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By: Alex Hasha

When Emma asked me to offer a reflection on the spirit of advent, of waiting and preparing for a hope dreamed for, my first instinct was to tell you the story of how I met my wife Adria.  But then, I thought, a self-congratulatory tale of how my dreams came true would probably be more fun for me to tell than for you to hear. So, instead, I want to share what I am waiting and preparing for now.

Like many of my peers, my youth was spent in a productive but effectively self-centered way.  The first fruits of my talent and enthusiasm were spent on MY education, MY career, building MY family.  And God was generous with me, giving me more than I even knew to ask for. So much, that I have an abiding uneasiness that it is more than I deserve and that it will be taken away.

And of course, it WILL be taken away, eventually.  As the old euphemism goes, you can’t take it with you.  As much as we want to deny it, every life is touched by transformative, often unwelcome change at some point.  For me, Christmas is a season where I remember my father. Just before Christmas, in 2006, he died young and suddenly.  We were very close, and losing our relationship felt like losing a piece of my soul. I also lost my youthful confidence that things will never change and that a peaceful old age is a sure thing.  

Societal change is also unavoidable.  If you have lived your whole life enjoying the unprecedented peace, stability, and prosperity that this era offers to the privileged, it’s easy to get the impression that the world owes you more of the same.  That unwelcome change will happen to someone else. But think of World War II, the Russian Revolution, the Industrial Revolution… We look back on these now as well-worn bullet points in the study guide for our history class, but to the people living through them they were shocking and unexpected tidal waves of transformation. Whatever your beliefs about the fate of the universe described in the Book of Revelations, you have to acknowledge that its visions rhyme with episodes of upheaval that are common in human history.

Today, I feel in my bones that some new revelation is at hand, that the immediate future will surprise us.  Everywhere you turn, a clamor of voices are predicting transformation: transformation of our climate, our political institutions and power structures, our technology, our shared values and traditions.  Some of these voices are invested in making us fearful, so we will keep tuning in… exchange our rights for protection… put our heads in the sand and let someone else take charge. But we are not the first generation to face daunting challenges, and we will not be the last.  God is at work in these moments. We have a duty to move beyond our personal hopes and fears and take action. And if you have to sacrifice a measure of stability and prosperity to do so, maybe that’s ok because, after all, you can’t take it with you.

So what I am praying for, in this season of waiting and preparing, in this season of transformation, is for God to help me see clearly what I should be doing differently.  Specifically. Concretely. I know that small changes matter, like giving money I can spare or doing some volunteering. Small things add up to big things. Learning to see myself as a cell in the body of Christ has helped me understand that, while I can’t fix the world by myself, I have a role to play if I can find it.  Maybe those small things are my role, but I must admit I am yearning for a bigger one. I want to discover how I can use the first fruits of my talent and enthusiasm to help build a better world for our children. I want to feel in my bones the connection between how I spend the best hours of each day and the coming of God’s kingdom.  In the Gospels, Christ asks his followers for radical sacrifice, but in exchange he offers a clarity of purpose that elevates and soothes their souls. I want to be filled with passionate intensity to do God’s work.  

I know that for my prayers to be answered, I have to do my part.  I need to stop numbing my anxiety with rich desserts and Netflix. I need to read, and think, and write, and talk to people, and show up.  But I also know I can’t do it without God. So, every day, I repeat the prayer that I learned in this room: Come, Holy Spirit, Come. As I thy house depart, may I be truly thine, that those with whom my life may blend may see thy face in mine.

By: Jay Fundling

This is a sermon from our Summer “Voices of the Congregation” series.

 

For the first 15 years of my working life, I was an actuary that worked with retirement plans.  I found that job to be exactly as exciting as it sounds. I switched careers when I turned 40, but a bit of my old life sticks with me.

I worked with pension plans. I’m not sure what you have for your retirement, but pensions work differently than a 401(k) that many of you may have.

In a 401(k) or similar plan, you and your employer put money in an account, you have a say in how it is invested. When you retire you have a large account of money to see you through retirement.

