Advent Sermon #1 2015

So I realize it has been a looong time since I posted last and there is much to catch up with.  However, for right now I thought I would post the first of my Advent sermons of the year.  It is about the competing emotions we sometimes feel when the festive aura of the season clashes with the rather difficult world we live in.  the readings are Luke 2:1-7 and "Mark the Time" by Max Coots.  Here's hoping your holiday season is off to a great start!

A Crown of Beauty or The Sermon I Would Have Preached this Morning

"A Crown of Beauty"

Rev. Dr. Adam Tierney-Eliot

Eliot Church Natick

2/10/13

Readings: Isaiah 62:1-7, "The Snow-Storm" Ralph Waldo Emerson

 

 



 

 

It has been a busy weekend for most of us, hasn't it?  It's a weird sort of busy, though, because for the most part, everything  we thought we would be doing we didn't do and what we ended up doing after purchasing every gallon of milk and every loaf of bread was sitting and waiting, updating Facebook...and shovelling.

Now, there are different schools of thought when it comes to snow removal. There are those who wait for the storm to end and do the whole thing at once.  There are the ones who shovel during the storm so as to keep up, and there are those who get the kids to do it.  I am an adherent of the last two schools.  However, there is something not entirely satisfying about pushing the kids outside then following them out to clear away the snow.  This is particularly true when one looks up at the sky and sees more snow more coming down.  Later of course, (much later on Merrill Road), I get to curse the town plow as it pushes the road snow back toward our driveway and walk.



Now, I have done a lot of shoveling over the years but usually it is in smaller installments.  Today, like many of you, I am not entirely sure I am done...even though my back says I am.  There is a lot of tedium and drudgery in a storm and we have experienced it this weekend.  But you know, there are things that I already miss about the great blizzard of 2013 (and no, I haven't lost my mind). There are things to miss.  Storms are exciting, after all and there is something great about being where the action is. 

But what I miss the most...is the silence.  Not only does snow itself act as an insulator and sound barrier but the driving ban stopped all that traffic on Friday and Saturday.  When you live pressed right up against that part of Union Street that insists on calling itself Pleasant Street, most days the noise of the cars is a constant companion. Usually the cars run all night, too.

But suddenly, thanks to the storm all the sounds of modern life were gone except for the sound of the furnace occasionally...or some electronic device reminding us of its presence.

However, in spite of these obvious technological impediments we could, I think, almost grasp what Emerson was going on about in our reading
The whited air
Hides hills and woods, the river, and the heaven,
And veils the farm-house at the garden's end.
The sled and traveler stopped, the courier's feet
Delayed, all friends shut out, the housemates sit
Around the radiant fireplace, enclosed
In a tumultuous privacy of storm

It is in that sort of silence that we can, if we wish, begin to hear the still small voice of our hopes and our dreams. The yearning of our own souls.

It is in that sort of silence that we reclaim the gift of prophecy.  After all, it was in a world without modern noise that Isaiah heard the promise from God of a new name for his people...Of a new name and a new beginning: You shall be a crown of beauty in the hand of God...You shall no more be termed forsaken, and your land shall no more be termed desolate.

This is the sort of promise I think we all would like to hear in the silence, or in the midst of the sounds during the storms of our lives.  For the Israelites in the reading, of course, theirs was a communal struggle...The challenge of exile, of dislocation, living among strangers in a land not their own.  We have communal struggles, too, ones less easily solved than a pile of snow. The weak economy has hit so many people so hard and, in spite of recent successes we struggle with...The continued specters of racism, sexism, and classism...The continued discrimination against the LGBT community...The constant problems of a world and country in a state of continuous war.  All of these and more take up our national discourse and to some extent local discourse. They settle in our hearts and minds as they affect individuals in our community, too.

But at the same time, there are storms in our hearts that are harder to express in community...That are harder to speak out loud even to our loved ones and to our friends.  These, too, require attention.   They require a prophetic voice.  You will be called a new name that the mouth of God will give and here in the silence during and after the storm (or at least after), I think, is where we can find some shelter, some peace.  The Israelites learned this and the Transcendentalists learned it in a different way.

While the storm separates us, slows us down, it also causes us to see things differently, to hear things differently and, perhaps, see the beauty in something that we couldn't see before.  Maybe, even, we can see the beauty in ourselves.

In Emerson's poem he writes about the north wind's masonry; How The snow changes the landscape.  It falls over the rocks and trees, the hills and valleys, the stuff that we have left outside and makes them different somehow.
The storm, in his words
Leaves, when the sun appears, astonished Art
To mimic in slow structures, stone by stone,
Built in an age, the mad wind's night work,



Even my crappy 12-year-old Saturn Ion gets a new look.  It seems somehow more majestic buried in the drifts on the driveway than it ever does lurching down the road.  So, too, the storms in our hearts change our landscape for better or worse (Hopefully for the better) and that is something to pray for.
In the end when the storm is over....and we have dug ourselves out....and the power is back on...we will be able to look back and reflect on what we have learned....

To find beauty in desolation
To pause to hear the voice in the silence
To value the hard times
For their hidden joys

A Joyful Noise: Sermon and Music

I did not preach yesterday.  The Sunday after Christmas is the day when many Interns, Assistant Pastors, and Associate Pastors preach while the Senior Pastors take a break.  My very capable Associate Matt Carriker did the honors.  I am recovering from a run of sermons that began before Thanksgiving and ended on Christmas Eve.  Good stuff, but I am glad for the rest!

