What Do We Believe?

This summer, I gave a series of sermons on The Apostles’ Creed, the oldest statement of Christian faith outside of the Bible itself. For a variety of reasons, I didn’t quite finish the series. I owe you all two or three! I did this to demonstrate how my faith in God is very much grounded in a nearly two thousand year-old tradition of following Jesus as Lord and Savior, and loving the God Jesus loved and proclaimed. I also did this to demonstrate that faith and religion evolves and changes over time for many reasons, and a faith at home in our times, with our concerns, needs to sometimes creatively engage the ancient creeds, honoring their truths while updating their blindspots. 

Now and then, different people will do something with the ancient creeds that emphasizes different beautiful aspects of faith in God in Christ. In that spirit, just before Christmas, when we celebrate the birth of Jesus, who lived for a while as an exile, I offer you this beautiful creed as well. It’s a rephrasing of a 5th century Christian creed, called the Nicene creed. It’s written by the now retired Cuban-American poet and pastor Jose Luis Casal. 

The Immigrant’s Creed

By Jose Luis Casal

I believe in Almighty God, 

who guided the people in exile and in exodus, 

the God of Joseph in Egypt and Daniel in Babylon, 

the God of foreigners and immigrants. 

I believe in Jesus Christ, a displaced Galilean, 

who was born away from his people and his home, who fled 

his country with his parents when his life was in danger. 

When he returned to his own country he suffered under the oppression of Pontius Pilate, 

the servant of a foreign power. Jesus was persecuted, beaten, tortured, and unjustly 

condemned to death. 

But on the third day Jesus rose from the dead, 

not as a scorned foreigner but to offer us citizenship in God’s kingdom. 

I believe in the Holy Spirit, 

the eternal immigrant from God’s kingdom among us, 

who speaks all languages, lives in all countries, and reunites all races. 

I believe that the Church is the secure home 

for foreigners and for all believers. 

I believe that the communion of saints begins 

when we embrace all God’s people in all their diversity. 

I believe in forgiveness, which makes us all equal before God, 

and in reconciliation, which heals our brokenness. 

I believe that in the Resurrection 

God will unite us as one people 

in which all are distinct and all are alike at the same time. 

I believe in life eternal, in which no one will be foreigner 

but all will be citizens of the kingdom 

where God reigns forever and ever. Amen.

Harvard Morning Prayer

I gave this talk on Tuesday, November 2nd, at Harvard’s Memorial Chapel morning prayers. It’s a Christian-hosted interfaith environment with a very short message. A few people asked if I would share. You’ll find the talk below and a recording will be available here

“What We Can Learn From the Trees”

When I was a child, my favorite tree was the fast growing maple behind our house. It had been planted to celebrate the birth of one of my brothers. By the time I was a teenager, it towered over the center of our yard, where we could sit under its shade and I could climb up high to escape whatever boredom or tensions lay below.

That tree is gone now. It had fallen ill and was removed by the next owners of the property. I have a different favorite tree now, a big old oak tree atop Corey Hill, across the river from here, where Brighton and Brookline meet. Sometimes, when I need to rest or think, I sit under it or climb up into the crook made by its long bottommost branch and lean into its old, rough strength.

This time of year, the trees of New England are not just some of the older living things we can see, they are some of the most beautiful as well. And my hope today is to encourage you to look at and touch and even learn from the trees you see. I share this advice in imitation of my teacher and guide, Jesus of Nazareth, who spoke often of trees and flowers and the rest of the natural world as our teacher. Today’s reading from the gospel of Luke:

Luke 12:22-34, excerpts (New Revised Standard Version)

22 (Jesus) said to his disciples, “Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat, or about your body, what you will wear.

23 For life is more than food, and the body more than clothing.

27 Consider the lilies, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin; yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not clothed like one of these. …

32 “Do not be afraid, little flock, for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom.

33 Sell your possessions, and give alms. Make purses for yourselves that do not wear out, an unfailing treasure in heaven, where no thief comes near and no moth destroys.

34 For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

Jesus gives us a teaching of contrasts – two beauties, two ways of living, two kingdoms, two treasures – all wisdom we can receive through looking at the lilies – if it’s springtime in Galilee or, in New England in the fall, through considering the trees.

