Easter Letter from Dr. Rev. Carol Kerr

Dear friends and members of the Blue Point Church,

 

Mud season is in full swing at our old farmhouse, particularly our long dirt driveway. Last summer Dave thought we needed better drainage across the driveway. So, he took his handy-dandy new and impressive backhoe and dug a very large swale to cut across it. It worked well enough last summer. It was frozen over all winter. But now that it is mud season it has taken on a life of its own. It is an expanding extravaganza of a muddy ditch. Every time we drive over it our tires dig down deeper while mounding up the middle.

As I am writing this letter, Gavin (my senior in High School) decided to avoid the ditch, since his car bottoms out every time he passes over it. So, he drove onto the grass lawn around the driveway. Also, there is a stone wall and some trees he had to avoid. So Gavin just drove pretty far out into the lawn before he got completely stuck in the mud there too. Finally, our neighbor, John, (also in High School) saw Gavin stranded half way across our yard. John hooked Gavin’s car up to his pickup truck, drove the truck in other direction, splattering and skidding, and pulled Gavin out. Now we have about 10 deep and muddy car and truck tracks all across our lawn. Along with a gargantuan swale that we might be able to fish in before long.

With mud season, spring in Maine makes the most dubious entrance. Maybe the ancients were right. They believed that the coming of spring couldn’t happen all on its own. Rather they believed that we cheer it on with our celebrations – the telling and retelling the stories of Easter, the death and resurrection of Christ. Our science tells us that the tilt of the Earth will bring warm winds and dry up the mud for the flowers to bloom. Then Dave will use his backhoe to fill in all the ruts. But, it is these stories that bring the springtime of the spirit. Easter tells us that hope still lives. Easter tells us that the springtime of love, justice and peace can and will happen.

 

Palm Sunday/Passion Sunday, April 5 at 9:30.  At the beginning of the service The kids hand out the palms and we celebrate the triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem. The second half of the service we remember the last week of the life of Jesus leading to his resurrection.

The Last Supper and Service of Shadows, Thursday – April 9 at 7:30pm.  We read the events of holy week and end in darkness.

Easter!  April 12 at 9:30.  Flowers, great organ, lots of joy.  Invite a friend who doesn’t have a church. Christ has risen!

 

We would love to have you join us!

 

Pastor Carol

The Music of the Resurrection – 04.12.09 – Dr. Rev. Carol Kerr

Easter Sunday Mark 16:1-8

Excerpt from Easter Sermon 

I have a pipe here that is from the pipe organ. A pipe is nothing but a big empty space. Another big empty place are the pipes here at our pipe organ. A pipe has nothing in the middle, it is defined only by its edges. It is nothing but air encased in metal or wood. Right now these pipes are totally silent. What gives them music is when the empty space is filled with moving air… (I blow into pipe to demonstrate).

 

Big empty spaces can be found like a pipe from the pipe organ not just on the outside of us, but they can also be found on the inside of us too. Big empty spaces can be found inside of our hearts. A big empty space could be found inside Mary that first Easter morning. She had suffered the brutal crucifixion of her friend and teacher, Jesus. She was traumatized and mourning his death deeply. Carrying the big empty space inside of her, Mary goes to the tomb of Jesus to pay her respects and she finds another big empty space, the tomb itself.

 

Yes, there as an angel in the big empty tomb who said, “Don’t be alarmed. You are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He isn’t here! He is risen from the dead! God and tell the disciples that Jesus is going ahead of you to Galilee.”

 

But, Mary and her companions were seized by terror and amazement and retreated into a big empty silence. This is where the first version of the gospel of Mark ends. It says, “The women fled from the tomb, trembling and bewildered, and they said nothing to anyone because they were too frightened.”

 

Mary was as silent as the billion light year hole in the universe. She was as silent as the pipes in the organ were silent when the sanctuary went dark on Maundy Thursday and remained cold in the grip of Friday and Saturday.

 

Of course we all have big empty spaces inside of us. I ran across a good list that I would like to share with you. Count how many of these things happened in your life, and how many big empty spaces remain inside of you because of them:

 

• When you give your heart to someone who doesn’t accept the gift.
• When you learn a sport, practice hard and still don’t make the team.
• When you study a profession for years and find that you hate your work.
• When you create something beautiful and discover that no one’s interested.
• When you try to resist temptation, but then give in again and again.
• When you jump to a new job, then lose it downsizing.
• When you put money into a home, only to see your equity disappear.
• When you retire from a long career, and wake up with nothing to do.
• When you retire from a long career, and find your retirement gone.
• When you lose a spouse to cancer and find yourself all alone in the world.

 

Many of us could claim more than one item on this list. Many of us could have added a lot more items to the list. All of these things can leave us with empty spaces inside of us. Like all the pipes in this organ lined up in a row. Some little short skinny empty places, some long and thick empty spaces . How many pipes are there in this pipe organ? Does anyone know? Some of us have that number of big empty spaces inside of us. All these empty spaces can be as silent as the grave sitting inside of us cold and dark.

 

Here’s a story of a big empty space that Rev. Willimon tells about a parishioner couple he once had, Mary and John. One August Mary and John celebrated the birth of their first child. They thought they would not have children, but even though they were late in their marriage, news spread like wildfire through the congregation., Mary and John were going to have a baby! Then in August she delivered a little boy, a beautiful little child, yet, even as an infant we could see that his legs were tiny, withered, out of proportion to his body. The doctor said the baby was malformed and the child would never walk. Everyone celebrated the wonder of that baby. Of course, it was easy for them to celebrate because they didn’t have the day to day responsibility of the car of Johnny. Nor did they know what it was like, day after day, to look into the crib, and to see into a future with a child who had been crippled since birth, a child who would never walk or run, or live the life that other children might live. Those cares began to show on Mary and John too. When people asked about Johnny, or when the congregation made a fuss over him when they brought him bundled up to church that winter, there as a tint of sadness in their eyes, a premonition of the life ahead for them and for their new baby. Some people spoke of the “tragedy of it all.”

