large contribution. Anyone is able to make a great offering.” (5)

My friends, Copenhaver is right on here. Anyone can make a contribution, but God is looking for people to make an offering. And we do that, I believe, by offering the fullness of ourselves—our time, talent, and treasure. For in so doing we are able to achieve the fullness of relationship with God that God so desires of us, and, as such, become God’s co-creators, working to bring our dreams to reality.

Given this, I believe that today’s text is here to remind us not about what God isn’t doing, but rather “that God is optimistic, and in God we [can be] optimistic about what we can be and what the church can be. But [again, the key is that] it doesn’t just happen by itself.” (6) Which is to say, then, that if we’re wondering why something isn’t happening, it might just be because we have yet to offer ourselves fully to God.

Now, to be fair, one could easily say that this has nothing to do with the church. We could offer ourselves to God through the Red Cross, the United Way, or even by working to bring our dreams to reality alone. The church really doesn’t have to play a role here, does it?

Well, you could say that, but I believe the church occupies a unique place in society today—a place that no other organization holds, a place where a diverse array of people come together to be accepted for who we are, not in spite of who we are, a place where we can actually talk about convictions of faith and then give our faith hands and feet to move and work in this world. Social service agencies can do the work, but the church is the place where faith in action comes alive.

And as such, the possibilities that lay before us are infinite. Increased mission work outside these doors and across the globe, more programming for our kids, more opportunities to develop our spiritual selves, a louder voice in society than we’ve had before, doors that open wider than they ever have, a church building—in good shape, with heat—to pass on to the next generation, the list could go on and on. The point is simply this: on this Stewardship Sunday, we need to remember that the giving of our treasure—the promises we will lay on the dream cloud below me—are a way in which we co-create with God to bring even the most fantastic dreams to reality. It’s how those infinite dreams become infinitely possible.

So today I hope that you will make your estimate of giving with this in mind. But as you do, don’t think that you’re giving today just to support a budget. Don’t give because we have to pay for the heat, or to keep the lights on. Don’t give because you think we need to receive, give because you know that to be in full relationship with God means to give yourself as an offering to God. That means you’re giving not because you feel you have to, but because you need to. You’re giving to respond to the good things God is doing in your life and to say that yes, you want to be a co-creator with God in ensuring that perhaps something even better can happen in the future. You’re giving because you know what it means to participate in being a co-creator of a world of infinite possibilities that you and God can create together.

And that means giving of yourself fully, beyond what’s comfortable to the place where God is calling you to give. Just think about it for a minute: have you ever given so much of yourself to something, poured your heart and soul into something to the point where you were completely and utterly exhausted and yet, you came out feeling renewed and reenergized in a way you had not thought possible before? My friends, I think that’s what making an offering of our lives is all about.

When we give to the point where we meet the challenge God has placed before us, we are transformed in such a way we can see—through “new lenses of hope” (7) —a future possibility, the infinite possibilities, that can happen when we work hand in hand with God. And then, all of the sudden, those utopian dreams don’t seem so utopian anymore. They seem realistic, they seem attainable, they seem infinitely possible with God.

Infinitely possible with God . . . . I don’t know about you, but I’d love to see what that looks like, right here in Kittery Point. Amen.

© 2010 by Rev. Dr. Jeffrey M. Gallagher, All Rights Reserved.

1. Charles B, Cousar, et al, Texts for Preaching, A Lectionary Commentary Based on the NRSV—Year C (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1994), 598.
2. Stephen Breck Reid, “Twenty-Sixth Sunday after Pentecost, Year C,” in The Lectionary Commentary, The First Readings: The Old Testament and Acts, Ed. Roger E. Van Harn (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 2001), 400.
3. David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, eds., Feasting on the Word, Year C, Volume 4, Season after Pentecost 2 (Propers 17-Reign of Christ), (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2010), 291.
4. AHA! Creative Resources for Preachers, Oct/Nov/Dec 2004, Vol.14#1 (Inver Grove Heights, Minnesota: Logos Productions Inc., 2004), 35.
5. Taken from: http://www.ucc.org/feed-your-spirit/daily-devotional/an-offering-you-cant-refuse.html.
6. Reid, 402.
7. Bartlett and Taylor, 294.

November 7th Sermon

2010-11-08T09:26:00.000-05:00

First Congregational Church of Kittery Point, United Church of Christ November 7, 2010
Sermon—“The future ain’t what it used to be?”
Rev. Dr. Jeffrey M. Gallagher, Pastor
Pentecost XXIV; Heritage Sunday; Based on: Haggai 1:15b-29

If I had to pick a theme song for this morning’s lesson from Haggai (Hag-ay-ai), it would have to be from Meatloaf. No, not the delicious meal we shared on Friday night, prepared by Sara and her crew, but rather Meatloaf the singer—a favorite of mine—and his song “The Future Ain’t What it Used to Be.” Allow me to share a few of the lyrics with you:

“Is there anything left to hold on to
When the rivers wash it all away?
Is there anyone left to hold on to?
Is there anything left I can say?

Say a prayer for the falling angels
Stem the tide of the rising waters
Toll a bell for the broken hearted
Burn a torch for your sons and daughters

The endless night has got a hold of me
Dark days are pulling me forward
And all these tears are washing over me
And I’m crying—I’m lost forever
In a future that ain’t what it used to be.” (1)

Now, granted, Meatloaf is singing—as he often does—about a lost love in this piece; however the sentiment is still the same as that piece we read from Haggai: there’s no way the future can ever live up to what has already transpired in the past. That’s what Meatloaf is feeling, that’s what the people of Israel were feeling, and, honestly, that may be what some of us come to this place feeling today.

The economy is struggling. Our youth seem to be headed down more dangerous and destructive paths than they were just a few years ago. Morals and values seem to have eroded from our society. Unemployment is high. Service men and women continue to spend too much time in harm’s way. Politics have our country polarized. And even churches don’t seem to be living up to the grandeur of what they once were (although I would argue that just looking around here today). So, is Meatloaf right? The future ain’t what it used to be? Well let’s take a brief look at Haggai and see if there’s anything there for us this morning.

So Haggai, as I said earlier, is unlike many prophets in that his writings can be reliably dated to the time when the people of Israel had returned from their sojourn in exile. Dreaming of a land of milk and honey, they were saddened, upon returning, that things weren’t as glorious as they might have remembered, or expected, them to be. “They found ruins and deprivation so vast that the most strenuous effort was required to scratch a living from the land.” (2)

Not only that, but their temple—the center of their worship and communal life—had been destroyed. So Haggai asks whether anyone remembers what the former temple looked like, and the old timers offer that “from the size of the stones and the outline of the building on the ground . . . . this [new] sanctuary would only hint at the beauty and grandeur of its predecessor” (3) and “that the work . . . . [being done did] not approach the level of stateliness and quality of handiwork found in the former temple.” (4) This new temple just wasn’t going to compare the one of old. The future ain’t what it used to be.

As such, the people needed someone to blame. That’s the way it works, right? Things don’t go according to plan and we need to blame someone: the President, the politicians, the teachers, the head coach, the rise of technology. For the Israelites their choice was simple—they blamed God.

So what’s Haggai’s response to this? Well, “Three times Haggai enjoins the leaders and the people to “take courage” or to “be strong” . . . . [They need] to disregard the negative comments and continue with the task . . . . Why? Because ‘I am with you, says the Lord of hosts’.” (5) Or, to put this as one author astutely paraphrases, they need to take courage because “God is speaking.” (6)

For the fact that God is speaking to them—likely not audibly, mind you, but in the form of those inaudible urges, pulls, and feelings within—is evidence that God is still very much present in their lives, and willing to provide for them to the point where “The latter splendor of this house shall be greater than the former.” (7)

This, my friends, is a hope-filled message—vastly different than the prophets of yesterday and the pundits of today often offer. In Haggai’s day the doomsday prophets were the likes of Isaiah and Jeremiah. Today they’re the ones on our televisions and radios, perhaps even in our own families, saying that things are just too bad to overcome, that for the world today, the future just ain’t what it used to be.

However, having heard that God is singing a different song than many around us—or our friend Meatloaf is singing—we, as people of faith, have a call—I would actually say a responsibility—to start singing that song. We need to remember what Haggai says—that God will provide what we need to make things better. That is, however, provided that we own our part in doing the work. Which is to say that if we think things are bad today, and the future is bleak, before we throw up our hands and turn around to blame God, we need to ask ourselves: “if God is speaking, are we listening, and if so, what is the role we are being asked to play to make this world a better place?” For it’s in responding to such questions that hope is to be found

And you can be assured that the saints who have gone before us in this place responded—especially when, in the 1800s, membership in this church got down to one, solitary member—for if not, then none of us would be here today. And you can be certain that people of so many challenging eras in history have done likewise—they have sung a different tune, inspired by their faith, than many around them were singing. And that song has made this world a better place.

