Sunday, October 26, 2025
​First Congregational Church of Cheshire
©the Rev. Dr. James Campbell
 
Luke 18:9-14
 
He also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt: “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, was praying thus, ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income.’ But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven but was beating his breast and saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his home justified rather than the other, for all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted.”
 
 
Does this robe make me look fat?  Am I handsome enough?  Am I having a bad hair day?  A no hair day?  And what about the bags under my eyes?  Is my nose too big?  Is my middle too soft?  Am I smart enough?  Am I loveable enough?  Am I… enough?
 
Those are the kinds of messages that sometimes play in my head.   But you have your own messages.  And we all look for ways to alleviate the constant pressure of those voices.  
 
I was a shy little boy, and we moved a lot, which meant that I was always adjusting to a new school, and never quite fitting in.  And because I was shy and studious and not that interested in sports, I was an easy target for bullying by others battling their own voices.  And that bullying often left me afraid and sad and angry.  But every now and again, that constant pressure would be relieved when someone less cool than I became the object of ridicule. My classmates would suddenly leave me alone while they picked on someone else.  Sometimes I even joined them as a way to further deflect unwanted attention away from me and onto others.  Of course, I’m ashamed of that now.  And I like to think that I outgrew the need to prop myself up by tearing others down.  But that frightened kid, seeking to deflect attention away from self by attacking others, is still in there somewhere.  
 
Two men went up to the Temple in Jerusalem to pray.  One of them was a Pharisee and the other was a Tax Collector.  Now, everyone who heard Jesus tell this story would have presumed that the Pharisee was the good guy.  You see, most folks back then thought of the Pharisees as serving a noble purpose in society.  And for the most part, they did. In the midst of Roman military domination, it was the Pharisees who preserved the faith of Israel.  And after the Romans destroyed the Temple – the very center of their faith - in 70 AD, it was the Pharisees who then reinterpreted the faith for a post-Temple world.  So, people thought of them as noble and good.
 
The tax collector, on the other hand, is the natural villain of this story, because tax collectors were universally despised.  They made their living by collecting more tax than was actually due and then pocketing the difference.  So, let’s say that your annual tax bill to the Roman government was $5000.  And you had scrimped and saved to finally get that amount.  But one day, the tax collector knocks on your door and presents you with a bill for $6000.  And you don’t have the extra $1000.  And you know that the tax collector is just going pocket it.  It’s not fair.  It’s not right.  But there isn’t anything you can do about it if you don’t want to end up in a debtor’s prison.
 
No wonder people hated the tax collectors.
 
So, when Jesus began his story by saying that a Pharisee and a Tax Collector went up to the Temple to pray, everyone already knew who the hero was.  And everyone already knew who the villain was.  But like lots of things with Jesus, there was a twist.  There usually is.
 
The Pharisee, in his gorgeous, expensive, flowing robes, was just settling into his favorite pew when he spied that dirty Tax Collector across the room.  “What’s he doing here?” he whispered to his buddy.  And then he fixed his gaze on the tax collector and gave him a long, smoldering, dirty look.  But it didn’t really work, so the Pharisee decided that he’d probably better get started on his prayers.  
 
And he used those prayers, his religion, as a weapon – something people still do to this day.  His so-called prayers were actually pointed and public criticisms of someone he perceived as “less than.”  And he said it all loud enough that the intended victim heard every word and felt every barb.
 
“God,” said the Pharisee, “I thank you that I am not like some other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like that TAX COLLECTOR over there.  I fast twice a week.  I give 10% of everything I make to the Temple.  I follow all the rules.  I’m a good guy.” 
 
And you know what?  In many ways, he actually was a good guy!  Everything he said he did was noble.  We should not steal.  We should not cheat on our spouses.  We should live generous lives.  But what we should never do is prop ourselves up by denigrating others, especially when we’re talking to God, who knows all of our secrets anyway.  
 
The tax collector, on the other hand, stood far off by himself.  Maybe he was hoping that in the shadows no one would recognize him.  And this man was so laden with guilt that he couldn’t even look up.  And he beat his breast; an action most often associated with women in the Ancient Near East. And as he did, he kept repeating: “God, be merciful to me, a sinner!  God, be merciful to me, a sinner!” 
 
Jesus concludes this parable by saying that it was the tax collector who went home justified, while the Pharisee did not.  Because everyone who exalts himself will be humbled and those who humble themselves will be exalted.  
 
