sermon 7-22-07 Proper 11

Grace to you and peace from the still speaking God.
Amen.

Actually, grace and peace seem to be concepts at odd
with what God says to us in our readings this morning.

What is up with those readings?

God is, how can one say, a bit angry.

The songs of the temple shall become wailings in that day,
says the Lord God…
Hear this, you that trample on the needy,
and bring to ruin the poor of the land…

The time is surely coming, says the Lord God,
when I will send a famine on the land;
not a famine of bread, or a thirst for water,
but of hearing the words of the LORD.

They shall wander from sea to sea, and from north to east;
they shall run to and fro, seeking the word of the LORD,
but they shall not find it.

That’s from Amos.

Then there is today’s psalm.

You love evil more than good,
and lying more than speaking the truth.

God will break you down forever;
God will snatch and tear you from your tent;
God will uproot you from the land of the living.

God is still speaking.

God just is not saying very easy things.

We want God to confirm us in our comfortableness.

We want God to be a good old boy
who tells us that we just can slide with being good old boys too.

There are some places where one can hear sermons
about this easy sort of god.

But not here.

God is still speaking.

God is still speaking in this church.

++++++++++

Now when I say “this church”

does the phrase “this church”
refer to our United Church of Christ,
which just celebrated its 50th anniversary at General Synod 26
in Hartford, Connecticut,

or does the phrase “this church”
refer to
First Congregational Church, United Church of Christ of Muskegon,
or to
Congregational United Church of Christ of Armada,
or Emmanuel United Church of Christ of Manchester,
Phoenix Community Church, United Church of Christ of Kalamazoo,
perhaps the Congregational Church of Birmingham, United Church of Christ –



No matter where we are from, we are all one church.

We are all connected.

No matter who we were
or where we have been on life's journey,
we have become United Church of Christ.

And that is a good thing.

Of the UCC,
we have come to a place for which our parents sighed.

+++++++++++++++++++++++++++

In the narthex,
on either side of the doors
there are two plaques,
two plaques that honor by consensus the two pastors
regarded as the greatest pastors
in the 148 year history of this congregation:
the Rev. Archibald Hadden
and
the Rev. Samuel Oliver.


Dr. Hadden and Dr. Oliver
wrote some very important words from their hearts
73 years ago,
in 1934
for the 75th anniversary of this congregation.

(Those doing the math fast:
yes, in two years
we will celebrate the 150th anniversary of this congregation.)

Dr. Hadden and Dr. Oliver wrote
what they felt was vital for this congregation to be about
as it moved from its first 75 years of ministry into its future.

What Drs. Hadden and Oliver said was this:
this church must be about the business of economic justice,
this church must be about the business of racial justice,
and this church must never again bless another war.

That is a most remarkable forshawdowing
of the five historic commitments of the UCC –

perhaps not a foreshawdowing at all
but the foundation of what called the UCC into being
and what our purpose is about today –

the five historic commitments that we reflected upon
earlier in our worship,
the five historic commitments which are:

1. We are a united and uniting church.
2. We are a multiracial and multicultural church.
3. We are a church accessible to all.
4. We are an open and affirming church.
5. We are a peace with justice church.

Now to some people that sounds “liberal.”

That is the usual thing said about the UCC
when someone is trying to insult us:
They say we are “liberal.”

To me,
they sound like the words of Dr. Hadden and Dr. Oliver
of 73 years ago.

1. We are united and uniting.

Dr. Hadden and Dr. Oliver wrote that
we at First did not worship one denominational past;
they said
“the sources from which [our] membership came
discloses a wide range of denominational background
with various shades of belief and christian practice.”

And because of that,
Drs. Hadden and Oliver contiuned,
we were and are positioned to be ecumenical,
harmonious with others,
to be united and uniting in Christ
rather than in any divisive thing.


2. We are a multiracial and multicultural church.

Drs. Hadden and Oliver observed
a historic diversity of this congregation’s membership,
noting that we are not
“limited to a racial or denominational background.”

Dr. Hadden and Dr. Oliver observed
our unity at First was
“to Christian principles rather than to race, doctrine, or denomination.”

Now we all know that we have a long way to go
for this congregation to grow into
the multiracial and multicultural expression
to which we in the UCC are committed;
we must strive mightily and intentionally
to be multiracial and multicultural
in fulfillment of the vision of Drs. Hadden and Oliver
and the UCC.

