Second Congregational United Church of Christ

05/27/2023

This week is a big one, it is Pentecost, but it is also my final batch of services with you all in Hyde Park, Jeffersonville and Bakersfield. Pentecost is a time to try and build understanding, to recognize the many ways in which the Spirit of God calls us. Sometimes, this brings us together, sometimes it leads us apart, but always it works to promote loving and supportive relations between those we share this life with.

When Christians talk about Pentecost we mainly refer to Acts 2:1-21 in the New Testament, it is the story of how the Holy Spirit descended upon the Apostles and their disciples. The Apostles had come to Jerusalem, along with Jewish folks from all over the region, likely to celebrate Shavuot; when God gave Moses the Torah. And as they gathered Acts tells us the spirit of God descended upon the gathering so that everyone there, no matter what language they spoke, were able to understand one another. This miracle, in many ways, represents what Christ tells us God’s love is all about; helping people to understand one another!

I will always argue that the purpose of Christianity is not to exclude, suppress, promote faith based nationalism, or justify hate and violence. Christianity and Religion in general are meant to be a tool which can help people better understand and support one another. In general the teachings of Jesus are that love can help us better understand where other people are coming from, because if we take the time to let that spirit of love bring us together with other people, then our nationality, language, culture, traditions and even religions, should be things that help to support and love one another, even if they are different.

This is the tool that the Apostles wished to give to their disciples, just as Jesus gave them that gift. This is the gift that people of faith should still be trying to give to the world because we are living in a time where people do not want to understand each other. Why would anyone WANT to understand a person who would shoot up a school, church or supermarket? Why would anyone want to understand a person who thinks storming our nation's capital is or is not a good thing?
Why would we want to try and understand folks who think supporting Ukraine is a bad thing, or that climate change or racism is not real? Because at the end of the day these actions are rooted in human emotion, anger, fear and pain, and all of us are just as susceptible to these feelings as anyone else.

Pentecost is about letting love help us in understanding each other, both the good and the bad. Because if we want to help each other be better people, we need to know who each other are.

05/17/2023

This week we are talking about the Ascension of Jesus Christ to heaven, and as far as geeky Christian theology goes, this is one of the most relevant ideas of faith to our everyday lives. The idea is simple, Jesus went to heaven, which means Jesus is NOT here!

Now I can already imagine some folks saying, that of course Jesus is here, He is the SPIRIT and the WORD of God; which I agree with, but before we start going about like Jesus is some force guiding our every action; I would like to break down what the Ascension is all about.

In Luke 24:44-53 Jesus ascends to heaven leaving his disciples with a message. Go back to Jerusalem and seek the Spirit of Truth, if you do this God will send and advocate who will continue the mission of Christ. This ascension message is essentially Jesus giving his disciples the keys to his car. He is telling them that he will not be with them in body anymore, and so he will no longer be in control of where the Christian faith goes, he gives this to his followers and tells them that he trusts them to do good.

What he says can be broken down into three parts. First, go to Jerusalem, but why would they want to go there after having escaped persecution and death? The reason is why Jesus went to Jerusalem to begin with; That was the heart of all Israel's problems and Jesus tells his disciples to face those problems head on.
By doing this he tells them the second thing they will do is find a Spirit of Truth. This is the Spirit of Jesus we Christians always talk about. That thing in our soul which tells us to face injustice, help those in need, accept help from those who can give it and to build relationships rooted in love. If a Christian is a Jedi then this Spirit of Truth is our Force, and it is the way we confront and heal this messed up world we live in.
The last point Jesus gives his disciples is that once they have learned how to use this Force -ehem- Holy Spirit, to make positive change in the world they can then go out and teach others and be Jedi Masters! - ehem- I mean Apostles of Christ! And become an advocate of God.

The Ascension of Jesus to heaven is when Jesus’ disciples stop being students and become the masters. It is when a new generation takes up the cross and then decides where to lead it. It is also the time when Jesus, who knew what he was doing, stops being here, and instead there is just us!

The Spirit of Christ is a tool that Christian use to bring healing to the world, but just like any tool we need to understand that it can be used to build something up, but also to break things down.
This spirit should be used to build up love and justice, healing and hope within the world, and it should be used to break down corruption and injustice, bigotry and oppression.

We imperfect people have both used this Spirit for good and evil. We have used it to isolate, abuse, exploit and cheat those whom Jesus gave us this gift to share love with.

