Some of you may be aware that there is an interfaith Good Friday service that occurs in town every year.
I say that you may know about it because it’s probably not a service that most New Covenant folks would gravitate toward, given the traditional Good Friday story of Jesus dying to save us from our sinful nature.
It might come as a surprise to you that I – someone who also doesn’t espouse ‘substitutionary atonement’ theology- am a co-organizer for this year’s Good Friday service.
Instead of atonement being the focal point, Human Suffering and God’s Transformative Love will be the theme.
It seems appropriate for Good Friday, given not only how Jesus suffered that day, but also the suffering that has befallen us these days.
Guiding the plans for this service with my more traditionally Christian clergy colleagues has been interesting.
For example, one pastor was gently eased away from his idea to use blood-red painted nails to tack slips of paper with petition prayers onto a cross.
It’s simply looking at theology through a different lens, and not a newsflash that our lens here at NCC is different from most of our Christian brethren.
As I’ve been reminded of this in the Good Friday planning process, it’s occurred to me that one of the biggest differences lies in the concept of certainty. We, as non-doctrinal seekers, don’t sojourn with the certainty of creedal believers.
Listen to this quotation from Erica Orchard, a Protestant Christian, speaking about the Apostles Creed, which is generally considered the most widely recognized statement of belief across Christian denominations:
A Creed is a statement of belief. It’s good to state what we believe [which, as an aside, is why we say our Covenant Statement every week].There is nothing in the Apostles’ Creed that any true Christian would disagree with: though not written down in the Bible it most certainly says truths that are found in the Bible.
This is a statement of certainty. “…it most certainly says truths…”. Yes, certainly certainty.
In the absence of concrete creedal certainty, what do we Progressives have to buoy us, to sustain and fuel our faith?
We find the answer, at least in part, in our theme of Trust.
Listen for it in this beautiful prayer by George Kimmich Beach:
Giver of being and freedom, you who touch our lives in unforeseen ways, who unsettles our ease and upsets our self-satisfactions: We wait in moments of stillness to let your hidden process silently work within us. Because we live with mystery, we trust that which is deeper than we know—we trust that which steadies us and rekindles our spirits—which, finally, may be named the love that has laid hold upon us, and will not let us go.
Did you note the interweaving, or shall I say foundation of trust in God? Now hear how our own NCC belief statement mirrors this:
We are people who experience doubt and questioning as a positive part of faith. We do not presume to have final answers. When we use the word “God,” we refer to the Mystery which moves us to awe – a power and love our logic cannot define or our spirits deny.
Twins, of the most beautiful sort!
Now, up to this point today we’ve been addressing trust in theological terms, how it applies to our relationship with God.
However, would you agree that most of the time when we think about trust we think in terms of our human relationships, differentiated from divine considerations? I would say so.
The fact of the matter is, the degrees of separation between the two aren’t so vast. This came up in an exercise we did in our small groups this month where trust was the focal point.
The exercise required us to finish a list of incomplete sentences with who, what, how or where we invest our trust to get through life situations (mostly challenging life circumstances).
It was a rich experience listening as each of us shared the array of ways we entrust our need for solace, comfort, or guidance.
Here’s a sample question: When I am tender and long to sit with my pain rather than have it fixed, I turn to… (and you’d complete the sentence).
Our answers to the roster of “When (such and such circumstance)…I turn to…” questions spanned turning to the presence of God, to proactively taking healthy action, to the beauty of nature and music, to saying yes to the holy currents of the Universe.
It occurred to me after the group that we Lenten observers often focus on things to deprive ourselves of, often overlooking the other side of the coin, which is the practice of recognizing the abundance of blessings that grace our lives.
Doing that small group exercise opened my eyes to the myriads of ways we are held and blessed. It left such an impression that I’ve put copies of the list of unfinished questions on the bulletin table for you to take and do yourselves.
Perhaps you too will be given new insights.
In my reflections about that impactful experience a song about being held kept running through my head.
We’ll hear that song now. It’s a song we’ve all heard before, we know it by heart, which is typically to say that we’ve put it to memory.
This time as we hear it, we’ll know it by heart alright- our hearts that hold and know love, recognizing that where there is love, there is God, and this love takes many forms.
[PLAY BRIDGE OVER TROUBLED WATER]
Before the song we heard about the many manifestations of God’s presence and love, one of which is our relationships with each other.
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the relationships that I behold in our beloved congregation.
One of the greatest benefits of having a relationship with a faith community like ours is that the connections are comprised of all the individual relationships with other members, as well as the identity that we have with the church as a whole.
This concept of identity came up in a recent conversation I had with Ann Schwartz, who is the leader in the Presbyterian denomination in this area.
I was sharing with her our discernment about denominational affiliation, and asked her how a church benefits from such an affiliation.
Ann replied that, besides the all-important assistance in finding a new minister, the biggest benefit of affiliation is identity. I am a Presbyterian, I belong to them!
She went on to say that that was far more important in years past, and that these days what’s important to church-goers isn’t an identification with the denominational mothership, but instead is identifying/being connected to one’s congregational brothers and sisters and one’s minister.
As she spoke, I knew the wisdom of her words, because of how they apply to us.
This was underscored by something Karen Rousey said not long after that.
Karen and I were acknowledging the shifting sand underneath our congregation’s feet these days because of discernments about denominational affiliations and new home searching.
Then she said – and I quickly agreed – that because our congregation is so closely-knitted, because so much love and trust exists among us, we can confidently march forward into our future, whatever it holds.
The bigness of this brought to mind a poem that seems like it was written directly about us at this time in our history. See if you agree. And listen for the reference to a bridge, not dissimilar to the Bridge we just heard Art Garfunkel sing about.
It’s entitled In Our Circle Again and was written by Rev. Shari Woodbury.
Here we are in our circle again. A circle of vision and reflection, A forum for deciding and empowering.
Here we are at the base of another bridge, another space spanning the shores of today and tomorrow. Beckoning us to cross the chasm. Here we are gathered again at the cusp of the future, at the boundary that holds community together.
We are here, in a circle of love and trust, brought to this moment by a series of choices and promises… by hope and gratitude.
With a servant’s heart, with a leader’s listening, with a parent’s love, truer than all our inner trembling, let us lean into this Community.
Somewhere out there, all we dream is possible. While in here, we are sowing the seeds.
This month, as this concept of trust has floated in our midst – in small group discussions, in Love Note reflections, in the privacy of my own head and heart,
I’ve come to more deeply appreciate the presence of trust that we share.
It’s nuanced (as intangibles like love and commitment and trust usually are) and yet is also ocean deep.
You who are long timers know…by now it’s in your NCC DNA. We short timers have a sense of it too, which draws us here…
a pulse of love coursing through each of our individual divine pathways, creating a vibrant and cherished web.
Although nuanced, we all know it because we all live it.
Today we have the gift of hearing about the embodiment of this connection and trust among us.
As some of you know, Nikki has been dealing with new complications regarding her father’s health. I recently recalled with her how much she’s been through in these last years, living with the loss of her brother and her mother while being present to her father.
I reminded her that we, her faith Community, adores and is always with her, and she said, “Absolutely. NCC is my rock.”
She graciously agreed to share with us more about her bond and trust with us.
We could all give such embellished testimonials about how our love and trust are intertwined with NCC. We can’t do that, in the interest of time. But I invite you to say just a sentence or two about either how you place your trust in this church, or how trust is interwoven in your faith as a follower of unmarked doctrinal roads.
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