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SERMONS:
Pastor Peg posts her two most recent sermons on this page. If you are interested in reading more of her sermons you can go to pastorpeg.wordpress.com. Our Easter Season sermon series is: Called to More. Enjoy.
Facing Darkness to Reach Light
May 4, 2025 2nd Sunday of Easter Communion
Psalm 107:10-14 1 John 1:5-10
About 20 years ago I was working as a teacher at Marymount college in Westchester County. I got to know the teachers in the psychology department and sometimes I would have lunch with them. One of the teachers Bob had been raised Jewish, but he was rather undecided about where he stood in his faith. One day he said that he didn't find the Bible to be very interesting. I looked at him and said: How can you not find the Bible interesting? He replied that it didn’t really speak to him or have any relevance for him. And I said: Wait a minute you're a psychologist and the Bible doesn't speak to you? How can it not have relevance for you? The Bible is the original psychology book. It's about different types of people trying to figure out how they exist in the world; how they wrestle with their needs and desires; and how they relate to the divine, or, if you want to, you can just call it the universe.
He froze for a moment and then said: Oh my gosh. I've never thought of the Bible in that way.
Think about what it means to be human. We all have needs and desires. We all have doubt and confusion, along with moments of clarity. We have experiences that lead us into sorrow, and experiences that give us joy. We have obstacles that are sometimes annoyances and others that we think we will never get around, through, or past. We have times when the path is clearly laid out for us, and we feel like we’re walking on it rightly. Life is an incredible combination of knowing what we want and not knowing what we want; having things go our way and having things mess up. And it can be exhausting.
Another aspect of being human is that we are not singular creatures; we do not live alone well. Yes, there are those people who go off into the woods and become hermits and don't want to deal with the rest of humanity. But you have to be an adult to do that. Babies and children cannot make their way into the world alone. We are born pretty helpless and need to be taken care of as we grow and taught how to survive in our environment.
To make things easier for ourselves, from the dawn of human time, we have always tried to figure out a system whereby we can work together. And to that end we try to create a society and a culture that will enable us to live well. I'm not saying that we would live without struggle, but the point of any social system is to make the struggle doable.
Ten thousand years ago, that meant that the tribe had to teach the child how to hunt together, how to build a fire, and how to find shelter and make clothes. The tribes that worked the most effectively together ended up becoming stronger and more populous. Later on, the tribes that were able to effectively create agriculture became cultures that expanded into cities and then nations of their own. In the Bible the Jewish nation moves from a nomadic tribe of herders, to a to a group of farmers, and then becomes a nation of cities, and then a central government which relates with other nations.
But all tribes or nations are made up of individuals looking for their own identities, and trying to figure out how to make their identifies work within the society. We are all of us looking for a way out of the darkness of uncertainty of what to do, and into the light of clear decision. And we are looking for the path forward that will meet our needs physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. The Bible is a tested handbook of attitudes, ways of thinking, and actions that can lead us to a good and healthy life.
Let’s look at Psalm 107 which gives the image, at first. of prisoners in chains in a jail. They are presented as a metaphor of people who have done something against society's norms and laws. But right away the Psalmist says that they are in this situation not because they stole something, or they beat someone up in a bar fight, but because they rejected the commandments of God. And that initial rejection was what led them to commit the acts that got them in prison. Their attitude was that they didn’t need God. That led to the thinking that they didn’t have to follow God’s Commandments and respect their neighbors. Which led to the actions that got them into prison. Attitude – Thought – Action.
But when they turn their attitude around, and they realize that they do need God, this leads to thinking about connecting with God, and the action that results is that God will help them and lift them out of the prison that they have gotten themselves into.
I want to expand this a little and talk about the image of a prison. A prison in ancient times was a very dark, dirty, and unhealthy place. It’s also a very restrictive place; you have a limited space to move around and exist in. Plus, you don’t have self-determination and your every action is ruled over by the people who are managing the system you’re in.
Think about the dark, difficult times in your life. When our circumstances become limited; when we don’t have any self-agency; when we are being controlled by other people or the situation we are in, and we can’t see a way out – those are very dark times.
There are a lot of reasons why we could feel this way. Addiction takes away your self-agency and your health; you live for the substance; and your world becomes increasingly narrow and dark. Economic hardships can also bring you to a dark, restrictive space. Being preyed on in a scam. Losing your home in a natural disaster. Grief can also bring you there. My point is that you don’t have to necessarily do something illegal – you can be a good person, and the world can shift out from under you, and you suddenly find yourself in a place of uncertainty and no clear path forward. And that puts us in a dark place.