Biblical scholars refer to these kinds of statements as “Great Reversals.” Another example of that would be when Jesus said, “The first shall be last and the last shall be first.” These “Great Reversal” statements are at the heart of Jesus’s teaching.  
 
In this Great Reversal parable, the so-called good guy, the Pharisee, turns out to be a self-righteous jerk.  And because he is, it’s easy to dislike him.  His so-called prayer was actually just a litany of self-righteousness at the expense of another. And don’t we all know how it is to listen to someone who props himself or herself up by tearing other people down?  
 
The tax collector, on the other hand, despite his profession and reputation, is much easier to like.  This man knew he needed to change his ways.  He knew that he was a sinner.  And so, he threw himself on the mercy of God.  He refused to justify his actions by comparing himself to others.  And so, the obvious conclusion is that we should be more like the Tax Collector and a lot less like that phony Pharisee.  Right?  Right!  
 
But do you see what just happened?  In coming to that logical conclusion, we just did to the Pharisee what the Pharisee did to the Tax Collector. 
 
Think about it.  The only thing we really know about this Pharisee is nothing more than a sound bite.  We saw him at his worst moment and then imagined that that moment was all we ever needed to know about him.  And we felt justified in vilifying him because he deserved it.  And then we comforted ourselves with the thought that although we may not be perfect, at least we’re not like that Pharisee.  
 
But in judging the Pharisee, we became the Pharisee.  
 
In this painful and dangerous time in our common American life, we are bombarded by sound bite judgments.  We are urged to think of others as less than ourselves based on a moment in their lives.  And from that one snippet of a person’s life, we assume that we know exactly what motivates them and what they think and what they will do next.  And then we congratulate ourselves that at least we’re not like them!  
 
But we fool ourselves and so easily excuse ourselves from the rigors of the commandment of Jesus, who told us: “Do not judge or you will be judged.”  
 
Now, let me be clear.  This is not about making friends with evil.  This is not about ignoring the suffering of others or the injustices that are rampant.  But this is about how easily we dismiss the humanity of others we have judged.  And this is about the idolatry of our own sense of goodness.  By comparing ourselves with what we think we know of others, we convince ourselves that we don’t really ever need to look deeper into our own hearts because… at least we’re not that guy!
 
But I am this guy.  I am James Campbell, a sinner.  I am flawed.  Sometimes, I am afraid.  I am angry more often than I want to be.  Sometimes, I am arrogant.  And I stand in the need of God’s grace and mercy, just as much as those I so conveniently judge in order to prop myself up.  

​
Sunday, October 19, 2025
First Congregational Church of Cheshire
© the Rev. Dr. James Campbell
 
 
Luke 18:1-8
 
Then Jesus told them a parable about their need to pray always and not to lose heart. He said, “In a certain city there was a judge who neither feared God nor had respect for people. In that city there was a widow who kept coming to him and saying, ‘Grant me justice against my accuser.’ For a while he refused, but later he said to himself, ‘Though I have no fear of God and no respect for anyone, yet because this widow keeps bothering me, I will grant her justice, so that she may not wear me out by continually coming.’ ” And the Lord said, “Listen to what the unjust judge says. And will not God grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night? Will he delay long in helping them? I tell you, he will quickly grant justice to them. And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”
 
 
 
Back in the 1970s, there was a very popular bumper sticker that read: “God said it.  I believe it.  That settles it!”  And yes, my grandmother did have one of those proudly emblazoned on her convertible Cadillac Eldorado.  
 
That bumper sticker, like all bumper stickers, was meant to imply a great deal more than what it actually said.  That bumper sticker was a declaration of a rather conservative expression of Christian faith.  It was about so-called biblical literalism, that idea that that every word of this book means what it says, without any real need for nuance.   
 
But that’s a hard case to make for many of us.  Because while this book is filled with some easy to understand and wonderful words of life, this book is also filled with some terrible words of judgment and violence that need the context of history and culture and language.  In addition, this is not one book with a singular coherent narrative.  This is 66 different books, bound in one volume, and composed over the course of about 1500 years.  And these 66 books are made up of all kinds of literature: history and law, poetry and narrative, apocalypse and the often-misunderstood parable.  
 
