February 19, 2012                                                   Sermon by Peter Terpenning

Community United Church of Christ

Boulder, Colorado

“Imagine Another World is Possible”

Mark 9:2-9, Holly Near, “The Great Peace March Song”

It is Transfiguration Sunday again. Each year we move into Lent with the story of Jesus going up the mountain with Peter, James and John and being transfigured. In other words, his face and garments were glowing as with the presence of God: like Moses coming down from Mr. Sinai. Great prophets of the past, Elijah and Moses, appear with him, and God’s voice comes to the disciples: “This is my son”. Naturally, they want to stay on the mountain – this is great, there is certainty, God’s presence, heroism, and joy. But the glow fades and it is soon time to return to the endless suffering on the plains below: people seeking healing: lepers, blind, the poor, the hungry – reality.

A friend of mine told me about attending an event in a prison last June. A pastor, he was invited to be part of the Spiritual Resources booth at a celebrations of “Success Inside and Out”, an event for inmates who were within 6 months of release. People from outside were invited who could conceivably be resources to the inmates as they attempted to adapt to life on the outside. There were GED trainers, drug and alcohol counselors, pastors, social workers, job counselors and others. My friend said it had a festive atmosphere, unusual in a jail; there was even a fashion show called, “dress for success”. In the gymnasium at the jail, the inmates and resource people circulated freely together. All the barriers and glass walls were down and everyone socialized freely. Everyone stood in line together affably, waiting to pick up their lunches of subway sandwiches and there was coffee and pastry. After about two hours, suddenly a prison bell rang harshly and immediately the guards moved among the group weeding out the inmates and directing them to sit in the stands. The guests were directed toward the doors and the tables began to be taken down. It was like a curtain that was open suddenly closed. The door slammed shut and it was time to leave the mountaintop. For a couple of short hours there was the illusion of equality and freedom, but then reality descended like a cloud.

We all have experienced thin places: times or places we felt particularly close to God, or had a vision of hope for human kind. In 1986, I participated in the Great Peace March. It was a march across America, from Los Angeles to Washington DC. I was a local organizer in Cleveland, Ohio, where Laura and were living, and I was serving St. Paul’s Community Church, a church kind of like the Denver Inner City Mission with programs for low income people, homeless and at risk children. The Great Peace March had gone bankrupt near the beginning, the marchers had refused to give up, and their numbers had been growing steadily as they went across America. By the time they got to Cleveland there were 500-600 people walking. It was a huge operation, with support trucks and crew, advance planners who arrived to direct us a few days before the march reached our city. We arranged for food, some housing, health care, interactions at churches, synagogues and schools, concerts, a place to camp and tons of details. There were Buddhists, Christians, Hindus, Muslims, Jews, people of all races, walking together with a vision that nuclear weapons could be disarmed, the cold war come to an end and people of all nations would spontaneously rise up and demand peace when the marchers made it to Washington. Local organizers went out and met the marchers and walked with them to their campsite just west of the Flats in Cleveland. We had this momentary vision that peace was possible, anything seemed possible.

A footnote to this march was shared with me by Phil Campbell, the former pastor of CUCC in the 1980’s. Evidently, the Great Peace March came through Boulder, and some of the marchers visited CUCC and were invited to tell their story and share their vision. At the end of the morning worship a young marcher from Pennsylvania was standing at coffee hour talking to some members and was quoted to say: “Man, people don’t know that churches like this exist.”

Thin places – mountain top experiences, most of us have had them. Times when anything seemed possible, when we get a glimpse of how another world could be possible. Experiences that stoke our imagination. Tex Sample tells the story on the video series, “Living the Questions”; of Martin Luther King, Jr’s speech at the end of the Selma to Montgomery walk. Robb Lapp was there. It was a moment of transfiguration. The Rocky Flats Encirclement, which this church community participated in, was a such a moment of transfiguration. But it could be an experience as seemingly minor as when you were lost in a foreign country and a local person smiled at you and helped you find your way. Dramatic worship services, transformative journeys you took, you wedding, the birth of a child, a visit to Iona or another pilgrimage site, a flock of geese flying far overhead, honking their way to Canada, a fall of flowers. I invite you to go in your memory to a time and place you were transfigured with hope and imagination that the human race might rise to nobility after all. A time when everything seemed possible, perhaps when faith suddenly seemed real, or God’s presence was palpable.

Such times are important, and they should be remembered and nourished. But the real issue is how do we take these experiences off the mountain? How do we transform the mountaintop into ordinary life? How do we translate these experiences into the lived reality of the present – into our ordinary lives? If we can’t go down the mountain and get to work in reality, then the trans figurative moments are lost, and they might as well not have happened. The real work of life is living the daily routine with hope, compassion and a vision of what is possible.

I think that’s why Peter, James and John remembered the transfiguration and found it important enough to share years later with the early Christian organizers. That’s why we immortalize Abraham Lincoln and George Washington after all these years. I think it’s important that we not just observe the Transfiguration of Jesus as an odd, one time event that may or may not have happened 2,000 year ago. Instead, our job is to lift up that moment and all those moments of our lives when we were transfigured and imagined a different world: a world of compassion, hope, peace and equality. Then with those memories firmly in hand, we continue the greatest challenge, to bring the vision down the mountain and into ordinary life.

February 12, 2012                                                   Sermon by Peter Terpenning

Community United Church of Christ

Boulder, Colorado

“Namaan’s Healing: Letting Go of Control”

2 Kings 5:1-14,  “Into the Demon’s Mouth”, Aura Glaser (Tricycle Mag. Spring, 2012)

Namaan was the successful military commander of the army of Aram, which is now Syria. He was also a leper, having one of many skin diseases the Hebrews listed under this heading. Namaan was a rich man, with many servants, but he couldn’t find a cure in Syria. In his household was slave girl from Israel who told her mistress, Namaan’s wife, that there was prophet in Israel who could cure him. This prophet was Elisha. Namaan was desperate and went to his king asking permission to go to Israel to seek healing. This was tricky because they were not at peace and Namaan was known in Israel as the general who had killed the Israelite king: Ahab. So the king of Aram gave him a letter and he went off armed with lots of money and gifts to buy a cure.

When he arrived in Israel the king there is afraid that this is a trick to restart the fighting and doesn’t know what to do. But Elisha hears about the dilemma and tells the king to send Namaan to him. When Namaan gets to Elisha’s home, Elisha is not impressed by his power and money and doesn’t come out to meet him, just tells him how to be healed: go to the Jordan River and bath 7 times. Well Namaan is angry, for he is used to being in control and having people jump when he says jump. He thought Elisha would come out and pray over him and do some fancy ceremony befitting Namaan’s importance. Elisha ought to be pleased Namaan has belittled himself to come to Israel. Aren’t there perfectly good rivers in Aram in which to bathe? Who does Elisha think he is anyway? And what’s with this God of Israel? Aren’t there perfectly good gods in Aram? Namaan is ready to leave, but his servants, the powerless people, recognize the truth in Elisha’s directions. They convince him to humble himself, to give up control of the situation and do what he has been told. After all, if Elisha had given him something difficult to do, wouldn’t he have done that? Why not try out this river and this new God? So Namaan gives up because he is desperate and sick, the wrong reasons perhaps, but he does and he goes and bathes in the river – and is healed. He goes back to Elisha and humbles himself, and promised to honor this God who has healed him.

