UCC Files



March 4, 2018Third Sunday in LentBeautiful LawPsalm 19Amistad Sunday/ UCC Women’s WeekBranded like animals, chained naked together, hundreds of human beings crammed into a tiny space and rowed across the Atlantic with a bucket for human waste and little food or air – such was the brutality of the Middle Passage. The “Middle Passage” is the name given to the journey by ships forced on to millions of human beings kidnapped and brought from Africa to the Americas. Many died and those who survived were sold as slaves into a world far from their homes. It was on one such ship that a slave named Sengbe Pieh found a file – given to him or left behind by a female slave and with it he sawed through his leg iron. He then freed others and led a revolt above decks. It was 1839 and such is one piece of the story of the ship slave ship called the Amistad. We in the United Church of Christ remember that story because our past is tied to its events, and reflects how deep are our roots in the cause of freedom and equality for all. Sengbe Pieh and his fellow slaves were arrested and charged with murder and their case was tried and won in the Supreme Court by John Quincy Adams and the tireless work of many others, including prominent Congregationalists. Abolitionists of all colors gathered around in support of the slaves of the Amistad. The American Missionary Association was organized in 1846 by Congregational and Presbyterian abolitionists who had been active in support of the Amistad defendants. Twenty-five years later the AMA chartered seven colleges for the education of African American students: Berea College, in Kentucky; Fisk University, in Tennessee; Atlanta University, in Georgia; Hampton Institute, in Virginia; Talladega College, in Alabama; Tougaloo University, in Mississippi; Straight University, now known as Dillard, in Louisiana. They helped establish Howard University. Originally established to train teachers, these schools had trained over 7000 black teachers by 1888. The AMA itself long ago folded itself into other associations including the United Church Board for Homeland Ministries and further into our denominational restructure in 2000. But its mission to support the empowerment of black Americans through education has helped create generations of black leaders whose articulate and powerful presence continues to make our country and world a better place; a freer place. Sengbe Piah didn’t just free himself and his companions. What he did started many people thinking differently about slavery and grew beyond what he might have imagined filing away at his leg irons in the hold of the Amistad. March 11, 2018Fourth Sunday in LentNo Matter WhatPsalm 107:1-3,17-22One Great Hour of Sharing No matter what, no matter how bleak it seems, God’s love is steadfast, sure and unshakable. Psalms are great for that kind of language born in assurance and certainty and a faith that brokers no discontent. However, our genuine lived lives point to the reality that suffering does happen. God’s love may be steadfast but that doesn’t mean we won’t lose our house in a flood or a fire or an earthquake and ill health is something that can surprise even the most fit of human beings. Faith is born perhaps not in a perfect life but in a genuine one, and in one lived in service to others with others. That’s exactly what One Great Hour of Sharing gives us – a place to put our shared values in service to the world with other Christians. From water projects that provide sanitary facilities to villages in Vietnam, or building a sand dam to contain water in a community in Kenya, OGHS has made the world cleaner and safer for millions. OGHS has funded a long-term commitment to people in Michigan recovering from devastating floods. They have funded projects there long after the TV cameras and helicopter fly overs have stopped. In Bolivia, your gifts have helped a small indigenous tribe have access to education and better agricultural techniques thus increasing their ability to feed themselves.And the good news is that we don’t do all this alone. We serve in this organization alongside ecumenical partners like: The American Baptists, AME Zion, The Disciples of Christ, The Presbyterian Church (USA) and the Church of the Brethern. So, when the Psalmist says thank you to God for wonderful works, for deliverance and healing we know that the power of God is great and God works through the people gathered in her name. We are those people singing the words of hymns that echo the Psalms and encourage us to offer thanksgiving and to tell the tales of these projects and good works. When you give to the One Great Hour of Sharing your gift is more than a stop gap or a bandage for a suffering world. It joins Christians across ecumenical boundaries and becomes an emblem of who we are. All of us could one day fall victim to a disaster. All of us could one day need the funds that today serve others devastated by flood, or fire