Rev. Reebee Kavich Girash

May 17, 2026

Romans 13:8-14

⁸ Owe no one anything, except to love one another, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. ⁹ The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery; you shall not murder; you shall not steal; you shall not covet,” and any other commandment, are summed up in this word, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” ¹⁰ Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law. ¹¹ Besides this, you know what time it is, how it is already the moment for you to wake from sleep. For salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers; ¹² the night is far gone; the day is near. Let us then throw off^[a] the works of darkness and put on the armor of light; ¹³ let us walk decently as in the day, not in reveling and drunkenness, not in illicit sex and licentiousness, not in quarreling and jealousy. ¹⁴ Instead, put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.

–

Last week, we heard from Paul’s letter to the early church at Rome: Love one another.  Let love be genuine. Paul, as a writer, was wordy – so there was more to last week’s passage.  And then we get to this week’s word to the Romans, skipping over just a few slightly tricky verses, and here’s Paul again: “Owe no one anything, except to love one another.”  “Love your neighbor as yourself.” 

Taking what Paul and Jesus say are the very most important things, I could say, Love one another, and then stop talking and sit down.   But let’s put a few more details on that. 

First, we need to know the type of love Paul was preaching.    There’s love that is an emotion, and love that is a verb.  Paul’s talking about love as a verb.  This isn’t love that just happens by default, this isn’t love we stumble into, this is love we choose and love we foster through our actions.

There’s a bunch of kinds of love in ancient Greek – there’s romantic love, family love, etc. Paul is preaching Agape love – 

The translation is straightforward, actually: agape is the kind of love that exhibits good will and benevolence toward others. 

Agape love is other-focused and self-giving.  Agape love is the same kind of love Jesus taught in the parable of the good Samaritan: who is our neighbor? Everyone. How shall we treat them? With agape love.

Agape love seeks the wellbeing of all people.  God’s agape love is life-giving and when we know that gift, we are called to practice the same kind of agape. “Because God lives in us, we embody God’s love for the world….[we belong to God.]…[Today,] God’s love is incarnate in us.”  

^“8 Owe no one anything, except to love one another, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. ⁹ …[all the commandments] are summed up in this word, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” ¹⁰ Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law.” 

This is not Paul setting aside the Torah – the Jewish law.  Even though Paul focused a lot of time on Gentile converts to the way of Jesus, he was Jewish.  And as a professor of Jewish studies, Jon Levenson, wrote, “It is not a question of law or love, but law conceived in love, love expressed in law.”

Now, there’s more to the love that Paul’s preaching.  

Agape love is mutual – not hierarchical.  Paul and the church at Rome lived in the midst of a patron-client, hierarchical culture.  Paul’s agape love is egalitarian. 

Agape love is proactive. Love goes beyond obligation.   If you’re loving your neighbor, Paul doesn’t want you to wait until your neighbor wanders by to ask for a cup of sugar.  Ronald Allen says agape love is “impatient to meet the needs of the neighbor.”

Agape love, in Paul’s world, is also urgent. Do you know what time it is?? Wake up!  The day is near!

Paul thinks that Jesus is coming back, like, Tuesday.  So whatever people are going to do as followers of the Way, they have to do right now.  It’s urgent! Get out there!  Jesus is coming, look busy!

And we’ve lived 2000 years, so far, without Jesus coming back.  You could say, what’s the rush, buddy?

Maybe you’d like to take a minute when no one is watching for some licentiousness.  (What a word.)  Maybe you’d like to live according to norms of Roman society rather than the norms of agape love.   This part, by the way, is about how we interact with our neighbors.  Are we kind or are we quarreling, are we generous or are we jealous?  What’s the impact of our behavior on other people?  Does it hurt or help? The way we live impacts not just our own humanity, not just our circle, it impacts our neighbors.  When we live according to agape love – especially when our loving offers a contrast to an unloving world – it matters.  

We lack something crucial without the urgency of love.  We have a responsibility to be proactive, to be out there in the world practicing agape love.  Because every moment a neighbor needs love, it should feel urgent to us.  

And community is the final point I want to make about Paul’s agape love.  Paul is not writing to an individual here.  Dear Kelly, please be kind to Stan.  I know y’all got some stuff to work out.  

Paul is writing to a community.  A group of faithful people.  A congregation.  About how they should practice agape love in the world, communally.  Scholars of Romans think this letter goes back and forth between the way the congregation should operate internally, among one another, and how the community should love the world. This is one of the externally focused sections.  How is the world going to experience this community? How is the world going to be impacted by this Christian congregation? Paul tells the Romans: put on the armor of light, put on Christ and as a community, go into the world to love your neighbors. 

Love is not insular.  Agape love is outward facing.  Love is not passive.  Love blesses its neighbors.

Love makes the world better.  

Owe no one anything, except to love one another.

Love is a verb.

Love is self-giving.

Love is God’s name.

Love does no wrong to a neighbor.

Love is mutual.

Love is outward facing.

Love is proactive. 

Love goes beyond obligation.

Love is a bright star in the sky.

Love is communal.

Love is urgent.

Love blesses neighbors.

Love is the word.

Amen.

Footnotes

1. Judith Jones, Working Preacher Commentary on 1 John 4:7-21
2. Allen and Williamson, Preaching the Letters without Dismissing the Law, page 85
3.  Yes, we can argue about whether Paul is, overall, egalitarian.
4. Allen and Williamson

Rainbows and the Iron Butterfly

A Sermon for Pride Sunday – reposted in memory of Saint Dolly

Pilgrim Congregational Church, UCC, Lexington

Rev. Reebee Kavich Girash

June 2, 2024

Psalm 139:1-6, 13-18

139:1 O LORD, you have searched me and known me.

139:2 You know when I sit down and when I rise up; you discern my thoughts from far away.

139:3 You search out my path and my lying down, and are acquainted with all my ways.

139:4 Even before a word is on my tongue, O LORD, you know it completely.

139:5 You hem me in, behind and before, and lay your hand upon me.

139:6 Such knowledge is too wonderful for me; it is so high that I cannot attain it.

139:13 For it was you who formed my inward parts; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.

139:14 I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; that I know very well.

139:15 My frame was not hidden from you, when I was being made in secret, intricately woven in the depths of the earth.

139:16 Your eyes beheld my unformed substance. In your book were written all the days that were formed for me, when none of them as yet existed.

139:17 How weighty to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them!

139:18 I try to count them — they are more than the sand; I come to the end — I am still with you.

–

Well, y’all, it never fails.  I visit Tennessee and I come back praising the great, the one and only, the Saint of the Smoky Mountains, Dolly Parton. It’s not just because I’m surrounded by her music when I’m down there, and it’s not just because my high school – I am not kidding – my high school has a mural of Dolly Parton reading to a child on one side of the school building.*   I stand before you today to preach about the great “Dolly Lama” because she is the kind of person we should all aspire to be.  Set aside the sequins and you get someone who has parlayed her fame and fortune into extraordinary good.  Recognizing how hard it was for members of her own family to learn to read, she’s given books to three million children all over the world. (https://imaginationlibrary.com/) When massive fires went through her area, she helped 900 families recover.  And when scientists were developing the first CoVid vaccines, she donated a million dollars to Vanderbilt’s research with Moderna.  

