Author Archives: reebeegirash

Covenant: A Common Thread

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Covenant  – A Reflection for Eliot Church 

January 2015

What do these things have in common:

  • baptism
  • Sunday School this winter
  • the United Church of Christ
  • congregational meetings
  • marriage
  • the stories of God & Abraham and Sarah, Hannah and Samuel?

That’s right: they are all connected together with the idea of Covenant.

 

When we baptized D. in December, we made covenant promises to him, as a community, and we recited God’s covenant promises to him. This winter, our kids will learn about the great Biblical covenants. But covenant making and covenant keeping is not just a Biblical idea – it grounds the structure of our entire United Church of Christ, and grounds the way the Eliot Church of Newton, UCC functions as a community. As a congregation we are not hierarchical, we are covenantal. That is – we make decisions together, prayerfully – and we promise to live together in peace. As a denomination, the UCC is not hierarchical, it is covenantal. Every local church makes autonomous decisions but has a sacred commitment to the whole denomination. And in return, every congregation contributes to and benefits from the strength of the whole UCC.

 

Sidney Fowler says it like this: “What is it that holds people together even in the midst of all kinds of differences? When folk in the United Church of Christ talk about how they relate-to God, to each other, other churches, other religions, even creation-they often use the word “covenant.” It’s God’s good glue that keeps us together. Covenant is a holy promise of devotion that is shared. When that glue sticks, God forms a bond of unity that is pliable and dynamic, not rigid or unresponsive. Unity is a result of a covenantal way of life and an amazing gift of God.” (from What Matters to You Matters to Us: Engaging Six Vital Themes of Our Faith)   Now, this really matters: it means we at Eliot are independent – but bound together with other UCC churches. And that means that even while we are autonomous we are deeply strengthened by being in the UCC. We can do more together than we could ever do apart – and we have a commitment to the welfare of all our members and of our denomination. Even more: we have a commitment to fulfilling our covenant promises to God as we worship, learn, serve our neighbors and protect creation.

 

Why this long word on covenant, at this moment? Because January and February bring a wonderful confluence of events in worship and Sunday School that all relate to covenant – and we are asking you, as part of your covenant with Eliot Church and the UCC – to be part of these events. In Sunday School, kids will learn Biblical stories of covenant, and then during our service projects in January and February they will be giving back to their covenant community by hosting a Fellowship Hour, and making Valentines for elders. On January 25 we have the honor of hearing the Rev. Jim Antal, Massachusetts Conference Minister for the UCC, preach in worship and join us for conversation afterward. Rev. Antal will tell us about the goings on in the wider church here in Massachusetts and nationwide – and he will bring his perspective on climate change, and what the wider UCC and other local churches are doing to address climate change. In particular, he will tell us of the movement toward Divestment from fossil fuel companies. The national setting of the UCC has passed a resolution to divest and the national setting has now asked us (asked, not told – remember the covenant model!) to consider divestment on the local church level. Jim Antal has been in these conversations from the beginning and can give us his perspective. On February 8, I will be Installed in worship as your Associate Pastor, and we will have the honor of hearing Associate Conference Minister Rev. Wendy Vander Hart preach. An installation is the moment when the association, at the request of the local church, confirms and celebrates the covenant between pastor and congregation – and the local church reaffirms its covenant ties to the wider church.

 

It is a season of covenant at the Eliot Church. It is a season to remember what God has promised us and what God has called us to. It is a season to remember the strength we know through this covenant community and our wider church connections.

Your Light Shall Break Forth Like the Dawn – A Sermon for the Wilton Congregational Church, UCC

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Your Light Shall Break Forth Like the Dawn

A Sermon for the Wilton Congregational Church, UCCWilton UCC

February 9, 2014

Rev. Reebee Kavich Girash, Guest Preacher

 

 Scripture Readings

 

Isaiah 58:1-12

Matthew 5:13-20

 

Sermon

What extraordinary parallels in imagery between the Matthew and Isaiah text today. Your light shall break forth like the dawn – and you are the light of the world. More than light links these passages, they are connected by the imperative to act justly, with attention to the wider world, for the sake of the glory of God, and the sake of building the world God wants. Look to the needs of the world if you are to be a city on a hill; look to the needs of the world if you wish practice the fast that God chooses.

 

Don’t hide your light under a bushel. Our fast is not for our own self-interest but to loose the bonds of injustice and minister to our neighbors.

 

I was particularly struck by a phrase at the end of the Isaiah text: if the people seek justice and serve the needs of the afflicted, “you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters never fail.”