Trees are more beautiful than most anything we can make from them. Even Solomon in all his glory, which was likely an indirect way of referring to the temple of Jerusalem, its first version built by Solomon. The most extraordinary human-built structure Jesus and his followers had ever seen can not compare to the beauty of the lilies. 

You can not improve on what God has made. This is true of trees, and it’s true of people too. You can not improve upon the beautiful human God has made you. No toiling, no spinning, no surgery or skin care or achievements or fortune can fundamentally improve upon the glory of who God made you. Look at a beautiful tree today, friends, and ask God for the insight to see that extraordinary beauty of all God has made, yourself included.

Two, trees don’t know how to worry. And it’s not because they don’t know things. Trees know how to share resources with one another, to communicate in response to threats, but they don’t know how to worry. It took a lot of evolution to make us fear and worry the way we do. That has a few benefits, but an awful lot of misery that comes with it too. Look at the trees, take a deep breath, and perhaps ask God to let go of the worries you don’t need to carry. 

Three, trees grow and flourish and produce. They make shade and habitats and oxygen and food. But they do not strive. They have no self-improvement projects. They are in a sense satisfied with who and what they are and with their capacity to bless the earth with their gifts. The trees, Jesus says, point us less to a capitalist vision of kingdom and more to a natural one, toward an economy of sharing and abundance, toward a sustainable vision of contentment and generosity. 

Jesus’ vision of the Kingdom of God, what my community of Reservoir Church likes to simply call the Beloved Community, is a vision of life with God and neighbor and earth in which we hope and trust that God is a loving a parent who is kindly with us always; in which we can let go of our lusts and longings to always have more, more, more; and in which the great treasure of our lives can be in the non-competitive giving and receiving of generous love. 

Look at the trees, friends, take a deep breath, and ask God to learn the contentment, the enough-ness, the loving generosity that they embody, and ask for the wisdom to make that ours as well.

Pray with me please.

God of the vision of Beloved Community, 

We ask for the wisdom of the trees,

That we can see and preserve the beauty of what you have made,

That we can be freed from our anxieties.

And that we can embrace more peaceful, contented, generous lives. 

In the name of all this is holy, which for me is both Jesus and the trees,

Amen.

Questions To Focus Our Lives

I’m teaching this short class for our church right now in which we unpack different aspects of American Evangelicalism and look for paths forward to a new Christianity. Here’s something I’m thinking about during this class. 

As we let go of some certainties and dogma and open our minds to new ways of thinking, we can gain humility and truth in different ways. But sometimes we can also lose anchors of meaning and purpose. We can feel more adrift and less happy. Growth is good, but it can be hard too.

So let me share just three of the kinds of questions I’ve been led to ask regularly in my life – the kinds of questions that guide me into meaning and purpose without putting my head in the sand or refusing to grow or change.

  • How does God love me today, and how am I loving myself? How am I welcoming rest and pleasure and self-compassion and wonder into my life?
  • Who and what are most important, and how am I saying yes to that? Who and what are not important, and how am I saying no to that?
  • Who and what am I giving myself to this week? How am I taking my big ideas about the good life and making them small – living them out in real relationships and concrete choices?

Questions like these remind me of what’s most important in life.

They nudge me toward love, justice, and mercy while also nudging me toward joy, hope, and gratitude. They bear a curious resemblance to Jesus’ way of love, truth, and meaning, when he taught that the purpose of life – and the point of all God has said – is to love God with our whole selves and to love our neighbor as ourselves. (I’ve rephrased Jesus’ words so that we don’t lose sight of welcoming God’s love into our lives – and to focus the commands to love God and neighbor in some contemporary ways that stir our minds and hearts a bit.)

These are just my versions of the questions this week. I’d encourage you to try them out if they resonate with you, or to pay attention to Jesus’ ethic of love, or your own ways of rephrasing that for yourself. When Jesus says he came to seek and save the lost, I think that one thing he means is that he wants us to know Jesus as a North Star, a guide and mentor and help toward purpose and meaning, hope and joy. If you find these questions help you in some way, let me know!

