SERMONS

If the devil doesn’t exist and, therefore, man has created him, he has created him in his own image and likeness.

I was in the locker room of the Newton YMCA a couple of weeks ago, while two of the other regulars were talking about an incident at the library that had just been reported in the TAB. You may have heard that there was a bomb threat at Brandeis University. Authorities took the threat seriously and immediately cleared 12 campus buildings. Computer forensics experts determined that the threat had originated from a computer in the Newton Public Library. When the FBI and Police demanded that the library hand over the computer, the library director refused because they did not have a warrant. The mayor stood by her in that decision. Later that evening, a warrant was obtained and the computer was seized for analysis.

Bill, a retired Phys. Ed. teacher, and Frank, a retired cop, were grumbling about the Library Director and Mayor’s actions. One of them said that it did not make Newton look very good. This is when I chimed in to say that, on the contrary, I thought it was a shining moment. Frank chuckled and said, “I figured you would, Richard.” We laughed and ribbed each other a bit, talked a little more about the issues involved, conceding the complexity of the situation, and agreed that there was a lot of gray area to navigate. As we changed into our workout clothes, Bill started talking about how much he appreciated the fact that the Y is full of people with very different ideas who can mix it up in a friendly way. I had to agree. We also agreed that there are precious few places in our country and community that remain where people can come together and talk about issues that concern us all. We shared a deep concern about the deteriorating level of civil discourse in our divided country.

To say that the last presidential election was an all-time low in American history is to demonstrate a shallow understanding of American history. Electoral politics in the United States have always been rough and tumble. In the election of 1800, the mud slung between supporters of Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr could make Karl Rove or James Carville blush. That said, the election of 2004 saw little elucidation of the issues that face our nation and our world. There were way too many personal attacks and almost constant demagoguery. There was way too much heat and precious little light. Perhaps the last presidential election was not the lowest point in our history; it was certainly not a high water mark. Terms like “commonwealth” and “common good” seem to have disappeared from our political discourse, and we are all the worse for it. In the best moments of our national life, political adversaries referred to one another as “worthy opponents” and the other party as “the loyal opposition.” We have not always found it necessary to demonize our compatriots.

I use the term “demonize” advisedly. The presence of demons (often referred to as “unclean spirits”) are found throughout the New Testament. In last week’s Gospel Lesson, Jesus confronted an unclean spirit and exorcised it from the man it was tormenting. In this week’s Gospel Lesson, we learn that Jesus “…healed many who were sick with various diseases and cast out many demons.” (Mark 1:34) This was at the very beginning of Jesus’ ministry. If you look at Mark’s account of Jesus commissioning the disciples, demons and unclean spirits figured prominently in his charge to them. “And he called to him the twelve, and began to send them out two by two, and gave them authority over the unclean spirits. He charged them to take nothing for their journey except a staff; no bread, no bag, no money in their belts; but to wear sandals and not put on two tunics. And he said to them, ‘Where you enter a house, stay there until you leave the place. And if any place will not receive you and they refuse to hear you, when you leave, shake off the dust that is on your feet for a testimony against them.’ So they went out and preached that men should repent. And they cast out many demons, and anointed with oil many that were sick and healed them.” (Mark 6:7-13) Basically, Jesus told his disciples to get out there, travel light, accept hospitality and don’t sweat those who will not listen to you, do good, heal suffering, and confront evil.

There is a lot of conjecture as to what natural, psychological or medical phenomena the New Testament may be describing as demons or unclean spirits. Some guess that, because convulsions are sometimes described in the biblical texts, those tormented by demons may have actually suffered from seizure syndrome, or epilepsy. Some guess that these could be people with severe psychiatric illnesses like schizophrenia or other disorders that can be chronic, debilitating or accompanied by unusual behaviors. I think either or both could be the case, given what was known then. However, I am not entirely willing to write off biblical demonology as simply an ancient or primitive means of describing a natural phenomenon. I think that any serious Christian theology has to take demonic forces into account. I believe that there are evil spiritual forces that can and do influence human behavior.

You may recall that last week I talked with the kids during the Children’s Sermon, about how Jesus cast out demons. We talked about how good kids can do things they know are wrong in certain situations. We talked a little bit about peer pressure and teasing. I think we can see demons at work in crowd psychology, when a benign crowd turns into a dangerous mob. Consider riots and lynchings. Consider the power of institutional culture. Demonic forces can be subtle and work on us in almost imperceptible ways. To say that demonic forces may influence us is not to absolve us of reasonability for our actions. But, if we think about it, I think most of us have been in situations where we have felt the presence of unclean spirits, though we usually don’t call them that. This is how I have begun to think about the tenor of debate in our country.

I even hesitate to describe the current discourse in our nation as debate. We have become so divided that we really just talk among those who agree with us, rehearse the talking points we hear from our preferred media outlets and commentators, and then talk past those who disagree. That is not a debate, but a hardening of divisions. We cannot afford to be a divided nation. The stakes are too high and we have too many crises looming that affect us now and will form the world our children live in: war, terrorism, civil liberties, global climate change, health care, education, social security. We need to find our way to common ground so that we can work for the common good. We need to think past the facile labeling of conservative and liberal and partisan loyalties of Republican and Democrat and reach out to one another as Americans and human beings.

I know many people get uncomfortable and even angry when I address politics in sermons. That frustrates me sometimes, because there are issues raised in the political arena that are clearly addressed by scripture and our long faith tradition. The irony is that the political themes of the Bible are rarely the ones you hear from the loudest religious voices in our national political scene. But that is not what I am trying to get at. I feel privileged to serve a congregation that is made up of large numbers of Republicans, Democrats, independents who are all careful thinkers and whose moral and philosophical commitments transcend the overly-simple labels of liberal and conservative. We are blessed with many who bring important perspectives from other nations.

I really mean what I say every Sunday when I welcome everyone here “regardless of political persuasion.” I intend for us to be a community that honors the questions of every individual and seeks answers together. The fact is that we are gathered here together in this moment because we hear a higher calling and a sense of higher purpose. We are here seeking comfort and spiritual nourishment so that we can live lives that have meaning and purpose. God has a use for us. We are disciples, called to be healers and to cast out demons. We can be a force for healing in a divided nation, and a troubled but beautiful world without end. Amen.

The Second Church in Newton
West Newton, MA
Melissa Kreider
Fourth Sunday After Epiphany
January 29, 2006

Help us to heed past, present and future as we search to live out your truth in the world.

The wind was whipping through the beat-up 1970s Land Rover as we left the airport and bounced out through the outskirts of Nairobi. City congestion thinned, and a wild new landscape opened out before us. In my memory, the deepest red soil; …a blur of greens and browns and blues in unfamiliar hues and combinations, and mountains in the distance.

