COMMUNITY CHURCH OF THE MONTEREY PENINSULA
P. O. BOX 222811
CARMEL CA 93922
(831) 624-8595
www.ccmp.org
Rev. Paul Wrightman, Pastor
Independent and United Church of Christ
July 5, 2020
Dear Friends,
Happy Fourth of July Weekend to everyone!
Recently our Board of Governors approved a plan for reopening. I mentioned the details in this letter last week, but just in case you missed them, I’ll replay that information here.
Given that the Covid19 news and recommendations change nearly every day, it’s crucial to have a plan that can be changed easily. To this end, the Board has decided that we can return to the sanctuary beginning on Sunday, September 13th. The idea is to start out with only one in-person worship service per month. That way we can be sure that the sanctuary is absolutely safe before the next service. If the situation worsens, we can go back into sheltering in place mode. Hopefully the situation will improve and we can then begin using the sanctuary more frequently.
Spaces will be marked on the pews to indicate intervals of six feet between people. Masks will be required. Temperatures will be taken. Hand sanitizer will be dispensed. Everyone will be asked to come and leave by the west entrance.
Those who rent our facilities will gradually be invited back, smaller groups first. The office area, including the library, nursery, and bathrooms, will not be available to renters. Each room will be marked with the maximum number of persons allowed to be in that space. A strict protocol will be followed concerning cleaning after each meeting. A Covid19 surcharge on each rental group will go toward frequent professional cleaning of all public spaces.
I’ve looked at the reopening plans for quite a few other churches. The plan that our Board approved is the most cautious, thorough, and flexible plan that I have seen. If you have any questions about our reopening process, JoAnn Holbrook, Pam Klaumann, and Dr. Richard Gray were on the task force that recommended this plan to the Board. Each of them would be happy to talk with you.
We continue our sermon series on the most important texts in the Bible from Genesis through Revelation. We are currently looking at those life-directives that Christians know as the Ten Commandments. This week we’ll take a look at “You shall not steal.”
Remember that Jesus is Emmanuel – God WITH Us! Paul
WORSHIP SERVICE FOR JULY 5, 2020
INTRODUCTORY READING John O’Donohue
For the Interim Time
When near the end of day, life has drained
Out of light, and it is too soon
For the mind of night to have darkened things,
No place looks like itself, loss of outline
Makes everything look strangely in-between,
Unsure of what has been, or what might come.
In this wan light, even trees seem groundless.
In a while it will be night, but nothing
Here seems to believe the relief of dark.
You are in this time of the interim
Where everything seems withheld.
The path you took to get here has washed out;
The way forward is still concealed from you.
“The old is not old enough to have died away;
The new is still too young to be born.”
You cannot lay claim to anything;
In this place of dusk,
Your eyes are blurred;
And there is no mirror.
Everyone else has lost sight of your heart
And you see nowhere to put your trust;
You know you have to make your own way through.
As far as you can, hold your confidence.
Do not allow your confusion to squander
This call which is loosening
Your roots in false ground,
That you might come free
From all you have outgrown.
What is being transfigured here is your mind,
And it is difficult and slow to become new.
The more faithfully you can endure here,
The more refined your heart will become
For your arrival in the new dawn.
SUGGESTED MUSIC: God Bless America Sara Womack You Tube
OPENING PRAYER Jim Cotter, Contemporary
Lord, we remember those who have died when madness ruled the world and evil dwelt on earth, those we knew and those whose very name is lost.
Because of their sacrifice, may we renew our fight against cruelty and injustice, against prejudice, tyranny, and oppression. Still we cry to God out of the darkness of our divided world.
Let not the hope of men and women perish. Let not new clouds rain death upon the earth.
Turn to yourself the hearts and wills of rulers and peoples, that a new world may arise where men and women live as friends in the bond of your peace.
Amen.
SCRIPTURE READING: Exodus 20:15
You shall not steal.
SERMON: STEALING MEANS MORE THAN TAKING THINGS
Rev. Paul Wrightman
(The underlinings simply indicate what I would emphasize if delived orally.)
We continue our exploration of the Ten Commandments, part of our sermon series on the most important texts in the Bible from Genesis through Revelation. We are following the lead of our Jewish brothers and sisters, who have always looked at what we Christians call the “Ten Commandments” as ten essential words-of-life, given to us by God out of love.