 

Like a watered garden, you shall be.

 

The same Hebrew word for garden, gan, is used in Isaiah and in Genesis. This is no coincidence but a poetic connection to the people’s deepest roots. A civilization has risen and fallen and is starting to rebuild. God is telling the people, if you act justly you will once again touch a piece of that holy and fertile soil.1

 

The prophet in Isaiah 58 wants the people to know that if they act with justice and serve their neighbors, a piece of the Garden will be restored.

 

If we do justice for our neighbors, here and around the world, like a watered garden, we shall be.

 

But, you asked me here to talk about climate change. What does this have to do with climate change?

 

Bill McKibben, who is a bit of a modern day prophet on climate change and has spent many hours teaching Sunday School, says that burning fossil fuels, which radically shifts the earth’s climate, is like human beings running Genesis backward.2

 

So the question is: do we move toward the restoration of the garden, or continue the reversal of creation?

 

~~

 

When I’m prepping a sermon, I first study scripture and then I look at local media and see what going on locally around climate change. This is my version of what Karl Barth and Jim Forbes suggest all preachers do – write with the Bible in one hand and the newspaper in the other.

 

In Connecticut there’s one word that leaps off the page: Sandy. We cannot say with certainty that any one storm is a direct result of climate change, but we can look at the increased frequency of extreme weather events and link that to climate change. Superstorms are becoming normal storms. Sandy has shown all of us in the Northeast what it means when climate change hits our coast and affects our neighbors. Six people died in Sandy in Connecticut, 600,000 lost power and as of the one year anniversary some people in Milford were still out of their homes.3 Back in 2009 your own state department of environmental protection issued a report that said “Future climate change impacts to Connecticut’s treasured coastline could be substantial.”4 Five years later that “could be” has become “is already.”

 

So, here in eastern Connecticut you have a double challenge, when it comes to climate change: to work on mitigating climate change for the sake of our neighbors around the world and our children and generations to come – and to work on adapting your coastal region to the inevitable impacts of climate change. I mean, I’m assuming you here in Wilton are not interested in front yard beaches.

 

The scientific consensus is that climate change is real, and human caused. Some folks say, God has promised never again to flood the earth, so really, we have nothing to worry about. But God never said, I won’t let humanity flood yourselves.

 

There’s some crucial science background I want to cover to fill in the big picture. Since I am not a scientist and this is not a science class it will be very brief: really just five numbers. You may know them already. I share them because they’ve become part of my story – and the urgency that has caused me to move from being an earth steward in the broad sense, to be a climate activist.

 

1) The world is already .8 degrees C warmer due to climate change, and our weather patterns show increasing drought, wildfires, flooding, and extreme storms. Folks from Connecticut to Malawi people are already dying because of climate change.

 

2) The international scientific community thinks we need to keep the temperature rise under 2 degrees C in order to maintain a climate compatible with human civilization. In order to maintain a climate compatible with human civilization. 2 degrees of change would still be pretty difficult for earth’s inhabitants. Seas rising, more extreme storms, famine and disease. Resource wars and climate refugees will increase. 2 degrees still means, pretty likely, your grandchildren’s Connecticut coast will be very different. Consider the current drought in California, endangering water supplies, just a foretaste. Consider Typhoon Haiyan just an early indicator.

 

3) The International Energy Agency says we’ve got less than four years to stop building new fossil fuel infrastructure to stay under two degrees.5. That means, no new coal plants, no new fracking wells, four years to change direction on energy. We don’t have to close all the old ones in that time, but we have to stop building new fossil fuel infrastructure. 4) Scientists tell us we can only burn another 565 gigatons of fossil fuel before we lock in 2 degrees of warming. 5) But the fossil fuel industry has 2795 Gigatons of fossil fuels in reserve.6 So right now the climate action movement is about keeping most of the fossil fuel reserves in the ground – work that is politically tough, work that goes against the most profitable industry in the world, and work that comes with a hard deadline. And work we all need to be part of, because everyone who enjoys living on earth, and everyone who cares about children inheriting a livable world, should be climate activists. As Christians, we are called to worry about climate change because God entrusted the earth to our care, and asked us to take care of neighbors, too.

