Church guide

Designer bags at the Dunbar tag sale tomorrow! 9am - noon. 767 Benham Street, Hamden.

Some of the things that will be for sale tomorrow at 767 Benham Street starting at 9am!

Pastor’s report, February 2019 There was a terrible irony on Martin Luther King day in front of the Lincoln Memorial where on August 28, 1963 Martin Luther King delivered his “I Have A Dream” ad- dress. Three groups, each representing a different religion, culture and generation, clashed close to where Lincoln’s words, “with malice toward none, with charity for all,” are carved in stone. Three groups: Black Hebrew Israelites, Covington Catholic High School boys , and Native Americans. The Black Hebrew Israelites provoked the Catholic youth with racial and homophobic jeers. As the insults of the Hebrew Israelites continued, the boys retreated and returned with more of their peers, until the group of boys was a large crowd. At this point a 64 year old Native American, Nathan Phillips, said he felt compelled to do something because the Israelites and the Catholic boys looked like they were headed toward violence. So Phillips beat his drum and walked between the two groups, chanting a prayer for peace. Then one of the young boys stood in front of him and wouldn’t move. The boy and a number of his peers wore Make America Great Again hats, as well as clothing and jackets with the Christian symbols of their high school. The boys surrounded Phillips (many videos were taken of this incident), and some of the boys were laughing, jumping up and down, and making tomahawk chops with their hands. Phillips said he became frightened. Videos with the image of the boy, Nick Sandmann, and the Native American, Nathan Philip, went viral. People took sides. Sandmann’s father hired a public relations firm to represent his son and attorneys crafted a statement the boy Nick Sandmann read saying he was not mocking Phillips but was actually praying and that the smile on his face was to bring calm to the situation. When interviewed, Phillips said Sandmann and his fellow students were not praying. On the videos, the Hebrew Israelites could be heard insulting other groups. They told the Native Americans that “Indian means savage.” Students could he heard shouting to the Hebrew Israelites, “Go back to Africa!” The Hebrew Israelites yelled back at them, “Y’all dirty ass little crackers,” and “y’all a bunch of Donald Trump incest babies!” The Native American elder Phillips said, “When I took that drum and hit that first beat -- it was a supplication to God. I prayed, ‘Look at us, God, look at what is going on here; my America is being torn apart by racism, hatred, bigotry.’” Since the videos came out, on Martin Luther King day, the different groups have been interviewed many times. The Covington Catholic High School students were there for the annual March for Life, a pro-life, anti- abortion demonstration. The Hebrew Israelites and Native Americans were there for the Indigenous People’s March. Shar Yaqataz, from the Hebrew Israelites, said the group was there “to teach the truth of the Bible.” Of all of them, only the Native American, Phillips, wanted to bring healing to our nation's sick soul. He did not call people names but chanted prayers to God for help in our land that grows more divided, more frightened, more angry. Reflecting on this incident, Father Edward Beck, a Roman Catholic Priest, said: “The Catholic Church’s pro- life teaching includes many issues, such as: abortion, immigration, capital punishment, the environment and climate change, sex trafficking, and the inequitable distribution of the world’s resources. Some claim the “MAGA (Make America Great Again) philosophy” is not in accord with church teaching on many of these issues. Teachers and chaperones from the Catholic school should have dis- couraged students from promoting a questionable partisan political agenda.” For making his opinion public, Father Beck received hate mail and threats. As King did, and Lincoln, and Jesus. Our spiritual practice -- what we must work on daily -- is to return love for hate. Jesus said, “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” Why? -- because that’s what God does, and Jesus, the one we follow on this wonderful, awful, painfully entertaining journey. Yours, praying with Abraham, Martin, Jesus and elder Nathan Philips of the Omaha Tribe, for grace, George

