{"id":71,"date":"2019-06-16T20:17:10","date_gmt":"2019-06-16T20:17:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rhmcd.com\/?p=71"},"modified":"2019-10-29T02:56:07","modified_gmt":"2019-10-29T02:56:07","slug":"it-is-good","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rhmcd.com\/?p=71","title":{"rendered":"It Is Good"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

At the end of each day of creation, according to Genesis, God looked at what God had made and pronounced it good. \u00a0It\u2019s healthy to take pride in good work. And even if we haven\u2019t done all, or the best, that we could, it\u2019s still important to make an end, and a rest, before we start again.
<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

With our Music Sunday, two weeks ago, and our annual Religious Education Sunday last week, we have come to the end of another church year, sort of.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Next year\u2019s budget is passed.\u00a0 The new Trustees have been elected.\u00a0 The church\u2019s committees and teams are having their organizing meetings to put together the programs for the coming church year.\u00a0 We\u2019re looking at the calendar, and making plans, and recruiting new team members, and thinking about what we want to do, what we should do, and what we have the capacity to do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because the old fiscal year ends on May 31, and the new fiscal year begins immediately on June 1, we go straight from one year\u2019s work to the next, with only a single click of the clock separating one from the other.\u00a0 There\u2019s already a lot of forward energy in the church:\u00a0 plans and goals and hopes and visions.\u00a0 Where are we going to go?\u00a0 What are we going to do?\u00a0 How are we going to get there?\u00a0 How are going to get it done?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But though the new fiscal year has already begun, the church year is not yet done.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The church operates under several different calendars simultaneously.\u00a0 The fiscal year, meaning the legal year, the budget year, the governance year, starts on June 1 each year.\u00a0 But the church year, which is also the liturgical year (meaning the year that organizes the worship calendar) begins on the first Sunday after Labor Day in September.\u00a0 Usually, that\u2019s the second Sunday in September \u2013 unless Labor Day Monday happens to be September 1, in which case the church year would begin on Sunday, September 7.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last year our church year began on September 9.\u00a0 We celebrated with our annual \u201cIngathering\u201d worship service.\u00a0 The choir sang \u201cWe Bid You Welcome\u201d by Jason Shelton.\u00a0 At the 9am hour the Wylder Spirits sang a song called, \u201cHome\u201d by Karla Bonoff.\u00a0 It was a second Sunday so we had a special collection for the Long Beach Immigrant Rights Coalition.\u00a0 Michael Kimmitt was the Worship Associate.\u00a0 I preached a sermon titled, \u201cGathered Here, Gathered Now.\u201d\u00a0 After the second service the Board began the church year with a meeting for the committee chairs titled, \u201cLet the Year Begin\u201d.\u00a0 And then we did let the year begin\u00a0 And now here we are.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So though the new fiscal year has already begun.\u00a0 The church year is not quite over yet.\u00a0 We\u2019ve still got the rest of this month, and the summer, all the way through Labor Day weekend, before we begin the new church year.\u00a0 Today is Sunday 41 of 52 Sundays in our church year which will end on September 1, with a sermon by visiting minister Ken Collier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But though the next church year has not yet begun, this old church year is definitely ending.\u00a0 We had our Music Sunday.\u00a0 We had our RE Sunday.\u00a0 The church year isn\u2019t over, but the energy is shifting.\u00a0 It feels different.\u00a0 The summer feels different.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is the rhythm of the church year that the summer months are not the same as the months of fall, winter, and spring.\u00a0 Yes it\u2019s hotter.\u00a0 Yes the schools are out.\u00a0 Yes, there\u2019s still a sense in our culture that summer is the season for easing up and planning vacations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And thank God for that.\u00a0 Because we need in the cycle of the year, some time for easing up and vacating.\u00a0 We need to acknowledge that our lives cannot always be producing and growing and making and building and striving and working.\u00a0 We need the natural rhythm of pulling back and slowing down and sometimes, even, we need to stop and put our feet up.