Last fall, we affirmed our vision and mission, and one of the pieces of that is environmental advocacy.

We have taken this summer season to focus on some environmental issues, and we have aligned ourselves with the children’s faith formation class that’s meeting in Rader Park. We’re using the scriptures from their curriculum as our guide for this.

Interestingly, that makes July a lot about famine.

It is the theme that runs through most of the scriptures in July. I put this picture up for you, um, to show you where within the world famine exists. The places that are colored blue is where famine exists. You can see that the continent of Africa is not in good shape.

But there are other places, one of those places is Palestine. The number one cause of the famine is conflict. I’m going to say conflict, but it’s more than conflict, right? It’s violence. It’s violence that is hurting people. The second reason is the climate crisis. The third reason for famine is the rising costs of food.

So famine is a shortage of food. Which leaves people literally hungering. That causes people to migrate and that is what plays in to our story for today.

Today, we’re gonna look at Joseph. Joseph is a major character in Genesis. In fact, to read his story starts in chapter 37. It’s chapter 37 then it goes to 39, and it’s 39 to 45. You can read all of that and I’m going to try and tell you that in two minutes. Six chapters in two minutes. How’s that? But Joseph’s story is laden with conflict.

It begins when he’s a young boy and he has this dream that he is going to be great. He is one of twelve children to Jacob, the twelve tribes of Israel. Jacob becomes Israel. His name becomes Israel. They are the twelve tribes of Israel, if that rings a bell with you at all. Joseph, he is also his father’s favorite son. He is the firstborn to his father’s favorite wife. Yes, he had two wives. Remember, we can get way down in the weeds, and I’m gonna try not to go in the weeds today. But he is the favored son.

You may have heard of Joseph and the Technicolor Dreamcoat. That was a musical. Joseph gets an ornamental robe. In the King James version of the Bible, it was described as a coat of many colors, which is where Andrew Lloyd Webber ran with the Technicolor Dreamcoat. But his brothers, all of his brothers envy him and decide they need to get rid of him. They need to be done with this troublesome brother. So, they take him out and they end up selling him into slavery. Interestingly, if you look at the backstory, he’s sold to the Ishmaelites, and I’ll let you track that rabbit trail yourself. But he ends up in Egypt at Potiphar’s house, and that doesn’t go well either, and he ends up in prison.

In prison, God continues to be with him. This ability that God has given him to interpret dreams comes in handy. Because they tell the Pharaoh who’s been having these dreams. This is where our scripture that we read today is focused. Where I think we can get caught in the weeds and we can see something amazing about God. When you read this story, it’s especially the scripture we read you can get caught with the lean cows and the dried corn, but what’s really happening if we back out of that detail, what’s really happening there is God is talking to Pharaoh and Pharaoh is listening.

I want you to stop and think about that for a minute. Pharaoh does not worship our God, does not worship the God of Israel, does not worship Joseph’s God. He may have heard of it, but he worships the Egyptian gods. Those are the gods of his people. But suddenly, he’s getting messages from another god. What we would call the one true god, who obviously doesn’t mind, or doesn’t have an issue talking to someone who doesn’t really believe in them, or listen to them, or think about them. That’s the God that we worship. A God who constantly reaches out, even to those who would be in opposition to God’s people.

God chose to talk to Pharaoh, and Pharaoh chose to listen. Think about that. That’s God working in all of that. We haven’t gotten to the Moses story yet, but we’ll hear about how God hardened Pharaoh’s heart. That’s a line from the story, from the Exodus story.

But here, God is softening Pharaoh’s heart because it will put Joseph as second in command of Egypt.

Why is that important? There’s going to be a famine in the land. What’s going to happen? Joseph’s family, the 12 tribes of Israel, are going to come to Egypt because they’re starving and they need food. Joseph is in the right place to help them. So all the conflicts of Joseph’s life, the sibling rivalry and the conflict with Potiphar’s wife that lands him in prison. All of that, God works through all of that to bring Joseph to a place where he can be reconciled, where this family can come back together and be God’s people. That’s how I want you to look at the story.

I had a very hard time finding a picture of Pharaoh. I use the Vanderbilt Christian library and they’ve got thousands of pictures, but not of Pharaoh. Pharaoh is the character in the right bottom corner. This is a picture from the Tuskegee Chapel that was done by the lambs. It’s their singing window and the majority of the characters are African, and it has words of the spirituals on there.

But, I can’t emphasize enough, I want us to think about what that says about who our God is.

That Pharaoh was so moved by God and these dreams that he ignored the ethnicities. He ignored the fact that Joseph was an Israelite. He ignored the different religions, that he didn’t follow the Egyptian gods. He ignored the social classes, because Joseph was a slave. In fact, when Pharaoh chooses him, Joseph is in prison accused of rape. How many people in prison accused of rape would get exonerated and made second in command of a country? Just think about that. We’re talking about a major shift that God brought about for God’s purposes.

Joseph’s interpretation really was not really all that remarkable. In your abundant years, save it. Because there’s going to be lean years. That’s just good economic wisdom, right? Yet, it reminds the people to have a longer vision. Don’t just worry about today and what feels good for today and waste, but look at the longer vision.

Our church is going through lean years and we are trying to take that longer vision.

We’re relying on the abundance that has been part of our heritage. Literally, we say we’re standing on the shoulders of the saints who came before us and their generosity. Because we are in lean years right now. You can be part of making that sustainable through your sustaining gifts. You can be part of continuing that ministry. A ministry of reconciliation within our community, within those whose lives we touch. In ways that we support and advocate for God’s creation. In ways that we welcome all people as children of God and offer inclusive refuge.

So, I have a hard question for you to consider. When, like Pharaoh, do we let go of our need to be right? To be in charge and listen to the wisdom of the one that we perceive as less than us. Because that’s where God’s working through. God’s working through the children, through the youth, through those who have not walked through the doors yet.

I’m also wondering, what are the famines of our lives? For what are you hungry? What are you starving for? What are the situations that can lead us to listen to the wisdom of another?

When we wrote The Mission and Vision, these statements came with the core values. We believe that God’s love is stronger than fear. We value social justice and inclusion. We are called to care for our environment as God’s creation. May these be words of wisdom for us. May they encourage our faith in God who loves and works in the world in ways that we do not understand, and with people that may surprise us.

May they remind us of God’s abundance that we do not have to fear. Thanks be to God, Amen.

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I first want to revisit a moment that we had last week when Jonathan was ordained. Because this is a moment that we really need to celebrate.

I want you to feel how important you were in this journey of his to this moment. It’s quite an honor when one of our own reaches that point where they are ordained. It was a great celebration for us.

I took this picture right after Lucy had put the stole on him. That is one of those once in a lifetime moments. You only get your first stole put on you once. That’s why it was so important. I coached Lucy so she knew what she was doing. She was really nervous about it, but it was so important for that to happen for them.

I want to lift up Jonathan, because Jonathan was like the farmer, who, while he was with us, was planting seeds. He planted seeds of love and joy with this entire congregation. With each person he met. As he had events that he was running, he empowered people. He planted seeds with people to take ownership of it and to grow it and to carry it out. He supported them in doing that and he lifted them up. He equipped them for the ministry. He was a seed planter among us. Even if that’s not how you saw him, I just want to name that that is what he was.

Last year, I preached on the parable of the sower, and I used this image, and Jonathan was really struck by this image.

I bring it up again, because we are transitioning to not having Jonathan around anymore. That is bittersweet. We are so happy for him and wish him the best in Connecticut. But I want to name that we also miss him.

But in this picture, the farmer is just frivolously planting seed, just throwing it out with abandonment. That’s not the way most of us who farm or raise gardens plant seed. We don’t just walk and throw seed. Because we want it to produce a crop.

This has been a very frustrating year for me as a farmer. Because we planted three rows of corn and three ears came up. In my first planting three rows, I got three stalks. So we planted again. Now, I’ve got about a row and a half.

A lot of it has to do with rain. We look for just the right soil. We get in there, and we pull all those weeds out and we churn up that soil. I admit, we have a rototiller, so before I plant, I make David go through it at least once so that that ground is really ready. We want to have that good soil.

