“Abide”

John 8:31-36

Oct. 27, 2019 

Sermon by Rev. Caela Simmons Wood

First Congregational UCC of Manhattan, KS

Year ago, while I was still in seminary, I had one of those deeply-formative experiences that was shared with a small group of classmates. During our time together, we all found that we learned a lot about ourselves by watching the others around the table learn about themselves. At the beginning of the semester, our teacher posed two big questions to the group (thankfully, not on the same day!). The first question was, “What’s your truest thing about God?” The second question was, “What is your primary learning goal for this class?”

One of my classmates gave answers to both questions that made very little sense to me. She said her truest thing about God was that God is faithful. I thought that sounded just fine, but couldn’t really understand exactly what she meant by it at first. And her answer to the second question - what she wanted to learn during our semester -  was that she wanted to be faithful. Again, I thought, “Okay. What exactly does she mean by that?” Her answers were so different than my own…..I just didn’t quite “get it.” I was full of THINGS I WANTED TO GET DONE. Concrete, step-by-step action plans for my learning. Probably complete with bullet points. I had to whittle them down to one of those BIG LEARNING GOALS which was actually more like 10 goals crafted carefully into one sentence. 

Being faithful. Huh. I wasn’t sure what exactly she meant by that. 

Today’s passage from the Gospel of John is about being faithful. We’ve got some serious metaphysical oomph packed into these six short verses. What exactly is the freedom Jesus promises? What does it mean to abide in Jesus’s word? And when I hear Jesus say “the truth will set you free” I always find my thoughts echoing Pilate’s bold question at the end of John’s Gospel: “what is truth?”

There’s a lot going on here. Let’s start for a moment with some context. The backdrop for Jesus’s conversation with some of the religious leaders of his time was the Festival of Booths. This harvest celebration was a time for giving thanks for the fruits of the earth and a time for remembering God’s faithful presence with the people of Israel during their time in the wilderness. This festival is still an important part of the Jewish faith. In fact, our friends and neighbors who are Jewish just observed it earlier this month. Modern Sukkot celebrations involve building temporary structures outdoors (those are the booths) and sharing meals there together over the course of the week. It’s a time of gratitude and sharing fellowship with family and friends. It’s also a time to remember God’s faithfulness even in our times of vulnerability. By gathering in temporary structures, our Jewish kindred remember all that is temporary and fleeting about life while faithfully orienting themselves towards the things that really last….like God’s protection and care, and our belonging in communities that nourish and support us. 

Preaching professor David Lose says that the backdrop of the Festival of Booths is important here, because throughout John 7 and 8 what we see is Jesus portraying himself as a living representation of that festival. When Jesus invites his followers to continue to abide within his word, he is inviting them into his tent. When he speaks of finding freedom, he is placing himself firmly in the lineage of leaders who worked for the freedom of God’s people. And he is echoing the long journey towards freedom that the Israelites took...the safety and security they felt, abiding in God’s presence all those fearful years in the wilderness. [1]

When Jesus says, “if you abide in me, you will truly be my disciples” it makes scholars perk up their ears, because he’s using a word there that occurs again and again in the Gospel of John. The Greek “meno” is often translated abide, continue, remain, tarry, dwell...and it shows up throughout this gospel like a refrain. At the very beginning of Jesus’s ministry, we hear it when the Holy Spirit descends upon Jesus at his baptism and abides with him. When Jesus calls his disciples at the end of Chapter 1, we hear it again as the disciples make their choice to abide with Jesus. In John 6, when Jesus talks about the mystical aspects of the Eucharist, he tells his followers, “when you eat my flesh and drink my blood” we abide together. In the 14th chapter of John, when Jesus begs his disciples “do not let your hearts be troubled...in my Father’s house there are many rooms” he tells them that he abides in God and God abides in him. And Jesus prays for his disciples, that after his departure, God will send them another comforter, the Holy Spirit, to abide with them always. In chapter fifteen, he says it succinctly: “Abide in me as I abide in you.”

