Watch this video on YouTube.

Hancock Church Sermon – Rev. Paul Shupe – June 16, 2013 – Psalm 71:14-23

http://youtu.be/SL1KjpY_AOA

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Watch this video on YouTube.

Hancock Church Sermon – Rev. Dana Allen Walsh – June 9, 2013 – Psalm 139:1-14 – Mark 10:13-16

http://youtu.be/mE1USzzEyYM

“Son of a Preacher Mom”

Before Leighton was born, we received LOTS of advice.  Most of it was well- intentioned.

1) Set an alarm clock to ring every hour all night long

2) Get a dog, it teaches you to deal with responsibility and gets you experience with poop.

3) Ready yourself for childcare, every time you go out to eat, tip the server $100 because that’s what you’ll be paying the babysitter.

Better yet would be a test run with a baby, and in April, when we were visiting family in Philadelphia, we heard a real life story of what happens on a test run when you aren’t ready to be a parent.

Sean’s cousin is in high school and has been taking a child development class.  After studying pregnancy and labor and delivery, the class discussed the practicalities of child-rearing.  And one of the assignments was to care for an electronic baby for a whole weekend.  When I was in high school, I remember girls carrying around a sack of flour, now they have electronic babies that cry every hour and need to be soothed, fed, or played with.  And just like real life, sometimes they cry and there is nothing you can do. The real kicker is that there is no “on/off” switch.

Well, this assignment proved to be difficult for Sean’s cousin.  She hated hearing the baby cry and often didn’t know what to do to get it to stop.  There are rumors that the electronic baby was found in the closet under a stack of blankets.  And by Saturday afternoon, when the Sean’s cousin kept complaining and couldn’t deal with robo-baby anymore, her family suggested that she call her teacher. I have to say, this teacher is saint, because she agreed to meet Sean’s cousin that Saturday to reclaim the screaming electronic baby in a 7-11 parking lot.

I don’t know if you can ever be ready to be a parent.  It’s baptism by fire.  It’s a burning away of an old way of being, so that a new way can emerge.  Like we hear in Paul’s letter to the Corinthians, “everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new!”

The “old” that I’ve watched pass away is any illusion of control. Leighton is his own being.  And that means that at any moment, he might cry, smile, or poop.  It means that he has his own wants and desires, which are not always the same as mine.

I don’t think this is much different from our relationship with God.  We know God is always present in our lives but we’re never quite sure how God will show up.  God is a force beyond our control. God is knowable, yet mysterious.  God is powerful yet loving.

So everything has become new.  And even with all the advice in the world or a practice run, you can never be prepared for the absolute, all-encompassing joy.

It’s indescribable.  I love seeing how other people oohh and ahh him too.  At 3 ½ months old, he doesn’t do much, he usually just sits there, sometimes he smiles, sometimes he cries, sometimes he farts – just like his father, and we love him all the same.  We don’t know what his personality will be like yet, he doesn’t have much that would fill out a resume, but none of that matters.

We love him with a new love – an unfathomable, indestructible love. But as you’re aware, love does have its gradations. The Greeks had many words for love – we have the one, but we certainly have different types of love. Material love – “I love a good muffin or I loved Argo – Ben Affleck is so talented” – there’s romantic love, familial love, love of a pet or time of day – “I love Saturday mornings”, love that comes from experience and study, love that is desire or want – “I’d love to do that” – but this is not the love a parent feels, a child feels, a friend feels, or a spouse feels.

As a mother, I love Leighton because he is.  Because he is a beautiful new creation.  He is not loved for what he does or does not do.  He is not loved more when he sleeps for a five-hour stretch than when he wakes up every hour all night long.  He is not loved out of preference or want.  He is not loved any less – even after arriving ten days late, after causing 40 hours of labor, after weighing 11 lbs. I love my little watermelon.

This is not just about Leighton.  Or about babies.  It’s what we affirm here today in baptism.  We are all God’s beloved.  God loves us in this way – unconditional and wholly. God loves us for who we are, not for what we do or don’t do. Before Jesus’ ministry even began, he was baptized in the Jordan River. Before any miracles, healings, or teachings, a dove descended from heaven and declared him as God’s beloved.

In our Psalm, we hear the depth of God’s love and care, before we’ve even taken our first breath – “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.  I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.”

For me, becoming a parent has provided some unique insight into the whole creation business. As someone with perfectionist tendencies, I tend to be hard on myself.  I can quickly point out my own flaws and faults.  But then this little baby comes along and you swear that you’ve never seen anything so perfect.  And people say, “look he’s got his mother’s eyes” or his father’s long eyelashes and you’re able to see your own beauty and goodness in a new way, reflected back through a tiny child.