or drought or famine. We serve because we are called to do so, and we serve because compassion sees our own faces on the faces of others. Give generously! March 18, 2018Fifth Sunday in LentDeep in Our HeartsJeremiah 31:31-34Do you remember your times tables? Progression up the sets was a kind of rite of passage. The 1s times table was simple. It wasn’t until you got to the 7s or 8s and 9s that the easy cadence from 1 thru 10 slowed down and pauses pulled out all your memory tricks. Perhaps there are, even after all these years, multiplication sets that stump you? Do you still pause on 7 X 8? Or 6 X 9? The goal in memorizing these math “facts” was always to make them a part of your arithmetic memory so that they became second nature. You no longer paused at a series of numbers like a bare recruit waiting to be yelled at during basic training, or a scared third grader hoping not to be called on at that moment. When that relaxed ability to respond automatically occurs, you have integrated them into your calculating self. Integrating the will of God, understanding the paths of righteous living as the bible calls it, and aligning ourselves with a life in tune with a divine calling is more than memorizing rules and being able to repeat them like a robot or recording machine. This is what Jeremiah is getting at when he hears God calling for a new Covenant one where the paths toward peace are carved, not on stone tablets, but on the hearts of God’s people. Our churches work hard at creating space Sunday mornings for children and adults to explore values and spirituality, to study the Bible, as well as learn the mundane facts we take for granted like the 10 commandments and the order of the biblical books. Can you name the disciples? (That’s a trick question because they aren’t the same in every gospel.) There’s a lot about our faith tradition that we take for granted and many of us are ignorant about Christian history and theology. How do we take our tradition and write its premises on our hearts? When we were toddlers, we learned to say, “Thank you” because our parents taught us to say it. We were praised every time we said those words. When we became adults, we learned that expressing gratitude created a link between us and others that created a wave of hospitality making our world better. Such waves are the products of writing those rules about value in our molecules. Such is the world that Jeremiah predicts. So may it be. March 25, 2018Sixth Sunday in Lent (Palm/Passion Sunday)Into JerusalemJohn 12:12-16 (Palm Sunday)Mark 14: 1-15:47 (Passion Sunday)We have a choice today. We can choose to remember a triumphant parade led by a man on a donkey, or we can remember that same man betrayed by a friend and anointed for burial, arrested and sent to die. Either way the man ends up dead after being crucified. The place in the story–the point in the narrative is different but the result will be the same. Even if we were to retell it from where the shepherds heard the heavenly host, or the fishermen left their nets, or stopped the narrative clock when Jesus was acosted by the leper, the result would always be the same – three crosses on a hill called Golgotha and then the empty tomb. One could liken this Sunday’s liturgical moment to being at the crest of something. The path before us goes down and then up. There is a lot of ground to cover, a great crowd to get through, soldiers to thwart, and a plan to feed twelve hungry friends. Along the way, there are expectations even hopes. Remembering the Palm Sunday parade is to remember a demonstration and a belief born in the shouting crowd that this was a turning point for Jerusalem and all people living under the boot of the Roman Empire. Palm Sunday is a Sunday of possibility and expectancy. When we choose, to also celebrate Passion Sunday we tell the story just after the parade and the waving palms disbands. Passion Sunday is also about the betrayal by Judas, and the arrest in the garden. Now is the place in the Gospels when things get serious. Now the plot turns and the danger is clear. The demonstration of Palm Sunday was a kind of protest parade against Rome. Following that man on the donkey would mean making choices about whose side you were on. Christians still make those kinds of choices. Our world is in a time when we are called to make choices about whose side we will be on. In the summer of 2017 many UCCers joined 15,000 demonstrators in the Boston area making a choice to walk against hate and bigotry. At the same time UCC theologians, seminary professors and administrators signed a letter decrying the notion of white supremacy. As a church, as a denomination, we are Palm Sunday “paraders” who know that waving those palms is also a political stance. When we are the church we speak out for what is true and whole and we are not afraid to raise our voice against any system that oppresses people. To follow Jesus is to tell the whole story from the