Blog on Earth

This Sunday’s worship at Immanuel Church will reflect the approach of Earth Day, April 22nd, now the most celebrated of our secular holidays.  Founded in 1970 by former Wisconsin Senator Gaylord Nelson, it is considered his best known achievement. His contributions are impressive! They include legislation for such worthwhile efforts as preserving the 2,000-mile Appalachian Trail, banning the use of DDT and Agent Orange, mandating fuel efficiency standards in automobiles and much more.

Earth Day is important. God instructs us to care for all Creation – for the Earth and its creatures and for our fellow humans; especially for those most vulnerable. Arising from this mandate, the United Church of Christ and the National Council of Churches have called for what is called “Eco-Justice.” But a simple reading of contemporary newspapers shows that judgments about environmental justice are exceedingly complex to make. For example, the news reported this week that thousands of our nation’s farmers are taking their fields out of our government’s biggest conservation program, a program that pays them not to cultivate. They spurn guaranteed annual payments because they have the opportunity to earn much more by growing wheat, soybeans, corn and other crops. And so land, equivalent to the size of Rhode Island and Delaware combined, was removed from conservation programs. Earth Day should remind us that this kind of dilemma or conflict between earning a livelihood and attempts to conserve the environment is world-wide and increasing.  The answers are not simple. Yet they demand the involvement of all of us if the dangers of global warming have any chance of being resolved.

Some would say the Bible is a prime source of the destructive attitude that views land as a commodity and nature as a resource to be consumed.  But it’s not that simple.  As with many things, the Bible has differing points of view. For example, no sooner does God finish the Creation and take a well-deserved rest, than God starts all over again; which is to say that there are two creation stories in Genesis. The second has a gentler perception of our relationship to the land, to nature, and to the other species which share our earth home.  In the first creation story (1:1-2, 4a) humans are the product of God’s mysterious and powerful word. “Then God said, ‘Let us make humankind in our image, according to our likeness…’” Humankind is created ex nihilo, out of nothing, in the image of God. But in the second story (2:4b-25) humankind is made from a glob of mud. God reaches into “the dust of the ground” and a human being, an “a-dam” which in Hebrew is literally the word for earth or soil, is fashioned.  So the question becomes, who are we?  Are we creatures of the Divine mind and will, made in the image and likeness of God and told to multiply and subdue the earth? Or are we rooted in the earth, with its cycles of soil and seasons, akin to the creatures of the forest and ocean?  These two images stand side-by-side in the Book of Genesis.  Which are we?

Personally, I believe we’re both. God placed us here in our earth home. We belong here. We’re not intruders.  But we’re guests, or at best we’re stewards, and we’d better remember that and be good ones!

submitted by Rev. Dr. Ralph Ahlberg, who will be preaching at Immanuel on April 20th.

Holy Week

As I write this I come from a reading of the New York Times that describes the escalating violence (yes, again) in the lands occupied by Israelis and Palestinians. As I write, our Christian Holy Week is upon us with its backdrop of (yes, again) violence and the seeming absence of hope. It’s a time when our world desperately needs reminders of God and God’s purpose for us all. Elias Chacour, a Palestinian educator and pastor told a story a few years ago about a young Palestinian, far removed from any perspective of hope, who walked into a crowded marketplace in Tel Aviv and blew himself up. Sixteen Israelis were killed; eight-six were seriously injured. Obviously, it was a horrible and tragic and senseless act. But eight-six critically injured people are a lot, and blood supplies for transfusions ran dangerously low.

So Father Chacour contacted the Jewish hospital in Tel Aviv and arranged for a blood drive at the upper schools in Ibillin. Three hundred and fifty students and employees volunteered immediately. Fifteen ambulances from the Jewish hospital, staffed by fifteen Jewish nurses, parked outside the school and processed the volunteers. And then the fifteen ambulances delivered 350 pints of Muslim/Christian blood, and transfused it, giving life back to eighty-six Jews.

