Advent 1 – Sunday, December 1, 2024
First Congregational Church of Cheshire
© the Rev. Dr. James Campbell
 
 
1 Thessalonians 3:9-13
 
How can we thank God enough for you in return for all the joy that we feel before our God because of you? Night and day, we pray most earnestly that we may see you face to face and restore whatever is lacking in your faith.
 
Now may our God and Father himself and our Lord Jesus direct our way to you. And may the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, just as we abound in love for you. And may he so strengthen your hearts in holiness that you may be blameless before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints.
 
 
 
It all started with a simple winterberry wreath.  The wreath was very tasteful.  Very reserved.  Striking but not ostentatious against our dark blue front door.   Oh… and we also had one of those small “trees in winter” with the tiny clear lights that we put on the front porch. That looked nice too.  But then we realized that we had some outdoor lights.  So, it only made sense to put those on a few bushes.  But one or two bushes with lights, well, that just looked a little sad, like we weren’t trying very hard.  And so, we added another string of lights.  And then another.  And another.  Until we ran out… and so we ran to Lowe’s.  Because when you start with outdoor lights, it can be hard to tell when enough is enough.
 
When we finally got the bushes in order, we noticed that the dogwood tree looked rather forlorn by comparison. But lo and behold, we had some of those gigantic Christmas ornaments that we could tie to the branches.  And so, we did.  But there were not enough of them.  And so, we bought some more.  And then some more.  
 
Then Marcos, who is very creative, decided that our outdoor lawn lamp post would look much better with some lights of its own.  And he didn’t just wrap them around the pole.  No, no, no.  He strung those down to the ground in the shape of a Christmas tree.  
 
Each year, it seems, Christmas at the Campbell-Martins house has become exponentially brighter and bigger and more festive.  Of course, our house cannot compare to some of yours.  We know that because we’ve seen them.  Sometimes just for fun we get out the church directory and just drive around town to see what you’re up to.  
 
Now I say all of this as a way of coming clean… because I spent many-a-year gleefully playing the role of The Grinch Who Stole Christmas.  I would squawk and complain and criticize all of the extravagance because I assumed that it always detracted from the reason for the season.  And I suppose it can and it does.  But I’ve also learned that it doesn’t have to.  Because the capital “R” Reason for the Season taught us the blessings of plenty and abundance and feasting and dancing and rejoicing.  Jesus taught us that sometimes in this world, more is actually more.  
 
Our Scripture lesson today is taken from the first letter to the church at Thessalonica in modern day Greece. Scholars tell us that this letter is probably the very first epistle that St. Paul ever wrote to any of the early churches.  The reason for his letter was that he was worried about the congregation there.  He worried that they were overburdened and stressed.  
 
So, just who were these early Christians?  Well, this tiny congregation was made up mostly of day laborers who lived and worked in that busy port city.  But it wasn’t just a port.  Thessalonica was also a religious center - a city full of the Greek gods.  There were temples and statues and holidays everywhere.  And so, when these folks decided to follow Jesus, they were suddenly cut off all of those supports: from friends and families and holidays and traditions.  And it was a lot for them to carry.  And so, Paul worried about them.
 
Now, if I were their pastor, knowing how busy and complicated their lives were, I likely wouldn’t have asked them to do anything else.  I likely would have told them to take care of themselves first.  That’s how we do pastoral ministry in the modern-day America.  We are very careful about asking you for too much of anything, which I suspect is likely a big part of the problem of a church in decline.  
 
But Paul understood, perhaps better than I, that when it comes to the Gospel lived out in the world, more is more.  And more is better.  And more actually gets us the satisfaction that we crave.  
 
And this is what he wrote to those overburdened, busy people: “May the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, just as we abound in love for you.  And may God so strengthen your hearts in holiness that you may be blameless before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all his saints.”
 
Increase in love for all.  Abound in love for all.  And if you do, then you will be blameless when Christ comes again. 
 
During these weeks of Advent, we talk a lot about the coming of Christ.  We speak of hearts that prepare him room.  And we know it’s important, and so we try to squeeze it in to our overly busy lives.  We might come to church more often.  We might even come to the Wednesday evening Communion Services or the Quiet Christmas Service or to church on Christmas Eve.  Or we might be more intentional in our prayers and Bible readings and quiet times.  But, you might be thinking, that’s about all I can do, James, so please don’t ask me for anything more.  
 
I’m tempted not to.  I know how busy your lives are.  I know how busy this time of year is.  But friends, we’re talking about getting ready for Jesus.  And according to Paul, there is only one way to do that.  It’s increasing and abounding love!  And I am not talking about some mawkish sentiment or some Hallmark movie-induced feeling – but love that changes lives; love that is spent and poured out into the world.  
 
Paul actually described what that kind of love would look like, later on in the fifth chapter.  And his advice is very practical and just as applicable in modern-day Cheshire as it was in ancient Thessalonica.  This is what he wrote: Respect others; be at peace; admonish the idlers; encourage the faint hearted; help the weak; be patient with all; never repay evil for evil; always seek to do good; rejoice always; pray without ceasing; give thanks in all circumstances; don’t quench the spirit; listen to the words of prophets; test everything; abstain from evil; and hold fast to what is good.
 
In these times of uncertainty and distress, when the promises of peace on earth and good will to all can seem like a distant dream, there is only thing to do: you go and make peace.  You go and spread good will.  You go and increase and abound in love.  Because of those things, more is always more.  
 
For years now, I have used a little prayer book to anchor my own morning prayers.  And those morning prayers always end with this benediction: “We go (now) in peace to love and serve the Lord, and to live our lives so that those for whom love is a stranger will find in us generous friends.”
 
We can do that.  We can get ready for Jesus.  Let's go!
 

Sunday, November 17, 2024
First Congregational Church of Cheshire
© the Rev. Dr. James Campbell
 
Mark 13:1-8
 
As he came out of the temple, one of his disciples said to him, “Look, Teacher, what large stones and what large buildings!” Then Jesus asked him, “Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down.”
 
When he was sitting on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple, Peter, James, John, and Andrew asked him privately, “Tell us, when will this be, and what will be the sign that all these things are about to be accomplished?” Then Jesus began to say to them, “Beware that no one leads you astray. Many will come in my name and say, ‘I am he!’ and they will lead many astray. When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed; this must take place, but the end is still to come. For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be earthquakes in various places; there will be famines. This is but the beginning of the birthpangs.
 
 
 
It was my first day in Jerusalem.  I had made the kind of “quick friends” one does when traveling in a group, and together we had set out to explore the Holy City on foot.  We had no destination in mind and so it was a complete surprise when we crested a hill and there it was - the Wailing Wall, the Western Wall, that surviving partial foundation of Herod’s Temple.  It was bathed in the golden light of the late afternoon sun.  And the sight of it literally stopped me in my tracks.   
 
We approached and donned the cardboard yarmulkes available in large containers for Gentiles like us.  In between the stones, in the cracks, were thousands of pieces of paper, each containing a hand-written prayer.  I put mine in there too.  I don’t know what I prayed for that day, but I remember feeling connected to something far greater than that present moment or my singular life. 
 
Historians tell us that the Temple was constructed of white marble and that its exterior walls were covered with sheets of gold.  First century Jewish historian Josephus wrote that the gold on the temple "reflected so fierce a blaze of fire that those who tried to look at it were forced to turn away… It seemed in the distance like a mountain covered in snow, for any part not covered in gold was dazzling white."    
 
It was a building meant to last for the ages, but in 70 AD, Rome sacked Jerusalem and destroyed the Temple.  And then the site was profaned, a common practice in the Ancient World, meant to completely humiliate the vanquished.  Sometimes holy sites were even used as latrines.  Imagine this room turned into a public toilet.  One day, the Temple stood gleaming in the sun.  The next day, it was a smoky ruin. 
 
Today’s Gospel lesson is a continuation of last week’s, in which Jesus observed a poor widow giving her last two cents to support that grand institution.  As Jesus and his disciples left the Temple that day, one of them, overcome by its splendor, remarked on how magnificent it was.   What a shock, then, when the Lord replied: “Do you see these great buildings?  I tell you, not one stone will be left on top of the other.  All will be thrown down.”  Well, that was an end to the conversation and a gloomy silence settled over the group. 
 