 

Christianity is born because of the resurrection. It was not born because of what Jesus said during his life. But, rather it was born because of the experience of his followers after his death.

 

Have you ever wondered what the resurrected Christ was like? Some people imagine a kind of super healthy resuscitated body that came back to life like magic. But the resurrection was not simply a resuscitation. There are many many stories of resuscitations. People who experience clinical deaths and then go back to their ordinary existence. What happened is that Jesus transcended mortality altogether. After his death, Jesus entered into a share of God’s life and power. He didn’t simply get up and go back to work on Easter. Rather he entered into a full participation of God’s life. That is what is means when people say he sits at the right hand of God. That is why the very earliest testimonies of Christians say over and over again, “Jesus is Lord.” They are not just saying that Jesus is a powerful human person. But, that he shares the life of God. The word “Lord” which they use in the Greek is Kerious. This is the Greek translation for the name of God that Moses was given, “Yahweh.”

 

At the resurrection Jesus not only regained his life, but he became the source of life for others through the radiation of this energy field that Christians call the Holy Spirit. It was the ending of one era and the beginning of another. It was an eschatological event.

 

Remember Adam, as in Adam and Eve, at the beginning of the bible? He had some big empty spaces like we all do. After he and Eve disobeyed God by eating from the tree, in the middle of the garden of Eden, he and she were kicked out of the Garden of Eden. From then on he had to struggle and scratch for a living from the sweat of his brow. His wife cried out in pain in child birth. One son murdered the other. But, the resurrected Christ changed all that, he is called not only the Lord (Kerious, Yahweh) but the new Adam. The closest comparison Paul can find is creation itself. God made the whole universe out of big nothing that was so empty it makes the billion light year hole seem tiny. Equally God resurrected Jesus Christ. Therefore, anybody who is in Christ is a new creation too. We are part of this new era.

 

The resurrection of Christ is the song that plays through all the big empty places we can find inside and outside. (NANCY STARTS PLAYING QUIETLY HYMN 184) The song of the resurrection blows through all of creation like the music is blowing through the empty spaces of the pipes in the organ right now.

 

There are people who deny the song. Mostly we can get stuck like Mary that Easter morning at the tomb of Jesus on the big and the empty and miss the music that keeps playing. But, Easter is about getting unstuck.

 

Remember the couple with the baby who was “malformed?” On Easter Sunday, when they came to church with the baby all bundled up in a new Easter outfit, they had little Johnny baptized that day. And, they left the church in a totally different state of mind and heart. When Mary, the mother, discussed it later, with tears in her eyes, she said it was as if a door opened for her, and she saw the way. It was as if during the Easter baptism God Almighty passed a blessing over Johnny’s life and their lives. She saw Johnny, through the eyes of the resurrection, not a lifetime of burden, not a big empty disappointment, but a new unique, undeserved and special blessing.

 

Listen to the song now, that is playing through those pipes that were once so still and so empty and so silent in the darkness. It is the music of love, and forgiveness, sacrifice and new life. The organ music swells. (NANCY BEGINS TO BUILD THE MUSIC)

 

What does that mean for us? As Rob Bells says (Nooma, “Rhythm”) – the question is not just whether we can hear the music or not. The question is whether we are in tune with the music. It is about opening up the big empty inside of you and letting the Spirit of the resurrected Christ in. All, those empty silent pipes in you, create harmony with the resurrection.

 

Some people know all sorts of stuff about music. The key, the technicalities of composition. Likewise, there are some people who know everything about the bible. But, you don’t have to know everything to tune your life to it. The notes are love, faith, hope, truth compassion generosity and justice. There are many lyrics, but most of all is the one lyric “Alleluia.” Which really isn’t a word at all, just a jubilant sound of praise. Alleluia, not silence, but joy. Alleluia, not death but life. Alleluia not the big empty, but a new creation.

 

Let us now all open the big empty spaces inside of us, break the long silence, sometimes a billion light years long, and sing with the music that is all around us. NANCY REALLY BUILDS THE ORGAN AT THIS POINT AND THE PEOPLE STAND AND SING 184 “Good Christian Men Rejoice and Sing.”

Not Taking the Lord’s Name in Vain – 03.29.09 – Dr. Rev. Carol Kerr

This is part of a series of sermons on the Ten Commandments. Exodus 20:1-17:

When I was a kid my mother would try to instill in us the ethic not to swear. When we swore, we would have to pay her a dime from our allowance. She is very fair, so when she swore she would have to pay us a dime. Well, I grew up, not exactly a non-swear-er, but at least conscious of the fact that I shouldn’t swear. When she would come to visit my children when they were young she employed the same technique. The thing is, my kids figured out this was a great way to pick up some change. You see my mother wasn’t exactly a perfect non-swear-er herself, even after so many years of trying. So, my kids would listen for any time my mother swore, and nail her for it. Once she was eating an ice cream cone in the car and the chocolate dripped on her nice new shirt. “God damn it!” she exclaimed. ” Then Gavin immediately piped up, “Grandma, you swore! You owe me a dime. “ Then she said, “O my God, you are right!” “You owe me another dime!”

 

The 3^rd commandment is, “You shall not take the Lord’s name in vain.” People usually interpret this commandment as not swearing. As my mother proved, it is a harder habit to break than you might think. But, I don’t think God proposed the commandment just to get everyone going on catch me if you can game with one another either. Taking the Lord’s name in vain goes a lot deeper than that. Once Adrien Snell had a friend who came over to his house. The friend seemed to swear in every single sentence. “God damn this….” “ Jesus Christ that….” Finally Adrien said, “Your mother is a bitch.” The man stopped and was insulted. Adrien said, the same way you are insulted by my calling your mother a bitch, I am insulted by you throwing the name of my God and my Savior around like trash to fill in your sentences.

