 The Lord is good. Let us magnify the Lord. Let us magnify our Creator, our help in times of trouble. I am so glad to be in the house of the Lord. I made it this way. I woke up this morning in Raleigh, North Carolina. With 10 minutes I had to change planes in Charlotte, arrived at BDL at 6.30 p.m. And I am certain that it was God's care on the wings of American Airlines. And the Reverend Davida McAllister's prayers that got me here on time. Amen. Now before I get started, I just got to say something. You know I've only been in Connecticut for seven months. But my beloved, we don't call it a script. We call it an order of service. Amen. Just saying. I was asked recently, why do a revival, what is it that you're attempting to revive? Long answer short, we do a revival to enliven our relationship with God. We come to a revival to restore to our consciousness who we are called to be in this world. We come to a revival to worship an extended community. Why? Because we need to revive ourselves to combat the sense that life is useless and worthless. To combat the feeling that church moral beliefs and tradition are for chumps at worst and for the misguided innocence at best. Why come to be revived? Because too often the institutional church has failed to respond adequately to the challenges of living in this world. Too often our communal response in the face of sanctioned violence, economic exploitation, racism and sexism is, well, there we go again. So perhaps just perhaps it is time to revive our spirits. Perhaps the failure to revive our spirits has weakened our capacity to be the change agents we were called to be. And that has weakened our moral credibility and that has weakened our impact in this world. We who call ourselves Christians are living in a space where might equals right. Where the world aspires to big eyes and that trumps pun intended. The feelings of those less than. We are living in a space where having compassion takes away your killing edge and accumulating the most stuff makes you a winner in this game of life. So today we come to be reminded that we are to be in the world, not of the world. Today we come to revive our call to be agents of transformation. We come to revive our spirits. Let us pray. Lord our creator, we come with longing that we may surrender ourselves to you. We come offering open mind and hearts Lord. Please be with us in this time of restoration and celebration. We come asking you to calm our wandering minds. We come asking blessings upon this assembled body of Christ. We offer thanksgiving and blessings upon the choir, the musicians who preach to us through song. We ask your blessings upon all those who work diligently to make this worship happen. Holy Spirit come, do your will. Now let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in thy sight. Oh Lord my rock and my redeemer. In times of old and still today the world is a complex place and this world has so much darkness that so many people just languish in the shadows. To paraphrase what Dickens said in 1859 in his book A Tale of Two Cities, this is the Michelle Hughes version. He's describing the profound shadows where people reside. If you are among the one percent it is the best of times. If you are among the working poor, the disenfranchised it is the worst of times. If you have access to the internet it is the age of wisdom. If you are bombarded by social media it is the age of foolishness. With more denominations, fellowships and religions that we can name it is the age of belief. It is the time of believing in nothing yet it is the season of light. If you live with the constant threat of violence it is the season of darkness. If you are privileged and protected for you it may be the spring of hope. If you are without work or home it is the winter of despair. With technological and medical advances we have everything before us. But with more people being siloed we have nothing before us. If ever we needed a word from the Lord it is now. I know the world has always had those who need light. We have always needed light bearers. Those who bring direction and hope and grace to this world. But life's hard places can extinguish the lights of possibility. Where so many feel we have nothing before us. So how do you bring people into the light of hope and grace while they are struggling through dark times and spaces in their lives? Well here in Matthew 5 Jesus confronts this dilemma of bringing people into the light amidst the pain of living. Here he invites people to open their imaginations to see the bless in their mess. And he begins by turning upside down notions of what it means to be blessed. Reading from the message translations the crowds have followed this most unconventional rabbi. When Jesus saw his ministry drawing huge crowds he climbed a hillside. Those who were apprenticed to him the committed climb with him. Arriving at a quiet place he sat down and taught his climbing companions this is what he said. You are blessed when you're at the end of your rope. With less there is more of God and his rule. You're blessed when you feel you've lost what is most dear to you. Only then can you be embraced by the one most dear to you. You're blessed when you're content with just who you are no more no less. That's the moment you find yourselves proud owners of everything that can't be bought. You're blessed when you've worked up a good appetite for God. He's food and drink and the best meal you'll ever eat. You're blessed when you get your inside world your mind and your heart put right. Then you can see God in the outside world. You're blessed when you can show people how to cooperate