Of the 21 counties in New Jersey, Mercer County ranks 7th highest in food insecurity. Summer is a particularly difficult time of the year for food banks. Donations always decline following the holiday season and reach their lowest point during the summer months. Food banks also face their greatest need in the summer. Families with children who have been receiving free or reduced-cost breakfast and/or lunch at school need to find a way to replace those meals during the summer break. Mercer Street Friends Food Bank has put out a call for donations to help Trenton’s children receive food for the summer.
We are asking for help in two ways:
1. Donations of money: The food bank buys large quantities of food at reduced cost. Donations can be sent directly to:
Denalerie Johnson-Faniel
Mercer Street Friends
824 Silvia Street
Ewing, NJ 08628
Phone: 609-278-5543
Cell: 917-334-3640
2. Donations of food:
Food Drives – Available all Seasons
Canned Proteins ~ Tuna, Sardines, Salmon or Chicken, Canned Vegetables
Canned Fruits in a Light Syrup or Juice, Rice, Pasta and Pasta Sauce
Shelf Stable Milks ~ Parmalat, Cereals & Oatmeal, Pancake Mix (Non~Sugar)
Peanut Butter & Jelly
Children’s Menu
Shelf Stable, 2% Reduced Fat Milk ~ 8oz Single Serving Size
Cereal ~ Individual Bowls or Boxes, Starkist Tuna to Go or equivalent,
Bumble Bee Tuna Salad with Crackers to Go or equivalent
Chef Boyardee Microwaveable Bowls or equivalent,
Campbell or Progresso Microwaveable Bowls or equivalent
Hormel Completes Entrees or equivalent
Peanut Butter 18oz, Jif to Go ~ little peanut butter cups
Grape Jelly in a Plastic Container*, 14 to 18oz, Granola Bars
Pudding Cups, shelf stable
Mercer Street Friends Food Bank will pick up the donated food at your location. Call the number above to schedule a pickup.
Joshua 2:1-21
David A. Davis
July 1, 2018 Jump to audio
The Gospel of Matthew 1:1 “An account of the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham. Abraham was the father of Isaac, and Isaac the father of Jacob, and Jacob the father of Judah and his brothers, and Judah the father of Perez and Zerah by Tamar, and Perez the father of Hezron, and Hezron the father of Aram, and Aram the father of Aminadab, and Aminadab the father of Nahshon, and Nahshon the father of Salmon, and Salmon the father of Boaz by Rahab, and Boaz the father of Obed by Ruth, and Obed the father of Jesse, and Jesse the father of King David. And David was the father of Solomon by the wife of Uriah.” Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and the wife of Uriah who is Bathsheba. Four women named by Matthew in the genealogy of Jesus. Four plus Mary of course. Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, Bathsheba, and Mary. All five here in the lineage of our salvation. All five listed on Jesus’ page on Ancestry.com. All five come with a story worth telling, a story you should know. This morning, Rahab.
Rahab was a prostitute and a non-Jew living in the city of Jericho. Joshua had sent two spies to scope out the city in advance of the “battle of Jericho” when the walls came tumbling down. Rahab’s house was their first stop. The king of Jericho had sources who told them a couple of foreign spies were with the prostitute and he demanded they be apprehended and ordered Rahab to hand them over. But she hid the two spies instead and reported back to the king that indeed they had been there but the men slipped out just at dark right before the city gate was shut. “Where they went, I don’t know. But I am sure if you went after them quickly you could still catch them.” The king’s men went off on a wild goose chase toward the Jordan River while the two spies were hiding under some stalks of flax up on Rahab’s roof.
Before the men went to sleep Rahab went up to the roof and talked to them. She told them that she knew and understood that the Lord had given their people the land. She told them how frightened her people were, and that they had heard about the Red Sea drying up for them, and that they had utterly destroyed, wiped out, eliminated the two kings beyond the Jordan. “As soon as we heard it, our hearts melted and there was no courage left in any of us because of you,” she told them, “the Lord your God is indeed God in heaven above and on earth below.” And then she asked for their protection. She asked for their mercy. She asked them to swear to protect her and her family in the siege that was to come. She begged for her family not just to stay together, but to stay safe, stay alive. I helped you. Now you helped me. “Our life for yours!” the spies responded. “If you do not tell this business of ours, then we will deal kindly and faithfully with you when the Lord gives us the land.”
Rahab then helped them get out through a window and they scaled down the wall with a rope. She told them to run toward the hill country which was opposite from the Jordan River and opposite the direction she sent the king’s men. They told her to keep a crimson cord tied in her window so that they and their people would know and keep the oath of protection, the promise of kindness and faithfulness amid the destruction and war that was to come. And Rahab the prostitute sent them off saying “So be it.” And as described a few chapters later Joshued Rahab and her family and all who belonged to her. As the book of Joshua sums it all up: “her family has lived in Israel ever since.” (6:25)
Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, Bathsheba, and Mary. As the preacher in the book of Hebrews puts it, “By faith, Rahab the prostitute did not perish with those who were disobedient, because she had received the spies in peace.” (Heb. 11:31). And the Book of James in the argument about faith and works: “was not Rahab the prostitute also justified by works when she welcome the messengers and sent them out by another road? (James 2:25).
It is as if the New Testament writers gave Rahab a last name: the prostitute. Rahab the prostate. The ancient historian Josephus refers to Rahab not as a prostitute but as an inn keeper. Rabbinic tradition tells of Rahab fully converting to Judaism later in life and lists her as one of the most beautiful women in history. Some in the Christian tradition lift her virtues of hospitality and mercy, repentance, and faith so as to fully overshadow what the New Testament writers don’t want the reader to forget: Rahab the prostitute. Actually some scholars of the ancient language and of the Hebrew bible suggest that the story, in its original telling and nuance, is much more racy than the English translation, or this sermon for that matter, would allow. The sordid tale of Rahab the prostitute and the two spies.
Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, Bathsheba, and Mary.