My friends, we are the ones who need to sing that song of hope today. We need to trust and believe that God is still an active presence in this world today, reaching out to us in a myriad of ways—ways that if truly heeded, will impact all aspects of our lives, and provide us with all that we need to make our corner of the world a better place. It’s a word of hope that’s being spoken to all of us—whether you’ve been a member here for 50 years and remember what it was like when church was the only thing going on Sundays, or whether you’ve never set foot in this church before—having come here because someone invited you today—and you’re hoping that you might find a foundation for your children and a word of inspiration to get you through the week ahead. My friends, to each of us, God has something to say.

And to the extent that we can listen to, and heed, God’s still-speaking voice, we might just be able to offer a resounding no, the future ain’t what it used to be, in response to Meatloaf’s words—because we know and believe, that if we do our part, our God promises that it can be even better. Amen.

© 2010 by Rev. Dr. Jeffrey M. Gallagher, All Rights Reserved.

1. Taken from: http://www.lyricstime.com/meat-loaf-the-future-ain-t-what-it-used-to-be-lyrics.html.
2. Charles B. Cousar, et al, Texts for Preaching, A Lectionary Commentary Based on the NRSV—Year C (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1994), 586.
3. Ibid.
4. David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, eds., Feasting on the Word, Year C, Volume 4, Season after Pentecost 2 (Propers 17-Reign of Christ), (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2010), 266.
5. W. Eugene March, “The Book of Haggai,” in The New Interpreter’s Bible, Volume VII, Ed. Leander E. Keck, et al (Nashville: Abingdon, 1996), 723.
6. Eugene H. Peterson, The Message (Colorado Springs, Colorado: NavPress, 2002), 1710.
7. Haggai 2:9 (NRSV).

October 31st Sermon

2010-11-01T09:10:00.000-04:00

First Congregational Church of Kittery Point, United Church of Christ October 31, 2010
Sermon—“Reforming our Assumptions”—Rev. Dr. Jeffrey M. Gallagher, Pastor
Pentecost XXIII; Based on: Luke 19:1-10

So today is—along with being Halloween and New Members Sunday—Reformation Sunday. This is the day when we lift up, and celebrate, the influence that Martin Luther and the Protestant Reformation had on the history of Christianity. As such, we normally recall the fact that Luther posted his 95 theses on the door of a church in Wittenberg, Germany—his attempt to reform the Catholic church by objecting to the practice of selling indulgences (pardons from sin), and arguing that people could be justified by faith alone, among other things.

It’s also a day when we remember that Luther was a prolific hymn writer—some say penning hymns like the one we sang this morning “A Mighty Fortress is Our God” while throwing back a few cold ones in a German tavern. (Though, admittedly, the jury is still out on that one.) Either way, this is the Luther we know and celebrate.

There is also, however, a Luther that most people don’t know. After spending his life trying to convert his Jewish brethren to Christianity, Luther became frustrated, in his later years, that his attempts to convert were not as successful as he might have liked. This led him to write, in 1543, a scandalous document entitled “Concerning the Jews and their Lies.” Allow me to offer you just a few sentences from this piece:

“What shall we Christians do with this damned, rejected race of Jews? . . . . we cannot tolerate them if we do not wish to share their lies, curses, and blasphemy . . . . First, their synagogues or churches should be set on fire . . . . And this ought to be done for the honor of God and of Christianity.”

“Secondly, their homes should likewise be broken down and destroyed . . . . Thirdly, they should be deprived of their prayer-books and Talmuds in which such idolatry, lies, cursing, and blasphemy are taught. Fourthly, their rabbis must be forbidden under threat of death to teach any more.”

He goes on from there, unfortunately not easing his words, eventually concluding with the final line: “To sum up, dear princes and nobles who have Jews in your domains, if this advice of mine does not suit you, then find a better one so that you and we may all be free of this insufferable devilish burden—the Jews.” (1)

Now, some will say that this text was written during a period of declining health for Luther, when the Reformation was beginning to splinter, but nonetheless, these are hateful and hurtful words—hard to listen to, let alone believe. I bring them up simply this morning to remind us that our assumptions about people are not always correct. Keep that in mind as we turn to the lesson we read from Luke a moment ago.

So, the story of Zacchaeus—a story, I would imagine, that is a familiar to many of you. Perhaps you even learned that little song about Zacchaeus in Sunday School: “Zacchaeus was a wee little man, a wee little man was he. He climbed up in a sycamore tree, for Jesus he wanted to see.” (2)

As such, you probably know that Zacchaeus was a tax collector—but not just any tax collector, he was the chief tax collector. And as the chief tax collector he was super wealthy, having cheated and defrauded many people in his lifetime. Curious, however, about this guy named Jesus, Zacchaeus—who was short in stature—climbed up a sycamore tree so as not to miss Jesus pass by. Jesus saw Zacchaeus, told Zacchaeus that he was coming to his house for dinner, and this caused Zacchaeus to repent of his wrongs, giving away oodles of money to the poor. That’s the story you’ve known and learned, right?

Well, remember what we said about assumptions . . . . and in so remembering, let’s dig a little bit deeper into this lesson, shall we?

So, this lesson begins by saying that Jesus was traveling through the region of Jericho on his way to Jerusalem. While this may seem like an innocuous comment: “If you take a glance at a map of the Holy Land, you will find that this is a very odd way to get to Jerusalem from Galilee. Jericho is far down hill from Jerusalem. In other words, Jesus is going out of his way.” (3) We might say, then, that Jesus went this way in order to have this encounter with Zacchaeus.

For Zacchaeus, as we said earlier, was not just a tax collector, he was the chief tax collector; not only that, but the fact that he was the chief tax collector in Jericho is important. For “Jericho was on a main trade route and an important customs center. It would have been a lucrative site to collect (and skim) taxes as an independent contractor for the Romans.” (4) All of this is to reinforce the fact that Zacchaeus was very wealthy.

He was also short—at least that’s how the story goes. However, it does bear mentioning that “The Greek text as well as most English translations permit “because he was short in stature” to refer back to Jesus.” (5) So it might have been Jesus who was short, not Zacchaeus. Imagine that, no 6’2”, blonde haired, blue eyed Jesus! Others make the point that “Zacchaeus’s stature may have more to do with his profession than his actual height.” (6) So, again, while we may assume Zacchaeus was the short one, that may not have been the case.

Regardless of who’s taller than who, though, we know that Zacchaeus couldn’t see Jesus. So he climbed a sycamore tree. And Jesus—whether he was looking for Zacchaeus or simply knew he was there—called to him amid the branches. Jesus then invited himself over for dinner, much to the grumbling and murmuring dismay of the crowd. For this would be like Jesus coming to town today and asking to have dinner at Bernie Madoff’s house. People would not be happy.

Nonetheless, Jesus went to dinner and we assume that this is when Zacchaeus decided to become generous with his resources. However, that may not be the case, for “Some [actually] argue . . . . that the [Greek] verb suggests that Zacchaeus says he is already doing these things: giving half his goods to the poor and paying restitution.” (7) If this is the case, then this offers us a radically different message, doesn’t it? For no longer is this a story about Zacchaeus finding faith, repenting, and changing his ways; instead, this is a story about a man, who was assumed to be someone by his community, when he was, in fact, someone very, very different.

I’d invite us to go with this latter interpretation today and, in so doing, to put ourselves in Zacchaeus’ shoes. It would have been very likely, back then, for Zacchaeus to be born into this position of chief tax collector. And even though there were many people who were dishonest and corrupt in this profession, Zacchaeus was not one of them—he was honest and charitable. And yet still, simply because of the life he is born into, he “was wealthy but he was not happy . . . . he was lonely, for [his life’s work had] . . . . made him an outcast.” (8)

As such, he was desperate to see Jesus, perhaps, to find a way out of the prison of isolation that he’d been in. Short or not, when he arrives at the parade, people recognize him. It’s very possible, then, that “The crowd may have shunned or barricaded him [from Jesus] because of what he did for a living.” (9) But that didn’t deter him. Throwing dignity out the window he climbed up a tree, like a child, to get a better view.

And Jesus saw him. Perhaps, knowing that Zacchaeus was a generous man, Jesus went out of his way for this “chance” encounter, all so that he could have the opportunity to pronounce that Zacchaeus was among the saved.

It’s a scene that would have shocked those hearing Jesus’ words. For “Zacchaeus is revealed already to be a son of Abraham, one who reverences God in actual practice, one who belongs to Israel in terms of faithfulness and not just family descent.” (10) In other words, Jesus, in declaring Zacchaeus to be a good and faithful Jew, was teaching the people a lesson—he was, you might say, reforming their assumptions.

For the people excluded Zacchaeus and labeled him a sinner simply by virtue of his job description. Nobody in Jericho knew that Zacchaeus was as generous with his resources as he was. Perhaps he was a quiet donor. He didn’t call attention to himself while giving, but knew that such a sacrificial level of generosity is what God was calling him to do. But Jesus knew. And he knew that the time was right to reform the people’s assumptions.

Recognizing this, and recognizing the fact that “People are still sometimes shielded from Jesus by crowds, well meaning or otherwise,” (11) we need to ask ourselves: how are our assumptions shielding people from Jesus, or how are they shielding us from hearing God’s true message?

