Charge to this Conference of Churches

by Nancy S. Taylor

Evangelical Congregational Church of Westborough, United Church of Christ

January 9, 2005

Grace and peace to you in the name of Jesus Christ, the Head of the Church.

It was Sharon Grover who helped me to see and understand the meaning of Paul's letter to the Ephesians. All the images by which Paul entices our imaginations - images like one body, one baptism, and the bond of peace - all these I saw embodied in the person of Sharon Grover.

Sharon was the heart and soul of the Congregational Church in East Stoneham, Maine, where I first served as pastor after graduating from seminary. The rural village of East Stoneham had a total population of 167 people.

Sharon's husband owned a timber mill and acres of woodland, all of which made him the most prosperous man in East Stoneham. The Grover's had the nicest house and I believe Sharon was the only person in the entire county who drove a Cadillac. It was a large, long, wide car . the color of charcoal both inside and out. The interior was plush, soft and velvety. It drove like a dream: rolling softly over the deepest Maine potholes.

I know this because I spent a lot of time in that Cadillac. Sharon Grover rounded up whoever she could to attend every UCC meeting and event. She delighted in all-things-UCC: Association meetings, ecclesiastical councils, ordinations, workshops, Annual Meeting and every Woman's Fellowship event that was advertised. She ferried us to these meetings in her Cadillac.

Because of Sharon the congregation of East Stoneham - even by Maine standards a small congregation - was always over represented at UCC events. If they had awarded attendance ribbons, we would have been festooned with them.

One of Sharon's favorite themes on which she often pronounced was that she could enter any UCC church anywhere in the world (sic) and feel at home because we are all one family.

And, I know for a fact that she did enter a lot of UCC churches all across Maine: north and south, east and west. I have seen her bustle in and tell whoever was there: who she was and what church she came from and how you could enter any UCC church in the world and feel at home. We are family, she would say. And the hapless greeter or receptionist really had no choice but to smile and nod in agreement.

And so it was that Sharon taught me about being the one body of Christ. She made it happen by believing it, acting on it, and delighting in it. And there wasn't much chance of proving her wrong. It wasn't the sort of faith affirmation you wanted to contradict.

But there was something else about Sharon Grover and her Cadillac. Like many people who live in rural Maine, the Grover's didn't have a garage. They didn't need one; they had a large barn and that's where the Cadillac was parked at night.

I don't believe one single resident of East Stoneham ever noticed what I always noticed about Sharon Grover's Cadillac. The car reeked of manure.

Every night, as it rested in the barn, the thick, plush interior soaked it in. When we carpooled to Association and Conference meetings and we all piled out of Sharon's Cadillac, we always brought a bit of East Stoneham with us . with us it wafted into the sanctuaries we visited all across the Maine Conference. I like to believe that it helped our more urbane churches - from places like Portland and Augusta - feel that we added some diversity to the meetings.

When Paul claims that we are no longer either Jew or Gentile, male or female, slave or free . he is putting together things that don't seem to belong together: like oil and water, like Cadillac and manure. You are no longer Jew or Gentile, slave or free, male or female, oil or water, Cadillac or manure . God is able to put together kinds of people and things that we, left to our own devices, might well keep separate.

In the presence of Sharon Grover I learned that this is something of what a Conference of churches does for us: it gathers together people who are unlike - perhaps even unlikely companions - and it requires of us that we look at each other for who we really are: brothers and sisters in the one family formed by Jesus.

To read Paul's letter to the Ephesians, is to read the words of someone who is thrilled, ecstatic about the news he is communicating. And why wouldn't he be? Paul is describing nothing less than a new way of being human together on this earth. The Christian is called to a way of being human that was then, and remains today, a remarkable departure from the status quo.

In the Acts of the Apostles we read that the early Christians held all things in common; that there was not a needy one among them. Scholars tell us that first century Christians in Jerusalem fed thousands of hungry people every day. In the early centuries of this era, they founded hospices for widows and orphans. Historians argue that it was due in large measure to the ethical influence of early Christians that the practices of infanticide and gladiatorial contest were abandoned.

