Pastor Tony's Sermon September 10, 2017

Joel 1: 8-10, 18-20, & Psalm 18: 6, 16-19   9-10-17 Wilderness Sunday ACUCC             Rev. Tony Clark

Joel 1:8-10, 18-20The Message (MSG)

Weep like a young virgin dressed in black, mourning the loss of her fiancé. Without grain and grapes, worship has been brought to a standstill in the Sanctuary of God. The priests are at a loss. God’s ministers don’t know what to do. The fields are sterile. The very ground grieves. The wheat fields are lifeless, vineyards dried up, olive oil gone. Food is just a memory at our tables, as are joy and singing from God’s Sanctuary. The seeds in the field are dead, barns deserted, grain silos abandoned. Who needs them? The crops have failed. The farm animals groan—oh, how they groan! The cattle mill around. There’s nothing for them to eat. Not even the sheep find anything. God! I pray, I cry out to you! The fields are burning up, the country is a dust bowl, forest and prairie fires rage unchecked. Wild animals, dying of thirst, look to you for a drink. Springs and streams are dried up. The whole country is burning up, and fire has devoured the pastures of the wilderness.

Psalm 18:6, 16-19 The Message (MSG)

A hostile world! I call to God,
    I cry to God to help me.
From his palace he hears my call;
    my cry brings me right into his presence—
    a private audience!

But me he caught—reached all the way
    from sky to sea; he pulled me out
Of that ocean of hate, that enemy chaos,
    the void in which I was drowning.
They hit me when I was down,
    but God stuck by me.
He stood me up on a wide-open field;
    I stood there saved—surprised to be loved!

The Prophet Joel wrote about a specific event, a plague of locusts that destroyed everything, some 400 years before Jesus was born. It was an unprecedented plague of locusts (of Biblical proportions!), that Joel saw as the coming of the Day of the Lord when Israel would be either judged or blessed by God.

I witnessed a “plague of locusts,” once, in Cincinnati, where my sister lives, about a dozen years ago. Everywhere you looked there were locusts—on trees, on the sidewalk, on the screens of the house. You couldn’t take a step without crunching them underfoot. They would fly into you as you walked, thunking on your glasses, or donking off your forehead, or banging into your back. And the noise! Good Lord, the noise was interminable, loud, buzzing, whining, pulsing; even in the midst of urban loudness, the locusts drowned out all other sound. Joel described this kind of attack, and said that all plant life was destroyed, the locusts sounded like an army of chariots, warriors ready for battle, making the earth shake as they arrived. Even the wilderness was destroyed, he mourned, and the wild animals cried out.

When Natural disasters hit, like the hurricanes in Texas and Florida, and the earthquake in Mexico, there is something very human to look to God for the cause, and to look to ourselves as sinners who must be blamed for God’s wrath.

Joel’s writing called the people to return to God, ask for God’s help, and let the spirit fill them. Joel told the people that God will repay them for their losses, and, in the words we hear every year at Pentecost, God will pour out the spirit upon them. (read Joel 2: 25-29). 

Today is Wilderness Sunday, in the Season of Creation. Wilderness is a mythic place, wild, full of danger, and also full of insight. In journey stories and fairy tales, the wilderness is a place of magic and mystery, where witches enchant you, trolls trap you, wolves and bears eat you, and unicorns or mystical hunters appear to save you. In Native American life, the wilderness is a place of vision quests and finding your animal totem—the spirit guide through this material world. In the Bible, the wilderness is the desert beyond the oasis of a city.

What would drive someone out into the wilderness where beasts and hunger, extreme weather and nature, and other unknown dangers await?

Wilderness is often a symbol in our stories of between-ness--between one time and another, between one place and another, between one mindset and another. For the Israelites, the desert wilderness was between the waters of the Red Sea and the Jordan River, the space and time between Egypt and the Promised Land, between the known and unknown, between oppression and freedom. It was a place of hunger and thirst, of grumbling and longing for what was behind them. And it was also a place to learn to trust God, who provided water and manna and guided them by a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire at night. The wilderness is where God gave them laws and covenants to hold them in community.

The Prophet Elijah also fled to the wilderness to escape the death-threats of King Ahab and Queen Jezebel. Elijah’s wilderness, where he experienced the fear and might of the nature—hunger, a windstorm, an earthquake, and wildfire, was between the death threats and his call to anoint God’s servants. Out there, in that desolate, barren between place, an angel provided food and in the stillness after the storms, Elijah met God.

Jesus also headed to the wilderness in a between time. After he was baptized in the Jordan, he immediately went out to the wilderness for forty days (there is that pesky number 40 again!), where he faced the full temptation of the wilderness. Jesus denied the temptations, was helped by angels to return and fulfill his call.

In these ancient and modern stories wilderness is symbolic of trial, denial, temptation and seduction. It is also symbolic of transformation, trust and provision, of blessing and believing. Wilderness and the wildness of nature are physical experiences that allow us to enter into a spiritual state of need and fulfillment. In the Bible, and the Middle East, the wilderness is the desert; in European stories, like “Little Red Riding Hood” and “Hansel and Gretel”, the wilderness is a deep dark wood. In the US, we have desert, forest, mountain and grassland wilderness.

