What’s Up with Pastor Todd 12/25/18

What’s Up with Pastor Todd 12/25/18

On the church’s liturgical calendar, the Season of Christmas lasts from Christmas Day until the celebration of Epiphany on January 6. Popular culture has found many ways to fill this space: after Christmas sales, top 10 lists, retrospectives on the previous year, forecasts for the next. For Christians it can be a time to bask in the afterglow and adjust to a new reality.

I remember after each of our children were born, the weeks after labor and delivery were a time of being together as a family, welcoming the newcomer, learning her particular quirks and needs, adjusting to the increased responsibility of a new child. It was a busy time, but also a quiet time, an inward-focused time.

I invite us in this Christmas season to gather ourselves, to take the backward step and inward turn. The office will be closed between Christmas and New Year’s. Take advantage of this moment to re-energize because 2019 is going to be a big year!

What’s Up with Pastor Todd 12/18/18

What’s Up with Pastor Todd 12/18/18

The theme for the 4th Sunday of Advent is love. Love is the heart of Christian belief and practice. 1 John 4:8 puts it succinctly: “God is love.” But what is love? In preparation for Sunday worship I did my usual practice of searching the Internet for quotations, images, and videos related to this week’s theme. Not surprisingly there were countless references to love: stories about love, images of love, theories of love, love advice, love humor . . . everything you can think of. Relevant for our context is a Christian approach to love. The Apostle Paul gives us a good starting place:

Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;  6 it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth.  7 It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. (1 Corinthians 13:4-8)   

Christian love is modeled after God’s love, which we find expressed in myriad forms in the Bible. It encompasses the many human forms of love–romantic, familial, love among friends, even love that we have for pets or communities or causes close to our hearts–and puts them in the larger context of what in Greek is called agape or self-emptying love. Once again, Paul expresses this love, this time through the example of Christ:

who, though he was in the form of God,

did not regard equality with God

as something to be exploited,

7 but emptied himself,

taking the form of a slave,

being born in human likeness.

And being found in human form,

8 he humbled himself. (Philippians 2:6-8)

There are cautions that come along with agape. After all, God is God. You and I are not. God is infinite. We are limited. Though we are limited, our capacity for self-deception is endless. So we need the help of good teachers, friends, and a faith community to help us see whether our agape is genuine or simply ego-centered martyrdom. Paul warns: “If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing,” (1 Corinthians 13:3).

The Advent season has been leading us to love and the powerful image of Jesus’ birth to Mary and Joseph in a stable in Bethlehem 2000 years ago. I invite us to meditate on the many images of love and let them inform our every encounter in this hurting and hope-filled world.

Worship Resource for Advent 4C: Love

*Call to Worship                                                                                              

Scripture tells us that “God is love” and if we don’t love, we don’t know God. But what is love? What does it mean to love someone? What does it mean to love God? Jesus shows us by his example. The prophet Isaiah says of that day when love shall reign supreme that “a little child shall lead them. This morning we will share the story of God’s love come to earth as a baby. And our children will lead us in telling that story. Let’s worship God!

Advent 3C, December 16, 2018. Joy!

Call to Worship                                                                                              

Here at First Congregational Church of Stamford we wish you joy. Why? Because joy is a force for positive change. Joy gives us the energy to make things right. Joy is the moment when everything comes together. And if you have that joy energy moving through your body you become contagious. You naturally share that joy. Fear is contagious, too. Fear can lead to some pretty dark places. But joy is light. Joy is healing and healthy and whole. So let’s get infected with joy this morning.

Worship Resources for Advent 2C December 9, 2018

Call to Worship (in the form of guided meditation)

As we gather ourselves for worship this morning, I invite you to find a comfortable position in your pew. Sit up and imagine a string from the top of your head to the ceiling, as if you were a marionette. Place your feet on the floor. Hands in your lap. Feel yourself rooted in your hips and pelvis. Now take a slow breath in through your nose and out through your mouth. Feel your belly expand and contract. Breathe again. One more time. Feel the peace the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, guarding your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Let’s worship God.

Prayer of Dedication

Prince of Peace, we dedicate our offerings to you. May they be a catalyst for justice so that all may be at peace. In your name we pray. Amen.

What’s Up with Pastor Todd? 12-3-18

What’s Up with Pastor Todd 12-3-18

The theme of the second Sunday of Advent is peace. The lectionary connects peace to the story of John the Baptist, which on the surface might seem ironic because John is remembered as a great disturber of the peace. In fact, he did such a good job at disturbing the peace that the authorities had him executed!

John was Jesus’ near relative–a cousin, perhaps. His role was to “prepare the way” for Jesus’ message. John did that first by practicing repentance himself and then by inviting others into that repentance. Here’s where the peace disturbing comes in. Human reality is that we tend to become attached to our bad habits and hurtful ways. We do them because on some level they work for us, so we ignore their negative effects. I eat doughnuts because I love them even though healthwise I know I should and could make better choices. Corporations pollute the environment because they can make more money that way even though they may be poisoning their neighbors. Politicians lie because it helps them politically even though–as Christ said–it’s the truth that sets us free. Repentance threatens to disrupt our lives on one level in order to bring healing on a deeper level.

And that’s where the peace comes in. John’s ministry was foretold by the Prophet Isaiah who wrote, “The voice of one crying out in the wilderness: ‘Prepare the way of the Lord. make his paths straight. Every valley shall be filled, and every mountain and hill made low, and the crooked shall be made straight, and the rough ways made smooth.” For me, the image of the smooth way is an image for peace. Peace is unobstructed action. It’s a smooth flow. It’s not getting hung up or stressed out or stuck in a rut. Peace “undramatic.” Mountains are dramatic. Valleys can be a place where–in the words of the Psalmist–we face “the shadow.” But peace is even keeled and often overlooked. Peace doesn’t make for good television.

That’s why it’s all the more important in this media oversaturated world that we practice and then proclaim peace. The good news is that there are many, many good people in the world doing amazing, everyday, self-sacrificing things. So we have to make it our job as Christians and as a church to acknowledge and thank them. Practicing peace is not flashy. Practicing peace does not call attention to itself. But if we don’t practice peace, where will we and the rest of the world find refuge?