Sermon: "Ears to Hear"

Rev. Maureen Frescott

Congregational Church of Amherst, UCC

July 20, 2014 – Sixth Sunday after Pentecost

Isaiah 55:10-13; Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23

Intro to Matthew 13:1-9, 18-23

Today’s gospel passage is the Parable of the Sower.

This familiar story that Jesus shared with his followers tells the tale of a farmer who tosses out seeds in hope and discovers what happens when those seeds fall on various types of ground - on a beaten path, on rocky ground, on ground choked with thorns, and finally on good, fertile soil.

The second part of today’s passage contains an explanation of the parable that equates the seed with the word of God and names the good soil as those who hear God’s word and allow it to bear fruit in their heart.

We may wonder why Jesus, who often spoke in parables when he was in public, took the time to explain the meaning of this particular parable to the gathered crowd when most other times he did not.

Many scholars believe that the most likely reason is that the explanation of the parable offered here is not original to Jesus, but was added at a later date, either by the author of the Gospel of Matthew or by a later editor.

While the explanation offers a legitimate interpretation of the story, in some ways its presence undermines the very reason why Jesus spoke in parables.

The practical reason is that it was often dangerous for Jesus to speak in a direct manner in front of a crowd that could contain Roman or religious informants who were all too eager to report his counter cultural words to their superiors. So instead he sometimes couched his teachings in stories and parables in the hope that those who opened their hearts would hear the message underneath.

But the deeper reason why Jesus chose to teach through parables is found in the Parable of the Sower itself.

Jesus said, “Let anyone with ears listen.”

We all have the ability to hear God’s word – but what we hear and how we act on it can be different for each one of us, and can change depending on how open we are to hearing it and what distractions we have going on in our lives.

Sometimes we are fertile soil, sometimes we are choked by weeds, and sometimes all we have to offer is barren ground.

The meaning of Jesus’ parable may take a while to take root.

But God ensures that if just take the time to listen, the seed will grow when we’re ready.

“Ears to Hear”

Once upon a time, 4,845 years ago, before the Great Pyramids of Egypt were built and a thousand years before Abraham walked the earth, a tiny seed took flight on a cold mountain wind.

The seed flew through the air and tumbled along the stark, rocky ground, turning end over end before finally coming to rest in a jutting outcrop, some 10,000 feet up, on the sloping side of a mountain.

Wedged in-between the rocks, the tiny seed had little chance of taking root. The limestone soil below it was shallow and dry and devoid of most of the nutrients that a seedling would need to survive.

The wind at this elevation was relentless, precipitation was scarce, and the temperature hovered way below freezing for 11 months of the year.

Yet on that day, 4,845 years ago, this tiny seed defied the odds and took root.   

Somehow, someway, it found just enough moisture and just enough nourishment in that rocky soil to break itself open and send out a tiny shoot towards the sky.

That seedling grew into a mighty tree.

A bristlecone pine, to be exact, that today sits just below the tree line in the White Mountains of California, just over the Nevada border.

Scientists have named this particular tree Methuselah, after the longest living person in the Hebrew Bible - the grandfather of Noah who was said to have lived 969 years.

At 4,845 years, this knotted and gnarled pine named Methuselah is the oldest living organism on earth.

Robert Mohlenbrock, a professor of botany at Southern Illinois University, recalls the first time that he visited the Bristlecone Pine Forest in California to study the ancient tree.

Mohlenbrock wrote, "At the time I thought that any organism that lived longer than the norm had to have optimal conditions to survive.” 

For plants, that would mean moderate temperature, shelter from extreme weather, and plenty of moisture and nutrients.

“But,” Mohlenbrock continued, "when I stood in that bone-chilling wind looking at Methuselah, I knew I had been wrong."

Here was a tree that not only defied all odds in taking root, it had also withstood thousands of years of fierce winters, minimal rainfall, and more recently the encroachment of human beings.

Methuselah survived the California gold rush, the nuclear testing in the nearby Nevada desert, and the influx of curious scientists who in the 1950’s cut down and destroyed a neighboring bristlecone pine to examine it, only to discover that that tree, named Prometheus, was even older than Methuselah, having taken root over 5,000 years ago.

One might say the bristlecone pine was seemingly designed to thrive in harsh conditions.  It has a shallow but extensive root system that spreads underneath the tree seeking water wherever it falls.  The wood is very dense and resistant to invasion by insects, fungi, and other pests.  And where other species of trees suffer rot, bristlecone pines endure, even after death, standing solidly on their roots for many centuries to come.