But the Psalmist says that even if you’re physically in a dark place you don’t have to be there mentally, emotionally, or spiritually. We can use the free will that God gives to us to embrace the attitude that God is with us. In times of crisis and trouble we can turn to God and work on keeping His Commandments by staying the course of being his people who love our neighbors as ourselves. We can use our faith to call on God to help us out of our problems and get us back on the right track. It’s not going to be easy, but with God all things are possible, which means that they are all endurable and workable. Part of being a Christian is our belief that we are working with God, on a daily basis, to get what we need to get done.
The disciple John reinforces this idea by proclaiming that God is pure light and will shine His light into our darkness. John knows that we aren’t always walking on the right path, and anyone who might try to convince you that they’ve found the secret formula to live perfectly is lying to you. We are all stumbling around at one time or another. We all make mistakes. We inflict negativity on ourselves and on each other. Hopefully most of the time our mistakes are unintentional, but sometimes they’re not.
John’s answer to this is that God and Christ understand that we have this problem with making mistakes. That’s not the issue – God has already forgiven us for having this this human condition. The problem is when we don’t acknowledge our mistakes and our wrong-doings; when we pretend to be perfect. That’s something that gets us into dark spaces and moves us away from God’s light. God and Christ would rather that we try to be good, not pretend to be perfect.
If we have the attitude that God loves us and is willing to forgive our sins, then we will think: I can confess what I’ve done wrong and ask God to help me make things right. And then if your heart and mind are open to God’s light, then the Holy Spirit will give you strength, inspiration and wisdom to help you find a solution to the problem. Attitude – Thought – Action.
I’d like to end with a joke: There was a minister who was invited to breakfast at a farmhouse. And the grandfather gave the blessing. He said: Lord, you know that I’m not fond of white flour. And you know Lord, I’m not really fond of Lard. And you also know that I’m not so fond of milk either. But when you stir them all together and mix them up and bake them, they become biscuits, and I am very fond of biscuits, especially with the butter and honey that are a part of your bounty. So please, Dear Lord, give the patience to go through the stuff we don’t want to go through, while you mix up our lives into something that’s good and tasty. Amen.
May we all have the attitude that no matter what, God, Christ, and the Holy Spirit are mixing up the dark in our lives, and making it into something light that we can walk and live in, with Their love and Grace
Called to Abundant Life
April 24, 2025 1st Sunday of Easter
Deuteronomy 28:11-14 John 10:7-13
Between Easter and Pentecost is a bit of a different kind of time in the Gospel. There was the amazing day of Easter when Jesus appeared to the women, the disciples on the road to Emmaus, and to the disciples in the upper room. Traditionally, in the common lectionary, this is the day when we read about Doubting Thomas who was away from the Upper Room during Jesus’ first visit and didn’t believe that Jesus had risen from the dead. He said that he would only believe it was Jesus if he actually spoke to Jesus himself. A week later Jesus appeared again, and Thomas finally believed that it was Jesus.
Jesus tells the disciples to leave Jerusalem and go back to Galilee. He appears several times to them during the 40 days leading up to his ascension. Then they have another ten-day waiting time until Pentecost when the Holy Spirit comes upon them with the Gift of Languages, which enables them to preach to all the nations.
But unlike the time during Jesus’ ministry when they were traveling extensively, and preaching and healing with Jesus, the disciples really weren’t doing very much. I think there are a few reasons for this.
First of all, they knew that the Temple Authorities were watching them to see what they would do. The Authorities believed that they had cut off the head of the Jesus movement, and they were hoping that this would break up and defuse any motivation that the group would have for rebellion. This was not paranoia on their part. There had been several revolutionary movements in the recent past that had continued their rebellions after their had leaders died. But unlike Jesus’ peaceful and spiritual movement, those had been militant groups. But Jesus had always restrained and advocated against militancy when he was alive. I think he felt that by sending the disciples home and having them go back to their work that the authorities wouldn’t see his followers as a military threat.
The other thing I think that Jesus needed to do was to give the disciples time to regroup and think about what Jesus’ resurrection meant to them, and how it was going to change how they moved forward. I always try to put myself in a Gospel story when I read it, not just as myself with my own life in this time, but also as how I might have felt if I was a disciple during Jesus’ time. And the resurrection must have blown their minds. I really think that if my spiritual mentor had died a really terrible death, been buried, and then had risen from the dead, this would cause me to question everything that I believed in about the natural world and its possibilities.