Here is my sermon from December 23rd.  It reads as a little grumpy.  If you were there it wouldn't so much.  we had many carols and some of our gifted Middle School and High School guitarists helped me out.  Stephen James our Music Director was there, too.  Anyway, imagine little smiley and winky emoticans every once in a while.  I also took the liberty of putting in the rather shakey video of the songs we played.  The first and last are hymns (you should recognize them).  The middle one is a cover of "Journey of the Magi" by Frank Turner.

"A Joyful Noise"
Rev. Dr. Adam Tierney-Eliot

 

First let's thank the kids for playing today.  It isn't the easiest thing to take time out of your weekend to play at church and I, at least, enjoyed it very much.  I like playing with them.  I am glad they don't mind appearing in public with me.

The music also created something of a festive atmosphere, didn't it?  Which is just what we need today... 

Suddenly a great company of the heavenly host appeared with the angel, praising God and saying, "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace to men on whom his favor rests."

The title of my reflection today is “A Joyful Noise” as in “make a joyful noise”.  It is the request, order, demand, that we see appear from time to time in the Bible in places like the psalms.  It also appears in sermons (though not always mine) and hymns.  It also shows up in prayers.  “Make a Joyful Noise”. Celebrate the certainty of our faith and the happiness in our hearts.

Now, certainly this time of year there is plenty of noise to go around. There are carols on CD players and ipods...and in the stores.  There are Christmas specials and Christmas commercials. There is even a tendency among friends and acquaintances to wish each other Happy Holidays and remain upbeat in conversation no matter how we might really be feeling...

In fact, the joyful noise this year hasn't quite cut it for some folks.  It sounds joyful but it doesn't reflect our own experience.  Outside we are presented with all the bright lights and holiday spirit but inside, for many, the joy has turned to exhaustion...even desperation.  We talked about this last week a bit, too.  In the season of the fiscal cliff, and Newtown just over a week ago and numerous real and difficult personal circumstances...it is hard, very hard, to make that joyful noise.   Or at least to make it as often as we are expected to make it.  So in the midst of our haste and pressure the sounds we hear turn to static instead.

But, really--as hard as things are today--even in a good year, we are all a bit ragged by this time.  Yes, it is only the fourth Sunday in Advent but it is also the 23rd.  It is Christmas Eve...Eve!  We are normally feeling stretched a bit thin.  We have every right to be.

Perhaps that is why we are given to nostalgia, of thinking of, and hoping for a simpler time like the one described by Charles Dickens.

When the clock struck eleven this domestic ball broke up.  Mr and Mrs. Fezziwig, took their stations, one on either side the door, and, shaking hands with every person individually as he or she went out, wished him or her a merry Christmas.

I love the Fezziwigs.  I love that fiddler dunking his face in the bowl of porter.  I love this party and Scrooge loves it too.  I love it partly for the same reason that I love Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist.  These are no-nonsense people.  They work hard and they know how to throw a party.  They care for the people who care for them and we know from Scrooge that they are forgiving and patient not just on this one day but everyday.

I think we all like them very much and we want to be like them.  But--I think, if we were to be honest--while we like to think of ourselves in that way, we really have a bit more of the Scrooge in us than makes us comfortable. 

Now last year I preached a sermon in which I stuck up for the Grinch (do any of you remember it?).  The Grinch was someone who just wanted to be left alone.  He was someone who didn't want to be told what to think or how to act around his vacuous neighbors.  Scrooge, on the other hand, is nasty.  He is greedy and territorial.  He likes to get his own way and when he does not, people are punished.
Dickens knew folks like this well.  Even for him the Fezziwigs were from a different idealized era.  Scrooges ruled Industrialized London.   He--Scrooge--is a tragic figure.  Blinded by his own needs, his own pain and, yes, his own wealth.  He is tired of the joyful noise but also unable to make his peace and unwilling for others to make theirs.

And so inside us (at least for Dickens) we struggle.  The angels (that we aren't so sure we believe in) tell us to sing in praise of a story we aren't so sure we believe either. Besides, we aren't sure we are up to all that celebrating in the mess of our lives anyway.

And so Fezziwig and Scrooge do battle inside us.  Sometimes one and then other steps forward.  One keeping us grounded in our better natures and the other challenging us with our longings and our regrets.  In the midst of this battle we seek solutions.  We try to find ways and traditions, best practices to improve our souls and spirits to keep Scrooge at bay.

Now. how we do this varies, of course.  We each have different needs and personalities.  We come with different stories and perspectives.  However, we all try to find some middle path, seeking the joyful in the midst of the static...finding peace in the midst of the chaos...and hope in the midst of the pain.

For me music helps shut out the less-joyful noise.  Services like today and like the ones tomorrow help in this way.  The performances of the boys and Stephen today...the congregation singing both now during the holiday season and at other times, too.  This helps me to focus and to celebrate.
Perhaps paradoxically, silence helps, too.  On Friday I enjoyed the time I could take out of my holiday planning to sit in silence during Jacqueline Brodnitzki's Solstice meditation.
Now, some of you might enjoy the same things.  They may turn the tide.  Since you hang out around here it wouldn't be a surprise!  Others may read books, or decorate the house, or garden when it isn't winter and plan next year's when it is.

Or perhaps you just need to spend time in community...in the community of family and friends...in the community of the church.  The options, after all, are endless...

Whatever it is that brings us joy and enables us to spread it, we need to make use of it now and every day.  To lift up our voices...To celebrate...To sing.

So let us take a moment now in silence
To think about what brings us to the joyful noise

"Hoping": The Pageant Sunday Homily

Someone asked me for this sermon yesterday so I have tried to make it fit into a readable form.  Like Bill Clinton I am a text preacher, but also like him I  both digress and I write it out as I would speak it.  This means that even in this form, grammar and punctuation serve the cadances of my voice rather than the rules of writing.  I hope it doesn't drive you crazy but--trust me--it reads better than what I bring to the pulpit.

