SCRIPTURES FOR SUNDAY APRIL 28
 
Acts 5:27-32
Psalm 118:14-29
Psalm 150
Revelation 1:4-8
John 20:19-31

​Happy Easter!  For us who love Jesus, this is the best holiday (holy day) of them all: this marks Jesus’ change from mortal life to eternal life.  And his resurrection life opens the possibility of fresh and eternal life for you and me.
In our Bibles we have more than six descriptions of what happened when Jesus moved on from fleshly, perishable life into life everlasting.  These include the four gospels, plus the preaching of the Apostles in the Book of Acts, plus the stories related in the Epistles— especially 1 Corinthians 15.  With such a wealth of material, we will have an easy time finding worthwhile things to say about the risen Jesus Christ.
This week’s gospel lesson focuses on what happened among Jesus’ surviving disciples on the day of resurrection, according to John.  This story is not told in any of the other Bible books: how Jesus came into their locked hideout and breathed the Holy Spirit onto them.          (John 20:19-23)

Typical Americans have a strong sense of “personal space” about them— how close can you tolerate somebody being “in your face,” other than when being erotically intimate with your special someone?  When we get to know people from certain other cultures, it can be disturbing, how they have no qualms about getting right up “in your face”— not to confront you or make love to you, but just to hold a conversation.  On the flip side, people from these other cultures experience a feeling of coldness and unwelcome when they have to be told, “Hey!  Please back off!  I’m not used to somebody being so  ‘in my face!’”
A few years ago, I had the opportunity to have lunch with a bishop of Assemblies of God who was visiting from Cuba, where he oversees about twenty-five house churches.  Because their government does not allow any new church buildings to be built, they meet in people’s houses.  This bishop told me that it is not uncommon to have two hundred or more people meet in an ordinary, ranch-style house.  This is a very “intimate” experience, because everyone is packed in tight under one roof.  Think about how that must feel.
Maybe, at some stage of your life, you and your buddies thought it was fun to pack a bunch of people  into  a  ‘phone  booth  (anybody  remember ‘phone booths ?) or into a VW beetle or other modest-size car.  If you really like your gang, or you’re just feeling wild and crazy, you might agree to pack in there together.
At Bethel, we have more than enough space for a hundred and fifty people to sit down together— and we even have air conditioning and several bathrooms to add comfort. 
Keep in mind that Jesus’ disciples on the day of resurrection were hiding in their room out of fear for their lives— that they could be arrested as Jesus was, and could end up getting executed as Jesus was. 
Maybe this conjures up in your mind images of schools or workplaces under “lockdown,” terrified of an “active shooter” on the premises.
Or maybe, imagining those disciples all huddled together in a little room, it makes you think of a conspiracy.

Jesus came and stood among them.... Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you.  As the Father has sent me, so I send you.”  When he had said this, he breathed on them and said to them, “Receive the Holy Spirit....”                                     (John 20:19, 21-22) 
Notice that Jesus breathed on his disciples. 
 
Years ago, I heard an interview with the famous teacher, Ivan Illich.  He was explaining his theory about what Christians have been missing since the earliest times of the church.  I’m afraid that this is too little space to do justice to his theory, but... here goes!  Illich argued that Jesus’ first followers received the Holy Spirit in that little, locked room where they were packed in together.  They were literally breathing each other’s breath.  And when the risen Christ came to them and breathed the Holy Spirit on them, their breathing together became the sharing of God’s Holy Spirit.  So the early church was inspired, they respired, and every time they got together in their little rooms as the Body of Christ, they conspired— with God’s Holy Spirit.

[to hear more from Ivan Illich: 
www.davidcayley.com/podcasts/2014/12/11/the-corruption-of-christianity  ]

Maybe the Holy Spirit wants us to be close. 
 
I know— I know!  You’re thinking, “I can barely tolerate being in the nice, wide-open Sanctuary or Social Hall with those people, and now I’m supposed to jam into a little closed room with them in order to have God’s Holy Spirit ?!?  I think I’ll pass.” 
No need to expire !   
“Peace be with you.”