I participated this week in the dedication of a new monument in Princeton Cemetery marking the grave of a Revolutionary War veteran named Aaron Mattison. Aaron Mattison was a a quarter master in General Washington’s Army and was the first steward of the then college of New Jersey, living in the lower of Nassau Hall next door. As part of the occasion, the Princeton University Archivist Daniel Linke spoke about some early history. The few records that survived two infamous fires in Nassau Hall don’t mention much about Aaron Mattison. But, Dan Linke said, the earliest history of Nassau Hall still provides some context and relevance for the university today. He went one to talk about how the residents of Prince Town raised the money for the purchase of the original plot of land and that the then governor of New Jersey donated his library to the university. As the structure of Nassau Hall was being built, the first trustees of the then College of New Jersey voted to name the building after the governor. The governor politely, eloquently, and forcefully declined. How fortunate, the archivist opined, because the name of the governor of New Jersey at that time was Belcher. Belcher Hall? The archivist then wondered aloud if such prominence and stature would have ever come to the place had it been named something other than Nassau Hall. His point was about how the subtleties of history, the twists and turns, can inform how we understand our institutions, our traditions. How those subtleties can so often be lost and what we can learn by paying attention rather than glossing over some of the stories and tales that we tell over and over again.
Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, Bathsheba, and Mary.
With the Book of Hebrews and the Book of James tagging Rahab and her social media accounts throughout history as “the prostitute,” a reading of the story that judges her character or her sinfulness certainly dominates the tradition. Even today, that theme sort of leaps of the page at the reader. But those same scholars who point to the even more explicit material lost in translation also point out that a folk tale of a prostitute and two spies was not uncommon in the annals of antiquity. So what if the part about Rahab being a prostitute wasn’t the most shocking part of the story back then? What if there is a more compelling twist lost, not in translation, but in the timeless fascination with her profession? What if the most striking aspect of the tale is not Rahab’s act of civil disobedience in lying to the king and her secret deal with the spies? What if there is a stronger message being sent to the readers of Matthew’s gospel who come upon Rahab’s name there in the genogram? The genealogy of Jesus that actually doesn’t label her a prostitute. A subtle detail that would never, ever, ever have been passed over or missed or underestimated in the ancient world. In the ancient world where ritual religious law and ritual and practice so strictly defined purity. A subtle detail that should never, ever, ever be passed over and missed or underestimated in a world where religion and race and tribe are used to define and divide all of God’s people.
Rahab the prostitute was a non-Jew. She was a Gentile. A foreigner. By her own testimony she and her people understood that the intent of Joshua’s men, of Joshua’s army was to “utterly destroy” them because they were outsiders, they didn’t belong, they were not Jewish. Like those two kings across the Jorden who were wiped out, the kings and their kingdom, Rahab and her people, their hearts melted because they knew what that all meant for them. As the New Jerusalem Bible puts it, “the two kings beyond the Jorden whom you put under the curse of destruction.” Or as the Hebrew word could be translated, “to destroy, to root out, to ban.” Rahab and her people were non-Jews. They were non. And yet, Rahab and her family have lived in Israel ever since. It is a part of the story, part of the history, part of the tradition, so easily lost. It is a story that tells why, that explains, the justifies, how and Rahab and her family of outsiders, Rahab and her people, have lived in Israel ever since.
Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, Bathsheba, and Mary. Rahab and her people, not just the outsider living in Israel ever since, the outsider, the foreigner, the non, living forever in the lineage of our salvation. Of course, the sin and shame of it all, is that so much effort has been put into Christian theology and practice pretty much since the time of Matthew 1:1, to determine, to define, to declare who is out and who is in. And the other irony so easily lost? The one the Apostle points out in Romans? When it comes to salvation history, before we were in, we were out. We’re the ones grafted in. In salvation’s ageless story, you and I, we’re with Rahab and her people.
Think of how different the world would be if people remembered that most of us, maybe all of us, really, are with Rahab and her people. It’s a subtle detail that should never, ever, ever be passed over and missed or underestimated in a world where religion and race and tribe are used to define and divide all of God’s people.
Exodus 1:6-22 and Luke 16:1-13
Francisco Pelaez-Diaz
June 24, 2018 Jump to audio
I would like to start by expressing my gratitude on behalf of my family for the opportunity to participate in the life and ministry of this church. We have been blessed not only by the wonderful sermons, music, Sunday school classes, retreats, small groups, and worship in general, but more importantly by the warm and welcoming treatment extended to us by the pastors and the congregation in general.
It is not always easy to participate in church functions and worship with a baby, or a toddler, or a “big niño” as my son Oliver refers to himself nowadays. In our case, Oliver’s level of energy and his need to move, walk, climb and talk is more than some people feel comfortable with in certain public settings. Despite the challenges, my wife and I have decided to cling to the spirit of Jesus’ words when he said “let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of heaven belong to such as these.” (Mt. 19:14 NIV) We are grateful that such spirit is reflected in the words printed in every Sunday’s bulletin: “Children are always welcome in our services of worship.”
We have reached the point where Oliver sometimes wants to come by himself to the front during the Time with Children and also attend Sunday school classes. But we wanted to give him the experience of being together as a family during worship as long as possible. We truly believe that it is important to experience church as a family. We believe in the importance of being together as a family. We want him to feel that he is part of a family, and we want him to experience that feeling of belonging to the church that is both implicit and explicit in his baptism, which as some may remember, took place in this church in February of 2016.
And precisely because we value and enjoy so much being together as a family, the topic that dominated the news this past weeks hit us so hard. I am talking about the separation of immigrant families at the US-Mexico border as a result of the “zero-tolerance” policy implemented in April of this year. In early May, when I selected the Old Testament passage that we read today, I had recently watched the official announcement of this policy and started reading about the implications for those who were coming to this country as a family. The story in the book of Exodus, chapter 1, came to me as a story that could shed some light as to how to respond to a situation such as the one we are witnessing these days.
