April 29th, 2007 - Good Shepherd Sunday

A small group of thoughtful people could change the world. Indeed, it's the only thing that ever has.

Margaret Mead

Reverend Al Miller preached today with Pastor Dayle away and Pastor Mark taking time with the birth of his son.

Al hasn't preached at Creator for a while. His sermon touched the heart, testified with honesty using personal stories that link back to our daily lives.

Before going into the sermon in detail, I will describe other parts of the services. The music moved out of the musicians hands in a beautiful way. There were, what I would call, fortutious mistakes. For example, both Kelly and I were playing chords and "missed" singing a lead part in Shepherd Me, O God during the first service but it gave Shirley an opportunity to sing a beautiful impromtu solo. We left it alone and many people commented on how solid the music sounded in each of the services.

Kelly sang a song for the Children's message called The Puppy Dog Song. A great piece of fun centered around Goodness and Mercy being the name of two dogs that, as the 23rd Psalm states, follow the singer throughout life. There was also a joke made that the "surely" in the Psalm, was not the name of one of the dogs as in Shirley.

Turning back to the sermon Al preached about being confronted, like many of us are, with society's questions about the value of religion overall and Christianity specifically. There is a defining appearance that, throughout history, religion battles religion. There is also basically a belief that intolerance, extremism and judgments on how best someone else should live their life are the primary components of those who choose religious life.

Al stressed something what else religion has brought to humanity. The hospitals that have sprung up from religious orders trying to help. Easily overlooked acts of love that are done throughout the world out of the hope that is rooted in religion. Al quoted the statement that started this blog by Margaret Mead. There were tears in my eyes when I heard the quote again. Al focused on the acts of love, audaciously done by the disciples, particularly Peter raising Dorcas from the dead in following Jesus.

Al described a personal connection with the name Dorcas. For him; his Dorcas was a pillar of the community, in a church Al went to, who kept traditions alive and sang in an impossibly high voice in church. He tied her love of the community in with his overall message.

What came to my mind as I listened was a comparative mystical book I discovered a couple of years ago. The book describes in a sentence a particular religion's way for the soul to arrive at truth. For Hinduism, it is the way of presence; Buddism, the way of clarity; Judaism, the way of holiness and Ancient Greece, the way of beauty. The way of Christianity is the way of love in action. All these echo in my heart but particularly the way of love in action.

Al also talked about the hymn quoted in Revelations in the second reading. This was an important and favorite vision of his and it was brought to life for us. Al preached "What more powerful image and words can we use to express this vision we have within us?" And he sang thinking about singing praise to God with a multitude whose sole purpose was to do just that, in white robes dripping from baptism. I am sure his Dorcas was singing in his vision.

After the 10:15 worship service Sunday, Josh perfomed the Grieg Piano Concerto with Luke playing the symphonic accompaniment on a second piano. Both gave an artistic and powerful delivery to the piece. The amount of effort Josh obviously devoted to the piece was impressive. There was good attendance and everyone in the audience was captivated by the piece and the energy with which it was played.

Later, a contingent of folks from Creator showed up in Canby at a ground breaking cermony for a new townhouse that will be built by Habitat for Humanity. According to the opening speaker the turnout was the largest that she had seen at one of these events.

We watched the residents break ground with several gold shovels brought for the occasion. During the ceremony we built a people house. Everyone lined up to symbolically form the walls of a home. A board everyone signed beforehand was raised with tape flowing down two four corneres that suggested a roof. The future residents entered the people house.

The people at the ground breaking are volunteers who will help build the townhouse.

Love in action.