Control is one of our biggest obstacles to faith. The desire to be in control and feel we are solving problems ourselves seems to be a basic part of being human. We begin very early to try and exert control over our environments and our parents, as any parent of a two year old can attest. So it’s not unusual that Namaan and the rest of us have such a hard time turning over control to God. A medieval monk named Dorotheus of Gaza described the life of faith as: “being free from wanting certain things to happen, and remaining so trusting in God, that what is happening will be the thing you want and you will be at peace with all”.

I read a story in Tricycle Magazine this week about giving up control that convicted me to my core, and helped me deal with some of my fears. It is an old story of Milarepa, the Tibetan Buddhist teacher and hermit. Milarepa lived in a cave part of the time and once when he went out to find firewood, he returned to find his cave full of demons. Perhaps they had been there all the time, and only as Milarepa became more advanced in his practice could he see them. Anyway, his first thought was to get rid of these demons as fast as possible. So he ran that them, made noise and tried to chase them away. The demons were completely unfazed, in fact, the more he chased them, the more comfortable and settled in they seemed to be. So Milarepa changed tactics. He decided to teach them the dharma (Buddhist practices and teachings) hoping that hearing the truth of Buddhism they will change their minds and leave. He seemed to be accepting them, but actually, his motivation is still to get rid of them as quickly as possible. After teaching for a while he looked around and realized all the demons are still there, they simply stared at him with their huge bulging eyes. So Milarepa gave up. He realizes that since they could not be manipulated to leave, perhaps he had something to learn from them. So he looked deeply into the eyes of each demon and bowed to them, and said, “It like we’re going to be here together forever. I open myself to whatever you have to teach me”. In that moment all the demons except one disappeared.  One huge, especially fierce demon remained, with flaring nostrils and dripping fangs. So Milarepa let go even further, stepping over to the largest demon he offered himself completely, holding nothing back. “Eat me if you wish”, he says and placed his head in its mouth. At that moment the largest demon bowed low and dissolved into space.

This story has been a gift to me, helping me understand that the only way for me to grow in faith and deal with the fears, anger, sadness and other emotions that plague me, is to accept that they are going to part of my life and start to see what I can learn from them. The desire to get rid of fear, or anger, sadness or addiction, just makes the emotions dig in deeper. The effort to rise above them spiritually and meditate or pray my way out of them has little effect except that they go deeper within and hide, waiting for the opportune moment to slay me to my knees. But if I let go, trust God, and welcome these afflictive emotions and thoughts, they disappear.

Namaan had to give up. He had to surrender, let go of trying to have control of the situation, and trust Elisha, and trust God. Then he was healed. We too need to give up our control, our personal struggle, our personal need to take charge of problems, let go and turn things over to God. Accept the situation and see what we can learn from it. That is a way to healing. Unfortunately, we are not always healed as we hope, physically and mentally, but we are healed spiritually and find a way to live with our afflictions, our pain, our illness, our fears. Namaan learned trust and surrender.

In James Taylor’s song, “Look Up From Your Life”, he wrote: “For an un-believer like you, There’s not much they can do, It would turn you away, Though I hate to see you surrender, You need to surrender, We must find you a way to: Look up from your life – Up from your life – Look on up from your life -Look up from your life. There’s a river running under your feet, Under this house, Under this street, Straight from the heart, Ancient and sweet, On its way back home.”

January 29, 2012                                                    Sermon by Peter Terpenning

Community United Church of Christ

Boulder, Colorado

“As One With Authority”

Mark 1:21-28, Howard Thurman, “I Seek Truth and Light” (Meditations of the Heart)

The scene in Mark today is in Capernaum, a small city on the coast of the Sea of Galilee. Jesus has just begun his ministry of sharing the good news of God and gathered a few disciples. He arrives to teach in a synagogue. We don’t know what he talked about, but the people were amazed that he taught as one with authority, not like one of the Scribes. Scribes were teachers of the law. They weren’t paid clergy, but were students of the Law of Moses as contained in the written scrolls of the Torah. Their vocation was to teach and interpret this law to the Hebrew people. They were a bit like what we might call fundamentalists, focusing on the authority of the written word and trying to follow it exactly. They believed that God’s authority was best found in scripture. Jesus had another kind of authority – and I wonder what that was.

The story goes on and a man, it doesn’t say who exactly, who was possessed by an evil spirit cries out to Jesus and names him. Perhaps this was we would call a mentally deranged person, or perhaps not, perhaps one of the supposedly sane people of the synagogue who was listening and saddening cries out. In any case, Jesus speaks to the spirit and it comes out of the man. Jesus seems to have authority over even the parts of people that are possessed or evil. The people of the synagogue recognize Jesus’ authority as coming from God, that he speaks the truth and has the truth within him.

I am wondering about this idea of authority. I have been starting a new class of Confirmation this winter, with 8^th and 9^th graders. One of the first things I talk to them about is the non-doctrinal nature of the congregational tradition, and how we believe each person has the authority of God within them. Non-doctrinal or non-creedal communities such as ours or the Quakers believe that each person can interpret theology and God’s presence on their own and do not need clergy, bishops or popes to tell us what to believe. Even the scripture is open to interpretation. This is crucial for the confirmands to understand so they will start trying to figure out what their personal theology is. What is this authority that Jesus had, and that we believe each person to have within them. The simple answer is that authority is God’s truth. It is that within us, and the people of Capernaum, that recognizes truth when we hear it or see it. Jesus, by all accounts, had it.

Jeremiah 31 reads: “I have put my truth in your innermost mind, and I have written it on your heart. No longer does a man need to teach his brothers and sisters about God. For you all know me, from the most ignorant to the most learned, from the poorest to the most powerful”. I believe this to be true, that we all have it within us to recognize the truth when we see it. This is because we are all part of God, God is within us. In a sense, we recognize God when we see God – in truth expressed, or compassionate action, love or friendship.

Howard Thurman, who we have been hearing from this morning, tells the story of being at a Quaker meeting. He sat in the quiet meeting and found it very appealing to him, for he was a person who meditated and sought a mystical relationship with God in the quiet of his heart. He decided he would seek what God wanted him to say that day, if anything, through meditation and sat quietly, seeking to go inward to his quiet center and listen. He shared my belief that such truth is available within each of us. It caught him off guard as he started to see words written in his conscious mind, almost like he could read them. They were words from the Sermon on the Mount. It began to gather these words to speak them to the meeting. He opened his eyes and began to stand when a woman’s voice behind him began to speak the very words he was thinking of, from the same verses of Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount. Amazed, he sat down and listened as one person after another rose to comment on these words. Finally, he rose and shared that he had had the same words given to him.