I have been to the wilderness. I have camped in woods and deserts; I have hiked in barren grasslands of the East Bay Hills, the prairies of Wisconsin, and the rolling hills of Wales. I have met wandering herds of cattle and sheep, and I have fallen asleep to the haunting sounds of owls and loons and wolves crying in the night, and been awakened by weird wild rustling animal noises around me. I have known the fear of deep darkness, of eyes glowing from the fire glaring from the edge of a campsite. Although I have never met a bear, nor a wildcat, nor a rattle snake, all of those have been near enough to freak me out while camping. Once, my sister and I missed a turn off on an overnight camping trip and ended up a bit lost, a bit scared, and doubled what we had planned on walking, arriving home later than we expected, with blisters and sore backs, and sunburn.

I have also known provision and blessing while in the wilderness. Beautiful vistas, cool babbling streams, a flock of quail startled into flight by my movement, gentle deer munching on grass as I pass. I have known the beauty of storms, clouds so thick they look like you could climb right up to heaven, and lightning that terrifies and thunder that shakes the ground, yet also lights up the sky in thrilling colors. I have tasted the natural root beer flavor of wild sassafras in southern Ohio and Missouri, and ripe sweet blackberries here in California, and even blueberries in the wilds of northern Minnesota. I have skied and hiked in winter in the northern woods, which is its own wilderness experience of trial, travail, and triumphant beauty.

We need these wilderness spaces, yet we have been trying to control them, tame them, make them do our bidding. We cut rainforests, with their eerily beautiful howler monkeys screaming overhead, so we can farm cattle. We cut northern forests, with their wolf cries and lunatic loons, for the timber. We irrigate deserts, with their poisonous rattle snakes and scorpions, to make them more like the grasslands and woodlands of a different region. We change, shift, plow under, or cut down our wilderness, removing the scary things of the wilderness, and in doing that we also sterilize any chance of meeting the holy through those moments of crisis.  In taming the wilderness, we miss the blessing of the spiritual world that lives there. Yet, nature will break through, calling us to heed her might.

The fear of death, destruction and temptation are symbolized in our fairy tales and Bible stories by witches and trolls and Satan, metaphors for the trials and travails, the temptations of being in a place beyond our comfort zone. Little Red Riding Hood and Hansel and Gretel are warnings to stay out of the wilderness; yet they, like the Biblical stories of the wilderness are stories of transformation. Hansel and Gretel and Little Red Riding Hood, like the Israelites in the desert, Elijah and Jesus in the wilderness, faced terrible terror and temptations, seduction that draws on their innocence, yet through it they are empowered and transformed into self-actualized, strong adults. In that transformation they find salvation, either from an outsider like a hunter or wood cutter or from within themselves. The same with the Native American vision quests, where they are set out to fend for themselves, and are guided by their animal totem to salvation.

The Israelites fled a desperate situation in Egypt, went into the wilderness to an even more desperate situation, where they were transformed to a people who could see God’s blessing even in the littlest of things—manna, a flock of quail, water from a spring at just the right time. Elijah fled from one place to a place of even more danger, where he was transformed by God to face his fears and return to society. Jesus, too, went to the wilderness, where he faced hunger and seduction, and trusted God to provide.

There are millions of people fleeing from desperate situations these days—natural disasters, political instability, personal persecution, and all of them face a between time, a wilderness wandering time, between destruction and the promises of God. Wandering in the wilderness, a refugee between death and hope, oppression and freedom, between nature and spirit, is not a pleasant place to be. And so many of our brothers and sisters are living there, in the barren between-ness of wilderness.

In these times, as we pray with our brothers and sisters in Texas, Florida, the Caribbean, and Mexico, refugees from Syria and Palestine, who must feel like the Israelites, Elijah, and Joel, that God has abandoned them, I can only pray these words from Psalm 18:6, 16-19 The Message (MSG)

A hostile world! I call to God, I cry to God to help me. From his palace he hears my call;my cry brings me right into his presence—a private audience!

But me he caught—reached all the way from sky to sea; he pulled me out
Of that ocean of hate, that enemy chaos, the void in which I was drowning.
They hit me when I was down, but God stuck by me.
He stood me up on a wide-open field; I stood there saved—surprised to be loved!

May all our brothers and sisters, refugees from unsafe places know themselves to be saved and even if they are surprised, know they are loved by God.

Amen.

Notes from the "First Person of the Planet" Talk Tuesday, September 12, 2017: by Shanti Moorjani

Notes from the "First Person of the Planet" Talk Tuesday, September 12,  2017: byShanti Moorjani

Some people are a "Person of the Planet"  (P.O.P.) whether they call themselves that or not.   One such person is Dr. Robert E. Shore-goss,  retired pastor and theologian of the MCC United Church of Christ in North Hollywood, CA.  He spoke Tuesday night in our very first P.O.P. speaker series.  In his position as a pastor, Dr. Shore-gossspearheaded an awareness campaign to make a neutral carbon footprint for his church. He inspired his congregants to plant gardens, buy electric cars, go solar, and more.  His church received a Green Oscarfrom the California Interfaith Power and Light.

After his "ecological conversion", Bob believed you cannot be a Christian and not be an advocate for the environment.   "If you fall in love with God's Earth, you will fight for it," he said.   At the Climate Change March in Washington DC, of the 400,00 people there, 40% were from faith communities from across the country.

