The Seeds of Others

by Rev. Lynne Hinton

Once we moved into a church parsonage in Washington State in late October where I took the position as Interim Pastor. The front and back yards, though small, had landscaped flower beds wrapping around the house and garage. No one told us what was planted in the beds. No one told us what to expect once winter ended. In the first few weeks of spring at least forty or fifty bulbs had broken through the thawed ground and by early May, this house we called home for a few more months, was surrounded by color, bathed in the hues of spring. We came to realize that we lived in a beauty imagined and created by the hearts and hands of others.

In that season of birth and new growth and in a place gardened by others, I was reminded of the power of planting seeds. I was reminded of the hope that emerges in the hearts of planters, how diligently farmers and gardeners rake and plow and dig and make way for life. Every year lovers of the earth go to nurseries and stores, purchase the seeds or bulbs that offer possibilities, and in faith, with care and hope, drop them into the earth in joyful anticipation. Most plant gardens for themselves but some folks, like the anonymous members of that church, hearty ones who love to landscape and care for church properties, plant their bulbs and seeds for others.

It is the same in spiritual gardens. We plant seeds of kindness, faith, hope, joy, love, peace, and patience in our own hearts, hoping to enjoy the bounty of our work and desire. We plant seeds within our souls, toiling with tools to grow spiritual gifts that we look forward to see come to fruition. We pray and study and meditate and practice for us to become patient, to become kind, to become people of peace and love. It is the harvest of our work for our own souls. But we also plant seeds in the hearts of others, in temporary places, in organizations, places of worship, in souls of those who may or may not ever know our names. We plant seeds without having to reap the bounty. We plant seeds without needing to watch the garden grow. We plant seeds letting the hope of what might come, the power of what may spring forth, the joy we expect for someone else, to be reason enough to keep planting.

I’m sure I could have asked members of the Trustees who planted those bulbs that grew in perfectly-spaced rows, filling the beds in the front and back yards of the parsonage and someone would have given me names; but I did not. Instead as they popped and bloomed I thought of the people in my life who planted seeds within my soul and never saw what grew. I think of grandmothers and teachers, the parents of my adolescent friends, the authors of books that shaped me, the countless words of wisdom from others that fell like seeds in my soul and have finally begun to bloom. I will think of planting my own seeds, being kind to strangers, writing words of hope, working for justice and peace, and learn how to be content with just the planting. It takes faith to grow a garden you don’t get to harvest. It takes faith to plant a seed. I know because I lived that season in the center of someone else’s hopes for spring.

Do Lent, or not do Lent

by Rev. Talitha Arnold, Senior Pastor, United Church of Santa Fe

“What the heck is Lent?” a friend asked. “What’s with the ashes, the morose songs, the somber colors? I thought the United Church was for happy Christians. Why do we have to do Lent?”

Truth be known, we don’t. “Doing Lent” or giving up something for the next 40 days isn’t required at the United Church of Santa Fe. As part of the United Church of Christ, we’re in the reform Protestant tradition (Congregational, Disciples of Christ, Baptists, etc.) that historically didn’t “do” Lent. In fact, many “free church” Protestants looked with suspicion on Lent. Some still do. Lent was something those Catholics, Lutherans, or Episcopalians did. The ashes, giving up meat or candy, all that purple was a bit too Popish or liturgical for our tastes. As my friend said, we were supposed to be happy Christians.

Other Protestants didn’t mark Lent, because as one friend observed, in her church it was Lent all the time. With all the rules against dancing, drinking, and card playing, they didn’t have anything to give up!

So technically, we don’t have to do anything or give up anything for Lent at the United Church of Santa Fe. But many of us have found that Easter has deeper meaning, if we set aside Lent’s 40 days for something other than life or business as usual.

If we wanted to sing in a concert, we’d need to set aside time to rehearse. To compete in a basketball tournament, we’d take time to practice our free throws. The same is true for our experience of Easter. To know new life in any form—spiritually, physically, intellectually—we need to take time to practice. Setting aside the 40 days of Lent for study, prayer, silence, and other spiritual disciplines is a way to engage new ideas, new feelings, new possibilities.

Sometimes to let in new life, we also have to let go of some things. Before you start a new project, you might need to clear off your desk. Before you ran a marathon, you might want to shed some weight. The same is true of our souls. Sometimes we need to clean out and shed extra baggage to make room for something new.

Observing Lent is not required for admission to Easter at the United Church. Come Easter morning, you’ll be as welcome at United as you are any morning.

