Please join us for our morning worship service beginning at 10:45. You may view the church calendar to see what other events are coming up.

Worship is the central most important act we do together as a church. Everything else we do as individuals and as a church body emanates from our honor of God that we collectively mark each Sunday in the service of worship. We come to give thanks and praise and to be challenged in our daily walk with the Lord.

Sunday School for all ages begins at 9:30.

About a dozen years ago, Jill Lepore (born in Worcester) wrote a book entitled The Name of War: King Philips War and the Origins of American Identity. Metacom (or King Philip as he was known to the English) became Sachem of the Pokanoket and Grand Sachem of the Wampanoag Confederacy after the suspicious death of his older brother. The son of Massasoit, Metacom began negotiating with other Native American tribes after the death of his father to deal with the continued incursion of settlers into their native territories. To the settlers, King Philip became an enemy to be destroyed. To his own people, he was their hope for holding on to their dignity as a people and their land that was their home. The book covers the events of the late 17^th century war between the settlers and the Wampanoag tribe that encompassed much of southern New England (even Worcester County). The premise of the book is that war is defined by the person who is telling the story. The Wampanoags had a different interpretation than the settlers and vice versa.

History has a way of capturing the life of public figures that, once presented, is indelibly printed in our collective conscience, names like Washington, Churchill, or Nixon. We see in our mind’s eye, figures of great prominence whose iconic images have ready recognition.

The prophet Jeremiah in many ways is such a figure. Prophets were often not “painted” in the best of light. They appear as “off the wall” characters, rough and abrasive, often tragic. Jeremiah is stereotyped in traditional prophetic fashion. Here was a prophet who from the outset, did not see himself worthy of God’s call, who attempted to back away, and who much later after fulfilling his prophetic calling, mourned the very day he was born. He appears as anything but an uplifting character. He is even branded in our English language by the word “jeremiad” referring to a long, mournful complaint or lamentation; a list of woes.

Jeremiah lived in day when, as the scriptures revealed, everyone did what seemed right in their own eyes. As a prophet with a divine mission, he had pleaded to the point of reprimand, making a spectacle of himself but to no avail. He along with his people witnessed what he had warned about—the fall of Jerusalem.

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Nehemiah 8:1-3, 5-6, 8-10    Luke 4:14-21

When we read the Scripture lessons every Sunday morning in worship, we do so in stride. In fact, that could often describe our approach to worship in general. In the words of Annie Dillard, words we use in worship are “things we have learned we can say to God without being killed.”
We often have a very lackadaisical attitude when the scriptures are read. We respect them and expect them to be read in worship. Perhaps we are so familiar with them we do not anticipate hearing anything new. We read the gospel lesson and conclude with the words: THIS IS THE WORD OF THE LORD. We say it without missing a beat. But what impact does this Word of the Lord have upon our lives?

Contrast what is often our approach, with our text from Nehemiah. The people of God had returned from exile. Jerusalem was in ruin and the walls were leveled. (Picture the scenes we’ve seen in Haiti this past week). Nehemiah drew his people together and against great odds rebuilt the wall. When it was completed they asked Ezra the priest and scribe to bring forth the law of Moses, the Word of the Lord and to read it in the public square. When he opened the scriptures all the assembly stood up to listen. They were almost 50,000 in number who had gathered. Ezra read from early morning to midday, the congregation standing all the while. And all the people wept when they heard the words of the law of God. They were moved to the very core of their being.

Let’s be honest. For the most part we do not like to be disturbed. That’s true on several levels but I suspect it is also true in worship. We want to hear confirmation that we are doing well. We prefer affirmation that confirms our lifestyles are in synch with God—to hear that we are doing all the right things. But if you have lost everything you have known, as was the case with the Israelite people, you hear things in a different way. The Word of the Lord fell on their ears like rain on parched soil.
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Donations for relief efforts through Covenant World Relief in Haiti can be made online or by mail.  Follow the link to Covenant World Relief for more information: http://www.covchurch.org/cwr

From their website:

Covenant World Relief is an effective and efficient humanitarian aid ministry with a sixty-year history. CWR collaborates with partners around the world to provide relief, rehabilitation and transformational development. These partnerships empower local ministries, increase local involvement, reduce overhead and facilitate immediate response to disaster and human suffering. Our charge is to love, serve and work together with the poor, the powerless, and the marginalized.