But that’s not what God does. God just doesn’t do that. Plants everywhere. To see what happens. What I want us to talk about is, what does that tell us about who God is?

A lot of us know the Parable of the Sower. We know where it’s heading. I bet you could tell me where it’s heading. But what if we focus on what it tells us about God? Right?

The normal way to explain this, which, if you keep reading in Mark, Jesus goes on to tell us how we’re supposed to understand it. That we’re supposed to look at the different types of soil as our lives. It sort of leaves us with this, so clean up your life.

You clean up your life so that you’re ready for the seeds that God’s scattering.

If God is scattering this seed everywhere, I just want you to stop and think, does God really care that your life is already cleaned up and the perfect soil before God scatters seeds with you? When I think about that question, my answer comes down to, God accepts all the conditions of our lives.

Whether we’ve got it all together and we are the best soil waiting for God’s seeds or whether our lives are a mess. Some of us, our lives are a mess. Some days are better than others. Right? I think God accepts us and loves us and throws seed our way, whether we’re together or not.

So for those of us who’ve been felt like you were told by the church that you’ve got to get your life together so that you’re acceptable to God, I want to tell you, you’re worthy for God just as you are.

If your life is such that there are circumstances that are beyond your control, whether it has to do with health or situations that have happened that put you in a place that you wish you weren’t. God understands all of that. God loves us in whatever condition our lives are.

But if you’re doing really well, and you think that you’re running your life, well then, maybe we do need to look at our lives. Maybe we do need to look and see if we are allowing others to run our lives. To come in and choke out the good ideas and the good works and the Word of God that God is trying to plant in our lives.

Maybe we need to be more vigilant at paying attention to our lives.

Who are we listening to? Are we listening to people that are feeding us lies? That are just trying to divide us and make us angry? Or are we listening to words that move us to offer God our praise, to work towards love, hope, joy and peace?

Is there evil that is talking to us, that is trying to get our attention? If you prefer evil, evil personified then is Satan, I’m not fond of that, but is Satan trying to lure you away from God, from your relationship with Jesus?

A lot is happening right now about Christianity being conflated with our patriotism. So, I wonder if you believe that only real Americans are Christians, Do you look at the world and see the beauty of the diversities God has created? Or are you afraid that as white Americans, Christians, we’re losing something? Because they’re two very different postures.

If we’re afraid, there are people that will take advantage of the fact that we are afraid and they will make us more afraid. It’s what they will do so that they can run our lives. Or we can make sure that we are open to God’s love, joy, and peace and that we are peacekeepers. That we are the ones who are sharing love, who are helping groups come together, helping people come together.

Are we building communities, or are we dividing communities? Are we inviting people in, or are we pushing people out? Those are the things that we need to think about in our lives. Are we making our world smaller, or are we trying to expand? Because, I believe that we worship an expanding God. This God of Abundance.

This was a picture of my garden and some sweet peas that were not weeded. You know, God didn’t care that I didn’t weed that patch. Right? God would have seeded it anyway. Sometimes we’re even the seed. As I talked about Jonathan spreading seeds, sometimes, we’re the seed to take the word. Sometimes we need to be the farmer that’s sharing the word of God with others. Those that we share it with don’t have to be perfect. We can love everyone just as they are.

So the question is, what seedlings will we nurture?

Our mission and vision statement that we voted on last fall was that we believe that God is calling us to be inclusive and generous, to be a safe space for those who feel powerless and afraid. So, are we trying to nurture the little seedlings among us, those who are struggling with what to believe and how to follow Jesus? Or, are we judging people to make sure that they are the right soil? Whatever that might mean.

I think in those phrases, we are naming that we are not afraid. It’s the most repeated phrase in the Bible, do not be afraid. Our mission and vision statement implies that we are not afraid. That we want to live out our calling by God to love others. That we welcome those who are looking to learn about Jesus without requiring them to change.

Jesus reached out and invited people to know another way of living. That is what we are to do, to invite others to know the love we have found. To invite another to find the support we have found. To invite another to experience Christ’s grace and peace, and invite another to find community here.

It’s time to put our faith into action. By living in God’s abundance, rather than being trapped in a mindset of scarcity, we have many gifts to share. Let us be about it. Amen.

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The scriptures for today are actually a sermon I preached last week. Maybe I’ll just use the same sermon, right? That’s what pastors usually do, right? They just regurgitate stuff but, I couldn’t do that to you all.

I did what I usually do and I woke up this morning and I said “God, what do you want to say to your people? What do these people need to hear from you on this day?” And, as I ask God to inspire me, “what are the words that your congregation needs you to hear?”

I kind of laugh because, the irony is that this scripture is on planting and seeds and I still know very little about planting and seeds.

I just kind of asked everybody, “how does stuff grow?” I asked a lot of questions about, you know, slugs, and “How do you fight slugs?” This is Lucy’s ongoing battle, but, we’ve got to the point where we realized that we were gonna be moving so we didn’t do any like upkeep on our gardening and you know what? Stuff grew.

We didn’t water, we didn’t plant, but stuff grew. Not anything good, obviously, but there’s so much stuff in there that we’re just like, well, it’s gonna be the next persons to deal with. Which can be another sermon, right? Like, if you don’t take care of your own garden, things are gonna grow. Most of the time, it’s things that you do not want. But something will grow.

Today we have these parable images.

We all know the parables, there are some more famous ones, like the prodigal son or the parable of the sower and the seeds, which is gonna be next week. I know that this summer, the theme is the environment. How do we relate as Christians? How is this important to us? Why should it be important to us? Why should we care? And does it even matter?

You can be like me and take an attitude that I’m not going to be around, so that’s going to be somebody else’s problem in a couple months when everything’s just exploding in the garden. But don’t tell Lucy, I do not care for gardening. When we moved in, Lucy had an interest in gardening, and we talked about it, and I said I’m not into it, and of course, we ended up gardening. We’ve had a garden, and it’s produced some pretty cool stuff, but not this year, thankfully.

I’m sure there’s the same people here today who are very passionate about the environment, and what happens to this world, and what’s going to continue to happen. I know there’s people like me that could care less about my garden and rather just have grass. It’s easier to care for. Mow it once every couple weeks. That’s who I want to talk to today.

There’s no reason to preach to the people who understand the environment and care about the environment and realize why it’s important. They’ve had the foresight. They understand why it’s important to act now.

Then on the other side, it’s people who could care less and expect this proverbial, someone, will take care of it. There is no someone. You are it. You have to do it.

That’s who I want to focus the reading on today. That’s who I think these parables are speaking to. I think, out of habit, I just assumed that this was one of those, let your faith be like a seed where you kind of just plant it and take care of it and somehow it grows. But the closer I read these parables, I realized that it’s not talking about our faith being like seeds.

I want to read these parables and these scriptures in a way that’s more inciting, especially to the people that are hands off environmentalists. What if these parables were about money? More specifically, your money. Like, I was able to reach over and grab your wallet and your bank account and talk about it. What if I could just pull up your statement and show everybody what you’ve been spending? Show everybody what you’ve been saving for? Show everybody your retirement funds? What if I could pull out your checkbook and read out your balance sheet? For everybody to hear. Alright, now it’s a little bit more serious.

Some people perked up. Oh, I don’t know about that. It makes me uncomfortable. But this is something that matters to you, right? Let’s reread the parables. With the thought that your bank account really does tell you what’s important in your life.

The paraphrase reading for today is, this community that gathers on Sunday morning, as if someone were to take their own money and invest it wisely. And after a long time, because that’s how safe investing works, and the money would have actually accrued a profitable interest, and no one knows how. Some of you actually do know how. The stock market works and interest works and for the rest of us it’s just magic. But the second reading would follow.

When you first start working in life, your bank account is terrible. After some time of savings, it starts to look strong, the stocks begin to grow, and with a retirement plan finally comes to bear fruit and returns with substance. That’s when it’s time to retire. And that’s when the Grim Reaper comes and gets you, right? And it’s all over. No, actually. No, no, no. That’s the time when you retire and you can enjoy the fruit of your labor. You can enjoy the investment that you’ve worked so hard for. With what can we compare the Kingdom of God?

