Scriptures for Sunday, October 6, 2019
Psalm 137
Lamentations 1:1-6 and 3:19-26
2 Timothy1:1-14
Luke 17: 5 – 10
This Sunday is World Communion Sunday.  Many churches around the world participate with us in this sign of unity as followers of Jesus Christ.  The United Church of Christ desires to unite with all Christians everywhere as much as possible, to work at fulfilling Jesus’ prayer, “that they may all be one” – so World Communion reflects our basic values.
The words of the Communion prayers we usually use at Bethel state this clearly: “With the faithful in every place and time, we praise with joy Your holy name.  Holy, holy, holy....”
Another part of our worship this week will be the gathering of the annual Neighbors In Need offering.  While two-thirds of this offering supports Justice and Witness ministries of the United Church of Christ, one-third of our gift goes to the Council for American Indian Ministries (CAIM).  CAIM  is the voice for American Indian people in the UCC.  CAIM provides Christian ministry and witness to American Indians and to the wider church.  Justice issues that affect American Indian life are communicated to the whole UCC by CAIM.
Historically, the forebears of the UCC established churches and worked with Lakota, Dakota, Nakota, Mandan, Hidatsa, Arickara, and Hocak in North and South Dakota, Wisconsin and northern Nebraska.  Today there are 20 UCC congregations on reservations and one urban, multi-tribal UCC congregation in Minneapolis, Minnesota.  CAIM supports these local churches and their pastors.  In addition, CAIM strives to be a resource for more than 1,000 individuals from dozens of other tribes and nations who are members of other UCC congregations and to strengthen their participation in the life of the church.

CAIM has 23 American Indian ministries on the reservations of North and South Dakota, Nebraska, Wisconsin and the inner city of Minneapolis, Minnesota.  These are significant ministries whose struggles are numerous: pastors serving in harsh social conditions, where distance, roads and weather make travel burdensome; people whose incomes are far below the poverty level of others, where unemployment is between 50 and 90 percent; where health care is made impossible because of lack of service and ability to buy wholesome foods.  Alcoholism, drug addiction, and domestic abuse all play different roles to destroy life affirming lifeways.  To address each of these needs, financial support is needed for pastors and programs, for congregations and for pastoral education such as that provided by the Eagle Butte Learning Center, a ministry of CAIM designed for the education of pastors and lay leaders on the reservations.
Mike Goze, a member of the Ho-Chunk Nation and of the All Nations Indian Church in Minneapolis, is a member of CAIM’s Executive Committee.  He shares the following thoughts:
“Sherman Alexie, a Spokane/Coeur d'Alene Indian, author of The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, writes a fictionalized story of young Arnold Spirit, a reservation son, who asked his parents who had the most hope and where he could find hope.  A parent tells him, you go where there is the most hope and add your hope to theirs and others will add their hope.  You add hope upon hope and that is where there is the most hope.  It seems obvious. 
“Our greatest hope of being and doing the ministry God calls us to be is to add our hopes together with yours and strengthen our whole human family.”
This World Communion Sunday, we will hear these hopeful words:
God did not give us a spirit of cowardice,
   but rather a spirit of power and of love and of self-discipline. ...
I am not ashamed, for I know the One in Whom I have put my trust,
   and I am sure that He is able to guard until that day
       what I have entrusted to Him.          
                                 2 Timothy 1: 7 and 12
 
Until “that day” comes, we live to love God and to love our neighbors, all around the world.

SCRIPTURES for Sunday, Sept. 29, 2019
Psalm 91: 1-6, 14-16
Jeremiah 32: 1-15
1 Timothy 6: 6-19
Luke 16: 19–31

October 6 is World Communion Sunday.  Here at Bethel, we will share the bread and the juice while remembering that we are fellow-citizens of this world with all kinds of people, on both sides of every border, for whom Jesus Christ gave his life.
On that Sunday, we will also receive the annual Neighbors In Need offering of the United Church of Christ.  Neighbors in Need (NIN) is a special mission offering of the United Church of Christ that supports ministries of justice and compassion throughout the United States.  One-third of NIN funds support the Council for American Indian Ministry (CAIM).  Two-thirds of this offering is used by the UCC's Justice and Witness Ministries (JWM) to support a variety of justice initiatives, advocacy efforts, and direct service projects through grants.  Neighbors in Need grants are awarded to UCC churches and organizations doing justice work in their communities.  These grants fund projects whose work ranges from direct service to community organizing and advocacy to address systemic injustice.  This year, special consideration will be given to projects focusing on serving our immigrant neighbors and communities.
Here is one example of a justice and witness project that is supported by Neighbors in Need:
[These are excerpts from an article in United Church News, written by Connie Larkman.
 https://www.ucc.org/news_hope_station_nogales_to_provide_reverse_sanctuary_to_deportees_in_mexico_07242018   ]