Yet, here’s the thing, even though Leighton might have Sean’s big feet and my dimple chin, he isn’t here for his parents. He isn’t here to right our wrongs, to get the grades we didn’t get, to go to the school we wish we went to. Yet, this is the miracle, he makes us more complete. Leighton has been fearfully and wonderfully made –  as we all have – to experience this life and to live his unique call from God.  And yet, the amazing thing is that when we gather around and choose to love someone whether it is our own child, a friend, a family member, a neighbor, when we love not for ourselves, but for another, we make ourselves more complete. When we love and relish God’s creation, we experience God in new ways and better the world.

So finally, to Leighton, I love you. Your father and I love you. And the mystery of God is that the more you love and give, the greater you become. This is the mystery that Jesus taught – the more you give of yourself for the sake of others, the more you will be filled with joy.

Leighton, yes, you are a son of a preacher mom and a drama dad and there are support groups for this, I’m sure.  You have our best qualities, but you have our faults, too. We know they will appear some time – probably around the age of two when you are stubborn and headstrong and want to only eat dessert.  We know those days and those struggles will come, and we’ll love you all the same. But, above all, you are your own person – you are You – precious, joyful, beautiful You – fearfully and wonderfully made and graciously enveloped in the love of family and friends and this whole church body. You are loved, little guy, you are loved. Amen.

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Watch this video on YouTube.

Hancock Church Sermon – Rev. Dana Allen Walsh – June 2, 2013 – 2 Corinthians 4:5-12

http://youtu.be/80tHt8Ey06k

Power In Brokeness

One of the major life experiences that often happens in early adulthood that Sean and I have fortunately avoided is – the constant moving. We moved only once from Princeton to Somerville. But we are an exception. Boston and its surrounding neighborhoods are filled with people on the go.  Yesterday, June 1^st is the second most popular moving day, after Sept 1^st. In over 90 degree heat, Somerville was crowded with Uhauls, littered with moving boxes, and swarming with sweaty stressed 20 somethings.

Though, we have avoided the constant moves ourselves – we are always called upon to help out. Now, some friends are great at moving – prepped and ready, some are not. But I’m not here to talk about the cardinal sins of disorganized moving, I’d rather enlighten you on the real intense movers. We have discovered over our ten years of helping friends and family move – the increase in the sophistication of moving supplies and accoutrements. Instead of liquor store boxes and well-labeled hefty bags, our friends now purchase boxes with slots for individual dishes, eco-friendly plastic wrap, huge wardrobe boxes for clothing, and inflatable sleeves for glasses, electronics, stemware.  Nothing can be lost, and more importantly, nothing can be broken.

Our Scripture text, on the other hand, does not offer such intense, indestructible packaging.  Instead, it’s just the opposite.

In Paul’s letter he says that we humans are analogous to a piece of pottery.  We are clay jars – useful and important but also prone to chipping and cracking.  We contain a priceless treasure but we are not unbreakable.  In fact, we are quite fragile and vulnerable.

Paul uses the metaphor to make clear to his followers in Corinth that his ability to speak and articulate his faith is not found in himself.  The credit belongs to God and God alone.  “We have this treasure,” he says, “in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us.”

So, Paul cautions the people that even though religious leaders speak about God, they are not God.

But this passage is not just about the limitations of clergy (of which I’m all too aware) it’s message for everyone.

We as clay jars have very little reason to take as much credit as we do. It’s less about us and more about what God does through us. We’re prone to mistake God’s miracles for good luck and God’s grace for hard work.

We need to trust that God’s light shines through us on our best days and on our worst days.  I think most of us would prefer a God who offers us a contract against any loss or breakage.  A God who wraps us and our loved ones in bubble wrap so that nothing can happen.

As a new parent, I’ve been exposed to an array of anxieties and fears that I’ve never had to deal with before. How can I tell if my baby is still breathing in the middle of the night?  Is he getting enough food or too much food?  Is there an issue that he is growing like a weed?

Amongst the anxieties about a newborn baby, I spent some of maternity leave struggling with my own physical limitations.  It took a few weeks for me to recover some of my strength and stamina after a long and difficult labor.  I had just begun to leave the house and take stroller walks and meet other new moms when out of nowhere, one evening I found myself doubled over with severe stomach pain.  After a few hours, I realized the pain wasn’t going away.  I went to the ER and was diagnosed with acute appendicitis and then had my appendix removed a few hours later.  So, there I was back at Mt Auburn, with another recovery time and a newborn to take care of.  And just as I was recuperating from the appendix surgery, I was struck down again with a high fever and flu-like symptoms that lasted for more than a week.

The good news is that none of this was anything to be worried about and now I’m feeling strong and like myself again.  But it was first time in my life that I’ve been unable to trust my body.  Day to day, I didn’t know how I would feel or if I would be well enough be well enough to get out of bed.  I felt like a clay jar that had been placed in a box with heavy books for cross country move.   It was scary and frustrating.

I would dare to say, all of us have had clay jar moments, moments of deep uncertainty and fragility – whether it’s a diagnosis, a job loss, unexpected news or a sudden accident.

