Category: Main Blog

Note: I preach in a variety of styles, from traditional text behind a pulpit to no-notes and walking about. An intermediate style begins with a short sketch, though I often wander away from the text during delivery. The following sketch was prepared for a sermon series on Christmas traditions.

The Congregational side of our UCC house can lay no real claim to much of what we now claim as the traditions of Christmas. In fact, the Puritan rejection of Christmas will play into next weeks sermon. And now you already know the punchline!

The real cultural trajectory for the most common Christmas traditions flows through Germany and the Netherlands. And here we have some claim, as half of our UCC house descends from German Protestants, and our German Reformed grandparent was credentialed by their Dutch Protestant neighbors. And here we are, in the gravitational pull of New Amsterdam.

The Germans gave us lights on the tree, and a host of other traditions, and the Dutch gave us Sinterklaas and his assistant Black Peter. Fortunately, Black Peter, the current cause of anti-racist protests in Holland, didn’t make the trip, and we were left with Santa Claus, a name derived, as we all know, from Saint Nicholas, the legendary 4th century Bishop of Myra, in modern day Turkey. Legend has it, that Bishop Nicholas made a practice of giving secret gifts, and so you see how the legend develops. One account has him leaving coins in the shoes of those in need. But one tradition was stranger still. Continue reading “Stockings”

Written for Long Island’s LGB T magazine Outlook.

The Hebrew and Christian scriptures spend a lot of time on leprosy. In that long ago age, before scientific medicine, the term could be applied to many unrelated but similar appearing conditions, each more or less severe, more or less contagious, from syphilis to severe acne. Folks didn’t really understand how disease was transmitted, and certainly didn’t know anything about Mycobacterium leprae, the bacterium responsible for the actual disease, so they developed rules for isolating individuals that appeared ill. Seeing disease and mental illness as spiritual matters, they created complex rituals to certify a patient was cured and clean. Continue reading “Mycobacterium leprae”

This has been my local witness against bullying, and was featured on the local Patch as well as the UCC KYP newsletter.

In July 2013, more than 10,000 rainbow scarves, knitted and crocheted in congregations throughout the United States, were delivered to Long Beach, California, where the United Church of Christ adopted a denomination-wide policy to support, promote and create anti-bullying initiatives in our local communities. This is a continuation of the denomination’s long commitment to supporting vulnerable and exploited populations, beginning with its early work towards the abolition of slavery and continuing today in active support for groups like immigrants and the LGBT community.

When he returned from Long Beach, the Rev. J. Gary Brinn, pastor of Sayville Congregational United Church of Christ began exploring how he might contribute to local anti-bullying efforts. The idea of providing a rainbow scarf to students who took an anti-bullying pledge was considered, but rejected because it was both labor intensive and too closely tied to one population, children targeted because they are identified or suspected of being lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender. While this group is indeed vulnerable, children are bullied for many reasons, including weight, disability, family composition and race. Instead, the pastor settled on the idea of blue nail polish, to be worn in September and January as a visible sign that the wearer has pledged to stand against bullying..

Why nail polish? In the summer of 2012 there was a media firestorm as a fashion editor made public the fact that she allowed her young son to wear polish on his toes. That same year, a pop star encouraged girls to paint their pinkies blue to stand against bullying. This year, musician Gwen Steffani was criticized for allowing her son, Kingston, to paint his nails. Finally this summer, ABC Family ran a summer series focusing on a non-traditional foster family. In the series, the 7th grade boy goes to school wearing blue nail polish. He is bullied until the next day, when his best friend, perceived as popular and masculine, appears at school wearing matching blue nail polish.

Beginning Labor Day weekend, Pastor Gary, a Nascar-watching disabled Army veteran, will wear blue nails, and invite those courageous enough to stand against bullying to join him.

God of Heaven and of Earth
Of plunging and of rising

We gather each year
to pray
to remember that on a day such as this
a day on the far edge of summer
with cerulean skies
the world changed.
We gather to ring bells
and celebrate heroes
ordinary folks
some of good character
some not so much.

On a day such as this
death still comes from the sky
drones executing without trial
the guilty and the innocent
bombs carry lethal gas
and mobs attack.

On a day such as this
many innocents are imprisoned
by Jihadis in caves and villages
by us in Guantanamo
where torture is the rule
and life is trampled under the heel of fear.

On a day such as this
diplomats negotiate
wise teachers call us to common ground
protesters demand peace
first responders protect and rescue.

On a day such as this we call on You
a God we know as compassionate
a God whose image we claim.
Mark us with your compassion
that each year we might leave behind a little of our grief
might shed a little of our anger
that we might become what you call us to be
people of memory and of promise
bearers of covenant and builders of hope.

We pray in the name of love
In the name of your great I AM
for we are
and You are with us.
Amen.

The local Patch asked me what advice I would offer to graduates. This is it…

Dear Graduates,

In the next few weeks, you’ll be getting tons of advice. Some will come in the form of little cutesy gift books bought at the Hallmark shop by distant relatives. Some will come from that blowhard uncle who has an opinion on everything and has one-beer-too-many at your graduation party. And some will come in columns like this. In all likelihood, you’ll blow it all off. That’s okay. Most of the advice will be good, and that wisdom will still be floating out there in the universe when you need to hear it.