But perhaps if we take the 40 days of Lent to practice new life or if we set aside time to remember the sacredness of our lives and all life, then maybe, just maybe, Easter might have a new meaning for us this year. We don’t have to “do Lent,” but we might be surprised what’s possible if we do.

Fasten your seat belts—Lent has come!

Get ready—because Easter is on its way!

Lent: It’s the most wonderful time of the year!

by Rev. Deb Church

“…for dust you are and to dust you will return.” (Genesis 3:19b, NIV)

You may or may not know that this coming Wednesday, February 22, 2023, is Ash Wednesday… which marks the beginning of the season of Lent…which will take us, before we know it, to Easter. Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! 

But wait—first, Lent. Woo hoo! Everyone’s favorite time of year! Who doesn’t look forward to this season set aside for deep self-examination and grim-faced repentance? Who doesn’t love this period reserved for turning away from (bad!) fleshly debauchery and turning toward (good!) spiritual disciplines? 

Who doesn’t count down the days until it begins–this opportunity to focus intentionally on our sinful nature and our need for repentance? 

Lent–say (sing??) it with me: “It’s the most wonderful time of the year!” 

Wait…that doesn’t seem quite right…

Or maybe it is… 

What if we thought of Lent not as a forced opportunity to focus on our sinful nature, but instead as a chance to claim more deeply our true identity as God’s beloved, and consider what are the parts of our personality that are keeping us from embracing that more fully? 

What if we thought of Lent not as a period reserved for begrudgingly giving up something we do that’s “bad” for us and equally begrudgingly taking on something that’s supposedly “good” for us, but instead as a window of opportunity during which we’re given permission, and in fact encouraged, to recognize and step away from the things that keep us fractured and frantic and broken, and make choices instead for what brings us healing and wholeness and peace–which, yes, might possibly include allowing more space for the Divine Source of our being in our day-to-day living? 

What if we thought of Lent not as a season of somber self-examination and grim-faced repentance, but instead as a recurring invitation for honest and humble reflection on who we are, who we want to be, who God is calling us to be, and how we’re living our “one wild and precious life?” (from Mary Oliver’s poem, This Summer Day) as one (and a collection) of God’s beloved?? 

Is it possible that Lent is the most wonderful time of the year?? 

Maybe, just maybe…

May God’s Holy Spirit, and an openness in our human spirits, be with us all as we prepare to enter this holy season, in all of our glorious humanity!

Attributes of God: Free from Anxiety

by Rev. Teresa Blythe

Don’t know about you, but I, like millions of others right now, have anxiety issues. “Generalized Anxiety Disorder” is the technical term my therapist writes down in their little notebook. I’m not ashamed to admit this. In some ways, when you look around at all that is going on in the world, like…

  • Mass shootings
  • Raging war in Ukraine
  • Wildfires, drought, floods, the shrinking ice caps in the Arctic
  • Lack of affordable housing
  • Inflation
  • Political division and threats of civil war

Well, if you’re not a little bit anxious, you just aren’t paying attention.

In our continuing exploration of the attributes of God found listed in the apocryphal book of Wisdom (7:22-24), our lovely Wisdom passage tells us that the Divine is free from anxiety. 

For Wisdom, the fashioner of all things, taught me…

…there is in her a spirit that is free from anxiety.

This is also something Jesus —  a New Testament Wisdom figure — told us: “don’t be anxious about anything,” in Matthew 6:25-31.

What would it be like to be free from anxiety? To have hope that God, working through all of us, can bring about a more peaceful, sustainable, and just world?

This attribute of God is one reason I attend worship. In my congregation, we never ignore the injustices of the world but at the same time we always emphasize God’s grace and the hope for change. It is this hope that has the ability — if I allow it — to calm my anxious spirit.

Anxiety can easily raise my blood pressure. This morning, as I prepared for the day and did my daily blood pressure check, it was borderline high. So, I took 15 minutes to sit, breathe and be in the presence of God (the one free from anxiety!). After finishing, I rechecked and sure enough, my blood pressure was back to normal.

We can’t singlehandedly make the world a more just and sustainable place. We can, however, sometimes lower our anxiety-produced-high blood pressure if we…

  • Check in with ourselves. Ask “what do I need right now?”
  • Take several slow, steady, deep breaths.
  • Let go of anxious thoughts with our favorite mantra or just saying “I let it go.”
  • Allow God to absorb our worries and burdens for the time being.

Knowing that God is free from anxiety can be inspiration for us. We won’t be free from concerns and anxiety all the time (we need some of it for self-preservation), yet we can give ourselves the breaks we need to continue our work toward a better, more just world.

