Rev Paige's Corner: When Faith Disrupts

 This Sunday, the Gospel reading is the story about when Jesus goes into the temple and turns over the tables. (John 2: 13-22) It is a story about disruption that we will unpack some on Sunday.

   As a pastor, I feel a tension between the desire for church in general and worship particularly to feel safe and comfortable and the reality that when we engage with scripture, we often can find it challenges us!  Annie Dillard once wrote about this with an image that suggests that we really need seatbelts and crash helmets for worship!

“On the whole, I do not find Christians, outside of the catacombs, sufficiently sensible of conditions. Does anyone have the foggiest idea what sort of power we so blithely invoke? Or, as I suspect, does no one believe a word of it? The churches are children playing on the floor with their chemistry sets, mixing up a batch of TNT to kill a Sunday morning. It is madness to wear ladies’ straw hats and velvet hats to church; we should all be wearing crash helmets. Ushers should issue life preservers and signal flares; they should lash us to our pews. For the sleeping god may wake someday and take offense, or the waking god may draw us out to where we can never return. ”

   As your new interim pastor, I also feel a bit of this tension as I serve you through these days of transition. It is partly my job to ask questions, to question assumptions, and to introduce some new ideas to help you prepare for your new pastor. But it is also my job to join you in celebrating your history and everything that is going well here! In fact, sometimes as a pastor, it is my job to disrupt grief and sadness with resurrection joy and Pentecost excitement!

   I wonder if the disruptive nature of the faith journey is part of why we shouldn’t do it alone! We need the community of faith to help us deal with the experience of when our faith turns things upside down!

Blessed Lent!

Rev Paige

Worship This Week

Please join us

in the Sanctuary

or online at 10am for the

Third Sunday of Lent

with Communion



Coffee hour will be held

after the service

in the Sanctuary.

The service will be live streamed

through Facebook Live here

or on 3CX here

Reader: David Chin

Coffee hour host: Donna Hanson & Judy Ross

One Great Hour of Sharing

Beginning on March 10th, we will be collecting monies to be given to the UCC special offering, One Great Hour of Sharing, which helps people in deep need.

When you give, you help families around the world become stronger, healthier and better equipped to address hardships and catastrophes that would otherwise leave them destitute and hopeless. 

HCC will be receiving donations for One Great Hour of Sharing through March 24th. You can put money in the special offering envelopes at worship, or make checks out to the church (designating “One Great Hour of Sharing”). Thank you, as always, for your continued support of these important mission opportunities.

To learn more about OGHS, watch the video below or visit, here.

Easter Flowers Honoring Loved Ones

New Upper Room Booklets Available

We have copies of the

March/April

Upper Room devotional

available in the foyer to Hadley Hall.

If you need a copy mailed to you, please contact the main office.

Steeple Lighting

Steeple Lit

in Loving Memory of

Bob & Lois Chase

& Son Gary Chase

From Lauren & Scott

A Word from Peace & Justice

Here in an article from NAMI, the National Alliance on Mental Illness, that was brought up in last week's Prepared to Serve conference. 

March is Criminal Justice Awareness Month. This is a time to think about our criminal justice system and the people it impacts. NAMI will use the month to lift up the stories and experiences of people with mental illness and their families. People with mental illness make up 44% of those in jails and 35% of those in state and federal prison. More shocking is that 75% of the children in the juvenile justice system have a mental health condition. All of them struggle to get the care they need and instead are often held in solitary confinement.

NAMI seeks to educate, support, advocate, listen, and lead in order to make change. Read the article for details.

Article

Link for the entire Winter 2024 newsletter from NAMI.

Thank you Marion Lake for sharing.

Music Corner by Herb Tardiff

O Sacred Head, Now Wounded

Author- Attributed to Bernard of Clairvaux, 1091-1153

Translated into German by Paul Gerhardt, 1607-1676

Translated into English by James W. Alexander, 1804-1859

Music- Hans Leo Hassler, 1564-1612

Harmonized by Johann Sebastian Bach, 1685-1750

Tune Name- “Passion Chorale”

Meter- 76.76 Doubled

The text of this deeply-moving hymn is thought to have its roots in twelfth-century monastic life. It has long been attributed to Saint Bernard, abbot of the monastery of Clairvaux, France. Recent research, however, has raised some questions as to whether this was actually the work of Saint Bernard or possibly the writings of a later medieval author, Arnulf von Loewen.

“O Sacred Head, Now Wounded” is taken form a lengthy, medieval poem Rhythmica Oratio, in seven parts, with each part addressing various members of Christ’s body as He suffered on the cross: His feet, knees, hands, side, breast, heart, and face. This hymn text is from the seventh portion of the poem and was originally titled “Salve Caput Cruentatum.” The German translation by Paul Gerharddt first appeared in 1656 in the German hymnal, Praxis Pietatis Medlica. Here it was titled “O Haup voll Blut Wunden” (“To the Suffering Face of Jesus Christ”). The hymn text first appeared in English, in 1830, in the hymnal, The Christian Lyer, after James W. Alexander, a Presbyterian minister, had translated Paul Gerhardt’s free German translation.

The tune, “Passion Chorale,” was originally a German love song (“My Heart is Distracted by a Gentle Maid”) in Hans Leo Hassler’s collection, Lustgarten Neuer Deutscher Gessang, of 1601. Hassler is generally considered to be one of the finest German composers of the late Renaissance, in both secular and sacred music. The tune first appeared with Gerhardt’s text in the Praxis Pietatis Melica, published by Johann Cruger, in 1644. It has been associated with this text both in German and in English ever since. The Praxis Pietatis Melica is recognized as the most influential and widely used German hymnal of the seventeenth century. Within one hundred years after its initial publication, nearly fifty editions of the hymnal had been printed.

The harmonization of this tune is by the German master-composer, Johann Sebastian Bach, undoubtedly the greatest church musician of history. Bach was not only a superb musician (to study traditional harmony today is still to study the writings of Bach), but also a devout Christian, who insisted that “the aim and final reason of all music should be nothing else but the glory of God and the refreshment of the spirit.” Many of Bach’s compositions began with the inscription, “Jesus, help me!” And at their close, “To God alone be the praise.” It would appear that Bach was especially fond of this melody, since he used the chorale five times throughout his well-known St. Matthew Passion, composed in 1729. 

The present musical version of this hymn is really a combination of various harmonizations of this melody employed by Bach.

New Hampshire Conference UCC Weekly News

We thought you might enjoy reading the NH Conference UCC weekly newsletter. You can read it with this link.

2/27/2024 Newsletter

Each week, we will update this section of our Weekly Word with the new link

for the current newsletter.

St. Anne's Food Pantry

The pantry is currently in need of the following:

• Coffee / K-Cups
• Quickbread / Muffin mixes
• Easter Candy
• Ritz Crackers
• Ensure
• Scalloped / Au gratin potatoes
• Cereal (no oatmeal)
• All Condiments

Please drop off any donations in the foyer of Hadley Hall

Please, no expired items.

Thank you for all your support!