Isaiah 43.1-7
The Rev. Hal Chorpenning,
​Plymouth Congregational UCC
Fort Collins, Colorado

I know that for some of us, this is the most difficult Sunday of the year, because it provides an occasion when our grief can come to the surface again. Some of us have lost spouses, moms, dads, grandparents, children, dear friends. And though it is a difficult day, it is one of those rites of the church that acknowledge what we might rather sweep under the rug and ignore: that we are grieving, that we ache, that there is a piece of us that has died, too.

And I stand with you this morning: I grieve, I ache, and a piece of me has died. And one of the reasons I love this place, this congregation, the church in all its failings and its glories is that we know how to come together and get real. We mark births with baptism. We mark marriages of opposite-sex and same-sex couples. We even have a rite in our UCC Book of Worship for the ending of a marriage! We know how to name things…to say “died” instead of “passed away” …to say “wife” or “partner” instead of “special friend”…we say “money,” instead of “benevolences.” I love this church because we know how to distinguished unvarnished truth from polite BS…because we aren’t afraid to be REAL and genuine with what we are experiencing and how it meshes and sometimes tangles with our faith.

I love this church because we are a people who tie together personal faith and social responsibility. Yes, we are here this morning as people who are grieving or as those who are here to support them, and we are also here acknowledging that there is a sickness in our American culture that resulted in the violent deaths of eleven faithful Jews worshipping God at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh. And we lift their lives up to God with love and light.

Sometimes churches go astray when they become esoteric, with ritual and liturgy that say nothing to people or perhaps even to God. Sometimes churches reinforce the cultural norms of Empire and afflict the oppressed instead of providing them comfort. Sometimes churches are afraid to talk about controversial topics like sex, race, politics, and money. I am grateful that we try to avoid those pitfalls and that you are here today to be real…together.

I love this church because we are not letting go of a central theme of our faith, which is to confront fear and to know that God is with us. God knows that we are going to be challenged, and God reminds us again and again: “Do not fear, for I am with you.” I love this congregation because when you come here you cannot help but know that you are not alone.

In virtually every memorial service I lead, I include the New Creed from the United Church of Canada, whose refrain repeats like a heartbeat: “We are not alone…we are not alone.” And I say to you this day, welcome to this place, because we are not alone. Do not be fearful, because God is with us, and we stand together.

I read and hear so much about loneliness and the absence of community in postmodern society, even as we are supposedly more connected by technology. WebMD claims that “Loneliness is a growing health epidemic.”[1] In fact, they say that loneliness rivals obesity and smoking as a health risk. The New York Times reports that loneliness affects longevity and causes imbalances in stress hormones like cortisol.[2]

Part of the genius of church is that we still provide face-to-face relationships; we provide one of the only places where intergenerational community is the norm. Literally, for God’s sake, ministers still make house calls! This is not to say that we can all come to church more regularly and start smoking and eating more saturated fats…but most of us have known all along that we feel better when we connect with God and neighbors at Plymouth. And, yes, it is still possible to feel lonely here. So, if you are looking for a place to plug in at Plymouth, come and talk to one of your ministers…we’d love to help find a place where you feel at home here!

Another truth for this Totenfest is that we all want to leave a legacy, to leave the world in better shape for having been here. And God knows the world needs our help. Earlier this week, I received a large envelope from a law firm here in town, and as I went through the pages I learned that one of our members who died last year, Lynn Richards, had included in her will a bequest for Plymouth. And I’m telling you this with her wife, Stacy’s, permission. The gift of $48,000 will become part of Plymouth’s endowment; it is the largest bequest our church has ever received. And I am deeply grateful that Lynn’s legacy includes a way to affect the mission of this congregation in perpetuity. Her caring will continue beyond any of our lifetimes…it’s a warm and wonderful reminder of Lynn, and it was particularly poignant to receive that letter during this week when we observe All Saints Day and Totenfest.

I asked myself the question, “What legacy will I leave behind?” and I think it’s a good question for us all to ask. How do you want to be remembered by friends and family and community? What can you do today to affect the impact you will have on the world? How can you leave this planet a better place for having lived here?

Life really is short. We really don’t have much time to gladden the hearts of those who are on this journey with us. So, we must be swift to love and to make a difference. And we must celebrate those whose lives we remember this day.

