Sermons

Today, I want to begin a sermon series on gratitude.  This may seem like an odd choice at a time when so many people are disoriented and saddened and anxious about the state of our nation. It feels to some of us like we’re in exile. Here’s the thing, though:  anyone can be grateful when everything is going your way. What if it is possible to be a grateful person, whatever comes our way?

I am going to be honest with you this morning:  I am so sick of

American politics.  Understand, I love the ideal that is America:  a nation where there is liberty and justice for all; a land that welcomes the “tired and poor and huddled masses,” a land in which the constitution is upheld, the rule of law is maintained, and the will of the people is honored.  This is the land where no one is above the law, where justice is blind, and where everyone has the opportunity to pursue happiness.  In practice, America has always fallen short of that ideal but has had moments of brilliance in which we have come close, or at least caught a glimpse of, what it would mean to actually be that nation.  From the start, we came together to form a more perfect union.  This remains our struggle 225 years later.

John McCain had a pretty undistinguished early life.  He was the    son and the grandson of Admirals in the United States Navy so he did what everyone expected him to do:  he went to the United States Naval Academy.  While there, he absolutely failed to distinguish himself.  He graduated near the very bottom of his class.  The word was that he could not have cared any less about academics and military discipline, which, if you think about it, is pretty much the heart of the United States Naval Academy.

So, who’s the first generous person you remember in your life?  The first generous person when it came to cash for me was a man named Joe Schmidt.  I was getting ready to go to college.  I had some scholarship help that already made my out of state private school less expensive than my in state private university (which, of course, generous donors to the college made this possible.) Mr. Schmidt called me on the phone, asked me to come over, met me at the door and ushered me into his office, which was fancier than any office that I had ever seen.  He sat me down and asked about my college plans.  Then, he puled out what I thought was his calendar but was in fact his check register.  He wrote out a check, put it in an envelope and handed it to me.  He told me to study hard.  I opened the envelope when I got home and saw that the check was for a thousand dollars, more money than I could really imagine.  At the time, I was working three jobs, the highest paying of which paid $3.75 per hour.

In May of 2005, American professional tennis player, Andy Roddick was playing Fernando Verdasco of Spain in the round of 16 at the Italian Masters tournament in Rome.  Roddick was the number one seed in the tournament and a heavy favorite to with this match against Verdasco.

Roddick dominated, as expected and had a triple match point when something extremely unusual happened.  Roddick couldn’t return Verdasco’s hard second serve but the linesman called the serve out and awarded the point and the match to Roddick. 

Here’s the unusual part.  With the crowd cheering for Roddick, Verdasco ran to the net to shake Roddick’s hand and congratulate him on his victory.  However, Roddick knew something that the linesman, the umpire, the cheering crowd and Verdasco, himself, didn’t know.  Roddick knew that Verdasco’s serve had, in fact, been “in” not “out.”  The ball had hit the line, making it in.

I want to talk about hope this morning but I don’t want to talk about otherworldly hope.  It is a totally natural thing to think occasionally about what happens when this life ends.  Such thoughts become much more pressing when I’m losing or have lost someone that I love.  As we grow older, our own mortality becomes more evident every time we look in the mirror and every time we go to the doctor and something new isn’t working quite right.  The urgency with which we ask the question grows.

So, I was out walking Echo, my dog, the other day, which should not come as a surprise to anyone who knows me.  This day happened to be one of the beautiful days that we’ve had of late.  Mentally, I quickly slipped into my “reflective” frame of mind and Echo and I hit our stride.  Right away though, we came around a corner and there was a dog—one that I recognized.  Clearly, so did Echo.  The two of them sniffed each other up and then began hopping around together in the dust of the trail.  This dog was a rescue dog.  No dog ever looks happier to be in Open Lands.

This morning, I want to start by trying to define three words:  sympathy; empathy; and compassion.  I know that definitions aren’t necessarily the most exciting thing to think about but in order to talk about what I’d like to talk about this morning, we need to be precise.

I want to tell you a baseball story this morning.  It’s an unusual story because it doesn't involve any big-name stars or any major league teams.  No…this is a story about kids who were just starting to play the game. The story appeared a few years ago in Sports Illustrated.

Today, we continue our work of teasing out the threads in the Union Church “tapestry” that make us who we are. We examine each “thread,” or core value, and ask, “How does this thread shape our life together?” This morning’s core value is patience.

This morning, our project continues:  to lay a foundation for talking to one another about the future of the church.  My job is to talk to you about who I think we’ve been and how I have seen us be that church.  Your job is to think about what it might look like to be that kind of church in a new way.  How do we grow and not lose our identity?  

What I’ve said to you is that the church is a tapestry of different threads—different essential traits.  I’ve tugged on one of those threads already:  gratitude.  Last week, I tried to talk about what it means to be a grateful church.  This week, I want to tug on another thread—humility. 

I feel like I have two important roles during the next 10 months.  First, I need to provide continuity and stability during the transition.  You know me and I know you.  We have songs we enjoy singing and rituals we practice and work we love to do.  We need to dance to the chicken dance and eat some fried chicken.  We need to pipe Advent in one more time.  We need to keep collecting food for those who are in need.  We need to be the church that we’ve been.

At the same time, the congregation needs to begin to discern the church that we are being called to become.  It is not my job to answer such a question or to even shape an answer.  No…my job is to lay the foundation for the conversation.  I would like to “prime the pump,” by inviting everyone to start thinking about a few things now, things which, I hope, will empower people to find their voices and be ready to enter the conversation.