revnancyduncan

In a sermon a few weeks ago, I shared an experience of finding my voice when someone called to oppose the “Black Lives Matter” sign we had in the church yard, placed in memory of the 9 people killed in Charleston, SC. I tried to listen and find common ground with one whose beliefs about Jesus differed significantly from mine. It felt good  to find words that showed my conviction without escalating or ending the conversation. I used the framework of the Phoenix Affirmations which are the focus of our summer worship. https://phoenixaffirmations.wordpress.com/

Yesterday, I saw several trucks driving down Main St. in Rockland flying huge Confederate flags. I saw another truck with a huge American flag flying. Is there a flag war going on? Or is it simply only a few days after the 4th of July? A chill went through me as I pondered the meaning of Confederate flags in Maine.

I pray, “Holy God, help me to find ways to engage those who are carrying the flags so that I may begin to understand. Help me to speak up in the name of the one who reached out to the outcast and calls us to acts of compassion and mercy. Help us to love one another. Amen.”

Call me crazy, but I enjoy working with families to create personalized memorial services and funerals. Some people say I am skilled at that. It gives me a chance to use the family therapy skills I spent years honing as I listen to the varied perspectives that different family members and friends carry to this time of grief. The Broad Bay Church has a beautiful sanctuary. Yet we seldom get called to work with families outside of the church to create memorial services. Why?

Do people not know that we are called to work with folks who call themselves spiritual and not religious as well as those deeply rooted in the Christian tradition? Or that every service is crafted around the particularities of the life led and the needs and beliefs of the family and community?

All Broad Bay Church memorial services are interfaith services which welcome people from a variety of faith traditions and no faith tradition to gather in a sacred place to remember, comfort, cry, and seek meaning.

In times of grief, both the presence and absence of God are profoundly felt. Questions arise. People are hurting and vulnerable, often filled with a myriad of conflicting feelings. Old family conflicts may be set aside or exacerbated as people grieve in different ways and on different schedules.

At times of death, I meet with the family a couple of times to talk about the life of the one who has died. I listen to stories and learn about the religious and/or spiritual beliefs and practices of the family. Are there special readings, music, or stories that people want told? Are there individuals who want to share a memory or reading or song? After the initial conversation, I create a draft order of worship with music, readings and stories for the family to review.

Each service is different. It may take place in the cemetery with just a few people gathered around sharing stories about the one who has died followed by a prayer or in the sanctuary with organ, readings, singing, and prayer. Either way, it is a time for family and friends to gather together in a sacred place in the presence of one another and the Holy to remember, mourn, and comfort.

I believe that rituals around death matter. Is there more we can or should do to support our community in sorrow?

I had never aspired to a time of silence. Why would I? Cars have radios for a reason.  I like talking with people.

A silent retreat was part of the Women Touched by Grace program. I applied anyway. During the 5 days of mostly silence at Our Lady of Grace Monastery two years ago, I was surprised and delighted by wonderful bursts of insight and creativity, and to be fair, some terror and darkness as well. With less trepidation, I recently packed up for five days of silence at the Alcyon Center on Mount Desert Island. It was good, very good. Time to read and write and dream and pray and listen. Time to walk alone. Twice daily time for conversation with two skilled spiritual directors. Time to let go of email and news. In the silence my mind stopped racing and a vision for the church and my ministry began to take shape.

Silence can be a teacher and friend. Silence can challenge and frighten. Silence can be torture or make us crazy (ie, solitary confinement). Silence is powerful. Even as I struggle to make space for silence, it is clear that I want the gifts that silence brings. What is your experience of silence?  Please comment with a sentence or a word.

Everything about worship today was off kilter.  We were celebrating Jesus’s transfiguration when the disciples saw him bathed in light and fell to the ground in fear. Jesus responded by telling them to get up and not be afraid. We usually celebrate this day before Lent but a February blizzard intervened and we were celebrating today in the midst of Eastertide.

Three jazz musicians (drums, trumpet, organ/piano), including one who came from Montreal via Amherst, MA, arriving 10 minutes before the service started, led the way. We followed a different order of worship created with my support by another clergy person with whom I was co-leading the service.

People  began arriving early, long before the Montreal pianist–people I didn’t know.  There were old friends and strangers.  We ran out of bulletins.  Off-kilter.

Once the musicians started to play,  the sanctuary fell uncharacteristically silent.  They found their rhythm in the room–playing together and with us as they responded to each other and the mood they found in the sanctuary.

Swept up by the music, I skipped a hymn which we sang later and did the pastoral prayer after the offering instead of before as planned.   I literally didn’t know what would happen next.  We swayed and clapped to “And When the Saints Go Marching In.”  We shared concerns for those who were sick and grief for those who had died and prayed to God; nothing off-kilter about that.

After the service, someone shared that they didn’t like the music at first; it made them uncomfortable until they realized that discomfort may have been the point.  A few people left with new insights about their lives,  insights that tend to happen when we are a little off-kilter.

For harmony, dissonance, strangers, surprises, improvisation, community, musicians, and jazz, I am grateful. For all those times when being off-kilter brings signs of rebirth and hope, I give thanks.

Yesterday, on Good Friday, I saw purple crocuses in full bloom at the home of one of our oldest members. Is it coincidence that that the one living with the experience and challenges of age, is the one whose soil holds new life?
An angel met the women at the tomb with an earthquake. Is it coincidence that the Risen Christ showed up in the rubble of an earthquake?
Come worship with us tomorrow at 10. Whether you come with muddy boots or an Easter bonnet, with heavy hearts or a joyful spirit, you are welcome here.
10 am:  Broad Bay Congregational United Church of Christ, Waldoboro, ME

A pot of green ivy, a red rose, a rosary, a rooster, and some palms were arranged on the communion table by several volunteers.  A member of the church drew the bulletin cover.