Mary Oliver writes:
“To live in this world
You must be able to do three things:
To love what is mortal;
To hold it
Against your bones knowing
Your own life depends on it;
And, when the time comes to let it go,
To let it go.”[3]

And for me, what makes the letting go possible is knowing that we are not alone, that God loves us, and has called us by name.

I invite you to come forward if you wish, along the window aisle, and to speak aloud the name of someone you have loved and lost this past year.
 
© 2018 Hal Chorpenning, all rights reserved. Please contact hal@plymouthucc.org for permission to reprint, which will typically be granted for non-profit uses.

[1] WebMD, May 8, 2018. https://www.webmd.com/balance/news/20180504/loneliness-rivals-obesity-smoking-as-health-risk
[2] “The Surprising Effects of Loneliness on Health,” NYT, December 11, 2017
[3] From “A Blackwater Woods” by Mary Oliver

Ecclesiastes 3.1–11 & Isaiah 60.1–6
The Rev. Hal Chorpenning,
Plymouth Congregational UCC Fort Collins, Colorado
 
I’m not usually one to make New Year’s resolutions, in part because I am no good at keeping them. But we find ourselves together as a church on this last day of 2017, and it seems important to reflect on the past year and also to look ahead. And today is also the seventh day of Christmas, and though you’ll have to go outside to see “seven swans a-swimming,” we in the church still get to ponder the meanings and the potentials of Christmas, even if the presents under the tree have all been opened.
​
If there is -– as the writer of Ecclesiastes claims -– a time for all things, then what time is it now? For many of us it seems as if the bitterness of our political discourse over the last year has dominated our thinking and our action. It has imbued some of our daily lives with a sense of fear and anxiety. The threat of a nuclear war with North Korea, threats to deport Dreamers, creating physical or legal walls to keep immigrants out, American withdrawal from the Paris Climate Accord, the take-back of financial support for the United Nations, the roll-back of protected national monument lands in Utah, the revelation of sexual abuse and harassment by many women, the moral bankruptcy of the religious right, the new tax law that enshrines corporate tax cuts in the hopes that some of the wealth will trickle down, the emasculation of the Environmental Protection Agency, the diminution of the role of science in federal agencies, and the “seven dirty words” that employees of the Centers for Disease Control are forbidden to use in agency budget documents. I’m not forbidden to use them: “science-based,” “fetus,” “transgender,” “vulnerable,” “entitlement,” “diversity,” and “evidence-based.”

Feeling anxious yet? We’re actually seeing some of that anxiety here at Plymouth. I’m hearing it from some of you in conversation, and together we are experiencing it in the nervousness within our congregational family system…it is infecting our common life…how could it not?

Many of us have never lived through a major war…some of you remember World War II and Korea and Vietnam, but for those of us who don’t remember those wars, Afghanistan and Iraq and the Gulf War seem very far away, perhaps because they were not fought by middle-class draftees. But in some ways, this time of national anxiety seems like a time of war…except that not all of us are on the same side. It seems like the fabric of our nation is fraying, and many of us have only lived through “a time to sew” and now we seem to be encountering “a time to tear” and to rend. Perhaps it feels like we are part of Isaiah’s prophecy: “Darkness shall cover the earth, and thick darkness the peoples.”

It is a time like this that the world most needs people like you. It is a time to summon courage…the courage that you may not yet have had the opportunity to test. It is a time that the world most needs the ethical and moral witness of progressive Christianity. It is a time that the world most needs congregations like Plymouth that will stand up, using the life and teachings of Jesus to help steer our nation back toward compassion, justice, peace, freedom, integrity, honesty, selflessness, and generosity.

What are the lessons we might derive during this time when the fabric frays? I think one of the lessons for middle-class folks is that it’s not all about us, that we have to become more active in community life and political life if we want to affect change. I think that for many of us, especially we who are comfortable, it will mean sacrifice for the common good. I think, to paraphrase John F. Kennedy, that it’s time not to ask what Plymouth can do for you, but to ask what you can do for Plymouth… because Plymouth continues to be one of the most critical voices and forces for progressive Christianity and progressive community in the region.