Have you ever had the experience of being in a meeting or gathering and had something to add, but resolve to keep you mouth shut to see what others have on their minds. Then to you surprise someone says exactly what you were thinking. I suppose this is not necessarily remarkable if one is in a group of people with similar background and education, that the same ideas might pop up, but I still find it remarkable and wonder if we are tapping into some kind of truth that speaks in us and through us.

I remember attending a forum on peace with the Interfaith Leaders for Non-Violence that used to meet during the Iraq war in Boulder. Seven different clergy rose to speak from Mennonite, Quaker, Hindu, Presbyterian, Sufi, Unitarian and Muslim traditions. A Hindu woman, Alananda, rose to speak and said that it was a fundamental mistake not to think of Iraqi children as our children. We think of our children in our families and our communities as our children and seek to protect them. But the fact is that Iraqi children affected by the war are our children as well and need our protection. Her words touched me deeply and the truth of them seemed to reverberate in the people of the room. She spoke a truth and we all recognized it – and I still remember it. Howard Thurman said it well: “Human life is one and all men members one of another, this is the hard core of religious experience” We all share truth and recognize it when we hear it. This is to speak with authority, the authority of truth with a capital T, which I consider to be the authority of God.

This is basically mysticism. The definition of mysticism is the belief that people can encounter God. To encounter God is to believe that God is present in creation and within us, and we can encounter God. We can seek this presence is meditation and prayer, in scripture, in worship, in communicating with others. Not all of communication is truth, but we know it when we hear it. Truth has authority, this is what Jesus had.

But what about Jesus’ authority over the unclean spirit? Is this relevant to us or is it nonsense of a non-scientific age. Certainly, we understand physical and mental disease differently now, and don’t think of healing as the casting out of spirits. However, it is true that people can be possessed by spirits of addiction, alcoholism, pornography, gambling and drug addiction. People can be possessed also by fear, anxiety, anger, busy-ness, affluenza or being workaholics. Turning these kinds of possessions over to God – letting go and letting God help us manage them can feel like healing. It does seem that God has the authority to step in a remove these burdens from our minds and spirits. I would be remise if I did not witness that prayer and faith can at times relieve us from the suffering and burdens we bear in our spirits. In naming the authority of Jesus I have personally experienced the peace of God when suffering with fear and anxiety.

My point today is that a basic part of faith in God for me, is the belief that there is truth with a capital T that is God. Jesus expressed it, and he is a source of Truth for humanity – though not the exclusive source. It is within us, and we can recognize it when we see it. Many spiritual leaders and other people have expressed this Truth. It is like the wild grass that cannot be prevented from growing through cement. It is everywhere and it keeps popping up. God is part of us and we are part of God. We can trust in God.

January 22, 2012                                                    Sermon by Peter Terpenning

Community United Church of Christ

Boulder, Colorado

“Evangelism in a Progressive Context”

Mark 1:14-20, Jonah

As I read the lectionary from Mark about Jesus coming to share the good news and calling the Disciples, I realized I have seldom, if ever, addressed the subject of evangelism in a sermon. What is Christian evangelism and is it a good idea? Spreading the good news of Jesus has been an important part of Christianity for much of Christian history, yet I feel very ambivalent about it. We heard from Marcus Borg in his book, The Heart of Christianity, that his reasons for being Christian do not include seeing Christianity as the “one true religion”. In his book he makes a strong case that the reality of religious pluralism in the world negates the idea of Christian exclusivism. If we accept the idea that different religions are different paths to the same place, as I do, then it is not acceptable, and not very Christian, to seek to convert people to Christianity as a way to ensure their salvation. One survey on line asked Americans about evangelism and came to the conclusion that for most people today, evangelism is seen as negative. When the people doing the survey said Kleenex, most people thought of tissue. They said Hoover and most thought of vacuum cleaners. They evangelism or evangelical and most people thought of “judgmental, control and hatred”.  When surveyed whether Christianity is the only true religion, only 17% agreed. Asking whether Christians should seek to convert people of other faiths, 71% said no. Clearly, our ideas about proselytizing is changing.

So what do I think about evangelism? The gospel of Mark is pretty clear on this point, that Jesus came to Galilee proclaiming the good news of God. I think it’s important as a starting point to note that Jesus proclaimed the good news of God. He didn’t proclaim the good news of Christianity, or even of Christ, or of salvation, or eternal life. Just the good news of God. That is not an exclusive statement. To return to Marcus Borg, he is very clear in his book that the good news has nothing to do with life after death, but the good news of Jesus was for now, this life. What Jesus offered was wholeness, healing, enlightenment, unitive thinking, liberation for captives, sight for the blind, peace, fearless; now, in this life!

The story of Jonah, the lectionary reading we did not hear read this morning, offers one of the best examples for me of the good news of God. Jonah, you may remember, hated the Ninevites because they had fought a brutal war with Israel, and when God wanted Jonah to go to the Ninevites and offer forgiveness and tell them of God’s love for them, he refused. He did not want to see the Ninevites forgiven, so he ran away. God pursued him, even into the belly of the great fish, and Jonah eventually agrees to go to Ninevah. He preaches there and the Ninevites do repent. Then Jonah is really mad and he says, “You see, God, that is why I fled to Tarshish at the beginning, I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love”. Jonah means it as an accusation, but I use it now as a statement of the good news of God that Jesus offered. God is “gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love”. Wherever this message is proclaimed, in Christian communities or Hinduism or Islam, that is an evangelical message I can get behind.

My other thought I had on evangelism this week I learned from Tim Tebow. Though I probably don’t see eye to eye with him theologically, I learned something from him last week. I have been pretty critical of Tim Tebow and amused by the idea that God could care about the outcome of football games or touchdowns, but Mark Lewis sent an article to the men’s group by Rick Reilly, a cynical sports writer that cast Tebow in a new light for me:  Reilly wrote: “Every week, Tebow picks out someone who is suffering, or who is dying, or who is injured. He flies these people and their families to the Broncos game, rents them a car, puts them up in a nice hotel, buys them dinner (usually at a Dave & Buster’s), gets them and their families pregame passes, visits with them just before kickoff (!), gets them 30-yard-line tickets down low, visits with them after the game (sometimes for an hour), has them walk him to his car, and sends them off with a basket of gifts. Home or road, win or lose, hero or goat.” I learned from Rick Reilly that I have been unfair to Tebow. Whatever his theology, he is clearly a person of compassion. Good for him. He is proclaiming the good news of God. That makes want to listen to him.

