From the UCC Network: 02/29/2012 "Leap"

Leap
Genesis 2:2

"And on the seventh day God finished the work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all the work that he had done…These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created."

Reflection by Quinn G. Caldwell

Every once in a while, time just doesn't add up.  Doesn't work out.  Every once in a while, you need to mess with time a little bit to make it all come out right.

Take leap years:  Once upon a time, they made a calendar.  It was pretty awesome, but it turned out that it didn't have quite enough room in it for all that needed to happen in the cosmos.  So they messed with time a little bit.  They added today.

Once upon a time, God did the same thing.  She took seven days to complete the Creation.  It was pretty awesome, but it couldn't quite save itself, couldn't quite come to full flower without a touch more Creating.  So God messed with time a little bit.  He added the Eighth Day of Creation: Easter.

They say every Sunday is that Eighth Day all over again.  To observe the Sabbath in worship and prayer is to participate in the ultimate act of Creation, the final flowering of the world that happened—happens, is happening—on the Eighth Day.

February 29th makes the calendar balance; you pretty much have to participate in it whether you like it or not.

The Eighth Day, on the other hand, is a leap that makes the whole creation balance.  You don't have to participate in it if you don't want to, but my God, why wouldn't you?

Prayer

God, thank you for making the rules and then breaking them, making time and then bending it, creating the world and then saving it.  Amen.

About the Author Quinn G. Caldwell is an ordained minister of the United Church of Christ, and co-editor, with Curtis J. Preston, of the Unofficial Handbook of the United Church of Christ.

From the UCC Network: 02/28/2012 "Less Boasting"

Less Boasting

1 Corinthians 5:6  

"Your boasting is not a good thing. Do you not know that a little yeast leavens the whole batch of dough?"

Reflection by Donna Schaper

Less is usually more.  Subtraction is a good spiritual strategy.  A little often means a lot.  And yet, many of us spend a lot of time on our resumes or on social networking. We present or we represent.  We may be warned against boasting, but that doesn't mean we don't boast!  Karl Jung says we sneak our biography into just about everything we say.

Many of us want to be recognized more even than we want to be known.  We want to be seen for who we are.  We want people to know what we've come through.  This hunger for recognition is human being 101.  If you don't believe me, feel the warmth you know after a good conversation with a friend.

Paul is advocating recognition and being known.  He wants the good bread to rise.  Perhaps less boasting and more yeasting would achieve the results of recognition we so very much want.  And deserve.

Prayer

O God, understand how much we want to be seen and known.  And then lead us to a good batch of dough and let us sprinkle our yeast upon it. Amen.

About the Author Donna Schaper is the Senior Minister of Judson Memorial Church in New York City. Her latest work is 20 Ways to Keep Sabbath, from The Pilgrim Press. Check out her work at www.judson.org.

From the UCC Network: 02/22/2012 "Ash Wednesday"

Ash Wednesday

Joel 1:13 

"Put on sackcloth and lament, you priests; wail, you ministers of the altar. Come, pass the night in sackcloth, you ministers of God!" 

Reflection by Anthony B. Robinson

One year, as the new pastor at First Church, I persuaded the Worship Committee to try an Ash Wednesday service. Since it was a new thing, we decided to sweeten the pot with a concert of African-American spirituals, by a noted local artist, following the service.

His concert got full-page publicity in both city papers. When I got up to lead our first-ever Ash Wednesday service, the sanctuary was packed, mostly with people I had never laid eyes on before. I panicked. "What in the world will they think of this . . . this long confession of sin . . . the imposition of the ashes? Will they think we've done a bait-and-switch, ashes instead of concert?" I offered a wordy explanation.

When the time came for the imposition of ashes I wasn't sure if anyone would come forward. To my astonishment, hundreds did. So many faces were open in hope and anticipation. So many eyes were tear-filled. We made the sign of the cross on forehead after forehead, saying only, "Turn away from your sins and believe the good news of the gospel." The sense of God's presence was palpable.

Why was that? For sure, I don't know. Touch? Mystery? Risk? Something old and ancient? Something new and strange? Maybe, in spite of all our denials and our attempts at self-justification, we do know we have sinned. And we long for mercy, for forgiveness.

So few words, repeated over and over, like a chant. "Turn away from your sins and believe the good news of the gospel." Sometimes our many words drown out God's Word. Often, too many words keep us stuck in our heads when our hearts long for God.

Let this day, this Ash Wednesday, be a day for fewer words all day long. Let it be a day for some stillness, for paying quiet attention to mystery, to beauty, to the sacred.

Prayer 

Holy One, into our sorrow and confusion, our brokenness and pride, speak your word of healing and hope, your word of grace. Amen.

About the Author Anthony B. Robinson, a United Church of Christ minister, is a speaker, teacher and writer. His newest book is Stewardship for Vital Congregations, published by The Pilgrim Press. Read his weekly reflections on the current lectionary texts at www.anthonybrobinson.com/ by clicking on Weekly Reading.

From the UCC Network: 02/21/2012 "Cheap Grace"

Cheap Grace

Excerpt from Romans 3:1-8

"But if through my falsehood God's truthfulness abounds to his glory, why am I still being condemned as a sinner?"