Have we made assumptions about God and scripture that hinder us from hearing the new messages that God is seeking to impart to us or that God is yearning to speak to us through scripture? Have our assumptions silenced God in our lives?

Or have our assumptions actually shielded a brother or sister from encountering God, the living Christ, in their lives? Have we, as a church, by overtly stating something or by not stating something, made assumptions about certain people that keep them from worshiping God in this space? Those who proclaim a different political opinion, those who are differently-abled, those of differing walks of life or socioeconomic statuses, those who, like Zacchaeus, were born into a life that automatically leads us to assume or stereotype them in some way? Have we done this? Or, to flip it around, have we made assumptions about ourselves, about who people think we, as a church, are—accurate or not?

Just think about it: today we have welcomed new members into our midst—people that we have come to know and love—but are there others who did not stand before us because our assumptions have made them unable to?

Well, my friends, I think today’s lesson is a serious call for us to think openly and honestly about these questions, and then begin the process of reforming those assumptions. And the simplest way to do that is to take the time, with an open mind, to truly get to know our sisters and brothers. You might just say—on this Halloween Sunday—that it is time for us to go and remove the masks that we have placed on people—by virtue of our assumptions about them—so that we can get to know the real person behind.

Barbara Brown Taylor, in her book An Altar in the World—the book that our Evening Study Group is currently reading—picks up on this point, writing:

“The hardest spiritual work in the world is to love the neighbor as the self—to encounter another human being not as someone you can use, change, fix, help, save, enroll, convince or control, but simply as someone who can spring you from the prison of yourself, if you will allow it.” (12)

Isn’t that what today’s lesson is about? In encountering Zacchaeus, in breaking down those assumptions, in getting to know someone in a way we hadn’t before, we understand their story and life, we see them as a child of God, and in so seeing, get a glimpse of our Creator. But that’s a glimpse that we will never get if we allow our assumptions to shield us from others, or shield others from God. Assumptions, my friends, that it’s high time to reform. Amen.

© 2010 by Rev. Dr. Jeffrey M. Gallagher, All Rights Reserved.

1. Disputation and Dialogue, Readings in the Jewish-Christian Encounter, Ed. F.E. Talmage (New York: KTAV Publishing House, Inc., 1975), 34, 35 & 36.
2. Susan A. Blain, et al, eds., Imaging the Word, Volume 2 (Cleveland, Ohio: United Church Press, 1995), 62.
3. William H. Willimon, Pulpit Resource, Vol.35, No.4, Year C & A, October, November, December 2007 (Inver Grove Heights, Minnesota: Logos Productions, Inc., 2007), 22.
4. The Clergy Journal, May/June 2007, Volume LXXXIII, Number 7 (Inver Grove Heights, Minnesota: Logos Productions, Inc., 2007), 63.
5. Fred B. Craddock, et al, Preaching Through the Christian Year, Year C (Valley Forge, Pennsylvania: Trinity Press, 1994), 460.
6. David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, eds., Feasting on the Word, Year C, Volume 4, Season after Pentecost 2 (Propers 17-Reign of Christ), (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2010), 260 & 262.
7. Ibid., 263.
8. William Barclay, The Daily Study Bible Series, The Gospel of Luke (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1975), 234.
9. Bartlett and Taylor, 262.
10. Richard W. Swanson, Provoking the Gospel of Luke (Cleveland: Pilgrim Press, 2006), 221.
11. Raymond Bailey, “Twenty-fourth Sunday after Pentecost, Year C, in The Lectionary Commentary, The Third Readings: The Gospels, Ed. Roger E. Van Harn (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 2001), 436.
12. Barbara Brown Taylor, An Altar in the World (New York: HarperOne, 2010), 93.

October 24th Sermon

2010-10-25T09:40:00.000-04:00

First Congregational Church of Kittery Point, United Church of Christ October 24, 2010
Sermon—“Becoming more than yourself”—Rev. Dr. Jeffrey M. Gallagher, Pastor
Pentecost XXII; Based on: Joel 2:23-32 & Luke 18:9-14

I know I have shared with you before that Monty Python and the Holy Grail is one of my favorite movies of all time. And although I could stand up here and quote scenes and lines at you for hours on end, this morning I simply want to call your attention to one scene. Right around the time when some of the townspeople have brought a woman forward to be tried as a witch—because, you know, she did turn one of them into a newt, and with the carrot nose they have attached to her face and her wart, she looks an awful lot like a witch—the camera switches to focus on the partially hooded face of a monk.

As the scene progresses, we hear that the monk is chanting, in Latin, with some of his brethren: “Pie Iesu Domine. Dona Eis Requiem.” The translation of this chant is, loosely: “O sweet Lord Jesus, grant them rest.” It is a line taken from a traditional Requiem Mass, or Mass of the Dead, said, obviously in memory of someone who has died.

In traditional Monty Python fashion, however, this scene is hardly intended to be a serious affair. For no sooner has the monk finished chanting this line than does he smack himself, hard, in the head with a piece of wood. From there the camera pans back and we see that there are seven monks in total, one holding a flag, who are all marching around in circles chanting and smacking themselves in the head with pieces of wood.

The scene is intended to be a comedic example of something known as self-flagellation. Self-flagellation, as you may know, is a means of severely criticizing or punishing oneself. It was made most famous recently, in Dan Brown’s novel Angels and Demons. For in that novel we were introduced to a monk, a member of the religious group Opus Dei, who practiced self-flagellation techniques that included whipping himself and wearing spikes around his leg underneath his clothing.

Now, even though the concept sounds barbarian to us, it is actually intended to be religious. For by inflicting pain upon oneself, the person is said to be both reminded of the pain Jesus underwent during his torture and execution, as well as of the fact that they are a sinner—having failed to live up to the expectations laid upon them by a demanding God.

Now I bring this up this morning not to advocate for self-flagellation, mind you—you can all relax now, we’re not handing out whips at the end of the service—but because that Monty Python scene was one I could not get out of my head after reading this morning’s lesson from Luke. So let’s turn to that parable now.

Following right on the heels of last week’s parable of the Unjust Judge, this morning’s parable is that of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector. And like the parable before, it is a challenging one to read and digest. This is in part because: “Nobody asked Jesus for this parable. We might excuse it,” says one author, “if it were in response to the disciples’ request, “Lord, teach us to pray.” But it is not. Jesus just surveys the crowd and breaks into story.” (1)

So what might he have been after here? Well, two men go up to the temple to pray. Yet these are not just any men. They are “biblical stock figures to us” (2) : a Pharisee and a tax collector. As such, we need to avoid jumping to conclusions before we hear where this parable is going. For one author contends that “It would be a mistake to read Luke’s Pharisees as if they were . . . . a mere stereotype for legalism. If there is any group that is closest to Luke’s very Jewish Jesus, it is the Pharisees. [As such,] When Jesus tells the parable here, his hearers and Luke’s readers probably do not expect such a markedly negative outcome [as we might].” (3)

In the same way we need to remember that: “Tax collectors . . . . were seen as collaborators with the hated Romans. Far from being seen as humble or simple, they were seen to be (and sometimes were) venal, unscrupulous, and dishonest.” (4) And so, each of these two men, we learn, have come to the temple, by themselves, to pray.

Starting with the Pharisee we hear what we might be wont to call “a narcissistic soliloquy.” (5) The Pharisee prays, as one author paraphrases: “Oh, God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, crooks, adulterers, or, heaven forbid, like this tax man. I fast twice a week and tithe on all my income.” (6) It’s a prayer that we can pretty easily chuckle at, as it seems that the Pharisee is talking more to himself than he is praying to God.

However, it does bear mentioning here that, although we might label his prayer as arrogant, it actually mirrors one offered by the Psalmist in Psalm 17. Add to this the fact that he is a “wonderful worshiper . . . . he does not steal or covet . . . . he is not unjust . . . . nor does he commit adultery . . . . [And that] He fasts not only on the holy days for which fasting is prescribed, but twice a week,” (7) and we’d have to agree that the Pharisee really is a holy man.

Furthermore, we could all be guilty of sharing the Pharisee’s feelings, couldn’t we? “Dear God, I’m so glad that I go to church and live my life better than all those people out there on Sunday mornings.” I’m guessing we might have thought such sentiments before! And yet, even still, hearing the Pharisee’s prayer out loud, we all know that this prayer isn’t right. We know that God is expecting a little more from us than this.

And so the parable then turns to the Tax Collector. Now, knowing the way these parables usually go, we can guess that if the Pharisee isn’t the character we should be emulating, then it’s very likely that the Tax Collector is. And initially this seems to be the case. The Tax Collector, you’ll recall, is praying by himself and can’t look up to heaven. He’s beating his own breast asking God to be merciful to him, as a sinner.

And Jesus’ response to this is pretty favorable. As such, it should be clear what we need to do. We need not be as self-righteous as the Pharisee. Rather, like the Tax Collector, we need only recognize that we are lowly sinners in the eyes of God, pray to God as such, and we will be the ones justified—in other words, “declar[ed] . . . . to be “just” on the basis of righteousness” (8) —by virtue of our own humility.