His talk stated many climate disruption facts, that probably most of you are already aware of, such as  rising oceans,  higher temperatures, water and airpollution.  Dr. Shore-goss often quoted the Dr. Sallie McFague, professor of Theology Emeritus at Vanderbilt University in Vancouver.  Her  earth renewal quote is,  "Take your share, Clean up after yourself, Keep the house in good repair for future occupants".

Person of the Planet- Notes from Down Under September 8, 2017, By Shanti Moorjani

On a plane from Adelaide to Alice Springs we met Pru.  She is a middle aged, knowledgeable woman, passionate about her country.  Alice Springs is the closest town to Uluru (or "Ayers" red rock), in the center of Australia, hundreds of miles from another major city.   A spirited conversation ensued about Australia, Aboriginals, and "Person of the Planet".   By the time we landed, all my pre-conceived notions of Aboriginals were altered.

For me, Aboriginals were the "original" persons of the planet. They were one with the environment, built no houses, possessed no livestock or owned no material things, and wore no clothing.  Yet, they had the longest surviving culture in the world, fossils dating back to 70,000 years old. To the Europeans who first discovered them, they possessed a dignity and presence that was mystifying. They consumed less than their part of the planet was capable of generating.

Bursting my Image,  Pru said "No" the Aboriginalsare a big problem here in Alice Springs, doing all the crimes, setting fires for no reason, trashing their government houses, and spending their money on alcohol and drugs.  Apparently each person gets $800.00 every 2 weeks and a lump sum of $20,000 more every year. To prove it, she brought us to see the housing areas that were trashed with burnt out cars, broken furniture and windows. They hang out in the parks where they hang out together in unhappy looking groups, kids not in school.  They are not liked by the community. 

All their centuries of harmony with the land changed once Captain Cook "discovered" them in 1770. The White mans' ways of altering landscapes and bringing "civilization" ended what was working for them. They were thought to be little more than animals and a nuisance.  This is why the government of Australia didn't even declare them human until 1967.  Fortunately, now days many Aboriginals are doing well and have successful jobs. 

All of this got me thinking about the earth's limited resources and how we take more than we give back or share.   I asked myself "How many of the earth's resources do I PERSONALLY require to feel satisfied?” Clothes, houses, cars, devices, appliances and on and on, stuff and more stuff. It's never enough.   I know there are populations that live on much less. 

No, I am not going to give away all I own and put on a sack cloth, but rather look around and really see what's not important or necessary to my life.  In other words, to be a better Person of the Planet, Less is best - use no more than your share of what the planet can sustainably produce.

-        Shanti Moorjani

Faith is a Verb.. Musings by Pastor Tony September 8, 2017

When I first preached at Arlington Community Church United Church of Christ in 2010, I used the phrase, “Faith is a Verb,” naming that ancient Hebrew and Greek have verbs for our idea of “faith.” This idea of “faith is a verb” combines the notions from modern English of the noun, “faith,” with the verbs, “to trust” and “to believe.” It is also a call to act out our faith, and, as we sing every week, to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with God.  Faith as a noun calls us to contemplate, meditate, and pray quietly, which are all important to our spiritual life, yet they cannot be the end point; faith as a verb calls us to put our hands to work to bring peace and joy to our world calls us to put our feet on the ground to walk and march for justice.

We are at a time in the life of our congregation when “Faith is a Verb” is really being put into action. Have you noticed the activity? The kitchen is being refurbished, so that we can continue being a place that is used by the community. A Landscaping Team is working to redevelop plans for the external face we present to the world, as we make our space an even more inviting, peaceful, spiritual place of rest and renewal. There is a newly formed green team, focusing on environmental justice and our individual actions to help our planet. The Mission and Social Justice Board has been active in figuring out how to respond to Hurricanes Harvey and Irma. I am connecting more deeply into North Richmond and the Iron Triangle of Richmond (We gave 48 backpacks and school supplies to a recent program for local youth, with much thanks from the creator, Marcus Byrd-Ray), and I am volunteering to help in the medical area as protests against white supremacy and rallies for racial justice occur in our region. I imagine all of this will push our hands, hearts and feet into verbing our faith.

It feels like our faith at Arlington Community Church is living, breathing, doing. It feels like God has given us a jolt of caffeine, to get us up from our deep contemplation and go do the faith. It feels exciting, and yes, perhaps a bit exhausting, and to me it feels like God is at the center of it.

So how are you verbing the faith these days? How are you experiencing Arlington Community Church as a verb these days? Along with the Pastor Parish Relations Team (Elena, Barry, and Susan Y), I look forward to hearing your comments in these upcoming months!

Peace,

Pastor Tony

Person of the Planet- A Message from Down Under by Shanti Moorjani

I met a man from Cairnes (pronounced "cans") on our recent trip to Australia. He is a Person of the Planet.    His name is Dean Nulty, a biologist/naturalist, and a guide.  We had the priviledge of spending a day with in him in the Daintree Rainforest in the Northeast coast of Australia.  Daintree is a 450 square mile lush green rain forest.  It is the oldest one on the planet and a very complex ecosystem. 