\u00a0 And if the heat of the summer, and the school schedule helps us do that, that\u2019s all to the good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So the summer will be different.\u00a0 But as we move into the different energy of the summer, I want you to remember that the time we are moving into is still part of the church year.\u00a0 This church year.\u00a0 It is the ending part before the new one begins.\u00a0 The summer months aren\u2019t negative space between two church years.\u00a0 The summer months, and the summer feeling, is how we end our church year.\u00a0 It is spiritually important to recognize that the rest we take after a period of work, is a necessary part of the work.\u00a0 The rest from work is as important as the active part of the work.\u00a0 Our church year is three seasons of work and a season of rest; not three seasons of work and then nothing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So unlike the fiscal year, which clicks over from May 31 to June 1 with no pause between, in the church year, we have a regularly scheduled time each year to include the pause, and the rest.\u00a0 Between RE Sunday in June and Ingathering in September we do the spiritual work, of doing no work.\u00a0 We do the spiritual work of reflecting on what we have done, before we do more.\u00a0 We make an ending before we start a beginning.\u00a0 And even more, between the ending and the beginning we take a month or so, in July to be conscious of our need for rest, for Sabbath, for unprogrammed time, for emptying, for breathing out, for mere fun, for vacation.\u00a0 And then in August, before we actually begin, we prepare to begin, by doing the things that will help us make a good beginning when we get there.\u00a0 The ready-ing and setting before the going.\u00a0 The planning.\u00a0 The studying.\u00a0 The gathering of resources.\u00a0 The organizing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So to help us begin to make an ending, I want to start this morning by looking at the beginning, the very beginning.\u00a0 I\u2019m talking about the beginning of everything, the way it is imagined mythically in the Bible.\u00a0 Genesis, Chapter One.\u00a0 Verse One.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn the beginning\u00a0God created\u00a0the heavens\u00a0and the earth.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Those are the first words of the Bible, the Jewish and Christian scriptures, in an English translation called the New International Version.\u00a0 In Hebrew the book is called \u201cBereshit\u201d which is the first word of the first sentence, meaning \u201cIn the beginning\u201d.\u00a0 The word Genesis is a Greek word that means \u201corigins.\u201d\u00a0 The same root as our English word \u201cgenerations.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And God said,\u00a0\u201cLet there be light,\u201d and there was light.\u00a0God saw that the light was good, and he separated the light from the darkness.\u00a0God called\u00a0the light \u201cday,\u201d and the darkness he called \u201cnight.\u201d\u00a0And there was evening, and there was morning\u2014the first day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

God commands light to appear.\u00a0 And then when there is light, God names it as good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It seems that there are two necessary parts of the act of creation.\u00a0 There is the making of the thing, and then there is the regarding of the thing.\u00a0 The artist steps back from what he has made to see how it looks from a different perspective.\u00a0 There is the calling forth and then there is the reflecting on what has come.\u00a0 There is the doing, and then there is the walking away from the doing, taking a break and coming back later with fresh eyes.\u00a0 There\u2019s the act of creation and then, almost as though the creator were not entirely responsible, the objective judging of the work, \u201cHey, look what happened!\u201d\u00a0 And, \u201cThat\u2019s good.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And God said,\u00a0\u201cLet there be a vault\u00a0between the waters\u00a0to separate water from water.\u201d\u00a0So God made the vault and separated the water under the vault from the water above it.\u00a0 And it was so.\u00a0God called\u00a0the vault \u201csky.\u201d\u00a0And there was evening, and there was morning\u2014the second day.\u00a0 And God said, \u201cLet the water under the sky be gathered to one place,\u00a0and let dry ground appear.\u201d And it was so.\u00a0God called\u00a0the dry ground \u201cland,\u201d and the gathered waters\u00a0he called \u201cseas.\u201d\u00a0And God saw that it was good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After each act of creation, God steps back to see what happened.\u00a0 At the end of each day, God finishes the work and then reflects on the work completed.