parade and the cheers to the cross, knowing that God waits on the other side with a resurrection promise.April 1, 2018EasterNow What?Mark 16:1-8Terror and amazement are the words in Mark’s Gospel that conclude this version of the story of the women at the empty tomb. That’s not surprising if one remembers the terrible and catastrophic event that surrounds the formation of this Gospel. The Gospel of Mark was written down during and just after the violent destruction of Jerusalem in the year 70 CE by the Roman army. A destruction so devastating that the Temple was never rebuilt. Eyewitness accounts talk about blood running in the streets. It was traumatic. Most likely the community around which Mark’s Gospel was produced experienced some of what we now call PTSD.The sacking of Jerusalem changed Judaism forever. Without the Temple, it had to re-form itself and reimagine the center of their communal life. Community trauma and destruction can have systemic and long reaching affects. We have seen trauma up close and personal around the world: from shootings, to hurricanes, to floods and earthquakes and terrible wildfires. In Sonoma County California, the windblown firestorm of 2017 traveled as a fast as a football a second and was an equal opportunity destroyer – decimating homes large and small, wealthy neighborhoods and working class neighborhoods…8500 structures obliterated and more than 4000 people displaced. Our churches and our denomination rise to the occasion when disaster strikes. In Cypress, Texas a small Christ United UCC sanctuary was inundated with water twice within 12 months but each time they rose from the flood waters through the support of members, neighbors and their abiding faith. In Sonoma County, California, as the wildfires abated, many of the members of UCC churches returned home and began the long process of rebuilding their community. In the town of Sonoma, one hard hit community were the immigrant farmworkers. The UCC church there is ready for the long haul of healing and framing hope for these people, many of whom are undocumented. Resurrection is sometimes the thing we do the rise from the ashes and the flood waters and all the disasters that may come.Like the women discovering the empty tomb – the question arises, what next? For Sonoma and Texas and Puerto Rico and Northern California the next involves so much hard work…only a belief in the power of the resurrection and the will of people to live it will guide these many communities into the future. The signs that appeared everywhere during the fires of 2017 were these: “The love in the air is thicker than the smoke.”April 8, 2018Second Sunday of EasterMarks of FaithJohn 20:19-31We all want success however we define that. For some of us it’s money or freedom from anxiety about money. We’d like the future secured and full of hope, and that hope is secured by a big lottery win or a long lost rich relative. How do you define “success?” When you imagine your own personal success does that translate into how you imagine the success of institutions you care about? How do we know, for example, if a church is “successful?” It might be that you would think a successful church is a church with many members and full pews on Sunday, or a church without financial concerns, or a church with a large youth group. Size and security may seem good factors to describe success but if we look at the Gospels, we will find that success is defined in a different way.In John’s Gospel, the disciple named Thomas wants to see Jesus and put his hands in the holes made in the body of Jesus by the soldiers of Rome. For Thomas, the marks of faith are wounds. These are not the usual marks associated with success. They are the wounds delivered by a system that killed a man that it could not contain, a man who represented a world view so unlike theirs he was a threat. How do we know if the church of Jesus Christ is “successful?” By what rubrics will we define that? How will we recognize our wounds as marks of a faithful people? The United Church of Christ has a poster many churches hang over its doorways --- it says: BE THE CHURCH – Protect the environment. Care for the poor. Forgive often. Reject racism. Fight for the powerless. Share earthly and spiritual resources. Embrace diversity. Love God. Enjoy this life. Nothing in these ways of “Being Church” are the usual markers for success. They may or may not be predicative of a filled sanctuary or an abundant pledge drive, but they do reflect the way in which Jesus was himself faithful to the world he served and still serves.There is an old joke that goes like this: Question asked of a New York city taxicab driver: “How do you get to Carnegie Hall?” Answer: “Practice.” We could ask our churches: “How do you get to be a successful and faithful church?” Answer: “Do what Jesus did.” If you are lucky, you will bear the marks of a faithful life. And people will come for miles to see that that what you have