Now, you may wonder why I chose to share this story of this odds-defying ancient tree when its existence seems to contradict Jesus’ lesson of the Parable of the Sower, the time-worn gospel story that teaches us that only seeds that land on rich fertile soil have a fighting chance to survive.

Of course the seed that Jesus speaks of is not the seed of a hearty bristlecone pine, but an everyday ordinary plant seed, which we are intended to see as an analogy for the word of God.  

For the word of God to take root in us, the parable tells us, we must offer ourselves up as willing and fertile soil, and nurture that seed to fruition.

But we may wonder if something about this analogy falls short.

While we can imagine an ordinary plant seed needing ideal conditions to take root, one would think that the word of God would not be as fragile and prone to failure as the parable implies.

After all, how prevalent would God’s word be, if it had to rely solely on the fickle and unforgiving soil of humanity to survive and flourish in this world?

So perhaps Jesus’ parable is not so much about the quality of the soil as it exists in us, as it is about the hardiness of the seed…..and the persistent and nurturing presence of the sower.

Think back to the time when you first heard the word of God.

Perhaps you were a small child and your parents read stories to you out of a family bible.

Perhaps you went to Sunday School where you drew pictures of Moses parting the read sea, made heavenly angels of out of construction paper and cotton balls, and you learned to equate the moral teachings of Jesus with the Golden Rule – to love your neighbor as yourself and do unto others, as you would have done unto you.

Perhaps you had limited or no exposure to religion as a child and you first encountered the word of God as a teenager or adult, and found it to be confusing, contradictory, or hopelessly outdated for our age.

Perhaps the way you hear the word of God is not limited to the sacred texts that we call scripture, and you also hear God speaking in other forms of literature, in music, in art, in nature, in the voices and actions of ordinary human beings who serve as vessels for God’s extraordinary Spirit in this world.

Regardless of how we encounter the word of God, we often hear it, interpret it, and act on it, in many different ways, as we move through our lives and integrate our experiences from the world around us.

The word of God is not stagnant, and neither are we.

As we change, and the circumstances of our lives change, the meaning that we find in these ancient texts changes, too.

The word of God that we hear as a 15-year-old struggling with peer pressure, parental expectations, and the excitement of having our whole lives ahead of us, may be quite different than the word we hear as a 65-year-old, when we’re immersed in thoughts of retirement, downsizing, and issues of health and mortality.

There may be times in our lives when we don’t hear God speaking to us at all – because we don’t have the time to listen, or we’re struggling to find meaning in religious beliefs and traditions that for us no longer ring true.

And there are still other times in our lives when we seek and find meaning in every experience and in every encounter. God is all around us, and we revel in the abundance of grace in our lives.

The beauty of God’s word is that has the ability to speak to us in many ways, over the course of our lives, and in the course of one day.

The spiritual practice known as lectio divina – or divine reading - involves a contemplative reading of a short passage from scripture. The same passage is read three or four times in a row, with the participants pausing between each reading to reflect on the word or the invitation that is heard each time.

Those who try lectio divina are often surprised at how a different word, phrase, or message will rise up for them each time they read the same text, and how even a familiar text can offer up a new insight or a new interpretation that they had never considered before.

The seed that God scatters among us is persistent.

Regardless of whether we self identify as barren soil, rocky ground, or prone to being overcome by weeds, the seed of God’s word lands on us regardless and often it will lie dormant until we’re ready for it to take root.

Brandon Stantan is a NY photojournalist who specializes in portraits of everyday people that he posts on his website titled, “Humans of New York.”

Stantan photographs people from all walks of life as he encounters them on the streets of NYC, and then asks them brief but personal questions:

“What is your happiest or saddest memory” - “What advice would you give to a large group of people?” - “Can you tell me about your work?”

The photographs alone are moving, but the answers that Stanten receives to his simple questions are often insightful and inspiring.

A few days ago he published a photo of a middle-aged African American man who was sitting next to a trashcan and wearing the orange uniform of a city street cleaner.  We don’t know what question Stanten asked the man, but the response the man gave is as follows:

In my heart of hearts, I wanted to do the right thing, but selling drugs was easy. Everyone was doing it. I mean, I'm not using that as an excuse, I made my own decisions. But I grew up around these Robin Hood figures who would sell drugs, then buy supplies for kids who were going back to school, or pay rent for an old woman who was about to get evicted. All my friends were doing it. It almost seemed fashionable. I never felt proud of it. I always thought I'd transition to a job with the Transit Authority, or a job like this-- something I'd feel good about, but instead I transitioned to jail. I did six years. When I got out, it was tempting to go back to the easy money, because everyone around me was still doing it, and I couldn't get a job. But luckily I found an agency that helps ex-cons, because there aren't many companies looking to give people a second chance. I've had this job for a few years now. You know what product I'm selling now? Myself. Everyone here in Times Square is my client. And I'm picking up all the trash so that they can have the full Times Square experience.

