Luke 24:45-53 "Beaam Me Up, Scotty"

SHOW STAR TREK CLIP - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ODrdBEztyY

         Even in our modern day, Jesus stands in good company when it comes to unusual ways of departing from this earth.  For him, it meant severing his physical connection to the disciples while at the same time cementing that bond eternally with God.  In Star Trek, this sort of exiting is fondly recalled by the line that was never actually used in the original television series: “Beam me up, Scotty”. 

         Here in the church, we call Jesus’ exit simply the ascension.  It is that rationally impossible, pragmatically inconceivable, fantastically incomprehensible event that the Gospel writer of Luke includes in his narrative to end the story – in addition to beginning its sequel, which is the Book of Acts.

         The Gospel writer positions the ascension forty days after Easter, which, for us in 2018, would be last Thursday.  Let’s look back for a minute however.  Remember?  The despairing women had found the tomb empty on Easter morning.  No one, of course, believed their cockamamie story that Jesus was alive.

         Then the extraordinary appearances started happening.  And for the next nearly six weeks, through those appearances, Jesus tried to prove to his followers that, first, he really did die, and, second, neither was his body stolen, nor was he returning as a ghost to chide them for their abject failures or just to wander aimlessly about in this world, unable for some reason to move on to whatever it is that comes next.

         These astounding appearance stories are scattered throughout the final chapters in all four Gospels.  In each of them, Jesus goes to great lengths to convince his followers that he lives, albeit in a mysterious way that neither he – nor we – will ever fully understand. 

         And so we find him slipping through keyholes into locked upper rooms located down winding side streets and back alleys in Jerusalem.  Once inside, he offers peace to a bunch of his friends who feared more for their own lives than for his in the days surrounding his gruesome execution.  He even allows Thomas, who insists more than the others on visceral proof, allows him to touch his scarred hands and poke around inside the spear wound on his side. 

       He cooks breakfast on a beach  - and nibbles on freshly broiled fish prepared in that same upper room. One time he looks like the cemetery gardener.  Another time, he passes for a fellow traveler as he listens compassionately to Cleopas and his sidekick on the road to Emmaus and then breaks bread with them at suppertime – only to vanish when they finally recognize who he is. 

         And when those forty days filled with intentional appearances are up, according to the Gospel writer of Luke, Jesus gathers his disciples about them and one last time instructs them on the meaning of the Jewish Holy Scriptures.  However, this time was unlike all the other teachable moments when his followers just did not get it, all those times over the past three years of his ministry when no matter what Jesus told Peter, James, John, and the others, they could not comprehend who he was and what he stood for. 

         As Episcopal priest David Sellery notes, “Luke describes one of the truly transformative events in human history. Suddenly it all made sense. Jesus had told them over and over that he had not come to overthrow God’s covenant but to fulfill it. He was the answer to the prophet’s prayers. He was literally the embodiment of God’s love.
      How many times had (Jesus) taught this to these unschooled manual laborers? How many times had they struggled to understand? Now they knew the answer. They knew Jesus as they had never known him before.”

         According to the Gospel of Luke then, the disciples got it this time - finally.  They got that Jesus embodied in his own person God’s dream for a world that was founded on justice and grounded in reconciliation and compassion – no matter how far from those noble ideals their world seemed to be.  They got that Jesus was everything God wanted them to be:  loving, kind, outwardly focused.  They got that they were the ones challenged to preach and live that message of love to people everywhere for all their days. They got that Jesus was daring them to dance again – with new steps and a new rhythm.  

         And we know they got it because here we are more than 2000 years later still sitting in church on Sunday morning when we could be doing a host of other things.  Here we are still envisioning God’s dream for the world - a world founded on justice and grounded in reconciliation and compassion.  Here we are – knowing that Jesus is everything God wants us to be:  loving, kind, outwardly focused.  Here we are  - knowing that we are the ones challenged to preach and live that message of love to people everywhere for all our days. Here we are - knowing that Jesus is daring us to dance again with new steps and a new rhythm. Here we are still listening for the pulsing beat of love, still daring to dance where Jesus leads, still striving to wrap our minds around him and all that he stood for. 

