This Week at UPC

Bless the Water: This week our creation theme is Water. As an introduction to the theme, we will be looking at the beginning of the second creation story in Genesis. Genesis 2:4b–14 In the first story (Genesis 1:1––2:3), water is there from the beginning, and creation is an act of separating everything else from the waters, and then bringing life to the land—after light and darkness and planets and the sun and moon are brought forth.      In the second story, the land has already been created, and there is a stream that waters all of the land. God creates the human from the land, and we can’t grasp the pun in English, but adam (human or man) is made from adamah (humus or earth). We’re probably most familiar with verses 8 & 9 in this text, when God creates a garden and puts adam into the garden with the green and growing things, including the tree of life and the tree of good and evil. But then the author describes the four rivers that surround the garden, and in it he de

Season of Creation: For the next six weeks, we will observing a season of Creation. Each week there will be special activities that are designed to deepen our connection to the particular focus of the day, including centers where you can light a candle and pray, pick up a coloring picture, design and color a rock, and other activities that are suitable to the theme. September 10: We will celebrate the connections of all creation to our Creator, using one of the psalms of celebration that invites all things and beings to join the hymn of praise. September 17: We’ll focus on growing things and on the human relationship to crops and forests, fields and trees. September 24, “Water” Sunday: We will consider the water cycle and the ways in which water is life. October 1, World Communion Sunday: We will be thinking and praying about the nations and generations of humanity, created in God’s image and beloved by God, as we celebrate the sacrament and commit to the healing of o

Misfits: As we come to the close of our journey through the Dark Wood, we are considering one final gift. Eric Elnes calls this the gift of “Misfits,” and by that he means two things. The first is the experience each of us sometimes has of being a misfit in our cultural context or our community, when it seems that who we are and what we want is at odds with the world around us. And the second is the gift of others who are also misfits, who guide and challenge us along the way as we strive to find our place and our purpose in God’s commonwealth together. He names this second category of misfits as “mentors”, and invites us to identify and to keep regular contact with those who can mentor us toward living fully in the gospel, and keep us from becoming too comfortable on the wrong paths. Psalm 137: 1–6 The Psalm is the classic cry of the broken hearted, finding themselves in a faraway land and a world that does not value “Zion”—the reign of God on earth. By crying out their grief a

Disappearing: The gift of Disappearing is a tricky one, although I think it is a terrifically important one for American Christians, and particularly mainline WASP Christians to understand and claim. Psalm 19 Galatians 2.20: “...[I]t is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” Disappearing comes in those moments when we can see the world beyond ourselves as it is, undistorted by ourselves in the frame. Sometimes, as in Psalm 19, it comes in moments of awe, when we are so caught up in beauty or in process or in relationship that our sense of self ebbs away, leaving only the experience. Sometimes it comes when our illusions about our false self are stripped away, and we stand undefended before the truth of our lives. Either one can be a powerful motivation for change. Both allow us to see ourselves as part of God’s plan, in relationship to others. Both

Getting Lost: This week we continue our journey into the Dark Wood by looking at the gift of Getting Lost. Dr. Elnes writes that, “People who find and live into their calling rarely do so without getting lost first. Yet since there are no straight or clear paths in the Dark Wood of life, they do not cease to get lost after once being found. Rather…[they] learn that the regular experience of getting lost is one of the most important gifts we can receive.” (p.84) Exodus 2: 11–15, 3: 1–12 In this week’s scripture, we’re looking at one of the early stories in the life of Moses.  Born to an enslaved mother, raised as a prince in Pharaoh’s house in Egypt, Moses loses himself by killing an Egyptian nobleman, then fleeing into the hinterlands of Midian. He marries and starts a life, but he is far from what God intends for him to be. Whether by his own actions or by the forces acting around him, he is lost. He’s going through the motions, but he is no more at home in this new life than

