Why I Am At Home Here

This morning, the second Sunday of Advent, the hard work of those who participated in "Hanging of the Greens" on Saturday was evident, with greens, candles in globes, red bows, and two fresh Christmas trees making the sanctuary festive and fragrant.

Pastor David introduced the scripture reading from Mark on John the Baptist with the suggestion that today's "John the Baptist" is the economic recession. The economic hard times, like the voice of one crying in the wilderness centuries ago, are a wake-up call to us to bring us to repentance and to turn our lives back toward God. He read the scripture, then began his sermon with the question that if that is the case, then who is our modern-day savior? Not President-elect Obama, he said, although we have high hopes for him. None other than Jesus.

This type of assertion may sound unsurprising and evident if you are accustomed to often hearing Christian faith sincerely expressed. Since I'm actually not accustomed to it, to me it sounded stunning in its simplicity and straightforwardness, and very profound. In my busy working life, my relatively new marriage, the concerns of what I can and what I can't control about my schedule or my health, and my gamely trying to make sense of world and national news and global responsibilities, I found this to be exactly the message I needed, and marvel that I so infrequently hear this point of view.

Let me explain a little bit about my own background with churches. My family of origin are active members of the Church of the Brethren, a small Anabaptist/Pietist Christian denomination that, in addition to adult baptism, emphasizes peace, social justice, and service (I'm extremely proud to say that Dan West, the founder of now-famous and celebrated Heifer Project International, was Brethren http://www.cob-net.org/hpi.htm). Music was important, members were mostly professionals with a strong and simple Christian faith, and our ministers served up intellectually challenging sermons each week including creative invocations, readings, and special events. Like most kids, I thought all churches must be like mine.

I went off to college at a Lutheran college, Muhlenberg College in Allentown, PA, which I chose for its academic reputation, size, and location. Once there, I was a member of the college choir and participated in services with formal sung liturgies and weekly communion. The logistics were a challenge. The first two years I spent focusing more on what page of the book we were on than on the sermon or sentiments of the service. I was slightly appalled that the Lutheran ministers, while obviously well trained and qualified religious leaders, were also required to lead sung liturgies. I found this forced and distracting, and the liturgy melodies strange.

By the time I had I married in my late 20s and then divorced again in my early 30s, I felt estranged from the church and unworthy of Christian fellowship, I found a home in the Unitarian Universalist Church to help me get re-established in a new direction. This was a wonderfully welcoming church family whose creed emphasized "the inherent worth of every individual" which was a blessed grace for me in growing strong again and building a new life. The arts were an extremely important part of this faith community, and again I found many avenues for singing, theater, and playing the piano, and I began serious voice lessons. My musical life was the center of my life even more than the spiritual community I found there. I also grew intellectually, as we were responsible for "Building Our Own Theology" and for going out into the world of work without any additional spiritual armor than that which we fashioned for ourselves. Though New Testament scripture was rarely read (possibly limited to Christmas Eve if memory serves) being involved in this congregation felt like living the parable of the talents for me. I was learning that God may be pleased when we pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps and let our personalities shine through, instead of hanging back with modest self-effacement in the name of God, which, somehow, to me, felt like one of the most complex problems of the way many of us receive the Christian message. The missing piece was that I felt there needed to be more beyond the individual's beliefs and preferences. There needed to be a connection to a larger Presence. We looked for that in each other, and foundered a little bit without a common God we could talk about without fearing we were stepping on somebody's toes.

As my singing voice improved, a friend who was an organist and choirmaster invited me to come and serve as a paid section leader at his Episcopal Church, which I did for the next two years. Here I realized even more fully how many different forms Christian worship may take. At the Episcopal Church, not only the liturgies but even the prayers came from a book, and the scriptures were read with attendants to carry the bible, hold up the cross, and ring the bell. I even learned to chant the psalms--a very unusual experience when you are not accustomed to it, with its own forms of notation to master. Mostly I found I loved being a regular member of a Christian church again, and that along with bringing musical gifts I enjoyed the interaction and community aspects of this congregation, and felt the parishioners were open-minded and educated and not judgmental of a Unitarian Universalist. But this church was a long commute from my home and when I received a promotion at work, it was too much to continue with it.

I went along for a year happy to have no Sunday morning obligations, when in the late summer of 2006 I got a phone call from Dr. Clyde Shive, who had gotten my name from an alto soloist at another Episcopal Church, I decided to come to St. Luke to audition for the alto section leader position, being vacated by the illustrious Sue Lomax, who was stepping down after many years to spend more time with her grandchildren and traveling with her husband. In the first few weeks I began to really get excited--Clyde allowed soloists to select our own pieces, there was some very participatory congregational sharing of joys and concerns, I loved the choir members, there was coffee after the service, and numerous potlucks (see November post). The hymns sounded a bit more like the ones I recalled from my Church of the Brethren days, even including some Ken Medema selections (I was a huge fan of his when I was in high school, and still am). Best of all (for me) no two services were alike, no two prayers were alike, no two invocations or benedictions or call to worship readings were repeated or from a book, but rather from the heart and creative mind of someone who came up with them or culled them from somewhere. It was personal. But unlike the Unitarian experience, it was not ONLY personal. It was also very much moving in both the concentric circles of humanness and godliness.

I hope that helps explain why I am at home at St. Luke United Methodist. There is a balance here of real sincere people who also apply their gifts and intelligence to a strong Christian faith. Nobody is using their faith to hide, and nobody is hiding from their faith. Unlike in the Unitarian church, where I could perform a solo that was classical in nature with no religious overtones whatsoever, and the music would be considered appropriate for the service (more so than a piece that mentioned the "J" word). Here I feel that I am expected to bring something meaningful to the spirits of the congregation, and that inspires me.

Getting back to how Jesus can be our savior from the economic recession, I would only say that it is focusing on the blessings of our lives that we can help weather the disappointments. Perhaps talented people working together for the common good can help turn things around for the desperate and least fortunate. With so much blaming and complaining going on, though, it is soothing and wonderful to have something to pray for, and someone to wait for, expectantly.