So I started thinking of who in my life has made a difference and proclaimed the good news of God to me. Who, by their actions or way of living have inspired me to pay attention to them and to what they say? I think of Thich Nhat Hanh, the Buddhist teacher from who I first learned to meditate, whose engaged Buddhism is based in compassion for all people. The Dalai Lama, another Buddhist comes to mind. As does one of my personal heroes, Mohandas Gandhi. These three have all evangelized me with the good news of God and they aren’t even Christian. But there are Christians too. St. Francis of Assisi and his radical poverty and compassion stands out. A minister named Al Pitcher who started an intentional community in Chicago that Laura and I joined in the 80’s was an important influence on my life. He preached at my ordination. Another preacher, Ralph Surratt, a lay Methodist preacher I worked for in the mountains of North Carolina in seminary renewed my faith in Christianity and showed me that perhaps I could enter the ministry. My grandmother, whose name Evangeline, now gives me pause. My mother and father. Nelson Mandela. Martin Luther King, Jr. Thomas Merton. Henri Nouwen. Rumi. Teresa of Avila. Jesus. So many people of all faiths have been people who embodied the good news of God. I realized that when someone lives out this good news or God’s love and compassion, then I want to pay attention to what they say. They become Evangelists. I think of St. Francis’ words on evangelism: “Preach the gospel at all times and, when necessary, use words.”

I think we are called to be evangelists, sharing the good news of God. There are lots of ways to do this, but the best is by living lives of compassion and mercy. One thing it doesn’t involve is telling people they will go to hell if they don’t believe in Jesus. Nor does it involve any kind of exclusive message about how to be saved, or judgment or hate.

Evangelism – sharing the good news of God, is, (to quote Jonah again): God is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. When we offer mercy, good news is spread. When we show compassion, good news is spread. When we love our neighbor, or even better, when we love our enemy, good news is spread. When we offer a cup of water, or food to the hungry. When we offer kindness – when we love. Preach the gospel at all time, and when necessary, use words.

January 15, 2012                                                    Sermon by Peter Terpenning

Community United Church of Christ

Boulder, Colorado

“Vocations – The Word of the Lord is Rare”

I Samuel 3:1-20

Barbara Brown Taylor, in her book, An Altar in the World, tells of a time she was asked to speak at a church and asked the wise old Priest what he wanted he to talk about. All he said was, “Come tell us what is saving your life now”. I think that’s a pretty good place to start with every sermon. In fact, I’d like to ask every one of you that question. “What’s saving your life right now?” Dramatic perhaps, but I think most of us are just getting by somehow, and struggling, listening, hoping to hear something that will make it a little easier to face the responsibilities and suffering of this life.

When the story we heard from Samuel was taking place, Israel was in a bad way. The old priest Eli, was just hanging on, and his sons had control of most of the rituals of the Temple, but they were corrupt and were milking the priesthood for all the money and power they could grab. Our passage says that, “The word of the Lord was rare in those days”. That could apply to almost any days, any time in history. Certainly, we could say today that the word of the Lord is rare. It’s comforting somehow, since misery loves company, to think that Eli’s time was not so different than our own. Few people were having visions, few were feeling that God was communicating with them, and probably the few who did were a little suspect. If someone tells me the word of the Lord has come to them, I would be immediately suspicious and skeptical. But the word of the Lord has always been rare, if we are talking about revelations and words we can hear.

Samuel was a little boy. His mother Hannah had been barren, and had a vision that she would have a son who would be a prophet. She became miraculously pregnant, and thanked God with Hannah’s song, a poem much like Mary’s song that she says when she finds she is miraculously pregnant with Jesus. Hannah sees Samuel as a gift from God and takes him to the Temple and asks Eli to accept him as a student –dedicates his life to serving God. Samuel sleeps in the Temple and Eli sleeps outside the door, and the word of the Lord comes to Samuel. But he doesn’t have much experience with such things (who does?) and thinks it’s Eli calling him. He runs out to answer and Eli, probably grumpily for being woken, sends him back to lay down. He hears the word again and runs out to Eli, who sends him back. After the third time it dawns on Eli that perhaps Samuel is being called by God. We aren’t told if Eli was ever called by God, but he has faith enough to think that Samuel might be, so he tells him to go back in if he hears the word again to answer: “Speak, Lord, your servant is listening”.  It’s interesting that Eli didn’t try to horn in on the vision, or run in there to see if he can hear anything. Perhaps he knew that if the call wasn’t for him, he would hear nothing, just the wind in the tower, or the mouse rustling around behind the altar.

The word “to call” in Latin is Vocare. From this word we get our word, vocation. Vocation is to be called to some career, or action. Ministers and teachers, doctors and others are sometimes said to have a vocation – work that they are called to do. When I got to seminary, for the first time, people began to ask me what my “call” was. How had I been called to ministry. This was a tough question for me, because I didn’t feel called. I was, as I am now, skeptical of someone who said they felt called by God. And yet, I have to admit that I did have an experience when I was very lost and alone and prayed for help and had what John Wesley would call, “a warming of the heart”, or a sense of God’s peace passing all understanding. It was that experience that I’ve never been able to explain that has stayed with me over the years. Was it a call? I have no idea. But I don’t think most people have a sense that God is calling them to a particular work or action. Yet something in us hungers for this assurance, and listens carefully when the Bible describes Samuel’s call and the reaction of old Eli. Is God calling us? Does the word of the Lord come to some people?

What I want to say to you today is that one of the things that saves my life today is that I believe that God is present with us, and in us, and does call each of us to action to ways of living. It is possible to listen for the “still, small voice” of God amidst this noisy, busy world. There are many voices calling to us that are much louder than God: voices of our culture that tell us we need to make money, and seek success and power. Voices that tell us what kind of car, clothing, houses, hairstyles, romances and jobs we ought to have. Voices that tell we are not good enough, not successful enough, not thin enough. The voice of God is usually just that opposite of these voices. It comes to us through Jesus, and other wisdom teachers, through nature, through other people, music and art and love from others. There is that within us that recognizes the voice when we hear it. We know the truth when we encounter it. When someone loves someone else, or makes a sacrifice for the good of others. When a flock of geese flies overhead and calls to us that the world is beautiful and life is worth living. When another person shares their heart and their secret pain with us and it gives us the strength and courage to share our pain.

Henry Nouwen says: “God calls everyone who is listening; there is no individual or group for whom God’s call is reserved”. In one sense the word of the Lord is rare, but in another sense God’s call is all around us, all the time, calling out to us from life. For some reason, when we start listening, it gets louder. When we pay attention, it seems to become easier to hear it and see it. When we trust that God is with us, then, for some reason, it becomes stronger.

Thomas Merton heard the word of God, in a sense, in Louisville on a shopping trip. In “Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander”, he writes: “In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all those people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers. It was like waking from a dream of separateness, of spurious self-isolation in a special world, the world of renunciation and supposed holiness…This sense of liberation from an illusory difference was such a relief and such a joy to me that I almost laughed out loud. And I suppose my happiness could have taken form in the words: “Thank God, thank God that I am like other men, that I am only a man among others.” To think that for sixteen or seventeen years I have been taking seriously this pure illusion that is implicit in so much of our monastic thinking…I have the immense joy of being man, a member of a race in which God Himself became incarnate. As if the sorrows and stupidities of the human condition could overwhelm me, now that I realize what we all are. And if only everybody could realize this! But it cannot be explained. There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun. Then it was as if I suddenly saw the secret beauty of their hearts, the depths of their hearts where neither sin nor desire nor self-knowledge can reach, the core of their reality, the person that each one is in God’s eyes. If only they could all see themselves as they really are. If only we could see each other that way all the time. There would be no more war, no more hatred, no more cruelty, no more greed…I suppose the big problem would be that we would fall down and worship each other. But this cannot be seen, only believed and “understood” by a peculiar gift.