No one here will disagree with my interpretation. Is it accurate? Is it theological? Who knows, but I know what I said is true. That’s how we all feel about money. That’s how we all view money, that we can’t just, you know, throw money around and live like it doesn’t matter. No one’s gonna pull me aside later and tell me, oh, that was bad theology or bad life advice. Because we believe in our finances, it adds up. We do numbers and things have to equal at the end and we believe in being responsible for our finances, Right?

This is where I get you to fall into my trap. It’s easy to focus on our future for our own comfort internally. But we also took the same attitude that we already have about our finances and looked outwardly.

You planting a tree today, you’ll never sit under the shade or enjoy its fruit. But who will? Who will enjoy this tree? Maybe you’re children, but most of them are kind of grown up. Maybe you’re like my parents, but the most important person in their life is their grandchildren and their children. That’s who’s going to be able to reap the reward from this tree. As the saying goes, the best tree is the one that was planted 50 years ago. Because it’s not just about trees.

There’s so many other things around the world that are causing way more damage than you, whether or not you plant one tree. I don’t see any of you jumping on your private jet and flying to Europe to get cheesecake from a specific hotel. That’s not who we are. So why should the environment matter? After all, you’re just one person. What does it matter? Why should the environment matter? Because this is what you’re leaving to your grandchildren.

I close with this. The mustard seed, I’ve been told it’s very small. I don’t think I’ve ever seen one in my life, but that’s what the Bible says, so I guess it has to be true.

But, it grows into a large shrub. A shrub, not a tree. I mean, I’m imagining a shrub’s not that big, but I guess this grows into a large shrub. It doesn’t say that it covers the whole earth with its shade. It doesn’t even provide food for the entire world. It doesn’t fix all of humanity’s problem.

But it does give a place to rest, for some. It does alleviate the harshness of life, for a few. And in the grand scheme of life and eternity, your small and insignificant act today, it won’t do anything. Whether or not you recycle today, it doesn’t matter. Whether or not you are active in the way you look at the environment, it doesn’t matter. But there will be one individual that that will affect.

One individual that may be able to find shade under that tree and appreciate that. This enormous tree that you’ve invested in. You’ve changed their world. You’ve changed their eternity. You changed their family’s future. Being green isn’t about you today. It Isn’t about you being conscious of the environment today.

Being green is you thinking about eternity. This world in eternity and what that would look like.

Those who follow you can’t do anything for themselves until a later time. So it’s up to you to be responsible for them today. May it be so.

Sermon Given by Rev. Jonathan Paredes

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This summer season, we are focused on the environment. This is a part of our mission and vision to be advocates for the environment.

So we are looking at the scriptures with that lens. That is what, for me, keeps the scriptures alive, it’s all about which lens do you look at it through. So looking at this through the environmental lens this season.

I bring you to think about our world environmentally. Naturally. There are a lot of challenges in front of us.

We know that there is pollution in the air and in the water. We may not see the pollution in Lancaster. It’s not the same as the smog of the 70s, at least not here. But, I hear all the time about the quality of our air is not good.

That’s specifically noted by people who have breathing issues. We’re in some kind of a valley, where a lot of things reside in the air. Then there’s the water. I talked two weeks ago about the pollution in the oceans, but we know that our streams are polluted.

We are part of the Interfaith Partnership for the Chesapeake because we are trying to make sure that the bay and the wildlife there survives and thrives. We don’t want it just to survive. That is a food source for us. Even our little Conestoga is on the list for Pennsylvania of streams that they are watching for the quality of the water, which means our Brubaker Run is, as it feeds into the little Conestoga.

So, it comes literally to our backyard that we need to be thinking about all of these things. The weather patterns are changing. That is going to affect our food supply, and that will create even more challenges for us.

So we hear scripture, “For I am about to create new heavens and a new earth.” – Isaiah 65:17

We hear God is creating a new earth. Thank you, Jesus, you saved us again. And we are all in. Until we realize that God’s doing that in God’s way and has maybe, I believe, listened to our prayers, taken them into consideration, but is working from God’s view, not ours. There is a very true statement that says no one likes change except the change that they want. If the change is our idea, we are all in. But if it’s someone else’s idea, well, maybe not. Not so sure. The problem is, we don’t agree on the changes.

Another thing to remind ourselves of is that throughout the Bible, God favors the poor. The poor, the oppressed, the marginalized. The language of the Bible is often the widow, the orphan, the one on the outside who is starving, who doesn’t have adequate shelter, clothing, food. I’m gonna go out on a limb, but I don’t think there’s anybody in this space who’s food insecure. I think we’re all gonna know where at least one of our meals is coming from today. But there are people in our world who are.

So, we have to. recognize that the changes God brings about may not necessarily benefit us. That’s something to sit with. I love this scripture because it reminds us of Isaiah 11, the peaceable kingdom scripture. In Isaiah 11, it says that the lion and the lamb will live, will lie down with each other, meaning they will live in harmony. It goes on, it’s got quite a list of all the kinds of things. It ends with that verse about the child and the hole of the asp, and you’re going, a kid and a snake, really? But it’s this idea of all of God’s creation living in harmony.

This scripture today ended with this motif also, with “The wolf and the lamb shall feed together” – Isaiah 65:25. Predator and prey no longer in that adverse relationship, but finding food together.

Actually, what I found interesting, and I’ll go back and read that to you, is that the three instances are all about what they eat. It says, “The wolf and the lamb shall feed together. The lion shall eat straw like the ox; but the serpent, its food shall be dust! – Isaiah 65:25. It’s all about eating.

I’m not going to deal with the serpent and why the serpent’s going to eat dust. But you know what that other part says? It says we ought to be vegetarians. Now I’ve heard all of my life that I should eat more vegetables. Isaiah is telling us the same thing. Do you know what? If we ate more vegetables, it’s better for our planet. Because the impact on our planet of raising the meat, particularly the red meat, and I am the first one to sign up for a good burger or a good steak, please hear that. But I know that that has an adverse effect on our planet. At least the way we do our corporate growing and raising of cattle. The grass fed steers and cattle that’s a different story. That’s healthier.

But, we have to look at that. We have to think about it. If we all ate vegetables, we could grow our own food. Also helpful to the planet when we’re not trucking in stuff from all over the place. But we like to eat strawberries all year long, and they only grow for three weeks in May & June. Did you notice it was earlier this year? The strawberry festivals used to be mid to late June. Well, they’re pretty much over now. That’s that climate shifting. That’s the weather pattern shifting. That’s the temperature change. It’s going to affect our food.

I’m going to encourage you, hopefully at the end of this sermon to think about and to watch for where God is doing something different in our world.

But one of the good articles that I heard recently was Krista Tippett’s “On Being” radio show. She had two environmentalists on. They’re noticing that the environment has more elasticity and the ability to adapt than we realized. That’s good news. That’s really good news. But it also takes a long time. So that does not take us off the hook for changing how we live.

In fact, a friend of mine showed me a picture of a turtle who climbed a curb. I would not have guessed that a turtle could do that. That it walked across the road, hit a curb, and it actually could go up the curb and onto the sidewalk without ending up on its back and being stuck. It is changing, but it takes time.

Last weekend, Mark Achtermann and I were at the Penn Central Conference Annual Meeting, up at the Penn Stater.

Which was both our annual meeting and the spring meeting of the possible future Keystone Conference, which is that our four conferences are looking to go together to be one.

It was a wonderful experience. When you put 600 people together in worship, the spirit is palpable. You could feel it in the song, in the spoken word, in being together. We talked about the changes, how this change will affect us. Pennsylvania is currently divided into four sections for the United Church of Christ, and we would all become one conference for the United Church of Christ, it means change.

We talked about the joys of that and the challenges. Fortunately, we spent some time not just naming the challenges, but thinking through what we need to do to address those challenges, as opposed with just saying, “here’s the list of cons. Here’s why we shouldn’t do it.” No, if we’re going to do it, then these things also need to happen to address this.