There is a reason John gave me a T-Shirt that asks, What Would Dolly Do?

Now, you may be puzzled as to why I’m talking about the Queen of Country on Pride Sunday.  Y’all, it’s not just that I still haven’t unpacked from my trip to Music City.  The Queen of Country turns out to be an inspiration for many Queens.  And it’s not just the rhinestones – it’s not just the Rainbow fabrics that make up her Coat of Many Colors.   “The Iron Butterfly” has been an advocate for LGBTQIA+ folks for decades.  She is what queer folks call a Friend of the Family.  She’s advocated for same sex marriage, she’s celebrated with drag queens, and she’s made it clear that her Christian faith leads her to honor the dignity and worth of LGBTQIA+ folks.  While I still have a smidge of my Tennessee accent left from this week I’m going to quote her:  “They know that I completely love and accept them, as I do all people…I’ve struggled enough in my life to be appreciated and understood. I’ve had to go against all kinds of people through the years just to be myself. I think everybody should be allowed to be who they are, and to love who they love. I don’t think we should be judgmental. Lord, I’ve got enough problems of my own to pass judgment on somebody else.”

“If people want to pass judgment, they’re already sinning. The sin of judging is just as bad as any other sin they might say somebody else is committing. I try to love everybody.”

But Dolly’s a songwriter and one song that came back to me over and over as I was thinking about Pride, thinking about our Open and Affirming commitments, was one that she wrote for a movie about a trans woman.  She sang it onstage at the Oscars in 2005.  Take a second and think about the timing there.  20 years ago the Queen of Country wrote a song affirming the dignity and worth of a trans woman. The song is Travelin’ Thru and here are two of the verses:

“God made me for a reason and nothin’ is in vain

Redemption comes in many shapes with many kinds of pain

Oh, sweet Jesus, if you’re listenin’, keep me ever close to you

As I’m stumblin’, tumblin’, wanderin’, as I’m travelin’ through

[Refrain]

I’m just travelin’, travelin’, travelin’, I’m just travelin’ through

Oh, sometimes the road is rugged and it’s hard to travel on

But holdin’ to each other, we don’t have to walk alone

When everything is broken, we can mend it if we try

We can make a world of difference, if we want to, we can fly…”

Folks, I wonder if Dolly was reading her Bible when she wrote that song.  It sure sounds inspired by Psalm 139 to me:

“I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Wonderful are your works; that I know very well.”

“God made me for a reason and nothin’ is in vain”

“How weighty to me are your thoughts, O God! How vast is the sum of them! I try to count them — they are more than the sand; I come to the end — I am still with you.”

“Oh, sweet Jesus, if you’re listenin’, keep me ever close to you.”

Rev. Michael Streib, from our conference, shared a reminder of the importance of the bold Open and Affirming welcome:

“I remember a story shared by a pastor, whose church I visited. Located in a more rural and conservative area right on a busy street, the church had decided to put out a Pride flag on its property. One day, a dad driving by stopped to tell the pastor: “Thank you so much! This means so much to my child. Your church is on their way to school. They are often struggling with being queer in this area but when we see your flag we know that there are people out there that love us.” The ministry of flying the flag unapologetically as a church let this child know that they are deeply beloved.”

But just having a Pride flag isn’t enough.  I heard a story last week.  It was about a congregation a long way from here.  They had their rainbow flag out and the right words on the website.  But when a non-binary person walked in their door, the congregation wasn’t ready.   They hadn’t talked about pronoun nametags, they hadn’t worked on their welcome.  Folks got a little rude.  They probably didn’t mean to, but the effect was the same.  

When I heard this story, I thought about Pilgrim.  I remembered starting here in 2019, when a high school student came to Church Council and said, we need to talk about pronouns.  We need pronouns for our name tags.  This is for folks who are here, and for visitors.  There was a council member who said (I’ll never forget it) I’m a little puzzled about this but you’re telling me this is one way to tell someone that they’re welcome and they’re loved?  I’m im.  And I remember another high schooler – when we came back into the building from CoVid – who said we’ve got to make sure people know how to do this, which is where the article “Practicing Our Welcome” came from.  It’s still in the Narthex but it occurs to me that we need to run that article in E-Notes again.  What I know about Pilgrim is that we have offered that big, glorious, enthusiastic, beautiful, inclusive welcome within our community and to visitors alike.  We’ve been doing it for 22 years, since 2002.  I also know that we’re on a journey – we’re not perfect at welcome, no one’s perfect at anything, but we’re trying.  

This is important, y’all.  Right now, it’s getting harder and harder to be queer, to be trans, to be non-binary.  Which means spaces of welcome and inclusion are getting more and more important.  

“holdin’ to each other, we don’t have to walk alone

When everything is broken, we can mend it if we try

We can make a world of difference, if we want to, we can fly…”

And if you have questions, or you’re puzzled, Pride Month is a great time to ask yourself, What Would Dolly Do?

A Sermon for Pilgrim Congregational Church, UCC, Lexington

Rev. Reebee Kavich Girash

August 2, 2026

Romans 12:3-8

³ For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of yourself more highly than you ought to think but to think with sober judgment, each according to the measure of faith that God has assigned. ⁴ For as in one body we have many members and not all the members have the same function, ⁵ so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another. ⁶ We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us: prophecy, in proportion to faith; ⁷ ministry, in ministering; the teacher, in teaching; ⁸ the encourager, in encouragement; the giver, in sincerity; the leader, in diligence; the compassionate, in cheerfulness. 

–

For our summer worship series this year I gave folks an optional preaching prompt:

I thought I should take up my own challenge, so today I want to tell you a story of, literally, the teacher in teaching.  The encourager in encouragement. The leader in diligence and wisdom and hospitality, too.  I want to tell you about Sister Mary Melanie Boyd.  

I knew Sister Melanie for 6 years in the Eighties. Given my background, it might seem strange that when I reviewed my early life for someone I deeply admired, a Roman Catholic nun came immediately to mind.

You have to know something about my childhood in Nashville.  I was raised by serious church goers, Protestant – United Methodist in the headquarters city of the United Methodist Church.  My mom was in UMW – United Methodist Women.  Both my parents were local church leaders and my aunt and uncle, too.  

But my folks had a problem.  Charitably, you could call their little girl precocious.  Uncharitably you could say I bored easily in school.  Mom and Pop kept trying to find a school where I would be challenged, get along with my peers, and get a good education – with tuition that they could afford.  Apparently in Kindergarten, the teacher said I couldn’t move up to first grade because I wasn’t tall enough for the water fountain in the first grade hallway.  So my parents packed me up to another school. I went to three schools between Kindergarten and second grade.  Then they found a promising option. But, GASP, it was a Catholic school literally housed in a convent. 