This is a modern day parable of a seed being tossed on rocky, thorn choked ground that had little hope of taking root.

And yet take root it did.

Just as it does every day in places that we least expect it and in ways that defy belief.

When we hear the parable of the sower we often get lost in the explanation that follows Jesus’ parable and place the focus on ourselves and the quality of the soil that we have to offer – and then we beat ourselves up if our soil is not good enough….and we can’t seem to pull ourselves out of the thorns that suffocate the seeds that God throws upon us.

But as with all of Jesus’ parables there are many ways to hear it.

What if we try shifting our focus off our own shortcomings and instead see the parable as a celebration of the extravagant nature of the sower – this God who tosses seeds with wild abandon knowing that some will land on rocky, unfertile ground, and some will land on ground so choked with weeds that it’s unlikely that anything will ever grow.

But God throws those seeds anyway.

Because you never know when one will take root and send a tiny shoot into the light and the rain and inspire others to grow as well.

As we circle back to where we started and consider the tenacity of the bristlecone pine tree, it may surprise you to hear that Methuselah is no longer the oldest living organism on earth.

In 2013, scientists examined another bristlecone pine not far from where Methuselah stands, and they were able to determine that this yet unnamed tree sprouted from a seed that took root in 3051 BC, making it 5,063 years old, 200 years older than Methuselah.

Perhaps, the unlikely occurrence of seeds taking root in unfertile soil is not as rare as we would think.

All those who have ears to hear, listen.

And thanks be to God.

Amen.

Sermon: "The Yoke's on You"

Rev. Maureen Frescott

Congregational Church of Amherst, UCC

July 6, 2014 – Fourth Sunday after Pentecost

Psalm 145:8-14; Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30

“The Yoke’s on You”

Think about for a moment how you would complete the following sentence:

“Life is _________”

What word would you choose to fill in that blank?

Life is good?

Life is challenging?

Life is unpredictable?

Life is a burden?

How we fill in that blank may depend on our disposition – whether we choose to lift up the highs or the lows of our lives, but it may also be a reflection of what we’re experiencing in the moment, as there are times when we may gleefully say that life is good, or fun, or rewarding, and there plenty of other times when we would insist that life is hard, unforgiving, and downright exhausting.

Exhausting is the word I would choose this week.

But that’s to be expected after having spent 9 days on the Senior High mission trip with 26 teenagers and 10 adults living and working and driving to and from the Appalachian mountains of Tennessee.

I think it was around day four, when we all looked at each other and said,

“My God, it’s only Tuesday - we have five more days of this!”

At that point we had three teenagers who had thrown up during the night and were out of commission with a stomach bug, and panic was setting in over who would be next. 

Others in our group were complaining of sore throats, head colds, and dehydration.

We had several teens who were feeling home sick, and we had teens and adults who were anxious about health concerns of loved ones back home.

On top of all this, the work we were doing was hard.

Replacing roofs, rebuilding decks, crawling under trailer homes where only animals and insects dared to tread. All of it in the blazing hot sun and sudden downpours that are typical of late June in Tennessee.

Thrown into this mix were the challenges of our accommodations – sleeping bags and air mattresses on a church floor, sharing living space with two other youth groups from different parts of the country, and four outdoor showers for 70 people and only a small window of time each day to use them.

The trip also featured a travel night spent in what turned out to be a very sketchy motel in Virginia, a harrowing van ride on a narrow mountain road in a driving rainstorm, and the realization that on our work sites we were for the most part unskilled laborers being entrusted with technical construction projects, armed with only a written instruction manual and limited tools and materials.

For most of the trip it felt like we were flying by the seat of our pants.

Both on the work sites and at the church, teens and adults alike were functioning in crisis mode for a good chunk of the time.

It was exhausting.

And it was so, so worth it.

It’s often said that we go on these church mission trips to help the “less fortunate” among us - as if we’re knights-in-shining-armor swooping in to lift up those in need because God has blessed us with the means to do so.

But as anyone who has been on trip like this will tell you there are no “saviors” and “victims in need of saving” in this story.

We’re all just people reaching out to each other.

We may live in disparate circumstances and have different life experiences but we come together to learn from each other and do things for one another… because we feel this pull inside of us that we just can’t ignore - this pull that says we’re all God’s children, and we’re all deserving of love, and happiness, and a sense of security and comfort in our lives.