Finally, liturgists will wonder if I am confused about which week the "hope" candle is lit.  All I can say is that we are liberals and we let our lighters choose what theme they would like.  This year there were two hope candles.  I don't think anyone ended up minding...

Hoping
December 16, 2012
Rev. Dr. Adam Tierney-Eliot

OK, So...  Here's the thing; this hasn't been the most “Christmasy” week for me.  It started OK with the annual caroling  trip to Leonard Morse Hospital on Tuesday and a Christmas service at Riverbend Nursing Home on Thursday morning.  But, you see at breakfast on Thursday, I was the victim of a comically random (but still quite painful) cooking accident that left me half blind and in the Emergency Room of that same Leonard Morse Hospital.  I can give you the details at coffee hour if you want them...and if you haven't already read about it on Facebook.  Then later that evening I nearly collapsed at the CVS over on West Central Street.  Let's face it, nothing says the holidays like creating a spectacle of yourself in front of total strangers in the middle of the night.

Then, of course, there was something in the news on Friday.  Something happened in Connecticut that left me (and many of you) wondering about this whole human endeavor.  We found ourselves questioning everything we think we know about the world and about humanity.  In that moment--and really for most of the weekend after--it was hard to envision the angels and the shepherds.  It was hard to embody that seasonal sense of Peace and goodwill to all.

In those moments it is hard to imagine what to do or think or say...even on Pageant Sunday.  We all go through times like this.  whether it because of personal crises...or we share in a national tragedy...or if it is simply the gradual wearing down of our better natures from too many problems at work or at home...or too many trips up and down Route 9.  In these moments we ask ourselves why.  Why do we live in a world where bad--even unspeakable things--can happen to us and where people can do unspeakable things.

We live these sorts of days plunged into the muck of human existence, traveling paths of darkness made no brighter because of their familiarity. We ask with Ann Weems, Where did the angels' song go? and we do not know where to look for the answer except, perhaps, to come to church.  Except to come to church on this Sunday because what we do know is that the kids will come out (as they did this morning) and tell us a story.  It is the story they tell every year.  It is the story we tell ourselves and each other now and at other times.

Most of us here today may be a little weak on the Parable of the Sower.  Am I right?  Can I see some hands?  That's OK...it's why you have me.  But you don't need me for the Christmas story.  The Christmas story we all know and it is a story most specifically about one thing above all others.  It was the theme of our Advent candle today.  It is a story of hope and hope is what we need in the dark times.  All those other good things that we talk about: Faith, joy, peace, even love?  They thrive off Hope.

It is hope that the people of Israel were trying to preserve when Isaiah made his promise that someday, somehow someone would come and bring about an era of peace and justice.  His authority Isaiah says will grow constantly and there will be endless peace for the throne of David...He will establish it and uphold it with Justice and with righteousness from this time onward and forever more.

This is the hope that gets us out of bed on tough days.  It is the expectation that things will get better and that maybe even a glorious future awaits.

And it is hope in that future that draws us to act.   Barack Obama once said that  In the unlikely story that is America there has never been anything false about hope.  Here in the church we might want to broaden that “unlikely story” a bit to include all of humanity but the fact remains that hope drives us to find a better way and a better world even when it feels like we are having to begin over and over again and again.

You know, things started looking up for me in the Christmas and Advent department as the weekend went on.  Fighting my way through traffic with one eye closed didn't help.  However my vision did improve  (just don't make any sudden movements on my right side today)...and last night I found myself not at the Epiphany Concert rehearsal I expected to attend but instead at the Candlelight Vigil on the Common for the people of Newtown, Connecticut.

I was there with my eldest son and a bag of old, mostly-used pulpit candles to contribute to the cause.  Many of us brought extra candles.  Slowly as people trickled in we lit them up and then walked around the periphery of the Common.  I was in front, but as I looked back I could see that our line stretched halfway around the park, a long, moving, flickering row of lights underneath the colored holiday lights in the trees and the menorah for Hanukkah almost completely lit.

Then when we gathered back in one place by the gazebo we took a moment for people to offer up prayers.  Each prayer was a prayer for action, understanding...and a prayer for hope.  This was when Advent returned for me standing in the cold dark, mostly with strangers praying and hoping and planning in support of other strangers we will never meet.

As we broke up into smaller groups and eventually drifted toward home, I think we all realized that for as long we we can light those candles in the darkness we can keep hope--and our humanity--alive.

We don't like to talk about it, but really, there is a bit of Lent in our Advent and Easter in our Christmas.  They are like a peanut butter cup.  These two holiday cycles are both about struggling through darkness and emerging in some sense reborn out of the tragedy and suffering we encounter in life.  For many of us this hope for rebirth is what draws us here.  In spite of and because of our doubts.

No matter what the niceties of our theology might be, what the children told us this morning in their pageant is that even in dark times--times like those that Mary and Joseph and the Innkeeper lived through...times like the one we are living through right now--there is always the chance of a miracle. There is always a chance that things will get better.

We just have to find the strength to work for this chance.  We have to find a way to keep it in our hearts alongside the pain and the joy that come with being alive.  We must move through this world with the hope and determination to make these dreams for a better world come true.

Sermon: 1 Lent 2012 Dark of Winter

So I have occasionally been asked to make my sermons more easily available.  This is a good idea but one that I resist because either I must take time converting the sermon from a spoken form to a written form or post my text.  The text is formatted to be spoken.  There are fragmented sentences and no punctuation.  Each line consists of a few words that I can glance at and expect to register in my mind as I deliver them looking out at the congregation.  I actually wite it that way.  The crazy column of words is the original not some essay with nicely formatted paragraphs. I have some time now, however, so here is my first sermon from the Lent recently past...

