I had the wonderful privilege this week of reconnecting a man who was a teenager during those years with a former pastor of this church, Rev. Alex Stuart. Thanks to the connection of email addresses available on our website - Mr. Sites wrote me to inquire if I could put him in touch with Rev. Stuart. As a blessing, I ended up being included in part of their email exchange. The gentleman wanted to tell Alex just how much it had made an impression on him in his early years that his pastor would risk life and limb for something he believed. He told the story that when he was 14 years old, he had visited Alex in the hospital after he had been beat up and his arm broken during a peace march in Alabama.*   He had been moved to reconnect with this part of his past because of a line in Obama's speech that encouraged all of us to be, "mindful of the sacrifices borne by our ancestors." It was a clear reminder to me that living our faith is probably what makes the biggest and most lasting impression on anyone we meet.

In case you ever thought being a Christian would make life easy, I want each of you to know that our values as people of faith will be put to the test over the course of our lives. Jonah was rather reluctant to share God's message in Nineveh. Simon and Andrew had to leave their livelihood to follow Jesus. Paul's letter to the Corinthians challenges believers to live every moment - simply but intentionally - for the world as we know it, he says, is on its way out.

These moments of crisis that call for our courage and perseverance happen intermittently over the course of any long life. What we do with them is up to us. I was struck by the paragraph in President Obama's speech that called for a new era of responsibility. He said,

"What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility - a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation, and the world, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task….This is the source of our confidence- the knowledge that God calls on us to shape an uncertain destiny."

How many times have God's people been called upon to shape an uncertain destiny? I've lost count. Our new President's speech was not unique in that regard. Rather it echoed the kind of words that have been used to inspire peoples and nations for centuries upon centuries. If you look to the government website that includes the text of all the inaugural speeches from George Washington's up through this Tuesday, at least all the ones I took the time to read this week echo the same tone. The leaders of our nation have time and again called on the American people to honor and recommit to our common values, values that were in part shaped by a heritage that includes the commitment to faithful living - even if now faithful living could mean living as a Christian, Jew, Muslim, Hindu, or as a non-believer who lives by the values set forth by a free society. But the soaring rhetoric of an inauguration speech doesn't mean much unless people are moved to action. Perhaps some have taken their responsibility as Christian citizens seriously all along and didn't need someone to remind them to do so. Perhaps some who were part of that big event will take those words to heart, and become leaders in their own right. And as all good orators know, one's very best words will sometimes fall on deaf ears. Will we choose to become a more responsible nation? Will we seize our duties gladly as individuals? For those of us who trusted in Obama's leadership to usher in a new era of hope, this sounds an awful lot like work. And for those of us unsure of Obama's capacity to lead, these soaring ideas could take us down unsafe paths or wind up shredded to bits on the floor of Congress. We really don't know exactly what the future holds for our conflicted, economically adrift nation.

I must say it is a strange time to be primarily a dealer in words and ideas myself. The church is rooted by her words and ideas - tried and tested through a far longer period than American history teaches. But let it be known that the Christian faith is also communicated through our actions - at times in a positive light, in other times for its brutality toward people outside the circle of faith. In more times than this, we have seen the world thrust problems and crises our way. Paul tells his Corinthian friends to live their lives as though the world could end tomorrow. He really believed that to be true. The section of scripture I read today is sandwiched into a larger conversation about deciding whether to get married or not in the uncertain times of history. Paul was adamant that followers of Jesus keep things simple. "Time is of the essence," he says. "There is no time to waste, so don't complicate your lives unnecessarily."

I believe that, in my best preacher voice, I can offer you the word of hope that people of faith have been through this all before. Change really isn't anything new for God's people. It's old hat. Though so much seems new and different, both scary and exciting, human beings have always been resilient creatures, especially when they trust that they will continue to be loved by God through any given situation. Though healing and trust and a new way may seem impossible, all is possible with God.

At the risk of following up with a poem - a friend introduced me recently to Rudyard Kipling's poem, "If." It is a reminder for the crisis moments, the times in which everyone seems to be losing their heads. In times like these, our character is defined more by our own reactions than by the outcomes of any given situation. People of faith will always be looked to for signs of faithfulness. Will we stick with our values, not just when it's easy to do so, but when it's harder to stay focused? So I ask you to hear yet another set of words for trying times:

If... - Rudyard Kipling

If you can keep your head when all about you Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,

If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But make allowance for their doubting too;

If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, Or being lied about, don't deal in lies, Or being hated, don't give way to hating, And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream - and not make dreams your master;

If you can think - and not make thoughts your aim;

If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster And treat those two impostors just the same;

If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, Or watch the things you gave your life to broken, And stoop and build 'em up with wornout tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss, And lose, and start again at your beginnings And never breathe a word about your loss;

If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew To serve your turn long after they are gone, And so hold on when there is nothing in you Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue, Or walk with kings - nor lose the common touch,

If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,

If all men count with you, but none too much;

If you can fill the unforgiving minute With sixty seconds' worth of distance run -

Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,

And - which is more - you'll be a Man my son!