First Parish Cohasset

Thought for Contemplation: “A story is like a painting. It doesn’t have to look like what you see out of the window.” Barbara Kingsolver, the Lacuna.

“Easter Reflection: Because It Is Good”
The Rev. Dr. Anita Farber-Robertson
First Parish in Cohasset
April 24, 2012

Readings (attached at end): Mark 15:42-47
Mark 16:1-8
from Pro Ecclesia, Winter

It was dawn. The sun was barely risen; shades of red and pink oozed out from the sky and sea, spreading a film of color upon the ever expanding beach.
A young man stood on the beach gazing at out at the receding tide. He bent, picked up a starfish, lifted his arm and with all his might threw the stranded star fish back into the sea.
Then he bent and picked up another. Repeating the arc with his arm, he threw the next starfish back into the water. He had been doing this for awhile.
A stranger had been watching him from afar. Walking toward the young man he scanned the beach. Hundreds of starfish lay stranded out of the water.
The young man bent and took another starfish. Lifting it high over his head he prepared to fling it back into the sea.
“Why are you doing this?” asked the stranger. “There are there are miles of beach, on each hundreds of starfish are stranded. Too many for you to make any difference.”
The young man looked at the stranger then looked up at the starfish in his hand. He shrugged and threw as hard as he could. “It will make a difference to this one.” he said.

Hope,” says Va’clav Havel “is an ability to work for something because it is good.”

Not because it will succeed, but because it is good.

It is an Easter message that can carry me.
I think of the words by Reinhold Niebuhr :

“Nothing worth doing is completed in our lifetime; therefore we are saved by hope.”

And I think of the story we remember today. The story of Jesus’ ministry, his death and resurrection.
Now many of us are comfortable with the story of Jesus ministry. And many of us accept the likelihood that Jesus of Nazareth, challenger of the dominating status quo was punished severely for that crime with crucifixion.

But resurrection? That is a harder story to swallow.
There are Christians who believe that Jesus was resurrected bodily three days after his death. And there are Christians who believe that he was resurrected in a spiritual body. And there are followers of Jesus and his teachings who do not really care about what happened to him after he was murdered by the state. But most folks recognize Jesus as one who worked for something because it was good, and not because it had a chance to succeed. Certainly it did not have a chance to succeed in his lifetime…and maybe it never will.
Will there ever be a time when peace and justice are a reality?
Will there ever be a time when everyone will be welcomed and included in the power and fabric of society?
Will there ever be a time when we will love and protect our neighbors as much as we love and protect ourselves?
Jesus called that time, the Kingdom of God, the time when God’s values would be lived out in the social order, the time when hearts would be opened and people would know that we are all kin, all the beloved.
He called us to live that truth.
Jesus didn’t ask that we perfect the world in our lifetime. He asked only that we do our part.

“… he said, ‘To what should I compare the kingdom of God? It is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened.’ (Luke 13:20-22)

The Kingdom of God is like yeast; it is like the leaven someone mixes in with three measures of flour.
When I have read this, I imagined that I was to be the leaven – sometimes I am…and sometimes you are. Whenever we act as agents of peace and justice we are the leaven in the loaf.
When high school students in Swampscott wore hoodies to school last week to express their solidarity with Trayvon Martin, when people around the country sign petitions demanding justice, transparency and accountability in relation to the death of the 17 year old boy, they are working the leaven into the loaf, the leaven of justice…for surely there is no peace if there is not justice.
But Jesus does not say that when we behave like that woman, and work our leaven of justice into the loaf of life, we are working toward the kingdom of God.
That is what I always thought he said and meant but Jesus doesn’t say that.

Jesus says:
… ‘To what should I compare the kingdom of God? It is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened.’

Jesus doesn’t say that the leaven we mix in will cause the loaf to rise, becoming the kingdom of God.
He says:
To what should I compare the kingdom of God? It is like yeast that a woman took and mixed in with three measures of flour until all of it was leavened.