The Readings were varied and I cannot remember them exactly but (obviously) we read from the first chapter of John and from Dylan Thomas' "Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night".  Also I paraphrased something from Thich Nhat Hanh's book "No Death, No Fear" but it wasn't a reading at this service.

Dark of Winter
Rev. Dr. Adam Tierney-Eliot
February 26, 2012
What has come into being in the word was life, and the life was the light of all people.  The light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not overcome it.

Today's sermon title, as you know from your bulletins, is "Dark of Winter".  It is an odd title for today, don't you think?  Those folks in the church who managed to experience the Dark of Winter--the icy cold,  the challenges of driving and walking--they certainly didn't do it around here.  They must have been on vacation which--honestly--doesn't really count.  Those of us who stayed home for what we ridiculously call our winter vacation have had a different sort of experience.  It has been warm here--really warm on some days--and sunny...mostly.  Down at the parsonage the bulbs are blooming.  There are buds on some of the trees.  My hop plants seems to be getting excited.  I am sure it is the same for many of you, too.  February is almost over and—at least in a meteorological sense--winter (the classic New England Winter) never really came.

But, of course, there is another darkness.  There is another coldness.   This is the sort of tribulation that is just as likely to come upon us in the warmth of summer than in the depth of winter.  This darkness sticks with us.   Also, in the church, at least, it occupies our thoughts during the season of Lent. .  This darkness is the one that competes with the light of the Gospel of John--the light that was the Word and was life, itself. 

When we are young and full of life with so much of that life still before us, this darkness isn't something we think about all that much.  But as we get older, we cannot help but wonder.  We wonder about death and loss as we find our losses mounting.  Our funerals outnumbering our weddings after a while.  And as we go on through our days we let things drop.  We let things go,  don't we?  There are relationships, there are plans and goals.  There are dreams that die the death of a million obstructions and technicalities and we—whether we like it or not—start to reflect on our own lives in light of the only guarantee we have.  At some point, these awesome lives will end.

Now, we don't talk about death all that much here at Eliot, and the reason is simple; We are part of a tradition that makes few if any claims about what happens next.  We affirm that death is a natural part of the cycle of life.  We remind ourselves that Thich Nhat Hanh tells us our fear of death comes from forgetting that we are all waves on the same ocean--that we are part of one substance, connected in infinite ways with all of life.  Whatever happens after we die--we know or suspect--is what is meant to be.  Still, even if we do not “rage at the dying of the light” like Dylan Thomas, we do wonder. We do wonder and we plan for what we hope is the best life we can lead in the time we have been given.  We hope that our souls will sing that blessed song of love eternal that we heard in our hymn.

So the question that remains for us during the season of Lent is “what should we do with the remainder of the time that we have been given”?

Sometimes the cares we bring with us, the burdens we carry make it hard to  resonate with our responsive reading today, to give thanks for the joy of human life, its wonders and surprises, its hopes and achievements.  We can be so overwhelmed by our cares that the world around us literally grows dim and we struggle to find our way.  Maybe this is why we come to church; to lay those burdens down and remember that we are not alone.

After all, the 23rd Psalm promises us at virtually every funeral we have ever been to that though we walk through the valley of the shadow of death God is still with us.  Though the darkness is present and powerful, it cannot overcome that Word of life in John.  Now, as I said earlier, the Word here means Jesus, his life and teachings.  However, it also means wisdom.  That is a concept we can all connect to.  It is something that can grow in us, bring us hope, and help us to connect to the vast diversity of life that exists around us.

It is a diversity of life that now--even after our rather silly winter--is beginning to make an appearance once again.  This is why, on the first week in Lent, people think about those aspects of their lives that aren't working anymore.  They think about what is weighing them down
What--in the face of this amazing journey we all are on—what really doesn't matter all that much after all.  Lent isn't really Its not really about eating less chocolate (thank God) or losing 20 pounds before April or finally getting through Finnegan's Wake.  It is about unpacking and repacking.
It is about carrying as few burdens as possible.  This is what experienced travellers do.

Years ago I wrote an article about the process of ordination.  It is a process that—like the season of Lent--is sometimes described as an act of death and rebirth.  In the article I compared this cycle to trying to get on an airplane at Logan.  The first time, usually we get dropped off late we rush around finding our way to the gates, trailing our stuff behind us and wishing we had worn different socks.  We are lost and confused.  But as time goes on, and we get closer to our departure time we learn that  we are only allowed to bring so much stuff on that plane.  Everything else must be left behind. 

In fact, there are two stops, aren't there?  Whenever I fly (which is rare) I always seem to have some sharp pointy objects  or a bottle of shampoo to donate to the TSA. Then there is the plane, itself where we must show that we can fit everything we need for the trip into smaller and smaller containers.  Usually after we do this a few times what we learn is that we didn't need those things we left and abandoned along the way.
It turns out that--on some level--all we need are the essentials.  All we need is what we can easily carry on.  All we need is that light in the darkness.  It is the beginning of Lent now.  We are packing and unpacking for the journey.  We need to ask ourselves what we much bring with us and what we can give up.  We do this not with an eye toward death but toward life; toward living the best way we can.

I would like to close today with these words
From Rev. William Murray
These are the days that have been given to us
Let us rejoice and be glad in them.
These are the days of our lives;
Let us live them well in love and service.
These are the days of mystery and wonder;
Let us cherish and celebrate them in gratitude together.
These are the days that have been given to us;
Let us make of them stories worth telling to those who come after

A Sermon from the First Sunday in Advent

I have a confession to make: even though I make a good show of pretending that I dislike all those Christmas decorations going up at the mall right after Halloween, there is a part of me that loves it!  This year I am thinking about Christmas now as things seem to get way too busy in the parsonage during Advent to truly maintain a consistent sense of wonder.  To that end, I am getting into the spirit of the season by posting some of my Advent sermons of the past...