 

What happens to God’s name if we throw it around left and right, to somehow back up what we say with a kind of macho emphasis? John Killinger once sent a package through the US Postal service. In ways known only by the Postal service the package appeared to have undergone a series of specially designed tests. First, it looked as if it had been submerged at the bottom of a muddy pond. Then it apparently found tis way onto the floor of the locker room passage of the Chicago Bears. Finally, it showed signs of having been dropped from the space shuttle onto a mountainside in the Alps. When it at last made its way back to Killinger it bore a large rubber stamp marked: NAME OBLITERATED – RETURN TO SENDER. If we keep using the name of God without really meaning it.

 

But that is not the only problem. People use the Lord’s name in vain as a kind of forgery. Like the woman who cleaned house for an elderly gentleman and one day slipped two checks out of his checkbook, signed his name to them, and attempted to cash them. She was only pretending that she had a right to his name.

 

Or two boys who, horsing around one evening with nothing to do, called a girl and pretended to be a friend of theirs who truly liked her. They didn’t mean it, they weren’t serious, they were only pretending. But it hurt.

 

Or the good looking young woman who married an unattractive man because he was wealthy, and then began to behave unfaithfully. She took his name, professing to love him, but didn’t mean it. She was only pretending.

 

Or the scholar in a university who wanted to strengthen the chances of his manuscript’s being accepted by a publisher so, forged two supporting letters from eminent authorities in his field. He had no right to use their names.. He only pretended.

 

We do the same thing with the taking God’s name in vain. For instance, the Klu Klux Klan concluded that it was their Christian duty to preserve the white race because the Klan taught that God’s true chosen people are the white people. Right after the Civil War in 1865 the Klan was formed. The Klan put sheets around them and pillow slips over their heads and would drape their horses in sheets because they would ride thorough the countryside at night, pretending to be the ghost of the confederate death to scare the black people. The Klan would use fear to control people. They linked themselves with the Nazis and the skinheads and the militia groups, and their ultimate goal would be an all white world in the extermination of non-white people.

 

They would take the Scripture and use it to advance their own ends. For instance in 2 Corinthians 6:14 that says, “What fellowship hath light with darkness,’ and said that meant that blacks and whites are suppose to remain separate from one another. They proof-texted their arguments from the Bible. They took one piece of one part of the Bible, out of context of what was really going on in the Bible and said, “See the Bible says it’s so!” Whenever you hear that going on a red flag should go up. Also, that is why it is so important that you learn the Bible for yourself and not depend on other people’s interpretation of he Bible.

 

What is Gods name? When Moses asks at the burning bush God says his name is “Yahweh.” It is translated “I am.” It is an odd kind of name. But it means that he is who he is, no matter what our perception of him might be. It means he is permanent and always. It means even if we don’t believe him or don’t understand him, he still is. “I am” is just about the only name that would describe the one God who is omnipresent (everywhere), omnipotent (all powerful) and omniscient (knows everything).

 

But the Isrealites became so afraid of using this God’s name in vain, the word “Yahweh” that they quit using the word altogether and substituted it with “Adonai” which means Lord. So, if they somehow made a mistake in using God’s name they were off the hook. That is why you so often see “The lord “ in the Bible instead of Yahweh. “Thus says, the Lord….” The use of the lord’s name seems to be generated out of fear rather than love. It reminds me a bit of Harry Potter when the wizards were so afraid of Lord Voldememort that they would not even use his name. Instead, they would refer to him as only “He-who-shall-not-be named.”

 

Only Harry Potter, the one who was equal to the challenge of beating out Lord Voldemort was able to use his real name without flinching. It was the one things that scandalized those around him. “Shhhhh! Don’t say it so loudly. Don’t say his name. Stop that!” But, Harry understood that not saying his name did not remove his evil.

 

What was the name Jesus called God? Jesus gave him another name, Not Adonai or Yahweh, Jesus adopted a new name “Abba” which means “Daddy.” It is an intimate nickname of a beloved child for his father. And he encouraged his disciples to do the same. You can see now why the orthodoxy was so shook up by Jesus. The 3^rd commandment said Do not take my name in vain, and here is this radical upstart rabbi who is daring to call God, Daddy!

 

You see in order to not really use the Lord’s name in vain, we have to change not what we say, not the words and the letters, but we have to change our fundamental relationship with God. Jesus was doing this, by changing our relationship to becoming children of God.

 

We have to change our hearts. The prophet Jeremiah pointed to this when he said, “The days are surely coming when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah. …I will put my law within them, and I will write it on their hearts; and I will be their God and they shall be my people. No longer shall they teach one another, or say to each other, ‘know the Lord. For they shall all know me, from the least of them to the greatest, says the Lord; for I will forgive their iniquity and remember their sin no more.”

 

How do you take the Lord’s name into your heart? It is a fundamental change in the relationship with God from trying to control God, to letting God control us.

 

One time the imperial wizard of the KKK was on a radio show where he debated a black man who was the head of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, he was a minister the pastor of a church. Reverend Wade Watts. When the KKK wizard got face to face with him he said so him, “Well, you no good sorry black so and so.” Watts smiled and said, “God bless you son. Jesus loves you.” Then the wizard said, “Will I hate you.” And Watts said, “Well I don’t hate you and I’m going to pray for you whether you like it or not.” It was hard to hate a man who said things like that. Then later on, one day a bunch of guys in the KKK surrounded Watts – he was eating a plate of chicken in a restaurant- they said, “We’re going to do the same thing to you that you do to that chicken.” So he picked up the chicken and he kissed it. When he did that, even the KKK men started laughing.

