2 Thessalonians 1:1-4

Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy,

To the church of the Thessalonians in God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ:

Grace to you and peace from God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. We must always give thanks to God for you, brothers and sisters, as is right, because your faith is growing abundantly and the love of every one of you for one another is increasing. Therefore we ourselves boast of you among the churches of God for your steadfastness and faith during all your persecutions and the afflictions that you are enduring.

2 Thessalonians 1:11-12

To this end we always pray for you, asking that our God will make you worthy of his call and will fulfill by his power every good resolve and work of faith, so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Luke 19:1-10

He entered Jericho and was passing through it. A man was there named Zacchaeus; he was a chief tax collector and was rich.  He was trying to see who Jesus was, but on account of the crowd he could not, because he was short in stature.  So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore tree to see him, because he was going to pass that way.  When Jesus came to the place, he looked up and said to him, “Zacchaeus, hurry and come down, for I must stay at your house today.” So he hurried down and was happy to welcome him. All who saw it began to grumble and said, “He has gone to be the guest of one who is a sinner.” Zacchaeus stood there and said to the Lord, “Look, half of my possessions, Lord, I will give to the poor, and if I have defrauded anyone of anything, I will pay back four times as much.” Then Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because he, too, is a son of Abraham.  For the Son of Man came to seek out and to save the lost.”

Crossing the Atlantic

After nine days crossing the Atlantic Ocean on a ship, Shari and I landed at the Port of Miami on Friday morning. I have always wanted to cross over from Europe on a ship, and so this was a lifetime dream fulfilled. I wanted to experience the vast open space and get a real feeling of the enormous expanse of the Atlantic Ocean. It took us nine days on the open sea to cross from Spain to Miami. Nine days and nights with no land and no other ships in sight. (And I still feel myself swaying.)

And really, this was perfect timing because, first, I am a Congregationalist, connected to this tradition descended from the Pilgrims, and secondly, because it is now November, and we are looking ahead toward Thanksgiving, and so there it is, perfect timing to talk about the Pilgrims and to think about their Atlantic Crossing in their ship, the Mayflower.

The Puritans

The Pilgrims were Puritans, that is, they wanted a pure Reformation of the church. They felt that the Protestant Reformation as it took shape in England did not go far enough, was not pure enough, and so this is where the name “Puritan” comes from. In the next few weeks, I want to talk about the English Reformation and the Puritans because that is our history as Congregationalists. So for the next few Sundays, we will take a look at the roots of American Congregationalism.

For many of us, this will be a review, but for some who are newer to our church, I hope this will be informative and helpful in understanding what this church is, who we are, and how we fit into the larger picture, that is, into the larger context of the Christian faith because, as I’m sure you know, Christianity as a faith tradition has many expressions. So we are going to remember our roots and remember the particular history that is Congregationalism, which is the particular history that makes our church what it is today.

The English Reformation

The English Reformation was a unique expression of the larger European Protestant movement. This English version of the Protestant Reformation began with King Henry the 8^th and his rejection, in 1534, of the authority of the Roman Catholic Church. Then, fast forward almost a hundred years and we find the Puritans sailing across the Atlantic in 1620 because for them, King Henry did not go far enough, his reformation was not pure enough.

Now, you may have noticed that I headlined our bulletin today with the title, “All Saint’s Sunday.” The Puritans would not have appreciated this title because All Saint’s Day is definitely a Catholic tradition. Maybe I should have called it, “Remembering Our Ancestor’s Sunday.” Traditionally, Congregationalists do not recognize the Saints. But then again, the Puritans would not have appreciated our stained-glass windows either. So right away, we can see that traditions are complicated, nothing is perfect, and that we are, as human beings, a wonderful mix of contradictions.

Freedom of Worship

So we will talk more about Henry the 8^th and the foundations of Congregationalism, but for today, the main point I want to make is that the Pilgrims were a group of people who had strong convictions about freedom of worship.  The Pilgrims were Separatists. The separatists wanted to separate from the Church of England because they wanted Freedom to Worship. (And by the way, there were other separatist groups, too. The Baptists, the Presbyterians, the Quakers, the Methodists, all were separatists, that is, they all wanted to break away from the Church of England. They did not want the King of England to have authority over how they worshiped God.)

The Mayflower Compact

So, back to the Pilgrims.  The Pilgrims wanted Freedom of Worship.  And they expressed these strong feelings about freedom in a document called the Mayflower Compact. In the Mayflower Compact, the Pilgrims agreed to work together. What happened was this: Sailing from England, the Pilgrims wanted to land at the mouth of the Hudson River, but they were blown off course by a storm, and eventually landed, by mistake, on Cape Cod in November, lost and several months behind schedule, with nowhere to live, and winter coming upon them.

So they were in trouble. And they knew that to survive that coming winter, they needed to work together. When they realized it was too late in the season to go anywhere else, they saw their only chance of survival was to land where they were and build cabins to get them through the winter. They knew it was not going to be easy. They knew there were going to be problems. And so, on the ship, before they landed, they wrote and signed this document called the Mayflower Compact, agreeing to work together as a group. And this document is now considered to be a fundamental first step in the expression of American democracy because it established self-governance of the people and decidedly rejected the Divine Right of Kings. Remember, this was in 1620, long before the Declaration of Independence.

So this is important for us today. Because today, after church, we have our annual meeting in which each member of the church will have a vote. We vote on the direction and work and fiscal budget of the church as presented by the trustees, and we will all agree to work together in the coming year. This is very similar to what the Pilgrims did when they signed the Mayflower Compact. Our annual meeting comes directly from this Pilgrim tradition.

As a Congregational church, we are self-governing. That means we are an independent church. We do not answer to a Bishop or a Pope, nor to any larger governing body. And this comes directly from the Pilgrim tradition.

Scripture Readings

And now, I want to reflect on our Scripture readings with you, because as a church, we are self-governing for a spiritual purpose. In our reading from 2 Thessalonians, Paul, Silas, and Timothy praise the church in Thessalonica: “We give thanks for you, brothers and sisters because your faith is growing abundantly and the love of every one of you for one another is increasing.” You see, the church in Thessalonica was being persecuted. What exactly they experienced, what type of persecution they experienced, is not clear. But we can imagine it was some form of hostility from their fellow citizens in the town. There were people with different views in the town; people who did not agree with them and expressed this disagreement in some form of hostility.

Persecution in the Early Church

In the first few centuries of the early church the followers of Jesus often experienced persecution. There is a long list of Christian martyrs from this time period. Persecution is an unfortunate fact of human nature. Disagreements about opinions and beliefs solidify into hatred of the other, the one who is “not like us.” For example, Zacchaeus. Zacchaeus is different. But Jesus accepts him and loves him.  So often, though, the one who is identified as “different” becomes an object of hatred. And this eventually turns into hostility. It is a sad fact. I do not need to elaborate here.

God’s Universe is One

These are human created differences. But in God’s universe the field is wide open. The clouds and the sky and the oceans and mountains are all one. There are no opinions, there are no political divisions, there are no conflicts of ego in a sunrise. Each new day, each moment, is a new beginning, a new opportunity, for love to unfurl itself, and for the heart to open, and blossom. In God’s universe, we are all the children of God.

And this is what Paul is writing about. “We give thanks for you, brothers and sisters because your faith is growing abundantly and the love of everyone of you for one another is increasing.” I see this happening in our church, too. And I am so pleased. We have come a long way together. And it is my hope that we will continue to grow abundantly in faith and love. In so doing, our church will continue to be a vibrant Christian family, following Jesus according to the Congregational Way.

Amen? Amen.