A United Church of Christ sanctuary church offering immigrants refuge in the Arizona borderlands will soon be offering a place of hospitality, support and hope on the Mexican side of the border for people who find themselves deported from the United States.
The Shadow Rock UCC Sanctuary Action Team and the Rev. Ken Heintzelman, in an extension of the spirit and intent of their ministry of sanctuary in Phoenix, are in the process of establishing Hope Station Nogales, in Sonora, Mexico.
"If Dreamers are going to be deported, their experience, their trauma and their grief will be most intense," Heintzelman said.  “They've lived most of their lives in this country.  They are going to want to be reunited with their families and they may take risks to cross the border.  If they get caught, they will be going to prison.”
This ministry of hospitality and justice hopes to help resource an alternative reality.
“The core of the Gospel is new life,” said the Rev. Bill Lyons, Southwest Conference Minister.  “Hope Station gives deportees a chance at new life near the border so they can stay as connected to their families as possible, mitigating the overwhelming temptation of crossing the border illegally because the only life they know is on the other side of the wall.”
The thought is Hope Station can be a place of transition, a place where people who are deported but have family in the U.S. can find a meal, safe lodging and assistance.  Priority will be given to individuals who have an attorney and an administrative remedy in process, and no criminal record.  Hope Station will be a community in formation for people who share the goals of reuniting with their families and working, rebuilding their lives....
“Justice and Witness Ministries was pleased to be able to support Hope Station ministry through the awarding of a 2017 Neighbors in Need (NIN) grant last fall,” said Bentley deBardelaben, Executive Associate, Justice and Local Church Ministries.  “Our grant committee felt it was important to stand with this community who bravely offer support to people who await decisions in their pending cases within the immigration court system. ...
“Where is God in this dark hour?  Hope Station offers an answer to that question when asked by young, undocumented, permanent residents deported because they were brought here as children.  Or when American children, whose parents are ripped from their families in deportation proceeding, turn to heaven and cry, ‘What now?’  God is there, at the border, to hold and to heal and to help in tangible ways,” Lyons said.  “Would we rather that God stop the suffering and soften the hard hearts of the perpetrators of our immoral immigration policies?  Absolutely!  But until those hard hearts soften and those ears begin to listen to the cries of their people, Hope Station will mend hearts broken by family separation.”
This is only one among many examples of Neighbors In Need dollars at work’  To see more, visit www.ucc.org/nin
             “Listen to Moses and the prophets.”
                                                      Luke 16:31

SCRIPTURES for Sunday, September 22, 2019
Psalm 79
Jeremiah 8: 18-12-9:1
1 Timothy 2: 1-7
Luke 16: 1–13

​We are reading passages from the prophet Jeremiah these days.  Last Sunday, Lucretia read to us from chapter 18, where God says to Jerusalem, “The whole land will be ruined,
though I will not destroy it completely. 
     Therefore the earth will mourn
and the heavens above grow dark,
because I have spoken and will not relent,
I have decided and will not turn back.
God was ready to punish His people for their long-term wickedness and idol-worship.
This week, we find Jeremiah and Jerusalem weeping over the horrors of destruction and captivity and exile that loom over them (8:22):
For the hurt of my poor people I am hurt,
     I mourn, and dismay has taken hold of me. 
Also this week, we will contemplate Psalm 79, where the psalmist calls on God to hurt and destroy Jerusalem’s enemies (79:6)
Pour out Your anger on the nations that do not know You,
     and on the kingdoms that do not call on Your name.
Notice that the psalmist was not threatening personal vengeance, but instead asking God to deal with the enemies.

This past Sunday, at least partly in recognition of the eighteenth anniversary of the terrorist hijacking attacks on New York, the Capital area, and Flight 93, our choir sang ‘This Is My Song.’  The first two verses that we sang were written by Hawaiian schoolteacher Lloyd Stone as a plea for international understanding following the First World War.  Later, between 1937 and 1939, theologian Georgia Harkness wrote two more verses to go with Lloyd Stone’s poem:

May truth and freedom come to every nation;
may peace abound where strife has raged so long;
that each may seek to love and build together,
a world united, righting every wrong;
a world united in its love for freedom,
proclaiming peace together in one song.
 
