Hard Times

“To preach the good news when times are not good at all.” That is the way my old friend, now deceased, William Sloan Coffin, once described the church’s vocation. And this fall, as we begin to start up a new church year, as we go back to the committee work and the stewardship drive and the Sunday school and the choir and the fundraisers and the mission work, we have to start by recognizing that these times “are not good at all.”

I won’t go into all of the things that make for our “hard times,” but just on the economic side of our lives, things have certainly gotten more difficult. Here in Maine one in every twelve people is unemployed (that’s just the official statistic that doesn’t count those who have stopped actively looking for work). Estimates are that one in four of the people who have jobs are underemployed (meaning all those people who are working part-time that need to be working full-time as well as those people with masters degrees who are employed pouring lattes in coffee shops). Housing foreclosures are the highest that they’ve been since the 1930’s. Small businesses are closing in record numbers. Our state is forced to make budget cuts that leave some of the people hardest hit by these problems more vulnerable. And things don’t appear to be getting much better. Those of us that have not been personally affected by the hard times are still feeling insecure and we all share great anxieties about the future.

I know this is a depressing way to begin a letter about a new church year. But it is in times like these that a church like ours really matters. The difficulties in our economy, the growing polarization of our public lives, the stress and anxiety that is now a part of the national fabric; all these things make what we can do here and offer here more crucial and more urgent than ever. These are times when the message of hope and faith needs to be shouted from the rooftops. These are times when people need a community that makes them feel embraced and cared for. These are times when our children need the support of people beyond just our immediate families and when they need a safe and secure place to be and belong. These are times for us to preach the good news—that no matter how difficult things are on the outside, it is the inside that matters; that no matter what our material circumstances may be, it is the spiritual heart of life that is the meaning and the center of who we are; that even when things are going badly, the gifts of God abound and can still be savored and celebrated.

In short, hard times are what we are here for. Our church community may have more money or more members or be more fun when times are good and safe and secure, but it is in the hard times that we need to be reminded that this church has, down through dozens of generations, helped to give people the strength, the courage, the support, the faith and the hope that has gotten them through. It is in hard times that we can rediscover the urgency and the importance of what we are here for. There is no more vital role to be played by any community or institution or group of people than the mission to which we are together called—to speak a word of love when hatred holds sway; to speak a word of comfort when lives are dislocated; to speak a word of hope when people are cast down; and to speak a word faith when lives feel empty. And then to find the ways to live out that love and comfort and hope and grace in who we are to each other and our neighbors.

It is time to get back to the work of being the church together, with a renewed sense of urgency and purpose. It is also time to discover again the joy, fellowship, fun and grace that we find together in that task. You are part of a great and important enterprise here at First Parish and we need all of you to gather round now and be the church when it is urgently needed. Welcome back if you’ve been away, and welcome home to all of you.