That reminds me of what Easter stands for. Easter is a reminder of God in whose image we’re created. God, whose divine pathos, whose unifying love, whose desire for the healing of the nations courses somewhere in our veins and is part of our very identity as human beings.

So, with our words, with our prayers, with the simple living of our daily lives, we’re called by God to make hope, that supposedly “most underrated idea,” come alive for ourselves and for those we encounter. Easter can be our guide to peace, to a hopeful perspective, and to a steady strength that comes from God, whose resurrecting power gave new life to Jesus and who gives new life to all who follow him. Christ is risen! Alleluia! Amen.

posted by Rev. Ralph Ahlberg
Rev. Ahlberg will be preaching Easter Sunday at 10:00am

Palm Sunday

Misunderstanding and confusion stands at the heart of Palm Sunday. The people of Israel in Jesus’ time were searching and hoping for a great leader, a messiah. The most honored and revered of their past leaders and heroes was David, the warrior king, the one whose talents and courage extended the boundaries of Israel, the one who established Jerusalem as its proud center, the one who created a sense of pride in the hearts of its people. But in Jesus’ time the people living in Israel were often humiliated by Roman occupying power. It’s not difficult to understand their longing for someone like David, who might invigorate and restore their pride and remove their oppressors.

So when Jesus demonstrated his power not only to feed the five thousand but to restore life to a very dead Lazarus, and when he announced to his followers that he was in fact the messiah, many thought he had to be the One! He had to be the man “fired up” as we say in the political jargon of today with a great plan for the future.

The story of Palm Sunday has to do with that kind of misunderstaning and the distancing that took place as Jesus showed himself more in the image of Isaiah’s suffering servant than of assuming David’s royal perogatives. Read Isaiah 50:1-9a and Matthew 21: 1-11 the lessons for Palm Sunday and think about what they might mean for today!

submitted by Rev. Dr. Ralph Ahlberg

Spiritual Makeover

Why is it that at a time in our culture when makeovers are all the rage ~ from botox to bust implants, metrosexuality to mate coaching, HGH to hair transplants ~ why is it that the spiritual makeover, the chance of being “born again,” doesn’t have more appeal? Have we become completely superficial or is there something in the born again language that is distasteful?

I suspect that many of us have an image of those claiming to be born again that is less than flattering. We may see them as religious zealots, too literal in their Bible interpretations and narrow minded in their social tolerance. But if there is such a thing as spiritual rebirth – the kind that Jesus offers Nicodemus in his time of darkness or the Samaritan woman at her well of emptiness – would we be wise to dismiss it because we don’t agree with those who use the language?

To my mind, the makeover culture is a clear indication that we, as a society, are not happy with ourselves. We are quite literally looking for ways to implant ourselves with new life, as many seek answers in surgery, not spirituality. Depression and emptiness have become opportunities for marketers of prescription drugs and those who claim you can buy confidence in the form of cosmetic enhancers. Rather than discovering a cure, we have created a new class of addictions.

The antidote to a joyless life – a spiritless life – is an infusion of God’s spirit that can only come when we admit our needs and our inability to fill them for ourselves. Like Nicodemus, we must be willing to come to God while we are still in our darkness. Like the Samaritan woman, we must acknowledge our thirst for something more. Jesus promises that when we do, the spirit of God will come as sure as the wind: to some as gentle as a zephyr, to others with the ferocity of a tornado. And to all with the miraculous gift of new life itself.

Posted by Rev. Nancy Allen

Deep Inner Springs of Magic

There’s a poem by Alfred Noyes that goes, “There’s magic all around us/ In rocks and trees, and in the minds of men,/ Deep hidden springs of magic./ Whoever strikes the rock aright, may find them where he will.”

The verse, “Deep inner springs of magic” resonated in my mind as a I read it because the poem reminded me so much of the lesson from the Hebrew Bible assigned to the Third Sunday in Lent (Exodus 17:1-7) where Moses strikes the rock to produce water for his thirsty and disgruntled people. And even more, the words of the poem reflect on “wonder.” Because certainly magic and wonder somehow go together and wonder is what we’re to think about this month as it correlates with our lectionary texts. Wonder and magic aren’t that far apart. And they’re found in both the profound and the ordinary things of life.

