The UU Urban Ministry is one of King's Chapels three Community Action Partners. Learn more about the UU Urban Ministry at www.uuum.org. 

 

It's hard to know what to say. In a week's time you've got a sermon to preach. You've read the stories, turned them over in your imagination, felt the familiar rhythms and cadences in your heart. You know these stories-over the years, Sunday after Sunday in Ordinary Time, they've become yours. Here is Abraham, stepping outside to look up at the stars as he hears the words of God's promise: "So shall your descendants be." And here is the writer to the Hebrews, remembering that promise to Abraham and insisting on faith-on "the realization of what is hoped for and the evidence of things not seen." And here is Jesus, exhorting us to turn our gaze again toward the heavens, toward that "inexhaustible treasure in heaven that no thief can reach nor moth destroy." You abide with these stories, hearing their echoes, holding them up against your own experience. And it comes to you that there is something of abundance at the heart of these stories-intimations of a divine economy that could nourish and sustain us, if only we could see it clearly enough to hold it fast.

 

And then: El Paso. Dayton. The sickening realization that just as our capacity to be shocked begins to wane, now the mass shootings come in pairs.

 

What can be said? What can be done? What sense can be made of this senseless violence? In an Ordinary Time blighted by extraordinary darkness, of what can our stories avail us? In the face of an all-too-visible evil, whence a hope in the unseen?

 

My friends, I'm afraid I have no easy answers. Indeed, there are times when I begin to feel unmoored by the very questions. That's how I was feeling as I read an article earlier this week highlighting the lack of a central, unifying figure to bind up our nation's wounds in the manner of Lincoln at Gettysburg or Reagan after the Challenger explosion, Bush after 9/11 or Obama after too many mass shootings. By way of example, the article linked to President Obama's eulogy for the Reverend Clementa Pinckney, slain with eight members of his congregation in the shooting at Mother Emanuel AME in Charleston, South Carolina, in June, 2015. With the tap of a finger, a voice whose rhythm and cadence seemed always to carry us to a higher purpose spoke to me from what seemed a distant past. And the words-I'd remembered the singing, the "Amazing Grace" which would come later, but not these first words:

 

The Bible calls us to hope. To persevere, and to have faith in things not seen.

     "They were still living by faith when they died," Scripture tells us. "They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on Earth."

 

Here were the words I'd been pondering, holding in my heart, preparing to speak about on Sunday. Here they were, offered back to me from four summers ago, before Harvard Divinity School and ministry and delivering sermons from the pulpit of King's Chapel on Sundays in Ordinary Time. The words, the voice, came to me as a mooring line-returned me to story and faith, literature and religion, the questions at their core: Who are we? How are we to be?

 

Who are we? Strangers in a strange land. A land riven by strife and discord, where we find meanness and venom where we would expect generosity and moral leadership. A land where a human economy of scarcity seems to trump a divine economy of abundance.

 

How are we to be? As foreigners. As foreigners in this land whose passports are emblazoned with the seal of the promised land. Is this not our prayer every Sunday as we make our common supplications unto Almighty God? To be granted in this world knowledge of God's truth? How are we to be? As sojourners-as strangers who refuse estrangement from one another. As fellow-travelers who refuse fear. The first words of God to Abraham in this week's reading from Genesis are the same as the first words Jesus speaks to all of us from Luke's Gospel this week: Be not afraid.

 

How are we to be? As ones who walk in faith. As ones who carry within us that spark of the divine which no earthly darkness can extinguish. As ones who reject an economy of scarcity in favor of God's own economy of abundance. "We give thee but thine own, whate'er the gift may be; all that we have is thine alone, a trust, O Lord, from thee." Here is the miracle of the divine economy, boundless as those stars to which Abraham looked, inexhaustible as that heavenly treasure: we are but earthen vessels. And yet-and yet, when we give, we give from that divine storehouse from which the gift is never exhausted.

 

This is not easy. But we are not promised ease. What we are promised is grace. The grace to catch glimpses of God's truth. The grace to persevere in faith. The grace to sojourn in this strange land and hold fast to that divine economy whose currency is love and goodness. To insist, again and again, on the simple truth that God is love. And, even when our hearts are heavy with grief, to bring that love to one another. This is who we are, my friends-this is how we are to be. May it be so.

 

In faith-in love,

 

David

Summer time and the livin' is easy.....

Thank you to the 32 friends and congregants who made donations in June. Possibly thinking that you wanted to make your summertime plans " easy." Thank you also to the 19 donors who gave in July.

The campaign is still short of its goal.  If you are "...livin easy" at the lake or the beach a few clicks on your cell phone can help us reach the goal of $225,000.  We hope you are having a pleasant summer wherever it may be.

Please click here to donate online or send your donations to Gretchen Horton at the Parish House: King's Chapel Parish House,  64 Beacon Street, Boston, Ma. 02108. 

The Stewardship committee is ever so grateful for your support.

The History Program has been keeping busy this summer! The Educators welcomed over 50,000 visitors to explore King's Chapel's history in July and 11,000 so far in August! 

Visitors continue to rave about their tours with our talented team of History Educators, including reviews like these from the past week:

"Our tour guide was amazing. You can tell that she likes what she does. She took time to answer all our questions and we learned a lot about the amazing history of King's Chapel ."

"Engaging, informative, and welcoming. Terrific experience!"

"Very personal touch on this tour, would recommend to anyone interested in history!"

Have you taken a tour of King's Chapel with the History Program team yet? 

Contact faye@kings-chapel.org to learn more.