 

Climate change is getting worse so quickly, and intersects with and exacerbates so many other justice issues, that I believe it has become our most urgent global crisis. In Bridgeport, CT it intersects with issues of race, class, and public health in the area surrounding the coal plant. In Malawi, aid workers will tell you that climate change exacerbates drought and changes growing seasons, affecting women’s and children’s health. In Texas, it intersects with landowner’s rights and in Alberta it is the latest disruption of First Nations’ communities. In China, the intertwined issue of particulates released by burning fossil fuels means entire cities wear masks and avoid going outside. In Charleston, West Virginia, the processing of coal means you still can’t drink the water. That’s the moral imperative to move off fossil fuels, and to address climate change: it affects every part of our world, and every part of our children’s lives.

 

So, that’s dramatic.

 

A friend asked if I was coming down here to put the fear of God into you. I said the science is frightening enough.

 

I am part of a group that does house parties about climate change with moms,7 and there is a moment in each of those conversations, when those numbers I mentioned sink in, when the dire future that may come to our children sinks in, and I see tears around the room. This is deeply frightening.

 

I hear college students, on the front lines of climate action, who are deeply afraid of the world they will live in thirty years from now. I have sat with a Dorchester mom who is scared for her son’s lungs.

 

As people of faith, how do we respond? Well, first and foremost, we respond – we don’t stand by. We become part of the movement. And we respond authentically, from our faith – from our calling to love our neighbors and from the deep hope of our faith. It is crucial to proclaim, from authentic conviction, a better future is possible. There is hope. The work is hard, but there is hope.

 

So today I what I want to do is put the hope of God into you, so that you will join in this movement, acting to preserve a livable climate. There is hope: but it’s hope that depends on action.

 

What then should Wilton UCC folks do? How does a Christian community join the movement? I know you are already doing a lot, individually and in town, and I applaud Wilton Go Green’s work! But I urge you to step up and do more – knowing that each of you will be ready for a different level of action somewhere in this list: Sign up for renewable electricity. Bike to work. Eat local. Jump into Mission 4/1 Earth as a church. Pray for wisdom and the courage to act boldly. Show up at rallies. Consider divestment. Call your senators. Help shut down that last Connecticut coal plant (and don’t replace Bridgeport Harbor with another fossil fuel plant – work for a just transition to renewable energy and good jobs for the workers)8. Or stand with your brothers and sisters of the Austin Heights Baptist Church of Nacogdoches, TX, who have just this week called out to to people of faith to unite in opposition to the Keystone XL Pipeline which will run within a mile of their homes.9 Or sit down with your neighbors here, Connecticut UCC, and the Healthy Connecticut Alliance, and the Interreligious Eco-Justice Network and say, how can I be part of this?

 

Oh, I forgot one on my list: Do be sure to change your lightbulbs.

 

Change your lightbulbs. If I were penning a modern paraphrase of our Gospel this morning it would include this verse: “No one after changing a lightbulb puts it under the bushel basket, but shines light on renewable energy to all in the house, the neighborhood, and the state.” Climate action is not just a personal lifestyle choice, it’s a movement for justice.

 

Hear me: if you care about ensuring a livable climate for all the children of our world, it is no longer enough to change your own lightbulb. You need to let that light shine. Be the city on the hill, be salty prophets of systemic change. I’m reminded of the words of Cornel West, “Justice is what love looks like in public.” So when you change your lightbulbs, do it as part of a movement to to shift the public narrative so that everyone knows what we face. It’s only when there is a critical mass calling for action, when there is political and social and economic will, that we’ll see the change we need. So with hope, step out into the world and work for change.

 

Church, you can be a blessing to the climate movement by rooting your action in the fertile soil of Christianity, and acting with hope and love. In the midst of storm surges and rising seas, you can point to the one who calmed the sea. When sand erodes beneath your feet, find the Rock to stand on and make room for your neighbors. When the outcome seems inevitable, when the powers that be say, there’s no other way, when they say our economy, our society, our government could not possibly operate without more and more and more fossil fuels – call upon the One who turned everything upside down and let him help you envision a redeemed and transformed world. When the reversal of creation seems the inevitable path – choose instead to be a watered garden, choose instead to proclaim hope in a better future.

 

Church folks haven’t cornered the market on hope, but our faith keeps hope central to our work. And our hopefulness, deliberate and radical hopefulness, salty, bright hopefulness, gives strength to folks throughout the climate action movement. Ours is not a Pollyanna hopefulness, it is hopefulness that has come through Good Friday. Offering the hope we find in our faith gives people the strength to defy despair.