         And when (or perhaps because) they finally understand, Jesus invites his disciples to come on out to Bethany, a village about a mile and a half east of the Jerusalem city gate, on the southeastern slope of the Mount of Olives.  And there in the fading light of day as the shadows inched their way across the land, we are told that Jesus raises his arms and blesses these folks who are his closest friends. 

         I like to think his hands touched each one of them – just as his hands had once touched the eyes of the blind and the tongue of the mute and gave them sight and speech, just as his hands had once touched the lifeless hand of a little girl and a mother’s only son and brought them back to life, just as his hands had once reached out to grab hold of Peter when he was close to drowning in a stormy sea, and once, in what seemed now a lifetime ago, when his hands lifted up a little boy’s lunch of bread and fish and fed 5000 people.

         And there in the shadow of the Mount of Olives, Jesus blessed his disciples and, in doing so, brought the lives they had shared together full circle.  Forgiveness was complete.  Healing was complete.  The dance steps had been taught.  The words had been spoken: 

Now I've had the time of my life
No I never felt like this before
Yes I swear; it's the truth…

         Then he gives them their final instruction:  Go back to Jerusalem, he says, and wait.  Wait for the Holy Spirit – for it will come.  And when it does, watch out! 

         Its power will make your heart burn like it is on fire.  Its strength will feel like a mighty wind that will knock your socks off.  It will grab you and toss you and shake you – and through it all, you will find that you cannot stop your feet from tapping.  Its pulsing beat of joy and rhythm of love will overtake you – and, with the Spirit as your partner, you will dare to dance again.

         And then, the Gospel writer tells us, Jesus ascended to heaven, as the creeds declare, to sit at the right hand of God.  “Beam me up, Scotty.” Yes - Jesus is in good company.  Not only is there Star Trek, but there is also Glinda the Good Witch in the Wizard of Oz who leaves as a glowing pink ball, with the munchkins cheerfully waving goodbye.

         Yes, Jesus is in good company – Biblically speaking as well.  There is Elijah, the Old Testament prophet who rode off into eternity in a flaming chariot, and there is Enoch, great-grandfather of Noah, who, mythology has it, fathered Methuselah and went on to live for 365 years before moving in with God.

         But really, face it!  What ever are we – in our post-modern metaphysical days - to do with this rationally impossible, pragmatically inconceivable, fantastically incomprehensible tale that we have the hutzpah to compare to a 365 year old man who sired a son who lived to be 969 years, a flaming chariot, a beloved science fiction TV series, and a good witch?

         For me, this is one of those stories where I have to look beyond its historical verification.  It is a story where, for me, literal truth is really immaterial because there are deeper truths that are so much more important, deeper truths that end up being hidden when we dwell on the story’s historical accuracy – or lack thereof. 

         There are at least three certainties we can tease from this story of the ascension.  First, Jesus left his disciples with a mission, a mission that has been told and retold for over 2000 years until it has come to us.  When Jesus blesses his followers on that last day in that last chapter in the Gospel of Luke, he commissions them to be his hands and feet in the world.  They are to love rather than fear.  They are to forgive rather than resent.  They are to welcome rather than turn away. They are to serve rather than be first in line. 

         In short, they are to be the church because that is what the church is supposed to be about – loving, forgiving, welcoming, serving.  And so it is for us.  Jesus commissions us to be the church – to be loving as he was loving, to be forgiving as he was forgiving, to be radically welcoming as he was welcoming, to serve as he served.     And if that seems so much more than we can ever do or be, then take note of what one blogger I read this week wrote: “It remains for us to realize that the power that is at work within us is the same power by which Christ was raised from the dead.”  We are challenged to really be the church and to dare to dance again.

         Second, Jesus did not leave his disciples bereft, alone to figure out the ins and outs of being the church – nor does he leave us that way either.  The Holy Spirit is coming, he told them. 

         The Holy Spirit has come, he would tell us.  It is waiting in the wings, here, right here, to tap within us the rhythm we need to keep on dancing.  If we forget the steps, the Spirit will teach them to us again and again and again.  If we stumble or feel like we have two left feet, she will lead us back to the dance floor again and again and again.  If we find ourselves as wallflowers or hiding in a corner, she will extend her hand to be our partner and dare us to dance again and again and again. 