Contemporary Western culture, especially as experienced here in the United States, tends to see the Ten Commandments in a negative light, as limitations on our freedom. This is because contemporary Western culture defines freedom as “freedom to:” fundamentally, freedom to do whatever I want.
The Judaeo-Christian definition of freedom, on the other hand, is “freedom for,” freedom for the deepest good of the other, freedom for the deepest good of myself.
In the United States today, we can see these two opposing definitions of freedom battling it out with the Covid19 pandemic and the controversy around wearing masks. The Bible is absolutely clear on this point: Freedom to is considered to be self-indulgence, a self-and-other-destructive expression of our broken human nature. According to Scripture, the only real freedom is freedom for.
The word-of-life that we’re looking at today sounds deceptively simple: “You shall not steal.”
However, when we look at this teaching or instruction in its original setting, it is anything but simple. It is much more like a hefty rock thrown into the middle of a lake which creates a crowd of concentric circles. Each circle, in this metaphor, stands for an additional range of meaning radiating from this basic word-of-life: No stealing.
I’m making the assumption that none of us connected to Community Church engages in one of the beginning circles of the meaning of theft: taking something we can see doesn’t belong to us.
But I suspect that all of us are guilty of disregarding this commandment further down the line of circles of meaning; namely, taking from another the opportunity to love deeply.
And since the whole point of these sermons on the Ten Commandments is to help us to face ourselves precisely at those points where we need to be challenged, we will begin with one of the further circles of meaning and then work our way back to where the hefty rock of “No stealing” first hit the water.
Dr. Rachel Naomi Remen, M.D., who credits much of her wisdom to learning to walk in the way of her rabbi-grandfather, shares the following story in her book My Grandfather’s Blessings. You may recognize this illustration, which I’ve used before, but in a different context.
Dr. Remen writes:
“Long ago, the little son of my friends and I became quite good friends ourselves.
A lot of the time we played with his two tiny cars, running them from windowsill to windowsill, parking them and racing them and telling each other all the while what we imagined we passed ‘on the road.’
Sometimes I would have the one with the chipped wheel. Sometimes he would have it. It was great fun, and I loved this little boy dearly.
At that time these little hot wheels cars were avidly collected by most six-year-old boys.
Kenny dreamed of them and I yearned to buy him more, but I could not think of a way of doing this without embarrassing my friends.
Kenny’s father was an artist and a lay preacher, and his mother was a housewife who brought beauty to everything she touched. They lived very richly indeed but they had little money.
Then one of the major gas companies began a hot wheels giveaway: a car with every fill-up.
I was delighted. Quickly I persuaded the entire clinic staff to buy this brand of gas for a month, and organized all twenty of us with checklists, so that we would not get two fire engines or Porsches or Volkswagens.
In a month we accumulated all the hot wheels cars then made, and I gave them to Kenny in a big box.
They filled every windowsill in the living room, and then he . . . stopped playing with them.
Puzzled, I asked him why he did not like his cars anymore.
He looked away and in a quivery voice he said, ‘I don’t know how to love this many cars, Rachel.’”
Dr. Remen concludes this part of her story by saying: “I was stunned. Ever since, I have been careful to be sure not to have more hot wheels than I can love.”
(Rachel Naomi Remen, M.D., My Grandfather’s Blessings, pp. 43-44.)
The incredible irony of the situation did not escape her. Dr. Remen realized that in overwhelming her six-year-old friend with too many toy cars, she had actually robbed him of the experience of loving a few cars deeply. And she was wise enough to turn this experience into a teaching – and learning – parable for herself: “Ever since, I have been careful to be sure not to have more hot wheels than I can love.”
Metaphorically speaking, having more hot wheels than we can love is, I believe, one of the major ways in which we contemporary middle and upper-middle-class Americans disregard and disobey God’s foundational teaching “You shall not steal.”
In giving others, often our own children and grandchildren, more hot wheels than they can love, we are robbing them of the opportunity to love deeply. And in giving ourselves more hot wheels than we can love, we are robbing ourselves of the opportunity to love deeply.
Now let’s go back in time a few thousand years and take a look at what this commandment, what this word-of-life-from-God, meant in its original time and place, what it meant in its original context.
I was surprised and shocked to learn that in the beginning the commandment against stealing was not about stealing stuff, but about stealing people.
