{"id":737,"date":"2020-05-29T12:29:55","date_gmt":"2020-05-29T19:29:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/rhmcd.com\/?p=737"},"modified":"2020-05-29T12:46:42","modified_gmt":"2020-05-29T19:46:42","slug":"hope-faith-love-forgiveness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rhmcd.com\/?p=737","title":{"rendered":"Hope, Faith, Love, Forgiveness"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Small Group Ministry
A small group ministry implementation team
(Norma Chinchilla, Eduarda Diaz-Schwarzbach, Kevin Ford, Nancy Krusbe, Laura Scully)
Have put together a small group ministry program for this summer
I hope you\u2019ll sign up
It\u2019s a great way to stay connected with your church community
And create more intimate connections
Maybe with some people you don\u2019t already know
Six different groups
Facilitated by the people I named above, plus Lynelle Wise
Meeting on six different days (every day but Monday)
There are evening meetings and day time meetings
Each group meets every other week
From end of June or beginning of July \u2013 through mid-August.
The idea is that this is kind of a test-drive,
And seeing how it goes the program might continue into the church year
Perhaps with Rev. Lissa\u2019s involvement
For more information
See the announcements that came out yesterday
Or the June Advance<\/em> which comes out next week
The Implementation Team is asking that folks sign up
By June 15<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Town Hall Council,
Met yesterday
Approved two financial proposals using funds from
The Opportunity Fund
The Wilder Wuurld Fund
Thank you, that\u2019s an important piece of next year\u2019s budget
A total of $48,000 that we already have on hand
Without borrowing or withdrawing from an interest-earning account.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Board meeting yesterday
Gave their approval to the use of those two funds
You\u2019ll hear more about this on Sunday at the congregational meeting
Approved an agreement for the Montessori School to open June 1
Will be presented to the school today
Limited class size
Classrooms reserved for preschool only
Important, if you\u2019re on campus
Do not go into the classroom area
All adults must use the \u201cwomen\u2019s\u201d bathroom<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This Sunday
Coming of Age Worship, May 31
Congregational Meeting, May 31
Approve Budget
Elect Trustees
Annual Reports
Vote on Bylaw
Materials will be emailed to you at the end of today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The June Advance will be out next week
Board \u201cretreat\u201d June 6
Music Sunday, June 7
RE Sunday, June 14
My last preaching Sunday June 21
Followed by farewell party
Request for photo of you and sentence or two about the interim
Due by Sunday
My last contract day is June 30<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I want to share a reading with you this morning from our hymnal
461, “We Must Be Saved” Reinhold Niebuhr
Nothing worth doing is completed in our lifetime;
Therefore, we are saved by hope.
Nothing true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history:
Therefore, we are saved by faith.
Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone;
Therefore, we are saved by love.
No virtuous act is quite as virtuous from the standpoint of our friend or foe as from our own;
Therefore, we are saved by the final form of love which is forgiveness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Neibuhr was an American theologian of the 20th century
He died in 1971
His best known work is the Serenity Prayer of 12 step programs.
God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, 
courage to change the things I can, 
and wisdom to know the difference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Niebuhr\u2019s theology is called \u201cneo-orthodox realism\u201d
That attracts me
Because you\u2019ve probably heard me talk about Unitarian Universalism as a
\u201creality-based\u201d religion
Niebuhr is also admired by Barack Obama, by the way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But, interestingly, Neibuhr, as a realist
Criticized liberal religion
Which in many ways describes Unitarian Universalism
Because of liberal religion’s too-positive view of humanity
You\u2019ve probably heard me say that Unitarian Universalists believe that
Human beings are good enough, smart enough, and strong enough,
To save ourselves.
Neibuhr had his doubts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He lived through both the first and second world wars
He saw the dark-side of humanity
And he advocated for realism
That acknowledges human limitations
And builds guardrails into our societies
And our religion
That contain the worst of human impulses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For instance, in his book The Children of Light and the Children of Darkness<\/em> (1944), 
He writes:  “Man’s capacity for justice makes democracy possible; but man’s inclination to injustice makes democracy necessary.” <\/p>\n\n\n\n

So that brings me back to the Serenity Prayer, and the reading for our hymnal
As a bit of spiritual realism
For a dark time, such as today.
And I mean, the coronavirus,
and the racism and violence in our society
And the mean-ness and stupidity of Trump, and so on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, 
courage to change the things I can, 
and wisdom to know the difference.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Neibuhr reminds us of the limits of human power
The limits of our goodness, our wisdom, our strength
So he advocates for a spiritual realism that goes beyond human power
Into the realm of
Hope
Faith
Love
And Forgiveness<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hope, that what we start now, may be fulfilled in some future time
Perhaps long after we\u2019re gone<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Faith, that our best guesses of what we think to be true, and good, and beautiful
Will be found to be correct, and embraced by others, eventually<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Love, because work that really helps a community
must be done by working together as a community<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And forgiveness
Because, given our human limitations
Even our best efforts are going to fall short
Our work won\u2019t be perfect
Our solution will be incomplete
Or addressing one problem will create another.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So we are saved, not by working harder
Or being stronger, wiser, or better, than humans can be
But by\u00a0
Rallying what courage we have
To change what can be changed
But, accepting that not every human problem has a human solution
we rely on Hope
We rest in Faith
We side with Love
We admit our failings as we generously forgive the failings of others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

See you tomorrow, 1pm.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Small Group MinistryA small group ministry implementation team(Norma Chinchilla, Eduarda Diaz-Schwarzbach, Kevin Ford, Nancy Krusbe, Laura Scully)Have put together a… Read more Hope, Faith, Love, Forgiveness<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[13,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-737","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-dailymessage","category-writing"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rhmcd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/737","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rhmcd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rhmcd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rhmcd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rhmcd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=737"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/rhmcd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/737\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":741,"href":"https:\/\/rhmcd.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/737\/revisions\/741"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rhmcd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=737"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rhmcd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=737"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rhmcd.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=737"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}