Makes sense, right? The only problem is that I’m not really sure that the Tax Collector is being set up as the exemplary figure to model after in this parable either! For to be an exemplary figure, the Tax Collector’s words and actions would both need to be in line with God. And while his prayer may fit the bill here, there’s no evidence that the Tax Collector’s actions have changed in any way. He may very well go home and continue to live his life dishonestly, cheating others as tax collectors were known to do.

Given this, I actually don’t believe it’s the people we’re supposed to model ourselves after in this parable at all; rather, it’s the sentiment of the Tax Collector’s prayer. But let’s be clear about what that is. This prayer is not being lifted up—as was suggested earlier—as an example of how we can verbally flagellate ourselves. It’s not intended to be an example of how we should consistently remind ourselves that we are bad people, hard and fast sinners that have no chance of ever doing anything right in the eyes of God.

And yet, having said this, I would have to say that the church has done an excellent job, over the years, in perpetuating this very line of thinking! Perhaps using it as a means of behavioral control, the church has done a great disservice, I believe, in harping on the fact that we are fallen creatures, that our nature is to sin, that we can never expect to do anything that is pleasing in God’s eyes. And such a line of thinking, I believe, has not only led to an unhealthy image of a legalistic God, but also an unhealthy image—in some instances bordering on self-hatred—of ourselves. Neither of which, I believe, are God’s intention or the intention of this parable.

For such a line of thinking does nobody any good. Remember last week we were talking about bullying in schools and saying how important it is to instill, in our children, a sense of self and of being loved that will enable them to shrug off the hurtful and hateful comments of others? Well, interpreting this parable as one that tells us how bad we are is not going to aid that development—not in our children and not in us.

So if that’s the case, then what’s the point of the parable? Well I believe the key is tied up in the final phrase: “for all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted.” (9) The key word in this verse being, clearly, the word humble. Just listen to how that word, in the Greek, is explained: “Jesus does not demand visible self-abasement [in other words, self-degradation] before God . . . . but a total trust in God that expects everything from [God] and nothing from self.” (10)

Does that make things a little clearer? This text is calling us to a humility where we think of ourselves as imperfect and incomplete—not in the sense of self-loathing—but in the sense that we can do nothing apart from God, that we can’t rely solely on our own means to navigate what is, so often, a challenging world in which we live. It’s calling us to acknowledge that the only way we’re going to get through is to trust and put our faith in God.

And that’s the point of the Tax Collector’s prayer. He’s at the end of his rope. Something has happened in his life and he has nowhere left to turn. So he humbles himself to God. And that’s exactly what Jesus wants us to take from this parable, I believe, that we need to turn to God—not just when things are difficult, mind you, and we’re seeking God’s help—but at all times, even, and perhaps especially when, we have so much to celebrate and need to thank God as we know that we couldn’t have accomplished it alone. For such a radical trust can greatly alter the way we view, and live in, the world.

Making this very point, Eugene Peterson, in his version of the Bible called The Message, helpfully translates that last line as follows: “If you walk around with your nose in the air, you’re going to end up flat on your face, but if you’re content to simply be yourself, you will become more than yourself.” (11) The message, as such, is clear—when we are simply ourselves, understanding who we are and trusting in God to help us—to pour out God’s Spirit on us, as the prophet Joel might say—we become so much more than we could ever be on our own.

For becoming more than yourself means that you are, humbly, not self-centered; you see a world outside of yourself, and you see yourself as, simply, one member of it. And such a worldview leads you to realize that truly being something larger than yourself in this world, means being something—or more accurately someone—to a sister or brother, a fellow traveler on this road of life, helping others as God has helped you.

And so, my friends, I hope that you will take this parable to heed. Regardless of where you find yourself on this road of life, trust in God. Not that God is going to make everything right, miraculously solve all your problems, or shelter you from every harm in this world, mind you—for God is not in charge of some big dry erase board in the sky—but that with God you can be and do so much more than you can on your own.

And may that trust lead you to understand that becoming more than yourself means becoming the someone that another is waiting for you to be. Amen.

© 2010 by Rev. Dr. Jeffrey M. Gallagher, All Rights Reserved.

1. William H. Willimon, Pulpit Resource, Vol.35, No.4, Year C & A, October, November, December, 2007 (Inver Grove Heights, Minnesota: Logos Productions, Inc., 2007), 18.
2. David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, eds., Feasting on the Word, Year C, Volume 4, Season after Pentecost 2 (Propers 17-Reign of Christ), (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2010), 213.
3. New Proclamation, Year C, 2007, Easter through Christ the King, Ed. David B. Lott (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2006), 243.
4. Bartlett and Taylor, 213 & 215.
5. Charles B. Cousar, et al, Texts for Preaching, A Lectionary Commentary Based on the NRSV—Year C, (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1994), 574.
6. Eugene H. Peterson, The Message, (Colorado Springs, Colorado: NavPress, 2002), 1896.
7. Bartlett and Taylor, 215.
8. Donald K. McKim, Westminster Dictionary of Theological Terms (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1996), 152.
9. Luke 18:14 (NRSV).
10. Geoffrey W. Bromiley, Theological Dictionary of the New Testament, Abridged in One Volume, Ed. Gerhard Kittel and Gerhard Friedrich (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 1985), 1155.
11. Peterson, 1896.

October 17th Sermon

2010-10-18T09:15:00.000-04:00

First Congregational Church of Kittery Point, United Church of Christ October 17, 2010
Sermon—“The Pleading and Persistent Widow”—Rev. Dr. Jeffrey M. Gallagher, Pastor
Pentecost XXI; Based on: Luke 18:1-8 & 2 Timothy 3:14-4:5

I’m not sure if you heard, or not, but in a brief three week period in September, four young men took their own lives. Billy Lucas, a 15 year-old from Greensburg, Indiana hung himself from a barn rafter on his grandmother’s farm. Seth Walsh, a 13 year-old from Tehachapi, California hung himself from a tree. Asher Brown, also 13, from Cyprus, Texas used his stepfather’s gun to shoot himself. And Tyler Clementi, an 18 year-old freshman at Rutgers University jumped to his death from the George Washington Bridge. (1)

What do these four have in common, you might ask, aside from the fact that they all ended their lives prematurely? They were all bullied because they were gay. As heart-breaking and heart-wrenching as that is, unfortunately, this is not merely a problem that targets people because of their sexuality. Recently a rise in bullying at schools and now cyber-bullying—a method whereby classmates and peers write derogatory or inflammatory statements about others and post them for the cyber-world to see—have also caused too many of our young adults to take their own lives.

So what’s the precipitating factor in all of this? Well, it’s no different from when any of us were young and in school. People are bullied because they are different. Perhaps they choose to dress in a way that’s not cool or hang out with kids who aren’t in the “in-crowd.” Maybe they choose not to drink alcohol or use drugs like their friends at a party. It might be because they’re poor, the faith they profess, their sexuality, or an unflattering physical characteristic. The lists and reasons can go on and on.

In response to these events—specifically those targeting lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender youth, but by no means exclusively about these—a statement by the United Church of Christ Collegium of Officers reads as follows:

“All people of faith must recognize the God-given worth and dignity of every person that human judgment cannot set aside. Together we must work in solidarity to stop the bullying and violence against . . . . people and ensure the safety and protection of all our children. This is a baseline call to action grounded in the commonly held values of the Golden Rule, which every household of faith should be able to embrace.” (2)

Given the Collegium’s words, when this issue of bullying is viewed with these eyes of faith, to me it becomes a justice issue. For justice, defined theologically, places: “the emphasis . . . . on right relationships . . . . Concern is expressed for the oppressed and their right treatment.” (3) Clearly, this issue of bullying qualifies.

Now I bring up this issue not only because it has been so prevalent in the news recently, but because I simply couldn’t get it out of my mind as I was reflecting on the lesson we read from Luke’s gospel a moment ago. So let’s turn to our scripture now and I’ll see if I can’t show you where I’m going with all of this.

So our lesson from Luke, admittedly, is not the easiest to understand. However, the lesson does open with Luke offering a seemingly helpful editorial comment: “Then Jesus told them a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart.” (4) In a rare instance, Luke appears to have laid out the meaning of the parable before we’ve even had a chance to read it.