They left the city center and climbed the Mount of Olives, with its bird’s eye view of the Temple.  Finally, some of them screwed up their courage and asked Jesus about what he said.  “When will this happen?” they wanted to know. But Jesus didn’t tell them when.  He just told them what.  And he said: “Beware that no one leads you astray.  Many will come in my name and say, 'I am he!' and they will lead many astray.   When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed; this must take place, but the end is still to come.  For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; there will be earthquakes in various places; there will be famines. This is but the beginning of the birthpangs.”  
 
This passage is an example of apocalyptic literature - a florid way of revealing how all things end.  We don’t understand this literature very well, being separated as we are, by culture and time.  And so, we read passages like this one and think them strange.  Because they are.  But they are also strangely familiar.  Because we all know what it’s like to be afraid.  We know what it’s like to think that your world is ending.  Apocalyptic language may be foreign to us, but apocalyptic living is not.
 
And so, we look for someone to save us.  Some look to systems or governments or leaders.  Others look to faith.  For the faithful, we want God to save us from our fears.  But this passage contains no such promise.  Rather, it is a blunt warning about how hard and unpredictable and unfair life can be.  It is a reminder of all that is out of our control: of wars and rumors of wars, nation against nation, earthquakes, famines.   
 
And yet, in the middle of all this doom, Jesus says: “Don’t be alarmed.”  It’s almost a throw-away line; very easy to miss if you’re not paying attention.  But attention must be paid.  
 
“Don’t be alarmed.”  Throughout the Bible’s pages, this message is repeated again and again.  Angels appear to frightened, terrorized people and the first words they speak are, “Fear not!”  The Risen Jesus appeared to his terrified friends, who had witnessed his execution and were now running for their own lives, and the first words he spoke were, “Peace be with you.”      
 
So we know this is the message of Scripture, but the real question is: what does it mean to not be alarmed in a world so obviously full of danger?
 
Well, it’s not an invitation to magical thinking.  And it’s not denial.  And it’s not a promise that there is nothing to be afraid of.  Instead, it is an invitation to a perspective, to see the human story and human history as something larger than the scope of our own years.  
 
Jewish faith and the Christianity that grew out of it do not see human history as circular or random or meaningless.  Instead, we see the human story as linear.  Yes, with lots of ups and downs, but there is an end point, a purpose, a culmination.  That is part of what it means when we say “Christ will come again.”  To say that “Christ will come again” is to declare that chaos and fear and division and evil will not ultimately triumph - even though they may win the day.  To say that “Christ will come again” is to push back against the despair of the immediate and to affirm that God has promised us good.  “Christ will come again.”
 
And then there is that odd reference to birthpangs in this passage.   It, too, is easy to miss.  But the word is rich and true to our human experience.  History and destiny are like being in labor.  There is pain and blood and sweat and tears before something new and hopeful is brought forth.  
 
About a hundred years ago now, I took a New Testament class taught by a wonderful and wise professor.  I don’t remember much of what I learned that term, but I will never forget what Dr. Helyer said at the very end of the very last class of the semester.  
 
It was a fearful time in the nation and the world, and we students were talking about current events, wars and rumors of wars.  Dr. Helyer just let us talk and get it all out.  And he did not tell us that everything would be OK.  Instead, he reminded us of what we knew, but so often forget.  “I want you to remember,” he said, “that even if this republic should collapse around our knees, and everything we know come to ruin, the Reign of God will stand forever.”  
 
And all these years later, the memory of those words still stirs something deep inside me.  It’s hope.  It’s perspective - that my life, your life, everyone’s life… is part of a much bigger story that has a purpose and a goal. 
 
God has planted that seed of hope in every human heart.  And it is very resilient.  It needs to be.  Because the road we travel is not easy.  There are many twists and turns.  There are wars and rumors of wars.  But up ahead - in the distance - there is the gleam of something far better.  That’s the promise.  And I’ve staked my life and faith on it.  So, don’t be alarmed.  Christ will come again.  
​

Sunday, November 10, 2024
First Congregational Church of Cheshire
© the Rev. Dr. James Campbell
 
 
 
Mark 12:38-44
 
As he taught, he said, “Beware of the scribes, who like to walk around in long robes, and to be greeted with respect in the marketplaces, and to have the best seats in the synagogues and places of honor at banquets! They devour widows’ houses and for the sake of appearance say long prayers. They will receive the greater condemnation.”
 
He sat down opposite the treasury, and watched the crowd putting money into the treasury. Many rich people put in large sums. A poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which are worth a penny. Then he called his disciples and said to them, “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury. For all of them have contributed out of their abundance; but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on.”
 
 
 
Do you ever wonder how you got to be as old as you are?  Boy, I sure do.  And on those days when I forget or pretend like it isn’t true, my body has a way of reminding me.  I have a knee that acts up and a hip that can be wonky.  My eyes aren’t what they used to be and I have a slight hearing loss in my left ear.  I often get tired in the afternoon and sometime need a nap before an evening meeting.  And all those delicious Doritos that I have eaten for years now cause small infernos in my stomach.  
 
 
But perhaps the oddest of all of my age-related bodily changes is that… I have become invisible.  Yes, I know you can see me now, but there are plenty of days when I am convinced, based on real-world experience, that I could pass through a room and set it on fire… and no one would notice.  
 
This seems to be especially true in restaurants.  I walk in, but can wait and wait and wait for someone to see me and take me to a table or to bring me a menu or glass of water.  And I have walked out of more than one restaurant, never to return, because I was not seen.
 
Now, that might seem rather petty to you, until you stop to realize that being seen is really about having your humanity recognized.  To be seen is to be valued and validated.
 
Political campaigns are largely about appealing to people’s need to be seen, and thus to be understood.  We want our leaders to really see us for who we are: people of color and white folks, male and female and non-binary.  Rich and poor.  Liberal and Conservative.  Gay and straight.  Cisgender and transgender.  Believers or not.  And if we think that our leaders actually see us, and thus understand us, well, then, they will get our vote.  
 
If ever there was a person who needed to be seen, it is the main character of our story today.  This woman was invisible for all sorts of reasons – primarily because she was a woman in a male-dominated society.  And so, she didn’t count that much.  And she was invisible because she was a widow, which is another side effect of that male-dominated society.  She didn’t have a man to hook her identity to.  And she was invisible because she was poor.  Poor folks have always been invisible, which is perhaps why Jesus and all the prophets talked about them so much.  
 
We don’t know her name, which only adds to her invisibility.  But one day, she suddenly became visible because a man named Jesus saw her.  I mean, he really saw her, understood her, got her.  And because he did, her story is one of the best known of the New Testament.  
 
The setting was the great Temple of Jerusalem.  The time was Holy Week, just days before Jesus would be executed by the Empire.  And Jesus and his disciples were people watching – one of my favorite things.  They were sitting in the Court of the Women, which was so called because it was as far as any woman could actually go in the male-dominated Temple complex.  The Court of the Women was also the location of the Treasury, where people came to pay their pledges.  How genius was that - making sure the women could pay too?
 
In the Treasury there were these large money receptacles, with trumpet-shaped openings, large at the top and getting narrower as they went down, funneling the money into a container.  Remember that money was all coins back then, so when people gave, it was metal against metal.  The more you poured, the louder the racket.  In addition, you made your own racket, because everyone had to announce what they were giving before they dropped it in.   Can you imagine?!  So, for example, a man in fine robes, from a good family, might call out “5000 denarii” and then pour all those clanging coins into the treasury.  How very non-New England.  
 
In line with all the rich folks that day, there was a poor widow, who approached the money box and called out, “2 Leptas.”  And eyes rolled and tongues clucked and giggles abounded.  Two Leptas wasn’t even one penny.  So, what she gave was quite literally a drop in the bucket.  But it was a noise heard round the world and it got Jesus’s attention.  And he called his disciples together and said: “Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury.  For all of them have contributed out of their abundance; but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on."
 
The Greek word translated as “poor” really means “the poorest of the poor.” And so, when Jesus said that this was all she had to live on, he really meant it.  These were her last two cents.  Maybe after this, she just went home and died from starvation.  After all, it happened to widows in the ancient world sometimes.  
 