Now, at first glance, the parable seems to be one of the easiest parts of the Bible to understand.  Jesus told simple stories based in the agrarian culture of his time.  And these stories are meant to reveal glimpses of the Kingdom of God.  But the problem with parables is that they are not just straight forward narratives.  They do not have just one conclusion.  Parables defy simple explanations and convenient character assignments.  And they invite us into a conversation that helps us to find their truth for ourselves.  In that way, a parable has the potential to reveal many different angles on the truth.
 
The poet Emily Dickenson didn’t mean to describe a parable, but she once did.  She wrote: “Tell all the truth but tell it slant, success in circuit lies. Too bright for our infirm delight, the truth’s suburb surprise.  As lightning to the children eased with explanation kind, the truth must dazzle gradually, or every man be blind.”
 
And that is exactly what parables do.  They reveal the dazzling truth of the Kingdom of God, but gradually, and over time, and from a variety of slants or angles.
 
Once upon a time, there was an awful judge who should have never received a life-time appointment.  This judge had no fear of God, and therefore, had no respect for anyone made in God’s image. 
 
In his jurisdiction, there was a widow, who kept coming to ask for justice.  And this, in and of itself, was remarkable.  Because in Hebrew, the word for widow actually means “silent one” or “one unable to speak.”  Males alone had a public voice.  And once her husband was dead, unless another male relative chose to speak for her, a widow was, literally, voiceless.  
 
But not this widow.  Somehow, this widow found her voice.  She had a strong sense that what she had to say ought to be heard.  And so, against convention she went to the judge to ask for justice against her accuser.  It took him a long time to even let her in the room, but once he did, he rebutted her.  And so, she went back the next day.  And the day after that, and the day after that, and the day after that. 
 
She went so often, that it really started to bug the judge.  In fact, she was a real pain.  A literally reading of the Greek has the judge saying: “Because this widow keeps giving me a black eye, I will give her justice.”  And so, eventually, that’s what he did.  But it wasn’t out of the goodness of his heart, but out of expediency that he finally did the right thing.  And so, Jesus said, we should persist in prayer and not lose heart.
 
Now, the most obvious slant on this parable is to say that God is the judge and that we are the widow and that, like her, we should persist in prayer until we get an answer.  But that interpretation, while perhaps the most obvious, is not without its problems.  First of all, it leaves us with a troubling image of God; a God who rebuffs us; a God who has no respect for us; who actually enjoys making us grovel.  This God finally relents to our endless begging, not out of love or generosity, but because we’re a pain in the behind.  
 
Other folks put this slant on the story.  They suggest that the judge is meant to be a negative comparison to God.  Meaning, that if this wicked judge grants justice only after being badgered, how much more will a good God give us justice and give it quickly.  But that slant is troubling too, because it has been my experience that justice rarely comes quickly.  It has been my experience that prayer can seem to be unanswered or, at the very least, severely delayed.  
 
But there’s another slant on this parable, and one that I had never considered before this week.  What if we flipped the character assignments?  What if the unjust judge is actually us and God is the widow who keeps coming to ask us to finally do the right thing?  
 
Now maybe that sounds far-fetched to you.  But remember that once the disciples asked Jesus: ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison and did not take care of you?’ And Jesus answered them: ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ 
 
So then, the story might go like this: Once upon a time, there was a judge who lived as if God did not exist.  Oh sure, he went to church, but he was unconverted.  This judge was hard-edged and cold and had absolutely no respect for anyone not in his tribe. 
 
But here’s the thing: like every other cold hearted so-in-so, he hadn’t always been that way.  As a child, he was a soft-hearted little boy.  But over the years, the relentless climb of the ladder of success had eventually hardened his heart.  He trusted in his power and money far more than he trusted in the Lord.  And he took bribes.  And he made rulings that protected his powerful friends.  And the result of all of this was that most people hated him.  
 
But God, being God, loved him anyway.  And God, being God, remembered how soft his heart used to be.  And God, being God, knew that somewhere underneath that crusty exterior, there was still something worth saving.  And so, God, appeared in the form of a widow.  Oh, it was a brilliant disguise.  And God was relentless, going back day after day after day looking for any sign of his humanity, any crack in his rough exterior.
 
Until one day, there was a crack.  It was tiny at first.  It started out as an annoyance. But eventually, the judge had to look this woman in the eye.  Eventually, he had to listen to her story.  Eventually, he had to see her worth and dignity.  And eventually, his heart warmed.  And he remembered who he used to be.  And he wept for that soft-hearted boy he once was.  He repented of his sins and changed his ways and granted the widow justice.  
 
