Redefining What's Possible

Today's sermon, preached at Faith United Church, UCC, International Falls, MN

Texts: Ephesians 3:14-21 and John 6:1-21

Yesterday afternoon I officiated at a wedding at Sha Sha. We were worried about the weather, and everything was prepared so that the ceremony could take place indoors at the last minute if necessary. Through the windows of that large room next to Sha Sha’s bar, everyone would have had a beautiful view of Rainy Lake—except me, of course, because I would’ve had my back to it!

But by mid afternoon it looked as if the weather was going to cooperate and, in fact, by the time the service started the sun was out, most of the clouds were gone and it just got better from then on. So we stood on a rock on the east side of Sha Sha Point and friends and family sat in chairs on the grass. And there was a lake view for all.

Afterwards there were hors d’oeuvres and drinks on a couple of the decks, followed by dinner. It was a lovely picnic-type meal, actually, with fruit & veggie trays, potato salad, cole slaw, potato chips, mini croissant sandwiches and cupcakes. The food was good and everyone ate their fill.

As I gazed out over Rainy Lake and the birds and the boats, believe it or not, I thought about Jesus and the crowd by the Sea of Galilee and how everyone there had enough to eat and then some.

I’m no archaeologist or student of ancient maps and geography, but I do know that the “sea” of Galilee was really a lake. In fact it is Israel’s largest freshwater lake. It is 13 miles long and 8 miles wide. In Jesus’ day there were many settlements along the shores of Lake Galilee with much fishing and other trade and ferrying by boat going on there.[i] Rainy Lake is much bigger and has islands and pine trees, but it can certainly give us an idea of what Lake Galilee might have looked like to someone sitting near the shore.

So if we temporarily delete the Sha Sha buildings from our mental image and transport ourselves back a couple thousand years and add some warmer, drier weather, we might get a feel for the scene described in today’s reading from the gospel of John.

Imagine yourself in the crowd. This is a huge crowd—almost the entire population of International Falls in one place, on the shore of the lake! And everyone is there because they want to see this Jesus who has developed quite a reputation in the region for his healing work among the sick. Anyway, Jesus and his disciples have arrived and sat down and the crowd spots them and follows.

John tells us that it’s near the time of the Passover, which is an important feast for the Jews. Jesus is thinking about the Passover meal so he asks the disciples where they can get provisions for all these people.The disciples, being ordinary folks who haven’t yet mastered the knack of thinking outside the box, begin making calculations and inform Jesus that not even half a year’s wages would buy enough bread for everyone to have a small piece. Philip discovers that “There’s a little boy…who has five barley loaves and two fish. But that’s a drop in the bucket for a crowd like this.”[ii] Jesus says the people should sit down and he takes the bread, gives thanks for it and then everyone eats their fill and 12 baskets of leftovers are collected afterwards!

Is it a miracle? Is there a “sensible” explanation like everyone actually had a stash of food hidden up their sleeves—just in case—and on the inspiration of the moment they all shared with their neighbors? Does it matter?

The modern world has gotten to the point where we have very little awe and wonder left in our lives. We look askance at people who claim unexplainable things have happened to them and we’re skeptical of the paranormal or anything that can’t be scientifically explained. So we try to find a plausible explanation for how 5,000 people could be fed by five loaves of bread and 2 fish.

But that’s not what the story is about. That’s not John’s purpose for telling this story. While Jesus' heart is touched by the hunger of the crowd, John is teaching us about the power of God in Jesus, about who Jesus is. We learn who Jesus is by what he does, but really, Jesus is “…the One who redefines what is possible.”[iii]

We know that “for God all things are possible”[iv] and Paul, in his letter to the Ephesians tells us that God’s power is “far more than all we can ask or imagine.”

The crowd realizes that Jesus is unusual if not amazing and they think he would be perfect as the king they’ve been waiting and longing for. But even in that they are limited to thinking inside the box—to “what’s in it for us?” or “guess what?! there IS such a thing as a free lunch.” But to REALLY follow Jesus is “to open a door to a ministry of Jesus beyond the immediate wants and expectations of those who seek what he can give”[v] or do.

In today’s reading we also heard that Jesus walked on the rough water to catch up with the disciples who were in a boat. Add that to your mental image of the scene on Rainy Lake and see what you get! You’d like to see it, wouldn’t you? Sure! I know I would!