A pension, on the other hand, involves a promise from your employer. They say that when you retire, based on how long you worked there, you will get a monthly check. And you will get that check for as long as you or your spouse are alive.

Working with pensions for so long gave me an appreciation for their benefits, and now, I see a lot of parallels between pension plans, and the church community, while a 401(k) plan is life without your community.

With a 401(k) plan, the day you retire you have a pile of money – maybe a big pile of money – and you are on your own.

If you spend it all, too bad.

If you buy a boat and it sinks, too bad.

If you have health problems that eat up your savings, too bad.

Even if you live a decade or two longer than you were expecting to – in many ways that is wonderful – but financially speaking you are stuck trying to make your money pay for many more years of needs than you were expecting.

A pension, on the other hand, says that it will give you the same check every month, no matter what.

If you spend all your money foolishly one month, you get another check the next month.  If you live a long time, there is no expiration date.  If you have health problems, this won’t cure those problems, but it will provide reliable support.

This is how I see the benefits of the church community.

You don’t get a million dollar check when you come to church, but you get what you need.  Being a member of a church will not prevent big disasters from striking your life, but it will support you dependably when those times come.

When you make bad choices – and we all do – you are still welcome here.   As long as you are alive, you are a part of this community. For some that is a very long time, for some it is much too short, but either way you get the support while you need it.

Sticking with the retirement plan analogy, another similarity is how the money is handled.

In a 401(k) plan, you are in charge of investing your money.

No matter what your day job is, no matter if you know anything about investing, you have to manage the biggest block of money you will ever have.

In a pension, there’s an expert investing your money, and if there is a shortfall – if there’s not enough money in the plan – your company makes it up.

When we are outside of church we often think we are going it on our own.

We are in charge and we make all the decisions, whether we want to or not. When we come to church we realize some of the biggest decisions are out of our hands.

We don’t make all the decisions and that’s okay.  We have to learn to sit back and trust.

In the reading today, Paul is talking to the church in Corinth about acting like a community.

I’d like to provide some context, because I know when you hear the reading out of nowhere, it’s not always obvious what point they are trying to get across.

Why is he talking about eating?  Is this a poetic metaphor, or is he talking about an actual meal?

He’s actually talking about a meal

Paul was telling the church in Corinth how they should conduct their religious service, including how they eat their meal, the Lord’s Supper.

Their Lord’s Supper was not just a small bit of bread and wine like we have, it was a full meal.  It was like communion combined with coffee hour in this church.

Paul is telling them how to have a group meal.

When I selected this reading, when it really spoke to me, I did not first find it in the translation of the Bible that Nancy read from.

I found this passage in a book by an author named Mark Russell.

Mark Russell has written several funny, insightful books I’ve enjoyed and I’m a big fan

This one is called “God Is Disappointed In You”

In this book he retells every book in the Bible faithfully to the source material, but in his own tone.  I found his version of this passage was very understandable.

This is how he conveys Paul’s comments on how the Corinthians were

conducting their common meal:

When you celebrate the Lord’s Supper, it needs to be a potluck, and not a brown bag. Last time I was there, everyone brought their own food. And there was some jerk getting drunk on wine and gorging himself with roast lamb, while all the guy next to him had to munch on were a few crackers.  Do you have any idea how bad this looks? If you want to keep your fancy snacks to yourself, eat at home. When we eat together we should share everything like family. What good does it do to celebrate our brotherhood by embarrassing the guy sitting next to you. 

What Paul is saying – either in the traditional translation or the more colloquial one – is about acting like a community.

Some members of the church were wealthy.

They were enjoying their Sunday night dinner with their nice food and lots of wine.

Their bellies were full, but they weren’t acting as a community.

They were full while others at the table were hungry.

Again, this isn’t a metaphor about world hunger, or hunger of the spirit, these were people in the same room at the same table, who weren’t sharing their food.

Paul says you despise the church – or show contempt for the church – if you show up and do not share your food.

Because the point of coming here on Sunday is not what you get as an individual.

It’s not that you enjoy the music by yourself, not that you hear the prayers by yourself,

not that you get something to eat at coffee hour, it’s that we all do those things together.

I started my sermon by explaining how pensions work.

