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Corona Sabbath 21 HOPE

IMG_2909These weeks when we cannot gather in person for Sunday worship, Lakewood United Church of Christ is providing brief weekly sabbath programs for you to listen to on your own or with others in your social isolation group. They will be posted on Friday so that you can schedule your sabbath time to suit your schedule and your spiritual inclinations. We hope these programs are of spiritual support to you in these difficult times.

During these summer weeks, the theme being used in “Grounded.” Some of us feel that shelter-in-place feels like being grounded. Some would normally have travel plans and feel grounded. With the many challenges facing our society, it is important to feel grounded. So these Summer Sundays will focus on key concepts in Christianity that provide grounding. So, welcome to “Grounded.” This post focuses on hope.

There is a scripture reading offered by Jim Andrews and a meditation by Pastor Kim Wells as well as music offered by Music Director Hilton Kean Jones.

You are invited to find a quiet space, inside or outside. Light a candle. Take a look around you. Breathe. Life-giving breath. Be present.

You may begin with this reading:

God of life, there are days when the burdens we carry chafe our shoulders and wear us down; when the road seems dreary and endless, the skies gray and threatening; when our lives have no music in them and our hearts are lonely, and our souls have lost their courage. Flood the path with light, we beseech you: turn our eyes to where the skies are full of promise.
St. Augustine, 354-430 C.E.

When you are ready, start the video below.

(For written text of the above video click HERE.)

Christy Martin grew up in the church and is now a member as an adult. She is a mom with two wonderful daughters. She shares these words about where she finds hope in these difficult times when her daughters are scared to go outside because of the police:

Make America Great Again- in which time period was America Great for Blacks? The founding fathers were not for blacks. The Declaration of Independence was signed by white men; this didn’t even include people of color or white women. Slavery was abolished but still blacks didn’t have the same rights. My dad’s family is buried in a black only cemetery. What did giving blacks the right to vote do?  In the 70’s my father had to go to Gibbs Junior College, known today as St. Pete College, because blacks were not allowed anywhere else. Just last year my daughter heard a teammate tell another teammate to stop acting crazy, stop acting black. This came from a 13 year old white girl. Which means she hears it from her inner circle. 

When was America Great? It is understood that all lives matter, but a white man didn’t have a knee on his neck crying for his mom. A white woman wasn’t in her bed when the police broke in and shot her dead and then realized it was the wrong house. No white man was stopped because he fit a description of a robber and was shot dead.  It will never be GREAT for Blacks until All Americans realize that America needs to change to include all people, no matter the color of their skin. Then and only then can we say ALL LIVES MATTER. 

This movement didn’t just happen because someone died in police custody.  On August 28, 1963, there was a march on Washington and Martin Luther King, Jr. said and I quote “I have a dream that my four little children will one day to live in a Nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.” This fight now has a social media platform, but this is not a new fight. We just have the next strong generation taking over.

I will end with a piece of a poem from Maya Angelou:

Out of the huts of history’s shame
I rise
Up from past that’s rooted in pain
I rise
I’m a black ocean, leaping and wide,
Welling and swelling I bear in the tide.

Leaving behind nights of terror and fear
I rise
Into daybreak that’s wondrously clear
I rise
Bringing the gifts that my ancestors gave,
I am the dream and the hope of the slave.
I rise
I rise
I RISE.

As you listen to the music from Hilton which follows, you are invited to notice the thoughts and feelings and that arise for you.

After viewing the video, you are invited to offer the following closing –

How many nights
have I lain in terror,
O Creator Spirit, Maker of night and day,

only to work out
the next morning over the frozen world
hearing under the creaking of snow
faith, peaceful breaths . . .
snake,
bear, earthworm, ant . . .

and above me
a wild crow crying ‘yaw yaw yaw’
from a branch nothing cried from ever in my life.

–Galway Kinnell, “How Many Nights”

Breathe. Breathe again. Be filled. With hope. Extinguish your candle and engage whatever may come with a sense of peace and a desire grow and serve.

LAKEWOOD UNITED CHURCH OF CHRIST

The mission of Lakewood United Church of Christ, as part of the Church Universal, is to:

  • Celebrate the presence and power of God in our lives and in our world;
  • Offer the hospitality and inclusive love of Christ to all people;
  • Work for God’s peace and justice throughout creation.

QUICK LINKS TO OUR RECENT POSTS DURING THE CORONA CRISIS:
Online Devotionals: https://lakewooducc.org/category/online-devotional/
Sermon Texts: https://lakewooducc.org/category/posts/sermon-texts/
For above links, please note “Older Posts” button near bottom of page.
Music: https://soundcloud.com/hilton-kean-jones/sets/music-at-lakewood

Corona Sabbath 21 HOPE Reflection Text

Greetings and welcome to Corona Sabbath. This is one of the ways the church is endeavoring to offer spiritual support during these challenging days of COVID-19. We appreciate your feedback and suggestions.

In this summer series on the theme “Grounded” we turn to one of the foundations of our faith – hope.

