Friends,

Welcome to the Valley’s most stunning time of year!  The skies are clear and the days are warmed by the sun.  Pretty soon we will smell the glorious scent of citrus blossoms everywhere!  I think we all feel uplifted, not just by the weather, but also by our wonderful Boy Scout Sunday last week, when the fine young men of Troop 649 joined us and assisted in worship.  And for a double blessing, we were treated to the ethereal music of flutist Jenna Daum and our own Larry Loeber!  I think of all the unchurched people out there who don’t know the richness of worship and the way a good hour of contemplating the things of God reorients life’s priorities and charges us up for Christian living.

Another opportunity for the women of the church to extend the blessings of church participation is to join in the monthly discussion group we are hosting for February, March, and April.  Our first meeting will be February 24 at 10 AM.  We will gather at the church and strive to meet outside (for optimum safety).  We will discuss the little book The Four Agreements by Don Miguel Ruiz, and break it up in stages for discussion.  Rev. Dr. Suzie Chamness has graciously agreed to be our discussion leader.  Be prepared to discuss the first agreement for our Feb. 24 session, and we will decide together on our next dates in March and April as well as how to divide up the material for those discussions.  We will have approximately ten copies available in the narthex by Sunday (for which you can reimburse the church office the $8).  If you prefer Kindle, you can go on line and purchase your own.  If the men of the church are feeling left out, I highly encourage you to start a group too; we will make it happen! 

Grace and Peace,

Sandi

Friends,

Clint and I ventured out for our first movie together since the pandemic began.  Last Friday we saw Belfast, Kenneth Branagh’s 1969 historical drama loosely based on his own childhood.  The movie’s powerful riot sequence hits hard and brings to life the historical tensions between Protestant and Catholic gangs in a working-class neighborhood in Belfast, Northern Ireland.  The young family upon which the movie centers has to decide whether to stay in their birth community (among beloved friends and extended family) or flee for safer shores, which is an all-too-human decision people have had to make amidst violence, across the world, and from time immemorial.   Often there is tremendous suffering in decision making when weighing potential losses with potential gains.  I won’t spoil the movie for you by telling you the family’s decision, but I do encourage you to see it.  I feel such gratitude that my life has never been marked by an environment of such violence.  Movies like Belfast make me increasingly sympathetic to all manner of refugees who just want a safer life for their children.

 
One line from the movie I do want to share with you is what the Protestant father says to his young son regarding his son’s schoolboy crush on a Catholic girl:  “That wee girl can be a practicing Hindu, or a Southern Baptist, or a vegetarian antichrist, but if she’s kind, and she’s fair, and you two respect each other, she and her people are welcome in our house any day of the week.”  Imagine what a different world it would be if we all felt that way and could communicate and embody those sentiments!  I hope you mask up and go see it!

Happy New Year,

Co-Pastor Sandi

Friends,

What a year!  After another year of the pandemic and many on-going uncertainties, I am pleased to announce that this Christmas Eve we will indeed be worshipping in person!  Of course the same precautions will be in place as on Sunday mornings—masks and social distancing.  

Our service will begin at 5:30 PM and feature the music of our church pianist Larry Loeber, guest harpist Stephen Hartman, and soloist, Miranda Loeber.  You will hear all the beloved scriptures pointing to and proclaiming Jesus’ birth, a timely message; and we will sing carols, light candles, and go out into the night, per our tradition, singing Silent Night!

 
Everyone, as always, is welcome at CCOV UCC.  Know that your pastors and council do understand that you must make your own informed decisions regarding attendance and associated risk, just as you do when flying, going to restaurants, attending venues for concerts and plays, shopping, and so on.   We pray for your health and for travel mercies in this busy season and (still) unusual time.  Whether in church or at home, may this season of celebrating a baby’s birth from Spirit into man be both meaningful and beautiful.

Merry Christmas!