The skeptic has an explanation for—or around—everything unusual that happens in the biblical stories but as one commentator says, “we're focusing on the wrong thing when we concentrate on explaining the miracles of multiplying loaves or walking on the sea, when the more remarkable miracle is "that this (‘truly human’) human being could represent, by his words and deeds, such a sign of hope and healing that hundreds of needy people would follow him about, and feel that their hunger for ‘the bread of life’ had been assuaged....that [Jesus’] presence among ordinary, insecure, and timid persons could calm their anxieties and cause them to walk where they feared to walk before. …In a culture that has all but lost the capacity to wonder, a people grown skeptical about the extraordinary is likely to miss the extraordinary within the ordinary.”[vi]

Those who know and follow Jesus will become capable of redefining what’s possible. Is that us? Can it BE us? Can we switch from living in scarcity mode to viewing the abundance of gifts we have and taking chances by discerning what God is calling us to do and then stepping outside the box to risk doing it?

All the folks today who are talking and writing about the future of the “Mainline Church” say that the church is not what it was in the 1950s—and some say it wasn’t even then what people think they remember it was—and that in order to survive and thrive drastic changes must happen in Mainline Churches.

Change is scary for most people, but if we put our trust in God, all kinds of things can be possible. This congregation has taken one bold step by our vote to be one of the locations for the pilot project in our community to provide shelter for people without permanent homes this winter. But what other possibilities is God calling us to try?

It’s going to take all of us praying and working together to discern our direction for the future, but just remember, with God all things are possible and if we let God’s power work in us, God will be able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine! Now THAT’s exciting!

It IS time to redefine the possibilities, trust in God, follow Jesus and JUMP OUT OF THE BOX!!! AMEN.

Wedding site

view from Sha Sha

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[i] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_of_Galilee

[ii] Eugene Peterson, The Message: The Bible in Contemporary Language, p. 1464.

[iii] Charles Cousar, Texts for Preaching: Year B. quoted at:

http://www.ucc.org/worship/samuel/july-26-2009-seventeenth-sunday-in-ordinary-time.html

[iv] Matthew 19:2;6, NRSV

[v] Fred Craddock, Preaching Through the Christian Year B, p.

[vi] Douglas John Hall, Feasting on the Word, quoted at:

http://www.ucc.org/worship/samuel/july-26-2009-seventeenth-sunday-in-ordinary-time.html

35 Years!!

On July 13, 1974, at First Congregational Church, UCC in Stockton, California, Rowland and I were married in a late evening candle-light service.

And suddenly it's 35 years later!

So we are celebrating!

Yesterday we hosted Coffee Hour at church...

UCC folks will understand the cake. Our UCC national PR campaing uses the symbol of a comma and the Gracie Allen quote, "Never place a period where God has placed a comma" to remind us all that God is Still Speaking,

So the message on the cake is "35 years and still speaking"

One friend thought we should've added (to the cake) "to each other," but I think that comes across already.

Today we went out to lunch. Wednesday we're driving to the Twin Cities and going to the Chanhassen Dinner Theater with Courtney and Rob to see "Joseph and the T

echnicolor Dreamcoat." Thursday we'll visit friends in Rochester. Friday, back in Plymouth, Courtney, Rob & I will see the newest Harry Potter movie! We'll return home late Sunday.

Don't know if we'll make another 35 years... we'd be pretty darn OLD!

I Hope You Dance

This morning's sermon at Faith United Church, UCC, International Falls, MN

Text: 2 Samuel 6:1-5, 12b-19

I remember incidents when I was young and again when my children were little where we were in the church sanctuary rehearsing for a Christmas pageant or some other event with kids participating in worship. Naturally, there was noise and running around and excitement and enthusiasm. Invariably, some adult would give a lecture on being quiet and respectful and not running or making noise “in God’s house.”

Now, I’m all for respect—for God, you, me, elders and children and people who aren’t like us as well as people who are—but what came across to me in those incidents was children being told that God is stern and serious and doesn’t like laughter, playing, running, dancing or any of the things children do naturally because they are filled with joy.

I don’t think God wants us to be “the frozen chosen” or a bunch of down-in-the-mouth, scowling folks who can’t ever laugh, clap or dance in church. Children can and will learn about respect just by being in worship and participating as part of the congregation. And we’re not afraid to laugh or clap when the Spirit moves us, but I’m not sure we’re prepared to dance in church the way David danced before the Lord!