         And finally, one last thing we learn from this story of the ascension is that it is an opportunity to re-imagine heaven, which was where, in the story, Jesus went. Lutheran pastor Luke Bouman puts it this way, “The problem is that we think of heaven as another place, as there are places in the world. If Jesus ascends to heaven, then he must go to that other place, is the logic that many might follow. But that does not appear to be the case.

       In Luke’s Gospel, the Kingdom of God, what many people assume to be heaven is portrayed not so much as a reality in a different place (located up in the sky somewhere) but rather is God’s future that in Christ’s death and resurrection has broken into the present. Understood this way, we have a new possibility.”

         I like that idea of heaven: God’s future – God’s dream – broken into the present through the life and ministry, death and resurrection of Jesus.  I like it because that is what Easter and the Easter season is all about.  

         Heaven is within our grasp (How exciting is that!) because the power of love has overcome even the power of death.  Because that is so, the future is now safe in Jesus’ hands (How comforting is that!)

         Such is our hope for tomorrow, and it is a hope that surely has the potential to give us courage for today – courage to do more than just sing hymns and listen to sermons on Sunday morning, courage to begin to bridge the political divide and find common ground with those who see life differently than we do, courage to try our hand at filling the emptiness that lies all around us, courage to mend broken lives with forgiveness, courage to stand up and speak out against injustice, courage to be peacemakers, courage to dare to dance again – to dance as the church into God’s future, whatever it might be.    

Isaiah 55:10-13 "Break Forth into Joy"

        Back in the days when even big downtown churches were full on Sunday mornings and eager children who were dressed in their Sunday best were in abundance, the church where I grew up performed an annual Christmas pageant.  I believe the script had been written in 1948, and it was used – unchanged - year after year. 

         For me, the pageant brings back wonderful memories.  Even to this day, the smell of cold cream, greasepaint theater make up, and somewhat musty costume clothing takes me back too many years to when I was cast as an angel or an incense bearer or was simply part of the Sunday School chorus that processed dressed in short waist-length white tops with bright red bows and carried long battery-operated taper candles.  In those years, I sat in the side balconies with the rest of the children to watch the performance unfolding below.

         My father was a prophet in the pageant for many years.  He was one of the two men who narrated the story of the birth of Jesus.  His lines, of course, were always the same because the script was never altered. 

         Yet, he would practice them occasionally throughout the year and almost daily come the first of December.  His opening line was “Break forth into joy!  Sing together all ye nations of the earth.”  I shall always remember his booming voice spontaneously proclaiming the joy of the impending birth as he rehearsed – in the kitchen, the living room, or even the bathroom.

         I did not know it at the time, but the Biblical reference for his opening line came – not surprisingly - from the prophet Isaiah.  You see, joy was a theme woven throughout especially the later chapters of the Book of Isaiah. 

         Joy was the promise the prophet held out to the ancient Jewish people in the decades after they had been exiled to the outer reaches of the Babylonian Empire around 587 BCE.  You see, at that time, their lives had been viciously uprooted.  The Babylonian army had overrun their nation in yet another war.  Their fields and farms were trampled beyond recognition.  The temple was burned to the ground.  The entire countryside and all that was within it was in shambles.

        The temple, of course, was the most shocking and devastating loss.  Ever since this religious epicenter – reportedly constructed by the great King Solomon – had been built, the people believed that in that very place God lived – simple as that.  The temple was God’s one and only home.

         So, when the temple was destroyed, could they believe anything else but that God had left, found a new people to live with perhaps, or simply disappeared?  For the Jewish populace, it was as if their national heart had been unceremoniously ripped out of them.  No wonder the exiled men and women sat in despair by the rivers of Babylon and dejectedly hung their harps upon the willows nearby.  What was the point of making music?  As the Biblical Psalmist tells us, there was no point, and so they wept.  

         It was into this scene of anguish and melancholy that the prophet Isaiah sought to provide a much-needed perspective, sought to help the exiled Jews see their broken world with different eyes.  Heaven knows: they needed a new vantage point!  They needed a reason to hope.  

        As Old Testament scholar Juliana Claassens notes, “The trauma of the Babylonian Exile they had lived through was too much to bear. After seeing their beloved city destroyed; families torn apart; houses demolished; their country lost, it was not surprising that members of the prophet's audience were not so sure anymore whether they still believed in the God of their ancestors. (And so,) the prophet (presents) these doubters with a word of hope from the Lord that has the purpose of transforming the exiles' fractured lives.”