Migrating Home

by Rev. Lynne Hinton

I always hear them before I ever see them. Their call is a throaty, high pitched warble and when lots of them are calling, it sounds like a gathering of excited tourists, shouting to each other from across a crowded street. The Sandhill Cranes arrive every year, migrating south, spending the winters in a hodgepodge of fields about a hundred miles south of Albuquerque, New Mexico. Tens of thousands of them make the annual trek, overcoming great hardships, surviving hunters and pollution, desert winds and human population explosions; every year, winter after winter, they come.

Migrations happen all the time, everywhere. We all know the stories; some of us even follow the species. There are migratory movements of butterflies, hummingbirds, salmon, and even dragonflies. It seems as if there are a lot of creatures genetically predisposed to move from place to place.

Scientists tell us that triggers for migration may be local climate, mating purposes, local availability of food, or because of the season of the year. Whatever the pull, they keep going, generations after generations, migrators still migrate.

I believe that humans migrate too. I’m not just speaking about movements from rural life to urban existence or a relocating toward more opportunities or better jobs; I’m talking about a spiritual migration, the internal compass that we all have that guides us to head in the direction of goodness.

We don’t hear about that migration very much. The news gives us other headlines, stories that talk about our propensity toward greed and evil. We hear much more about our leaning in the direction of selfishness and violence. And of course, we know these stories all too well. However, there is something else in our make-up, something that drives us to a better existence, something pulling us to kindness and generosity. We are made in the divine image of our creator and because we have that image stamped upon us, there is a natural migration towards our best selves, our goodness.

Occasionally, we do hear those stories too. We hear about the heroic efforts of those who bear no thoughts for their own safety, rushing headlong to the aid of others in need. We hear about children, not yet cynical about our species, deeply moved by the suffering of others and who remind adults that as human beings we must care for each other. We hear those stories and we are moved by them and not because they are interesting or foreign. We are moved by them because they remind of us of who we really are, where we are meant to be.

It is easy to forget our divine calling, how we were created, what we really need to survive. Many of us have lost our way, feel unable to make the return journey to what sustains us. But the species is not lost. We still know the path. We just need to remember what we have always known. Just listen to your heart. You will get back home.

Balanced

This is Conference Minister Rev. Dr. Bill Lyons’ message preached at First Christian Church UCC/DOC in Las Cruces on Sunday, July 24, 2022.


38Now as they went on their way, he entered a certain village, where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. 39She had a sister named Mary, who sat at the Lord’s feet and listened to what he was saying. 40But Martha was distracted by her many tasks; so she came to him and asked, “Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the work by myself? Tell her then to help me.” 41But the Lord answered her, “Martha, Martha, you are worried and distracted by many things; 42there is need of only one thing. Mary has chosen the better part, which will not be taken away from her.” Luke 10:38-42

Martha is fussing, and Mary is listening. Martha is wrong and Mary is right. Right? Or maybe, Martha is doing what a woman is supposed to do (serving) and Mary is doing what a man is supposed to do (learning)[1] so when it comes to the cultural norms and gender expectations of their day, Mary is wrong, and Martha is right. Or maybe, Martha is attending to the needs of others, and Mary is doing something more like what the priest and Levite were doing in the story just before today’s text, focusing on things above. And in that story – the story of the Good Samaritan – someone neglecting the needs of people, especially hurting people right in front of them, in favor of focusing on things above got scolded by Jesus. And in today’s story, that response is reversed. Jesus scolds Martha who is attending to the needs of others and the honor of her house, and he commends Mary. One thing that is certain about this passage is there’s nothing simple about it! A second certainty is that the story of Mary and Martha opens a profound window for understanding the Realm of God as Jesus understood it, and as Luke and the early church tried to live it.

The Rev. Dr. Niveen Sarras is a Hebrew Bible scholar and pastor at Immanuel Lutheran Church of Wausau in Wausau, Wis. She was born and raised in Bethlehem, Palestine. About Mary and Martha she writes:

In my culture and in first-century Palestine, hospitality is about allowing the guest to share the sacredness of the family space. The women’s role is to do all of the cooking and food preparation. It is very unusual for Palestinian women to join male guests before they are done with all the food preparation. In my culture and Jesus’, failing to be a good hostess means disrespecting the guest. 