Joy is contagious and it is good to share joy. Life is tough enough without trying to be serious all the time. In the midst of the trials of our daily lives, when there is pain and grief in families… when we or people we know are seriously ill… when our church or our community struggles to find ways to bring new people into the fold… when good friends die or move away… when tragedies happen to us or people we know… we need to be able to come together as a dancing, sharing, joyful, celebrating community. In the dancing, sharing and joyful celebration, we are reminded that in spite of everything, life has this persistent tendency to go on and God is ever-present with us through it all.

God’s love and presence are worth celebrating because that’s how we get through the bad stuff—by knowing and trusting that God loves us and is with us. So, even in our sorrow, I hope we dance. It doesn’t always need to be a rollicking, kick-up-your heels dance. It can be a slow, deliberate and mournful kind of dance. Just dance!

We’re mostly aware of David in the Hebrew Scriptures as hero and king, and his memory was a bright, sustaining source of hope for the people of Israel. But when we think of his humanness, we tend to focus on his flaws, especially his tragic affair with Bathsheba. However, David—who, according to tradition, composed the psalms—was obviously a person of deep feeling, and today’s passage about his joy gives us insight into another side of his passion; his profound gratitude and praise for God’s work in the life of Israel—bringing the people together, strengthening them in common cause against the Philistines, establishing the people and their land and the Davidic dynasty to the glory of God and fulfilling the promises of God right before their eyes, in their own lifetime.

The ark—which was said to house God—had been returned by the Philistines (after they captured it) because of its awesome power which frightened the foreigners. But for awhile it rested in the house of Abinadab. David is establishing Jerusalem as his seat of power. He wants to restore the ark to the center of the people’s shared life, so he goes to fetch the ark from its temporary home. Technically, the ark had always had a temporary home, because it moved with the people on their journeys and rested only for a time in Shiloh. So it’s likely that David felt the ark was coming home, even though that home was a new one.[i]

In a ritual celebration of bringing the ark home, David expressed his joy by dancing. Right now that may be the last thing most of us feel like doing. It’s been a hard week. For our congregation it’s been a hard couple of years. We’ve lost so many people who truly loved our church and supported it in every way they could. On July 3^rd I joined Mary Johnson and her family at Big Falls cemetery for Arden’s committal service. Yesterday we celebrated Bob’s life and grieved our own loss

It can definitely feel overwhelming, and when we lose a loved one it’s easy to wonder how the sun can possibly come up again for another day?

But the sun does come up again, so I hope you dance—like David—because God loves Arden and Bob and all the others and gave them new life, and God loves us and journeys with us in this life.

As members of the United Church of Christ, we are the people who profess that God is still speaking, and because that is true, we are allowed—in fact we are called—to dance! We can express our feelings, no matter what they are, because we know God loves us and God understands our feelings, no matter what they are. God calls us to BE, not just to observe; to live life, not just look on from the sidelines.

The song says, “And when you get the choice to sit it out or dance/I hope you dance/I hope you dance.”[ii] In the life we’re given, I bet God says, “I hope you live. I hope you live.”

Our life is God’s gift to us. How we live it is our gift to God. So remember David—dance and sing and make a joyful noise to the Lord! That energy and enthusiasm will keep us fresh and vital! AMEN.

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[i] Adapted from http://www.ucc.org/worship/samuel/s071606.html

[ii] “I Hope You Dance,” by Lee Ann Womack. http://www.lyrics007.com/Lee%20Ann%20Womack%20Lyrics/I%20Hope%20You%20Dance%20Lyrics.html

In Memory of Bob...

Bob Frederickson, the Moderator of our church and a beloved friend to everyone in the congregation and many, many people in town, died on Monday. At least 600 people attended the memorial service today which was held at Backus Community Center. The cross was created by Bob's daughter out of some of his cross-country skis.

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Scripture Texts: John 14:1-7 and Luke 6:20-23, 27-31

If ever there was someone who really lived by the Golden Rule, Bob certainly did. He was always ready to lend a helping hand or a listening ear or take a “coffee break.”

We could count on Bob to be in the church kitchen helping with the Easter Breakfast and the Mother’s Day Brunch. If you needed something he’d be the first to say, “I’ll get it.” One of the members of Faith United Church told me this week, “he was the kindest man I ever met.”

Bob was the only person I knew who had the tools for mounting pictures on a brick wall. When I came here 10 years ago I had two framed art prints by Fr. Edward Hays that I brought with me to hang in my office. I planned to collect them as they became available. I told Bob how my husband said he’d buy them for me but I’d have to get them framed. Bob drilled the holes and lined them up and said, “I hope you stay here long enough to fill the whole wall.” There are a total of six now and I think that’s all that will be released.

