What If The Hokey Pokey Is What Life is About?

Do you remember how to do The Hokey Pokey? You put your left foot in and take your left foot out. You put your left hand in and take your left hand out. You put your right hand in and take your right hand out. You put your head in and take your head out. You put your backside in and take your backside out. Finally you put your whole self in, you dpi the hokey pokey and shake it all about. Many of us are so fearful of life, we dare only put our toe in to see if we want to go further, then withdraw. Some dare to risk raising their hand to ask questions. Others risk by offering their hand to shake with a stranger. Many of us, greet one another with our backsides. But to act in faith REQUIRES we put our WHOLE SELF IN! When you put your whole self in, and commit everything, you discover the Hokey Pokey is a lot of fun, life is a kind of dance. What if, The Hokey Pokey is what life is all about?

"Coming Attractions" November 17, 2013

Isaiah 65: 17-25 Luke 21 You cannot listen to the Radio or Television today without Advertisements by Billy Fucillo about buying cars, Zero Down Payment, Zero Paid Per Month, in Debt Forever, And how big is that New York? It's HUGE! Jesus was in the Temple at Jerusalem, The Temple of Solomon, destroyed by the Babylonians and rebuilt under Ezra and Nehemiah, expanded under the Greeks and Romans with exorbitant Tax Dollars. What was to have been the holiest, most sacred and most beautiful Temple in the City of God, in the Nation of God, was HUGE, but had also become a witness to the profanity of King Herod the Puppet of Rome. The Temple at Jerusalem was so HUGE, 400,000 could gather in the Courtyard. Understandably, the Disciples with Jesus said “Wow!” To which Jesus responded, “Do you think this is huge, that widow, just put into the offering Everything she had.” The disciples look at him dumbfounded, and Jesus describes “All of this, Wars and Devastation, Typhoons and Hurricanes, Economic Collapse, all of this must be, in order to prepare the world for what is to come.” It has gotten so that the best part of going to the Movies, is THE COMING ATTRACTIONS. There was a time in which “COMING SOON” was a teaser, an Appetizer intended to lift the lid and show you enough that you wanted to experience it all. Unfortunately, the Coming Attractions have come to include all the very best scenes, the best lines, the greatest special effects as if out-takes, sound bytes of what the film was about. When you sit down for a fine meal, the atmosphere and ambiance, the wine, all are to prepare your palate to savor the APPETIZER, because as the name suggests, the appetizer prepares your appetite. If the appetizer was this good, how much better will be the Main Course and the decadence of dessert? What Jesus describes, is this life, our human lives are the Appetizer, the COMING SOON of all God has to offer, the COMING ATTRACTIONS of ETERNITY. Both of our readings this morning are APOCALYPSES, which to many has come to mean the End of the World. That is not the meaning. A CALYPSE was a Lid. The Prefix APO refers to lifting, or unveiling. So an Apocalypse is “Lifting the Lid of Future” images of What is to to Come. The problem is that we have come to know and expect what FUTURISTS will predict. The field of FUTURISM is based on two things, PAST & PRESENT EXPERIENCE and the EVOLUTION OF WAR. Futurists are people like Huxley who wrote BRAVE NEW WORLD envisioning a time when Science and Technology became our Gods, became our Life Force. Huxley envisioned test-tube babies, and before The Pill a Chastity belt to allow us to conceive only when we wanted to do so. Huxley envisioned the solving of the DNA Code, the excitement over Brave New World was bigger than over anything else published. But to Huxley's dismay what he thought would take hundreds of years, was accomplished within twenty. At the unleashing of the Atomic Bomb, Albert Einstein described that “Everything in the Universe has now changed! Everything, except our way of thinking. Because the Human Mind has not changed, this earth, this life drifts toward unparalleled extinction.” Recent explorations of MARS confirmed exactly what the futurists expected, that like Earth, Mars once supported life, Mars once had water and the Building blocks of Evolution. But what ever was there exhausted the resources, destroyed the creation, all that is left, all that the future holds for humanity, is destruction. Years ago, there was a popular thriller ON THE BEACH about life after World War 3, when the only life left on earth is Australia, and a man wanting to go home, goes across the world in a submarine, arriving at San Francisco Bay. The Sub surfaces, the man gets out into a Life raft with a fishing pole, and paddles toward shore, but because of the radiation fall out he dies before ever landing on the beach. Similarly, George Lucas when at Stanford created a film about Humans living in tunnels under the earth like ants, and periodically, one wearing a helmet with a light and Gieger counter would go up a ladder to see if the world was habitable again, and die. In many ways, the new Robert Redford film is like this, One man alone on the Sea, who despite having the most expensive sailboat, and all the finest technology and resources, is sunk by a shipping container that fell off a cargo ship. One by one, everything devolves. But the point of what the Bible says, is what if our Futurists have the wrong starting point, the wrong assumptions? An Apocalypse is only an image of what