Now I have heard at least two dozen sermons on this passage, most of them about stewardship.  And at first blush, that seems to be the way to go with this story.  Preachers say things like: “Be like the widow and give sacrificially.”  “Be like the widow and God will provide.”   
 
Well, the widow did give sacrificially, but in a way that none of us can really identify with.  Who here has given away everything you have?  So, that’s a little problematic for a stewardship theme.  And as for God providing and giving this story a happy ending, well, maybe.  But that’s really an argument from silence.  Jesus doesn’t say that.  And the righteous suffer all the time.  And besides, is that really the point?
 
So, what is the point, then?  Well, some scholars say that Jesus’s statement here was essentially a lament for the way the poor were treated in his time.  Others say that Jesus’s statement was a prophetic judgment over a system that allowed someone to get down to their last two cents.  
 
So, maybe it was a lament.  Or maybe it was judgment.  Or maybe stewardship really was the point.  But there is another point, so obvious that it gets overlooked. 
 
This woman was a nobody.  She passed through the streets as invisible as a ghost.  And if she went home to die of hunger, who would notice?  But Jesus… he really saw her.  And it might have been the first time in her life that anyone with any authority or agency had ever taken notice of her.  And because Jesus took the time to see her, here we are 2000 years later, in Cheshire, Connecticut, talking about her and thinking about her and giving her the kind of dignity, she never had when she was alive.  
 
Because to be seen makes all the difference in the world.
 
In this week of winners and losers, some folks are feeling seen and validated and understood.  But others have never felt so invisible.  And some of them are sitting beside you in the pew.  Or living in the house next door.  Or standing with you in line at Dunkin Donuts.  And all they want is to be seen.  
 
Today, in churches all over America, people wonder: “So, where do we go from here?  How do we continue to be the church in such a divided and angry time?”
 
Well, that’s the kind of time Jesus lived in too - divided and angry.  So maybe we should simply do what he did, and people watch.  Maybe we should practice the discipline of eyes wide open in a world of selective sight.  
 
That’s the thing about truly opening your eyes: it will move us beyond the academic and the noises of the talking heads and the fear mongering meant to control and divided us.  And we will see… those on the margins.  We will see the scapegoated.  We will see those who are genuinely afraid.  We will see the poor and the immigrant and the orphan and the widow and the prisoner and the hungry and the lonely and the sad.  
 
And if see them – I mean really see them - then this congregation will know exactly where to go from here.  
 

Memorial Music Sunday, November 3, 2024
First Congregational Church of Cheshire
© the Rev. Dr. James Campbell
 
 
Not long ago someone at church described me as a “Midwesterner.”  I was amused by this description, since I’ve lived on the east coast for more than half of my life.  But this person was not wrong.  I may not have lived in the Midwest for decades, but that place with its agricultural roots formed me and continues to influence the way I think and see the world.
 
I hadn’t been to the Midwest in a long time, until a few weeks ago.  My parents have recently relocated from Florida back to Indiana, and I hadn’t seen them since they moved.  And so, I made the long trek back to the town where I went to high school.  On a sunny morning, I drove out of Connecticut, into New York, across Pennsylvania, traversed Ohio, and finally arrived in Indiana.  The further west I drove, the flatter the land became, dotted, as it was with beautiful farms – red barns, white houses, and a view that seemed to stretch to the horizon.  
 
As a kid, I never appreciated that vista.  But at this stage of my life, I see those farms and that great flat plain in a new light.  And there were moments on that road trip when I literally shouted for joy at the sheer beauty of it all.
 
I, myself, never lived on a farm, but my life was shaped by farm culture.  Cheshire has its own deep connection to farming.  And the Bible has a universal connection to the land because our holy book comes out of a farming culture and economy.  Just listen to the parables of Jesus about the sower scattering seed, the lost sheep, the mustard seed, the fig tree.
 
That farm connection is even found in the today’s passage from the mysterious book of Revelation.  During the Litany of Remembrance, you heard these words: “Then one of the elders addressed me, saying, "Who are these, robed in white, and where have they come from?"  I said to him, "Sir, you are the one that knows." Then he said to me, "These are they who have come out of the great tribulation; they have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.”[1]
 
The word tribulation is taken from the Latin word “tribulum.”  And a tribulum was a farm instrument used for beating the stems and husks of wheat.  With the tribulum, the farmer would thresh the wheat stalks, in order to extract the precious kernel of wheat, separating it from the straw.  So, when John the Revelator referred to the people’s current suffering as the Great Tribulation, the Great Tribulum, it was a powerful image that everyone would have understood, beaten down as they were.  
 
So, just who were these suffering people?  They were the Christians of Asia Minor, located in modern day Turkey.  And they were suffering a great persecution because, like all early Christians, when they proclaimed that Jesus of Nazareth was Lord, it meant that the Roman Emperor was not.  This, of course, was blasphemy and sedition.  And for these crimes, some of these early Christ-followers had been martyred.  Others, fearing a similar fate, had defected.  The foundations of the early church were shaken.  It was a very bad time, indeed.  And let me add that while we Americans are not persecuted for our faith, we still must like Christians in every age, between the way of the humble Christ or the way of haughty Empire.  
 
So, John had a vision about how all human things end.  And with the strange and poetic language of apocalyptic literature, he encouraged the people to be faithful.  He told them that these hard times would not last forever.  He reminded them that God is faithful.  And he promised them that one day the Great Tribulation would be over and their reward would be to dwell with God forever.  
 
What wonderful promises… but hard to believe on the threshing floor of life.  It’s hard to be hopeful when your job disappears.  Or your love abandons.  Or storms wash your dreams away.  Or your nation teeters.  Or your health fails.  Or those you love die.  And we are beaten down, like so many stalks of wheat.  
 
But that’s the thing about the threshing floor.  It doesn’t just contain the husks and the straw.  Scattered all around are also the kernels of wheat.  And in each kernel, in each seed, there is the potential for new and resurrected life.  
 
St. Paul, using that seed analogy, put it like this in his first letter to the church at Corinth: “So it is with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable, what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power.”[2]
 
This is the cornerstone of our faith: Resurrection, new life, new hope, new beginnings.  We need to hear that again and again, because we are so often beaten down.  And that is precisely why this day, full of beautiful music and hopeful promises, is so important.  That is why what we do in this room week after week is so important.  That is why your own lives of prayer and service are so important.  These things reorient us.  They remind us of what we know or at least hope, but so easily forget.
 
This week will likely be full of threshing.  No matter the outcome of the election, our nation is dangerously divided.  We are angry and resentful and suspicious and afraid.  We have gotten used to living on the threshing floor.  
 
But today, we gather to remember what is true.  Today, we gather, as sign and symbol of what we actually are: one people, one human family.  Today, we gather to proclaim Resurrection, even as we mourn those who have died.  Today, we lift our voices to sing with the angels: “Peace on earth, good will to all.”  Today, we come to Christ’s Table, where all are equal and all are valued.  And today, we give ourselves once more to One who has promised us that the threshing floor is not our final destination.  We were made for something more: imperishable, full of glory and power.  
 
Thanks be to God.


[1] Revelation 7:13-14

[2] I Corinthians 15:42-43

Sunday, October 13, 2024
First Congregational Church of Cheshire
© the Rev. Dr. James Campbell
 
 
Mark 10:17-31
 
As he was setting out on a journey, a man ran up and knelt before him, and asked him, “Good Teacher, what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus said to him, “Why do you call me good? No one is good but God alone. You know the commandments: ‘You shall not murder; You shall not commit adultery; You shall not steal; You shall not bear false witness; You shall not defraud; Honor your father and mother.’” He said to him, “Teacher, I have kept all these since my youth.” Jesus, looking at him, loved him and said, “You lack one thing; go, sell what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.” When he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions.
 
Then Jesus looked around and said to his disciples, “How hard it will be for those who have wealth to enter the kingdom of God!” And the disciples were perplexed at these words. But Jesus said to them again, “Children, how hard it is to enter the kingdom of God! It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.” They were greatly astounded and said to one another, “Then who can be saved?” Jesus looked at them and said, “For mortals it is impossible, but not for God; for God all things are possible.”
 
