I read somewhere that our perspectives on God may be shaped by our first memories of our parents. What is your first memory of either of your parents? I am not sure how true that is for you, but it is definitely true for me. Given our varied experiences with parents, this hypothesis may explain a lot about modern religion and the lack of it.

I was the fourth child born to a struggling single mother who, not quite ready to settle down and working hard to take care of four children, contracted tuberculosis. The other kids were school age. I was an infant. The older kids went to one foster home. I went to another. An older couple, Dorothy and James, took me in. They were childless. I seemed to be an answer to their prayers for a child. I was theirs for more than three years while my birth mother was in a sanatorium. They worked hard and managed to make financial gains and a great home during those three years. When my birth mother was released, she wanted her children back . . . well . . . almost. The prospects of managing four children with no job and needing to rebuild was frightening to her and the kids. The kids were now comfortable in other homes and wanted to stay. The older couple actually wanted to adopt me. Queen Dorothy, as we affectionately called her (behind her back) because of her regal bearing and strong sense of entitlement . . . well . . . lets just say she prevailed.

I believe my earliest memory of Queen Dorothy is from somewhere around age 2. One day, I managed to crawl around the living room floor and pulled on one of the lamp cords. The next thing I knew there was a loud crash as this big beautiful and shiny lamp broke into a thousand pieces. Frightened and afraid, I remember expecting punishment. But momma (Queen Dorothy is the only person I acknowledge as mom) came and grabbed me, held me close and kissed me until I was no longer afraid. When I think of God, I often think of that moment. All other images of God create conflict for me.

Strengthen the weak hands,
And make firm the feeble knees
Say to those who are fearful
Here is your God who will come and save you.

I grew up in a great home in which I never questioned that I was loved. My parent's love for each other was odd, but fun to watch. Recalling my childhood, my Dad used to say, “You were the happiest kid. You skipped everywhere.” And he was right . . . well almost.

The conservative church of my childhood taught that God expected people to live free from sin. Every infraction would put you in danger of hell's fire. And I had an overactive imagination.

Free from sin? Even as a child, this was a frightening thing. The altar call songs alone scared me half to death. Hear this excerpt from the altar hymn, Lost forever”:
God and His mercy refusing
Fixing and sealing your fate
When your hell you'll remember
Lost, too late.
Lost Forever!
Oh how sad.

I will never forget one fretful night at a revival meeting when the pastor called the fateful Hymn number 125, Lost forever. The mere mention of this hymn number would cause many in the congregation to panic and sweat. Just then a little old lady with fat shoes, wire rimmed glasses, and her white hair pulled back came down the center aisle with both hands up saying, “Pastor, please, please don't sing that song. Can't we sing a different song? The pastor replied, “We have to sing this song to save the soul nearest hell.” I know she meant well, but by now, I am sure my eyes were as big as saucers. As visions of my little exaggerations flashed before me, they sang:
When your hell you'll remember
Lost, too late.

Fortunately, on the way home from church, as usual, mom and dad would comment on the sermon, the hats, and the hairdos. But, sometimes in an off-hand way Queen Dorothy would turn around, look me in the eye and say, Boy, never believe all of what anybody tells you. You've got to know God for yourself. Little did she know, she was preparing me for “the Congregational way.

At age 28, I would find myself adrift and alienated from the “Lost forever” God and desperately seeking the God I knew in my heart, the God like the one who came to me when I broke the lamp. Now breaking bigger lamps in life, I left the church of my childhood to either find a faith of my own or leave the church altogether.

Hurting, confused, and afraid, my first stop was the church nearest my apartment -- the pristine Plymouth Congregational Church of Shaker Heights United Church of Christ in small letters. I leafed through the Pilgrim Hymnal for hymns I might recognized . . . and to make sure that Lost Forever was not there. Inside the back cover was a small 4 in. by 3 in. statement that read something like this: The requirements for membership are as follows: “This is the first and greatest commandment. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your might. And the second commandment is like it, you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” That day, I closed the hymnbook and said, “I'm home.

The eyes of the blind shall be opened,
And the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped;
Then the lame shall leap like a deer,
The tongue of the speechless shall sing for joy,
And waters shall break forth in the wilderness like streams in the desert

Plymouth welcomed me . . . just as I was, not as others wanted me to be. That church and those people became family to me. It was there that I began my journey toward truly believing, "that I belong body and soul, not to myself, but to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ" – Just as I was. One of the first sermons I heard in that church opened my eyes to a new sense of what baptism or reaffirming one's baptism could be. You will find my interpretation in, “The Top 10 Reasons to Check Out the UCC at www.stillspeaking.com ” It reads . . .
When we baptize you into our community, we promise that we will never take it back – no matter what you discover about yourself or what others discover about you along life's journey. We believe that baptism places each of us into the “body of Christ” and lasts forever. Some are baptized as infants, others as adults. Some are sprinkled. Others are immersed. Some reclaim their baptism from a previous church life. For each of us, however, baptism is big enough, strong enough and cleansing enough to last forever. We believe that everyone – old, young, straight, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered, physically or emotionally challenged, rich or poor, sure or unsure, lost or found, Democrat or Republican has a place in the body of Christ. Baptism is like a badge that says, You are a full member of the church and no one can take that away from you.