The service opened with children waving palms and playing recorders. During the time with the children, I told them that there is room for ALL of us in the story of Jesus–room for the old, young, smart, those who are good friends, and those who are not always good friends.

The choir sang.   I preached.

These days, I find myself impatient.  Am I doing enough?  How should we be the church in 2015 when much (most?) the population doesn’t know the meaning of Palm Sunday?

Jesus took the risk while I hang out in a small church in rural Maine–a church where mistakes and missed opportunities abound, a church where the to do list is out of hand.

At the close of worship I sat in the back row and listened to the postlude.  I bowed my head.  I looked up and saw other heads bowed.  I saw eyes being wiped with kleenex.   When the music ended, we simply sat.  No applause.  No rush for the door.  Slowly and carefully we began to make eye contact with one another.  Was it my imagination or were the conversations slow, deep, and reflective?  Were we talking with each other about the hard stuff in our lives?

Did I just witness a community at prayer ready to reach out to one another and carry the cross together?  Did Jesus just show up and do something remarkable?

The week before Christmas, Amanda, Kathy and their children were at the church afternoon after afternoon finishing the stage for the shadow puppet show.

Carroll, the organist and choir director, was laid low by horrendous flu bug.

A variety of illnesses flew through the choir and the church school.

Poinsettias were delivered.  One promptly dropped its leaves and died.

The music was not set until after the final choir rehearsal on Dec. 23.  “Will they be able to sing the music as planned?  Do I, the preacher, have anything of value to say on Christmas Eve?,” I wondered.

Christmas Eve dawned.  It was clear that I’ve gotten some variety of the bug that has decimated the church.   The sanctuary was beautiful.  Carroll was back on the organ bench.  The puppet stage was in place.  People began to arrive and they kept coming despite the rain.  The church was almost full. Will they find God in this worship?  I welcomed people.  The prelude began.

We started with the children’s shadow puppet show.  The lights were dimmed.  There was a hushed silence as the congregation watched with awe as the children told the story with light and darkness and puppets. We saw the Broad Bay Church, our bell ringing for all to hear.  The scene changed to Bethlehem, to an Inn, and to a stable where Jesus was born.  The shepherds and magi came. The stage wobbled.  Would it fall on the choir as they sat in the front row?  The stage stabilized and the stable was transformed to the doorways of the Broad Bay Church.

Christ is born in and through Joseph and Mary.

The show ended. The lights returned. Thunderous applause. “Joy to the World.”

The choir sang beautifully.

So many people worked to create this celebration of Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem and I  hope in our hearts in Waldoboro.

There is love and light and hope and peace and joy this night.

For a youtube video of the puppet show,

Broad Bay Bulletin Cover by Brian Scheuzger, Sammy Scheuzger, and Anya Osborne.

Several years ago, I was invited to write a column titled, “The Meaning of Christmas.”  While I would change the title to something like “a glimpse of the meaning of Christmas,” I still like it and share it today with the hope that Jesus may be born in you this Christmastide.

The meaning of Christmas runs deeper than the creeds of our faith. Christmas is about the couple who sits down with the check book and writes checks to the church that shows God’s love, the food bank that feeds the hungry, the land trust that preserves God’s creation, or the neighbor who needs help. Christmas is about the one who shovels another’s driveway, brings food to a shut-in, or gives his coat to one who needs it. Christmas is about sharing.

At Christmas, a grandmother welcomes her gay grandson home with his Jewish partner. A Republication cousin washes dishes with the Democratic niece as they respectfully debate solutions to the current health care crisis. The teetotaler aunt passes potatoes to the slightly tipsy cousin as she laughs at his bad jokes. Christmas is about breaking the barriers between people.

At Christmas, Christians remember the birth of a poor boy to an unwed mother with no place to stay. We tell the story of Jesus’ birth where rich and educated magi, poor shepherds, and heavenly angels join together to worship a baby.

According to the gospel account in Luke, poor shepherds were living in the fields and the angel came to them and said “Do not be afraid.” Christmas is a time to remember, that even in these troubled times when fear threatens to consume us, that fear doesn’t have the last word. Christmas is about remembering a vision of God’s realm where goods and resources are shared, where God reaches out to the marginalized, and where war gives way to peace.

Jesus brought an enduring vision of peace, justice, hope, and light into the world. The meaning of Christmas is quite simple. Love neighbor. Fear Not. Share.

On Christmas Eve, the folks gathered at the Broad Bay Church will light candles in the darkness and remember one who brought and brings healing and hope into troubled hearts and a troubled world. As the sanctuary is lit with candles and I look into the faces of each person singing “Silent Night” I will glimpse again “the peace that passes all understanding.” Merry Christmas!

They removed the most popular seat in the sanctuary—the back pew.

Added new carpet where the pew used to sit.

Today the back row is a place to stand—somewhere between in and out.

A transition space–

inside the doors
within the warmth of the sanctuary
where one can stand and choose whether and when to come in and sit down
stand and greet friends,
or move out into the world.

A place to stand at the back, or is it the front?

A place where warmth and love will seek out those who enter.

               A place that is both inside and outside.

               A place of transition.

A place of comfort and welcome between the hush of the  sanctuary and the busyness of world.

A place to pause before coming in.

A place to pause before going out.