On-Line Advent Calendar

          Advent begins this Sunday, December 1st. This year at Central we are going to spend the Advent Season trying to look at everything through the lens of the sacred. Where is the sacred in your life, in your world? Can we look at this too often over-commercialized season with holy eyes -- like looking at the world through a kaleidoscope -- so that it again is something beautiful, sacred?
          One way to mark this season as sacred is the practice of opening an Advent calendar. One little door for each day from December 1st until Christmas. Each day something different is revealed. Each day a surprise. So again this year, we will offer an on-line Advent calendar here. But we are inviting you to join us not only in reading it, but in building it.
          Each week we will offer a different prompt, and invite any of you who feel called to submit a response. That could be a brief written thought, a poem, a photograph -- however the Spirit prompts you to respond. Feel free to submit more than one. Submit it to our church office at ccchurchdallas@aol.com. We will post what we receive, every day, beginning this Sunday. If no one submits, I and our staff will continue to contribute, but we are hoping you will share your thoughts as well -- as you connect with the sacred in your life this Advent season.
          Here is the prompt for this week, with the theme of "Sacred Time":

“There is no less holiness at this time- as you are reading this- than there was on the day the Red Sea parted, or that day in the 30th year, in the 4th month, on the 5th day of the month as Ezekiel was a captive by the river Cheban, when the heavens opened and he saw visions of god. There is no whit less enlightenment under the tree at the end of your street than there was under Buddha’s bo tree…. In any instant the sacred may wipe you with its finger. In any instant the bush may flare, your feet may rise, or you may see a bunch of souls in trees.”  ― Annie Dillard, For the Time Being

          What are the times in your life you identify or think of as sacred -- as touched by the holy, by God? How do you describe those moments? Why or how do you recognize them as sacred? How do you make time for the sacred, or to experience the sacred in your life? 

Thanksgiving Joy

Text of meditation by Rev. Christine Ng given on November 24, 2013 at Central Congregational church based on Isaiah 12.

There’s an old story about a mother and her young son who get caught outside as a tornado roars past. The mother clung hard to a tree and to her so, but the swirling winds ripped him away and carried him off into the sky.
Distraught, the woman began to weep and pray: “Please, Lord, bring back my boy! He’s all I have. I’d do anything to have him back again. If I can just get him back I’ll give thanks and serve you all of my days.”
Suddenly the boy toppled from the sky, right into a huge pile of leaves that had settled near by that cushioned his fall. He was a little worse for wear, but basically safe and sound.
His mother ran over, helped him up, and brushed him off – her heart bursting with happiness. But then she stopped for a moment, looked at the boy, then looked to the sky, and said, “He had a hat, Lord.”
Some people – right? Actually maybe – most people? Maybe – us.
Let’s talk thanksgiving. In our culture that word has become synonymous with a particular day – a holiday – that it’s meaning has been lost. We might as well call it, “turkey day” as some do – as that’s pretty much what it has come to mean for our culture – a greeting card holiday. Google “thanksgiving” and see how many pictures you come up with that don’t involve a big turkey or pumpkins just ready to be made into pie. Makes me hungry just looking at them.

My Dad had to have the same dinner every Thanksgiving or he was not a happy man. Turkey – cooked a certain way – salt and pepper, maybe a little powdered garlic, put in the oven, absolutely no basting – basting was a sin; pan gravy, giblet stuffing, mashed potatoes, Birdseye peas and pearl onions, cranberry sauce, candied yams, rolls, coleslaw, and pecan pie and pumpkin pie for dessert. Same thing, every year, or it wasn’t Thanksgiving.
How did our national day set aside for the practice of thanksgiving, of giving thanks for what we have, for the blessings in our lives, the practice of gratitude – how did it become more about the wanting, the craving, the hunger for something – something that makes our mouths water in anticipation?
And in recent years, we’ve taken this one step further. Many people now practice thanksgiving by standing in line to buy things. Lord, I’m so grateful for what I have – so let me spend this day buying more. Wonderful.
But how often, do you think, do those things we buy on Thanksgiving Day and Black Friday bring the people who buy them joy? I’m not talking about the momentary happiness of getting something you really want or of giving gifts on Christmas Day. I mean real joy.
Adela Rogers St. Johns wrote that “Joy [is] a step beyond happiness. Happiness is a sort of atmosphere you can live in sometimes when you’re lucky. Joy is a light that fills you with hope and faith and love.”
I love the food of Thanksgiving dinner as much as the next person, but my prayer for you is that when you think of thanksgiving, you think not only of turkey dinner, but of joy. Because while we may be hungry and salivating for a turkey dinner, I believe we are starving from a lack of joy.
Some people need the numbers – they need to see things in concrete form – facts and data right there on the page. Researcher Brene Brown was like that. And through her research she discovered what spiritual leaders have been saying for a long time. She went into her research thinking joyful people were grateful people. As she said, why wouldn’t they be? They have all that wonderful stuff in their lives to be grateful for. But she found that, in fact, that the reverse was true: grateful people were joyful people. Or in the words of Benedictine Monk Brother David Steindl-Rast: “It is not joy that makes us grateful; it is gratitude that makes us joyful.”