Dean started out by saying: " I don't like the word 'Climate change' when it is really 'climate disruptions'".  Take for instance this forest. In the 1950's onward there was a rush to cut down the rainforests to plant sugar cane and develop fish hatcheries.  The motto among the "powers that be" was "the only good tree is a cut tree".   Consequently, 80% of the forests were gone, and they were itching to finish the last 20%.  They rushed a crew to start cutting without any environmental impact studies.  This was 1983 and the local people had had enough. Violent protests broke out to prevent the bulldozers from continuing.  Thanks to a miracle monsoon-like rain that disrupted the clear-cutting from continuing and organizers coming to help from outside the country, the message finally made it to the news media and the rest of the world.   The bulldozers stopped and eventually this last piece of rainforest was declared a World Heritage site in 1987.

Recently, concerned wealthy individuals are starting to buy back the farms and asking people to come and plant a tree. Dean understands the importance of a rainforest environment and its positive impact on the health of the planet.  He said, "The answer to climate disruption is so simple! If every person on the planet were to plant just one tree the problem would be solved.  But, politicians just don't get it."  He continued, "Plant a tree or donate to their Save a Rainforest project so someone can plant a tree for you."  Even so, he said it takes about 400 years to create another rain forest.  Pretty sobering.

As I looked around Daintree I remembered a quote I once heard:   " look around you,.... the trees, grass, flowers, water, air........it's all alive".

This planet is truly alive, a "garden of Eden", a "gift from God". We are standing on "holy ground".  This earth has supported us unconditionally over the centuries, yet it has no voice of its own.  Would it say,  "Stop cutting the trees, I can't make air" or "If you wipe out all the bees, I can't pollinate the fruit" and so on.   We have everything for our needs; just look at this computer you are reading, the chair you are sitting on, the house you live in, the car you drive, the food you eat: all are gifts from the planet. In fact I can't think of anything that did not ultimately come from the earth.

Our Person of the Planet movement is an opportunity for each individual to be part of the "voice of the planet" and do whatever you CAN do within your" sphere of influence" (thank you Linda Jones for that lovely phrase) to make a difference. Even just re-cycling shows your care for planet.  In addition, by always asking the question "IS THIS GOOD FOR THE PLANET?" we can choose with more awareness. 

Dean Nulty is honored to be a Person of the Planet and hopes he can share his knowledge with us over the miles, or, if ever in California, in person.  Will you join with us?

Person of the Planet- Back to School Shopping

From Shirley Lutsky

Stores are competing for customers on our hot summer and early fall days especially in the areas of Concord and Walnut Creek.  One “invitation” is to prop doors open to entice people with air conditioning.

Like leaving a refrigerator door open, this practice wastes energy, drives up costs, increases pollution and stresses the power grid.  An average store with its doors propped open wastes about 4200 kilowatts of electricity over the summer, releasing about 2.2 tons of carbon dioxide – the same amount of pollution emitted by a diesel semi-truck driving from New York to Miami.

Let’s stops this habit of blatant energy waste.  Stores keep their doors open because they believe it’s good for business.  They need to hear from consumers like us that this practice is wasteful and we don’t approve. 

Time for businesses to show their conservation values by closing their doors.  If stores across the country closed their doors in the summer, it would reduce the equivalent amount of pollution generated by 830 million car miles – every year.

This article adapted from “Generation180”, an environmental organization.

Speak up for the planet!

Pastor Tony's Sermon August 20, 2017

Matthew 26: 36-46     8-20-17     Rev. Tony Clark     ACCUCC

Matthew 26:36-46The Message (MSG)

Listen to this week's sermon by clicking here.

Then Jesus went with them to a garden called Gethsemane and told his disciples, “Stay here while I go over there and pray.” Taking along Peter and the two sons of Zebedee, he plunged into an agonizing sorrow. Then he said, “This sorrow is crushing my life out. Stay here and keep vigil with me.”

Going a little ahead, he fell on his face, praying, “My Father, if there is any way, get me out of this. But please, not what I want. You, what do you want?”

When he came back to his disciples, he found them sound asleep. He said to Peter, “Can’t you stick it out with me a single hour? Stay alert; be in prayer so you don’t wander into temptation without even knowing you’re in danger. There is a part of you that is eager, ready for anything in God. But there’s another part that’s as lazy as an old dog sleeping by the fire.”

He then left them a second time. Again he prayed, “My Father, if there is no other way than this, drinking this cup to the dregs, I’m ready. Do it your way.”

When he came back, he again found them sound asleep. They simply couldn’t keep their eyes open. This time he let them sleep on, and went back a third time to pray, going over the same ground one last time.

When he came back the next time, he said, “Are you going to sleep on and make a night of it? My time is up, the Son of Man is about to be handed over to the hands of sinners. Get up! Let’s get going! My betrayer is here.”

This is the third in a series on the Lord’s Prayer, the Prayer that Jesus taught us to pray together, and this week I’m paying attention to the line “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil.” Temptation makes me think of the apple, the apple that Adam and Eve ate after being tempted by the serpent. That apple of temptation that made its way into the fairy tale of Snow White. The apple in those stories is a symbol of temptation, and it is a symbol of doubt, distrust, disbelief.