But as Paul teaches us, the life of faith is not a guarantee against pain and suffering. Paul himself experienced hardship, rejection, and struggle.  He was often physically in pain.  His best laid plans failed him.  His friends abandoned him. The church denied him. Yet, he proclaimed, “we are afflicted in every way, but not crushed, perplexed but not driven to despair, persecuted but not forsaken; struck down but not destroyed.”

There’s a big difference between being knocked down and being knocked out.  There is a difference between being beleaguered, which we will be, and being done in, which we will not be. Our lives will have its share of trouble, but our trouble will not get the best of us.  According to the apostle Paul, God’s extraordinary power will be revealed through our brokenness and weakness.

In the Psalms, David wrote, “Surely the darkness shall cover me and the light around me become night” But even in his terror, David knew that darkness is not dark to God and the night is as bright as the day.

In my lesser moments, I want to believe in a God who acts like a lucky rabbit’s foot.  Something we tote around with us offering exactly what we want in each moment.  Guarding us from anything negative or hurtful.  Preventing any chips or breakage.

The God our Scripture reveals promises to hem us in and hold us with holy hands.  This God will not intervene every time we stub a toe, but instead promises that there is no where we can escape being loved and nothing we can do to scare God away.

Our faith in God does not mean we will never experience adversity, but rather that such adversity will grant us the opportunity to discover and come to trust that by God’s grace light is always brighter than darkness, life stronger than death and what resides inside our broken bodies is the glory of God’s power waiting to be revealed.

This is good news, especially after a year of Sandy, Aurora, Newtown, Boston, and Oklahoma.  For our nation, it’s been a year of one horrifically unexpected tragedy after another.

To our communion table, we bring our fragile and vulnerable selves, we bring our chips and our nicks, and together we partake of a meal that celebrates the power found in brokenness. And this power is all from God, who makes light to shine in the dark places and dares to place treasure in clay jars.

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36th Annual Pride Interfaith Service

Saturday June 8th, 2013, 10am

Old South Church

Copley Square, 645 Boylston Street, Boston

ALL ARE WELCOME!  Help us share the message that churches still care about the disenfranchised–that Jesus’ vision for our world is one that is open and affirming of all people.  Hancock will be demonstrating our commitment as an Open and Affirming congregation.  This is who we say we are:

Here at Hancock, we figure that if Jesus welcomed everyone, who are we to exclude?  So in 1998, we adopted our Covenant of Welcome, which declares our intent to welcome everyone, regardless of age, race, gender, economic status, sexual orientation or expression, or any handicapping condition.  It does not matter to us who you are, or what you look like, or who you love, or where you’re going.

You can help us create a city, a state, and a country where all are treated equally in our churches, communities, schools and workplaces.  Join us for Boston Pride!  We will be meeting our Hancock Parade Marshals at the Interfaith Service at Old South Church- 10am, handing out Hancock Skittles, and showing our Hancock PRIDE.

Following the Interfaith Service at Old South, Hancock will carry a banner in the Pride Parade led by our fearless leader Paul Shupe!  Read more about parade details on the Boston Pride website here: http://www.bostonpride.org/parade/

Contact Sarah Keeping–Sarah.Keeping[at]gmail.com for more information about participating this year with Hancock

Take the Believe Out Loud pledge HERE!

The post Hancock PRIDE! Make sure you join the march on Saturday June 8th! appeared first on Hancock United Church of Christ, Congregational.

Our Scripture passage last Sunday focused on Moses, who finally sets his eyes on the Promised Land after leading the Israelites through a long wilderness journey.  During their wilderness wanderings, there was grumbling for food and doubts about their safety, and battles to be fought and conquered.  During one of the battles that the Israelites endured, Moses went high on a hill, and as long as his arms were stretched up in the air, the people were reminded of God’s presence and power.  And the army prevailed.  After a full day of battle, Moses grew weary and his arms grew tired.  When he could barely hold his arms up any longer, two friends came and stood on either side of him and held his arms for him, leading the Israelites to victory.

You, the people of Hancock, have stood on either side of me through these three months and held my arms as I’ve entered into this new realm of parenthood. You cooked meals for our family, you sent hundreds of cards, you spoke prayers on our behalf, you pitched in extra time and energy to cover my ministry duties (especially Paul Shupe!), and you gave me the gift of time at home with my newborn son.

Being a new parent can be exhausting and my arms do get tired from holding my 15 lb baby but with the support of friends like you, I have found joy in each day.

You have reminded me once again – this is what we do for each other as Christians, we hold one another up and we lend our support and strength when needed.  Thank you for this precious and sacred time away from Hancock to be with my family.

–Dana

The post A Letter from Rev. Dana Allen Walsh appeared first on Hancock United Church of Christ, Congregational.

 

I assume that most of you have heard of Temple Isaiah, many of you have probably heard of Temple Emunah, maybe even the Chabad Center.  But have you heard of Temple Hancock?