done is true and those marks are real. Jesus would probably tell us to stop worrying about the future, just “be the church” he might say. “Be the church, so that you might have life in my name.”April 15, 2018Third Sunday of EasterChrist Among UsLuke 24:36b-48It seems obvious to us, now, after centuries of practice that it is in a shared meal that communion is found. For Christians, we understand that there is something in the Lord’s Supper that binds everyone wherever and whenever it is offered. Knowing that the last thing Jesus did on the night he was betrayed was break bread with his disciples, makes sitting down to table essential to our communities. Many resurrection accounts, like the one in this passage from Luke, tell how Jesus ate with them. In these days food has become a kind of litmus about our world. The kinds of food we eat, how it is prepared and grown and shipped has taken on larger concerns around the environment and how we treat this earth. Putting these two things together, food and worship, is creating a kind of table theology in many of our churches. A theology born of love of food, love of the earth and love of neighbor – all bound in the communal and welcoming settings of our local churches. On the first Tuesday of every month at Newman Congregational United Church of Christ in Rumford, Rhode Island people gather in the church kitchen to prepare a meal. They bring the ingredients trying to source them locally and mindfully. Together, everyone –?children too, and those who know their way around a kitchen and those who don’t – chip in to help prepare the meal. The tables are set. As they sit around them to eat they talk about a passage from scripture and share communion. The ministry is called “Nourish.” There is a dinner church for young adults that meets the fourth Sunday of every month at the First Congregational Church UCC in Santa Rosa, California. Like other dinner churches, they offer fellowship and deep sharing around a meal and children are always welcome! In Northampton, Massachusetts at First Churches their Dinner church meets twice a month. They grow a lot of what they serve at three plots they maintain in a local community garden. Their gathering is called “Common Ground.” This is from their web site: Our vision is?to feed those who are hungry in body, mind, and soul: hungry for bread, hungry for meaning, hungry for beauty, truth, purpose, and community.Through the ministry of Common Ground we are striving to help people connect to the earth, one another, and the?God whose good gifts we freely share.()What kind of dinner church could your congregation serve to a hungry world?April 22,2018Fourth Sunday of EasterEnfolded by LoveJohn 10:11-18Earth DayA Litany for Earth Day.OneDear God, This is our thanks for the colors of the earth.MANYFor the browns and golds and greens of the earth.For the white snow on the mountains and fields of lavender. OneThis is our love for the waters of the earth.MANYFor oceans that cover and the rivers that wash and rapids that roar.For the life in the ponds. For turtles bobbing at the surface.OneWe give praise to the sound of the rains that come.MANYFor the deserts where seasons run dry and the sun beats till the soil cakes and everything fries.OneFor all the creatures who live here below the skies.MANY For the life that roams in herds across the grassy plains.For the raptors who float on the winds high before the clouds.MANYWe give praise and thanks and joy. OneFor storms and heat and the cold that pierces – all of it coming from the heartof God who called everything “good.”MANYThis is our home. This blue ball floating before the sun and the moon.OneThis is our earth. We give praise for its day. MANYThis is our earth. We only have one. OneTeach us how to be its beloved. Teach us how to live for its good. AMENApril 29, 2018Fifth Sunday of EasterAbiding in LovePacific Islander and Asian American Ministries SundayJohn 15:1-8In the nineteenth century, churches were founded by many immigrant groups from Asian countries. Some of those first churches started in California in cities like San Francisco, Berkeley and San Diego. Most of these came from the congregational stream of our history. As more and more Asian and Pacific Island peoples arrived on our shores they built additional congregations and filled them with Taiwanese, Samoans, Koreans, Asian Indians, Japanese, Chinese, Marshallese, Kosraean, Pohnpeian and Chuukese. These are the people we celebrate and give God thanks for on this Pacific Islander and Asian American Ministries Sunday.This ministry became an official entity of the United Church of Christ in 1974, though discussions about organizing such a caucus started years before. As they all gathered to name what were their concerns and articulate a vision for the work they would do, one of their first concerns was identifying and naming issues while devising ways to get to solutions. Over the years they have focused on