is coming, and may not be the full future. What if, instead of beginning by studying the PAST & PRESENT and THE EVOLUTION OF WAR, we began with GOD. God is a GOD of Limitless CREATION, but also a God of REDEMPTION. What if instead of our the future being based on Human limitation of war, the future is based on God's Ability to Create and to Redeem? Winston Churchill was once asked: “Sir Winston, what in your education prepared you to lead Britain through her Darkest hours?” Thinking a moment, he said “The two years I spent in the same grade.” The reporter responded “So Failure?” Churchill retorted “NO, the ability to try again and again until I got it right.” Jonas Salk was the inventor of the Polio Vaccine, who was asked to compare his feelings at discovery versus the 200 failures he had getting it right. Salk dismissed this, saying my family never believed in failure. “They taught me to believe in experiences, and I had 201 experiences getting it right. The solution could not have happened without the 200 previous experiences.” Do you know the name Catherine Lawes? In 1921 her husband became Warden of SinSing Penitentiary. When he came as Warden, Sing Sing was known for having the worst Criminals, the greatest violence, most number of riots and deaths of any prison. Twenty years later when he retired, Singsing was described as one of the most humanitarian institutions. DO you imagine that over 20 years, criminals became less violent? What happened was that on his first day, Mrs. Lawes was told she should never set foot inside the prison, it was too dangerous; whereas she decided if this was where her spouse was going to work, devoting his life, she and her children would be part of it. So she brought her children to basketball games in the Prison. She began visiting the prison daily, and eating her lunch and dinner with the inmates. One day she was killed in an auto accident. The Visitation was held in the Parlor of the Family's home a mile outside the Prison gates. The inmates all gathered like caged animals at the gates, roaring and making threats, getting more and more agitated. The Acting Warden, went down into the yard and said “All right Men, you can go and pay your respects, but be back by check-in.” The gates were opened and the inmates walked with dignity the mile through town to the Warden's home, where they each came inside and said goodbye, then every one walked back to the prison. The Hebrews had a second and third and thousandth chance, Human Life is not about Limitations. Being HUGE sells Cars. Calamity, Crisis, Devastation sells the NEWS and gets Politicians elected. But Human Life, this life is the COMING ATTRACTION of REDEMPTION to live with God. What if your First Love, and the feelings on your Wedding Day, the Joy of Accomplishments, the awe and wonder of seeing our children grow up and accomplish greater things than we knew existed, if all of that were the COMING ATTRACTIONS of our life with God? In our world, there are crises every week, News of Devastation has become so disposable as to be expected. Isaiah 40 was FAR more comforting and encouraging “Comfort, Comfort My People says your God, I will make a Highway in the Desert, Every valley shall be lifted up and the Rough Places a Plain.” When the people were in bondage without hope, they needed encouragement. At Isaiah 65 the Nation have arrived back home, to witness the realities of devastation, which seem monumental. Our frustration is that we approach the future like Mountain Climbing. We look at the Peak, envisioning that if I could just scale that high, I could look out over all the world. But as soon as soon as we reach the top, we see one peak after another after another and we realize our vision was too small. This life is filled with Signs COMING SOON. But far too often we walk up to the door and PUSH and PUSH as hard as we can, ignoring the words that say PULL. This was a people who had experienced everything described, not on the news, not listening to reports from distant countries, they had lost everything. Isaiah, like an old-time Revival Preacher describes to those who have lost everything”Behold, God creates a new Heaven and new Earth, so thoroughly redeemed the sounds of weeping will be heard no more.” I remember years ago, on Maundy Thursday of Holy week, we all wrote prayers on slips of paper, that we nailed to a cross. We carried that cross from Church to Church, everyone nailing their prayers to it. This week I watched a TED Talk about an Urban Planner/ Designer / Artist who transformed a derelict house in her neighborhood, by painting all the walls with that paint that makes any surface a chalkboard. She wrote at the top of every wall “Before I die, I want to:” And one person after another, as they came passed wrote their hopes and dreams on those walls. In many and different ways, we as the Church have become a Community Center a Public Works Project, that this community owns. We were the Alternative School. We are the Music and More Infant classes. The LaLeche Mom's Support and Moms & Kids CoOp and Montessori Nursery, and SkanFest and Masterworks, and when a Husband beat his wife in our community Vera House spoke to the Community here, when 911 happened the community all gathered together. What if we put Chalk outside the Church and on the sidewalks and driveway, and brick walls, the whole world wrote down their vision of what is COMING SOON with God. We are the Chalkboards! We are the Church! As we go through life, we witness to a vision of a new Heaven and new Earth.