And as we move into the parable, Luke’s interpretation seems to make sense. There’s a widow who keeps coming to a judge pleading for justice in some dispute that she’s having with an unnamed party. Now we need to say a few words about these two characters. While the text doesn’t reveal much about them, what we do know is that “Judges, then as now, were persons with extraordinary power. In Israel the judge was the final arbiter . . . . The widow [on the other hand] . . . . was a vulnerable victim. “Widow” was a symbol of helplessness. A widow could not inherit her husband’s estate. Widows were dependent on the compassion of the community.” (5)

Given this, then, the parable is shocking to us when we hear that the judge—who does have the power to help—refuses the widow’s pleas. Yet the widow is not deterred. She tries and tries; she pleads and pleads with the judge until she finally succeeds in getting the judge to pay attention to her. Now, what’s interesting here is that the words we translate as “kept coming” in reference to the woman’s persistence with the judge, “literally means to punch someone in such a way as to blacken an eye.” (6) In other words, the text is saying that judge gives in so as to avoid having a black eye in the community for not helping; essentially he did “the right thing for the wrong reason.” (7)

Given all this—and when aided by Luke’s editorial comments—the interpretation seems to be quite easy to understand. Obviously God is the judge and we are the widow. And as the widow we are the ones who plead and plead with God for justice, for God to answer our prayers. And the message for us is that when we are persistent enough, God will finally answer those prayers—in fact, God will answer them even more willingly than the judge does for the widow.

Makes sense, right? The only problem is that interpretation doesn’t fit with my image of God. Why? Well, I don’t agree that we need to cajole and plead with God until our prayers are answered. For such an image suggests that if we are praying to God and we don’t perceive God to be answering those prayers, then it must be because we’re not faithful enough to have our prayers answered, or just aren’t praying correctly.

And I’m sorry to say that that’s not the God I pray to. The God I pray to answers prayers without needing to be convinced to do so. The hard part for us is that sometimes God doesn’t answer those prayers in the manner, or with the result, that we would like God to.

So, keeping this in mind, it didn’t take long for it to hit me: maybe we’re interpreting this parable wrong. Maybe we’ve allowed the words Luke begins this parable with to influence our interpretation too much. Maybe this isn’t a parable about persistent prayer, as Luke suggests it is. After all, “Many scholars are convinced that the opening and closing of this passage do not cohere with the body of [the parable], but [rather] provide transitions with the passages that surround it.” (8) So maybe, then, we’re reading this parable wrong.

In other words, maybe we have assigned the wrong parts to the wrong people in seeking to understand what it means. After all, we’ve assigned ourselves the role of the hero, the widow, the one who is working for justice in the world. And why wouldn’t we? Nobody wants to identify with the villain. Nobody watches The Wizard of Oz and identifies with the Wicked Witch.

But what if that’s how we’re supposed to read the parable? What if we forget about Luke’s comments and read the parable in this way: we are the judge and God is the widow. Just think about that as we explore this interpretation for a moment: we are the judge and God is the widow.

The judge, remember, is described as having “no fear of God and no respect for anyone.” (9) Doesn’t sound like a description of God, does it, for how can God have no fear of (in other words, respect for) God? Furthermore, the judge in this story, who “was in the seat of power,” (10) had “no overloaded court docket [to delay] this hearing . . . . the judge [simply] did not want to be inconvenienced by this case.” (11) I don’t know about you, but I rarely envision God as not having enough time or not wanting to be bothered with us.

So, then, couldn’t this judge be a description of us? After all, by virtue of the free will granted to us by God, we have immense power to help out our sisters and brothers in need in the world—not unlike a judge in Jesus’ day and age. And yet, not wanting to be inconvenienced or bothered by someone, it’s we—not God—who often turn a deaf ear to the pleadings of a world in need.

Reading the parable as such, then, God becomes the widow. Once again aligning with the poor, the marginalized, the oppressed, the disenfranchised, as God so often does, just listen to how God, the widow, is described: “She wants “vindication” against an unnamed adversary. Every day she asks for justice, shouts for justice. Every day the judge ignores her. Maybe she follows him home and repeats her request nightly and the first thing in the morning. She nags and badgers; she is relentless.” (12)

Now that’s more like the picture of the God that I worship—a God who yearns for and calls out for justice. And that is consistent with the God we meet in scripture. Citing Exodus 22:22-24, Deuteronomy 10:17-18, and Deuteronomy 27:19, to name just a few, one author suggests that “God has been after such justice since the dawn of injustice.” (13)

And so, then, given all of this, if this is the way that we should—or at least could—read this parable, then what does it mean for all of us? Well, as the judges, with God—the pleading and persistent widow nagging and badgering us relentlessly—it makes this a very loud and a very clear call that if we’re longing to see the justice that God longs for become a reality in the world, then we need to stop longing and start doing something about it.

And you know, doing justice—achieving right relationships and the right treatment of others—may not be as difficult as we might think. For in the lesson we read this morning from 2 Timothy, you may recall that the author says, while urging young Timothy, his protégé, on how to live a Christian life: “continue in what you have learned and firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it.” (14)

Could it be any simpler than that? The author is telling Timothy that he knows how to act, he knows what the right choices are to make. Those answers are within him. Those answers, we might say, are the voice of God—the pleading and persistent widow—which gives us that gut feeling of right and wrong, that feeling of knowing we made the right choice and of knowing when we chose poorly.

And so the question is: what’s stopping us then? What’s stopping us from standing up to injustices like bullying? What’s stopping us from living in such a way that, by our example, our own children learn that they are never to treat another person as inferior? What’s stopping us from loving our children so much, and accepting them so unconditionally, that when someone else says those hurtful things about them that they have a strong enough character and belief in themselves to shrug it off? And what’s stopping us from doing likewise on the host of other issues of injustice plaguing the planet today?

It’s simple: either we don’t want to be bothered, or we don’t think it’s an important enough issue in our lives to get ourselves involved with. Well let me tell you, my friends, this parable should make it clear that when we hear those voices pleading—voices of youth taking their own lives—even if we don’t think it’s our issue, God is making it our issue. And we, as the judges with all the power in the world to do something about it, need to start paying attention. For the pleading and persistent widow is calling, and now is the time to listen.

Remembering this, I want to leave you today with a piece written by Martin Niemoller that some of you may know, written about his experience in Nazi Germany that I think will sum up what we’ve been talking about here today. He writes:

“In Germany, they first came for the Communists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Communist. Then they came for the Jews, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a Jew. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I didn’t speak up because I wasn’t a trade unionist. Then they came for the Catholics, and I didn’t speak up because I was a Protestant. Then they came for me—but by that time there was no one left to speak up.” (15)

My friends, can it be any clearer? The time to speak up is now. Amen.

© 2010 by Rev. Dr. Jeffrey M. Gallagher, All Rights Reserved.

1. Taken from: http://www.ucc.org/news/ucc-leaders-say-urgency-is.html.
2. Ibid.
3. Donald K. McKim, Westminster Dictionary of Theological Terms (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1996), 152.
4. Luke 18:1 (NRSV).
5. Raymond Bailey, “Twenty-second Sunday after Pentecost, Year C,” in The Lectionary Commentary, The Third Readings: The Gospels, Ed. Roger E. Van Harn (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 2001), 429.
6. Ibid., 430.
7. Ibid.
8. William H. Willimon, Pulpit Resource, Vol.35, No.4, Year C & A, October, November, December 2007 (Inver Grove Heights, Minnesota: Logos Productions, Inc., 2007), 14.
9. Luke 18:4 (NRSV).
10. Willimon, 14.
11. Bailey, 430.
12. David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, eds., Feasting on the Word, Year C, Volume 4, Season after Pentecost 2 (Propers 17-Reign of Christ), (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2010), 191.
13. Willimon, 14.
14. 2 Timothy 3:14 (NRSV).
15. AHA! Creative Resources for Preachers, Oct/Nov/Dec 2004, Vol.14, #1 (Inver Grove Heights, Minnesota: Logos Productions, Inc., 2004), 19.

October 10th Sermon

2010-10-11T09:56:00.000-04:00

First Congregational Church of Kittery Point, United Church of Christ October 10, 2010
Story—“A Contemporary Parable”—Rev. Dr. Jeffrey M. Gallagher, Pastor
Pentecost XX; Based on: Psalm 66:1-12 & Jeremiah 29:1, 4-7

Note: The following story was offered, without notes, at the 8:00 and 10:00 a.m. worship services. The story is fictitious, original, and can be read in its full form below.

Well, as you all know, today is Intergenerational Sunday—a day when we make our worship service appropriate for all ages. As such, I thought that for today’s sermon I would offer up a contemporary parable that I wrote this week. And pay attention, because we’re going to have some conversation about it in a few minutes.

Once upon a time there was a little town in northern Maine called Mill Town. At one time in it’s history—not too long ago actually—Mill Town was nothing but a forest of thick, tall trees. But that all changed around the year 1900. You see, about that time paper mills started popping up in northern Maine. With all the trees around that could be cut down and turned into paper, this was the perfect place to set up a town.

And so that’s just what they did. People started leaving some of the big cities to move to Mill Town. The paper mill was created, there were all kinds of good paying jobs, and people lived very well. Mill Town soon became one of the greatest towns in Maine.

With all the tax money paying for schools, the educational system was fantastic. People could afford to build beautiful houses, so nearly around every corner there was a breath-taking house with a wonderful lawn and garden sprawling in front of it. People also could afford to splurge a little on meals, so some wonderful restaurants started to emerge. Mill Town was one of the places to be in Maine. Once you moved there, you wouldn’t think of living anywhere else.