Those of you who have been around the church for a while and are over 60 may remember that from 1959 until 1963 the Temple Isaiah Congregation had nowhere to meet, so they used various facilities around town, including in a major way, Hancock Church.  When the folks left for their new building, a scrapbook was presented by the children of the Temple to Hancock Church.  This is what I would like to share with you today.

The opening page has this introduction.

 

“THANKS TO HANCOCK CHURCH”

This phrase has rung out many times during the congregational life of Temple Isaiah.  We have all said it, meant it, and felt it deeply.  Hancock Congregational Church has shown us what brotherhood is – every day of the year.

Our children have been nourished by the generosity and warmth of your church  you have built for us a bulwark against bigotry and prejudice.

In years ahead, our children, as they grow, will  remember our early years as a congregation and will continue to give “thanks” to Hancock Church.

The rest of the scrapbook consists of various thank you items from the children.  The kindergarten and first graders stuck mostly to drawings of the church, many featuring both a cross and a menorah.  The second graders wrote basic thank you notes, such as

“Dear Hancock Church, thank you for letting us use your church.  Love, Pam Lucas.”

“I think it was very nice of you to let us use the church   Marcia Black.”

By the time we get to the third grade, we have some wonderful, thoughtful notes, such as:

Dear church, thank you for sharing your happiness with us.  You gave us a place to pray and a place to learn.  Soon we will have our own place to pray and learn. You set an example to us that we will teach to others.  Jane Goldman

 

We also have a student who may have had just a little bit of help from her parents, one of whom is probably a lawyer:

 

To the Congregation of Hancock Church, its minister and board of officers.  We the third grade Sabbath school class of Temple Isaiah wish to thank you and let you know how  much we appreciate being able to hold our classes in your building.  Next fall, we invite you to visit us in our new temple on Lincoln Street.  Gratefully yours, Charlotte Kritsick.

 

The third grade students also seem to feel authorized to offer their new building to us.  We have Jody Pollins who says:

Thank you for letting us use your church while we were building our temple. If anything happens to your church you can use our temple.

 

And then we have Gary Wethein who is obviously a no-nonsense young man who says:

If your church gets wrecked we will let you borrow our temple.

 

By grade five we are seeing some poetry such as the following:

Help from Hancock Church

When we came here,

No house of worship for us was near.

We looked around

Your help we found

 

The days we spent

Were happy ones.

And now that we have our new temple,

The time to leave has come.

 

Now that we’re going to leave,

Our sincere thanks you’ll receive.

When you’re in need

Our temple will do the deed!

 

Shalom

 

It’s four long years,

Since we’ve been here.

It’s hard to say without a tear,

That the time to go is coming near.

Our thanks will show warmth and cheer.

 

We hate to say good-bye to you,

We’d like to share our building too.

If you’re ever in need,

We’ll come through.

Hancock Church, shalom to you

 

And from grade six

Four years and many religious school days ago

Our fathers brought forth upon this community a new congregation

We came upon the hancock congregational church

Hoping we could have a place for services and school

We will be leaving you since we have a new temple

We have all learned something about the lesson of brotherhood

 

Learn more about Temple Isaiah, a vibrant community of faith here in Lexington, HERE.

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Hancock Church Sermon – Rev. Paul Shupe – May 26, 2013 – Deuteronomy 34:1-12

http://youtu.be/AeVRxAs4sC8

          Listen, as we learn of the death of Moses, the great prophet through whom God brought forth the liberation of the Hebrews from slavery in Egypt, but who died just before the moment of final vindication, in sight of the Promised Land.

Then Moses went up from the plains of Moab to Mount Nebo, to the top of Pisgah, which is opposite Jericho, and the Lord showed him the whole land: Gilead as far as Dan, all Naphtali, the land of Ephraim and Manasseh, all the land of Judah as far as the Western Sea, the Negeb, and the Plain—that is, the valley of Jericho, the city of palm trees—as far as Zoar. The Lord said to him, ‘This is the land of which I swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, saying, “I will give it to your descendants”; I have let you see it with your eyes, but you shall not cross over there.’ Then Moses, the servant of the Lord, died there in the land of Moab, at the Lord’s command. He was buried in a valley in the land of Moab, opposite Beth-peor, but no one knows his burial place to this day. Moses was one hundred and twenty years old when he died; his sight was unimpaired and his vigour had not abated. The Israelites wept for Moses in the plains of Moab for thirty days; then the period of mourning for Moses was ended.

Joshua son of Nun was full of the spirit of wisdom, because Moses had laid his hands on him; and the Israelites obeyed him, doing as the Lord had commanded Moses.

          Never since has there arisen a prophet in Israel like Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face. He was unequalled for all the signs and wonders that the Lord sent him to perform in the land of Egypt, against Pharaoh and all his servants and his entire land, and for all the mighty deeds and all the terrifying displays of power that Moses performed in the sight of all Israel.