The Spirit of Christ is intended to do good, but there are those who use it for harm, knowingly or unknowingly, and that is why it is important to recognize the Ascension. Jesus is in heaven, WE are here now! How will we use his gift of the Spirit? It is for us to decide.

05/15/2023

https://youtu.be/JlRWvA4cNhE

The story of Jesus ascension is not just about Jesus rising up.

05/10/2023

This week we are talking about legacy, which is a pretty tough conversation for the Church today. In John 14:15-21 Jesus tells his followers that even though he will be ascending to heaven and no longer be with them in person, another advocate for God's love will come to take his place, and that this Advocate will come through the Spirit of Truth.

I feel what Jesus is trying to do here is to assure his followers that he has faith in their ability to continue his work, and this is quite a vote of confidence coming from Christ himself, but Jesus never intended to finish the work he was starting, he always intended to pass the baton of his legacy to others.

Jesus tells us that those of us who seek the Spirit of Truth will find in us a power to continue making this world a better place. That Spirit is not always easy to see, and often we need people to speak up in order for a voice of love to be heard.

Sometimes that voice asks us to make hard choices in order to do the right thing. For instance will Vermont pass a childcare reform bill that would better allow young families to start a life in our already aging state? Or is Texas willing to pass gun reform bills after another deadly shooting has rocked their state? Are we in our own lives willing to give up convenience and comfort in order to embrace love? For instance, are we willing to take a step back from jobs or roles, such as running our local thrift shop, serving on the school board or even a church board in order to let someone new take over? Are we willing to let others take over our legacies as Christ allows us with his?
The Spirit of Truth Jesus speaks of is not just a Spirit that calls us to put a smile on and treat others politely, it is a Spirit that calls us to action, compassion and sometimes sacrifice in order to see the world a better place.

Jesus asks us to envision a world of love, and if we like what we see, he asks us to work to see that world made real! But he also tells us that if that world is ever to become real, we need to understand that we are not the only generation that will be doing this work. We need to make room for those who will inherit our legacy.

05/05/2023

This week we will be talking about the stones upon which Christ built his Church, and to start our discussion we will look to the original Rock of the Church, the Apostle Peter, who in 1 Peter 2:2-10, tells us that we can become the stones that form God's Church on earth.

In this letter, Peter calls upon us ordinary folks to be the stuff that holds Christ’s community together. He talks about how Jesus’ teachings can give us a strength that many of us probably never imagined we had, and I feel Peter is the perfect messenger to tell us about how God’s love can transform us. We meet Peter in the bible when he is an everyday guy, making a living as a fisherman. Peter probably had no grand ambitions for himself beyond the village he called home, but after Jesus ascended to heaven, Peter suddenly was the leader of the Christian movement. Peter was not perfect, he made a lot of mistakes both as a disciple and an apostle, but in the end he did what needed to be done to grow the message of God's love.

This week we hear the words of an illiterate fisherman who became an Apostle of God’s love, and his message for us is that the same love that changed him into the Apostle Peter, can change us into Apostles too. He tells us to let God’s love lead us and strengthen us and transform us because that love can enable us to do great things together. Peter helped pull together a coalition of everyday folks who stood up to the power of Rome and spoke to the world about love, acceptance and justice. We too are in need of people like that today! People who can be the stones of faith on which God's love can stand against injustice.

As we hear about more shootings in Texas and Georgia, we know that there are people speaking up for change, and as our state struggles to adopt clean energy standards, we know there are people standing strong, like rocks, supporting a call for environmental justice. There are those who speak with fear and call for us to silence the voices of black history and LGBTQ+ history, but still the stones of God's love are there supporting the call for us to do better for one another in this world. We are not perfect people, and often we may not feel as if we are strong enough to make meaningful change alone. Peter tells us that we can be strong when we stand united to form the structure that is God’s Church, a community of faith and love, that transcends all hate and brings people together.

05/03/2023

https://youtu.be/JjPPMnyucA0

In 1 Peter 2:2-10 Peter says we are the stones upon which God will build a kingdom. Let me share why I feel he knew what he was talking about.

04/26/2023

Being united in faith comes with its challenges, and one of those challenges is having to recognize when you are responsible for harm.

This week is Good Shepherd Sunday, and we will be talking about gates! The gates that are Jesus Christ! In John 10:1-10, Jesus refers to himself as a gate through which the people of God may enter to speak to God’s sheep/people/children.I know we don't like being compared to sheep! But Jesus tells us sheep aren't stupid, they can tell when a person coming into their pen is a friend or a threat.