Because of your love for this great church and the love of so many others of our forebears, there was a place in the United Church of Christ for me. But not only me, but for so many others who either by choice, constitution, or both simply do not fit so well in other places with simple answers to complex questions. You have been Mothers of God for me. Your work, your love, your kindness gave birth to my liberation. Thank you. I was so happy that I told everybody. Many of my friends came. Some have stayed and said, “Ron I never knew that a church like this existed. Thank you for introducing me to this sort of church.

The promise of God in this moment is like the promise God gave to Mary, the Mother of Jesus. From Mary's womb would come Jesus, one who would be for millions and for centuries our chief clue to that great mystery we call God. As the United Church of Christ through its new identity campaign, the commercials, the banners, the news that proclaims, “no matter who you are, or who you are on life's journey, you are welcome.” you and I give birth to the Holy One.

As we proclaim through our campaign, “never place a period where God has placed a comma, God is still speaking, you and I give birth to the Holy One. In only the last ten days, more than 70,000 people have not only heard the good news of welcome and God's radical inclusion of all people, but also have gone to a website to find a church near them, nationwide.

In only the last ten days, there have been more than 400 newspaper and online articles about the God is still speaking message and controversy. In only the last ten days, we have had 350,000 hits to our website.
In only the last ten days, at least 320 individuals have left on-line gifts totaling more than $30,000, (72% of them non-members.

Nothing. Nothing. Nothing can stop the birth of the Holy One! Christ is coming . . . even though there was no room in the CBS and NBC network Inn. Christ's coming in this message of hope was proclaimed more broadly precisely because of the network's rejection. Just as Mary sang in her Song of Praise:
My soul magnifies our God
And my spirit rejoices with God our Savior
For God has looked with favor on the lowliness of God's servants
And done great things for us
Holy is God's name
God's mercy is for those who fear God
From generation to generation.
God has brought down the powerful
And lifted up the lowly
God has filled the hungry with good things
God has helped us remember God's mercy to our forebears

Forebears who were the first . . .
In 1700, the first North American religious voice against slavery
In 1773, Old South was home to the ferment that became the Boston Tea Party
In 1785, the first to ordain an African American person to ministry into a predominantly white denomination
In 1810, formed the first foreign mission agency in North America, the American Board Of Commissioners for Foreign Missions
In 1839 we formed an interracial group that helped free the Amistad captives
In 1853, the first to ordain a woman, Antoinette Brown to ministry
We founded colleges like Harvard, Yale, as well as 8 historically black colleges like Fisk, Talladega and Huston Tilotson.
1943 Reinhold Niebuhr preaches a sermon that introduces to the world the now famous Serenity Prayer: "God, give us grace to accept with serenity the things that cannot be changed, courage to change the things that should be changed, and the wisdom to distinguish the one from the other."
In 1959, we challenged FCC ownership rules so that the airwaves would be regarded as public so that TV station owners could no longer deny people of color the right to time on the public airwaves – solely on the basis of race; this changed the face of television and many election campaigns for predominantly non-white communities across the nation.
In 1963, our General synod passed powerful civil rights resolutions
In 1967, General Synod voted that social justice be considered along with security and yield in its investment of funds
In 1972 , the first to ordain an openly gay person, William R. Johnson to ministry
In 1973 The UCC General Synod becomes impassioned about the plight of farm workers and charters a plane to fly delegates to Coachella Valley as a public witness in support of Cesar Chavez.
In 2002 The UCC announced a boycott of the city of Cincinnati because of the mistreatment of people of color and gay and lesbian persons.

It is not about a desire to be controversial. It is about local discernment, time together, and a whole lot of lovin'. The point is that controversy is nothing new for us. We are the offspring of the mysterious, constantly unfolding, creating, and re-creating God. We are a people who seek to walk in new directions -- away from selfishness and self-centered lives and into lives of expansion, caring, and letting people know that God, is on their side. This is who we have been for more than 400 years and who we will continue to be.

Like our ancestors, we are at our very best when struggles turned to hope transform us to become the unstoppable people of God, in community. Thank you for your participation and support. In the last ten days, hundreds of people across the nation have acted upon the invitation to come among us and be our guest. Some have not been to church for more than 20 years; some were on the verge of committing suicide and decided not to; some who had given up on God and religion altogether are finding the courage to try again.

Each time we gather there are times when each of us feels hopeless because we struggle with health, aging, parents, children, relationships. But, in these moments, we pause to see the hand of God at work and our hope is renewed.
Go Tell It on the Mountain
A Highway has been opened.
Go Tell It on the Mountain
The Ransomed of God are returning to Zion with singing
Go Tell It on the Mountain
Many will come and some will obtain joy and gladness
Go Tell It on the Mountain
Sorrow and sighing shall flee away for many
Go Tell It on the Mountain
God is still speaking,

Just as Mary pondered these things in her heart, I invite you now in these moments of silence to ponder and hear the voice of God.
The Holy One is in our midst. Amen.