“Leaving in the Middle”

        It is possible to see them at the end as an old married couple, God and Moses.  Together, they had done much and seen even more.  Before Moses even knew it, the hand of God was already on him: miraculously rescuing him from the rage of Pharaoh by hiding him in plain sight, in the arms of Pharaoh’s own daughter, and protecting Moses again when in his anger at injustice, he had killed an Egyptian slave master.  When at last God revealed Godself to Moses, it wasn’t love at first sight, more like simple curiosity, the sight of the bush burning in the wilderness without being consumed by the flames.  But from that moment on, God and Moses had walked and talked together.

Together they brought the Hebrews out of slavery in Egypt, and enjoyed the vindication of the armies of Pharaoh drowning in their pursuit.  Together they steered the people through the wilderness; forty years it took, a full generation, until at last they were standing on the edge of their success, looking over the Promised Land from the heights of Mt. Pisgah together.  It hadn’t been easy; they’d both been tempted at multiple points to throw in the towel, to walk away entirely.  Moses had threatened to quit many times, only to have God pull him back in, reassuring him that the job could not be done without him.  And once even God had been at the breaking point, threatening to abandon his feckless and occasionally bone-headed people, only to have Moses bring him back to reality by raising the specter of his public image: “The world will say that you chose your people only abandon them in the desert,” Moses said to God.  “Is that how you want to be known in this world?”  And God’s anger cooled, and once more they were the team: the team that the people were learning to trust and to love; the team that caused Moses’ face to glow from the inside out, and that prompted God to renew and to strengthen God’s affection for the people.

So when we see them now, this morning, atop Mt. Pisgah, with the great fertile valley spread out before them, the great Jordan River, and the life-sustaining Sea of Galilee, the orchards of olives and the fields of waving grain, we see them old, wizened, side by side in Adirondack rockers, enjoying the cool evening breeze, hand in hand, eyes sparkling at the bright future of their common work, their souls filled to the brim with satisfaction of a long life well lived, faithful together, God and God’s prophet.

Until, at last, God turned to Moses and told him what I believe Moses had already understood: Moses would not be going on.  Though neither of them could really understand it, they would be a team no longer.  Together they had done all that they could do, perhaps even more than they had expected, but one of them was mortal, and all mortals die.  All mortals know this: the evidence of the universality of death is overwhelming, but until the very moment that it happens to each one of us, death is always something that happens to someone else.  Those who live on wonder how it will be possible, how can we bear this?  How can we live in the shadow of death?  How will we find joy when our hearts are torn open by the loss of the one who has been good and true and with us?

And all those who die must come, I think, to that moment of stunning wonder: I’ll be gone, but life will go on.  Somehow the world will turn without me.  We have no memory of life before us, but we have seen enough death to know that life will go on after us, even as we cannot fathom the possibility.  How will our partners in life, our loved ones, how will they endure, and how will they do so without us to help them?

As the story is told, it was God alone who buried Moses.  And some say that this was done to prevent any notion of building a shrine to him, a shrine that might confuse the issue and tempt the people to think that it was Moses, and not God, who had been their liberator.  But as I grow older, as I have helped many to tenderly let go of the ones they loved, as death has carried away from me dear friends and my own loving father, I have come to understand this moment of God burying Moses is something more than avoiding a shrine.  God’s burial of Moses I understand now as something tender, something deeply intimate, a moment to teach us about dying.

For Moses, death meant leaving life in the middle of the grand adventure of the Exodus; but in truth, all mortals leave life in the middle of something.  Birth brings us into a world already in motion, and life carries us along in a mighty stream and tempts us to think that we are perhaps more important than we are, and death takes us back out of the stream, the world still in motion, but no longer with us in it.  Now, our scriptures and our tradition bear witness that this moment of death, our leaving in the middle, is not the end of us; that somehow, someway God’s love is outside of the stream too, and that we fall into God’s loving arms, as in fact, Moses did, on the heights of Pisgah, overlooking the Promised Land.  And I take this witness seriously, and live always in the hope and the promise of resurrection, that death is not the last word to be spoken about our lives.  Like that of Moses, our lives are not God’s only project: the stream of life flows on.  But we are each one unmistakably God’s project: mortal as we are, we are essential, each one, to the heart of the Immortal One.  The story is that God buried Moses; our faith is that God does not bury only Moses, but each of us as well.  In the most tender, most intimate moment of life, the hour of our death, God is near, and God’s care continues for us.  This is what God’s burying Moses teaches us about our own death.

But what of God?  What might we suppose was in the mind and heart of God at the death of his servant, his partner, his friend, Moses?  No one can know; even to use words like “mind” and “heart” for God already carries us out of literal speech, and into the land of metaphor.  But perhaps, just perhaps, as God tenderly hides in the earth the body of Moses, we can imagine that in God’s eye a tear forms, the visible sign of a broken heart even within God, a new bruise to remind the Creator that she has made a world of finite creatures who must die, perhaps not fully understanding that they will be joining God in the infinite and unending reality of love.  Moses leaves in the middle; Moses is mortal, and so he must.  But immortal God catches him, and weeps for him, and is himself moved again by the wonder of love, which is more powerful even than life itself.