 

My friend and fellow climate activist, the Rev. Margaret Bullitt-Jonas says this: “we bear witness to the Christ who bursts out of the tomb, who proclaims that life, not death, has the last word, and who gives us power to roll away the stone.”10 Through the Spirit of the risen Christ, we are sent out to act, to do what we can to transform the world, to be repairers of the breach.

 

Friends, Jesus was the one who said, terrible things are coming but I will rise, and through me you will have new life. He was the one who said, the Kingdom of God is like….and then said: you can build it. He was the one who said: You are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world. You are the city on the hill.

 

There is hope, that the world can be reoriented, revived, restored. There is hope for a just and sustainable future for our children. Jesus said, the Kingdom of God is like…and then said: you can build it.

 

This is what I know: we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us. We can even love, and respect, and partner with our neighbors enough to heal this planet we share.

 

Folks, I believe the scientific consensus on climate change: that human activity has harmed our ecosystem, that the fish of the sea, the birds of the air, the fruits of the soil – and most definitely human beings, children of God – are already suffering as a result of that harm, and that our deadline for the healing of the earth is fast upon us. I believe the science, but I also believe in something else: I believe in God, our Creator, our Redeemer, our Sustainer. Our source of hope. Our peace which passes all understanding. The great Love who sends us forth to love our neighbors.

Last week I heard Bill McKibben say something at a conference on religious responses to climate change: “The benefit of faith is hope – that if we do all we can, maybe the world will meet us half way. Maybe some force will recognize the love and strength we are putting forth.”11

That sure sounds like Isaiah’s hopeful words, to a people seeking to rebuild.

Listen again to Isaiah:

If you take up the fast that the Lord chooses,

“Then your light shall break forth like the dawn…Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer… if you offer your food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then your light shall rise in the darkness and your gloom be like the noonday… The Lord will guide you continually, and satisfy your needs in parched places, and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters never fail.

May it be so, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

1 More evidence this textual link is no coincidence: Earlier, in Isaiah 51, the Lord promises to comfort Zion by making her wilderness like Eden and her desert like the garden of the Lord.

2McKibben most recently made this analogy at “Religious Responses to Climate Change” at Hebrew College on January 27, 2014 . Not from an official transcript.

9http://txipl.org/content/plea-climate-action-church-southern-leg-keystone-xl our East Texas church wishes to encourage faith communities throughout our land to join us in being witnesses that this good earth is the Lord’s and is not to be abused, exploited nor destroyed. We hope you’ll join us, too, in making an unmistakable plea to work for an earth capable of sustaining future generations.

10Andrea Cohen-Kiener. Claiming Earth As Common Ground: The Ecological Crisis Through the Lens of Faith (p. 135-137). Kindle Edition.

 

11“Religious Responses to Climate Change” at Hebrew College on January 27, 2014 . Not from an official transcript.

Lent: bare branches and muddy fields clear the way

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IMG_20140310_114402

Every year, Lent starts when the branches are bare, and ends when spring is displayed in budding trees and flowering bulbs.  I often engage Lent as a time for spiritual clearing and focusing.  This year I was struck by a quotation by Parsch included in Patricia S. Klein’s Worship Without Words: “The dust and dirt accumulated over winter have to be routed.  Outside in the gardens, now at the coming of spring, leaves and dry grass have to be raked together and burned.  Now, in the time of Lent, Mother Church…like the gardener, is determined to burn up and to rout the dust and trash….”  Now – I’d rather compost the leaves than burn them…except on Ash Wednesday.  Isn’t this a compelling image of the burning of the palm leaves on Ash Wednesday?  We clear away the dry leaves, we burn away sin and excess, we redeem the highly ironic palm branches, something in what we’ve cleared away feeds the soil, and we make room for the planting of new seeds which may bring new life.

This year I am anchoring my Lent with two practices: a Lenten plastics fast/awareness and the planting of seeds for this spring’s garden.  Our household’s biggest excess plastic consumption revolves arounIMG_20140305_172108d yogurt.  So I am prayerfully searching for ways to reuse those containers at least once.  So far, these practices are overlapping: the yogurt containers will host our seedlings until the ground is clear, and warm, and ready for their planting.  It’s a start.

Prayer: Merciful God, help me to clear the ground, to make room for the new life you would plant.  Amen.

Upper Left Photo: a worship setting I put together for the HDS DUCCS this week.
Bottom Right Photo: from my kitchen window.

Sermon: Wild Grapes

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The Fruits of the Vineyard

A Sermon for Calvary United Methodist Church, Arlington

August 18, 2013

Sermon Video available at this link.