Here are some things I wish people had told me when I was your age:

1) Have adventures. There will be plenty of time later in life to get trapped in the cycle of debt and consumerism. Go spend some time in the Peace Corps, as a Jesuit Volunteer, backpacking on the Appalachian Trail, sleeping in a hostel in Paris. You’ll learn and love and when it’s all over, you’ll be a better person. Ironically enough, seeing how amazing the rest of the world is will also open your eyes to how amazing your hometown is.
2) Decide what kind of person you want to be. Seventy years from now, when three friends and family members are delivering eulogies at your funeral, what do you want them to say about your character? Now here’s the big secret: that person is already inside of you. Start acting like him or her and that’s who you will become. Want to be an artist? Start acting like an artist. Want to be known for your compassion? See yourself as already being compassionate. “Fake it until you make it” actually works.
3) As a corollary to #2, surround yourself with the kind of people you want to become. Sure you chose your friends during your school years, but the pool you were choosing from wasn’t that big. Some of your current friends don’t share your values, and you’re going to have to get past your sense of loyalty to get on with your life. This is really hard to hear, and even harder to do. But you’re going to become more and more like your “crew,” and if that crew is obsessed with partying or being cool or getting laid, you are going to lose valuable years you can never get back.
4) Do better. My generation and the ones that came before it have been awful. We’ve worshiped the “god” in the mirror, promoting selfishness, individualism and greed. The result is that while we live longer and own more, we are miserable. And we are destroying our planet’s ability to sustain life. We’ve done our best to screw you up too, with “helicopter” parents insisting that its all about you all the time and you should never ever be held accountable for your actions. And yet, you’re turning out okay, with better values than us. It’s going to be your world soon, and the sooner the better. Vote, run for office, save us from our miserable selves.
5) Seriously bad things can happen. Some days are going to be hard. But you have a decision to make. If you see things as miserable and terrible, they will be. If you see every day as filled with possibility, that will be your experience. Believing is seeing. Faced with a crippled man, Jesus didn’t make a big show out of the healing. He said “Get up, take up your mat, and walk.” Get up, face forward, and keep going. Something amazing is going to happen. Are you ready?

Written for Outlook, Long Island’s LGBT magazine.

The early Christian church was an underground movement. In declaring that God was the only legitimate ruler, and that justice, love and grace were not subject to political control, the early Jesus community committed acts of treason. If you couldn’t keep a secret, you were likely to end up the main course for lunch with the lions in the local coliseum. This changed a couple of centuries later, when Christianity was not only accepted, but became the state religion. But what was compromised? Many believe that Christianity aligned with empire was something very different from the Christianity at the margins, diverging significantly from the teachings of that itinerant Jewish rabbi and healer. Continue reading “Post Gay Church?”

“We can and must act to protect the public schools against those who slander them out of hidden anti-democratic, racial or class biases. But most particularly, we must protect the children in those schools, for such is not only the kingdom of heaven but also the future of our country and of the yet-to-be-realized democratic dream of equal opportunity for all…”

These words, from a resolution passed at a United Church of Christ General Synod in 1991, underscores our belief that the common good and justice are best served by equal access to quality education, that opportunity should not be reserved for the wealthiest communities. Since that resolution was passed, the educational landscape has dramatically changed. The so-called “Texas Miracle” drove “No Child Left Behind,” extending the failed educational policies of former governor and President George W. Bush to the national level.

The not-so-secret agenda of this legislation was to marginalize teachers, Continue reading “A Patch column on education”

a sermon delivered on January 29, 2012 at Sayville Congregational United Church of Christ

We begin at the end, because the story of Kurt Gödel does not end well, and hopefully this sermon will. Gödel was one of the three great minds of the early 20th century who closed the door on the great project of the Enlightenment. More on that later. Through the middle of the last century, he could be seen most days strolling home from the Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton, New Jersey, with his dear friend, Albert Einstein, one of the other two great reality-changing thinkers of the time…  Gödel was a difficult man verging on madness, and in the end it was madness that killed him, for he came to believe someone was trying to poison him, and when his elderly wife was hospitalized, he starved himself to death, not trusting anyone else with his food. It was a tragic end, to be sure, for a brilliant career. More than a decade earlier there was a more endearing reference to Gödel’s sanity when Einstein remarked to a friend that Gödel really had finally gone mad. When asked why, Einstein replied that the man had voted for Eisenhower. Continue reading “Positively Wrong”

a sermon delivered January 22, 2012 at Sayville Congregational United Church of Christ

I got on the train, like I had many times before that year. I had my backpack, my passport, a baguette, sausage and cheese in case I got hungry. I also had my Thomas Cooke guide with train schedules for all of Europe and my Let’s Go guide, letting me know where I could find a hostel, cheap eats, and the best times to visit various attractions. And so we pulled out a Gare du Nord heading to Metz. Now, I am bilingual… I speak English and Southern, but I do not speak French. None-the-less, I did manage to understand the announcement, made in French, that revealed that half of the cars in the train were going to Metz, and that at some point half would split off and head to Luxembourg. And I was in the wrong half. Continue reading “On the complexity of not going to Metz”

a sermon delivered on January 15th, 2012 at Sayville Congregational United Church of Christ

Scholar John Dominic Crossan stated the problem succinctly when it comes to how we interpret the Bible. Either the ancients wrote a text they believed to be literally true, and many of us are smart enough to read it symbolically; or, the ancients wrote a text they believed to be symbolically true, and many of us are dumb enough to take it literally. Crossan believes the latter. I tend to think it is somewhere in between, the ancients realizing parts were true and parts symbolic, and that many contemporary American Christians are unable to admit to themselves and the world that they are choosing which parts are symbolic and which are literal. Continue reading “Monkey-Soul-A-Phobia”