The traditional interpretation of Luke 10:38-42 presents the narrative as a problem between Martha and Mary, but it is about the two kinds of ministries: diakonia and the word. Marta represents the ministry of diakonia, and Mary represents the ministry of the word. Jesus does not prefer the ministry of the latter over diakonia. Instead, Jesus does not want the diakonia to be at the expense of the ministry of the word. Both ministries are important.[2] 

Luke’s point in chapter 10 is that hospitality quintessentially marks membership in the people of God. When the seventy received their mission, a community’s hospitality was the proof of participating in the Kingdom of Heaven. Hospitality defined the Samaritan as a good neighbor. And in the next chapter, Luke 11, the tell of a friend is their willingness to give you good things when you ask for them, even when doing so inconveniences or costs them.

Jesus told the story of the Good Samaritan when he met a man skilled in Biblical study who had trouble living God’s Word in relationship to his neighbors. Luke “shock[ed] [his readers] because they did not expect a Samaritan, an enemy…, to be their neighbor and succeed in what their religious leaders failed to do.” [3]  In this story Jesus met a woman so busy serving others that she wasn’t listening for God’s Word.[4]  Luke shock[ed] his audience again” when he welcomed Mary as a student.[5] 

Recovering the symbiotic relationship between the ministry of service to a broken and hurting world and deeply listening to the words of Jesus can be a step toward healing the divisions in today’s Church and empowering us for being Kin-dom of God friends, Realm of God neighbors. Notice that “Jesus does not ask Martha to give up the ministry of diakonia; instead, he intends to relieve Martha from her anxiety and exhaustion by inviting her to join her sister in learning from him. Then, she can resume her hospitality with her sister.”[6]

These past several weeks I’ve spent a significant amount of time offering a progressive Christian witness in the public square. Listening to the stories of our neighbors about the impact of unaffordable health care and resulting medical debt has been heartbreaking. Listening to the anger and determination of young activists whose communities have been targeted by voter suppression laws has been inspiring. Crafting public statements and working on ballot initiatives in what the UCC Statement of Faith calls “the struggle for justice and peace” is exhausting! Sitting at the feet of Jesus listening deeply to his words grounds us, calms us, reminds us why we are doing ministry in the public square. Without the doing – the struggle, the risks, the solidarity with and accompaniment of our neighbors, “faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.”[7]

Last Saturday while moderating a webinar to inform, educate, and mobilize progressive churches for reproductive rights I heard both Rev. Dr. Cari Jackson with the Religious Coalition for Reproductive Right and Brittany Fonteno, executive director for Planned Parenthood AZ say they were engaged as Christians in the fight for abortion rights not in spite of their faith but because of it. They are women who model for me the ministry of hospitality – neighborliness, and friendship – built upon a foundation of sitting at the feet of Jesus and deeply listen.

More than that, these women are the voice of Jesus for me. The Word of God that Mary was drawn to was not written on the scrolls in her synagogue. The Word of God that engaged Mary was the Word of God embodied and the words he spoke. Balancing the tasks of hospitality with the ministry of the Word means sitting at the feet of our neighbors and listening to them too, for they have a Word from God for us told in the stories of their lives. Jesus always taught us about the Realm of God through the lens of human experience. Jesus was focused on people not issues. He always interpreted the issues of his day through the lens their impact on people’s lives. And when challenged with a decision between what his Bible said and doing the compassionate neighborly thing, Jesus always chose hospitality.

Martha, thank you for opening your home to us this morning. Mary, thank you for your calm non-anxiousness in the midst of swirling surges of busy-ness and doing. Jesus, thank you for affirming countercultural gender roles, and for reminding us that actions related to loving mercy and doing justice and spending time in your presence listening deeply are two sides of a balanced life for everyone invited to your banquet table.

“If we censure Martha too harshly, she may abandon serving all together, and if we commend Mary too profusely, she may sit there forever. There is a time to go and do, there is a time to listen and reflect. Knowing which and when is a matter of spiritual discernment. If we were to ask Jesus which example applies to us,” Martha or Mary, “his answer would probably be, “Yes.”[8]


[1] Swanson, Richard W. Provoking the Gospel of Luke: A Storyteller’s Commentary. P. 167.

[2] Sarras, Rev. Niveen. https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-16-3/commentary-on-luke-1038-42-5

[3] Ibid.

[4] Craddock, Fred B. Luke (Interpretation: a Biblical Commentary for Teaching and Preaching. P. 151

[5] Sarras, Rev. Niveen. https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-16-3/commentary-on-luke-1038-42-5

[6]Ibid.

[7] The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version (Jas 2:17). (1989). Thomas Nelson Publishers.

[8] Craddock, p. 152

Divinity in Daily Life: Busy Times as Spiritual Practice

by Rev. Teresa Blythe

To get better at something we consider challenging, we have to practice. You know what’s hard for me in spiritual direction? Exploring with a client ways to deepen in relationship with God when they are truly and unavoidably busy. Spiritual directors are not “fixers,” yet I’m always tempted to suggest ways to squeeze more time out of a packed person’s day. Never, ever have my suggestions on this when I gave them worked. I’m especially cautious about doing this to caregivers of people who are ill, elderly, disabled or who have young children in their lives.