The kingdom is not some far off time and place. The kingdom of God is like the yeast, not like the outcome!
Whoa!
That is very different.
The kingdom of God is not about the end time or about outcomes. The kingdom of God is about us, now, about what we are doing and how we are doing it. When we stand on the side of love, when we try to “do justice and love kindness,” when we recognize that our self interest is not separate from the well-being of all citizens of our land and our planet, when we throw a stranded starfish back into the sea, we are not just the leaven in the loaf, we are dwelling in the very kingdom of God itself.
I didn’t make this up! It is right there, in scripture. In Jesus words. I find that compelling.

Some religious folks argue about how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. And some argue about whether Jesus was resurrected in the body or in spirit. And you may enjoy participating in the arguments. Many do. To each his own.
As for myself, when I am fed by Jesus’ wisdom and sustained by his message of infinite love, I feel his presence is with me. When I lift my voice for justice, or act to strengthen love, I am in the kingdom of God. Regardless of the set-backs and the fatiguing long term prospects, when I act for love and justice, Christ is risen within me, and I am dwelling in the kingdom of heaven.
Each of us can be the leaven in the loaf of peace with justice. Each of us can act, not because we know the loaf will rise, but because it is good. And when we do good, we are dwelling not only in hope but in the very kingdom of heaven. May it be so for you. And may you cherish those moments when you find yourself there, in the kingdom of heaven.
Amen.

Readings:
Mark 15:42-47 The Burial of Jesus
When evening had come, and since it was the day of Preparation, that is, the day before the Sabbath, Joseph of Arimathea, a respected member of the council, who was also himself waiting expectantly for the kingdom of God, went boldly to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Then Pilate wondered if he were already dead; and summoning the centurion, he asked him whether he had been dead for some time. When he learned from the centurion that he was dead, he granted the body to Joseph. Then Joseph bought a linen cloth, and taking down the body, wrapped it in the linen cloth, and laid it in a tomb that had been hewn out of the rock. He then rolled a stone against the door of the tomb. Mary Magdalene and Mary the mother of Joses” was laid.

Mark 16:1-8 The Resurrection of Jesus
When the sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him.And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb.They had been saying to one another, ‘Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?’When they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled back.As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man, dressed in a white robe, sitting on the right side; and they were alarmed.But he said to them, ‘Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him.But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.’So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.
——————–

“The late Va’clav Havel the dissident Czech writer who became his country’s president after the fall of the iron curtain, differentiated between hope and optimism. Hope he said, “ is not prognostication. It is an orientation. It is an orientation of the spirit, and orientation of the heart; it transcends the world that is immediately experienced, and is anchored somewhere beyond its horizons…It is an ability to work for something because it is good, not just because it stands a chance to succeed…(Hope) is not the conviction that something will turn out well, but the certainty that something makes sense, regardless of how it turns out.”

Pro Ecclesia, Winter,
as quoted in the Christian Century, Feb. 22, 2012, p. 8

Thought for Contemplation:
God determines who walks into your life . . . it’s up to you to decide who you let walk away, who you let stay, and who you refuse to let go . . .
Author unknown

“The Path Opens”
The Rev. Dr. Anita Farber-Robertson
First Parish in Cohasset
New Member/Palm Sunday
April 1, 2012
READING;attached at end
My friend and colleague in the Accredited Interim Ministry, Barbara Child, tells this story about a Unitarian Universalist congregation she served some years ago. This congregation had an extraordinarily dynamic strategic planning committee. One of the members of the strategic planning committee was married to an actor with a great appreciation for improvisation. That morning she sent the committee something from an interview with Tina Fey.

In the interview Tina was talking about moving from Chicago to NYC to work for Saturday Night Life. While packing she came across a folder on her bookshelf. She had written quotes all over the front of it.
A couple of them were: “Greet everything with yes.” And: “The fun is always on the other side of a yes.”

The folder was from an improvisation class she had taken at Second City in Chicago. The quotes were some of the “rules” of improvisation. When she found the folder, she realized the class had changed her life.

She thinks of times when she’s been asked to do something and she’s thought maybe she wasn’t ready for that, or maybe it was a little early for this to happen to her. But the “rules” had become ingrained:

“Say yes and you’ll figure it out afterward.”

