Hal preaches on Micah 6:6-8 and Matthew 5:1-12.
AuthorThe Rev. Hal Chorpenning has been Plymouth's senior minister since 2002. Before that, he was associate conference minister with the Connecticut Conference of the UCC. A grant from the Lilly Endowment enabled him to study Celtic Christianity in the UK and Ireland. Prior to ordained ministry, Hal had a business in corporate communications. Read more about Hal.
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Matthew 4.12-22
The Rev. Hal Chorpenning, Plymouth Congregational UCC Fort Collins, Colorado January 22, 2017 There is a saying common to the mission of preachers and journalists: We are to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable. And I hope that in today’s sermon, there will be moments of comfort and moments when you will sense challenge …if not affliction. We hear about the very beginning of Jesus’ public ministry today: he has already been a follower of John and been baptized by him in the Jordan; he has returned from 40 days in the wilderness being tested by the evil one, and now it is his turn to launch his own message and program. (Dare I say that it was Jesus’ inaugural agenda?) One of the first thing Jesus proclaims employs one of my least favorite words in the English translation of the Bible. It’s a word that you would likely hear on the lips of Jimmy Swaggart or other televangelists: REPENT! Now, while I have all kinds of negative associations with that English word (and perhaps some of you do, too), the word used in the Greek New Testament is one of my favorites. It is the same word translated as REPENT, but it has different connotations and shades of meaning. The Greek word is metanoia — meta (as in metamorphosis) means to change, and nous/noia has to do with your way of thinking and being (as in paranoia…well, bad example, but you get the picture). Metanoia means to bring about a radical shift – a transformation — which is absolutely central to vital, living Christianity. It’s kind of a heart-and-mind transplant, as Paul wrote, “Let the same mind (nous/noia) be in you that was in Christ Jesus.” [1 Phil. 2.5] You all remember Plymouth’s mission statement: “It is our mission to worship God and to help make God’s realm visible in the lives of people individually and collectively.” We do this by “inviting, transforming, and sending.” That second step — transforming — is what metanoia is all about. We have to be willing to shift our thinking and our way of living to transform ourselves when our faith demands it. We need to be able to part with some of our old, comfortable patterns and live into new ways of being and doing. Why? Why do we need to transform ourselves if we’re already doing pretty well and we’re at least okay, flawed people? Jesus tells us the WHY of transformation: BECAUSE God’s realm or kingdom has come near. (Jesus goes even further in Luke’s gospel, saying that the kingdom of God is not simply NEAR…it’s HERE…among us!) This kingdom is not like the empires of this world, which seek power over, domination of the many by the few, winner take all, and privilege for the elite. In the coming weeks, through his Sermon on the Mount, you will hear Jesus tell what the kingdom is all about: hungering for justice and righteousness, blessing the poor, and working to become peacemakers. Wait a minute… the poor? … working for justice? … peacemaking? That may not be the priority (or the rhetoric) of the new administration, but is it God’s priority. It isn’t about Republicans or Democrats…it’s far more basic than that. On a fundamental level, it’s not about what is advantageous to any one of us, but rather what is congruent with the teachings of Jesus…the historical Jesus….the human being who was born, grew up, taught, led, prayed, and was executed in the first century. It is a lot easier for any one of us to know what Jesus said than it is for us to DO what Jesus DID…and both are integral to the Christian journey. None of us gets it right, but what we are about in the church is to work toward that goal — to aim toward God’s realm and to be God’s co-creators of it. I have been told recently by some of our members that it feels so good to be with folks at Plymouth. And I think part of that is that we attempt to live by love for one another…we don’t always make it, but we try together. And that isn’t something you necessarily find in other organizations, whether in justice work, nonprofit work, schools, or some churches. The UCC’s tagline speaks volumes: “No matter who you are or where you are on life’s journey, you’re welcome here.” Democrats and Republicans and Independents: ALL WELCOME HERE! Gay, straight, bi, lesbian, questioning…ALL WELCOME HERE! Male, female, trans…ALL WELCOME HERE! Old, young, in between…ALL WELCOME HERE! Introverted and extroverted; Republican, Democrat, and Independent; physical and cerebral; able-bodied and people with disabilities; doubters and believers; black, white and all shades in between…ALL WELCOME HERE! And the issue is that there are people in Fort Collins…right there at CSU…who have no idea that a church like Plymouth even exists. Lots of folks don’t know that a congregation that actively welcomes spiritual exploration in community can be found right here. After all, our name sounds like other churches…our building looks like other churches…how on earth can they be expected to know that we are different? progressive? welcoming? wondering? Let me