This is my prayer, O Lord of all earth's kingdoms:
Thy kingdom come; on earth Thy will be done.
Let Christ be lifted up till all shall serve him,
and hearts united learn to live as one.
O hear my prayer, Thou God of all the nations;
myself I give Thee, let Thy will be done. 
 
On Sunday, we sang the latter of those two verses. 
When they were writing the poem, Stone and Harkness did not know that the vast violence that we in hindsight call “World War II” lay ahead.  But they wrote in hope, praying for God’s guidance to a better way and more: they were seeking the kingdom of God.

In one of the StillSpeaking Daily Devotionals this past week, Rev. Donna Schaper published the piece linked below.  I want more time to consider her ideas before I can adopt them or let them go, but I believe they are so thought-provoking, I want to share them with you now.

https://www.ucc.org/daily_devotional_dropping_our_demands?utm_campaign=dd_sep16_19&utm_medium=email&utm_source=unitedchurchofchrist

SCRIPTURES for Sunday, September 15, 2019
Psalm 14
Jeremiah 4: 11-12, 22-28
1 Timothy 1: 12-17
Luke 15: 1–10

With the passing of our dear Hazel Monger, I am meditating on some of the characteristic things she would always say to me.  At this moment, a few rise to the top— no doubt, others will surface as we miss her.
“One day at a time— you know that’s my favorite song.”  Over the years that we’ve been friends, this has often morphed into “one hour at a time,” or “one minute at a time,” when in the midst of troubles and pains.  During her last days, a weird old riddle haunted my thoughts: How do you eat an elephant?  One fork-full at a time!  Living one hundred and a half years is achieved by living each day in turn.  Many of those days may seem awfully unpleasant or tedious, but that’s how it’s done.  And there will be joys along the way as well. 
“Hang in there!”  Also its corollary: “I’m hangin’ in!”  This raises thoughts of the strength which is required simply to go on living.  During the last week or so, it was a marvel that Hazel’s heart kept beating and lungs kept breathing.  But then I remember the times when hardly anyone would join me in visiting in the nursing homes or or Bible studies or people’s houses except— Hazel.  She was tenaciously clinging to a life of worshiping and visiting and fellowshipping as much as she could, for as long as she could.  She was hangin’ in. 
Hazel has for some time held the status of Longest- Serving Church Member of Bethel.  Now that description must be applied to others.  May they Hang in there, and so may we all, One Day at a Time.

                   †                      †                      †
 
Our Homecoming celebration last Sunday brought in a slew of visitors of various descriptions.  By my reckoning, the categories included these:
† people who used to attend Bethel but who now attend some other church
† people whose parents or grandparents currently attend or formerly attended Bethel
† folks from the community giving Bethel a try

I believe there’s something wrong with encouraging neighbors to change churches.  If the Holy Spirit wants them to change churches, may they do so promptly.  But if they have a place to belong, I say, encourage   them   to   be   faithful   where   they’re
 
planted.  On the other hand, if someone has gone away and feels moved to come back, who are we to hinder God’s Spirit ?  Then the question becomes, Are we prepared to extend God’s extravagant welcome to whomever God sends our way ?
                     †                      †                      †
 
Preparing for worship this coming Sunday, this week’s Scripture lessons set up a stark  contrast between God’s tone in parts of the Old Testament and God’s tone as we may hear Him through the love of Jesus Christ.  Listen to this (Psalm 14:1-3):
Fools say in their hearts, “There is no God.”
They are corrupt, they do abominable deeds;
     there is no one who does good.
The LORD looks down
     from heaven on humankind
     to see if there are any who are wise,
     who seek after God.
They have all gone astray,
     they are all alike perverse;
     there is no one who does good, no, not one.
 
And this (Jeremiah 4:22):
[Says the LORD: ]
“For My people are foolish,
     they do not know Me;
     they are stupid children,
     they have no understanding. 
They are skilled in doing evil,
     but do not know how to do good.”

Contrast with those the following, from 1 Timothy 1:12-14:  I am grateful to Christ Jesus our Lord, who has strengthened me, because He judged me faithful and appointed me to His service, even though I was formerly a blasphemer, a persecutor, and a man of violence.  But I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief, and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.
And from Luke 15:7, were Jesus says, “I tell you, there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance.”
Spoiler alert!!  There are only a handful of humans who have ever lived who fall into the category of righteous persons who need no repentance. 

When I have to choose, I vote for the New Testament and the hopeful love of Jesus.