Miracle Worker

2016-04-17-MIracle-Worker

Saugatuck Congregational Church, UCC
© Rev. Alison J. Buttrick Patton
April 16, 2016

It may be the most unbelievable kind of miracle: raising a person from the dead. On one hand, it’s what we long for, when someone we love has died – that we could have him back for even one more day; that we could hold her in our arms again; that we could rewind and rewrite the instant in which that person was snatched away. The Rev. Mary Luti notes that “a moment is all it takes for life to give way to death. The twinkling of an eye. One second there’s breath, the next there’s none.” What wouldn’t we do to reverse that moment?

But grieving means coming to terms with death, including the fact that it is final. We know that. How then, do we make sense of a story about a body brought back to life? Science and logic bump up against myth and magic, and we ask: is it a ghost? An illusion? Some kind of a zombie?? In fact, it’s not uncommon for children (even adults, sometimes) to listen to the stories of Jesus’ resurrection, of Lazarus and Tabitha being raised from the dead, and ask, “So, were they zombies?” Continue reading →

Was Blind But Now I See

Saugatuck Congregational Church, UCC
©Rev. Alison J. Buttrick Patton
April 10, 2016 – Third Sunday of Easter

Breakfast on the Beach

Saugatuck Congregational Church, UCC
©Rev. Alison J. Buttrick Patton
April 3, 2016 – Second Sunday of Easter

Scripture: John 21:1-19

Have you ever eaten grilled fish cooked outdoors, preferably after you’ve caught it yourself, or at least prepared it over an open fire? If you’ve ever been camping, hiking or fishing, maybe you’ve noticed the way the open air wets your appetite, and makes food taste better? Maybe you know how good it feels to stretch out in front of a charcoal fire after a hard but satisfying day and eat those tender chunks of fish right off the grill so they burn your finger tips and melt in your mouth?

Grief, on the other hand, kills the appetite, has a way of dulling all the senses. Colors fade; sounds become muddied and distant; food tastes like sand.

The disciples were still weighed down by grief. They had fallen in love with this man who was unlike anyone they’d ever met: this strong, compassionate, witty, fierce, miracle-working man who made God’s love seem somehow real, tangible. They’d become convinced that he was invincible – until the Establishment had yanked it all away, ripped the rug out from under their feet, killed this courageous/compassionate son of God – and left his followers completely bereft. Continue reading →

Early on the First Day

Saugatuck Congregational Church, UCC
©Rev. Alison J. Buttrick Patton
March 27, 2016 – Easter Sunday

Scripture: John 20:1-18

Early on the first day of the week, Jesus’ disciples were still in shock. They moved around in a daze, replaying the events of the last week in their minds, double and triple checking the facts against the hole in their hearts. “Maybe it didn’t really happen. Maybe he’s not really dead.” Except, of course: he was.

To recap: Jesus was a teacher/healer/preacher from the region of Galilee who had walked around the countryside for three years, hanging out with the most unexpected mix of people – smelly fishermen, recently recovered lepers, women, tax collectors and children. He performed miracles – gave sight to the blind, fed hungry crowds, blessed – and he talked a lot about the Kingdom of God – a place he said was utterly unlike the Roman Empire, a place where all people would be cherished and called to serve each other, where those at the end of the line would be moved to the front of the line, and where we’d all eat at the same table. He created a lot of buzz, until the Romans arrested him and put him on trial for treason – that is, for speaking out against Emperor Caesar’s kingdom. They beat him and executed him by nailing him to a cross, under a sign that read, King of the Jews. That was on a Friday. Continue reading →

Hosanna in the Highest

Saugatuck Congregational Church, UCC
©Rev. Alison J. Buttrick Patton
March 20, 2016 – Palm Sunday

I Don’t Remember

God-in-the-Now-Service-Bann

Saugatuck Congregational Church, UCC
©Rev. Alison J. Buttrick Patton
March 13, 2016

Reflection delivered during God in the Now
A community worship for individuals and families affected by memory loss

Co-sponsored with the Alzheimer’s Association CT Chapter
And the Westport Center for Senior Activities

“I can’t remember.” These are some of the most unsettling words we can speak, perhaps the most frightening. They unmoor us, these words about forgetting. Who are we, after all, if not a collection of our memories, a collection of shared experience and human connections. I am: my children’s mother, my parents’ child, my sisters’ sibling, my husband’s wife. I am the person who graduated from this university, attended that graduate school; made those friends, care deeply about these issues. I know all this, because I remember the summer I traveled cross country with my parents and sisters, all five of us packed into one rental van; I remember playing Frisbee on the quad with the tall, handsome, kind-hearted man who would become my husband; I remember the day each of my children was born, and the night we all slept on the floor in our new house, because the furniture hadn’t arrived… I remember these moments, like snapshots in the storybook of my life. Continue reading →

Treasured

On this fifth Sunday of Lent, we teeter on the cusp between life and death, between love and betrayal, hope and heartbreak. We are six days away from Passover. Tomorrow, Jesus will make his triumphant entry into Jerusalem where the soldiers wait to arrest him. Yesterday, Jesus stirred up a hornet’s nest by raising his friend Lazarus from the dead. Today, Jesus sits at the table of his resurrected companion, house guest to the three people who have been among his closest companions: Lazarus, Mary and Martha. On some level, they all know what awaits him. Raising Lazarus may have been the last straw, a visible, public act so outrageous that the Pharisees feared Rome would hear of it and come down hard on the entire community. A person who claimed his power came directly from God, who defied the laws of Rome and of nature, such a one could not be permitted to live. The Pharisees put a price on Jesus’ head. Continue reading →

Whose Story Is It?

For those of you who don’t know, for the last 18 years, we’ve been writing plays based on Bible stories with the 7^th and 8^th grade class that we perform with the entire Church School. This year it will be on May 22. Mark your calendars.

Putting Bible stories in a dramatic form forces us to put ourselves in the shoes of each of the participants – and not just the good ones whose actions we hope to emulate.

With that in mind, today we will use a Story Tent approach to address a story that that gets at something about love and compassion that few other Bible stories can match: The story of Jesus and the adulterous woman. Continue reading →

Fruit-Bearing

Are You Willing?

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