An Examen Prayer for the Long Pandemic Season

Act I: My Personal Life

Desolation

  • How has this pandemic, dating back to early 2020, changed my life for the worse? 
  • What have I lost? How have I suffered?
  • In what ways am I less hopeful, less grateful, less engaged in life?

Consolation

  • How has this pandemic, dating back to early 2020, changed my life for the better? 
  • What (if anything) have I gained? How have I grown?
  • In what ways am I more hopeful, more grateful, more engaged in life?
  • What new, creative possibilities are in front of me today?

Act II: My Public Life in This Big World

Desolation

  • How has our community or our country or our world changed for the worse? 
  • What collective injustices or sufferings have been exposed?
  • Where do many of us hurt?

Consolation

  • How (if at all) has our community or our country or our world changed for the better? 
  • What collective possibilities for justice and peace and wholeness are emerging?
  • Where do many of us hope?

Act III: My Church, My Life in a Community of Faith

Desolation

  • What (if anything) have I missed in my church involvement?
  • How have I been less connected to God or others? Are there ways this has made for less flourishing in my life?

Consolation

  • What has changed in my faith or my church during the pandemic that I hope will stay true?
  • What do I hope to learn or grow in my faith that my church community can help with? What do I hope to receive?
  • How do I hope to participate in my community of faith this fall? What do I hope to give?

*Desolation, in the examen tradition, refers to what has in any way drawn us away from God’s love and goodness, what has lessened our energy and well-being and connection. With the desolation, we are invited to pray for guidance, hope, forgiveness, or courage.
*Consolation refers to what has in any way drawn us toward God’s love and goodness, what has increased vitality and well-being and connection in us. With the consolation, we are invited to pray with gratitude.

Faith that Empowers Wholeness, Love, and Justice

I want to share a few thoughts on why I’m preaching through one of the oldest Christian creeds this summer. We’re trying to learn and live in and transmit a faith that empowers wholeness, love, and justice in people and communities, that promotes whole life flourishing. And let’s be real – contemporary Christianity has a pretty spotty track record on this front!

By the fourth century, Chrisitans had the Bible in more or less the same form we do today. They also had traditions, faith practices, songs, and programs to remember Jesus, learn to love God and neighbor, and pass the faith on to others. To help with all this, and to promote unity in the faith, leaders also wrote a series of short creeds meant to summarize core Christian beliefs. The Apostles Creed is one of them. And for many centuries, it has helped anchor faith, hope, and love for followers of Jesus. I’m preaching through this creed because it’s an opportunity to talk about some important beliefs and experiences at the heart of good news faith in a living, life-giving God known to us in Jesus Christ.

The creeds aren’t perfect, though. They skip over important things, like pretty much everything Jesus taught or did in his life between his birth and his death. And their language has had some gaps and oversights that have sometimes played into some of the worst problems in the Christian faith we’ve inherited in our times.

Personally, I think the two biggest problems we’ve inherited have to do with power and love.

Christians have passed on horrible ideas about power. As the Roman Empire was adopting Christianity as its official religion, the writers of the creeds and other church leaders increasingly portrayed God’s power on the terms of human emperors and tyrants. When Christians called Jesus Lord, or spoke of the Heavenly Father God as a King, they increasingly called to mind perfectionist, aloof, controlling, and violent images of God. This helps explain so much of what has disgusted modern people about the legacy of Christianity – its sponsorship of crusades and colonies, its complicity with white supremacy and patriarchy, and its fear-based teaching on sin, hell, and an angry God. 

These ideas about power have also magnified the worst resistance and crises of faith people have around their ideas and experience of God. So many people struggle with faith when they observe or experience suffering and evil and wonder why a good God with controlling, micro-managing, total power isn’t stopping it. Reframing and relearning that God’s power is not controlling or micro-managing, but instead consistent with the loving, relational nature of God is a first and powerful step in overcoming the barriers to faith the problem and experience of evil presents. So I’m teaching the creeds with a different understanding of God’s power in mind, a power that is consistent with what we know through science and experience of how the world works, and a power that is consistent with a God who is love. 

Christians have also so often really failed to follow Jesus, in centering and practicing love. Jesus famously boiled down all of scripture and faith to matters of love. He taught God’s call to a relationship with Love: that we learn to love God with our whole being. And he taught God’s call to us to love our neighbors (and our enemies) as ourselves. If the problem of evil is the biggest reason people struggle with faith, the cruelty and hypocrisy of Christians might be the biggest reason people avoid things to do with Christianity in the first place. 