Abide, continue, remain, tarry, dwell. Against the backdrop of the Festival of Booths...a time for building temporary dwellings where they gather together to remember their shared identity, Jesus comes to his followers and says, “if you abide in me, you will truly be my disciples.” And it is in this identity as Christ’s followers that we can find our way to true freedom. 

This freedom is ours when we wake up to the reality that we are all so much more than the small, limited, individual selves that we believe ourselves to be. 

Sure, yes, we are all individuals. And we each live in our own, separate bodies. And we are consumed with thoughts about our own needs and desires and fears. But our faith teaches us that we are also something beyond that….a bit of stardust come to earth, carefully and lovingly crafted in the image of the Divine, a spark that will not be extinguished even by death. 

When we abide in God and God abides in us, we are like Christ, forever united in holy mystery with the Force of Love that created the Universe. We exist beyond our own selves, beyond the limits of the finite lives and bodies we see on the surface. When we abide in God, the illusion of separateness disappears and we find our way to the freedom that comes with the realization that we are invited into aonios zoe - abundant life, life without end. 

On the cusp of All Hallows’ Eve and All Saints Day, I find particular resonance in this knowledge...that we somehow continue to abide with one another even after our earthly bodies are gone. Time and time again, I’ve heard people speak of this glorious mystery: that those we love are somehow still present with us even when they’ve passed on. That a spark of eternity exists in all of us because we abide in God and God abides in us. 

To be faithful - like my seminary friend was seeking - is to allow ourselves to rest in the knowledge that freedom is not granted to us through laws or by human governments. True freedom and liberation is a God-given reality for all people. Period. Although we humans often try to limit the freedom of others, we can never truly prevail because each and every one of us is meant to abide within Christ...that life-giving, love-wielding spirit that arrives again and again. Christ, that liberating force that seeks abundant life for all of creation. No matter what. 

The world often feels heavy, doesn’t it? Everywhere I go, we see people who are weary. Tired of fighting, tired of worrying, tired of pushing back against the forces that threaten to consume them. There is a deep exhaustion present in many places these days. The worries we have about all the little things going on our lives are compounded by the roar of national and global chaos under the surface. And the big worries that come to visit our lives? Well, they start to feel like they might just knock us down completely. 

Against this backdrop of weariness and fear and instability, Jesus is still calling out to us, friends. Abide with me, he says. Rest in me because I remain within you. I have not left. I am never leaving. I am with you still, even unto the end of the age. 

I may be ten years late, but I’m finally starting to understand what my friend from seminary understood. The power of faithfulness. 

Thanks be to God. 

NOTES:

[1] David Lose. http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=827

“Praying Without Words: Kept”

Psalm 121 and Luke 18:1-8

Oct. 20, 2019 

Sermon by Rev. Caela Simmons Wood

First Congregational UCC of Manhattan, KS

The lectionary committee served up two passages about prayer today. First, the parable from Luke, which is a little unusual because it seems to leave very little up to interpretation. Jesus says at the beginning what the parable is about “Then Jesus told them a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart.” It’s pretty unusual for us to be told, up front, what the point of the parable is, but there it is. Jesus goes on to tell the story of an unjust judge who is terrible at his job. He ignores the pleas of a widow, which would have been truly horrific to Jesus’s hearers, because widows, in Jesus’s culture, were seen as some of the most vulnerable people in society...people that everyone shared the responsibility to care for. 

The judge doesn’t care about doing right by God or anyone else, so he just ignores her. But this unnamed woman is persistent, coming back day after day to beg for justice. Eventually, just because he’s annoyed with her tenacity, the judge gives in and give her what she needs. 

The point of the story is NOT that God is like the unjust judge...but that God is completely different than this character. Jesus says, look, if even an unjust judge eventually gives in, look how much better - how different! - our God is. Our God is the one who always wants what is good for us, who listens before we even find the words, who always seeks justice on our behalf. 

The Rev. Dr. Joy Moore says that she loves this parable because it reminds us that we have permission to beg God. [1] You know, as I have had the privilege of accompanying people who are dealing with unbelievably difficult trials, I have often heard them say something like, “I feel bad bothering God with all of this,” or “I’m sure God is tired of hearing me complain,” or “I feel like a hypocrite because before this terrible thing happened, I never prayed. I’ve only started praying now, when everything is so bad.”