         The exile formally ended some 70 years later in 538 BCE when the Persian emperor Cyrus the Great conquered Babylon and allowed the Jews to go home, to return to that place of warmth, freedom, and security.

         However, before that day became a reality, the prophet Isaiah outlined a beautiful hope for the Jewish people.  It was a hope sketched in vivid and deeply meaningful images.  It was a hope that is summarized in the verses we read this morning:

Just as rain and snow descend from the skies
    and don’t go back until they’ve watered the earth,
Doing their work of making things grow and blossom,
    producing seed for farmers and food for the hungry,
So will the words that come out of my mouth
    not come back empty-handed.
They’ll do the work I sent them to do,
    they’ll complete the assignment I gave them.

         In other words, God says, through the words of the ancient prophet, do not be afraid.  Hang tough.  All that you are facing now will not be forever. 

         Imagine, Isaiah declared to the Jews in exile, you who know only an arid environment:  Imagine the rain and snow falling upon the earth, providing much needed and cherished moisture in a desert land.  That is how God’s words of power will fall from God’s mouth – in lush abundance.  Just as the rain and the snow will produce bounteous crops for you to harvest and so fulfill your physical needs, so God’s generous and generative words will provide you with what you most desire spiritually.  And so, declares Isaiah….

^12-13 “… you’ll go out in joy,
    you’ll be led into a whole and complete life.

         And when that day comes, the prophet promises, all creation will rejoice with you - and it will be so good.  It will be a blessing:

The mountains and hills will lead the parade,
    bursting with song.
All the trees of the forest will join the procession,
    exuberant with applause.
No more thistles, but giant sequoias,
    no more thorn

bushes, but stately pines….”

         In time, Isaiah assures the Jewish exiles, in time you will dare to dance again, and it will be a dance of joy. What a wonderful image, one that reminds me of that brief poem by ee cummings:

I thank You God for most this amazing day: for the leaping greenly spirits of trees and a blue true dream of sky; and for everything which is natural which is infinite which is yes.

         The prophet Isaiah’s words were an invitation to the Jewish exiles.  They were an invitation to dance a dance of yes – even in the most difficult of times.  More than that, Isaiah’s words are an invitation that has resounded down through the ages even to us who live in what so often seem to be joyless lives lived in exceedingly trying circumstances as well, lives too often punctuated by “no”.

         However, as Unity Church pastor Ed Townley wisely noted, this Bible passage “tells us clearly that it is not God's will that we live in lack and limitation. We "spend our money" according to where we place our faith and our creative focus. (And this is important…) We choose through our thoughts what we experience in our lives. We can choose fear and lack—and that's what we will experience. But we can alternately choose to embrace the Presence and Promise of God—and our lives will joyfully and lovingly express that choice.”  Townley urges us to choose to dance again.

         What then is this dance of joy, this dance of yes that we are challenged to dare to dance?  Is it like the story of a rich industrialist who was disturbed to find a fisherman sitting lazily beside his boat?

         “Why aren’t you out there fishing?” he asked.

      “Because I’ve caught enough fish for today,” said the fisherman.

      “Why don’t you catch more fish than you need?” the rich man asked.

      “What would I do with them?”

      “You could earn more money,” came the impatient reply, “and buy a better boat so you could go deeper and catch more fish.

You could purchase nylon nets, catch even more fish, and make more money. Soon you’d have a fleet of boats and be rich like me.”

      The fisherman asked, “Then what would I do?”

      “You could sit down and enjoy life,” said the industrialist.

      “What do you think I’m doing now?” the fisherman replied as he looked placidly out to sea.

         Joy is not about affluence.  Happiness may be, but not joy.  Theologian Frederick Buechner reminds us that happiness has human origins.  “We work for these things (he writes), and if we are careful and wise and lucky, we can usually achieve them.” 

         Joy is something else.  In the end, joy is a mystery because it comes only from God.  Joy is more like that which a wise old woman intuitively understood. 