Jesus ends this parable by asking if there will be any faith left on the earth when he comes.  Maybe he was talking about the faith of persistent prayer.  Maybe he was talking about the faith of not losing heart.  Or maybe he was talking about the kind of faith that is brave enough to remember who we used to be when love and mercy and justice were the most important things to us.  
 
And that makes me wonder what kind of disguise God is wearing today, as he seeks to save us.  God once came to us as a dusty rabbi from Nazareth.  But I suspect that God is also a mother in Gaza holding her starving child.  God is a Ukrainian orphan languishing alone.  God is homeless.  God is addicted.  God is hungry.  God is imprisoned.  And this God will not leave us in peace until we finally get it right.
 
 

Sunday, October 12, 2025
First Congregational Church of Cheshire
© the Rev. Dr. James Campbell
 
 
Jeremiah 29:1,4-7
 
These are the words of the letter that the prophet Jeremiah sent from Jerusalem to the remaining elders among the exiles and to the priests, the prophets, and all the people whom Nebuchadnezzar had taken into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon.
 
Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat what they produce. Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.
 
 
On the morning of September 11, 2001, I refused to imagine the unimaginable.  I knew that there was some kind of trouble downtown, but refused to believe that it could be that bad.  And so I left for work.  The subways were out of service and so I boarded a cross-town bus, but it barely moved.  The streets were jammed with traffic.  After a while, the bus driver announced that the planes that had hit the World Trade Center were actually passenger planes.  A few very slow blocks later, he told us that a plane had also flown into the Pentagon and that the White House had been evacuated.  And it was at that moment that I finally understood that the unimaginable was actually happening.    
 
Now imagine, if you can, a day even worse than that.  Imagine an invading army marching into Washington. Imagine all the elected leaders, from the President to the Supreme Court Justices to the members of Congress being shackled and marched through the streets and led away.  Imagine all the universities being closed and the professors disappearing.  Imagine the news media going silent.  Imagine the sense of fear and dread and hopelessness that would descend upon those of us who were left behind.
 
That is exactly what happened in the year 597 BC.  The Babylonian army invaded and conquered the southern kingdom of Judah.  Its magnificent capital, Jerusalem the Golden, was ransacked.  The best and the brightest were taken away.  A puppet king was installed.  A conquering army ruled by martial law.  One day, life was as it had always been.  The next day, life would never be the same.
 
On September 11, many people wondered: “Where was God?”  In 597 BC, the people of Judah wondered: “Where was God?”  Whenever we face calamity, this is often the first question we ask.
 
Some people answer that question by deciding that they have been abandoned by God, or worse.  That’s what the people of Judah believed when Babylon marched into town.  And here’s why.
 
We often hear that ancient Jewish people were monotheistic, but monotheism was an evolving idea.  At this particular time in their history, they were likely something called monolatrous, meaning that while they only worshipped one God, whom they believed to be the most powerful, they also believed that other gods existed.  And each region had its own god or gods.  And that meant that their God, Yahweh, lived in the Temple in Jerusalem.  But now the exiles were 900 miles away from where God lived.  And they felt abandoned.
 
And the people left in Jerusalem also felt abandoned because they now believed that Yahweh had not been powerful enough to prevent this disaster.  And that means that maybe, just maybe, the Babylonian gods were more powerful.  
 
And so, they looked for answers.  And in Jerusalem, there were two prophets who claimed they had the answer.  The only problem was, they didn’t have the same answer.
 
The first one was, Hananiah, who said that God would end the exile within two years.  Well, that’s exactly what the people wanted to hear!  We can all put up with suffering as long as there is an expiration date!  And so, old Hananiah was popular.  But Hananiah, as it turns out, was a false prophet, doing what false prophets always do: telling us exactly what we want to hear, instead of what we actually need to hear.  
 
Jeremiah, on the other hand, had a very different message and one they most certainly did not want to hear.  And it goes like this: “Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel, to all the exiles whom I have sent into exile from Jerusalem to Babylon: Build houses and live in them; plant gardens and eat what they produce.  Take wives and have sons and daughters; take wives for your sons, and give your daughters in marriage, that they may bear sons and daughters; multiply there, and do not decrease. But seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.”
 
When we suffer, who wants to make peace with the present moment or situation?  And when we are persecuted, who wants to pray for our enemies?  And so, the more Jeremiah told them to settle in for the long haul, the more they resisted.  They did not want to build houses and plant gardens and have children and work for the common welfare of the people who had done them harm.  What they wanted was for everything to go back to the way it had been.  Well, don’t we all?
 