Enter Sister Mary Melanie Boyd, Principal of St. Bernard’s Non-Graded Academy. 

My parents cautiously sat down with Sister Melanie, sure that this was not the school for little Rebecca.  

Sister Melanie, my mother said, we don’t want our daughter pressured to convert.  Mr. and Mrs. Kavich, Sister Melanie replied, “your daughter won’t be pressured to convert at St. Bernard’s.”  “I believe we all worship the same God.”

She went on to talk about the class I would be part of: a dozen Catholic students, yes.  And several Protestant students, several Jewish students, a Muslim student and a Baha’i student. Yes, St. Bernard’s was Catholic and there would be prayers said and required Masses to attend.  But never with pressure to convert.  No disrespect toward any of the faiths represented in our school community.  

“I believe we all worship the same God.”  Those simple words to my parents in 1982 meant a lot to my folks.  

My folks did not know many people from other religious traditions, and yes, they probably had some distrust of Catholicism.  

Sister Melanie had the spiritual gifts of hospitality, respect, welcome, dignity, inclusion.  She was a great administrator, a terrific teacher, an encourager of children and parents.  She was compassionate and cheerful. 

“⁶ We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us: prophecy, in proportion to faith; ⁷ ministry, in ministering; the teacher, in teaching; ⁸ the encourager, in encouragement; the giver, in sincerity; the leader, in diligence; the compassionate, in cheerfulness.” 

And she was a leader, setting the tone for every teacher in that school – nuns and secular – to make space for every student and their whole selves, and their whole families.

St. Bernard’s curriculum was flexible so that kids good in math but challenged in reading could find a path.  There were children with physical challenges, intellectual challenges and gifts, rich kids, economically challenged kids, we were all together. 

I stayed there six years. 

And from Sister Melanie and that community, I learned a foundational value: to respect people of all faiths.  I can see that value as a throughline of my Christian journey.  When I look at my history for the first seeds of commitment to interfaith work – I find those seeds in Sister Mary Melanie Boyd.

My parents, trepidatious, asked if their faith would be respected. And Sister Melanie replied,  “I believe we all worship the same God.”

Now, I’d say it differently, today.  I’d say: I respect your faith. I honor the way you seek the divine through your tradition. Your faith journey is holy. Our diverse faith backgrounds can co-exist within the same community and all children of all religions can receive a wonderful education within the same community.

But Sister Melanie said it so simply and so clearly that I know her words by heart more than forty years later.  

Sister Mary Melanie Boyd was a member of the Order of the Sisters of Mercy, and an educator, for seventy years. She died in 2014 at age 86. The Order of the Sisters of Mercy is still active all over the world today, with a focus on “five Critical Concerns: care for the Earth, immigration, nonviolence, racism, and the rights and needs of women and children.”  

Thanks be to God for good role models. Amen.  

A Reflection for Pilgrim Church 

August 3, 2025

Rev. Reebee Kavich Girash

Luke 14: 12-14, as offered by Caro, the Iona Community’ss Warden, during worship at Iona Abbey July 2025

Jesus was eating a meal in the house of one of the leading teachers of the law, and he said to his host, ‘Whenever you give a lunch or a dinner, don’t invite your friends or colleagues or wealthy neighbours.  They might invite you in return and thus repay you.

No, when you have a party, invite those who never get invited out because they are deemed awkward, or different, or unworthy.  And then you will be, and experience, a blessing.  Then, even if they can’t repay, it shouldn’t matter to you, for you will be repaid at the resurrection of God’s people.

—

(I have just returned from sabbatical. My final week was at Iona Abbey on the island of Iona, Scotland.) 

In the Iona Community, within the walls of this Abbey, nothing is disposable.

In the morning when you make your tea, it’s in a hearty mug which you wash by hand with a microfiber cloth that is color coded for its purpose and reuse.  You dry your mug with another towel that has been used and laundered again and again.  Your tea bags, surely bought with care and fair trade, are composted to continue the cycle. Nothing is disposable here.

In the Abbot’s House where we stay, we press a button to get thirty seconds of water from the shower. We can press as many times as we like, but we are reminded each time: water is life.  Even water is precious here.

In the Abbey Church, there are walls a thousand years old.  In some places the local ferns have taken root within the mortar but they, too, are not taken out or thrown away.  They become as wreaths bringing color to the high stone walls of the chancel.  In the Abbey Church not even a weed is unvalued.

In the Abbey Refectory, nothing is disposable.  Once the locally sourced supper is complete, we tuck our bandana napkins back in our pockets for the next meal. There is no plastic here.  Our apple cores are composted and our leftovers carefully stored for the volunteers’ intimate meal on Friday when the guests have all ferried away again.  In the Abbey, no fruit of the earth is disposable.

When we walk around the island together on sacred Pilgrimage, we go at the slowest one’s pace and thus our hurriedness gives way to noticing.  Around the Abbey, no moment is disposable.  

Here, this week, scraps of paper are cut into squares to receive sacred, tender prayer requests: the names of those in need of healing are read aloud by candlelight in the Abbey Church connecting all of us to all of you for whom we pray.  In Community, scraps become offerings and even paper is not disposable. 

In the Abbey Cloister, fallen walls have become a sacred site, not swept away for the new.  

In the Abbey Community, when one of us walks in a near tumble and speaks with staggered, marbled words, we pause, and wait, and listen until we hear.  Because in the community, nothing is disposable.  

Here in the Abbey we learn, imagine and pray that in the Kindom of God, nothing and no one is disposable.

Amen.

You’ll Never Walk Alone

A Sermon for the Allin Church of Dedham, UCC

Rev. Reebee Kavich Girash

July 7. 2019

Text:

Luke 10:1-11, 16-20

10After this the Lord appointed seventy others and sent them on ahead of him in pairs to every town and place where he himself intended to go. 2He said to them, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into his harvest. 3Go on your way. See, I am sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves. 4Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals; and greet no one on the road. 5Whatever house you enter, first say, ‘Peace to this house!’ 6And if anyone is there who shares in peace, your peace will rest on that person; but if not, it will return to you. 7Remain in the same house, eating and drinking whatever they provide, for the laborer deserves to be paid. Do not move about from house to house.8Whenever you enter a town and its people welcome you, eat what is set before you; 9cure the sick who are there, and say to them, ‘The kingdom of God has come near to you.’ 10But whenever you enter a town and they do not welcome you, go out into its streets and say, 11‘Even the dust of your town that clings to our feet, we wipe off in protest against you. Yet know this: the kingdom of God has come near.’ 

16“Whoever listens to you listens to me, and whoever rejects you rejects me, and whoever rejects me rejects the one who sent me.”