show you a 90-second video released last week by the UCC… can you imagine any other denomination doing this? [VIDEO] Jesus has called YOU from your nets to become fishers of women and men — even if that seems scary to you. It’s time to shift our way of thinking and acting on this, because our community…our nation…God’s world needs to have the gift of Plymouth spread wider. So, summon up the courage to invite someone to Plymouth…it is not going to happen automatically without your participation, and “somebody else” at Plymouth is not going to do it for you. For many of us, this is the challenging part: We need to be open to transforming our hearts and minds — to be open to metanoia — if we are going to do this. We have to leave some of our reticence, our shyness, our pride at the doorstep if we want to share the gift of progressive faith at Plymouth. You clergy cannot do this alone. We have a gift to share — we are a challenging, talented, motivated group of people who want to explore their faith, and we have a God whose steadfast love for humanity is palpable. We are a congregation where you can bring your heart and your mind to church, where we work together for justice, peace, and the integrity of creation — not as an add-on program, but as an essential part of our ministry and mission. So, I challenge you, each of you, to think about the gift of Plymouth (whether its education or fellowship or worship or justice work). Think about it…maybe even be grateful for it! And then invite a friend, coworker, or neighbor who might appreciate you sharing that gift. It’s an invitation…but it could be one that makes a world of difference in someone’s life. Now, more than ever, the role of the progressive church is critical. Our witness is essential, our fellowship is sustaining, our worship challenges us and builds us up. Jesus challenges each of us to leave behind “business as usual,” whether that is fishing nets or the routine of your life today. He has called you to be fishers of women and men. Amen. © 2017 Hal Chorpenning, all rights reserved. Please contact hal@plymouthucc.org for permission to reprint, which will typically be granted for non-profit uses. AuthorThe Rev. Hal Chorpenning has been Plymouth's senior minister since 2002. Before that, he was associate conference minister with the Connecticut Conference of the UCC. A grant from the Lilly Endowment enabled him to study Celtic Christianity in the UK and Ireland. Prior to ordained ministry, Hal had a business in corporate communications. Read more about Hal.
1 John 4:7-21
January 15, 2017 Plymouth Congregational Church, UCC Rev. Jane Anne Ferguson 1 John 4: 7-21 7 Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. 9 God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. 10 In this is love, not that we loved God but that [God] loved us and sent [God’s] Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and [God’s] love is perfected in us. 13 By this we know that we abide in [God] and [God] in us, because [God] has given us of [God’s] Spirit. 14 And we have seen and do testify that the Father has sent [the] Son as the Savior of the world. 15 God abides in those who confess that Jesus is the Son of God, and they abide in God. 16 So we have known and believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them. 17 Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness on the day of judgment, because as [God] is, so are we in this world. 18 There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love. 19 We love because [God] first loved us. 20 Those who say, “I love God,” and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen. 21 The commandment we have from [God] is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also. (NRSV) “God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear;” or as I learned it as a child in the King James version…perfect love casteth out all fear. I know I heard this scripture quoted in sermons while I was growing up. Never thought much about it. Until I was on to preach on this text for MLK Sunday in 2008. I had just encountered a popular cultural sentiment of the time. “Fear is the opposite of Love…not Hate, Fear is the opposite of Love.” ....And in that context I heard the words anew, “perfect love casts out all fear…” The letters of First, Second and Third John were written out of the same community of first century believers as the Gospel of John and Revelation. During the last ten to twenty years of the first century, this little community of Jewish Christians were being persecuted and oppressed by their fellow Jews. Their exuberant faith in the Jesus as the Christ, the Messiah was getting them into trouble. They were literally being thrown out of their synagogues because of their belief in God’s new revelation through Jesus. They had reason to live in fear yet they had experienced the Living God through the stories and teachings of Jesus and of his life, death and resurrection. And this set their lives on fire with God’s love even in the midst of fear, persecution and oppression. I ask myself and you today, “Have you ever been in trouble for your faith? Persecuted, oppressed, fearful because you were on fire with the love of God?” We celebrate the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. this weekend. I believe today would be his actual 88th birthday. He was on fire with God’s love as he led the Civil Rights Movement in its struggle against the