As I was reading Mirabai Starr’s amazing book, Wild Mercy: Living the Fierce and Tender Wisdom of the Women Mystics, I came across her beautiful reflection on this. She tells the story of her friend Asha, mother to four girls, who came to the conclusion that “unless she focused on parenting as a spiritual practice, she would have no spiritual life.” (p 122) Overworked people could substitute any number of responsibilities for the word “parenting” in that statement.

That’s the reality! If we say that all of life is spiritual, then the practice of daily life is a good part of our spiritual practice. For caregivers, the act of giving unconditional love to your loved one has to connect you to God. It just has to! Especially since those of us who are Christians constantly refer to God as Comforter, Restorer, Father and Mother.

What part of your life do you need to begin to see and experience as spiritual practice? Is it cooking a healthy meal? Taking an afternoon walk? Sharing tea with a friend? Or maybe even staring at the wall when you are too tired to do anything but.

I have always loved how spiritual director and storyteller Mark Yaconelli looks at it. He is fond of asking people what daily activities really get them excited? Then when they name it, he says, “go and do that.” Do it with all the exuberance and life you have.

I’m convinced that’s the kind of practice that makes the Divine One happy.

Pick Up Your Mat and Walk (Part 2!)

by Rev. Deb Worley

Jesus said to him, “Stand up, take your mat and walk.” At once the man was made well, and he took up his mat and began to walk. (John 5:8-9, CEB) 

For those of you who were here last Sunday, you may be wondering if I forgot to change the Gospel passage for today, and accidentally read the same passage as last week! Whoops! That’s embarrassing!! 

Except, I didn’t forget to change the Gospel passage. I chose to stick with this passage for another week. When I went home last Sunday, after worship and then the “God Sightings” discussion, I felt like there was more to consider, more that needed to be said. Which is true, of course, with every scripture passage, always! There’s never a time when everything has been said that needs to be said about any one scripture passage. It’s the Living Word. There’s always more to say…because God is still speaking. 

But with this passage in particular, at this particular time, I felt the need to have another go. So…here we go! 

Because not all of you were here last week, and because this past week has been…well, it’s been quite a week…I’m going to start with a very quick review of the gist of last week’s sermon.  (Part 1)

Those of you who were here will likely remember the story I began with, about growing up on a farm in upstate NY, and a specific memory of my dad asking my then-teenaged brother, one wintry day, if he’d like to help him bring in some wood for the wood stove, and my brother saying, “Umm, no,” and my dad getting mad and my mom telling my dad that if he wanted my brother to help him, then to just tell him to help him, don’t ask him! Remember?? 

Well, as you can see and have heard, all three of those family members are here this morning! And all three of them will confirm the veracity of that story after the service, if anyone was thinking I made it up…  

But then I shifted from the question my dad asked my brother, to the question Jesus asked the man in today’s passage: “Do you want to get well?” 

And I pointed to how the man didn’t respond with yes or no, but with some of the reasons he hadn’t gotten well up to that point, some of the reasons he was still sick after thirty-eight years of sitting by the side of the pool…

And I imagined some of what the man might have been feeling: hopelessness, discouragement, despair. I imagined that he might have felt like being well would take more courage than he had, that doing things differently than he had done them for his whole life would take more strength and commitment than he had, that stepping into a new way of living would be hard and uncomfortable and scary–even if that way of living led from sickness and a diminished self to healing and wholeness–and that changing, even for the better, would take more patience and practice than he thought he could find.

And I imagined how Jesus might have responded, from his heart to the man’s heart, taking into account his fears and his despair, his excuses and his stuck-ness, his reluctance to say, “Yes! I want to be well!”… And I wondered if we, too, might need to hear that response, because we, too, can be reluctant to commit to being made well; we, too, aren’t always sure that we have the courage and strength we need to be made whole; we, too, can doubt that healing is worth the hard work and discomfort and commitment that are required… 

And just quickly, here’s what I suggested Jesus might have communicated to the man by the side of the pool in his hopelessness, and what he might also be communicating to us in our own stuckness: 

Yes, it will be hard to be well. Harder than it has been to be sick. 

Yes, it will require courage. Remaining stuck is easy.

Yes, it will require strength. It takes no effort to keep doing what you’ve always done.