She says that saying yes allows you to move forward.

When she sat there on the floor with the folder, she realized the folder had broader use than for her work in comedy.

“Life is improvisation,” she realized. “All of those classes were like church to me. The training had seeped into me and changed who I am.”

Saying “yes” opens up a world. It is a world of faith, of engagement, of welcome. To embrace a theology of radical hospitality, of deep inclusion, is to engage in the spiritual practice of which Tina Fey speaks, the spiritual practice of welcome, of saying “yes.”
Today we welcome in our new members, Edwin Amy, Katie, Phil and Kate, who also have extended their own welcome to us. We have been welcomed into their lives even as we have welcomed them into ours. We and they have said our “yes,” to each other.

And so I a reminded of the words of the poet Robert Bly:

The path opens before our eyes
Turning into open country,
The wilderness
Becomes the path of paths.

Now is the path
Of leaving the path.

And we hear our own voice
Demanding of ourselves
A faith in no-path,
When there is no faith at all.

And moving forward takes feral courage,
Opens the wildest
And most courageous light of all,

Becomes the hardest path of all
The firm line we drew in the sand
Becomes the river we will not cross.

But the river of the soul flows on
And the soul refuses safety until it finds the sea.

The ocean of longing,
The sea of your deepest want,
The gravity well of your own desire,

The place you would fall becomes
In falling
The place you are held.
…….

the soul refuses safety until it finds the sea….
The place you would fall becomes
In falling
The place you are held.

My friends, once again you, with the ocean of longing are at a place where you have erased the firm line in the sand. There need not be a river you will not cross
The path opens before your eyes

And you are, with Tina Fey, in the improvisation class. Possibly in your personal lives and definitely in your life together you are standing at an open door, before an abundance of possibilities. Tina observed that that improvisation class had been for her like church. It had changed her life. With a simple invitation to change her orientation toward what scared her, or unsettled her, to what made her nervous, or fearful that she would not be up to the task, with that invitation to embrace the unknown and become a real player in the game, her life was opened, expanded, changed.

You are on the threshold of a new beginning. Anything is possible. And happily you are accompanied and supported through this amazing and exciting time by the synchronicity of the seasons. Hosanna! A season of yes.

It is of course spring- and an early spring at that. The world mirrors and echoes the surge of vitality and life we feel here today. It started with crocuses but we are now fully into blooming daffodils and budding tulips. I delighted in my dog Willy’s excitement on Tuesday upon seeing a big fat robin on the Parish House lawn. He knows something is going on! The whole natural world is saying “yes,” to new life, new love, new beginnings. It is, but it doesn’t look that hard from here for the daffodil and the robin to say “yes.” What would they know about how scary it can be for Tina Fey or you or me?

The robins and the daffodils might not know much about how unsettling or even scary it can be to step out onto the path that opens before us, but the Israelites surely did when they followed Moses out of slavery and into the desert where they wandered for forty years. They said yes to the chance at freedom, and because they did we are here now. Thursday is the first night of Passover, when the story is retold, not only that we might remember how they risked and sacrificed, but that we might be inspired to accept the invitations to spaciousness that come to us.

The robins and the daffodils might not know much about how unsettling or even scary it can be to step out onto the path that opens before us, but Jesus did. Today, Palm Sunday marks the day of his entry into Jerusalem. He came to challenge the powers that be, to confront the system of oppression and dominance under which the people lived. He came unarmed, on a donkey in noted contrast with the Imperial entourage that entered on horses with pomp and circumstance and military might from another gate. He entered accompanied by cheering throngs. His people were the peasants, the poor, the ones considered unimportant, marginal. His was a yes so large it could not be contained by anyone, even by eventual death. Jesus proclaimed a yes that embraced all people, and invited everyone in.

ee cummings, poet, and Unitarian Universalist, captures the essence of the message, the message of Moses, Jesus, the robins and Tina Fey. The message for our time, and truly for all time.

love is a place
and through this place of
love move
(with brightness of peace)
all places

yes is a world
& in this world of
yes live
(skillfully curled)
all worlds ee cummings

My friends you have been issued an invitation… an invitation to enter the world of yes, in which live all worlds. As you listen, dream, watch and wait the path opens before you. May these days, the days of your lives, bring for you the blessings of love, the stirrings of wonder and the courage to welcome life with a “yes.“

Living churches have problems;
dying churches don’t.