Jesus tells us that those who minister in God’s name should approach God’s people through the teachings of love he shows us and not to jump over the fence with intentions of exploitation, or abuse. This is a passage that blasts exploitative leaders, and it is a direct reference to the story of Jesus and the blind man we spoke of a few weeks back in John 9.

In this parable Jesus compares himself to a gate, and we are the people who are called to use the gate, because those who honestly wish to teach God’s love should be willing to respect the boundaries of their position for the good of those they serve. Also, within this parable we are the sheep, because, in life we are both leaders and followers.

Jesus tells us to be discerning in who we choose to follow, because those who lead us and teach us have the ability to transform us for good or ill. As leaders and as followers we need to respect the connection of trust we give to the people we are in community with, and Jesus tells us to use the gate of God’s love when we do this. This helps us to respect Christ’s commandment to love one another as we love God.

The institution of the Church is a tough spot, in no small part because many who say they are serving God, have chosen not to honor this teaching of Jesus, and have used their power to harm those who trust them. It is no small thing that people distrust the Church. The Challenge of those of us who represent the institution of the Church, is needing to understand and respect that we are co-equally responsible for the abuses of power that happen within the community of Christ’s followers.

Very often I hear folks in church say that we are not “those” types of Christians, referring to those who do not respect the gate. But by going to church, and by taking communion with ALL the followers of Christ, and affirming that God calls us ALL to the table, we need to accept responsibility for those who choose to sit at the table with us and use that open invitation to harm others; even if we ourselves would never do that.

When we reach out to those who have had their trust violated, or those who can see how the institution of Christ’s Church is being abused, we need to understand that sitting at Christ's table, for them, is not just sitting with those of us who respect the gate. It also means sitting in communion with those who jump the fence, those who harm or who have harmed.

Those we sit with at Christ's table have the power to change us. This is why Jesus tells us to respect the boundaries of love, because God wants us all to be happy and safe when we sit at the Lord's table together.

04/24/2023

https://youtu.be/3GU5hqhKqgE

In John 10:1-10 Jesus says he is a gate. Whats that about?

04/18/2023

This week I will be away from the pulpit, but I will leave you with a meditation on Luke 24:13-35, the walk to Emmaus. This is a story about two people, who we can assume were some of the many followers of Jesus. In this story Jesus appears to the two travelers and walks with them, listening to how they had been with the group to see him die and discover the empty tomb.
When they sat down to share a meal with Jesus they then were able to see him for who he was, and P**F! Jesus was gone!

Whether this is historical or not, this on the ground perspective of Christ is a valuable one. It helps us to remember that the ministry of Christ was not passed off to his disciples alone, and the Apostles who would become the founders of the Christian Church would comprise people from many different backgrounds. In this way the inclusiveness of the Holy Spirit allowed people like Paul, who was once a prosecutor of the Temple, to become one of the most important figures in the early Christian Church. Even today as Biblical scholars further explore the text of the Dead Sea Scrolls we discover more diverse voices within the Christian tradition.

The walk to Emmaus in many ways is a journey every Christian takes with Jesus, allowing us to discover our own path that can help God and heal the world. In this passage of scripture Luke urges us to ask the question of what we can do if we discover Christ in our life journey, and what forms of love can that bring to the world?

Love can take on many forms and love can pop up in the most unexpected places. It can show up in the form of missions such as the Interfaith Teach in event our Lamoille churches are contributing to on June 3rd to raise awareness of poverty and raise money for an area wide benevolence fund to help folks out of tough spots.
Or love can come in the form of loving people standing up for the rights of our LGBTQ+ youth and their right to participate in school sports.
Love can come in the form of a friend who just happens to be there when you need them, or it can even be a pie from a neighbor who just wants to show they care.

As we walk with Jesus on the journey that is our lives we will all find ways in which Christ reveals himself to us. These revelations give us all the opportunity to be apostles of Jesus’ message of love, in word, deed, or just a loving presence.

04/15/2023

This week we reflect upon the good news of Christ’s resurrection. This news was hard even for Jesus’ disciples to believe. In John 20:19-31 we find the disciples in hiding, having seen with their own eyes, Jesus put to death by the power of Rome. At this point the disciples had resigned themselves to a life on the run from the Temple and from Rome, but this was not what God had planned for them, that very evening Jesus appeared before the disciples showing them his scars of ex*****on and blessing them with the Holy Spirit.

Just as they had seen Jesus' death , Jesus' disciples were able to see his resurrection. They received Christ’s blessings and commission to be apostles who would tell the world about the love of God. The disciple Thomas was different though, not because he doubted, but because he was the first called to believe without having first seen the resurrection.

Unless you are some immortal Marvel superhero, we can probably assume none of us were actually alive to see Jesus on the cross, or his resurrection from the grave. BELIEVING in the resurrection can be difficult when we have not SEEN the resurrection. However, what does the resurrection look like? Are we that sure we have not seen it? After all, was Jesus’ resurrection just a resurrection of life? Or was it also a resurrection of a spirit of hope, for his disciples and for loving people in the world?

As we s
truggle with our world, we often find ourselves struggling to believe in God’s promise of love and peace. Like the disciples the world shows us Jesus on the cross every day we turn on the news. War in Ukraine, shootings in Tennessee and Kentucky, flooding in Florida and famine in East Africa. We see the struggle to adapt to climate change and we wonder what sort of world we will leave our children.

However the world is also filled with stories of resurrection. This week, for instance, we saw resurrection when Justin Pearson and Justin Jones were reinstated to the Tennessee legislature after being expelled for protesting gun violence. And here in Vermont we saw resurrection as Vermonters rallied in support of LGBTQ+ youth who are denied the ability to participate in school sports.

Like the disciples we will see death in our lives. In the face of this it makes sense that we will feel doubt and find it hard to believe that peace and love can heal the world. But if we take the time to look around, we are also able to see moments of resurrection, when human commitment to justice and love rise from the dead and the message of Christ breaks through the darkness of despair. We are Christ's disciples and we will not always get the opportunity to see resurrection; that is why we are challenged to believe in it anyways. Because even if we have doubts about the power of God's love, it is out there working to heal our world.

04/13/2023

https://youtu.be/zPgrjLeB2LA

Its all about the resurrection!

04/06/2023

We are in Holy Week as of my writing this, we are ramping up for Easter, Christians all over the world remember the, sort of, final week of Christ’s life on earth. Jesus entered Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, the first communion on Maundy Thursday, his ex*****on and death on the cross on Good Friday and the resurrection of Easter.

Holy week is a time where we can recognize the joy, pain and hope of the human condition, because the story of Jesus points out so many things about us, the good, the bad and the ugly.
Jesus went to Jerusalem to confront corruption and injustice in our world and even though he was killed by that corruption, Jesus did not stay dead. He rose from the grave and showed us that the love of God cannot be put out!

In Matthew 28:1-10 we are told about the moment Mary Magdalene, and Mary mother of James, found Jesus’ empty tomb. Matthew tells us that an Angel descended from Heaven to declare to them that Jesus was risen, and that they should tell the disciples. In many ways these two women were the first Apostles, they were the ones who were first tasked to share the Christian message that love is more powerful than death, hate, injustice and corruption. The Angel told Mary and Mary that through Christ we now have proof that God’s love is more powerful than any sin within a human heart.

This is a message of salvation, because it tells us that no matter how much we mess up. No matter how much the world pulls us away from letting God’s love into our hearts, God will always give us a chance to turn things around, because nothing can kill God's love for us.

To Christians, Jesus is called Christ and Messiah because he is the living embodiment of God’s love, and as long as that love is alive Christ is alive too.
And so during this Holy week we Christians take up the opportunity to follow Jesus to resurrection, and renew ourselves, our faith and our commitment to bring compassion, justice and love to this world.

Jesus calls us to recognize our imperfect world. The wars continue to rage in Ukraine and other areas of the world. Men, women, children and families who struggle to find refuge in nations that have stability, and those very nations themselves struggling to live into Christ's call to open our table to others. This is a time for us to seek resurrection, as our LGBTQ+ siblings face persecution and exclusion, especially from the Church! and as our nation struggles with the ideological divisions that scream for us to take up arms against our sisters and brothers. Yes, it can be exhausting and overwhelming, to the point where we just want to give in. But we can remember that Jesus was just a man, who understood the love of God and did what he had to do. He understood that we are imperfect, and yes, we live with sin; But God loves us anyway, and Jesus invites us to change, do better and be reborn as children of God’s love. Jesus invites us to join a holy family that can bring salvation to this world.