DELIVERED AT DENNIS UNION CHURCH
A Moment for Which the Church Was Born
The supreme reality of our time is the vulnerability of our planet.
John F. Kennedy
On Wednesday 4/16/08, our President made it clear that the United States is willing to use countless generations of unborn children as a bargaining chip to enhance the economic advantages already enjoyed by the current generation of wealthy Americans.1
SCRIPTURE: Listen for the word of God:
Genesis 9:9-10 [9] "As for me, I am establishing my covenant with you and your descendants after you, [10] and with everyliving creature that is with you, the birds, the domestic animals, and every animal of the earth with you, as many as came out of the ark.
Isaiah 24:4-6 The earth dries up and withers, the world languishes and withers; the heavens languish together with the
Listen for the word of God:
Matthew 13:14-15 (The Message)
I don't want Isaiah's forecast repeated all over again: 'Your ears are open but you don't hear a thing. Your eyes are awake but you don't see a thing. [15] The people are blockheads! They stick their fingers in their ears so they won't have to listen; They screw their eyes shut so they won't have to look, so they won't have to deal with me face-to-face and let me heal them.'
Grace and peace to you in the name of the God who loves us just the way we are, and loves us too much to let us stay that way!
I want to thank Dale for extending to me a warm invitation to share in the ministry of God’s word. My presence with you this morning is but one indication of your recognition that “the church” is more than a collection of independent congregations:
. • Your 2007 gift of $ 16,000. to the United Church of Christ through your mission budget,
. • Your annual participation in the UCC’s special appeals
. • Your pastor’s faithful service within the Massachusetts Conference of the United Church of Christ, along with
• the responsibilities that members of your congregation have undertaken over the years to strengthen the connections between our congregations, like Arthur and Connie Bickford
and Carol Pelton
. • And your support of Katherine Schofield as she begins her journey towards a possible call to ministry...
all of these commitments signal your awareness that you are not on your own in responding to God’s call. Just as God calls individuals into service alongside others God calls congregations to serve in community, not in isolation from one another, but in covenant with one another.
As a congregation affiliated with the United Church of Christ, you are bound in covenant to 400 congregations that together form the largest Protestant denomination in the Commonwealth. This covenant extends to well over 5,000 congregations across the nation, which pool their resources to initiate prophetic activity ... like the UCC’s national Eco-Justice and Environmental Racism programs.
Friends: it is on behalf of this covenant – with gratitude and enthusiasm – that I bring you greetings – and blessings as well from the staff of Massachusetts Conference of the United Church of Christ.
In addition to these greetings, allow me also to express my gratitude by lifting up a few of the things that I celebrate about Dennis Union Church :
. • Of course I celebrate all you’ve done for this facility – AND THE WAY you did the work.... more on that later!! AND the beautiful worship service of dedication you held June 1.
. • I love the fact that you have hymn writers who share their gift and lift up your community in their hymnody;
. • It’s great that you’ve just done a new photo directory;
. • And I love the way you have challenged one another to balance your current budget year. The more you can invite generosity, and make your life-together here safe enough to be honest with one another about money – the more you’ll be living into the Gospel. Remember, Jesus had more to say about material goods than any other topic except the kingdom of heaven!
So thank you for being such a blessing to our life together as the United Church of Christ. Thank you for upholding and blessing one another. And thank you for reaching out to those in this community who would never imagine that a church like the United Church of Christ exists. Those seekers need the blessings you have to offer! Let us pray: May the words of my mouth, and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable unto you O Lord; our strength, and our Redeemer. Amen
When we celebrated the 50th anniversary of the UCC last year, I was as excited as anyone. But I had no personal recollections to draw upon. In that same year – 1957 – there was another event of global proportions that I vividly remember. Growing up in a family of scientists in northern New Jersey, I recall the awe and wonder of lying on my back on our front lawn and watching this shiny spot of light – this “new moon” – passing overhead through space. It was a time when there wasn’t too much light pollution, even in suburbia less than 30 miles from NYC.