I found it interesting to read an early 19th century commentary on this Exodus story. Back then although Biblical scholars read it both as literal magic and allegory, what comes through is that sense of wonder. Adam Clarke in his Commentary (of 1842) told his readers more than a century and a half ago that his colleagues had found the actual rock upon which Moses struck his staff! It was located in the place called Massah meaning in Hebrew “temptation” or “trial” and Meribah meaning “contention.” So at that place and time, the People of Israel contended with the trial of thirst and the temptation to demand a return to Egypt. It was there that they put God and God’s designated leader Moses on trial.

Of course, the story was resolved when Moses struck the rock and magically rivers of water poured forth sufficient to satisfy the thirst of two million people, the number of Israelites these middle 19th century scholars believe were there. And according to their interpretation the magic rock that provided water was itself allegorically a kind of Christ and drinking from it allowed all believing hearts - then as now - to become partakers in the grace and mercy, the refreshment of God through Jesus. Clarke’s Commentary also references John 4 and the lesson that tells about Jesus offering “a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.”

So, at least for mid-19th century Biblical scholars the meaning of both the lessons assigned for the Third Sunday in Lent seems clear: Jesus is the rock that provides water that satisfies spiritual thirst. Today, in the early 21st century, most Christians would affirm the same.

(submitted by Ralph Ahlberg)
Rev. Ralph Ahlberg will be preaching at Immanuel on February 24, 2008.

The blessing and lesson of Epiphany

In this Christian season of Epiphany, we are reminded that even as Jesus is the Light of the World, so you and I are called to be his lights in the world. Like Bach, the great composer and musician, we are to make our lives a “well-sounding harmony to the Glory of God.” And like Abraham Lincoln who believed that he might become an “instrument in God’s hands of accomplishing a great work,” that same challenge is ours and can shape our Christian pilgrimage. We, too, can make our positive contribution to God’s unfolding revelation.

The blessing and lesson of Epiphany is that there are guides for us on our journey. Let me name just three:

First, our pastor, before his sabbatical departure, left us with a meaningful prayer appropriate to beginning a new year: “O God of our lives: liberate our imaginations that we might live with wonder, guided by your wisdom, in pursuit of wellness for all. In Jesus’ name. Amen.” That prayer, lived out conscientiously as we move through the new year can provoke our creativity and movement towards health and wholeness, both individually and corporately.

Second, this week, some of us have begun to use In Prayer: A Devotional Calendar for 2008. This, too, is a resource which urges us to take time every day for reading scripture and prayerfully reflecting upon it. It urges us to make a response from the heart and then to rest and allow God’s spirit to accomplish its transforming work. The discipline offered is an ancient one, honed by centuries of Christian discipline and remembered with four Latin words: “lectio” (reading), “meditation” (reflection), “oratio” (response) and “contemplatio” (rest). As we move through the days of this year we begin this week, we will be strengthened in knowing that many within our congregation and our United Church of Christ community will be joining in this time of renewal and imagining the possibilities of God’s epiphany in our world.

And finally, the weekly lectionary of readings from the Bible can give our lives direction and purpose as we come together to pray and worship and listen. This Sunday we will hear the comforting words of Isaiah and the imaginative tale Matthew’s gospel telegraphs of the extraordinary reach Jesus’ arrival impends. The arrival of the wise men, sages from far off create a message of hope, of redemption and restoration, not just for a narrow segment of the human family, but for all.

Welcome to the season of Epiphany and to a New Year with shining possibilities before us!

– posted by Rev. Ralph Ahlberg
Rev. Ahlberg will be preaching at Immanuel on Sunday, January 6, 2008.