Co-Pastor Sandi 

Friends,

Thanksgiving and the holidays are soon upon us!  Through the years, Clint and I have gathered around the Thanksgiving table with people from all walks of life—Christian, Jewish, and those of no particular or declared faith.  People tend to look to me to offer the blessing, as I am the so-called “religious” one in their midst, and I have usually begun by going around the table asking what folks are thankful for.  As a church person, maybe folks also look to you too to offer grace or lead words of gratitude before the big meal.  I’ve included a few words for the celebration of Thanksgiving that you may want to use.  

The first is Psalm 100, which is a psalm of thanksgiving.

Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth.  Worship the Lord with gladness; come into his presence with singing.  Know that the Lord is God.  It is he that made us, and we are his; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.  Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise.  Give thanks to him, bless his name.  For the Lord is good; his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations.

The second is from Rabbi Naomi Levy.

For the laughter of the children, for my own life breath, for the abundance of food on this table, for the ones who prepared this sumptuous feast, for the roof over our heads, the clothes on our backs, for our heath, and our wealth of blessings, for this opportunity to celebrate with family and friends, for the freedom to pray these words without fear, in any language, in any faith, in this great country, whose landscape is as vast and beautiful as her inhabitants.  Thank you, God, for giving us all these.  Amen.

The third is our simple doxology, which is lovely to sing together at the table.

Praise God, from whom all blessings flow: Praise Him, all creatures here below:  Praise Him above, ye heavenly host: Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen.

May you have a blessed Thanksgiving!

Co-Pastor Sandi

I Corinthians 3:4-7: For when one says, “I belong to Paul,” and another, “I belong to Apollos,” are you not merely human? What then is Apollos? What is Paul? Servants through whom you came to believe, as the Lord assigned to each.  I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the growth. So neither the one who plants nor the one who waters is anything, but only God who gives the growth.

Friends,

Sunday, Oct. 24, 2021 is Reformation Sunday, the day that commemorates the great reformers of the Christian church.  We commemorate it because Martin Luther and others saw the church becoming a destructive place and wanted it to correct its abuses from within—abuses originating in the Roman leadership.  Luther wanted the church to get back to the heart of the gospel and look to scripture alone for the rule of practice.  Earthly leaders in the church were espousing false doctrines and instituting practices including the sale of indulgences—in other words, paying money to absolve oneself of sin or spring the soul of a loved one who was suffering in purgatory.  Luther and others saw the church and its practices getting woefully sidetracked and he called the Roman leadership on the carpet by hanging his 95 theses on the Castle Church door in Wittenberg, Germany.  This act is widely regarded as the primary catalyst for the Protestant Reformation.

Now great as Martin Luther and other reformers were, they were very human.  Luther never wanted schism—he never wanted the following of Lutherans, wonderful as they are.  He wanted to keep the Roman church intact and correct what he perceived were its wrongs.  But people are always so inclined to follow and align themselves behind earthly leaders.  Not much changes through the centuries—it’s always the same thing over and over again, even all the way back to the church in Corinth, where the church threatened to spit into the camps of Apollos or Paul.  Yet scripture continually calls us to rise above our human inclinations to follow flesh and blood rather than look to God as our teacher, our Father/Mother, and Messiah.  The goal of the Christian leader is simply to direct us to Christ and to equip and encourage parishioners to minister and evangelize in this world.  Two of the reasons I love the UCC is that we acknowledge Christ as its sole head, and we are all called ministers of the church.  Let us therefore look to Christ, serve one another, and bring people into the church!

Grace and Peace,

Co-Pastor Sandi

Friends,

In several days we will be meeting in person for the first time in a year and a half!  What’s more is that this Sunday, Oct. 3, on the ecumenical liturgical calendar is World Communion Sunday, and I can’t think of a more appropriate Sunday to resume live worship (especially since we haven’t celebrated communion together for a year and a half)!

Can any of you guess which denomination originated the celebration of World Communion Sunday?  The tradition began in 1933 in Pittsburgh, PA at Shadyside Presbyterian Church and was adopted throughout the U.S. Presbyterian Church in 1936 and subsequently spread to other denominations.  In 1940 the Federal Council of Churches (now called the National Council of Churches), led by Jesse Moren Bader, endorsed World Communion Sunday and began to promote it to Christian churches worldwide.  So know that as we partake in the Lord’s Supper this Sunday, we do so with the company of Christians across the globe!