\u00a0 And after each thing appears we are told, \u201cGod saw that it was good.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The light is good.\u00a0 The land and the seas are good.\u00a0 The work of the third day is plants and trees, all good.\u00a0 The fourth day is sun and moon and stars, all good.\u00a0 The fifth day is creatures of the seas and the birds in the air:\u00a0 all good.\u00a0 (That\u2019s a lot of work for one day, if you think about it).\u00a0 On the sixth day all of the creatures of the land, also, all good.\u00a0 And finally, at the end of the sixth day, the last of creation, God creates human persons.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this version of the creation myth God makes all people, male and female, all at once, not a single man and then a single woman.\u00a0 And then he gives them (all humankind) some special instructions:\u00a0 be fruitful and multiply, rule the earth and subdue it.\u00a0 He also creates humankind to be vegetarian, vegan actually, and every other animal, too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And then the story ends like this:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGod saw all that he had made,\u00a0and it was very good.\u00a0And there was evening, and there was morning\u2014the sixth day.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGod saw all that he had made, and it was very good.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The final act of creation is not to right away go onto the next thing and make more things, but to look back on what was already made, and to call it good.\u00a0 To reflect.\u00a0 To take a breath.\u00a0 To take a pause.\u00a0 To take satisfaction in the creation.\u00a0 To honor, to celebrate, to appreciate what is, rather than immediately turning to what\u2019s coming up next.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To say, \u201cgrateful, take the good I find, the best of now and here.\u00a0 I break my pilgrim staff, I lay aside the toiling oar; the angel sought so far away I welcome at my door.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, though we have, already begun the work of planning the next church year, we must also realize that we aren\u2019t fully done with the church year we\u2019re in now.\u00a0 We\u2019ve got more than two months still to come.\u00a0 And some of the work we have yet to do this year is to make an ending.\u00a0 To reflect on the year past.\u00a0 To step back to see what we have done.\u00a0 And to call it, good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019ve had a year of Sunday worship.\u00a0 Forty-one, Sundays so far.\u00a0 I preached most of them.\u00a0 James Ford preached earlier in the year.\u00a0 We\u2019ve also had guest ministers like Anne Hines, and Greg Boyd, and Samantha Wilson, and Robin Stillwater.\u00a0 We\u2019ve had good lay preaching from Joanna Messer Kimmitt, and Michael Kimmit, and Lee Salazar, and Phibin Ny and Kevin Ford.\u00a0 Roy Lansdown preaches to us next week.\u00a0 Eduarda Diaz Schwarzbach led a moving Dia de los Muertos service.\u00a0 We had a holiday cabaret in December.\u00a0 Remember?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We had a service Auction that raised more money than we expected.\u00a0 And it was good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We had a St. Patrick\u2019s Day Party to kick off our Stewardship Campaign, and it was very good.\u00a0 And we met our goals for member pledging.\u00a0 That\u2019s good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We more or less balanced our budget for the second year in a row.\u00a0 That\u2019s good.\u00a0 We have a great set of folks set to serve as your Trustees in the coming year, as well as an excellent Search Committee in place.\u00a0 The Leadership Development Committee facilitated an extensive program called Harvest the Power<\/em> last year and is gearing up to offer the same program again next year in a slow-moving strategy to strengthen the leadership culture of the church.\u00a0 That\u2019s good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Music and Arts Committee put together a spring concert series that was highly successful both in quality, and attendance, and income.\u00a0 That\u2019s good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Your new music and membership and religious education professional staff all got through their first year successfully:\u00a0 learning on the job, keeping up with expectations from the past, and bringing in some new ideas and energy.\u00a0 That\u2019s good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Recovering from the water leak and refurbishing the church office turned out to be a year-long job.\u00a0 Our facilities volunteers managed that process well and helped us create a better-looking and more efficient office space.