As we look back over our life from the heights of Pisgah, like Moses before us, we discover that God has loved us.  Like Moses, as we walk through this life, God walks with us and God’s love sustains us.  And, like Moses, when our mortal days are finished, whether we are wrinkled with age or still in our youth, still God loves us, and weeps with us in our loss of this life.  But know this, and remember this: while to die is to leave in the middle of life, not even death can cause us to leave in the middle of love, because God’s love is infinite, complete and without beginning or ending.  So when we weep at the end of life, our own or another whom we love, we do not, cannot weep for the end of love, for love is without end.  Thanks be to God who walks with us from our first breath and who weeps with us at the top of Pisgah.  Thanks be to God, who sustains us in all loss, and who weeps with us when we are weeping.  Thanks be to God, in whose love we are caught, sustained, and held, world without end.  Amen.

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The story of the Newell family, which covers the later decades of the 19^th century and most of the 20^th, began with Arthur Newell and Mary Greeley. Arthur Webster Newell was born on January 30, 1854 and grew up in Chelsea MA. Because his parents were poor, Arthur Newell was not able to go beyond secondary school. However, he was intelligent, quick, serious, and diligent. After finishing his education, he went to work in a Boston bank and became a bookkeeper in the 4^th National Bank of Boston.

As he rose through the ranks of the 4^th National’s management, Arthur Newell took on family responsibilities. He married his childhood sweetheart, Mary Greeley.  During the years that followed, the young couple had three daughters, Madeline in 1880, Alice in 1882 and Marjorie Anne in 1889. They also moved from the city to Lexington, which they considered to be a better place to raise their young family. In  1888, the Newells purchased a house with stables on the knoll where Hayden Recreation Center is located today.

A devout family – Mr. Newell was something of a Bible student in his spare time – the Newells found a home in Hancock Church and participated actively in the life of the Church. Marjorie and Alice taught Sunday school. Mr. Newell served as a Deacon and, at various times, as a member of the Music Committee and the Nominating Committee, sometimes holding several positions at the same time.

As a businessman, Arthur Newell also served on the Prudential Committee, which was part of the Hancock Congregational Society. At that time, Hancock was divided into two entities: the Church, which managed worship, music, and the Sunday school and the Hancock Congregational Society, a non-profit corporation that controlled and legally owned Church property and funds. The two were eventually combined into one, which is why the Prudential Committee and the Annual Meeting, which were Society functions, are now part of the Church.

Although on the surface a rather austere man who seemed to follow the “Autocrat of the Breakfast Table” model favored at the time, Arthur Newell was a warm and loving husband and father and good friend to his intimates. He found a release in playing music with his family. He played the cello and his wife Mary played the piano. All three daughters played the violin and would take turns playing trios with their parents. To Alice and Madeline, music was an accomplishment expected on young ladies, but not a career. Both went on to attend and graduate from Smith College. Marjorie however skipped a college education and pursued a career in music.

In 1896 the Newells determined it was time for a better home. The family moved to 20 Percy Road. The new home was essentially a small estate with house, barn, and various small farm animals. Marjorie would later remember an occasion one summer when she was a young girl of 7 or 8. She and a neighbor boy had climbed into a loft in the barn when she heard a hired hand approaching the barn. The children hid among the hay bales, watching him. Unknown to them, Mr. Newell had asked the hand to kill a turkey for dinner. Just as the man raised the hatchet, the children let out piercing screams. Mr. Newell raced into the barn where the arm had stood frozen in his tracks. The children were crying uncontrollably Mr. Newell brought them down and ordered the turkey be spared – for the time being at least. He spent the afternoon comforting and playing with them.

In 1909, the Newells took their first trip to Europe, something that people of sufficient wealth did regularly in those days.  Taking the White Star liner Romanic, they spent more than three months touring Britain, France, Germany, Switzerland, and Italy. In 1912, the travelling bug again bit. This time, the target was the Near East, places earnest Christians like the Newells would look forward to seeing.

On this occasion however, Mrs. Newell and Alice did not feel that they were physically up to the trip and opted to stay home. So, Madeline, Marjorie, and Mr. Newell went without the rest of the family in January 1912. The trip, lasting about three months, must have been an exciting one. Their first stop, Egypt, where Marjorie celebrated her 23^rd birthday, was already a well-known destination for tourists. However, the Holy Land, as Palestine was generally known to Westerners, was under the control of the crumbling Ottoman Empire and was more of a “roughing it” expedition.

After they toured Jerusalem and Bethlehem, the Newells sailed to Marseilles and then travelled to Cherbourg via Paris. On the way, Mr. Newell informed his daughters that they would return to America on the “most seaworthy Titanic” as Marjorie described it. At Cherbourg, the three Newells boarded the Titanic as first-class passengers. Passage for the three of them cost $2500 in 1912 dollars. Mr. Newell was assigned to cabin D-48. Madeline and Marjorie shared cabin D-36.