We listen to Genesis 21:8-21 read by Kay Rencken???. This is a portion of the story of Hagar. In the narrative, God has promised a child to Abraham and Sarah. They will have many ancestors. But years went by and no child arrived. So Sarah sent her handmaid, Hagar, to Abraham, and a child was born, Ishmael. Subsequently, Sarah herself had a child, Isaac. Family relations deteriorate and Sarah instructs Abraham to exile Hagar and Ishmael. We listen to a portion of that wrenching story. Hagar and Ishmael do survive and become the progenitors of a great people who eventually become associated with Islam.

Scripture video

Genesis 21:8-21

We begin by hearing about Isaac, the child of Abraham and Sarah.

The child grew, and on the day of weaning, Sarah and Abraham held a great feast. But Sarah noticed the child that Hagar the Egyptian had borne for Abraham, playing with her child Isaac. She demanded of Abraham, “Send Hagar and her child away! I will not have this child of my attendant share in Isaac’s inheritance.”

Abraham was greatly distressed by this because of his son Ishmael. But God said to Abraham, “Don’t be distressed about the child or about Hagar. Heed Sarah’s demands, for it is through Isaac that descendants will bear your name. As for the child of Hagar the Egyptian, I will make a great nation of him as well, since he is also your offspring.”

Early the next morning Abraham brought bread and a skin of water and gave it to Hagar. Then, placing the child on her back, he sent her away. She wandered off into the desert of Beersheba. When the skin of water was empty, she set the child under a bush, and sat down opposite him, about a bow-shot away. She said to herself, “Don’t let me see the child die!” and she began to wail and weep.

God heard the child crying, and the angel of God called to Hagar from heaven. “What is wrong, Hagar?” the angel asked. “Do not be afraid, for God has heard the child’s cry. Get up, lift up the child and hold his hand; for I will make of him a great nation.”

Then God opened her eyes, and she saw a well of water. She went to it and filled the skin with water, and she gave the child a drink.

God was with the boy as he grew up. He lived in the desert and became a fine archer. He made his home in the desert of Paran, and his mother found a wife for him in Egypt.

[pause]

Reflection from Kim

When I hear the word ‘hope’ it brings to mind the line from poet Emily Dickinson – “Hope is the thing with feathers.” Featherweight – light. Not heavy hitting. Seemingly insignificant. Carrying small creatures through the sky on currents of air. Just feathers.

But hope, just a whisper of it, just a seemingly weightless pinion adrift, is what can help us to hold on. Take another breath. Make it another moment. Get through.

The story of Hagar and Ishmael is wrought with the desperation of survival. I would even say that they have abandoned all hope. In this story, it is God that has the hope. The hope for Hagar and Ishmael. The hope for their future. The hope that they will survive. And not only survive, but eventually flourish. And they do.

When life is going along fairly smoothly, we might not think much about hope. Life is good. We don’t have to have aspirations for something else, something different, something more. We aren’t focussed on how to make it through when the song we are hearing is a happy tune.

Hope is important when things have derailed. When the bottom has dropped out. When things are crashing down around us. Like during a pandemic.

President Obama is known for his book, The Audacity of Hope. How was he feeling about hope after the 2016 election? An article in the November 28, 2016 issue of The New Yorker examines Obama’s response to the election. Apparently Obama told staffers in the Oval Office, “‘A lot of you are young and this is your first rodeo. For some of you, all you’ve ever known is winning. But the older people here, we have known loss. And this stings. This hurts.’ He went on, it’s easy to be hopeful when things are going well, but when you need to be hopeful is when things are at their worst.” [“It Happened Here,” David Remnick, The New Yorker, 11/28/2016]

The worst. That’s when we really need hope. Just a feather’s worth. And if we can’t muster it, then it will come to us – from a loved one, a friend, a stranger, an article, a book, an inner insight, a message from nature, a scripture passage. Somehow, when we truly need it most, hope will find us. In the desolate desert. In the garden of Gethsemane. Separated from a loved one dying of COVID 19. Hope is the thing with feathers and it will somehow find its way to us gliding and soaring. It will take us beyond. Giving us a fresh vista. Amen.

(Click HERE if you wish to see the post containing the video of this text.)

#173 NCH Pescador

I’m re-recording some of the hymns I recorded and posted earlier in the pandemic, but as video, not just audio files. It seems that videos I’ve posted of music get way more clicks than pure audio posts. So…that’s okay. I don’t mind putting on a nice shirt and combing my hair if it makes it easier for folks to listen to the music.

If you have hymn requests, please email them via the church website (https://lakewooducc.org/contact/). Can’t promise I’ll do them all, but will definitely try to cover as many as I can.

This is #173 in the New Century Hymnal if you’ve checked out a hymnal during the pandemic and wish to sing along. Just humming along is okay, too.

Buxtehude Jig Fugue

Hey…it’s Sunday morning! Time for a little pipe organ music. Well, in this case just a virtual organ (thanks to the Garritan Pipe Organ collection of sampled sounds) and Logic Pro X (audio/midi recording/mixing software) and the ability to record the hands and then the pedals separately.

Hmmm…maybe the organist (me) is virtual, too. I better check in the mirror to be sure I really can see my reflection to confirm that I really exist, although thanks to a wonderful cultural history of horror stories about organists whose reflections can’t been seen in mirrors, maybe I better not take the chance I won’t see mine!

This is a fun piece to play, in person as well as virtual. Have a good Sunday morning.