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Music as Faith  -   shared by Maureen Erb

10/22/2014

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The following sermon which, I heard some years ago, preached by Sidney Evans, Dean of Salisbury Cathedral, at the close of the Southern Cathedrals’ Choir Festival in Salisbury, England, is one that I think should be shared.
Based on the story of the woman who anointed Jesus with the alabaster jar of precious ointment, the sermon is a testament to the power of music in faith and worship.                                                                                   
                                                                                                      - Maureen Erb 



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Gospel Reading, St. Matthew 26, 1-13
What other story is there in the Gospels that more intimately encapsulates and interprets the true inwardness of all that we have received and experienced during these three wonderful days?  If the Southern Cathedrals’ Festival were to have a patron, surely that patron should be this unnamed woman. In an exuberance of love she poured out on the head of Jesus the whole content of an alabaster jar of precious ointment.   What her heart was bursting to express, her hands performed – a sacrament of love.   We all find ourselves at one time or another tongue-tied, unable to find words to say to another what our heart is bursting to express.   We search for a gift, for some token in which we hope that the discerning heart of the recipient will read what we are unable to put into words. 
Alabaster jars of precious ointment have been poured out over our heads in these three fragrant days and the perfume has penetrated to high places of these vaults and has entered into each of us, purifying our sensibilities and exciting our responses.

How precious, how costly in time, energy and discipline only those will really know whose imagination allows them to reflect on the amount of preparation, the sheer hard practice, even by trained voices, needed to produce such fragrance of sound.   Nor do we forget all those hidden people off-stage whose devoted work has enabled all this Festival to take place.

There is something deeply personal as well as professional in the quality of excellence that has been showered upon us – a reciprocity of expectation and response – the expectation of the three choirmasters and the response of the three choirs.   The response has been what we have experienced because the expectations have been so high.   But only respect for the three choirmasters – only a loving determination to give of their best – could produce such results from the singers.    The personal trust and love between the three choirmasters and their choirs enabled the professionalism of the singers to match the expectations of their leaders, to match the claims of this architecture, to give glory to God.

The story I read of the unnamed woman whose love for Jesus evoked her particular response does not tell us what it was about Jesus that had evoked that response.     But the spontaneity and costliness of her response leaves us in no doubt of her desire.    The accumulated music of the Church of the centuries provides just such an opportunity and fulfills just such a need.

Deep down in the depths of each one of us, in that secret centre which we hardly dare to enter, there is, I believe, a need and a longing to give ourselves totally in response to another in love and trust.  That longing is all too often unrecognized.   It runs contrary to what for most of the time we are actually feeling or doing.   We are at deep heart-level, I believe, longing to get free from self-centered pre-occupation with ourselves, longing to get free from our anxieties, our fears, our feeling that we have no value.   But in the ordinary exchanges and relationships of our usual days we are cautious about giving ourselves away wholeheartedly even to another person whom we have come to know and to trust.  Perhaps we have tried to do this and have been hurt and so we’ve closed up all entrances to that centre of our longing and of our hurt.   But music in its many expressions and especially in Christian choral singing allows us to respond wholeheartedly to the expectations of the conductor and the demands of the words and the notation, and to the claims upon us of God’s truth, of God’s love distilled for us in our Lord Christ and in those who have given themselves trustingly to him and to his cause.

And when the words are the resonant words, themes, poetry of deep wisdom – taken from the scriptures or from poets who have delved deeply into the longings and the pains of the human heart – when these words are matched with music of comparable quality – then the singers become identified with the song and we who can only listen find ourselves taken out of ourselves and into a deeper sense of ourselves in all the magnificence and trembling of knowing who we really are in the eyes of God.

Through the intermediary of words and sounds, you and I can be deeply moved within ourselves, as we were on Friday evening when we were taken afresh into the mystery and the meaning of the death and resurrection of Our Lord, or when last evening we found ourselves standing with the Mother of Jesus at the foot of the Cross on which her son – and such a son – was crucified; and she could do nothing except be with him in his agony. Where Mary stood, millions of women have stood as the terrible consequences of human cruelty have fallen upon those whom they loved – and not least in the horrors  of this century.

But when these Christian themes are expressed musically in acts of worship – in Evensong or the Eucharist – then these choral offerings can become for us wings of prayer—articulating our heart’s longing for goodness, for glory, for God – sacraments of love – alabaster jars of precious ointment, poured out by the singers and drawing us – if we will – into the exhilaration of being enabled to express the inexpressible.

Only in worship addressed to God can we really let go our caution and our fear.   We dare to do this because we dare to believe that the Divine Beauty has entered our lives and made himself known to us, not least through the gift of music and song.

