Clothed with Joy

Rev. Caroline K. Murphy
Sixth Sunday after Pentecost, July 4, 2010
Texts: Psalm 30; Luke 10:1-11

July 04, 2010

A week ago Thursday, a large moving van showed up in front of the parsonage on Rolling Green Road. In it was everything I had put into storage three years ago, when I was moving out of my last parsonage, on Cape Cod. In the summer of 2007 my plans were pretty amorphous, so I decided that I had better rent two different kinds of storage units. One was a small self-storage unit where I could put the stuff that I figured I might need in the shorter term: kitchen items, a bed and dresser, and a few other odds and ends that would suffice to furnish a small apartment. Into the larger, longer-term unit went – well, everything else. Because I come from a long line of packrats, "everything else" included not only things like my own boxes of old photographs and letters but a few boxes containing handwritten sermon manuscripts by my great-great-grandfather, who was the last clergyperson in my family, as well as some of the Victorian furniture that he and my great-great-grandmother sat on a century and a half ago.
So on Thursday of last week all of these things showed up at my new residence here in Bethany, all 164 of them, according to the packing slip that the movers handed me so that I could check them off, item by item. Item no. 157 – ah, my parents' old Christmas tree stand: let's put that into an upstairs closet. Item no. 63 – my old iron? Gee, why didn't I put that into short-term storage? I could have saved myself the expense of buying a new one two years ago. Item no. 35 – the piano bench. Oh good, that means the piano must not be far behind! To be honest, if the only item to come off the truck had been my piano, I would have been perfectly happy. That was the one thing I had truly missed during these past three years. Maybe that and one particularly comfortable rocking chair.
Three years ago, it was hard to know how to go about packing up my stuff three years ago. It was hard to know what to put into short-term storage and what to put into long-term shortage and what to get rid of altogether. It was hard to know then exactly what I would need now. I certainly tried to let go of as many excess things as I could stand. I remember taking bag after bag of old clothing to the Goodwill. Still, it's pretty clear to me now that I hung onto more stuff than I should have done. Conversely, there are a few things I actually wish I had held onto. I used to have a couple of freestanding cabinets that would have fit perfectly into the kitchen here in the Bethany parsonage, but of course I had no way of knowing that then.
As usual, Jesus has the best wisdom on this subject. "Travel light," he says to his disciples when he is sending them off to carry out his mission. "Carry no purse, no bag, no sandals." Leave behind what you don't need. He sounds for all the world like one of those travel gurus who tell you, "When you're getting ready for a trip, lay out on your bed only the most essential items that you feel you absolutely cannot live without. Then take just half of that." Jesus is even more radical. "Don't even take that half;" he seems to be saying, "the purse, the bag, the sandals – leave it all behind." Now he wasn't simply wondering how his disciples were going to deal with their luggage in an era before bags with wheels had been invented. His concern was a deeper one: he wanted them to go into the future unencumbered by anything other than the good news of the gospel.
So here we are, you and I, at the beginning of our journey together into a new era. Like the disciples of old, we too are being sent forth together to reap God's harvest. I am so honored, and so happy, to be embarking on this journey with you all. And one of the questions for us now is, "What do we take with us into this new era, and what do we leave behind?" If we could all jump into a time machine and flash forward a few years, we might know better. As it is, we will probably make some imperfect choices, just as I did when I was packing up my personal belonging three years ago.
The First Church of Christ of Bethany has a long history that most of you know far better than I do. What I do know is this: from the very beginning, the church and the town have been inextricably bound up together. This week I stopped by town hall and got my first look at Bethany's town seal, which is on everything from the annual report to the recycling sticker I now have displayed on the windshield of my car. The seal, of course, is a picture of the two churches on either side of Amity Road. How fitting, I thought – for this has been the heart of Bethany ever since people decided back in 1762 that the northern part of Woodbridge Parish should become a parish – and hence also a town – of its own. Ever since, the church has been integral to the history of Bethany.
It's hard to overestimate the ripples of influence going out from this little meeting house. You can see it in the way people around town talk about the church. I've met a number of people this week, and they have all spoken of the church with real warmth. Some of them we may never see on a Sunday morning – we can't, after all, expect all 5000+ residents of Bethany to join this particular church. But they feel connected here – through the church's suppers and rummage sales, through memorial services and social gatherings. One person said to me, "Religion's not quite my thing, but I support the church, because it does a lot of good in town." There are other ways this church makes an impact, too – for example, as a tithing church in the Connecticut Conference of the UCC, and as a place that has nurtured a number of individuals' call to ministry. And the ripples of influence extend even more widely still. How about the children thousands of miles away who may be going to bed a little less hungry tonight, thanks to the funds raised by the senior youth group this past winter, through the 30-Hour Famine?
All this history is surely worth celebrating and taking with us into the future as a source of guidance and inspiration. Of course, the church has experienced more than its fair share of pain and distress in recent years as well. The question of what to do with that may be harder for us to answer, even now. In my conversations with people so far, I've heard a variety of perspectives – which is, I think, perfectly natural. I certainly don't have the answer; I'm not even sure there is one single answer. I can perhaps offer this, from my personal experience with another kind of challenge. The ovarian cancer for which I recently completed treatment will always be a part of who I am. It would be pointless for me to pretend otherwise,; to act as if I were exactly the same now as I was before my diagnosis. My hair has mostly grown back and I now feel just about as good as I ever did, but I know that I am changed, in ways that I am still learning about and absorbing. At the same time, I am also starting to notice that my awareness of the cancer no longer saturates every moment of every day for me, in the way that it inevitably did while I was in treatment. It's there, as it will always be, but rather than dominating the whole of who I am, it is increasingly becoming integrated into the larger picture.

Speaking of pictures, one of the things I was very happy to see in the pastor's study this week was a newly rematted and reframed line drawing of this meeting house. I understand that both Louise Higginbotham and Mary Lou Howson had sighed a little when they saw this same drawing in its old frame. The matting was worn, and the picture had slipped down on one side, so that the whole thing kind of sagged; even the foundation was missing. It was hard not to interpret this bedraggled-looking picture as something of a metaphor for the state of the church – sagging, sorrowful, in need of some TLC. How wonderful to see that picture so beautifully refurbished, standing on a firm foundation, ready to go forward into the future with confidence.
On so many levels, we can surely say, along with the psalmist, "You have turned my mourning into dancing, you have taken off my sackcloth and clothed me with joy." That, perhaps, is the real reason Jesus tells his disciples to travel light. Perhaps we can hear him say to us, too, this morning, "Get rid of the heavy garments of sadness and mourning, of worn-out grudges and cares. Don't let them weigh you down anymore; let them go. Clothe yourselves instead in my joy – in the joy of the gospel of peace. Carry that peace with you into all the places you may go. Greet everyone you meet with a greeting of peace, share meals with one another, proclaim the gospel, bring healing to the world, be the church together. And above all, offer praise and thanks to God!" Amen.

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