17The seventy returned with joy, saying, “Lord, in your name even the demons submit to us!” 18He said to them, “I watched Satan fall from heaven like a flash of lightning. 19See, I have given you authority to tread on snakes and scorpions, and over all the power of the enemy; and nothing will hurt you. 20Nevertheless, do not rejoice at this, that the spirits submit to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”

Prayer:

Sermon:

A week ago today, thunderstorms worked their way through our area. We sat at home in our front room watching the driving rain and wind, oblivious to what was happening in our back yard. 

Between storms we took a post-dinner walk and in the midst of it, the text from our next door neighbor came: there’s a big branch down out back.  Looks like it missed your house. We scurried back to assess, and as we walked into our yard, our neighbor appeared with branch clippers and a saw for us to use. The real work began Monday morning when the skies had cleared and we amassed a 6 foot tall stack of twigs and leaves and a pile of firewood that is still available, if you’re interested. Charlotte, our neighbor, appeared again to help me haul the twigs and leaves away from the house.

Our neighborhood is like this, and particularly our next door neighbors.  Whatever minor or major crisis, they watch out for us, and they show up, with the right tools, and quiet wisdom about the way the neighborhood works.  

When we moved in three years ago, we thought the view and the nearby pond had brought us to this spot. But I think it was the neighbors. In this place, we know we are never alone. There are companions on the journey.

There is a storm happening here, in this community, I hear. Your dear, amazing Gabe is facing a great challenge and your strong, courageous pastor Cheryl is taking time to walk more closely to Gabe through his treatment. This whole family is traveling through an unexpected storm, and your church is simultaneously supporting them and dealing with what this storm means here, in your pews. You are stepping up to ministry in new ways. You are on a different journey than you were just a couple of months ago.

So this morning’s Gospel reading, in which Jesus sends out the seventy (or the seventy-two, depending on which translation you have in front of you) on a new mission is a good model for this moment.

There were seventy of them, which matches right up with the first seventy descendents of Noah, who formed seventy nations in the Jewish tradition. Moses chose seventy to go up Sinai with him to eat with God.  And Israel was captive to Babylon for seventy years. In other words, the number seventy had deep meaning. So Jesus sends 70, into the world, to minister in his name.

The work Jesus sends them out to do is urgent, important, and timely.

It’s also not always easy.

But:

They are not asked to go it alone.  They are sent in pairs, companions for comfort, strength, and challenge. Most of the time, throughout the Christian Testament and since then, followers of Jesus have ministered together, in community.  I wonder if this is in part because our triune God is within God’s own self, in community. In William Willimon’s words, “There is something about the Trinity that refuses to work alone.” Certainly, it is more possible to do ministry with companions. In one of the other readings in the lectionary today, Paul celebrates the power of companions:

 Bear one another’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. (Galatians 6:2)

When we go out to do a hard thing, having a companion on the journey means the joy and challenge of bearing one another’s burdens. 

They are sent with a word, and that word is peace. The seventy are asked to begin each visit, each project, each ministry, with a blessing of peace.  While we don’t often go out to proselytize today, nevertheless, we are sent out to minister by Jesus. And a blessing of peace is an awfully good place to start any encounter.

They are sent out, not knowing how they will be received or what the power of their ministry will be. They are told to expect and accept hospitality, and not to be picky or critical of that hospitality. The good news for us is that these models of ministry come back to Jesus testifying to the healing power of the ministry he sends them to do.  We may not know what the next phase of our ministry journey will be, but this text gives us hope that it will be fruitful, healing, and powerful.

Jesus sends the seventy out, two by two, because they cannot do what he has asked them to do, on their own. We see again and again in the Bible, the mandate to share ministry and to seek help.  Jethro tells his son-in-law Moses that he cannot do what God has asked him to do on his own (Exodus 18). And God tells Moses the same thing – to share his burden with the people (Numbers 11). And Paul tells the Romans, we do not live for ourselves – we live for one another. 

Growing up, my congregation would recite a statement of faith at the end of worship most weeks, and it’s opening words became a great promise to me:

We are not alone. We live in God’s world.

( https://www.united-church.ca/community-faith/welcome-united-church-canada/new-creed ) 

This is indeed one of the greatest promises of our faith: we are not alone.  God sends us companions on the journey, and God is with us, too.

Jessica Tate writes, “This is where we often find ourselves…in these empty places, uncertain of the end of the story.  We do not know how, or if….our hope will be restored. We are left with simply a promise – a promise that we are not alone….This is God’s promise to us…that God will be with us, no matter what…This is how God acts.  God clings to us, refusing to allow us to bear our despair and emptiness alone. In so doing, God shows us loving kindness that sows in us hope and fullness, in short, salvation.” (Between Text and Sermon, Ruth 1:6-22, Interpretation)

God sends us through this world with companions. 

God sends people with casseroles and branch cutters, Spiderman capes and encouraging words.

 The people who pledge to us that they will walk beside us on the road, whether it be through forest or desert, whether it be through despair or redemption, these are the people who carry us, until the tears are wiped away. These are the saints who bring us the message of hope, that we will get through this life, together, and with God’s grace.

And there is another companion on our journey, one whose presence and wisdom and strength is steadfast.

 It is all well and good that Jesus called his disciples to follow him; called us to follow him.  But the reason Christians have said yes to that call is because Jesus came to us, to share our common lot, to walk the unknown journey with us, to embody God’s own love and cling to us, whatever may come.

Thanks be to God, who sends us people.

And who offers us hope of redemption and restoration and new beginnings.

Let me end with this prayer from Kathy Galloway of the Iona Community (in Coracle 3, no. 11 copyright Iona Community, 1992, from Resources for Preaching and Worship, Year C).

 Let us pray: Our brother Jesus, you set our feet upon the way and sometimes where you lead we do not like or understand. Bless us with courage where the way is fraught with dread or danger; bless us with graceful meetings where the way is lonely; bless us with good companions where the way demands a common cause; bless us with night vision where we travel in the dark, keen hearing where we have not sight, to hear the reassuring sounds of fellow travelers; bless us with humour – we cannot travel lightly weighed down with gravity; bless us with humility to learn from those around us; bless us with decisiveness where we must move with speed; bless us with lazy moments, to stretch and rest and savour; bless us with love, given and received; and bless us with your presence, even when we know it in your absence; Lead us into exile, until we find that on the road is where you are, and where you are is going home. Bless us, lead us, love us, bring us home bearing the Gospel of life. Amen. 

Fruity

A Sermon for First Church Somerville, UCC

June 30, 2019

Rev. Reebee Kavich Girash

Audio Recording, Including Liturgist’s Reading:

Text:

Galatians 5:1, 13-25 (NRSV, alt.)

5:1 For freedom Christ has set us free. Stand firm, therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery.

5:13 For you were called to freedom, siblings; only do not use your freedom as an opportunity for self-indulgence, but through love become servants to one another.

5:14 For the whole law is summed up in a single commandment, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.”