Knowing that God is nothing like that unjust judge...knowing that God wishes only good things for us, knowing that God hears the deepest desires of our hearts even before we find the words for them, knowing that we have permission to BEG GOD is incredibly freeing and healing, isn’t it?

Whereas the parable from Luke is explicitly about prayer, we have to dig a little below the surface to see how today’s Psalm is about prayer. The word prayer isn’t mentioned in the 121st Psalm, but when I read it to myself earlier this week, prayer was the first thing that came to mind. Because this particular Psalm echoes the same word over and over again, in Hebrew “shamah,” in English “keep.”

The one who keeps you will not slumber.

The one who keeps Israel will neither slumber nor sleep.

God is your keeper...the shade at your right hand.

God will keep you from all evil; God will keep your life.

God will keep your going out and your coming in from this time on and forevermore.

This “being kept” is all about prayer. The understanding that is is within God that we “live and move and have our being” [2] The deep knowledge that we belong to God. Thomas Keating famously said, “The chief thing that separates us from God is the thought that we are separate from God.” [3] The realization and remembrance that we are kept by God is prayer. 

When I was a child, I was taught that prayer is “talking to God” or sometimes the adults around me told me that it was “listening for God.” Whatever it was, it was clear to me that it was words. Whether memorized or extemporaneous, fancy or plain, silent or aloud, alone or as a group, sung or spoken or written, WORDS were the starting place for prayer. 

Imagine my surprise as an adult when I figured out this was only part of the story! Sure, many prayers are made up of words...but prayer goes way beyond words, too. My working definition these days is: prayer is orienting ourselves towards God. We often do this through words, but my own prayer practice is, more often than not, wordless.

Each morning when I wake, I try to find at least five minutes of silence before I get out of bed. Emptying my mind completely, watching my breath move in and out, I center myself for the day ahead. I try very hard not to think about anything at all, but to just be….gloriously and imperfectly human...kept by God.

When I say, “I prayed for you today,” I sometimes mean that I spoke to God conversationally, asking God to give you strength and care. But sometimes I didn’t say any words at all. Sometimes I practiced prayer in a way inspired by the Tibetan Buddhist practice of Tonglen…..sometimes I sit and envision my soul reaching out to yours, breathing in your pain or anxieties, holding them for a moment, and then breathing out love and peace...sending it to you on the wings of the Holy Spirit. We are both kept by God. 

Not as often as I would like, but SOMETIMES, when I’m doing a task like chopping vegetables for soup, or walking out to check the mail, or folding laundry, I take a moment to orient myself towards the Divine. I extend my spirit beyond my own location, aware of all the ways I am connected to the farmers who grew my food, the person who sent me that junk mail, the people I will never know who sewed together my clothing. And I become aware that when Keating said our separateness from God is only an illusion, he also meant that our separateness from one another is ALSO only an illusion. We are all kept by God...together. 

Sometimes, when I’m rushing from one place to another, I remember the wise words of Shug Avery, as brought to us by Alice Walker. Shug taught me that when I walk past the color purple in a field somewhere, it’s right and good to stop and take notice. [4] So when I come home from a meeting at night and the full moon is peeking up over the horizon, I stop and look up at her. And then I remember that all of creation is kept by God...purple flowers in the field, the moon as she shines overhead. 

And when I lay down at night, the last thing I do as I drift off to sleep is try to find myself in God’s presence once again. For many years, I imagined myself as a small child curling up in soft, warm arms. Kept by God. Lately I’ve been working with an image of God as the ocean. I float out into warm waters and feel my entire self enveloped. The salt water gives me a sweet buoyancy as I float in gentle waves, my eyes fixed on the horizon...all that the future holds is unknown, but I am kept by God, bobbing up and down without worry. 

Kept. 

Thomas Merton said that prayer is the practice of returning to our deepest foundations….and that when we pray it should be a conversion of our entire selves to God. [5] And this is why I think the 121st Psalm is all about prayer. 