Because of the on-going pandemic, communion won’t look quite the same at CCOV UCC as it has in the past.  We ask that you pick up your pre-packaged communion elements in the narthex along with your bulletin.  Later in the service Pastor Dick will lead us in their partaking.  I so look forward to seeing you this Sunday in our beautiful sanctuary.

In Christ,

Co-Pastor Sandi

Friends,

I am getting so excited to worship in person once again in our beautiful sanctuary!  Here’s what to expect:  

Our service will flow a little differently from days gone by; for example, you will hear Larry chime ten times to mark the ten o’clock hour and the beginning of worship.  Either Pastor Dick or I will then welcome you and read the announcements and any prayer requests that you may fill out ahead of time and place in the narthex prayer box.  Then Larry (or Larry and Friends on Communion Sundays) will offer a beautiful, meditative prelude without any rustling or distractions, because everyone will already be settled in.   We will continue to hear a little more of Larry’s wonderful music as choir won’t be starting up again until COVID-19 caseloads begin abating and choir can sing safely near one another again.  The Southwest Conference of the UCC continues to give us excellent guidance on such matters.  On communion Sundays we will have sanitary, prepackaged elements.  Two other differences are that the offering will occur before the sermon, and we will not continue with passing of the peace, which we can do informally during fellowship hour.   

Fellowship hour will occur in the narthex, and when weather permits, we will have the doors open and can also mingle outside.   Food and drink items will, by and large, be prepackaged.  Inside we will require masks and social distancing—one person or family per pew.  We realize that we have to stay flexible and fluid as we respond to the changing situation with the virus.  We thank you in advance for your understanding.  Again, it will be wonderful to be with one another again on Sunday mornings!

Grace and Peace,

Co-Pastor Sandi

Friends,

Last weekend Clint and I had the honor of attending the wedding of two friends—both were in their mid 70’s.  Both had been tragically widowed.  Roger’s wife lingered for 11 years with Alzheimer’s disease and hadn’t recognized him for ten of those years.  Patty’s husband died of pancreatic cancer right before I met her in 2014.  She was my next-door neighbor in Prescott, and I remember sitting with her one afternoon as she cried in her loneliness.  Fast forward seven years and Clint and I were witness to one of life’s most joyful resurrections: Roger and Patty tied the knot on the deck of their Wisconsin lakeside cottage with their closest family and friends in attendance!  Patty walked toward Roger in a blue, summery dress and a crown of small red roses to the song, Everything I Do, I Do for You.

   
My eyes always well up at weddings, and this one was no different.  As I watched, I recalled the quote, “No matter how dark it gets, the sun always rises” and thought about how this applied to both of them.  Their sun was rising again last Saturday after all they had been through; what joy there was!  Of course the story of resurrection is a motif woven through our Bible; we Christians indeed know that the Son rises after a time of darkness.  That is why we can be a people of hope, even when passing through dark nights of the soul.

 
I know may of you are going through or have recently been through hard times, especially times of grief, so I write to encourage you.  Resurrections eventually come, not always quickly and not always in kind.  Eventually most bereaved folks find new places to invest their energy—sometimes in new relationships but also in new missions or undertakings.  When we flew home from Wisconsin, I tuned into a program on the plane about new, successful restaurants.  A trio of women from Oklahoma were featured for starting a successful, healthy pizza restaurant.  Each of the women told their stories.  One had been widowed, and she turned her energy and love of healthy food into this new venture. The woman glowed as she spoke.  Patty too glowed under her crown of roses as I offered the wedding benediction. Have faith and take heart; resurrection is the pattern of life!