Yes, it will require patience and commitment and practice. I will get you started; you will have to keep choosing to be well. Day after day, hour after hour, moment by moment.

Yes, it will be uncomfortable and unfamiliar and scary. 

And it will be hard! Or did I mention that already?? 

Get up. Pick up your mat and walk.

Stop watching others participate in the world around you, and step more fully into living yourself. Live life more deeply and be who God created you to be more fully. 

Get up. Pick up your mat and walk.

What you’ve been doing all these years that’s comfortable? Do less of that. Leave that behind.

What you’re considering doing right now that feels uncomfortable? Do more of that. Walk toward that. 

Those thoughts of “It’s too hard. I’m scared. It doesn’t feel good!”? Acknowledge them, name them, say them out loud. And let go of them. They are not going to make you well. 

Get up. Pick up your mat and walk.

Walk forward. One foot in front of the other. One step at a time.

Walk toward healing. Toward wellness. Toward being whole.

And step into Life.

Get up. Pick up your mat and walk.

So, a lot of that was me taking literary license. Imagining what might have been going on in the man, and, yes, in Jesus. Imagining what it might have been like for someone who had been sick, who had been incapacitated, who had been diminished in his self, in some way, for 38 years, most of his life–and at that point to be offered healing… And I imagined what that healing might have looked like, what that healing would feel like, what, really, it was that Jesus was offering. 

And we are told, after Jesus said to him, “Stand up, take your mat and walk,” that “At once the man was made well, and he took up his mat and began to walk.” (Jn. 5:8-9)

And again, I can’t help but wonder!! Did it really happen like that? Was the man completely healed, once and for all? Able to walk with confidence and strength, without a single stumble or misstep, without needing to rest? Simply getting up and stepping into this new way of being, with no looking back? 

“Stand up,” Jesus told him. “Take your mat and walk.” And “At once the man was made well, and he took up his mat and began to walk.”

I wonder…because in our lives and in our world, we need healing. Desperately. In our lives and in our world, we need to be made well. There’s so much pain, so much brokenness, so much suffering, so much chaos, so much darkness…

We need healing, so that as people of faith we can stand up.

We need healing, so that as people of faith we can stand up and begin to walk.

We need healing, so that as people of faith we can stand up and speak up.

We need healing, so that as people of faith we can stand up and be light in the darkness.

We need healing, so that as people of faith we can stand up and fight for justice.

And, we need courage. And strength. And commitment. And patience. And practice. Because while maybe the man in today’s passage was completely healed, once and for all, never to stumble again, my experience has generally been otherwise, and I suspect yours has been, too. 

We can say yes to healing and stand up–with God’s help–and begin to walk toward healing–with God’s help–with courage and strength and commitment–with God’s help–and we still stumble. We still take missteps, maybe even falling flat on our faces. We still need to rest from time to time. 

But then we can say yes to healing again–with God’s help. And we can stand up again–with God’s help. And we can begin to speak up, with courage and strength and commitment–with God’s help! And then we stumble and misstep and fall and need to rest. Again.

And then we can say yes to healing again–are you seeing the pattern??–and stand up again, and be light in the darkness and fight for justice–all with God’s help. 

All, and always, with God’s help. 

With God’s help, always.

With God’s presence, always.

With God’s power, always

Hear these words once more, from God’s heart to ours, knowing that as God reaches out to us and offers healing and wholeness, God knows our fears and our despair and the comfort we find in our familiar stuckness. And God continues to call us to new life:

Yes, it will be hard to be well. Harder than it has been to be sick. 

Yes, it will require courage. Remaining stuck is easy.

Yes, it will require strength. It takes no effort to keep doing what you’ve always done.

Yes, it will require patience and commitment and practice. I will get you started, and will be with you; you will have to keep choosing to be well. Day after day, hour after hour, moment by moment. Again and again and again.

Yes, it will be uncomfortable and unfamiliar and scary. 

And it will be hard! Or did I mention that already?? 

All of that is true. And I am here, I am with you, and I want you to be well!

Get up. Pick up your mat and walk.

And this morning, hear these additional words:

Get up and walk–and when you stumble, which you will, reach out for me and steady yourself, and keep going. Get up and walk–and when you take a misstep, which you will, look for me and reorient yourself, and keep going. Get up and walk–and when you fall flat on your face, which you will, let me help you up and brush you off, so you can take a breath, and keep going. Get up and walk–and when you need to rest, which you will, rest. Find the sacred in your rest. And when you’ve rested, keep going. 

Get up. Pick up your mat and walk. 

And know that I am with you, always. 

May each of you, and me, and all of us, and our world, find the healing we so desperately need, the healing God offers us in Jesus Christ. 