Thunderstruck: This week we continue our journey with the Gifts of the Dark Wood. The gift we are exploring this week is the gift of being Thunderstruck. This is the gift that stops us in our tracks and forces us to re-examine the path that we are on, or the choices that we make, or the views that we hold most dear. Our language and our stories are full of this metaphor, which was used in ancient times to talk about how God speaks. In Psalm 29 , the Psalmist describes God’s voice “thundering over the waters”, and “breaking the cedars of Lebanon” with its power. Dr Elnes says that this metaphor is not to describe where thunder and lightning come from, but to give us insight into where we can hear the voice of God: in flashes of insight, in moments of new vision, in experiences that change us in unrepeatable ways. Scripture Lesson: 1 Samuel 3: 1–20 The story for today is of the calling of Samuel, and what is perhaps the most noticeable in the context of our theme is that Samuel h

Looking Ahead—Seven Weeks on “Gifts of the Dark Wood,” by Eric Elnes:  I want to prepare you for the rest of the summer, starting on July 23, when we will be exploring the ideas raised by Eric Elnes in his book called “Gifts of the Dark Wood: Seven Blessings for Soulful Skeptics.”      Dr. Elnes writes, “This book is about finding your place in the world at the very point where you feel furthest from it. It’s about recognizing the fierce beauty and astonishing blessing that exists within experiences that most of us fear but none of us can avoid…failure, emptiness, and uncertainty are as critical for finding our way through life as they are unavoidable” (p. 2).      Dr. Elnes takes the expression “the Dark Wood” from Dante Alighieri, who wrote in the Divine Comedy that the Dark Wood was a place of stumbling, of turning away from God because of sin and terror. Yet there is also a strong tradition in Christianity that insists that the Dark Wood is the place where you meet God. In t

Pentecost: Each of this week’s texts offers a glimpse of the workings of the Spirit, rather like different facets on a well-cut jewel, each reflecting something new—the same, and different, all at once. In the central Pentecost story in Acts 2 we find a curious piece that sometimes gets overlooked: Luke (the author) speaks of how the spirit was like flames of fire, and like the howling of a wind. Perhaps the bottom line here is that, try as we might, we cannot fully comprehend the mysterious workings of God’s Spirit, and thus any attempt to define that will fall short. Acts 2:1–21 We continue with the story of the disciples after Jesus’ ascension. In Acts 1:4, Jesus tells them to wait in Jerusalem for “the promise” of God. During this time, other Jews are gathered in Jerusalem to commemorate the Hebrew observance of Shavuot or the Feast of Weeks, also called Pentecost. Initially this was a celebration of harvest (Exodus 23:14–17). Later, the festival focused more on Jewish re

Stand Firm: This week’s scriptures set up a strange tension. On the one hand, rock is used in a positive way: God is referred to as a rock and a fortress in Psalm 31:3. In 1 Peter 2:1–10 we are told Jesus is a living stone, and that we ourselves are being built like living stones into a spiritual temple. And yet, in the reading from Acts we read the story of Stephen the deacon being stoned to death because he stands firm in faith and witness to Jesus. Like fire which we will celebrate in a few weeks at Pentecost, rocks are both good and bad. Acts 7:55–60 When we last read about the early Christian community, they enjoyed the “goodwill of all” (Acts 2:47). This regard was short-lived. In Acts 4 we learn that Jewish leaders came to Peter and John, “annoyed because they were teaching the people and proclaiming that in Jesus there is the resurrection of the dead” (Acts 4:2). The leaders ordered Peter and John to cease their witness. They did not, and the number of Jews believing

Glad and Generous Hearts: The image of Jesus as Good Shepherd is the most common one to be found in the catacombs. In days when Christianity was not yet legal, this symbol clearly evoked Jesus to those within the community, but was just another image for those outside. One source for this image is the parable of the shepherd who hunts for a lost sheep; another is the 10th chapter of John in which Jesus describes himself as the good shepherd. Yet there are other images, too, such as descriptions of things the early church did that were “shepherd-like” in caring for others. How we emulate the shepherd we follow is a key part of being Christian. Acts 2:42–47 As noted in verse 42, the rituals and practices of teaching, fellowship, breaking of bread, and prayer define the early Christians. Their life together sets the stage for the Spirit’s continuing work of empowering witnesses to proclaim, in word and deed, God’s saving love that comes through Christ. This community of Jesus’ fol