5:15 If, however, you bite and devour one another, take care that you are not consumed by one another.

5:16 Live by the Spirit, I say, and do not gratify the desires of the flesh.

5:17 For what the flesh desires is opposed to the Spirit, and what the Spirit desires is opposed to the flesh; for these are opposed to each other, to prevent you from doing what you want.

5:18 But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not subject to the law.

5:19 Now the works of the flesh are obvious: fornication, impurity, licentiousness,

5:20 idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions,

5:21 envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these. I am warning you, as I warned you before: those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

5:22 By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness,

5:23 gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things.

5:24 And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.

5:25 If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit.

Prayer

Sermon

Strawberries.

Strawberries, this very week, let me talk to you about the strawberries – all 7 of them – that have ripened on my plants.  They are tiny, deeeeeep in color, intense in flavor, and I grew them my very own self. They are the tartest, sweetest, most lovely fruits.

The fruit of the spirit is joy.

They are joined this week in ripeness and loveliness by the several quarts of farmers market strawberries that I stocked up on because the farmstand manager, Jan, said the 90 degree weather on the way would take out the last of these beauties for the season.  It was a late spring and seems to have switched over to an early and hot summer, once again, thank you climate change and global weirding. But, Jan said, you come back next week and we’ll have the first raspberries.  She knows my boy can finish a box of raspberries before I manage to pay for them. There was one year we went up and picked a gallon ourselves. It was hot, out there on the farm that day, but my boy stayed hydrated with raspberry juice, dripping red down his chin and onto his shirt. 

The fruit of the spirit is patience.

Blackberries are not ready yet.  They come later in the summer, most years. Four summers in a row, the children at the day camp we co-led with the Brighton Allston UCC went on pilgrimage to the very back border of that church yard to look for blackberry vines falling down the wall, full and ripe. Some of these kids had no regular access to fresh fruit so one summer when our theme was, no kidding, Fruits of the Spirit, we took them across the street to Johnny’s Fruit Stand. Everyone had a basket to put their favorites into and then, it was like Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood, the local beat cop walked in to say hello to Johnny and the neighborhood kids and on that day everyone was okay.

The fruit of the spirit is kindness.

Tomatoes.  Also a summer fruit. I don’t love them, myself. I have been told that for some folks there is nothing more delicious than a warm tomato, picked from the vine, luscious and juicy, maybe with a little salt sprinkled on, and eaten in the sunshine. Tomatoes, not my favorite, but in the summertime when I think of tomatoes I think of a hot day in Tampa, when I was one of hundreds of UCC folks who left General Synod for a little while to walk in with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers in a strike for fair wages and conditions for tomato pickers in Florida. The UCC is still working with this coalition, even recognizing them at last week’s General Synod.  This coalition and their supporters have won agreements with 14 major foodsellers and restaurant chains. They have, in their own words, eliminated in this industry in Florida a state of modern day slavery. They have reduced sexual harassment and increased wages for workers and they created a Fair Food Program. Every tomato you eat that is picked by members of the Coalition of Immokalee Workers, is sweeter.(1) Those tomatoes, I love.  

The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness,

5:23 gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things.

The fruit of the spirit is justice.

The fruit of the spirit is liberation.

The fruit of the spirit is freedom.

Your preacher last week, Rachel Payne, didn’t she preach a word on Paul?  She spent some time talking about the dichotomy that Paul developed between Jewish law and Christian faith – as she pointed out, a false dichotomy that came perhaps out of Paul’s own anxiety about whether he was welcome and beloved.  Paul was an anxious sort, and had some social issues. When I spoke with you last time I preached from a section of Acts which chronicled a struggle between Peter and Paul and their followers over circumcision. Peter, in that passage from Acts, had a vision that moved him to support Christians who were from Gentile or Jewish backgrounds, and moved the church toward a new kind of inclusion. In Galatians, we find out two things.  According to Paul in Galatians, Peter succumbed to pressure and went back to expecting Gentile men to be circumcised to join the church. And, we learn, Paul just could not get over his conflict with Peter and his issues around what folks have to do to be Chrisian. When folks come to Galatia to preach circumcision, again – Galatians 2 – Paul gets anxious and angry, and as we do when we get that way, develops a stark contrast between his position and theirs.

Except that, in the end, Paul comes back to the law.

Freedom from the law, Paul winds up arguing, brings you back to the law.

“Ironically, Paul’s insistence on “Freedom from the Law” is supported by quoting from the Law: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’”(2)   He is not quoting Jesus here, he is quoting Leviticus.  

And then, we get to the heart of this chapter of Galatians, in which Paul presents another moral dichotomy, and this one I think is more healthy, more useful. More fruitful, even.

Paul presents a dichotomy between the flesh and the spirit. But wait, you say, Reebee, separation of the body from the spirit is a terrible idea. Furthermore everyone in this room groans at the thought of what Paul or someone writing with his name had to say elsewhere in the Bible about bodies and flesh, words that have been used to oppress women and LGBT folks.

Well, I want to propose that flesh and spirit are not actually what Paul is contrasting here.  He is actually pointing to something even more abstract. He’s delineating between self-centeredness and neighborliness, individualism and interdependence.  Focus on flesh is self-absorption and self-promotion.  (Paraphrasing Rudolf Bultmann, David Bartlett, “Fruits of the Spirit in Paul’s letter to the Galatians” in Journal for Preachers, Pentecost 2016.)

I can tell you I got this framing from a bunch of different commentators but I want to quote Out in Scripture, from the Human Rights Campaign in particular:

“Galatians 5:1, 13-25 brings memories of both treasures and traumas. Paul begins (and ends) with this wonderful proclamation of grace. Yet, as soon as many people hear the word “flesh” (verse 16), they default into a legalistic and punitive theology. We are reminded that “flesh” was Paul’s shorthand for the lower, carnal mind — a life driven by fear rather than love. Galatians 5:14 clearly reminds us that the fulfillment of the law is to love your neighbor as yourself. When all else is hung on this anchor, we hear it more responsibly both for ourselves and for others…Free, embodied people consult deeply with their bodies as they relate to other bodies, with the God who is embodied in Christ.”(3)   

Thinking about freedom in this way, I come to my own paraphrase of the beginning of this chapter of Galatians:

For freedom, Christ has set us free,

For the freedom of all, Christ has freed us.

To liberate others, Christ as liberated us.

And therefore, the fruit of the Spirit, the fruit of this freedom to free others, is oriented to our community, our siblings in Christ, our neighbors. 

Here we are, preparing to celebrate freedom this week.

We talk a lot about freedom in the United States leading up to July 4, we talk a lot about the freedom of the individual.  But Paul’s description of freedom is freedom that liberates an entire community.  

In other words, when Paul says we are free in Christ, the freedom he promotes is freedom to act in love. And when we act in love, 

The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness,

5:23 gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things.

The fruit of the spirit is neighborliness.