on-going persecution and oppression of the African American people. He kept this fire and passion going because of his own relationship with the Living God through the life and teachings and person of Jesus the Christ. The writing of the first century community of 1 John can sound a bit narrow....only one way to God through Christ...to our pluralistic, twenty-first century ears. As a scholar, King had studied comparative religions. He knew the heart of the Christian gospel and understood the heart of all the great religions of the world. And he believed deep in his heart that God’s Biggest and most transformative and political Word was Love. “God is love “said the writer of 1 John. “Love is the key to the world’s problems,” said Dr. King.i It is easy to nod our heads and smile and feel warm making these lovely statements about Love here in this warm sanctuary, with friends and family around, hopefully friendly faces if you are visiting. We all had the opportunity for breakfast this morning. Lunch is waiting at home or at the restaurant of our choice. We’ll go home, watch football, read a book, take a nap, be with our loved ones. It’s easy in this context to say “God is love” and “Love is the key to the world’s problems.” But then we throw in the part about loving our brothers and sisters…that makes things harder…because sometimes our brothers and sisters do not seem so loveable. They are different from us…in culture, values, religion, skin color, sexual orientation, political persuasion, economic status. And even in the “enlightened” 21st century we are taught to fear “different.” And what happens when the people we do love, those who are not so different from us, act unloving toward us, refuse our attempts at love? Have very different political convictions? Either way, suddenly we are afraid…we are afraid we will get hurt, physically or emotionally, … its those other people, those “ acting differently people” who are the problem! They are the real challenge to saying “God is Love” and “Love is the key to the problems of the world.” If we could just fix them…Love would be so much easier, wouldn’t it? Or does the issue goes deeper… “God is love. We love because [God] first loved us,” says the writer of 1 John. Do we believe that God really loves us, really loves humankind, or that God is just has a sort of disinterested and indifferent, aloof, concern for the welfare of creation and humanity that God set in motion, some senile benevolent benefactor who drowsily hopes that all is going well for us? What if with that crusty, old Christian apologetics scholar, C.S. Lewis, we recognized and internalized that God loves us “with the consuming fire, [of] [God’s Self,] Himself and [Herself], [God is] the Love that made the worlds, persistent as the artist’ love for [her] work, and despotic as a man’s love for his dog, provident and venerable as the father’s [or mother’s] love for a child, jealous, inexorable, exacting as love between [two lovers].” ii We cannot woo God with good behavior, righteous social justice action or right answers into loving us! Because God is the wooer in this love affair called Life! God is love. We love because [God] first loved us. God’s Love is free and abundant and available before we even think to ask for it! This is the ultimate Christian message, the Big Word of God, the message in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus the Christ, that we are being called to share. We are at a pivotal moment in our country. You know that and I know that. Fear is looming large in many of us. Anger is looming large in many of us. God’s Big Word of Love is once again a political word. It never ceased to be. It demanded the entire life of Jesus and of Martin Luther King, Jr. And for them even unto death. It now demands our lives, my friends. We are called to the transformative work of God’s love, to its non-violent resistance of fear and racism and bigotry and oppression. We are being called beyond ourselves to stand up and work in the name of God’s Big Word of Love for human rights in issues of healthcare for all, immigration, economic and ecological justice. And we are being called to Love, to pray for, those who seem so different from us across political lines in the midst of our work. For they, too, are God’s beloveds. “God’s perfect love casts out all fear,” says the writer of I John 4. “Love is the key to the world’s problems,” said Dr. King as he addressed a group called “Clergy and Laymen Concerned About Vietnam” in his speech, “Beyond Vietnam” in Riverside Church in New York City on April 4, 1967. Just a year to the very day before his untimely death, on April 4, 1968. In this speech he laid out why a civil rights activist is also a peace activist. He shows how the war in Vietnam was not just a travesty in and of itself, but also a war on the 1960’s American War on Poverty. He rallied the people of this country to with a cry to revolution that is relevant for our times. “Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go out into a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism, and militarism. With this powerful commitment we shall boldly challenge the status quo and unjust mores and thereby speed the day when "every valley shall be exalted, and every mountain and hill shall be made low, and the crooked shall be made straight and the rough places plain. ... This call for a world-wide fellowship that lifts neighborly concern