Have you ever had a glazed croissant with Bob? They’re definitely sinfully delicious! He would go to Canada to get them and bring them to work, or to someone’s house if there had been a death in the family, or even to church to share in the office.

He loved giving gifts as well. It might be his favorite round white Scotch Mints, or a bit of chocolate, or something that fit in with your favorite hobby—either something practical or a joke or maybe both. Sometimes he’d bring a cartoon or a story he thought you’d enjoy. He was always thinking about others.

Recently, Bob brought in a Plexiglas container, filled it with cough drops and put it out in the Narthex. He asked our office administrator to print up a sign that says, “Thou shalt not cough in church.” Bob, I promise to keep that container filled!

A couple times a year, often around Christmas, I get either a cold or allergies that have my voice sounding like it does today. Sometimes an embarrassing coughing fit interrupts the sermon. So several Christmas Eves ago Bob walked into the office before the service and handed me a little oblong box, wrapped in Christmas paper with a pretty red bow on top. He told me I should open it right then. Can you imagine what it was? I certainly had no clue, but it was quite the Christmas gift—a bottle of Buckley’s Cough Syrup! I’d never even heard of the stuff before, but he told me it comes from Canada and that it tastes pretty bad, but it works like a charm…

OK, so most cough medicine tastes pretty bad, right? You just have to do it quick and get it over with. So off I went to the kitchen, read the instructions, pinched my nose and gulped down a whole TABLEspoon of Buckley’s in one swallow. And I thought I was gonna die!! It was like drinking Vick’s Vapo-rub—or worse! Bob had a good chuckle over the expression on my face when I came back upstairs. He said, “the reason it works is because it tastes so bad you don’t ever want to take it again so you don’t dare cough!”

Bob was always involved in Faith United Church. He was a reader, served on committees, took his turn mowing the lawn, shoveling snow and checking on our troublesome roof. Most recently was our Moderator for the past year and a half until he started cancer treatments. When we needed grab bars and a new toilet, in the “Memorial Bathroom,” Bob made it happen. When one of the pews came loose not too long ago, Bob was lying on the floor a few days later bolting it back into place.

Certainly there is a special place in heaven that has been prepared for Bob! As Bob loved everyone he met, so God loves all God’s people, on a grander scale. We take comfort in Jesus’ words from John’s gospel, “…if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also.”

The resurrection to new life is God’s generous and loving promise to all of us. And Jesus tells the disciples, “you know the way to the place where I am going.

Fortunately for most of us, we have that wonderful, brave “doubting Thomas,” who doesn’t hesitate to raise the critical questions that everyone else always wanted to know but was afraid to ask. Thomas says, “Geez, Jesus, we haven’t got a clue where you’re going, let alone how to get there! How can we possibly know the way?”

But it turns out the answer is simple—thanks for asking, brother Thomas! Jesus is the way, the truth and the life. All we have to do is follow him. And if we follow him we will know God. And when we know God we will want to live and love by the Golden Rule.

Bob’s was a life well-lived. We must now entrust him to God’s care, keeping our special memories tucked carefully inside our hearts. Jesus’ promise is for each of us, “where I am, there you may be also.” And it is the promise of the resurrection that gives us hope and comfort

Praise God for the gift Bob was to each of us! Praise God for God’s never-ending love for all of us! Praise God for loving arms to surround us in times like these! Praise God for memories! Praise God for this life and for the never-ending life to come! Praise God for faith and hope and love….!

Praise God! AMEN.

Our Independence

Today's sermon at Faith United Church, UCC, International Falls, MN

Text: Matthew 11:25-30

In the midst of parades, fireworks and food, I often wonder how much Americans think about the birth of our country and the heritage of freedom that began when the Continental Congress adopted the Declaration of Independence 233 years ago.

Congress first passed a resolution declaring our independence from England on July 2, 1776. The vote was 12 to nothing, with the New York delegation abstaining because they hadn’t received any instructions from the New York Legislation on which way they were authorized to vote.

Having taken this decisive step toward freedom, the Continental Congress spent two more days debating the wording of the document that was to be sent to Great Britain informing them of this action. As you probably know, that document was written by Thomas Jefferson with a number of minor editorial changes suggested by John Adams and Benjamin Franklin.

The Declaration of Independence was revolutionary in more than just its intent to assert its own authority to separate from the mother country. It also proposed radically new theories of government and individual rights.

Most governments of that era were monarchies which operated under the divine right principle. Because the right to wear the crown was hereditary, it was believed that God intervened directly in the birth process to select the right ruler for various circumstances.

A different theory of governance grew out of the Church in which certain groups of Christians, including Congregationalists, strongly upheld their right to assemble, to elect their own leaders and to jointly determine their own rules for governing their organizations.

Based on that belief, a political theorist named John Locke argued that each person had a natural right to enter into a contract with his or her neighbors to determine the form of government under which they wanted to live. It was this doctrine of natural rights to which the Continental Congress pointed as its authority for breaking away from Great Britain.

On July 4, 1776, no one could know what the result of this rebellion would be. They only knew that they were standing up to the strongest nation on earth and that the success or failure of their cause would depend on God.

There was always a very deep religious feel to the Colonial cause. In fact, after the war, George Washington wrote, “There never was a people who had more reason to acknowledge a divine interposition in their affairs than those of the United States, and I should be pained to believe that they have forgotten that agency, which was so often manifested during our revolution, or that they failed to consider the omnipotence of that God, who is alone able to protect them.

The signers of the Declaration were a good cross-section of the upper classes of that time. Twenty-four of them were lawyers or judges. Eleven were merchants; nine were farmers and large plantation owners. All of them were well-educated men of means. But they all signed the Declaration of Independence knowing that the penalty would be death if they were captured by the British.

The document itself ends with the words, “For the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of the Divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other, our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor.” And many of the 56 signers of that document had to pay an extremely heavy price for making that pledge.

Five of them were captured by the British and tortured before they died. Twelve had their homes ransacked and burned. Two lost their sons in the Revolutionary Army while another had two sons captured. Nine fought and died from wounds or hardships brought on by the Revolutionary War.

Some had their properties looted, or lost their ships, or had to hide out—living in caves—until the war was over. Many died destitute—ostracized by their friends for signing the Declaration.

That was the price of the freedom they provided for all of us. Because of the gift of freedom that they passed down to us, most of us living in modern America have been saturated with blessings to a degree unimaginable at the time of the Revolution. Yet we take those blessings for granted as if they were somehow simply our fair share.

In a similar situation, Abraham Lincoln once said, “We have forgotten the gracious Hand which has preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us, and have vainly imagined in the deceitfulness of our hearts that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom or virtue of our own.”

In the early days of our country great sacrifices were made for the public good. Today most Americans have a hard time imagining these kinds of sacrifices or realizing what great responsibilities go with the freedoms we enjoy.

We may know that Jesus says, “From everyone who has been given much, much will be required...”[i] but we don’t think about it very often.

And, of course, we do know that there are some among us who are denied certain rights and privileges on the basis of prejudice or fear, but we rarely stop to take a public stand on behalf of their liberties. We see injustices in our country and assume that they’re so outrageous that surely someone else will take care of them. And then we forget about them.

But in today’s gospel lesson, Jesus calls us to a greater level of commitment. He says, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

The ease he’s talking about isn’t the ease of inaction. What he’s referring to is shouldering a task that is custom-designed for each person’s specific gifts and abilities. True freedom can never be found in inactivity, because then we will become dependent on the decisions and actions of others, whether they are good or bad.

True freedom—like that imagined by the signers of the Declaration of Independence—lies in taking a stand for what’s right and then facing the consequences, whatever they may be. According to the Bible, true freedom can only be found in service to Christ—otherwise we become slaves to the whims of the world around us.

James Watkins has written, “Peacemaking is the central declaration of the gospel. Grace...is experienced as peace. The peace which only God can give is able to heal the brokenness, pain and insecurity which most of us experience.

“When we know God’s peace, Christians go into the world in great joy to point to and become a part of God’s peace-giving... Peacemaking occurs whenever Christians encounter brokenness, conflict, injustice and pain. Consequently, peacemaking occurs in our own lives, our families, congregations, communities and in the international arena.”So, the American Revolutionary War has put us in a unique position to wage God’s peace in the world. And, with God’s guidance, that is something to which we can pledge ...our lives, our fortunes, and our sacred honor. AMEN.

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[i] Luke 12:48

Fireworks!

Some of our 4th of July fireworks -- viewed from the end of our street, which was virtually a front-row seat!