Original Blessing



Enjoying the wonders of nature does not require traveling to a remote wilderness.  I had my mini-redwood grove, then I had windowsill gardens, and now I have a backyard native garden.  Annie Dillard wrote the wonderful nature study Pilgrim at Tinker Creek.  This book sounds like she lived in a wilderness.  She didn’t.  She lived a suburb.  From her magical descriptions of nature she omitted a husband teaching college, rows of brick houses, and cars zipping by Tinker Creek.  Dillard was consciously emulating Henry David Thoreau.  Walden Pond sounds like a splendid wilderness for a hermit, but it was a short walk to the town of Concord, and rumor has it that Thoreau took his laundry from his cabin on Walden Pond to his mother’s house each week to get it cleaned.  This is not fraud.  This is paying attention to the blessings that persist in the face of our mowing and our paving.  Thoreau said, “Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads.”  All we have to do is pay attention.

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Brea Congregational United Church of Christ
October 28, 2018

Original Blessing

Psa. 148:           Praise the LORD! 
            Praise the LORD from the heavens; praise him in the heights! 
            Praise him, all his angels; praise him, all his host!
            Praise him, sun and moon; praise him, all you shining stars! 
            Praise him, you highest heavens, and you waters above the heavens!
            Let them praise the name of the LORD, for he commanded and they were created. 
            He established them forever and ever; 
                        he fixed their bounds, which cannot be passed.
            Praise the LORD from the earth, you sea monsters and all deeps, 
                        fire and hail, snow and frost, stormy wind fulfilling his command!
            Mountains and all hills, fruit trees and all cedars! 
            Wild animals and all cattle, creeping things and flying birds!
            Kings of the earth and all peoples, princes and all rulers of the earth! 
            Young men and women alike, old and young together!
            Let them praise the name of the LORD, for his name alone is exalted; 
                        his glory is above earth and heaven. 
            He has raised up a horn for his people, praise for all his faithful, 
            for the people of Israel who are close to him. Praise the LORD!


You’ve probably heard of Original Sin.  The doctrine of Original Sin was an invention of Augustine in the fourth century; it’s not in the Bible, of which Augustine apparently had a bad Latin translation.  In the bible is Original Blessing: the blessing of an awe-inspiring universe, and a precious blue orb we call Earth, and a myriad of plants and animals on it so varied and complex we have yet to describe them all.  Christian teachings have often neglected this blessing that is our natural world.  Some Christian teachings even made the world, and our bodies, dangerous and sinful.  We don’t take our creation stories as literal history or science, how the world came to be.  They are our why, giving us meaning and purpose.  Genesis 1 says that in the beginning, order came out of chaos, and complexity built up step by step, and at each step God saw that it was good.   

Do you remember as a child, being out in nature and experiencing a sense of awe, of wonder, maybe even a sense of the sacred? I wonder where you were.  I was in a redwood grove; Big Basin State Park in the Santa Cruz Mountains. The ground was soft with a cushion of needles just a little paler than the reddish-brown earth.  The sky peeked out far, far above, through a high ceiling of lacy arching branches. Crumbling trunks of fallen giants lay at intervals, silent witnesses to ancient times. I would sit inside a fairy ring where one of those giants had once stood, and I would be surrounded by its daughters, narrow and breathtakingly tall.  Crested blue jays flashed by and staked out their territory with startling cries.  The air was full of sweet earth and evergreen perfume.  That redwood grove was my first cathedral.

I also found a little grove of evergreens in a park a mile from my house in suburban Sunnyvale, California.  I would go and sit in that grove, and feel a part of something larger than myself; something that fed my soul.  As a young adult I went back to that grove, and I was amused to discover how tiny it was; about fifteen feet on a side, surrounded by playgrounds and basketball courts.  Maybe it was fractal: one piece of nature evokes the whole, at least to a child’s eyes.

This is our Season of Creation.  By creation we mean God’s ongoing relationship with the world, in harmony with evolution.  I’ve never been at a church with a Season of Creation before.  Thank you!  We have this Season of Creation to remind us that reverence and care for the natural world is an important part of our faith.  Our well-being, our very survival, depends on our care for nature.  If you are paying attention, you can get very anxious about the fate of our world.  But let’s not go there today.  Instead, as followers of Jesus, let’s reclaim a sense of wonder at the glory of nature, and respect for our interconnection with the natural world, and joy for the all blessings this world gives to us.