Apples aren’t that tempting to me because I have chocolate and sugar both of which taste way better than an apple; however, in places where chocolate was unheard of and sugar was rare, what was the sweetest thing a sweet tooth would have been tempted by? Honey, berries, and fruit like apples.

In the stories of Adam and Eve and the legend of Snow White the apple is a symbol of temptation, and that all of the characters in the stories are mythic archetypes on one side or the other of temptation. There is the sweet purity of innocence in Adam, Eve and Snow White; they have not been tainted by the doubt, distrust, and disbelief one gains in facing the world’s temptations. Then there is the archetype of the one out to sow doubt, disbelief, and distrust. The serpent in the Garden of Eden and the Wicked Queen who offered Snow White the poisoned apple have been jaded by the world’s temptations, and they seek to sow doubt, distrust, and disbelief.

Temptation living into the doubt, distrust, and disbelief that questions the presence of God and God’s will, which means losing the innocence of trust in God.

When Jesus taught the Lord’s Prayer, he used the word we know as temptation, and he used the same word when he spoke to the disciples in the Garden of Gethsemane, right before he was captured by the Roman army and put on trial for treason. We heard that story today. After their Passover holiday meal, Jesus asked the three leaders of the disciples, Peter and James and John, to accompany him into the garden to pray, but the three leaders fell asleep. When Jesus found them asleep, he woke them up, and told them to stay alert so they didn’t wander into temptation without knowing it. Jesus, who seemed clear about the outcome, needed to pray, and be assured by God that his was the right path, and in that vulnerable moment as he immersed himself in the heart of God, he needed his compatriots to hold him in prayer and be alert to their surroundings. And he needed them to pay attention to what was going on and follow their promises to follow God over the next few days. Their temptation was more similar to ours today than to eating an apple in a Garden; the disciples’ sin of apathy and a not staying aware is the sin of today.

The sin we face is to be lulled into false sense of security that the doubt, distrust, disbelief are the reality, when they are simply the thoughts in your brain and your fight or flight response taking hold. The sin was neither eating the apple nor falling sleep; the sin was hiding from and denying relationship with God and God’s human voice. And for this we cry, Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us!!

When Jesus told us to pray to God, lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil, he is telling us that the human temptation is to doubt God’s providence of peace, and to fight or to run away, to protect ourselves. Perhaps we might pray, “We are anxious, God; give us strength to stay with the anxiety, to neither fight, nor flee, but to step into the anxiety and live as we promised we would doing justice, loving kindness and walking humbly with you. Lead us not into the evil of violence or apathy, but into nonviolent presence.

We live in anxious times. Destruction of our democracy and Nuclear threat from North Korea have been overrun in our news this week by the white supremacists who are rallying with the sole purpose of inciting violence toward the people they know are against them. For some of the groups, violence is part of a hazing ritual that leads to full membership in what they are calling a fraternity. They have organized themselves through the internet. Many of them are armed with assault guns, shields, and other weapons of war. We are learning new words to go with them, “Paleo-conservative,” and “Identitarians.” They call themselves the Proud Boys, and the Fraternal Order of the Alt-Knights, and people are no longer calling them Neo-Nazis, but just Nazis. We are also hearing about opposing groups called, SURJ or Standing up for Racial Justice, and Anti-Fa, or Anti-fascists, who intend to stand up against the violent Nazis, with violence if necessary. All of this is expected to hit the streets of Berkeley next week, and it is expected to be violent.

At an interfaith meeting on how to respond as people of faith, we heard from someone just back from Charlottesville, Virginia, and we heard from another person who gave us the history of those white supremacist groups. I think many of us in the room were feeling an assault on not just on our government or democracy, but on the morality of our country, and we are coming face-to-face with the principals, values, and actions we deem appropriate in both the physical world we live, work and pray in, and the virtual world on the internet. Many of us are feeling compelled to respond in some way.

 As an interfaith body at the meeting on response, we decided to do two things, to offer a space of respite and sanctuary, and to peacefully march and stand as witness to the rally at City Hall.

My anxiety is high. I have been anxious for some time as I have watched the #BlackLivesMatter movement take hold against police brutality, and as I watched white supremacists gain voice and confidence. I have started taking anti-depressants to help my feeling of helplessness. I have until now had no idea to how to respond, and I have felt frozen in my anxiety, and it is fed by the temptation to protect myself. Now, even though my anxiety is rising, I can no longer stand on the sidelines, frozen, stuck, helpless, tempted to ignore and deny what is happening. Neither can I run and hide from this, and I am not good at fighting. And yet my temptation this week has been to avoid the conflict, and go about my comfortable life as if nothing is happening 3 miles away in downtown Berkeley.

This is our modern temptation, to ignore homelessness because the problem is too big, to ignore racism because we have nothing more to offer than our love, to avoid the oncoming revolution because there will be violence.   

In spite of my desire to crawl back into bed and pull the sheets over my head until all of this blows over, I am stepping into the anxiety. I have volunteered to be at the respite and sanctuary site, offering medical and spiritual first aid to anyone who needs it. I pray that I am not led into the temptation of doubt, distrust and disbelief that this is the right thing to do, and that I can step into the center of God’s heart and know what it means to trust God.