 

Texts

Psalm 80:1-2, 8-19
80:1 Give ear, O Shepherd of Israel, you who lead Joseph like a flock! You who are enthroned upon the cherubim, shine forth

80:2 before Ephraim and Benjamin and Manasseh. Stir up your might, and come to save us!

80:8 You brought a vine out of Egypt; you drove out the nations and planted it.

80:9 You cleared the ground for it; it took deep root and filled the land.

80:10 The mountains were covered with its shade, the mighty cedars with its branches;

80:11 it sent out its branches to the sea, and its shoots to the River.

80:12 Why then have you broken down its walls, so that all who pass along the way pluck its fruit?

80:13 The boar from the forest ravages it, and all that move in the field feed on it.

80:14 Turn again, O God of hosts; look down from heaven, and see; have regard for this vine,

80:15 the stock that your right hand planted.

80:16 They have burned it with fire, they have cut it down; may they perish at the rebuke of your countenance.

80:17 But let your hand be upon the one at your right hand, the one whom you made strong for yourself.

80:18 Then we will never turn back from you; give us life, and we will call on your name.

80:19 Restore us, O LORD God of hosts; let your face shine, that we may be saved.

Isaiah 5:1-7
5:1 Let me sing for my beloved my love-song concerning his vineyard: My beloved had a vineyard on a very fertile hill.

5:2 He dug it and cleared it of stones, and planted it with choice vines; he built a watchtower in the midst of it, and hewed out a wine vat in it; he expected it to yield grapes, but it yielded wild grapes.

5:3 And now, inhabitants of Jerusalem and people of Judah, judge between me and my vineyard.

5:4 What more was there to do for my vineyard that I have not done in it? When I expected it to yield grapes, why did it yield wild grapes?

5:5 And now I will tell you what I will do to my vineyard. I will remove its hedge, and it shall be devoured; I will break down its wall, and it shall be trampled down.

5:6 I will make it a waste; it shall not be pruned or hoed, and it shall be overgrown with briers and thorns; I will also command the clouds that they rain no rain upon it.

5:7 For the vineyard of the LORD of hosts is the house of Israel, and the people of Judah are his pleasant planting; he expected justice, but saw bloodshed; righteousness, but heard a cry!

Prayer

Sermon

Oh, how I love this season, food wise.  You can come home from the farmers market and have an entire meal from raw fruit and vegetables picked that morning.  You can put up pickles from backyard summer squash as big around as your arm. You can stain your whole face red from raspberries and blackberries.  You can have salad every single day from backyard kale and still have too much kale. Your neighbors can give you a five pound bag of plums because they can’t keep up with what their trees are making.

On a recent Wednesday Zac and I came back from the farmers market and ate peaches.  Ridiculous, big fuzzy ripe juicy peaches. He said his favorite food in the whole wide world was a ripe juicy peach.  

Praise God from whom all blessings flow, amen?

In every season of abundance there is sadness, though.  Our downstairs neighbor is famous up and down our street for his tomatoes.  Most years they are prolific and they ripen at the size of softballs and we have to sneak out half of what he insists we take and give them to other people, under cover of darkness.  But last year and this year, about half of the tomatoes have blossom end rot.  The fruit goes bad before it ripens.

“He expected it to yield grapes, but it yielded wild grapes.”

Now, here’s where there’s a problem with translation.  Wild grapes sound just fine, don’t they?  Wild grapes, couldn’t you just make a nice jam out of them?  They sound like honeysuckles, beach plums, the shallots that volunteer in your compost.

Wild grapes, the way Isaiah and the vineyard keeper mean it, are not surprise delicacies.  No, what’s translated as ‘wild grapes’ are actually inedible, entirely unusable, and they smell bad.  

God the gardener, fertilized the soil from which ancient Israel would grow.  Planted and watered and tended the garden. Watched the plants reach up toward the sun.  Waited for the fruits of God’s own labor to emerge. God loved the garden. And, according to the prophet’s metaphor, the fruit was bad before it could even be harvested.  The ancient Israelites did wrong in the sight of God, who had chosen them and blessed them, turned the soil and watered the garden.

In this passage, there is some wordplay built into the Hebrew that is not apparent in English…but makes the text even more poignant.

“First, the sweet wine that God desires was justice (mishpat), but instead, the people produced bloodshed (mishpach)….Second, God also anticipates “righteousness” (tsedeqah) but has instead heard only a “cry” (tse‘aqah).”