Peter began to say to him, “Look, we have left everything and followed you.” Jesus said, “Truly I tell you, there is no one who has left house or brothers or sisters or mother or father or children or fields, for my sake and for the sake of the good news, who will not receive a hundredfold now in this age—houses, brothers and sisters, mothers and children, and fields with persecutions—and in the age to come eternal life. But many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.”
 
 
Whenever we’re in Maine, we always make a stop at our favorite kitchen store in downtown Portland.  It’s full of treasures and all kinds of gadgets and doo-dads that you never knew you needed… until you see them.  We always walk away with something we hadn’t thought to buy.
 
But a couple of summers ago we were there on a mission.  I had determined to find a really good kitchen knife to assist me in my chopping and dicing.  And we ended up with a real beauty - crafted in Germany and with an edge that can split a hair.
 
I love that knife, but truth be told, it also kind of scares me.  I’m careful when I use it and when I wash it and when I put it away.  I know that in the wrong hands, a knife can do a world of harm.  But in the right hands, a knife can do a world of good.  In a surgeon’s hands, a knife can save your life.  
 
The book of Hebrews declares that “the Word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword (which is really just a big knife!), piercing until it divides soul from spirit, joint from marrow; it is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.”
 
This is the language of surgery – a knife that divides soul from spirit, joint from marrow.  And how apt it is that the editors of the New Revised Common Lectionary paired this epistle reading with today’s Gospel lesson, because the Gospel lesson is actually a healing story.  
 
I know it doesn’t seem like it at first.  The main character, described in some accounts as a “rich young ruler,” is not physically ill.  But Mark uses certain language in telling this story that he only uses when describing a healing.  For example, there is the rich man’s physicality: he runs up to Jesus and kneels before him.  There is also an element of desperation in what he does and in how he humbles himself.  And those are hallmarks of a healing story.  And then there is the placement of the story within Mark’s Gospel.  It is wedged smack dab between two other healing stories: the boy with an unclean spirit and Blind Bartimaeus.  
 
So, this desperate man ran up to Jesus and blurted out: “What must I do to inherit eternal life?”  And notice how Jesus answered.  He didn’t ask the man about his theology.  He didn’t require that the man pray a specific prayer.  He didn’t ask him to join a church.  Instead, Jesus guided the conversation toward how the man lived with his neighbors.  
 
“You know the commandments,” Jesus said.  “Don’t kill.  Don’t steal.  Don’t cheat on love.  Don’t lie.  Don’t defraud.  And honor your parents.  – Now here’s something really interesting: “thou shalt not defraud” is not actually one of the Big Ten.  So, let me say it again: theology is poetry, not arithmetic.
 
When the rich young man heard this, he replied: “I’ve kept all these commandments since I was a boy!”  And you know what?  He was telling the truth.  This was an all-round good guy.  And Jesus knew that.  Mark says that Jesus looked at him; he really looked at him and saw him… and he loved him.  In fact, he loved him enough to tell him the whole truth.  And it was surgical.
 
“You lack one thing,” Jesus said.  “Go, sell everything you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me.”
 
When the rich young man heard this, he was shocked.  And the disciples were shocked.  And most of us are shocked.  Then the rich young man hung his head and cried. Because it was just too much to ask.  Because the knife was too sharp; the surgery too extensive.  And so, he decided to take his chances with what ailed him.  
 
A lot has been said about this passage over the centuries – most of it said in an attempt to offer us some wiggle room; to dull these sharp words of Jesus and make them less dangerous.  
 
Here’s an example: one ancient scribe actually rewrote verse 24 to read: “How hard it is for those who trust in riches to enter the Kingdom of God.”  Well, that’s better!  We know we shouldn’t trust in our money.  We know we should trust in God.  We even print that on our money: “In God We Trust.”  The problem is that’s not what Mark wrote.  
 
A 9th century biblical interpreter invented the idea that a camel going through “the eye of the needle” was not a reference to a sewing needle at all.  Instead, it was a reference to an especially low gate in the wall that surrounded ancient Jerusalem.  And the camels could only get through this “Eye of the Needle Gate” if stooped low and unladen of their cargo.  So, said this interpreter, Jesus’s real point was that the rich should humble themselves and bow low.  They should get rid of any excess baggage in order to pass through the gate and into the Kingdom of God.  But here's the problem with that one: archeologists say that no such gate ever existed.  
 
Other parsers of the Bible have suggested that Jesus never really meant for this man to give up his money, but simply wanted to expose him to the futility of trying to keep the law of Moses.  Besides the possible anti-Semitism in such an idea, it completely ignores the fact that Jesus himself said that not one letter of the law would disappear until Kingdom come.  
 
Aha, you might be thinking!  But I’m not rich!  This can’t apply to me!  Well, according to current data, modern Americans, as a collective, are considered the wealthiest people in the history of the world, with a cumulative net worth reaching unprecedented levels.  So yes, we are rich.  And Jesus said: “How hard it will be for those who have wealth to enter the Kingdom of God!”  
 
I think Jesus actually meant what he said to the man because Jesus talked a lot about money and the poor.  Nearly 15% of everything Jesus ever said was about money and possessions.  But Jesus also knew other rich people, some of whom supported his ministry, that he did not ask the same thing of.  So, what was really going on here with this rich young man?  
 
A wise old preacher once said that there is a direct connection between your wallet and your heart.  You pull on one, you feel it in the other.  Our own dear Ford Cole once told me that a former rector of his thundered from the pulpit: “If God doesn’t have your heart, he doesn’t want your money!”  And which point, the entire Stewardship Team passed out!  
 
But that old rector was on to something.  God does want our hearts.  The problem is that they are crowded places, full of idols.  For some folks, that means trusting in their money more than they could ever trust in God.  But for others, it might be fear in your heart’s chambers.  Or maybe jealously hides in your heart.  Or an old resentment has set up shop there.  Or maybe you secretly hate your neighbor.  Or maybe your politics have become your idol; a political party has become your savior.  Or maybe your heart is sick with pride.  Or deceit.  Or vanity.  Or something else entirely.  The list of all those things that can displace God is endless.
 
Whatever it is that fills our hearts, God looks at us and sees us… and loves us just the same.  Because that is not all we are.  Like the rich young man, we are so much more.  But the love of God will not leave us in ill health when we could be well.  
 
The rich young man walked away from his healing that day.  Did you know that he is the only person in the Gospels to ever walk away?  And maybe that was the end of his story.  Or maybe not.  Maybe, like me, after he resisted, he went home and thought about it.  And maybe the next day or the next week or the next year, he went out and found Jesus again, and got his heart straightened out.  And maybe… I will be too.
​

World Communion Sunday, October 6, 2024
First Congregational Church of Cheshire
© the Rev. Dr. James Campbell
 
 
Mark 10:13-16
 
People were bringing little children to him in order that he might touch them; and the disciples spoke sternly to them. But when Jesus saw this, he was indignant and said to them, “Let the little children come to me; do not stop them; for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs. Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.” And he took them up in his arms, laid his hands on them, and blessed them.
 
 
Psalm 139 declares that we humans are fearfully and wonderfully made.  And so, we are!  The human body is a marvel of engineering and adaptability and regeneration.  And the human brain, well, the human brain contains a universe all its own.  It is a vast repository of information and data.  
 
Scientists tell us that the average human brain can hold 2.5 million gigabytes of data!  And some recent studies even suggest that the brain’s capacity is larger than that.  Can you imagine?  
 
We often think of data as cold, hard facts – things like multiplication tables or recipes or anniversary dates.  But our memories are also included in this vast database.  And memories can be more ethereal than the hard facts.  For example, we might remember what color our childhood house was.  But we also might remember how that house felt to us.  We might remember the experience of being in that house and of that house. 
 
In the same way, a smell can suddenly take us on a memory journey to a feeling we thought we had forgotten.  A whiff of orange blossoms instantly takes me back Spain and I am seventeen years old again and on the adventure of a lifetime.  I don’t remember what I wore that day, but I know how it felt to be there.  And that feeling is also the truth because the truth is bigger than cold, hard, verifiable data.  The truth is also feeling and longing and that insistent whisper.
 
