Numbers 27:1-11
October 27
Lauren J. McFeaters
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Introduction to the Text

I have to tell you I’ve had the most wonderful few weeks in preparation and becoming friends with these five sisters. Between walking beside them in the desert, I’ve had the remarkable Professor Kathie Sakenfeld walking beside me in faithfulness and scholarship –  every step of the way. And gratitude to Carol Wehrheim for writing our Study Guide. [ii]

And to top it all off, I’ve discovered contemporary Jewish women’s Midrash – voices of faith, artwork, poetry, and song, all celebrating five remarkable women who lived thousands of years ago.

Our story, from the 4^th Book of the Hebrew Scriptures, is set in the Plains of Moab, across the Jordan River from Jericho. The Israelites are in the wilderness, awaiting the crossing of the Jordan River, to find their new home in the Promised Land.

 

How did they do it? These five sisters, orphans without standing, unmarried women without security, making their way to the entrance of the Tent of Meeting, stepping over the threshold to God’s own sanctuary in the desert, a tabernacle where Moses himself and throngs of formidable men gather, and they walk right into the place of sacrifice and worship  — not a place where women’s voices or upper registers are heard. And everyone is listening. ^[iii]

And in full-voice, before God and everyone, they proclaim the right, under the law, to be counted, valued, respected, and seen as human beings. [iv]

Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, Tirzah – they do the unthinkable. Voices reaching across time and space: ‘Our father died before we reach the Promised Land.  Why should the name of our father be taken away from our clan because he had no son? Give to us his possession.’

They know the rules and regulations. They understand what it means to be  at the mercy of men – and to be in danger without men. They understand the problem of not belonging. Their lack of both brother and father means they no longer belong: a family forgotten; no name in the genealogy; no protection under the law.

Kathie Sakenfeld, in her inaugural lecture at Princeton Theological Seminary, takes us to the heart of this passage and into the workings of feminist biblical interpretation. She speaks of many possible interpretations for this text, and through her scholarship, Professor Sakenfeld opens the Word of God as it comes to the community in its encounter with the text; that the revelation of this story comes to us because God is at work in the whole life of the believing community.

She says: I believe in the power of acts of imagination. As the community encounters the Bible, hearing God’s Word, is an act of imagination where personal experience and the biblical text most readily touch each other, because together we can mark a path through the wilderness to the land of promise. [v]

Now here’s the place this pastor can jump into – where the act of imagination, personal experience, and the biblical text are converging. I can hold onto that faith-filled imagination. These sisters too converge at the Tent of Meeting, and in their bravery, they broaden our theological imagination.

Through this one small, but mighty story – so easy to gloss over because it’s hidden in the middle of a book that’s one  never-ending list — comes voices that spin an ancient world on its head: Belonging is magnified, being counted is amplified, and God’s generosity is multiplied. All because five women were willing to claim:

• They too are God’s beloved,
• They too have names.
• They too have a place.
• They too have the power to advocate.
• They too should enjoy inheritance.

Not only are these sisters our fore-mothers in the faith; they are also our inheritance. [vi]

What is your inheritance in the faith?

Here’s a little bit of mine. In 8^th grade, I asked my parents about becoming a Presbyterian minister. I think they tried to remain calm. In those days, there were no ordained women clergy in the Pittsburgh Presbytery. My church was the last in the Presbytery to ordain women Elders and that was in 1984. To say my parents were speechless is an understatement, and not knowing what to say, they sent me to talk to my pastor.

My father drove me to church mid-week after school and I met with my pastor, in his office. I said to him I felt God wanted me to be a Presbyterian minister; that there was so much joy inside of me, and I thought I would like to study the Bible. My pastor said he was sorry, so very sorry, but it wouldn’t be possible. He said, I could marry a minister, but not be a minister. He said there was so much I had to be grateful for as I had many role models in the faith, including my mother, aunts, and grandmothers, who enjoyed working in the church’s kitchen. The church he said, did not ordain women to become clergy. He lied.

Four years before I was born, Margaret Towner was the first woman to be ordained as Presbyterian clergy by the Syracuse-Cayuga Presbytery of New York. That very year Katie Geneva Cannon was the first African-American woman ordained. In 1965, the first woman in the southern branch of our church, Rachel Henderlite, was ordained a Minister of Word and Sacrament. Perla Belo, the first Asian American woman ordained in 1985. And you can bet, for years before Margaret, Katie, Rachel, and Perla, dozens and dozens of people of the church acted as Daughters of Zelophehad, standing in the halls of power in our denomination to demand justice. They spoke, saying the voices of women had an equal inheritance to preaching, teaching, lecturing, counseling, and having a voice at Session and General Assembly.

Ten years later, I had graduated from college, moved to New York City, and joined a new Presbyterian Church, and a few years after that, with great trepidation, I approached my new pastor in New York City and asked if we could meet. His name was Bob Nunn, and when I met in his office, I said I really, really felt called to be a Presbyterian minister, and called to serve the church, he said, “Of course you do. I’ve been waiting for you to talk to me. When would you like to begin?” It may have not been like standing before Moses, Eleazar the priest, the leaders, and all the congregation, but in my world, it was close. And Bob Nunn was for me, a Daughter of Zelophehad.

And it’s not just ordination. The Daughter’s act for justice is for anyone denied serving Christ and the church; anyone refused full inclusion, to fully serve our Lord, be it race, gender, sexuality, marital status, being otherly-abled, financially insecure, and more.

Take a look at the cover of your Order of Worship. It’s a painting of the Daughters of Zelophehad. It’s painted by Presbyterian minister, Lauren Wright Pittman,^[vii] who says, when the powers in place don’t budge, it’s not the end of the story. For those whose voices are less valued, those who go unseen, those who have fought a long and continuing fight, we must breathe life into those old, tired, worn-out laws. The winds of change, the breath of God, surrounds the tent of meeting, and the voice of God descends on these women, hearing their cry. New life sprouts from the ground as the law is heard afresh. And the catalyst for this moment of new inheritance – it isn’t only the women’s strength; it takes all of us to listen. Moses opened his heart, and God declares, “They are right.” Make way for change.^[viii]

Our faith is living, breathing, changing.

Remember their names:

Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, Tirzah.

Remember their names:

Margaret, Katie, Rachel, and Perla,

Kathie, Carol, and Bob … You.

Remember Your Names.

 

ENDNOTES

[i] Numbers 27:1-11 NRSV: Then the daughters of Zelophehad came forward. Zelophehad was son of Hepher son of Gilead son of Machir son of Manasseh son of Joseph, a member of the Manassite clans. The names of his daughters were: Mahlah, Noah, Hoglah, Milcah, and Tirzah. They stood before Moses, Eleazar the priest, the leaders, and all the congregation, at the entrance of the tent of meeting, and they said, “Our father died in the wilderness; he was not among the company of those who gathered themselves together against the Lord in the company of Korah, but died for his own sin; and he had no sons. Why should the name of our father be taken away from his clan because he had no son? Give to us a possession among our father’s brothers.” Moses brought their case before the Lord. And the Lord spoke to Moses, saying: The daughters of Zelophehad are right in what they are saying; you shall indeed let them possess an inheritance among their father’s brothers and pass the inheritance of their father on to them. You shall also say to the Israelites, “If a man dies, and has no son, then you shall pass his inheritance on to his daughter. If he has no daughter, then you shall give his inheritance to his brothers. If he has no brothers, then you shall give his inheritance to his father’s brothers. And if his father has no brothers, then you shall give his inheritance to the nearest kinsman of his clan, and he shall possess it. It shall be for the Israelites a statute and ordinance, as the Lord commanded Moses.”

[ii] Carol Wehrheim. https://nassauchurch.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Fall-2024-Small-Groups-Guide.pdf.

 

[iii] Katharine Doob Sakenfeld. “Feminist Biblical Interpretation.” Theology Today, Vol. 46, Issue 2, 1989, 155.

 

[iv] Lauren Wright Pittman. Adapted from her Artist’s Reflection on They Stood, a graphic image

inspired by Numbers 27:1-11. © A Sanctified Art LLC, Sanctifiedart.org, 1, 2018.

 

[v] Katharine Doob Sakenfeld. 166-168.

 

[vi] Teri Peterson. “Expanded Inheritance: Numbers 27.1-11.” The Presbyterian Church of Palantine, IL, June 5, 2016, palatinepres.org.

 

[vii] Lauren Wright Pittman. They Stood, a graphic image inspired by Numbers 27:1-11. © A Sanctified Art LLC, Sanctifiedart.org:

https://nassauchurch.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Fall-2024-Small-Groups-Guide.pdf

 

[viii] Lauren Wright Pittman.

 

 

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Proverbs 31:10-31
October 20
David A. Davis
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Before reading our sermon text today, I feel a nudge to remind everyone that I did not select Proverbs 31. We are beginning our “Linked In” fall series as small groups, adult education, and sermons all work with the same scripture week. The theme is “Women of the Old Testament”. I’m pretty confident that for obvious reasons, I probably am not the best choice to preach this text. But the texts were selected after the preaching calendar was set and next week I will be at the Broadway Presbyterian Church in NYC for our granddaughter Maddy’s baptism. I have actually never preached Proverbs 31. 30 or 35 years ago, occasionally a family would ask me to read selected verses at the funeral of the family matriarch. A woman from a generation who might have had the verses cross-stitched and framed and hanging somewhere in the house.

Before you read along and/or listen to the text from Proverbs, some context may be helpful. The 31^st chapter is the last chapter of this book of wisdom attributed at the very beginning to King Solomon. The 31^st chapter and the 1^st chapter bookend the content with “the fear of the Lord.” “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge” (1:7). Fear as in awe or worship. Scholars point out that Proverbs 31 is a Hebrew Poem. A Hebrew acrostic poem where, like several of the psalms, each section begins with a Hebrew letter and the psalmist works their way through the Hebrew alphabet. Old Testament professor Elaine James is leading the education hour conversation this morning with the title Women, Poetry and God: reading Proverbs 31.

Part of Dr. James’s expertise is Hebrew poetry in the bible. In her writing on this chapter, she gives the preacher some cautionary notes or interpretive moves to be avoided. They are relevant not just to the preacher but to the reader/listener as well. Among those warnings, Dr. James argues that one cannot ignore the countless differences between ancient households and contemporary ones or set up the poem as some sort of glorification of endless hard work for others that sets an ideal and impossible standard for women. Neither should be portrayed as casting any sort of singular definition of gender role perfection. It is, after all, a poem crafted in a patriarchal world. With these notes for listening and receiving and pondering…

Psalm 31:10-31

The work of her hands. A field purchased. A vineyard planted with her hands. Strong arms making merchandise that is profitable. Her hands to the spindle. Her hands open to the poor. Her hands reaching the needy. Self-made garments. Linen garments made to sell. Strength, dignity, humor, wisdom, teaching kindness. Elaine James points out the Hebrew word translated as “capable” as in “capable wife” at the beginning is the same word used near the end, translated as “excellently”: “Many women have done excellently but you surpass them all.” The professor suggests that since that Hebrew word has connotations of military strength, “courageous” might be a better translation. The word for “wife” is the same in Hebrew as “woman”.

The poetry tells of a courageous woman whose works are praised at the city gates. At the city gates where in the ancient world the male elders, leaders, and deciders gathered (including as mentioned in the text, the courageous woman’s husband.)  At the city gates, the works of her calloused hands were praised by the top rungs of the patriarchal hierarchy. The works of her strong arms are not taken for granted but praised. Her courage was not diminished but lauded. Perhaps a timeless affirmation in the then and now patriarchal world. A poem that begins with the question “a capable wife who can find?” shattering all expectations and assumptions clung to in that world, this world. Right about now in this sermon, the title of a book written by retired professor of Old Testament Kathi Sakenfeld, leaps off the page: Just Wives? Stories of Power and Survival in the Old Testament and Today.

It shouldn’t be glossed over that the only mention of children in the poem is near the end. “Her children rise up and call her happy”. Better translated as “blessed”. “Her children rise up and call her blessed.” No mention of caring for children in all the descriptions of the work of her hands. Yes, that could be because the poetry paints a picture of a wealthy household where others may tend to the children. But in the days we live, as so many who sit at the city gates and bask in the patriarchal hierarchy threaten a woman’s healthcare, a woman’s right to her own body, a woman’s access to the best science, and define a woman’s worth only by bearing and raising children way too often using faith and these pages of scriptures as their justification, the art of the poetry of Proverbs 31 comes with a shattering irony. The art of poetry that tells of a courageous woman.

My friend Scott Hoezee at Calvin Seminary in Grand Rapids MI writes that reading Proverbs 31 is sort of like finding a shoe box of old pictures in a closet in your great-grandmother’s house after her death. Another form of art that depicts an ancient world unfamiliar to you and unimaginable to you. Pictures that often raise many more questions than answers when it comes to what life was like. Before my mother died, she created a photo album of those pictures for my sister, brother and me. You can see those really old family photographs in your mind. Not just black and white, but dark and rather stark. Pictures of people not one smiling but staring right at the camera.  My mom wanted to make sure we knew who was in those pictures/. She wrote with a big old Sharpie marker all the names, grandma this, great aunt that, great grandpa so and so. Just a family note, in my mother’s wisdom, she wrote with a sharpie right on the front of the photograph rather than the back!

As the youngest child, my siblings can remember a few more relatives in those photographs than I can. I have no memories of three of my grandparents. The only one I can remember is my grandmother Jesse Aubrey. I am named after my grandfather David Aubrey. Grandma Aubrey died when I was in early high school. One of the memories I have is as a young boy. Grandma was staying overnight in our house. She never lived with us so maybe it was a holiday. She seemed a gazillion years old to me and she went to bed early. One evening as I came out of my room, I could hear her talking behind the closed door in the guest room. I did what any young boy would do. I stuck my ear closer to hear who she was talking to. It was before cell phones and I didn’t think anyone else was in there. I thought maybe was doing a grandma thing and talking to herself. As I intruded with my listening, I figured out she was talking to God. Grandma was saying her bedtime prayers and she wasn’t whispering. My family only prayed out loud at home at the dinner table on holidays. It was the first time I ever heard someone praying out loud other than at church. I consider that experience to be the first influence of someone on my faith.

“Charm is deceitful and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised. Give her a share in the fruit of her hands and let her works praise her in the city gates.”  The Book of Proverbs begins and ends with the “fear of the Lord.”

Amanda Gorman published a book of her poetry written during the years of the pandemic. You remember that she wrote the poem “The Hill We Climb” for the 2020 presidential inauguration. The title poem of her book is “What We Carry.” These two poems have a movement that lean toward a powerful culmination in the last few phrases. Not for all her work, but for these it is as if the poem starts pianissimo (very softly) and ends double forte. Listen to the optimism, hope and power of the end of “The Hill We Climb”

We will rise from the gold-limned hills of the West!

We will rise from the windswept Northeast, where our

forefathers first realized revolution!

We will rise from late-rimmed cities of Midwestern states!

We will rise from the sunbaked south!

 

We will rebuild, reconcile, and recover/

In every known nook of our nation.

In every corner called our country.

Our people diverse and dutiful.

We’ll emerge battered but beautiful.

 

When day comes, we step out of the dark,

Aflame and unafraid.

The new dawn blooms as we free it.

For there is always a light.

If only we’re brave enough to see it.

If only we’re brave enough to be it.

 

Similarly, written about life in the pandemic, the ending soars with a defying hope.

            In discarding almost everything-

            Our rage, our wreckage

            Our hubris, our hate

            Our ghosts, our greed

            Our wrath, our wars

            On the beating shore.

            We haven’t any haven from them here/

            Rejoice, for what we have left behind will not free us.

            But what we have left is all we need.

            We are enough.

            Armed only with our hands.

            Open but unemptied,

            Just like a blooming thing.

            We walk into tomorrow

            Carrying nothing

            But the world.

 

Maybe the poetry of the wisdom writer of the Book of Proverbs is shaped in the same way. Sloped in emphasis toward the conclusion. The exhausting, exhaustive description of the everyday life of the courageous woman who shatters all expectations concludes in bold print and underlined. To be read with emphasis.  “Her children rise up and call her blessed; her husband too, and he praises her. ‘Many women have done excellently but you surpass them all’. Charm is deceitful and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised. Give her a share in the fruit of her hands and let her works praise her in the city gates.”

A poem that concludes with the most important part. A conclusion that underscores, repeats, and puts an exclamation point on the most important part of wisdom and courage. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge.” Or as the apostle Paul puts it at the end of his sermon on resurrection hope: “Therefore, my beloved, be steadfast, immovable, always excelling in the work of the Lord, because you know that in the Lord your labor is never in vain.”

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Psalm 8
October 6
David A. Davis
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“O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!” “O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!” It’s one of the verses from the psalmist that ought to stick with you. Like “Bless the Lord, O my soul and all that is within bless God’s holy name” and “Be still and know that I am God” and “Hope in God, for I shall again praise God, my help and my God” and “I lift up my eyes to the hills—from where does my help come My help comes from the Lord, who made heaven and earth!”

            “O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!” Ingrid Ladendorf, our Director of Children and Youth Choirs and Director of Children and Family Ministries was helping to lead worship at a recent staff gathering. Ingrid offered a children’s setting of Psalm 8. We read in unison and broke up the psalm like this: “O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!” (WOW!) “When I look at your heavens, the work of your fingers, the moon and the stars that you have established; what are human beings that you mindful of them, mortals that you care for them” (WOW!) “O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!” (WOW!)

            This first verse from Psalm 8 is also the last. It’s not quite a refrain but is the psalm’s first and last word. It frames the psalmist’s word. It’s the takeaway from the poetry. It sets the tone for the psalm’s guts, which comes in between. It shapes how the psalm will be read like an old adage about preaching. “Tell them what you are going to tell them. Then tell them. Then tell again and sit down.”  “O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!” You can’t miss the praise even though the word isn’t there. No “praise the Lord” in Psalm 8 but it is a song of praise nonetheless.

It is the kind of song of praise that comes from the children and we sing it our whole life long. “Out of the mouths of babes and infants”, the psalmist writes. From the lips of the youngest, O God, you formed this foundation. You have established this stronghold of praise, this bulwark within your people that shouts our praise to you and lifts our adoration before you. It is a perpetual stream, words and songs and worship in all places and in all circumstances and at all times. A continuous loop of praise intended to drown out all other voices,  intended to silence every voice in us but your own. Even the voice of death will be squelched by our bold song of praise, O God of resurrection life. “O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!”

            When I plan a memorial service with a family or plan a wedding with a couple, one of the regular topics of conversation is whether or not to sing a few hymns during the service. I have learned to ask about whether the expected congregation would be familiar with a hymn or would be a singing crowd. That’s because of all the times I stand up here before a community gathered for the occasion and I am the only one singing. I always find it interesting and a bit disconcerting when attendees dutifully stand during a hymn, don’t open the hymnbook, and just look forward; just stare at me. I understand that folks might be from a different religious faith or from a tradition that doesn’t sing hymns. But when politely standing and not participating people just look at me. Sometimes it feels like they are glaring at me. “Can’t you just read along or look at the windows or scan the room? Are you mad at me because of this hymn?” Honestly, I would like to share with them that this is what we do in this place. This is who we are. We are a people built and called together to praise God in joy and sorrow.

This last week I was with my peer group of pastors that I often tell you about. 25 Presbyterian pastors from all around the country. We were at the Mercer Island Presbyterian Church in Seattle. But we were a smaller group this time because our friends and colleagues from Asheville and Black Mountain NC and Spartanburg SC were not able to come because of the hurricane. We were able to talk to two of them by phone and pray for them. The other pastor still had no cell service. What they described to us was more heartbreaking than the videos and pictures we have all seen. How they had no way to check on the members of the congregation. How the Black Mountain Church gave water and food to 1,000 people on Monday. How they were told it might be 6 months before water is restored. Patrick, the pastor of First Church Asheville told us the church had power but no water. They were keeping it open for the community to come and charge devices or use the wifi. As our in-person group listened on a beautiful sunny day in Seattle, most of us were in tears. And then Patrick said, “We will gather for worship on Sunday morning for whoever can get here.” Then everyone in the room was in tears.

We don’t often think about it like this but maybe more often than not the worship of God by the people of God is a subversive act in the world in which we live. The Psalm reading for this morning in the Revised Common Lectionary is Psalm 8. That means congregations of all denominations all over the southeast (those that can gather or still have their building) will be reading Psalm 8 together. “O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!” Most will celebrate World Communion Sunday. The joyful feast of the people of God.” The children of God and the daring, subversive, counter-intuitive steady drumbeat of praise even when the world is washing away. Even when humanity’s care for the earth, the dominion entrusted by God has been abused. Even amid devastation and loss. Even when pondering the world near and far invokes a weariness deep within. Whether standing here for a child’s confirmation or here for a baby’s baptism or here to make solemn vows to one another, or sitting there for the service of a loved one now in glory, or gathered here for a “joyful feast of the people of God”. Or when two congregations gather to both celebrate and lament a history on race that is more complex than can be imagined, or when you are sitting out there on an ordinary Sunday joining in a hymn of praise when you weren’t sure you could bring yourself to sing after a rough week, or when you find yourself unspeakably grateful as three generations of your family share a pew. A steady drumbeat of praise. “O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!”

            As I looked at the pictures coming out of the Montreat Presbyterian Conference Center where the Nassau Youth group went for the summer youth conference for several years, I thought of folks I know who live or lived there. David and Nancy Mulford lived there in retirement before moving here to Stonebridge to be closer to family. Marti and Peter Hazelrigg who were on staff with us here at Nassau now own a home in Montreat. Their home is okay but it will be some time until they can get there from Greensboro where Marti’s church is located. And I thought of Pat and MaryAnn Miller. They were part of Nassau for so many years when Pat taught Old Testament at Princeton Seminary. They owned a home for decades in Montreat that their children now have since both Pat and MaryAnn have joined the Communion of saints.

Dr Miller once wrote this about our praise and adoration of God. The worship and praise of the people of God “assumes and even evokes a world….where impossible things become possible, where things too difficult become the order of the day.” Miller continues “In a world that assumes the status is quo, that things have to be the way they are, and one must not assume too much about improving them, the doxologies of God’s people are one of the fundamental indicators that wonders have not ceased, possibilities not yet dreamed of will happen, and hope is an authentic stance.” That’s all ridiculous, he notes, “unless one has seen the wonders of God in the past.”

In other words, our doxology, our drum beat of praise, our subversive act of worship assumes and evokes the very kingdom of God. The sounds of our praise serve both to witness to God’s past faithfulness and point to God’s future. The steadfast presence of our song on the sabbath day dares give witness to a world where justice and righteousness kiss, where the weak are made strong, where the poor are lifted up, where the hungry are fed, where the wounded are cared for, and where the oppressed are set free. It’s that song of God’s people. The proclamation of God’s people. “O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!”

            A few generations of children have grown up reading the book “Guess How Much I Love You” at bedtime. It’s the story of two rabbits: Big Nutbrown Hare and Little Nut Brown Hare. The two, parent and child, are engaged in a dialogue trying to one-up each other about how much they love each other. This much. THIS much. THIS MUCH. The little one is falling asleep and trying to keep up. “I love you to the moon”, Little Nutbrown Hare says just as sleep takes over. With the young one now fast asleep, Big Nutbrown Hare says, “and back”. As in “I love you to the moon and back again.”

One can imagine all sorts of children now grown who share the refrain with those they love. “love you to the moon…and back”.  Maybe the psalmist has offered a version of that dialogue to God’s people. More than a dialogue of praise. A dialogue about our love for God and God’s love for us.  “O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!” Not just as part of our drum beat of praise but deeply ingrained in our relationship to God. You, me and God. When we rise, when we nod off to sleep. Expressing all the fullness of praise that comes with our life in God. And knowing ourselves to now and forever be basking in the love of God made known to us in and through Jesus Christ. God’s offering of the “and back” part of the steadfast love God has for us.

Come to the Table this morning. Even after a week like this, come and dare to celebrate the joyful feast of the people of God.

“O Lord, our Lord, how majestic is your name in all the earth!”

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James 5:13-18
September 29
Len Scales
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At the close of the passage today, we hear of a harvest. Last week, in James chapter 3, we explored a harvest of righteousness, elsewhere translated the fruit of righteousness. Dave in his sermon reminded us of the good fruit that we hear of throughout Scripture. The passage that always comes to my mind is the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. As we consider good fruit that comes from prayer, we can discern between the bad fruit that too often accompanies conversations around prayer in our current world.

It is not good fruit when prayer is only “thoughts and prayers” without any accompanying action. It is not good fruit when people are told they aren’t praying with enough conviction because loved ones are still sick. It is not good fruit when prayer is used to isolate an individual rather than surround them with supportive community.

We hear in our passage today how prayer is a part of community care. It has to do with connecting those praying with God and with others. Prayer acknowledges the mysterious working of God, the responsibility of the community, and the participation of the one praying.

Similarly, as we celebrate a baptism today (in the 11 o’clock service), we as a community are surrounding a family in prayer and with promises to help care for the child baptized and always tell them about Jesus. Baptism reminds us of the promises of God that nothing, nothing ever, can separate us from the love of God. Baptism of a child is also about the promises of the family to raise the child in the family of faith. Baptism of an adult includes the individual’s promises of faith. The prayers at baptism are about these promises, acknowledging the mysterious, unending love of God combined with the community’s active engagement in the life of the one baptized. Baptism is a sign of God’s love and seals us as Jesus’ disciples, caring for one another and our world.

Prayer is this line that runs throughout our actions as a community in our entire life together. Civil Rights activists would gather to pray, preparing themselves, inviting God’s presence with them, that come what may, they would be ready to respond with nonviolence. One of my first sermons at Nassau in 2017 was the weekend of the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville. Andrew and I saw our seminary colleague Seth Wispelwey gather with other faith leaders the evening they were surrounded by tiki torches in the church. They were there praying. They were preparing themselves for the day ahead. They prayed that night and they sang “This Little Light of Mine” in the morning as they stood between the Nazi-inspired white nationalists and the counter-protestors. The Rev. Dr. William Barber II when interviewed then and since has continued his call for a “non-violent moral movement.”^[1] Barber’s call for a moral movement is built on a fusion coalition, bringing together people across differences for the good of the poor.^[2]

So too prayer is about bringing us together, from our different identities and concerns. Our passage today offers several examples of how prayer is communal, for one, James encourages the sick to gather the elders, to pray in a way that is embodied. In the passage, they anoint the sick with olive oil, which was tradition. It is not about magic powers, but about a humanizing touch, a reminder that we are here together.

The call to confession is also in community, that we may together be honest about the brokenness of our world, our need for healing. When we participate in confession in worship in the Presbyterian tradition, we only do so in conjunction with the assurance of forgiveness. It is a time to tell the truth that God has the power to forgive and transform us to follow God’s call to “do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly.”

Through our prayers of preparation, our prayers of petition, and our prayers of confession, we engage them together. As we face the challenges of life, we as a congregation will do so with the compassion of community and the promises of God.

A particular community known for its prayer is the Taizé Community in France. Taizé is an ecumenical monastic community that joins together in prayer three times a day, welcoming young people from around the world. The fusion of people of faith from protestant, catholic, and Orthodox traditions along with their growing conversations between Muslim and Christian young people, results in this unique space of prayer and in their collective work for the poor. David Hicks wrote about the prayer and action of Taizé on the occasion of their fiftieth anniversary as a community in the 90’s. Hick’s encourages, “To be faithful to the lesson of Taizé, then, would be to use a ‘prayer and action’ commitment to the gospel to discern present, particular needs in present, particular places.”^[3] As we share in prayer with one another, we can better see and understand the opportunities and needs before us in any given season.

One of the traditions on Sunday evenings at Breaking Bread Worship with the 40 or so undergraduate and graduate students who gather in Niles Chapel is how we participate in the prayers of the people. With a community of that size, we take the time to pray for one another with a communal bidding prayer. We ask for students, as they want, to briefly share something they are bringing with them that is either a joy or a challenge they need help holding. Then, the person leading the prayer rephrases the petition aloud, so that the person can hear it in another’s voice. We close by praying “Lord in your mercy,” and the congregation responds, “Hear our prayer.” In this way, it gives us space to acknowledge what we are carrying into worship with us and some insight into how to care for one another during the week.

In a larger community, small groups can be a way of understanding the present, particular needs. As you heard from Marshall & Debbie in the Moment for Mission, Small Groups are gearing up for a new season and are a wonderful way to get to know one another. They include a space to share prayer requests and join in prayer. Prayers for when we are sick, prayers for when we are celebrating, prayers when we don’t even have the words.

Praying is not about having the most eloquent phrasing or just the right description. It’s not a test of our vocabulary or faith. Prayer is about what is going on. Whether it is a timely topic, a shared silence, or a joining in the Lord’s Prayer, we are reminded that we are not alone when we pray. We can be carried by the community who is praying with us and even for us at times. It is an opportunity to be lifted by the community when we don’t have the energy or the focus to be able to put into words what is going on. We can draw on the words from Jesus and tradition.

In our prayers, we carry the needs of our community and are equipped by the Spirit to respond together. It reminds us that we are not alone. God is with us. Last fall, we explored prayer in the Old Testament with several narratives. As we turn to prayer in the New Testament with today’s text, we hear both descriptions of how people prayed but also prescriptions to simply pray. So in our corporate worship and in our gatherings in small groups, may we pray. Pray welcoming God’s everlasting love. Pray with an intent to follow it with action. Pray in sorrow and in joy. Pray in ways that bear good fruit.

^[1] “Religious Leaders Respond to White Nationalists in Charlottesville,” August 12, 2017, https://www.msnbc.com/am-joy/watch/religious-leaders-respond-to-white-nationalists-in-charlottesville-1023675459700.

^[2] Matthew Desmond, “A Prophet for the Poor,” The New York Review of Books, October 3, 2024, https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2024/10/03/a-prophet-for-the-poor-white-poverty/.

^[3] Douglas A Hicks, “The Taizé Community: Fifty Years of Prayer and Action.” Journal of Ecumenical Studies 29, no. 2 (1992): 202–14.

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James 3:13-18
September 22
David A. Davis
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Our church went on a staff retreat two weeks ago to a retreat center in Quarryville, Pa. Quarryville is about 30 minutes from Lancaster. The GPS route to get there takes you off the highway about an hour from the conference center. Then it was all two-lane roads, rolling hills, and farm after farm after farm. It was a beautiful day and it was a beautiful landscape. A road was closed and we found ourselves crossing over a one-lane covered bridge. We passed horses and buggies and saw house after house with laundry drying on lines that looked like they stretched the length of a football field. During one afternoon break, I was in the car again passing buggies, and kids walking home from school carrying their shoes and lunchboxes. I was so enjoying my surroundings that GPS had to reroute more than once. I came upon a farmer harvesting what I guess was hay and being pulled by a team of four horses. I saw a barn full of harvest hanging from the ceiling to dry. Maybe it was tobacco, but I don’t know.  I drove along a field where a family of all ages each had baskets in their hands and they were bent over harvesting something, but I couldn’t see that it was. As a kid who grew up not far from the river in Pittsburgh, I could tell from the smell in the air where the millworkers were in the steelmaking process but my knowledge of agriculture and the harvest is sort of embarrassing. It was like I needed a farming docent riding shotgun because the harvest may not always be what one guesses.

There is no shortage of reference to the harvest in the pages of scripture.  No shortage of reference to the harvest in the teaching of Jesus for that matter. You remember what Jesus said about the harvest. Jesus said, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few”.  Jesus said it in Matthew and Luke. “The harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into the vineyards.” Harvest. Jesus usually mentions the harvest in a parable. Like the parable of the weeds and the wheat (Mt 13) or the parable of the vineyard (Mt 21) or the parable of the seed that grows in secret (Mk 4). They all include mention of the harvest. But a conversation about harvest and the teaching of Jesus usually starts with “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few”.

            This memory verse, this quote, and this sound bite from Jesus often comes with a connotation of evangelism. It may conjure up thoughts of revivals, altar calls, and invitations from the preacher. Salvation’s rolling landscape full of hearts yearning to be transformed, waiting to hear the gospel, longing for grace and forgiveness anew. It is the harvest of conversion and the Gospel laborers attending to those hearing the gospel. The preacher concludes with the invitation, the plea, the promise. Jesus said, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few.”

            In the 10^th chapter of Luke, Jesus speaking about the harvest and the laborers is wrapped up in the Lord’s appointing 70 others beyond the 12. He sent them ahead in pairs to every town and place he intended to go. That is when he warned them, telling them “I am sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves.” Jesus told them if they are rejected to shake the dust from their feet and move on. The sending starts with “the harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few. The gospel of Luke and Jesus’ sending of the 70. It does have that evangelistic flavor, that feel, that context.

But the harvest is a bit different in Matthew. Jesus dropping the verse in Matthew has a different feel. At the end of the 9^th chapter, Matthew tells the reader that Jesus went around to all the cities and villages teaching and proclaiming the good news. Jesus was also “curing every disease and healing every sickness.” As he came upon crowd after crowd Jesus “had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd”. And that’s when he turned to his disciples and said  “The harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few, therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into the Lord’s harvest.”  Yes, the harvest for Jesus is about proclaiming the gospel. But here in Matthew, it comes with the feel, the flavor, the twist of his mercy and compassion. It comes with Jesus looking around and with a heavy heart full of love. Jesus looks into the faces of the crowd, turns to the disciples, and says, “There is so much to do and so few of us. We have to ask God for more help. This harvest of need is so plentiful. The harvest isn’t just about proclaiming the gospel. It is about living the gospel too.

The harvest. This harvest. This isn’t like taking our granddaughters to Terhune Orchards this fall and going out into the pumpkin patch to let them pick a pumpkin. No, this kind of harvest is where the exhausted farmers work all night long, and nameless, faceless migrant workers spend days that never end out in the field because there is so much to do and bad weather is coming and the economy of an entire region is at stake.  A plentiful harvest, A plentiful harvest for Jesus among the crowds of people harassed by the world and so helpless.

Nassau’s mission partner, Centurion, held their annual gala in NYC last night. Mark Edwards and Annalese Hume took several Nassau youths up on the buses provided by Centurion to hear more about Centurion’s incredible work. Nassau member and great friend Jim McCloskey started the work now more than 40 years ago and Nassau has served as the ministry’s spiritual home. Centurion has freed 71 people who were wrongly imprisoned. The collective years in prison for those 71 people now exceeds 1500. In August, Jose Carrion walked out of a prison in Queens after more than 25 years

Jim McCloskey and John Grisham have written a book together that tells the story of 12 different cases. The book will be released next month, Jim writes about 6 of his cases and John writes about six cases he has followed and studied. I will be interviewing both of them at the Princeton Public Library event here in the sanctuary. Tickets are free and available on the library website and the evening will be livestreamed. I received an advanced copy of the book and read it this summer. I found it a book I couldn’t read cover to cover. Not because it wasn’t compelling or well-written. Of course, it is. But it is the weight of what McCloskey and Grisham write about. It is the heartbreak of getting to know these stories. Stories of real people and real suffering, most for decades. To read it is to come alongside children of God who were pretty much the definition of harassed and helpless. There is a weight that comes with hearts full of compassion.

A plentiful harvest. Is that a promise or lament? You live in the same world, the same times as me. We, you, me, the followers of Jesus and Jesus himself, we better all be asking the Lord for more help. It can be so paralyzing when there is so much to do; like you don’t know where to start. It can be so disheartening when dominant voices in the public square invoke a Christian faith that lacks any mercy. It can be overwhelming when the need in crowds only seems to grow in our lifetime and humanity’s inability to know the things that work for peace seems etched in stone. And Jesus still turns to the disciples, to the church, to you, to me and says “Wow, we have a  lot of work to do.”

Right here is where the voiceover from James starts. Here is where the soundtrack from James starts to play. Here is where the melody line from James rises from the string section as the requiem heads toward its completion. When the Faith Without Works author gets your attention, he eventually gets to “The harvest of righteousness is sown in peace for those who make peace.”  A plentiful harvest of righteousness. No, not a lament. Indeed a promise from James. A word of encouragement. “The harvest of righteousness is sown in peace for those who make peace.”

            It is fascinating to discover that James uses a different Greek word for “harvest”. It is not the same word for harvest that is found in the gospels. The word used by James when it comes to “harvest” is crop or fruit. Fruit like in Galatians 5:22: the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.”  Fruit like in Ephesians 5:8-9 “For once you were darkness, but now in the Lord you are light. Live as children of the light—for the fruit of the light is found all that is good and right and true.” Fruit as in John 15 when Jesus said “I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last”

            For James, the harvest is the fruit of righteousness. And righteousness? Well, all through scripture righteousness is righteousness. A reference to what God requires, what God intends. Righteousness has to do with the godly work of righting what has been wrong. That the kingdom here on earth might more nearly be as in heaven. Righteousness. Not our righteousness, but the righteousness of Jesus working through and among us. “The fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.”

            James counts the harvest one piece of fruit at a time. Jesus turns to the disciples, to the church, to us, and says “look at this crowd of humanity, harassed and helpless; we have so much work to do”. And James, somewhere in the crowd gives you an elbow and says, “Well, we have to start somewhere.”

We are ordaining new leaders in the life of Nassau Presbyterian Church this morning. People God has called through the voice of this congregation to lead us in the harvest. The fruit of righteousness is not going to be found in the brownfields of church sanctuaries if faith communities have long since lost their edge when comes to the work of the gospel: the work of justice and serving the poor and speaking for those so long and still silenced. Kingdom fruit does not ripen when congregations hunker down, wring their hands, and wish for the good old days. The fruit of righteousness will rot on the vine if Christians like you and me give up on Christ’s call to bear witness and to live what we believe Jesus has taught us. The harvest is not just about proclaiming the gospel. It is about living the gospel. Living it out in the world.

I haven’t had a chance to talk to any of the Nassau youth who were at the Centurion celebration last night. But I imagine as they heard the stories of the recently exonerated and heard the thanks offered for Kate Germond’s 35 years of work, they learned what Jim McCloskey taught me years and years ago. The harvest of righteousness comes one fruit at a time. One life at a time. It is quite difficult to fathom actually, how the entire Centurion team of staff, volunteers, and financial supporters spend years of time, sweat, and tears working endless hours, working for every one of those 71 lives and more.

You and I are called by the Hebrew prophets and Christ himself to speak for and work for righteousness and justice. The call is to follow Jesus and his challenge to systems, practices, and institutions that sow injustice into the fabric of human life. The call is to follow Jesus with hearts full of compassion tending to the crowds so full of need. Let James rest in your ear and tend to your soul. Because we have to start somewhere and the harvest comes one fruit, one act, one work at a time.

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Mark 8:27-38
September 15
David A. Davis
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Our text this morning is from Mark’s gospel. The account in Mark of Jesus asks the disciples “Who do people say that I am?” and follows it up with “Who do you say that I am?” The narrative tells of Jesus predicting his own suffering. Peter tells Jesus, “Say it isn’t so,” Jesus pretty much calls Peter the devil. Jesus proclaims that those who want to be his disciples will have to take up their cross and follow him. It is likely a familiar gospel story to most listeners this morning. But here in the context of Mark, I invite you to hear it afresh.

This account of Jesus and the disciples at Caesarea Philippi is a critical turning point in Mark’s gospel. Here at the end of the 8th of 16 chapters, it is a kind of narrative center that is more important than its placement. In terms of the story, and the plot, these paragraphs mark a shift from all the healing and teaching in and around Galilee. The gospel now shifts to head to Jerusalem. This Jerusalem turn comes with Jesus’ first time talking about the suffering and death and rising again of the Son of Man. Such weight in content, so much going on, such an important turn; it serves not just as the literary center but as a kind of anchor to the gospel. It is the thickest part of the shortest gospel.

Mark 8:27-38

As Jesus and his disciples are on the way to Jerusalem, Mark invites his readers to listen in on their conversation. The church listens in as Jesus asks the question about what people are saying about him. “John the Baptist and others, Elijah, still others, one of the prophets.” Jesus pushes it further; makes it more specific, more personal to the ones he has called. “But who do you say that I am?” Peter doesn’t hesitate. “You are the Messiah.” Jesus firmly tells them to tell no one. We are privy to what Jesus intended to be a private conversation. And it is about to get more uncomfortable for those eavesdropping on Jesus and his disciples.

Jesus starts to talk about his suffering, his rejection, his rising again. Peter takes Jesus aside to tell him to stop with the nonsense. Jesus probably matching Peter’s volume and emotion calls Peter “Satan” of all things. It quickly becomes the kind of uncomfortable exchange you wish you didn’t have to listen to. The kind of private conversation you realize you probably shouldn’t be listening to. You don’t know whether to turn away or to keep listening, start taking notes, and study the whole drama between Jesus and Peter for the next few thousand years.

You are the Christ. Peter’s acclamation of the messianic identity of Jesus. From the lips of the disciple Matthew Jesus refers to as “the Rock upon which I will build my church.” Peter launches the church’s affirmation of faith forever more. Then there is the not telling part, the just between us part. Labeled by the tradition as “The Messianic Secret.” Jesus’s stern command to the disciples leads to shelf after shelf in the library of biblical studies. Jesus and his Passion Predictions, foreshadowing his death and resurrection for the church listening in while the disciples fall a step behind in terms of putting it all together. A whole lot to chew on in these few verses at the center of Mark. So much biblical, theological grist for the mill. So much to write about, noodle about, and think about. The best of fodder for a Christian faith from the neck up. The thickest part of the shortest gospel.

Just when you’ve sopped up all the knowledge and understanding you can from this Caesarea Philippi moment, all that is to be studied, read about, talked about, preached about, the whole nature of the conversation in Mark changes. It’s easy for the reader, the church, you, and me to miss it. For us, the conversation shifts from overhearing to direction address. It turns out the only thing more uncomfortable than eavesdropping on the tense encounter between Jesus and his disciples is when Jesus turns and includes you and me. Or as Mark puts it, “Jesus called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them..”  The crowd. As Mark’s gospel makes the turn to Jerusalem, Jesus calls to the crowd, to the reader, to his followers ever since, to you and me, Jesus calls, points his cross, and says, “This is where it’s all heading, why don’t you come along?” Talk about uncomfortable.

“If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, will save it. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? Indeed, what can they give in return for their life? Those who are ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of the Father with the holy angels.” Jesus looked at the crowd that included us, nodding toward Jerusalem and saying “So…here we go.” While the church wishes Jesus was still just talking to Peter and the gospel would remain a safe and sanitized academic exercise (from the neck up).

To be honest, I wrestle with Jesus playing “the shame card”. “Those who are ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when we come….” Maybe that is too much of contemporary lens use. But Jesus and shame make me squirm a bit. There is some relief in discovering that this verse and the same verse in Luke is the only time the word falls from the lips of Jesus in the gospels. A possible takeaway is that Jesus invoking the notion of shame here is a nod to feelings, an emotion, a matter of the heart. Jesus doesn’t seem to be setting a low bar for the gospel here. It is not a sort of “as long as you are not embarrassed by me and you don’t embarrass me” approach to a relationship with him. Quite the contrary. With this turn to Jerusalem, turn to his cross, maybe Jesus is telling the crowds to not just bring their minds but to bring their hearts too. Just on the heels of the mind-being conversation with Peter and the disciples, Jesus turns to the crowds and adds a bit of heart-bending to it too. We are headed that way and the only way to go is to bring your whole self, to give of your whole self. The turn to Jerusalem. The turn to the cross. A turn not just for the mind, but for all your mind, all your strength, all your soul, and all your heart.

“If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” These days there are many words or phrases that rightly are not appropriate to drop in conversation. The sort of things a younger person will tell a parent they just can’t say anymore. One of my irritations is how often sports broadcasters use battle imagery to describe people playing a game. So many others we could describe. Here is one for you. “We all have our crosses to bear.” That old saw ought to fade from the vernacular. Even with Jesus telling followers to deny themselves and take up their cross, the reference is to his cross. THEE cross. Take up your cross. Jesus, the disciples, and the crowds with his cross looming on the horizon.

Andrew Fosters Conner, a Presbyterian pastor down in Baltimore, puts it this way in response to Jesus’s call to discipleship: Jesus makes it clear that “you should be prepared to give everything for the say of God—nothing’s off limits. Everything is required. I can’t stand that about Jesus” Andrew writes. It makes building a church really hard. “Come to our church and we’ll call on you to give everything that you have for Jesus — money, time, work, relationships, life — all for Jesus. “Do we have programs?’ Yeah, we have programs — it’s called take up your cross. That’s the program!”

Here in the middle of Mark’s gospel, Jesus’ call to disciples, his invitation to follow, is stopping and pointing and saying this is where we are going, it is a call for his followers to bring it all. All of you, he is telling them. This means when it comes to the world we live in, the culture that surrounds us, bombards us, and the faith to which we have been called…it will not, shall not, cannot be easy. When Jesus is calling you and pointing to his own cross saying “This is where we are headed, come join me, uncomfortable doesn’t begin to describe it.

Our granddaughters are now 3 and 10 months. So, of course, we have dug out the children’s books we had when our children were young. One of those is a Christmas book titled “Angel Pig”. We even have an Angel Pig Christmas ornament but I will spare you. The story tells of a family of pigs who are getting ready for Christmas. As they prepare to go shopping for shiny and new wonderful presents, they discover they don’t have any money because they have already spent it on themselves. In their despair, the Angel Pig appears and tells them not to worry. It is not about what expensive gift they will receive but about celebrating one another. You don’t need money just enjoy each other and have time to rejoice. So they go off and make crafts, bake bread, and write poems for each other and have the best Christmas ever.

Trying to wrap your head and heart around taking up your cross is a big lift, maybe even a paralyzing mind and heart bender. But what is the place to start is a lesson a child can grasp? A lesson every parent at some point tries to teach. It isn’t always about you. Jesus is asking us to live, to act, to be like it is not always about us. The gospel of Jesus Christ offers a bold challenge to the dominant cultural message of “what is in it for me.”  The examples of the “me first” movement are legion pretty much in every facet of life. Yes, the call of Jesus to take up your cross can be as intimidating and discipleship hesitating as can be. But maybe Jesus is calling us to live each day looking for a way to affirm that it is not always about you. That seems like a solid, grace-filled, Spirit-led first step. When I look around at the world we live in, the culture we live in, the days we live in, I think I love that about Jesus.

 

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James 2:1-17
September 8
David A. Davis
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A parent has to learn early on how best to respond when a child hits their head, has a fall, or gets a scrape. It is that balance between necessary and appropriate love and care and not overreacting so as to further frighten the young one already in tears.

When I was young and on the receiving end of my parent’s aid and response to me getting banged up, my father’s response was pretty consistent. To this day, I can hear my father’s voice in my head. “Run it out! Run it out!” Occasionally it was “rub some dirt on it,” but “run it out” was his go-to. Whether I took a knockout in the yard, fell on my bike, got hit by a pitch in Little League, or was slow to get  up on the football field, my father would yell, “Run it out!” Where at home with just the family and a few friends or at a game with lots of parents or in a Friday Night Lights crowd of a few thousand, I could hear his voice, “Run it out!” To be honest, I am not sure that is the best parenting response but I confess to hearing myself say it to my children more than once over the years. Truth is it became something of a verbal meme in the extended family. Now with a span of four generations, it is mostly said in jest and understood as a word of encouragement. It is deeply ingrained. A sort of non-musical example of that earworm of a song that never goes away in your head. “Run it out!”

Here in the epistle of James, the biblical author provides a phrase now ingrained, or perhaps one that ought to be ingrained in the church and in the life of discipleship. It is here at the end of chapter two. “Faith without works is dead.” 

“Brothers and sisters,” James begins the chapter, “do you with your acts of favoritism really believe in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ?” He goes on to describe the reality of classism, power, and privilege so deeply rooted in humanity forever that the reader, the church, you and I really can’t bat an eye. “What good is it, if you say you have faith but do not have works? Can faith save you?” Well, actually, James, yes, yes it can. “For by grace you have been saved through faith and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God not the result of works..” The Apostle Paul, Ephesians 2:8. But James is just getting started. “If a brother or sister is naked and lacks daily food, and one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace; keep warm and eat your fill’, and yet you do no supply their bodily needs, what is the good of that? So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead”

And you and I, along with generations of theologians and the church in every generation start to squirm. Somewhere, the reformer Martin Luther shakes his head no and raises his hand. Salvation can’t be earned.  Grace alone. Faith alone. James doesn’t stop. “Someone will say, ‘You have faith and I have works.’ Show me your faith apart from your works, and I by my works will show you my faith.” But what about the prison guard in the Book of Acts? He fell on his knees before Paul and Silas, asking “What must I do to be saved? “Believe in the Lord Jesus and you will be saved, you and your household.” Acts 16:31

James doesn’t stop for a breath. He points a finger into the chest of what would become the theological tradition. “You believe that God is one, you do well. Even the demons believe and shudder. Do you want to be shown, you senseless person, that faith apart from works is barren?” He tells of Abraham and his willingness to sacrifice his son Isaac. Abraham’s faith, in James’s words, “was brought to completion by the works.” He tells of Rahab whose works were evident as she welcomed strangers and sent them out by another road. “For just as the body, without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is also dead.”

Faith without works is dead. Faith without works is dead. The Epistle of James and a mic drop kind of phrase. James and his hot take. You can’t get away from it. Like irritating dinner guests who don’t read the room and drop the topic of conversation. James never lets it go away. The quote hangs in the air waiting for the response. The response of discipleship. The response of your life. It doesn’t seem to matter who says it, or where you hear it, or when it happens. Once you hear it, it never goes away. Faith without works is dead.  Whether you hear it from a co-worker who loves to toss digs at the church writ large, from a man sitting at the intersection with a handwritten sign, or your kid who came home fired up from a great conversation at youth group. Faith without works is dead.

Douglas Brinkley’s biography of Jimmy Carter focused on his life after leaving the White House. Brinkley tells that sometime in 1984 the former president spent a week on a Habitat for Humanity site in New York. At a press conference, he stood alongside the other volunteers covered with sweat, dirt, and soot. Asked to sum up his week-long effort, President Carter offered a simple conclusion that some may not have heard as a reference to the practice of his Christian faith. He said, “Talking about doing is one thing. Doing is something else.” At that point in that news conference somewhere in the kingdom of heaven, James said “Yes”. “Talking about doing is one thing. Doing is something else.” Yes a reference to Jimmy Carter’s life of discipleship and perhaps a lasting allusion to the perils of Christian faith and empty words. Faith without works is dead.

If you are person of faith who struggles to understand and so live as Jesus would have us live, if you are struck sometimes at how hard it is to live and be as Christian in the world, in the nation these days, if your head spins and your heart churns when you find yourself yet again pondering the genuine need of hurting people, if you shake your head wondering how on earth in 2024 kids in our community are starting going back to school and some of them go to school hungry day by day, if you ever find yourself overcome with weariness as you hold the gifts you have to offer in one hand and you try to grasp the suffering of the world in the other, if you find yourself lamenting deep down how often in the name of Jesus is invoked to reflect an interpretation, a policy, an opinion so contrary to the gospel that it makes your head explode, if you believe that all that we say and do when we are in this room empowers each one of us to help to make the world out there more like what God intends, then cling to these words from James not as some kind of theological conundrum but as words of encouragement. Faith without works is dead.

Faith without works is dead. You can’t get away from it because it really does matter. The way we live out our discipleship. What we do out there in the world and in here in the community of faith. The actions we take or don’t take. The decisions we make pretty much every day. Our ethics in the workplace. How we raise our kids. How we treat others. How we help others. How we spend our time and money and talent. How we behave when away from our parents, away from home. How often do we offer a kind word or display patience when waiting in line, speak up for someone who has been wronged, or smile at a server who is clearly having a bad day? Because faith without works is dead.

The decisions we make when the curtain closes in the voting booth. How we act and live with those we love most and those we don’t know but try to love. The example you set for teenagers around the house. What you do to welcome a new student at school or break the cycle of harmful talk about others in your grade or stand for the classmate who is out there on the fringe. How you wield your power and privilege in the board room, at a sales meeting, on the trading floor, in the classroom. How you choose to advocate for those pretty much the rest of the world labels as other or worse. It really does matter because faith without works is dead.

Rehabbing a house, marching for justice and ceasefire and peace, or just waiting in line. Faith without works is dead. We can go down the street to the theological seminary and argue the theology regarding faith and works until Jesus comes again, but you can’t explain it away because faith without works is dead. You can work to thread the needle when it comes to James, Paul, and Jesus, but you can’t explain it all away because faith without works is dead.”

Peter Gomes served as Plummer Professor of Christin Morals and Minister of Memorial Chapel at Harvard for a generation. He was one of my mentors in preaching. Peter told me one day of a conversation he had with a former president of the university in the president’s office. It was pretty well known around campus that the two did not get along all that well. In Harvard Yard, Memorial Church sits in a very prominent place directly opposite the main library. It is the backdrop for commencement as well. The president could see the church out his window. In this conversation, the president said to Professor Gomes., “I wish that blasted church was sitting right there in the middle of campus.” To which Peter Gomes quickly responded, “But it is there, isn’t it.” That’s sort of how it is with James and all that hand ringing when trying to figure out the relationship of faith and works. When it comes to “Faith without works is dead,” well, it is there, isn’t it?

My father had another phrase in his life ingrained in him. He would never shout it and was pretty private about it. It was his own word of encouragement in his struggles for sobriety. Words he held onto to the end of his life. It’s a verse of scripture. I don’t know how it came to him, who shared it with him. My father was not a student of the bible and didn’t memorize scripture. But somewhere in his journey of discipleship, the words found him and he never let them go. “I can all things through Christ who strengthens me.” Philippians 4:13.

It is the better pairing really; a better pairing for Faith without works is dead. Better than stirring the pot with Paul and Ephesians and being saved by grace. Because the only way to fathom the work of our faith is through the grace and promise of Jesus Christ and the power of the Holy Spirit. You and I are called to bear the very fruit of Christ in our lives and into the world. Faith without works is dead. I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.

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Romans 12:9-13, 13:8-10
September 1
Andrew Scales
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The Apostle Paul wrote Romans as a letter to Christian communities that he had never met. He’s starting a conversation with them all the way across the Mediterranean Sea, hoping that they will welcome him if he comes to Rome. Sometimes his correspondents found what he had to say compelling, beautiful, and transformative. And sometimes they pushed back, argued with him, and challenged him to re-evaluate what he taught and believed. I find it refreshing to consider Romans as Paul’s invitation to fellow Christians into a dynamic dialogue about what it means to follow Jesus in their time.

In our readings from this morning, Paul exhorts his conversation partners in Rome to practice a love that is genuine. Genuine love builds trust so that members of the community can speak what’s on their heart and know that they will be heard and respected. Paul writes that genuine love shows generosity to the people you know well, and it shows hospitality to strangers. Genuine love makes space for people to be vulnerable and share their fears in the confidence that they will be supported and helped. Genuine love is more than a feeling or an idea, but a way of talking with and treating one another by which we continue growing into the Beloved Community.

The Beloved Community. Maybe you’ve heard me or Len use that phrase when we’ve talked about the campus ministry we serve called Princeton Presbyterians. Every Sunday night during the academic year, we worship with undergrad and grad students in Niles Chapel at a service called Breaking Bread. We sing hymns together, pray for one another, hear a short sermon, and we celebrate the Lord’s Supper together. Thanks to support from the Presbytery of the Coastlands, individual donors, and the generosity of Nassau Presbyterian Church, we are able to host a fellowship meal each week after worship. We laugh at each other’s stories, eat the good food Jose Cintron and his team have made, and share about what’s been tough that week. We grow together in understanding how deep God’s love is for us through the love we share for one another.

The Beloved Community. The phrase took shape in America through the work of Black civil rights leaders from the fifties and sixties, and it is rooted in a vision of life together that goes all the way back to the New Testament. I believe Paul was talking about the Beloved Community when he wrote his letter to Christians in Rome around 57 AD. And we believe in Princeton Presbyterians there’s a cloud of witnesses from our own time who remind us what it looks like to show others genuine love. We laugh together because some of our Catholic friends at Breaking Bread have reminded us that these witnesses sound an awful lot like their tradition’s concept of “patron saints.” They’re role models in the faith who inspire us to become our best selves. Like Paul, they are our conversation partners about how to be the Beloved Community.

Let me give you a few examples. We talk a lot about Mister Rogers, who reminds us that we can talk about uncomfortable and scary things, because “If it’s mentionable, it’s manageable.” Another favorite in our community is the one and only Dolly Parton, whose songs of strength, courage, and tenderness are backed up by generosity that funds covid vaccine research and has donated more than 150 million books to children all over America.

But perhaps my favorite conversation partner at Breaking Bread is the civil rights leader John Lewis. John Lewis grew up in Alabama under segregation, and began organizing sit-ins protesting segregation at restaurants in Nashville as a college student. He was one of the original Freedom Riders, riding buses throughout the South in defiance of racist policies that treated Black people as second-class citizens.

He nearly died when a mob attacked him and his friends at the Montgomery bus station, just as he nearly died when police officers beat him as one of the leaders of the march across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama in 1965, demanding the right to vote. He represented metropolitan Atlanta in Congress from 1986 until his death from pancreatic cancer in July 2020.

John Lewis is someone whose life and work rhyme with the vision of Christian community that Paul wrote about in his letter to the Romans two thousand years ago. He was a lifelong disciple of nonviolent resistance to injustice. And as a disciple of non-violence, he also became a teacher of those principles, someone who invites the younger generation to take up the work now that he is gone.

When George Floyd was murdered by Minneapolis police officers in May 2020, Black Lives Matter demonstrations emerged as the largest protest movement in history. At the same time, John Lewis was dying of cancer. His final essay for The New York Times was called, “Together, You Can Redeem the Soul of Our Nation,” and it was published on the day of his funeral. I’d like to read some excerpts from that essay now:

While my time here has now come to an end, I want you to know that in the last days and hours of my life you inspired me. You filled me with hope about the next chapter of the great American story when you used your power to make a difference in our society. Millions of people motivated simply by human compassion laid down the burdens of division. Around the country and the world you set aside race, class, age, language and nationality to demand respect for human dignity.

That is why I had to visit Black Lives Matter Plaza in Washington, though I was admitted to the hospital the following day. I just had to see and feel it for myself that, after many years of silent witness, the truth is still marching on.

Emmett Till was my George Floyd. He was my Rayshard Brooks, Sandra Bland and Breonna Taylor. He was 14 when he was killed, and I was only 15 years old at the time. I will never ever forget the moment when it became so clear that he could easily have been me. In those days, fear constrained us like an imaginary prison, and troubling thoughts of potential brutality committed for no understandable reason were the bars….

Like so many young people today, I was searching for a way out, or some might say a way in, and then I heard the voice of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. on an old radio. He was talking about the philosophy and discipline of nonviolence. He said we are all complicit when we tolerate injustice. He said it is not enough to say it will get better by and by. He said each of us has a moral obligation to stand up, speak up and speak out. When you see something that is not right, you must say something. You must do something. Democracy is not a state. It is an act, and each generation must do its part to help build what we called the Beloved Community, a nation and world society at peace with itself.

Ordinary people with extraordinary vision can redeem the soul of America by getting in what I call good trouble, necessary trouble.[1] 

Ordinary people with extraordinary vision can participate in the redemptive work God asks of us by practicing genuine love. Genuine love calls us to imagine dignity for ourselves, for our neighborhoods and schools, even for our enemies. Genuine love confronts harmful behaviors and invites us to imagine a different way forward. Genuine love draws upon our creative energies to make our community a safe place in a manner that acknowledges the breadth of humanity that comes through our doors. Genuine love in our time means saying “No” to violence and “Yes” to peace in a troubled season for America. Genuine love is a path that we walk together, listening to one another, helping each other, working toward a better future together. As the Apostle Paul puts it in this morning’s reading, “Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law” (Romans 13:10).

Here at Nassau Presbyterian Church, we have been participating in that continuing conversation of what it looks like to practice genuine love in today’s world. As Pastor Lauren McFeaters shared during worship last Sunday, leaders of this congregation have been in conversation about how to make Nassau a safer community. Over the past year, there have been some unsettling incidents—unpredictable outbursts during worship—that have raised questions about how we respond in a manner that’s true to our deepest values and calls on us to be our best selves. Pastor Dave Davis convened a Security Task Force that has proposed new security measures that the Session, the elders of this church, have adopted.

It has not been an easy conversation. It has revealed the deepest fears some members and leaders have about the possibility of someone doing violence to this community. The decision to hire a security firm that provides an armed guard at worship services has raised fears and questions from other members and leaders.

I am grateful for the effort and care that church leaders have already invested in this important question of making this place as safe and open as possible. As someone who has loved ones who have been traumatized by gun violence, this conversation has motivated me to learn more about the relationship of armed guards to the safety of institutions like schools, churches, and hospitals.

I’ve been reading studies by the Journal of the American Medical Association, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the National Association of School Psychologists, and resources from the PC(USA)’s Presbyterian Mission Agency. I’ll include links to these resources in the manuscript of this sermon when it’s posted on the “Sermon Journal” page of Nassau’s website later this week. My intention in doing this research is to express my resolve that I will remain in genuine, loving, truthful conversation with you.

Because this new security plan is such a significant change in our life together, Dave and Lauren have asked the elders of this church to be open to hearing people share their questions and concerns. I am grateful for that openness to dialogue, and for their promise that this will remain an ongoing conversation among the members of Session.

I love you so dearly, and I am proud of your witness in this community and the ways you love one another. I hope that you will consider sharing your thoughts with the members of Session. As you do so, I ask each of you to consider the people who have helped you grow in your love for God and neighbor. What would they say? How will you honor them with your words and actions? In this moment, my prayer is that we will be ordinary people with extraordinary vision as we do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with our God.

Preacher’s Note:

As I mentioned in the sermon, I have included links to articles about gun violence, armed security, and their impact on institutions like schools and churches.

Blessings,

Andrew Scales

 

Resources:

JAMA Network Open, Volume: 4, Issue: 2 (2021) “Presence of Armed School Officials and Fatal and Nonfatal Gunshot Injuries During Mass School Shootings, United States, 1980-2019,” Jillian Peterson, PhD, James Densley, DPhil, and Gina Erickson, PhD

Federal Bureau of Investigation, “A Study of Active Shooter Incidents in the United States Between 2000 and 2013,” Washington DC: Department of Justice, September 16, 2013.

NASP (National Association of School Psychologists) 2018, “School Security Measures and Their Impact on Students”

Larry Buchanan and Lauren Leatherby, “Who Stops a ‘Bad Guy With a Gun’?” New York Times, June 22, 2022.

Laura Esposito and Alex Yablon, “Do Armed Guards Prevent School Shootings?” The Trace, August 14, 2023

PC(USA) Presbyterian Mission: “Developing an Emergency Church Plan for Violence on Church Property”

Presbyterian Peace Fellowship: “Your Congregation Can Prevent Gun Violence”

John Lewis, “Together, You Can Redeem the Soul of Our Nation,” The New York Times, July 30, 2020.

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Ephesians 3:14-21
August 25
Lauren J. McFeaters
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Some years ago when I was meeting with the Deacons, I asked the group about favorite childhood memories. Over and over again, what rose to the top were memories of visits to a family farm – usually small, contained, some  just getting by – but farms full of such goodness it took the breath away.

The best loved parts were learning to:

• feed the sheep,
• shell the snap peas,
• gather the corn,
• ride the tractor,
• can the beets,
• scatter the seed,
• and fill a trough.

For me, in Pickens Mississippi, was learning from my Aunt Hines, how to put kindling in a wood stove and make biscuits on top in an iron skillet. It was remarkable that out of 2 dozen Deacons, half had families that farmed.

Today, Paul gives us a prayer that says we are being rooted and grounded; burrowed and established in love. It is an agricultural metaphor isn’t it. Paul compares the Christian life to the experience of planting, nurturing, and harvesting –

• of canning the okra and putting up the huckleberries;
• of putting our hands to work and our hearts to God;
• of putting down the roots of faith that tunnel deep enough to spread to help other growing things to thrive, find it’s nourishment, and become securely anchored.
• To live, we must have roots. ^[ii] To live our faith, we must be rooted.

But here’s the thing. There will be constant moments throughout this day and week, when we’ll be tempted to unroot ourselves; to extricate and detach ourselves from our groundedness in faith. It often happens when we get distracted by the message that the core of our identity, underneath it all, comes not from God’s Spirit, but from what we can possess, own, acquire, control.

We can’t check Insta or TikTok or email without a link to what will fulfill and satisfy us.

• It’s the lure of iPhone 15 Pro in Barbie Pink.
• Mercedes Benz says you can have a “Season of Dreams” if you purchase the E 450 4MATIC All-Terrain.
• The HP Z Book Fury Laptop Workstation might set you back $9000, but it promises that in using it, you can “expand and evolve.”

Our daily lives are now defined by daily links. This morning I received my message from Starbucks. I have been invited to forget my troubles and luxuriate in the aroma of roasting beans while I indulge my whims in new coffee paraphernalia. It’s so tempting to believe that an iced oat-milk latte will give me their promise of a sanctuary of peace.

And somewhere out there today you’re going to find out there’s:

• a microbrewery offering you the fellowship of the pub;
• a yogurt that will cure your gut woes;
• a deodorant that is going to make you feel better about your body;
• and Macy’s who generously invites you start your Christmas shopping.

Paul, however, would like us to cease the nonsense that stands in the way of rootedness in God’s grace. And he’s so relentless about this one thing: Our foundation in Christ, does not to deny the existence of the things of the world, but gives those things the perspective they deserve.

We’re not created for the things we want, or own, or have to have, are we? We’re not created for the things we crave or desire. We’re not created to be seduced into purchases and possessions. We’re created for what we’re rooted in – and we are rooted in:

the breadth and length and height and depth, of the love of Christ –

so that we may be filled with all the fullness of God, which is love.

You. You are being rooted and grounded in love.

Here’s where Paul offers us equilibrium to stand in everyday faith with our feet on the ground, our eyes to one another, our hearts to our Lord – and it’s a prayer:

I pray, according to the riches of God’s glory,

God may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through God’s Spirit,

and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith– as you are being rooted and grounded in love.

You. You are being rooted and grounded in love.

One writer has called this prayer “the Holy of Holies in the Christian life.” Another writer called it “a prayer for the impossible.”  I’m very grateful there’s nothing timid about Paul’s prayer: nothing bashful; nothing retiring; nothing reserved. It’s simply one of scripture’s most powerful and commanding prayers, because it asks for everything: [iii]

• That the breadth, length, height, and depth of the love of Christ surpasses our fears and goes straight to our hearts;
• That we may be filled with all the fullness of God; filled – not with what we think we want and have to have – but filled with a prayer so potent that our very desires are embedded in acts of kindness and care;
• That we may be filled to brimming with all the completeness and wholeness of God;
• And that the Gift of Christ Jesus is a glory to all generations.

In these days of our world being shaken upside down and turned inside out, Paul comes to us with a prayer that convicts us to get down on our knees, asking God to fortify us. Root us. Ground us. And Love us into sanity.

I often tell couples who come to me for counseling, both the soon-to-be-married and decades-long-married that the most intimate moments in their life together – in any of our lives together – are the moments we are at prayer together.

• When was the last time you prayed with someone you love? It will change your life.
• When was the last time you sat beside a friend and laid a hand on them with a prayer for healing and comfort?  It will change both your lives.

• When was the last time you held a child’s hand and bowed your head and gave thanks? It will change a generation.

My friends, when you have experienced

the anchoring love of our God –

you can never be the same:

• that the breadth and length; height and depth

of that love will never leave your side;

• that you are bowled over in wonder,
• and that there is nothing left to do,

but to praise the Lord all your days.

Amen. And Amen.

ENDNOTES

[i] Ephesians 3:14-21:  For this reason, I bow my knees before the father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth takes its name. I pray that, according to the riches of his glory, he may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through his Spirit, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith, as you are being rooted and grounded in love. I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, with all the saints, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. Now, to him, who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.

[ii] Imagery inspired by a sermon by Cynthia M. Campbell. “Rooted and Grounded.” Fourth Presbyterian Church, Chicago, IL, July 2003, www.fourthchurch.org.

[iii] Ronald Olsen. “Thinking and Practicing Reconciliation: The Ephesians Texts for Pentecost 8-14.” Word & World, 17/3. Luther Seminary, St. Paul, Minnesota, 1997, 325.

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