To practice and transmit a faith that empowers wholeness, love, and justice, we need to recenter love. We need to recenter love in our worship and our thinking about God. We need to recenter love in our sense of God’s hopes and direction for us and our world. And we need to recenter love in our ethics, our communities, our relationships, and the whole of our public lives. 

Reteaching the Apostle’s Creed this summer is one opportunity I have to encourage a life-giving, liberating faith worthy of a living, loving God and helpful for our lives today. Reservoir offers these attempts at innovative faith rooted in an ancient tradition in the spirit of our God who is always doing a new thing, making a way in the wilderness and making rivers in deserts, and in response to Jesus, who tells us,

“I am making everything new!” (Isaiah 43:19, Revelation 21:5)

So far, we’ve talked about the nature of belief, the nature of God, the friendship and leadership of Jesus, what makes Jesus special, and the impact of Jesus’ suffering and death for our healing. This Sunday, I’ll speak about what Jesus has been up to since he died, and on August 8, 15, and 29, I’ll speak about the rest of what the creed has to say about Christian community and experience.

All things new….

And we’re talking about how people have reinterpreted these words in light of what God is doing among us today. Because this is how religion in general, and faith in Jesus, in particular works. It remains rooted in its original historical events and sources, while it also evolves as people and culture do, with the Spirit of God accompanying us in an ever-changing world. 

Steve

Community Life After a Year of Pandemic

As I’ve been talking with some of you this past week, I’m thinking about how differently we have experienced this past year’s pandemic and how differently we’re experiencing this spring’s reopening. Of the hundreds in the Reservoir Church community, some of us suffered significant losses this past year. Others of us were not impacted much at all. And now, as summer approaches, some of us are back out and about living our more or less ordinary lives, while others of us still live under significant precautions and limitations – chosen by ourselves or required by others. 

All of us, though, have watched daily tallies of sickness and death from our news media for over 14 months. For those same 14+ months, we have not met together for worship in our sanctuary. Most of our kids and most of us who work have had our routines dramatically upended. Many of us have lived with heightened levels of fear. 

And now, we are being given permission, freedom, invitation to get vaccinated – if we haven’t yet – and to live in person, out and about, robustly connected lives again. Obviously, this is great news. I’m so very happy and thankful about all this! 

But it’s complicated too. For years, trust in government and media and most public institutions has been declining. All aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic have also been heavily politicized. Some of us wonder if we can trust the guidance we’re being given. Many of us have a lot of international connections, and we are aware of how badly COVID is still raging in other places. We wonder what to make of that. Most of our kids, and all our kids under 12, have not been vaccinated, and we wonder what that means for them. Others of us have various reasons beyond what I’m mentioning that we are still very cautious and concerned. 

What does this mean for a diverse church community of several hundreds as we prepare for return to in-person community life?

There are at least two things that it means. 

  1. We will continue to have online options for community groups, Sunday worship and teaching, as well as kids and youth programming for the foreseeable future for people who aren’t ready for in-person community, live further away, or have fallen in love with pajama life. 
  2. We have an opportunity to practice good news community, love for one another. Many of the last parts of the Bible are letters to small, first century churches and church networks. Like us, these communities were diverse by every measure of their times, and like us, these communities were living through complex and hard times. Amidst their troubles and differences, their founders and pastors told them things like this:

Galatians 6:2 “Bear one another’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ.”

This is referring to Jesus’ command to his followers that they love one another as Christ has loved us, seeking one another’s good, and sometimes even laying down our lives for our friends. 

And this:

Romans 14: 13, 15:7 “Let us therefore no longer pass judgment on one another, but resolve instead never to put a stumbling block or hindrance in the way of another.”

And “Welcome one another, therefore, just as Christ has welcomed you.”

This whole conclusion to the letter to the Romans is a call to non-judgemental acceptance and hospitality. When it comes to the Jesus way to do faith community, it’s more important to do things that remove barriers to people’s welcome and safe participation than to have things go our own way. 