God’s voice is all around us, calling us all the time. We need to open our ears to listen. We have to trust that God is present and be awake to the sacredness of life.

December 18, 2011                                                         Sermon by Peter Terpenning

Community United Church of Christ

Boulder, Colorado

“Life is a Gift, Receive It”

John 1:1-9, Henri Nouwen, “Waiting for God” (in Watch for the Light, Orbis Books)

Martin Buber, the Jewish theologian and philosopher once told a story from the Hebrew Cabbala, a collection of mystical teachings: “When the world began the light of God came down to earth in a clay vessel. But the light was too strong and the vessel burst. The sparks of light became embedded in everything. This is in a measure how I often experience the world,” Buber wrote, “I find the light of God in everything and know it is the same light in me, that I am part of the light present in all creation. In moment of illumination there is no separation.” In John’s gospel today we heard, “The true light that enlivens every person was coming into the world.” “In this One was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it”. I find this a helpful image of God’s presence. The light of God present in each one of us and all around us. This light embedded in creation and in me, present in the life of Jesus of Nazareth: Emmanuel, God with us.

Christmas is well upon us, whether we are ready or not. I am not ready, by the way. A friend of mine remarked: “Why does Christmas have to come as such a busy time of year?” A clerk in a hardware store asked he was, said: “I’ll be alright once I get this Santa thing over with.” It’s easy to get caught up in the busy-ness and tension of this time of year. It seems everyone trying so hard to make it nice, get things done and enjoy the holidays. I want to propose that this is exactly the wrong attitude to take. Christmas is not something that has to get done, or be organized, but something we receive. It is represents something God did, or is doing. My mistake is acting like it’s up to me to get there, to make it happen. Like the presence of God, Christmas just is and I can receive it.

Henri Nouwen wrote a wonderful essay found in a book that Kari Silva found in my bookshelf and handed to me, called “Waiting for God”. Part of his essay was read earlier. His idea is that we have a hard time waiting. This is because we are trying to control what we are waiting for. We have specific ideas of what we are wishing for, what we are waiting for. We hope that the bus will come, that the baby will be born healthy, that the test results will be good, that our child will arrive safely, that our spouse will get home in time for the party, that the plane will be on time, that the storm will hold off until we get home. We like to be in control. Our waiting is hard and fearful because we really want to control the outcome. We are wishing for a specific outcome, and because of this our waiting basically fearful. We are afraid of what will happen.

Nouwen notes that Mary, Elizabeth, Zechariah, the shepherds and all were not afraid because they were waiting in an open-ended way. They had received promises from God and trusted God, and instead of being filled with wishes, they were filled with hope. Hope is trusting that something good will come, that the future is in God’s hands. Mary says, “I am the handmaid of the Lord, let what you have said be done to me”. She is trusting, hoping, not trying to control the future. Part of Advent is waiting, waiting to receive renewed hope and confidence in God’s love. It’s not something we can make happen, but something that we can only receive. We are called to wait during Advent with trust that God was doing something new in Jesus, and still is present. We remember that the Christmas, and wait with hope and trust.

This is a good attitude to have at Christmas, and it’s also a good attitude to have toward life. To live, act, work, and wait with trust and open-endedness. We are not in control of the future, but that’s ok, because we trust that it is in God’s hands, that there is an order to the universe, and to paraphrase Martin Luther King, Jr., as I like to do, “the arc of the universe bends toward justice”. We can trust the universe. This is a radically different way to live than how I usually live, trusting myself, struggling to make things happen, to protect people I love: striving, controlling, wishing, working, seeking security, self-esteem and power over my life. Perhaps this Christmas I can begin to loosen my hands on the steering wheel and lighten up a bit.

This is illustrated for me in my practice of Centering Prayer. I was reading in Tricycle Magazine (Winter, 2011) an article by Rodney Smith about the difference between mindfulness and awareness. He was making the point that sometimes as we strive to be mindful of the present moment; we are working too hard to control our consciousness. Our ego is struggling to control our mind and force ourselves to be mindful. He says we can begin to let go of the striving, and just be aware of the moment. Get ourselves out of the way and just be aware of reality. As I sit in Centering Prayer I often find myself working really hard to let go of thoughts, to control what’s happening, when perhaps if I just let go, quit working so hard, I could just be aware of what thoughts and feelings are passing by, and come back again and again to God’s presence. To do this, I have to trust that presence and trust that this letting go will lead me to deeper peace and awareness of God’s presence.

This attitude of trust, or open-endedness applies to all of life. To live with confidence, which Nouwen notes comes from the Latin roots, con-fide, literally, with trust. To live with trust. Wait with trust. Prepare for Christmas with trust. Interact with my loved ones, with trust. Love with trust. It’s about receiving life, receiving God, receiving Christmas.

The choir director of University Church, Frank Blalock Brown in 1977, wrote a song I learned in Chicago. “Life is a gift, receive it. Like starlight at night, like the sun. Like light that is new every morning, that follows the darkness that comes. So stand in the light, and know it’s given everyone. O daughters and sons of God, delight in how you life’s true light has come.” Wonderful words for Christmas as we receive God’s light coming into the world. This light is a gift, receive it. Christmas is a gift, receive it. Life is a gift, receive it.

I end with a quote I love from Elizabeth Barrett Browning: “Earth is crammed with heaven, and every common bush afire with God and only he who sees takes off his shoes. The rest sit around it and pluck blackberries.” Earth is crammed with heaven, let us receive this gift of life and live with confidence (with trust).

December 4, 2011                                                         Sermon by Peter Terpenning

Community United Church of Christ

Boulder, Colorado

“John, the Messenger of Hope”

Isaiah 40:1-11, Mark 1:1-9

John the Baptist doesn’t seem like a Christmas character. He ought to show up later, when Jesus is fully grown and starting his ministry. But every year, on the second Sunday of Advent, we hear his story. In the Gospel of Mark, this is the only Christmas story we get. Mark doesn’t mention the birth, and begins his Gospel with John coming out of the wilderness, preparing the way of the Lord. Mark begins: “The beginning of the good news of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. As it is written in the prophet Isaiah, ‘See, I am sending a my messenger ahead of you, who will prepare your way; the voice of one crying out in the wilderness: Prepare the way of the Lord’”. When I hear this I inevitably think of the beginning of the play, Godspell, when John the Baptist arrives singing, “Prepare, ye the way of the Lord”