Of course, with the wisdom of hindsight, what would one expect?
After all, before the Exodus from Egypt, the Hebrews had been slaves, a people whose freedom had been stolen, a people who, in a very real sense, had been stolen by a stronger group of people.
God was determined to give these recently-freed slaves, and through them the rest of humankind, a vision of a radically different way of constituting themselves as a people.
This vision consisted, in large part, of the Ten Commandments, or ten life-giving words, words that, if followed, would teach this people how to be truly free, free as a society, and free as individuals within that society.
And an essential commandment, an essential teaching for the founding of that new society was: No more stealing people.
Throughout the Torah, the first five books of the Hebrew Scriptures, God is constantly reminding the people of their past as slaves in Egypt.
Because they know the horror of slavery firsthand, they are never, ever to enslave others.
The original meaning of this commandment, never, ever, to make slaves of others, given more than three thousand years ago, is surprisingly relevant today.
This is not the time or place to give a detailed critique of slavery from a Christian point of view. Suffice it to say, however, that if Christians had followed this commandment from the get-go – after all, what about “NO STEALING” is that hard to grasp? – slavery would never have had a chance to take root in Christian countries.
Many consider the Ten Commandments to be a major way in which God is trying to protect us from the destructive consequences of our broken human nature. As all cultures and most individuals within those cultures know, the breaking of one of these “Big Ten” carries with it serious consequences, and “You shall not steal” is no exception.
In the United States today, we are still struggling to overcome the terrible consequences that our embrace of slavery brought with it, chief among them racism, poverty, and rage. Until Christians in this land acknowledge the fact that we have broken and are still breaking God’s commandment, “No stealing,” our efforts to heal the wounds between people of different races will be superficial and short-lived.
But there are other kinds of slavery besides physical ownership of another. Especially for those of us who live in first-world nations, we must face the fact that we largely live off the economic slavery of those whose skin is non-white, and those whose gender is not male. Millions of people in third-world countries provide the dirt-cheap labor that enables us to enjoy our high standard of living.
Very early on – we can see the expansion in the Hebrew Scriptures themselves – the original commandment against stealing people took on additional circles of meaning to include not stealing something – such as a horse or an ox – that was essential to the livelihood of one’s neighbor.
More concentric circles of meaning soon followed in the form of employers being commanded to give their workers a living wage, and not enslaving others economically through the charging of interest.
The most basic circle of meaning of “No stealing” was the understanding that God was the ultimate owner of everything. All that is given to us is, in effect, given to us “on loan” from God, who trusts us to be good stewards of the gifts we have been given, very much including the gift of the earth itself.
Given the radical scope of the original commandment, and the equally radical expanding circles of meaning radiating from it, it should be clear that all of us in one way or another, most of us in multiple ways, are living in disobedience to this life-giving word from God.
Indeed, the sheer magnitude of our brokenness in regard to this commandment can overwhelm us and lead us to throw up our hands in resigned helplessness.
This is where the practice of spiritual disciplines can come to our rescue. Specifically with regard to this eighth life-giving word from God, “No stealing,” the spiritual disciplines of detachment and simplicity can become for us a path back to life.
Indeed, the spiritual disciplines of detachment and simplicity are so critical that many spiritual directors in our day would say that there is no way for us to even begin to start obeying this commandment except by way of detachment and simplicity.
The spiritual discipline of detachment is grounded in the desire to nurture in oneself the spirit of trust that is attached to God alone. It can be described as the process of letting go of self-serving goals and agendas for success, money, power, ego, productivity, and image.
One of the significant Scripture texts that inspired detachment as a spiritual discipline is Luke 12:15, where Jesus warns: “Take care! Protect yourself against the least bit of greed. Life is not defined by what you have, even when you have a lot.
As with all spiritual disciplines, the only power great enough to overpower a desire that has become destructive is to desire something that is even more powerful.
In the case of the Ten Commandments, the only power, the only desire strong enough to enable us to actually keep them is our wholehearted desire to be in a life-giving relationship with God.
Nothing less will do.
Asking for and relying on the power of Emmanuel, God-with-us, asking for and relying on the power of God’s spirit in us, we will make an attachment inventory, naming and listing all the things, all the thoughts and attitudes, and all the relationships that, in all honesty, we are attached to more than God.
