07/02/2023 ~ Proper 8 (13) ~ Fifth Sunday after Pentecost ~ Genesis 22:1-14; Psalm 13; Jeremiah 28:5-9; Psalm 89:1-4, 15-18; Romans 6:12-23; Matthew 10:40-42 ~ The Sunday Before the Secular Holiday Known as Independence Day; Communion Sunday ~ VIDEO OF FULL SERVICE: https://vimeo.com/showcase/7960701/video/842455016
Rewards?
“But the truth is whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these lowly ones just for being a disciple will not lack a reward.” — Matthew 10:42.
Well, here we are— gathered in the 1757 Meeting House for worship. As I said earlier, in our Congregational tradition this building and the 1843 building across the road should not be identified by the word ‘church.’ The people are the church. Each of these buildings is a Meeting House, the place where the church, the people— you who are church— gather for worship.
To offer a little history many of us may already know, this Congregation, our ancestors in faith, the people who first gathered as church in Harpswell, pre-date even this building by two decades. In 1776, the Declaration of Independence was read for the first time in public for the people of Harpswell from the steps of this structure.
In 1844 the Rev. Mr. Elijah Kellogg became the pastor. He remained involved with the community of Harpswell, despite leaving that post some 10 years later.
To slightly change location, while Kellogg was serving this congregation, Harriet Beecher Stowe received a vision to write Uncle Tom’s Cabin as she sat in a pew at First Parish Church in Brunswick. Many moons later I was a member at First Parish and they kicked me out and dispatched me off to Bangor Theological Seminary.
After serving churches in Waldo County, I spent 23 years as Pastor at a church in very rural Upstate New York. I was the longest serving pastor that church had ever seen. I mention this because there’s a connection which relates to history. The pastor whose record I bested at that New York church was the son-in-law of Henry Ward Beecher, the brother of Harriet Beecher Stowe.
I always felt the Beecher/Stowe connection with that New York church somehow completed a circle, perhaps a cycle of history. To come back to Harriet Beecher Stowe, Uncle Tom’s Cabin and that era, it has been reported that because of her famous book when Abraham Lincoln met Stowe, he said, “Well, this is the little lady who started the Civil War.” Indeed, we Congregationalists were deeply involved in the abolitionist movement. (Slight pause.)
Most people don’t realize how terrible the Civil War was. Historians tell us there were at least 650,000 battlefield deaths during the conflict. That is equal to the total fatalities in the Revolutionary War, the War of 1812, the Mexican War, the Spanish American War, World War I, World War II, and the Korean War combined.
Today, July 2nd, is the 160th anniversary of Little Round Top, one of many battles in which Maine’s own Joshua Chamberlain was involved. Indeed, we are in the midst of the three days— July First, Second and Third— which marks the 160th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg. During just those three days over 50,000 were killed.
Some say the civil war was simply a war of state against state and they make a states’ rights argument. But that ignores the deep reality of the Civil War.
The war was a fight which said there is no right to buy and sell people, human beings. It was a fight for freedom, a fight to free those who were enslaved in this nation, enslaved largely based on the color of their skin. (Pause.)
We find these words in the work known as Matthew: “But the truth is whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these lowly ones just for being a disciple will not lack a reward.” (Slight pause.)
The cup of water we hear about in this passage is a symbol. The message of that symbol says the establishment of a new family is possible. The old, family which already exists and is full formed, can be bound together with a new, emerging family by a common commitment to do the will of God. Further, the new family is not there to replace the old family.
The new family is to be born and refreshed by the renewal found in the mission of the water offered by the old family. And this newly formed family which consists of the old and the new together is born in the context of mission.
Indeed, these words say community can extend beyond the current community because that new community is embraced and needs to be welcomed in the context of mission. Put another way, the old community, our community, needs to be aware we have a cup of water to offer, and extend it to the new community which is already there and ready to be welcomed.
The old community and the new community alike can be bonded together in the presence of the divine. How? Bonding is what happens in the context of mission. (Slight pause.)
We live in a world, in a society, that thinks everything has a price, everything can be bought and/or sold. Therefore, I think when we read these words from Matthew many believe the important part of the verse we heard is “…a disciple will not lack a reward.” We hear these words and react because we hear and see transaction.
But and therefore, we tend to ignore these words (quote:) “…whoever gives even a cup of cold water to one of these…” That dichotomy begs these questions: what is a disciple? What is discipleship? What does it mean to be a disciple? (Slight pause.)
