April 12, 2026 – Second Sunday of Easter
Psalm 29
Romans 8.9-17, 26-27
Surviving the Subpar Sermon
Second Sunday of Easter
When Tim Haut retired from the Deep River Church, I volunteered to take on one of his many denominational responsibilities, which is to send monthly invitations to the two clergy groups we belong to, the UCC clergy and the interfaith clergy. On Monday morning I emailed the members of the latter, the Valley Shore Clergy Association inviting them to our monthly gathering Thursday. I swear, the minute I hit “send” my inbox was buried under an avalanche of out-of-office memos and hasty regrets. One of my colleagues was in the process of boarding a plane for California, another was leaving for a cruise, one was headed to upstate New York to visit family, and a couple were just taking time off and lying low for the week; one of that group even had the chutzpah to ask if I would I provide pastoral coverage for them this week. By the end of the morning I felt like the prophet Elijah in I Kings who complains to God, “Even I, I alone, am left to tell thee.” Such is the state of the clergy the week after Easter and Passover.
I can’t blame my colleagues for wanting a break after a busy season, and truth to tell I will be taking my own later this week. But before I do, I want to sit in the afterglow of Easter a little longer. I understand the desire to get away after the last Alleluia has been sung, or in our case, glowsticked. But Holy Week is a powerful week, and for those who attended Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, sunrise service, and our own 10:00 celebration, it was a long one, and I’d like to sit with it a little longer before moving on, and I invite you to sit alongside me as we do so.
My memories of last Sunday have to begin with our children. It was so much fun to have them with us, and special thanks to Sarah Napier and Nick Mainello for organizing it. It wasn’t just the little ones either – I’m glad I had the opportunity to recognize the grown children among us who nine years ago sat with me for my very first Easter Day children’s message with you, and it was fun to recall that first time with our Alleluia sticks. It was great to have my grandsons here too. One of you said to me earlier last week you smiled when they both came scrambling down the aisle slightly late for church, and I confessed to you that I deliberately stretched out the introduction, knowing they were on their way. I even got a video from one of you of your own littles waving their glowsticks at home later that afternoon and shouting their Alleluias, or a reasonable approximation thereof.
The music for Easter was splendid. It always is of course, and Karli and the choir were definitely in their superlative resurrection best as you sang your anthems and led us in our congregational singing. Thanks for taking some glowsticks of your own, and thanks for letting me tease you about the surreptitious Alleluias that slipped out a few weeks eaerlier. You are a sporting crew.
The flowers were a nice touch, as they always are. It is such a treat to walk into Easter worship and be greeted by such a joyful splash of color in the front of the chancel. Although I admit it was not until Wednesday that I realized the unmistakable aroma of Easter lilies was absent this year; we only had three lilies that morning, as most of us prefer daffodils and tulips, and for those who are sensitive to overbearing aromatics, that was a good thing.
Easter is always a day to meet old friends and welcome new ones too. I met a Chester newcomer last Sunday, a young lady felicitously named Karli, who attended with her parents for the first time. Many of you, like me, came with family and extended family, and the list of names listed on the flower dedications reminded us of loved ones passed.
And the sermon? Well… I’m going to share a little secret with you about that, it is a discovery that slowly dawned over my years of ministry that kind of took me by surprise, but now it is something I live and preach by. Back in the day, the Christmas Eve and Easter sermons were among my biggest sources of anxiety. The congregation for both services is larger than any other time of year, and the pressure is on to hit a home run every time. After all, they represent my two annual opportunities to show the wider community who we are and what we do as a church, and every preacher worthy of the name wants their highest attendance days to be the absolute best they can possibly be. Right?
Well… I’ve thought long and hard about this one, and I love a full church as much as anyone, but I have had a slight change of heart. If I have one or two blockbuster sermons during the course of the year, who most deserves to hear them? You do. You who are here week in and week out, who pour our hearts and souls into making this the best, most authentic community of faith we can possibly be, you all deserve my very best. The folks who are only here a few times a year also deserve to find the finest worship we have to offer, but at the end of the day, I would rather have a random fifth Sunday after Pentecost sermon that knocks it out of the park for the faithful souls who are here that morning than to lose sleep over how entertaining I’m going to be Christmas Eve and Easter Day. Was Easter’s sermon a good one? I think it was – I think there was a place for everyone to hang their hat that day. Was Palm Sunday’s sermon a better one? I think it was, and I have no apologies to make about that. This congregation, the folks who are here regularly and faithfully, deserve the very best I can offer as your pastor and teacher.