When we lift our eyes to the hills, asking the deepest questions that trouble our souls, we find that we are kept. We are met by Love before we even have to ask. We discover that God has been with us all along, closer even than the air we breathe. We feel again the promise of baptism….that though the waters may threaten to overwhelm, nothing can separate us from who we are: beloved children of God, created in Love’s own image. And we remember that reality that we celebrate each time we come to the Table of Christ: God is arriving even now to dwell among us, in the most unexpected of places. When we are invited to “take and eat” bringing Christ’s body into ours, we are filled with joy and surprise, discovering Christ is there already. Permeating every bit of you, every bit of me, every bit of God’s creation. 

This, too, is prayer. May God bless you and keep you through the gift of prayer. 

Amen. 

NOTES:

[1] Sermon Brainwave podcast for Oct. 20, 2019

[2] Acts 17

[3] Keating, Thomas. Open Mind, Open Heart. 

[4] Walker, Alice. The Color Purple. 

[5] Merton, Thomas. Thoughts in Solitude.

“Now Our Minds Are One”

Luke 10:25-37, Galatians 3:23-28

Oct.13, 2019 

Sermon by Rev. Caela Simmons Wood

First Congregational UCC of Manhattan, KS

I’ve been waiting for the Franklin Gulls to return.

Since returning home to Kansas five years ago, they’ve become a touchstone for me. White bellies, black backs, swirling overhead. No matter what else is going on in my life or in the world, they arrive like a precious gift twice a year, marking the changing of the seasons. Seeing a big group of them move and dance across the sky is truly a spiritual experience for me. Better yet is when you manage to get caught up in a group of them as they are flying close to the ground. 

Several years ago, I was playing with my kids at Anneberg Park and we found ourselves in the midst of a giant group of Franklin Gulls. They flew among us and around us, swooping and diving in between us. My kids began to giggle and run and flap their arms like birdies. Standing there, watching them, I was filled with the kind of joy that goes beyond words….pausing in a moment of wonder, giving thanks with every cell of your body for the gift of being alive. 

But September came and went this year and the gulls didn’t come. I read an article online saying scientists are concerned because so many birds have disappeared in North America. So I looked up at the sky each day, while listening to news reports about climate change and impeachment inquiries and war….looking for the gulls. Waiting for their return. 

**********

Last week our family drove to Winnipeg and as we traveled through the Dakotas, I finally saw them. Small but mighty groups of gulls, hanging out near the prairie marshes...heading South. I breathed a sigh of relief knowing they were on their way to Kansas after all. 

As we drove across that vast and magnificent landscape, I found myself googling lots of things...place names, and species of plants that I’m not familiar with. Each time we drove through a Tribal Reservation, I looked it up - trying to learn more about language, history, culture. 

Because there is SO MUCH I don’t know about the land we call home. So many things I never learned in school. 

Like when my friend came to visit me last year from Ohio. While we were hanging out in Kansas City, she asked, “Why are there so many things here named Wyandotte? They’re from Ohio, not Kansas.” I had to Google. And read Wikipedia articles. And then I goto the library and check out books. 

I learned that the Wyandotte were originally from the Great Lakes region, but had been forcibly removed further West after the Indian Removal Act of 1830. [1] Their story mirrors the stories of so many other Native people….being lied to by the U.S. government, holding out hope that they might finally have a safe place to call home, but being moved again and again. It turns out I grew up 30 miles away from a sacred site for the Wyandotte - a graveyard in downtown Kansas City, Kansas. Hundreds of Wyandotte are buried there….children and adults who died in the 1840s after they were forced to squat on low-lying land near the the Kansas and Missouri Rivers during a particularly rainy year. Victims of flooding and disease….victims, like so many others, of hateful government policies. 

I never learned any of this in school. Just like I never learned much of anything about the tribes whose names graced the downtown streets in my hometown: Chocktaw, Cherokee, Delaware, Shawnee, Seneca, Miami, Osage, Potowatomi. In my childhood, they were addresses...not nations of people who had lived here for many thousands of years before my ancestors came to this place. I had a vague awareness that these names were native names, but I am embarrassed to admit that it never occurred to me to learn more about these nations. 