Yet we sophisticated adults resist this idea.  I’m not sure why.  Fear, I guess.  Maybe hubris.  Or a need to control.  Don’t talk to us about what cannot be proven.  We want facts, not faith.  Explanation, not exploration.
 
And yet, we have chosen to follow Jesus, a most ethereal experience.  One cannot prove the veracity of the Christian faith, no matter what anyone tells you.  Instead, one receives it.  As Jesus said: “Truly I tell you, whoever does not receive (or accept) the Kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.”
 
One day, people were bringing children to Jesus so that he might touch them and bless them.  But the disciples, concerned as they were with very adult things like order and reason and schedules, spoke sternly to the parents and no doubt frightened the children.  
 
Well, Jesus didn’t like this one bit.  In fact, Mark says he was indignant.  And so, to his controlling disciples, he said: “(No, no, no!)  Let the children come to me; do not stop them, for it is to such as these that the kingdom of God belongs.” “Truly I tell you (adults), whoever does not receive the kingdom of God as a little child will never enter it.”
 
So how do children receive the Kingdom of God?  And what is it that they are receiving?  Well, it begins with simplicity.  Little children receive each day as a gift.  They live in a world is which anything is possible.  And everyone is a friend.  Life is beautiful.  They don’t worry about their next meal.  They take it for granted that they will be safe and warm and loved.  Are they just naïve and inexperienced, not yet graduated from the school of hard knocks?  Or do they remember something that we all used to know?  
 
About twenty years ago, there was a preacher in the City of New York named R. Maurice Boyd.  He was a brilliant man and delivered his well-chosen words in a delightful Irish brogue.  Dr. Boyd was spellbinding in the pulpit, effortlessly pulling references from Shakespeare and astronomy and pop culture and the Bible, and then weaving them all into a tapestry of inspiration.  
 
In one of his sermons, he told this unforgettable story: a young couple in his former congregation came to him one day with a wondrous tale.  They had a son who was about five and a daughter who was a newborn.  And, of course, they had a baby monitor so they could hear their daughter if she needed them.
 
One day, they heard a voice on the monitor that was not their daughter’s. It was their five-year-old son’s.  He was having a chat with his little sister, which they found awfully cute.  But then his voice grew quiet and serious.  And this is what they heard him say: “Emily, tell me about God.  I’m beginning to forget.”
 
What an odd thing for a child to say.  Or was it?  Is it even remotely possible that he had an actual memory that was slipping away?  And did we have those memories once too?  
 
“Emily, tell me about God.  I am beginning to forget.”  
 
Oh, how easily we forget.  We have forgotten where we even came from.  We have forgotten who we are.  We have forgotten whose we are.  We are suffering from a mass amnesia that threatens our very existence. 
 
And we don’t even try to hide it anymore.  We openly love power more than kindness; muscle more than mercy.  We love our opinions more than people.  The Kingdom of God is all around us.  The memory of its glory still resides somewhere in our brains.  But we are beginning to forget.  
 
And that is exactly why this room, and what we do in this room, are so important.  And that is exactly why I will never apologize for calling this congregation to be regular in worship; to make it a priority - because it is in worship, in community, that we remember what is true.  In this room, we remember who we are.  In pulpit and pew, at font and table, we receive the Kingdom of God... like a child.  
 
I don’t know what you think happens at this Table.  In the end, it doesn’t really matter what we think.  What matters is the experience itself.  At this table, we experience community and unity and the laying aside of all the differences we pretend are so important.  At this table we experience the power of sacrifice and love.  At this table, we remember Jesus, who called us his own family, making us all siblings.  At this table we REMEMBER, with our bodies, what is actually and finally TRUE.  
 
And what is true is that we are hungry.  And what is true is that we are thirsty.  And what is true is that we lonely.  - But what is also true is that we are family.  And what is also true is that this table is set for the whole world.  And what is also true is that Jesus meets us here with the very Bread of Life and the Cup of Salvation.  
 
We forget.  But Jesus helps us remember.  And all we have to do is receive it… like a child.
 
 

Welcome Sunday, September 15, 2024
First Congregational Church of Cheshire
© the Rev. Dr. James Campbell
 
 
Mark 8:27-38
 
Jesus went on with his disciples to the villages of Caesarea Philippi; and on the way he asked his disciples, “Who do people say that I am?” And they answered him, “John the Baptist; and others, Elijah; and still others, one of the prophets.” He asked them, “But who do you say that I am?” Peter answered him, “You are the Messiah.” And he sternly ordered them not to tell anyone about him.
 
Then he began to teach them that the Son of Man must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed, and after three days rise again. He said all this quite openly. And Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. But turning and looking at his disciples, he rebuked Peter and said, “Get behind me, Satan! For you are setting your mind not on divine things but on human things.”
 
He called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? Indeed, what can they give in return for their life? Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.”
 
 
 
So what did you do on your summer vacation?  Where did you travel?  What did you see?  Who did you meet?  What did you eat?
 
Well, we ate our way through every state in New England.  And this year, for the first time, we spent some extended days in Rhode Island – an unusually beautiful place.  But it’s what I ate in Rhode Island that really stands out in my mind.  
 
It was in Tiverton – the Four Corners.  The Four Corners, once a humble crossroads, has now been remade into one of those fancy places for fancy people from New York and Boston.  And it is also the home of Grey’s Ice Cream.   Now I mean no disrespect to Sweet Claude’s or Wentworth’s, but the butterscotch ice cream I ate at Grey’s that day was simply the best I have ever tasted.  And it was creamy.  And it was rich.  And it spun on the end of my spoon like warm taffy.  
 
In The Four Corners, there is also a charming little church, called the Amicable Congregational Church.  What a great name.  We went there because they had a large thrift shop.  And once inside, we wandered around the basement Sunday School rooms, filled to the brim with all kinds of treasures.  The women of the church run the thrift shop and so I introduced myself as a Congregational Minister from Connecticut.  And I asked one of them if they had to move all this stuff each week before Sunday School. “No,” she replied.  “Sadly, we don’t need these rooms anymore because we only have a handful of children left.”  
 
She offered to give us a tour, and as we strolled around that beautiful little church, she told us the story about how she grew up there, and how the place used to be full week after week, and how they had two Sunday Schools just to accommodate all the children.
 
She sounded wistful and a little sad.  And that’s when my pastor impulse emerged – even though I was on vacation.  I reassured her that this story of religious decline was being replicated all over the United States; that there were many churches like the Amicable Congregational Church, striving to be faithful and creative despite the losses.  And I encouraged her not to lose heart.  
 
Just before we left, she thanked me for my words of encouragement, and then she said: “I’m glad to hear that we’re not the only ones struggling and that your church struggles too.”  I didn’t have the heart to tell her about how alive this place still is, despite the great societal shifts and a deadly pandemic and the general disinterest in religion.  I didn’t have the heart to tell her about how unusually beautiful this place still is. 
 
Jesus and his disciples were traveling to the villages of Caesarea Philippi – another unusually beautiful place.  I know that because I was there once.  It was a hot day and we were very tired.  Our guide took us into a grove of trees.  And in that grove, there was a pool of crystal-clear water, fed by underground springs.  And in the shadowy coolness of that place, we all took off our dusty shoes and sat on the rocks and soaked our tired feet.  It was the kind of place you never wanted to leave.  
 
I tell you about the beauty of that place because the setting is important for what is to follow.  It was there, amongst all of that beauty, that Jesus asked the question that jarred them all back to reality.  And his question rings down through the centuries to all of us: “Who do YOU say that I am?”
 
It’s an intensely personal question, with as many answers as there are people.  But when Peter answered the question, he said what the rest of the group was thinking and hoping for: “You are the Messiah.”
 
And this what he meant by that.  This is what everyone meant by that.  The Messiah would be a strong man; a military leader who would save the people from their political calamity.  The Messiah would send the Roman legions packing and reestablish the glories of Israel.  But instead of military conquest and religious nationalism, Jesus talked about suffering, rejection, death, and yes, resurrection.  
 