Reflection by Donna Schaper

This is one of those questions form Paul that has a trick inside it.  Like its more famous partner, "What then shall I sin more so that grace may abound?" the trick revolves around the matter of cheap or inexpensive grace.  Cheap grace is when we count on God to forgive us so much that we persist in sin.  Sin can be defined in many ways.  Here I mean it as missing the mark of our true humanity.  We lower the bar God has set for us and imagine that God's overwhelming love for us sinners is such that we may as well have another drink or cheat another client or forget another homeless person's name.  Cheap grace tosses us into the hell of relativity where we sense a deep inconsequentiality about our lives.

Rich grace, the kind that shows up in the coin of changed behavior, is so moved by God's anyway love for us that it begins to live on a different plane.  Instead of thinking that what we do doesn't matter, we know it does.  We are almost driven to show others what it means to be secure.  We are compelled to be different than what we were, so drawn and magnetized are we to the high bar of true humanity.  It is not so much achievement, although saved people do achieve, as it is lighting up on all of our cylinders where before we were only showing one or two bars.  Instead of being burnt out, we are lit.  Instead of being sad, we are happy.  Instead of being bored, we are engaged.

One of the organizers of the Washington, D.C. Occupy movement came to a national meeting of faith leaders at our church three days before Christmas.  She was 75 in age, a former self-described "lieutenant in Dr. King's army."  She said that the Occupy movement had turned her into water and she just felt poured out, so reinvigorated was her hope for human right and human rights.  She said she felt like we had another chance to make our mark as a democracy.   She said she had remade a decision that she had made a long time ago.  She used these words, "What I do really does matter."

Cheap grace drives you to inconsequentiality.  Grace drives us to consequentiality, not the kind that makes us self-important so much as the kind that pours out, overflows, gets everything that was all dry all wet again.  We are NOT to sin more so that grace may abound.  Just the opposite: we are to make our mark as creatures of a God that was not fooling around.

Prayer

When we are tempted to devalue ourselves, Gracious God, drive us to the deep grace that is the well of our wells.  Amen.

About the Author Donna Schaper is the Senior Minister of Judson Memorial Church in New York City. Her latest work is 20 Ways to Keep Sabbath, from The Pilgrim Press. Check out her work at www.judson.org.

From the UCC Network: 02/20/2012 "Who Wants to Be the President?"

Who Wants to Be the President?

John 13:34

"A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another."

Reflection by Lillian Daniel 

I do not want to be the president of the United States. I am totally clear on this point.

To which you are probably responding, "Well, thanks for sharing, but who asked you?"

No one, in fact. No one is recruiting me for the job, at least as far as I know. But in case you were wondering, I don't want it. And I have trouble imagining why any sane person would.

The level of incivility in American politics seems to have reached an all-time high. Bi-partisan cooperation seems to be a quaint custom of days gone by. When I watch the news, it feels less like journalism and more like a breathless and gossipy commentary on a brutal spectator sport. And big money seems to control it all.

Sometimes I forget that the candidates they are talking about are human beings, with feelings, families and faith. And so are the countless people who work for them. And so are the volunteers. All human beings, every one.

This President's Day, I want to say a prayer for them all, past, present and future, for seeking a job that strikes me as impossible. And I pray for a more peaceful political culture in which an impossible job might be redeemed.

Prayer

Let us love one another, as you have loved us. Amen.

About the Author Lillian Daniel is the senior minister of the First Congregational Church, UCC, Glen Ellyn, Illinois. She is the author, with Martin Copenhaver, of This Odd and Wondrous Calling: the Public and Private Lives of Two Ministers.

From the UCC Network: 02/19/2012 "Free Will"

Free Will

Deuteronomy 30:19

"I call heaven and earth to witness against you today that I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Choose life so that you and your descendants may live, loving the Lord your God."

Reflection by Robert Naylor

Life is becoming increasing difficult for me.  My new television cable package offers 78 basic channels and another hundred or more HD offerings.  I thank God every day that I didn't buy the premium package.  My favorite ice cream store now has over 40 flavors.  I have a lengthy list of daily activities from which to select: writing, working in the soup kitchen, playing golf, tutoring children and youth, practicing my guitar, visiting the local long-term care facilities, taking a cooking class . . . and on and on.

I share in the basic problem of being human—dealing with God's gift and curse to us of "free will."  I am faced with too many choices to make. As the famous writer E.B. White commented, "I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world.  This makes it hard to plan the day."

God's gift of free will does require some prayerful decision-making as we face the choices that the day brings.   The daily question the faithful must ask focuses on whether we will choose to improve the world or make "me" and my welfare the center of it. Our words to others can be gracious or hurtful; we can choose to keep silent or speak up in the face of wrong; the way we choose to use our material wealth can bring healing or harm to the world.

But I do have one problem with White's dichotomy of "improve" vs. "enjoy."  The truth is, when we choose to improve the world through selfless service we come to know a joy beyond our comprehension.  Just as God did with the faithful/wayward children of Israel, at each moment God is pleading with us to choose life.  Let us go this day and in all of its minutes and hours, let us choose life. 

Prayer

God give me the insight today to choose life so that I will be an instrument for improving the world and so find the fullness of joy that comes with serving you.  Amen.

About the Author Robert Naylor is a United Church of Christ minister and and lead consultant for In Church Imaging, a leadership training and planning resource for clergy and local churches.