instead of compete or fight. That's when you discover who you really are and your place in God's family. You're blessed when your commitment to God provokes persecution. The persecution drives you even deeper into God's kingdom. And not only that, count yourselves blessed every time people put you down or throw you out or speak lies about you to discredit me. What it means is that the truth is too close for comfort and they are uncomfortable. And you can be glad when that happens. Give a cheer even. For they don't like it, but God does. And all of heaven applauds. And you know that you are in good company. My prophets and witnesses have always gotten to this kind of trouble. The Word of God. So I assert here with this scripture that the Beatitudes are a paradigm shift, if you will. For those who may think their light has been extinguished by adversity, grief, or even systemic injustice. Jesus' teaching is for them to know the light of God is shining on them. The light of God has not been removed from them. And I want to remind us that contrary to popular name it and claim it golden calf theology, that the Beatitudes are not be happy attitudes. In fact this teaching implies that your stress lines can be where your blessing lies. It's a strange teaching that says with God in your darkest times you are not forgotten or forsaken. That with God your trials have meaning and you are on the road to becoming all that you can be. A strange teaching that says going against the status quo is holy work. Doing the will of God, seeking the will of God does make a difference. So much so that the tiny granules of your ups and downs, the particles of your tears, even the fragments of your frustration blended with a yearning for God is what makes you savory, tasty. How do I know that? Because the scripture goes on to say, let me tell you why you're here. You're here to be the salt seasoning that brings out the God flavors in this earth. You are salt. And not only that, but just as in ancient times salt was used as an antiseptic in wounds, your faithful journey even with its pain can soothe and heal the places where the world is broken. Not only that, you're being coupled with the blessings of your struggle. You're being anointed by the blessing of your service. You're being sanctified by the blessing of your worship. That same struggling, tired, faithful living is what lights this world up. What? That's some good news. That yes, with God's help, your struggle has equipped you. Your hard times have equipped you for so often in those moments when in exasperation, empty and broken, we cry out to God, that's the only time God could get in and fill us with something that the world couldn't give you and the world can't take away. A light that shines from the inside out, you are the light of the world. Yeah, you. You, not the wealthiest, not the most powerful, not the most celebrated, you. Not the largest congregation. Not the most educated, not even the most popular, just you. You are the light, warm, life giving, right, and even a little dangerous, but there's another layer to this text. Jesus listeners living in the context of Roman domination would have probably known that Rome was the superpower of the day and they saw themselves as the light of the world. Just as American culture, its European aesthetic and American political system sees itself as the light of the world. You got quiet on me now, all right. But like Rome, too many times the harsh light of doing it our way has cast darkness. Like Rome, our light has been power, force, and excess, where if you can pay, you can always have it your way. A system where might equals right, where hedonism rules, pleasure for pleasure's sake. A system where the earth is not sacred. A system where the vulnerable are to be exploited. A system where only certain gifts are valued and only certain people are believed to have any real worth. But here Jesus teaches us that the way to healing, the way to transformation is not shining victory over others. And it's not even the light of Martin Luther King would say prolonged analysis that can so often lead us to paralysis. Here Jesus teaches us that the way to healing, the way to transformation, the way is to bring in light that shines from a heart broken open. A light that is ours to claim if we identify with both the sin against and the sinner. A light that is ours to claim if we can love and expect nothing in return. If we can realize we can do nothing without God's help. A light that is ours if we hunger and thirst for righteousness. A light that is ours if we seek not to do to others as they do to us. We will be blessed. We will season the earth. We, all of us will be light bearers. So here we are in 2015 followers of the way standing in the denominational legacy of the United Church of Christ. Standing on the side of the oppressed, united and united in the name of God, speaking truth to power and the darkness seems to be ever present. Violence daily, war raging, education as unequal as it was in 1954. The income gap widening. More and more people struggling just to survive and the church is seen as being irrelevant. People of God, I assert that we are in this time, in this hour, in this cultural context. We are called to dismantle the darkness. Martin Luther King asked the question and I put it to you today. If not now, when? If not us, who? We have the knowledge. We have a holy mandate. We have the tools. We have the resources. So the question is, why don't we? I mean, if we are the light of the world, why haven't we learned the lessons of our past? Why haven't we learned the lessons from the saints? Why