Verse 17 of Exodus 1 stood out to me: “But they (the midwives) feared God and did not do what the king of Egypt had told them to do; they let the boys live.” The story in Exodus chapter 1, in my view, is about resistance, courage, cleverness/shrewdness, humanity, faithful witness to the principle of human life’s worthiness, and, ultimately, clear priorities that are in line with those of God. Each one of these themes emerge as a response to their opposites: Oppression, abuse of power, fear of “the other,” foolishness linked to prejudice, contempt or disregard towards human life and ultimately towards anything that doesn’t align with the interests of the powerful.
This is the scenario: A few generations after Joseph’s and his brothers’ death, a new king came to power in Egypt. For this king, Joseph meant nothing. A commentator’s translation says: “Then there arose a new king over Egypt who did not care about Joseph”[1] or “who did not want to have anything to do with [Joseph].”[2] These translations allow the interpretation that the king probably knew something about Joseph but such knowledge meant nothing to him or perhaps, he did not like what it meant and therefore he decided to ignore it. A common occurrence in human behavior is the tendency to forget or ignore history. There is a broad spectrum of reasons and degrees of intentionality behind this tendency. The spectrum could go from simple ignorance to ideological commitments and/or political agendas with many other possibilities in between. In the particular case of the presence of the Israelites in Egypt, we know through the book of Genesis (chapter 47) that such presence came about through God’s extraordinary intervention and through human relationships. First, Joseph interpreted dreams for people he met in prison. One of them was Pharaoh’s chief cupbearer who later referred Joseph to Pharaoh when Pharaoh had the dreams that no one else could interpret. And then, fast forward, when Joseph’s family came to seek refuge in Egypt due to the famine, they were welcomed and given land in Egypt, thanks to the relationship that Joseph had established with Pharaoh. Relationships allow trust to flourish. Put in negative terms, the lack of meaningful relationships is one of the most fertile soils for the growth of fear and suspicion. I think this is what happened with this new king of Egypt. He did not know Joseph because he belonged to a different generation, which is not his fault of course, but apparently, he did not want to know about Joseph despite the fact that he was surrounded by Joseph’s descendants. Instead of trying to understand why the Israelites were there, or how they got there, or what benefits Egypt received from them, the king succumbed to his paranoia, exacerbated perhaps by his lack of relationships with them. He was not interested in a more comprehensive analysis of the presence of the Israelites. He simply created a problem where there was none. There is no indication that the Israelites posed a threat or that they were a problem, and even then, the king of Egypt, relying on a mere hypothetical situation, decided that the course of action should be the reduction of the number of Israelites in Egypt. Is this hypothetical situation totally unfounded? Not necessarily. Part of the reality of being an empire is the constant risk of being involved in a war. In case of war, you certainly need to watch your back. The problem here is twofold: On one hand, the king of Egypt highlighted only one aspect about the Israelites: their big number. He says: “the Israelites have become far too numerous for us” (v. 9 NIV). On the other hand, the king took a small portion of the reality of being an empire, namely, the risk of the Israelites becoming allies of their enemies and used it to instill fear. And then, he made of all this the whole story about the Israelites. The king proceeded to use this story to justify a plan to reduce the number and control those who otherwise were living peacefully in Egypt. The Nigerian writer Chimamanda Adichie has described moves such as this as the “danger of the single story,”[3] which occurs when one takes a portion of the reality of human beings –such portion is in some cases called stereotypes- and make of it the only and whole story. When we do that, Chimamanda argues, we dehumanize individuals and entire groups of people. In fact, such dehumanization becomes more acute and dangerous when we add fear to the equation. The king of Egypt did both things –used a single story and instilled fear-. As an immigrant myself, the topic of migration is on my radar pretty much all the time and I can see how these two elements are being constantly used against immigrants, not only in the U.S. but pretty much everywhere. Immigrants are constantly defined as a problem (crime, burden, threat) and fear is being instilled. Once fear is instilled in our minds, it’s easier to justify and even participate in the humiliation, dehumanization, and ultimately, the annihilation of the “other.”
Going back to Pharaoh, he then said to the Egyptian people: “Come, we must deal shrewdly with them…” (v. 10a NIV) It is revealing that the king of Egypt explicitly proposed to act “shrewdly,” and ended up failing miserably. Some commentators say, “Pharaoh thinks to act shrewdly, but is really [a] wicked fool…”[4] One definition of shrewd is: “A shrewd person is able to understand and judge a situation quickly and to use this understanding to their own advantage.”[5] A more colloquial definition says “shrewdness is the ability to use the resources that a person has to get what he/she wants.[6]” So the resources that Pharaoh had were huge: He had political power and the power to enforce the law. Why did he fail as we’ll see in the following verses? It seems as if he did not use the right resources or did not apply them in the right way to obtain what he wanted. But there is also the possibility that there was something in his way every time. Here are two of Pharaoh’s attempts and his failures:
The first strategy attempted to reduce the Israelite population was enslavement. Some have suggested that the exhaustion caused by intense labor under harsh circumstances would take away the energy required to reproduce. According to v. 12 (NIV), this was not the case: “…the more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread; so the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites.” But is not only about the ability to reproduce but more importantly, the ability to give birth and raise children. As Dr. Jacqueline Lapsley has pointed out, the strength of women carrying to term babies and raising them to adulthood defies the logic that these things would be impossible in the midst of such terrible conditions of exploitation and suffering.[7] In other words, the king’s logic was right, Dr. Lapsley suggests, but the Israelites and specially the Israelite women were stronger than he thought. These strong women were in Pharaoh’s way.