 

 

Well, it was events like this that slowly cracked open the imperial wizard of the KKK. He resigned as its leader. Suddenly he was dead broke. It was hard for him to comprehend, one day he was being picked up by a limousines to go on the Oprah show, speaking at big Klan rallies, commanding all these people, and the next day he had no money, no job, no people, no power and no women. But, that was when he found God. He started to going to a church called Victory Christian Center. The Klan taught that churches like that were the enemy. But, he decided to check it out for himself and see what it was all about. There he saw American Indians standing next to black men, standing next to Asian men, standing next to Hispanics standing next to women. They were all worshiping together in the name of this God, this Abba of Jesus. It was then that his heart was changed. He realized that he had been distorting God’s word and claiming it was something that it was not. He had been taking God’s name in vain.

 

Instead, of taking God’s name and using to make people do what he wanted them to do, he gave himself to Christ and became obedient to the name of God. He had to leave who he was, great and famous, and limousines, and women, and be willing to die to that old self completely. Jesus says, “Truly I tell you, unless a grain of what falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but it if dies, it bears much fruit. Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.

 

This is the true living out of the 3^rd commandment, You shall not take the Lord’s name in vain.

 

Do you remember the passage from Revelation?

 

Then he showed me the river of the water of life, bright as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb through the middle of the street of the city; also, one on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month; and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of nations. There shall no more be anything accursed, but the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it, and his servants shall worship him; they shall see his face, and his name shall be on their foreheads (Rev. 22:1-4)

Bernie Madoff – 03.22.09 – Dr. Rev. Carol Kerr

This is part of a series on the Ten Commandments. Exodus 20:1-17

He is polite charming and understated man. Friends say that he was shy. He is very intelligent. He was married for years to his high school sweet heart and has two accomplished sons. He would make a great friend and wonderful addition to the neighborhood. Except that he happened to perpetrate the greatest fraud in history loosing $50 billion of investors’ money. He is Bernie Madoff. What went wrong?

 

In the 1960s Madoff began building a securities trading firm that by the mid-90’s had become the envy of much of Wall Street. He was innovative, and was one of the first to use computers to expertly match small buy and sell orders from investors. This was smart and also very legal. He correctly anticipated that the buying and selling of stocks would become computerized and his systems often provided better prices, attracting huge retail brokers with faster more effective and cheaper trades.

 

He made a lot of money, millions and millions, all legal. So, he moved from his modest ranch house in Roslyn New York, to a pent house on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. He began to earn tens of millions dollars annually.

 

Then, Madoff decided to expand his business and not just buy and sell in the trenches of Wall Street. He wanted the sexier, more sophisticated, higher status of investment manager. That is people would hire him to strategize and figure out how to invest their money – friends, charities, the rich and the famous. One’s reputation as an investment manager rises and falls on the returns you get. So, Madoff claimed that he was able to get returns of 14% to 18% on your dollar. In the 90’s, however, there was a recession and he did not make the returns he claimed he would. That was when it started, the Ponzie scheme. When people wanted to make withdrawals on their investments and yet there was not the actual profit that he claimed their had been, he simply dipped into someone else’s money and paid them off. Stealing from Peter to pay Paul. He claims that at first he thought he was going to pay it back. But, then it spiraled out of control.

 

What went wrong? Bernie Madoff had a problem with the Ten Commandments. At first it might seem obvious that the one he disobeyed was, “You should not steal!” Certainly all the trusting people who gave him their money to invest would shout out that one. I think that Madoff’s real problem was with a different commandment, “You shall not covet.” - the 10^th commandment. A more modern word for “covet” is “envy.” You shall not envy. This commandment is not about an action, but an attitude. It is about wanting to be as “good” as the people next door. . Madoff could live without one more million dollar mansion in Palm beach and wouldn’t even notice it. It was his reputation that he wanted to be better than anyone else, than any other billionaire Palm Beach neighbor of his.

 

Madoff’s problem is one that every single one of us struggles with. A cartoon shows an aerial view of the corners of our pastures at the point where they intersect. There is a cow in each pasture, and each cow is reaching through the fence to eat the grass in the next pasture! The grass is always greener on the other side! When you envy your neighbor’s grass and are convinced that it is better than your grass, when all you can think about is getting a patch of that grass, you never bother to test that grass. A double blind taste test, or even to see if it is real grass at all. And of course, once you get onto that neighbor’s patch, well there is always a neighbor on the other side of that one you would like to get into next.

 

We are born with envy. A teacher n Great Britain tried an experiment. She gave each of ten children in a classroom a different toy, left them alone, and videotaped their behavior for the next fifteen minutes. Within sixty seconds, tow of the children were pulling at other’s toys, while a third child greedily collected the toys those two had laid aside. At then end of 15 minutes, three children were in possession of two toys each; three had none; two had different toys from the ones which they had begun, and two were huddled in corners, clutching the toys they had been given and warily eyeing he other children.

 

Woody Allen once said, “I would never join a club that would have someone like me as its members.” He understood, as soon as you get into one exclusive club, it is no longer good enough for you and you envy a club yet even more exclusive. Envy is driven by a hole inside of your soul, a hole that longs to be filled but never seems to be satisfied.

 

Psychologist Alden Cas, president of Competitive Streak Consulting, who has counseled and studied Wall Street personalities says, “There’s a need to prove to the world that I am somebody powerful – I am so intelligent.” Forinstance, Madoff graduating in 1960 from Long Island’s Hofstra College. He confessed to a friend this year that “I sometimes wish I had gone to Wharton or Stanford.”

 

But it wasn’t just Madoff that suffered from envy. I think this was the reason that made so many people let him invest for them. At the Palm Beach country club and other circles Madoff created an aura of exclusivity by selectively choosing whose money he would manage – in effect, creating a velvet rope, like a chic nightclub excluding party goers Who is in and who is out? One Wall Street executive said “He had a too cool for school veneer. Everyone was in awe of him. “ When you are dying to get into a club that all your neighbors are in and your neighbors neighbors, and everybody is saying how great it is, you don’t check the clubs credentials. When you are a cow dying to get into the greener pasture you just go to the other pasture without checking it out.