Even the church in town reflected this lifestyle. The tall white steeple seemed to reach higher into the sky than any tree in town. The stained glass windows—donated by those wealthy families, of course—told a wonderful story of Jesus’ life. The sanctuary was beautiful on the inside, with comfortable, sculpted pews, and a hand-made communion table. But the church didn’t spend all its money on itself. No, the Missions Committee at this church loved to dip in to the massive budget that the church had given them to send off checks to those who were much more needy than them. Writing those checks and stamping those envelopes always made them feel good. Everyone got along and it was the place to be on Sunday mornings.

And this is how things stayed in Mill Town for a good 100 years. However, time passed for that wonderful Mill Town. As technology advanced, that paper mill they built around the year 1900 soon got to be kind of outdated. They couldn’t produce paper as fast as some of the other, newer companies that were forming. Plus the fact, the workers who were there found it hard to try and change their ways to do something new after so many years of doing their work the same way.

But people didn’t really want to admit this. And so, as the mill started having to cut people’s salaries and lay people off, no one really thought too much about it. They figured it was just the recession, and they’d be back to normal in no time.

But unfortunately, that didn’t really happen. The mill kept heading in the wrong direction. The workers continued to get laid off, and this began to cause problems for Mill Town. You see, without a lot of people working, the tax money wasn’t coming in to support the schools, so those once amazing schools began to suffer a bit. They could no longer attract the best teachers around, and they didn’t have the money to buy all the school supplies they needed.

The rest of the town suffered too. Those beautiful houses started to not look so beautiful anymore. People had a hard time paying to heat them, not to mention keeping paint on the outside walls and fixing all the things that went wrong. Plus the fact all those beautiful gardens and lawns started to not look so great anymore either. And the restaurants? Well, with people not having as much money, the restaurants started to be not as well attended, and they soon closed up shop as well.

Many people in town, not surprisingly, wanted to move. So they put their houses on the markets, but Mill Town was not such a desirable place to live anymore. No one was buying houses in Mill Town, and so the people felt trapped. Without selling their houses they couldn’t afford to move and yet, they didn’t want to live in Mill Town anymore.

Unfortunately the church didn’t fare very well either. People couldn’t afford to donate as much to the church, so the building and grounds started to suffer. Paint was peeling on the outside, a couple of the stained glass windows had cracked but could not be repaired, and many of the pews needed some attention that no one had the money or energy to give them.

This led to an overall sad feeling in the church. No longer did people come on Sunday mornings dressed in their best, happy to see each other and worship God. Now they came in whatever they wanted to. People didn’t talk as much with each other, and that Missions Committee—with no money to send to people—stopped working altogether.

With things headed in this direction the church decided to call together a meeting after church on Thanksgiving Sunday. They knew they needed to talk about the way things were going and what the future of the church looked like. So they worshiped together, had their meeting, and decided that, at the end of the year, they would close up the church because they just couldn’t keep going the way they were going.

After the meeting ended a few of the church Deacons went downstairs into the basement hall to clean-up the coffee mugs and wash down the tables that had been set up for refreshments following worship. When they got into the basement, they were surprised to see a young mother and her two children sitting at one of the tables eating donuts and drinking coffee. Yet this wasn’t as surprising as how this family looked. Their clothes were in tatters, the children were dirty, and they looked very cold.

Upon seeing the Deacons walking into the hall the mother and her children quickly got up, fearful that they would get in trouble. But one of the Deacons rushed over to the mother, sat her and her children down, and asked her to tell her what was going on. And so the mother told this Deacon her story.

Her husband had worked in the mill, but was laid off. Shortly thereafter he developed an illness, but with no health insurance to pay for medical care, he got sick and died. This left the mother alone with her two kids. Shortly thereafter the house was foreclosed on because the mother couldn’t afford to pay the mortgage, and they found themselves homeless. They had been living on the streets for a little over a week.

The Deacon, moved to tears by this woman’s story, knew that something needed to be done. Without clearing it with the rest of the church, she told the woman that she could spend the night sleeping in the church’s basement where the family could be warm and dry. In addition, she went home, found some old clothes for the mother and some clothes that her own children had outgrown and brought them to the family along with supper for the night—which her and her husband ate with the family.

Then the Deacon got on the phone. She started calling other members of the church, asking them to provide a meal for this family each of the successive evenings. And the people did. In fact, they did this for two weeks, into early December, when that Deacon noticed that this family didn’t eat everything they were given. They always asked for some of the food to be wrapped up. “How come?” They asked.

The mother went on to tell this family that they would take their leftovers to others who were homeless and share with them. So the Deacon told them to invite these other families in for supper as well. And before the Deacon knew what had happened, they had three families, four families, five families coming for supper every evening. The Missions Committee—the one that had stopped working together—soon took over the scheduling of these meals. They would have a few families cook each night and eat with these homeless families, and then a few would actually spend the night in the church with these families, so that they didn’t have to go out in the cold.

And wouldn’t you know, December 31st arrived—the day the church was set to close—and no one said a word. The church just kept meeting and worshiping and helping these families. In fact, the pews seemed to be more full than they had in a while. And the people who attended seemed to be happier. They would talk, happily, about the time they had shared serving these families and they’d swap recipes with each other. And they kept worshiping.

As the winter turned to spring, the men of the church realized that the place was looking too shabby for the families who were now living there. So they worked together to paint the church. The fixed up the downstairs to make it more livable and they made the sanctuary look better. They even planted gardens in front of the church in flower beds that hadn’t been planted in years.

Now, people couldn’t be sure, but it seemed as though the rest of the town started to spruce up—especially in the homes of those people who attended that church. Paint was put on clapboards, gardens were planted, and people seemed happy. The schools, while they didn’t have any more money, started to utilize volunteers to pick up where teachers and text books were unable to meet needs. And people became proud of their schools once again.

Now I’m not going to say that everything turned out perfect for Mill Town. The town still had many, many challenges to face. Work was still hard to come by and money wasn’t plentiful; but something had changed about the town. Where there was a feeling of despair, positive energy shone forth. Where people wouldn’t talk to each other, they now began to share stories and deepen friendships. Something has changed in Mill Town, and while the residents couldn’t put their finger on it, they knew that it stemmed from that chance encounter in the church’s basement on Thanksgiving Sunday.

So let’s talk about our story:
What’s the moral of the story?
What is the point that we should be taking from this story?
Do you see any connection to our reading from Jeremiah? From Psalm 66? What can it mean for us here in Kittery Point in 2010?
Our town isn’t as bad off as Mill Town, but we still have challenges—what are they?
How can we meet those challenges?
What lesson are you going to take from this story today?
What are you going to take home and chew on during the week ahead?

May we all find the ways to bloom where we have planted—to make a difference wherever God has brought us on this journey of life. And may that difference-making enable us to see the world, and our place in it, with fresh eyes. May it be so. Amen.

© 2010 by Rev. Dr. Jeffrey M. Gallagher, All Rights Reserved.

October 3rd Sermon

2010-10-04T09:35:00.000-04:00

First Congregational Church of Kittery Point, United Church of Christ October 3, 2010
Sermon—“Re-membering”—Rev. Dr. Jeffrey M. Gallagher, Pastor
Pentecost XIX; Based on: Psalm 137 & Lamentations 1:1-6

In her book I Promised I Would Tell, Sonia Schreiber Weitz, a survivor of the Nazi Holocaust, penned an incredibly moving poetic and prose account of the horrors she suffered during her time in the concentration camps. I’d like to share one of her poems with you now entitled “My Black Messiah”:

A black GI stood by the door
(I never saw a black before)
He’ll set me free before I die,
I thought, he must be the Messiah.

A black Messiah came for me . . .
He stared with eyes that didn’t see
He never heard a single word
Which hung absurd upon my tongue.

And then he simply froze in place
The shock, the horror on his face,
He didn’t weep he didn’t cry
But deep within his gentle eyes
. . . A flood of devastating pain,
his innocence forever slain.

For me, with yet another dawn
I found my black Messiah gone
And on we went our separate ways
For many years without a trace.

But there’s a special bond we share
Which has grown strong because we dare
To live, to hope, to smile . . . and yet
We vow not ever to forget. (1)

We vow not ever to forget. What is it about not forgetting, about remembering? Many of you know that Kristen’s cousin Caitie, while serving in the United States Navy, was murdered by her boyfriend. Just recently Caitie’s parents met with a Senator from Massachusetts who is trying to help procure a dishonorable discharge for the man who killed her. Upon leaving they gave the Senator a bracelet with Caitie’s name on it. Their words to him were simply: “remember.”

September 11, 2001, a day that we all will remember, which, when it comes around each year is always tagged with the line: we will never forget. So what is it about remembering, especially things that are not remembered in a positive light? We understand remembering the good things in life: weddings, births, birthdays, anniversaries, graduations, significant accomplishments and all that. Heck Hallmark has made a huge business out of it. But why are we so bent on remembering the negative too? Shouldn’t we just forget rather than relive the sadness, the pains, and the horrors?