Jeremiah’s words were a bitter pill.  But didn’t we all learn as children that it’s often the bitter pill that can often make us well; that there can be healing and growth, even in the midst of suffering.  
 
And that’s what happened to the exiles.  First of all, notice that in instructing the exiles to pray for the city and its inhabitants, it meant that Yahweh was not just some tribal god, limited to Jerusalem.  It meant that Yahweh was Lord of the whole earth – even the Lord of Babylon.  And so, their view of God expanded.
 
Second, this God, whom they had always feared as a God of terrible vengeance, was actually also full of mercy for enemies.  This God wanted them to pray for the welfare of all – even those they hated.  And their view of the love and mercy of God expanded.
 
Would they have learned these important lessons outside of a crucible?  Who knows?  How often do we learn when life is good and God is superfluous?
 
But light can come from darkness.  And goodness can come from suffering.  But like the exiles, we cannot begin to heal until we learn to accept where we actually are.  No matter how bleak, there are still houses to build, and gardens to plant, and children to raise.  
 
But the spiritual life is not simply about the acceptance of those things we cannot change.  It’s also about the courage to change the things we can; to be open to personal change even while exiled.  And here’s what I mean.  We could actually do what Jesus told us to: love our enemies and to pray for those who persecute us.  
 
Isn’t that exactly what Jeremiah told the exiles?  “Seek the welfare of the city,” he said.  “Seek the welfare of your neighbors.  See the good for that place you would rather not be, and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare.” 
 
The false prophets of our day urge us to live lives of perpetual anger.  They encourage our bitterness and rage.  They want us to hate our neighbors.  They seek to keep us divided.  But that message is never, ever the word of the Lord.  
 
The exiles eventually did what Jeremiah told them.  They accepted those things they could not change.  They found the courage to change the things they could.  And they bloomed where they were planted.  They shared the abundance of their gardens with their Babylonian neighbors.  They exchanged greetings and recipes.  Their children played together; even married one another.  And eventually, the exiles learned what we all must learn: that there is no place where God is not; that the mercy of the Lord is deep and endless.  And that no matter where we are; no matter how long the exile, we can always, always, always do some good.

​OTHERWORLDY COMMUNION
Sunday, October 5, 2025 – World Communion Sunday
First Congregational Church of Cheshire
© the Rev. Dr. James Campbell
 
 
2 Timothy 1:1-7

Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the will of God, for the sake of the promise of life that is in Christ Jesus,
 
To Timothy, my beloved child:
 
Grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord.
 
I am grateful to God—whom I worship with a clear conscience, as my ancestors did—when I remember you constantly in my prayers night and day. Recalling your tears, I long to see you so that I may be filled with joy. I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that lived first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and now, I am sure, lives in you. For this reason, I remind you to rekindle the gift of God that is within you through the laying on of my hands, for God did not give us a spirit of cowardice but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline.
 
 
 
Years ago, at a family reunion, my Aunt Kay, convinced I had somehow “gotten above my raising,” pulled me aside.  She gave me a long, hard, side-ways look (for which she was famous) and then she leaned in close and said: “You just remember one thing… your roots are Briar.”  
 
Briar is a shortened version of the phrase “Briar hopper”, which is a less than politically correct name for someone from Kentucky.  Now, I am not from Kentucky, but both sides of my family are.  And for my Aunt Kay, that was enough.  
 
Well, I distinctly remember that I didn’t appreciate what she had to say.  But I also know that defensiveness can be a sign that, on some level, we agree with the accusation.  And truth be told, my Aunt Kay was on to something.  
 
You see, as a young adult, I spent a lot of time trying to distance myself from my Appalachian roots.  I finally distanced myself all the way to New York City.  But one day while making chit-chat at a fashionable cocktail party in a Manhattan high-rise, I happened to mention that I had aunts with names like Ila Kay, Iva May, Vesta Lee, and Earldeen.  When that made them chuckle, I continued.  I told that had a great uncle named Pee Wee.  And that my maternal grandfather was known to everyone simply as “Cornbread.”
 
Well, lo and behold, those party goers found all these details fascinating, as if I had grown up in an exotic foreign country.  And that’s when I realized that it was fascinating.  And so, I began a journey back toward my roots – a journey that I have continued to this day.  Reconnecting to my people changed me, but not in the ways I expected.  I became more deeply myself as I accepted these people for what they really are: my people, my family.
 