When this strategy failed, the king of Egypt thought of a more drastic and direct measure: Male infanticide. Dr. Dennis Olson points out that Pharaoh asks the midwives, those whose vocation was precisely to preserve and protect life, to execute the infanticide. In Dr. Olsen’s words, “Pharaoh demands that they deny their vocation and kill.”[8] This strategy was supposed to be discrete and deceiving. Some commentators suggest that the boys were to be killed in a way that made the mothers believe that the boys were stillborn.[9]“But the midwives feared God and did not do what the king of Egypt ask them to do.” (v. 17) We know the names of the midwives that received this terrible command: Shiphrah and Puah. We don’t know for sure if they were Egyptians or Hebrews. This ambiguity is interesting because the reason for disobeying Pharaoh is not related to any loyalty toward their ethnic identity. What we know is that they disobeyed because they feared God. Disobeying a king did not pose a minor risk. Often times doing so would mean to put one’s own life at risk. But the midwives understood that killing innocents would go against God’s will. They understood without a doubt the pain and suffering that a mother would experience for being separated forever from her child and they knew that such suffering being inflicted purposely and unjustifiably, was against God’s will. And they took a stand. They decided to resist. They decided to defy Pharaoh. But the form of their defiance was not an open one. The midwives also proved to be shrewd. But their shrewdness was successful, unlike that of Pharaoh. Once Pharaoh discovered that his command was not being obeyed, he summoned the midwives and asked them: “Why have you done this? Why have you let the boys live?” (v. 18) Again, following Dr. Lapsley’s translation and interpretation, the response of the midwives was: “Because not like the Egyptian women are the Hebrew women, for they are animal-like –before the midwife comes to them, they have given birth.” [10] This means, Dr. Lapsley says, that this response is a lie in the sense that the midwives are not revealing the reason for not killing the boys, which is their fear of God. But at the same time, the midwives’ response is true[11] because earlier in this passage (v. 7) there is an expression that is often used to refer to some animals’ prolific capacity to reproduce to describe the extraordinary way in which the Israelite population had grown.[12] Even more importantly, the response of the midwives was really clever because, in Dr. Lapsley’s words, “it plays to the king’s prejudices. The king likely already thinks of the masses of Hebrews as animals, in the negative sense of less than human, so that he is not inclined to doubt the veracity of the [midwives] account.”[13] In this way, the midwives deflected any punishment against them[14]. They were shrewd. They used the resources that they had, in this case the prejudices of Pharaoh against the Israelites, and obtained what they wanted, namely, the preservation of innocent lives, which was in line with God’s will. The notion of shrewdness is a complex one. In the Gospel reading of this morning (Luke 16:1-13) Jesus tells the story of a shrewd manager whose actions made his boss lose trust in him. Some have said that this is the most difficult parable in Luke because there are many details left out that make it difficult to determine the extent of the unethical behavior that Jesus ends up commending. The implications of this story leave us wondering if Jesus embraces a pragmatic approach and overlooks unethical actions. Going back to the Exodus story, as William Propp says, “like other biblical acts of defiance, the midwives’ heroism involves an element of the sneaky.”[15]
We are constantly witnessing or facing difficult or oppressive situations in which we feel that we must be obedient or compliant even though we know that these situations don’t align with God’s priorities and God’s will. This story, the story of the shrewd and faithful midwives, reminds us that our guiding principle to respond must always be God and God’s priorities. Our response can take different forms, and perhaps, in some cases, when there are risks for us, our response may require some shrewdness, and always, always must reflect our fear of God – this is, our faithful alliance with God and God’s priorities.
[1] Cornelis Houtman, Exodus, Historical Commentary on the Old Testament (Kampen: Kok, 1993), 219.
[3] Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, The Danger of a Single Story, consultado el 21 de junio de 2018, https://www.ted.com/talks/chimamanda_adichie_the_danger_of_a_single_story.
[4] Brevard S. Childs, The book of Exodus: A Critical, Theological Commentary, Old Testament library (Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1974), 13.
[5] “Shrewd Definition and Meaning | Collins English Dictionary”, consultado el 23 de junio de 2018, https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/dictionary/english/shrewd.
[6] Dr. Joseph Castleberry, sermon preached at Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association Great Auditorium on June 17, 2018.
[7] Jacqueline E. Lapsley, Whispering the Word: Hearing Women’s Stories in the Old Testament, 1st ed (Louisville, Ky: Westminster John Knox Press, 2005), 72.
[8] “Commentary on Exodus 1:8–2:10 by Dennis Olson”, consultado el 23 de junio de 2018, http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=131.
[15] William Henry Propp, ed., Exodus 1-18: A New Translation with Introduction and Commentary, 1st ed, The Anchor Bible, v. 2 (New York: Doubleday, 1999), 142.
I Samuel 15:34-16:13
David A. Davis
June 17, 2018 Jump to audio
On the Family Retreat a few weeks ago we gathered for worship on Sunday morning along the shore of the Chesapeake Bay. We broke up into teams to plan for worship and one of those teams was in charge of the reading of scripture. The lesson chosen for the morning was Jesus calming of the storm that was just offered for your hearing. The team of kids and adults decided they were going to act out the story as it was being read… and it was fun. They borrowed one of the kayaks the camp had there at the beach for a prop. The only other prop was the Chesapeake Bay though they wisely did not get in the water for a full embodiment of the story. One adult served as the reader. The children were all the disciples with one in the front of the of the kayak being Jesus. Two dads knelt at either end of the boat and served as stagehands to “rock the boat.” They were storm simulators. One other adult stood just behind the kayak and in front of the shoreline to serve as the symbolic action for the sun and the wind. Though, when the storm really hit, it looked a tad like an “arms only” hula dance.
So as the story was read and the wind and sea whipped up, let’s just say those stagehands were taking their job very seriously. Jesus and the disciples were tossed around like they were in an over-inflated bounce house at a traveling carnival. The disciples, being played by the serious and properly trained actors they were, displayed all kinds of expressions of fear. They were scared! Jesus, of course was asleep on a cushion. Jesus, though being vigorously tossed to and fro, was asleep. Jesus who at one point was just about tossed right out of the boat, was sleeping. Actually, Jesus, she was sleeping and smiling at the same time. To be more specific, Jesus was sleeping and flat out giggling all at once. Which sort of makes sense if you stop and think about it. Jesus, so confident and peaceful in God’s hands, so sure of God’s presence, that sleeping and smiling and laughing all go together.