leadership development, cultural pride, visibility in the denomination, support and growth opportunities for their youth and young adults. Along with other ministries and organizations of the UCC they have been a voice against institutional racism and a seeker after justice and reconciliation for all people. A key and essential group within this ministry is its youth and young adult organization. They develop community by encouraging and modeling pride and affirmation for each cultural identity within the Pacific islander and Asian American cultures. They promote church involvement and spiritual growth and faith development. Every other year they gather and learn and celebrate while sharing their diverse music and dances and hopes; while working together and praying together. This year they will meet for the first time on the east coast. The 23rd Biennial Convocation will be hosted by the East Region at the Stony Point Center in New York from July 19 – July 22, 2018.? There will be workshops and the Holy Spirit is likely to be in attendance. Our denomination is greater because of such advocacy groups and ministries. They are us and we are more than we might be because of them. May 6, 2018Sixth Sunday of EasterFriends TogetherRural Life SundayJohn 15:9-17This is our Sunday to celebrate rural ministries in the UCC. In the Maine Conference of the United Church of Christ there are many small rural churches. Over two years Reverend Susan Craig and Reverend Doug Dunlap traveled that state getting to know 10 of those churches. They listened to people and developed relationships; they worshipped with them and broke bread with them. They didn’t go to track down a history but to listen to them tell the story of who they are now and how they are “being church” in a world that values big and visible. What they discovered may belie some of our assumptions about the nature of churches in general as well as small churches. For example, with 10 members, the UCC church in New Sharon Maine gathers around a table and a meal for worship. No longer are they bound by pews and a bulletin. They write their liturgy out by hand and ask people who show up to read or pray. They read scripture and talk about it, and they all participate. Around a table there is no back pew. Having such a small group means that community feelings are deep and people really know each other. One of the things this clergy duo observed is that when people tell their stories out loud they learn about themselves in the telling. And finally, these nine reasons small churches thrive might be instructive for all sized congregations:Small churches are particularly authentic.Small churches stay connected to the community around them.There’s always time for “prayers of the people.”People can build genuinely loving relationships.Lay leaders are active and ready to help out.Small churches give the biggest welcome.People keep believing in their ministries, even with small numbers.People are in touch with each other and the Holy Spirit.Small churches aren’t afraid to break the rules.(If you navigate to YouTube and search for small church vitality themes you will find a video and interview about this project.)May 13, 2018Seventh Sunday of EasterGuided in PrayerJohn 17:6-19Mother’s DayPrayer is a thing you do and who you are but first and foremost it is an action and It requires attention. After all, Jesus prayed. He who in his being, his molecules, is as close to God as any human was a great one for praying. He said prayers out loud. He went off to pray. To be alone. He prayed for others. He prayed for himself. We pray in worship, over shawls, in circles; we write them on paper, we input and speak them and sit in silence before the still speaking God who can sometimes feel distant and hard to find. Yet, we keep praying, making our whole selves available and attentive to our spiritual selves and our relationship with God. Our churches pray in many ways. Sometimes, even in surprising ways, like St. Johns United Church of Christ in St. Louis, Missouri who open their conference line on their phone at 6 AM (Monday thru Friday) and they pray with the world and for the world over a telephone. Many Conferences of our denomination, like the Nebraska Conference, publishes a prayer calendar and every week a different church and pastor is prayed for. Who do you pray for? How often do you set aside time to pray with others for others? Have you ever prayed with someone on the phone? Are you a kinesthetic or visual type person? How about praying while walking? St. John’s UCC in Lansdale, PA has a prayer walking group that meets in a local park twice a month. At if you find the resources page you can order a pray-while-coloring-book called “Praying in Color.” Prayer Shawl Ministries are a multi-praying opportunity. The knitters can pray while knitting, the shawl can accompany prayers, and the person who gets the shawl feels prayed for and can wrap themselves in it to