Isaiah does not hesitate to tell us what ancient Israel did, that they might be labeled smelly and inedible and spoiled.  “they [did] not defend the cause of the widow and orphan (1:23), they coveted and stored up wealth for themselves (1:29), they oppressed the poor (3:14-15), they acquitted the guilty and deprived the innocent of their rights (5:23).

God, by contrast, called the people to act with kindness, mercy, respect, righteousness, justice.

And the people produced bloodshed.  They were violent and greedy. That doesn’t sound familiar at all.

And God said, I’m going to rip out the vines and dry out the vineyard and O mercy.  The people were in trouble. The people are in trouble.

But.

Let’s rewind to the beginning of this passage.  It starts as a love song.  Isaiah loves God, and God the divine gardener loves the vineyard.  Quickly it turns into a sad country ballad, but this chapter is rooted in the idea that God loves the people.  

God loves the garden that has grown up. God’s love is what has nurtured the plants.  God loves the people. You can be angry at those whom you love, but Love endures even anger.  

Thank goodness we have the rest of Isaiah, to remind us that another day is coming, for the people.  “11:11 On that day the Lord will extend his hand yet a second time to recover the remnant that is left of his people…”

The prophets, even when they are calling the people out for their misbehavior, remind the people of God’s love.  I’m thinking of Hosea 11,

“How can I give you up, Ephraim?
How can I hand you over, O Israel?…
My heart recoils within me;
my compassion grows warm and tender.
9 I will not execute my fierce anger;
I will not again destroy Ephraim;
for I am God and no mortal,
the Holy One in your midst,
and I will not come in wrath,” (vv. 8-9).

Season after season, the gardener replants.  Offers the people new guidance and love, mercy and second and third and fourth chances.  God’s mercy endures forever. Praise God from whom all mercy and blessing flows.

Remember the psalmist this morning prayed, “Let your hand be upon the one at your right hand, the one whom you made strong for yourself.”

Are we, the fruit of God’s garden, sweet grapes or wild, stinky ones?  Do we feel the strong hand of God on our shoulders, steadying us, guiding us?  Do we bear fruit worthy of the divine gardener?


80:18 Then we will never turn back from you; God, give us life, and we will call on your name.

80:19 Restore us, O LORD God of hosts; let your face shine, that we may be saved.

Think on it: God’s strong right hand, steadying us.  God’s loving voice calling us back from the brink.  The gardener does not just scatter the seed, randomly, and come back at the end of the season.  

And yet.  We are called to bear, and to be, fruit worthy of God’s love.

This image, of fruit worthy of the divine gardener’s efforts, runs throughout the Hebrew Scriptures and Christian testament.  

Jesus says, we will be able to recognize righteous prophets “by their fruits.” (Matthew 7:16) and he says, The kingdom will be “given to a people that produces the fruits of the kingdom.”  Matthew 21: 43

But, God is not just the gardener, separate from the plants.  Think about John 15 in which Jesus gives us his gardening lesson:

1 “I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinegrower…5 I am the vine, you are the branches.

When the grapes couldn’t grow on their own, God did even more work in the vineyard.

There is something about being one fruit, on a vine with many others, in a garden full of plants, all connected to a strong vine and rooted in good earth, all tended by the great gardener, that ought to give us comfort.  We are not alone. We live in God’s world. We are part of God’s good garden. Christ is the vine, and we are the branches, and we can bear good fruit. We can be God’s sweet, wonderful grapes.

There are so many ways Calvary church is a sweet harvest for God: as I was writing this sermon, I read of the gun buy back program that this congregation is sponsoring in town.  That’s just one place where you are turning away from a culture of violence and offering a word of mercy in our community. And it is poignant indeed to see churches turning swords into ploughshares and guns into groceries.  Your youth and mission team traveled to (Kentucky and West Virginia) on a mission trip this summer, and your summer vacation bible school is focused on Heifer Project this year. Good grapes and abundant sweet fruit, indeed.

Today I’m wearing a stole made by my sister, for the occasion of my ordination a decade ago.  It is embroidered on one side with a cross, and on the other, with a vine and branches. It reminds me that I – that we – are connected to the strong roots of the vine of Christ.  There is a strong right hand on our shoulders. There is a gardener pruning and fertilizing, watering and tending, guiding our vine up and over the grape arbor. There is a gardener, expecting us to bear fruit.  Good, sweet tasting, healthy fruit. Fruit that looks like justice, mercy, and love.

Benediction

Friends, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.  Let us go forth to be God’s good, sweet fruits. Amen.