Well, keep those questions in mind as we turn to our scripture lessons which are all about, you guessed it, remembering. Let’s start with Psalm 137. In a reflecting on this lesson author Brent Strawn says: “When it comes to the kitchen of Scripture, there are many who can’t stand the heat—at least not heat like this—and quickly get out.” This particular psalm isn’t just one of the “difficult parts” of the Bible; it “may well be the president of the club,” perhaps the first example church people and critics alike offer as one they’d want to avoid.” (2)

And so we are introduced to Psalm 137. Interestingly many believe that this Psalm “is the only psalm in the Psalter that can be dated reliably.” (3) For this Psalm “was composed by those who had been taken into exile following the destruction of Jerusalem by the Babylonians under King Nebuchadnezzar in 586 BC.” (4) It was a dreadful time for the people of Jerusalem. Their city and temple had been destroyed, many of their sisters and brothers had been killed, and those who survived were forced from their homeland where they were tormented by their Babylonian captors.

And you can just hear their pain in their words, can’t you? Their captors adding to their misery by asking them to sing them one of the songs of Zion, of their beloved Jerusalem, but all they can do is weep by the waters of Babylon. For they say that they cannot possibly sing of their home in a foreign land. And yet, amidst all of this, we still hear these words: “Let my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth, if I do not remember you, [Jerusalem].” And they even extol God to “Remember . . . . the day of Jerusalem’s fall.” (5) They might not be able to sing, but they will remember.

Then the Psalm turns angry. In one of the most graphic lines in all of scripture the Psalmist writes: “O daughter of Babylon, you devastator! Happy shall they be who pay you back what you have done to us! Happy shall they be who take your little ones and dash them against the rock!” (6) Perhaps written from the perspective of someone who had seen their own children treated in such a horrendous manner, the Psalmist displays the sheer, raw, heart-wrenching emotion that comes from this excruciating time in exile.

Harsh words, but “If we are honest,” writes one author, “we shall have to admit that we are no less vengeful than the psalmist.” (7) Although we don’t like to think of ourselves in this way, when something horrendous happens to ones that we love, oftentimes our reaction is as vengeful as the Psalmist’s.

From there we move to our reading from Lamentations. While not as overtly shocking as the Psalm, this lesson is hardly a pick-me-upper. Written, scholars believe, during the same period of Babylonian exile after the city of Jerusalem was sacked, the author mourns the loss of his or her homeland. Likening the city to a “violated woman,” the author calls to mind the fact that “In most parts of the ancient Near East, as well as in many parts of the world today, a woman bereft of a man enjoyed virtually no rights at all—and virtually no protection!” (8) As such, Jerusalem, the city and the people, are envisioned as helpless—the people with tear-stained faces, the city now destroyed and desolate. It is, you could say, a very close sister text to Psalm 137.

So those are our two lessons for the day, but what we need to remember about them is that they are not merely literary constructs. The Psalms, as you well know, are musical pieces. Although we have no record of the music that accompanied them, it is widely believed that the Psalms were sung in worship services as prayers. It’s no surprise, then, that Psalm 137, which uses the words “sing” and “songs” five times in verses 3 & 4 alone, (9) has been set to music, contemporarily, many times—with Don McLean’s rendition and the version from the musical Godspell being, perhaps, the most notable (both of which you will hear during communion in just a few minutes).

Likewise, “Lamentations was used liturgically in festivals commemorating Jerusalem’s (and later, the temple’s) destruction.” (10) As such, I think we need to ask ourselves the question: why is there a need for the people of Jerusalem to commemorate, to remember these events in prayerful songs and liturgical practice? Is it tied in with the reasons why we are so bent on remembering similar, tragic events in our own lives?

Well let’s stop and think about that word: remember. Now, if we look at the word dismember, which is an antonym of remember that means to cut up or remove the limbs of something, then couldn’t the word re-member (with the word member meaning parts of the whole) mean to put something back together again? If so, then, is there something that could be built, something that could be put together through the process of re-membering?

Well, let’s turn to Lamentations again. Although our lesson didn’t cover chapter three, our Call to Worship does, and you’ll notice that there’s an interesting shift that happens as the poet continues with this lament. Listen to one author’s paraphrase:

“I’ll never forget the trouble, the utter lostness, the taste of ashes, the poison I’ve swallowed.
I remember it all—oh, how well I remember—the feeling of hitting the bottom.
But there’s one other thing I remember, and remembering I keep a grip on hope:

God’s loyal love couldn’t have run out, his merciful love couldn’t have dried up.
They’re created new every morning. How great is your faithfulness!
I’m sticking with God (I say it over and over).
He’s all I’ve got left.

God proves to be good to the man who passionately waits, to the woman who diligently seeks.
It’s a good thing to quietly hope, quietly hope for help from God.
It’s a good thing when you’re young to stick it out through the hard times.” (11)

Interesting, isn’t it? It’s through remembering that the author begins to put things back together in his or her mind. Remembering the horrors of what has happened, the author also remembers the good things God has done, and it’s such a remembrance that leads the author to find hope.

To add to this, Holocaust survivor Elie “Wiesel says frequently that he can tolerate the memory of silence but not the silence of memory. In other words, the Holocaust can be remembered in unutterable horror—silence. But it must be remembered. To remember is painful; grief is always painful. To remember is unsettling; anger always unsettles. But to remember is also to resist the same thing’s happening again. To remember is to choose to live and to be faithful to God’s purpose of life for all people.” (12)

And so given all of this, I think there are a couple of points to be made here. First, there is something healing and cathartic about remembering. It does help us to resist the same thing happening again, as Wiesel says; and yet even when those emotions move us to lash out like the Psalmist does wanting to bash children against a rock, the purging of that emotion is still healing—especially when it’s done in a prayerful space. For God is big enough to hold all of our anger, believe me, and if we take time to listen, in the midst of that anger, there may yet be a word that God is trying to say to us.

And that leads us to our second point: those words God yearns to speak can give us hope. There’s something about remembering, about putting those pieces of what happened back together—through spoken words, through song, through visual artistic representation, through poetry—that so often leads to hope and healing. And is this not why we celebrate Jesus’ final meal with his disciples—communion—every month? For in so remembering the meal Jesus shared, we are moved to a hope—especially on this World Communion Sunday—that someday all God’s children might eat, civilly, at a table of love and peace together, just like those disciples did.

Now I know that today’s worship service has had a dour tone to it. The music, the prayers, the readings all reflect some incredibly difficult times in the lives of our ancestors in faith. But they believed—and I believe—that in so remembering there is hope to be found.

Hope that the exiled Israelites would know, and experience, God’s love—even in a foreign land. Hope that the horrors of the Holocaust might never be repeated, but may serve to move the world closer to peace. Hope that the memory of Caitie’s murder might yield some good, somewhere. Hope that the memories of September 11th might lead to a time when former enemies will begin working together. There is hope to be found.

And I suspect that’s true for our lives as well. Those painful experiences, those heart-wrenching memories, those seasons of our lives that brought only tears—re-member them, however you are able to. I have no doubt you’ll see that in remembering there is hope to be found. Amen.

© 2010 by Rev. Dr. Jeffrey M. Gallagher, All Rights Reserved.

1. Sonia Schreiber Weitz, I Promised I Would Tell (Brookline, Massachusetts: Facing Our History and Ourselves, 1993), 68.
2. Taken from: http://www.ucc.org/worship/samuel/october-3-2010.html.
3. Charles B. Cousar, et al, Texts for Preaching, A Lectionary Commentary Based on the NRSV—Year C (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 1994), 538.
4. Fred B. Craddock, et al, Preaching Through the Christian Year, Year C (Valley Forge, Pennsylvania: Trinity Press, 1994), 426.
5. Psalm 137:6 & 7 (NRSV).
6. Psalm 137:8-9 (NRSV).
7. Cousar, 540.
8. Ibid., 536.
9. Ibid., 538.
10. Ephraim Radner, “Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost, Year C,” in The Lectionary Commentary, The First Readings: The Old Testament and Acts, Ed. Roger E. Van Harn (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Eerdmans, 2001), 453.
11. Eugene H. Peterson, The Message (Colorado Springs, Colorado: NavPress, 2002), 1481.
12. J. Clinton McCann, Jr., “The Book of Psalms,” in The New Interpreter’s Bible, Volume IV, Ed. Leander E. Keck (Nashville: Abingdon, 1996), 1229.

September 19th Sermon

2010-09-19T20:16:00.000-04:00

First Congregational Church of Kittery Point, United Church of Christ September 19, 2010
Sermon—“Living our Prayers”—Rev. Dr. Jeffrey M. Gallagher, Pastor
Pentecost XVII; Based on: 1Timothy 2:1-7

“Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Ministry, But Were Afraid to Ask: All the Juicy Details Fit for Print (and some not so fit for print!).” “From Evangelizing to Emptying Mouse Traps: How to Understand What You Have Just Been Called to Do.” “Forget the Theology Book, Pass the Paint Brush: What Life Ministering in the Church is Really Like.” If you’ve been in my office in the Parish House then you’ll know that nearly ever square inch of book shelf space—along with some floor space, desk space, and behind the door space—is filled with books—some of which I have read, many of which I have not.

Sadly, although they sound like they would be must reads for pastors, the books I began with are actually fictitious creations. To my knowledge they don’t exist anywhere but in my head as books that I would love to have read before settling down to ministry.

The closest I came to finding such books were a couple that I read sometime after I had already been ministering for a while. Let me offer you just a bit of what one, The Pastor’s Survival Manual, has to say—this from Chapter 1, page 1:

“Ideally, all pastors are well: well-educated, well-read, well-informed, well-rounded. Pastors are expected to be interested in a wide variety of topics, able to converse with just about anybody about nearly anything. Not only does the pastor fill the role of resident sage, but also is often sought out as the fount of reliable facts about life. Wisdom and knowledge are the tools of the ministerial trade.” (1)

“Great,” I remember thinking to my green-behind-the-ears self, “it might have been helpful if someone had warned me about all those things before I accepted my call!” Now don’t hear me wrong, I’m not saying this because I don’t love my job—because I do—it’s just to say that so much of what I learned about this job, and what I do on a day to day basis, I learned after I crossed the stage and gained my diploma.

But I’m sure this isn’t unique to ministry. I’m sure that people in all lines of work—from dental hygienists to drama club teachers, from social workers to stock brokers—I’m sure that all these lines of work have quickly figured out that it would have been so much easier if someone had given them a heads-up or written a what this job is really like book, rather than leaving it up to them to figure out once they were already on the job.

Am I right? We could create the titles ourselves: “Remember Not to Cut the Branch You’re Standing On: a Tree-Trimmers Survival Guide.” “Why it’s Not a Good Idea to Sit in the Judge’s Seat: How to Succeed on Your First Day as a Lawyer.” Alright, enough already, you get the point.

I simply start with all of this today because it seems to me, in that lesson we read from 1 Timothy, that we actually have a 2,000 year old example of just what we’ve been talking about, that I think we’d do well to take a closer look at.

Now, if you were with us last week then you’ll recall that I mentioned that it’s unlikely that the book of 1 Timothy was written by the apostle Paul. Rather, it is very likely that the letter was written by a student of Paul, writing in Paul’s name, in order to gain credence for, and a wider dissemination of, his letter, as claiming authorship was not as big a deal back then as it is today.

The tone and substance of the letter certainly supports this claim, as it is different from much of what Paul writes. Void of heavy—and oftentimes yawn-generating and mind-spinning—theological jargon, this book is much more pastoral in nature, hence why it is referred to as a pastoral epistle.

It is this style that also leads some to surmise that: “First Timothy is a letter from a mentor to a cherished mentee, from a father figure to a “son of the heart,” from an older pastor at the brink of retirement to a young pastor just beginning ministry.” (2) In other words, what we have read this morning might just be a 2,000 year old version of the type of book—“a manual of order for the church” (3) if you will—the likes of which I would have loved to have had handed to me in seminary.

As such, the passage we read today begins to delve into some of the more practical, concrete advice needed—this time focusing on prayer. And the author’s instructions appear to be pretty simple: “supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings [are to] be made for everyone.” Ok, fair enough, right? Of course we can pray for everyone. But then he gets a little more specific, continuing on to say: “for kings and all who are in high positions.” Now this is where it turns interesting. They’re supposed to pray for their leaders? What’s he mean by this?

Well it does not mean, as some have suggested, that the author was instructing them to pray for leaders because they were in support of their particular political leanings. In fact, it was quite the opposite. As Christians who often persecuted by the powers at be, “The author commends the practice of praying for rulers in order that Christians can go about doing God’s work in peace.” (4) In other words, the author is saying: “if you pray for those who persecute you, they might just leave you alone enough to enable you to go on and live your life in peace.”

So, what once was a simple instruction has now become quite a bit more difficult, hasn’t it? It’s fine when we issue a general let’s pray for everybody, but when we start getting a little more specific it’s not quite so easy anymore. Pray for those who have been persecuting you? That’s like asking us to pray for the head of the opposing political party, or for our neighbor with whom we don’t see eye to eye on any social issues at all, or for the person who has caused a member of our family physical or emotional harm. Pray for everybody: easy to say, but in actuality so very hard to do.

And so the natural question that arises is: why? Why do we need to pray for all people—especially for those, whom we admit, are pretty darn hard to pray for? Well, for starters, I think it’s very easy to find ourselves in a rut of “praying only for people like ourselves, for those whom we know, even for those whom we love, like or prefer.” (5) And yet, while easy, I don’t ever remember Jesus commanding us to only pray for those we like the best; it was more like: “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” (6)

So that’s one piece. But secondly—and perhaps more significantly—I believe we are commanded to do this because prayer has the ability to change the person not only who is being prayed for, but also the person who is doing the praying. For when we pray for another—and I mean truly pray for another—it so often causes us to see that person, and our relationship with that person, in a new light.

Author Barbara Brown Taylor in her book An Altar in the World, which our Evening Study Group is reading right now, suggests that when we pay attention to another human being—and praying for someone, I would suggest, is a very direct way of paying attention to them—something happens. She writes: “Just for a moment, I look for the human being instead of the obstacle.” (7) And seeing someone else as a human being—with wants, needs, desires, and a story and life to call their own—I believe, certainly can go a long way towards transforming our view of them, and perhaps the way we carry ourselves both in relation to them and to the rest of the world.

So this is the author’s message then: pray for everyone not only because prayer is a powerful tool, but because prayer has the power to change you as well. But you know what? We’ve overlooked one big point here. Unlike those fictitious books we began with this morning—books directed, specifically, at a pastor—the author’s message here isn’t directed just at Timothy. For as one author writes: “this Pastoral Epistle was not included in the canon just to aid those in the professional ministry, but [rather] for the edification of the entire body of Christ.” (8)

In other words, this praying for everyone thing isn’t just for Timothy, but for everyone in the church. As such, we need to remember that in this primer about how the church can be the church—that is, in these basic instructions about how they are to live and act as a church community—the author makes no bones about the fact that they need to be praying for everybody.

And so, with all this in mind, it got me to thinking about what a similar letter might look like to our church today. If one of our fictitious, contemporary books, that I wish I had read, contained a chapter where an elder mentor wrote to a mentee and her church community about how prayer should function in their midst, what would it look like? Well, perhaps it would sound something like this:

To my sister in Christ:

As you wade through your final pages of reading and finally hit print on those seemingly endless 20-page theological reflection papers, your mind has, no doubt, begun to drift ahead to what it will be like when you leave the hallowed halls of the seminary and begin to pastor a real congregation, with real people, in the real world. My advice to you is this: don’t ever underestimate the power of prayer.

When I first began pastoring I would sheepishly ask, beside the bedside of a sick patient or in the aftermath of a family looking for some closure on a life just passed, if I could pray with them, as if it was the least I could do for them. I now realize that it wasn’t the least I could do, it was the most I could do. For there is no greater gift than to invoke the name of our God to remind a sister or brother that God is there to hold their hand wherever their journey in life has taken them.

Prayer is the greatest tool you have in your tool belt—and believe me, it is a tool. Yet like a plumber with his wrench or a carpenter with her saw, don’t ever underestimate its power. It has power to change the one you’re praying for, yes, but so much more to change the one who’s praying, that is, to change you—if, of course, you remember that prayer is as much about the words you say as it is about listening for God to speak to you in the spaces in between.

For when we take the time to look close enough at, and care deeply enough about, another’s life—which is what praying for another (and I mean everybody, not just those we like) requires us to do—we begin to live the words we pray. “God care for this person . . . . God love this person . . . . God have mercy on this person . . . . God hold this person in arms of compassion that will never let go.” We begin to live the words we pray.

Karl Barth once said: “To clasp the hands in prayer is the beginning of an uprising against the disorder of the world.” I’m beginning to see more and more how right he was. Peace and love never seem to be more of an attainable reality than when seen through a set of praying eyes. If you and your congregation can remember this, then you can bet your ministry together will be incredibly fruitful.

Blessings on your ministry in Christ’s name.

Words that we’d do well to take to heart? I certainly think so. Amen.

© 2010 by Rev. Dr. Jeffrey M. Gallagher, All Rights Reserved.

1. Kenneth Alan Moe, The Pastor’s Survival Manual (New York: Alban Institute, 1996), 1.
2. David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor, eds., Feasting on the Word, Year C, Volume 4, Season after Pentecost 2 (Propers 17-Reign of Christ), (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2010), 62.
3. Ibid, 87.
4. Gary E. Pelusoverdend, “Seventeenth Sunday after Pentecost,” in New Proclamation, Year C, 2007, Easter through Christ the King, Ed. David B. Lott (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2006), 202.
5. Fred B. Craddock, et al, Preaching Through the Christian Year, Year C (Valley Forge: Trinity Press, 1994), 413.
6. See Matthew 5:44 & Luke 6:35 among others.
7. Barbara Brown Taylor, An Altar in the World (New York: HarperOne, 2009), 27.
8. Bartlett and Taylor, 62 (italics mine).