On Mr. Newell’s advice, the two girls brought their “back-up” violins with them and practiced every evening for about an hour. They continued the custom on the Titanic. However, they also took time to enjoy the social life available to first class passengers.  Among the other people at their dining room table were Mr. and Mrs. John Jacob Astor.

At dinner on the evening of April 14th Marjorie marveled at the beautiful gowns that ladies wore, “I had been given my first long train gown before I left home, and I took great pleasure in wearing it that night.” Marjorie remembered that a woman sitting next to her at dinner had commented, “Don’t you think the ship is going too fast? We are in icebergs and I think we should slow down.”

The woman was prescient. After their usual hour of violin practice, the sisters turned in at about 10:30. Later, in the early morning of April 15, the girls were awakened by “an awful crash.” The ship had hit an iceberg. Shortly afterwards, Mr. Newell knocked on their door and instructed them to get dressed in their warmest clothes. When they were ready, he led them to the upper boat deck where he made sure that they were put aboard lifeboat 6, along with such passengers as the “Unsinkable” Molly Brown. Mr. Newell, in the honorable tradition of how male passengers were supposed to act but did not always, stayed on the ship. The last the girls had seen of him, he had stepped back to allow other women climb into the lifeboat.

Marjorie was one of the passengers who helped row the lifeboat away from the stricken liner. To Marjorie, the lifeboat seemed more dangerous than staying on the Titanic, especially “with oars in the hands of one who had never rowed,” as she described herself. The events in the lifeboat were portrayed in the 1958 British film A Night to Remember and in James Cameron‘s film Titanic. Both films portrayed Molly Brown clashing with quartermaster Robert Hichens, the crewman on the lifeboat tiller. Molly and other passengers wanted to go back to pick up survivors. Hichens refused to do that.

At Hichen’s direction, the lifeboat stood off from the Titanic far enough to avoid being drawn under the water by sinking ship or being swamped by the panic stricken passengers floating in the frigid water. Marjorie would later recall, “From about a mile away we saw the Titanic sink. From the time we left her she was sinking slowly at the head but began to sink faster. The water got into the engine room for we heard a terrific explosion. The tipping of the vessel threw everybody towards the bow and the ship went to the bottom.”

After a few more freezing hours, the steamer Carpathia rescued the survivors. The girls searched for their father on that ship, but did not find him among the 705 survivors. By the time the Carpathia reached New York, they had become convinced that he had not survived. In New York, Mrs. Newell and Alice were too emotional to meet them at the pier, so they met the girls at a hotel. It was a sad meeting.  As Marjorie put it: “Madeleine and I stepped out in the hall … where mother was waiting for us, she had her arms outstretched and anxious to embrace what she hoped would be three people. When she just saw Madeleine and me, she let out a terrible scream.”

After the sinking, the White Star Line chartered four ships to engage in recovery operations; one of them, the cable maintenance vessel, C.S. Mackay-Bennett, found Mr. Newell’s body. A surprising number of Titanic victims were recovered from the sea. Many were given burials at sea. Other passengers and crew people, many European, were buried in Halifax, Nova Scotia.  The Newell family, however, had Mr. Newell’s remains shipped home to Lexington.  In late April 1912, Hancock Church held a memorial service for Mr. Newell with a short sermon by then minister, George E. Martin. The congregation sang “Nearer my God to Thee” as the closing hymn under the (possibly correct) belief that it was the last music played by the Titanic’s small orchestra. (Marjorie remembered the band playing “The Merry Widow Waltz,” “Turkey in the Straw,” and “Alexander’s Ragtime Band.”) On May 4^th, the family held a funeral service in their Percy Street home. The property overflowed with mourners and floral tributes. Mr. Newell was buried in Mt. Auburn Cemetery.

That year, the Hancock Congregational Society honored its late member with a dedicated page in its records, as follows:

“A page in our records was ordered to be dedicated to the memory of Mr. Arthur W. Newell who lost his life in the wreck of the steamer Titanic in April 1912 and who for many years was a valued and faithful member of the society, and this page is thus dedicated.”

The story was not yet over. Shortly after Mr. Newell’s passing, the 4^th National Bank was absorbed by the Atlantic National Bank of Boston, an event that made news even in the lordly New York Times. The Atlantic National Bank in turn closed its doors in 1932 at the height of the Depression.

Mrs. Mary Newell never remarried and lived the rest of her life in mourning. She slept with Mr. Newell’s watch under her pillow every night. She frequently wore black and never allowed the subject of the Titanic to be mentioned in her presence.   In later years, she moved to a smaller house at 2 Audubon Road. She died in November 1957, at the age of 103. In her will, she left a sum of money “said sum to be known as the Arthur W. Newell Organ fund, the income only to be used for the repair, alteration, or enlargement of the Church organ or any other use in connection of the organ as the Church may decide.” The Newell Fund, created by her gift continues to this day.