beyond one's tribe, race, class and nation is in reality a call for an all-embracing and unconditional love for all ... . When I speak of love I am not speaking of some sentimental and weak response. I am speaking of that force which all of the great religions have seen as the supreme unifying principle of life. Love is somehow the key that unlocks the door which leads to ultimate reality. This Hindu-Moslem-Christian-Jewish-Buddhist belief about ultimate reality is beautifully summed up in the first epistle of Saint John: ‘Let us love one another; for love is of God and everyone that loves is born of God and knows God. He that loves not does not know God; for God is love. If we love one another God dwells in us, and [God’s} love is perfected in us.’"iii God’s perfect love casts out all fear. Dr. King and the ancient community of 1 John were both consumed with the fiery passion of God’s love. Let us hope and work with them so that Love will become the order of the day in our fear-filled times. Amen. i http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/45a/058.html, from the speech, “Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence” given by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. at a meeting of “Clergy and Laity Concerned” in Riverside Church, New York City, New York, April 4, 1967. ii A Year With C.S. Lewis; Daily Readings from His Classic Works, ed. Patricia S. Klein, “January 12, Amazing Love, How Can It Be?” from The Problem of Pain, p 14, New York: HarperSanFransico, c2003. iii http://www.hartford-hwp.com/archives/45a/058.html AuthorThe Rev. Jane Anne Ferguson, Associate, Minister, is a writer, storyteller, and contributor to Feasting on the Word, a popular biblical commentary. She is also the writer of sermon-stories.com, a lectionary-based story-commentary series. Learn more about Jane Ann here.
Jake preaches on Matthew 2:1-12 for Epiphany Sunday.
AuthorThe Rev. Jake Miles Joseph ("just Jake"), Associate Minister, came to Plymouth in 2014 having served in the national setting of the UCC on the board of Justice & Witness Ministries, the Coalition for LGBT Concerns, and the Chairperson of the Council for Youth and Young Adult Ministries (CYYAM). Jake has a passion for ecumenical work and has worked in a wide variety of churches and traditions. Read more about him on our staff page.
Ecclesiastes 3.1-14
The Rev. Hal Chorpenning Plymouth Congregational UCC Fort Collins, Colorado January 1, 2017 I find it very interesting that the people who choose the texts for the Revised Common Lectionary include this verse for January 1: “It is God’s gift that all should eat and drink and take pleasure in all their toil.” I don’t know about you, but over the last ten days, I’ve consumed far more calories and wine than I typically do, and it’s nice to have overindulgence affirmed by scripture. I’m also not typically a person who makes New Year’s resolutions, in part because I have usually found that they don’t stick (or more truthfully, I don’t stick to them). And this year I’m also not making resolutions linked to the New Year, but I do have some changes that I’m making in my life after a too-close encounter with my own mortality…but that is a sermon for another day. Our family had dinner with friends last week, and we were reflecting together on 2016. My friend had been out of work for much of the year and his wife required orthopedic surgery, but it was also a year when one daughter began to really thrive in high school and the other daughter won a coveted Boettcher scholarship. And for our family, it has been a mixed year as well, with wonderful travels, sons who are growing and learning, but also a year marked by the specter of cancer. And I am profoundly grateful to be here today, and to have been here with you on Christmas Eve. You all lift my spirits; and I felt very well prayed for and cared for by you in the three weeks following my surgery. And I feel profoundly grateful also for the medical community here in Fort Collins, and also for having really great medical insurance coverage. (I wish that all of us had both of those things available to us.) Still, the other night I found myself saying “Thank God 2016 is over,” but a voice inside of me says instead, “Give thanks.” I know that I have more to be thankful for than most people who inhabit God’s Earth. And when reading Ecclesiastes, I also remember that days of sorrow and paired with days of joy. Those pairings are normative within the human condition, but we, most of us, live sheltered lives to a greater or lesser extent. Our culture doesn’t talk much about dealing with difficulty as much as it does insulating ourselves from it with material pleasure and technology. I think the way most of us raising kids today think, we have bred them to not expect adversity, sorrow, death, or war. And we want to shield them from such things. Brené Brown, the wise observer of human behavior (and progressive Episcopalian) made this observation: “Hope is not an emotion. Hope is a cognitive, behavioral process that we learn when we experience adversity, when we have relationships that are trustworthy, when people have faith in our ability to get out of a jam…. The most beautiful things I look back on in my life are coming out from underneath things I didn’t know I could get out from underneath. The moments I look back in my life and think, ‘God, those are the moments that made me,’ were moments of struggle.”i Whatever we struggle with in 2017 will be a mixture of weeping and laughter, of mourning and dancing, of love and hate, of healing and breaking down, of seeking and losing. That is the pattern of life as it is. One of the characteristics of the book of Ecclesiastes is that the writer tells it like it is, without too much sugar-coating. His vision just doesn’t pair up very well with what we 21st century Americans are told in the media to expect…which is that we are entitled to be insulated, entertained, have access to cheap manufactured goods, really fast technology, freedom from body odor, and more calories than we need to survive. 