It was powerful. It was very enlightening and uplifting. No decision was made, in case you’re wondering about that. The decision will be made on November 9th at a fall meeting. That’s when our delegates go to the meeting. I don’t know if it’s virtual or in person yet, I don’t think they decided that. But, we have time. We have time to think about it. We have time to make good choices. For more information visit www.FEMA.gov.

The thing that was really striking to me is their motto. “Together we are stronger.”

That’s where we all came down to. That together, we as the four congregate conferences becoming one conference are stronger.

This was Sunday morning worship, last Sunday, and the person preaching up on the podium was the Reverend Dr. Karen Georgia Thompson, who is our General Minister and President of the United Church of Christ, was there to do the sermon. It’s important for you to know what she said.

These are my short notes. She named that we are a denomination of diversities, not just a diversity. It’s not just ethnic diversity or racial diversity, but there’s a a lot of ways that we are different, including, and this might surprise you, we have 30 languages within the United Church of Christ. 30 languages. 30 languages spoken, 29 different languages written. Do you know what the one language that is spoken and not written in the United Church of Christ is? This is fun! You are there. It’s Pennsylvania Dutch. We are the one language that is spoken in our denomination but not written.

Fun fact, We are not a binary political system. We are a covenant of inclusivity and love. I think that was the most important statement she made. We are a covenant of inclusivity and love.

In the picture to the right is a cross that we made. Each person was asked to draw their hand on a piece of fabric and they covered this cross. They put a bunch of them on a wall. We actually took a hand to bring home with us and pray for that person. But it’s this idea of together we are stronger and that is true for us as a congregation also.

We are also stronger together. We are stronger together. And together, we can make a greater impact on our environment. I know that there are environmentally minded people in our congregation, people who recycle faithfully, people who may drive hybrid cars or some of you may even have electric cars to make sure that you’re being responsible in that way.

But together, we have the ability to make a statement to our community about how much the environment matters to us.

Our park does make part of that statement. But a lot of people don’t know about our park. We can be more vigilant about what we do, how we live together. That’s what I want the environmental team to be looking at. So if you signed up for that, that’s where we’re headed. We want to look at what things could we do differently here that would be more environmentally friendly or environmentally responsible.

It’s shocking to me when I see the pictures that come out of Ukraine or Gaza. When I think about environmentally friendly, caring for the environment, war is not. Right? And I was stuck on the phrase, Choose War No More. But, what that did was that led me back to Isaiah 2:11, “Beat swords into plowshares. and spears into pruning hooks.”

We need to change our mindset because wars and that type of aggression are not helping us either. We need to learn how to live together, to respect one another, to respect one another’s boundaries, that goes for both sides, Hamas and Israel.

Then we can be the people of God and create the peaceable kingdom because we are made in God’s image. May it be so, Amen.

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The scripture text for our contemporary words this morning is this, “That they may be one as you father are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us.” – John 17:21

The setting for this prayer of Jesus follows the meal with his disciples. On the evening before he was arrested, it follows his washing of the disciples feet and his emphasis on the commandment to love one another. It’s part of a lengthy prayer in the gospel according to John, a prayer which Jesus offers to his Father, for his disciples, and for those who love him. Who would believe in Jesus as a result of what the disciples would do later.

You and I are included in this prayer. The Gospels mention Jesus going off by himself to pray. But except for what we call the Lord’s Prayer, and the prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane. We don’t know much about what Jesus prayed.

Here we hear him praying for his first disciples and for us. The theme of the prayer is that all may be one, that is, united. As he and the Father are united. He prays that his disciples may be united with him and his father and with each other.

I’ve titled this sermon Untied or United. They both have the same letters, but the different arrangement of the letters leads to very different meanings.

Untied means not held together by any bond, not restrained, not joined in unity, free from outside control, as typified by such remarks as I’ll do it my way or I’m numero uno or other self centered attitudes.

On the other hand, united means made one, combined, no longer separate, acting in unison, concurring, dwelling in unity.

Notice that united does not mean total uniformity. We can have differences of opinion or personality. and still be united. Clearly, Jesus prayer is for the disciples and for us to be united rather than untied. The big question is, united for what?

Both the Old and New Testaments make very clear, that we are to love God and love our neighbors as we love ourselves. In other words, human life is essentially about relationships, relationships with ourselves, with Jesus and God, neighbors, fellow workers, church members, the natural world, society, and our nation. We’re related to all those in some way.

To love God is not to have some fuzzy warm feeling. It’s to obey God’s commands. To love our neighbors is to seek God’s love and work for their good, Jesus says, “Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another” – John 13:34. The unity of Jesus and the father is the template for the unity of the disciples with Jesus and the father, and with Jesus and each other.

Lest, we inadvertently fall into a trap by assuming that untied is always bad and united is always good.

It’s important to acknowledge that the situation is not absolute, but very nuanced. It’s good to be untied to the attitudes and actions that are banned by the 10 Commandments. It’s good to be untied to having other gods, to making idols, to taking God’s name in vain, to steal, to commit adultery, to murder, to bear false witness, to covet. It’s good.

Likewise, It’s bad to be united with what may be good for a political party to win elections rather than what is good for our country and all our people. But most of the time it is better to be united than untied.

So where does this point us?

God loves and accepts us as we are. We do not have to meet a set of preconditions in order to be loved by God. But God does not expect or desire us to remain as we are at this point in our life. God’s plan is for us to become more like God. In other words, more holy as God is holy. We won’t fully attain that, but that is the goal.

Let’s look at two examples, one positive and one negative, that show us what becoming more holy means. In Jesus telling, a priest and a Levite came upon a man who had been injured and robbed. They both felt untied to him and passed by, leaving him lying on the road. A Samaritan also came upon him, but he felt united with him, pitied him. Dressed his wounds, took him to an inn, paid the innkeeper to take care of him, and promised to pay any additional costs for the man’s care. That Samaritan was becoming more holy, more like God.

On another occasion, Jesus told about an older brother who came in from working in the farm fields to discover music and dancing going on. He asked what was happening and learned that his younger brother, who had left home, taking his inheritance that he subsequently wasted, had returned home, and their father had joyfully welcomed him back. and ordered a festive celebration to begin. Despite entreaties from his father, the older brother refused to go in. He wouldn’t join the party referring to your son rather than my brother, thus revealing. that he was untied to his brother. He was not becoming more holy, more like God.

If our goal is to be more united with Jesus and with one another, what are we to do?

Let me offer several things for you to consider. First, We can acknowledge the truth of Jesus teaching that he is the vine and we are the branches. If we abide in him as he abides in us, we can be united. We can grow and bear fruit, becoming more like God. Because apart from him, we can do nothing. It is only as we are united in him that we grow more holy.

Also, we often hear the words, the truth will make you free. But that overlooks the first part of what Jesus said. “If you continue in my word, You are truly just my disciples, and you will know the truth and the truth will make you free.” – John 8:31-32. It is as we are continually learning about Jesus and his teachings that we will learn the truth about God and the human life God intends for us.

To have another figure of speech that is helpful, we can think about a wheel with a hub and spokes leading out from the hub. Then we can also realize that it is only as we move toward Jesus as the hub, that we are getting closer and more united with him and with each other.

We can do more praying, especially more listening for what God is calling us to be and do. We can do more reading of the scriptures, especially the four gospels.

Getting to feel less untied and more united requires more than an attitude or a feeling, it requires action.

The epistle of James puts it quite frankly, if a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says, Go in peace, keep warm and eat your fill and yet does not supply their bodily needs. What is the good of that?

We can also move toward being more united by deliberately and appropriately living into our congregation’s recently adopted mission statement. We can make changes in our governance structures. We can offer our increased personal involvement and financial support. Becoming more united calls for action in how we use our financial resources.

Jesus observed some rich people putting gifts into the temple treasury. He also saw a poor widow put in two small copper coins, and he remarked that she had put in more than all the rich people because they contributed out of their abundance while she, out of her poverty, had put in all she had to live for.

Becoming more united also leads us to become more and more generous by increasing the percentage of our income we give for our congregations ministries to welcome and help our neighbors. To do that necessitates giving a higher priority to our neighbors needs than to our own wants. That’s not easy. It means saying no to some of our expenditures on ourselves as we seek to be more united with Jesus, with the father, with each other, with our neighbors near and far.