Mission trips are life-changing experiences for everyone involved.

As a group we helped five families in eastern Tennessee live more comfortably and securely in their homes, but we received just as much in return.   And I’m not talking about gratitude.

Some of the families we worked with did express gratitude with an outpouring of hospitality, cards, and letters.

But the other families were either absent or showed open discomfort with our presence, either out of embarrassment of their living situation, or because of the tiring task of playing host to an endless stream of strangers in their home, day after day for weeks on end.

Yes, it would be nice if everyone we served in life expressed gratitude for what they’ve been given, but as one of our teens so wisely said on our final night in TN – we weren’t down there fixing houses because of the thank you’s and warm hugs we would get in return…we were there to serve others because it was the right thing to do.

Because it was the loving thing to do.

And we do it regardless of what we expect to receive in return.

But the truth is, we did receive so much in return.

As a church group from Amherst, NH we may have had the means and the method to dedicate a week of our lives to helping five families in Appalachia, but our teens and our adults took back so much more than thank you letters and a set of new construction skills.

One of our freshmen girls learned that she had the capability and the strength cut metal rebar in the hot sun for hours, because she knew it would be used to hold up the underside of someone’s home.

One of our junior boys learned how to tape and mud drywall, and after he saw the home where he’d be working he very maturely admitted to feeling ashamed for complaining about the night we spent in a not-so-clean motel, when some families lived in much worse conditions every single day.

And one of our senior boys learned how to fix a roof, and he also learned just how much the younger teens look up to him as a leader and a role model, and that they see his quiet, reserved manor as a strength and something to be admired, and not something he should ever apologize for.

As always, our group itself was a source of comfort and strength for our teens.

They leaned on each other and they lifted each other up.

We had freshmen on their first trip away from home who rose to the challenge and discovered a sense of resiliency they didn’t know they had, and we had seniors on the brink of college, who felt loved and safe enough within our group to express their fears and vulnerability, and in doing so gave everyone else the permission to do the same.

This kind of communal support is something to be celebrated and cherished, at any age, and it’s a wonderful illustration of how all of our individual burdens are lessoned when we take them on as a community.

In our gospel text today, Jesus talks about easing our burdens and our weariness by bringing them to him, because his yoke is easy and light.

This yoke that he speaks of is the yoke that all Jewish rabbis offered their followers. The yoke, or mantel that was placed upon a student’s shoulders was unique to each rabbi, and it consisted of the rabbi’s teachings and his understanding of what it meant to live and follow the law as a person of God.

Jesus declared that his yoke was easy and light not because he didn’t believe in upholding the Jewish law or because his standards were much lower than other rabbis.

Jesus’ yoke is easy and light because it removes the burden that we’ve mistakenly placed upon ourselves and instead places it upon God.

This burden is the belief that says we have to earn God’s grace, love, and forgiveness. This burden causes us to feel apart from God if we fall short, and prods us to keep tabs on everyone else and where we rank in God’s favor in comparison.

This is the burden that Jesus says we can toss aside.

Because God’s grace and love are given unconditionally to all.

But what about the other burdens that we carry?

The burdens that we weigh us down because we’re imperfect beings living with other imperfect beings in an imperfect world?

This is where Jesus offers us the yoke of community.

This is a yoke that is not confining but freeing.

This is the yoke that tethers us to one another and makes the individual loads that we carry so much easier to bear.

Because we’re not built to carry all of our burdens on our own.

None of us is strong enough to do that.

But knowing that doesn’t stop us from trying.

How many of us keep our struggles to ourselves, because we fear that others will see us as weak or vulnerable?

How many of us fear that if we lean on others too much they’ll grow impatient with us and drift away?

None of us wants to be a burden on others.

So we carry our burdens in silence.

Jesus’ frustration with the generation of his time was that they too were hesitant to accept the light and easy yoke that he was offering.

It all sounded too good to be true.

John the Baptist had been rejected by the masses as being too “out there” to be taken seriously, with his “turn or burn” message and his austere ways that were extreme even for first century Palestine.

But Jesus seemed to take it too far in the opposite direction.

Rather than reject the fallen and the ostracized he befriended them.

He ate and drank with them.

Surely the burdens that these people carried were too great for God to overlook – addiction, prostitution, greed, laziness – these bottom dwellers were the black sheep of their families who took much more than they gave and tried the patience of the good hearted folks who attempted to reach out and help them.

Surely they didn’t deserve the attention of the man who claimed to be the Messiah who had come to save the people of God.