I did not learn about the hundreds of complex societies that existed on this continent for thousands of years before the arrival of Europeans. I did not know that literally millions of people called this land home before the settlers arrived. [2] I had no idea about the diversity of languages, cultures, technology, systems of governance, religion and more. I did not learn that the U.S. Constitution was crafted with many ideas about democracy borrowed from the Haudenosaunee. [3] I did not learn about the history of boarding schools, where children were forcibly separated from their parents and families, forbidden to speak their own languages, horrifically abused. The motto of the headmaster of the Carlisle School in Pennsylvania was “kill the Indian to save the man.” [4] When I think about someone taking away my young children, I am filled with so much pain and anger and terror...and yet this was done to so many families. 

Of course, we can’t learn everything in school. The world is a vast place. But doesn’t it seem odd that I wasn’t taught the history of the land on which I grew up? 

*********

I am so thankful that Debra Bolton, who is new to our congregation, approached me with the idea of sharing her gifts as a part of an Indigenous Peoples’ Sunday. Debra had been leading services each fall at her UCC church in Garden City and hoped she might be able to continue that ministry here. Unfortunately, family duties called her away unexpectedly this weekend so she is sorry she can’t be here...we were going to co-preach together this weekend, which means she and are aren’t getting to co-preach together like we had hoped. But I am grateful we had a chance to sit down and talk as we prepared the service together. 

One of the things Debra talked about when we met is how vital it is to remember that the work of fostering inclusion cannot take place until we are wiling to take a hard look at how exclusion works. Understanding the complex and painful history of Native peoples in North America is not the only work that needs to be done, clearly. But it seems to me it is the starting place for anyone who seeks to walk in the way of Jesus. 

Jesus, after all, was consistently about building relationships with everyone. How, then, did we eventually get to a Church that propped up dangerous theologies like the Doctrine of Discovery? Over and over again, Jesus looked to the margins of society, at those who had been pushed aside, labeled “less than,”...and Jesus consistently said, “You are beloved. You are made in God’s image.”

The story we heard from Luke today has this as a central theme. The hero of the story is a Samaritan - a person from an “outsider” ethnic group. The story is about neighborliness...our deep connections. When asked “who is my neighbor?”, Jesus is unequivocal: everyone. Jesus says, if we want to find aionios zoe - life without end, life beyond boundaries - the key is to love God with all that we have and to love our neighbor as ourselves. It’s as simple and difficult as that. 

The Church has struggled with this. From the beginning, we wanted to know, “who’s in and who’s out?” The leaders of the Early Church had strong opinions about whether this newly-emerging religion could include Gentiles. That’s what Paul is talking about in the passage we heard today from Galatians. Paul was firmly on “Team Everyone” and advocated tirelessly for Gentiles to be welcomed into the fold. He sometimes went so far as to speak in a disrespectful way about the his own Jewish faith - which we also see in today’s passage - making it seem as if Jesus had come to overwrite centuries of Jewish tradition and law. This, unfortunately, led to centuries of anti-Semitism within Christianity. But Jesus is clear...it’s not either-or. Jesus insisted the ancient laws, like the one to love God and love our neighbors as ourselves, are an important component of a faithful life. 

For Jesus, love was the ultimate foundation. Jesus lived in a society filled with all kinds of human beings...just like ours. And Jesus was always, always about finding ways to build relationships between people from all walks of life. We are still struggling to follow his lead. 

**********

The gulls are back, by the way. I saw them while I was in yoga earlier this week….thousands of them flying gracefully overhead as I twisted and turned, falling out of poses to catch another glimpse of them. I drove out to Tuttle Creek the next morning, knowing I’d find them there. And as I sat along the water’s edge, suddenly they were on either side of me and overhead and all around me. 

And for a brief moment, I was one with them. My heart soared along with them and my spirit was transported to other times, other places, with these beautiful creatures who travel the length of this great land mass with the change of each season. The gulls - like this land, these waters, theses skies, these prairies - were here long before I was born and will be here long after I’m gone. They were here when these prairies were walked by the Kaw people. They flew overhead when my ancestors arrived. They will be here long after we’re gone. 