Well, this left them all shell-shocked.  “What is he talking about?” they whispered.  So, Peter took the Lord aside and said what all the rest of them were thinking: “Come on, Jesus!  Lighten up!  You’re bumming everyone out.  You’re going to scare away the crowd!  And we’re trying to build a congregation here.  So, tell us what we want to hear.”  
 
And that’s when Jesus called Peter the devil.  And that’s when Jesus said: “You’ve your mind set on human things, not divine things.”  And that’s when Jesus talked about his cross and their crosses and our crosses.  And that’s when Jesus said that in order to find life, you have to lose what you have been calling life.  
 
Today, Welcome Sunday 2024, we begin the final march toward December 8 when we will celebrate this marvelous congregation’s 300th Anniversary.  And we have arrived at this moment in good stead.  This congregation is still very much alive.  - But here’s the thing: we are not completely sure why we have been so lucky.  We are not completely sure how we have survived the cataclysms all around us.  And because we are unsure, we are a little afraid.  We don’t want to upset this delicate balance.  We’re like the disciples who wanted to tone all the cross-talk down so as not to offend anyone or frighten them off.  
 
But the Jesus question remains.  “Who do you say that I am?  First Congregational Church of Cheshire, who do we say that I am?  And how does what you say find expression in this world?  
 
Well, we have already made some declarations together about who Jesus is for us.  In word and deed and by covenant, we have said that Jesus is a Savior whose arms are open wide.  We call that being Open and Affirming.  And so, in the name of Jesus, we welcome ALL as beloved children of God.  And, I must say, we’re pretty good at it… at least in the confines of these walls on Sunday morning.  But what about outside this unusually beautiful place?  How does the rest of Cheshire know what we say about Jesus? How do all of those who are oppressed and ignored and vilified simply because of who they are know that this is One we follow?  
 
We are also a Green Congregation, meaning that we actually believe the words of Psalm 24, that “The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof.”  And we believe that Jesus Christ is Lord of heaven and earth.  Therefore, we dedicate ourselves to love all that God has made.  But again, how does anyone outside these walls know that?
 
 
Of course, we have many other ministries and commitments that declare our faith.  And the thread that ties them all together is the spirit of openness and generosity and extravagant welcome.  Good stuff.
 
But it upsets some people.  Not everyone in Cheshire likes it.  And we’re trying to build a congregation here!  And so, we might be tempted to tone it down, lest we upset this delicate balance.  But the question remains: “Who do you say that I am?”  
 
On the cusp of this momentous celebration, when we look back with gratitude on everything that our ancestors in faith did, we must also pivot to look forward, with the Jesus question always in our minds: “Who do you say that I am?” 
 
Let us not be afraid to answer that question.  Let us not be afraid to pick up our crosses.  Because beyond all those things that terrify us, that seem too tenuous or delicate to disturb, there is RESURRECTION – the most unusually beautiful place of them all!  
 
Thanks be to God.  Amen.
​

Mark 7:24-37
2nd Sunday of Creation - September 8 , 2024
© the Rev. Dr. James Campbell
 
 
Mark 7:24-37
 
From there he set out and went away to the region of Tyre. He entered a house and did not want anyone to know he was there. Yet he could not escape notice, but a woman whose little daughter had an unclean spirit immediately heard about him, and she came and bowed down at his feet. Now the woman was a Gentile, of Syrophoenician origin. She begged him to cast the demon out of her daughter. He said to her, “Let the children be fed first, for it is not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.” But she answered him, “Sir, even the dogs under the table eat the children’s crumbs.” Then he said to her, “For saying that, you may go—the demon has left your daughter.” So she went home, found the child lying on the bed, and the demon gone.
 
Then he returned from the region of Tyre, and went by way of Sidon towards the Sea of Galilee, in the region of the Decapolis. They brought to him a deaf man who had an impediment in his speech; and they begged him to lay his hand on him. He took him aside in private, away from the crowd, and put his fingers into his ears, and he spat and touched his tongue. Then looking up to heaven, he sighed and said to him, “Ephphatha,” that is, “Be opened.” And immediately his ears were opened, his tongue was released, and he spoke plainly. Then Jesus ordered them to tell no one; but the more he ordered them, the more zealously they proclaimed it. They were astounded beyond measure, saying, “He has done everything well; he even makes the deaf to hear and the mute to speak.”
 
 +++
​
When, exactly, did you become you?  Was it when the sperm and egg came together?  Or did it happen when you took your first breath?  Or was it when you learned to speak and express yourself?  Or when you had your first real crisis and survived?  Or do you think of yourself as still being in process; still becoming you?  
 
That’s how I think of it.  I’m still becoming James Campbell.  I’m not yet fully cooked.  I’m still on my way to being all that God created me to be.  And if that is true of me and perhaps you, then it begs the question: when did Jesus become Jesus?  In other words, did he too continue to learn and grow and change as the years passed?  
 
I remember the first time I ever seriously considered that question.  It was in a college chapel service and when the speaker introduced the idea, it really upset me.  Wasn’t Jesus always Jesus?  Didn’t he emerge from Mary’s womb fully and completely formed – not so much the Son of Man as the Son of God?  
 
I suppose I had never seriously considered a Jesus who grew up in a working-class home, and played in the streets with his brothers and sisters, and scraped his knees, and had stomach aches, and sometimes confounded his parents, and fell in love, and overslept.  I had never seriously considered that Jesus too was in process.  
 
Today’s lesson has Jesus traveling to the region of Tyre, in modern day Lebanon.  And he appears to have traveled alone because there is no mention of the disciples.  And Mark says that when he entered the house where he was staying, he didn’t want anyone to know that he was there.  The Lord needed a vacation.  
 
But word spread that the great healer and teacher from Galilee was holed up in a local house.  And soon enough, there was a pounding on the door.  It was a Syrophoenician woman who pushed her way in and immediately fell down at Jesus’s feet and told him that her daughter was possessed by a demon.  
 
Now, scholars tell us that it’s not completely clear what Mark meant when he called her a Syrophoenician. But what is clear is that he meant to emphasize her Gentile otherness; her outsider status.  And at this point in Jesus’s life, he understood his mission to be exclusively to the Jewish people.
 
Jesus almost always met human need with compassion.  But not this time.  This time, a tired, perhaps close-to-burned-out Jesus, looked at this brave woman seeking help for her child and said: “Lady, let the children be fed first because it’s not fair to take the children’s food and throw it to the dogs.”  
 
At that point, I would have just slinked away in humiliation and anger.  But not her.  She was a desperate mother.  And so, she replied: “That might be true, sir.  But even the dogs get the table scraps.”
 
This is one of the most jarring interactions ever recorded in the Gospels.  And because it is so seemingly out of character for our Lord, the church has done theological backflips to try to explain it in ways that protect our static views of a Jesus who was always fully formed.  
 
And so, we say things like this: Well, Jesus ignored this woman and then verbally rebuffed her because he was testing her faith.  If she could only exhibit enough faith, the reasoning goes, then her daughter would be set free.  But that kind of logic sets us humans up for some very cruel “tests of faith.”  And, it implies that when bad things happen to us, somehow, it’s our fault.  If only we had more faith, then we wouldn’t suffer.  What a load of toxic theology.
 
Another explanation goes like this: when Jesus called her a dog, he was really calling her a puppy, sort of like a term of endearment.  The Greek word here for dog is “kunarios” which actually means little dogs or puppies.  And this used to be my favorite explanation of this passage, until the day I realized that no one really wants to be called a young female dog, if you know what I mean.  
 
Or people say this: Jesus rebuffed her because she needed to submit to Jesus.  She needed to kneel at his feet, to beg his mercy, to humble herself.  And it was this humbling, this groveling that got her prayer answered.  But I was raised on a steady diet of pious humiliation and frankly, all it ever did for me was to mess with my self-esteem and give me a very twisted view of the love of God.  
 
But what happens to this story if we don’t shove it through our preconceived theological notions?  What happens if we just let it speak for itself?  
 
Well, what happens is that we see a clear picture of the mystery of the Incarnation: God with us, God as one of us.  Really, one of us.  Perhaps what we see is Jesus having a bad day or being really, really tired.  But then he meets this woman who will not take no for an answer.  And then we see a Jesus still in the process of change and growth; “on his way,” as one blogger has put it, “to becoming the Savior of the World.”  The great theologian Barbara Brown Taylor has written, that in this encounter with the woman, “you can almost hear the huge wheel of history turning as Jesus comes to a new understanding of who he is and what he has been called to do.”[1]  And what he was called to do in that moment was to change his mind.  
 