\u00a0 And I see that it was good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We hosted a District Assembly and it was very good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We provided religious education for children, and game nights, and discussion groups, and art shows in Wylder Hall and picnics on the lawn.\u00a0 We raised money for organizations in the community and scholarships for “Dreamers”.\u00a0 We provided pastoral care, and hospital visits and memorial services for church members that died during the year, and we welcomed new members to the community and so on and so on.\u00a0 Such is the life of a church.\u00a0 And all of it, including the events I forgot to mention, were good.\u00a0 Were very good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now when I say, \u201cgood\u201d don\u2019t misunderstand me.\u00a0 I don\u2019t mean good in the sense that everything was perfect.\u00a0 I don\u2019t mean good meaning we should look back with nothing but pride and nothing to learn.\u00a0 I can think of instances that were less than \u201cgood\u201d in that sense.\u00a0 I\u2019m sure you can, too.\u00a0 I made mistakes.\u00a0 Maybe you did, too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But what I mean by \u201cgood\u201d is that we had a year where we contributed the experiences of our lives which had the effect of moving creation forward, toward that \u201cvision of an earth made fair, with all her people one.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cFor all that is our life, we come with thanks and praise.\u201d\u00a0 You might have failed in part.\u00a0 I fail sometimes.\u00a0 And sometimes I catch myself slipping backward into patterns that are unhealthy for me, or actions that are unhelpful or harmful to others.\u00a0 Those days are hard to call, \u201cgood.\u201d\u00a0 We might even have failed spectacularly, although I hope not often.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But when those un-good experiences are held against a vision and judged to fall short, the mere fact that we have a better vision and can see the difference between our best vision and our less-than-the-best reality is a sign of hope.\u00a0 And then, with one step back we recommit to taking two steps forward, and in the totality of our experience, both the missing the mark, and the healing of the hurt caused, and the taking aim a second time with a keener eye and surer hand, we can look back, with the perspective of a year and say, \u201cOK.\u00a0 Not perfect. But OK.\u00a0 Good.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We are not gods.\u00a0 We are human beings making our personal journeys of growing and learning even as we contribute to helping the whole of humanity learn and grow.\u00a0 \u201cFor the sun and the moon which we did not create\u2026 we lift our hearts today.\u201d\u00a0 That we are not the sole creators of this church, or really of very much of anything in our lives, we can be grateful.\u00a0 Because where we fall short, someone else is there, some partner in creation, who can do what we cannot do, who can pick up what we have dropped, who can hold us accountable when we fail to see our own shortcomings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So with that caveat in place, I can look back at this year in our church and call it good.\u00a0 I hope you will, too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I know that the first requirement of making a good ending, is to make the ending good.\u00a0 Whether we are ending a church year.\u00a0 Or if you are coming to an ending in your life.\u00a0 The end of the thing, just before the final end, needs to be the stepping back and reflecting.\u00a0 What happened?\u00a0 What did I learn?\u00a0 What does it look like from this perspective?\u00a0 Naming it as \u201cgood\u201d which doesn\u2019t mean that every experience is a success, but that every experience is a piece of you \u2013 and you are good.\u00a0 So this piece goes there.\u00a0 You set it down.\u00a0 You bless it.\u00a0 You walk away.\u00a0 It is good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We have completed the first part of the creative act of this church year.\u00a0 We have done the making of the thing, and now we come to the regarding of the thing.\u00a0 We have done the calling into being now we have a few weeks to do the reflecting on what has come.\u00a0 We have done the doing, now we step back and say \u201cHey, look at that!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I look back with satisfaction.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the \u201cday\u201d of this church year comes to a close, let\u2019s leave aside the need to immediately begin another day of work.  Let us take a pause.  Let us take a breath.  May we see with dispassionate objectivity what we made.  And may we call it good.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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