Followers of the Way: Renowned Jesus scholar John Dominic Crossan made a profound statement about this week’s gospel reading. “Emmaus never happened,” Crossan wrote. “Emmaus always happens.” What we are invited to grapple with in that statement is the truth that the factual (historical) significance of the resurrection stories is secondary to a more profound truth: the risen Christ is with us. Now. Here. That is what the early church began to learn, and it is what enabled them to move on. Luke 24:13–35 The exact location of Emmaus is not known. Perhaps this uncertainty forms a commentary on the focus scripture. Emmaus may be anywhere. Hearts burning and eyes opening do not take place in only one place, either geographical or spiritual. Emmaus comes into sight wherever a path leads us toward communion with God and whenever we recognize the risen Christ among us. On the day of Jesus’ resurrection, two disciples walk along the road to Emmaus with Jesus, informing this “strange

Yes! In 2016, major churches worldwide met to discuss a common date for Easter. Rather than it moving each year based on the cycles of the moon, they were proposing it always be the 2nd or 3rd Sunday of April. Does it matter? This moment—this awareness that Christ is risen—can come any time. Indeed, it must. This is what it is to be a Christian: to know somehow that Christ is risen. The “how” does not matter, nor the specific “when.” It is simply grasping the basic truth of this day: that God, not death, has the final word, and God’s word is a resounding “Yes!” John 20:1–18 The Easter account in John differs somewhat from Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Mary goes alone to the tomb in John. In the others, she goes with one or more other women. John says Peter and the beloved disciple go to the tomb after Mary’s witness. In the other gospels none of the male disciples venture into the tomb. Mary Magdalene plays an extraordinary role in John’s Easter story. She alone goes to the tomb and

Hope Against All Hope There are disappointing moments in life, times when it seems as though there may be no hope. And then there are those times when we are, literally, beyond hope—times when it would appear that, no matter what, there is no going back. Our story this week reminds us that with God the impossible is, at best, a slight inconvenience. As Paul points out in Romans 8:11, “if the Spirit of the one who raised Jesus from the dead lives in you, [this same Spirit] will give life to your human bodies also…” John 11:1–45 The story of the raising of Lazarus from the dead can stretch the limits of our believing. But getting hung up on whether or not the story took place as written can distract us from the great point of the story. We know that John presents us with stories that are not in the synoptic gospels, and which (such as turning massive amounts of water into wine at Cana) seem questionable. But John’s points are not confined by fact; they are about something much more

Seeing with Heart It can be astonishing the lengths to which we will go to discredit others. When we don’t understand someone or something, we can try with great gusto to put others down, or to deride their stories. Such is the case in today’s gospel reading, where, instead of rejoicing in a healing, the Pharisees delve into minute details, and the story is ripped apart. How different things are when we see from our heart. John 9:1–41   Blindness and other ailments were often viewed in ancient times as punishment for sin. The disciples of Jesus and the leaders who oppose him assume this. Biblical scholar Richard Rohrbaugh speaks of an ancient custom of spitting in the presence of the blind in order to protect oneself from the “evil eye.” Jesus transforms that act of disdain into one of healing. Sabbath keeping was the most visible mark of practicing Judaism. Its weekly ritual of renewal reflected—even as it worshipped—the God who “rested” (translating the Hebrew shabath ) on th