Immediately afterwards, Jesus set off to the region of the Decapolis in Galilee – another Gentile stronghold.  The people there brought him a deaf man who had a speech impediment.  And this, too, is a jarring story because of what Jesus does.  He took this man aside, put his fingers in his ears, and took some of his own saliva and placed it on the man’s tongue.  And then Jesus looked up into heaven, and sighed, and said: “Be opened.”  And the man was healed.
 
Because this story is so odd, it’s easy to miss the sigh.  But I think the sigh is everything.  Jesus sighed. Was he still tired?  Was he still frustrated?  Or is it possible that this was simply a sigh of recognition for what the woman had taught him?  When he said to the deaf man: “Be opened!” maybe he sighed and thought: “Oh.  Right.  I get it.  Be opened.  Me.  Be opened.  I get it.” 
 
Now some people won’t like my interpretation because it makes Jesus just too human.  OK.  But for me, it is his blessed humanity that makes me love him all the more.  And it is his willingness to change that gives me hope for my own wayward life.  
 
How sad that the concept of changing your mind has become equated with weakness.  How sad that we think of rigidity as strength.  How sad that we have been taught to believe that being sure means being saved.  And so we miss the grace of God in the faces of all those Syrophoenician outsiders and strangers who have something to teach us about God and ourselves and the world that we do not yet know.  
 
I am still very much becoming James Campbell.  And trust me when I tell you that I don’t always get it right.  I make plenty of mistakes.  I can be plenty rigid.  I’m rather good at being judgmental.  But every now and again, there is a Syrophoenician – sometimes in this congregation - who helps me see things in a new light.  And grace of God gets in the cracks.  And I change.  And I am renewed.  And I take the next step in following the One who walked this way before me.
 
 


Thomas, Debie.  www.journeywithjesus.net, “Be Opened” accessed September 3, 2018
 

Sunday, July 28, 2024
First Congregational Church of Cheshire
© the Rev. Dr. James Campbell
 
 
John 6:1-21
 
After this Jesus went to the other side of the Sea of Galilee, also called the Sea of Tiberias. A large crowd kept following him, because they saw the signs that he was doing for the sick. Jesus went up the mountain and sat down there with his disciples. Now the Passover, the festival of the Jews, was near. When he looked up and saw a large crowd coming toward him, Jesus said to Philip, “Where are we to buy bread for these people to eat?” He said this to test him, for he himself knew what he was going to do. Philip answered him, “Six months’ wages would not buy enough bread for each of them to get a little.” One of his disciples, Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother, said to him, “There is a boy here who has five barley loaves and two fish. But what are they among so many people?” Jesus said, “Make the people sit down.” Now there was a great deal of grass in the place; so they sat down, about five thousand in all. Then Jesus took the loaves, and when he had given thanks, he distributed them to those who were seated; so also the fish, as much as they wanted. When they were satisfied, he told his disciples, “Gather up the fragments left over, so that nothing may be lost.” So they gathered them up, and from the fragments of the five barley loaves, left by those who had eaten, they filled twelve baskets. When the people saw the sign that he had done, they began to say, “This is indeed the prophet who is to come into the world.”
 
When Jesus realized that they were about to come and take him by force to make him king, he withdrew again to the mountain by himself. When evening came, his disciples went down to the sea, got into a boat, and started across the sea to Capernaum. It was now dark, and Jesus had not yet come to them. The sea became rough because a strong wind was blowing. When they had rowed about three or four miles, they saw Jesus walking on the sea and coming near the boat, and they were terrified. But he said to them, “It is I; do not be afraid.” Then they wanted to take him into the boat, and immediately the boat reached the land toward which they were going.
 
 
 
Her name was Andromeda, but she pronounced it “Andromeeda.”  And Andromeda, the mother of my seminary roommate, was a character as unique as her name.  To say that she was a free spirit would be a vast understatement. 
 
Andromeda was a transient of sorts.  She would spend a few months at the family’s rambling home in Western Pennsylvania and then one day would simply announce that she was leaving to go out west.  She would never say for how long.  Then, she would pack her belongings into large garbage bags, board a Greyhound bus, and disappear into the sunset.
 
Andromeda had never had a lot of money.  She grew up during the Depression and her adulthood didn’t really change her lot that much.  She was widowed early and raised her seven children mostly on her own.  And that kind of life had taught her to stretch a dollar better than anyone I have ever known.  
 
Her dollar-stretching ability was on full display whenever she decided to cook.  Mostly, Andromeda made casseroles.  And for Andy, everything was a potential casserole ingredient because every scrap of food was precious.  She would mix breakfast leftovers with dinner leftovers with Chinese leftovers with the crumbs of a potato chip bag.  She would season these odd combinations very generously to mask the chaos, and then, she topped it all with cheese, because, you know, melted cheese can fix anything!
 
And with that kind of creativity and ingenuity and determination, she fed her brood.  She fed me whenever I visited.  And, you know, it wasn’t half bad!  
 
And God is like Andromeda – gathering up all that is leftover, so that nothing may be lost.  
 
Now, if you have listened to me long enough, then you already know that I have an interest in the idea of God as mother.  My benedictions almost always end with the phrase: “one God, mother of the whole creation.”  And perhaps you have wondered about that.  Maybe it strikes you as new-fangled or overly politically correct.  But that’s not my point.  Instead, I am trying to lift up an idea that is found in Scripture, but has been mostly ignored in the history of the church.  And some theologians would not say that it has been purposefully obscured by translators who found the idea too radical.  
 
Here’s an example: one of the Hebrew names of God is El Shaddai.  It is most commonly translated for us as “Almighty God.”  But that is not the full translation of those two words.  El does indeed mean “Almighty God.”  But “shad” in Hebrew often means breast.  And Shaddai means many breasts.  So, then, El Shaddai literally means the Almighty Many-Breasted God, although you won’t read that in any of our English translation.  And that’s a shame, I think, because we miss out on that beautiful image of a God who suckles and nurtures and feeds us all.  And we miss out on a powerful illustration of the way that women also fully reflect the image of God.
 
Jesus too spoke of the Divine feminine.  He said that he himself longed to gather the people of Jerusalem as a hen gathers her chicks.  He said that God is like a woman who searches diligently for a lost coin, sweeping her whole house, until she finds it.  Throughout Scripture, in both the Old and New Testaments, God is variously described as a compassionate mother, a midwife, a woman in labor.
 
And then, of course, there are the subtler indications of a God who mothers us, like today’s Gospel lesson.  
 
The story is the feeding of the 5000.  This is one of the most well-known miracle stories of the New Testament.  And it is the one that is reported in all four Gospels.  In fact, it’s told a total of six times because some Gospels have two iterations of it.  So, obviously, this was an important story for the early church.
 
Its most obvious theological connection is to the Lord’s Supper.  John makes a point of telling us that this event took place near the Festival of the Passover, which is a feast.  And it was during Passover that Jesus had his Last Supper.  So, food is at the center of this story.  And on this day, just like at the Last Supper, Jesus took bread, blessed it, broke it, and gave it to the people.  
 
This event is variously understood by the followers of Jesus.  Some of us simply accept it at face value.  Afterall, the one who turned water into wine and healed the sick and raised the dead would have no trouble multiplying bread and fish to feed the multitude.  For others, they see another kind of miracle here.  They say that once the little boy shared his food, everyone else in the crowd was shamed into sharing their own food, which they had hidden in their cloaks and bags.  And when everyone followed their best impulses and shared what they had, there was more than enough for everyone.  And that’s a miracle any way you slice it.
 
But there are other profound messages in this passage.  And food is at the center of those too.  
 
The story begins with Jesus and friends escaping the crowds.  They had gotten into a boat and sailed to the other side of the Sea of Galilee.  And then they climbed a mountain to finally be able to breathe.  But the crowds simply walked or ran around the perimeter of the lake.  And Jesus, from his mountaintop perch, saw them all coming.   
 