I would have had to reevaluate everything, and I would need to accept the fact that with Jesus anything is possible. That within the realm of God’s power, there is certainty of so many things. There is certainty of life everlasting, and that even minor, common people have access to that. There is the certainty that God can reach into this existence and change it to suit His purposes. There is the certainty that we can participate in the divine power. There would have been the feeling that the world has changed. We don’t know how yet, but it has changed.
Stuff like that takes time to process, and I think that Jesus wanted to give his disciples that time. Go home; take care of your houses and families; think about what has happened; and I will be there to support you.
We all have times like that in our lives when have major shifts in what we consider to be normal. And during those times we need to allow ourselves to process the new reality. We have to accept that life isn’t going to go back to how it was before. We have to re-evaluate and create and accept that we have a new way of being and a new system that we are operating in. It is in the human condition to want to get-back-to-normal, but “normal” is a relevant term, meaning mostly: What we’re used to and comfortable with.
I think that one of the gifts of Jesus’ resurrection is that if the world does shift, God is still there with us. So, we shouldn’t be afraid of embracing the newness, especially if it is something positive and grace filled. And remember the resurrection comes out of some really bad days of loss and grief that the disciples had to go through. So even if the transition is difficult, the promise of God is that he is working it into something new and wonderful.
But if you look at our first scripture from Deuteronomy, God promises, from the beginning, abundance for his people. This scripture takes place right before the Israelites enter the promised land. Moses is addressing the nation and telling them that God has made a covenant with them and, as long as they keep the covenant and live by the laws, that they will thrive and have abundance. God promises the abundance of many children, good crops, and plentiful livestock, as well and the self-determination that comes with having your own country. That last point was very important because the nation had just gotten over being slaves in Egypt, where they had no control over their children, crops, or livestock.
The thing is, we need to follow the commandments of God in order to create a world where all that abundance can be shared with everyone.
Now I want to ask you though – what does abundance mean? A lot of people would say that abundance is having a lot of stuff. And most advertising companies, and the advertisements that they produce, would agree with that and are trying to convince you that this is true. But while I’m all for having a level of material wealth that gives us a comfortable living, how much stuff do we really need?
Last night I was talking with the Youth Group, and we did a quick review of the Ten Commandments in our discussion. I realized that the last Commandment: You will not covet anything that is your neighbors, indicates that that coveting things is an abundance killer. If you are always looking at what other people have and envy them for it, and structure the focus of your life around having what they have, you will be perpetually disappointed. You will never see what you already have in a positive grateful light and will never enjoy your life because you will always be wanting more.
God has given us so much just in the abundance of this beautiful world. We can just walk outside and see God’s glory, especially in the beautiful Catskills. I do love the beautiful starkness of the winters, but I can’t tell you how excited I am to see the hills start to green up. They just call out God’s glory and I should always appreciate the natural beauty of it.
What other abundance can we think of? Well, I would like to lift up not only our own families but also the families that we make outside of our bloodlines. I see such an abundance of love and caring in our communities, church and beyond in our organizations. Our relationships of love and caring are something that we should always nurture, because when we nurture them, they increase a thousand-fold.
Jesus in the Gospel scripture calls himself the Good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd watches over the sheep and takes care of them because he loves them. And since he loves and cares for them the flock is going to grow and prosper. Unlike the bad shepherd who only thinks about the sheep as a commodity. When a wolf comes, a bad shepherd will run to save his own life, unlike the good shepherd who will fight to defend the sheep. In the bad times God is there trying to help us, so that we can survive and be led eventually to greener pastures of abundance.
I’m sure that the disciples went back to their hometowns and saw, with their new knowledge of God’s love and Jesus’ resurrection, all the abundance that they had around them. Yes, many of them were poor, but they had God’s Blessed Assurance that God’s power was with them now and through eternity and that miracles were possible. They could go out and build a world that was better for everyone. And that is what they started to do, one community at a time.
I think that this Easter season, we should be like the disciples and take the time to reflect on what the abundance in our life is and reconnect with it. Take a look at your possessions and be grateful for them. Reconnect with your family and friend and express how much you care for and appreciate them. This is a way to step into abundant life. If we work with the love of God to support each other, to help each other to grow, then we will create a circle of love and power that will support miracles. If we follow Jesus and become his apprentice good shepherds, and we love and take care of our flocks, then we will have abundance of the heart. And that is something that we can all get behind and rejoice in.