It is our calling to love as best we can during the short period of time that we are alive. And that calling to love goes far beyond just loving those who think, look, or act like us. It’s a calling to love. Full stop. To hear one another’s stories. To respect each other’s traditions and ways of being. To love this planet that is our home. And to allow God to love us completely, each and every day. 

**********

The Haudenosaunee Thanksgiving Address is an offering of greetings to the natural world….the waters, the fish, the plants, the birds, the four winds, and more. Each section ends with the same words...in the English translation, the refrain is “now our minds are one.”

“We put our minds together and thank all the Birds who move and fly about over our heads. The Creator gave them beautiful songs. Each day they remind us to enjoy and appreciate life. The Eagle was chosen to be their leader. To all the Birds - from the smallest to the largest - we send our joyful greetings and thanks. Now our minds are one.” [5]

SOURCES: 

[1] https://www.wyandotte-nation.org/culture/history/published/trail-of-tears/

[2] I highly commend the book 1491

[3] https://www.pbs.org/native-america/blogs/native-voices/how-the-iroquois-great-law-of-peace-shaped-us-democracy/ 

[4] http://www.nativepartnership.org/site/PageServer?pagename=airc_hist_boardingschools 

[5] https://americanindian.si.edu/environment/pdf/01_02_Thanksgiving_Address.pdf

“Walking in the Way of Generosity”

1 Corinthians 12: 12-17, 26-31

Oct. 6, 2019 

Sermon by Rev. Caela Simmons Wood

First Congregational UCC of Manhattan, KS

Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians gives us the opportunity to take a behind-the-scenes look at life in the Early Church. Written in the early 50s, it’s one of the oldest books in the Second Testament. Alongside Timothy, Priscilla, Aquila, and Phoebe, Paul helped organize what we would now call “house churches” in Corinth.

Eventually, he moved on to Ephesus and continued his preaching and teaching. But he never forgot about the communities he left behind, writing letters to continue to offer guidance and support. These letters remind us that sometimes there is nothing new under the sun. Being a part of a community means sharing in one other joys and concerns. It means having someone who is there to drive you to a medical procedure. It means having a refrigerator overflowing with food after a funeral. But sometimes it also means feeling hurt because no one asked how your surgery went...or sitting alone in your grief wondering why no one quite seems to understand what you’re going through.

In short, being a part of a community of faith means giving thanks when we get it right….and saying sorry when we get it wrong. This is true now and it was true in Paul’s time as well. 

Through all the disappointments, Paul exhorts the early followers of Jesus to continue striving for what he calls “a more excellent way.” Followers of “the Way” as the early Church was called in Acts are expected to keep moving slowly but steadily down the path marked by Jesus. 

When Paul says “I will show you a more excellent way” he immediately continues with “love is patient, love is kind, love is not envious or arrogant or rude.” The more excellent way is the way of love. This is why Jesus said the most important law is to love God and love our neighbors as ourselves. We could live our ENTIRE lives just striving to walk in the path of Love the way Jesus and Paul describe it. 

And this right here, beloveds, is why I need the Church. Because following in the Way of Jesus is hard work and there’s no way I could do it alone. I respect that other people may not need a community to do the work, but I sure do. The Church is where I have been encouraged to push myself to try new things that are difficult but turn out to be incredibly life-giving and transformative. 

October is the month of the year when our leadership asks us each to prayerfully consider our financial commitments to First Congregational. I’m excited that you’re going to have a chance this month to hear conversations during worship about the practice of generosity...what it means to people in our congregation and why and how they choose to support the ministry we share. Every single thing we do together as a congregation is funded by us. Together we make this building available to the community, offer living wages to our staff, invite people into the way of Jesus, show up with those who are marginalized and oppressed, create space for inspiring worship and difficult conversations, and do our best to walk in the Ways of Jesus together. 

As we begin this time of discernment, I want to share my own testimony of how the regular practice of financial generosity has changed my life. 