I sat sideways on a well-worn bench seat, my neck craned forward, breathing this new air.

I wouldn’t shut up; questions spilling out of my lips: What is that tree? That antelope? Was that an OSTRICH?!

After settling in briefly at our basecamp, we set out across the savannah for a bush-whacking, exhaustion-defying hike. I had dreamed my whole life of seeing primates in the wild, and here we came upon a family of baboons staring back at us from ledges carved into the cliffs above us.

I had just arrived for a semester abroad on an environmental studies program in Kenya, and I felt as if I were on a new planet: I was so awake to my surroundings that the feeling remains vivid 13 years later.

That rapt feeling where your eyes jump from one delightful curiosity to the next.

That rare feeling in which you feel fully engaged in your surroundings…where all of a sudden everything seems full of meaning. And not just a sentimental kind of pretty meaning – a meaning which can embrace the extremes of life and still be full of beauty and mystery.

From the anxious confines of my college library, I had dreamed of this place, of the grasslands of Kenya, for two reasons. First, I had always dreamed of exploring the African landscape. And second, Africa seemed about as far as I could get from the high-pressure grind of college, where I somehow took myself both too seriously and not seriously enough. At the ripe old age of 19, I was somehow dragging joylessly through life, ruled by deadlines and high expectations. The blessings of these supposedly carefree “best years of my life” seemed wasted on me.

I guess it’s a sad reality that days like that first one in Africa stand out so much because every day can’t be that way. Because there’s only one first day of school each year, where everything is new and fresh, full of the edge of the unknown. Because the other days seem to blend into each other, unremarkable. Because we so often lose the present in our rush to get to the future.

Maybe, because our lives are so cluttered with time-saving gadgets and disposable conveniences, so full of our best efforts to be in control that we lose our sense of wonder at the world, lose that powerful clarity of vision which captivates us on extraordinary days.

Yet we are captivated by the experiences and the people which snap us out of it, out of the complacency, who remind us of the terrible and wonderful of life as we know it. I think my professor Greg Mobley at Andover Newton might call these prophetic experiences.

Greg explained to us that prophets don’t look to their crystal balls to see the future.

Rather, prophets look to the world around them and SEE THROUGH it – SEE THROUGH the haze to make sense of the reality of the present right in front of them.

Which people and experiences have helped YOU to SEE THROUGH? A poet or a novel or a piece of music…? The birth of a child…? A teacher? A political or spiritual visionary? A scientific discovery? Experiencing life through the eyes of a new culture …? Really understanding the reality of poverty for the first time…? The impending death of one whom you are not ready to let go?

One prophet for me has been the poet Mary Oliver, who seems awake to a sense of wonder all around her. She writes,

as comes to all of us, in little earfuls, if we’re not too hurried to hear it…[1]

Maybe we have the clearest access to the deep vision of prophecy when we see through a poet’s eyes.

When we suspend our obsession with reason, with irrefutable evidence, and infuse our seeing with imagination, with a sense of playfulness, with childlike curiosity and openness to a sense of wonder.

During the 2004 election campaign, I shared a long car-ride conversation about spirituality with an acquaintance. She is an accomplished violinist. Was about to be married. Was passionate about her support of Howard Dean for President. She’s a lawyer who works with survivors of domestic violence.

In the midst of my arguments that Christianity is deeper than fundamentalism, that God is not dead in a world of 21^st century science and reason, she insisted, “I will never believe in something I can’t prove.”

I don’t remember how I responded at the time, but now my response seems so clear: can you prove the beauty of music? Your love for your partner? What’s the evidence for the glimmer of passion and hope Howard Dean ignited in you? The evidence of the feelings stirred in your soul when you hear the story of a survivor of abuse?

Richard talked in last week’s sermon about reading scripture, about the necessity of reading in context, about scripture’s comfort with complexity and discrepancy and mystery. When I read his sermon on Friday, the raw material of my thoughts for this morning was already mostly complete, but I’d like to extend his invitation to take a fresh look at the Bible.

This season, we’re looking through the eyes of Mark at the very beginning of Jesus’ ministry.

Last week, Simon and Andrew and James and John lay down their fishing nets to follow Jesus and become “fishers of people.”

This week, Jesus turns heads with his first recorded act of public ministry as he casts out a demon. The people of Galilee are captivated by his authority. His words and deeds seem to carry a potency which ignites the hearts of the people around him. He’s saying and doing things which wake people up, which give them the hope and imagination of SEEING THROUGH.

The demon, the skeptic, challenges Jesus: What have you to do with us, Jesus of Nazareth?

I know I’m not the only one here who might have heard those words pass my own lips countless times. Who might think: “divine Incarnation,” – “five loaves and two fish fed 5000 with baskets of leftovers” -- “the blind man could see” -- “the Empty Tomb.” Who might think: are you kidding me?

But when a friend helped me to imagine a crowd in which each hungry person saw others sharing the little bread and fish they had and were inspired to do the same… when I saw the miracle that, in sharing, there was abundance, I started to SEE THROUGH.

When I heard Mary Oliver speak of “the fires and the black river of loss whose other side is salvation” –when I understood that when she wrote about the regrowth after forest fires literal and figurative, she was talking about resurrection, I started to see a whole new world within scripture, in particular within the Gospels and the stories of Jesus.[2]

This 225^th anniversary year at Second Church, we’re looking through the eyes and experiences of our forebears, remembering our heritage. We’re playfully dressing in their attire and feasting upon their recipes. Singing their hymns and anthems. We’re remembering their attitudes. We’re celebrating their legacy.

As we contemplated the “Ladies’ Benevolent Society” in last night’s play, we weren’t hesitant to fire up our imaginations, our senses of humor, to suspend our skeptical disbelief. When Consider Fuller “opened the window” by flipping a prop to reveal …voila… an opened window… we didn’t walk out of the theater or ask for our money back because a real window didn’t really open.

I’m not implying that the truth of Jesus’ life and ministry can be reduced to props and scenery.

I’m just suggesting that we approach the heritage of the Gospel with at least as much imagination as we approach our own church’s history. That we suspend our disbelief of the authority of this Jesus of Nazareth who questioned the assumptions of his day. Who welcomed those who by all conventional wisdom should have been forgotten. Who shared table with the unclean.

Who suffered the fate of a scapegoat, was tortured and died humiliated, but whose wisdom mysteriously still remains alive to light our way to SEE THROUGH. Who helps us to imagine a reality in which we don’t numbly perceive the blurring of each unremarkable day into the next.

The Gospel invites us to contemplate a world which opens our imaginations are wide awake.