The good news is that we are not expected to become united all by ourselves. We are called to be intentional and faithful about our decisions and actions, but we do not have to become united all on our own. Our Lord has promised to help us every step of the journey. He has said, “I am with you always to the end of the age.” – Matthew 28:20. We can encourage and help each other.

Remember also the Apostle Paul’s assurance that nothing in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God, in Christ Jesus, our Lord.

So sisters and brothers in Church of the Apostles United Church of Christ, will we be untied or united?

Sermon Given by Rev. Milton Gockley

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A good friend suggested that I create this sermon as a sermon for my granddaughter, Frankie. So we can share this with her later in life, to tell her about all that there is, all of the creation that I love so much.

There is so much that God has made for us to appreciate and our response was to be in awe and worship of our God.

That God took the time to put this all together. As Christians, we believe both. We believe in evolution. We believe it started billions of years ago, probably with a big bang. And we believe in intelligent design. We believe that there are webs of life and things that are created that are beyond our understanding.

We are grateful that we have minds that can see some of these pieces. That we can develop things like the Hubble telescope to show us galaxies far away from here, and what’s happening much further than we can see or imagine.

Because there is so much that God created and is still creating. But that it all started at one point, and all of it comes together.

At some point God created this piece called the sun and created this planet with the ability to sustain life as we know it. With all of the gases, the oxygen, and then the plants and all of the other pieces so that we could live here.

It is such a gift to us. We even had the ability to go to the moon and be able to see the earth in its entirety, to be able to look back on the planet that we live on.

But unfortunately, there are still people who think that the story I just read is a history story. They think that the Earth is the center of the universe. But we know that that’s not true. We’ve seen that the sun is the center of our galaxy and that there are so many other galaxies. There’s so much more.

We want you to embrace both, to embrace that God was in all of its creation and that it is so much more than we can imagine.

That there are places on this earth like the Amazon rainforest, with it’s trees and plants, they are part of this ecosystem. That it all works together to keep our air clean, to keep our streams clean, to feed all of the creatures. To give the creatures home. Because home is so important to us.

God created the seeds and in the water, God put all those creatures to help us learn more, to help us have food, to have them so that they can feed together.

He gave us animals in this great web of life. Animals that we love and animals that we’re not so sure we want to be around. We’re still trying to figure out why you made the cockroach and what is its purpose. It has lived long. It’s one of the longest living beings and we haven’t found its purpose, but, we believe there’s a purpose, that everything has a purpose.

You created us. You created us in all of our diversity, with all of our skin tones, and hair colors, and eye colors. You called it good. You called all of it good, just as you created it. It was perfect, but you gave us minds. In our minds, we believe that we know better. That we know better than you. So we start tinkering with things. We’re not content with the way it was. We want more. We want it to be easier. We don’t want to have to work so hard.

We can be better at taking care of your creation. But we want life to be easier and we want to make money.

So in the Amazon we’ve created roads and we have deforested parts. Now we’re suffering because we didn’t replant the trees. We didn’t care for God’s creation the way we were intended to.

Because we just wanted it to be easier. We wanted to be able to get bigger trucks in there to take out more of the wood so we could build more things. More homes because there were more people and we needed to. Some of that’s good and some of it was just about greed. We weren’t kind in the ways that we did it.

We didn’t do it in ways that sustained God’s creation.

We created these plastics because we didn’t want to have to do the dishes all the time. We wanted to be able to throw things away, but then we ended up with too much garbage. So, back in the 70s, we decided that since we were running out of space for the garbage, we’d put it on barges and send it out to sea, because that’s a good idea.

At least we don’t have to look at it. We didn’t realize that we were contaminating the water. We’ve created an island, an island in the Pacific that is plastic and is uninhabitable. We have killed God’s creatures because they are full of plastic. The plastics break down into microplastics that are like little beads all over the ocean floor. They’re in our food because the fish that we eat have them in and they’re in our water supplies.

We haven’t been good at making sure that we clean up. We just wanted it to be easier. We wanted to throw everything away instead of washing it. We found out it wasn’t good.

The places that we live, we wanted more. We just wanted it bigger and brighter and light. Now we can’t even see the stars because we’ve made so many lights. And we’ve ruined the beauty of your creation. Because we wanted it to be easier. We wanted to be able to have what we wanted, what was going to make us happy in the moment.

We didn’t think about the fact that we have such a potential for destruction.

I was reminded this morning about the 80th day of D Day coming up this week. That means that we’re not far from the 80th anniversary of Nagasaki and Hiroshima. It left me wondering, what does that look like now? Has nature been able to finally come back there? Or is it still all dead and destroyed?

Because we have such a potential to create good, and we have such a potential to destroy. But God only has a potential to create. God has the potential to destroy, but God looks to create life. We cannot create life out of nothing. We need God’s help. We’re created, God created us to create more people, but we cannot just take nothing and create life.

We’ve been trying. AI will be part of your world, Frankie. That is where we are trying to have technology take over life. There’s such advantages, but we have to look at the costs.

We have not always looked at the costs of our actions.

One of the pieces that we are seeing is that the temperature of our earth has risen. From 1880 until 1980, the first hundred years, of them watching and paying attention to the temperature of the earth, it was fairly stable. But since 1980, we have been on a sharp incline.

In 2020, the chart shows that actually we were at one degree Celsius over the north, what they’re calling the baseline, which was closer to where the 1880 to 1980 was. Since 2020, we are now 1.4 degrees Celsius over baseline. So we went up 0.4 in those four years. We’re still going up.

Carbon dioxide has increased 427 grams parts per million, the global temperature is 1.4x higher, we’ve been losing 12.2% of our Arctic ice every decade since 1980. There are only so many 12.2% after 1980. So, we’ve lost about 50% of the Arctic ice since 1980.

I don’t know what life is going to look like in the 22nd century.

What I do know, is that this congregation has made a commitment to environmental advocacy, to environmental stewardship, and to making a difference. So, what we can do is we can do the research. To find out what are the steps we can take together as a church in stewarding our property and encouraging our community to be better stewards.We can do that research together and we can tell people about it.

We do still have a choice. I’m hearing that 1.5 degrees Celsius, some of the scientists think that that’s the point of no return.

But we still have the ability to change how we live. The question is, will we?

I want to do it for you because I want you to have and to see the beauty in the world that I have seen. To see the stars at night. To be able to put your hands in the soil and grow food for yourself and food for others.

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During the Bosnian War back in the late 90s, the Serbs had completely surrounded Sarajevo and shells and bombs were being dropped. It was dangerous to go out into the street and yet in the middle of that violence, the symphony players, the orchestra players came out to the middle of the square and started playing music.

They started playing because they needed to give the people hope. Hope that violence didn’t have the last say. Hope that there is another day to come.

I didn’t find any pictures of that, but I found this picture from 2015, where the Baltimore Symphony came out during riots in the city. Again, they tried to bring the people hope. That we can live a different way, we can make different choices, and goodness and love can win.

That’s our story. That’s the Christian story. That goodness and love will win the day, rather than violence.

In the midst of everything that’s going on, we can be overcome by our fears. But we have to remember that we worship a God that is bigger than us, that is bigger than our fear, that is bigger than our issues, and who is calling us to be part of the solution rather than the problem.

We are called to see how our brothers and sisters, our siblings, are struggling. Those who are being discriminated against because of the color of their skin, or their language, or their sexual orientation, or their disability. We need to see how they are being hurt. And we need to be part of the solution to making this a better world for everyone.

The story that I shared about Isaiah (Isaiah 6:1-8) is his call story. Isaiah had a vision. This wasn’t something that physically happened. He said it was like a dream, but he wasn’t sleeping. So, we don’t think that an actual hot coal touched his lips or burned his lips. But, in it God qualified him to be a prophet.

There was nothing about Isaiah that made him special in, that’s why I shared that reading of it because I loved the way it brought in so much more of the story, including how unprepared Isaiah felt because God qualifies. the called. He doesn’t call the qualified. Hear that again.