"God of the Living" November 10, 2013

Haggai 2: 1-9 Luke 20: 19-38 What an important Word for our time! What we read this morning names: the building of the Temple, Sex, Marriage, Life, Death and Taxes, however what underlies all of this is not about the building of the Temple, or Church, not about Sex, or Marriage, or Life or Death or Taxes, not even about Understanding the Resurrection. There is a great deal of fascination with all those topics today. Certainly about Sex, which is used to sell everything from Soup to Stocks and Bonds and electronic paraphernalia! Marriage has been an increasingly hot topic, as one Church and State after another has questioned the definition and boundaries of marriage. While the Affordable Care Act and the Debt Ceiling have been Political hot potatoes, 3rd Rails that everyone wants to be heard speaking about, and no one knows how to fix, what each of these arguments is about is Taxes. But have you noticed how much interest there is today about Life and Death and the After-Life? How many books, movies and television shows are there about Zombies who come back to life after death, about Vampires and Dracula, and Grimms Fairy Tales, and children and adults fighting over possession to be the Survivor of Never Never Land? But, while all of these provide the Context, the Set-up for the Joke if you will, what the Bible is about is that there is nothing more essential/nothing more powerful/nothing which can ever separate us from the love of God! Throughout these last several chapters of Luke, Jesus has been on the Road to Jerusalem where he will be killed. Along the road, and especially once coming to Jerusalem, Jesus challenged all the preconceptions, and power authorities, who were setting themselves up to decide between Life & Death & about Taxes, Marriage and Sex. In the process he angered and frustrated the Pharisees and Saducees and Powers that be. So here, in the 20th Chapter each set out to trap, to expose Jesus & faith as not only unworthy of believing, but as being ridiculous. Both the Pharisees and Saducees knew that by controlling the Questions, you control the Answers, you have power over what is discussed and what is acceptable and what is real. The Pharisees, who were the 1% of their time, the most highly educated, most affluent, demanded an answer to the same question posed repeatedly today about Taxes: are they lawful? As People of God, as the Religious Society of Skaneateles in this time and place, who provide food for the hungry; housing and food and safety and security for the elderly, who cannot provide for themselves; who have provided clothing to those wanting to work, and education to those who had been expelled; who have given our sons and daughters and spouses for military service; as non-profit corporations who provide free health care, and restoration of sight to the blind, and dream of a Peace Dividend where we can end Wars, Tribal Family Conflicts and Traumatic Stress and Violence, which Governments and the United Nations could not, should we also be required by Law to pay Taxes? And Jesus asks for currency from their pocketbook. Looking at it, Jesus describes this is Coin of the realm, Currency of the Government, with the image of Presidents and Caesar inscribed. Money is necessary for Taxes, for Power in this Society, for influence in this Reality. But you are created in the image of God, so give to Caesar what belongs to Caesar and give to God what belongs to God. The Saducees were different from the Pharisees, in that while the Pharisees read and quoted all the Hebrew Scriptures, the Histories, Psalms, Prophets and Proverbs, the Saducees only held the First Five Books, the Pentateuch, the Torah, the Laws of Moses, and therefore the Only Authoritative Word of God. Clinging to Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy, the faith of the Saducees had no reference to Kings Solomon, David or Saul, to Babylon and the Exile, to anything that did not specifically relate to The Promise, The Covenant, the Law. The Saducees had no Babylonian Myths about Angels or Demons, no Visions of Daniel, no reference to the Assyrians, Babylonians, Alexander the Great, the Medes, Greeks, Persians or Rome, the Greeks were the ones who developed the concept of a Hades as an underworld, and the Romans that were places of Purgatory and Limbo. Consequently, different from the Pharisees who had limited power in the Roman Empire, and who debated Philosophy with the Greeks, the Saducees could only believe in the here and now of this reality, this world. Which is why in Sunday School, we learned that because the Saducees believed in nothing other than what they knew, they were “Quite Sad You See.” What is at stake for the Saducees argument, is not only about Marriage and Resurrection, that would be loaded enough, but for the Saducees this is about Defining Reality. The Saducees believed only in this life and Moses' Law, and not in an after-life, so all that matters is the here and now, where the Pharisees could argue about Philosophy and Imagination and other Realities beyond what we have known. So Jesus' answer must be defended