In my studies, I’ve heard that over and over – and I believed in what is sometimes called an “attitude of gratitude.” But let me share what I have learned – it’s not about the attitude – it’s about the practice. Having a particular “attitude” or orientation if fine, but it doesn’t always translate into behavior or action. Gratitude is a spiritual practice. And there is a big difference between feeling grateful and practicing gratitude, practicing thanks-giving. And the practice of gratitude is the way to joy.
Let me unpack that a little. Often the good stuff in our lives, the blessings, are the simple, ordinary things. Like the hot coffee you may have had this morning, warming you on a cold day. Or the cereal you ate for breakfast. The fact that your car started, and you didn’t have to shovel snow to get here and that you arrived safely. Normal.
Do you know what Brene Brown says grief is? It’s the loss of normal. Any of you who have suffered a great loss in your life, think back to the time of that grief. Or talk to anyone one who has been there, in that dark place. How often do you hear: “If only . . .” If only I could have had one more breakfast with him, sitting in our kitchen, reading the paper. If only I could get one more silly text message from her.
My Dad was a doctor, and I would tell him anytime I was sick or hurt, no matter how minor it was. It became almost a ritual with us. He wasn’t much of a “kiss it and make it better” kind of a father when I was growing up, more of a practical advice kind of a guy. And that carried over into my adulthood. Still today, years after his death, when I have a medical question I think, if only I could call my Dad and talk to him about it.
And this time of year it really comes home for me, as I think, "I wish I could share Birdseye peas and pearl onions with my Dad one more time."
Normal. Everyday things. It turns out that when we lose them, it’s what we miss the most. Not the great highs, the little things. But when we’re in normal we see it as drudgery, as a chore – I hated Birdseye peas and pearl onions. We see it as drudgery, until it’s gone.
Brene Brown says that when she interviewed people for her study, many of who had gone through almost unimaginable loss or trauma, she asked them what others, what we could do to help them in their grief. She got the same answer over and over:  “If you can be grateful for what you have, it will honor what I have lost.”
Marianne Williamson writes that “Joy is what happens to us when we allow ourselves to recognize how good things really are.” And the practice of gratitude is the way to that joy, to living life from a place of hope and peace.
What do I mean by the practice of gratitude? I mean the intentional noticing, and bearing witness, to the blessings in your life, no matter how small. And there is no one right way to do this.
One traditional way is the regular practice of saying grace before meals – particularly if you also take time to give thanks for other blessings of the day, not just food. Another way is to keep a gratitude journal. To write down, every day, 3 to 5 things that you are grateful for that day. Knowing that you are going to write them down, or say them at the dinner table, makes you look for them. And the more you look for things to be grateful for, the more you find, and the more joyful you can be.
If you are more visually inclined, you could take pictures of things you are grateful for, or draw them, and keep a visual journal.
I encourage you to do this over the next week – Thanksgiving Week. Every day, do something that makes you stop and take notice of what you have to be grateful for. Keep a journal, write or draw it on a little piece of paper and stick it in a dedicated jar everyday – the whole family can do that.
For those of you who are on Facebook, I’m going to help you out. Everyday, beginning today, I will post the question on our Central Congregational Facebook page: “What are you grateful for today?” And I invite you to post a comment with words or pictures of what you are grateful for that day. It’s okay if you are grateful for some of the same things every day – like family and home. But I challenge you to look more closely, and I suspect you will find more – no matter how small. What’s the normal stuff you would miss if it wasn’t there? Share that. Because joy is additive, and another important aspect of this practice is sharing it – with others and with God. That spreads and multiplies the joy.

I know that many of us are not in good places in our lives right now. Times are hard for many, and others are dealing with grief and loss or serious illness. No one feels joyful or happy all the time. Both experiences come and go. But it is in those times, times when you may not feel grateful, you may not feel very joyful, that the practice of gratitude is even more important.
This doesn’t mean we can’t feel bad, or that we can’t complain – but if we practice gratitude, then we have a context. Ok – so this thing didn’t go so well today, but look at what I have to be grateful for. It’s not Pollyanna – it’s perspective. It’s focusing on the safely returned boy, and not on the missing hat.
     This is why we take time in most congregational meetings, in the announcements and in prayer time in worship, and in our newsletters to celebrate the good things happening here at Central and in the lives of the people here at Central. It's part if our corporate practice of gratitude.
And if we, individually and as a community, practice gratitude regularly, when things are going okay, it builds our joy reserves to help see us through the more difficult times.
I think this is exactly what the prophet Isaiah was teaching us in today’s passage. Remember, he was speaking to people who had been through hell, in many cases were still going through hell. He had told them that God would bring them through, and he was teaching them a song to sing “in that day” – the day of their salvation. But he in teaching it, he was telling them to sing, to practice singing it, today. Today.
Today, I will give thanks to the Lord. Today, God has become my salvation. Today I will tell this to all the earth. Today I will shout aloud and sing, because this leads us to joy. And in this song of gratitude, “with joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation.”
Whatever day we sing thanksgiving, it is “that day.” The day of our salvation. Thanks be to God. Amen.

That They All May Be One

Transcript of Sermon October 27, 2013 by Rev. Anna Humble

I want to start out this morning by reading to you the United Church of Christ's Still Speaking Devotional from August 30, 2011, a post that went absolutely viral on the internet and ended in a book deal.  It's written by Rev. Lillian Daniel and is entitled,"Spiritual but not religious? Stop boring me."  Here goes:

 On airplanes, I dread the conversation with the person who finds out I am a minister and wants to use the flight time to explain to me that he is "spiritual but not religious." Such a person will always share this as if it is some kind of daring insight, unique to him, bold in its rebellion against the religious status quo.

Next thing you know, he's telling me that he finds God in the sunsets. These people always find God in the sunsets. And in walks on the beach. Sometimes I think these people never leave the beach or the mountains, what with all the communing with God they do on hilltops, hiking trails and ... did I mention the beach at sunset yet?

Like people who go to church don't see God in the sunset! Like we are these monastic little hermits who never leave the church building. How lucky we are to have these geniuses inform us that God is in nature. As if we don't hear that in the psalms, the creation stories, and throughout our deep tradition.

Being privately spiritual but not religious just doesn't interest me. There is nothing challenging about having deep thoughts all by oneself. What is interesting is doing this work in community, where other people might call you on stuff, or heaven forbid, disagree with you. Where life with God gets rich and provocative is when you dig deeply into a tradition that you did not invent all for yourself.

Thank you for sharing, spiritual-but-not-religious sunset person. You are now comfortably in the norm for self-centered American culture, right smack in the bland majority of people who find ancient religions dull but find themselves uniquely fascinating. Can I switch seats now and sit next to someone who has been shaped by a mighty cloud of witnesses instead? Can I spend my time talking to someone brave enough to encounter God in a real human community? Because when this flight gets choppy, that's who I want by my side, holding my hand, saying a prayer and simply putting up with me, just like we try to do in church.

Now while I think the tone of Rev. Daniel's rant is a bit harsh, I totally understand her annoyance with spiritual-but-not-religious sunset person. 

It's frustrating that we live in a self-centered culture that finds rich, ancient religions and traditions dull, but finds themselves – and Duck Dynasty I might add – uniquely interesting. It's sad that rather than bravely taking up the challenge of living and growing in real human community, on Sunday mornings most people would rather go jogging solo or read the New York Times at Starbucks by themselves.

But I would like to respond to Rev. Daniel by saying, it's not just spiritual-but-not-religious sunset person who needs a refresher course on the importance of religious community. Many of our Christian brothers and sisters who attend a megachurch or watch church on TV will tell you the ONLY thing that REALLY matters is your PERSONAL relationship with your PERSONAL Lord and Savior Jesus Christ… and that community is a nonessential side, like gravy on Thanksgiving.  

And still many of us here in the mainline church have our confidential top-secret relationship with our Creator God down pat... but our relationships with the Body of Christ sitting next to us in the pews…. Now that’s a bit messier, isn't that right? Because you see, grand Creator God in the clouds, he’s easy to love. She's all-perfect and all-loving and all-knowing... and strangely seems to agree with me about pretty much everything.  The Body of Christ sitting next to you on the other hand – now he ain't so all-perfect and all-loving! Sometimes these people here – they’ll disagree with you, sometimes they annoy you with their incessant demands on your time and money, sometimes they call you out on your stuff, sometimes they hurt your feelings, and sometimes they let you down.  Christ’s Church has so many stories of human failure, that sometimes it seems downright embarrassing just to be associated with it.

So I feel you spiritual-but-not-religious sunset person.  And I get you anonymous-megachurch-watcher.  It’s so much easier to love God vertically, up in the clouds, than to love God horizontally, in the community of people around us.  Not to mention that it’s way more exciting – and not to mention less demanding on your time and money – to just stay home and watch “real housewives of xyz” duke it out on your tivo, than to listen to someone like me drone on and on about an ancient book on your day off.

And while I’m talking about that big exciting book called the Bible, let me read it to you again. In our scripture reading this morning, Jesus prays at the last supper: “”I ask not only on behalf of these,but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word (that’s you and me), that they may all be one.” Jesus is praying for you and me there, praying that we may be one.

Now if you ask anyone in the UCC what our motto is, they’ll probably tell you it’s “God is Still Speaking” right?  Now that is a wonderful line that our denomination has come up to market who we are, but when our denomination was formed by uniting the Christian Churches and the Evangelical and Reformed Churches in 1957, they chose THIS scripture passage, “that they all be one,” as our motto.  This verse is so important to us in our denomination that it is inscribed on our very logo. The vision was that we would all just keep uniting and uniting until the whole world became one, just like Jesus prayed in this scripture passage.  And here in the UCC, we’re still dreaming the dream of unity, today striving to be a more inclusive church, uniting all people no matter who they are or where they are on life’s journey.

But what does unity mean in our church? If you hang on with me, now that I’ve thrown a little history at you, I’m going to throw a little theology your way: in the United Church of Christ, we believe that the UNITY in COMmunity is defined by two things: autonomy and covenant. 

First, autonomy means that you and I are free to read the Bible and decide what we believe for ourselves.  No one is going to tell you what you have to believe here.  We believe that each person – not just pastors – are endowed by their creator with free will and with an ability to hear for themselves a god who is still speaking.  And because we value autonomy, we have no creeds, no authoritative denominational hierarchy telling each church what to do, rather each congregation democratically votes on their minister and any other matters of substance -- like we do at our quarterly meetings.  Our decisions, therefore, are guided by the Holy Spirit, rather than dictated by human authorities.  The only thing that we must agree upon is our common commitment to follow Christ together.

At the same time we believe in autonomy, we also believe in covenant.   Covenant is what binds us together as a church. Covenant means that we commit to live together despite the differences autonomy brings out – to support each other with our prayers and gifts, to work together, and to hold each other accountable.  When I first joined the UCC, a lot of people were quick to highlight the principle of autonomy, saying “you can believe whatever you want in the UCC!”  Maybe.  Covenant, however, has always held a higher rung.  For every time autonomy is mentioned in our constitution, covenant is mentioned 18 times more. 

So every time someone walks out of a UCC church because of a disagreement, every time a church leaves our fold because Synod doesn’t exactly mirror their own beliefs, every time someone pulls their money out of their church because they’ve been offended, they’ve misunderstood what unity really means.  Or as our friend Paul Nickerson likes to say, "That's not covenantal behavior!"  You see Christ didn’t pray for us all to be the same; Christ prayed for us to be one in Him.  So that doesn’t mean that we always agree, but it does mean that we commit to live together in covenant despite the differences autonomy allows.  In most churches, there are creeds or tests of faith and dissenters are sent away. We in this church have the freedom to disagree under the safe umbrella of knowing we’re here for each other, for better or worse, through thick and thin.  And this life together, where we can be true to our authentic selves and beliefs without the fear of rejection, is where the Kingdom of God is revealed on this earth.

My favorite theologian – yes I have a favorite theologian because I’m a nerd – my favorite theologian Deitrich Bonhoeffer says that the Christian community most of us expect from church is not only impossible, it’s a wish-dream.  I love the translation of that word: a wish-dream. And if we are lucky, by God’s grace, that wish-dream will be shattered.  Let me say that again, if we’re LUCKY, by GOD’S GRACE, our wish-dream of Christian community will be SHATTERED.  And on the day it is shattered, when we stand before God utterly disillusioned about ourselves and others, we finally see clearly our complete and utter dependence upon God’s grace.  Bonhoeffer says God injects imperfection among our communities so that we can be stretched and can grow in forgiveness, love, patience, and fidelity, thereby revealing God’s Kingdom on Earth.

So I want to thank you this morning. I especially want to thank our new members this morning Who have covenanted to walk together with us in love. I pray that you stick with us, even if your wish-dream is shattered.

And for our longer standing members: I’m sure you haven’t agreed with everything that I’ve said from this pulpit, and that’s great – that means you’re listening and thinking!  I’m sure you haven’t agreed with every decision that’s been made at this church, and that’s great – it shows you care.  I’m sure someone here in these pews today has ticked you off or let you down at some point, and that’s great – because it means you’re putting yourself out there! And I’m SURE someone here this morning would rather be reading the New York Times at Starbucks, rather than hearing me drone on about covenant and autonomy, but you’re here.  You’re here!  We’re so glad you’re here.  Thank you for showing up.  Thank you for giving of yourself, your time, and in this very important season, your tithes.  Thank you for pitching in and being part of this family.  Because you belong here,

here in God’s house, with us.  We’re the flawed folk who love you exactly as God created you, who will take care of you when times get hard, who will grow alongside you, who will pray for you, and who will put up with you when you’re being a pill.  And THAT is what unity’s all about.  Amen.