Peter Woods, in a blog this week, pointed out that the Greek word in Isaiah for the one sent to prepare is Appostelo, from which we get our word Apostle. It means emissary or messenger, the one God is sending. The word in Mark for the messenger is Angelon, from which we get the word angel. So we have an angelic emissary, an apostle from God who begins Mark’s gospel, coming before Jesus. This prophet, this emissary, is John. He comes out of the desert, clothed in camel’s hair, with a leather belt, eating locusts and wild honey, and all the people of the land come out to him. Scholars tell us that the people John came to from the whole Judean countryside and from Jerusalem were the poor. They were called, “the people of the land”, the peasants who made up the majority of the Palestinian population. Mark tells us that for these peasants John brought “good news”. Like Isaiah who brought comfort to the exiles in Babylon, promising them God would make a way for them in the wilderness, a road on which to return home. So John told the people of the land that they would have comfort, a message of hope that one was coming from God who would baptize them with the Holy Spirit. John was all about hope. Hope that God was still with the people, and a messenger was coming to show them the way to live –coming with compassion and comfort. John Dominic Crossan points out somewhere that there’s a political edge to people being called out across Jordan to JB. The people, after baptism, then re-enter the Promised Land to reconquer it for God. This time with changed hearts, rather than swords. Crossan notes that it is in some ways a political message; God is offering a new beginning for the poor people of the land.

I like this understanding of John; it makes sense to me that this is a justice message. That is consistent with what I find in the Gospels about Jesus, he a radical figure, a political figure in some ways, one who offers real compassion for real people, freedom from oppression, healing for sick, hope for the poor and year of God’s favor, the Jubilee – forgiveness of debts, return of land, justice and hope. Not just forgiveness of sins and life after death, but concrete hope and a new way to live. Like Isaiah with hope for the exiles, John and Jesus bring concrete hope: “Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill made low; the uneven ground shall become level and the rough places, a plain, and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all people shall see it together.”

I ran across an illustration of this concrete, real world hope in a story told by a parish priest in a black township in South Africa, Father Gerard. (Desert Sun, Winter, 2011) It might be called “The unwelcome visitors”. The weary priest forced himself to attend the last part of a school play during the final week of Advent. He told the story: After the wise men had come and gone I noticed the arrival of three more strange characters- one was dressed in rages, hobbling along with a stick. The second was naked except for a tattered pair of shorts and was bound in chains. The third was the most weird. He had a whitened face, wore an unkempt grey wig and an old shirt. As they approached a chorus of men and women cried out, “Close the door, Joseph, they are thieves and vagabonds coming to steal all we have.” But Joseph said, “Everyone has a right to this child, the poor, the rich the unhappy, the untrustworthy. We cannot keep this child for ourselves. Let them enter.” The men entered and stood staring at the child. Joseph picked up the present the magi had left. To the first man he said, “You are poor, take this gold and buy what you need. To the second he said, “You are I chains and I don’t know how to release you. Take this myrrh, it will heal the wounds of your wrists and ankles.” To the third he said, “You mind is in anguish. I cannot heal you. Maybe the aroma of this frankincense will soothe your troubled soul.” Then the first man spoke to Joseph, “Do not give me this gift. Anyone who finds me with this gold will think I have stolen it. And sadly, in a few years, this child will end up as a criminal too.” The second man said, “Do not give me this ointment. Keep it for the child. One day he will be wearing chains like these.” The third man said, “I am lost. I have no faith at all. In the country of my mind there is no God. Let the child keep the incense. He will lose his faith in his Father too.” While Mary and Joseph covered their faces the three men addressed the child. “Little one, you are not from the land of gold and frankincense. You belong to the country of want and disease. You belong to our world. Let us share our things with you.” The first man took off his ragged shirt. “Take these rags. One day you will need them when they rear the garments off your back and you will walk naked.” The second man said, “When I remove these chains I will put them at your side. One day you will wear them, and then you will really know the pain of humanity. The third man said, “I give you my depression, my loss of faith in God and in everything. I can carry it all no longer. Carry my grief and loss with your own.” The three men then walked back out into the night. But the darkness was different. Something had happened in the stable. Their blind pain was diminishing. There had been a kind of epiphany. They were noticing the star now.

The script of this performance was written by a man from Central Africa. The unwelcome visitors now knew that God was somehow present in an innocent child who was already destined to be one like them –in all their poverty, pain, depravity and sin. And they also began to believe what we all resist, that this birth in a messy stable was the manger of hope, for themselves and the world.

John the Baptist and Jesus are messengers of hope for the real world, the world that includes peace and war, non-violence and violence, comfort and poverty, health and disease, mental health and depression and security and desperation. We are the ones who must make John’s vision of hope a reality – but Jesus showed us the way. A way of compassion and the peace of God’s comfort and presence.

November 20, 2011                                                         Sermon by Peter Terpenning

Community United Church of Christ

Boulder, Colorado

“A Different Kind of King”

Matthew 25:31-40, Jean Vanier quote, Psalm 82

The scene in Matthew today is the heavenly court, and Jesus is on the throne, judging people at the last judgment. This is a common passage for this Sunday, the last Sunday of the church year, which is traditionally called, “Christ the King Sunday”. Christ is the king in the divine court, and is separating the good from the bad, the sheep from the goats. I am uncomfortable with this image and frankly; I reject the idea that there will be a last judgment like this, with some people being accepted and others thrown down for eternal punishment. Jesus’ message of love only makes sense to me if I think of all people as accepted, now and forever, all beloved, all embraced by God. But the basis of the judgment in Matthew does make sense to me: that Jesus would identify with the least of these, the oppressed, sick, imprisoned and hungry. Those gathered at the throne who have lived their lives as part of the Kingdom are those who fed the hungry, visited the prisoner, welcomed the stranger, and sought liberty for the oppressed. Those who cared for the least of these are part of the Kingdom. Stanley Hauerwas writes, “The difference between followers of Jesus and those who do not know Jesus is that those who have seen Jesus no longer have any excuse to avoid ‘the least of these.”

I wholeheartedly embrace this idea that whether we have lived as followers of Jesus has little to do with what we believe, or what we know, or if we’ve accepted Jesus as our personal savior – but with what we did for the least of these; did we welcome God in all people, did we feed the hungry and serve those in need? Centuries after the death of Jesus, the best way we can encounter him in the world is in the people who are on the fringes of society, those in the margins, those who are outcaste, sick or poor.

I invite you to look at the icon I have posted around in various places in the sanctuary today: “Christ of the Margins”. This icon, painted by Br. Robert Lentz, shows Jesus Christ with a barbed wire fence, reminiscent of photos of Palestinian refugees and prisoners of war staring out of camps or prisons. Contemplate this image for a bit. It doesn’t show if Jesus is on the inside of the wire, a prisoner, or the outside, looking in at us. In terms of Matthew 25, I think of Jesus as the prisoner – and what we do for the prisoner or refugee, we do for Christ.

The other image that comes to my mind today is (probably inevitably) the image of the children of Guatemala I met on our work trip. I think of one in particular who was part of one of the families I worked with: Brian. Brian was about 8, a quiet boy who didn’t run with the wild boys out in the street, but stayed in the compound with us as we worked on the stove, watching, smiling shyly when I talked to him. Eagerly helping if given a job. Intelligent eyes evaluating me and the world of poverty in which he was born: his eyes quiet, bright, and a little sad. Surely, whatever I did for Brian, I did it for Christ.