I wonder if Samuel was smiling when Jesse’s sons were parading by. I wonder if Samuel was laughing after waiting for David to come in from tending to the sheep. Smiling because the future king of Israel was from a small town barely on the map? Mayvbe. Smiling because David was so young? Yes. Smiling because God told him to rise and anoint this shepherd boy to be the royal shepherd of God’s people? Probably. How about Samuel, smiling and laughing and confident and sure all mixed in together because he knew God would provide.
That’s the take away from this classic story of David being found, David being selected, David being anointed, David being the one. It’s not about David being handsome and perfect in every way. Just wait a chapter or two. It’s not about David’s heart being forever pure. Just keep reading. It’s not about the right king and at the right time and a reign of peace and life happily ever after. It’s all more complicated, more earthy, more gritty, more life-like than that. It’s a story intended to affirm that the Lord provides.
Any recollection, any retelling of how the whole epic of King David epic began has to include that stunning, show-stopping, theologically mind-numbing, so easy to miss as a passing comment verse. The verse that says “the Lord was sorry that he made Saul king over Israel.” Samuel was grieved. The Lord was sorry. Samuel was grieved here not just by Saul’s death, not because he never saw Saul again. He had to have been grieved by the whole mess that was Saul’s reign over the people of Israel, grieved that he and God and the people, they all went down this “let’s have a king” road. Samuel was grieved. The Lord was sorry and clearly ready to move on. The Lord was apparently not sorry about the king part, just the Saul part. “I have provided for myself a king”, the Lord told Samuel.
“Come on, quit your hand wringing, no more looking back. I am going to take care of this myself. I know who I want. Now you’re going to go to Bethlehem to the house of Jesse and find him.” Once again a king of Israel comes on the scene and is anointed by Samuel in a story that is, one could say, less than regal. Jesse and his sons were invited to sacrifice and a crowning of a king breaks out. Samuel, probably with a smile on his face, is sure that the first, oldest, good-looking strapping son was the one. Samuel was sure Eliab was the one. “Well, would you look at him!” God said “Nope, we’re not doing this by looks this time.” “Abinidad then! That’s it!” God said no. “Shammah! Shammah gets the rose!” The Lord said no. All the rest pass by and now Samuel is pretty much on board. “None of these are going to work. Is this everyone?”, he asks Jesse? The youngest is out working. Doing the chores. Tending the sheep. And Samuel announces that no one is going to sit down and eat until the youngest son David gets in here.
And here’s where the narrator, the writer of First Samuel, the ancient scribes, here’s where the narrator sort of slips in a kind of lasting literary reminder of human sin. A subtle, biblical, textual archived reminder that humanity will always stick its tongue out at God like a child in a playground spat. John Calvin called it “total depravity.” Sometimes its more like thumbing your nose, or hiding the peas on your plate, or having a little hissy fit.
Bill Scheide’s rare book collection lives on after his death over at the University’s Firestone Library. One of many books he really enjoyed showing people was one called “The Sinner’s Bible.” Of course it was very old. It was printed in the King James. Only a few copies remain and one is there in the Scheide collection. Bill imagined a printer’s apprentice getting back at the boss or just being impish, pulling a prank. Because there on the ancient in the Ten Commandments, the book of Exodus, it says in the print, “Thou shalt commit adultery.”
Here in First Samuel God has just said no to Samuel regarding Eliab. God says “The Lord does not see as mortals see, they look on the outward appearance but the Lord looks on the heart.” I’m not picking a king on good looks this time. And when it is recorded that David arrived from the fields right before dinner, they just couldn’t stop themselves from writing down, from passing on, from announcing he was handsome! Never mind that its not all that clear to me how a young man from Palestine could be “ruddy.” God just told Samuel it was not about outward appearance. They wrote down that part. And when the story tells of David making his his less than grand entrance into Israel’s history, “tradition” can’t help but stick a tongue out at the Lord. He may have just the right heart……but he’s gorgeous too in a European kind of way.
Not having read the narrative now preserved in the canon, the Lord simply tells Samuel, “Rise and anoint him; for this is the one.” Samuel anointed him with oil right there in front of his brothers and the spirit of the Lord fell mightily upon David from that day forward. For, according to the Lord, he was the One. David was the king God provided. David was the one God provided for Godself and for Samuel and for the people of Israel. He was the one. God’s beloved. The Lord provides.
The Lord provides. That’s the take away from this classic story of David being found, David being selected, David being anointed, David being the one. It’s not a naïve Hollywood ending kind of affirmation. Just wait a chapter or two. It’s not like one of those well-intended but poorly thought out attempts at comfort when someone gives and awkward hug and says “It must have been God’s will.” Just keep reading. It’s not one of those flowery theologically vacuous proof text quote from the Apostle Paul about all things working for good for those who love the Lord, this story of King David and God and God’s people, it’s all more complicated, more earthy, more gritty, more life-like than that. Amid all of life’s complexities, when the feebleness of kings and the failures of leaders and the fecklessness of God’s people are all so evident, when the relationships of nations are fraught with war and rumors of war, when faithfulness to the righteous, just, and compassionate vision of the prophets, a vision that is the reign of God, when such faithfulness is nothing but a flicker of light in a sea of darkness, still the Lord provides.
Back at the beach, after the young Jesus calmed the storm and the two dads stopped rocking the boat and everyone returned to sit in the worship circle and rub our feet in the sand, the preacher asked us to share with one another our thoughts and reflections. What came next, from young and old alike, was the stuff of 5, 6, 10 sermons. All of them you will be hearing from me in the future as I shamelessly pocket those ideas. The one that is apt for this morning, the one that pairs well with the story of David, the one thought that follows from Jesus sleeping and giggling all at once, it came when of the groups suggested that maybe the bigger miracle amid the storm, Jesus’ bigger miracle, was not that he calmed the sea, but that he took away their fear. When it wasn’t just Jesus sleeping and smiling, but Jesus and disciples smiling and laughing and confident and sure because they knew God would provide. He took away their fear.