by the Words of Moses and Abraham challenging the rules of reality. The Book of Leviticus is a Law Code, from God written down by Moses, defining the Nation of Israel to be not just a Holy Nation, but The Chosen Holy People of God. Leviticus defines according to Law, what you must do and must prohibit on the Sabbath. How you live daily life. Why and How you make a sacrifice. Why and How you pray to Almighty God. As the Promise given to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob had been about having a Child who would have inheritance of the Promised Land; as Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy had been about being this enslaved people set free from Pharaoh who came into the land of Canaan as The People of God, laws about inheritance of the Land were vital, not simply as the avoidance of Estate Taxes, but creating reality, real property, for who inherits what from whom. In that ancient world, the Eldest brother was to inherit everything, and women and children and slaves could not inherit, as they were defined as the relationships one inherited, of value just like land and resources. (Ironically, throughout the Pentateuch, while it is the Law of Moses, the Eldest never inherits.... Isaac, Jacob, Joseph, Moses were not the First Born!) One of the Laws of Inheritance dealt with what happens, when a man is married and they have no children, and the man dies. What happens to the wife, to his property, to his lands? Is the lineage and genealogy cut off, or is there any way possible like Sarah using Hagar, like Tamar seducing her Father-in-law for the genealogy to be perpetuated? The Law of Leviticus prescribed, if a married man dies, his next closest relative will inherit his lands and property, so also his wife, in order that if he should produce a child by the wife, the child would be considered heir of the one who had died. The Saducees conjecture, that Resurrection of Life after Death is such an outlandishly silly idea, beyond reality, let us propose the most outrageous circumstance: There were Seven brothers, all of whom in turn took the wife of the eldest as his own, and none conceived by her. SO if the Resurrection is a reality, in the Resurrection whose wife is she, because they all were equally married, and presumably all had sex with her? Jesus response is “The question is not about the quantity of marriages. To grasp the resurrection, you need to believe that the Quality of life in the resurrection will be different. There is no Land in the Resurrection. There are no Children to inherit after you die, because you never die again. Belief in the Resurrection is not something we can explain, not something we can fully understand. All we can do is believe. There are hardships in life. There are Cut-offs in relationships which according to Law, and according to human nature are ENDINGS. The point of the Resurrection is that Life after Death is a different Reality. There is no marriage. There are no broken hips, no Alzheimers or dementia. Because in the Resurrection, life is not about us. There is no land, there is no power, no government, no fear, there is only a new reality and that reality is God. Everything is about God. Several weeks ago, I fell off the roof of my house. Since then, it seems everyone has at least one story about others who have had similar falls, perhaps from even less height, but who had to have surgery, and are paraplegic, or quadraplegic, or Dead. Stories about Football players who had concussions. About teens diving off a cliff. I never rode a motorcycle, because when I was five, my cousin was rear-ended on one and has served out the last 50 years unable to move below the neck. This Life, this reality we know, is very very fragile. I amazed by how many lives have been defined by a tragic accident, by a death, by a cut-off. My parents each died in the last five years. My wife's father died 15 years ago. I thank the members of this church who were here with us, to support us, through that. The day does not go by, when I do not wish for a different reality. To hear their voice. To see the twinkle in their eye. To create a new memory. To hear their reassurance, and their challenge. But I long for the hope to live in a reality where we can throw away canes and crutches, wheel chairs and slings, where we can be done with all the things that separate us and hurt and divide. Have you ever returned to the Junior High School you attended? Recall how huge those lockers were, and how intimidating just walking down the hall? When you return to walk the halls everything is different. There are the same smells, it is the same place, but can never live up to the nostalgia of what that represented. Returning from exile in Babylon, charged with rebuilding the faith community in Israel, Haggai asked the prophetic question: Are there any among you who remember what the Temple once was, and how much less this reality seems compared to that memory? The resurrection is not about walking on clouds, or wearing wings, but about a different Quality to life, Redeemed, and ReUnited, Forgiven and Whole with all Reality, especially with God.

