First Congregational
Rev. Barbara Turner Delisle
1 Cor. 15:1-11,
Luke 5:1-11
Communion Meditation
Do not be afraid!
Does anyone know what is the most often repeated phrase in the gospels? “Do not be afraid!”
It is repeated around one hundred times according to one source and today’s gospel reading is one of those times. It speaks to us in so many ways…too many ways to mention in -minute message. So, I thought I would share with you how it relates to the two workshops I attended this week.
Wednesday I attended a tax seminar for clergy. Boy, is it hard to believe those words do not be afraid when listening to a tax person talk! It is so worrisome…all those forms and exactly how you are suppose to record purchases and expenditures and keeping all those records…ohhhh…Let help me trust in the Lord to not be afraid when sending in my taxes!
I learned a lot at that seminar but what was wonderful at the seminar actually had nothing to do with taxes…no surprise there! It was that I got to sit and have lunch with MACUCC president Jim Antal. He and Tina Clarke happen to be good friends. When I mentioned how she had introduced Transition Towns to us he wanted to hear more.
Did you know that he once was the minister for Northfield Mt Hermon and that he rode his bike all over the roads around here? He loves this area. I asked him if he would come and preach to us sometime. He told me he always struggles when he gets this question form small churches because he is asked to visit so many churches and he feels an obligation to attend to the needs of the larger churches.
On the other hand he recognizes we are a dues paying church too. At any rate he told me to write him an email requesting he visit us and he said he would give it serious consideration! Moral of the story?…Do not be afraid to ask when you want something special!
So, I’d like to ask you to help me out by sending me an email or giving me a written note with the reasons why our church is a good church for him to visit or why you would love the president of the MACUCC to visit with us or why it is important that he visit us and I will forward your responses along with a letter of request. Perhaps he could visit in the fall! He is booked about a year in advance. You can see his schedule if you go to the macucc.org website. So, lets not be afraid to ask for what would surely be a very enriching time in the life of our spirit and of our church!
Do not be afraid!
On Thursday and Friday of this week I attended a seminar at
Well, the phrase emerging church came about as a response to the recognition that church today does not look or work or act like the church most of us grew up in. It is a phrase that indicates that something new is happening. God is creating again and we are smack dab in the middle of it. And we won’t know what it is until it is done. The emerging church is like a giant slab of stone in the hands of a great sculptor and we are just beginning to see what might become a chin or a nose of a new David.
But, do not be afraid!
The featured speaker about emerging church was Brian McLaren who had ministered to a small local church for 25 years before turning in his robes so he could hit the speaker circuit to talk about the changing trend in churches featured in his many books. His latest book titled A New Kind of Christianity came out two days ago. In fact the very first copies were available for purchase at Andover Newton before it ‘s actual release date…and yes I bought a copy and got it signed!
One of the key concepts of the emerging church, is that we are in the midst of a major change much like The Great Reformation and this is frustrating because we just don’t know what it is suppose to look like or is going to look like when it is finished changing! This leads to anxiety if we approach it from the perspective of the modern era. But remember, do not be afraid!
I want to switch focus for a moment back to the reading as a way of giving us some comfort around the thought of not knowing where we are headed. Kate Huey commentator for the UCC, tells us of a recent, extraordinary archaeological find, a first-century boat from the
I mention this with the suggestion that as we think about the changes the Church is going through, perhaps we can remember to imagine ourselves within a huge boat that won’t sink just to help us keep anxiety at bay. I also want us to put this together with Paul’s words of assurance that it is the grace of God that saves us, that carries us through all the good times and the bad, that forgives all our sins and receives us finally at the last.
And combine that with the words from Isaiah; “keep listening but do not comprehend; keep looking but do not understand; make the mind of this people dull, and stop their ears, and shut their eyes, so that they may not look with their eyes, and listen with their ears, and comprehend with their minds, and turn and be healed.
As we go into our annual meeting later this morning, and as we move ahead in the coming year, when we deliberate over new offerings, new ways of living out our Christian life in this community, let’s try to do this. Let’s try to put our fear aside and try to rely more on God to lead us than we do on our minds. What does this mean?
When you feel in your heart, in your heart, not in your mind, that what is being proposed will make a difference in our community; will bring joy, will bring comfort, will bring hope, will bring peace, will aid those who are suffering; when you imagine doing this new thing and in your imagination you feel a sense of joy or a sense of fulfillment or a sense of “rightness”, make a commitment to enter into dialogue around it. Make a commitment to listen to your brothers and sisters from this church so that we might discern together if this is where the Holy Spirit is leading us as a church. Do not be afraid!
In the emergent church when there are people who want things to stay the same and people who want things to change, the goal is for both to come together in dialogue and trust the Holy Spirit to lead each to a new place, a place where neither has been before. It is not a predetermined outcome and the way to get to that outcome is not clear. We have to move with eyes closed and ears stopped. We have to move forward trusting in the Spirit. And I suggest this will work best if we approach it with a sense of lightness or playfulness…like playing a game of pin the tail on the donkey where the player is blindfolded and spun around.
Theologian Phyllis Tickle calls this age the Church is entering the Great Emergence! We don’t know what we are going to look like when we are done emerging and that is okay. What is important is that we love each other through it all. And remember we are in a BIG Boat so do not be afraid!
I’d like to close by sharing with you from the inside flap of Brian McLaren’s newest book A New Kind of Christianity.
“Wherever the willingness to rethink has been squelched, wherever that sense of quest has been buried under convention and complacency, the Christian faith in all its forms is in trouble. But even there, something is trying to be born. Even now, right here, among us, inside you, inside me. You may feel it as a curiosity, a desire for better answers than you inherited so far. You may experience it as frustration, knowing that there must be more to faith than you currently know. You may know it as hope, hope that God is seeking humble people whose hearts and lives can be the womb of a better future… In you, your family, your faith community, and circles of friends, among people of peace and faith everywhere, something is trying to be born.”
Friends we live in very exciting times, times when the Spirit is so alive in and around us. Do not be afraid. Trust in God! Throw out your nets and watch your boat fill with blessings!
Amen and Amen.
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