Sermon: Jesus + Food = Miracle

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Jesus + Food = Miracle

A Sermon for First Church in Cambridge, UCC

Rev. Reebee Girash

October 7, 2012

Audio Recording:

Responsive Reading Psalm 8
L: O God, our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth! You have set your glory above the heavens.

C: Out of the mouths of babes and infants you have founded a bulwark because of your foes, to silence the enemy and the avenger.

L: When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established:

C: What are human beings that you are mindful of them, mortals that you care for them?

L: Yet you have made them a little lower than God, and crowned them with glory and honor.

C: You have given them dominion over the works of your hands; you have put all things under their feet, all sheep and oxen, and also the beasts of the field,

L: the birds of the air, and the fish of the sea, whatever passes along the paths of the seas.

C: O Lord, our Sovereign, how majestic is your name in all the earth!

Reading Luke 24: 13-33

13 Now on that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem, 14 and talking with each other about all these things that had happened. 15 While they were talking and discussing, Jesus himself came near and went with them, 16 but their eyes were kept from recognizing him. 17 And he said to them, “What are you discussing with each other while you walk along?” They stood still, looking sad. 18 Then one of them, whose name was Cleopas, answered him, “Are you the only stranger in Jerusalem who does not know the things that have taken place there in these days?” 19 He asked them, “What things?” They replied, “The things about Jesus of Nazareth, who was a prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, 20 and how our chief priests and leaders handed him over to be condemned to death and crucified him. 21 But we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel. Yes, and besides all this, it is now the third day since these things took place. 22 Moreover, some women of our group astounded us. They were at the tomb early this morning, 23 and when they did not find his body there, they came back and told us that they had indeed seen a vision of angels who said that he was alive. 24 Some of those who were with us went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said; but they did not see him.” 25 Then he said to them, “Oh, how foolish you are, and how slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have declared! 26 Was it not necessary that the Messiah should suffer these things and then enter into his glory?” 27 Then beginning with Moses and all the prophets, he interpreted to them the things about himself in all the scriptures. 28 As they came near the village to which they were going, he walked ahead as if he were going on. 29 But they urged him strongly, saying, “Stay with us, because it is almost evening and the day is now nearly over.” So he went in to stay with them. 30 When he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. 31 Then their eyes were opened, and they recognized him; and he vanished from their sight. 32 They said to each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road, while he was opening the scriptures to us?” 33 That same hour they got up and returned to Jerusalem; and they found the eleven and their companions gathered together.

Prayer

Sermon

Jesus + food = miracle.

They walked along the road, murmuring. A stranger asked them what they were talking about. Cleopas and his unnamed companion said, we are deeply grieved. Our teacher has been killed. How can we imagine life, now? We had hoped he was the one to redeem Israel. The stranger wondered at their foolishness, and opened scripture to their understanding. Which was, let’s just say, an odd response to their grief. If I had been Cleopas I would have been thinking, who’s this guy who hears our grief and responds by citing scripture and calling me foolish for grieving?

So, Cleopas and his companion, when they got to their fork in the road, they could just say – well, have a good day, safe travels, see ya. It would have been perfectly understandable to wave this stranger on. But they were followers of Jesus, Jesus who ate with sinners and children, Gentiles and tax collectors, Jesus who managed to look at everyone with compassion.

And their hearts were burning, while he was talking to them. And so they invited the stranger in to stay with them and eat at their table.

When he was at the table with them, he took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Their eyes were opened, and they recognized him. That’s when they recognized him. And that’s when he vanished from their sight.

Jesus + food = miracle.

Growing up I experienced a miracle once a month.

Our family was part of a little United Methodist congregation on the west side of Nashville. The church was tucked in between a McDonalds and a pawn shop, across a busy road from a public library and park. Back in the day that my parents first called West Nashville home, Charlotte Avenue was on the suburban edge of town; in the 80s this street was urban and troubled. But this was our church, and miracles happened there. Not every Sunday. Most Sundays folks sat in the pews wishing the preacher would wrap it up so we could get to Shoneys before the Baptists. But then there were Communion Sundays. This congregation drew deep upon the ancient Christian tradition of the Agape Feast which John Wesley had updated for the American context and called the Love Feast. Every Communion Sunday, after worship, we all settled in to the Fellowship Hall to eat a potluck meal together.

