October 17, 2004

Twentieth Sunday after Pentecost

Luke 18:1-8

“In Good Time”

“Our faith is over 2,000 years old.  Our thinking is not. 

It’s time for religion with relevance: The United Church of Christ.  We’re about justice, understanding and exploration, not dogma and rules.  So no matter who you are or where you are on life’s journey, you’ll find a home here.  God is still speaking.”

     These words are taken from a poster promoting a new program of evangelism in the United Church of Christ.  It’s called the “Still Speaking Initiative” and we’ve signed up to be part of it.  From December 1 through December 31, the UCC, for the first time ever, will promote its message of exceptional welcome on national TV.  All I can say is, it’s about time.

     It IS about time…this unique time in which we live, this incredibly divisive time, this time of wars between nations and cultures and races and religions.  It is about this time where fundamentalism in major world religions (including Christianity) is driving people to exclude those unlike themselves, breeding hatred and violence. 

     Our United Church of Christ offers exceptional welcome, radical love and inclusiveness.  Even as diversity is twisted to justify prejudice and violence, we embrace it.  We celebrate it.  We proclaim that diversity is a gift from God, revealing God’s incredible and unconditional love.  Ours is a faith and a voice of peace reaching across boundaries with bridges of understanding and reconciliation.

     Some say such faith makes us too controversial.  Some want more concise rules, more clearly defined dogma, more black and white answers.  Some take issue with a welcome that includes those they do not like or whose behavior they do not understand. 

     The United Church of Christ can be an uncomfortable collaboration of Christ’s community, but what a beautiful community this is, reflecting Paul’s vision of the Body of Christ in 1 Corinthians 12 where diversity is essential for the full and proper functioning of the church body.  This is by Christ’s design.

     Thus, our doors are to be thrown open wide and our hands are to be extended to all people.  Our own Mission Statement offers such a welcome:

“At First Congregational Church we reach out as a family of faith to all people with our gifts and service, to bring others into a personal relationship with Christ for the sake of unity and peace in God’s world.”

     This past Friday and Saturday, 700 members of the Connecticut Conference of the United Church of Christ (including your delegates, Kent and Linda Sistare and me) met to consider how God is calling us in this particular time to be instruments of peace and channels of love.  Dealing with complex and challenging issues such as same-sex marriage (a resolution in support of it passed – 390 in favor and 138 against) made for an emotional and often difficult debate.  But this is our UCC - a collaboration of diverse people bound together by covenant for the purpose of seeking together to follow the Savior whose incredible love excludes no one.  Thus, we are all included, no matter what our views might be on the issues.  We are held together in covenant not because we walk in lockstep with each other, but because Christ calls us to this.   

     Being such a church is not simple or easy.  There is no quick-fix solution, no book of dogma where we can flip to page and number and find pat answers.  We are called into a prayerful and thoughtful process, an exploration of the spirit, a level of soul-deep listening beyond written or spoken words.  We seek to be living vessels for the Living Word speaking today.  God, we believe, is still speaking.

     I love the parable Luke provided us today.  It’s a funny little story about a judge irritated by a woman who pesters him until at last he concedes to her appeals.  Jesus concludes his story by saying,

“And will not God grant justice to his chosen ones who cry to him day and night?  Will he delay long in helping them?  I tell you, he will quickly grant justice to them.  And yet, when the Son of Man comes, will he find faith on earth?”

     God will act quickly for the faithful…but notice…the response is in God’s good time.  God may not need much time to act, but we may well need much time to properly inquire.  We may need to sort out our selves, unpack our souls, uncover our hearts, and open our minds. 

     I wonder if the woman in the parable needed to make a number of appeals to the judge because she needed to better develop her case?  We want quick and easy answers.  We want instant gratification.  McDonalds prides itself in being able to serve up a meal in an average of 45 seconds.  We are impatient with one another and don’t want to take the time to listen or understand…the knee-jerk response, the snap judgement, the rapid retribution.  Impatience doesn’t allow us to know one another.  It makes it easy for people lash out, even go to war.

     But God’s watch is not set from our clock.  We will only know the will of the Judge if we listen intently, beyond the clamor of our own hurried selves.  And if we choose instead to prune down God’s great revelation to some quick and easy to handle, concise, neat, package of personal religious principles, we’ll place a period where God intends a comma to be.  We’ll stop visiting the Judge because we think we’ve heard all we need to hear.  We’ll give up on the forever inquisitive faith Jesus hopes to find when he returns.

     But God is still speaking. 

     Are we still listening?

     I think there has been some serious listening going on here at First Church these past few years, and we’ve begun to take some bold steps forward as a consequence.  It’s been tempting to leap ahead to some quick solution, to think if maybe we follow some simple formula…ta-dah!...we’ll suddenly be a thriving church, bursting at the seams.  But in good time, in God’s time, we listen to the One who is still speaking.  This is trusting that things are in God’s hands and that God will act for his “chosen ones who cry to him day and night.”  We are learning to listen more deeply to God and to each other and as a consequence, learning about life lived on God’s terms. 

     How is God still speaking to you in your life?  What new ways of seeing others and yourself are you being called to?  How is God calling upon you to offer exceptional welcome and unconditional love?   

     Keep returning to God to find out.  Keep listening…for God is still speaking.