         You see, she was once traveling in the mountains and found a precious stone in a stream. She carefully picked it up and put it in her bag. The next day she met another traveler who was hungry, and the wise woman opened her bag to share her food. The hungry traveler saw the precious stone and asked the woman to give it to him. She did so without hesitation. The traveler left, rejoicing in his good fortune. He knew the stone was worth enough to give him security for a lifetime.

          However, a few days later, he retraced his steps in order to find the wise woman again and return the stone. “I've been thinking,” he said. “I know how valuable this stone is, but I want to give it back in the hope that you can give me something even more precious.” 

         He paused for a moment before he spoke again.  “Please give me what you have within you that enabled you to give me this precious stone in the first place.”

         The wise woman could relinquish the stone because she had something far more precious.  She had joy in her heart, and she did not need riches to give her that joy – nor could she give that joy away because joy is divine.

         Joy is where we end up when we let the Spirit lead us in dance.  Joy is when we close our eyes and allow the pulsing rhythm of love and the throbbing beat of “yes” move our feet. Joy is when we as Christians let ourselves be uplifted by Jesus and all he stood for in a pas de deux that brings tears to our eyes even as it brings courage to our hearts and strength to our souls.

         Where do you find joy?  Where is the “yes” in your life?  Where does this church find joy? What is our “yes”?  Those are the questions I would urge you to wrestle with this week because they lie at the root of who you are as a Christian and just what this church is all about in its ministry.  I do not know the answers to those queries.  I do not know where each of you finds joy, where you can shout out “yes”, and I do not know right now where our church finds joy.  I am not sure where our “yes” lies.  However, I know we need to find out.

         Will we as a church find joy in establishing strong partnerships with groups like the Raymond Arts Alliance and the Library?  Will we find joy by more intentionally connecting with our community through purposeful hands on outreach initiatives?  Will we find joy in forging generative and life-giving relationships with the elderly in our town – or with younger families seeking a spiritual grounding and strong moral values?

         I do not know, but I do know that, as a church, we will not find joy if we are content with a murky vision and unclear direction.  I know that our “yes” is somewhere beyond our Sunday morning worship – though worship may certainly be a part of that “yes.”

         I also know that joy has something to do with what Mary Oliver once wrote in a poem:

If you suddenly and unexpectedly feel joy,

don’t hesitate. Give in to it. There [is] . . .

much that can never be redeemed.

Still, life has some possibility left. . .

It could be anything,

but very likely you notice it in the instant

when love begins. . .

Anyway, whatever it is, don’t be afraid

of its plenty. Joy is not made to be a crumb.

         The dance of joy, the dance of yes is meant to be danced with wild abandon.  The dance of joy is in no way stingy! 

         And finally, I trust that we – all of us - are made for joy.  We are made to shout out yes.  And I know that when we as Christians have found joy, it will be because we will have experienced Jesus and all he stood for.  It will be because we will be doing our small part in realizing God’s dream for the world founded on justice and mercy and peace. 

         As a church community, we must let the Spirit lead us toward something about which we can shout our “yes,” about which we can break forth into joy, about which we can dare to dance again!

John 17:20-26 "The Dance of Love"

         Those of you who were here in church last week heard about my problematic experience taking ballroom dance lessons with Joe under the tutelage of a young Russian dance instructor named Zergai.  This week, picking up on that same dance theme, I want to tell you about the beginner tai chi class I once enrolled in.  And I have to admit, that experience was also problematic.

         Tai chi is a Chinese martial art practiced both for self-defense and for its health benefits.  It is reputed to be wonderful for one’s balance and marvelous in gently reducing stress.  In addition, I think it is so like dancing.  Its movements are slow and controlled and almost balletic. 

         I first saw someone doing tai chi decades ago in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco the summer I worked as a hospital chaplain at the Pacific Medical Center.  Ever since then, a piece of me had wanted to try moving in that same slow motion, meditative way.

         And so, all these years later, I signed up for a beginners’ class with about thirty other men and women of various sizes and shapes at the Taoist Tai Chi Society in Bridgton.  

Each week, we stood in four equal lines with an experienced tai chi student assigned to each of the four corners.  In that set pattern, we began to learn the first form, which is a series of what are supposed to be simple movements, each one flowing into the next.  We learned to hold our ball of “chi” (which is Chinese for “energy”) and move it carefully around. 

