Transition and Transformation, a sermon preached on Reformation Sunday, October 31, 2021, at the Church of the Pilgrimage, UCC, Plymouth, MA, by the Rev. Dianne E. Arakawa, Transitional Pastor Ruth: 1:1-18 Mark 12:28-34

Friends, today is a momentous day. Momentous because we have just survived a significant nor’easter on the South Shore. Momentous because some of us we are here for the first time since the onset of the pandemic. Momentous because it is Sunday, and we are drawing near to God and each other. Momentous because it is my first time in your historic pulpit. Momentous because Minister Emeritus, Gary Marks, died this past Wednesday, and the congregation is re-membering, re-collecting, and reforming.

As a result, let us take a moment to, drawing in a deep breath, realizing what we have been through these past few days and months.

Still, as church people, we learned a lot during this period; didn’t we? We understand better that we cannot do it alone, and it is not everyone for themselves. For, we are essentially interconnected and interrelated, whether we wish it or not. And, at some point, when we do come out of our isolation or hibernation, we find we have to deal with the real world.

Within the church, we understand that we are a covenanted congregation, with Christ as our head, and we 2 Christ’s body. As such, we are joined together for a common purpose; that is worship to God, and to serve our neighbors as ourselves.

When there is a disease or dis-ease in one part of the body, we organically move to heal that part. We try unless, of course, we find that it is not repairable. Then, we draw boundaries to separate and isolate -- so that the larger body remains healthy.

Today’s Scripture for Reformation Sunday highlights relationship and responsibility, transition and transformation.

The Book of Ruth, the first chapter, about a strong woman; after all, here is one of the few books in the Bible actually named after a woman. Naomi, her husband, Elimelech, and sons, Mahlon and Chilion, had to leave their town in Judah for Moab. Presumably, there was not enough food, perhaps because of drought. In any case, Naomi left her home with her immediate family for the “foreign” land of Moab; foreign here meaning “non-Jewish.”

So, in Moab they settled, and Naomi’s sons found wives in Ruth and Orpah. But, as life would have it, Naomi’s husband then sons died. So, leadership fell to Naomi, not by choice because it was forced on her. (Remember that these were patriarchal times, and men headed households and a woman’s worth was measured by her relationship to her husband and whether she could bear him sons.)

When news arrived that God had provided food in Judah, Ruth decided that she should leave Moab and 3 return to Judah. After what she called “bitterness,” she longed for a semblance of normality, including her own people. So, she conveyed the news to her daughters-inlaw, and told them that they, because they were Moabites by birth, did not have to return with her.

Orpah agreed to stay back. But Ruth, surprisingly, responded by saying that she would not be separated from her mother-in-law. Remember the memorable lines: “Where you go; I will go; where you lodge; I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God, my God”? (v. 16-17)

For the two women, these words were remarkable – because it meant that they would stay together to help one another. Naomi would welcome her as a daughter (not daughter-in-law). Ruth would give up her home to journey to a “foreign” land and most likely convert to Judaism.

When I began in ministry, this story was a popular choice for weddings. For, it bespeaks relationship and inseparableness in body, household, family and religion. While contemporary patterns of marriage have changed, there is still the need for a call to being together and supporting one another, whatever the cost.

Church involves a similar call. The foundation upon which congregations such as ours gather is covenantal. It is what binds us to God and one another.

See this little Bible, which was recently presented to my husband by someone from Carver. She said to him, I think this belongs to you. It turned out to be that of his great aunt Charlotte Manter, who was baptized in 1877. 4 The cover says, “The Church of the Pilgrimage…To a child of the Covenant”!

Becoming members of our church is like taking marital vows, as mentioned in the Book of Ruth. It is making a promise, and following it through, even if that means encountering hardship and change, transition and transformation.

Our second reading from Mark, the 12th chapter, lifts up our two greatest commandments, which we often call Christ’s greatest commandment. For, when Jesus confronts a Temple scribe, who questions who he is and his beliefs, our Teacher, without blinking, answers. He states that there are two commandments: One, to love the Lord God with all our heart, and with all our soul, and with all our mind, and with all strength. And, two, to love our neighbor as ourself. There is no other commandment greater than these.

This is why we come to church. We gather to worship God with our heart, soul, mind and strength. We do not leave these at the front door as do other churches. We bring the fullness of who we are-- what we are feeling, what has moved us this past week and in our lives. We respond to the Scripture and what others say. We bring our spiritual strength and vitality into a congregation of mutual respect, learning and neighborly love.