Which challenges us to feast upon period recipes for loaves and fishes, wine and bread; to don period costumes of shepherds and wise men. To imagine the birth of a different kind of hope in a babe in Bethlehem.

[1] “This World,” in Why I Wake Early (Boston: Beacon, 2005).

[2] “In Blackwater Woods,” in New and Selected Poems (Boston: Beacon, 1992), 177.

The Second Church in Newton
West Newton, MA
The Rev. Richard E. Malmberg
January 22, 2006

Like all weak men he laid an exaggerated stress on not changing one’s mind. ―W. Somerset Maugham

In preparation for a period worship service to celebrate our 225^th anniversary, Andrus Madsen, our Minister of Music and Jack Hunter, elder statesman of Second Church, retired history professor and Board Member of the Congregational Library, visited that institution at 14 Beacon Street a couple of weeks ago. Andrus found a Psalter (or hymn book) from the period of our founding. Jack found a printed sermon by our first pastor, the Reverend William Greenough. And, just so you can count your blessings, you should know that the sermon was twenty pages long.

That sermon was not preached here in Newton at Second Church, but in Boston at Old South Church to a gathering of The Society for Foreign Missions of Boston and Vicinity on January 12, 1815. We can be justifiably proud that our founding pastor was a leader in the American missionary movement. After more than a quarter century in the ministry, the Reverend William Greenough was not content to settle into a comfortable village pastorate. He was concerned about his responsibilities beyond the West Parish and beyond these shores. He opened his sermon with a text from James, saying, “Let him know, that he which converteth the sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death, and shall hide a multitude of sins.” (James 5:20)

In his Sermon, Greenough decried “…the pitiable state of the heathen world….” which was “still in darkness…” He spoke of the gift of Christian civilization and rationalism because, “The spiritual knowledge –of a Confucius or a Socrates is no more to be compared with the attainments of the meanest child of God under the disposition of Christ, than knowledge of a Hottentot is to be weighed against the cultivated reason of a Newton.” This is hardly the ethic of celebrating diversity with which we are so familiar.

I wonder what the Reverend Greenough might think of Second Church today. I imagine he would be cheered by the fact that Christ is praised in both English and Korean here every Sunday. But I wonder how he would feel about Dorshei Tzedek’s presence here at Second Church, let alone the fact that their rabbi is a woman. I wonder how he would feel about us gathering with folks from Temple Shalom to study scripture together, not to convert Jews, but out of a sense neighborly affection, respect and hope for mutual enlightenment.

I thank God that we live in a time and a community where can look forward to worshipping and studying with Jews and Muslims, and I firmly believe that we glorify our Creator when we do. Until the day I die, I will cherish our 2001 All Saints Day observance in the chapel, when Imam Taalib Mahdee of Masjiid al Quran issued the Call to Prayer in Arabic, Rabbi David Widzer of Temple Shalom read from Torah in Hebrew, and I read from the Gospel as together we mourned those killed in the September 11^th terrorist attacks. But I do not want to disparage our ancestors either. In his day William Greenough was quite progressive by insisting that American Protestants had a responsibility to people in far off lands whose language, skin and customs were different from our own. It was such a dawning sense of responsibility to a wider humanity that called into question the morality of slavery, even when biblical arguments for it could and can still be made. New England Protestants like William Greenough and their missionary organizations were among the earliest American abolitionists. We come by our modern multiculturalism, at least in part, because of contact initiated by our missionary ancestors.

As we contemplate our history, it seems that one constant is change. Through changing times scripture has been a central guiding principle. What is interesting to me is how scripture itself enshrines important moments of change. In the gospel lesson this morning, we witness a career change. Relevant to Reverend Greenough’s sermon, we witness Simon and Andrew accept a call to become missionaries. We are so familiar with this passage, of Jesus calling his first disciples and how they left their nets and followed him “immediately,” that we tend to miss the context in which it occurs. We are still in the first chapter of Mark. Basically all we know is that an important prophet named John has baptized Jesus, at which a heavenly voice declared “You are my Son, the Beloved, with you I am well pleased.” (Mark 1:11) Then Jesus withdrew to the wilderness for forty days and was tempted by Satan.

This is where this morning’s passage picks up. Jesus had returned to Galilee “…after John was arrested.” (Mark 1:14) This was a time of crisis. At that moment, John was much better known that Jesus, who was just beginning his public ministry. At a time when the authorities were arresting prophets, an itinerant preacher came walking down the beach proclaiming that the kingdom of God has come near and recruiting followers. There must have been something about the moment and something about Jesus that made those two brothers completely change the course of their lives and devote themselves to a fledgling movement at a dangerous time. Perhaps they sensed what Margaret Meade once said: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed it’s the only thing that ever has.”

I am fascinated by the moments in scripture when God’s own mind can change. We see it in the book of Jonah, when the people of Nineveh repented and declared a fast. Incidentally, the archeological site that contains the ruins of Nineveh is located in Iraq, across the Tigris River from modern-day Mosul. The text informs us, “When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil ways, God changed his mind about the calamity that he said he would bring upon them; and he did not do it.” (Jonah 3:10)

This is not the only case when God’s mind changes. When God was ready to wipe out the Israelites for worshipping the golden calf, Moses talked God out of it. Scripture tells us, “…the LORD repented of the evil which he thought to do to his people.” (Exodus 32:14) Jesus, the Son of God, our great teacher and exemplar was talked into exorcising a demon from the daughter of a gentile woman after he insisted his mission was to his own people. When she argued thoughtfully, he relented. Chuck Carlson, my New Testament Professor in seminary called this exchange with the Syrohphoenician woman (Mark 7:27-28) the only argument Jesus every lost.

I raise these examples, not to point out flaws in or to find fault with scripture. But rather to propose that these fascinating inclusions in scripture suggest how we are to engage scripture. In October, when Father Cuenin was here, he said that the most significant difference among Christians was not the Roman Catholic/Protestant divide, but rather between Christians who read the Bible literally and Christians who read the Bible in context. I suspect that a similar dynamic exists within Judaism and Islam as well.

Actually, it is impossible to read the Bible literally because it contains so many different voices from such varied situations across an enormous span of time. On the one hand, we have a God whose mind changes in Jonah, who repents in Exodus and Jesus who changed his mind in Mark. Then there is the statement in Hebrews, “Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever.” (Hebrews 13:8) Does this mean that the Bible is wrong? Of course not. It means the Bible is complicated and richly diverse. No less than Martin Luther said that the Bible is like the manger in Bethlehem. He elaborated that, it contains the word of God, as well as a lot of straw.

