Alternate Endings
On Sunday afternoon I will transform from “Rev. Karyn Richards-Kuan, Senior Pastor” into “Ms. White, murder suspect.” Live Action Clue is back!
This annual laugh is put on by area UMC youth groups. Each year the characters have a different backstory, and the youth must figure out the mystery by traveling room to room to interrogate each character. In 2024 I was cast as exotic animal obsessed Ms. Peacock (Zoo business partner with Mr. Body until everything went south). This year, an avid outdoors loving Ms. White.
Separately, the other Rev. Richards-Kuan was also wrangled into playing one of the live characters by his youth director. To get into the spirit, we put on the 1985 classic, Clue: The Movie. A thoroughly enjoyable hour and a half all told, perhaps the most delightful part is the final reveal.
Spoiler alert (in all fairness you’ve had 40 years to watch it): there’s more than one way the ending shakes out.
At the surface, just one plot occurred. Beneath the surface, subtleties unnoticed or simply unnamed pointed to dramatically different outcomes.
We thankfully don’t live in a murder mystery, but we do live in a world with the possibility of a multitude of alternate outcomes.
Unlike some of our ecumenical siblings who may believe in a version of predestination in which God has already decided everything will take place, we as United Methodists believe that the only thing that is set and that we can do nothing about is the availability and presence of God’s unending grace in every part of every person’s life.
This means that what we do today matters.
Not because we fear the specter of eternal damnation, but because God calls us to be co-creators toward life, light, love, and liberation (another spoiler, the concept of a ‘forever hell that beloved children of God are banished to’ does not fit into my theological framework).
Whether we choose to answer this holy call each day determines the outcomes we face in the next. What we do today matters.
On the surface, we go about our lives as our schedule dictates.
Beneath the surface, we build trust- or not. We nurture relationships- or not. We open our hearts to a deeper spirituality- or not. We let ourselves feel the vulnerability of community- or not. These subtleties unnoticed or simply unnamed point to dramatically different outcomes.
Taken collectively, one possibility collects a community that may scatter at the slightest breeze. The other cultivates a belonging that binds a community together through the harshest storm.
Thus, not only what we do today, but how we do it matters.
Every day we are faced with the choice of an alternate outcome. Hopefully we’re not choosing between life and death (as it is with the characters of Clue), but every day we are faced with choosing between what is life giving and what does not nurture toward life: in our words, our intentions, our choices, our advocacy, and what we believe.
Today I invite you to choose life.
Choose to not only to volunteer at the food pantry, but to let yourself see the divine in each client.
Choose not only to listen to the Sunday music and sermon, but to connect with others in worship by coming to the Sanctuary and Collins Hall or signing into the live Zoom for worship and coffee hour.
Choose not only to come to the potluck, but to intentionally share and learn with others you don’t know very deeply.
Choose not only to come to large fellowship events like Fall Festival, Chili Cook Off, or Pi Day, but to make sure you’re inviting each other to come, too.
Choose not only to attend the class, but to be present and curious.
Choose not only to make the hard decision, but to grieve what was not chosen and to cherish what you have because of your choice.
Your choices matter. Your choices make the difference between whether we are present and doing church on the surface but ultimately a weakly rooted community with spiritual malaise, or whether we are unshakably bound together in faith and able to withstand the heaviest winds that come our way.
As your pastor, I am so grateful for the chance to keep choosing life with you. I am so proud of many of the life-nurturing choices I have witnessed you making. Your choices determine the alternate outcomes for our community of faith. What we do today and how we do it matters. So let us choose the way that leads to life!
Definitely (probably?) not the Clue murderer,
Pastor Karyn