         In a way, it reminded me of the flour babies that, when our children at least were about to reach puberty, they had to carry around for a week as part of the school-required sex education curriculum. The flour babies were five-pound bags of enriched flour that, for seven days every fifth grader - male and female - had to care for – 24/7. 

         The experience was an interactive, hands-on way to help these impressionable students understand what it would be like to be a teenage mother or father.  You see, you had to carry the flour baby and know where it was at all times.  You had to take time out to feed it, change it, and comfort it at set intervals throughout the day and night.  And heaven forbid if you dropped your flour baby, and it broke!

         But I digress!  Holding your ball of chi struck me as being along the same lines.  What would happen if you missed a step and dropped it?

         Now, after a couple of weeks in the class, I realized that the number of people who continued to come had decreased considerably.  And it was not long afterward that I learned two things.  First, similar to my experience with ballroom dancing, this was not exactly a beginners’ class.  In fact, I discovered that I was the only one of the twelve or fifteen people left who had never held a ball of chi before that first session.  Everyone remaining in the class had been doing tai chi for a while and had returned to the rank beginner class to refine their moves. 

         Second, I learned that when a group of people is practicing tai chi, the primary goal is for the whole group to move together.  Everyone’s ball of chi was supposed to be rising and falling amidst the slow balletic moves at the same time and in the same rhythm.  The whole point of the practice was to move together in complete unity of body and spirit.  The whole point of the practice was to move as one. 

         And if you missed a step, or held your ball of chi aloft when everyone else was holding theirs down low, or you were simply a little slower to pick up on the next part of the form, you ruined the practice for everyone.  In short, you stuck out like a sore thumb – and quite possibly had gotten tangled up with someone when you went left and the class went right.

`        I found that tai chi under these circumstances did more to increase my stress level than to alleviate it.  Needless-to-say, I have left tai chi behind. I do yoga now – which also helps with balance, is quiet and meditative, is more of a solitary venture, and is way less stressful. 

         There are times, of course (very important, even critical times), when we are called to move together, to dance as one. Jesus intuitively understood that necessity when, according to the Gospel writer of John, he prayed a final pastoral prayer the evening before his execution, shortly before sharing a last supper with his disciples in that upper room we keep hearing about in the Holy City of Jerusalem.  Since the Gospel writer was not an eyewitness to that scene (after all, he wrote his narrative many dozens of years later), he records what he thinks Jesus might have prayed. The result is a lengthy, many verses long prayer in the typical lofty and sometimes convoluted language and syntax that characterizes this Gospel.

         Lutheran pastor David Lose described the scene this way.  “It’s Thursday evening, the night on which Jesus will be betrayed, handed over to his enemies, deserted by his friends, tried, convicted, and ultimately crucified. And knowing all that is to come, he gathers his closest friends, offers them parting words of encouragement and hope, and then prays for them.

         He prays that they may endure the challenges that come their way. He prays that they may discover strength in their unity. He prays that they will be drawn together as one as Jesus and the heavenly Father are one. And then he prays not only for them, but for all for who will believe in Jesus because of their testimony.”

         Three times in the verses that we read Jesus prays for unity.  On the basis of that evidence alone, surely we can say that dancing as one – all our moves engaging us in a common rhythm and taking us in one direction - is essential to Jesus, the one we have chosen to follow.  Another way to look at it would be that last words of advice are the ones you need to take to heart. Last prayers are most certainly not to be taken lightly. 

         And what is it that Jesus says?  “That they may all be one”, that they may all dance together in the rhythm that has pulsed through the universe since the very beginning of time.  That being said, I cannot help wondering: What would Jesus think if he were to walk into our world today after such a heartfelt prayer that was also a passionate challenge to his disciples – and so to us as his 21^st century disciples as well?

         After all, we live in a world fraught with division and discord. We live in a world characterized by distrust with nations holding one another at arms’ length – unable to agree on trade policies and sanctions.  One blogger I read wrote this:  “We live in a day and age that is characterized by division. Division seems to mark every area of society. Increasing divorce rates, ongoing racial issues, and widening political gaps are just a few examples that speak to the divisiveness of our culture.”  It is like the observation of a rabbi who said that a town with two Jews would need three synagogues: The one I go to; the one you go to; and the one neither one of us would be caught dead in.

