Sermon, Brookline Interfaith Thanksgiving Service, November 2024 -

Rev. Richard Burden of All Saints' Parish in Brookline MA delivered this beautiful message at the annual Brookline Interfaith Thanksgiving Service, November 24, 2024.

"Come with me in the WABAC Machine…back to May of 1980. That’s when the volcano in Washington State, the one the native tribes called “the Smoker” (because it was often venting steam) finally exploded sending a column of smoke and ash 80,000 feet into the air. The heat was so intense that glaciers which had been on the mountain for centuries melted in an instant and became massive mudslides that flattened everything within 230 square miles. Thousands of large mammals, millions of fish and aquatic life were wiped out. Remarkably only 57 humans died, but homes, highways, railways…everything within hundreds of miles…was gone…reduced to an absolute wasteland.. If you remember the eruption of Mount Saint Helens, or if you’ve seen pictures of the devastation, you would be sure that the area would lie in ruins and be utterly uninhabitable for decades. But that’s not what happened.

Less than three months after the explosion, freshly disturbed earth started turning up in the blast zone, and emerging from the ash were tiny northern pocket gophers. Who had been protected because they live underground. The next year, prairie lupines flowers appeared…less than four miles from the crater and these plants were not struggling…they were flourishing…

The year after that, scientists moved a group of gophers from the south side of the volcano to devastated northern zone for a single day. Six years later, in the small patch of earth the gophers worked for 24 hours, there were 40,000 new plants.

Forty-four years later, that devastated area is alive with plants…and animals abound, and trout have repopulated the lakes and streams. What happened? Well, we now know that underneath the devastation of ash and mud were all of these small pockets of life…a bed of moss…a few hearty trout…some fungus…gophers that turned over the soil and brought in nutrients from outside… these little pockets of life kept doing what they do, and as a result the whole area bloomed andreturn to life. In scientific terms, these…”little sheltered pockets that survive…that preserve life… that become seeds of restoration and growth” [Debra Rienstra] are known as refugia. (Think refuge).

This, to me…is a profound description of what Indigenous Nations, and BIPO communities… and LGBTQ+ found families…and the communities who exist on the margins of Empire have been doing for generations…in the face of centuries of devastation…through resistance and resilience… these communities endure…and in their enduring they bring life and light to others around them…and bend that long arc of the universe towards greater and greater justice.

I also believe that this is what our individual faith communities can be…and in many ways are doing…we are refugia. I would argue that being refugia…being these pockets of life and sustenance…of faith and hope…is what we, as people of faith, are called to do…and what we are actually good at.

We’re not really very good at wielding secular power…and we know what happens when the faithful (of any tradition) get too enamored with…too cozy with…too enthralled by…the secular powers of this world…and how devastating that always is for life in so many forms. We have thousands of years of tragic history that bears that out…The temptation is always there…to confuse earthly power with Divine authority…to confuse our wants with God’s will…but we’re called to resist those temptations, and to remember, in the words of poet Mark Nepo, that we are not gods who carve out rivers, but small living things that awaken in the stream of God’s grace…when we return and recommit to being about the work of reconciliation and repair…when we become refugia…that’s when things start to blossom.

We need to be refugia for our own communities to be sure: Jewish, Muslim, Baha’i, Unitarian, Christian…but more than that…as an interfaith community we are uniquely positioned to plant and nourish seeds of life and health and growth in the devastation of the multiple crises that are continually erupting these days.

I am deeply thankful, and have been profoundly blessed, to be a part of this Brookline Interfaith group for the past decade. We come together a six or seven times a year to do some of the most important refugia work any of us can do…we meet for the sole purpose of building relationships… and nurturing friendships…across differences and for common purpose.

It’s not always easy…the past year or so has been especially difficult for our Jewish and Muslim siblings. But we commit to listen…to share…and above all to show up for each other when we are needed.

We have differences…to be sure. We have to honor and respect and continue to be curious about our differences…We live by different calendars…We organize our lives around different feasts and fasts…We read different Scriptures…and even within our own traditions we have very different interpretations of those Scriptures…We have different histories…those difference are real, and profound…and sometimes painful. I know as white Christians we bear a good deal of responsibility for the anti-Jewish, and anti-Muslim thought and behavior that continues to plague us. But only together can we hear the pain, honor the lament, and continue working toward repair.

And even as we acknowledge and lament and honor our differences, I also firmly believe that as people of faith living in the midst of a secularized, disenchanted, dehumanizing, and isolating form of late-capitalism…we actually have much more in common with each other, than we do with the rest of the secular world. Because (again) we order our lives differently…We live by different calendars, where time and seasons are sanctified by feasts and fasts and daily prayer…We base our values and our behavior on our scriptures and our traditions as well as our God-given reason…We sing our songs… even in the midst of this very strange land where we find ourselves.

The gravitational center of our lives is not the mighty and powerful of this world…but the Mighty and Merciful One…the Creator of the whole the cosmos…Who establishes balance…Who blesses the poor and meek…Who empowers the peacemakers…and establishes the Most Great Peace.