Ecology is doxology.  Ecology is the recognition of the interconnection of the natural world. And doxology is a song of praise to God. Ecology is doxology.  We don’t find much ecology in the New Testament. Praise for the wonders of nature was already in the psalms, and psalms were part of the daily life of Jesus and his first followers.  Thanksgiving for the blessings of nature was part of Jewish prayers over meals, and Sabbath prayers and prayers for the marking of the seasons.  Jesus took for granted an understanding of the rhythms of the natural world: he told parables of planting seeds and harvesting, scrambling over hills to watch over sheep, and the blessing of a spring of water bubbling life out of dry ground.

But then Christians got preoccupied with sin and salvation, heaven and hell, and many of them seem to have forgotten Original Blessing entirely. So we who feel the sacred calling to us through nature have often had to look elsewhere to put words to our feeling. Indigenous cultures around the world remind us that all life is sacred.  In this part of the world we turn to Native American traditions to find words and images that honor the sacred in nature.  Science tells us of the interconnectedness of all life, even subatomic particles. Old science told us the world was made of billiard balls bumping against each other; new science knows better.  Process Theology gives us a way to understand how God can be in and through every creature and every rock and every star, everything, calling each moment forward in a dance of co-creation.

And we are invited to join this dance of co-creation, to enjoy and celebrate our connection with all that is.  This does not sit well with a Protestant work ethic.  It is not “productive” to meditate in a redwood grove, or to contemplate the patterns of clouds, or to cuddle a baby’s toes.  Or is it?  Our attending to the natural world can produce peace, awe, respect, a sense of belonging, and other fruits of the Spirit.  Our reverence for nature will not produce money, or prestige, or the power that keeps empire afloat.  To capitalism, nature is one more commodity to be bulldozed, packaged, sold, and discarded. But those who honor Original Blessing discover the power with, instead of power over.  The power of connection.  Creativity. Joy.  And perhaps the wisdom and courage we will need to preserve the earth and its creatures, including ourselves.

Enjoying the wonders of nature does not require traveling to a remote wilderness.  I had my mini-redwood grove, then I had windowsill gardens, and now I have a backyard native garden.  Annie Dillard wrote the wonderful nature study Pilgrim at Tinker Creek.  This book sounds like she lived in a wilderness.  She didn’t.  She lived a suburb.[i]  From her magical descriptions of nature she omitted a husband teaching college, rows of brick houses, and cars zipping by Tinker Creek.  Dillard was consciously emulating Henry David Thoreau.  Walden Pond sounds like a splendid wilderness for a hermit, but it was a short walk to the town of Concord, and rumor has it that Thoreau took his laundry from his cabin on Walden Pond to his mother’s house each week to get it cleaned.  This is not fraud.  This is paying attention to the blessings that persist in the face of our mowing and our paving.  Thoreau said, “Heaven is under our feet as well as over our heads.”  All we have to do is pay attention.

I like to pay attention in the farmer’s market, Yesterday I celebrated the arrival of persimmons, beets with their tops, and Asian vegetables I can’t name.  My reverence continues when I lay out veggies for a stew.  I savor the onion, and the zucchinis, and the shiny eggplants, and the pungent bay leaf, blessing my kitchen, and my senses, and my family’s bodies. Words are not required, just the awareness that these gifts of the earth are God’s blessings for us.

Our lives are full of blessings.  And other things.  If we overlook the blessings, we will probably become dry and bitter and lonely.  If we open our eyes to the wonders all around us, then we can join God’s dance of co-creation.  As we become aware of our connection to the earth that sustains us, we will never be alone, and we can become willing to engage in the struggle to preserve the life that helped dance us into existence on this blue jewel we call home. Amen.


 

Come to the Table


Come, assured that you have a place at the table.  Whoever you are and wherever you’re from and whatever you believe, you are welcome at this table.  Whatever you have done or haven’t done, you are welcome at this table.  You don’t have to earn your place at the table.  It is a gift.  At this table you have nothing to prove, no price to pay.  You have only to receive what God has to give to you.

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Brea Congregational United Church of Christ
October 7, 2018

Come to the Table

Eph. 4:1-6, 11-16   I therefore, the prisoner in the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you have been called,  2with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love,  3making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. 4There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling,  5one Lord, one faith, one baptism,  6one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in all. 
            The gifts he gave were that some would be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers,  12to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ,  13until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ. 14We must no longer be children, tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine, by people’s trickery, by their craftiness in deceitful scheming.  15But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ,  16from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body’s growth in building itself up in love.