To say this does not diminish the theological authority of scripture. The Bible is a revelatory document that defines our faith and guides our lives in good times and bad. We do not have to read the Bible literally to take it seriously. Reading the Bible in context can still form and reform us and move our hearts if we allow the Bible to read us. When we read the Bible in context, we have the opportunity to discover the human realism that may have been obscured by the passage of time. We rediscover the power of the encounter between God and God’s people. The way we read a fixed and finite number of words over an immense and ongoing period of time will and must change. Consider the bloodguilt statement in Matthew’s Passion account, “His blood be on us, and on our children.” (Matthew 27:25). In a post-Holocaust world, we cannot read that statement as we read it before. We encounter that line with caution, chastened by the weight of history.

All the same, I can say without equivocation that there are changeless and immutable truths embodied in scripture that can guide and inform our lives with the same force as the day they were first uttered. Even in the passages of change that I cited, there is a common strain and discernable message of ongoing relevance. In Jonah and in Exodus, when God’s mind changed, it was from anger to mercy. When Jesus changed course, it was to broaden the scope of his ministry and ease a child’s suffering. In all three of those examples harshness gave way to compassion.

The central virtue of compassion can be found consistently throughout the Bible. As the Prophet Micah put it, “[God] has showed you, O mortal what is good; and what does the LORD require of you, but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” (Micah 6:8) Jesus commanded us to love one another as he loved us. (John 13:34) This virtue can be seen from the earliest history of Second Church to the present. Perhaps we do not share all of The Reverend Mr. Greenough’s theology or his particular interpretation of scripture. I don’t. Still, we can see in his missionary zeal, deep concern for people he has not even met. I can see similar compassion in your generous response to the tsunami and the hurricanes on the Gulf Coast. I can see this in the time you put in cooking meals on Saturdays for United Homes Shelter. This is how we respond to God’s unrelenting call through scripture to do justice and to love one another. It is how we meet God, draw closer to one another and reach out to God’s children in a world without end. Amen.

The Second Church in Newton
West Newton, MA
The Rev. Richard E. Malmberg
January 15, 2006

The well-known old remark of Cato, who used to wonder how two soothsayers could look one another in the face without laughing.

A little more than ten years ago, while I was living in Fort Wayne, serving a church for the first time after being ordained, I traveled to Greensboro, North Carolina. The occasion was Homecoming Weekend at Guilford College. It was the year of my class’ 10^th reunion. A warm November weekend in North Carolina, there were plans for an alumni golf tournament, a cocktail party, and a dance. I was eager to see some friends I’d stayed in touch with over the intervening years and others whom I had not seen since graduation. Most of the milling around and conversation took place at the homecoming football game, which of course Guilford lost. What would you expect from a football team called The Quakers? At the game I ran into a woman I had known since our freshman year. She had married and had a son. While she was at homecoming, her son was with his father, from whom she was separated. She looked great. She is now an active member of Second Church. In fact, she lives in the parsonage.

After only ten years, there were few significant changes in appearance among my classmates. Perhaps there was a little more around the middle on some of the guys and most of us were just beginning to show a touch of gray. Reunions can be difficult, but I really enjoyed that weekend. I don’t know if I went there looking for anything more than to connect with some good friends. These were people with whom I had shared an important formative experience. With these people I discovered life-changing books and ideas. Together we edged our way into more independence than any of us had yet known. We traveled abroad, lived, ate, worked and played together. After just over a year in Fort Wayne, where I was known first as a minister then as Richard, it was good to be among the people who were prone to say, “You know, when you said you were going to be a minister, I always thought you were kidding.” One of the most touching things that Jane said to me after that reunion was that she was glad to see that I ended up doing what I said I was going to do.

What it really came down to, the overwhelming comfort that I derived from that Homecoming Weekend, was simply being with people who had all seen one another at our very best and our very worst. There was no posing or pretense. There was a freedom in a shared depth of experience and mutual knowledge made safe by a sense of good will and affection. As long as that kind of knowledge leaves room and freedom to grow and change, there is something really wonderful about being known. There is a difference between being known and being pegged. As I flew back to Indiana on Sunday night, I kept thinking about Psalm 139,

Being known can be unsettling. Notice how skeptical Nathanael was about Jesus until he realized Jesus knew him. When Philip, an enthusiastic new disciple told Nathanael, “‘We have found him about whom Moses in the law and also the prophets wrote, Jesus son of Joseph from Nazareth.’ Nathanael said to him, ‘Can anything good come out of Nazareth?’” (John 1:45-46) You can hear the disdain in Nathanael’s question. He’s basically calling Jesus a hick. Nazareth in the Galilee was part of a rugged northern country with a history of rebellion and banditry. He seemed similarly unimpressed by the compliment Jesus paid him when they met. Jesus said of Nathanael, “Here is truly an Israelite in whom there is no deceit!” (John 1:47) That’s a really ambiguous kind of statement. Was the remark a vaguely disguised insult, or was Jesus perhaps presuming to undue familiarity?

People feign warmth all too frequently. Did you ever get a nickname you never really wanted? Well intentioned people who don’t know me well too often shorten my name to less than its two syllables. I have a bad habit of addressing people as, “Buddy.” I greeted a member of our congregation that way recently and was immediately, and I would say justifiably, scolded. He invoked the rear end of a horse in describing the kind of person who too casually addressed people as, “buddy.” He said that if one wished to convey a sense of genuine relationship, one should say, “friend.” I would add that it takes a true friend to correct one in that manner.

Nathanael was similarly dubious of Jesus calling him, “an Israelite in whom there is no deceit.” He basically asked Jesus how he gets off talking to him that way. He asked “Where did you get to know me?” (John 1:48) And here, Jesus impressed Nathanael with a bit of clairvoyance, saying, “I saw you under the fig tree before Philip called you.” Of the four gospels, John has the strongest sense of the incarnation. He states outright that “…the word [of God] became flesh and lived among us… full of grace and truth.” (John 1:14) When Nathanael encountered Jesus’ miraculous powers he was moved. He blurted out, “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the King of Israel!” (John 1:49) In my mind I see Jesus smile a little when he told Nathanael to settle down and not to get so distracted by parlor tricks, there would be plenty more where that came from.

The miracle at work in this passage is not clairvoyance. It is not that Jesus could see Nathanael sitting under a fig tree before he even got there. What truly moved Nathanael was that Jesus could convince him he was worthy of love. From the minute Nathanael opened his mouth, we could hear a sour sense of self-loathing. “Can any good come out of Nazareth?” Nathanael may not be from Nazareth, but like Jesus, he was a Galilean. If Jesus was a hick, then so was Nathanael. But Jesus appreciated the man’s directness and told him so. He was initially disdainful of the stranger’s affection, but when Nathanael saw that he was dealing with someone of substance who knew him and still respected him, he was transformed.

