No matter who you are or where you are on lifes journey, you are welcome here!
The Bible is more than a strict set of rules, it is a collection of stories that help us discern how God calls us to be in this world. These stories remind us that we are accepted just as we are and the pleads for us to accept others in the same way; to love each other with the same, fierce, complete, unwavering love that God shows each of us.
We’ve got to believe stories about attacks and abuse. We’ve got to listen to the voices of women of color and transgender women and women who have been marginalized and minoritized, to hear their stories of being cast out and oppressed. But it’s not only about the abuse it’s not only about that “testimonial porn.” We’ve got to listen to the voices of hope and strength and courage and change. We’ve got to listen to the ways that God speaks through the rainbow of voices that bless our world.
“The first fear I had when taking on this scripture was ‘How can I possibly teach you all to live a God fearing life when I have so much work to do myself?’ But the more I studied it, the more excited I became.”
Stephanie Dozois, Minister of Youth and Families
Our words can be used to spread love in the face of fear. We can use our mouths to talk about suicide and depression and mental illness. We can use our tongues to speak out against racism and xenophobia. We can talk about others who believe differently than us, look and love and live differently than us and dismantle systems of misogyny, homophobia, and transphobia. We can use tongue and words and breath to find unity in the face of division; commonality in the face of conflict; and acceptance instead of resentment for our differences.
It’s not enough to just worship God. It’s not enough to say that we are Christians or say that we go to church. In order to truly worship God, we must also serve humanity. We say those words every week as we recite our Covenant together. And I believe that is the core of who we are at MCC.
Our faith is made of stories woven together over thousands of years. Stories of communities surrounded by a world trying to contaminated them. Families looking for land, individuals listening for God’s voice, slaves escaping their oppressors, evil rulers brought low, love being chosen over fear.
“The Bible helps us by naming the struggling, letting us know it’s okay to be angry and sad, reminding us that we can yell and scream and blame God; reminding us that God is always lingering near ready to take our hand.
The Psalms remind us that God is with us in good times and bad, Ron Chernow and Lin-Manuel Miranda’s work reminded us of Hamilton; the ways that Hamilton helped lead a revolution and birth a new nation.
Their work impacted others, so can ours.”
We know better; we must defend ourselves from our enemies, we must meet violence with violence and hatred with hatred, we must look out for people within the artificial borders we’ve drawn before we take care of others who live outside of them.
But no matter how much we want to believe that God is only on our side, our story of war and hatred is not God’s story.
“God is here – but God doesn’t wait for us here, sitting in this silent sanctuary waiting until we show up on Sunday morning.
God is here because we bring God here, because we are here with all our varied skills and arts; because we bring God when we gather in witness, in celebration, in struggle,
And God goes with us – in the work we do for Open Table and Family Promise and Sudbury Food Pantry and driving for FISH and all of the other places that you do God’s work and being God’s kindness outside of these walls.”
If you ask three people to report on a shared conversation or event, you’ll probably get four different accounts of what happened. The four canonical Gospels tell different stories of Jesus but that doesn’t take anything away from their truthfulness. We each have a version of God’s story – we each are a version of God’s story. Tell your tale, share your story, live your life so that the story of God’s kingdom becomes reality.