Philippians 2:1-11
David A. Davis
October 1, 2023
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Any parent whose child attends Vacation Bible School knows that young kids have a remarkable ability to learn every word of the week’s Bible School songs. Bible School songs are not necessary known for their musicality or vocal quality. It is more about singing with all the volume one can muster. It is about the youngest looking up toward the high school volunteers and the bible school band blasting the song and doing the hand motions. Back in the early summer, I stood in the packed Assembly Room for the closing worship of the last day of VBS. Parents were invited to join for the last few minutes of the morning. As I joined in with full voice and hand motions, I noticed more than just a parent or two singing every word. That’s not just because they were up on the screen. It was because the kids were singing at home all week.

When I was solo pastor/director/song leader of the two week Vacation Bible School back in the day, one of the favorite songs every summer was “What a Mighty God We Serve”. What a Mighty God we serve! What a Mighty God we serve! Angels bow before him. Heaven and earth adore him. What a Mighty God We Serve!” Over and over again. Louder and Louder. I can still see the faces of 5 or 6 year olds singing with all they had. I can see them remembering every word. I don’t have a name because year after year the faces sort of blend together. Singing with such an earnest and determined look, with urgency. Lots of clapping. Lots of foot stomping Every repeat. Louder and louder. “What a Mighty God we serve!” The song, it was part song, part cheer, part shout. It was more like a college fight song really. A song for a pep rally. Pep rally for a Mighty God!

Mighty God. It is biblical, after all. “For the Lord your God is God of gods and Lord of lords, the great God, mighty and awesome…” Deuteronomy. Or the Psalmist: “Who is the King of glory? The Lord strong and mighty, the Lord mighty in battle.” “For a child has been born for us, a son given to us: authority rests upon his shoulders, and he is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God….”. The prophet Isaiah. “What a Mighty God We Serve”

Those kids, they loved those songs and I loved leading them. The faces and the names that all smush together in my memory. Most of them would be in their 30’s by now. And the world they live in, my guess is that for most of them, it doesn’t look the way it did when they were clapping their hands and stomping their feet. Along the journey of a couple of decades they have had to learn that grandparents and parents, and even friends die sometimes. They have learned words like cancer, terrorism, predator, random violence, gun violence, waterboarding, mass shooting, mass incarceration, Christian nationalism, and pandemic. Jobs don’t last a lifetime. You don’t always get what you want and life isn’t fair. Peace never seems to come on earth, much less good will to all. Access to quality mental health care is really hard to find. Organizations that feed hungry people and health clinics that see people for free and shelters that protect abused women and children only get busier and busier. And when it comes to judging a person by the content of their heart and character rather than the color of their skin, or the religion they confess, or their gender or sexuality, or the accent of their voice, or the nation of their birth, well, humanity still has a long way to go.

Back at the church door on a Sunday morning, I often meet interesting folks who are just passing through Princeton and join us for worship. Last week, it was couple from Wales who spent time decades ago in town when one of them was on sabbatical. They commented on my very Welsh name. Turned out my grandparents were from the town where one of them was born. There was the woman one Easter morning at the door who said “You don’t remember me, do you?” That was a bit of a jolt. She and I were in youth group together in high school. There was the couple one Sunday who came to town to celebrate their 40th anniversary. They were married here in the sanctuary.

I wonder what would happen if I met one of those old young faces from 30 years ago back at the church door. What would I say if they said to me “Do you remember when you used to lead us in that song “What A Mighty God We Serve” and we would clap and stomp and shout? What if they told me how much they loved the memory but then said,  “You know it’s not that easy anymore! The Mighty God thing” And somewhere in my soul I wouldn’t know whether to have a pep rally for God or a good cry. Because I knew then in my 20 year old pastor self what I know now as well: The life of faith isn’t much like a pep rally.

A disciple of Jesus getting older learns that it is more like growing up in the chaos that the world has to offer and yearning to stay near the light of God’s presence. More like finding yourself wandering in the wilderness searching for purpose or meaning and hoping to hear “Come, follow me” again. More like traveling this bumpy road of faith and realizing that easy answers and the promise of everyday victory and the emphatic stomp that presumes joy was long ago replaced by the silence of waiting and the experience of unanswered prayer and the mysterious work of God’s Spirit in and through and despite the darkness of struggle. Turning away from affirmations that seem like victory marches and shouts that come from a fight song and being drawn to promises like “weeping may linger for the night but joy comes in the morning” and “the light shines in the darkness and the darkness shall not overcome it” and “Lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

I think I need a do-over on “Mighty God”. A mulligan. Another chance. “For a child has been born unto us, a son given unto us; authority rests upon his shoulders, and he is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God…”  It’s not a cheer at all. “For a child has been born unto us, a son given to us; authority rests upon his shoulders, and he is named Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God…” and “though he was in the form of God, [he] did not regard equality with God as something be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death—even death on a cross.” That’s “Mighty God” redefined. “Mighty God’ redefined forever and ever and ever.

Mighty God whose strength is revealed in human weakness, whose power is defined by self-giving love, whose victory comes finally not by force but by emptying himself so much so, that there was no life in him. Mighty God. A Mighty God who knows suffering and is in solidarity with the most vulnerable. Who challenges the wealthiest and threatens the powerful and upends the strong and pushs a finger into the chest of empire not in a battle of weapons but with subversive teaching about the first being last, and a radical grace that embraces the unloved, and an unceasing call to care for the sick and feed the hungry and visit the prisoner. Mighty God.

A Mighty God whose kingdom shall one day come on earth as it is in heaven. A kingdom that will know no end. A kingdom whose borders will be beyond what we can imagine. A new heaven and a new earth. No more crying or weeping shall be heard. Houses shall be full. Vineyards shall overflow. Swords shall be turned in plowshares. War will be learned no more. And they shall not hurt or destroy anything or anyone on God’s holy mountain. And a little child shall lead them. Mighty God forever redefined.

I spent some time in Asheville, North Carolina this week with a group of 25 Presbyterian clergy friends. On Tuesday our hosts took us to visit The Haywood Street Congregation. It is a Methodist Church that sits in what is referred to in Ashville as “the homeless corridor.” The congregation started about ten years ago in a church building that had been vacated by another Methodist congregation. The founding pastor, Brian Combs, met with us in the sanctuary. He told of how the congregation started with offering a welcome table once a week. Anybody was welcome. Unhoused people. People who worked in the neighborhood. Members of surrounding congregations. A homecooked meal served at round tables, flowers on the table and tablecloths. The meal, he said, was as much about relationship as it was about feeding hungry people.

Brian went on to say that over and over again, folks in the congregation tell him the hardest, most dehumanizing part about being unhoused or living in poverty is when people refuse to look at them; acknowledge them. Nothing takes away your dignity quicker than people trying to pretend you don’t exist. Thus the the welcome table. No questions. No documentation needed. No worship service required. Just a meal and conversation around a table. Ten years later, the welcome table is served several times a week. They worship twice a week. All kinds of other programs are available in the community from a hair saloon to beds of respite care for the sick.

A few years ago, the congregation partnered with a local artist named Christopher Holy to commission a fresco for the entire wall behind the sanctuary. Working in the same ancient medium as Da Vinci when he painted the Sistine Chapel and the Last Supper, the artist designed a wall to wall, floor to ceiling work that intentionally highlights unhoused or previously unhoused people who are a central part of the community. As you look at the beautiful piece you can see how the artist holds each in relationship to the whole, the importance of the Welcome Table/Lord’s Table, and the rich diversity which is the Haywood Street congregation. The names of those people depicted in the artwork are Charlie, David, Angel, Eric, Blue, Rachel, Thomas, Jeannette, Jerry, and Christopher. You can see the person who is now the chief gardener. The one who volunteers in respite care. One of them died of pancreatic cancer just as the fresco was being finished. The pastor can be seen just a bit tucked behind a rock on the right. The woman at the center of the fresco is Mary whose cooking and hospitality rests at the center of the congregation’s life, conviction, and theology.

A documentary about the making of the fresco has been done by a professor at Wake Forest University. It is called “Their’s is the Kingdom” and includes interviews with most of the folks in the art. Both the artist and the pastor comment on how fitting it is to honor a population so unseen with painting their image on a wall that will last pretty much forever. As these clergy types sat looking at the fresco for a long time, the pastor looked back at us and sighed a bit and said, “When the artwork was finished and people from all over Ashville came to see it, when other congregations and pastors came to see it and experience it, we took some criticism and blowback because this fresco has no depiction of a Christ figure.” He reminded us about art history and how the messianic figure was most often depicted in a likeness consistent with the patron putting up the money (which meant European white male.) What was most powerful last Tuesday afternoon was when he shared his response to the theological critique of the art. Pastor Combs said in almost a whisper,  “I look up at that wall and I see a Christ figure absolutely everywhere.”

Mighty God redefined forever and ever and ever.

Philippians 1:1-11
David A. Davis
September 24, 2023
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Our second scripture lesson this morning comes from Paul’s letter to the church at Philippi. When you read Philippians you have to remember that Paul is writing from prison. And he is not writing because he has a bone to pick (that would be Galatians). He’s not writing to a church that seems to be picking itself apart (that would be Corinthians). He’s not writing to offer a treatise on the gospel as it relates to the question of Jews and Gentiles (that would be Romans). Paul is writing to a church that has partnered with him in proclaiming and living the gospel and church that is struggling to have courage and be persistent and cling to faithfulness amid the very real challenge and opposition the world brings to bear. A letter from prison to a congregation seeking to be faithful to the gospel.

Throughout the letter Paul seems to put these stakes in the ground that help to frame the life in Christ: a life of prayer and praise, a life of  encountering, knowing, and proclaiming Christ, a life of partnering with others in living the gospel and contributing to a harvest of righteousness. Paul writes of hearts overflowing, minds renewing, lives transforming. Also, throughout Philippians, there is a thread stitched by Paul that invites the reader to ponder the relationship of the heart and the mind; knowing and loving; thinking and believing. A fitting letter to read in a congregation that sits on the edge of campus in the heart of town. A letter from prison to a congregation seeking to be faithful to the gospel.

Philippians 1:1-11

Thanking God and praying with joy because of your sharing the gospel. Confident in the one who began a good work among you. Sharing in God’s grace. Longing for the compassion of Christ Jesus. Producing a harvest of righteousness in Jesus Christ for the glory and praise of God. Thanksgiving. Joy. Sharing. Grace. Compassion. Righteousness. Glory. And praise. All in just the first few verses. Paul’s greeting to the folks at Philippi drips with the fulness of the life of faith. His longing for them, his love for them, his prayer for them overflows in the words, in the writing. Unbridled enthusiasm for the congregation that is rooted in and grows out of Paul’s unbridled conviction about the overflowing love of God. His rhetoric here is a kind of an onomatopoeia. Words overflowing to proclaim the overflowing harvest of the righteousness of God.  A letter from prison to a congregation seeking to be faithful to the gospel. A letter from prison that celebrates abundance.

“And this my prayer, that your love may overflow with more and more knowledge and full insight to help you to determine what is best, so that in the day of Christ you may be pure and blameless having produced the harvest of righteousness that comes though Jesus Christ for the glory and praise of God.”  Knowledge and full insight and the determination of what is best precipitated by, dependent upon love overflowing. Knowing more and more, figuring it out, discerning the best way to work toward a veritable harvest of righteousness, all of conditioned by love overflowing. All of the theological knowledge one can muster, and all of the situational ethics disciples face every day, and all of the discussing/discerning/figuring, all the think, think, think that defines a Christian congregation in a university town, all of it is downstream from love overflowing.

“That your love may overflow”. Overflow. That your love may grow more and more. That your love may abound more and more, that your love may be abundant. That your love might become more and more rich. One paraphrase puts like this: “that your love may flourish, that you might love much and love well.” Paul’s prison rhetoric of abundance is matched by his bold conviction and prayer that a congregation full of the followers of Jesus would be defined by an abundance of love. Identified first not by piety or right doctrine or formulaic confession or theological confidence or a self-preserving assertion of who is in and who is out but by love overflowing.

One day just this last week, I was walking on the sidewalk on Palmer Square just outside of Theresa’s Café. I said “hi” to a person walking their dog. I recognized them and if I worked at it a bit I could come up with their name. We aren’t really friends or even acquaintances. But we’ve been introduced on occasion and been at the same fundraisers or other stuff in town over the years. I expected to keep walking but the dog walker said. “I should come see you sometime.” “Oh?” I said. “Well, I have been trying to read a bit of the bible everyday on my phone.” My sinful self knows immediately this is not going to go well. “It’s quite a hard slog” the person said shaking their head. Then they let out a rather dismissive laugh. “I have absolutely no idea how anybody can believe one word of it.” Of course, what I heard was “what on earth have you done with the last forty years of your life and why?” I actually don’t remember much of my response before I came to “your dog is beautiful, what’s the name?” The name was “Spot”. I came back to the office thinking about what a hard slog it is for a disciple of Jesus or a an entire congregation of disciples to have any influence in the face of the world’s indifference. The world’s indifference or worse.

If we’re honest, some days, probably most days, that slog in the world is real. And if it was all just left to us, love would be far from overflowing, more like a drop in the bucket. The harvest of righteousness? Well, not a lot of sheaves to bring in, maybe a leaf or two if it was all left up to us. You know it. I know it. Paul knew it. Nothing reminds a community of its humanity more than love coming in barely a trickle. Nothing proclaims the church’s humanity to an indifferent world louder than a congregation that thrives on judgment and condemnation. Nothing marks the church’s humanity more than a congregation torn by strife, broken relationships, and love just left in splinters all over the floor.

The core, the crux, the very foundation of the Apostle Paul’s theology of abundance, is the conviction and affirmation that any abundance of love, comes in and through Jesus Christ. It is his love flowing in and through us. That’s what keep us going when the slog is real and the world seems so dark. That’s what we cling to when life together is hard. That’s what give us hope, and moves us forward, and defines our response even when death calls. His love poured out. His overflowing love.

The other day on the street I really didn’t want to get into a discussion of the authority of scripture, the formation of the canon, and the theology of the Word made flesh. But I could have offered an invitation to join us this morning as we presented bibles to the third graders. Not because we believe in the words on the page but because it has the stories that help us to tell a child about the compassion of Jesus and his longing for just and righteousness world. And because just maybe that book can sit on a desk or shelf and every now and then remind them of a community that told them over and over again that God’s love will never go away. I could have offered an invitation to join us this morning as we ordain elders and deacons in the life of our church. Each one, who in their own way, can point to an experience of the overflowing grace of God unleashed in their lives in and through this community they are now called to lead. I could have offered an invitation to join us because the only way I know to keep slogging along in the life of discipleship out in the indifferent world is to come together again and again and again and again to tell each other, as if for the first time, of the overflowing harvest of the righteousness of God. And over and over and over again praying that our love might flourish, that we might love and love well.

In every generation there are churches, congregations, and seminaries full of those voices of gloom and doom proclaiming the death of the church and pointing to loss of anything and everything from members to dollars to voice and power. Climbing the steps of the pulpit of scarcity with a sermon entitled “I have absolutely no idea how anybody believes in the church anymore”.  Paul wrote a letter from prison to a congregation seeking to be faithful to the gospel. A letter from prison about abundance. Allowing a harvest of God’s abundant love and grace and righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ.

“This is my prayer, that your love may overflow more and more with knowledge and full insight to help you to determine what is best, so that in the day of Christ you may be pure and blameless, having produced the harvest of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ for the glory and praise of God.”

I don’t know about you, but I will take that prayer every time. Nothing challenges the worlds indifference and a theology of scarcity better than a community determined to let God’s love overflow.

Romans 14:1-12
David A. Davis
September 17, 2023
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“So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s.”

When I was growing up in Pittsburgh, the radio play by play announcer for the Pittsburgh Pirates was a man named Bob Prince. My father actually worked with him broadcasting Penn State Football games in the 1950’s. My father said that off the air, Bob Prince used a swear word in every sentence but he never swore when the microphone was on. He did, however, have a whole bunch of unique Bob Prince-isms to describe things happening in a baseball game. When someone hit a homerun he would say “you can kiss it goodbye”. When a Pirate player named Willie Stargell hit a home run, it was “chicken on the hill with Will.”  An easy fly ball to catch was “a can of corn”. I learned years later that “can of corn” was not original to Bob Prince. The phrase in baseball goes as far back as the 19^th century. It made its way into baseball lingo by way of grocery clerks using sticks to get things off of high shelves in the store. They would knock cans of corn off the top shelf and catch it in their apron. An easy catch. A can of corn.

“So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s.”

Just a few weeks ago, my wife Cathy used an expression that I have absolutely never heard in my life. I don’t even remember what we were talking about but it was in reference to something going off the rails; maybe a recipe, or plan we had. Cathy said “it just went pear-shaped.” She explained that the expression means for something to wrong, to go south, the cheese slipping off the cracker. Of course, I didn’t believe her and knew she was just making it up. So I looked up and sure enough there it was “gone pear shaped.” The expression is rooted in British literature. Once again my lack of knowledge related to the Jane Austin library catches up to me.

“So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s.”

I officiated at a wedding for a clergy colleague a long time ago. The minister was marrying someone who was a member of the Philadelphia Opera Company. The minister had some good vocal chops as well. During the ceremony they sang a duet setting of “Entreat Me Not”. Entreat me not to leave you or turn from following you! Where you go, I will go. It is or maybe was an often-used wedding song. The text comes from the Book of Ruth in the Hebrew Bible. In the biblical context, the expression, the text, has nothing to do with marriage. It is Ruth expressing her love, devotion, and belonging to her mother-in-law Naomi.

“So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s.”

From the Apostle Paul, the 14^th chapter of the Book of Romans. “We do not live to ourselves, and we do not die to ourselves. If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s.” An expression, a text, a phrase from Paul often paired with other Pauline verses like “For I am persuaded that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rules, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8). Or “Behold, I will tell you a mystery! We will not all die, but we will all be changed. In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet.” (I Cor. 15) Or “I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, if somehow I may attain the resurrection from the dead” (Phil. 3).

“So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s.”

When one drops the Apostle’s phrase back into the context of Romans 14, it’s a game changer. A meaning changer. Romans 14 is not the soaring theological treatise of Romans 8. Romans 14 is not the rhetorical flourish that tells of Paul’s understanding of the dead being raised. Romans 14 is not the poetic, spiritual yearning to “press on toward the goal of the prize in the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus’ (Phil 3) As you heard and read, in Romans 14 Paul is writing about the issue of food choices, dietary laws, sabbath keeping, judgment, and self-righteousness. It is a plea to avoid quarreling over opinions and an exhortation to honor and give thanks to God in the mundane practice of life. It is Paul writing about life, ordinary, every life and food and relationships and community. Right smack in the middle of it all, Paul drops a resurrection song. “So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s.” It is Paul, weighing in, not on death but on life. Romans 14. It is not about dying. It is about living.

A bit more than a week ago, I witnessed my first in-person example of unfortunate behavior on an airplane. I was flying back from Louisville, KY. The flight had been delayed for almost three hours because of thunderstorms in Philadelphia. The plane that was to come from Philly and then return to Philly sat on the runaway at the Philadelphia airport for more than two hours waiting for the storms to pass. We were asked to board the plane all at once rather in groups, and board quickly to facilitate a quick turnaround before storms came back again in Philly. It was a very small plane. One seat on one side and two seats across the aisle. 36 seats in total. After we boarded, the pilot called the attendant forward to the cockpit. I could see it because I was in seat 2A in the single row. The attendant turned around to those of us in the front and said, “The pilot has told me that three of you up here in the front will have to go to the rear of the plane where there are plenty of seats because we are currently unbalanced.” I will admit that I expected the physics of flying a plane to be a bit more sophisticated than that. But the person behind me demanded to have further explanation. As a few of us got up to move to the back, a pregnant woman said she would go. The attendant said “no, you stay right here.” The person in seat 3A wouldn’t move and said it was unfair. The attendant was clearly exhausted and now frustrated. “Sir, we just sat on this little plan for more than two hours on a runaway in Philly. I am going to remain polite but I can tell you that if the pilot has to come out of the cockpit he will have you removed from the plane.” At that point another person volunteered. The pilot never came back. The man never moved. As I sat in the back with now two seats to myself and put on some Bach to play in my ear buds, I thought about how I taught my kids when they were about four that life isn’t fair.

Long before social media videos started going viral with bad behavior in the every day experiences of life, the Apostle Paul wrote to tell the church in Roman that how one lives life day to day in and among others matters. And it matters to God. Because “whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s.” It is more than the promise of resurrection hope and eternal life. It is about a life together infused in absolutely everyway with resurrection hope, resurrection promise, resurrection power. It’s not just about shouting “Christ is Risen!’, shouting it on Easter morning. Its about living it long about Wednesday, and praying in the dark of night, and whispering it with you life into the world’s chaos. It’s about living in the light and mystery of resurrection hope every day, basking in the love and grace of God, and passing forward the life giving, life sustaining power of God’s love to those around you moment by moment.

It’s not just about singing “Abide with Me….Hold thou the cross before my closing eyes, shine through the gloom and point me to the skies…in life, in death, O Lord Abide with me.” it is about dropping a resurrection song with the forgiveness you sow in life, and proclaiming the resurrection gospel with how you treat others in your office, and giving a resurrection witness with the unconditional love you can now give back to a parent whose health and mind is fading fast. It’s the assurance of God’s resurrection presence you cling to when the loneliness of the first week on campus rises up. It’s that resurrection strength you didn’t know you had that carries you the day after the diagnosis. It’s that grabbing hold of a future now and forever in God’s hands as the tears fall down your cheeks as your turn from the baptismal font with infant in arms, as your child climbs the steps of the school bus for the first time, as your newly minted freshman almost forgets the hug outside the dorm.

“So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s.”

It is the resurrection confidence that calms you at day’s end and lifts you at day’s beginning. It is the resurrection hope that echoes in your ears and beats in your heart when news of earthquakes, fires, hurricanes, and floods never stops. It is that resurrection rising that you see when communities rebuild, people come together for the common good, when hearts are changed and lives are transformed, and when love and kindness rise again out of the ashes of hatred, nastiness, and just plain bad behavior. It is the incomparable resurrection comfort that can carry you all of your days, every day. The belief deep within “that I belong body and soul, in life and in death, to my faithful Savior Jesus the Christ.” “So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s.”

“So then, each of us will be accountable to God”, Paul writes. Accountable for our judgment and our self-righteousness. Yikes! Speaking just for myself, thank goodness grace abounds. Paul is also calling us to be accountable for the proclamation and witness to God’s resurrection hope. God’s resurrection promise, and God’s resurrection power in our lives. One early twentieth century theologian and biblical scholar notably argued that Christ rises from the dead each and every Sunday when the Word is preached, when the gospel is proclaimed. I for one, can tell you preachers like me, we’re not that good. But you and witness to the resurrection? It starts with you. And in the smallest, most ordinary ways you could ever imagine.

“So then, whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s.”

 

Ezekiel 37:1-14
David A. Davis
September 10, 2023
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The second scripture lesson this morning tells of the prophet Ezekiel’s vision of the “valley of the dry bones”. A familiar biblical text to some, to many perhaps. A vision of a stark image that strikes the eye of the first time reader, strikes the ear of the first time listener. A valley full of bones. Very many bones. Dry bones. As I read the lesson for this morning, I invite you to listen for, to look for the word “breath” that occurs so often in just a few verses. “I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live…Come from the four winds, O breath..” In Hebrew the word for “breath” is the same the word for “spirit”. Ruah. Breath. Spirit. “I will put my Spirit within you, and you live.” The breath giving life to the very many dry bones is the life giving Spirit of God.

Ezekiel 37:1-14

“Mortal, can these bones live?” There in the middle of the valley known to the psalmist as the “valley of the shadow of death”. Heap after heap of dry bones. A scene of biblical proportion painted to portray the utter opposite of life. That type of scene is not reserved for archeologists in the tattered span of human history or even in most of our lifetimes. As we gather this morning on the eve of another anniversary of September 11, 2001. This I read that the remains of two more people who died on 9/11 have been identified and families were notified. More than twenty years later. Another scene of the utter opposite of life.

“Mortal, can these bones life?” Ezekiel, the prophet to a people in exile, the prophet/priest turns toward the voice of the Lord that led him into death’s valley, the prophet turns back to the Spirit of the Lord, shakes his head, shrugs his shoulders, heaves a heavy sigh, and says “O Lord God, you know!”

Here in the bible, in another place, at another time, another vision is offered. This time it is John of the Apocalypse in the Book of Revelation. John is shown a great multitude which no could number. The canvas of the vision isn’t a killing field. It is the throne of heaven. John is shown a crowd coming from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages. People from everywhere are standing before the throne of God dressed in white robes. They are carrying palm branches and singing a divine setting of Hallelujah Chorus. A scene of biblical proportion painted to portray God’s promise of everlasting life. One of the elders, one standing before the throne of grace, one of the elders says to John, “Who are these, robed in white, and where have they come from?” John turns toward the elder who offered the exam question. John looks back at the crowd, shakes his head, shrugs his shoulders, heaves a heavy sigh, and says Sir you are the one who knows”.

Or in other words, “I have no idea!” From the valley of the dry bones to heavenly throne room of God. “Can these bones live?…Lord God, you’re the only one who knows.” “Who is this multitude?…God, you’re the only one who knows.” It would seem the presence of the Holy Spirit and voice of the Lord inspires one to come to grips with the notion that some questions, some answers are best left to God. Can these bones live? Who is that standing there as the roll is called up yonder? Lord God, you know. Visions of biblical proportion. Prophet piety of biblical proportion that comes with a decided unwillingness to claim all the answers. Ezekiel, John the Revelator, and the Holy Spirit. A not so subtle, too often missed message of biblical proportion that trumpets a life of faith infuse with humility and grace. “I just don’t know, God.”

It occurs to me that John, John was privileged to hear the choirs of heaven singing. All Ezekiel got to hear was that “rattling”. “I prophesied as I had been commanded; and as I prophesied, suddenly there was a noise, a rattling, and the bones came together.” Rattling. This was no ordinary rattle. In fact, one would be hard pressed to find the word “rattling” elsewhere in scripture. This was more like a rumbling, an earthshaking. Like the loud rumbling Ezekiel himself heard when he was called and sent by the Lord to be a prophet to the people of Israel. Ezekiel’s call, what tradition summarizes as “when Ezekial saw the wheel”. A biblical multi-media experience for all the senses. As the vision came to its end, Ezekiel reports that the “spirit lifted me up as the glory of the Lord rose from its place and I heard behind me the sound of loud rumbling”. A quaking. A rattling. Like the shake felt by the prophet Elijah up at Mt Horeb when the Lord was about to pass by. There was wind and fire and earthquake, a rattling, but the Lord, you remember came in a still small voice. Like the rattling that must have been heard by angels when the stone was rolled away that Easter morning; what Matthew describes as “a great earthquake”.

This rattling was more than a bone here or a bone there, more than the knee bone connected to the thigh bone, more than one skeleton learning to dance. That rattling. John got to hear angles sing. Ezekiel got to hear the rattling of resurrection life. The rattling of life coming upon a whole people. The dance of collective resurrection. “Mortal, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say ‘our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely.’ Therefore, prophesy and say to them, thus says the Lord God: I am gong to open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people. I will put my spirit within you and you shall live, and I will place you on your own soil; then you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken, and will act……I will put my spirit within you and you shall live!”

My first congregation was here in New Jersey down in Camden County. There was a vast county-owned property not far from the church known as Lakeland. At one point in history Lakeland was vast campus that housed all kinds of county services. Over the decades, Lakeland became a shell of itself. Among a campus of falling down, empty buildings, the only operations left were a long term care facility for veterans and a mental health hospital. This vast piece of property also included a rather large cemetery with no gravestones or markers to be seen. It was a paupers’ field. A cemetery full of nameless people who died alone with little to nothing. I officiated at a few burials there where it was me, a couple people from the funeral home, the person who opened the grave, and a casket surrounded by mounds of dirt that sat atop recently filled graves. I offered the liturgy, the scripture, and the prayers. The four of us said the Lord’s Prayer together. The ritual of the promise of resurrection life in a Paupers’ Field or in Princeton Cemetery.  Speaking, prophesying, preaching  “the sure and certain hope of resurrection life”.

The prophet Ezekiel stands in a pauper’s field, a valley of dry bones, amid a common grave. God said “these are my people”. The prophet standing amid heap after heap of dry bones and the Spirit says “preach”. Like a wind. Like breath. Like Spirit. Preaching life to the dry bones of the people of God. Listening as the Holy Spirit works to breath life, hope and faith in and among and through the people of God. Listening in a community of faith for the rattling that comes with resurrection life.

The rattling of resurrection life embodied in the lives of those called together by God. A collective resurrection, that these dry bones, might in the very power of God, be the body of Christ in service to another and to the world. The Spirit’s breath and our life together. Not as anonymous Christians lost in a crowd, but as a living breathing community that worships together, a community that seeks to be faithful together, a community that commits to a depth of learning and living the gospel together. A community with more than enough broken bones and missteps along the way, where both hurt and forgiveness are real. Yet, a community that fully believes and waits for the breath of the Holy Spirit to blow afresh. A community that yearns to care for all who are in need, together. A community that dares stand with those who are shunned by the world, together. A community that strives to welcome strangers and entertain angels unaware together. A community that can look back with honesty and lament where necessary and can look ahead with hope and confidence in God’s leading, together. A weather worn community that experiences a passion for its life in God, together. A community that full expects that passion to be renewed week after week. A community that longs to hear, maybe only ever now and then, hear this rattling of resurrection life in its midst.

The preacher Barbara Brown Taylor once wrote that “the truly great preachers in this world are people whose names no one will ever know, because their sermons both arise from and are entirely absorbed by local communities of listeners who labor with them to embody God’s word….The success of a sermon is not measured by how many people said they like it, nor by the preacher’s own sense of accomplishment, but by ho the spoken word cleared a space for people to be met and set in motion by the Spirit of the Living God.” That’s Barbara Brown Taylor writing about the rattling. There is this rattling in the body of Christ. Spirit. Breath. Life. Our life together and the resurrection promise of God.

The pandemic has taken its toll on houses of worship and faith leaders. At the same time, culture and politics has ripped some congregations apart as well. You have read about what some have called “the great pastor resignation”. The topic went viral this week on “presbyterian twitter.”  Actually, presbyterians are not that hip so it was probably better described as “presbyterian Facebook”. A pastor blogging about leaving their congregation and offering a pretty extensive list of grievances about the old dry tired bones of the church and of ministry. The chatter, the buzz, the talk, the response to that post? It’s…a lot. On all sides. All opinions. All kinds of thoughts about these old, tired bones.

I couldn’t help myself. I read more responses and chatter about that post than I should have. I don’t even have Facebook. Amid this social media firestorm, I have my found myself being incredibly grateful because I realize God has gifted me, God has blessed me, God has enriched my life and my faith endlessly. You see, I have heard it. I have heard the rattling. Some Sunday mornings when you stand up here and look out, you can see and feel the weight of the world and the complexity of life and the strain of the journey. The collective wear and tear of life. And I bet over the years, you have seen it and felt it among those of us called to serve among you. But time and time again, there is this rattling. The promise of resurrection life rumbling. The shaking that comes when the darkness is so thick and together we discover that the light still shines. Maybe I can’t describe it. Maybe I can’t make a list. Maybe I can’t point here or there. But for heaven’s sake, for God’s sake, I have heard it. I have felt it. I have seen it. I long for it. I crave it. For Christ is Risen. He is Risen Indeed!

The promise of resurrection life and these tired old bones. A foretaste of what God can and will do among us, the body of Christ  here and now at Nassau Church. “I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live!” God’s promise. Let it rumble among us. And let those who have ears to hear, let them hear!

 

Matthew 5:13-16
Andrew Scales
September 3, 2023
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Last May, The New Yorker ran a short article by Nick Paumgarten about the “Hidden Chaplains” program at Princeton University. It’s an idea that an undergraduate named Kyle Berlin came up with in 2018 in conversation with my colleague Matt Weiner, one of the Deans of Religious Life over in Murray Dodge Hall. “Hidden Chaplains” are staff members on campus who bring moments of joy, kindness, and care into a high-pressure academic community that can often grind people down.

One of the celebrated Hidden Chaplains is Catalina Maldonado-Lopez, a member of the dining services team who cheers up stressed-out students in her dining hall as she swipes their meal cards. Another Hidden Chaplain recognized at this year’s banquet is Keith Upshur.

Keith is a custodian who keeps Murray Dodge Hall running, but he also talks about life and faith with students who come for Jummah prayers on Friday afternoon. Berlin describes Hidden Chaplains as people at Princeton who offer “quietly glorious acts of caring.”[1]

Kyle and Dean Matt’s concept of “hidden chaplains” gets at something I’ve seen in my own work as a pastor. During the summer before my second year of seminary, I interned as a chaplain at St. Vincent Hospital in Indianapolis. A few weeks in, I was the only chaplain on the overnight shift, which meant that any call that came in was for me. My pager went off around midnight, and the call came from the surgery wing.

At the nurses’ station, the charge nurse explained that a patient was getting increasingly belligerent toward his care team, and she wanted to know if I would visit him.

As I started down the hall toward the patient’s room, I felt unsteady and out of my depth. Two custodians were mopping the floor between the nurses’ station and the patient’s room. One of the women whispered to me, “Come here, baby. It’s bad in there. We’re going to pray for you.” She and her fellow custodian put their hands on my shoulder. She began to pray for me, for the nurses offering care, for the patient in that room, for everybody involved in the work of this hospital.

Before every shift at St. Vincent, I put on a white lab coat with the word “Chaplain” stitched above the breast pocket. Standing there in the surgery wing hallway at midnight, I felt as if these two women had clothed me with prayer. I felt equipped with new confidence to go into that room using all the tools I was learning to offer pastoral care to a distressed patient. As I walked out toward the nurses’ station to check in almost an hour later, the two custodians who prayed with me were down the hallway. They gave me a brief nod and then turned back to their work.

Fifteen years later, those two women on the surgery floor of St. Vincent Hospital come to mind whenever I read Jesus’ words, “You are the light of the world.” Without drawing attention to themselves, they anchored that surgery department in prayer and love. It did not matter if you were a seasoned physician, a stressed out nurse, a difficult patient, a terrified chaplain intern, or a grieving family member. These women understood that they had a job to do as followers of Jesus making sure that every person was lifted up to God. They were hidden chaplains, offering, as Kyle Berlin said, “quietly glorious acts of caring.”

The conviction that everyone has something meaningful to contribute to God’s redemptive work in the world can be found in the teachings of Jesus. Our Scripture reading from Matthew for this morning is from a section called the Sermon on the Mount. It’s Jesus’ first in-depth teaching to his disciples and the crowds that have sought out his ministry of healing.

When Jesus tells everyone gathered around him that they are the salt of the earth and the light of the world, he is doing something new. The work of justice and kindness is not the exclusive purview of religious experts or powerful insiders; it’s something everyone can participate in. Jesus’ message is for fishermen like Andrew and Peter, James and John. It’s for people who are ill and seeking healing, as well as the caregivers who have brought them to see Jesus.

When Jesus speaks to them, it’s with a plural “you.” Y’all matter to God, so to speak. All of you have a role to play in God’s promised healing of the world.

Jesus tells his listeners that they are as essential to God’s unfolding story of Good News as salt is to a meal or a shining lamp is to a house full of people. Jesus’ declaration that we are “the salt of the earth” and “the light of the world” is not a finished or complete description. It’s the beginning of an invitation to us—to all of us—to imagine what it means to participate in making the world around us more welcoming, more humane, more just. We grow in this imagination when we learn how to see and hear God’s work through us and our neighbors.

This summer, Len and I were on our first sabbatical after serving seven years with Princeton Presbyterians and Nassau. Thanks to a generous grant from the Presbyterian Church’s Board of Pensions, we were able to travel to Scotland and spend a few days on the island called Iona. Before taking a train to the western islands, we picked up a book at a shop in Edinburgh that caught my eye with its title: Imagine a Country: Ideas for a Better Future.

Paging through the introduction, I learned that the editors, Val McDermid and Jo Sharp, an author and a journalist, respectively, gathered together short essays in 2019 from a wide spectrum of Scottish society to share their ideas about what could make their country better. The rules were simple. Keep the essay brief, only 800 words. No politicians, since they get to share their ideas with the public enough. And finally, offer a vision that is hopeful.

I flipped back to the front page, and the epigraph was a quotation from a Scottish poet named Alasdair Gray: “Work as if you live in the early days of a better nation.”

The book is filled with the hopes and dreams of about eighty contributors from all walks of Scottish life. There’s an essay from a novelist lifting up the importance of elder care. A television writer imagines an openly queer prime minister of an independent Scotland as a model of tolerance and celebration. Some visions are by university students who are already encouraging young people to vote, and environmentalists working on responsible reforestation of the Highlands.

There are pleas for funding to teach young people Arabic and Chinese, not only to thrive abroad but to acknowledge new neighbors in their communities. There are visions of small villages welcoming immigrants and refugees with warmth, and artists who aspire to put an instrument in the hands of every child in school. One of my favorites was a cartoon from a standup comedian with the caption: “Free soup every Friday made by a granny” above a sweet old lady with curly hair and glasses holding an enormous steaming pot of stew.

Imagine a Country gets at the spirit behind Jesus’ emphasis on each person being a part of God’s story: “You are the salt of the earth. You are the light of the world.” Each one of us has a role to play, a hope to share, a dream of flourishing to work toward. Reading each essay reminds me that the work of making our world better is something that cannot be undertaken alone.

What if each of us were to take the prompt from Imagine a Country and reframe it as Imagine a Church? In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus is interpreting and sometimes reinterpreting his tradition to help us imagine how to live into a life with God that is deeper and more expansive than we can imagine. If you could pick one thing that would make Christian community and our neighborhoods more just, more humane, more loving, what would it be? Is it grounded in something you’re already doing?

In Princeton Presbyterians, the campus ministry I serve, we talk a lot about the Taizé Community, an ecumenical monastery in France that welcomes young people all over the world. Their founder, Brother Roger, once wrote, “Everyone bears within themselves a great inner theme. Let it sing out, again and again. No use looking elsewhere. From it is born a continual creation.”

Maybe you, too, will find a creative way to be a hidden chaplain for someone this year. God has given each one of you some great inner theme to share in simple ways. Let it sing out on a hospital hallway with a friend who’s sick, or in your dormitory with a suitemate who’s having a hard semester, by Nassau’s playground door when you volunteer with Arm in Arm. Whatever it is, we need what God has given you to share with the world. Your gifts are as essential to our life together as salt and light.

[1] Nick Paumgarten, “Dept. of Kindness: Princeton’s Hidden Chaplains,” The New Yorker, May 22, 2023. https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2023/05/29/princetons-hidden-chaplains#:~:text=“Hidden%20chaplain”%3A%20this%2C,quietly%20glorious%20acts%20of%20caring.”

 

Luke 18:9-14
Lauren J. McFeaters
August 20, 2023
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It begins with contempt.

“Jesus told this parable to some

who trusted in themselves (that they were righteous),

and who regarded others with contempt.”

 

It begins with Contempt: the opinion that another person is insignificant, worthless, deserving scorn.

Contempt: regarding someone as inferior, worthless.

Contempt: being dishonored, disgraced; disrespected.

The Pharisee, rather than being grateful for his blessings, is smug to the point of loathing. In his mind, there are two kinds of people: the righteous – and the immoral; the virtuous – and the corrupt. He is thankful, head to toe, to be among the righteous.

The tax collector, on the other hand, is desperate. He’s overwhelmed by his misery and divides humanity into the good and the awful. All he recognizes is his wretchedness and he stakes his hopes entirely on God’s mercy.

John Calvin puts it this way: What makes our pleas and prayers null and void, is our contempt of others.

And contempt seeps out at all angles.

• at a neighbor who’s not raking their leaves in proper piles

three feet from the curb;

• at a boss who can’t seem to grasp our potential;
• at the Ex who knows exactly how to sabotage a family

gathering;

• the coach that seems to have it out for us;
• the sister we haven’t spoken to in three years.

 

How luxurious it can be to bathe in contempt; to swim in it, soak in it. The problem comes when we’re so seduced by our “right” and someone else’s “wrong,” that our faith shrivels, our hearts wilt.

Holding onto our distain is the single most act of detachment from our faith, because rather than rejoicing in what God can make of us, we choose to hang someone out to dry.

Our disdain is an attempt not to need God, because we think we have the power to be our own God. The Pharisee’s prayer was not a petition to God. It was a selfie posted on X; an upload to Snapchat; a post on Insta. In contrast, the tax collector is so deeply in need of God, that a plea for mercy is becomes an act of trust.

But here’s where we need to be careful:  before we turn the Pharisee and Tax Collector into Biblical Stock Characters, brought out for a lesson in ethical behavior; you know: the self-righteous, rule-bound religious leader, lacking in compassion – compared to the repentant, meek, and simple tax collector, we need to be very shrewd, very careful, because Luke has set a trap.

Whenever a parable seems this clear-cut, this straightforward, we’d better not go down that path. David Lose puts it this way: careful listeners should realize Luke is the master of reversals; things never stay the same for long.

First, the Pharisee.

Truth be told, he only speaks the truth: he IS righteous. According to the law, he leads a blameless life. He fasts and gives alms, and indeed bears no resemblance to the unsavory characters with which he compares himself. What, then, is his problem? It narrows down to one thing: while he is right about the kind of life he should live; he is mistaken about the source of that life.

While he prays to God, his prayer is about himself, and because he misses the source of his blessing, he despises those God loves. He leaves the Temple as righteous, according to the law, but he is not justified; that is, he is not called righteous by God.

Second, the tax collector.

There is no note of repentance in the tax collector’s prayer, no pledge to leave his employment, or render reimbursement to those he cheated, no promises of a new and better life: nothing, except the simple acknowledgment that he is utterly and entirely dependent on God’s mercy. The tax collector knows the one thing the Pharisee does not: his life belongs to God – his past, present, and future – entirely dependent on God’s grace. [ii]

Again David Lose says, this is where trap is set:  the minute you decide to take this parable to heart and “be humble” like the Tax Collector, it’s pretty hard not to also be grateful you’re not like that Pharisee.

And then the trap has sprung. It’s not about you. Not your humility or lack of pride or even about your being one justified by faith. It’s not about you; it’s about God. [iii]

This parable – was and is, a challenge to shift our attention from ourselves – our distain and self-effacement, our piety and passions, our success and failure, our glory and shame – to shift it to where it has belonged all along – to the God who delights in justifying the ungodly, welcoming the outcast, and healing all who are in need; the God whose compassion rains upon us in showers of tenderness. Mercy. Mercy Saints Alive.

 

For all of her life, my Aunt Willie Hines used the phrase “Mercy Saints Alive.” She was a woman raised in poverty, our family were share-croppers on a farm in Pickens, Mississippi. She learned to sew and cook, plant beans and fish the creek, pluck a chicken and bake a biscuit.

When surprised, she’d quietly say, “Mercy Saints Alive.”

When confused, she’d softly exclaim “Mercy Saints Alive.”

Aunt Willie Hines was 5-foot, 1-inch of quiet discretion. She blended into the background, and you had to listen carefully when she spoke. She was shy and timid and unsure of herself. What she was sure of was being able to bake cornbread or Chess Pie in a log-fed oven without a thermometer or a timer.

But while Willie Hines was quiet and hesitant at home, on Sundays at the Pickins Baptist Church, she was rip-roaring. Rather than responding with a modest voice to her pastor’s, “Can I get an Amen,” she’d loudly declare, “Jesus my Lord – Mercy Saints Alive,” Instead of keeping a reserved profile during prayer, she’d speak-out with a full-throttled, “Mercy Saints Alive, Dear Jesus, Mercy Saints Alive.” On Sunday mornings, Willie Hines let herself loudly express a full-throttle declaration of gratitude.

That’s what I want to shout at these two men. Mercy Saints Alive you two. Lord have Mercy!

• One of you is way too busy looking above yourself; the other, way too busy burying your head in the sand.
• One of you is so arrogant, you can’t see beyond yourself; and the other can see themselves at all.
• One of you is a legend in your own mind; and the other can’t fathom being more than a worm.

Mercy Saints Alive you fools!

• Don’t you know, before there was sin, there was love;
• Before there was contempt, there was joy;
• Before there was the shame, there was grace.

It’s not about you. It’s not about us. It’s about God.

And that’s the best way to receive this parable:

• to put hands on hips, and declare, “Mercy Saints Alive.”
• Instead of looking up and being self-satisfied; instead of looking down and living in self-abasement; look straight ahead, into the eyes of your Lord, because your Lord is looking straight back at you.
• This Lord who forms and reforms you;
• This Lord who will never let you go,
• This Lord who pulls all of us –
• The Pharisee and Tax Collector,
• The Condescending and the Ashamed;
• The Arrogant and the Unassuming;
• Holy Rollers and Heretics –

He pulls us right into the arms of Mercy.

Mercy Saints Alive.

 

ENDNOTES

[i] Luke 18:9-14:  Jesus also told this parable to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous and regarded others with contempt: “Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, was praying thus, ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people: thieves, rogues, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give a tenth of all my income.’ But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even look up to heaven, but was beating his breast and saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ Jesus said, “I tell you; this man went down to his home justified rather than the other; for all who exalt themselves will be humbled, but all who humble themselves will be exalted.”

 

[ii] David Lose. “Commentary on Luke 18:9-14.” Workingpreacher.org, October 24, 2010.

 

[iii] David Lose. “The Pharisee, the Tax Collector, and the Reformation.”  Workingpreacher.org, October 21, 2013.

Matthew 14:13-21
David A. Davis
August 6, 2023
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My first visit to Israel/Palestine was in 2008 with a group of pastors who were all graduates of Princeton Seminary. One hot summer afternoon, the twenty-five or so of us were gathered for a communion service along the shore of the Sea of Galilee. We were next to the Church of the Primacy of St. Peter. Tradition tells that this church was built at the place along the water where the Risen Jesus made breakfast for the disciples who had gone back to fishing. The breakfast when Jesus asked Peter three times if he loved him. Next to the ancient church there are several areas for visiting groups to sit in the shade. Sort of like picnic shelters intended for prayer, worship, teaching, or listening to a tour guide talk about the church.

It was a beautiful place. The breeze was coming off the water. We could hear the water lapping against the rocks. The communion table was set. We enjoyed some singing at the beginning. As we began to share the bread and the cup, it was amazingly quiet. We went up to the table two by two. All of us in prayer. Some in tears. Others in wonder at the view, at the place, at the moment. Where we blessed and broken the bread could not have been far from where Jesus fed the five thousand besides women and children. The silence among us was as if you could hear the Holy Spirit.

We were still “communing” when three school buses pulled up just at the top of the hill. Young children rushed out and made a bee line for the shore, the rocks, the water. They passed right in front of our view of the water. They came right through our holy moment, our holy space. They weren’t so much interested in the ancient church or the sheltered spaces for prayer. They went for the water. Skipping stones. Throwing rocks. Wading in the water up to their knees. Laughing. Screaming. Yelling to one another in Arabic. It’s what children do along the shore! Not long after the children arrived, when about half of them had made it to the water, one of my fellow ministers, fearing our sacred moment was going to be ruined, stepped out from our shaded gathering to try to appeal for quiet. He didn’t speak Arabic so all he could was “shh!” as the kids ran by. As he ran around among them, it was like he was playing a game of  “Shh” tag or trying to “shh” them away rather than shoe them away. Trying to tell the small crowd of joyful children to go away.

The disciples wanted Jesus to send the crowds away. It wasn’t because they were too noisy but because it was getting late. They were in a deserted place. It was time for the crowd to go and find something to eat. Jesus says “You give them something to eat”. “We have nothing here but five loaves and two fish.” Jesus tells them to bring him the loaves and fish. Then he tells the crowd to sit down on the grass. “Jesus looked up to heaven, and blessed and broke the loaves, and gave them to the disciples, and the disciples gave them to the crowds. And all ate and were filled….about five thousand men, besides women and children.”  They all ate and were filled.

But before they were filled. Before the disciples told Jesus to send the crowds away. Before he asked for the five loaves and two fish. Before the crowds sat down on the grass. Before Jesus looked up to heaven. Before take, bless, break, give. Before the twelve baskets came back full. Before all ate and all were filled. Before all of that, according to Matthew, Jesus “saw a great crowd; and he had compassion for them and he cured their sick.” Before they all ate and were filled, he was filled. Filled with compassion.

Earlier in his gospel, Matthew tells of Jesus going about all the cities and villages, teaching and proclaiming the good news of the kingdom. “When Jesus saw the crowds” Matthew writes, “he had compassion for them because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd” (9:36).  Just a chapter after this account of the loaves and fishes, Matthew tells again of “a multiplication”. “Jesus called his disciples to him and said, ‘I have compassion for the crowd because they have been with me now for three days and have nothing to eat, and I do not want to send them away hungry’” (15:32). And in the 20^th chapter, Matthew tells of the two blind men sitting by the side of the road outside of Jericho. “Lord, have mercy on us”, they shouted. The crowds told the two to be quiet but Jesus stood still and called out to them. As the gospel records it, Jesus was “moved with compassion” and he touched their eyes. They regained their sight and followed him. He was moved with compassion.

Before they were filled, he was filled…with compassion. Jesus had just been told about the death of John the Baptist; the brutal, violent, head on a platter, death of the man who baptized him. He went to be by himself. He wanted to be by himself. If there was ever a time to be by yourself to grieve, to weep, to pray. Matthew says “he withdrew”. Jesus went to the deserted place by himself by boat. But the crowds followed him on foot along the shore, keeping him ever in their sight. So when he got there, they were there already. Instead of having the deserted place to himself, which was clearly his intent, “he saw a great crowd.” And despite his own grief, despite his clear intention and desire to be by himself, instead of the heartbreaking, good cry that would be so warranted after John’s murder, Jesus still had compassion. He had compassion for them…still. Even then. Still. Compassion.

He didn’t ask for a few hours, or for some time alone, or even for a moment, he had compassion. He didn’t try to explain his situation or share why some time alone would probably be good for him, a put your own oxygen mask on first kind of thing, he had compassion. He didn’t pretend that he didn’t see them. He didn’t turn away, or get back in the boat, or go find another spot, he had compassion.

Jesus didn’t require them to listen to a sermon first, or to show their religious stripes, or pass a scripture test, he had compassion. He didn’t wait for them to ask, or make them beg, or convert them first. He had compassion. He didn’t expect them to justify themselves, their sickness, or their hunger. He had compassion. He didn’t demand they shout out, or bow down, or perform a sacrifice, or praise him, or express their gratitude first, he had compassion.

Jesus didn’t wait to find out if they could afford it. He didn’t check to see if they came from the right family. He didn’t search the Hebrew scripture for a justification. He didn’t stop to ask himself if they deserved it, or if they earned it, or if they even wanted it. He had compassion. This time there was no talk of the sheep and the goats. He didn’t ask for the true believers. He didn’t preach about a narrow way, or the eye of the needle. He didn’t tell them to go and sell everything and give it to the poor.  He had compassion.

Jesus didn’t wade into the crowd to see which ones agreed with him. He didn’t ask them if they bought into his interpretation of this text or that. He didn’t examine their views on piety, or doctrine or temple practices, or the Sadducees and the Pharisees, or rendering under Caesar, or heaven and hell, or salvation. He didn’t require them to attest that he was the only way. He had compassion. He didn’t divide them into groups based on where they came from, or what dialect they spoke, or what side of the street they lived on, or who were haves and who were have nots. He didn’t check to see who was pulling on their own bootstraps, or who was trying help themselves, or even who was sicker or hungrier. He had compassion. He didn’t ridicule them, or question them, or demonize them, or label them, or tell them they were wrong, or yell at them. He didn’t lead with cynicism, or lack of trust, or fear. He led with compassion. He didn’t stoke their fear, or pit them against each other, or threaten them, or assume they were lying, or accuse them of trying to get something they in no way deserved. He had compassion.

Before the Last Supper when he again blessed and broke, before his betrayal, his torture, his crucifixion and his resurrection, there was his compassion. Long before the Reformation, and before liberals and conservatives, and literalists, and fundamentalists, and progressives and evangelicals, there was his compassion. Before the King James, the RSV, the NIV, the NRSV, the CEV, there was his compassion. Before Christians disagreed and argued about pretty much everything, there was his compassion. Long before it became more important to be right rather than be faithful, there was his compassion. Before Christians became so enamored with who is in and who is out, there was his compassion. Before the bible and Christianity and the name of Jesus were used to invoke violence and hate and slavery and oppression and exclusion, there was his compassion.

Before the miracle of feeding the five thousand, besides women and children, there was his compassion.  Remarkable? Yes. Miraculous? Yes. But a miracle? No. Compassion ought not to be that much of a stretch. It shouldn’t be so unexpected. Compassion shouldn’t be reserved for only the most divine. Compassion ought to be so utterly human. It was just such a part of his DNA. Jesus and compassion. Part of his DNA and part of ours. When Jesus said to the disciples. “you give them something to eat”, it was like he was saying “Go and do likewise”. Go and have compassion. Live and breathe and act “compassion.” Before the expression “follow the money” became an adage in politics and business and corruption and life, the followers of Jesus  were taught to “follow the compassion”. For the Christian, for the church, for you and for me, today, here and now, there can’t be much that is more important than bearing, communicating, exhibiting, living, breathing, acting compassion.

Back in 2008 at the Sea of Galilee, as I watched one pastor look rather foolish running around pleading for quiet, the wiser pastor next to me leaned over and said “you know”, with a head nodding toward the kids at the water’s edge, “that’s what it ought to sound like at this meal. That’s what it is going to sound like in the kingdom of God.”

Come to the Table this morning and be filled…with compassion and joy.

 

 

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