God qualifies the called. He doesn’t call the qualified.

So all of the things that we are called to do, we may not feel prepared to do. We may not feel like we’re ready to do it or qualified, or worthy, but God calls us anyway.

God will give us what we need to do the task we’re called to do. God will qualify us. So, when our fears, like Isaiah’s fears, of not being ready. Because I think that’s probably closer to the story. I don’t think anybody, when God calls, says “Yes! I was waiting for this! I’m perfect! You knew it!” Because that person’s not ready.

But that God comes to us and the only thing that fights our fear, is perfect love. That’s what God brings. Perfect love. Perfect love casts out all fear. That’s what we say. So, we allow that love. We have to accept that love. Because we have a choice there. That’s what makes it faith. We have a choice. We’re not forced to say yes to God. But God calls to us and looks for our yes, looks for us to turn to God and say, “help me, help me in this. I’m not ready to do this. I’m not prepared. Help me do this.” Then we will find the strength, the comfort, the courage to do things that we never thought we could do, to go to uncomfortable places.

I talked again about the Trinity, and how you understand the Trinity.

I did have a nice Catholic diagram that was trying to say, God is this and is not this, and I read a piece by a colleague that said, in seminary he tried to define the Trinity and his professor said, “In 2,000 years no one’s defined the Trinity, so how do you think you’re going to do it in a paper?”

I thought, how do I think I’m going to do it in a sermon? But God can be experienced in so many ways. Some people experience the Creator God.

This is the Milky Way over Colorado. I got permission from God. That picture showed up on my Google Chromecast and I was like, “I love that picture.” That is a picture I can connect to. And he gave me permission to use it in worship.

You hear some people say this, that they connect to God when they’re in nature, when they’re out in the woods, at the beach. With their hands in the dirt, seeing the sights, being part of creation. Some of us really connect to God through the stories of Jesus. Through those stories that help us to know how to live.

Because that God with skin on did a lot of the same things we do. There were lots of issues with other people that he walked into and helped. We can walk into those issues too and help others. Then others prefer the Spirit, divine, holy one, higher power. The words you use are not as important as your ability to connect with God in some way, in whatever way works best for you.

That’s how we know this. The idea of the Trinity didn’t come out of the Bible. The closest we have is, is Matthew 28:19, where Jesus says in the Great Commission, “Go out and baptize in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.” We call that a Trinity.

What I want you to do this week is listen deeply within yourself to what is God saying to you?

What are you hearing in your innermost self? What’s truest in your heart? I use the words of the still small voice inside. If that doesn’t relate to you, then listen to the people around you. Where do you hear God? Listen there, in whatever way works for you, to what is God asking you to be about. Because every one of us has a purpose. We are still called to love.

If nothing else, we’re called to let go of those boxes that we try to put people in. Because if we’re honest, none of us fits in a box. There is no one that a box fits perfectly. We’re complex creatures and we have to learn to love one another and we have to learn to love others.

So I’m wondering, what is God calling you to do today? What is God calling you to be about? There’s good work to be done in the world.

I’ve been promoting the education piece, Pennsylvania is at an intense unique point in time where we are going to change the way we fund Pennsylvania public education. We have to. The way we’ve been doing it has been declared unconstitutional. They have to do something different. How they do it differently remains to be seen. But there’s some of us that are doing a 40 day flood to our legislators, saying “You’ve got to fix this. You can’t let this go on. The children in poorer school districts need a good education. They deserve it just as much as everyone else. So let’s fix the system.”

We also have a group that’s getting together that’s worried about homelessness or affordable housing and especially in Lancaster. I mean, we heard that’s a state issue. Affordable housing is an issue across the state. There’s all kinds of bills in Harrisburg right now to try to address it. But if affordable housing is the thing that keeps you up at night, then talk to me about that. Because I can help you get connected so your voice can make a difference.

Whatever it is. Everyone can do something because it can be as simple as a smile. It can be as simple as allowing someone else to be heard. So much of life is about recognizing and acknowledging one another.

Let us be about this very important work that God has put before us.

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If you have been in the church for a while, then you recognize that today is Pentecost Sunday.

Pentecost is the 50th day following Easter. The normal Pentecost reading is one where we have all those names that nobody wants to get stuck with. All those names that nobody can pronounce and be ashamed of fumbling through them.

Then we have this experience of tongues of fire and wind. But, my sense is that most of us probably have not experienced tongues of fire and wind that way. That’s not how we’ve experienced the Holy Spirit. In talking with the Worship Commission in preparation for this Sunday, what they said to me was, “you know, it seems like the Holy Spirit is really hard to understand. We’re really not sure that we know that much about it.”

So I put this graphic here because the Holy Spirit is confusing. Just in Scripture alone, all of those things represent the Holy Spirit. It is represented in wind and in fire, but it’s also represented by the hand of Jesus, by a dove that descends, by anointing oil. Sometimes it’s a cloud, sometimes it’s a seal, sometimes it’s in water at baptism. There’s so many different images for the spirit, that the spirit is confusing.

I thought rather than sit with the Pentecost and what happened, where we give credit for the church being created, I thought it might be worthwhile to just try to unpack a little bit about the Spirit.

In these readings that we had today, John 15:26-27 & 16:4b-15, we heard some things about the Spirit. The Greek word is paraclete, which in the NRSV gets translated as advocate. But the word comforter is a lot closer to what it really means. It’s not just one who goes before you, although the Spirit does help us intercede in our prayers with God. But it also said that the Spirit comes to us in our weakness, The Spirit pleads our case, like the advocate, but the Spirit also convinces the world of its sin. And it explains or brings the availability of God’s goodness. It brings deliverance from judgment. It guides us into all truth, and it tells us about the future. The Spirit praises Christ.

All of those things are just in the scriptures that we read this morning about the Spirit. The Spirit really is like a first responder that’s coming to us, that is with us whenever we need it.

All we need to do is ask for the Spirit’s guidance, for the Spirit’s comfort and help in whatever situation we’re in.

Then, it’s up to us to listen. That’s where I think, probably more than anything, we miss out. Because, I think, the Spirit even comes to us in ways that we didn’t ask, in ways that we miss, because we’re so focused on our own agendas and what we’ve got to do. It comes in gentle ways.

So, there’s a lot of ways to experience the Spirit. But the Spirit is there to help guide us to remember that Jesus is our helper. That Jesus is there for us to help us with our sin. In fact, sin here, in this scripture that I read, means not abiding in Jesus. It’s a theological understanding of sin rather than a moral one, right?

Sin can also be the injustices that we allow within our communities, within the bigger county, state and world. When we allow people to be hurt, that is not of God. Actually, that’s the challenge with listening to the spirit is that we have to determine what is spirit and what is ego.

For me one of the big ways in which I tell the difference is that spirit will always lead us towards life, towards wholeness and peace, love and joy.

It is an expansive peace. It is not about retracting. It’s not about dividing us. The Spirit doesn’t want us, like the disciples, to be hold up in a room, shuttered from the world.

That’s why the Spirit breaks in that way comes to them and says, “it’s okay.” In that Pentecost story from Acts 2 that we didn’t read, the Spirit comes to all of these people. People that would have been from Iraq, Iran, Egypt, Israel, Gaza, Lebanon, and Jordan, and says, “you need to work together. Stop dividing. Come together.” They were able o come together and agree. That’s the beauty of the Spirit.

But when we hear things within us that encourage us towards mean spiritedness or violence, that is not of God. That is of our egos. So telling the difference is something that’s the most important thing. Because the Spirit does come in different ways. We might be like Samuel, who actually hears the voice calling him. Or it might be like Elijah, where the Spirit is not in the wind or the fire, or the Earthquake. But the, Spirit is in that still small voice within.

That’s the one that I particularly relate to because I find that the spirit more like nudges me. I’ll be walking along and all of a sudden somebody’s name will come into my mind. Like, “Yep, you haven’t talked to that person in a while.” So often when I do that and I’m thinking, I’m late, I should have called them last week. I should have gone yesterday. But, I get there and they look at me and they say, this is the perfect time for you to be here because we put all that other stuff on ourselves.