Living churches make lots of noise;
dying churches are peaceful as a tomb.

Living churches often outspend their income;
dying churches would not dream of giving or spending more than they did ten years ago.

Living churches are full of unfamiliar faces;
in dying churches, everyone has known everyone for years.

Living churches say, “We’ll find a way;”
dying churches say, “We can’t do that.”

Living churches talk about money, life, death, love, birth, anger, and the weather.
Dying churches talk about the weather.

• Steve Crump (UU minister)

On March 11 First Parish hosted the annual Union Service with neighboring UU churches from Hingham, Scituate and Norwell. Our children were welcoming hosts and hostesses, friendly and inclusive. We shared our usual chalice lighting and sharing rituals with our guests, heard the forgiveness story of Mussa and Naghib, and then adjourned to Trueblood Hall for activities. Some children chose to work with clay to fashion figures from the story, some made a story theater out of a cardboard box so they could retell this and other stories at home, and some chose to play our favorite get-to-know-you games: Name Toss, All my Neighbors and Would You Rather. It was a fun and successful morning strengthening the ties among our congregations.

Thought for Contemplation:
The very least you can do in your life is to figure out what you hope for.
And the most you can do is live inside that hope.
Not admire it from a distance, but live right in its roof.

Barbara Kingsolver, Animal Dreams

“Is It Always Like This?”
The Rev. Dr. Anita Farber-Robertson
First Parish in Cohasset
March 18, 2012

Reading: “Attitude” author unknown (included in body of sermon
Austan Goolsbee who stepped down last summer as the Chair of the Council of Economic Advisors, the top advisor to the President on economic matters
tells the story of a flight he once took that got caught in a towering thunderstorm. The plane was gripped in the turbulence.

The jet pitched and dove. Drinks flew. Lights went out. No reassuring announcement came from the cockpit. In front of Goolsbee, an older woman seated next to a teenager began screaming: “We’re gonna die! We’re gonna die!”
“Wow,” Goolsbee remarked to the teenager after a hard landing. “That was some flight.”

The teen was stunned. “This was my first time on an airplane,” he said. “Is it always like this?”