The people of God were worshiping in the Temple and working for a living -  not drinking the day away or begging for handouts in the street.

This fickle generation who scoffed at Jesus’ ability to judge who is worthy of God’s saving grace and who is not, is not much different than our own generation.

In Tennessee, when the adult leaders of all our work teams gathered each day to share stories about the families we were helping, it was all too easy to allow judgment to creep in.

We remarked on the cleanliness of their homes, the way they treated their children and their animals, the money they spent on cigarettes or alcohol or other extraneous items, the presence of a big screen TV or a cell phone in a run down trailer home (regardless of how old or outdated the technology seemed to be), and the lack of gratitude or warmth shown to those of us who had come so far to help. 

It was all up for judgment, as if any of us would fair much better if we allowed a group of random strangers to peek in our closets, listen in on our family squabbles, or question our need for financial aid for our children’s schooling or tax breaks for our businesses when we seem to have more than enough money to spend on cable TV and double mocha lattes.

Who gets to decide who is deserving of help with their burden and who is not?  

Not us, says Jesus.

This yoke that he speaks of ties us all to one another.

Our burden is lightened by our participation in community, and we in turn help lighten the burden of others, whether we’re aware of it or not.

On our trip to Tennessee, our teens and chaperones learned things that will stay with them for a lifetime, and every family we worked with made that possible simply by asking for help.

We are yoked to one another, whether we like it or not.

And as Jesus has tried to teach one generation after another, life is so much easier if stop trying to carry all of our burdens on our own, and stop arguing about who is worthy of having their burdens eased and who is not.

It may be a cliché to say, “Let go and let God handle it” but in this case that’s exactly what we need to do.

So I’d like to revise my response to the question I asked at the beginning of this sermon.

Life during our nine days in Tennessee was exhausting…..but it was also challenging, fulfilling, and good.

Because we had each other to lean on in our weariness, and our heavy burdens were made light in each other’s presence.

Because God was present with us….then, now, and always.

Thanks be to God.

Amen.

Sermon: "One is the Loneliest Number"

Rev. Maureen Frescott

Congregational Church of Amherst, UCC

June 15, 2014 – Trinity Sunday

Genesis 1:1-2:4a

“One is the Loneliest Number”

If you were a child growing up in China, you would probably be familiar with the story of P'an Ku.  

P’an Ku is a fur wearing giant, and he’s the central character in an ancient Chinese creation story. 

P’an Ku is hatched from a giant cosmic egg.

Half the shell is above him as the sky, the other half below him as the earth. He grows taller each day for 18,000 years, gradually pushing the sky and the earth apart until they reach their appointed places.

After all this effort, P'an Ku crumbles into pieces. His limbs become the mountains, his blood the rivers, his breath the wind and his voice the thunder. His two eyes become the sun and the moon.  And fittingly, the fleas that crawl on his fur become humankind.

If you were a child of the Native American Cherokee tribe you would have heard the story of Dâyuni'sï.

Before the earth was formed, there was only sky and water, until Dâyuni'sï, a little water beetle, came from the sky realm to see what was below.

He scurried over the surface of the water, but found no solid place to rest, so he dove beneath the water and brought up some mud.

This mud expanded in every direction and became the earth.

The other animals in the sky realm were eager to come down to the new earth, so Buzzard was sent to see if the mud had dried.  When he flew down his wings brushed the earth, gouging mountains and valleys in the soft ground.

When the land was finally dry all of the animals came down.

But it was dark, so they took the sun and set it in the sky, at first setting it too low, scorching the shell of the crawfish and turning it red.

They elevated the sun seven times in order to reduce its heat.

As they did this, all of the plants and animals were told to stay awake for seven nights, but only the owl and panther succeeded and they were given the power to see and prey upon the others in the dark.  Only a few trees succeeded as well, cedar, pine, and spruce, so the rest were forced to shed their leaves in the winter.

The first humans who appeared on the earth were a brother and sister.

One day the brother hit his sister with a fish and told her to multiply.

She gave birth to a child every seven days and soon there were so many people on the earth, that all women were forced to have just one child every year.

(The message to woman here is beware of men throwing fish)

Nearly every human culture has a creation story of some kind -

a story that explains how our world, and how we, came to be.

Many of these mythological stories involve heavenly creatures, jealous Gods, or races of giants who battle to the death, and human beings are often the residual and flawed byproduct of their violent creative fits.

When the Hebrew decedents of Abraham spent 70 years in captivity in ancient Babylon they would have heard the creation story of Enuma Elish - a story that elevated the Mesopotamian God, Murduk, above all other Gods.