Peace,

Co-Pastor Sandi

Hospitality

Friends,

Two days ago we returned from our wonderful vacation in Italy and the Grecian island of Crete.  In Italy Clint and I spent a full day touring the Vatican, the Forum, Palatine Hill, the Pantheon, and the Colosseum, and our cell phone health apps registered nine miles of walking one day!  On Crete we pursued an itinerary of visiting by boat the island’s most beautiful beaches and swimming in the clearest, bluest water I have ever seen.  In both countries we were treated so hospitably by everyone we encountered: hotel, restaurant, and tour staff—all of whom spoke English and made us feel so welcome.  Although we always try to learn some basic words like please, thank you, and good morning/evening in the languages of the countries we visit, I always feel a bit of embarrassment that we must rely upon others to speak our language when we go to their countries.  I think about all the foreigners who come here and must navigate our country without the same kind of language hospitality.  Indeed, it is such a privilege to be a native speaker of the international language, English!  It’s a privilege Clint and I try never to expect or take for granted.  In short, we are humbled by the hospitality consistently shown to us in our travels—and even for the three years when we resided in Germany.

While on vacation, we marveled at how generous everyone was to us, everywhere we went.  Each night restaurant owners treated us to free desserts and raki, the ubiquitous Greek liquor, and even free wine in some places.  Many took time to chat with us and wanted to know us better.  I mused to Clint and my sister, with whom we traveled, that hospitality is such a high value in Mediterranean and Middle Eastern cultures, no doubt influenced by the holy scriptures of the three Abrahamic religions, Judaism, Christianity, and Islam.  In desert cultures especially, there have always been codes of hospitality:  A resident was expected to offer it to a stranger who wandered in their midst.  In fact, a stranger was seen to be one sent to a resident by God, and a resident’s failure to provide food and amenities for the stranger was seen as a hostile act.  I think about Psalm 23 and the image of God’s abundant provision for (an albeit imperfect) David in the midst of enemies, the image of how God generously pours oil on David’s head in the hot dusty climate.  God always shows humankind such abundant hospitality and grace, and we are called into God’s image—something the folks who hosted us in Italy and Greece must have deeply known, because they blessed us with godly generosity.  The deep challenge for us is to do the same for the immigrant and the stranger, the visitor in our midst—to bless them with hospitality, endeavoring to speak their language, seeing to their needs, and connecting them to the culture.  May we be aware of our great privilege both abroad and at home and extend godly hospitality to the ones who come here.

Grace and Peace,

Co-Pastor Sandi 

Friends,

Perhaps as we have been looking at skies over our beloved Valley of the Sun this summer, we have seen, if not smelled at some times, the smokey haze from the numerous wildfires burning in our state.  It’s not just Arizona.  In late July Clint and I visited Pastor Dick and his wife Shirley at their Estes Park cabin, and the Colorado skies were similarly smokey.  Most times it was hard to appreciate the views of the great Rocky Mountains through the smoke.  Concurrently, the news reported that on July 20, smoke from Canada and our western wildfires even darkened the skies over the Yankee Stadium in NY!

 
I simply don’t know how anyone can deny climate change any more; we are constantly immersed in its unhealthy effects. What’s more, I certainly don’t know how God’s People can deny or ignore climate change, believing that there is nothing we can do to stall it or mitigate its effects, which often impact the poor and marginalized the worst.  I italicize God’s People, because for us, the Book of Genesis is foundational to our theology.  God clearly entrusts the earth to humankind and calls us to steward it properly (Genesis 1:26-28).  If you are reading a translation that uses the word “dominion,” please realize that “dominion” connotes RESPONSIBILITY to care for nature in a way that is consistent with God’s will.  

Scientists tell us that we need to reduce fossil fuel C02 emissions by 65% by 2030 and then to 0% by 2040 if we are to avoid the displacement of 760 million people from sea level rise and a “hothouse earth” (see http://blueprintforbetter.org/articles/architectures-carbon-problem/). Christians need to be on the forefront of working for this. Rather than relying on cable news, I encourage all to read scientific sources (like the one in the link above) as well as professional journals and papers.  Our denomination takes climate change very seriously, and at the July 2021 General Synod, the UCC became the first denomination to declare that NATURE HAS RIGHTS.  You can read more about it here: https://www.ucc.org/a-new-first-united-church-of-christ-declares-that-nature-has-rights/. Let us all take the steps we can to care for God’s creation for the least of these, for nature, and for us all.

Peace,

Co-pastor Sandi