Within a few years, a generation would accept an impossible challenge – to put a person on our familiar yet mysterious and crater-clad terrestrial neighbor. All at once people emerged with unimpaired vision, engineering genius, unswerving commitment, untold effort, unshakable courage, and – let’s be clear – hubris.
Years of dedication led to two prizes. (And I’m not talking about velcro and Tang!) The first prize came on November 10, 1967; the second on July 20, 1969. All of us remember Neil Armstrong. But I believe the first date is more important. It offered the people of the world a God’s-eye-glimpse of the gift we so take for granted: the earth. Inspired by that photo, a new perspective on life emerged. Martin King eloquently called it “an inescapable network of mutuality.” Scientists called it “the Gaia hypothesis.” Suddenly, the invisible lines in the sand over which humanity has gone to war for eons — suddenly those lines seemed unimportant. Likewise, the religious barriers, the language and cultural differences, the hues of skin colors — all of these were instantly put into perspective.
But to what end? Forty one years later the earth is groaning with sighs too deep for words. (Romans 8:22-26) Isaiah’s warning that we have polluted the earth and violated the everlasting covenant so wonderfully articulated in Genesis goes unheeded. As Jesus warns in Matthew: our ears are open but many of us don’t hear a thing. Our eyes are awake but many of us don’t see a thing. All around us are people sticking their fingers in their ears and screwing their eyes shut so they won’t have to look... So they won’t have to look... (for example) at the tiny article in the paper on September 4 (2008) reporting that another massive ice chunk – 47 square miles – has broken off from an ice shelf in Canada. Those who saw an article a week earlier (8/27/08) were not surprised. The earlier article reported that for only the second time, the Northwest Passage is again passable because the arctic ice is so low.
What will it take to unstop our ears? What will it take to open our eyes? What will it take, as Jesus asks, for us to look God in the face so that God could heal us?
We need industrious scientists, but they cannot force us to pay attention. We need committed politicians, but they have long-ago lost the ability to inspire the American public to repent, or to sacrifice, or to change our habits.
What the world needs is a moral revolution, led by communities of all faith perspectives. In describing what I mean, I will speak of heart, habit, healing and hope.
HEART
I’ll begin with the heart. All of us know that love is the strongest force on earth. Every religion teaches it. Every one of us has experienced it. When we allow our hearts to be as filled with love as God would have us be, no miracle is beyond our reach. This is what Jesus is referring to when he tells the disciples that they will do even greater acts than he. (John 14:12)
How often do you give thanks for the earth? How often do you take a moment to recall that place on earth which has nurtured and healed you like no other? Do you carry with you a photo of your favorite place on earth so that you could be inspired by its peaceful effect on your soul? What if we were to take a moment out of each of the waking hours that remain for us and use that moment to allow waves of gratitude to break over the rocky shores of our hearts, so that our choices, our decisions, our commitments ... could all be influenced by our gratitude for the Eden into which we were born?
My friends, love is the strongest force on earth. So the first thing is to be rooted in love, and grateful for the life-giving balance of sunshine and rain; night and day; oceans and land; raging storms and gentle quiet – grateful for the enormous beauty and the miracle of life into which God has called us.
HABIT
Love is the foundation for change. When we love another person, we are willing to change for them. When we love God, we are willing to examine ourselves so that our lives can line up better with God’s teachings. When we love the earth, we can live-into new habits of shopping, eating, driving, advocating, sharing, spending, using energy, voting, recycling, and more.
Imagine a congregation making a commitment – as individuals and as a blessed community – a commitment to change their habits and to support one another as they grow into new ways of living. While some might make major life changes, many would begin with small things – like walking or cycling more in place of driving, changing to CFC light bulbs, flying less, lobbying their elected representatives, and eating less meat. Imagine identifying fun ways we could help each other hold to these and other commitments, and how the testimonies of our friends would encourage us to take on new disciplines. I use the word discipline because I believe that what I’m talking about are spiritual disciplines, every bit as much as prayer, fasting, and almsgiving are spiritual disciplines.