I enjoy this story for many reasons. I enjoy it because I imagine that the teenager who was a novice flyer experienced the whole thing as exciting. I might have experienced it as annoying, intruding on my ability to read or sleep during the flight. Or I might have been irritated as I worried about making my connecting flight or getting to my destination on time. Possibly I might have been frightened like the woman who yelled “We’re gonna die! We’re gonna die!”
But the youth, new to flying took it all in stride. Without an expectation of what it was going to be like, or supposed to be like, he just let it all in, embracing the experience- the fabulous lightshow provided by the thunder storm, the wakefulness generated by the tipping and twisting that was tossing cups and objects back and forth, the excitement, curiosity and maybe even horror at the frightened woman next to him yelling, “We’re gonna die! We’re gonna die!”
Goolsbee, an old hand at flying noted that “That was some flight!” He was marking that it was note- worthily unusual.
For the teen, it was terrific. He was ready to have things however they came to him, and enjoy them for what they offered. I imagine he was hoping that the answer to his question:
“Is it always like this?” Would be ‘yes.’
But maybe I am a dreamer, or a romantic, or an adolescent at heart. Somewhere inside of me, is the lover of adventure. It does not dominate. It co-exists with the lover of familiarity and the lover of tradition, but it holds its place in my life and story. Were it not so, I would be unable to practice interim ministry, a calling in which every two years I am faced with adventure- the adventure of not knowing if I have a job, and the adventure of meeting a new congregation, learning their dreams and their struggles, their loves and their foibles. Interim ministry, I think it is safe to say, is structured adventure. Like the flight that captured Goolsbee and his teenage traveling companion, it has the capacity to scare and the capacity to dazzle. It does for me, and I think, it probably has had that capacity for you.
Goolsbee was talking about a plane flight, regularly scheduled, sent up and out along a known route. A known, familiar route in which surprising things happened. Doesn’t just sound like a plane flight, does it? It sounds like life.
Maybe you grew up expecting to live a life much as your parents did, only to find that the world had changed and with it the opportunities and the attractions. Maybe you left home determined to live a life that was nothing like the life of your parents, only to find, the older you get and the more honest and insightful, that in fact in many ways you are very much like your parents. Ouch! That was a bumpy one, wasn’t it?
Maybe you thought you were going to have two kids and ended up with six; or thought you would have six and ended up with one, or none. Maybe you thought you’d raise your kids and be married for your lifetime, but death or divorce intervened. Your personal plane pitched and dove. Lights went out. Things flew. Eventually you landed- maybe not even in the place you had intended, but landed nevertheless. Terra firma. Feel the ground.
“That was some flight,” you might say now. You had been challenged.
Maybe you loved your job and thought you’d work until you were 70 or more but your health gave out, or the job disappeared and you’ve had to figure out something else to do with your life. You might have felt like screaming like the woman, “We‘re gonna die! We‘re gonna die!” or, with a grip on your self and a longer view of the world, you might say now, “That was some flight”. You had been challenged.
Maybe you are tired of your job, haven’t cared about it or wanted to do it for some time. You’d been looking forward to retirement. But your company went belly-up along with your pension or your retirement savings have disappeared, or you don’t have the financial security you would need to retire. So you are going to work and work well beyond the years or your planning intended you to do so. You could fume with rage. You could make yourself sick with negative energy, and drive away friends who are tired of hearing you complain. Or …
“That was some flight,” you might say now. You had been challenged.
But it isn’t always like that.
It isn’t.
Smooth flights are more common than turbulent ones. We go through all kinds of weather but storms, while part of the picture are not the norm. We remember them more. They have an impact. And often they have powerful effects- we learn, we grow, we deepen in response to them. We need them in our lives. They wake us up and can dazzle us. But they are generally not our every day fare.
What is every day fare, is the ordinary, and unavoidable daily challenges- maybe like our plane flight on a smaller scale. They say, “If you want to make God laugh, tell God your plans.” For life rarely delivers at our doorstep exactly what we ordered or even what we expected.
A wise sage once said that “Expectations are disappointments waiting to happen.” Wise because it is an observation of how life generally works. It is a description, not a prediction. It should not be taken to mean that we should give up the excitement of anticipation or the hope of expectation. It only reminds us that life is a bumpy, unpredictable ride. We need to be prepared for outcomes that are different from what we had wanted or expected. ‘Yes, young man, in some ways it is always this way.’ And it is your choice to engage it as adventure or with fear. For always, it is about attitude.

There once was a woman who woke up one morning, looked in the mirror, and noticed she had only three hairs on her head.
‘Well,’ she said, ‘I think I’ll braid my hair today.’
So she did and she had a wonderful day.
The next day she woke up,
looked in the mirror
and saw that she had only two hairs on her head.
‘H-M-M,’ she said,
‘I think I’ll part my hair down the middle today.’
So she did and she had a grand day.
The next day she woke up,
Looked in the mirror and noticed
that she had only one hair on her head.
‘Well,’ she said, ‘today I’m going
to wear my hair in a pony tail.’
So she did, and she had a fun, fun day.
The next day she woke up,
looked in the mirror and noticed
that there wasn’t a single hair on her head.
‘YEAH!’ she exclaimed.
‘I don’t have to fix my hair today!’

Attitude is everything.

Attitude is everything.
And so my friends,

This day,

Remember that the world is beautiful
To one who is willing that it be so

May you be such a one who knows the world is beautiful. May it be so for you. Amen. Blessed Be.