If we are honest we have to admit that there is something frightening about being known. Knowledge is power and to be known is to be vulnerable, naked. That is why love must be part of this kind of knowledge. You are probably acquainted with the term, “to know biblically.” This refers to the frequent use of the verb “to know” throughout scripture to refer to sexual intercourse. Erotic passion is a frequently used biblical metaphor for encountering the divine. Sexual intimacy is intended by God to be expressed within a loving, committed relationship. In fact, God intended our whole lives to be an expression of a loving committed relationship to God and to one another. We are created for goodness and intended to love one another as God loves us.

There is a passage in 1 Corinthians that is a favorite reading at weddings because of the way it describes love. The interesting thing, though, is that this passage is found in a letter to a church. In it Paul explicitly linked knowledge and love. “Love never ends. But as for prophesies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge; it will come to an end. For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part, but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end. When I was a child, I thought like a child, I spoke like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways. For now I know only in part, then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known. And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest if these is love.” (1 Corinthians 13:8-13)

For Paul, the organizing principle of the Church is also the organizing principle of the universe. Love. At its best, a church can be a microcosm of what God intends for the world. We are called together by the love of God, and we are called together to love one another. We realize that love as we come to know one another. As in any relationship, it happens over time by being together. We work and play, weather the seasons of the year, the stages of life and the history we witness, as we come to know and bear witness to the transforming power of love, in a world without end. Amen.

The Second Church in Newton
West Newton, MA
The Rev. Richard E. Malmberg
January 8, 2006

Fifty years ago today, on Sunday, January 8, 1956, our Second Church forebears observed a Day of Re-Dedication. In that morning’s bulletin was this message:

Today’s services open a period of special devotion and recognition of the founding of this West Parish in Newton on October 21, 1781, 175 years ago, and of our contemporary responsibility as a Christian fellowship and a branch of the Church of Christ.

It is worth noticing the description of Second Church being “…a branch of the Church of Christ,” which makes no mention of the United Church of Christ. There is nothing sinister about this omission, because the UCC did not yet exist as a Protestant denomination, and would not be founded for more than a year later in 1957.

In his sermon that morning, Ross Cannon mentioned many of his predecessors as pastor of this church. He paid particular attention to the high water mark pastorates of William Greenough, our founding pastor was ordained to this church and served it for fifty years. Ross also spoke of Dr. Edgar Park, under whose leadership this beautiful sanctuary was constructed, and Boynton Merrill who was pastor when the Children’s Chapel and Sunday School wing were built. Ross articulated the meaning of Second Church’s long and rich history this way:

From the days of the colonies, -for this church began two days after Cornwallis surrendered to George Washington –to now, through national and personal peril, wars, depressions, times of tragic and binding sorrow, and heights of vision and consecration, this church has been to us and our fathers a touchstone for righteousness and a pillar of strength. Whether personally we have put much or little in it, each one of us that touches it at all is an inheritor of its greatness. In our membership here, in our participation in worship, our ingathering of strength from this church, we must ‘abound in thanksgiving,’ and seek to give as we receive, to serve as we are served, to love as we are loved, and to bless as we are blessed.

It gives me so much pleasure to think of Ross standing here in this pulpit fifty years ago, marking another milestone in our church history. I feel a certain sentimental attachment. Not only was Ross Cannon the pastor emeritus when I arrived here in 1998, but he and Mary were members of South Congregational Church in Concord, New Hampshire, where I served as an associate pastor before being called to Second Church. The day I preached my last sermon at South Church, Ross was the liturgist in that service. For me, the really memorable part of that event was standing with him in my office after the service as we hung up our robes and prepared to go out to coffee hour. There I was with the retired, long-term pastor of Second Church, preparing to head off to serve my first solo pastorate here. In the short time I knew him, I always found Ross to be a man of uncommon warmth and gentleness.

As we pause today to recall our history and prepare for a year filled with various celebrations, the story of Jesus’ presentation in the Temple provides appropriate reflection for this moment. This Gospel Lesson portrays an intergenerational encounter in a historic and sacred location. The sanctuary in which we are gathered today is the third structure built by the people of the West Parish. It is the largest and most ornate Second Church building, following the small Meeting House in Squash End and the classic New England church building that stood on West Newton Square until the early twentieth century.

The temple to which Mary and Joseph brought the baby Jesus was the Second Temple. The first temple was built by Solomon, and was destroyed when the Babylonians sacked Jerusalem. The foundation of the Second Temple was laid and the temple was reconstructed when the exiles returned from Babylon, under the protection of Cyrus the Persian. By the time Mary and Joseph brought Jesus to the Second Temple, it had been built up and improved significantly by Herod the Great. He enlarged the outer courts and built the central structure up to become the tallest building in the known world at the time. First century Jewish historian, Flavius Josephus spoke of “How Herod rebuilt the temple and raised it higher and made it more magnificent than it was before…” (Antiquities, Book 15, Chapter 11, Prologue) All three of the Synoptic Gospels mention how amazed the disciples were at the sight of the temple when they came to Jerusalem. (Mark 13:1; Matthew 24:1; Luke 21:5)

So there they stood, in a magnificent building, the holiest place in their holy land, a pious old man, a carpenter from the northern hill country, and a young mother holding a brand new baby, The text tells us that the old man, Simeon, had been promised by God that he would live to see the Christ. This family had come to make sacrifice, dedicating their first born son to God, as Torah required. The sacrifice of turtle doves described in the passage were the minimum sacrifice of a devout but poor family. And there was the old man, who because of the vision he had been granted, sensed a turning point. In this particular child he recognized potential for great good and enormous upheaval. He saw that the faith of his people would be glorified and that other peoples would benefit from their ancient wisdom. He saw in the child, “… a light for revelation to the gentiles and for glory to your people Israel.” (Luke 2:32)

This moment with Simeon is keenly instructive for us at this moment in our congregational life. Simeon was a man who held fast to the ancient traditions that sustained him. He rejoiced in the monumental sacred space of the temple, in the holy city of Jerusalem. Also, he had seen times change. Luke tells us, “Simeon took [Jesus] in his arms and praised God, saying, ‘Master now you are dismissing your servant in peace, according to you word…’” (Luke 2:28-20) In that moment Simeon simultaneously embraced and let go. There is something sacred about a paradox, when opposites are true at the same time.

This is what is so important for us at this moment. We must both embrace and let go. We have a rich heritage and we inherit a worthy tradition. But we must not forget that what we receive is a living tradition, if we are to keep faith with our forebears and their mission. This sanctuary is a house of worship, not a museum. The three buildings in which Second Church has worshipped for the past 225 years have been quite different from each other. The people, who gathered in the meeting house in Squash End in 1781, would no more recognize the edifice in which we now work and worship, than Solomon would have recognized the temple that Herod built.