But the spirit is there, if we’re just paying attention to those little nudgings.

If you feel called to call somebody, if they’re coming to your mind, do it. Pick up the phone. Give them a call. They may need to hear from you right now. There may be something going on that you don’t know. Or maybe, you may be like Mary and actually see a vision of an angel.

There’s so many ways to experience the spirit. I heard a colleague speak this week and was talking about the spirit in a very prescribed way. I think the church has tried to control the spirit. The church has tried, just like we’ve tried to control God. Instead of thinking and remembering that we are made in the likeness of God, we try to make God in the likeness of us. We try to control what the Spirit does and we say, “this is Spirit, but this isn’t.” Maybe I’m doing that too with this mean spiritedness versus wholeness and love, but I think there are so many times we want to put a frame around what the Spirit is, who God is or who Christ is, and the answer is actually yes and much more.

Our versions of God and the Spirit and Christ are too small. We can’t comprehend all of God. We can’t comprehend all of the Spirit or even all of Christ. Jesus was our best way to know God and it gave us an understanding of who God was as one of us. But that was just a piece and there is so much more.

So I hope that you think about the Spirit and I put this picture because it’s a transformation. It’s striking because usually a caterpillar will go into a cocoon or a chrysalis in order to transform and it appears to be doing that without it. It’s going right from caterpillar to finding wings.

How might we transform if we listen to the spirit? What is the spirit calling you to be about today? If it’s calling you towards love, peace and joy, then it is the Spirit. And it is not just of you. And I hope you choose to follow. May it be so.

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Testimony is a word that we don’t use a lot.

Testimony is what the evangelicals do. Those people that we don’t want to be. That’s what the white protestant churches said. We don’t want to be like those people. They force people to have conversion moments. That’s not who we want to be. I want to say today that I think we have done ourselves a disfavor in this because testimony can be as simple as sharing our story.

Just as Emmanuel did last week, for those of you who heard or were here last week. Testimony is just about sharing a piece of our story. That is how we encourage one another in faith. It hurts us that we don’t do that more often.

I will admit that those testimonies, the way some churches have put them out or created them, it’s almost like there’s just this formula. As long as you say that you’ve received Jesus into your heart, then you’re good. That’s all that needed to be done. We know that there’s a lot more to it.

When I think of my story, it’s not a once and done thing. I’ve had many moments and my faith has grown through the moments. I think that’s part of what’s supposed to happen. The heartaches that we all carry, the pain that we have gone through, the struggles. When we admit that, we can see the places where our stories may connect or they may touch. They’re not the same. It’s not the same pain. It’s not the same struggles, but there is something about going through the pain and the grief that helps us grow, in our stories and in our faith.

I want to start today with the scripture that was read for us, 1 John 5:9-13.

Let me begin by saying that I should never assume what you know or do not know. This scripture that was read comes out of the first letter of John. That is not the same thing as the gospel of John. It is a letter further to the back of the Bible when you’re looking for it. It is meant as a type of testimony. It is meant to encourage the faith of the believers of the faithful. The scripture that we read was all about testimony. For as much as I’m not really a fan of the word testimony, it appears God’s going to make sure we talk about it today.

God says, it begins with saying if you believe human testimony, if you believe the story of another. If you believed Emmanuel’s story last week, if you believe the story of anyone else you’ve talked to, any of your friends or family, then you should believe God’s story even more. Some people set it up like that, it means that God’s story is the only testimony that humans aren’t. It’s not meant to do that. It’s meant to just say, Our stories are true and God’s story can be trusted even more because our stories do change over the years when we get some distance away from the event where our perceptions change about it, but God’s story doesn’t change and it comes down to the simple verse.

It was verse 11, 1 John 5:11. “The testimony is this. God gave eternal life to us and this life is in His Son.” It’s meant to jar our memories or to be a parallel, almost a paraphrase of John 3:16. “For God so loved the world that He gave His only son. That whosoever believes in him may not perish, but have eternal life.” It’s meant to help us connect the dots and say, “Oh, I’ve heard that before.” That’s a good thing to remember. It’s naming that God stands opposed to the world because the world is the way in which our capacity to hurt one another. We have a tremendous capacity to create pain and conflict with each other, and God’s love is in opposition to that.

Then the scripture that I read from John’s gospel, John 17:6-19, I heard that as well, it’s unique.

Let’s start there. It’s unique in that it’s the first time we get to hear Jesus pray about the disciples specifically. Usually when Jesus prays, he goes off by himself. It says Jesus went off into the mountain and prayed. We don’t hear much about it. We hear it in the Garden of Gethsemane. There we get to hear some words of Jesus. But this time, Jesus is praying to God about the disciples right in front of the disciples. So they’re hearing it. It’s meant to be a blessing. Jesus wants the disciples to understand that they are blessed.

Now I want to say, I want you to understand that you too are blessed.

You’re not just blessed so that you can pat yourself on the back and feel good about yourself, but that you are blessed to be a blessing. You have a story so that you can share it. and encourage others.

Jesus knows that the disciples are about to face one of their hardest times. When Jesus is arrested and taken away and crucified, they are going to feel like their world has fallen apart. He wants them to know that he has asked God to be with them, to protect them. It says it a couple of times, protect them. He wants them to know God is with them even when they don’t feel like it.

This is where this touches my story.

Some of you know, some of you are aware of parts of my story, but one of the parts of my story is that my father died when I was two years old. My father was a UCC minister. But I have absolutely no memory of him. So, through my life, I have tried to figure out who he is. Just because I thought it would be appropriate, I put a picture of him here for you to see.

This past week, I went to clergy convocation. Clergy convocation is when all four conferences in Pennsylvania, so all the clergy of Pennsylvania in the United Church of Christ, were invited to gather and it’s a time of learning, but our focus was on healing. Healing me. Healing you. Healing us.

At that convocation, A gentleman came up to me and said, I was a friend of your father’s. They went to F&M together. They went to the seminary together. He said, I need to talk to you. I was both excited and scared at the same time. Anxious in all those ways. I thought, “oh, there’s so many questions I have for you.” Because I really wanted to know who my dad was as a pastor. What was his thing? What was his specialty? Where were his passions?

But when we gathered, I decided that I needed to listen. I didn’t end up asking any questions. I just received his story. What he wanted to tell me was the last conversation he had where my dad told him that he was okay dying at 26. That was okay. That all he wanted was to spend as much time as he could with my mother and I. What that told me, which I think was underneath all of my questions, was that my dad loved me. That’s what I really needed to hear. More than anything else. The rest is frivolous in comparison. It wasn’t what I thought I wanted. But it was what I needed. His testimony affirmed me.

We can do that for one another. That’s who we are called to be. We’re called to be people who are willing to open up our lives and share the hard stuff.

Because everybody’s got that safe superficial stuff. But we’re supposed to look at the hard stuff. Because that’s who we are. When we can see each other’s stories, that’s when we break open our hearts, we learn to have more compassion for others. Then we can walk with another. Not because we’re better or because we have any special gift, except that we’ve gone through the grief. We know what that’s like.

We can encourage one another.

I will encourage you because I can tell you, God can handle all of your words. Because I spent years railing at God for the situation of my life.

I just had the opportunity the other night to listen to another person’s story who told me about how they were physically and emotionally abused as a child by a stepfather. I said, me too. Me too. I know what that’s like. They didn’t know that about me. It’s amazing the places where our lives connect.

But we are blessed to be a blessing to others. That’s who we are.

But when we keep our stories to ourselves, then we’re denying that. We’re holding back that encouragement that is meant for someone else. Because we are not alone. We have one another and the Spirit is here encouraging us to be here for each other. To be a shoulder to cry on, to be one who laughs with us, who celebrates with us, and will walk with us, even through the valley of the shadow of death. That’s who we are.

In John 17:13, it said “And now I am coming to you. I have told them many things while I was with them So that they would be filled with my joy.”

Have you looked for the joy in your life? What does that look like to you? Where do you see the joy of Christ?

Because let’s celebrate that. Our white Protestant pietism gets in our way and we can be the chosen instead of acting like we’re here for a celebration.