When David and I first got married, we began the process of combining our finances. In doing so, I learned that David grew up in a family that tithed. Meaning, they followed what some consider to be a Biblical mandate of giving away 10% of their income. MY MIND WAS BLOWN. I mean, I was an active churchgoer but had no idea that there were people who actually gave away 10% of their income. This truly seemed impossible to me. But it was important to David, so I agreed we could give it a try. 

I was shocked to discover how much the practice changed my relationship with God. First, sitting down and writing out a check each month to share with others made me feel SO good. We opted (and still opt) to give a significant amount of our tithe to the Church but we also share in other ways. When we were in our early 20s and were able to save up and buy Christmas presents for a family in need, or give a generous contribution to CROP walk, or support a young person in our congregation who was raising money for an important cause...well, my heart soared. It felt so good to share. And it made me want to be more generous with my time and energy, too. I had no idea that giving away money could bring such joy. 

But the really amazing thing was what happened to the money I kept. Doing this incredibly difficult thing with our money made me feel less worried about money in general. I felt detached from it in a new way. I had a sense that all of it was just on loan to me anyway. I was not expecting that huge soul shift. I was, and continue to be, so thankful to God for this revelation, which is so very counter-intuitive and counter-cultural. 

So the tithing thing has been a spiritual practice for me since I was 20. And we continue to follow the practice of giving a significant portion of our gifts to the Church AND some of it to other organizations that are working to build the Realm of God’s justice and peace. Every month when I notice that my automatic contribution to First Congregational has hit our bank account, I feel good knowing that we are supporting a faith community that is striving for “a more excellent way.” 

There are so many public ways our congregation is striving to live in Christ’s more excellent way of love. I don’t have time to list them all….showing up and loving loudly in public: at Little Apple Pride, the Poor People’s Campaign, City Commission meetings, writing letters for more just immigration policies. The kind of love that is tangible...filling up the Blessing Box for hungry neighbors each day, showinf up at church at 9:00 on a Sunday night to haul giant trays of recovered food into the basement so it can be used at Second Helping, packaging up boxes filled with Backpacks of Hope for our neighbors from Central America. And the kind of love that says, you are welcome here….you, who need a place for your 12 step meeting; you, who are looking for a place to gather for TransKansas; you, who are advocating for renters’ rights, planning the annual MLK Day celebration, coming for kids’ yoga, rehearsing for or offering a concert. 

These are all things that are visible to you. 

As your pastor, I have the honor and privilege of seeing so many things that happen behind-the-scenes that you may not know about. Here’s just one recent story that I received permission to share with you today. A few years ago, there was a young couple who attended services with some regularity, never becoming members, but showing up and participating in worship. They eventually stopped showing up. I assumed they had moved on to another congregation or perhaps moved away. Last month I got a text from Cliff and he asked if he and Kinsey could meet with me. 

When we got together, they thanked me for making time to get together on such short notice and told me they were getting ready to move across the country. But before they left, they wanted to stop by and tell me about how much our congregation had meant to them. They were so thankful for our bold witness of God’s love for all people. They appreciated our intentionality in trying to build a more just world...a place where people are striving to live in that “more excellent way” of love. They said they wished they had been able to be more involved in their time here, but work and life got in the way. But they couldn’t leave without saying thank you. And so, I pass on their thanks to you.

Cliff and Kinsey saw you walking in that more excellent way of love. And I see it, too, on a daily basis. I see you talk to your neighbors and friends when they are hurting...I see how you invite them to church and respect them if that’s not what they need right now. I get to know your friends when you refer them to me because they need a listening ear as they go through an illness or grief. You show up with kleenexes and casseroles and offer rides and childcare and mow lawns when people are grieving or going through a divorce. I see you when you make sure a homeless neighbor is connected with resources. I see you when you sit up all night with a friend who is suicidal. I see your neighbors and friends let you in to the messiest parts of their lives and I see you walking in a more excellent way of love when you are entrusted with that sacred duty.

I never stop giving thanks for the opportunity to minister alongside you. I have learned so much from you and am honored to have you as companions on the Way with me.