The fruit of the spirit is justice.

The fruit of the spirit is mutual liberation.

This July 4 many of us will be praying for, and advocating for, the freedom and liberation of folks who cross our borders yearning for freedom, remembering that until all of us are free, none of us are free.  Instead of waving a flag many of us will be staring at a picture of a father and daughter, face down in a river.

Emma Lazarus, whose words are on the Statue of Liberty, wrote: “Until all of us are free, none of us are free.”

I don’t know if next week you will have a third Sunday on Galatians, but here is a sneak preview of where Paul goes at the beginning of chapter 6:

6:2 Bear one another’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ. 

This summer, 

Let us bear one another’s burdens,

Seek one another’s freedom,

Walk alongside our neighbors, 

And enjoy the sweet, ripe, luscious fruit of the Spirit.

Amen.

Welcome Home?

Preached at North Reading Union Congregational Church, UCC

June 23, 2019

Rev. Reebee Kavich Girash

“God loves us through all our blemishes, and we respond by grabbing on to hope.” – UCC Mental Health Network liturgy for Mental Health Sunday 2019

Texts 

Galatians 3:26-29

3:26 …In Christ Jesus you are all children of God through faith.

3:27 As many of you as were baptized into Christ have clothed yourselves with Christ.

3:28 There is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all of you are one in Christ Jesus.

3:29 And if you belong to Christ, then you are Abraham’s offspring, heirs according to the promise.

Luke 8:26-39

8:26 Then they arrived at the country of the Gerasenes, which is opposite Galilee.

8:27 As he stepped out on land, a man of the city who had demons met him. For a long time he had worn no clothes, and he did not live in a house but in the tombs.

8:28 When he saw Jesus, he fell down before him and shouted at the top of his voice, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, do not torment me”–

8:29 for Jesus had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. (For many times it had seized him; he was kept under guard and bound with chains and shackles, but he would break the bonds and be driven by the demon into the wilds.)

8:30 Jesus then asked him, “What is your name?” He said, “Legion”; for many demons had entered him.

8:31 They begged him not to order them to go back into the abyss.

8:32 Now there on the hillside a large herd of swine was feeding; and the demons begged Jesus to let them enter these. So he gave them permission.

8:33 Then the demons came out of the man and entered the swine, and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and was drowned.

8:34 When the swineherds saw what had happened, they ran off and told it in the city and in the country.

8:35 Then people came out to see what had happened, and when they came to Jesus, they found the man from whom the demons had gone sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind. And they were afraid.

8:36 Those who had seen it told them how the one who had been possessed by demons had been healed.

8:37 Then all the people of the surrounding country of the Gerasenes asked Jesus to leave them; for they were seized with great fear. So he got into the boat and returned.

8:38 The man from whom the demons had gone begged that he might be with him; but Jesus sent him away, saying,

8:39 “Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you.” So he went away, proclaiming throughout the city how much Jesus had done for him.

Prayer

Sermon

I know this man. When I first sat with today’s text, I had a flash of recognition.  I know him, and I wonder if you do, too.

I wonder if you know someone bound up by a Legion of crises.

It’s no easy thing when a Bible story brings to mind the face of someone we love, or someone for whom our hearts break, or hardest of all, someone we can’t look at anymore. Someone we’ve sent away.

I read this text and thought of a modern Gerasene, occupied by a Legion of troubles, that I saw on our local bike path last month.  I rode past him, tucked into his sleeping bag. All his possessions were in a shopping cart he had dragged up onto the ledge. He lay precariously on that narrow place at the top of a concrete slope, under the bridge near Alewife.  

I looked for him a few days later but he was not there anymore. In his place were new No Trespassing signs.  

I read this text again and recognized someone I love, a family friend, bound for years by the chains of alcohol addiction, who could not find his way into an AA meeting, could not take the first of twelve steps.

And again as I pondered Luke’s words, I remembered a phone call, late at night, from a parishioner struggling so mightily to get her mental illness under control but that night she was driven into the wilds and she called, needing to get to the Emergency Room, fast.

One more time I read the Gospel, this time as I waited in a courthouse lobby, next to a woman who cannot go home, whose worries for herself and her children are more than Legion if she goes home.  Yet, she is told, she cannot stay here. She has neither clothes nor country.

He could be any of them, that’s the way the Gospel works. This man could be any of us. 

This man is naked, alone, exiled, unclean, bound in chains, occupied, out of control, homeless, sleeping in the place of the dead.

And hardest of all, 

he is without identity and without community.

Jesus asks him his name and the troubles in his soul come forth and name themselves Legion.

Legion, something with the power of 6000 Roman soldiers occupying the land, occupying his life.

Legion, binding up not only this man, but occupying the community that once loved him, just the way it happens, when our loved ones’ suffering binds us up.

Thankfully, Jesus shows up.

Jesus crosses a sea to get to him.

Jesus walks miles from the shore to see this brother.

Jesus – for the only time in Luke’s Gospel – travels into Gentile territory to find him.

Jesus asks the man, what is your name?  Because Jesus knows he has a name that transcends nakedness, homelessness, and disease.  God has not forgotten him. 

Jesus wants to know his name, the name of this beloved child of God.

The good news for this brother is that nothing can separate him from the love of God and on that day in Gerasa, Jesus does not call him Legion, he calls him beloved and the man is freed. Jesus calls all of us beloved, and in that there is liberation.

Frederick Buechner once said, “Resurrection means the worst thing is never the last thing.”  Legion does not have the last word, love has the last word, that is the good news for this brother. He is not his illness or his crisis, he is a whole and dignified soul.

None of us are defined by the Legions of crises within us, and oh my that is good news.

But, there is also a challenge in this morning’s Gospel. When they see him healed, this brother’s community is afraid.

If any of these people came into your mind, 

sister, or brother, or friend, 

If someone who is addicted, homeless, incarcerated, or struggling with mental illness,

Came into your mind,

This is a hard Gospel.

We are not Jesus. We cannot simply cast Legion off the cliff, no matter how much we love our brother. We are not Jesus – we can only walk the journey the best we can. It may even be hard for us to imagine restoration. And we really don’t know what to do with someone who is healing.

If we recognize the Gerasene demoniac in our own lives, 

Then we have to know that the Gospel, the Good News, is not just about this naked, bound, occupied one being healed.

It’s about us, their community.

And Luke doesn’t tell us how things turn out in Gerasa, nor how it will turn out here.

At the end of the text, Luke leaves the story unfinished.

He writes that the people are afraid, and rather than throwing a party for the return of their beloved, they ask Jesus to leave.

This brother wants to go away with Jesus, the nexus of his healing.  

Seriously, you know you would want the same thing. You would cling to your liberator, hide in the safety of his wings.

But Jesus will not let him leave home. Jesus sends him back to the community where he could not live while bound and occupied by Legion. Jesus sends him back to the city where his healing has terrified folks.