Besides, for as much as the Protestant tradition, and the Protestant Reformed tradition in particular, emphasize the scriptures and the sermon as the central pieces of worship, the other parts of the service are essential, and have within them the power to carry the service even on those days the sermon is not up to par. Take last week. I’m willing to wager that we all went home smiling about the children in church, about the wonderful music, we may well have carried an Easter flower home with us and we were or should have been pleased with all the family and church friends we saw that morning. It all made for a great Easter. And maybe, just maybe, one or two of us went home thinking “Hey, that was a pretty good sermon too.” But on Easter, the sermon does not have to do all the heavy lifting. The day itself can bear its own message without my help.
And this isn’t true only at Easter and Christmas Eve. There is so much around us on a regular Sunday morning that speaks to the presence of God and of our mission and ministry in God’s name. Our sanctuary, like so many congregational churches, is a spare one. We don’t have statuary or stained glass windows or an ornate pulpit or an imposing bell tower. But what we do have tells its own gospel. We have a cross, an empty cross, which reminds us of the story and the power of Easter. He is not here, he is risen. We have the paraments, the pulpit drape and lectern cloth, that remind us of the season – they are white, which tells us that Easter was not just a single day last week, but it is a season of celebrating the resurrection that lasts a full seven weeks. We have the candles that remind us Jesus is the light of the world – and so are we. We have a church bell that rings us into worship on a weekly basis, and reminds our neighbors that we’re here to worship and to serve. I don’t know if you’ve ever read the story of the bell at the First Church of Christ in Saybrook – the story is actually on Saybrook’s blue Connecticut town sign that stands in every community, which means it’s not just a church story but a town story. The tradition was that when the church’s minister left the parsonage on Sunday morning to make the walk to the meetinghouse, the Deacon whose responsibility it was to watch for him would ring the bell, telling both church and community, The Pastor Cometh. I once joked with Ed that if we did that today, he’d have to be sitting out on route nine waiting for me to drive up from Old Lyme. But the bell is an important link between church and community, which is one of the reasons that steeple maintenance is going to be an important part of our upcoming capital campaign.
And speaking of the link between church and community, one of the most important symbols of our sanctuary is also one of our most ordinary. And these are our church windows. Yes, our unstained-glass, mostly transparent and entirely ordinary windows. What do we see when we look out these windows? For starters, we see a parking lot, the library and the hose company. With a little imagination we might envision the Historical Society and imagine the Sunday Market soon to come. And what do these have to do with our service to God? We are community partners with all of them. We have a symbiotic relationship with the library, as we share land with them and support their activities. The hose company allows us to use their parking space when we need to and vice versa, and we share our minister with them. In fact our parking lot is in its own way a mission enterprise, especially during special town events; the free availability of our lot means more folks can come into Chester and enjoy what we have to offer. And the town appreciates it. Which leads to the other way our church windows work. Not only do they give us a view of the community we serve, but symbolically they also remind us of the ways the community views us. And judging by the support we receive during our fairs and sales, during special events like the Christmas cantata, holiday services, and coming full circle, Easter morning, we understand that those transparent and entirely ordinary windows are actually living symbols of our mission and ministry for and with our neighbors.
One of my favorite Children’s Messages has to do with the church’s windows; it is a message I gave in both my Bridgewater and Beverly churches, but alas, I cannot give it here. Shortly before the message I left the sanctuary, went outside, climbed a small step ladder and knocked on the window. A deacon came over and opened the window, and from the outside I talked to the kids about what the community sees when they look in at our church. If I were to try that here, not only would I need an extension ladder, but the Chester Hose Company would almost certainly be involved, not to bring the ladder truck, but the ambulance.
My point this morning is that as central as the sermon often is to our worship, there is so much more about our Sunday morning, and our every day, that defines our ministry as the United Church of Chester. And on those occasional Sundays when the sermon seems to be just limping along, there are plenty of other ways that God is speaking to us Sunday morning, all we need are the eyes to see them, the ears to hear them, and the hearts to embrace them.