Our constant challenge as a faithful Christian community is to balance continuity and change. You have probably heard that the seven last words of a dying church are: “We have always done it this way.” Our challenge is the same as every generation: to reinterpret God’s Word honestly and faithfully in a way that is relevant to our time. We must be rooted in our ancient faith, informed by scripture, but open to the movements of God’s Holy Spirit. We must be responsive to the changing needs of our congregation and the world around us. In the last year I have seen that kind of responsiveness in your generous gifts and donations in the aftermath of the Tsunami and Hurricane Katrina. We also need to be responsive to subtler crises, such as how do we inspire a new generation of commitment to our church and its ministry in a world that makes it difficult for a family to simply sit down together for dinner on a regular basis?

The good news is that our heritage is the Good News. We gather in response to the love of our God who created us for goodness. The earliest days of our church’s history saw the birth pangs of our democracy and by the grace of God, we are up to the challenges of our time. God gives us to one another as a gift and a comfort and we respond gratefully through faithful service that gives our lives meaning and joy. Today we join with our predecessors who rededicated themselves to Second Church’s ministry fifty years ago. They got it right when they said: “The members of the Anniversary Committee have labored long and thoughtfully. They unanimously agree that the primary evidence of sincere thanksgiving and commemoration of our heritage will be deepening our spiritual resources; our rededication to the gospel of Christ; and the proclamation of the gospel by living it.” They knew what it means to be in a communion of saints, moving ever forward through the ages, in a world without end. Amen.

The Second Church in Newton
West Newton, MA
The Rev. Richard E. Malmberg
January 1, 2006

Time rushes by and yet time is frozen. Funny how we get so exact about time at the end of life and at its beginning. She died at 6:08 or 3:46, we say, or the baby was born at 4:02. But in between we slosh through huge swatches of time—weeks, months, years, decades even.

The other day I was getting ready to shave in the locker room of the YMCA, and I noticed how much my beard has grayed. It occurred to me that I am aging like an old dog, turning gray around the snout. I also remembered what I have heard from so many wizened seniors who say that they are often a little surprised by the old face that looks back at them from the mirror, when inside they still feel like a kid. One of the great blessings of church life is that, in a society largely obsessed by youth and segregated by age, we still gather in the presence of the one who gives us life across multiple generations. As I wade deeper into middle-age, the prospect of growing old has been forever changed by knowing such extraordinary elders as Sid Barnes, Larry Freeman and others who have lived with vitality and joy well into their nineties and faced death with courage, dignity and grace. In one of the more petulant rock n’ roll anthems of the 1960s, the British Invasion band The Who sang, “I hope I die before I get old.” Their drummer and bass player have since gotten their wish. As I advance through what I hope to be midlife, I want to get old before I die.

The first time I glimpsed the unavoidable truth of time’s relentless passage, a child brought it to my attention. I would like to say that I grasped the concept, but it grasped me, literally. On an autumn weekday morning in Concord, New Hampshire, almost a year after Jane and I were married, I was bringing Max to the Shaker Road Child Care Center. As we walked across the parking lot to the white clapboard building where Max’s class met, I reached for his hand, and he took it. For the first time, Max held my hand. Rather than holding a tiny toddler hand in mine, a little boy’s rapidly growing fingers could reach around my hand and clasp it. I immediately remembered what so many parents advised me as I became a parent, to enjoy my children while they’re little because they grow up so fast. That observation is perhaps a cliché, but what are clichés but truths too often repeated because they convey common sense veracity?

Scripture is concerned with time from the very first page. Notice that each work of creation was assigned to a day, and that one day of the seven was marked by the cessation of work. In his book The Sabbath, Abraham Joshua Heschel wrote, “The Bible is more concerned with time than with space. It sees the world in the dimension of time. It pays more attention to generations, to events, than to countries, to things; it is more concerned with history than with geography. To understand the teaching of the Bible, one must accept its premise that time has a meaning for life which is equal at least to that of space; that time has significance and sovereignty of its own.”

Sacred time and human time intersect. The Sabbath is God’s invitation to dwell in the sacred. Such regular appearance of sacred time intimates that we are not created simply as drones to toil away our years, but that rest and reflection are essential and necessary parts of human existence. It has often been said that the difference between Europeans and Americans is that Europeans work to live and Americans live to work. If we take seriously the biblical notion of the seventh day of rest, it would appear that God’s intention for us is that we should work to live and not the other way around. I don’t know who made the observation, but “I wish I spent more time at work” is not something people tend to say on their deathbed.

In scripture God is met in what we like to call “real time.” But scripture also differentiates between God’s time and our time. The Psalmist marked the contrast, saying: “…a thousand years in your sight are like yesterday when it is past, or like a watch in the night. You sweep them away; they are like a dream…” (Psalm 90: 4-5) This Psalm, attributed as a prayer by Moses, speaks of the meager amount of time humans have when compared to the everlasting God, observing, “The days of our life are seventy years, or perhaps eighty if we are strong.” (Psalm 90:10) It appears that the key to a meaningful life is to live in the tension between the eternal and the existential. We must be mindful of our finitude and humble before the Eternal One. As the Psalmist prays, “…teach us to count our days that we may gain a wise heart.” (Psalm 90:12)

How should we count our days to fill our hearts with wisdom? It is interesting to me that, at least in English, we use many of the same verbs to talk about time as we do to talk about money. We spend time, we invest time, and too often we squander time. I despise the expression, “time is money,” because it implies that the highest calling in life is the accumulation of wealth. If it sounds like I am disparaging the business community, I am not. All you have to do is look at Bill and Melinda Gates, or John D. Rockefeller Jr. to know that wealth can make possible righteous deeds on a monumental scale. But if we examine the way our speech links time and money, we will recognize that time is a treasure, and Jesus taught that “…where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.” (Matthew 6:21)

At times it feels as if we live in a culture stuck in overdrive. But the inventiveness and industriousness of our country are good things. It just seems that we may have gone off the rails in the past few decades. In the past, our economy was driven by invention, while now it seems to be driven by consumption. The time we dedicate to our work should be focused on accomplishment rather than acquisition. There is nothing emptier than the pursuit of wealth for its own sake. The hours of our lives are worth more than mere trinkets. At its best, work can bring meaning and satisfaction to our lives. And though scripture calls us to a day of rest, we are also called to work. Ecclesiastes advises, “In the morning sow your seed, and at the evening do not let your hands be idle; for you do not know which will prosper, this or that, or whether both alike will be good.” (Ecclesiastes 11:7)

Jesus underscored the uncertainty of the time we have in this life. “But about that day or hour no one knows, neither the angels in Heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father. Beware, keep alert; for you do not know when the time will come.” (Mark 13:32-33) Jesus was speaking about the end of time, but his words also speak to an existential reality we all live with. We know not the day nor the hour that our end will come, but we live trusting that we are in God’s hands, in that tension between the existential and the eternal.