It is true, that some days, some nights, some moments, some seasons, you have to pray for a miracle. It’s okay to pray for a miracle. Pray that God would take away the fear. Pray that you, that we would remember and know that the Lord provides. That God would take away any fear. For God’s perfect love casts out fear. Pray that you and I, that we and our children and grandchildren might be so confident and peaceful in God’s hands and in the promise that the Lord provides that sleeping and smiling and joy might all go together now and forever. Even if it is a miracle.
I Samuel 10:17-27
David A. Davis
June 10, 2018 Jump to audio
Just Friday night Cathy and I were having dinner with a friend and colleague who came in from out of town for a meeting at the seminary. She is a pastor and a graduate of Princeton Seminary. We had never met her husband. He was in Princeton for the very first time. So at dinner one of those questions came up that always comes up. One of the questions you never get tired of answering, even if you been answering for more than 30 years now. The two couples, we asked each other, “So how did you two meet?” It’s one of those questions that presumes a really, good story, right? The question came up over Memorial Day Weekend at the church family retreat. Folks sitting around the table enjoying a meal, getting to know each other while all the kids were at the next table. “So where did you two meet?”
I am fairly confident that when I tell the story of falling in love with Cathy down the street on the seminary campus in the mid 80’s the story gets better absolutely every single time I tell it. Both dating other people, becoming best friends, the tree down by the boathouse under which we first talked about marriage, long walks around Springdale Golf Club, Cathy telling God back then that she would go to seminary but she wasn’t going to marry a minister or live in New Jersey the rest of her life. Every time I tell it, the story gets better and the details morph a bit. It’s not like I make things up or that it is apocryphal or that I am asserting poetic license. It’s that it is a great story. I am not alone, by the way. Cathy told our friends on Friday night that we courted by taking runs on the golf course. I’m pretty sure the running part, that wasn’t me. Maybe that was someone else.
If by God’s grace I get to tell the story when I am 75, it most certainly will be by then “the greatest story ever told.” I know I’m not the only one. You and your grandfather, and your aunt Kate, and your best friend from school, you’re all just like me because some stories come from way deep within the bones, deep within the heart. A sort of soul story full of details and memories and the stuff of life. I think that’s how we’re supposed to read these stories of Samuel, and Saul, and David, and kings and judges and God and God’s people. It is as if you pulled up a chair next to the oldest family member at the summer picnic and said, “So tell me again about Samuel and Saul and how that whole king-thing got started?”
Some try to reach for a kind of grand theory here, arguing that the ancient texts offer conclusions related to best forms of government and the most faithful forms of civic leadership and God’s role in determining leaders. Some stick to the overarching theological conviction that only God shall be king and thus the monarchy in ancient Israel was a generations-long, a centuries-long, failed experiment that embodies that affirmation and sets the stage for Jesus, the servant-king, the Messiah, the Son of God. Still others opt for the all-night, dormitory-like conversation with a debate about whether God changes God’s mind, or God sort of throws up the hands and simply gives in to the demands of the people, or God just chooses to mess with them with the rulers yet to come.
But you have to wonder about reaching for a grand theory or going for vast theological conclusions when some of the details of the story are just so “in the weeds” and kind of quirky and full of the messiness of being human and the ambiguity that defines that intersection, that relationship of God and God’s people. The people told Saul he was too old and his sons were scoundrels. That they had had it up to here! God told Samuel to give them a king two, three times, and Samuel wouldn’t do it. Three times God told him to listen to them and he still wouldn’t do it.
Saul’s introduction in the pages of scripture includes the description that he was tall and handsome. The whole thing starts with Saul being sent to look for the family’s lost donkeys for goodness’ sake. That’s how the whole selection process of the first king of Israel is launched; looking for some lost donkeys. Samuel treats Saul like a king and anoints him with oil privately. It was all a done deal.
But then there is the odd public drawing of lots, or some kind of election, or drawing of straws. Samuel gave Saul three signs to look for to confirm all this craziness he was telling him: two men at Rachel’s tomb who will know where the donkeys are, three men at the oak of Tabor who will have a skin of wine and two loaves of bread, and a frenzied band of prophets playing a tambourine, a flute, and lyre. The story tells of God giving Saul a new heart; God changes Saul’s heart, God transform Saul’s heart.
But it only takes a few chapters for the reader to find out that didn’t last all that long or it didn’t take, or it didn’t work, or Saul was backsliding After Samuel tells Saul that he would be the king, Saul’s father asks him what they had been talking about. Saul just says they were talking about the donkeys. He didn’t even mention that, oh, by the way, I’m going to be king! And all of that, that’s all before Saul tries to hide himself among the luggage after the election to apparently avoid the whole mess. The tall, handsome guy trying to hide over at baggage claim.
It is a crazy story! I wonder what it sounded like the very first time someone told it! Some days the takeaway from scripture is lot less grandiose, the meaning a lot less global and a lot more local. Local in terms of your life and mine. Some may reach for the “aha” or the “see, I told you so” of a grand scheme, offer a profound pronouncement that only God is king and at the same time risk missing the unexciting, run of the mill, everyday quality of an ancient soul story, a soul story full of details and memories and the stuff of life. A soul story full of details and memories and the stuff of life. A kind of quirky soul story full of the messiness of being human and the ambiguity that defines that intersection, that relationship of God and God’s people, an ambiguity that you and I live with and wrestle with pretty much all the time. A soul story that might in fact have quite a lot to do everyday life.
Early on in this great story of Saul becoming king, Samuel is really ticked that the people have demanded a king, that the people told him he was too old, that the people rejected the leadership of his corrupt sons. Samuel, who was always on good speaking terms with God, takes it to the Lord in prayer. God says to Samuel, “Samuel, they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them. Just as they have done to me from the day I brought them out of Egypt to this day, rejected me, forsaken me, and served gods other than me.” It’s not about you Samuel. It’s about me. But then God goes and tells Samuel to listen to them. God goes and gives them a king. God knows they are rejecting God and still God gives those who rejected God, God gives them what they want. God does not turn away. God does not reject. God listens. God hears. God remembers God’s people. God gives them a king.