 

How did Maddoff get discovered? This year with the melt down of Wall street, the many Madoff investors wanted to claim their returns. Even then he was reporting better than 10%, when the rest of the market is tumbling at 10% a day. None the less, they kept asking for redemptions and he couldn’t keep up. When confronted by his sons, he admitted that his investment management firm was “It”s all just one big lie… basically a giant Ponzi scheme.” He said, he knew it was just a matter of time before he got caught. His son’s turned him in.

 

 

Let me ask you a question, if you knew for certain all the numbers which would win next week’s lottery, would you buy the ticket? You were not cheating, it was clean, but somehow you just knew the numbers. This is what my process is when I think of my answer. I say, you bet! If the winning ticket was $10 million dollars, I would certainly do it. Then, I justify this action to myself by saying, “Think of all the good ways I could spend the money to make the world a better place.” Why, I think I would give a lot to the church, One Great Hour of Sharing, find some other favorite charities, start a foundation of some sort… I vow that with this money I would do all these things…. That is after I buy a few things for myself. A new 50 foot sail boat, a house on Falmouth Foreside, trips to Europe, and around the world. I would put a lot of money in trust for my kids so they could be rich too. The list starts tumbling out of me fast and furiously. But, then, I say, after I have bought these few things I would spend the rest of charity.…

 

In a video series on the Ten Commandments produced by the Christian History Institute, a man who was once a professional gambler speaks about the tenth commandment, “You shall not covet.”

 

He was the kind of guy that wanted an Austin Martin more than he wanted to buy his wife shoes that didn’t have holes in them. After he made all kinds of money gambling he said he still felt unsatisfied. So he came to the conclusion that the reason why he was unsettled and depressive was that he needed the Austin Martin. When he bought it and got home he told his wife he had made a decision. “What that gets dirty, I’m not going to wash it. I’m going to lick the dirt off it.”

 

Of course that thrill lasted about six months. Around that time he went to visit an old gambling friend who was dying of cancer and scared. Shortly afterward he learned his friend had died. He drove around in his Austin Martin, parked it, and went for a walk. At which point he looked up at the sky and said He said “John’s dead.” Like that. And this verse he learned when he was a little boy came into his heart like an arrow. Shooot, just like that. Jesus said, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live. He that lives and believes in me will never die.”

 

And it came with such power that he was afraid and I looked around. He started talking to God like this, “Well, God, I don’t know what You want with me. A person like me – you know all the evil things I’ve done. You know things I don’t say to anybody. I don’t discuss them with anybody, except the Lord.. You know the things I’ve done. You must be grossly offended; you must want to punish me. I know there is a hell, because I’ve been through it, I’ve been in it.’ He cringed, waiting for the lightening bolt to strike, which he knew he justly deserved. Instead he felt overwhelmed by great clouds of love and God’s voice seeming to be saying “You silly boy, you silly boy. I’ve been waiting for you.”

 

This man became a Baptist minister now…. He said, one of the things that he sometimes says to his congregation is, “If I knew for certain all the numbers which would win next week’s lottery, I give you my word before God, I wouldn’t even buy a ticket.”

 

What do we learn from Madoff? Life is in God and not in what your neighbor has, and what your neighbor thinks of you. So the tenth commandment really points back to the first and second commandments. You shall love God alone, and you shall idolize nothing else . There was a hole in Madoff that he kept trying to fill with more and more money, more and more status, bigger and bigger people trusting him to invest their money. He kept dumping things down this hole and it never filled up. That is because it is a God shaped hole. This is what the gambler turned Baptist minister realized. This hole can be filled only when we love God alone. Nothing that our neighbor has, no material possessions, no status, no Palm Beach exclusive club, no winning lottery ticket, will come close.

 

Bernie Madoff is moving from his multimillion dollar penthouse in New York to a one cell jail room, eight by eight. It is dismal and alone. But, I wonder if in jail for the first time, Bernie Madoff might be free. Free to live the truth. Free to quit coveting his neighbor. Most of all free to love God alone. Maybe now Bernie Madoff may find peace.

Christ Pantocrator – 02.22.09 – Dr. Rev. Carol Kerr

Transfiguration Sunday:

I want to show you my icon of Christ which a friend made for me. Icons, as you probably know are venerated pictures of Jesus, the apostles, and saints which Eastern Orthodox Christians use for prayer and inspiration. Icons are “written” from standardized templates. This one is “Christ Pantocrator. The term Pantocrator comes from the Greek speaking Christians and means “He who rules over everything.” Christ is in the act of bestowing a blessing while holding a book in his left hand. Christ Pantocrator has been the most popular Icon image for centuries.

1. The Alpha and the Omega in the open book signify that he is the beginning and the end.
2. The movement of the right hand is as much an invitation as it is a blessing.
3. Colors are symbolic in icons. The deep blue = Jesus color. The light blue = the color of the Holy Spirit. The red = his human nature. The gold sash = divine fire.
4. Jesus has a cross in his halo. The letter in the cross are initials for “He Who Is.”
5. Incense and church music are played when making the icon. Also, the person writing it will pray continually. “O Lord, and Divine Master of all that exists, enlighten your servant and direct my soul, heart and mind. Guide my hands so that I may worthily and perfectly represent your image as well as those of your Holy Mother and all the saints for the glory , joy and beautification of your holy church.” OR “Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner.”