Thought for Contemplation: Give them not Hell
But hope and courage
Preach kindness
And everlasting love. The Rev. John Murray

“How Could Anyone?”
A reflection on belonging
The Rev. Dr. Anita Farber-Robertson
First Parish in Cohasset
Union Sunday
March 11, 2012
Hymn as Reading: “How Could Anyone”
They say every preacher has one sermon to preach and preaches it over and over in different variations. So when Ken Read-Brown asked each of us cluster colleagues to name our favorite hymn, what came out of my mouth without even thinking was a hymn that captured my 35 years of preaching. It is my Good News. And the Good News I cherish and spread as best as I am able is that “You belong here.” Whoever you are, however you came to be, no matter your story, you belong in this world. Your birth was your passport- your guarantee.
I am a Unitarian Universalist. That is our full name as an association and a tradition that has wended and weaved and braided itself through history. I am a Unitarian Universalist.
But with the poet David Whyte who writes in his poem Self-Portrait:

It doesn’t interest me if there is one God
Or many gods.
I want to know if you belong — or feel abandoned;
If you know despair
Or can see it in others.
I want to know
If you are prepared to live in the world
With its harsh need to change you;
If you can look back with firm eyes
Saying “this is where I stand.”#

When you know that you do not need to justify your life, your right to breathe, or to be or to be happy, you know liberation. You know that you are free to be your whole and true self and that in the words of scripture, nothing, but nothing can separate you from the love of God.
I choose the hymn How Could Anyone? because the depth of sorrow for those who have been hurt by a dismissing or discounting of their value is profound. I feel it like a weighted sack in my chest. We are called to heal that sorrow and lift the weight of pain and regret from the heart and soul of human kind, from the heart and soul that is our own.
I choose the hymn “How Could Anyone?” because I need the reminder to keep my mind clear, my soul free and my heart open.
I need to remember every day that I do not need to earn my value, and that neither do you. I do not need to justify my existence, and neither do you. I cannot always love my enemies, and neither can you, but we are called to recognize that they too are creatures created in the Spirit of light and love. They too belong here, and they too, in the eyes of the Eternal are beautiful. Ouch! Ouch. But it is true.
When my son was two years old and it was obvious that he was not going to be the perfect child and I was not going to be the perfect mother I recognized that I had two choices. I could beat myself up for my failures and imperfection, or I could accept those truths, and be prepared to forgive myself all along the way.
The path of forgiveness seemed the right path. I wanted to enjoy my son. But I realized there was a price to pay. If I was going to forgive myself for all my mistakes and failures as a mother, then the first thing I had to do was forgive my mother her mistakes and failures. Deep breath. Deep breath. And that is what I did. I picked up the phone, called my mother and told her what happened, what I thought about it, and that I was sorry, I was sorry for all of the hard times I had given her. I was sorry for the kind of nasty teenager I had been. I was sorry -for being so difficult, and I loved her.
She laughed. And then she laughed again. “Oh Anita, she said. “You weren’t that bad.”
And we both grinned, I could tell, just by the sound of it. We were okay. She was okay, accepted and acceptable just as she was, and I was too.
Isn’t that good news? It is for me. I hope it is for you.
So I am inviting you to not only sing the hymn with me, but I invite you to enter into a spiritual practice while you are singing it.
The first time through I want you to sing the song to someone you cherish. Bring them to mind, and sing it with your heart.
The second time you sing it I would like you to look around and choose a face of someone you don’t know. You don’t have to look at them when you are singing. You can close your eyes or not, but keep their face in your mind’s eye. Sing it to them-sing it to them so that you know you are singing truth.
And the last time you sing it through, you probably guessed it- I want you to think of someone who you perceive of as an adversary, or as your enemy, or as a villain. I want you to reach down deep, into the deepest place of your expanding loving heart, the place so deep and maybe so tender you hardly ever go there. And from there I ask you to sing this song one more time. As you sing, and as you listen to all the voices around you, feel the love, the tenderness, the forgiveness surrounding you and holding you, because now you know that truly you are beautiful and you are whole. Amen and Blessed Be.