Then after all that convoluted selection process and the search for lost donkeys and the anointing with oil and the feast and the signs and whatever on earth casting lots was really like in antiquity, after all that, after one last shout, one last demand, “give us a king!”, then the people could not find Saul. Saul was nowhere to be found. And those who had rejected and forsaken the Lord had the gall to go right back and ask. They inquired again of the Lord. “Umh, uh, ahh, do you know where he is? Saul, the son of Kish, our new king, yeah, we can’t find him anywhere.” And the rejected, forsaken God of Gods and Lord of Lords responds to God’s own people, “See, he has hidden himself in the baggage.” Yeah, look over there. Or as that ever poetic and flowery version in the King James English translates it: “Behold, he hath hid himself among the stuff.”
Very early in my ministry a young father came to me to ask about baptizing his three sons. He had grown up in the church I was serving. His parents were there every Sunday. He and his wife were recommitting themselves, coming back to church, making church a part of their lives and the lives of their children. They had an infant son, and two young elementary-aged boys. I explained that I would be happy to baptize the baby but we should wait for confirmation for the older boys. They were no longer infants so infant baptism wouldn’t apply and they were still too young to affirm their own faith. So we should wait a while; until they understand. The young dad looked disappointed there in my office but he also seemed satisfied with my answer.
A few days later he called the office. “Reverend,” he said, “I have been thinking about our conversation and I just don’t see how, I don’t believe God would ever reject my boys or withhold his love and grace because they’re too young to understand. Why would God reject anybody?” A few weeks later I baptized all three boys. He was right. I was wrong. Last I knew the oldest boy was engaged to marry the daughter of the pastor who followed me in that congregation. And ever since, when I baptize an older child, or there is sibling standing with us at the fount when I have a child in my arms, I say, you have heard me say, “This means that God loves you very, very much. And nothing, nothing, will ever, ever change that.
The Ethiopian eunuch in the book of Acts says to Philip, “Look, here is water! What is to prevent me from being baptized?” Philip didn’t answer him. He baptized him. When the Prodigal Son came home, before he said a word, his father ran to him, embraced him, and kissed him. Jesus referred to himself and Peter referred to Jesus with that quote from the psalmist, “the stone the builders reject has become the cornerstone.” He gave himself for those who rejected him. God does not reject those who reject God. God listens. God hears. God remembers God’s people. God gives them a king. The eunuch. The Prodigal Son. Jesus. And Saul becoming king. Saul becoming king. It’s one of those soul stories.
God loves you very, very much. And nothing, nothing, will ever, ever change that. God will never reject you. God’s love is for you. Even and especially and most definitely when you are trying to hide in all the stuff, in all the stuff of life, in all that stuff that is your life and mine. God knows and God’s love, it’s right there, in all that stuff. It’s kind of quirky, isn’t it. God’s love reaching out to you even when you’re trying hide. But that’s how God works amid all the messiness of life. It’s one of those quirky soul stories.
A congregational meeting is called for Sunday, June 24, at 11:00 a.m. in the Sanctuary for the purpose of electing new officers and the Audit Committee and approving the pastors’ terms of call. See the list of nominees below.
Ruling Elders
Holley Barreto (Class of 2021)
Tim Brown (2021)
Lisa Burke (2020)
Bill Creager (2021)
Elizabeth Gift (2021)
Nicole Huckerby (2021)
David Kerschner (2019)
Kim Kleasen (2021)
Alex Milley (2021, youth)
Stephanie Patterson (2019)
Camille Scordis (2019, youth)
Erik VanLaningham (2021)
Deacons
Julia Aggreh
Glenn Imhoff
Christian Kirkpatrick
Eva McKenna
Claire Mulry
Bob Murdich
Janie Nutt
Beth Parker
Colleen Santoro
Marie Shock
Anne Steel
Morgan Swanke (youth)
Sharilyn Tel
Isabel van Wagner (youth)
I Samuel 1 1-20
David A. Davis
June 3, 2018 Jump to audio
This morning and on most of the Sundays to come this summer, we are turning in our preaching life to the Old Testament. On these first three Sundays of June, the sermon text will come from the Book of I Samuel. The reign of King David is the central story line, the focus of I and II Samuel. But before David and all those stories of Jonathan and Goliath and Uzzah and Michal and Abigail and the ark and Jerusalem and dancing and slingshots and a bow and arrow and witches and music and singing, there is Saul, and there is Samuel, and there is Eli the priest and his two priest sons tagged in the words of scripture as “scoundrels.” And there is Hannah. Our biblical text for today is the story of Hannah. Hannah, the mother of Samuel. Hannah and the boy Samuel, who after he was born and weaned, Hannah, as the Bible says, “lent him to the Lord for as long as he lives.”
You will remember the comical story of the call of Samuel, how God kept calling Samuel in the night but Samuel thought it was the old priest Eli. I Samuel tells of how the young boy served in the temple at a time when “the word of the Lord was rare… visions were not widespread.” The book of Judges ends with the troubling conclusion that all the people of Israel “did what was right in their own eyes.”
The Word of the Lord was rare and everyone did what they thought was right in their own eyes. In other words, when it came to God’s people and faithfulness and righteousness and loving the Lord your God, and having no other Gods before me, things were a mess. So when the narrative of I Samuel points out for the reader that “As Samuel grew up, the Lord was with him and let none of his words fall to the ground”? That’s a big deal. Samuel is a big deal. The relationship, the communication, between God and Samuel is a big deal.
When it comes to God’s covenant with God’s people, the salvation history of God’s people, it turns with Samuel. God’s revelation to God’s people; God makes a move with and through Samuel. The monarchy, the king, King David, the house of David, God’s promise to David, it didn’t start with a lineage. It didn’t start with a coronation or a royal wedding. It started with Samuel. Which means it started with Hannah.