Today is “Transfiguration” Sunday. It is the day in the church when we celebrate the time when Jesus went up to the mountain to pray with a few of his disciples. Suddenly he changed. His clothing became dazzling white. His whole body radiated divinity. A voice came from the cloud “This is my son. Listen to him.” When I think of the transfiguration of Christ the words of the Nicean creed come to my mind – “God from God, light from light, true God from true God.” The transfiguration reminds me of the divine Christ that the Eastern Orthodox church tries to convey in the icon “Christ Pantocrator.”

Let me pass it around so you can look at it.

I came across this story that happened to Daniel Wheeler who was a Quaker engineer. He had gone from Britain to Russia at the time of Tsar Alexander I to take charge of draining swampland in a region south of St. Petersburg:

A group of peasants was sent to his house with an urgent message. They knocked on the door, got no response, and went inside to look for the engineer. First things first, however. Once inside, one’s first duty as an Orthodox Christian is to find the icon corner and say a few prayers. Every house had a corner where there was an icon and some candles. However, finding an icon corner in the house of the British engineer proved to be difficult for the peasants. Nothing looked like an icon. The peasants knew things were different in other countries. What would a British icon look like, they wondered? What impressed them ost was the mantelpiece clock. They decided this was the British icon and so crossed themselves, bowed before the clock and recited their prayers. In a way the peasants were right. They had identified a machine which has immense power in the lives of “advanced ”people. (Praying with Icons, Jim Forest)

I have to admit, I look to the clock as to how to organize my day, way more than I go to prayer when deciding how to organize my day. A clock tells me when it is time to get up. When to eat breakfast. When it is time to go to work. How much time I have to do things at work before my first client. It tells me how many meetings I have to go to. When to eat. How long I have to exercise. How late the grocery store is open. How long it takes to defrost something in the microwave. The news is at 7. Finally the clock tells me when it is time for bed, to sleep in order for me to get up by the clock and go to work. Sometimes I stand in front of the clock and mumble words to myself . To the outsider I look like I am praying.

We put clocks all over our house – kitchen, bedroom, study. In our car. We wear them on our wrists.

Now think, what would it be like if we had as many icons of the saints around us during the day as we have clocks. What if we woke up and looked at an icon of Christ. What if we looked at Christ on our way to work in our car. What if we looked at Christ before we went to the store. What if we looked at Christ before we watched the news. What if we fell asleep looking at Christ. What if we had a icon of the disciples on our mantel piece. A picture of St. Francis in the car. What if we had a little icon of Mary holding Jesus strapped to our wrists that we looked at countless times all day. There is an expression “You are what you eat.” Maybe “We are what we look at

It is more than just clocks, though. It is what is what we look at on TV. Have you ever wondered how that effects you? Certainly there countless studies of how watching violent movies actually increases the incidence of violence in children and adults. The more we look at violence the more violent we become. But it is not just violence, T.V. often seems to market towards the most common denominator. Even the news can have a series of low life captions that smears its way into our minds before we know it. When I go on the web AOL.com pops up with the latest news. Sometimes I find myself reading that. Here are just a few of the unhappy headlines 1) Furious with Bush: Why is Cheney so angry? 2) Bristol Palin Breaks her silence. 3) Cops shoots chimp after mauling. 4) Balding actor at 34 5) Trump resigns, Casino goes bankrupt. I like the news. I am interested in what goes on in the world. But after reading this stuff I sometimes just feel dragged down. Indeed, I feel like I do sort of become what I read. Certainly, I am not uplifted.

Could it be the more we contemplate Christ the more Christ like we become? The transfiguration of Christ is important in as much as we can hold it in our minds – that image of Christ as “God from God, Light from light, true God from true God.” Like and icon it is important that we dwell in front of the transfigured Christ many times and let Christ seep into us, and begin to change us for the better.

Last summer I took an informal survey of what people would like to hear for sermons. The top one was “keys to happiness.” This is a key to happiness. Develop some sort of regular devotional practice. It can be short, it can be long. It can be looking at a picture of Christ. I can be saying a prayer. I can be journaling. Reading the scripture. It can be some of the above, or all of the above and more. But do it regularly. Because the more you do it, the more you become transformed and freed from the clock and the news, and the violence and negativity that bombards us every day. A devotional is training your mind and your soul to remember Christ, and to be inspired rather than just tired. Daily devotion is like a water filter for a muddy water. As the water flows through the devotional the muck of your day settles to the bottom, or gets trapped so that only clean water will emerge on the other side. Today we are blessing our devotional candles. We can gaze on their a sublime light not just today but every day in our devotional time, as it reminds us of the presence of Christ in our lives present to us each day.

Coming to church on a weekly basis is excellent for this too. Have you ever noticed once you get in the habit of going and suddenly don’t for some reason, you feel like your week is off. Like there is something good that is missing, but just can’t put your finger on it. It certainly is good for your health. Many significant studies have been done comparing the health of people who attend church regularly compared to those who don’t. For instance, social demographer Robert Hummer of the University of Texas has been following a population of subjects since 1992. Those who never attend religious services have twice the risk of dying over the next eight years as people who attend once a week. People who fall somewhere in between no churchgoing and weekly churchgoing also fall somewhere in between in terms of mortality.

The Eastern Orthodox believe that if we keep gazing at the icons, if we make a habit of looking at the face of Christ, we become better people. In fact, they believed that we could be changed into something better than we are. We could be transfigured – changed – along with Christ. St. Marcarious once said, “Just as the Lord’s body was glorified when he went up the mountain and was transfigured into glory of God and into infinite light, so may we be glorified and shine as lightening.” The theological word for this is Theosis. But, to do this we must make of practice of standing before Christ each day with our “Minds in our hearts.” (St. Theophan, the Recluse) and go on standing before him unceasingly day and night throughout all of life. St. Ireneous of Lyons said – “The son of God became the Son of Man so that man also might become the son of God.” At the top of our bulletin Meister Eckhart says, “Fire transforms all things it touches into its own nature. The wood does not change the fire into itself, but the fire changes the wood into itself. In the same way we are transformed into God.”