The reason I felt the need to explain them – and one reason I found a new job – is that companies aren’t offering pensions much anymore.

They have found that, for all the benefits, people don’t appreciate the vague promise as much as they should, and prefer to see a large dollar number in an account in their name.

That’s enjoyable, having this big account. It’s enjoyable in the same way that sleeping late on Sunday is enjoyable.

I have my account with my money.

My time, my Sunday morning.

My decisions, my control

my life. I’m in charge.

It sounds good at first, until you think of what you are giving up.

The community.

The support.

The lifetime bonds.

The knowledge that, while bad times will still come, you won’t face them alone.

By: Niki Rukstalis

This is a sermon from our Summer “Voices of the Congregation” series.

 

It seems like we’re all searching outside ourselves for something inspiration, happiness,
wealth, validation, fulfilment.

Financial blogger Ben Carlson writes about this noting that according to the Internet, all you need to do to be a billionaire is: sleep 10 hrs/day, read 6 books/week, meditate for 2 hrs/day -post motivational quotes (with pictures of sunsets), wake up before 5am every day, work 14 hrs/day, workout 2 hrs/day (before work), but also have a good work-life balance 

…voila that’s it!!

Obviously, all this advice just makes us more frantic, more manic, more afraid that we are doing something wrong. And likely not more inspired, happy, rich, validated, or fulfilled. Now of course, there are practical reasons to be externally motivated. My experience as a professor speaks to this point.

I must start by saying that I love my job that it is my true calling and that I am blessed.
However, it is not without stress.

Here’s the process. If you secure a tenure-track position out of graduate school you start as an untenured assistant professor with a three year contract. If you make the cut, you get another two to four years as an untenured assistant. Then, you come up for tenure. In academia, tenure is the holiest of the grails. It means job security for life.

If you don’t get tenure, you get fired.You likely have to move, go to a less prestigious school, start over. So how does one get tenure? By publishing original research in academic journals that are reviewed by other professors. Other professors, whom you likely do not know personally,
have complete say over whether the paper is published or not. And… the best journals have 5% acceptance rates.

A paper from start to finish takes 3-7 years, sometimes longer.Sometimes one paper in one of those journals is the difference between tenure and no tenure. 

Talk about pressure. 

Talk about looking outward for validation. 

Whew. 

So, oftentimes, there are good and practical and unavoidable reasons to seek external validation. But too often, we assume that “success” on earth translates to “success” in God’s eyes. Some of us have been seeking external validation for so long that when we experience rejection… 

By a journal editor, in a job interview, by a potential friend, by a current friend, or when we experience outright abuse in an unhealthy relationship that we can’t easily escape …we believe that we are worthless. 

We take something external and internalize it. 

But we are precisely wrong. 

God doesn’t love me more if I publish in the Journal of Finance. God doesn’t love you less if you don’t get that job.

God doesn’t blame those that are rejected or abused, in fact, God has compassion and love for all his children particularly his children that have been rejected or abused. 

God’s love is our inheritance. We do not need to earn God’s love by being successful on Earth. He loves us all the same. After all, he created us in his image. 

From today’s reading: He will take great delight in you, he will quiet you with his love, he will rejoice over you with singing! 

Growing up, my faith felt very transactional. It felt like a ledger. Like good deeds went on one side and sins on the other. And there were people in my life who were also transactional.
They sort of kept a ledger too. As long as the ledger was pretty well balanced, all was fine.
But if the ledger got out of balance in their minds, I owed them.

Since people acted that way, I sort of assumed God worked that way too.

But now I’m pretty sure I was wrong, that I had the order reversed. God’s love isn’t conditional on my good deeds, but rather: my desire to be kind or loving or helpful or generous is a direct result of God’s love for me.And not the other way around

Therefore, we don’t have to jump through hoops for God to love us.
In academic language, we are all already tenured children of God. Simply by being born.
This is amazing,
This is humbling,
And this is freeing. 

Our value as humans is not tied up in how much we accomplish on this planet. So what does this mean for us, in a practical sense? 

Well, we know that doing all the perfect things: up at 4, work 12 hours, workout 2 hours, sleep 10 hours, AND have work-life balance… will just make us frantic.