Pastor’s report, January 2019 Christmas Eve service at Dunbar was a few days ago. I’m still thinking about it and replaying moments that were especially vivid. It started at 5:00 p.m. but Annie and I were at the church at 3:00. It’s a different service, being only once a year, so I give myself time to read over the bulletin, picture where people will be, how candles will be lit, when the choir will come before the church and how they will return to their seats, who will dim the lights and who will light the aisle candles. There are lots of details. Is the mic on? Is it set on the right volume. How about the guitar -- can people hear it or is it too loud? How many kids will come up to light the can- dles? And on and on. But I still make mistakes. Jesus didn’t use bulletins, he improvised. But he made mistakes too. He was often rebuked for breaking the law, like when he healed people on sabbath days. He said things about God -- like how God loves Israel’s enemies -- that caused people to try to push him off a cliff . He constantly said things people didn’t understand, like that we have to be born again. We still argue about what that means. Every church service is different -- there is something that happens there that can’t be explained. Call it energy or “tongues of fire dancing on people’s heads” (book of Acts) or simply “wind that blows where it wills and you hear the sound of it but don’t know where it comes from or where it goes” (Gospel of John). It may be “seen” through its effects on the people gathered. This Christmas Eve I felt it especially through the music and the singing and participation of the congregation. The choir sang some of it’s best music yet, thanks to our choir director Joy Donaldson and the practice of the choir members every Tuesday night, but espe- cially because of this mysterious presence of God's "wind" and "fire" moving around and through us. There were more people in this service than in the past few years. Was it because we sent invitations? Was it because more people felt an impulse to attend? Jesus said, “Where two or three are gathered in my name, I’m there with them.” In that verse, Matthew is telling us that being part of a worshipping community is vital to our spir- itual life. You cannot substitute anything else for that. In the monastic traditions of Christianity, and other religions, even hermits are required to join the community at regular times for worship. We need one another go grow spiritually -- it’s how God wired us. The first thing Jesus did after he was baptized and tempted in the wilderness was to gather a community around him. Tom Parlapiano shared an article with me from the New York Times, written by Laura Turner, an author. It was titled, “Internet Church Isn’t Really Church.” She said, “Showing up to church in person is exhausting, especially when you can stay home and live stream a service. But being together is the whole point. Going to church -- sitting in a room with other people for an hour on Sundays is nonnegotiable for me. At the same time some people find themselves at brunch with friends or catching up on Netflix in bed, I am in a padded, stackable chair at the Russian cultural center my church rents for our services, sitting under a disco ball and listening to a sermon about Jesus. This then is the beauty of the church: not that it is perfect or convenient or fits easily into my life but that without it, my life would be deficient.” Exactly. Yours, grateful to be gathered with you in Jesus’ name, George Contact Pastor George @ Phone: (203) 287 -8106 or [email protected]

Pastor’s report, December 2018: The Dunbar United Church of Christ Choir has been learning music for Advent and Christmas Eve services. One of the songs is Bring a Torch, Jeanette, Isa- bella. You might be familiar with it -- it’s number 124 in our Pilgrim Hymnal. It is from the Provence region of France, from the 17th century and was translated into English in the 18th century. The tune goes back to the 14th century! One of the verses is especially interest- ing. The third verse of our Pilgrim version of the hymn says: “Softly to the little stable, Softly for a moment come; Look and see how charming is Jesus, How he is white, his cheeks are rosy.” This is interesting because Jesus wasn’t white, he was, in the words of Jesus scholar John Dominic Cros- san, a “Mediterranean Jewish Peasant.” People from that part of the world have dark skin. And yet this Frenchman who wrote the lyrics to this hymn in the 18th century which we sing today thought Jesus was white. The hymn-writer probably imagined that he and Jesus looked the same, white and European. The choir decided to sing the hymn anyway -- it’s such a pretty tune. But it raises the issue again that I keep talking about that each of us has our own ideas of God and the Bible and Jesus. And just because we read the same Bible doesn’t mean that we understand it the same way. The Gospels don’t say that Jesus was white - - and yet, to this day, millions of Christians believe that he is definitely white. The Gospels do say that Jesus was Jewish and that he remained a good Jew, “fulfilling the law of Moses” until the day he died and that he had no plan or intention to create a new religion. But millions of Christians today say that Jesus was Christian, not Jew- ish. That’s why white supremacists, who say they believe in God and Jesus, can also say they hate Jews and peo- ple of color. But, if you argue with them and ask “How can you say you believe in Jesus who was a Jew and dark skinned -- but at the same time you hate Jews and people of color?” -- they will insist, “No, Jesus was white and Christian.” That’s not what the Bible says, but they will tell you it does. People can take the Bible and say it means whatev- er they want it to mean. The Bible was and is still used to support slavery, domestic violence against women, patri- archy, torture and murder. Many people today look at some of these violent, racist, sexist, hate-based Christian groups and say “If this is Christianity, I want no part of it!” Every one of us has a vision of Jesus, but not all vi- sions of Jesus are true. That’s why we spend so much time in our Bible Study slowly going over the verses and what God did and what Jesus said -- and what does it mean? What does it mean today? Interpretation of an ancient text is not obvi- ous and it is not easy. That’s why it took us fifteen years to study the Gospel of Luke, which any of us can sit down and read in an hour or so. And after 15 years I feel like I need to go back to the beginning and start over. And maybe after fifteen more years (I’ll be close to 80!!!) I might have an idea of what Luke is trying to say. I might have a vision of Jesus that is closer to the truth. So, whatever your vision or idea of Jesus is, realize that it is something that grows and evolves and changes, like our consciousness. But here is an important key or guideline that will show us whether or not we are moving in the right direction in understanding our faith. Fr. Thom- as Keating, a saintly man who walked with Jesus from his late teens until he died recently, in his 90’s, said this: “You cannot say too much about the love of God.” If our vision of Jesus is primarily about love for all people and animals and creation -- if our vision of God is about mercy and compassion and forgiveness for every child and woman and man on this earth -- unconditionally -- then we are moving in the right direction towards understanding the way, the truth and the life that is Jesus Christ. Yours with joy and love and gratitude that we are on this journey together, George Contact Pastor George @ Phone: (203) 287 -8106 or [email protected]