Let it be also said
that those attended General Synod 26
noted well that the UCC,
our national church, our membership, and our leadership,
clergy and lay,
is profoundly
and intentionally
multicultural and multiracial.


3. We are a church accessible to all.

This is an area that Drs. Hadden and Oliver did not address;
they could not anticipate everything,
and I presume their blessings
on what has been done here
for accessibility
and for what we will continue to do.


4. We are an opening and affirming church.

This is also an area that Dr. Hadden and Dr. Oliver
did not address
and here I will not presume their thoughts
but everything they wrote 73 years ago
speaks of a witness to love, acceptance, inclusivity.

We are an open and affirming church.

We have a history in the UCC and our predecessor church bodies:

-- in 1785 we were the first Protestants to ordain an African American to the pastoral office,
Lemuel Haynes,

-- in 1853 we were the first in the church since the ancient church
to ordain a woman to the pastoral office,
Antoinette Brown,

-- in 1972 we were the first church body
in recorded church history
to ordain an openly gay person,
Bill Johnson.

The UCC is all about being open and affirming.

For some people this seems to be an issue
but the UCC is clear on this:
we are open and affirming.

The kids get it –
at confirmation camp last month we were taking turns
saying why we loved our church;
one confirmation student got a big smile on this face
and said with great conviction,
“I love my church because I am accepted there.”

Truth be told, people,
I live my life for moments like that.

At confirmation camp and at General Synod 26
there were the little giggles and twitters
when mention was first made of sexuality issues,
as you might expect with adolescents and teens,
or perhaps even with adults,

but once the question was put out there,
the question:
should our church be open and affirming to everyone,
the answer was always a definitive yes.

No matter who you are or where you are on life's journey, you're welcome here.

In the UCC we mean those words.

No matter who you are or where you are on life's journey, you're welcome here.

We in the UCC intentionally proclaim those words of welcome.
Someone in the Church has to say it and mean it
and right now there is no one else
in America on a national level
besides us.

If not us, who?

It should be us,
it must be us,
it must be the UCC,
because God is still speaking to us
and we have a long history of being early truth tellers.

If we don’t live out,
that the light of the world is Jesus,
then who will?

We all know the rejection and the pain
that people of certain sexual orientations have suffered
from the church and society;

for those of us who live in Muskegon,
last Sunday’s front page stories in the Chronicle
were another painful reminder
on how families and individuals
in this very day, right now,
are treated badly, devastated
by the actions of religious communities
because they or a family member is gay –

No matter who you are or where you are on life's journey, you're welcome here.

As with so many other things
we in the UCC are called to lead.

The UCC and its predecessor bodies
pioneered higher education in this country,
today 15 seminaries and 47 colleges are related to the UCC,
the UCC and its predecessor bodies
established the first printing press in the United States,
held the mettings that led to the Boston Tea Party,
saved the Liberty Bell from the British,
gave America the first published African American author,
were the earliest truth tellers
in the American abolitionist movement,
supported against much opposition those who were held in slavery on the Amistad,
gave American its first united church body in 1840,
pioneered the liturgical, eucharistic consciousness of Mercursburg Theology a hundred years before the rest of
American Protestantism got involved,
founded six of the historic African American colleges,
pioneered the Social Gospel movement,
gave the world the brilliant and church shaking theologicans
H. Richard Neibuhr, Reinhold Neibuhr, and Paul Tillich,
the Neibuhrs being from Michigan,
gave us Dr Hadden and Dr Oliver in 1934 speaking for racial and economic justice and stating
“this church must never again bless another war,”
was on record calling for an end to the Viet Nam war in 1965,
long before any other American institution took that stand,
supported the United Farm Workers,
supported the Wilmington 10 of the civil rights movement
gave Martin Luther King his first honorary degree in the early days of the Montgomery bus boycott,
gave American the first African American president of an integrated church body,
gave the church its first inclusive language hymnal
and book of worship,

whether we have been afraid or not,
those who came before us in the UCC
and its predecessor church bodies
have been from earliest colonial days
in the fore front of where ever the action was,
those who have before us have been early truth tellers,

God has called us to be in the forefront,

so should anyone be surprised the UCC has been and is
a consistent early truth teller
in being an open and affirming church body.

The only surprise would be in if we didn’t take the lead.



Someone is still bound to say that we should not talk
of sexuality issues in the church.