On this World Communion Sunday it is fun to remember that as the earth rotates in its cycle, Christian communities around the world are awakened to a new Sunday morning, a new Lord’s Day, and they gather all over the world to take this communion meal.  It is our common bond.  

Communion is one of two sacraments we claim in the United Church of Christ, along with baptism.  A sacrament is an outward and visible sign of an inward or invisible gift from God.  This gift is too big to be described in words.  But you might want to choose a few words that fit for you today.  Here are some traditional words that hint at the meaning of communion.  Remembrance. Thanksgiving.  Connection.  Life. Salvation.  Spiritual nurture.  Forgiveness.  New covenant. New life.  Transformation.  Reconciliation.  Community. Foretaste of the heavenly banquet.

So come, assured that you have a place at the table.  Whoever you are and wherever you’re from and whatever you believe, you are welcome at this table.  Whatever you have done or haven’t done, you are welcome at this table.  You don’t have to earn your place at the table.  It is a gift.  At this table you have nothing to prove, no price to pay.  You have only to receive what God has to give to you.

Come to the table knowing that many others are invited too.  Some of those people you know and love.  Some are easy to feel close to.  Some are separated by culture, or distance, or hurt, or mistrust.  Let this table open your heart to the work of reconciliation. Trusting that you are loved, and forgiven, and safe, you can reach out to a neighbor, to help build the beloved community.

Come to the table knowing that your presence here matters.  You are precious, and unique, irreplaceable, and if you do not come to this table, God mourns your absence. 

Come to the table to share your longings and your hopes, your loves and your celebrations.  Come to share your griefs and your guilts and your shames and your, your fears and your anger.  God is big enough to take all of it.  Come to be known, and understood, and cherished.  Come to be changed.  Come to discover what God has in store for you.

Come to the table this morning, knowing that you don’t have to understand this gift to receive it.  Let communion work in you, God’s power in you, calling forth God’s future with you.

Come to the table Jesus Christ has set for you, and for all who seek him.  Amen.

World Communion Sunday Invitation
Dear friends, Come to the table of justice and joy!
Let praise go up to God our Life! 
From every creature on God’s good earth!

Wepraise you, gracious God, for in the beginning,
when the world was fresh from your hand,
you made us neighbors — one people though many kinds —
and lavished on us pleasures too many to name!

For you we were a sheer delight.
For each other, helpers and friends.

And so you entrusted to us your justice and your joy.

But we kept your gifts for a few and denied them to many,
creating worlds of poverty and pain.
And so we broke each other’s hearts.

But you did not reject us.

In the fullness of time you gave us Jesus,
full of grace and truth.

By his ministry of mercy,
you restore us to each other and to you.
Mending our hearts and repairing the world.

And by his Spirit you invite us even now to be for each other what he is for us — pardon and peace, blessing and delight.

For all your gifts, O God, we thank you!
And with everything that lives under, on, and above the world,
we give you glory, and we praise your name!

And now, O God, we remember Jesus.

[A brief silence ]

We remember that he forgave our sins.

He breathed on us the peace of God.

We remember that he called us friends.

He taught us to love each other as he loved us.

We remember that he feasted with the poor and rich,
with strangers and friends.

To eat with him was to taste how good you are.

Words of Institution

And we remember that on the night he was handed over, he ate supper with his friends, and he gave us a pledge of love that transcends death.

He took bread, gave thanks, broke it, and gave it to his disciples, saying:
Take and eat, all of you: This is my body, given for you.

Holy Spirit, bless this bread that the earth has given and human hands have made.
May it be for all the Bread of Life!

When supper was over, Jesus took the cup, gave thanks,
and shared it with his friends, saying:

Take and drink, all of you: This is the seal of a new covenant, my life poured out for you.

Bless this cup, fruit of the vine and work of human hands. 
May it be for all of us the Cup of Blessing!
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Thank you, God, for life in the Spirit of Jesus: for gladness in this bread and cup, for love that cannot die, for peace the world cannot give, for joy in the company of friends, for the glory of creation, and for the mission of justice you have made our own.

Guide us to fully receive the gifts of this holy communion: oneness of heart, love for neighbors, forgiveness of enemies, the will to serve you every day, and life that is ever new.  In Jesus’ name we pray. Amen.