Amen.

Life AND Choice Are United

by Rev. Dr. Barb Doerrer-Peacock

I wasn’t sure whether this writing wanted to be a poem or an essay. So, I just wrote. This is the result: my thoughts/feelings about the current threat to women’s reproductive rights.

They would like us to think it’s about
Sanctity vs. sacrilege
Life vs. death
Federal vs state
Truth vs. lies
Constitution vs. changeable laws
Protection of one vs. another
A woman’s issue, and not a man’s
A womb and not a penis
A fetus and not a whole human life
A private decision and not
a whole human culture.

They would like us to think it’s about
when life begins and when it ends,
and whether it is a God
or a human decision.
whether it is male or female
conservative or liberal
Biblical or profane
pro-choice or pro-life.

They would like us to think…
but not really.
They would like us to react.

The tyranny of the binary
creates knee-jerk reactions,
reactions create polarizing gulfs,
gulfs create intractable division:
Us or Them
Other or Self
Win or Lose.

The authority of the binary
creates warring clans and tribes
Us vs. Them
Loyalty vs Disloyalty
Good vs Evil
Right vs. Wrong
Security vs. Fear.

The power of the binary is
dominance of definition
over ambiguity
privilege of power
over powerlessness,
control of cultural commonality
over difference and diversity.

They would like us to think that
this is what it’s all about.
It is not.
It is only yet another mask of
Either/Or
the binary.

A continuing incarnation of something
rather small and insidious,
like a worm that burrows unnoticed
into an orifice and lays its eggs
waiting, growing in the dark
to ultimately take over its host
with fear and madness.

But Life AND Choice are united.
The two entwining, eternal lovers of
God’s Good Creation.
Holiest Gifts
out of which everything is born.

Without Choice – there is no Life.
All is dead.
Without Life – Choice ceases to exist,
All is inanimate.

I refuse the binary trap.
Instead, I CHOOSE LIFE
Together, both, whole.

I choose to believe
life has no beginning
or end – all is in the presence of God
who was, and is,
and forever will be.

I choose to believe
sanctity can be manifest
In all soul-wrestling,
anguished decisions:
to end a pregnancy, AND
to continue a pregnancy
despite all odds, AND
a myriad of other
LIFE CHOOSE-INGS.
All are in the presence of God.

Sanctity evaporates
and the presence of God dims
when
our capacity to
CHOOSE LIFE
Is stolen.

So today,
I CHOOSE LIFE.
And I denounce
those who would be its
thieves.

The Religious Coalition for Reproductive Choice put together this stunning video of Barb’s poem.

Good Enough Faith Keeps Coming Back

by Southwest Conference Minister, Rev. Dr. Bill Lyons, as preached at Scottsdale Congregational UCC on Easter Sunday, April 17, 2022

Easter presents real challenges. It has from the very beginning.

How exactly were the troops going to explain the disappeared body on their watch? Are they really going to tell their superiors: there was suddenly a great earthquake; for an angel of the Lord, descending from heaven, came and rolled back the stone and sat on it. His appearance was like lightning, and his clothing white as snow.

How were the women going to move the stone? And when they found the tomb opened already, imagine their shock and agony and fear!

Mary Magdalene didn’t wait for explanations. John tells us “she ran and went to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one whom Jesus loved, and said to them, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him.” Resurrection didn’t even enter Mary’s mind when she first visited the open tomb. The other women went inside and were perplexed. Messengers – one or two, no one quite remembered – on the stone or inside the vault, that got mixed up too – it’s tricky – but everyone agrees – messengers in dazzling clothes appeared out of nowhere and said, “Don’t be afraid. I know why you are here. The one you watched die three days ago is alive and He told you this would happen. Remember his words? By the way, he’s heading to Galilee and you can see him there.”

That last line in the angels’ message sounds like a set up. Go to Galilee?! Where Herod ruled and John the Baptizer lost his head?! Jesus’s followers had been in hiding for the last three days. They had plenty of examples of what Roman troops did to the friends of people who had been crucified. And now with the body missing, who do you think the troops identified as ‘people of interest’ in connection with all of this? That’s more than tricky!

Two disciples took the risk and ventured out – back to the cemetery. One went inside; one didn’t. No telling who was in there waiting for them. No angels this time, just a pile of grave wrappings and a shroud folded neatly on the niche where Jesus’s body should have been. Well, part of the women’s story was accurate, anyway. I wonder if they looked at Mary who stood outside the tomb and thought. “Did you women stage this? How did you manage it? Where did you put the body? Do you realize what will happen if the troops find out?!”