A Christmas Memory

When I was in high school I watched a brief presentation on television that left a powerful and lasting impression. The story involved a special friendship between two cousins, a young boy and an older woman, and described their ornate preparations for Christmas. Their excitement was not muted by the fact that they were very poor, or that they seemed to inhabit a world without much in the way of support from other family members. Over the years I have been haunted by this simple story, and its way of evoking the deepest meaning of Christmas: the call to love and live with joy and commitment, even when the forces of the world do not seem aligned in our favor.

Over the years I tried to find the source for this television drama, but without success. And then one afternoon in late November, when the Readers’ Theater Group of Immanuel Congregational Church presented “A Christmas Memory” by Truman Capote, I was reunited at last with the story that has lived me with these many years. Capote’s re-telling of his own childhood experience of Christmas became the basis for “A Christmas Memory,” and this drama aired on television during the 1970’s. It was a gift to realize at last the author of the story that had so touched me as a youth.

Over the course of my life, I have experienced Christmas in many ways: as receiver and giver, as child and as parent, in times of simple celebration and in moments of lavish festivity, in times of great joy and in times of profound sadness. What has remained consistent through all these varied experiences has been the rich and inexhaustible mystery of the Word made flesh. It is a message that points to the greatest gift of all: the good news that we are loved beyond measure by a God who cares with infinite tenderness for all people. This love is given in order to be received and enjoyed and cherished. It is given that it might be shared so that all people may be embraced equally by this same spirit of divine love.

In a television drama over thirty years ago I saw a reflection of God’s fierce love in a relationship between a young boy and his older cousin. It was a love that blossomed in the midst of meager circumstances, not unlike the love that burned brightly from a manger over 2000 years ago. In this season of Advent, let us open our hearts to the beauty and depth of that compassion, until we are filled with all the fullness of God.

The promise of new life

One of my favorite readings from the Bible comes from the Book of Revelation. This passage occurs near the end of the book, and contains a promise of new life that embraces life before death, and life beyond death.

And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God,

prepared as a bride adorned for her husband.

And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying,

‘See, the home of God is among mortals.

He will dwell with them; they will be his peoples,

And God himself will be with them;

He will wipe every tear from their eyes.

Death will be no more;

Mourning and crying and pain will be no more,

For the first things have passed away.’

And the one who was seated on the throne said,

‘See, I am making all things new.’

 

The promise of new life lies at the heart of the Christian message. It was new life that Jesus brought into the world through his teaching, his touch and his insight. And the Christian message spread throughout the Roman Empire because the good news of Jesus Christ continued to be alive and at large after his death. What Jesus had made possible during his lifetime, the Spirit continued (and continues) to bring into the world through his followers.

The good news of the Gospel is that we can live again, even when we feel that something in us has died or become lost. At times in my life when I feel as if my actions have harmed others, or that my life has been an obstacle to their growth or happiness, I try to remember that in Christ I am forgiven and called to receive new life. That newness then enables me to express to others the same grace with which I have been received and embraced by God. “Be perfect as God is perfect,” says Jesus in the Gospel according to Luke. In other words, having received the compassion of God in our lives, treat others with precisely that same kind of trust and truth.

I have realized over the years that receiving the new life promised by God is not a guarantee of happiness, nor a pledge of protection, nor a pathway to immortality. In fact, as we become more open to the life of God in our lives we may feel that we have become more vulnerable. We drop the protective shield of bitterness and instead take up the possibilities of forgiveness. We choose not to return violence for violence, but instead explore non-violent alternatives to injustice. We decide not to plan every moment in every day as an exercise of control, but open ourselves to the subtle promptings of the Spirit. The Spirit of life and love can not guarantee safety; but it can inspire in us the irresistible power of love.

 

May the God of life fill us with new life; and may we be open to that resurrection power until our lives are filled with the fullness of God.

The Temple and the Child

During our Autumn Bible Study class we have been working through the First and Second Books of Kings in the Hebrew Bible. These ancient texts contain stories of people who are profoundly human, who can be capable of great love and of equally profound violence. Some of this drama centers on the figure of King Solomon, whose legacy is somewhat ambiguous. Recognized as a wise leader and an insightful poet, he is also remembered for forming political liaisons that ultimately led him astray from a single-minded allegiance to Yahweh.