Let’s celebrate that love and grace. Let’s have a good time because that’s part of who we are. and who Christ calls us to be. Thanks be to God.

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I want to go back to that first scripture (1 John 4:7-13) about love because a lot of times when we talk about love, I think we’re a little confused about what kind of love are we talking about?

It’s not just the feeling that we have. It’s not a romantic type of love. It is a caring type of love. But more importantly, it’s a verb. It’s an action. It’s love. Love is put into action. Loving someone else means you do something about it. Which is why I talked about the caring cart and what we have done in collecting these personal care items. You love somebody by doing something.

I think it is just that easy and that difficult because we don’t always know what loving someone looks like. What action is a loving action? But I’ve said in the past, and I’m going to repeat that. I want us to hold this question.

What is the most loving thing I can do?

If that is the question that we hold in our being every day. Then when we run into a situation or we encounter someone, we can bring that question to mind. What is the most loving thing I can do right now? We will get an answer. We will know what to do. If we listen to our hearts, God will tell us what the most loving thing to do is.

On Thursday, April 18th, the most loving thing I could do was go to this rally called Justice for Education at J. P. McCaskey.

Because the point of the rally was to help show our legislators that we care about this issue. Now I’m going to give you a little bit more information about the issue if you haven’t been following it in the news.

Our system for funding education in Pennsylvania has us ranked 45th out of 50. Even more importantly, last spring a commonwealth court ruled that it is unconstitutional according to the Pennsylvania Constitution. We have to change the way we fund education in Pennsylvania because not every child in Pennsylvania receives the education that they need. That’s has been proven.

So, now it is dependent on our legislators on how to change that. Last summer, there was a Basic Education Funding Commission that had a series of meetings across the state to understand ideas. It was half Republican, half Democrat. This is bipartisan. They went back to Pennsylvania and they have come out with a new plan.

What we are saying is you need to vote for this plan. The plan is in the 2024-25 budget and you need to vote for it. You need to codify it. You need to make it law so they don’t just do it this year, but they continue to do it because it’s a seven year plan. So doing the first year of a seven year plan and not doing any more isn’t really going to get us far. We got to keep doing the plan until we get to where we should be with that. That’s the education justice issue.

Now you might be thinking, social justice. Do you know what my schedule looks like?

I’ve got enough going on in my life right now. I want to affirm that we do have enough going on in our lives right now. I know that. I know that a lot of us are overwhelmed. That we are filled, we feel like we’re pulled in so many different directions by so many different priorities and we don’t know what to do with that.

In the midst of all of that, I want to say, it’s also matters that we pay attention to what’s happening in our world, to how other people are being treated. We need to do whatever we can. Maybe you can’t go to a rally, but you can be kind to the next person you meet, or act in a loving way.

I also want to name that we talked about the fact that social justice and compassionate justice is part of who God is calling us to be.

When we talk about “what does home look like?”, Home is a place that accepts you, that recognizes you and affirms your humanity. Because at the end of the day, that’s what it’s about.

It’s about looking at another person, regardless if they are like you or not. Regardless if they have the same political position as you or not. That’s really big right now. Recognize their humanity. We all still want to be respected. We all still want to belong and feel that we matter. We all want that.

So here comes our story today from Acts. Philip and the eunuch.

This is a social justice story. Did you know that? It’s a huge social justice story. Philip and the eunuch are both in places they don’t belong. Philip and the disciples have been chased out of Jerusalem because the Pharisees are out for them. They want to squash this Christian thing that’s going on and the Romans want to squash it because they thought if they killed the leader the movement would die and it didn’t. So now they got to go after the next level.

The Apostles have left Jerusalem and Philip is going around all different kinds of places. The spirit, which is what happened at the end of this story, the spirit just picks him up and puts him somewhere else. But for this story, he’s on the road from Jerusalem to Gaza.

Now I want everybody to just take a deep breath, because we know something about the road from Jerusalem to Gaza right now, do we not? I hope you do. I hope you’re paying enough attention to know what’s going on in Gaza and Israel. That’s the road they’re on.

Philip hears this eunuch reading. That means he is emasculated. The question can be asked, “Why is that the feature that is brought out in this scripture?” He’s an Ethiopian. It also tells us that he’s the treasurer. He mines the treasury of the queen. He’s in a chariot. That’s why I chose this picture, this image of it, because he’s in a different class than some others. He has privilege. He has a driver because he is in a chariot, and he may even have a bodyguard. Because he’s that important.

The part that they tell us in this story is that he’s a eunuch. He’s been emasculated. To the Hebrews, that means he is not a man. Because he cannot procreate, because his body has been altered, he is not welcome in the temple. So even though he’s been to Jerusalem, he would not have been welcome. He needed to stay out with all the other people, with their leprosy, their bleeding, and the other things that made them unworthy of walking in.

But he wants to learn. The piece that we need to pay attention to is what Philip does. Philip doesn’t care. Philip doesn’t ask about any of that. He doesn’t talk about the fact that he’s a eunuch. He doesn’t say, “Hey, since you couldn’t get into the temple, I’ll help you out.” He just says, Do you know what you’re reading? The guy says, Essentially, no, I need help, and invites him into the carriage, and Philip goes.

Then they find water, and even more than teaching him, oh my gosh, he baptized him. That means he is part of the body of Christ. He is welcome. Room has been made for him. Even though the religious authorities would have shun him, even though he was everything that they said no to, he was welcomed and baptized into the family and God blessed it.

It’s very interesting. Something else I learned when I was doing my research is there is a verse in Matthew 19:12. You want to read it because it never comes in the lectionary. We never read that verse. We read the verses before it and after it, but we never read that verse, and it’s all about eunuchs. Eunuchs that are born as eunuchs. Eunuchs that are emasculated by someone else’s choice and eunuchs who allow it so that they can be part of the kingdom. You need to think about that in all of our things that we do.

Because we are called, as a congregation, to make sure that everyone feels welcome. That’s what we say. Inclusive refuge, Anyone who is powerless or afraid, Anyone who needs refuge is welcome here.

This isn’t easy. We’re going to make mistakes. I picked this picture on purpose because you see what’s going on in this picture? All the white people are making a demand of the black woman and we’re very good at that. We’re very good at expecting them to fill our expectations without finding out what they need or who they are.

But we are called to compassionate justice. So, what I want to suggest is that I think right now with our congregation, we are at a point where it’s time to set up a justice team. This is what I would like the team to do. I would like the team to interview the congregation. Because I want to know. I want us to know. What keeps you up at night? What wakes you up at three o’clock in the morning? Which issue? Because there are a lot of social justice issues on the table right now. The education justice is just one issue, but there are so many. So I want to find out what is the number one issue in our congregation?

Then we’ll decide how best to work in that area. What difference can we make in our Lancaster community? Because I think we can make a difference in our Lancaster community. But we need to do our research first. I’ve learned from the organizers that you start with research meetings. So we need to do an internal research meeting first and find out what our priorities are. Then I have resources that I can connect us to in the community so that we can work. We’re going to work with people who are already doing the work. So that we can make an impact in this community. Because we want to. This is not just about coming in here to serve us. We want to make a difference with people. I heard that during our discernment process for the vision and mission. It matters why we’re here.

Reverend Roland Forbes, some of you may know Rev. Forbes from Ebenezer Baptist, he always says, “What would happen if your church disappeared? If your church disappeared, would the community notice?” And we want the community to say, don’t disappear. We need you. You are vital in this community. That’s our call to action. So, if you are interested in being on a social justice team, then come talk to me and we’ll put that team together because we make the way by walking.

We’ll make mistakes. We’ll fumble, we’ll stumble, but we can make a better community and we can share love with others.

The story of Philip and the eunuch, in several ways, an outsider, expresses the inclusive love of God for all. All are invited to come home to God because love is simply part of our nature. Love is from God. The invitation is as simple as it is every time we make it. When you endeavor to love your neighbor and live in peace with each other, there’s always room for you, no matter who you are or how you think you don’t fit in.

No matter whether you’ve been coming to church a long time or not a long time. Welcome home.

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