Mark 13:1-8 and Excerpts from Active Hope: How to Face the Mess We're in without Going Crazy by Joanna Macy
Welcome again however you are connecting, online or here in the room, thank you for showing up for yourself, for others, for the world we all want together. I invite you now as you are moved to take some deeper breaths, to let yourself arrive here as fully as you are able, tuning in to hear whatever word God has for each of us.
I offer this prayer from Psalm 19. God, may the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable in your sight, our Rock and our Redeemer. Amen.
“You have bad reviews on Google,” someone told me not long ago. Horrified, and extremely curious, feeling like I should have known, but at the same time just couldn’t believe it -even churches are being measured with 5 stars?! Being judged by a one-time experience no less? As soon as I saw Erika next, I raced to the Welcome Table, “Did you know there is a place on the internet where the church has bad reviews?” She assured me she would investigate and lead me to the place in the world wide web where I could find them and see for myself. When she did, and I arrived at a list of a varying numbers of yellow stars, and I discovered people I know and people I don’t and all kinds of fascinating comments about us, Community UCC. One person said how warm and welcoming we are and how the contemplative service was quiet and still and thoughtful. Another person’s review said “Wonderful, loving, caring Church. Very open & accepting. Check it out.”
Another review said: I love the community here, a very progressive and open-minded church with solid and forward-thinking leadership, while another simply commented that we are a progressive church involved in social justice and other important issues. One person gave a review that had nothing to do with things religious, and commented on the lovely grounds and how it was a great starting place for hiking the Bear Creek path! And then there are a couple that are decidedly negative, like this reviewer who wrote one line about how we aren’t really a church at all, and another who wrote a soliloquy “Saying that this is a 'church' is far from accurate. As a Christian, knowing well the Bible and it's truth, what is taught is complete heresy! What this 'church' presents as many paths to heaven flies in the face of all of the gospels, the book of Acts, Romans, Galatians, Ephesians, and even Revelation. As what you swear in court, to say the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help you God, this place is anything but. For the true believer, stay away.”
In a perfect world, it would be fascinating to engage with follow up questions. What does it mean to you to be a true believer? What is heaven to you? And what does it mean to you to have one particular path? Are you stressed about that? I know that such a thing isn’t likely possible. And I just want to say for the record, that our church is biblically based. We take Jesus’ words very seriously, we try to do what he did. I want to give each of you permission to joyfully claim that! Our church is biblically based. But here is what I think the reviewer was really trying to say, we are confusing. We don’t fit his mental map or the tiny little theological box created by the Church Fathers 1700 years ago next year. We don’t fit creeds or dogmas. We understand that spiritual depth needs nuance. And we understand that one of the gifts of our heritage in the United Church of Christ is covenant over creed and freedom of theological expression. We understand that we are each on our own spiritual journeys, while having something to offer one another. We understand that for us, it’s unity over conformity. Among us we have people who grew up Catholic and still feel connected to that tradition and people who grew up Catholic and want nothing to do with it, among us we have people who grew up Methodist and Unity, Lutheran and Unitarian Universalist, some of us from more Pentecostal and Charismatic traditions, a few of us who grew up in the United Church of Christ and its predecessor threads, some of us from new age spirituality and some of us nothing at all. Some of us come from Buddhism and for a long time we had some from the Jewish tradition. Who did I miss? Episcopalian! American Baptist!
What binds us together is our shared commitments, the covenants that hold us and invite us into a certain kind of relationship with each other, with the sacred and with our own spiritual journeys- with the world we practice together and work for beyond this place. I think it’s quite challenging to be as diverse as we are and also I think it’s what Jesus intended. And I think it’s important, precious even, a sacred treasure in a divided time like this.
Another reviewer of our church wrote, “I have avoided Christian churches because of the dogma and prejudices I have encountered but this place ... there are Buddhists, Jews, Catholics, Agnostics, 12 steppers, seekers of all sorts. And Rev. Nicole rips up the old ideas about church and Christianity. She upends "old school" teachings and gets to the core of what matters in my life and ways to live that cause least harm. Justice and action are front and center in this congregation - they are doing a lot for people experiencing addiction to. Check the website…The contemplative service Sunday morning is sweet when I am in a more reflective space.” Thank you whoever you are!
What if what we are doing right here together and what we do throughout the week and what we have done as a community of faith for 60 years is just exactly what the world needs right now? We live out the calling of being a true community, holding relationships across all kinds of differences of many kinds by design. We don’t curate this gathering. It’s not invitation only. We care for each other and do good alongside one another, knowing we don’t all think the same way. We care about belonging much more than believing and we put our lives together. And I do believe is that community is just what the world needs in this moment. Because we know how to love what is and also what could be right into existence.
In the Gospel of Mark for today we have some apocalyptic writings where Jesus says something that sounds familiar to what we read this summer in the Gospel of Mary. Mary 4:3 says, “Be on guard so that no one deceives you by saying ‘Look over here!’ or ‘Look over there!” And here in Mark we read, “Beware that no one leads you astray. Many will come in my name and say, ‘I am he!’ and they will lead many astray. When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed; this must take place, but the end is still to come. For nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom; there will be earthquakes in various places; there will be famines.”
All of this is happening right now as we are here in this room. There are many being led astray, led away from our interconnectedness on this planet, there are wars and rumors of wars, nations rising against nations, earthquakes, and hurricanes and floods and famines. And yet what is also true in this prophecy is that perhaps what we are living right now is all of this yes, this, it is hard what is happening is terrifying and unsettling. But do you notice that last line? This is but the beginning of the birth pangs. All of this is hard, yet it is here. And also it means we are birthing something an entirely new thing, new connections, new ideas about what is possible, new ways of cooperating with those we might not have before, it’s that kind of moment. It will hurt and for some of us really bad in fact. But here is what I have learned, creating and building, birthing takes much more than tearing down. So this is but the beginning of the birth pangs. In moments like this we must prepare for what hasn’t been before and then push. In 2016 at an Interfaith Watch Night service in December following that year’s election Valerie Kaur asked the room, "What if this darkness is not the darkness of the tomb, but the darkness of the womb?" What if in some spots that feel like the end, it’s really not. What if then our call for this time is to be something like doulas? Doulas for what could be! What if our call then is to keep showing up for and tending to those in labor for the world that is not yet? Bringing food for one another and finding ways to inspire one another and sharing what we have and taking turns because supporting new life can be exhausting. And so then our call now is to push and to breathe.
And do you know I think as people of faith, as community UCC we know how to do this. This is exactly what we do already. Being and building community, committed to one another, loving what is and also loving what could be into existence, doulas for possibility, this is but the beginning of the birth pangs. And we know how to do that. We know how to be doulas for what could be. We have always been for one another and for the world, tenders to possibilities, keepers of dreams and hopes yet to be born, individually and collectively. We are community! We are already engaged in the work of showing up to birth something new, even where it doesn’t seem possible. We help bring hope into one another’s worlds and as Joanna Macy wrote, “with Active Hope we realize that there are adventures in store, strengths to discover, and comrades to link arms with.” We know what to do at the beginning of the birth pangs!
A true community like ours because we know that what is hard to do is often holy to do.
As Erika and I reflected on the reviews she so insightfully noted that CUCC is a unique niche and that the reviews actually helped describe us quite well. Even the negative ones. So we decided to leave them all up. We are difficult to pin down! We are community! But not the kind with coerced agreement, or the type that demands conformity, we are deep and true and real, holding space for nuance and difference, loving God and what is and what could be, following Jesus on our own and together. We include people of all ages and life stages, we are neurodivergent and non-binary, we are typical and traditional, we are radical and innovative, we are people who are just getting by and people who are wealthy and we are people with enough and all of us share what we have. We are people who are devoted to contemplation and people devoted to hiking and people devoted to singing and serving. We are agnostics and more traditional believers, we are progressive Christians and those who refuse to claim any label at all. We are people who aren’t sure but just love this place and this people, we are community! We are messy and beautiful and complicated. And I am so grateful to be a part of it. I love giving back a portion of my salary back to this place and this year it will be a little over 5%. I love doing it because it feels like participating in a little bit of heaven here on earth. It’s my privilege to be a part of a community like this.
We know what to do at the beginning of the birth pangs! We know how to be doulas for what could be. We are Community!
Communal Reflection
What new thing would you like to welcome into the world from some of the pain of this moment? What do you love the most about our messy, beautiful community?
What a glorious funky mix we are! We are messy and beautiful! We know what to do at the beginning of the birth pangs! We know how to be doulas for what could be. We can handle what is hard because we know that what is hard to do is often holy to do. We are Community!
May it be so. Amen.
Comentarios