Among Solomon’s greatest achievements was the creation of a Temple dedicated to the worship of God. Yet this building also has a somewhat ambiguous presence in the memory of Israel. It is grand, yet it is built with forced labor. And while it seems to afford access to God, it may also represent the presumption that God is a little too easily accessed.

I recognize that the Temple had incredible significance in the life and spirituality of the people of Israel. There is a sense in which Jesus put his ministry on the line when he cleansed the Temple of those who used its precincts to buy and sell items related to worship, so that this sacred space could truly be a house of prayer. But when he wanted to speak of a symbol that would describe the living and moving reality of God in the presence of people, he didn’t identify a building for that purpose. He selected a child, set that young person in the midst of his followers, and said, “Unless you become as a child, you can not enter the kingdom of God.” Unlike a building, a child moves, grows, changes and adjusts to the varied circumstances of life.

I think that the writer, Martin Thornton, was right when he says that Christian life and traditions can be represented by a rock and a river. The rock is a stable and solid place that offers assurance of the presence of God at the heart of life. The rock may be a Temple, a sacred site, a steepled church on a New England town green. But the river reminds us that faith flows along, adapts and changes, runs deep and shallow. It is a symbol of movement, sometimes running into white water, and sometimes edging along in a slow, patient way. God moves through us like the river, calling us to step into the journey of faith with all its possibilities for adventure and discover.

May we know faith as a rock and a river, the gift of sacred space and the lively movement of a child. May we offer stability and movement to those around us, witnessing to the beauty of grace taking shape in the restful and the restless.

Grasped by the Gospel of God

During this past summer I joined twenty-five members of my congregation as we traveled to an International Partnership Conference in Purley, England, just south of London. Representatives of six congregations–from England, the United States, Germany, Northern Ireland and the Czech Republic—joined together to think and pray about what it means to live faithfully in a multi-faith world. Our keynote speaker was Nick Baines, Bishop of the Diocese of Croydon, and among his many thought provoking comments, I was particularly struck by his insistence that “Christian people must be grasped by the gospel of God.” He was certainly encouraging us to be open to, and in constant dialogue with, the members of other religious traditions and their insights. But he was emphatic in his understanding that Christian people need to be formed and inspired by the good news of what God makes possible in Jesus Christ. With the confidence and vision that comes from that encounter, we can be humble enough to received the wisdom of other faith traditions, and bold enough to express the vitality of God through our worship and service.

Ever since the Partnership Conference I have been thinking about what it means to ‘be grasped by the gospel of God.’ Beginning in September I have been preaching a sermon series entitled, The Good News of the Gospel (audio files and podcasts of the messages are available on our website, www.iccucc.org). As I journey with the congregation from week to week in our quest to explore the content of the gospel, I am realizing that this word contains a tremendous richness of meaning. One day I tried very quickly to identify the themes and hopes that come most immediately to mind when I ponder the word ‘gospel.’ Here is part of what I came up with:

The Good News of the Gospel is that…

 
We are loved and needed by God

We are forgiven and called to new life in Jesus Christ

We can embrace the gloriously impossible challenges of life with humility and confidence

We can experience a ‘peace that passes all understanding’ and bear witness to the non-violent power of God

We can love as God loves

We can live a sacred balance, loving our neighbor as we love ourselves

We can invest tremendous faith in small beginnings, and apparently tiny actions

We can experience the thrill of discovering the wisdom of God through the parables of Jesus

We can receive the healing energy of God and witness to that energy through our words and works

I don’t believe this is a complete list of everything that is meant by ‘the good news of Jesus Christ.’ In fact, it is deliberately incomplete. It only represents my ongoing attempt to discover the incredible breadth and depth of what Jesus made possible through his life, death and resurrection. To live a Jesus way of life, is to remain open to fresh meanings and insights as we seek to be grasped by the gospel of God.