God created us as sexual beings,
the Biblical book Song of Songs (Song of Solomon)
celebrates God’s gift of sexuality,
the Scriptures have much to say
about the covenant of faithfulness in these regards,
one of the 10 commandments is about adultery
so therefore we must discuss it,
circumcision is a Biblical issue and issues of circumcision and non-circumcision are crucial to the Christian Biblical writers,
we make much of the virgin Mary;

as long as we have a commandment about adultery
we are required by the God and the Scriptures
to discuss issues of sexuality with our youth
in Christian Education and especially in confirmation,
and sometimes from the pulpit;

it is good,
every good transcending,
that as our youth come into their own
as the human beings that God created them to be,
that they know the very words of the UCC’s Gospel welcome:

No matter who you are or where you are on life's journey, you're welcome here.

Our witness to Christ is deeply enhanced
because we hear the still speaking God
telling us to extravagantly welcome all people,
not casting on others our own biases
but welcoming all people as God created them to be.

In fact the younger ones among us get it
a lot better than some of us in older generations.

It is unfathomable why some seem to obsess about
the uniqueness and gifts of each individual as created by God,
rather than grasp that the still speaking God
created us each with our own orientations;
the important issue is
covenantal living in faithfulness to one another.

And thus the UCC is an open and affirming church.

That leads me to the last historic affirmation of the UCC:



5. We are a peace with justice church.

Jesus said “blessed are the peacemakers.”

When did peacemaking
become a prisoner to our political biases?

The still speaking God did not call us to be Republicans
or Democrats.

The still speaking God did not in Christ say
Blessed are the liberals
nor
Blessed are the conservatives.

The still speaking God in the words of Jesus said
Blessed are the peacemakers.

34 years ago Dr. Hadden and Dr. Oliver
in an address to this church said these words:

“This church can never again bless another war…
the spirit of war and the spirit of Christ can never be reconciled.”

That is hardly news nor hardly new.

We are the United Church of Christ,
Christ is the head of our church,
not a political leader and not a political party,
not a political ideology or partisan beliefs
no matter how emotionally we may hold them.

No matter who you are or where you are on life's journey, you're welcome here.

There must be no confusion about peacemaking.

To say that we cannot bless a war –
Dr. Hadden’s words and Dr. Oliver’s words,
not mine,
but I like those words,
how can we ever invoke God’s or the church’s blessings on war,

but is not to be thought of as anti our country
or anti this or anti that
and especially not anti our troops.

We don’t all agree.
Some among us feel that the current wars are wrong in every conceivable way.

Others
feel the current military actions are necessary and supportable.

And there are many feelings between those poles.

No matter who you are or where you are on life's journey, you're welcome here.

A great moment at General Synod 26
was when we all were in conversation
with our UCC military chaplains.

A view on the war is a matter of supporting
or not supporting our troops.

A supporting our troops issue can be vieed as
how much money are we as a congregation
giving to the UCC to do the work of the church
which includes the funding of our UCC military chaplains;

out there in the midst of war
there is not a person who needs to have our opinions
but they do need the love and support we can give
through our military chaplains.

In fact we all ought to be demanding
of our finance committees and our governing boards
that we give ever increasing support to the UCC
to do the work of the church,
to fund our chaplains and our educational institutions
and fund our global ministries and our national ministries,

to fund all the work of the church because it is not about us,
it is about what we do for others:

in the end
the still speaking God will judge the UCC and us
not on whether we were conservative or liberal
but on whether we were faithful.


Our lessons today:
the Scriptures are filled with God’s call for justice.

The Scriptures are filled with the call to love,
not to judge or condemn but to love others as God has loved us:

read the lesson from Amos and all of Amos
and all of the prophets
that Jesus constantly quoted,
that Jesus self-identified as the reason the God dwells among us,
the psalms and all of the Scriptures
which call us to the very things
that Dr. Hadden and Dr. Oliver put before us 73 years ago,
that have been the historic commitments of the UCC
and its predecessor bodies;

this call of Jesus is hard to hear sometimes;
it is why Martha hid from Jesus to avoid hearing the difficult words of Christ
that take us out of comfort zones into the challenges of living
as God’s faithful people in a world that ever more
needs to experience the love, peace, and justice of God
that we need to give
as God’s people.


In the end
the still speaking God will judge the UCC and us
not on whether we were conservative or liberal
but on whether we were faithful.

The UCC is not perfect.

But as Dr. Hadden and Dr. Oliver
speak to us across our own history
to live out the historic commitments of the UCC,
I can only conclude:
Thank God for the UCC.