Our reentry, and our different feelings about mask wearing and many other things, give us the opportunity to choose not to insist our own own way but to welcome ways of being in community this summer that support and welcome one another, and that particularly extend love and grace and care to those of us who are most cautious, concerned, or vulnerable.

We’ll get into the details of what our summer in-person services will look like at the members meeting on June 13th, 11:00 a.m. – immediately following that Sunday’s online service. But please prepare yourself for a moment by thanking God for accepting you – all of you, just as you are – in Christ. And commit yourself to extending hospitality and understanding to those of you who are going about life differently than you this summer, and specifically for a season in our church community where we joyfully welcome our different temperaments and levels of precaution without judgment but with love and grace. 

Peace,

Steve

Reservoir Church Vaccine Site on Pause While Awaiting Further FDA/CDC Information

This week hundreds of Cambridge residents were vaccinated against COVID-19 right inside our church sanctuary. Thanks to a partnership between the Cambridge Fire Department, the Cambridge Health Alliance, City of Cambridge leadership, the Benjamin Banneker School, and our church, we were able to make this happen on very short notice.

This site was mobilized to reach residents in North Cambridge in particular, especially working class residents with less ability and means to travel elsewhere. Big thanks to Executive Pastor Trecia Reavis and Board member and physician Dr. Peter Choo for their time and expertise in supporting this initiative for the health of our city as well!  

This past Monday morning, after successful rollouts over the weekend, we received notice from FDA/CDC of an immediate freeze on administration of the J&J vaccine.  See below or click on the PDF below for more information.  Please join us in prayer for all the health workers who’ve worked so hard putting this distribution opportunity together and for our North Cambridge residents to be served well and quickly through other means, while we await further updates.


Reservoir Church Vaccine Clinic on Pause Until Further Notice
April 13, 2021


The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and other Federal health agencies are recommending an immediate pause in the use of the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine following reports of six people who developed a very rare type of blood clot within two weeks of receiving the vaccine.


The Massachusetts Department of Public Health has notified all Massachusetts providers and local boards of health to pause administration of the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine, effective immediately.


Cambridge Vaccine Clinic at Reservoir Church at 170 Rindge Avenue on Pause
Following the state and federal recommendation, the City is pausing operation of the vaccine clinic scheduled for this week (April 12-18) at Reservoir Church in North Cambridge, where the Johnson & Johnson vaccine was to be administered.


We will keep Cambridge residents apprised of any new developments as more information becomes available from state and Federal health officials.


For those individuals who have already received the one dose J & J vaccine: These have been very rare events. 7 million people have already safely received the J & J vaccine. You can expect the usual sore arm and achiness that follows a vaccine; please call your health care provider for any serious symptoms such as shortness of breath or chest pain.


Moderna and Pfizer/BIONTech Vaccines Remain Safe for Administration. This announcement by the CDC and the FDA, along with the Commonwealth, does not impact administration of the Moderna or Pfizer/BIONTech vaccine. Anyone who is scheduled to receive either of these vaccines should move forward as planned. Mass vaccination sites do not administer the one dose J & J vaccine.


For more information on this announcement, please visit the CDC’s website:
https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2021/s0413-JJ-vaccine.html.
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Good Friday Reflections

Followers of Jesus across the globe come together on the Friday before Easter to pay special attention to what happened to Jesus on the cross. Reservoir invites you to share in this holy time and the events surrounding it which are at the very center of our faith. 

The Good Friday Reflection and Liturgy below will guide you through this special time of reflection, meditation and prayer.

Good Friday Reflection

Good Friday Liturgy

Hate Crimes and Violence Against Asian Americans and the Beloved Community

Reports tell us that last night in Georgia, a troubled, violent, young white man killed eight people: six of them Asian American, and seven of them women. This violence follows a dramatic rise in hate crimes and attacks against Asian Americans and Asian Pacific Islander (AAPI) communities, including Asian American elders. And this has taken place within a year in which hate crimes against AAPI, and especially Asian American women have risen sharply. 

This violence is an assault against the victims, an assault against all members of the Asian American community, and an assault against the image of God in all people. Violence against Asian Americans, and the old American proactive of othering, stigmatizing, and targeting Asian Americans and others is an offense against Jesus’ vision for humanity and our shared dignity as God’s beloved. As I preached last Sunday, there are so many ways to hate God. 