In this story, Murduk battles and defeats Tiamat, the chaos monster of the seas. Murduk becomes the supreme God over all, and humanity is created to serve him as slaves.

This story dates back to the 12^th century B.C. and is believed to be 300 years older than the Hebrew creation story that we read here in worship this morning.

For the Hebrew people languishing in the despair and drudgery of captivity, there wasn’t much hope to be found in these stories of warring Gods who created a violent and evil world to serve their own needs.

So the Hebrew people began to tell their own story.

In their story there is only one God above all Gods, and this God created a world that is good.

This God created light and dark, the sun and the moon, the plants and the animals, and named it all as GOOD.

This God created humankind, male and female, in God’s own likeness, and named it as GOOD.

This God did not create a race of slaves, this God instead created a family of caretakers.

Beings formed from dust and given life through divine breath.

Beings whose purpose was to care for creation and celebrate the one true God who gave them life.

This is the story that the exiled Israelites told their children when they tucked them into bed at night - children who were facing a very hard and painful life, and had never seen the Temple that was built for the loving and powerful God that walked with them in their misery.

The Israelites told and retold this story in the hope that it would help them to tune out the prevailing story of the culture, which said they were destined for a life of sorrow in a chaotic world created by power hungry Gods. And it was hoped that they would instead embrace the story of the one, true God, who created a world of beauty and order, where life had meaning and purpose.

Perhaps the most amazing part of this story that that the children of Abraham told is that this God created a being that was meant to serve as the voice of creation itself.

A being that would not only care for creation but speak for it.

A being capable of communicating with and loving its Creator.

A being that was created to live in relationship.

With God, with the created world, and with other beings like itself.

As Christians this relational triangle – or trinity - is familiar to us.

We already think of God as having three parts –

God the Creator.

God the redeemer – through Christ.

And God the sustainer – through the Holy Spirit.

In human terms, this is a God who is our life-giving parent, our forgiving and loving brother, and our guiding and providing sister.

It’s natural that as a being created in God’s image that we too would long for this three-fold relationship – with God, with creation, and with each other.

Perhaps this is why we feel so alone or unsettled when any one of these relationships is missing, strained, or in need of healing in our lives.

If we think of God as having three aspects that live in relationship then it seems odd to suggest that perhaps God created us because God was lonely and was longing for someone to talk to.

But I believe there is some truth in that.

As much as God could sit back and enjoy the beauty of the created world – the wind in the trees, the roar of seas, the cycle of life as lived out through the birds of the air and everything that walks or crawls on the earth – there was something missing.

Perhaps God longed for a creature that would one day be aware of God’s existence – and reach out as a child reaches for a parent, as a friend reaches for a beloved companion.

If you think about it, the fact that we have such an awareness is quite extraordinary.

You don’t have to be a quantum physicist to marvel at the wonder of how particles smaller than the eye can see, come together to form creatures capable of doing all that we are capable of doing.

God’s creation is amazing indeed.

Here is a God who created the light sensitive cells that make up the eyes of most of the world’s creatures, and then creates a being who would one day use those cells to look through the lens of a microscope and contemplate the wonder of its own existence.

Here is a God who created a being out of dust - carbon, hydrogen, oxygen, sulfur – the same stuff that stars are made of, in the hope that one day this clump of stardust might compose a hymn of praise.

As the Rev. Barbara Brown Taylor so eloquently put it:

God may well love the sound of waves and spring peepers, but I have to believe there was joy in heaven when the first human being looked at the sky and said, “Thank you for this.”

Just as any parent delights in seeing their child explore, learn, and grow,

and is joyous when they receive expressions of their child’s gratitude for all they have been given, I believe God longs for the same with us.

In the same way, God longs for us to turn to our Creator, our redeemer, our sustainer, when the world is not as ordered as we expect it to be, when in our sorrow and in our suffering we are in need of comfort, courage, and strength.

God created our world and declared it to be good.

The ancient Israelites told this story of a loving God and the gift of creation to counteract the prevailing story of the Babylonians who held them captive.

When we tell the Hebrew creation story to our children, we’re hoping to counteract the prevailing stories of our culture that hold us captive as well.

The stories that tell our children, and us, that we were created not to live in relation with on another but in competition.

The stories that tell us that we were created not to care for our world, but to consume it.

The stories that tell us that God is not a loving, relational redeemer, but is instead an angry, distant punisher.

The stories we tell about ourselves say a lot about how we view the world and how we understand the purpose of our existence.

The fact that in 21^st century New England we’re still telling the stories carried by an ancient desert people who longed to escape captivity, says a lot about the power of these stories to transcend time and space and culture.

Regardless of how technologically advanced we are, how affluent we are, or how privileged we are, we can’t escape the nature of our creation.

We are relational beings.

We long for, and thrive, when we live in relationship -

with God, with the created world, and with each other.

And as long as we continue to share our creation stories,

we will continue to see the value in nourishing and healing those relationships.

Because in God’s image we are created.

And in that image, we can create a whole lot of GOOD in this world.

Thanks be to God.

Amen.

* Quote from Barbara Brown Taylor, The Luminous Web, Cowley Publications, pg. 31-32

Sermon: "Confirm or Conform"

Rev. Maureen Frescott

Congregational Church of Amherst, UCC

June 8, 2014 – Pentecost Sunday – Confirmation Sunday

Genesis 11:1-9; Acts 2:1-21

“Confirm or Conform”

I am what you might call a “word geek”.

I am fascinated by words, their origins and the many different meanings they come to have as they wind their way through time and culture.

I realize that not everyone shares this fascination.

I can tell this, because people often roll their eyes when I share some tidbit about a word’s origin or etymology.     For example:

Did you know the word “loophole” comes from the small openings in medieval castle walls that archers used to shoot their arrows through, the only vulnerability in an otherwise impenetrable fortress?

Or, did you know that the words umpire and apron used to begin with the letter “n” but when people said “a napron” or “a numpire” it sounded like the “n” was part of the previous word so over time the ‘n’ was dropped?

I can see some of you rolling your eyes.

Even if etymology is not your thing, you have to admit that the nuances of language can make for some interesting misinterpretations.

I came across the story of a Girl Scout troop leader who gave her girls a list of first aid supplies to buy for an upcoming camping trip.

She photocopied the list directly from the Red Cross First Aid Manual.

She was surprised when the girls showed up for the trip lugging heavy backpacks that contained huge bags of dry plaster mix.

It turns out the Red Cross Manual she used was printed in Great Britain, where the word used for Band-Aid is plaster. 

The differences between American English and British English account for numerous opportunities for misinterpretation.

In Britain, a boot goes on your car, not on your foot.

Braces hold up your trousers, not your teeth.

You’ll find a trolley in the supermarket, not on the street.

What we call jelly they call jam, and what they call jelly we call gelatin  - or Jello.    

I found this out when I went into a bakery in London and asked for a jelly donut, and received only a confused stare.

Language, and the confusion thereof, plays an integral part in both of our scripture readings for today.

In the Tower of Babel story we find a wonderfully creative explanation of how we came to have so many diverse languages in our world.

In this story, all the people of the world live in one place and share one language.  Yet they fear being scattered from this place so they decide to build a city to anchor them there.

They make bricks of clay and build a tower that will reach to the heavens.

This passage is often interpreted as being about pride.

It is said that the people built a tower to make a name for themselves, to show that they had the power to create great things just as God did.

But in Hebrew scripture, the phrase “making a name for oneself” is rarely used to denote arrogance or pride.

Rather, it implies an act of establishing an identity that is meant to endure.

In this case, the act of building a city to establish a common culture and a common language that will keep the people bound together.

The goal of the building project was to keep the people from scattering.

We know from anthropology that once people are scattered by distance they begin to develop their own ideas, their own culture, their own language, which over time can become vastly different from that of the originating group.    

There is strength in sameness.

As human beings, we have a primitive need to know who we can trust, which is why we often feel threatened by those who are easily identifiable as being outsiders.

But, according to Hebrew scripture, the conviction that humanity was to remain in one place with one single language was not part of God’s plan.

God had commanded humanity to multiply, to fill all the earth, and to care for God’s creation.

By attempting to stay in one place rather then moving out into the world as God intended, humanity was honoring its own will rather than God’s will.

So according to the biblical storytellers, God put a stop to it.

God confused the language of the people.

They could no longer communicate with one another.

They no longer shared a common goal.

The stopped building the city, and they scattered all over the earth.

According to Jewish interpretations, this scattering was not a punishment, but a giant push out of the nest so to speak.

What if we began to see our diversity as God’s design for the world? 

We do have biblical passages that compel us to act as ONE body in Christ and to be UNITED in our faith in the service of God.

But could it be that God desires a world full of faithful people who express that faith and live out the gospel through the lens of different cultures, different languages, and different understandings of how God’s divine presence expresses itself in our world?

I believe the story of Pentecost gives us a resounding YES to this question.

In the Tower of Babel story we hear that all the people of the world are gathered in one place.

The story of the Day of Pentecost begins in much the same way.

On that day the disciples are all together in one place, gathered inside the walls of a house in Jerusalem, feeling isolated and lost….

And then in a rush of wind and fire - God draws them outside.

Instantly, they are filled with the Holy Spirit and begin to speak in other languages.   The story tells us that faithful Jews from every nation were present and each heard the disciples speaking of God’s love and grace in their own native language. 

This was the unique charge of the newly emerging Christian faith.

Jesus himself called on his disciples to carry the message of the gospel to all the nations of the world.

As Jews, they were traditionally a people of one land, one book, and one sacred language, yet God called the followers of Jesus to diversify and scatter yet again.  To spread the message of God’s inclusive love to a world that was anxious to hear it.

Now, our confirmands may be surprised to hear that our Christian faith encourages us to celebrate diversity rather than uniformity.

When I was growing up and first heard the word “Confirmation” I thought the adults were saying “Conformation” –  I thought that the purpose of the yearlong class was to ensure that we CONFORMED to Christian teachings and stopped thinking for ourselves.

Some of you may have thought this as well.

Some of us grew up in churches where we had to memorize the responses we were expected to give at the confirmation service, and at the end of the class we were not given the choice to say yes or no to being confirmed.

It was just assumed we would be confirmed, because without it, we would be denying the gift of God’s grace.

As if an all-mighty, all-knowing, and all loving God could be swayed to rescind the unconditional gift of grace because a 13-year-old girl or boy has doubts and questions.

The same doubts and questions that all of us have.

Many adults in the church lament that Confirmation is often seen as graduation.

At 13 or 14 you complete your Christian Education and you move on to bigger and better things.  To put it bluntly – we adults fear that we’re never going to see you again.

Some of you may participate in youth group and we may see some of you in church on Christmas and Easter, but for the most part, while you will be members of this church in name, you may never be active members in the same way as your parents, your mentors, or the people sitting in the pews behind you are.

So with all our cards on the table, I’m here now to make a plea to you as confirmands: 

We need you.

I don’t mean that this church needs you, although being an active member would be nice.

And I don’t mean that the Christian church as a whole needs you because the world needs Christians more than Hindus, Muslims, or Buddhists.

What the world needs is more followers of Jesus.

And when I say the world needs more followers of Jesus, I don’t mean the world needs more people handing out pamphlets urging sinners to accept Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior or face eternal damnation.

The world has enough of those people. 

What we need is more people who walk in the ways of Jesus.

The world has a multitude of lonely, hungry, anxious, and unloved people.

We need more compassionate, giving, and forgiving people to care for them, to feed them and love them.

The world also has a multitude of angry, selfish, spiteful, and greedy people.

The world needs you to love them too.

Because fear can be expressed in many different ways.

And love always conquer fear.

Now in no way am I saying that it’s going to be easy to live into your Baptismal and Confirmation vows as followers of Christ in the world.

Even at the age of 13 or 14, you have a lot of challenges and transitions ahead of you – entering high school, making new friends, discovering who you are as person, and figuring out where your happiness lies in life.  

My plea to you is to not conform when you feel pulled towards things that harm rather than heal.

Don’t do what everybody else does.

Don’t put other people in boxes or slap a label on them thinking you know everything about them as a person based on the way they dress, what kind of music they listen to, who they hang out with, and what their interests are.

In high school, and in life, you will encounter athletes and musicians, class clowns and cheerleaders, math and science kids, drama kids, quiet kids, popular kids, and the kids who prefer to float on the fringes.

God needs you to love and care for all of them

And treat them all with kindness, as you would want to be treated yourself.

And just so you know, we adults often fail miserably at this.

We also feel pulled to define a person based on their race, nationality, or religion or what they do for work, where they live, how they vote, and how well they, and their children, have managed the challenges of life.

But we’re not confirming our baptismal vows if we’re not doing the four things that you confirmands promised to do here this morning.

To follow Jesus.

To renounce evil and injustice.

To love our neighbor and help ease their suffering.

And do it all in a community that nurtures us and magnifies our love in the world.

Our instinct as human beings is to gather in one place, and hold onto our commonalities and our sameness, because this is where we find comfort.

But God is calling us to live differently.

Sometimes what is familiar and comfortable only serves to hold us back.

Sometimes we need to take a risk and allow ourselves to be drawn out and sent out where the Spirit leads us.

Sometimes we need to confirm our promise to God,

Rather than conform to the ways of the world.

Blessings to all of you on your journeys.

You are members of the body of Christ.

You are uniquely and wonderfully made,

and God’s love and grace has been offered freely to you.

The world needs you to go and do likewise.

Amen.