Ultimately, our spiritual orientation to time should be that of a steward. All the time we have to work, rest, play, and just be, is a gift from God. As with material gifts entrusted to us, we have an obligation to offer a portion of our time to God in worship, in service, in prayer and contemplation. Our work, however humble or grand it may be, can also be an offering to God. Any honest work can bring glory to God, and the way we go about our work can and should bring us satisfaction and contribute, in its way, to the common good. The time we devote to family and friends and the fellowship of our congregation are in their ways offerings to God, because God delights in righteous relationships. Time is also a gift we give to one another. As I often say, it is all about relationships, and time is the soil in which relationships grow, in a world without end. Amen.

The Second Church in Newton
West Newton, MA
The Rev. Richard E. Malmberg
Second Sunday in Advent
December 4, 2005

Together, our two scripture lessons sound an echoing cry in the wilderness. I grew up thinking I knew what wilderness was. My family vacations always involved camping. But I never had a clue of wilderness in the biblical sense until I visited the Middle East on sabbatical. After a few days in Cairo I flew to Aswan. Having only experienced Egypt on the lush banks of the Nile, I was struck by the tawny expanse of the desert that stretched from horizon to horizon beneath the airplane. Only then did I truly understand that most of Egypt, indeed most of the Middle East, is desert.

A week later while visiting Jordan, after a day of sightseeing in Jerash, Madaba, and Mount Nebo, my guide and I drove south on a desert highway to Petra. The plan was to spend the night there and visit the spectacular tombs that the Nabateans had carved into the sandstone cliffs. The most famous of these is known as “The Treasury.” You may know it as the location of the Holy Grail in the last of the Indiana Jones movies.

Sami and I drove in the late afternoon and early evening down the desert highway. Many of the standard green and white highway signs had English as well as Arabic markings. There were frequent signs noting the distance to the port of Aqaba, and I realized that I was crossing the same desert that T. E. Lawrence had crossed with troops of the Arab rebellion to surprise a heavily fortified Turkish position. I asked Sami about the signs that were only in Arabic. He said they were verses from the Qur’an. The highway we were on was a major route for buses loaded with pilgrims traveling to Mecca during the Haj. Occasionally we would pass a cluster of houses, or a business along the highway, but for the most part it was a long, lonely road through the desert. Not long after sunset, the loneliness of the road became more poignant when we got a flat tire. Fortunately, Sami had spotted a garage a few kilometers back, and after putting the miniature emergency tire on, we drove back and the mechanic repaired the tire while we waited.

Even in a time of air conditioned cars, spare tires and cell phones, the vast expanse of an Arabian desert still makes an impression. This was part of the wilderness that Moses and the Israelites wandered before they entered the Promised Land. In their wanderings, the Israelites had to rely on miracles just to have enough food and water. In the hills above Petra, there is a small shrine built around a spring that is said to have been discovered by Moses. In that harsh and unforgiving wilderness, water is everything. The advanced and thriving Nabatean civilization that carved the remarkable tombs in the sandstone cliffs of Petra came to an abrupt end when the Romans took a position upstream from them and cut of their water.

Where Sami and I had our flat tire was only a few hundred kilometers south of the vast expanse of desert that the Judean exiles crossed to return from Babylon to rebuild Jerusalem, roughly 2500 hundred years ago. It was to these exiles that the prophet addressed words of consolation and encouragement:

The community of exiled Jews in Babylon had endured captivity there for a generation. The oldest among them still remembered their humiliating defeat by Nebuchadnezzar, though many more had been born into captivity. Though the whole community must have been delighted when Cyrus the Persian defeated the Babylonians and allowed the exiles to return to Jerusalem and rebuild the city and its Temple, many of them did not want to leave the only life they had ever known. In fact, enough of them did stay that there is still a remnant of a Jewish community in Baghdad that has its origins in that period of exile. It is understandable. Who would want to leave the only life they had ever known to cross a harsh and hostile landscape to a ruined city? But this is exactly what the voice crying out in the wilderness called them to do.

There is a familiar passage at the end of this chapter. We often read it at funerals. I am convinced that, because of the image of eagles’ wings, this is where we get the idea of angels having wings. In this passage, you can tell the prophet is appealing to the elders of the community who remember the holy city, and wants to convince them that it is worth the trip home.

In many ways, this passage is hard for us to grasp, living in the affluent suburbs of the twenty-first century. Even though we hear news from that exact region every day, the desert wilderness is something we know little about, unless we visit as a tourist. But every one of us knows what it is to pass through a difficult period of our lives, when we feel barren and dry. Perhaps it is depression, addiction or another chronic illness. Perhaps it is a difficult family conflict, a period of vocational questioning or career challenges. In our national life, we are divided in red and blue rather than “one nation indivisible.” Forget the politics, who among us feels anything but heartache at the news of soldiers, marines or Iraqi civilians getting blown up, and I know we feel for all the families whose seasonal festivities are overshadowed by the absence of loved ones either serving overseas or having made the ultimate sacrifice. Even if we have never been in the wilderness, it has been in us at one time or another. Sometimes it is hard to work up a holiday spirit.

Actually, I think it is usually hard to work up a real holiday spirit, because the material aspects of the season are so much in our faces. We use the word “spirit” a lot, but mostly what is going on is consumption rather than contemplation. The other thing that we find hard to grasp in our culture is the simple concept of waiting. “Those who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength…” Holiday tree, Christmas tree, let’s all take a deep breath and remember that when we hear that generic phrase “season’s greetings” that the season we Christians are currently observing is Advent. The Christmas season only lasts twelve days and does not begin for another three weeks. The season we are in is all about waiting, and kindling lights of hope, peace, love, and joy.

In the Gospel Lesson, Mark quoted that familiar passage from Isaiah, originally issued to a weary community of exiles. Mark’s readers lived in dangerous and confusing times and they were badly in need of hope and reassurance. For him, the voice crying in the wilderness was John the Baptist, who similarly promised God’s deliverance. To those who sought him out, John told them to cleanse themselves and prepare for One greater than he. In the middle of the wilderness, John made a promise.