These Christians, this minority community empowered by an ethical mandate unlike any the world had ever known, stood tall against the world's greatest empire . witnessing to it, challenging it, changing it.

William Sloane Coffin claims that in joining a church, we leave home and hometown to join a larger world. The whole world becomes our new neighborhood and all who dwell there-in - black, white, yellow, red, stuffed and starving, smart and stupid, mighty and lowly, criminal and self-respecting, American and Iraqi - all become our sisters and brothers in the family formed by Jesus. [1]

In the Hebrew Scriptures, strangers, widows and orphans are most often listed together, clumped together, because these three groups shared a common handicap: they lacked familial, kinship connections. They were alone and on their own in a culture in which one's identity - as well as one's ability to survive - depended on belonging to a tribe, clan, or family.

Sharon Grover helped me to see how it works and what it looks and fees like when you lay claim to the promises of God: that in God's house the world itself becomes an open house. [2]

In God's house, water is thicker than blood. In God's house, it is our joy and privilege to bear with one another in love. In God's house, we can risk loving extravagantly and indiscriminately because God first loved us in just that way.

Conversely, in God's house it is sinful and heretical to love local church autonomy at the expense of covenant with the wider church. And if you wince at the words sinful and heretical, let me put it more strongly: in God's house we break the heart of Jesus when we disregard his fervent prayer and plea that his followers "may all be one."

In God's house it is sinful and heretical to love democracy, if to do so is to usurp Jesus Christ from his rightful place as the Head of the Church . the discernment of whose mind (not ours) is the weighty and joyful business of every Congregational meeting. It is the business of every Congregational meeting (and council meeting and deacons and CE and stewardship and missions meeting) to quell our own incessant chatter that we might listen for and to the voice of the Still Speaking God.

For three-and-a-half terms as Minister and President I tried to be Sharon Grover to you. I have stood on the claim that we are family, we belong to each other, because we first belong to God.

I have proclaimed that we are the largest Protestant denomination in the Commonwealth. I have, thereby, played the part of the Wizard of Oz: stating what already manifestly is. I also acknowledge the danger of hubris in this claim . but I was willing to risk the sin of pride, in order to call us together to a higher purpose, a unity of purpose . and to remind us there is strength in our numbers, strength in our vast spread across this Commonwealth, strength in our Congregational polity, strength in our UCC vision of becoming a multicultural, multiracial, open and affirming, just peace church that is accessible to all; strength in our gifted, educated clergy and in our faithful and generous laity . we have the strength to do good in the name of Christ.

We are not without resources. Empowered by the Holy Spirit you are the body of Christ. You are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world. Thanks be to God. Amen.

Acknowledgements : Many to Chris Braudaway-Bauman and Susan Dickerman who planned and organized this service and to the Westborough church for hosting this event, to all of you for taking part, and to all of you for coming. Many thanks to Davida Crabtree, my colleague, friend and mentor, who has taken the trouble to be with us this afternoon, representing the Council of Conference Ministers. Many thanks to Ron Buford who has traveled here today, despite being the most sought-after speaker in the national setting of the UCC. Thank you to the members of Grace Congregational UCC in Framingham who have been my spiritual home for these past four years, although they have rarely seen me. I want to thank the members of my executive staff, the staff in Framingham, and all the Conference staff across the Conference. Thank you to Willie Sordillo, jazz musician by night, and for the past three years, my administrative assistant by day . but also a friend and fellow sojourner. Thank you to Don Remick and Nancy Lawrence, chair and vice-chair of the board of directors for all that you have done, for me and for this Conference of churches, in this time of transition. Finally, a thank you to my husband, Peter, for all your love and support and assistance - most of it behind the scenes - but also for being the go-to guy for the Amistad and for Let Justice Roll .

[1] William Sloane Coffin, Credo, page 144f

[2] William Sloane Coffin, Credo , p. 137