Pastor’s Report, November 2018 (From Dunbar’s Monthly Newsletter): There is something from Bible Study last night that I am still carrying with me. We are studying the first chapter of the Book of Revelation, the last book in the Christian Bible. It was written by a man named John who was exiled to the island of Patmos, a small Greek island in the Aegean Sea. The Romans banished troublemakers to Patmos. Revelation was written at the end of the first century A.D. when the emperor Domitian ordered the persecution of Christians. To avoid punishment and death, many Christians quit their faith. The message of Revelation is that God and good will defeat evil, no matter how bad things look now, so stay faithful to Jesus and his command to love all people. The danger for Christians at the end of the first century was that they would allow life to pound out of them any belief that Jesus is Lord. Last night we talked about a scene from the ABC miniseries Roots where the African slave Kunta Kinte has his name whipped out of him. The overseer of the slaves wanted Kunta to give up his African name and heritage, where he once lived as a free man. Now in America he must learn how to be a slave. To do that, Kunta must reject his African name and take the name the master gives him, which is Toby. So the overseer flogs Kunta with a whip and asks him, “What’s your name?” After every lash of the whip, the African says, “My name is Kunta.” But eventually, after his back is torn and bleeding, when the overseer asks, “What’s your name?” he says, “My name is Toby.” Through torture the overseer has succeeded in transforming Kunta the free man into Toby the slave, a piece of the master’s property. In Revelation, John of Patmos says we face the same danger of losing our freedom as children of God as we are daily whipped into submission by our culture which often appeals to our worst impulses, like fear, greed and violence. Many have rejected the primacy of God and Jesus and made America first. We are suspi- cious of people who do not look like us, or speak our language or belong to our political party. White nationalism is not fringe any more but moving out of the shadows and becoming mainstream. Dishonest politicians fill arenas promising to make us great if we will despise the media, hate our neighbors, and live in constant fear. At the same time, as the country grows more divided and paranoid, Christ’s message of love, forgiveness, and mercy is preached to shrinking congregations. Once seekers of the Truth that would make us free, we become slaves to alternative facts and the baser angels of our nature. Perhaps Revelation is the right book to be studying now because these feel like apocalyptic times, and we desperately need the assurance that God and good do defeat evil. “Faith,” said the author of He- brews, “is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” This is what we need now, faith that love is greater than hate, mercy is stronger than violence, compassion is mightier than fear. Yours in faith, hope, and love, George Contact Pastor George @ Phone: (203) 287 -8106 or [email protected] For more information about our weekly Bible Study group (all welcome!) or if you would like to receive our monthly newsletter, “The Dome”, visit www.dunbarchurch.com.

Channel 8 Live @Dunbar covering the Apple Festival. Live this am 6:30-7:30 am. Tune in.

We pile the apples high in our pies! The best in town!

Please join us! Saturday, October 20th, 9 am-3 pm, Dunbar Church’s 50th Anniversary Apple Festival-A Celebration of Community Spirit & Giving! 50 Years ~ 56,000 Apple Pies ~ $200K donated to local charities. Neighbor Helping Neighbor One Pie-At-A-Time since 1968.

11/1817 Saturday Evening Service: “Chi”

"Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen"

"Jesus, there's something about that name" by our Dunbar Church choir...

June 11, 2017. First Sunday After Pentecost

Third Sunday of Easter: Saturday Evening Service: 4/29/17: Sermon: "I Have to Say It"

April 23rd Second Sunday of Easter: "Doubting Dudymus, You Rock"

Dunbar Church, Spring Glen Church, Lutheran Church of the Good Shepard, Our Lady of the Ascension & the greater Hamden community join in celebration of Easter 2017 at our annual Hindinger Farm sunrise service.

Palm Sunday Sermon: April 9, 2017 "Dunghill Nirvana"