This one was preached the Sunday after Thanksgiving this past year (2010).  It is pretty short.  On that Sunday we instituted a new ritual.  We read six passages.  Three were from the Bible and three were not.  The purpose was to put them in conversation with each other.  I reference four of them in the sermon.  The only one that might be hard to find is in "Teaching Metaphors" by Nathan Graziano.  I will post a link to his web page if you are interested.  Of the others, one is by Ann Weems and the other two are the Magnificat and the Benedictus, both from the Bible (the Tyndale Translation 'cause it's Advent).

After each reading we lit a candle in one of the six sanctuary windows and then had a brief moment of silence.  It was a nice way to enter the season on a day when so many congregants were on the road back from Grandmother's house.

This is also the first time that I played the ukulele in front of the entire non-summer congregation!  Good times...

"White Christmas"
First Sunday in Advent 2010
Rev. Dr. Adam Tierney-Eliot

Ann Weems in our reading today laments that "too often our answer to the darkness is not running toward Bethlehem but running away".  Maybe this doesn’t apply to you but for many of us, it is probably true.  We can get stuck in the darkness. We can get lost--turned around--and in our confusion we may not actually see the light, not travel toward Bethlehem, but instead go backwards.

Some of our readings today have reflected moments of desperation and states of pain that—even if we have not experienced them ourselves--we can understand.  Think of that teen mother we opened our readings with, struggling to create a future for herself and her family.  It is a hard life.  It is the same life that was before that other teen mother we read about today. But Mary sang "My soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my savior, for God has looked with favor on this lowly servant".

Advent and Christmas remind us to seek out a light in the dark, to hope for a better future.  Like Mary and Zechariah and Isaiah we too must realize that a difficult and tragic past does not doom us to a similar future. 

Now, we have been talking about a lot of serious stuff this morning.  However, the spirit of Advent can be found in much lighter fare as well.  For that reason, I would like to end with something from the world of musical comedy.

Do you all know the movie White Christmas?  It was made in 1954 and told the story of two friends (played by Danny Kaye and Bing Crosby).  They have names in the film but, really, Danny plays Danny and Bing plays Bing.  Having already, like most Americans of their generation, lived through the Great Depression, we first see them on an unnamed battlefield during the Second World War.  There they are saying goodbye to their commanding officer. Then the movie fast forwards a few years and the war is over

After the war Bing and Danny become successful Broadway producers, but it is clear that something is missing in their lives.  They are running to and fro putting on their shows in Florida and New York and DC.  They are busy.  Still, they seem to be either running away or running in place.

Now I know it is a musical comedy so what is missing in their lives isn’t some great secret. There is no quiet, looming tragedy.  There is just a vague sense of displacement for two people accustomed to being displaced.  They haven’t yet settled down.  They aren’t married (It is the '50's so you just have to be married to be happy).  Furthermore, the father figure in this film--the commanding officer from their war days--is failing at his business venture (a ski Lodge in Pine Tree Vermont).  There is no snow and he is losing money.  As a Mainer growing up I always wondered why they didn’t just get snow-making machines.  Then they could have as much snow as they wanted.

Now, this is (as the name implies) an Advent movie. As we know, what keeps them going--just as it does for Mary and Zechariah--are their dreams, their hopes for a better future.  For Bing And Danny, these dreams are symbolized by the idea of a white Christmas.  That is, they possess a simple hope that things will be just like they "used to be" at some dimly (and probably incorrectly) remembered time.  Through the course of the movie.  They fall in love with Rosemary Clooney and Vera-Ellen. They also manage to help out their old general by getting there war buddies together at the lodge for a big production number, all the while dreaming of this White Christmas.  Then, after they save the day and everything seems right in the world, the snow finally comes...

It’s corny, like many great films.  It's like in the Wizard of Oz when Dorothy realizes everything she ever needed was in her own back yard.  But...we watch these movies.  And in the case of White Christmas, we watch it because it tells us about our own simple hopes this Advent season when we all pray for simplicity, family, and friendship, Faith, Hope, Joy, and Love.

At this point I pulled out the uke and we sang "White Christmas".  I think they are used to this sort of thing now, but the collective look of surprise was priceless for me and the summer folks...

Links:

I only have a couple.  As promised, here is the link to the book Teaching Metaphors.  I cannot remember the name of the poem, but it is the one about the teen mother.  Folks may also be interested in Graziano's baseball blog.

A Sermon About Our Stuff.

This is the short sermon that I preached yesterday (more or less).  I was asked to post it and have reconstructed it from notes, so sorry about grammar and punctuation!  Church was great yesterday, but as is often the case in summer, the vast majority of the congregation was elsewhere.  Now they can get a second chance...

  The text was Luke 12: 32-38.  I also read a portion of George Carlin's routine about "stuff".  I have linked to it at the end, so you can go listen to it and come back, or read this and go listen.  The link is slightly different, but the necessary quotes are included in sermon.

I love this piece that Carlin does about stuff. Of course, when I say I love it, what I mean is that I see myself in it. You know what I mean? That idea of one’s house being "a place to store your stuff while you go out and get more" hits home for me.

I have been in that situation more than once this very week. As we have gotten back into the swing of things after our vacation in Maine, we have run out to Target and to the grocery store and to the library to grab something to read. The kids have been invited to birthday parties that needed to be to shopped for. Each time we left the house, we turned around and locked the door to keep our stuff safe. And when we were in Maine, our friend Rich checked in on our stuff from time to time because (as Jesus tells us) we do not know “the hour that the thief is coming.”