"Commit, Conversion, Confirmation" November 3, 2013

Daniel 7:1-18 Luke 19:1-10 As Believers, we do not make decisions once and for all time. We are creatures who revisit, changing our minds and accepting at a deeper and deeper level, as we live into commitments. Our Commitments, call for a Conversion of our Identity changing who we think we are, which we then Confirm by the activities of life. We fulfill all the requirements of a degree, then are awarded a new identity as a Graduate, a Master, a Doctor, but the reality of our learning comes in the practice confirmed day in and day out. Yesterday, we celebrated a wedding. While at one time there may have been three separate celebrations, where you declared your intentions and dowry, where you committed sacred vows, and where you gave rings as gifts of commitment, today all of this is bound up together. There is a power in that redundancy, as we seek the endorsement and blessing of friends and families, then claim a new identity before God in our vows, finally confirming the relationship with a band we will never take off. That redundancy of Commitment, Conversion of Identity, Confirmation carries through all of life. 496 years ago, one of the challenges of the Reformation, was that in addition to the Apostles, the Church was identifying so many individuals of wealth and power as Saints, there were more Saints than days on the calendar. Therefore, one of Luther's Commitments was for a Priesthood of All Believers, not that some are closer to God than others, but that all Humanity should be seen as Holy and Sacred unto God. All Saints Day was never recognized by Judaism, or in the Early Church, but created as a Day to remember all those who in recent years have gone to be with God, for whom there is no suffering, no broken hips, no dementia. For hundreds of years after, very few new Saints were added to the list, but people have never been fully Converted to acceptance of one another as equal, let alone that our enemies, or those who are different and Other are precious unto God, Holy and set apart, even that their lives might serve as a priesthood bringing each of us into relationship with God. In recent years, just as there are new winners of the Nobel Peace Prize, or the Academy Award, there are more and more people being elevated to the role of Sainthood, so in yet another way we need to reconsider and Confirm the Commitments of the Reformation. Several of you have spoken to me at different times, about anxiety with whether the events of this day are morbid. I too have had my struggles with acceptance and understanding of death. While we agonize over the way people die, whether it is better to go instantly, or protracted over years, the reality is that the end of the body while a clear change, is the smallest part of death. Immediately after death, there are questions of new identities: What are we to do with the business? How do we pay off the mortgage? Can the surviving spouse live on half a pension? Are we still children once our parent dies? Are we now orphans? What is important to keep, and what can we let go? Do we date again, how soon can we marry another? All of these are caught up in the question of our Conversion to a new Identity before God. Only after we have lived into this, according to Old Testament tradition for at least two to three years of Confirmation, are we then ready to let go of who we once were and accept who and what we have become. Our passage from Daniel is Apocalyptic, the text explains this is a series of dreams and visions while in Exile. Different from the Spirit of God brooding over the Face of the Waters in Creation, here Winds from the Four Corners of the Earth stir up the waters of Chaos. This is not a vision of Creation, but a nightmare of Empires. Out of the Chaotic Waters arise four terrifying Beasts worse than Richard Scary's Where the Wild Things Are. Throughout time, Nations and Monarchies, Empires have committed to be Living Creatures: The Bald Eagle or the Serpent saying Don't Tread on Me, The Mother Bear, The Lion of Great Britain. The Nation of Israel, as Prisoners of War in Exile in Babylon, knew the rise of The Assyrians, the Babylonians, The Greeks, the Egyptians, the Persians and Medes, eventually the Empire of Rome. With each new Empire, the conquering of Nations arose the question of survival and circumstance for a marginal people? As we appropriate the text for today, the Beasts arising out of Chaos might be Airplanes flying into Cities on 911, might be Children armed with Assault Rifles in Schools, might be Syria with Nuclear Weapons, Hurricanes, Tsunamis, we have our demons today just as in the time of the Deportation to Babylon. Daniel's Dream while horrific, demonstrates that while there are all these things which terrify, and rightly they should, over everything else, there is the Throne of God, the Ancient of days, who has existed since before time, and will for all futures. In the Far Side Cartoons, God always had long robes, flowing white hair and a beard. For a time in the 1980s Movies, we envisioned God as looking and sounding like George Burns, then like Morgan Freeman. Today, some have envisioned God wearing a Three piece button down suit, occasionally swapped for Overalls, balding with with