We are the products of all those people who have come before us.  Generations of choices and hormones and circumstances have produced the people we are.  And for some of us, that connection to the past includes the Christian faith, passed down from one generation to the next.  In my own family that connection is deep.  My faith may look different from theirs, but there remains a continuum, a connection, a golden thread from one generation to the next.
 
Timothy was a young pastor in the early church, who had been mentored by none other than the Apostle Paul.  And apparently, there was great affection between them, as there often is between mentor and acolyte.  But, as we know, the flip side of affection is worry.  And that is where we find ourselves today – in the midst of worry born of love.
 
You see, by the time this letter was written, Paul was an old man.  And he knew that his time on this earth was drawing to a close.  And no doubt he wondered: what will happen to Timothy after I am gone?  
 
That worry was the impetus for the prayers Paul prayed, night and day.  That worry was the reason he hoped to return to Timothy soon, recalling how Timothy wept the last time they said good bye.  
 
But then the mood of the letter changes, and Paul seems to remember that golden thread of connection that I referred to a moment ago.  Paul remembers how the faith is passed down from one generation to the next.  And he writes: “I am reminded of your sincere faith (Timothy), a faith that lived first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and now, I am sure, lives in you.”  
 
With these words, Paul acknowledges something we call “the communion of saints” – the idea that we are all connected to one another through our faith in Jesus Christ.  But that idea has been given short shrift in Protestantism.  We tend to think of faith in highly individualistic terms.  “It’s between me and Jesus,” we say.  And that kind of insular emphasis has made space for all kinds of inappropriate behavior and bad theology and a general disconnection between human beings.
 
But we Protestants got it wrong.  Because the Christian faith has never been just between us and Jesus.  It cannot be reduced to some pithy idea of “my own personal relationship to Jesus Christ.”  Because alone, we cannot be the Body of Christ.  Alone, we cannot be the Communion of Saints.
 
The Bantus of South Africa understand this essential spiritual connection in a deeper way.  They say “Umuntu, ngamuntu, ngabantu” -- a person is a person because of other persons. And in the church, we might say: a Christian is a Christian because of other Christians.  We are all connected – deeply, essentially connected.
 
I’ve always loved World Communion Sunday because I love the idea that on this day, all over the world, in myriad languages, all Christians come to the same table of Jesus.  Some do so in cathedrals.  Others gather in huts.  Still others are out under the trees.  Some celebrate in complete freedom and others in the fear of persecution.  Some eat this as a simple memorial meal.  Others believe the bread and cup to be the very body and blood of Christ.  But at the end of the day, no matter how we celebrate, our coming to this table is an act of connection to the church on earth and the church in heaven.  What else could it mean when we say in the communion liturgy: “And so, with all the prophets, martyrs, and saints, and all the company of heaven, we glorify you.”  
 
Now that kind of universality is a lot to take in.  So, let’s bring it a bit closer to home.  Let’s think about this very room in which we sit.  Just take it in for a moment…  And now imagine all the thousands and thousands of people who have gathered here for the past 200 years.  In this very room, they have celebrated the Lord’s Supper, and heard his life-giving Gospel, and raised their voices in song, and pledged their love, and buried their dead.  In this very room, our people gathered.  And they had names like Lucius Tuttle, Amasa Hitchcock, Mabel Swift, Benoni Plum, Erastus Colton, Sherlock Bristol, Belina Clark.  
 
We never knew them.  They lived in a much different world than ours.  Even their names are strange to us.  But in Christ, the ties that bind us are as real as the pews we sit upon, and the floor under our feet, and the air that we now breathe.  Their faith is now our faith.  Their church is now our church.  
 
And one day, 200 years from now, people will look at our history and they will read names like Martha Lape, Ken Eurele, Marcia Dodd, Bill Eagleson, Marilyn Gordon, Lorna Fowler, Bob Porter.  They will not have known us.  Their world will be very different from ours.  Our names will seem strange to them.  But somehow, we will be connected to them; somehow, we will live in them, because we all live in Christ.  It is an unbroken, golden thread.
 
And that is the reason that St. Paul could so confidently say: “I am reminded of your sincere faith, (Timothy), a faith that lived first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and now, I am sure, lives in you.”  
 
And now, I am sure, lives in all of us.  
 
Thanks be to God.  Amen.