Although we expect this to take place in the afternoon next Sunday, I may not be in worship next week. I encourage you to meet, to pray, and to name the anxiety in our region, our nation and our world. This week I will be praying, “Lead us not into temptation, but deliver us with evil,” over and over again, and I hope you pray, too. Pray to not be tempted by doubt, distrust and disbelief, nor tempted by the evil to fight back or the evil to ignore the problem. Pray that God’s will be done on earth as it is heaven, in response to this evil.

In these weeks to come, may Peace be with you. may Peace be with us all. God bless us everyone., and may we realize God’s kingdom of justice here on our earth.

Amen.

Faith is a Verb…Musings By Pastor Tony, Aug 18, 2017

Dear Friends:

Last weekend we watched as one of our nation’s historic university towns, Charlottesville, VA, was brought into conflict.  A weekend rally sponsored by the Alt-Right was protested by progressives of all kinds; the Alt-Right/white supremacist groups, primarily made up of disaffected young white men, came with the intent to do violence, and some on the left vowed to respond in kind with violence. I lift in prayer the name of Heather Heyer, the woman who was killed when a car was deliberately driven into the crowd by a member of one of the white supremacist groups. These kinds of violent rallies are predicted to become more frequent; this weekend one is planned for Boston, and next weekend, San Francisco and Berkeley                  

The Alt-Right claims that they are victims because young straight white men are being replaced by people of color, Jews, LGBT folk and women. They have a misguided ownership of the history of slavery and the Civil War, and they would seemingly want us as a nation to revert back to a time of brutish injustice and oppression that our country has deemed appropriate to keep in the past and inappropriate for a modern society. They reject the notions of plurality and diversity, and they rely on science that has been long disproven to claim their own racial and gender superiority.  And they are willing to defend these opinions with violence, even murder, as they declare they have the rights to bear arms, to assemble, to free speech, and to their own brand of religion.

These are the same tactics and arguments that were used by white supremacists of the past, yet we are no longer in that past. Although some of us may struggle with all of the aspects of a plural society, in general our culture has more-or-less embraced the idea that diversity leads to a richer society.  We are re-writing our histories to recognize people of color who made significant improvements to our culture, and Southern cities are moving the statues of Civil War anti-heroes into museums where they belong. This is an amazing thing, a sign that our relatively young nation is moving into a new, beautifully just phase. Of course, not everyone agrees, and the Alt-Right, emboldened by the internet and an impotent government, is pushing their scapegoating, denigrating, and abhorrent views into our public space.

In the 1950s and 60s, during the Civil Rights Era, when these same issues were being fought in our public spaces, few of the mainline Protestant Christian churches responded. Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, JR, wrote a scathing assessment of the mainline churches from the Birmingham Jail, on the eve of Easter, 1963. “…Over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro’s great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen’s Counciler or the Ku Klux Klan, but the white moderate who is more devoted to “order” than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice….”[1] King went on to decry the lack of passion and presence in the Civil Rights fights.

Similarly, in the Book of Revelation, John of Patmos excoriated several churches for their apathy and lack of focus on the Christian faith, and he wrote, “So, because you are lukewarm--neither hot nor cold--I am about to spit you out of my mouth” (Rev. 3: 16, NIV). Today, many clergy, including myself, feel the sting of those words; churches of the past stood idly by observing injustice and walking away, and, while we have moved a great deal from then, many of us feel that one of the Church’s major failings of the last 50 years is that we have not risked stepping out of our comfort zone to face down injustice when called to do so.

So, what to do when white supremacists want to pull us back to an untenable era of culturally sanctioned oppression, and our Commander in Chief, whom we expect to be somewhat of our moral leader, does not exactly denounce them? This is the question the faith community in the greater Bay Area faces next weekend when these forces make their way to our region. As a colleague pointed out, the power that the white supremacists have is over our physical bodies and the media exposure they get; they are not in control of our government at the local, state or federal levels, and this is different than in the Civil Rights Era when the laws were explicitly oppressive and unjust and the government officials mostly agreed with the laws. The white supremacists are thugs (not government agents), and as someone in our congregation with asked, “How are they different than gangs?” There are certainly many similarities between the Alt-Right, gangs, and even ISIS and Al Qaeda, all of which radicalize disaffected young men (and increasingly women), who are looking to express their anger in society. They are terrorists who, through violence, create chaos and fear and provoke people to respond with violence.  

Whether we like it or not, they have pulled us into the fight, if by nothing else, by their theological statements that God is on their side; I cannot stand idly by and allow white supremacists to claim God is on their side. While we can expect violence--they’ve already told us that, non-violence is the response most of us faithful wish to portray. In an interfaith meeting on Tuesday, a group including Unitarian-Universalist, Methodist, Presbyterian, Lutheran, and UCC clergy and laity decided to offer two public responses next weekend out of our faith: to provide a respite or sanctuary where medical and spiritual first aid can be provided, and to form a peaceful processional from First Congregational of Berkeley to the Berkeley City Hall where the alt-right is expected to gather. I have offered to be part of the medical and spiritual first aid. I do not expect any of you to take part; in fact, I pray you will stay out of harms’ way and sit in vigil for us, for we know there is power in prayer.

Friends, like you, I am anxious over all these wars and rumors of wars, and yet, we are people of faith, beloved children of God. No matter what we face, God is with us. Through communion we join with all Christians to celebrate oneness in our diversity. Through baptism we have been united to one God, and one Lord, Christ Jesus. In prayer and singing, we call on rich tradition and deep faith to hold us in the light of God. In all these things, God.