Bifocals. The point, is that throughout Human history, all these many empires, there has been a constant presence of God with us converting the will of Nations to God's Will. And long before the New Testament, there were visions confirming a human messiah, one who was sent from God as a Sacrifice and Savior to save us. So it was that according to the Gospels, after Jesus had been everywhere else, was known and had a following, he came through Jericho on his way to Jerusalem. As Jesus passed through the City of Jericho, that city which in the Old Testament had been the Gateway into the Promised Land, everyone wanted a glimpse of the Messiah. The last several years, we have seen the motorcades as one President after another have come through our town. Crowds have stood eight and twelve people deep, which was like the scene as Jesus passed through. Now we know that in Jerusalem was Pontius Pilate, Governor of this District of Rome, but in Jericho was a man even more feared and hated, for Zaccheus was not a Roman Soldier but a Jew who was The Chief Tax Collector. Where Tax Collectors served the Foreign Occupation Government, where Tax Collectors were known for Extortion and accepting Bribes, where it was commonplace for Tax Collectors not only to steal from the Taxes, but to impose their own Fee on top of what was owed, Zaccheus was the Chief tax Collector, who it was reported stole from everyone, was hated by everyone, and to make matters worse he was short. Imagine a character like Edward G. Robinson, Jimmy Cagney, or Danny DiVito. Every culture has different expected norms of behavior, in England there is a tradition of Cuing up in a line. In America, at least in years gone by there was a norm of giving up your seat to someone who was older, or a woman who was pregnant. In Israel, the last vestige authority, was that men wore long robes and were dignified. A man of authority expected people to get out of there way and make room for them. Yet, Zaccheus wanted so badly to see Jesus, he makes a Commitment to do whatever is necessary, Zaccheus The Chief tax Collector of the Roman Empire hurries ahead of the crowd and shinnies up a sycamore tree. There dangling from a branch, suspended between Heaven and earth, Zaccheus waits. But instead of passing by, Jesus calls to him: “Zaccheus, come down, for I am going to your house today.” Welcoming Jesus into his home, to his table, Zaccheus is Converted. It is a scene like the Grinch in Dr. Seuss' story, whose heart grew three sizes that day. Zaccheus not only Commits to have Jesus in his home at his table, and is Converted by the experience, he Confirms his new identity by Giving ½ of all he has to the Poor, and if he has cheated any he will repay 4 times over. The Story of Zaccheus is a story of Conversion, it is also a story of extravagance. For while Zaccheus has so much, he is offered complete acceptance and forgiveness, in response to which he donates excess. Eight weeks ago, we as a congregation made a commitment. After 50 years of consideration of alternatives, we committed to have an Associate Pastor. But over our years together, I have learned something about churches. Making a Commitment, is a Cathartic Event, many of us today recall the Meeting where we chose to have a Pipe Organ. Many remember when we chose to End the Co-Pastorate. Many recall, when we Accepted responsibility for Presbyterian Manor. Some still recall when we committed to remove a Pastor in the 1960s. That Commitment is only the first decision. Second is Converting our Checkbooks pledging to support the decision, then Confirming the estimated costs with construction and our fulfilling our pledges. In 1996, we had a total Budget of $186,000 a year, and we pledged $800,000 to repair the existing Church and you voted to Call a new Pastor. Two years later, plans were prepared for bulldozing and reconstruction of the middle of the Church, and while we continued increasing our Regular Pledges for the Budget by 10% per year, and paying on pledges for the First Campaign, we made pledges to pay on a Second building campaign larger than the first. We took out a 30 year mortgage for the debt, many of us thinking that would never be repaid. But at the end of 3 years, we had not only ended the year with a Budget in the Black, we had repaid everything on the first Mortgage and the Second Campaign's Mortgage. Paying this off in advance, we had saved over a million dollars in accrued interest! SO now the Church is debt-free, and we who are part of the Church today, can be thankful all that work was done before the Recession of recent years. The reality is that the Minimum Salary required for an Associate Pastor is less than we had paid for a Certified Educator, and less than we had paid for a Parish Associate. However, with the Recession, to balance the Budget we had to eliminate that salary from our Budget, and in recent years had had a Net Zero Increase for Inflation, and in addition to Salary there is a requirement for Pension and Major Medical coverage. However, as if meeting us halfway, this week, the Presbytery reduced our Administrative Cost of being Presbyterian by $20,000. So what is going to be required for our Commitment to have an Associate become real will be an increase in pledges of about 10%.