Reservoir Church has a vision of seeing into being God’s Beloved Community among us and throughout the earth. We continue committing ourselves to becoming a deeply anti-racist church. And our Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion team and Asian American members and leaders will likely have more to say and share in the weeks to come.

On this day, though, we grieve with the families and communities of all those who have suffered and still suffer race-based and gender-based violence. We call for ongoing repentance from any forms of stigmatizing, othering, or assaulting the bodies or worth of any group of God’s beloved children. And we offer you the voices of two of your pastors – mine and now Lydia Shiu’s as well – in love and solidarity.

Peace,

Steve

FriendsI’m on a continued journey of realizing my racial ethnic identity and some days I don’t know how I feel. I’m sharing with you, for now, how I am feeling today. I may have more words later, maybe even requests or call to action. Right now, this is what’s on my heart…

I’m so used to, maybe because of my culture or maybe because of external expectations, enduring pain and suffering silently. Who am I to complain? What about all those who have suffered more? But for now, I am sad. It hits home. It feels close. Learning that the victims of the shooting in Atlanta yesterday were Korean American made me wince. The pain, loss, hatred feels like it’s coming closer and closer to me. Though the reality is, it has always been there. The otherness of me. 

I can’t help the anger and grief towards the fact that rhetoric from our past president and other leadership who use words like “China virus” probably contributed to horrific acts like this. Asian Americans make up about 5% of the American population. But made up of people, mothers and sons, beloveds and communities. God, do you care about the minority? Do you hear the small voices crying out? In other words, do we care? Do we hear them?  

Lydia

#StopAsianHate

Our Vision for Beloved Community

When Jesus taught his students to pray, one of the phrases he encouraged was to pray to God: your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. When Jesus taught about God’s ways being done on earth, he usually called it the Kingdom of God. In Jesus’ Kingdom of God teaching, we get pictures of dynamic and radical faith, hope, and love expressed in private and public life. Cuban-American theologian Ada Maria Isasi-Diaz encouraged the word kindom instead of kingdom for our era, since God’s will on earth looks more like a healthy extended family than a patriarchal power system. But maybe the clearest and most compelling language for this vision came from the American Civil Rights leaders of the 50s and 60s, Dr. King included. They called it Beloved Community.

Beloved Community is about inclusiveness and belonging, socially, economically, and spiritually. It is a vision of community that can be as small as a household or as large as the whole earth. Regardless of size, it’s community of opportunity, justice, and the giving and receiving of love. Participation in communities of love, respect, and belonging buoys our spirits and helps us love and be loved well. And it helps us live freer, healthier, happier lives in all aspects of our being.

Reservoir’s vision for 2020-2025 is to continue to become the Beloved Community that we are called to be. Last fall, through scripture and story and public art, in our Sunday services and community groups and our “Do-It-Yourself” retreat, we began to examine this theme. We think there is still so much for us to learn and practice and grow into together. 

We are delighted to share this vision as a community and look forward to continuing to live and tell stories of Beloved Community in and around Reservoir not just this year, but for several years to come. 

Reservoir will continue to become the Beloved Community we are called to be, one that is: 

  1. Diverse and anti-racist.
  2. Welcoming, and a place of profound belonging. 
  3. Radically generous.
  4. Empowering wholeness, love, and justice in people and communities, promoting whole life flourishing.
  5. Innovating as a church in a post-Christian world, so that our ministry is less dependent on any one gathering but includes many life-giving new ways to experience and be church.

We’ll keep sharing stories of God’s inspiration for this vision and of places and people where we see it happening. Please share the stories you live and see and long to see as well. 

This week in our Lenten focus on What is Most Important, we read Micah’s vision of Beloved Community. Micah tells us that God’s Spirit is moving to empower us to walk with God; to live in peace and wholeness with one another; to gather in joyful, inclusive communities of profound belonging; to see victims become survivors; to ensure the safety and security of all people in their own skin and homes and communities; to transform all our ways into violence into those of peace. There are so many ways for us to welcome this move of the Spirit, so many ways to love and grow and become. 

May it be, beloved friends. May it be. 

Steve