In Bible study this past Monday, we were reading through this passage from Romans and I began by asking everyone to share which parts of loving they are good at and which parts they struggle with?



“For example, are you good at showing zeal, “I asked, “but not so good at loving your enemies? Do you find it easy to be patient in suffering but hard not to be haughty? What are you good at when it comes to love and what do you struggle with?”



And our friend Paul over there said, “All of it.”



It was an honest answer, but also, the more I thought about it, an undeniably brilliant one. Because...

Today's worship was graced with beautiful music by Jeff Olmstead and a sacred conversation between Rev. Sarah Buteux and Rev. Diane Johnson. The computer needed to reboot so we missed the beginning of worship.

If you’ve listened to any of my recent sermons, you may have noticed that there are no shortage of things troubling me these days: rising authoritarianism, threats to free speech, America’s tarnished reputation on the world stage, and - although I haven’t dared to say this out loud till now - the fact that I can’t fit all of my spices into the spice drawer anymore.

It’s all been driving me a little crazy. I don’t know how it could come to this. I mean, I think we all start out with the best of intentions. By which I mean that we resolve to buy all of our spices from just one company like Penzeys, (any Penzeys fans in the house?) with the hope that they will all coexist nicely in a drawer or look pretty on a shelf.

But then, in moment of desperation,....

Eight days ago, at roughly 7:30 in the morning, I pulled my little Honda Fit into a parking space over at Sheldon Field, and took a deep breath. I was as prepared as I could be to lead a busload of people to the “Hands Off!” rally in Boston but, the truth is, I didn’t feel prepared at all.



I didn’t know exactly what we were walking into, where we were going, or how we would get ourselves out. I was afraid that someone in our group might get hurt or lost. There were already whispers of record size crowds and brewing opposition, icy rain and impossible traffic, none of which are my cup of tea. And it may sound silly, but I was even worried about when and where we would find bathrooms. I was happy to give a day of my life to all this, but I’m no Cory Booker. When I gotta go, I gotta go.

But most of all, I was afraid because ....

Greetings friends! It is so good to be back with you again. As you have heard, my name is Bekah Maren Anderson, and this morning I bring you greetings from the First Church of Winsted, which was the last place I preached. And I would ask once more for your permission to bring your greetings to the next place I preach?
Thank you.
Do you ever read a passage in the Bible, and go, "Oh, that's happened; I've lived this." That's the feeling I get from this passage. It reminds me viscerally of conversations I've had in some activist spaces. Someone talks about something they bought, or an activity they enjoy, and someone else says, "Don't you know how that thing contributes to insert problem or injustice here? Why are you spending your time or money on that?"
And there are a couple different versions of this conversation, right? There's the constructive version: the honest sharing of information, and brainstorming of alternatives. But then ... there's the less productive version: "Don't you know how bad that company is, _I would never support them." It's the implicit (or explicit) judgment. The implied superiority. The insinuation that, if you don't agree with me, you're probably a bad person.
And personally, even when that's the tone taken, I often find it really hard to push back. Because, well, what if they're right? What if I _....

Welcome to the Ministry of Reconciliation!
It sounds like something out of Harry Potter, doesn’t it? Or at least something very British.
Apparently everything over in the U.K. is run by ministries which sounds so much more interesting than running things out of “departments.” They have all sorts of ministries over there like the Ministry of Transmogrification or maybe it’s Transportation - (you know, where you go to renew your license). They have a Ministry of Defense and a Ministry of the Dark Arts, or maybe its a Ministry in defense of the Dark Arts? Either way, it all sounds very magical and mysterious. So I like the idea of inviting you all into the “Ministry of Reconciliation.”
And it beats the working title for this sermon which was, for the better part of a week… “God Loves Everyone You Hate.”
Yeah, that had a bit of an edge to it....

I think most of you know that before I came to First Churches I was the pastor of the First Congregational Church across the river in Hadley. That congregation is full of farming families and one night, while meeting with some church folks, talk turned to chickens as it was wont to do.

Shari was upset because a fisher cat had gotten into her chicken coop and run off with two of her hens. In response, she had the rest of the brood sleeping up on her porch to keep them safe at night.


Martha then told us about the time she was having so much trouble with nocturnal predators that she actually brought her chickens right into her house. “You should have seen them in here,” she said. “Boy were they confused.” 

Which led to even more talk about fisher cats - how incredibly evolved they are as predators - and a little more talk about the funny things chickens do - especially when they get upset. And I admit that by that point in the conversation I was thinking that chickens were kind of silly.