2017 will be a different year for us as well with the change of administration on January 20. Regardless of where you find yourself on the political spectrum, it is going to be different. And I don’t think any of us knows just what that will look like. (Think about it: who would have suspected that a Democratic president would be getting tough on Russia, while a Republican president- elect wants to sweep a Russian cyberattack under the carpet?) These are not normal times. And I think that it is normal for us as a nation to be feeling some anxiety about how governance is going to play out both nationally and internationally. We have the threat of a renewed nuclear arms race, a black hole developing around not just the Affordable Care Act, but around Medicare and Medicaid, not to mention the perennial issues of global warming, peace in the Middle East, and terror that knows no borders. But we also have some things going for us: a strong economy (albeit one that has not affected many blue-collar workers to the same extent it has information workers); an environment that is rich beyond measure…if we can just learn to take good care of it; a Constitution that preserves the rights of free speech, freedom of religion, and freedom to assemble. We should not take any of those for granted. And we may be called to put our faith into action more than we have in recent years. We may need to re-read the Beatitudes from Luke’s account — blessing the poor, the hungry, those who weep now, the hated, the excluded — and we may need to learn to love our enemies more fully and deeply, which is a tall order. These are heady days for the mainline church, especially those of us who find ourselves in the progressive wing of the church. A recent article in The Atlantic claims that the election result “is bringing progressive Protestants back to church.”ii And I have sensed that here at Plymouth…but it goes a lot deeper than church attendance. We are going to have to listen even more closely to the prophetic words of Jesus than we ever have. We are going to need to be willing to make sacrifices greater than we ever have. We are going to need to come together more than we ever have. We are going need to build bridges better than we ever have. Because God needs us to stand in the gap between where humanity is and where Christ calls us to be as we work for the kingdom he proclaimed. What I am talking about is not being a good Democrat or a good Republican. I am talking about becoming a better follower of Jesus. Maybe it is time for us not to make a resolution…but to make a difference. It is not that this is a exactly a new course for us at Plymouth, nor is it a new course for the church, which is always truer to the gospel when we get closer to the Jesus of history and function, as Emerson put it, more as the movement and less as the establishment. Think about the history of our Congregational and UCC tradition and the history of this church…we have seldom settled for the status quo. Throughout our history, we have been a church that unites people in personal faith and social responsibility. For everything, there is a season. And the season for lackadaisical faith is gone. We are moving into a time when our mettle will be tested as Christians. Will we be up to the challenge? I am confident that we will. And the good news is that we are not alone…other people of faith will stand with us, and God stands behind us. And whatever we do, we will do it with a sense of faith, a sense of love, and a sense of joy. That is what it means to be God’s children. I leave you on this New Year’s Day, the last Sunday of Christmastide, with the words of Howard Thurman, a 20th century Christian mystic: When the song of the angels is stilled, When the star in the sky is gone, When the kings and the princes are home, When the shepherds are back with their flocks, The work of Christmas begins: To find the lost, To heal the broken, To feed the hungry, To release the prisoner, To rebuild the nations, To bring peace among people, To make music in the heart. Amen. © 2017 Hal Chorpenning, all rights reserved. Please contact hal@plymouthucc.org for permission to reprint, which will typically be granted for non-profit uses. i Brené Brown. “Courage is Born from Struggle” on public radio’s On Being ii The Atlantic, "Trump Is Bringing Progressive Protestants Back to Church," Dec. 11, 2016. AuthorThe Rev. Hal Chorpenning has been Plymouth's senior minister since 2002. Before that, he was associate conference minister with the Connecticut Conference of the UCC. A grant from the Lilly Endowment enabled him to study Celtic Christianity in the UK and Ireland. Prior to ordained ministry, Hal had a business in corporate communications. Read more about Hal. |
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