Finding Refreshment Some psychologists believe that our natural attraction to “bling”—to jewelry and other shiny objects—comes from our primal search for sources of water. In a broad landscape, they appear to be small, shimmering and shining sites, not unlike the shimmering of a piece of jewelry. Water is necessary for human life; within the faith community we readily make the connection—as did Jesus—that our God is a similar necessity in our daily living. Today’s readings call us to remember that. John 4:5–42 Samaria was a region south of Galilee and north of Judah. The hatred between Samaritans and Jews went back to when the northern kingdom of Israel was overrun by Assyria. The Assyrians resettled Samaria with foreigners loyal to them, along with Israelites not taken captive. While Samaritans continued some Jewish practices and beliefs, they were viewed as outsiders to Judaism. This separation grew over the centuries. By the time of Jesus, the enmity between Jews and Samaritan

Glimpses of Grace A man in Hawaii was lost at sea, alone, in a boat. When he made it back to shore after several days afloat, he exclaimed that he found his way back by watching at night—the sky was filled with stars, but the pure darkness ahead he knew was land, and he moved towards it. Too often we reject the dark as a place where life can be revealed and yet, for Nicodemus, it is a meeting with Jesus at night that offers him the chance of transformation. John 3:1–17 Nicodemus, a learned scholar, a man who studied and thought he knew the Jewish law, goes under cover of night to visit Jesus. “We know you are a teacher who has come from God,” Nicodemus declares. Yet the fact that he has visited at night can suggest he is unsure. Jesus challenges him with several new images: one must be born again (or anew, or from above—the Greek is enticingly ambiguous). Does this mean only once? The text does not imply that, and so we are left wondering if Jesus rather means we can start over

And So It Begins Life is full of movement – sometimes toward something new, sometimes away from something bad, but always an adventure. The readings for this week could be seen as inviting us into an adventure that will last throughout the Season of Lent. Each of the weekly focus passages – primarily from the gospel of John – may be familiar to us, but they contain a sense of surprise and adventure for those in the stories themselves, as they find certainty in the midst of uncertainty. Matthew 4:1–11 This week’s reading from the gospel of Matthew tells a story of the beginnings of Jesus’ ministry. Jesus is led by God’s spirit into the wilderness to be tested by Satan. Wilderness is a place of seeking, journeying, and struggling with the possibilities. It is a powerful image in the Hebrew Scriptures: the people of Israel and the prophets Elijah and Elisha all had wilderness experiences that forced them into choices and decisions. It is as if Jesus is faced with the same tests as t

Matthew 17:1-9 And so the Season after the Epiphany closes: on a holy mountain where God may be found. It is a place of sacred mystery, where shining and shadow convey a holy presence. It is a place of community across time, where God’s people of past and present meet. It is a place of silence and witness, where visions are kept quiet and God says of Jesus, “Listen to him.” From here, we go forward into Lent: the 40 days and 6 Sundays that take us through Jesus’ progress toward Jerusalem and the conflict with the government of Palestine that would lead to his crucifixion. We will have special worship stations in the sanctuary, for reflection and prayer; a Tuesday morning prayer group; a book study on “Gifts of the Dark Wood,” a book that reflects on the hard places and what we find there; and in worship, we will tell the stories of Jesus and his encounters with people who were on the margins, that he brought into the center.  So this week, we pause to reflect on the insight that co

Matthew 5: 38–48 Jesus says, “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” Some might take Jesus’ words to (wrongly) mean that perfection is a matter of gritting your moral teeth and “loving” a person who let you down or injured you so that God can heap blessings on your head for going so against your natural impulse to feel anger. However, in New Testament Greek, the term “perfect” here is teleios, meaning “unblemished, complete, finished, full-grown.” But how can we hear Jesus’ encouragement as anything but an insistence on the impossible? The word perfection has many rich connotations throughout the Bible. Though the New Testament was written in Greek, Jesus used Aramaic, where the word for perfect (gmar) is closer to “ripe,” “fully flavored,” or “fully flowered.” Perfection involves a fulfillment of the potential a thing has within itself all along from the seed state. In Latin, the word means “completely formed or performed,” and the verb “to perfect” means “to