Each of us knows in the silence of our heart what it feels like to be contributing to the burden we are asking our children and grandchildren to shoulder. Imagine how good it would feel to join with others in the pews to make changes in our lives so that five years from now we could look back at 2008 and tell our Sunday School class, or our children, or our grandchildren that once we got in touch with how much we loved the earth, we became part of the solution. And we would pass on to them these new spiritual disciplines of appreciation, self-restraint, communication, and advocacy for unborn children.
HEALING
Can you imagine the deep healing that would begin to take place?
Within each congregation, as a critical mass of people began to embrace these spiritual disciplines of environmental healing, other people who were skeptical would be won-over by the power of their love.
You don’t have to be Gandhi or Martin Luther King to believe this. We now inhabit a world which has completely lost its bearings. We are the first generation to foresee – and final generation with an opportunity to forestall – the most catastrophic consequences of global warming. We know this. We wake up with this knowledge every day. We abide in it – every waking hour. And we close our eyes – knowing this truth will accompany us every day of our lives.
Friends: the Church is a place of healing. And we are a people whose need for healing is as strong as any who have ever lived.
I am here before you this morning to say: we can take positive action! Take a “mission trip” into nature (OK; that’s a fancy way of saying: take a walk in the woods!) – and allow yourself to be reminded of how much mother earth has loved you. And drawing on that love, support one another as you develop spiritual disciplines of environmental renewal. I promise you – you will experience a kind of healing your soul has never before known.
And let me take this opportunity to thank you for your leadership in the 350 ring campaign. When I got this idea in early June and spoke with Dale, he immediately recognized how it could connect with the way your congregation had done everything you could to be sure that all the work on this facility would be environmentally responsible. You were among the first congregations to ring your bell 350 times. Now that number has grown, but there’s no certainty that by the 350th day of the year, 350 of our congregations will have rung. [Perhaps a few of you could start phoning the other UCC churches on the Cape and try to get 100% participation!]
HOPE
Now let me conclude with a word of hope. Our hope is not rooted in the realities we have seen, but in the promises God has made to us that we have yet to see. (Romans 8: 24-25) Hope has nothing to do with optimism. Hope focuses on possibilities that exist because God is our active covenant partner, and its our partnership with God that is capable of making all things new. (Revelation 21:5)
To never lose hope is to believe three things:
. • First, that God is active in the world;
. • Second, that nothing can separate us from God’s love; and
. • Third, that we are the only hands and feet that God has!
I for one believe that each faith tradition has everything it needs to launch the revolution in moral choice and behavior that will give life back to generations of unborn children. Now it is time for leaders to come forward. Religious leaders willing and able to do what it takes to inspire those in our congregations to love the unborn as much as we love ourselves and our children.
Sisters and brothers, one day the scientists who have overcome ridicule and stayed focused on this issue will be known as heroes. One day, the politicians who have shown courageous leadership by calling for profound and necessary change will be celebrated.
Bill McKibben has said that this is one of those moments for which the church was born. The changes we must now make will be difficult. But people of faith recognize that God did not put us on this earth to wreck it.
Now is the time for people from all faith perspectives to speak with a single voice, unified in a common understanding of hope.
. • The kind of hope Abraham showed as an old man, when he uprooted his family to undertake a perilous journey because God had promised to bless him and all of his descendants.
. • The kind of hope Moses had when he imagined the promised land and led his people out of slavery on a demanding, unfamiliar journey of sacrifice towards a land where their great grand children might flourish.
However great this challenge may be, hope is sufficient to the task. For countless centuries, God’s assurances, God’s covenants and God’s hope have inspired generations of faithful disciples to take stock of their actions, and re-align their lives with God’s vision. Now, by the grace of God, we are given the opportunity to do likewise. Amen.
1. See NYTimes, April 16, 2008, “President Calls for Flat US Greenhouse Emissions by 2025" President George H.
W . Bush released his new response to global warming in which he offered goals that replace any call for lowering our carbon footprint with a plan that would lock in pollution growth of 10% or more between now and 2025.