Mark’s Gospel does not contain an account of the Nativity the way that Matthew and Luke do, but for the purposes of Advent, I think it is important to think about the fact that it is a child we are waiting for. We are waiting for the arrival of our God in a vulnerable infant born to a poor family living under foreign occupation. Children have a way of focusing us on what is really important. We can be sentimental about our children or we can dedicate ourselves to being the village that is needed to raise them. And the Global Village is not a cliché, it is a reality. As we busy our children with soccer games and music lessons (all good things), in parts of Asia their contemporaries weave rugs, and stitch clothing. In Africa, kids who should be in Middle School carry rifles and fight wars. As we await the arrival of the Child of Bethlehem, let us hope and pray and work for a world where all children will know peace and justice and joy and love. As we await the Child of Bethlehem, let us hope and pray for the wisdom, patience and commitment to raise our children to value peace and justice and joy and love. The voice crying in the wilderness is calling us to a stubborn hope and a steadfast commitment to keep moving through the wilderness and hold on to the promise, in a world without end. Amen.

The Second Church in Newton
West Newton, MA
Melissa Kreider
First Sunday in Advent
November 27, 2005

Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.

Really – think about it. Why do you come to church? Most of you are busy. You don’t have many mornings to sleep in. It’s so nice just to stay home and read the paper or listen to the radio – to feel the slowness of a Sunday morning, especially on a long weekend. Or to get things done around the house.

Maybe you had to drag your kids who didn’t want to come. Or you have a lot of homework. Or you’re getting older and just don’t move as quickly anymore, and it would’ve been easier just to stay at home.

Why did you come, anyway? I doubt it was just to hear ME preach. Just think about it for a few seconds, and then let us pray together.

Loving God, may the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight. AMEN.

Do you remember the big Leonid meteor showers a few years ago? I remember it was the fall of 2001, and I had just moved to Boston. My friend Hannah came to pick me up at about 3 AM so we could drive out to a field at Drumlin Farm in Lincoln, where she worked.

I love to go camping and look for shooting stars, but this was different – this was really a STORM of meteors. I remember driving through Belmont, past the bright neon lights of gas stations, and seeing HUGE fireballs just whiz by out my back seat window, never mind the bright city lights.

There were about half a dozen of us squeezed in her car, and when we got to the field, we had company. Here it was, the middle of the night, I think in the middle of the week, and there were cars and cars of other crazy people. People with blankets and sleeping bags. Strangers, we all lay, spread out together under the stars, drifting in and out of sleep, gasping intermittently at this awesome display of the heavens.

Isaiah calls to God: “O that you would tear open the heavens and come down, so that the mountains would quake at your presence – as when fire kindles brushwood and the fire causes water to boil… But….you have hidden your face from us.” Isaiah wants an unmistakable sign of God’s presence.

I’m not sure how much I was thinking about it at the time, but that meteor shower was just a couple months after September 11, 2001. It must have been somehow especially comforting right then to have our gazes shifted to the heavens, away from the grief and fear and hatred, all the vulnerability and confusion down here.

To have the sense that there was something bigger, something awesome, something following an ageless rhythm. Somehow, the sense of glimpsing God dancing in the universe, letting us know that she or he is here with us, despite the fact that God so often seems hidden, distant.

This year doesn’t feel so far off from 2001. We could probably use some heavenly fireworks, some symphony of light right about now. Most of us are safe, are well-fed, aren’t feeling that our safety net could come crashing down at any second.

Yet I know I’m not the only one who thinks that this year feels eerily apocalyptic. Tidal waves and flood waters and trembling earth. Bodies drowning and freezing, dying of disease and exposure. Bombs and hatred and seemingly endless war and conflict.

Mark wrote in the chaos of the destruction of Jerusalem: “But in those days, after that suffering, the sun will be darkened, and the moon will not give its light, and the stars will be falling from heaven, and the powers in the heavens will be shaken. Then they will see ‘the Son of Man coming in clouds’ with great power and glory.”

And Isaiah pleaded to God: “O that you would tear open the heavens and come down…”

What would it feel like for God to come down? To know that God was enveloping us, was rising up to shepherd this whole world into peace, into warmth and shelter and healing? To give us strength to be the hands of God in this troubled world? What would a sign look like?

A skyfull of meteors on a crisp black night?... A field of wildflowers and clover?... The first warm day of spring… The silence of a fresh snowblanket… The softness of a brand new baby…

I’m not an astronomer, but I haven’t heard of any big eclipses or comets or heavenly chariots coming up anytime soon. But the leaves have been putting on a show. The blue sky has been stunning, the snow flurries gentle. We’ve been giving thanks for our blessings and feasting on the bounty of the Earth’s harvest. The darkness of winter has been creeping up on us again.

…And Happy New Year! The Hollands lit the first Advent candle this morning to mark the very beginning of a new Church year.

Maybe you can tell from the creation imagery I’ve been using this morning, but the seasons and the natural world are powerful sources of grounding in my life. And I love the way the Church year weaves with the natural seasons: how Easter comes with the greening of the Earth.

How in Advent, we watch and wait, searching for light in the darkness which is descending upon us. How at Christmas we feast and kindle our bright lights in the darkness. We celebrate Jesus’ new hope, his breaking into the world with us – just as we have celebrated the end of the longest night of the year, knowing that our hope is growing.

Mark, too, advises Christians to look to the natural world for signs: “From the fig tree learn its lesson: as soon as its branch becomes tender and puts forth its leaves, you know that summer is near. So also, when you see these things taking place, you know that he is near, at the very gates.”

One of my professors at Andover Newton told me that he recently asked a Jewish friend of his if he could give him an analogy to somehow explain to him why he observed the Jewish law so strictly, how it was meaningful to him.

It would be so much quicker just to do it yourself. And the cake might turn out better. And certainly, the mess would be easier to clean up.

Her joy, standing up on a stool in a little apron. Sticking her tongue way out to lick the batter off of the beaters. Grinning into the mirror to see the chocolate icing smeared all over her face. Watching her pride as the family eats the cake together.

The friend said that this was the best way he could think of to explain his joy at observing Shabbat. At wearing a Kippah on his head. Of lighting a candle and going to Synagogue to say the prayers on the anniversary of a loved one’s death. Of celebrating the Passover.

It was as if God had decided to bake the cake together with him. He wasn’t going through his days alone. He was celebrating God’s presence with him and his community through each day and each season.

This is how we can imagine the Christian liturgical year. Instead of trudging through days which blend into each other with no joy or distinction, we have been given the gift of seasons of darkness and light, celebrations of mourning and waiting, or feasting and singing.

Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel writes that in our hectic world, “we suffer from a deeply rooted dread of time… Time to us is…a slick treacherous monster with a jaw like a furnace incinerating every moment of our lives.” Heschel insists that God calls us instead to savor time as a sacred, precious gift.

God walks with us through the cycling seasons of time, and we walk together as a church community, this small community and the larger community of the Church universal. God calls us to wonder, child-like, at our world. To remember we’re not baking the cake alone.