Tasty -I mean I love a good roast chicken as much as the next person - but silly, you know: bird brained, chicken livered, overly domesticated helpless birds who couldn’t survive out in the real world anymore even if they wanted to.

And then Shari, circling back to the beginning of our conversation, lamented the fact that the fisher cat had made off with her two sentinels - the chickens who she could count on to make enough noise to warn her and the others if there was trouble.  At which point Glen piped up and said something I will never forget.

“That’s not a warning when they do that, “ he said, “it’s altruism.”

"God is the infinity of the unforeseeable; so we know that [the unforeseeable] is trustworthy, because in everything, God is trying to move us into Christ consciousness. If we are absolutely grounded in the absolute love of God that protects us from nothing even as it sustains us in all things, then we can face all things with courage and tenderness and touch the hurting places in others and in ourselves with love." ~ James Finely



Ok do we have any English majors in the house? Wonderful! Help me out here. If I were to say that my commute to church is a dream thanks to the new rotary or love is a battlefield (thank you Pat Benetar) or our Harriet has a heart of gold: I would be speaking in what?

Metaphor. Yes, thank you. A metaphor, for those of you who skipped grammar because diagraming sentences is about as fun as fishing for monkeys in a barrel -  that’s a mixed metaphor for those of you keeping score at home - is simply a thing we use to represent another thing …especially something abstract like love or generosity or the mental block people have when it comes to crossing the river.

It’s a figure of speech in which a word or phrase that literally denotes one kind of thing - like a battlefield - is used in place of another thing - like love - to suggest a connection between the two.

In Terry Pratchett’s “Wintersmith,” I’m pretty sure it’s Granny Weatherwax who says, “A metaphor is a kind o' lie to help people understand what's true.”

And he himself once said that “just because something is a metaphor doesn’t mean it can’t be real.”

Clear as mud? Great. That’s actually more of a a simile, but we’ll save those for another sermon.

For now I just want to note that as we move into Lent we often talk....

I heard a joke years ago about a fisherman who walked past a game warden with an overflowing line of fish over his back.  The game warden said, “Wow, that’s a lot of fish.  Where'd you get them?"  The fisherman said, "Come with me, and I'll show you." 

He took the game warden out in his boat, took a stick of dynamite out of his pack, lit it, and threw it in the water.  After a big shuddering blast, dozens of fish floated up to the surface. 

Appalled, the game warden said, "That's the most illegal way of catching fish I’ve ever seen! You're coming with me." 

The fisherman fired up another stick of dynamite, tossed it to the game warden and said, “Look buddy, ya gonna talk or you gonna fish?” (Bass Mitchell, Found at Lindy Black’s sermon nuggets web site http://home.twcny.rr.com/lyndale/EPIPHANY%205C.htm).


I don’t know about you, but I feel a bit like that game warden right now. My faith and this moment feel as volatile and dangerous as a lit fuse. No matter what I do or don’t do, I’m afraid we’re heading for destruction. I’m not really sure how to use the power I’ve been given.

And all the fear and anxiety in the air and in my mind is...

A quarterback takes a knee during the singing of the national anthem.

A church hangs a rainbow flag.

A sign goes up that reads, “Black Lives Matter.”

A company commits to the values of diversity, equity, and inclusion.

A college acts affirmatively to remedy years of discrimination and prevent discrimination in the future.

A bishop makes a plea to the president to be merciful toward the most vulnerable among us.

All good things, if you ask me. But it’s amazing, isn’t it, how such things can make people so angry. So angry that they are quick to call for such people and places and programs to be defamed, denied, demoted, defunded, and even - in the case of Bishop Budde - deported. So angry that some go so far as to say these places, these programs, even these people… should be destroyed.

But why? ...

Today's worship and sermon are meant to be an encouragement to you all as we navigate the days ahead. You are welcome to read the sermon but it might be better to listen to this one. It begins at the 23 minute mark:

Who said, “Elementary, my dear Watson”?

Sherlock Holmes, right?

Yeah, that’s what I thought too. But we’re wrong. Although he occasionally said, “Elementary,” and was often talking to Watson, Sherlock Holmes never utters that famous phrase in any of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s novels about the brilliant detective.

Who coined the phrase, “There’s a sucker born every minute?”

P.T. Barnum.

Nope. There’s no evidence that he ever said that at all.

How about: “The ends justify the means”?

Today, in honor of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., we had beautiful music and were graced by the preaching of the Rev. Dr. Diane Johnson. Click on the link above to watch the service.