Foothills Congregational Church The Rev. Michelle Webber

United Church of Christ 1^st Sunday after Pentecost

461 Orange Ave., Los Altos, CA 94022 June 3^rd, 2007

THE WORLD IS BECOMING

Psalm 8; thank You God for most this amazing (ee cummings)

The desk calendar I use is the one printed by the denomination. It has the lectionary texts printed for each week, along with a sort of generalized title for that Sunday. Seldom do I use this title for anything, but this week it grabbed me. “The World’s Becoming.” It reminded me of how Jesus is described in the first chapter of John, literally “the after me coming person,” usually translated as “the one coming after me.” The progressive verbs in each of these two statements give a sense of constant dynamic motion. They remind me of ee cummings, of the freedom with which he used language, and the life he found in the progressive tense, “tasting, touching, hearing, seeing, breathing.”

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

wich is natural which is infinite which is yes

(i who have died am alive again today,

and this is the sun's birthday;this is the birth

day of life and love and wings:and of the gay

great happening illimitably earth)

how should tasting touching hearing seeing

breathing any-lifted from the no

of all nothing-human merely being

doubt unimaginable You?

(now the ears of my ears awake and

now the eyes of my eyes are opened)

Children are like this, too. Children are in the present. They are progressive verbs, tasting, touching, hearing, seeing, breathing. And they are truth tellers, both in their lack of filters that allows them to name truth others will hold inside and in their propensity to mimic the behavior they witness from the adults around them. We can learn a lot from our children.

One of the highlights for me in the Children’s Program is how the kids come with such enthusiasm to the communion table. They rush at it, like it’s cake and ice cream. They relish in the taste of the elements and they eat their fill. They are active participants in the communion service, bringing their whole selves to the table. This does mean that sometimes they bring excessive squirminess and side conversations. And sometimes they have trouble waiting until the story is told before taking the elements. But I believe that by accepting them as they come to the table in whatever mood they are in, that we are affirming the message that no matter where they are on life’s journey they are welcome at God’s table, that we all come to the table as equals. Our Psalm this morning reads that a defensive structure will be formed against our foes out of the mouths of our babes and infants. Part of our defensive structure, our bulwark, is their feeling of acceptance, their excitement of coming to the Lord’s table. The children’s program is not a place where we, as adults, dominate the kids, but a place where we equally explore bible stories and the elements of our faith, all open to learning from each other.

This is much the same strategy that is laid out in Psalm 8. We are partners with God in the care of the earth. The spark of the divine that is within us, that crowns us with glory and honor, is dependent upon both our praising God and our caretaking of God’s creation. I would like to propose this as a model for our faith development programs, that in them, we both praise God, deepening our faith through gratitude to God, and mutually care for what we can explore and create together as a community that is in relationship with God and with one another.

For it is in relationship that we create. Even an artist working alone in a studio is in relationship. A sculpture will find that a certain piece of marble will break one way under a chisel, while a different piece will break a different way. A wise sculpture will not force her own vision onto the marble, but work with the natural breaks the marble gives her. Any medium with which you choose to work has its own limitations, its own happy accidents with which you, as artist, are in relationship. Both affected by the expression of the other.

The banners we have in our worship space today are a good example of creative relationship. Some of the words on them, Welcome, Wisdom, Wonder, originated from Pastor Matt as he pondered what our church is all about, what do we do well, where should we put our energy? They came out of his relationship with us. And they became the theme for All Church Camp this year, where some of our young folk used the mediums provided to them, pre-fab banners, fabric markers, fabric paint, various embellishments and ribbon to create what you see here. They also thought about what other sentiments they wanted to include in their worship space and came up with church and family, both relational concepts. They represent more than the words you can read on them. They are a dynamic expression of living in community, of being in relationship together.

Even the ee cummings poem we heard today is about relationship, about what Buber called the I-Thou relationship of us with God. The poem relishes in the yes!-ness of creation, the life giving beauty of progressive verb aliveness. He asked the question, how can I be fully present in God’s creation and doubt God?

I came to ministry with the same feeling, finding evidence of God in the beauty of creation, including the beauty of being in relationship with God’s people. I am quite privileged to have a job where I am allowed into people’s highest and lowest moments, weddings, funerals, baptisms, mental health crisis’, life transitions. It is a profession dependent upon relationship.

For some time now those who study congregations have been promoting small-group connections as the key to healthy churches. A book I read this week, Recreating the Church: Leadership for the Postmodern Age, attempts to explain why this is so important. When the United Church of Christ was formed 50 years ago, we were at the apex of the modern era. The basic premise of the modern world view was that there is an essentially universal truth that can be logically deduced and once we figure it out, it can be universally applied. In the modern worldview the important relationship is with the universal truth and is filtered through institutions like the church. If you were an upstanding citizen it was expected that you would be a church participant, personally participating in the decision making, stewardship and upkeep of the church. This was part of the universal truth. We can see this type of participation and dedication in much of our membership today. It is still what runs our church.

But the modern worldview is no longer the dominant paradigm in western cultures, including the United States. We aren’t sure yet exactly what paradigm we are transitioning to, so we call it post-modern. In the post-modern worldview we acknowledge a multiplicity of truths. There are as many different truths about God as there are people on the planet. One does not need to attend a church, a mosque, a synagogue, a temple, an ashram, etc. in order to be seen as living a life of integrity. Even for those who choose to attend such institutions, they may not be as fully involved as previous generations because other activities are given the same level of dedication. We work more hours, participate in more “leisure” activities, attempt to remain current on more topics than previous generations. And we crave relationship, but not a relationship with the universal truth filtered through institutions. We crave relationship with other people, with a community of people. No longer will a sense of civic duty tie us to the church or to church activities, but it is the relationships we form while here, and the personal invitation of people who genuinely wish to spend time with us and explore our personal truths with us that will commit us to a church, synagogue, mosque, temple, ashram, etc.

This is the power of the people we are honoring today. They are the ones working in small group ministry, forging relationships within the church. They provide the spaces where people can explore the multiplicity of truths we must navigate to come up with our own sense of what it means to be a person of integrity when all truth is relative, the spaces where we can be still and listen to God’s creation in the world around us and in ourselves, feeling the power of being fully present in God’s moment, the places where we engage with the stories of the bible that used to be the central narrative of our culture, but are now marginalized as our culture lets go of the notion of a universal Christian truth.

These people, whose names are listed in your bulletin, represent the hope of our future. A modern church could gage its health by counting members and volunteers. Now we must gage the depth of our relationships, the genuine-ness of our invitations, the graciousness of our welcome. These are the gifts our volunteers and staff have given to our faith development programs. These are the gifts that we should return to them in gratitude. No matter who you are, or where you are on life’s journey, I hope that you feel welcome and appreciated here. Amen.