Just for the record, I reject the image of Christ the king. There may have been a time in history when it made sense to call Jesus a king. There were good kings, like King Wenceslas of Bohemian, who helped the poor, and supplied them with fresh water and supposedly fought a personal combat with another king in order to preserve the lives of the common soldiers. But most kings have not embodied Christ. And the monarchies today seem to me to have little to do with God’s bias for the poor. They are somewhat interesting celebrities, who put on good marriages, and occasionally do something to help the world, like Princess Diana’s work with AIDS and unwed mothers. But mostly, they are wealthy figureheads, irrelevant to the realities of life in the world today. Peter Woods, a theologian I read as I studied Matthew 25 noted that he preferred the image of Christ the Comrade. A comrade is a friend who stands with us in the trenches of inhuman wars – who shares our suffering and fear, who lights our cigarette as we contemplate going “over the top” and charging the enemy. Christ the king is a meaningless image in the modern world. But Christ the comrade, or Christ the friend, Christ the impoverished child, or Christ the imprisoned refugee is helpful. Where is Christ in this world? If he is not with Brian, my Guatemalan friend, then I have little use for him. If he is not with Palestinian refugees, and the men and women rotting in our nation’s jails, and AIDS victims, and those struggling to live with cancer and disease – then I don’t know where he is. So I reject Christ the King Sunday – in favor of “Christ in the Least of These.”

Now I know that the early church was holding up Jesus Christ as king or emperor in contrast to the kings and emperors of this world. They were saying that Christ is the true emperor, not Caesar, and that the powers of earthly rulers were miniscule in comparison to Christ. I agree with this, but it is remote from me. Emperors and kings do not resonate with me anymore. But it worth asking what kind of king or ruler would Jesus be? Clearly he would be a different kind of king. He would be one who walks humbly with the common people. He would be one who suffers with the people when they are hungry and tries to do something to help. He would be the one who takes people’s places when they are tortured, or imprisoned, and let’s them go free. Who pardons those on death row or even dies in their place. If Jesus is a king, then he is a different kind of king than the world has ever seen.

A Franciscan Blessing is a benediction in the spirit of St. Francis of Assisi who famously gave up his inheritance to serve the poor.  I close with four examples of Franciscan blessings from the twentieth century:

May God bless you with discomfort at easy answers, half truths, and superficial relationships, so that you may live deep within your heart.

May God bless you with anger at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people, so that you may work for justice, freedom and peace.

May God bless you with tears to shed for those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation and war, so that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and to turn their pain into joy.

May God bless you with enough foolishness to believe that you can make a difference in this world; so that you can do what others claim cannot be done.

October 30, 2011                                                         Sermon by Peter Terpenning

Community United Church of Christ

Boulder, Colorado

“We Are All Saints: Ubuntu”

I Corinthians 1:1-2, Romans 8:28, Desmond Tutu, “Recipe for Peace”

Today we are observing “All Saints Day”, which technically doesn’t arrive until Tuesday, Nov. 1^st. It is a Roman Catholic holy day, the day after All Soul’s Day, when historically Christians remember those who have died and gone to heaven: the saints. Karen has arranged for an interactive Children’s Time today when we will remember those who have died, and at the beginning of church today we sang one of my favorite hymns, “For All the Saints”, in honor of those who have gone before us. I can’t sing that hymn without a lump in my throat for my loved ones who have died. But this Sunday always leaves me asking the same question: “Who are these saints we are remembering?” How does one get to be a saint? Is it reserved only for Christians? Is it reserved only for really good, moral Christians? I have to say that I think everyone is a saint, or at least, potentially a saint.

We know of some people who definitely deserve the title. People like Mother Theresa, and Mohandas Gandhi, who definitely tried to live lives of selfless action But I am getting ahead of myself, assuming that one qualifies for sainthood by lives of selfless action. Paul of Tarsus began his first letter to the Corinthians addressing it: “To the church of God which is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus (who are) called to be saints”. Interesting that Paul seems to imply that anyone can do it. Romans 8:28, also Paul, reads: “And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love God, who have been called according to God’s purpose”. Some translations of this translate the part “called according to God’s purpose” – “called to be saints”. Are all Christians called to be saints? The Gospel of Thomas, a noncanonical gospel says that all Christians (and perhaps all people) are called to be “twins” of Jesus Christ. That all have it within them to live lives of love and compassion comparable to that of Jesus.  I do not know if that is true, but I do think people are capable of great goodness and virtue.

I ascribe to a segment of Christianity that some trace back to the Celtic Church of Ireland and Scotland (Pelagius was one teacher), that taught the basic goodness of human beings. This idea is that we are made in the image of God and that God’s goodness is a basic part of our nature and we can open ourselves to God’s presence and goodness, and open ourselves to a basic unity with God and with other people. If I carry this belief to a logical conclusion as to the question of sainthood, I would conclude that all humans have an equal shot at sainthood, and that perhaps sainthood is part of our basic nature, if we can just get our false selves, self seeking selves out of the way. We have to die to these false selves and get in touch with our true nature, which is God within: the Kingdom of God which is within.

Ren is a Chinese concept from Confucian thought that guides human behavior.

Yan Hui, Confucius’ student, once asked his master to describe the rules of rén, receiving the answer that he should, “see nothing improper, hear nothing improper, say nothing improper, do nothing improper.” Confucius believed humanity to be good at its very core and therefore considered rén to be a part of everyone. Ren, to behave properly is possible for everyone. I agree. I have read that some Native Americans taught that to be a human being was to be virtuous, compassionate, contributing to the community. Those who were selfish, grasping, greedy and so forth forfeited their humanness. I am drawn to this idea and I find it in almost every culture. To be fully human is to somehow connected to the human community and to loving, upright, compassionate, contributing and what I can only call “good”, toward other humans.

Archbishop Desmond Tutu made famous a South African concept of Ubuntu. In his own words: It is about the essence of being human, it is part of the gift that Africa will give the world. It embraces hospitality, caring about others, being able to go the extra mile for the sake of others. We believe that a person is a person through another person, that my humanity is caught up, bound up, inextricably, with yours. When I dehumanize you, I inexorably dehumanize myself. The solitary human being is a contradiction in terms and therefore you seek to work for the common good because your humanity comes into its own in belonging. He and Nelson Mandela both used Ubuntu to explain why the Apartheid system through which people dehumanized other people, served to dehumanize everyone. Ubuntu is translated, “I am because you are”. My humanity is inextricably bound up with yours. We will survive only together. We will be prosperous only together. We will be truly human only in relationship with other humans. Mandela once said that if we discard anyone dying of AIDS we can no longer call ourselves people.