HOLY WEEK SCRIPTURES
 
MAUNDY THURSDAY
LUKE 22:7-30
 
GOOD FRIDAY
ISAIAH 52:13 – 53; 12
PSALM 22
HEBREWS 4:14-16, 5:7-9, 10:16-25
JOHN 18:1-19, 42
 
EASTER SUNDAY
Acts 10: 34 – 43
Isaiah 65: 17 – 25
Psalm 118: 1-2, 14- 24
1 Corinthians 15:19- 26
Luke 24:1-12
John 20:1-18

... all will be made alive in Christ.
But each in his own order:
     Christ the first fruits,
          then at his coming those who belong to Christ.
Then comes the end,
     when he hands over the kingdom to God the Father,
     after he has destroyed every ruler and every authority and power.
For he must reign until he has put all his enemies under his feet.
The last enemy to be destroyed is death.
                                    - 1 Corinthians 15:22-26
​
Before the gospel stories were ever assembled into the versions we have now, Paul wrote letters to his friends in the church at Corinth.  He wanted to remind them about the core of our faith: the resurrection of Jesus and how that makes possible our resurrection from the dead.
You have probably heard 1 Corinthians 15 read at funerals.  It is fitting, because it is all about death and resurrection, but it is very challenging to grasp.  Sometimes, I choose to read it in a funeral, but then I may feel conflicted as to whether it is too strange and technical to simply read it out, to the congregation in front of me.  I feel that it ought to be examined and discussed in a group where we can draw out its deep meaning.
When we read a letter (“epistle”) in the New Testament, it might be good to take a step back and try to picture the scenario in which the letter was actually sent and received, nearly two thousand years ago.  Yes, we Christians tend to believe that everything in the Bible was put there for us, but whether or not that is the case, we ought to agree that it was originally written for a particular audience in a particular ancient moment.  We can imagine the ancient audience reading the words and discussing the subject, trying together to puzzle out its depths.
Paul wrote the letter called 1 Corinthians to people he knew, people he had spent a long time with as their pastor and teacher.  From the beginning of this letter, Paul scolds the Corinthians for their quarreling and their spiritual pride (see for example 1:11-14; 26).  Over and over, Paul mocks the Corinthians for fussing and competing with each other over spiritual gifts.  Against their worldly, fleshly pride he holds up the scandalous, grisly vision of Jesus Christ dying on the cross: For I decided to know nothing among you except Jesus Christ, and him crucified.... None of the rulers of this age understood this; for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. (2:2, 8)  He counsels them repeatedly to lay aside their snobbery and jealousy and in their place adopt humility: We [that is, Paul and his fellow missionaries] have become like the rubbish of the world, the dregs of all things, to this very day. ... I appeal to you, then, be imitators of me.   (4:13, 16)

Late in this letter, Paul directs the Corinthians to think of their church as one body— the body of Christ— instead of as a bunch of independent individuals (chapter 12).  Then, in the famous “love chapter,” he tells them that the very greatest thing of all is to love one another, the way that God loves.  He closes “the love chapter” by pointing out that they (as we) are not there yet: now, we only see in part, but the love which is perfectly complete will come, in the end (chapter 13).
Of course, this week of all weeks, we Christians ought to know where to look for perfect love: God’s gift of His son, Jesus who died on the cross for us.  And that is where Paul is leading his readers, in Corinth two thousand years ago as well as here and now:  I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, and that he was buried, 

           drawing by Miss Annie Vallotton, from the Good News Bible

and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures....                                            (15:3-4) 

For now, we are on this side of death.  But Paul wants the Corinthians and us to be aware, one day the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.                (15:52)
Let’s celebrate Christ’s resurrection together !