We choose to be in a place and with a people, who wish to love our neighbor as ourself. That’s getting kind of’ close; wouldn’t we say? Because that means, we try to be self-and mutually respecting, so we can walk in the other’s 5 moccasins, slippers, shoes, and boots. And when they do not have shoes, as some homeless here or in other places around the world do not, we try to provide them.

Most of us know, that what Jesus’ recited to the scribe was the Jewish She’ma, which everyone from the Temple affirms. So, right there, it shows our relationship to the Jewish tradition, transition and transformation. We come from that monotheistic tradition. And we follow Jesus, who sought to reform it, so that the mercy and justice here described would not get lost in the burnt offering of the Temple, but would be embodied and lived out in community.

Today, friends, is even more a momentous day because it is Reformation Sunday … and, Halloween, the eve of All Saints’ Day. So, we have the good fortune to reflect on our Scripture and the Reformation, in which our covenanting congregational ways were born, and to hear wonderful music, both sung and played on organ, for the saints.

Reformation is to me a high holy day. For, it is in my bones that I stand in a Reform tradition and a congregational, democratic church that is continually reflecting on and re-forming itself. In Honolulu, I was raised Congregational/ United Church of Christ, and went to a Congregational-founded independent school. I grew by learning to question religion and beliefs all the time, and still do.

The Reformation was characterized by reforming, protesting then re-forming the Church of Rome in the 16th 6 and 17th centuries in northern Europe. It spread throughout the Continent, British Isles and here. Usually, the Reformation is identified with Martin Luther and the Castle of Wittenburg, Germany, near where the 95 Theses were posted. So, to him, his colleagues and followers, and today’s Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, we pay homage!

At the same time, we are aware that this spirit of questioning the Roman Church, its theology, rituals and practices occurred in other traditions.

Our own Congregational tradition was a reform movement in the early 17th century from the Anglican/ Episcopal tradition in England. Around 1606 it was formed in Scrooby, England, then found refuge in Dutch Leyden with Pastor John Robinson, transitioned in 1620 to our own Plymouth, where it gathered as the First Church, and was transformed in 1805 as the Church of the Pilgrimage.

From Europe to here, our congregational tradition, with Christ as our head and we as covenanted members, continues after 400 years to this day. It says that we, by our history and belief, need be open to transition and transformation. Transition from the earlier Anglican/Episcopal tradition and even earlier Roman Catholic tradition; transition from liberal Unitarian Christianity at First Parish to conservative Trinitarian Christianity at the Church of the Pilgrimage; and transitions of many other kinds that lift up our openness to people of different races and ethnicities, genders and sexual identities, and diversity of theology and thought.

Before coming here, I fell upon an old bulletin from the 90’s from the Congregational Library in Boston at 14 Beacon Street.

It contained an article called Pule ‘Ohana: Native Hawaiian Family Devotions Descended from Puritan New England by the Rev. Sharon Inake. It was about the devotional practices of families brought by the Puritans (I would add Pilgrims), in the 1800’s to the Hawaiian Islands. It was written by a third generation Japanese-American, who was a pastor in the United Church of Christ there.

In particular, it described the devotional practice itself, and as it was used by the Rev. Abraham Akaka, the Hawaiian-American patriarch of the Kawaiha’o Church. It is the historic, landmark Hawaiian and English speaking UCC church in Honolulu.

What struck me was this: that after our Plymouth church was gathered in 1620, the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions sent a mission exactly 200 years later to the Hawaiian Islands, of course not yet a state, to “convert the heathens” (my words). This was about the same time that the Hawaiian seminarian, Henry Opukaha’ia: died prematurely in CT, the Hawaiians themselves were in religious transition; and the Church of the Pilgrimage pulled away from First Parish.

What struck me was that it has now been exactly 200 years since that mission to Hawaii, and now I have been invited to serve you here in Plymouth! So, 400 years ago the Pilgrims arrived from across the Atlantic, 200 years later the missionaries were sent across the Pacific, and 8 now 200 after that this Hawaiian-born pastor in the United Church of Christ is standing in your pulpit. Talk about momentous and Reformation! The Holy Spirit indeed works in wondrous and surprising ways!

Naomi left her Temple out of necessity, Ruth left her land to join Naomi on a momentous journey back to Judah, Jesus left his home to reform the Temple tradition, perhaps never realizing that it would create a new tradition, which later would become our own.

I say: since creation, God has been with God’s people. Christ was born to teach us all. The Spirit has transitioned and transformed us from our earlier Christian roots to our Congregational and now United Church of Christ movement, and brought us to this very day.

What we find is a setting of no less than holy ground; a God who is still leading and speaking to us; and, I pray, a people who are still willing to be transformed by the Spirit. May it be so.

Will you join me in saying, Amen? Amen!