Be safe, do what you must for yourself, and pray ceaselessly.

Peace,

Pastor Tony

[1] “Letter from a Birmingham Jail,” from  Why we Can’t Wait,  Martin Luther King , Jr, (NY: Signet Classic a division of Penguin Putnam, Inc., 2000), p. 73).

Pastor Tony's Sermon August 13, 2017

Luke 11: 1-13     8-13-17     ACCUCC     Rev. Tony Clark

Listen to this week's complete sermon by clicking here.

He was praying in a certain place, and after he had finished, one of his disciples said to him, ‘Lord, teach us to pray, as John taught his disciples.’ He said to them, ‘When you pray, say:

Father, hallowed be your name.
   Your kingdom come. 
   Give us each day our daily bread. 
   And forgive us our sins,
     for we ourselves forgive everyone indebted to us.
   And do not bring us to the time of trial.’ 

And he said to them, ‘Suppose one of you has a friend, and you go to him at midnight and say to him, “Friend, lend me three loaves of bread; for a friend of mine has arrived, and I have nothing to set before him.” And he answers from within, “Do not bother me; the door has already been locked, and my children are with me in bed; I cannot get up and give you anything.” I tell you, even though he will not get up and give him anything because he is his friend, at least because of his persistence he will get up and give him whatever he needs. 

‘So I say to you, Ask, and it will be given to you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. For everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and for everyone who knocks, the door will be opened. Is there anyone among you who, if your child asks for a fish, will give a snake instead of a fish? Or if the child asks for an egg, will give a scorpion? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will the heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him!’

This month we are looking at the Lord’s Prayer. Last week we looked at the version in Matthew, and this week we look at the version from Luke, which is shorter, and is followed by a few stories about asking. This was going to be a week when I preached about asking, not for what you want, but for what God is ready to give you. This was going to be a sermon that ended this way:

“If you ask for what God is ready to give, then you will get it and more. If you knock on the right door it will be opened to you. Our Father who art in Heaven—that prayer is an opportunity to place yourself in the neighborhood where God lives, on the block, facing God’s door.  Thy kingdom come, thy will be done aligns you with Divine presence and the will of God. Give us this day our daily bread moves from a prayerful space of being aligned with God, to asking for what God is ready to provide.  Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us is a knock on the door to God’s house, to which God cannot refuse to let us in, to a blessed feast of abundance, with more pancakes than we could ever eat and not get fat or have our blood sugar go out of whack. For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever. Amen.

That was the ending to the sermon before Charlottesville, and before nuclear brinksmanship played by two of the world’s most swaggeringly blow-hard leaders. I still believe that sermon, yet now the Holy Spirit has charged me to say something different, about the Kingdom of God, and why we pray for it to come each and every week.

And for that I may need your prayers.

The Lord’s Prayer starts with these words, “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed by thy name; thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” The first word is “OUR,” and it is similar to the first word in the Preamble to the Constitution of the United States of America, “WE,” as in “We the people…”.  I wonder if some have forgotten that God is Our God, and that We are one people.

I wonder also if people have been hearing and praying the Lord’s prayer wrong all these years. I wonder if people haven’t been saying, “Thy,” but rather, “My,” and that their prayer is “Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be MY name. MY kingdom come, MY will be done.” I wonder if they’ve even gone farther and begun thinking not in terms of Our Father, Our God, but of MY Father, MY God, MY Daily bread. “My Father, who art in heaven, hallowed by MY name. MY kingdom come, MY will be done on earth as it is heaven. Give ME my daily bread, and forgive ME my trespasses.”

“Our Father,” and “We the People,” do not mean US against THEM. It means us together, all of us, not working for ourselves, but for the well being of all of us. And when any one of us is failing or struggling or oppressed, then it is all of us who need to face God and ask for forgiveness.

What I see happening across our globe this week—the threat of nuclear war between our President and the leader of North Korea, and the white supremacists marching and protesting in Chancellorsville, Virginia—are symptoms of translating the Lord’s Prayer into a personal conversation with God. It is not a prayer for any one of us. It is a prayer for all of us.

For a very long time, much of the last century at least, we have been more focused on individual rights and desires than our corporate good. We talk about Jesus as a Personal Lord and Savior. We talk about my rights, and my needs. We talk about God answering my prayers, as if one person’s prayers are more important than all of our prayers together. 

It’s not much surprise that we find ourselves in a hyped-up, testosterone-laden match over which bully on the national and international stage has the biggest weapon. It sounds like boys in a size match, wondering who can spell their name in the snow. Well, friends, in nuclear winter, we can all have that opportunity.

It is not surprising that we have an ultra-right wing group of bullies pushing back against the long-time oppressed who are naming their place in the Kingdom of God. Right-wing--or should I say White-wing—white nationalists and white supremacists are reacting to a bizarre personalized sense of the Civil War when they say their history is being erased asstatues of Confederate heroes are being from public spaces. White nationalists and white supremacists, who feel that saying #BlackLivesMatter diminishes white lives, only focus on ME, not WE. Their needs become more important than a group of people who have been systematically oppressed for 400 years because of the quantity of melanin in their skin.