haven't we learned the lessons and the yearnings of our grandmother's prayers? Why haven't we kept the path of our grandfather's visions? Why haven't we made more of an impact? Aren't we empowered enough to believe that we, made in the image and likeness of God, have the power to make the wind change its course? Perhaps we don't move to dismantle the darkness because we don't believe it matters. Or maybe we just believe we're inadequate. Or, that's just not my job. Let somebody else do it. But scripture informs us it does matter. For the world is waiting on our gifts, our voice, our prayers and our work. I think so many of us think that the problems are so large and the dysfunction is so great. The systems are so complex and have such strongholds that we are inadequate to make a difference. But scripture informs us that as the body with all our gifts together, working toward bringing in the kingdom of God, we have all we need to bring light to dark places. We have all we need to bring light to issues, to bring light to the voiceless. We do have all we need because God has already gifted each one of us. God has already gifted each one of our churches. For each church has different ways to gift the communities in which they stand. And you know what, God is waiting on us. Our community is waiting on us. Our family is waiting on us, the believers. Our church is waiting on us. Yeah, us, you and I, young and old, PhDs and GEDs, us. Urban and rural churches, tall, steeple, and those with ten people, us. God is waiting on us, on you to shine your light, to tell your story, to be an advocate, to walk humbly, to love mercy. So on this first night of revival, I D-double dare you. I dare you to believe that we can light the way to Christ for others. I dare you to believe that we can bear the light of understanding if we seek to understand ourselves. I dare you, D-double dare you to believe that we can bring light to the legacy of racism through the training that our conference offers. I dare you to believe that we can bring light to places in need of compassion and justice through advocacy. We do this work. We need all of our lights. We have the power to dismantle the darkness, to stand as co-creators with God, to say to the darkness of the world, let there be light. The message translation reads, here's another way to put it. You are here to be light, bringing out the God colors in the world. God is not a secret to be kept. And we're going public with this, as public as a city on a hill. If I make you light bearers, you don't think I'm going to hide you under a bucket, do you? I'm putting you on a light stand. Now that I've put you there on a hilltop, on a light stand, shine. Keep open house. Be generous with your lives. By opening up to others, you'll prompt other people to open up with God. This generous Father in Heaven, a strange teaching indeed. And with that light, we hear. Jesus only had 12. We here will make the world brighter in the way we meet and greet and respect the rights of each other. We will make the world brighter because we will be able to see what is possible through reconciliation across this state. We can light the way by holding up the vision of how government, business, and labor can work together for the common good. If we shine our light, and with that light, we will cause folks to ask, hey, what must I do to be saved? Amen. So at this time, in the tradition of revival, I'm going to ask those who feel so moved to come forward to the altar and, if not, stand where you are for prayer. Do I have to say it again? Some of y'all know. All right. Show the light to us. I would ask you to take a moment, and if you don't know the person's name standing next to you, ask them their name. Let us pray. Lord of yesterday, today and tomorrow, we come asking for the holy privilege of your presence in our lives. We know we can do nothing without your aid or assistance, so we come surrendering ourselves to you. Lord, help us to cultivate our light. We come asking that peace and justice reign on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day companionship, shelter, and provision, our daily bread. Make us conscious that we are all your children in your world striving to work out our soul salvation. And Lord, we ask you to forgive us when we have lied, when we have been intolerant and unconcerned and have hidden our light. As we forgive those who have lied on us, been awful to us, been unconcerned about us, and been complicit in sustaining darkness. Lead us away from the temptation not to get involved. Deliver us from the evil of profiting from others' darkness. Deliver us from the evil of casting those we deem the other into dark places. But give us grace and hope and patience, and keep our feet on the right path. In the complexity of living, grant us the spirit to love those who are our enemies. Lord, give us the courage to speak truth to power. Give us the courage to be those who carry the light. Let us do good expecting nothing in return. Lord, let our light shine. Let our light shine in all the power struggleers, family member to family member, city to city, nation to nation. Help us to realize our greatest power is to show not force, but love. And Lord, we ask that you energize our churches to show those around them who are in need, love, and attention. And the kind of faith that heals, redeems, and transforms lives. Illuminate us, Lord, with the discovery of how much power we have to impact this world. This we pray in the name of Jesus, who sits at the right hand of the Creator, who was, and is, and always will be a light to the world. Let the people of God say, Amen!