Scriptures for Sunday, April 14, 2019
(Palm Sunday / Passion Sunday)
 
The Palms:
Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29
Luke 19:28-40
 
The Passion of Christ:
Psalm 31:9-16
Isaiah 50:4-9
Philippians 2: 5-11
Luke 22:1-8, 31-71; chapter 23
 
Maundy Thursday
Luke 22:7-30

... at the name of Jesus every knee should bend,
    in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue should confess
    that Jesus Christ is Lord,
        to the glory of God the Father.
                                         - Philippians 2:10-11
In my Sunday sermon, I wanted to challenge us to show our love for Jesus in every good way possible.
One area that I chose not to speak about was the so-called “worship wars” that have been waged within churches during the past forty-plus years.  Many congregations have found themselves divided over styles of music, as well as by conflicting desires for formality or casualness. 
I know very well that some individuals at Bethel have a taste for quiet and orderliness in worship, while others prefer a different kind of joyful noise.
Thank God, we don’t have to butcher birds and sheep and goats and heifers and bulls in our sanctuary, as in the Old Time Religion. 
It always tickles me when folks say they want “the old songs”— by which, in most cases, they mean, songs that they learned when they were kids... but they feel the threat of something new and strange when asked to try songs from more like a thousand years ago.  Meanwhile, some of our people get a big kick out of novelty, hearing something exciting and new. 
Thank God, God isn’t terribly specific about style.
At the Shenandoah Association Spring Meeting, yesterday, our new Conference Minister, Rev. Dr. Freeman Palmer put us on the spot:  He was answering a question about his plans for leading our conference forward, and he suddenly stopped.
He said, “Jesus prayed, ‘That they may all ______’.”
He  smiled  his  gigantic,  brilliant  smile,  because quite  a  few  of  us  quickly  filled  in  the  blank:                              “be one!”
When you’re the United Church of Christ, it’s important to remember our motto, Jesus’ prayer, which we hear him pray in the Gospel according to John, 17: 11, 20, 22-23.  Rev. Palmer was emphasizing that we are called to be a uniting church, to draw close to each other, and also to continually invite others to be with us in following Jesus.  He discussed numerous initiatives that are ongoing or new or in-the-works, to support our local churches as well as to make room for others to join the UCC.  Rev. Palmer stated that all of creation is “soaked with Christ,” and that our Central Atlantic Conference, with its widely diverse congregations— rural and urban, small and large, rich and poor, all colors and languages— is a great cross-section of the UCC spectrum of people.
Rev. Palmer cited the by-laws of the UCC, which state that the purpose of our Conference is to strengthen and connect its local churches.  He shared with us the findings of a recent study of our current strengths and weaknesses:
Our greatest strength is our diversity. 
Our greatest need is to connect local churches to one another to receive the benefits of that diversity.
Rural churches have much to teach urban churches, and vice-versa.  Large churches need to learn the lessons that small churches know.  And so on.  “That we may all be one.”
Rev. Palmer’s prior work experience in the church includes a lot of “congregational vitality,” including building membership and including the spectrum of generations (young, middle, and old, together). 
Rev. Palmer’s goals as our Conference Minister are
1) to develop a pattern for the work of the Conference staff that can maintain things that our Conference already does well, while also capitalizing on opportunities to do better.  Any changes that are made will include changes to his own duties, not only those of the rest of the staff.
2) to establish long-term financial stability for our Conference finances.  Currently, we are doing “OK,” but more needs to be done to balance our budget, both on the income and the expenditure sides. (The Our Church’s Wider Mission offerings that we local churches send provide the bulk of the income to pay our Conference ministry and administrative staff, as well as workshops and programs.)
In answer to a question about turmoil in other denominations, Rev. Palmer said that the UCC is very well positioned to benefit from the changes going on today, but success will require continuous re-training and effort on our part.
This year’s Central Atlantic Conference Annual Meeting is scheduled for October 3-5 in Bethesda, Maryland. 
You will be interested to learn that the 2020 Conference Annual Meeting is slated to be held in Harrisonburg!