Matthew 5: 21-37 This portion of the Sermon on the Mount from Matthew’s gospel contains the first four of what are called “the six antitheses.” In each antithesis Jesus will posit what has been said (from the law), and then answer with a response that begins, “but I say to you ….” In these antitheses, Jesus is quite willing to take the Scriptures and to re-form them—sometimes expanding the meaning, sometimes re-focusing the point, and in the last two cases (in next week’s reading, verses 38-48) simply overturning them. What I find fascinating is that Matthew, in writing this gospel for his audience, is quite willing to show Jesus taking Scriptures and re-forming them. In our age, many Christians have been trained to think that “biblical authority” means saying, “God said it, I believe it, that settles it” or “where the Bible speaks, we speak; where the Bible is silent, we are silent.” In this text, Jesus does not share that view of biblical authority. Jesus’ willingness to stat

Letting the Light Through Jesus tells us that we are salt and light as we seek to live as God’s people in the world. With the Spirit’s help, we offer our gifts and talents to extend the reach of God’s realm. With Isaiah and the psalmist, we learn what it means to practice righteousness and restore beauty in community as we live out the heart of our faith. Matthew 5:13–20 This week, we continue to read from the collection of Jesus’ teachings known as the Sermon on the Mount. Jesus uses powerful images of salt and light as he describes what it means to live according to the ways of God’s realm. The same images of salt and light are used in the Hebrew Scriptures to describe covenant and law. David and his descendants are called a lamp before God. Jesus continues and expands the message found in the scriptures. Jesus tells his followers that at this very moment they are salt – cleansing, preserving, adding flavour. At this moment they are light – revealing what is hidden, allowing

This week begins a four-week exploration of the Sermon on the Mount, a collection of Jesus’ sayings. It appears only in the gospel of Matthew in this form; Luke has a similar collection of sayings (including another version of Beatitudes) called the Sermon on the Plain. In Matthew, the sayings are placed at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry and function as the vision statement for his ministry: he lays out a radical vision of what God’s reign on earth might look like, a vision of wholeness for all people. Matthew 5: 1-12 The Beatitudes begin the Sermon on the Mount. They are a series of sentences beginning with the word blessed, or happy in some translations. Blessing is God’s free gift to humankind, a sign of covenant relationship with God. Jesus’ first teaching to the disciples turns a world view on its head. We have learned the ways of the world from our earliest days: that the blessed are the rich, blessed are those with good healthcare and retirement plans, blessed are the powe

Matthew 4:12-23 This week we are excited to have guest preacher Rick Ufford-Chase with us.  Rick is the co-director of Stony Point Center (with his wife Kitty) and is the PC(USA) Associate for Interfaith Relations, a former moderator of the denomination, and an activist and justice worker, as well as a friend of the congregation. Rick has recently curated and co-written a book called “Faithful Resistance: Gospel Visions in a Time of Empire”, which was the focus of our book study this fall at UPC. The title of his sermon is “Faithful Resistance: Not for the Faint of Heart”. So it’s fair to ask: what are we resisting, and why are we talking about it in church? We are resisting… the culture that is built on consumption and destruction; the vision of the world that puts white Christians at the center; our own tendencies to the call to love, the practices that lead us away from Jesus’ radical vision of God’s reign on earth, a “kingdom of love.” Rick will be with us the whole weekend

Matthew 3:13-17 All four gospels feature the baptism of Jesus, suggesting that Jesus’ baptism seems more critical to any telling of Jesus’ ministry than does a story about his birth. (There are many interesting differences between the different gospel accounts, but the fact that it is in all four is like a big sign pointing to the baptism saying “this is important!”) What made the baptism of Jesus so important? Over the centuries, Christian scholars have filled many pages arguing about just that question. Does it suggest Jesus was impure, and that he needed to “repent” and be cleansed? After all, “repent” was certainly the word John the baptizer used when calling people to baptism. This leads us to the word repent – metanoia in the Greek – and a very common Christian misconception of repentance. Rather than meaning “feeling sorry for doing bad things,” or regret, or confession, metanoia means “go beyond the mind” or “go into the larger mind.” Scholar Cynthia Bourgeault writes tha