Those white supremacists may pray with the rest of us, “Thy Kingdom come,” but the Kingdom they desire on earth is not the Kingdom of God; it is a kingdom of their own making. It is an exclusive, members-only type of club, and they get to define who is in and who is out. Straight white “Christians” are in, all others are out.  Last time I checked, this is not God’s Kingdom, and I do not want to have their kingdom come. God’s Kingdom is based on love, where the oppressed find justice, where we approach Our Father together, and where wars are not fought over the size of one’s manhood—oops, did I say manhood? I mean the size of one’s nuclear arsenal.

I want God’s Kingdom to come, not theirs.

Do they even know what they are asking for when they say, “Thy Kingdom come”?   

Folks, the riots are not over, the protests are just beginning. There will be more protests, more riots, and more violence. The protests we saw in Charlottesville are expected to make a show in Berkeley at the end of the month. This shouldn’t surprise any of since all protests lead to Berkeley. This doesn’t surprise me, because California, for all of its progressive politics and causes, is also the state, in my opinion, with the most pronounced individualism in our country.

This is not a time to stay silent because of our individualism, allowing other opinions their say because everyone is entitled to his or her personal opinion. No, this is a time to join our voices together, to remind each other that God is OUR God, and WE are God’s people. It is Our Father, not My Father, who art in heaven. It is God’s kingdom to come, and God’s will to be done, not any one person’s. We pray give US this day OUR daily bread, and forgive us OUR trespasses as WE forgive those who trespass against us. We stand before God together, being judged whether we as an entire species cared enough for even the oppressed among us to bring them along to the Kingdom.  

Our trespasses, our debts, our sins are shared among us all. Environmental destruction with rising sea level, species extinction, and diseases as diverse as asthma, cancer, obesity, are sins of us as a species. Racism, slavery, and the lasting effects of inequality and poverty may be particular in the United States, but they are sins of all of us, especially when we define sins as being a separation from the will of God. While some of us are trespassers and some us are trespassed upon, all of us suffer and are separated one from another and ultimately from God. Until we can figure out that all of us must stand in judgement together, the trespassers side by side with those who are trespassed against, we will never welcome the Kingdom of God into our world.

So, today, even more than ever we need to pray Our Father, Thy Kingdom Come, Give all of us our daily bread and Forgive all of Us, so that all of us may be brought into your heavenly feast. 

I have had a quote that is attributed to President Abraham Lincoln on my mind this week. When asked if the Civil War would be won because God was on our side, Lincoln was reported as saying, “Sir, my concern is not whether God is on our side; my greatest concern is to be on God's side, for God is always right.”[1] Whether or not he actually said those--I can’t find any proof that he actually said that, though he did have other theological sayings that are similar—that is a question to wrestle with. Is God on your side, or are you on God’s side?

Well, my answer is that God is on all of our sides, rooting for each of us to live holy lives of love, fully in communion with God, and all of humanity.  It is a harder thing to be on God’s side, to know God’s will, and to welcome “Thy Kingdom come,” without fear, knowing that God’s kingdom will rock our socks, because God’s Kingdom is totally not what we expect. It is richer, and fuller of justice and love than any one of us could imagine, in part because it is not for any one of us, but for all of us together. What does it mean that we are on God’s side?

It means we can pray this: Our God, Thy kingdom come. Give all of us our daily bread, not just the few of us privileged to be able to buy what we want. Forgive all of us our trespasses, including where we are oppressing or excluding any one of us. Deliver all of us from evil, from the evil of racism, from the evil of poverty, from the evil of environmental destruction, and the evil of aggressive warmongering narcissistic leaders with nuclear weapons. For your kingdom cannot come without all of us, your power is for all of us-- not just a privileged few, and your glory is only fully seen when each of us shares together with all of us what we know of you.

In these days, when fear is high, when we fear losing what is most costly to each of us personally, and we are divided us against them, may we remember that God is Our God, and We are God’s people. Amen.   

[1]  https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/quotes/a/abrahamlin388944.html, retrieved 8-12-17

Eco Justice- What’s In Your Junk Drawer? by Ruth Robinson

By Ruth Robinson

I have a junk drawer.  OK, maybe there are two.  But it is mostly good junk, or at least it was at one time.  The one in the kitchen near the phone (yes, we still have a land line), well, that has important stuff, too.  Like the black address book, rubber bands, paper clips, pens, pens, pens, a pencil or three, pens.

And sometimes, OK, maybe a lot of the times, a pen just doesn’t want to do its duty.  So, I put it back, intending to clean out the drawer “later”.

Enter Mr. Costas Schuler of Forestville, CA.  He is known as The Pen Guy.  He wants the dead pens.  He has a couple of noble missions:  keep old pens out of the landfill and make art.

His most well known “art” piece is his Mercedes that is literally covered in old pens, artistically arranged.  He uses pens in wall art, too.  And it is very pricey. 

He would like my old pens, as well as yours.  My plan is to put a can out each Sunday in which you can deposit your old pens.  When we fill it up, I’ll mail it to him.  Address on his website.

Liberate those pens!  Clear out your junk drawer(s), and save the landfills. Bring useless pens to church…and we’ll keep the can out for you.