So what am I most thankful for? Right here. Right now. I am most thankful for you. For your presence…your witness…for your showing up…and being refugia…For creating spaces for life… and health…and hope to flourish and thrive. May this ground we have turned over tonight with our songs, and prayers, become a rich soil for a robust life lived in harmony with one another and with all of God’s creation. Amen.

- Rev. Richard Burden, Thanksgiving, 2024

May all be blessed with a happy, peaceful and bountiful Thanksgiving.

Message from the Brookline Interfaith Clergy Association, October 26, 2023

Message from the Brookline Interfaith Clergy Association

October 26, 2023

Click here to download a PDF of this document.

We, members of the Brookline Interfaith Clergy Association, stand together in this time of sorrow and pain. We are a group of Jews, Muslims, Christians and Unitarian Universalists representing over 15 faith communities in Brookline, who have found strength in coming together for many years, building fellowship and friendship among ourselves and members of our different faiths, and providing religious leadership in Brookline, based on compassion and meaning.

We and our communities have responded to the terrible events occurring in Israel and Gaza, and to Israelis and Palestinians, in different ways, with anguish, fear, frustration and anger. There are differences in the ways we and the members of our communities see and understand what is happening in the Middle East, and still, in all this difficulty, we stand together rejecting antisemitism, anti-Muslim hate and bigotry in all of its forms. We call upon all of us, leaders in our town, educators, members of our respective communities, and each and every Brookline resident, to stand together against hatred.

It is precisely during these times that we come together to honor our shared humanity. We call upon all of us to remind ourselves that compassion, love, and respect for one another are shared virtues in all of our faith traditions. This is a moral imperative for all of us, regardless of our faith tradition.

We believe acts of hate, including hate speech and violence, have no place in our community. We firmly believe that every Brookline resident has the right to live here free from fear or threat, and we pray that in this particularly volatile time, we may listen to one another with kindness and understand one another, across all lines that might otherwise divide us. Our paths are linked as neighbors and friends, and we recognize that every life is equally valuable, as our faiths teach us. There is much common ground that unites us. We know that by drawing on our faiths, we can find a way to move together as a community. We pray for everyone affected in the region and everyone who is hurting in Brookline that we will find peace soon. Amen.

Peace/Salaam/Shalom,

Members of the Brookline Interfaith Clergy Association:

Rabbi Claudia Kreiman, TBZ (Temple Beth Zion), Co-Convener Brookline Clergy Association
Rabbi Andy Vogel, Sinai Brookline, Co-Convener Brookline Clergy Association
Rev. Candace Nicolds, Brookline Church of Christ, Co-Convener Brookline Clergy Association
Raana Mumtaz, Brookline Muslim Friends
Faiza Khan, Brookline Muslim Friends
Rev. Kent French, The United Parish in Brookline
Rev. Jonathan Gaspar, St Mary of the Assumption Roman Catholic Parish
Rev. Richard Burden, All Saints Parish (Episcopal)
Rev. Mark Caggiano, First Church in Chestnut Hill
Rev. Joe Cherry, First Parish in Brookline
Rev. Joel Ives, Episcopal Church of Our Saviour
Rabbi Talia Stein, Sinai Brookline
Rev. Elise Feyerherm, St. Paul's Episcopal Church
Rabbi Moshe Waldoks, TBZ (Temple Beth Zion)
Rabbi Jenn Queen, Temple Ohabei Shalom

Video Worship for Thanksgiving 2020 from members of the Brookline Interfaith Clergy Association

"Gratitude has to be at the center of our spiritual lives."

Standing Up for Racial Justice
June 5, 2020

As people of faith, we are outraged, horrified, and deeply saddened by the murder of George Floyd, yet another African-American man, who was the victim of brutality at the hands of those who are called to “protect and serve.” We stand with the tens of thousands of peaceful American protesters expressing pain, anguish and anger in these last days, demanding that justice be served, that police brutality against people of color be ended, and that racial discrimination in our country be no more. We say: “Enough is enough.”
For many of us, outrage and frustration is not only our response to the Minneapolis murder and other recent incidents; it is also a re-awakening of rage against the institutional racism that is the “original sin” of American society, and manifests itself in so many ways, including longstanding violence against black people; historical poverty and blight in the African-American community; a corrupt system of mass incarceration; and, most recently, dramatically higher rates of death and illness for people of color in the current COVID-19 crisis. The graphic video of George Floyd's death by a white police officer brings all of these injustices to the surface. Many of us are not black, people of color, or from indigenous communities. As we break our silence against racism, we first admit our culpability. We have benefitted from systematic injustice and acknowledge that we failed to hear and respond to the pain of these communities.
Today, as leaders of houses of worship in Brookline, we stand united in our call for justice and commit ourselves anew to the work it requires of us. Despite the stressors and pressing needs brought on by this pandemic, we cannot be silent, we cannot stand by. We are called to pray and we are also called to action; to act out of prayer in love and peace for justice. Not to simply react, but to respond; individually and as a community.
To this end, we offer resources below. and we invite you to join in this critical work.
If you want to talk further, if you need a place for your grief and anger, to listen and to be heard, please contact any one of us.

In Solidarity,
Members of the Brookline Interfaith Clergy Group
brooklineinterfaith@gmail.com

Rev. Kent French
United Parish in Brookline
Convener of Brookline Interfaith Clergy
kent@upbrookline.org

Rev. Lisa Perry-Wood
First Parish in Brookline
revlisa@firstparishinbrookline.org

Rabbi Tiferet Berenbaum
Temple Beth Zion
ravtiferet@tbzbrookline.org

Rev. Jeffrey Mello
St. Paul’s Episcopal Church
Jmello@stpaulsbrookline.org

Rabbi Claudia Kreiman
Temple Beth Zion
ravclaudia@tbzbrookline.org

Rabbi Andy Vogel
Temple Sinai
rabbivogel@sinaibrookline.org

Rev. Jonathan Gaspar
Saint Mary of the Assumption Parish
ReverendJonathan_Gaspar@rcab.org

Rev. Amy Norton
United Parish in Brookline
amy@upbrookline.org

Rabbi Marcia Plumb
Congregation Mishkan Tefila, Brookline
rabbiplumb@mishkantefila.org

The Rev. Richard Burden
All Saints Parish
Rector@allsaintsbrookline.org

Rabbi Moshe Waldoks
Temple Beth Zion
rebmoshe@tbzbrookline.org

Rev. Dr. Elise A. Feyerherm
St. Paul's Episcopal Church
efeyerherm@stpaulsbrookline.org

Rabbi Jim Morgan
Center Communities of Brookline
jimmorgan@hsl.harvard.edu

Rev. Candace Nicolds
Brookline Church of Christ
candace@brooklinechurch.org

Rabbi Audrey Marcus Berkman
Temple Ohabei Shalom
amberkman@ohabei.org

Rabbi Daniel Schaefer
Temple Ohabei Shalom
dschaefer@ohabei.org

Rev. Yumiko Nakagawa
Highrok Covenant Church of Brookline
yumiko@highrockbrookline.org

[Full list of signatories in formation]

Please take action:

Read “75 Things White People Can Do for Racial Justice”
Read the statement from the Greater Boston Interfaith Organization (GBIO)
Donate to organizations that support racial justice work.
Connect with Anguish and Action
Subscribe to Breakthrough Brookline
Learn more about racism and join in coalition with others.

A Statement from the Brookline Clergy Association on the State of Political Discourse.

The separation of church and state is an important value in American society. For this reason, religious leaders and institutions generally avoid becoming embroiled in solely political matters. When, however, the political conversation moves beyond the confines of what is civil into open hostility, then it is becomes necessary and urgent for religious leaders to respond.

There is a worrying trend this election year. Political speech has become increasingly intolerant and even in some cases marked by calls for violence. Racism, bigotry, misogyny, and religious prejudice should not become common currency in U.S. politics. Many Americans are expressing dissatisfaction with government. But a desire to see change must not become an excuse for intolerance, for blaming immigrants or religious minorities for the nation’s problems. Moving beyond political correctness should never mean leaving behind common decency.

The scriptures call to us again and again to love the foreigner, to accept the alien among us. And yet that open-armed expectation can be pushed aside when fear and anxiety arise in our hearts. The command to love can be shouted down, the fires of outrage kindled by reckless appeals to the lowest of human instincts. Understandable frustrations become justifications for inexcusable behavior, the misdirected concerns of angry voters landing on handy scapegoats.

The United States was proudly built upon fundamental freedoms of speech, religion, and assembly. Those freedoms come with responsibilities, such as a concern for the common good of the wider society and the neighbor next door. And those same inalienable rights belong to all, including those who are new to this country, those who are different from us. Anxiety and anger should not be excuses for hate to make its way into our public or private lives. We pray that reason and compassion will guide our nation in this election season and that God will guide us always.

This letter is offered on behalf of the Brookline Clergy Association and those clergy members signing. It should not be considered a statement by any other religious organization or denomination.

Rev. Mark Caggiano
Rev. Joel Ives
Rabbi Shoshana Meira Friedman
Rev. Eliza Blanchard
Rabbi Andrew Vogel
Rabbi Moshe Waldoks
Rev. Jeff Mello
Rabbi Rachel Silverman
Rabbi Sonia Saltzman
Rabbi Claudia Kreiman
Fr. Brian Clary
Cantor Randall Schloss
Rev. Joshua Throneburg
Rev. Dr. Richard Burden
Rev. Kent French
Rev. Rebecca Bryan
Rev. Maria Cristina Vlassidis Burgoa
Rev. Megan C. Holding
Rev. Alisa Joyce
Rev. MaryHelen Gunn