         UCC pastor Ron Buford acknowledges that the same dynamic has always been true for Christians – in ancient times and now.  He writes, “People in Jesus' day were as divided about Jesus' prophecy as we are today...mosques or no mosques; synagogues or no synagogues; churches or no churches; gay marriage or no gay marriage; ways to worship, receive communion, or baptize. And yet, we act (he observes) as if God, knowledge, or love itself is something we can own, limit, control, or divide.”

         And yet, as the blogger I read this week observed, “In the midst of all of this division, the church has a real opportunity to show the world a better way. In a world that is marked by disunity, the people of God need to be united. We need to tangibly demonstrate the transforming power of the gospel by living as one.”

         The motto of our denomination, the United Church of Christ, affirms that need:  “That they may all be one." It is a phrase, of course, that is drawn directly from our Scripture reading this morning.  As a denomination, we go on to say that we are a united and uniting church:  "In essentials–unity, in nonessentials–diversity, in all things–charity," These UCC mottos survive because they touch core values deep within us.

         A second-grade teacher gave an assignment to her class. Students were to bring an item that represented their religious background. She wanted to teach the children about diversity in the world and the many ways of worshiping God.

         At show and tell time, they began to share what their particular item meant to their faith.  A Catholic child brought some rosary beads and shared how they were used in prayer. A Native American child who brought a dream catcher and told the class how it would capture her dreams at night, filtering out the bad ones and holding on to the good dreams. A Jewish child brought a candle and shared how it was used to celebrate Hanukkah. And one little boy pulled some food out of his bag. He said, "I'm Southern Baptist, and I brought a chicken casserole."

         Those are the non-essentials (the forms and structures of piety).  In the UCC we celebrate those non-essentials and the diversity they represent.  

We are not meant to point fingers and dictate what is right or wrong, good or bad, proper or improper when it comes to the non-essentials aspects of religion. 

         However, the essentials are different.  I believe we are called – Christian and non-Christian alike – to strive for unity.  I believe we are called to dance as one, and the dance that we are called to dance is the dance of love. 

         “To fall in love is to fall in rhythm.”  Thank you Mickey Hart of the Grateful Dead for that brilliant observation.  Though the United Church of Christ has neither a rigid formulation of doctrine nor an attachment to hierarchical structures, its overarching creed is one word – love. The United Church of Christ is a big umbrella, welcoming all people on their spiritual journeys.  Why?  Because love and unity in the midst of our diversity is our greatest asset as a UCC Church.

         Love and unity in the midst of our diversity:  We will need to remember those words in the coming months here in our church.  Perhaps you remember that you decided at our Annual Meeting to form a team that would help all of us do some hard thinking about who we are as a church and where we are going.  Its task would be to help us dream together about our future.  Who knows where all this visioning will lead us?  However, I foresee two things occurring. 

         First, not all of us will agree on what ought to characterize us as a church - from what worship might look like to what role we should play in our community. But those are the non-essentials. When it comes to them, we will undoubtedly have a variety of perspectives but, remember, that is a good thing.  Diversity is something to be cherished and respected in a denomination – and in a church - like ours.

         Second, I trust that all of us will agree on the essentials – and the most important essential of all, which is love. “In all things – charity” - as our UCC motto proclaims.   I pray that we will choose to dance the dance of love as one – like a tai chi class moving in unison with beautiful and balletic moves, each person cradling their chi, their energy.  I pray that we will fall into the rhythm of this most important dance – the dance of love - unified.  I pray that, even in the mist of our diversity, we will dance as one.

        The dance of love:  That must be the dance of the church.  And what does love look like? A new UCC Banner announces it:  Be the church (the banner reads).  Protect the environment.  Care for the poor.  Forgive often.  Reject racism.  Fight for the powerless.  Share earthly and spiritual resources.  Embrace diversity.  Love God.  Enjoy this life.  

         Exactly how we do that, exactly what the dance steps will look like for our particular church and whether everyone sitting here today will decide to dance with us in unity: Those are the questions that each one of will in time need to answer. 

         "In essentials–unity, in nonessentials–diversity, in all things–charity," Will we dare to dance again as a church?  Will we dare to dance a dance of love – whatever it may look like and wherever it may lead?  As your pastor, I pray that we will!  Let’s dare to dance again!