And, Of course, I have been tempted to buy even more stuff. Every once in a while, during slow moments in my day, I find myself on Amazon.com or Ebay looking for bargains and deals on more things. My new found passion for Ukuleles would be one example. I keep wanting a new one, a better one. I want one that is a bit louder so I can play it when there are more than a dozen people in church. I want one that stays in tune longer, perhaps even for an entire song! Of course, I convince myself—like I am right now--that this is something I need. That it would make my accidental music ministry easier and more effective. But, really, there is a part of me that just wants one because it would be cool to have a better, shinier instrument.

And here is where Jesus steps in. “Do not be afraid little flock, for it is God’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom. Sell your possessions, give alms…for where your treasure is, your heart will be also.”

First, we have this “little flock” comment. I have always found this interesting because I have always been a part of small churches. Here Jesus reassures the members of his small congregation that things will be fine. He reminds them (and us), too, that spiritual gifts have value even when numbers are few.

But then he starts going after their “things,” telling them to sell them, to detach themselves from all the possessions that they value (these possessions are what Carlin calls the “shiny stuff”) so that they can place their hearts in the kingdom, they can treasure other things (family, perhaps, and friends but certainly the presence of the Divine in their lives).

After all, According to Paul Tillich and to some extent, Thich Nhat Hanh, this Ground of Being is all around us and in us and our stuff--these things that we worry about and cherish and yet are impermanent--they just get in the way. We know this, of course, and we see this. Many of us try to take this advice about detachment from our wealth to heart. Still, we we fail miserably much of the time.

However, there are times, when we are successful.

After all, there is a way in which Carlin is wrong about us! We don’t always leave our stuff-boxes in order to get more stuff. Instead we sometimes do so to escape or transcend it. We aren’t selling anything at church, for example, that can be put on the mantelpiece. Instead we come here to be reminded of our connection to the sacred.

Also (before we start feeling just a little bit superior to those members who are not in church on this beautiful day) we should remember that many of them have closed the doors of their houses, too. They, too have left their stuff for points unknown. After all, for substantial parts of the last month I was encamped next to a lake, rather than in a pew. Many of you have also been taking time to experience the wonders of creation.

Sometimes we call this a vacation. Ministers like to call them retreats because we like to think that although we are essentially doing nothing, we are still working. But it amounts to the same thing. We get away from our material possessions and the burdens they represent to free our ourselves, to focus on the Divine Presence, or to look inward, shoring up those relationships that we value most.

Some people go to the beach. Others go to the city. Some go to museums. People go to the movies. Others just go for a walk. In each case, we leave our stuff, taking just what we need (I am sure you are all light packers) and find time to reinforce those bonds between us and our loved ones, between us and God, and between us and the treasure in our hearts.

Here is a link to Carlin's routine.  I guess I should note that it is George Carlin.  And I did say I gave a sermon.  So...a language disclaimer is in order.  When I read it in church, I took the naughty parts out, but they are in this youtube clip, oh faint of heart...

...Here is what I actually read from Carlin by way of Bible commentator Richard Vinson who got it from Carlin's 1981 CD A Place for My Stuff  (thanks to my Smyth and Helwys Bible Commentary for putting this in)...

"All I want, all you need in life is a little place for your stuff, ya know?  I can see it on your table, everybody's got a little place for their stuff.  This is my stuff, that's your stuff, that'll be his stuff over there.  Thats all you need in life, a little place for your stuff.  That's all your house is: a place to keep your stuff.  If you didn't have so much stuff, you wouldn't need a house.  You could just walk around all the time."


"A house is just a pile of stuff with a cover on it.  You can see that when you're taking off in an airplane.  You look down, you see everybody's got a little pile of stuff.  All the little piles of stuff.  And when you leave your house, you gotta lock it up.  Wouldn't want somebody to come by and take some of your stuff.  They always take the good stuff.  They never bother with that crap you're saving.  All they want is the shiny stuff.  That is what your house is, a place to keep your stuff while you go out and get...more stuff!


Sometimes you gotta move, gotta get a bigger house.  Why? No room for your stuff anymore...."

Closer to Creation II

Here is the second sermon in the "Closer to Creation" series.  This gets us up to speed.  The next one (they are always on the third Sunday of the month) is November 15.  They are much better "live" if you are around and feel like coming to church...

Closer to Creation II: Foundations of the Earth
(Delivered on October 18, 2009)
Rev. Adam Tierney-Eliot
Job 38:1-7, 34-41
Mark 10:35-45
Dawn Potter: Tracing Paradise

Since I committed to this sermon series

And to this idea of covenant with the earth
I have spent quite a bit of time
Exploring various ways in which we impact our environment
And various ways that I could change my lifestyle
To reduce my impact on creation

As a family we went through a phase of reducing our power usage
Basic things like turning off lights when we don’t need them
Turning off those items in our house (like our computer)
That switch to “standby” when they aren’t being used
And, of course, those fluorescent lightbulbs
We have reduced our transportation needs as well
With my wife, Allison working more from home
And cutting out the long commute to Quincy each day

But one of the areas that has been most interesting
Has had to do with food
Few things, after all, are as fundamental to our existence
As what we eat
And so we are thinking about perhaps making our next covenant
About eating and consuming
Around the holidays
Occasions that involve large meals
For friends and relatives
Perhaps one thing we could all do is try to see how local
We can get
Make this a “local Thanksgiving”
Set a geographic radius around Natick and try to keep to it
Examine where our food comes from, measure the distances
Experience as much as possible its source

Just outside the borders of our Boston suburbs
There lies an agricultural region
That could make use of our money and interest
And even here in town, with the Organic Farm
We are reminded of its presence


And while it may be too late to plant
It is not too early to start thinking
About other ways we can connect with our food
Like Community Supported Agriculture
Or CSA’s How many have heard of this? (show of hands)
How many of you are part of one? (hands again)
What it entails, basically, is the purchasing of a share
Of the crop of a local farmer
Which enables them to plan and plant
And it enables us to get local produce in season


Now, some of you already have one of these
And there is a wait list for many farms
But if you are interested in doing this in the spring
Please feel free to talk to me about it now
As our local association of churches in the UCC
Is currently working with a couple of farms to develop
Additional CSA opportunities in Natick and Framingham

So, these are ideas for the future
Some for the near future and others farther away
But my first covenant had to do with food as well:
I put in a garden this year

Now, I know that some of you have much bigger gardens
And some of you have plots at the Organic farm
But this was a rather big step for me
You see, there is a reason why I didn’t feel so moved
During the previous six years that I have lived in the parsonage
The fact is, I have a long history with gardens
And growing things
But it is a rather checkered history
Primarily marked by failure

Do any of you know what I am talking about?

More than once I have lost track of my potato plants
Thanks to a neglectful weeding schedule
And at other times the garden served as an extension
Of my unintentional ministry
To the deer and raccoons
And when I lived in Harmony Maine
My failures were popular topics of conversation
Among the locals
So –perhaps not surprisingly—
When I moved down south to Natick to serve this church
Gardening was not a priority


Now after my first modest comeback season
I can safely say that
I am still not very good at it
My garden has given me few culinary gifts
And probably hasn’t alleviated the need for even one drop of fossil fuel
But, of course, it was not a complete failure
We do not measure our success--we gardeners--
Solely based on yield
After all,  it brought me closer to creation
And it reminded me how little control over nature I really have

Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth?...who laid its cornerstone when the morning stars sang together and all the heavenly beings shouted for joy?

God asks this both of us and of Job
And the garden asks this same question

I think that when people say things like “My Garden”
They mean it in the sense that I (or perhaps you)
Might refer to Eliot
As “My Church”
I am committed to it
I work to make it the best it can be
Within the bounds of my limited abilities
But it doesn’t always do what I would like it to
It is its own thing and grows according to its own internal logic
Its wisdom in the inward parts as it says in Job

In the same way I might be able to pick a pepper from my garden
And say “I grew this”
But really it grew itself according to its own pattern and needs
I was an interested party, an ally, a witness and protector
But I didn’t grow it...it grew
Where was I at the foundation of the earth?
After all, the garden is alive, and organic in a sense that
Will never be quantified by the FDA
So it is with our children, with communities like this congregation
And with us
Parts of creation/small pieces of a greater existence and a greater history

What we read and heard in Job today
Is a reminder that we are just passing through
What we think of as ours is not ours
No matter what we build on it
No matter how we landscape it
Ministers are constantly being reminded that
The congregations we serve were there when we came
And will continue on when we leave
So it is with the land
So it is with life, itself

We are renters on the earth
It isn’t our foundation that was laid
So perhaps we should be a little more concerned
With how we treat the place

Can you hunt the prey for the lion? What provides for the raven its prey, when its young ones cry to God, and wander for lack of food?

This passage in Job reminds us again
That we are not truly in control
We do not really have the right to place our priorities
Above that of the garden that sustains us

Our faith, points to this greater order
Not made by human hands or conceived by our philosophy
But like those disciples in Mark today
We often get so caught up with how far up the table we will sit
We forget our place, even though we try to do the right thing
My friend Dawn Potter, who used to laugh at my sad little garden
Wrote that John Milton, [that devout man], never got to the point of conceiving that nature might be valuable in and of itself.

And tells that story about how that poor seminarian
May also have missed this lesson
Perhaps, however, we can get to that point
And not just think it here in church
But believe it and feel it and enact it
In our own lives

There is a part of each of us
That knows this fact
And wants to prove that it is true
There is a part of us that yearns for a connection
Even in the midst of our striving
And sometimes it gets its way
Calling us outdoors

Now, I went Apple Picking recently
This wasn’t part of my covenant I just did it for fun
But while I was there
I couldn’t help but remember a time and a place
Where one was paid to pick apples, not the other way around
And that if I was picking them for myself
I got a discount for contributing my labor
But here and now we pay money for the privilege of picking them ourselves

And we do pay, often gladly
Grateful for the opportunity to connect
To converse with the land
Perhaps in that moment when we hand over the money
And get our bag, or sometimes just our parking space
We wonder to ourselves how something this essential to our lives
Has become purely recreation for so many of us
Replaced by other tasks that, ultimately may not really be as relevant as what we eat

And that question (or bundle of questions)
About what is essential
Brings us back to the covenant with the earth:
These covenants may not give us the answer to that question
A CSA share may not alleviate our responsibilities
Turning the heat down in our houses may not make us feel
That now we understand all there is to know about creation
But it will make sure we keep asking the questions about our place
And our role
And they will encourage us to keep on the path
To the foundations of the earth

Closer to Creation I: Sermon Notes

These are the notes to the first sermon in the "Closer to Creation" Series entitled "Something In the Water".  They are notes, which can make for tricky reading and absolutely horrific formatting in Blogger.  Sorry about that.  It is meant to be heard rather than read...

(Delivered September 20, 2009)
Something in The Water
Rev. Adam Tierney Eliot, Eliot Church, Natick, MA
Psalm 42
Genesis 1
Mark 9:30-37


Mary Oliver begins her "Morning Poem"

That we read today by saying that
Every morning the world is created
This is a great and hopeful idea
But if this is the case,

It while the world may be re-created
It isn’t always renewed it isn’t always healed
Most mornings the earth looks a bit too much like some of us
Which is to say a lot like we were the day before
But a little bit older, still tired, just wanting to go back to sleep


Who here has heard of “Mountaintop Removal”?
It is a very efficient way to remove coal
Where they make a mountain or hill about 500 feet shorter
To get at the deposits
Sending tons of rock and toxic minerals
Sliding down the side of the mountain into the lakes and streams below
Drying many of them up
And poisoning the water of the animals
And the human communities that live in the valleys
Of southern Appalachia


It all happens relatively quickly for the mining industry
So it is efficient in one way/ one human way/ one cheap way
As long as you don’t consider the collateral damage
Done to the world around it
And yet—even knowing the consequences--we keep on doing it
We keep on day after day, morning after morning
Allowing for this immense level of destruction
To fulfill our own energy needs
Pastor Peter Illyn an evangelical minister in Kentucky
And an environmental activist comments on the devastation
Wrought by this technique and our complicity in it
By asking us:
Have we really lost our souls? Have we lost our connection with God and with the miracle of life that the earth is a commodity to be scraped up?

These questions are in the form of a lament, really
And they could be asked of any number of environmental tragedies
Have we lost our connection with God and with the miracle of life?
Have we lost our connection with each other?

You see, we sometimes look at situations like this
Like Mountaintop removal
And see them as horrible situations that happen out there
But when we think about it we know
That the coal from those mountains
Fires the generators that power and heat our houses
Here in New England

We are connected, we are responsible
But the damage done to that connection has been great
So much so that we have a hard time finding it
And sometimes we can feel its absence
Even when we can no longer give it a name
No longer recognize our own isolation


Our world today is in the midst of an environmental crisis
And a spiritual one
Like the psalmist in our responsive reading today
Who equates his feeling of emptiness
With that of a deer looking for a drink of water
And finding that all the rivers have run dry
What should be abundant now seems to be gone
Deep calls to deep at the thunder of your cataracts;
All your waves and billows have gone over me


Now, our question today is a human one
Are we doomed to be forever isolated from each other
From nature, from the Divine?
Are we helpless before our own desires and perceived needs
That we ignore those of our children and of the rest of the world?
Or can we change?
We have grown accustomed to getting ahead
To surviving in a culture that measures success in individual terms
Of achievements of wealth, of material goods


This is not a new way of measuring our worth, either
It was the way in Jesus’ time as well
There is no nostalgic past
Free of exploitation
Just less efficient methods for exploitation in our historical past
There is no garden of Eden that we can get back to
From the beginning of history
We see that our very human nature
Sometimes pulls us away from one another
Just like what happens to the disciples in our reading today


So, if we cannot go back, (or if there is no “back to go to)
Is there hope that we can move forward?
Now, since you know that this is the first in a sermon series
I suspect that you know what I am going to say:
Yes, I believe there is hope,
For though there are many powers of isolation
In our world today
There is also the power of community
Just as our society has found ways to push us apart
We have also found ways to come together


Jesus sat his disciples down and told them
Whoever wants to be the first
Must be the last of all and the servant of all
We are here in a community of faith that recognizes this
And also sees
That even though the book of Genesis
Makes for very strange science
It also reminds us of a very basic truth
That we are all made from the same stuff
We all come out of the water
It is in us and we are in it
That is the essential message of our Water ritual today
We are in communion with each other
To some extent not because we chose to be
But because we always have been, because we must be
And I once again take the liberty of paraphrasing Thich Nhat Hanh by saying:
That We are all waves who have forgot that we are just part of the ocean


In our English language we call ourselves humans
And the earth is called the earth, the words are unrelated
In Hebrew—not just the ancient language of the Bible
But the Hebrew spoken by millions of Jewish people today
The word for human is Adam (one of my favorite words)
And the word for land  is Adamah
Literally we are the people, the things
That come up from the dust of the ground
Rabbi Arthur Waskow says that perhaps
We could all call ourselves "Earthlings"
To better get at our relationship
But I am afraid that I, at least,
Have seen too much science fiction for that


You get the point though, right?
Even as we are pushed apart by our individual needs
Even as the suffering of the earth seems somehow distant
We can only be pushed so far
Because our substance is the same
We are Adam and Admah
And we must ultimately find a way to heal the whole of creation
We have no other choice



I have one more Hebrew word for you today
And that is Berit or “Covenant”
The Teva Learning Center
A Jewish environmental and educational organization
Encourages its students to engage in a spiritual practice around
Berit Adamah or a “Covenant with the Earth”
And ask that they give up something
Some habit or lifestyle choice
That causes harm to the earth and isolates us from it
And try to give it up for at least six weeks


Through the course of this sermon series I will be practicing
A covenant with the earth and would love to have company
And I was thinking of you
For another thing that community does
Is generate both support and accountability
We can share, we can discuss, we can learn together
At least every third Sunday
You will hear from me, or Donna, or Matt
In other words:
We did not make our mess alone
So it will take all of us to clean it up


What I am proposing is a series of covenants
A series of beginnings for each of us
With each lasting six weeks
Some people choose to change their spending habits

Buying more local produce for example
Others find ways to walk or bike
Not just for exercise and recreation
But for practical transportation so they drive measurably less
Or we put in gardens and lower our thermostats
Or give up bottled water
The trick is to make a commitment to do something achievable
Stick to it for six weeks and then make another covenant
Always growing closer to creation
To being in communion with the Divine
With the Earth, and with each other


Let us take a moment now to consider
Berit Adamah and what that might mean in our own lives


(Silence)


In the Beginning when God created the heaven and the earth, the earth was void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters. Then God said “let there be light” and there was light.