You have been entrusted with the light and love of Christ. I don’t care if you have three advanced degrees or if you never saw the inside of a college classroom, whether you have a three-figure income or whether you are barely making ends meet, whether you feel too old or too young to pitch in, whether your ancestors came from Germany or Georgia or Korea or Kansas. You have been entrusted with the love and light of Christ, not simply so that you can feel warm and comfortable, but so that you can share that love and light with others. It’s time for us to stop worrying about the beauty of our remodeled kitchens and second homes and the newest brewery and instead to start thinking more about the needs of others, the needs of our community, the needs of God’s world.

None of us has the luxury just to bask in the glow of our own wellbeing…because that glow is actually not ours, it is God’s. And that glow isn’t just to help us feel warmth and light…it is to provide warmth and light for God’s world.

You know on Christmas Eve, those of us in the chancel have the best seat in the house, because we get to experience the wave of candlelight that spreads up and down the pews to create a sea of light. One flame makes only small a difference in a dark sanctuary, but the warm glow of hundreds of candles illuminate it in an almost magical way. So it is with the light that each of us has been given to bear. To be sure, we can illumine a few shadowy places on our own, but together, we can become a beacon of hope.

It is easy for us to give ourselves over to despair, fear, hopelessness, and anxiety. But that is not the path you are called to follow as a bearer of Christ’s light. So, let’s get courageous as we finish one year and begin a new one. Let’s not shrink back from the call of our God to make a difference in the world. Let’s not recede into fear, but rather let us empower one another with faith and with light.

We can live our lives from a place of fear and scarcity or we can live our lives from a place of faith and abundance…we just can’t do both with the same time.

I leave you today with the “Amazing Peace: A Christmas Poem” by Maya Angelou (NY: Random House, 2005).

Thunder rumbles in the mountain passes
And lightning rattles the eaves of our houses.
Flood waters await us in our avenues.
Snow falls upon snow, falls upon snow to avalanche
Over unprotected villages.
The sky slips low and grey and threatening.

We question ourselves.
What have we done to so affront nature?
We worry, God.
Are you there? Are you there really?
Does the covenant you made with us still hold?
 
Into this climate of fear and apprehension, Christmas enters,
Streaming lights of joy, ringing bells of hope
And singing carols of forgiveness high up in the bright air.
The world is encouraged to come away from rancor,
Come the way of friendship.

It is the Glad Season.
Thunder ebbs to silence and lightning sleeps quietly in the corner.
Flood waters recede into memory.
Snow becomes a yielding cushion to aid us
As we make our way to higher ground.

Hope is born again in the faces of children
It rides on the shoulders of our aged as they walk into their sunsets.
Hope spreads around the earth. Brightening all things,
Even hate which crouches breeding in dark corridors.
 
In our joy, we think we hear a whisper.
At first it is too soft. Then only half heard.
We listen carefully as it gathers strength.
We hear a sweetness.
The word is Peace.
It is loud now. It is louder.
Louder than the explosion of bombs.
 
We tremble at the sound. We are thrilled by its presence.
It is what we have hungered for.
Not just the absence of war. But, true Peace.
A harmony of spirit, a comfort of courtesies.
Security for our beloveds and their beloveds.
 
We clap hands and welcome the Peace of Christmas.
We beckon this good season to wait a while with us.
We, Baptist and Buddhist, Methodist and Muslim, say come. Peace.
Come and fill us and our world with your majesty.

We, the Jew and the Jainist, the Catholic and the Confucian,
Implore you, to stay a while with us.
So we may learn by your shimmering light
How to look beyond complexion and see community.

It is Christmas time, a halting of hate time.

On this platform of peace, we can create a language
To translate ourselves to ourselves and to each other.
 
At this Holy Instant, we celebrate the Birth of Jesus Christ
Into the great religions of the world.
We jubilate the precious advent of trust.
We shout with glorious tongues at the coming of hope.
All the earth’s tribes loosen their voices
To celebrate the promise of Peace.
 
We, Angels and Mortals, Believers and Non-Believers,
Look heavenward and speak the word aloud.
Peace. We look at our world and speak the word aloud.
Peace. We look at each other, then into ourselves
And we say without shyness or apology or hesitation.
 
Peace, My Brother.
Peace, My Sister.
Peace, My Soul.
​
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.