Nobody believed the women. The first resurrection sermon had no takers. Talk about a problem with Easter!

Mary stayed at the tomb after everyone else left. It’s the last place she’d see her Lord. She was looking for answers. She was looking for Jesus, albeit a dead Jesus. When she found him she couldn’t see him even when the living Jesus, a man she’d spent years following and living in community with, stood right in front of her talking. Her faith wasn’t ready for that. But she’d come back. And when Jesus said her name, she believed!

It took Mary two visits to accept the living Christ. It’s not how many visits it took that mattered. What’s important is that she came back, kept looking, kept listening.

It’s not always in church that we find ourselves re-visiting his tomb or that we hear Jesus say our name.

Ambulance attendants wheeled him into room 14 – the resuscitation suite. He had been found in a doorway of a downtown building unresponsive. The clinical signs told us he had been dead for quite some time. Still, the ER team did everything possible. Then the moment came to stop the effort, and a time of death was pronounced by the attending physician.

An hour or so later the deceased man’s family members and friends began arriving at the hospital and I was called to meet them. They cried and held each other and began to pray and to sing. Their pastor arrived and anointed the body. Then she turned to me and said in broken English, “You tell doctor shock him and he will live now.”

In the break room the attending physician looked at me with wide eyes. “WOW! Chaplain, if they can bring him back with prayer, I’ll start going to church.”

“Doc, I go to church because I know one man God brought back after three days. But right now, I need you to come in and explain to his family that this man has already been shocked and is gone. I’ll take it from there.”

The doctor shook his head. He was well aware that only doctors were permitted to share medical information with families. So, he explained the reality of the team’s resuscitation efforts and the certainty of biological death compassionately and succinctly. The pastor looked right at him and said, “We prayed. You shock him and he will live now.”

Usually when docs finished that kind of conversation, they left the room and let the support team facilitate a grieving process. But this time the doc stepped back, leaned against the wall, crossed his arms, and was as attentive as every family member there. I offered my sincere respect and appreciation for the family and the pastor’s faith in a God who could raise the dead. I too believed in that God. I knew in the end everyone who died trusting Jesus will live again. And I also knew that sometimes, as possible as a resurrection is, God takes a person to live where God is. Silence. Startlingly the pastor responded with jubílense, “¡Alabado sea Dios, se ha ido a casa!” “Praise God, he’s gone home!” and she began to pray.

I heard his pager go off during the prayer, and when I looked up the doc was gone. He found me later and said he didn’t mean to be rude and walk out in the middle of a prayer. I said to him, “What I noticed was this time you stayed for the spiritual explanation of your patient dying.” He looked at me and smiled. “You noticed that, did you.” And then one of our pagers went off…

I wonder, how many trips to Jesus’s tomb we make over time? How have your expectations or questions about what you’ll find there changed since your last visit? Maybe you decided to visit Jesus’s empty tomb this morning wondering. “How?!” Or maybe you’re at the empty tomb again not having thought much about what you’d find – an obstacle or an opening, the expected or a surprise.

Maybe the resurrection seems “like an idle tale” – dazzling extraterrestrials, a three-days-dead corpse walking and talking – the same way the testimony of the women fell on the ears of the disciples.

Maybe you’ve been trying to “remember what he told you,” a faith from childhood, lessons from catechism, or a loved one’s witness.

Perhaps the angelic questions resonate with you. “Why are you looking for the living among the dead?” “Who are you looking for?” [pause] “Who are you looking for?”

Maybe you’re waiting for an invitation to “come and see,” to take a closer look at this place where Jesus is supposed to be found.

Perchance, like Peter,– you’ve seen and still aren’t ready to step in. Or maybe like John – you believe but just aren’t sure how to explain it all.

Or like Mary, you’ve been here before. You’re back because wondering why Jesus isn’t where you thought he’d be, asking questions, making bargains.

It’s even possible all of this leaves you at a loss for words and afraid.

It’s equally possible you heard Jesus say your name once, and you just want to hear it again.

Maybe Easter, is, for you, a day to say, “Alleluia! I’ve seen the Lord!!

Whatever brings you to the empty tomb this time, wherever you find yourself in the story, what matters is you are here! That’s good enough!! Surely there’s room for all of us to grow in our faith. Easter is for celebrating that whatever faith we have in the living Jesus, that’s good enough. Because whatever else we aren’t sure of in our faith, we can be certain of this: Jesus is alive enough to have brought you back. How much more alive does he need to be? Easter faith is good enough when it keeps us coming back. Christ is risen!

He is risen indeed!!