I think Ubuntu captures what I am trying to says, that we are all called to be saints; that if we are to be truly human, we will be living lives that are good, that are connected to others, that are compassionate, loving, unselfish, serving and seeking the welfare of the all. Our culture used to call this “the common good” or “common wealth”. I am intrigued with Mandela’s idea that we can sink below the status of being people, of being human, if we stop seeking the common good. What is it to be human? It is to be one with God and one with other people. It is to be compassionate (suffering with others), to be self-giving, loving. It is to be saints.

I conclude with a wonderful quote from former Archbishop Tutu in an interview about his book, God Has a Dream:

“God’s dream is that you and I and all of us will realize that we are family, that we are made for togetherness, for goodness, and for compassion. In God’s family, there are no outsiders, no enemies. Black and white, rich and poor, gay and straight, Jew and Arab, Muslim and Christian, Hindu and Buddhist, Hutu and Tutsi, Pakistani and Indian—all belong. When we start to live as brothers and sisters and to recognize our interdependence, we become fully human. This dream can be found throughout the Bible and has been repeated by all of God’s prophets right down to Martin Luther King, Jr., and Mahatma Gandhi.”

November 27, 2011                                                         Sermon by Peter Terpenning

Community United Church of Christ

Boulder, Colorado

“Peace in God’s Presence”

Isaiah 2:1-4, Isaiah 11:1-10, Luke 2:13

On this first Sunday of Advent we celebrate peace. I have often used this Sunday as a reason to give a sermon about being peacemakers. Scriptures such as the one we read from Isaiah about turning swords into plowshares and spears into pruning hooks call us to peace. Isaiah 11 offers a vision of the lion lying down with the lamb; Ephesians says that Christ is our peace, who breaks down the dividing wall of our hostility; Luke has the angelic host proclaiming “peace, goodwill to all people”. Looking over old sermons I see that I have exhorted people to seek meaningful peace, not just the absence of conflict, but “the harmonious, non-destructive, non-violent management or control of conflict and tension”, as peace is defined in the “Working Paper on Peace” of the United Church of Christ”. We are called to be peacemakers, seeing non-violent control of conflict, not peace as the world defines it, when one country wins a war and beats another into submission, or the peace after a fight in a school yard and one kid is beaten up and quits, but still holds his smoldering anger and waits for his chance of retribution.

I started trying to put such a call for peace together for today and found myself rebelling from my effort. It felt like I was just laying another burden on everyone. One more thing to feel guilty about: our world has not found a way to peace, despite all our efforts. We, ourselves, have not found a way to peace in our own lives, or in our nation, or between races and classes. Jesus condemned the Sadducees and Pharisees for laying heavy burdens of the law on the Jewish people – whereas Jesus’ burden was light. So I drew back from my usual call to non-violence and wondered what actually constitutes the peace of Christmas. What is the peace Christ offers?

I ran across an article in Desert Call, a publication of Nada Hermitage, the Carmelite Monastery I visit in Crestone, Co. Eric Haarer noted that main present we receive from God at Christmas is “presence”: God’s presence, every minute of every day, God’s presence within us, within others and within creation. Emmanuel, God with us, is the message of Jesus. It means that God is present, not just for 33 years during Jesus’ life in a backwater, Roman province, but every day, for all time.

This is one of main lessons I have learned in my practice of Centering Prayer. That as I sit in meditation, letting go of the countless thoughts and feelings that plague me, returning again and again to my sacred word, the symbol of God’s presence in my life, I am gradually learning that whatever is happening to me, wherever I go, whatever suffering or joy I am experiencing, what centers me is faith in the presence of God. I think perhaps this is a better way of thinking about Christmas peace. That in the midst of life, with it’s suffering and joy, tears and laughter, darkness and light, the constant source of peace is God. Whether we succeed in making peace, or bring change through non-violence, or not, we still have God’s presence, Emmanuel –God with us.

It is not a coincidence that we celebrate Christmas at the darkest time of year, the solstice. The early church didn’t sit down and figure out exactly what time of year Jesus was born: “Let’s see, Mary became pregnant in March, so 9 months makes it Dec. 25^th, how convenient”. I have to think that the early Christians deliberately chose the solstice as the symbol of God’s presence at the darkest time. As Isaiah 9 says, “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light. For those who live in a land of deep darkness a light has shone”. Christmas, like the solstice, is a dawning of light in the darkness – a new beginning – a reminder that God is present when all else seems lost.

We all know this struggle to find peace very well. We all have faced difficult times. We all have lived in lands of deep darkness. The coming of Christ does not fix everything. After he was born, the stable was still filthy, Mary and Joseph were still poor, homeless and in trouble, the Roman rule of Palestine was still violent and oppressive. But his birth was the gift of hope, that despite all the problems, they did not need to be afraid, but could trust that God was still with them. Like Isaiah writing in the Babylonian Exile, though all seemed lost, Isaiah reminded the exiles that God was not defeated, but was still with them next to the rivers of Babylon. They had hope for a return home and deliverance from exile. Above all, they were not alone, but had peace in God’s presence. So it is for us as we face a world that is still at war. We have made some progress, a recent book we discussed at Men’s group notes that less of a percentage of the world is at war than at any time in previous human history. However, all war had not stopped, nor has disease been defeated, poverty and hunger stalk the land, children are born in poverty, millions starve to death each year…we all face death. But we have peace in God’s presence. Meister Eckhart, the Medieval mystic asked what difference it made if Christ was born if he is not born in each of us. The gift of Christmas peace is that no matter what is happening to us we can live without fear. This is what the Angels tell Mary and Joseph, “Fear Not”. It’s what the heavenly hosts sang to the shepherds, it’s what Jesus says to the disciples in the their storm tossed boat, “Be not afraid”.

A practice I have recently added to my spiritual practice is Welcoming Prayer.

This is a practice of Centering prayer developed by Thomas Keating. It was particularly developed by a woman named Mary Mrozowski. One uses the welcoming prayer in any situation in which a painful or difficult emotion or situation is dealt with. The person focuses on the suffering or afflictive emotion, such as fear or anger or physical pain, close. One brings one’s attention fully to the suffering, and then welcomes it: welcome fear, or welcome pain, welcome anger, welcome suffering. It is a way of embracing everything that arises, everything that happens to us, and acknowledging that whatever comes, God is still with us. Then, after we have welcomed it, we let it go.  We say something like: “I let go of my anger”, or if you prefer, “I give my anger to God”. Mary Mrozowski perfected this technique of letting go as she faced extreme pain after a traffic accident. She developed a litany of letting go that I have found very helpful. After I have focused on the afflictive emotion, let’s say it fear of traveling to an unknown place, or with public speaking event, I welcome the fear and then I say Mary’s litany:

I let go of desire for security and survival

I let go of my desire for esteem and affection

I let go of my desire for power and control

I let go of my desire to change the situation.

This last is particularly powerful for me – to let go of the desire to change the current situation. It means welcoming what is, knowing that God is with me just as things are, and accepting reality. I think the basis of welcoming prayer is the faith that whatever happens, or whatever I am facing, God is present. This is finally our main source of peace in life, the presence of God in our suffering and our joy.