You and I are not here as an audience listening to a concert.  We are here to break the alabaster jar of our own heart’s deepest longing for someone to adore. We let the words and music of the choir enter into our minds and hearts and become to us the articulation of all we long to say to God.   So in this thanksgiving for all we have received during this Festival, let us allow the music of the liturgy to take us beyond ourselves into the presence of the adorable Mystery “in whom we live and move and have our being”, into that “Beauty both so ancient and so new, who is and who was and who is to come”, Father, Son and Holy Spirit to whom alone adoration can be truly given, because in Him alone is the true glory.


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Childhood Hunger - shared by Amy Middleton

10/15/2014

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"When Jesus fed the thousands, He did not first check to see if they would be His disciples.  He did not require them to come to Him for salvation. He simply filled a need by filling empty stomachs.  Feeding the poor does not define the Christian; it is part of being a Christian." As Jack Wellman points out in his blog, we are called as Christians to help those less fortunate.  
The attached youtube video is a powerful testimony about childhood hunger.  As we dig deeper this month into world hunger, it is important that we as a community of faith look at the ugliness of this issue.  In facing this head on, we are moved to social action. 

The video below is from Moment of Mission, Sunday October 12, 2014
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Being God's Hands                                                                   by Amy Middleton

10/8/2014

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“In all things I have shown you that by working hard in this way we must help the weak and remember the words of the Lord Jesus, how he himself said, ‘It is more blessed to give than to receive.’” Acts 22:35

One of the great gifts of being part of this “community of faith” is experiencing people being God’s hands.  That is serving others.  We have a rich tradition of service in our congregation.  Whether it is unloading pumpkins, straightening the church pews, hosting coffee hour, teaching Sunday School, pulling weeds, counting offering, praying for others, knitting prayer shawls, stuffing envelopes, cooking meals, the list is endless!  All year long people give of themselves be it through time, talent or treasure. 

The month of October has historically been a time when we focus on mission.  It begins with the arrival of the pumpkins and carries through to our culmination of our food pantry drive.  Sandwiched in between are our collections for Neighbors in Need and Bread for the World.  We live out Jesus’ great commandment of loving our neighbors, both near and far.

For children, there is no better way to learn about the importance of serving others than by seeing it modeled through adults, and working alongside them.  Community service not only provides for the community but it builds the community within.

However, mission work is incomplete without its sibling, social action.  Collecting food for the food pantry is an example of missions.  Educating the community about the face of hunger, and working to end hunger is social action.

This month we are challenging our Journey to Adulthood class to social action.  They will not only be promoting our food pantry drive, but they will be learning more about food insecurity and hunger in our world, and locally here on Cape Cod.  They will simulate how food security is measured, attempt to purchase groceries on a SNAP (food stamps) budget, define our role as Christians in fighting hunger and food insecurity.  They will also be speaking to you in worship in a “moment for mission”, before the offering each week.  On the 9th, they will help sort and box the food collection for the Harwich and Chatham Food Pantries. 

We’d like to share this video with you that was aired on the Cape Cod Chronicle’s website last year.  Featured in the video is Ruth Campbell, who provides our lunches and snacks at Bible camp from the Lower Cape Outreach.  It gives a good sense of the issue of hunger on Cape Cod.

About this month’s missions…

About Bread for the World

Bread for the World is a collective Christian voice urging our nation’s decision makers to end hunger at home and abroad.  Moved by God’s grace and love in Jesus Christ, we reach out to our neighbors, whether they live in the next house, the next state or the next continent.  By changing the policies and conditions that allow hunger to persist, we provide help and opportunity far beyond the communities in which we live.

Ways to help:  
  • Give a special offering to Bread for the World on or before October 26th. 
  • Participate in their Offering of Letters to Congress.  For more information visit  www.bread.org/offering

About Neighbors In Need

Neighbors in Need is a special mission offering of the UCC that supports ministries of justice and compassion through the United States.  The 2014 theme for NIN is “Imagining Another World Where Literacy is No Longer a Concern”.

Ways to help:
  • · Give a special offering to Neighbors in Need on October 12th.

About the Chatham Children’s Fund

Along with private monetary and in-kind donations, the organization provides shelter needs, clothing, and services to families in need in Chatham.

Ways to help:
  •  Work the pumpkin patch
  •   Buy your pumpkins at the patch
  •   Contribute to the Dove Trees at Christmas

About the Chatham & Family (Harwich) Food Pantries

These pantries are non-profit, non-denominational organizations dedicated to serving the needs of the less fortunate of Cape Cod by providing food and clothing (Harwich) to the needy.  The Chatham Food Pantry is located in St. Christopher’s Church.  The Family Pantry is located on Great Western Road in Harwich


  • Contribute food to our food drive
  • Contribute food year-round (receptacle in the breezeway)
  •  Help box, sort and deliver the food.
  • Volunteer your time at the food pantries.

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