Jesus commissions him to ministry, saying: “Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you.” And Luke says, “he went away, proclaiming throughout the city how much Jesus had done for him.”

Jesus sends this man, healed, and whole, back home, to tell his good news. 

Does anyone welcome him at the city’s gate and do they listen to him?

Luke does not tell us if dozens are reconciled or thousands are saved or hundreds more healed.  Luke does not tell us if this man is welcomed home. We just don’t know.

But we know this.

The good news for Christian communities in this Gospel is a charge to welcome our brothers and sisters home.  We are called to set aside labels and offer hospitality. 

We can see their face as we listen to this text, and here’s the thing:

We may not be able to heal him or unbind her, but we can be part of a community of many hands and hearts that offers welcome, support, grace and companionship on the journey of healing.

It may take more than we have individually. It may take a hospital stay, it may take medication, it may take therapy we are not trained to offer, it may take a shelter or a social worker, it may take time and it may have to be repeated over and over again. We may even wonder if healing will ever be complete, but the Gospel invites us to imagine that the worst thing may not be the last thing.

To imagine that healing may be possible.

To imagine restoration.

The Gospel tells us not to be afraid to stand, watching the horizon, for the prodigal one’s return.

The late Rachel Held Evans, in her final book, wrote: “The miracles of Jesus aren’t magic tricks designed to awe prospective converts, nor are they tests from the past, meant to sort true believers from doubters. They are instructions, challenges. They show us what to do and how to hope.”  ( Rachel Held Evans, Inspired: Slaying Giants, Walking on Water, and Loving the Bible Again. (Nashville, TN: Nelson Books, 2018) Kindle Edition, 248.)

I don’t know what happened to the man under the bridge, or any of his dozen companions, but I know officers and social workers who are walking around Alewife looking for them, and I know people of faith and folks moved by compassion are asking themselves how to help.

I do know what happened to my dad’s dear friend: he took that first step and spend years walking the eleven more, and then he found a church that called him beloved, and listened to his testimony and learned from him.

The woman on the phone has been back teaching Sunday School for years now, and the kids love her because she is silly and real at the same time.

And the woman in the courtroom is still waiting, but she is not waiting alone.

We can grab hope and hold on to it.

We can see this brother, this sister, as beloved,

We can watch for them and

Welcome them home.

We can whisper to them,

You are beloved.

—

If we forget how to do it, maybe we can turn to Paul’s words from Galatians.  I think he offers the same good news and the same invitation.

At the church at Galatia, you see, Paul witnesses people being bound by labels and separated from one another.

Paul sees a community where one piece of your story, one label, determines your worthiness.

Slave, female, Greek?  They tell you to stand outside the gate.

Free, male, or Jew?  They offer you a place at the banquet.

No, says Paul, those distinctions do not matter to God, nor should they in the church. Every one of you is clothed with Christ, every one of you is God’s beloved child, every one of you is an heir to the promise of God’s infinite love.

He’s talking about everyone who would follow Jesus, but I hear our Gerasene brother’s story in Paul’s words.

Naked, alone, exiled, occupied – all of that is gone now and as Paul puts it, he is clothed with Christ.

Paul envisions a time, already-but-not-yet, when labels are less important than community, when there is no longer outsider and insider, worthy and unworthy, rich or poor, well or disturbed but one family of God’s children, heirs according to the promise of Gods’ love, compassion and justice.  

And that is good news, my friends, because there is nothing that separates a single one of us from God’s love. Nothing. 

In Christ you are neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, 

Not bound or labeled by experiencing mental illness or homelessness, or nakedness either – you are clothed with Christ.

In Christ’s community you are no longer a label,

No longer unnamed,

You are valued, known, and seen.

The Gerasene brother came home on a mission, to share what Jesus had done for him.

These missionaries in our midst, these witnesses to redemption, these strangers and angels and prophets have a good word, a challenging invitation for us.

Jesus sends them to tell what God has done for them, 

To tell of God’s love for all of us.

Will we listen?

Amen.

Of Roses and Rainbows

A Sermon for First Church Somerville, UCC

Rev. Reebee Kavich Girash

May 19, 2019

Audio Recording, including music by the amazing Dr. Jolie Rocke which precedes and follows the sermon:

Text:

Acts 11:1-18

11:1 Now the apostles and the believers who were in Judea heard that the Gentiles had also accepted the word of God. 11:2 So when Peter went up to Jerusalem, the circumcised believers criticized him, 11:3 saying, “Why did you go to uncircumcised men and eat with them?” 11:4 Then Peter began to explain it to them, step by step, saying,

11:5 “I was in the city of Joppa praying, and in a trance I saw a vision. There was something like a large sheet coming down from heaven, being lowered by its four corners; and it came close to me. 11:6 As I looked at it closely I saw four-footed animals, beasts of prey, reptiles, and birds of the air.  11:7 I also heard a voice saying to me, ‘Get up, Peter; kill and eat.’ 11:8 But I replied, ‘By no means, Lord; for nothing profane or unclean has ever entered my mouth.’ 11:9 But a second time the voice answered from heaven, ‘What God has made clean, you must not call profane.’ 11:10 This happened three times; then everything was pulled up again to heaven.  11:11 At that very moment three men, sent to me from Caesarea, arrived at the house where we were. 11:12 The Spirit told me to go with them and not to make a distinction between them and us. These six brothers also accompanied me, and we entered the man’s house. 11:13 He told us how he had seen the angel standing in his house and saying, ‘Send to Joppa and bring Simon, who is called Peter; 11:14 he will give you a message by which you and your entire household will be saved.’  11:15 And as I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell upon them just as it had upon us at the beginning. 11:16 And I remembered the word of the Lord, how he had said, ‘John baptized with water, but you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.’ 11:17 If then God gave them the same gift that he gave us when we believed in the Lord Jesus Christ, who was I that I could hinder God?” 11:18 When they heard this, they were silenced. And they praised God, saying, “Then God has given even to the Gentiles the repentance that leads to life.

Prayer:

Come Holy Spirit, our souls inspire and enlighten us with your celestial fire for if you are with us then nothing else matters. And if you are not with us, then nothing else matters.  Be with us, we pray in the name your Beloved, Amen. (A prayer often offered by Barbara Brown Taylor before her sermons)

Sermon:

It was a pivot moment for the early church.

They were still figuring out their sense of identity, figuring out who they were and who was part of their movement. In a fledgling community, when you’re establishing identity, you have a tendency to define insiders and outsider, us and them, and so the early church had done.

Despite Jesus’ own ministry with and among people of many cultures and religious backgrounds, his followers were mostly Jewish.

At Pentecost the Spirit moved among “devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem.” (Acts 2:5)

Philip started moving the early church toward a broader ministry by going to Samaria and preaching there, and his encounter with the Ethiopian Eunuch in Acts 8 moved the way of Jesus toward a more inclusive identity.

Cornelius’ conversion and Peter’s vision expanded the church even further.