Then we will face these attachments one-at-a-time and ask God for the desire to realign our priorities so that God comes first and everything else comes second.
The spiritual discipline of simplicity helps us to put the discipline of detachment into practice.
The discipline of simplicity is based on the desire to uncomplicated and untangle our lives so that we can focus on what really matters.
Simplicity cultivates the art of letting go. It aims at loosening inordinate attachments to owning and having. Simplicity creates margins and spaces and openness in our lives. Simplicity brings freedom and with it generosity.
A few places where the spiritual discipline of simplicity would help to unclutter and uncomplicate our cluttered and complicated lives would be to practice speaking the simple, unadorned truth; to take an inventory of all our possessions and to give away all those that we no longer need or use; and to take an inventory of the ways in which our preoccupation with possessions, power, and prestige has robbed the people in our lives, including God (!) of our time, treasure, commitment, and focus.
I’d like to finish by returning to the wisdom of Dr. Rachel Naomi Remen.
This sermon began with her story about her overwhelming her young friend with so many hot wheels that he was pushed to say to her: “I don’t know how to love this many cars, Rachel.”
That was only the first half of the story. Dr. Remen continues:
“Many people have too many hot wheels to love. It can make you feel empty.
A woman who found a new life after having cancer once told me that before she became sick she had always felt empty.
‘That’s why I needed to have more and more things. I kept accumulating more and more goods, more and more books and magazines and newspapers, more and more people, which only made everything worse because the more I accumulated the less I experienced.
Have everything, experience nothing.
You could have put that right on my front door.
And all the time I thought I was empty because I did not have enough.’
The change had started with a bathrobe, one of the few things she had taken with her to the hospital for her cancer surgery.
Every morning she would put it on, really enjoying how soft it was, its beautiful color, the way it moved around her when she moved…
‘One morning as I was putting it on I had an overwhelming sense of gratitude,’ she told me.
She looked at me, slightly embarrassed.
‘I know this sounds funny, but I felt so lucky just to have it.
But the odd part, Rachel, is that it wasn’t new, she told me.
‘I had owned it and worn it now and then for quite a few years. Possibly because it was one of the five bathrobes in my closet, I had never really seen it before.’
When she finished chemotherapy, this woman held a huge garage sale and sold more than half of what she owned.
She laughs and says that her friends thought she had gone ‘chemo-crazy,’ but doing this had enhanced her life.
‘I had no idea what was in my closets or what was in my drawers or on my bookshelves. I did not really know half the people whose home numbers were in my phone book either…
I have fewer things now and know fewer people, but I am not empty.
Having and experiencing are very different. Having was never having enough.’”
Dr. Remen concludes:
“We sat together for as few minutes, watching the sun making shadows on the office rug. Then she looked up.
‘Perhaps we only really have as much as we can love,’ she said.”
(Rachel Naomi Remen, M.D., My Grandfather’s Blessings, pp. 44-45.)
I can’t help but think that the best way to honor God’s eighth life-giving word, “No stealing,” lies precisely along these lines.
If we limit what we have to what we love, and love God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength, not only will our priorities be straight, but our lives will be filled to the brim with meaning and fulfillment.
Our lives will simply be too full for us to want the meaning and fulfillment that rightfully belong to others. Instead of being tempted to steal what is theirs we will want to share from the simple abundance of what is really ours.
AMEN.
REFLECTION PROMPTS
Any surprises for you in the content of this week’s sermon?
Actually do the work on detachment and simplicity mentioned in the sermon.
CLOSING PRAYER Mary Lou Kownacki, OSB, Contemporary
Spirit of Justice,
Break open our hearts.
Break them wide open.
Let anger pour through
Like strong storms,
Cleansing us of complacency.
Let courage pour through
Like spring storms,
Flooding out fear.
Let zeal pour through
Like blazing summer sun,
Filling us with passion.
Force of justice, grant me
Anger at what is,
Courage to do what must be done,
Passion to break down the walls
Of injustice
And build a land flowing
With milk and honey
For God’s beloved.
God’s special love.
God’s poor ones.
Spirit of Justice,
Break open our hearts.
Amen.
RECOMMENDED MUSIC Once to Every Man and Nation –
London Philharmonic Choir You Tube
BENEDICTION
Patiently and persistently, God loves.
Relentlessly and unconditionally, God loves.
Now and forever, God loves.
AMEN.