Church historian Diana Butler Bass has said (quote:) “This is the real issue for churches today: Is the congregation one that provides a way of life, meaningful life, for people which can help them navigate through chaotic times. Is the congregation one that provides a way to be able to connect with God, to experience a new sense of the Holy Spirit, to be able to empower love and to be compassionate? That is what makes religious communities vibrant,…” (unquote). [1] (Slight pause.)
The Dominion of God is not about transactions, not about rewards. Neither is the Dominion of God is not about who has the most.
The church is not about transactions or rewards. The church is about striving to provide a way of meaningful life for people to help them navigate through chaotic times. The church is about helping people connect with the reality of God.
The church is about an experience of a new sense of the Holy Spirit, about empowering love, about being be able to be compassionate. The church is about community. The church is about… giving a cup of water.
The question before us, this group of people here gathered, this congregation, this community, is not a question about power or reward or even survival. The question before this congregation, this community is did we, were we, are we providing a way of meaningful life for people to help them navigate chaotic times?
Did we, were we, are we helping people connect with God, experience a sense of the Holy Spirit? Are we, can we empower love and compassion? Did we give a cup of water… simply a cup of cold water? (Pause.)
Earlier I said the Declaration of Independence was read in public for the people of Harpswell for the first time from the steps of this structure. And so, I said something in my comments from this pulpit last year which I think bears repeating.
Many feel the opening words of the Declaration of Independence about equality, life, liberty, the pursuit are the most important words in the document. And these days we tend to take those words personally, as if they were about each individual, as if they were about each one of us individually, indeed, as if they were about transaction.
However, I believe for the signers of the document who lived through those tumultuous times words toward the end of the Declaration were of at least equal importance. (Quote): “…for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.” (Slight pause.)
“…we mutually pledge…” The signers of the Declaration accepted, indeed, embraced communal responsibility. (Slight pause.) Giving a cup of cold water— it’s about our mutual responsibility as neighbors, as community. Amen. [2]
ENDPIECE: It is the practice of the Pastor to speak after the Closing Hymn, but before the Choral Response and Benediction. This is a précis of what was said: “One of the founding documents of this nation is the aforementioned Declaration of Independence. These are the first words of the other founding document, the Constitution: ‘We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union…’ Please notice the challenge this presents to all of us. We always and constantly need to strive toward the never ending process of being more perfect. And why is it a never ending process. In the words of Thomas Aquinas, perfection is found only in heaven. That does not mean we should fail to continually work at it? No. Perhaps what community really demands is that we do need to work at it continually.”
BENEDICTION: Let us place our trust in God. Let us go from this place to share this Good News: by God we are blessed; in Jesus, the Christ, we are made whole. Let us depart in confidence and joy that the Spirit of God is with us and let us carry Christ in our hearts for God is faithful. And may we love God so much, that we love nothing else too much. May we be so in awe of God, that we are in awe of no one else and nothing else. Amen.
[1] . A summary of this is found at this URL.
[2] The closing hymn was My Eyes Have Seen the Glory. When the hymn was introduced the Pastor used the following words to explain the origin of the hymn.
The Closing hymn today is My Eyes Have Seen the Glory. To see this work as a patriotic piece of music is to completely and utterly misunderstand what it says and what it means. Julia Ward Howe, suffragette and abolitionist, wrote the text of this hymn to a camp meeting tune when she witnessed a parade of Union troops near Washington, D.C. This was after the election of Lincoln but before the inauguration, so just before the onset of the Civil War. It is a hymn which expresses not patriotism but a clear sense of a religious call to action. It was a summons to proclaim freedom not just for the privileged in society but for all people, the outcast, the downtrodden, the enslaved. The hymn, if we are true to the sense of what the words actually say and mean, remains a call for all Christians to the kind of action that might ensure the freedom offered by the reality of the Dominion of God. It is a call to humanity for peace, freedom, justice and, hence, not about a specific nation or country. Therefore, to treat this hymn as a call to nationalism or patriotism misses the point of the sentiments it expresses. And so, singing this hymn should also be seen as a sobering experience. Indeed, as Christians, we need to pay particular attention to the last lines which read, “As Christ died to make us holy, / let us die to make all free / While God is marching on”— sobering, indeed. If this work stirs up anything resembling emotions in us, these emotions should inform us that injustice exists in our world, that injustice in the world is real, that acts of injustice are often violent and injustice is pervasive. We are thereby called on by God to respond. Again, the hymn is My Eyes Have Seen the Glory. When Elizabeth reaches the fourth verse of this hymn she will slow the tempo so we can offer that fourth verse with the reverence it deserves. And after the Benediction we will sing the refrain once again— My Eyes Have Seen the Glory.
localpastor 