Isaiah 43:1-7

But now thus says the Lord, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. 2When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. 3For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. I give Egypt as your ransom, Ethiopia and Seba in exchange for you. 4Because you are precious in my sight, and honored, and I love you, I give people in return for you, nations in exchange for your life. 5Do not fear, for I am with you; I will bring your offspring from the east, and from the west I will gather you; 6I will say to the north, “Give them up,” and to the south, “Do not withhold; bring my sons from far away and my daughters from the end of the earth— 7everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made.”

Called by Name

Do not fear, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. For I am the Lord your God.
Those words spoken through the prophet Isaiah are one of the beckoning invitations in all of Holy Scripture.

Do not fear….I have called you by name.

One of the most moving monuments in our nation is the Vietnam Memorial on the mall in Washington, D.C. Maya Lin, designer of the Vietnam Memorial, explaining to a TV interviewer why her remarkable work has come to have such a strong tug upon the emotions of all who see it, responded: “It’s the names,” she said, “the names are the memorial. No edifice or structure can bring people to mind as powerfully as their names.”

Do not fear…I have called you by name. In a world where people can grab their 15 minutes of fame—our names are known by the one in whose name we are marked in baptism.

Even though the words of the prophet come as comfort and promise, they also recall the terror of the first Exodus. “When you pass through the waters … when you walk through fire.”

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I love the liturgy for Lessons and Carols that includes the Bidding Prayer we shared on Christmas Eve:

Dear People of God: this year, more than ever, we yearn for the message and power of Christmas. In the story of God’s unwavering love and steadfast commitment we hear words of consolation and hope for a world torn apart by violence and war. In this dark time of fear and violence in the world, it is the promise of peace on earth and goodwill among the peoples of the world that, like a shining star, draws us to the stable in Bethlehem. There we find, wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger, the child in whom the hopes and fears of all the years are reconciled for ever.

As we stand on the threshold of a New Year, the story of Epiphany comes to us as good news. We yearn for the message and power of Christmas.

Of all the four gospels, only Matthew tells the wondrous story of the visit of the magi that we celebrate on Epiphany. It is a story that comes to us with good news as we mark a New Year.

In his recent commentary on Matthew (2006), Stanley Hauerwas of Duke observes that sentimentality is one of the greatest enemies of understanding the gospel, especially the Christmas story and the events surrounding the birth of Jesus. Our sentimentality can eclipse what the text reveals and doesn’t reveal. A good example of that is the story of the Magi. When we hear the story retold or we see it illuminated in pictures, we more often see three men, dressed in royal garb, journeying to Bethlehem on camels bearing gifts.

We don’t know that there were three. That particular number was a later century attribution to match the three gifts mentioned.  We sing the story: “We three kings of orient are….” but the wise men were not kings. In the ancient world in the region of Persia and Babylonia, a magos (which is the singular of magi) was a wise man or astrologer who specialized in the reading of the stars. They would have taken to any anomaly in the heavens because they looked for signs. They noticed something that apparently escaped the noticed of ordinary people.

Matthew was piecing this marvelous mystery together. Writing to a Jewish audience, he paid particular attention to the presence of Gentiles and saw it as a fulfillment to OT prophecy. Matthew makes more reference to the Hebrew Scriptures than any of the four gospel writers.  You may have noticed that already in our Isaiah text when we read:

the Lord will arise upon you,
and his glory will appear over you.
Nations shall come to your light,
and kings to the brightness of your dawn.

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Photos from Thursday’s lecture and presentation of The St. John’s Bible.

Rev. Dan Clayborne was installed as pastor of The Evangelical Covenant Church of New Sweden, Maine.

Photos from VBS 2009: