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I have to tell you a story about Joanna. So Joanna was one of many grandchildren who attended the Easter dinner at her grandparents’ house. She was always interested in what was going on in the kitchen. Unless you think this is about me, I don't do kitchen. My spouse is the cook in the family. When Joanna – I just like to name Joanna, Okay? – when Joanna saw her mother cutting the ham in half, and putting it in the oven, she was curious.
I tend to use the New Century version of the Bible, the sentence structure is more like the way we hear it in English than in the Greek. Or actually the Aramaic. Where the verse that says “Change your hearts and lives” might be more familiar to those of you who know these scriptures as Jesus saying, “Repent.” And I think traditionally, we often think of repent, as needing to express our contrition for sins that we've committed. But the word here is metanoia. It actually means a new way. And so what Jesus is saying is, let's find a new way.
So when Julie did my introduction, she mentioned that I studied in metaphysics. And some of you may be scratching your head and saying, "I don't really know what metaphysics is." So I'd like to share with you a little bit about that. Metaphysics is a branch of philosophy, and it deals with a lot of the questions and mysteries that we have in our lives.Things that have no easy answers things like, why did this happen? What is my purpose? Why is this person in my life?
“Jesus said to them, ‘Let us move on to the neighboring villages so that I may proclaim the Good News there also. That is what I have come to do’.”
Let us move on. I’m fairly certain that there’s not another homily being offered today that will cite an Austrian physicist from the early 20th century. Yet here we are, with an introduction to one Erwin Schrödinger...
Hello!
Mother Earth to Douglas! Come in please! Anyone hear me? Good! We need to talk. That is, I need to talk, and you need to listen. You have a problem and Mother Earth can help.
I grew up in an area of the country once perfectly described in the opening lines of a novel as “…a kind of nowhere, famous for nothing at all.” Why do I tell you this? Because if you couple a “kind of nowhere” with the fact this southeastern corner of the state of South Dakota, has colder winters on average than Alaska, and its cornfields in summer contribute to a heat and humidity that rival the tropics, you begin to understand why, to outsiders, this might not seem like an appealing place to live
The Second Sunday in Advent, Mark 1:1-8
Each year during Advent, John the Baptist shows up, like some cranky uncle from out of town trying spoil the holidays. And he means business. His message is stern. Clean up your act! Get yourselves baptized, and get ready, because God is about to do something big.
We are beginning another season of Advent. This is my 10th Season of Advent as pastor of Douglas UCC. But those of you who have been coming to church all of those years, you know that I'm usually not here on the first Sunday of Advent, because typically, that's when Gregg and I would take our vacation. We were always gone during the first week of Advent. And you may remember that each year, we would always go on a cruise.
Though I have been your pastor now for nearly 10 years. I think many of you know that Greg and I moved to Saugatuck, 18 years ago. We came here because we bought a bed and breakfast on the Hill in Saugatuck. And when we were first getting started, we became aware of another bed and breakfast in West Michigan, that was embroiled in a bit of controversy.
I want to begin this morning by thanking our reader for today, Robert Trenary, for selecting and for sharing those two really powerful readings, the one from the Palestinian poet, and the one from the Israeli poet, from the Hebrew scriptures, the book of Lamentations. Both of them are so very timely for what is happening right now in the Middle East.
As most of you know, I conclude my Homily every Sunday with the word Namaste. And I still laugh about this – one of our church members, Greg Plowe, said that when he first started coming to this church, he thought I was ending my homily saying, “Have a nice day.” But the word namaste, it's a really beautiful ancient Sanskrit word. And what it means is, “The light in me, recognizes and honors the light in you.” Isn't that beautiful?
Our scripture readings this morning are not from today's lectionary. They were specially chosen for today's service, because as we mentioned at the top of the service today, we're celebrating Stewardship Sunday here at Douglas UCC. Now, believe it or not, in the nearly 10 years that I've been the pastor here, I have never once given a talk from this pulpit about stewardship.
Our scripture readings this morning do not come from today's lectionary. These readings were specially chosen for today's service because they speak to change, and to calling.
Our words of integration and guidance this morning come from a book called Stewards of Eden. And if you've been coming to church the past few Sundays, you know we've been focusing each Sunday on the theme of Stewardship. Last Sunday was our campus stewardship meeting. And the four Sundays prior to that different people from our congregation came up here to speak about the importance of stewardship, of being good stewards of this church.
As we heard, both our Old Testament and our New Testament readings from the lectionary today for the 16th Sunday after Pentecost, speak to the theme of forgiveness. That Old Testament reading from Genesis that Stan just read for us – most of usare familiar with the story of Joseph and his brothers, because you've seen the musical Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat. And you know from this story, Joseph's brothers are so jealous of him, that they actually sell him into slavery.
Well, our first scripture reading today, which Julie read for us, is Paul's letter to the Romans, when he reminds those early Christians about the 10 commandments. Now the 10 commandments were given to Moses 3,500 years ago. And yet, here we are, and we're still discussing and even debating them in 2023.
Well, I think that some of you know that I, like our Reverend Marchiene Rienstra and our Reverend Ginny Makita, graduated from an interfaith seminary in New York City. That meant that during our seminary years, we didn't just study Christianity, we studied all of the world's major faith traditions. And now, although I graduated almost 15 years ago, I am still involved with the interfaith seminary and many of their classes and workshops and services, which are held online.
In today's Gospel reading for the 13th Sunday after Pentecost, we hear Jesus ask the disciples that very interesting question, “Who do you say that I am?” And so that's the question I want to start off with this morning. And I want you to consider, who do you say that Jesus is? I mean, when you close your eyes to pray to Jesus, whom are you picturing in your mind's eye?
The image on the front cover of your bulletin today from the UCC says, “Bold Moves,” because both of our readings this morning from both the Old Testament and the New Testament are about biblical characters who made bold moves.
A friend of mine recently picked up her eight-year-old son from summer camp, it was his first time ever away at sleepover camp, and the first time he was ever away from his parents for a week. Now, earlier in the year, when they were talking about summer camps, she said her son was really excited about going. But the night before he was to leave, he panicked. And he came into her room crying. He said, I don't want to go to camp anymore. And he started to express all the what-ifs.
I have a little story book in my hands today, because today I'm going to begin my homily with a little story. You remember when you were a kid and your teacher would call all the students to come forward, and you'd sit on the floor, and the teacher would read you a story? Well, you know, Jesus did that with his disciples.
Most of you know that the readings from scripture that we share here each Sunday are not chosen by us. Those readings come from a book that's called the Revised Common Lectionary. And it's called the Common Lectionary because most of the Christian denominations follow this lectionary. I really love that. I love that every Sunday thousands of Christians around the world – Presbyterians, Methodists, Episcopalians, Catholics, UCC – we're all focused on the same readings every Sunday. I think there's a great power in that.
Well, I think that most of you know that before I was a pastor, I was a high school English teacher. And I loved teaching high school English. And one of the things I loved the most about teaching English was reading poems aloud to the class. I loved reading a poem and then asking the students how they made meaning of it.
As I mentioned at the top of the service, I'm just back from a wonderful week in Indianapolis, Indiana, where I served as an elected delegate at the UCC general Synod. The Synod is a biannual gathering of all 5, 000 of our United Church of Christ churches. And it was such a jam-packed week of wonderful activities and events.
A few weeks ago, I was flipping the channels trying to find something to watch. And I stopped on a program that I don't normally watch, called America's Got Talent. I stopped because this young dancer had come on stage – a little 10-year-old boy in a green sparkly jacket. Before he performed, the judges were talking to him, and asking him questions, and that little boy just broke down in tears.
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