And trying to solve all the world’s problems all at once… will just make us exhausted.

Instead, we must find a way to conduct ourselves as God meant us to; every day, with compassion, generosity, and love.

If we can find a way to do this, and do our best, with open hearts and clear minds, and not at the expense of others. then that is enough. We are enough. No matter the outcome.

We can never be worthless. 

Never. 

And that means that maybe we can stop looking so hard. Stop searching so hard. It’s all here in front of us. And it all matters. And it’s all God. All of it. 

Local Savannah cop Patrick Skinner eloquently describes his job via social media. 

In recent comments, he notes:
“We volunteer for everything that puts us in front of our neighbors;
We clear the 911 call with empathy & transparent justice and move to the next one. Connect. Connect. Connect.”

He also says:
“You’ll go good if you simply approach the challenge right in front of you.
And then do it again tomorrow.”

Finally, Skinner describes an encounter with a neighbor in the local store:
This neighbor says ‘thank you for your service’
which is nice but I always reply
‘thank you for your service, it all matters.’

She stopped & said ‘what do you mean?’
I said ‘what you do matters the same as me.’
She laughed. I said ‘I’m serious’ 

It all counts or none of it does’. It all counts or none of it does. It all matters. We all matter. 

Last week, our congregation voted unanimously to begin a $400,000 capital campaign in order to build a youth center in our basement for the youth of this church and our wider community.

I am proud of our church for taking this bold and faithful step toward the future where God is calling us. I am grateful to be a part of a church that looks at all that we have and asks: How can we share this?

The coming weeks and months will be busy and full with great moments of joy and triumph, and likely some setbacks and disappointments. A mentor of mine, Martin Copenhaver, always said, “Every undertaking has three parts, the beginning, the muddle, and the end.”

Welcome to the muddle.

Last Sunday in my sermon, I quoted our former pastor Jeff Johnson’s sermon from 17 years ago, which was on the morning of the church’s previous capital campaign. “How tempting it would be to want some magical assurances, some guarantees, but ultimately there are none,” he said. “So this is really an exercise in faith, which is what makes it so exciting.”

There are no guarantees. We have done our homework and budgeted for contingencies as best we are able, but nothing is certain. Yet, as a community we have discerned that this is where God is leading us next. And with that confidence, we can take bold and thoughtful steps in a positive direction without needing to know everything the future will hold.

It is also likely that we have only glimpsed in part the dream that God has for this youth center. I suspect there might be possibilities beyond what we have imagined that this new space will open. Our job will be to remain open, creative, flexible, and hopeful.

I—for one—cannot wait to see what God will do next.

Yesterday being Ash Wednesday, I spent the morning in the sanctuary pressing burnt ashes onto foreheads as a reminder of our mortality. I always find it particularly poignant marking the foreheads of children. Everything in me wants to deny it, but the ritual reminds us, that even our littlest ones share in life’s vulnerability.

Walking out of the sanctuary and opening my computer that afternoon, I was met with another stark image of the frailty of our children’s lives.

I ask you to join me in prayer for the victims of yesterday’s mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. I ask you to pray for families encountering staggering grief. I ask you to pray for those still clinging to life. And, following Christ’s command to pray even for our enemies, I ask you to pray for the shooter.

I also ask you to pray for our nation and our community, that we might summon the moral courage to examine ourselves honestly enough to discover the twisted roots of this all-to-common violence. I ask you to pray that we will find the will to face hard truths and make difficult changes to solve this national crisis. There will be varied ideas about what those solutions should look like. These can be engaged in good faith.

But our faith does not permit us to simply give in to an unacceptable status quo. Our prayers alone are not enough if we do not take our part in God’s work of healing, hope, and justice.

Whenever I learn of a shooting like this, I am always reminded of Jesus’ words at the moment he was arrested in the garden. One of his companions drew a sword and struck a servant of the high priest. Jesus cried out, “no more of this!”

That is the call I hear from Christ, standing in thick of this pain, and in the presence of these latest wounds, and in the company of these beautiful souls.

No more of this. No more.