George brought the chicken and Louise the banana pudding (delicious, but not the miracle). Harry loaded the dishwasher and Ed played music with a pair spoons on his knee. McDonald’s often donated the drinks (that’s not the miracle part either). There was always some holy chaos. The kids knew all the grownups and the elders held all the babies, and no one had assigned seats. That was part of the miracle. And there was always, always, enough food. That was part of the miracle, too. You all know this: at a church potluck, even when you start with the 7 leftover goldfish crackers in your kid’s lunchbox, at the end there’s biscuits to take home. And part of the miracle, too, was that our door was open to the world.

And the door was open and all manner of strangers, neighbors and friends came in. One time, a man came to the door and asked if he could eat with us and we said, sure, of course, and we felt like we were doing something nice for him. Until after the meal was over and we were digging in to the banana pudding and he made his way over to the piano and he sang to us, it was a spiritual, it was I Want Jesus to Walk with Me. And there was Jesus in the room with us. We recognized him in the breaking of the bread, and the sharing of the banana pudding. It was a miracle. It was a Love Feast.

Jesus + food = miracle.

Church, you know that when people get together to eat, when the table is spread and the doors are open strangers become friends over a meal, miracles happen. Jesus shows up.

And this is what happens at the Communion Table, too. The piece of bread may be small but the nourishment is abundant. At the Communion Table we experience a foretaste of the heavenly banquet. Jesus makes the invitation and we respond. We are all welcome in God’s house and at the Communion Table, and miracles happen here.

It is World Communion Sunday. We do not often get to share communion with people around the world, but today, we do. Today we can imagine that in sanctuaries in Uganda and Belize, people are sharing a foretaste of the heavenly banquet. We can imagine that in Korea and the Philippines, there are potlucks taking place. And folks are seeing Jesus in their neighbors and miracles are happening in Fellowship Halls around the globe. And in spite of the differences in our traditions, our languages, our cultures – that’s a miracle.

But, it is World Communion Sunday and it is also the season of the Neighbors in Need offering. And how can we imagine this lovely picture of the miracle of unity in Christ around the Communion Table without also considering: who is hungry in our world?

If Jesus + food = miracle,

then what does Jesus say to us when there are people in our world who do not have access to food?

When it comes to our nearby neighbors I know this church is thoughtful and generous: sandwiches and meals, a shelter downstairs where often the smells of a fabulous feast waft all the way through the building. Not to mention the miracle of last week’s luncheon which will be told for years. Yes, indeed, many a guest has shared a meal in Margaret Jewett Hall and maybe, even, we have entertained angels unaware.

That church down in Nashville – you will not be surprised to hear that not long after we heard that spiritual, the congregation decided a weekday evening meal, every week, advertised to the neighborhood, would be a good idea. And then came a food pantry, too.

It’s World Communion Sunday, though, so let’s think about this globally. After all, our Psalm reminds us that we have been given dominion over the earth – we have global responsibility.

One of the news stories hidden under the fold these days the spike in global grain prices. If you listen to NPR you may have heard this week that social scientists are now able to predict social unrest based on food prices. Let me quote: “High food prices….create the range of conditions in which the tiniest spark can lead to riots.” This group accurately predicted the Arab Spring based on food prices. And right now, they note, are higher than they were in the winter of 2011.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/thesalt/2012/09/20/161501075/high-food-prices-f…

Food prices are high because of all sorts of factors: commodity speculation, use of food crops for biodiesel, various economic injustices, and extreme weather events related to climate change. Climate action is my passion – and this is one of the reasons.

It takes about twenty seconds on Oxfam’s website to see how humanitarian agencies highlight the link between climate change and food security.

Much of our world faces increasingly unstable access to food. Put another way, our brothers and sisters are hungry. Around the globe, as of 2010, one in seven people were undernourished, according to the UN. (http://www.worldhunger.org/articles/Learn/world%20hunger%20facts%202002.htm) 925 million people hungry, and that number has not magically improved in the last two years. On World Communion Sunday, that’s disturbing. We can’t just think, how miraculous to share the bread and the cup, how thankful we are to eat lunch together in Margaret Jewett Hall. Sara Miles, whose food pantry memoir some of us are reading together, says that when the disciples came to complain to Jesus that there wasn’t enough food to feed the crowd, he looked back at them and said: You feed them. (Take this Bread by Sara Miles )

Churches know that when people get together to eat: when the table is spread and the doors are open strangers become friends over a meal, miracles happen. Jesus shows up. Churches also know that when people are hungry, Jesus calls us to show up. And maybe in following that call, there is a different kind of miracle.