Alice Newell never married and died in Lexington in July 1972 at the age of 89. Although Alice was never on the Titanic, she was often mistakenly associated with it. Several scholarly works about the ship listed “Alice” as a passenger in place of Marjorie.

Madeline Newell never married. She spent much of her life caring for her mother and serving as a confidant for her nieces. Madeline also served as executrix for her mother’s estate and served for ten years as recording secretary for the Frances S. Willard Settlement in Waltham, a nursing home, and for the Llewsac Lodge in Bedford, which was a woman’s vacation and rest home.  The facilities eventually merged with the Elizabeth Carleton House to become the Carleton-Willard of today. She lived until 1969.

Marjorie Newell married Floyd Robb in 1917. The couple had three daughters, Rosalind, Marjorie, and Madeline, and a son, Arthur Newell Robb. Arthur ironically would serve as a curator of the Fall River Marine Museum.

Marjorie taught music at Wells College in Aurora, NY for many years, and she taught violin and piano in South Orange, N.J. She eventually became one of the founders of the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra. Mrs. Robb later returned to Massachusetts, moving first to Westport Point and later Fall River.  For years well into the 1980s, Marjorie would come to Lexington and worship at Hancock on the Sunday nearest the anniversary of the Titanic’s sinking. Each time, she would call Norma Blake and arrange to sit in the pew that used to be her family’s back in the day when specific pew space was regularly rented to families.

Marjorie began to speak about the Titanic. She attended several conventions held by the Titanic International Society and the Titanic Historical Society, where she told her story to many Titanic enthusiasts. In 1983, the Collier Club arranged for Marjorie Robb to come to Church to speak of her experiences near the anniversary of the sinking.

Starting April 7, the Collier Club started a campaign to publicize the event in Church calendar, and the Lexington Minuteman. The publicity campaign was a bit too successful. So many friends and relatives of Mrs. Robb’s turned out that the Collier Club ran out of food. It was obvious that the Collier Club had been taken aback by the extra guests. The minutes of the Collier Club board meeting for June 7, 1983 noted:

“Our guest speaker, the former Miss Newell, Mrs. Robb, did call to apologize to Carol Wilson for bringing all her relatives to be fed. Was also (sic) enlightening to the committee that a substantial amount was given to the Newell Organ fund (by the Newells).”

Marjorie Newell Robb died in her sleep on June 11, 1992. She was 103 years old, the same age as her mother. Marjorie  was  the second longest lived of all of Titanic‘s survivors and the longest lived first-class passenger.

Biography

• Eyman, Scott, “I Took A Voyage on the RMS Titanic”, Yankee Magazine, June, 1981
• Hancock Church, Collier Club Board Meeting Minutes, Hancock Archives
• Hancock Congregational Society, Hancock Congregational Society Records, Hancock Archives
• Kelley, Beverly Allison, Lexington, A Century of Photographs, Lexington Historical Society, 1980
• “Marjorie Newell Robb.” http: // www.charlespellegrino.com/ passengers / marjorie_robb.htm, Charles Pellegrino Web Site
• “Marjorie Newell Robb,” http: //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marjorie_Newell_Robb, Wikipedia
• “Miss Madeline Newell,” Titanic Biographies (http: //www,encyclopedia- titanica.org/biobraphy/madeline-newell.html/), Encyclopedia Titanica.
• “Miss Marjorie  Anne Newell,” Titanic Biographies (http: //www,encyclopedia- titanica.org/biobraphy/216/), Encyclopedia Titanica.
• “Mr. Arthur Webster Newell,” http: //www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/titanic-victim/arthur-webster-newell.html
• “Mrs. Arthur Newell,” http: //www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/mrs-arthur-newell-html, Encyclopedia Titanica
• “RMS Titanic Lifeboat No. 6” http:/ /en.wikipedia.org/ wiki/ RMS_Titanic_Lifeboat_No._6, Wikipedia
• “Titanic First-Class Passengers: Newell, Miss Madeline,” http://www.titanic-titanic.com/madeleine_newell.shtml, Titanic-Titanic.com
• “Titanic’s Lifeboats” http://www.titanic-titanic.com/lifeboats.shtml, Titanic-Titanic.com
• “Titanic Sisters: The Newell Girls,” http: //www.encyclopedia-titanica.org/the_titanic_sisters.html, Encyclopedia Titanica

Sources

• Norma Blake
• Lillian Drury
• Thad Jackson
• Marjorie Travis

Read more about the Newells of Lexington in the Lexington Minuteman HERE.

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Watch this video on YouTube.

Hancock Church Sermon – Rev. Paul Shupe – May 19, 2013 – Confirmand Sunday

Acts 2:1-21

http://youtu.be/nLSYgQ-9Lco

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