~~

I propose to you that First Church has been through its own pivot moments, and I was privileged to witness one of them in the first few years I was part of this community. I walked in to this building in August of 1996, and things were a little different at the time.

To begin with, the address.

The building we are in right now – what is the address?

89 College Ave?  When I walked through these doors for the first time, in August of 1996, the address on this building was 95 College Avenue.  (Give me a little feedback if you hear something familiar.)

That’s the address of the recovery house next door, you say? It was the parsonage at the time.  And all the mail – the mail for the church, the pastor, the pastor’s children, the pastor’s housemates, all came through the mailslot there.

The pastor’s office was there, too – where Jason Donnelly and I both came to talk to the pastor on the same day about wanting to go to seminary.

The chapel, if I recall correctly, still had pews and dark walls and Duhamel Hall wasn’t even called that yet. There was a stage used for dusty storage in the back half of the basement. (Can we get a shout out to the dozens of work weekend crews who have knocked down and lightened up the walls of this place over the years?)

The rose window, of course, was over there.

Davis Square was a little different, too, back then.  It had not hit its renaissance period yet. It was still the inexpensive neighborhood. There was a social security office where elders waited for hours where the BFresh is. Bars still smelled like smoke, the Someday Cafe was the first proto-hipster coffee shop, and I only knew two cycle commuters – both of them, by the way, tall Canadian scientists named John. 

As I walk this chancel, I can hear the whispers of the folks who first welcomed me here, in 1996, to this place.

Ralph and Ellen, who helped me practice adulting.

Peg, who had major questions for me when I first went on the deacons.

John, and Sara and Vin.

Kim and Virginia and Dibbie, Betsy and Dennis, Ellie and Bill, Neil and Beckie.

<Show two mugs, then ONA booklet>

Some of you longtimers will recognize this artifact from the 90s.  It’s the ONA Booklet, from the spring of 1998, when we were prayerfully considering whether this congregation would specifically and publicly welcome of LGBT folks. 

Becoming ONA was not obvious.

Indeed, digging through my email archives, I found a comment from someone who’d been on the ONA committee when they tried it in the early 90s – they tabled it because the church was dying, so what was the point?

(Y’all, this church has a habit of rising from the dead. Amen?)

In 1998 there were folks who said we were such a friendly church wouldn’t everyone just know they were welcome?

There were folks who thought it would be divisive.

There were folks simply afraid of change.

And the rainbow flag symbol itself was a challenge.

We had folks whose upbringing taught them a very specific notion of sin, folks who like the early church leaders in Jerusalem, wondered how we could minister with that kind of people. 

And then we had folks who believed that every single person is created in the image of God, beautiful and worthy.  Folks who believed it was an expression of God’s faithfulness and compassion for churches to be welcoming.

We had folks who were convinced the body of Christ was incomplete without making our welcome plain.

Folks who knew it was God’s will to minister to and with everyone, and God’s will that we proclaim it joyfully.

Folks who knew what a profound witness it would be to wave a beautiful, rainbow flag as if it were a blanket descended from heaven to say, everyone is welcome here.  We mean it.

Folks who heard in Peter’s testimony their own belief:

 “We truly understand that God shows no partiality.” (Acts 10:34)

“There is no distinction between us.” (Acts 11:12)

“Who are we that we could hinder God?”  (Acts 11:17)

We were, in late 1998, the 276th UCC church in the nation to become ONA.  I know that seems….not very pioneering, not a lot to write home about, but keep in mind some other numbers:

Today, there’s 1500 or 1600 ONA congregations, nationally.  We were, I think, 18th in Massachusetts – today there are 185 ONA churches in Massachusetts out of more than 350 UCC churches in the Commonwealth.

We walked in Pride that next spring, when there were only a few dozen of us from ONA Churches. 

So, we weren’t first in line but we were on the early end of things.

We made this pledge to inclusion at a time when it seemed just as like to lose us people as to appeal to newcomers.

I wonder how different congregation would be, today, if the Friendly Church of 1998 had a different vision and had not become ONA.

Raise your hand if you would be here if this church were not ONA?

Because you are here, and you are here, and you are here, and you are here,
this local body of Christ is whole and perfect.

~~

Back to Peter, and the early church.

Now, that gets a little complicated.  In that pivot moment, the church went from a small group of Jewish folks to a movement that embraced people of many nationalities and religious backgrounds and we would like to just celebrate this and say Amen and move on to the hymn.  

But I have to put in a couple of caveats to this pivot moment because Christian history is complex and one of the results of this moment was, when Christianity became the religion of empire, sharing the faith with people of all nations flat out turned into colonialism. When more and more Gentiles became Christian, it was not long before Christianity veered into the terrible terrain of supersessionism and anti-semitism. Repentance from these sins is our common work. 

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We are still figuring out what it means to be an Open and Affirming Church.

We are still figuring out how welcome without expecting folks to be just like us but with different pronouns.  (I’m inspired and provoked here by this article by K. HawkerSelf.)

And we are still figuring out how to live into all the promises made in our ONA statement:

We…commit ourselves to welcoming all people into the full life and ministry of the church regardless of sexual orientation, gender, marital status, age, mental and physical ability, race, ethnicity, nationality, or economic status. We continue to commit ourselves to the struggle against injustice in all forms.

Our work toward welcome did not end in 1998.  We celebrate same sex marriages here and we have updated our statement to reflect gender identity and to make clear our welcome of transgender folks, something only about 40% of ONA churches have done. (1) And there is surely more holy welcome yet to be proclaimed.

And more broadly, in 2019, our work is not done on justice.

Immigration; Women’s rights; Racial Justice, Environmental and Climate Justice, we are called to witness. All of these issues are about who is in and who is out, who has power and who does not, and any one of these could have been part of Peter’s vision, must be part of our vision in 2019.

Church, this is our ongoing and holy work.

Like Peter, we will continue (to try) not to hinder God.

Like Peter, we will not distinguish between people.

Like followers of Jesus we will declare everyone our neighbors.

 We will aspire to be more and more welcoming, more and more affirming, more and more justice-seeking.  Because this is our calling and our charism, in this congregation – as long as the rose window and the rainbow flag mark this place, it will be a church where all are welcomed and everyone’s dignity is upheld.

Thanks be to God.

Amen.

“God is GOOD!”

“All the time!”

“Welcome everyone, welcome to First Church Somerville. Welcome to you if you are queer or straight, or a little bit of each. Welcome to you if you are young or old, or a little bit of each. Welcome to people of all colors, all genders, all body shapes and sizes. Because YOU are here this morning, this Body is whole and perfect. One of the ways we welcome one another here at First Church Somerville is through the passing of the peace. This is your opportunity to offer your neighbor your welcome, and the welcome of Jesus Christ, with a handshake, a hug, a holy kiss, or if you prefer a non-touch option, the peace sign. The peace of Christ be with you all!”