pray for others. At Austin Congregational church in Minnesota, they have a “prayer Wall” upon which is posted prayer requests. People can pause and reflect on the prayers of others. What can you do in your church to encourage the act of praying together in your congregation?May 20, 2018PentecostSpirit for AllMental Health Sunday/ Strengthen the Church OfferingActs 2:1-21After the tongues of fire and the wind and the speaking in the languages of the whole inhabited world Peter stands and says something about what they have witnessed and experienced. He speaks to the crowd in Jerusalem that had gathered to witness the commotion and he tells them that what they have seen is a foretaste, a vision of what the future holds–that both sons and daughters will prophecy and visions and dreams will be paramount. All this, he says quoting Isaiah, just as the return of the world to its true self will be made visible in the return of Jesus the Christ. What does the future hold for the church of Jesus Christ? In the formation story of this institution we hold dear there is a suggestion that the future is potent and full of possibility and will be infused by great changes. That is exactly the purpose of the Strengthen the Church fund. Because of this offering the United Church of Christ has the means to help our churches reimagine themselves, think outside the box and create new worshipping Christian communities in places where the UCC has not been visible. It’s a fund that supports burgeoning youth ministries helping them articulate and nurture their deep spiritual longing. All in all, this fund is the best way we have that supports a new vision for our churches and creates opportunities for growth. What will happen to our churches that are shrinking in numbers? Will we disappear? Will our voice for hope and freedom and justice and a world of welcome be obliterated by a world of indifference and secularity poised against all religion? Who are we in this conversation living a way of looking at the world that says there is something bigger than us, something that participates in our lives in a real and genuine way that makes a difference? What message do we have about being human that is essential for the good of everything? What do we offer people living in a world of interconnectivity, and social media and fake news and hopelessness, and great economic disparity? What do we offer youth marginalized by race and gender identity? What do we offer all of us facing our fragile world and the deep changes that seem to overwhelm us? This fund will help us have that conversation and model new visions for who we might become.May 27, 2018Trinity SundayMysterious EncounterJohn 3:1-17Nicodemus is the Pharisee who braves the city at night and comes knocking at Jesus door. He holds a million questions. He has left his friends and colleagues behind for they do not share his wonder. He is alone feeling his way through the dark streets. Perhaps pressing along the stone walls and hoping for the right door? How does the knock sound against his knuckle cold from under his cloak? Does he rehearse the questions he will ask? Does Jesus expect him? Was it prearranged? This meeting between teachers –?this meeting between strangers. He has a lot on his mind, Nicodemus does. So many questions. He asks, “What does it mean to be born again?”You may not have that question exactly but you probably have questions about your faith, about the bible and about who Jesus is. If you are a church that regularly recites a statement of faith there are probably things in there you wonder about –?like “the resurrection of the dead.” What does it mean to believe in that? Would you ask your Pastor these questions? Would you be embarrassed? Do you think that if you go to church it means you know the answers to the questions about what it means to be a Christian, or theology or history or the bible? Does it ever feel like there is more you don’t know than you know? At Broadmoor Community Church in Colorado Springs, Colorado under “What they believe” on their webpage () they say the following:While some of us were raised UCC, the majority of us were raised in other traditions: Catholic, Lutheran, Episcopal, Presbyterian, evangelical, fundamentalist, even Jewish and Muslim. This?makes for an interesting mix! All of us bring our questions, our doubts, our beliefs, our criticism, our willingness to both ask questions and lean into faith in order to make our lives, and the world, a better place.What about your church community? Do you encourage your members to lean into their faith with all their questions and doubts? Jesus greats Nicodemus, the man with all the questions, and he answers him. It may be that the answers Jesus gives raise even more questions but isn’t that what the faith journey is like for us all? ................
................

In order to avoid copyright disputes, this page is only a partial summary.

Google Online Preview   Download