Now, I’m just going to be honest here.  If after I had gone to all that effort to get away and to rest, and then I looked up and saw that my boundaries were not being respected, let’s just say, I wouldn’t be happy.  And maybe Jesus sighed a little too.  But then, like any good mom, he wondered: what are we going to feed them?  In fact, according to John, that was his first thought.  And then, like any good mom (or dad), he got busy in the kitchen of the world, gathering up whatever he could find and blessing it and making it enough.  
 
He’s never stopped doing that, you know.  Jesus feeds us all with all kinds of common things that don’t look like a whole lot on their own.  They almost never look like enough in the moment of need.  But we look back on the times of trouble, and see that we were fed and sustained by the very bread of heaven.  
 
And then the feast was over, but the work wasn’t done.  Jesus was concerned with the clean-up and what was going to happen to the leftovers.  Because they were not going in the garbage.  They were not going in a landfill.  They were going to be repurposed because they too were precious.  Jesus said it like this: “Gather up the fragments left over, so that nothing may be lost.” 
 
I sometimes use this passage at funerals.  Because funerals are all about what we have lost.  We say of the deceased: “We lost her.”  “We lost him.”  And that is true.  From us, they are gone.  But what might be true for us in that moment, is never ever true for God.  God is like that woman who sweeps her house searching for the lost coin until she finds it.  God is like Jesus, gathering up all the leftovers so that nothing may be lost.  God is like Andromeda, fashioning something new from the bits and pieces and rubbish of our dreams, our hopes, our youth, our health, our bodies, our promise, our passions.  
 
Nothing is ever truly lost.  Nothing is ever wasted.  And everything can be made into something new.  Including you.  Including me.

Mark 6:30-34, 53-56
Sunday, July 22, 2018
© the Rev. Dr. James Campbell
 
 
Mark 6:30-34, 53-56
 
The apostles gathered around Jesus, and told him all that they had done and taught. He said to them, “Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while.” For many were coming and going, and they had no leisure even to eat. And they went away in the boat to a deserted place by themselves. Now many saw them going and recognized them, and they hurried there on foot from all the towns and arrived ahead of them. As he went ashore, he saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd; and he began to teach them many things.
 
When they had crossed over, they came to land at Gennesaret and moored the boat. When they got out of the boat, people at once recognized him, and rushed about that whole region and began to bring the sick on mats to wherever they heard he was. And wherever he went, into villages or cities or farms, they laid the sick in the marketplaces, and begged him that they might touch even the fringe of his cloak; and all who touched it were healed.
 
 
 
Cedar Lake, Indiana was the alleged summer home of Al Capone.  But that was hard to believe the day I arrived there because it had certainly seen better days.  The lake itself hadn’t been dredged in years, leaving it a dirty brown color and chocked with aquatic vegetation.  The cottages that dotted the shoreline were worn and faded. 
 
I once spent a summer there, working at a place called the Cedar Lake Bible Conference Center. It was one of those old turn-of-the-century camp meeting grounds with a large wooden tabernacle, guest cottages and an old hotel.  The hotel, oddly enough, was built in the style of a mountain lodge, even though northern Indiana is as flat as a pancake.  The lobby was knotty pine throughout with a huge stone fireplace and dusty deer heads hanging on the walls.  It too had seen better days, but it was not without its charms.  And one of those charms was its name: the Hotel Rest-a-While.
 
The evangelical founders of the conference center used the very Gospel passage we heard today as a basis for the hotel’s name.  “Jesus said to them, “Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while.”  He offered that invitation to people just like us; people who desperately needed to rest.
 
The disciples had been commissioned and sent out to teach and heal and preach.  And they had had tremendous success.  In fact, they were so successful doing the Lord’s work that Mark says they didn’t even have time to eat. 
 
But they were flying high on adrenaline – a feeling we all know: when you can work all night and create things of beauty and you don’t feel tired or hungry.  Adrenaline can mask our basic human needs and trick us into ignoring or even abusing our bodies.  
 
But Jesus saw them in the unforgiving light of day.  He saw the bags under their eyes and their stooped shoulders.  He knew the ones who had low blood sugar and the ones who were extra reckless without a good night’s sleep.  And seeing how tired they really were, his mothering instincts emerged.  “OK children, that’s enough,” he said.  “I am proud of you, but you’re tired and you need to rest and have a good meal.  So I’m taking you away.” 
 
Now the truth is, Jesus needed the rest too.  In the verses that precede this passage, and which we read last Sunday, Jesus had just learned that his cousin John the Baptist had been beheaded by King Herod, at the request of his new wife Herodias.  That must have been quite a gut-punch for the One who preached that love conquers hate.  But not this time.  It sure looked like hate had won.  And that’s enough to make anyone feel bone-tired.  
 
And so, Jesus and company headed off into nature, into the quietness, into the green, to rest a while and to be replenished by a deep connection with the Earth and its Creator.  
 
And that is still the cure for what ails us.  
 
A study out of UCLA observed the typical week of thirty-two middle class families in greater Los Angeles. The results, according to one researcher, were "disheartening." So consumed with working, collecting, amassing, and generally "getting ahead," these families actually spent very little time together enjoying what they were working for.  
 
In particular, Dr. Jeanne Arnold, lead author and a professor of anthropology at UCLA, bemoaned how little time family members spent outside.  And here I quote her: "Something like 50 of the 64 parents in our study never stepped outside in the course of about a week.  When they gave us tours of their house they'd say, 'Here's the backyard, (but) I don't have time to go there.' They were working a lot at home. (But their) leisure time was spent in front of the TV or (on their devices)."
 
Or on their devices.  Well, that sounds familiar.  I, for one, cannot leave my house without my mobile phone.  I feel naked if I do, sort of panicky and disconnected.  What if something happens, I think.  What if one of you needs to reach me?  And so, I tell myself that my being constantly connected is really about all of you.  But that’s simply not the truth.  It’s for me.  It is my own addiction to connectivity.  I am a willing and active participant in the deadening of my own mind and spirit.  I freely offer myself up to the tech gods who are determined and delighted to control me and to sell me something and make me think something, and increasingly to make me hate something or someone.  
 
Sometimes, I think I need an intervention.  Maybe you do too.  Maybe that’s why the language of Psalm 23 is as strong as it is.  The Lord doesn’t ask us if maybe, if it is convenient, if we don’t mind, would you please lie down in a green pasture?  No.  The Lord makes us to lie down in green pastures because the Lord knows we need it.  And so, with rod and staff in hand, he makes us take our rest. 
 
And that is what Jesus was doing for his friends that day.  They were beyond exhausted.  They were addicted to their own busyness.  They were full of themselves.  And so he said: “Come away and rest a while.”
 
Rest is not just about our physicality.  Rest is also about our souls.  Rest is a spiritual discipline.  I would even say that rest is a sacrament, because rest – the temporary cessation of our frenetic pace, is about trust.  And trust is an antidote to the idolatry of self-importance.  It helps us to remember that God is God and we are not.
 
I once read a story about Pope John the 23rd - the pope who ushered in the reforms of the Second Vatical Council in the 1960s.  Of course, as the leader of Catholics world-wide, he was a very busy man.  But he was also a wise man.  
 
It was reported by one of his secretaries that every night as he left his office in the Vatican to walk down the hall to his papal apartment, he would pause as he turned off the lights and say out loud, “OK Lord.  It’s your church.  I’m going to bed now.  I’ll see you in the morning.”  
 
This world is a pressure cooker.  And the flame is especially hot right now.  It’s likely to get hotter.  And it’s in our Protestant DNA to feel the weight of the world on our shoulders, as if that weight belongs to us alone.  And so, we’re always doing something productive.  It’s called the Protestant work ethic, and we’re really good at it.  
 
But what we are not so good at is remembering that we are humans – wonderfully made, but fragile.  Therefore, we require rest.  And we must eat good food.  And we must laugh and sing and rejoice in this world full of troubles.  
 
So, here’s your assignment: go home today and take a nap, or laze on the beach, or play with your dog.  Weed your garden.  Talk to your flowers.  Get in your car and just pick a direction.  And all the while, think of our dear Jesus, whose words restore our souls:  “Come away to a deserted place all by yourselves and rest a while.”