A few more things I would like to say about this Icon that are typical of all Eastern Orthodox Icons. The eyes of Christ follow you. They look at you in a a non-threatening but knowing way. They call us away from darkness into the light of faith. They call us to become daughters and sons of God. When a person’s prayer life runs dry. When the words no longer come. When mental and emotional needs take over, these eyes quietly gaze out and reach out and gather you in. Our inner restlessness can melt away and one is lifted into a circle of love. Furthermore, even as one enters into the world of clocks and the many tasks of the day, these eyes stay with you.

The last thing is the light. The light in an icon does not come from a single light source like you see in western paintings. The lighting is nowhere and everywhere in an Icon. It is meant to illuminate anyone who stands before it. The golden halo frames the face of Christ. He is indeed the light in whom all is created. He is the light of the first day when God spoke the light and divided it from the darkness and saw that it was good. (Gen. 1:3) He is also the light of the new day shining in the dark, a light that darkness could not overpower. (John 1:5) He is the true light that enlightens all people. (John 1:9) Looking at the Icon “Christ Pantocrater” the question is not “What is the truth?” But “Who is the truth?” and the answer is, this man, Jesus the Christ. Light of light, true God of true God.

Jesus Heals – 02.15.09 – Dr. Rev. Carol Kerr

The Sixth Sunday after Epiphany

One thing we know for sure about Jesus is that healing was in the center of his ministry.  He healed more than Moses, more than the Buddha, more than Mohammed.  He healed people who were physically sick and he healed people who were what they called back then “demon possessed.”  Now days we have different names for such disorders – autism, epilepsy, and mental illnesses.  Jesus continues to heal today.

Let me give you a great example:  Melissa Gray is a stay-at-home mom of five children.  One of her children, Breanna,  has autism which is a neurological problem in the brain that shows up in early childhood.  The autistic child lives in a world of their own.  They have little eye contact with anyone else.  They do not pick up social cues well, if at all.   Their development is slower and a parent can spend hours each day focusing on speech, motor skills and potty training.    At a birthday party they wonder off to the corners of the room instead of staying in the circle and playing in the game with the other kids.  Given the enormity of the task just getting her daughter ready for Kindergarten Melissa Gray didn’t even bother with her spiritual needs.  They never taught her Bible stories because she couldn’t sit through five minutes of any story.  They didn’t teach her to pray because after all, she didn’t connect with ordinary people how could she connect with God?  They didn’t explain worship let alone communion because her mind wandered all the time, and she would look at the ceiling and spin her head if they tried.

But then something miraculous happened.  One Sunday Melissa brought Breanna to church.  It happened to be communion Sunday.    As she joined her family for the first time in Communion this little girls face lit up with joy.  Her excitement was overwhelming.  When she took the bread and drank the wine her face was radiant.  This autistic child who lived in her own world and unable to sustain eye contact with another human being,  was pulled out of her isolation and could feel the body of Christ joining her as one person with all of humanity.  The grace of God was revealed in her taking communion with her family and all of humanity on her knees.

Jesus continued to connect with Breanna.    One night as they were preparing the children for bed they tucked Breanna and her two sisters into bed, read stories and said a simple prayer.  “Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep, and to guard me through the night, and wake me in the morning’s light.” Although they pray it every night, they never thought about teaching it to Breanna.  However, one evening as Melissa was walking from the room, suddenly her usually silent daughter’s high pitched, angel-sweet voice chanted, “Now I lay me own to sleep…” She returned to the room, and her daughter, who rarely makes eye contact with anyone, looked her mother in the eyes and finished the prayer.

Through communion and prayer Jesus could somehow pull little Breanna out of her disconnected world of autism in a way that no one else could.  It is a modern day miracle.  It is a sign of the power of Christ.  But, if Jesus were here, he would probably not want me to tell you about it.

Likewise, in the gospel of Mark we read about Jesus healing a leper.  Breanna was isolated from humanity because of her autism, at the time of Jesus a leper was isolated from humanity because they were considered ritually unclean.  In fact leprosy was  the most dreaded of all diseases at the time.  They have to leave their family and children, their job, their neighbors.  In the book of Leviticus (13) it instructs that lepers have to tear their clothing and have to keep their hair uncombed.  They must cover their mouths wherever they go and shout perpetually, “Unclean!  Unclean!” So, imagine the gasps in the crowd when the leper approaches Jesus and kneels in front of him begging to be healed, “If you are willing, you can heal me and make me clean.” Imagine the gasps in the crowd when Jesus says, “I am willing.” And then reaches out and touches the untouchable man saying “Be healed!” Instantly the man in healed. Not only is his body restored but he is now once again connected with his family and friends, and all of the people of Israel.  He is allowed to worship once again in the Temple.  It was a miracle.  But then Jesus says “don’t tell anyone.”

Why didn’t Jesus want him to tell anyone?  Isn’t this exactly what he would want people to talk about?  Why didn’t he tell the man to shout it from the roof tops?  Wouldn’t the leper telling everyone exactly who healed his leprosy and exactly how Jesus did it be a great boost to Jesus popularity and ministry?  Why it would have catapulted him to the top 10 favorite rabbis in Israel.  Moreover, isn’t that what the Bible is suppose to be all about?  Signs and miracles – some sure signal here on earth that there is a God somewhere, out there?  Isn’t it God’s job to reveal himself, to show us an honest to goodness revelation so that we will have a sign?

We all want some sign of God.  Every so often there is a news report of someone who has seen a “sign” – a strange glow in the night sky that may portend flying saucers or the cross, or the face of the Virgin Mary on a taco.

But, Jesus is very cool about the whole idea of signs and miracles.  He is very uneasy with appeasing our hankering for irrefutable signs of evidence of a spectacular God in action.  Instead of shouting from the rooftops he instructs the leper to keep it quiet, don’t tell anyone.  In fact he tends to dismiss signs as counting for much on their own.  He says “false messiahs and false prophets will appear and produce great signs and omens, to lead astray, if possible, even the elect.” (Mt 24:24)  Jesus bluntly refuses to use signs as proof of his divinity.  In fact he is annoyed by people who look for signs “An evil and adulterous generation asks for a sign”  (Mt 12:39)

The taco with the image of the Virgin Mary, the strange light that some pilot saw while coming into the Las Vegas airport are entertaining and strangely interesting, but they are not what Jesus was trying to get at.  Jesus didn’t heal people to show us just how powerful he was and to verify that yes he had a direct pipeline to God.  The danger of demanding miracles to prove God, and even dwelling too long on them is that, in the words of Eugene Peterson, we end up looking at creation and God acts as spectacular shows, rather than looking into creation.

I am not saying that God cannot do the miraculous.  God is creative and active in the world in all sorts of ways that we have yet to comprehend.  There are signs where God pulls back the curtain on reality and gives us a glimpse of some wonderful world that lies just on the other side.  But, that is not the point of Jesus’ healing.

The point of Jesus’ healing was not the physical change to the body.  It was not some sort of technique like surgery, X-ray, radiation, drugs…  Mentally, he does not unlock deep unconscious feeling, build self esteem, remove emotional conflicts.

It is not about signs for Jesus.  It is about sacrament.  It is an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace.  The reason why Jesus healed people was to have that person experience the grace of God.  Jesus and the sick person is an agency through which the power of the spirit of God is transmitted.  At times when Jesus heals he will say, “Your faith has made you well.” Remember when the woman who had been bleeding for twelve years touched the hem of his robe and he felt he power flow out from him.  Then he turned to the woman and said, “Your faith has made you well.” The Greek word for “well” is “sozo.” It does not mean well as in physically well.  It means well as in “to be delivered, made well, set free.” Healing for Jesus was not just magical miracles to impress people.  Healing was about setting people free through uniting them with God.  Remember the radiance on Breanna’s face when she took communion for the first time.  It is this radiance that Jesus is after.  This radiance means you get it.  It means you are in touch with the divine reality that lies behind all of creation.  It is everywhere and all the time.

A group of high school students were studying the Seven Wonders of the World.  At the end of the session they were asked to list today’s Seven Wonders of the World.  There was disagreement, but the following got the most votes:  Egypt’s Great Pyramids, Taj Mahal, Grand Canyon, Panama Canal, Empire State Building, St. Peter’s Basilica and the China’s Great Wall.  While gathering the votes, the teacher recognized that one student hadn’t turned in her paper yet.  She asked if she were having trouble with the list.  “Yes, a little.  I couldn’t quite make up my mind because there were so many.” The teacher said, “Tell us what you have and maybe we can help.” The girl hesitated, then read, “ I think the seven wonders of the world are:  To touch, to taste, to see, to hear, to feel, to laugh and to love.” The silence that followed was radiant.  It is far too easy for us to look for signs -  the more spectacular the better.  But, Jesus didn’t want us to look at creation but into creation.  Jesus did not want the leper to tell everybody that Jesus healed him.  Rather Jesus wanted the leper to change his whole life in relationship to God – to glorify and praise God, everywhere and at all times.

Sunday School Winter Session

The preschool/kindergarten class is using a Veggie Tales curriculum, as they travel to the “Veggie Lagoon” with “the Skipper” as their instructor, to learn what faith is and how to develop a relationship with God.  The kids have had fishing lines that they have been adding fish to every week with each word or phrase for the week.

Grades 1-5 are learning about 12 Super Stars of the Old Testament.  These people are considered Super Stars to our class because they do great things with the faith that they have in God.  Joshua showed courage, Samson had great strength, young David showed bravery and Solomon showed great wisdom (just to name a few.)  During class the students have an opportunity to earn reward stickers by showing up to Sunday School, bringing their bibles to class, learning Bible verses, completing activities and winning games.  After they fill their sticker charts they have the opportunity to pick out of the class prize box.

Along with their regular Sunday school classes there are other fun opportunities for the children to be involved at the church. In the fall we had a sleepover with an evening filled with food, games, movies and even a little bit of sleep.  They have a Christmas Pageant in December and this past February they participated in a family “Swing Dance” night.  This spring they will be singing with choir during the Easter season, having a Clown Ministry Sunday and bringing their pets to church to have them blessed by Pastor Carol.  The year ends with a Sunday School recognition service the first Sunday in June.

Annoucements 11-01-2009

Growth committee is getting together next week. Anyone interested in joining the committee tell Pastor Carol

Anyone interested in having coffee with me, Pastor Carol? I love having coffee and talking with you all. There doesn’t need to be any specific problem or particular reason. It is about connecting with each other. e-mail me at clkerr@maine.rr.com

Some people have expressed interest in joining our church. If you are interested e-mail Pastor Carol, or tell her at the door. We are looking to having a new member Sunday sometime soon.

Annual Meeting

To the Members of the Blue Point Congregational Church, UCC:

Notice is hereby given of the annual meeting of the Blue Point Congregational Church (UCC) to be held downstairs on Sunday, January 24, 2010 immediately following church. A potluck lunch will be held afterwards. Childcare will be provided. The agenda will include annual reports of the officers and committees, presentation and voting on the year 2010 budget, election of officers, and any other business proper to come before said meeting.

Also at said meeting the request of monies from the Memorial Fund to be use to purchase of the Bible study short films called Nooma. They are $10 each and the Deacons recommend the purchase of 10 films for the total of $100 + shipping.

This notice is posted in the Narthex of the church in accordance with the by-laws of this church.

Respectfully submitted,

Sara Salisbury

Clerk