Hannah only hangs around the world of the Bible for a chapter and a half. She enters stage right as one of the wives of Elkanah and exits with the narrator’s incredible understatement: “The Lord took note of Hannah… and the boy Samuel grew up in the presence of the Lord.” I for one, as I read and ponder the story of Hannah in June of 2018, I have decided I can’t read it, I can no longer hear it, in the same way. This living Word of God. If you are anything like me, you won’t be able to ever hear it the same way again either.
[I Samuel 1:1-20 is read]
Over the years I have regularly been invited by the professors at Princeton Theological Seminary who are teaching the introduction to the Old Testament course to participate on a panel to discuss “preaching from the Old Testament.” The class happens near the end of the semester. Students are invited to submit questions ahead of time. The panel members receive a copy of those questions organized by theme by the faculty members.
What we panel members have learned is that we really don’t even have to look at the questions. Not because we know all the answers but because the questions never change. The students change. The faces change. The years change. But the questions remain the same: How do you preach the violence and judgment that runs all through the Old Testament? How do you preach all the complex historical-critical material we have been learning? Do you have to mention Jesus in every sermon even if the lesson is from the Old Testament? How do you preach the apparent contrast between the God of Old and the God of the New Testament? What about some of these difficult, gut-wrenching biblical texts of the Old Testament?
At some point in the discussion I usually try to mention that in my pastoral experience, in my years of serving as a pastor and preacher, one of the most difficult aspects of preaching the Old Testament is something never mentioned in all the questions, the years of questions. It is the dominant theological motif of barrenness and fertility. Hannah is far from the only name. Sarah. Rebekah. Rachel. The mother of Samson. In the New Testament, Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist.
Over and over again, the reader of scripture is told that God heard their prayer and a child was born. Yet, pastors and preachers and professors and students of the book, all of us know that it doesn’t work that way: when it comes to real life, life in a congregation, having a child, unable to have a child, joy and heartbreak.
I stopped carrying babies at the time of baptism up and down the aisle to introduce them to the congregation way back in the early nineties when I had a child in my arms and looked right into the tear-filled eyes of a woman sitting on the aisle there in the pew who I knew had just suffered a miscarriage. I have rarely felt more helpless as a pastor than the times I have sat with women and men who have poured their hearts out to God just like Hannah and they ask me why God has not heard their prayer, why God has not answered their prayer… and I have no answer to give. For those students in the introduction to Old Testament class, after a year or two of ministry, I bet the questions change.
Such a dominant biblical theological motif in I Samuel. But it’s not the only one, especially if you find yourself hearing an old, old story in a new kind of way. Elkanah had two wives, Hannah and Peninnah. The reader is told right from the get-go that Peninnah had children but… Hannah had none.
Each year, Elkanah would take his family on a pilgrimage to worship and offer a sacrifice at Shiloh. The two priests who served at Shiloh were the scoundrel sons of Eli. It is not until chapter two that the narrator tells of these corrupt priests who “had no regard for the Lord.” They would steal from the food being sacrificed for themselves, sometimes sending their own servant to do the dirty work of getting the better portion. “Give it to me now,” the servant would demand of the worshippers, “or I will take it by force.” The narrator comes right out and announces that “the sin of the young men was very great in the sight of the Lord!”
So the yearly trek for Elkanah, his wives, and kids was hardly a pious, rejuvenating, spiritually-uplifting retreat that included a visit with the family priest and sage and all-around pastor who had sort of become part of the family. Add into that toxic religious environment the notion that Peninnah, labeled in the text as Hannah’s rival, “used to provoke her severely, to irritate her” because she couldn’t have a child. According to I Samuel “it went on year by year, as often as they went up to the house of the Lord. Peninnah used to provoke Hannah.” This was more than teasing. It was more than whatever we could fathom as competition among spouses in a polygamous situation. This was bullying. This was abusive. This was Hannah over and over again, year after year, repeatedly being reduced to tears and not being able to eat.
On a first read, it is as if we are to give Elkanah a bit of a pass for his part any way in the family system. After all, according to the translation, he gave Hannah a double portion of what had been sacrificed. He gave her a double portion of what was left after the rotten, sinful sons of Eli took the best and, no doubt, larger part. He gave her a double portion, which in her distress, she wasn’t eating anyway.
A footnote to the reading in the New Revised Standard Version indicates that the meaning of the Hebrew in the verse about Hannah’s portion is uncertain. Another translation indicates Elkanah only gave her one portion and for that portion she should have been grateful because she had no children. As one Hebrew Bible professor told me years ago, the Hebrew in a few parts of I Samuel is a mess. What the professor, what he didn’t say back then, was that the translators and scribes must have been trying to give Elkanah the benefit of the doubt. A pat on the back. There, there, old Ekanah. “He gave Hannah a double portion.” Of course any benefit of the doubt is lost when Elkanah makes the mistake that us men have made pretty much forever, thinking it was, at the end of the day, all about him. “Am I not more to you than ten sons?”
After everyone else had finished eating and drinking, Hannah rose. Well, that doesn’t quite to it justice, does it? She made the decision to go back up to the temple. She turned from her husband and his other wife, she turned away from all that nastiness and hurt and stepped with both feet into a less than welcoming religious space so that she could present herself before the Lord. “She was deeply distressed and prayed to the Lord and wept bitterly.” It was the kind of prayer that comes with clinched fists, and indescribable groans, and breathless sobs, the kind of prayer that comes with sweat-like drops of blood, the kind of prayer that no one should endure and the kind of prayer that way too many have. She continued to pray silently and her lips were moving. “Please, please, please, O my Lord, O my Lord, O my Lord.”
Eli lifted himself off the front step and went to see what this childless woman was up to inside the temple. He thought she was drunk. “How long will you make a drunken spectacle of yourself? Put away your wine.”
“No, my Lord, I am a woman deeply troubled; I have drunk neither wine nor strong drink, but I have been pouring my soul before the Lord. Do not regard me as a worthless woman, for I have been speaking out of my great anxiety and vexation all this time.”
Do not regard me as a worthless woman. I have been pouring out my soul before the Lord. That old codger of a priest Eli basically says, “Well, God bless you,” and gets out of there as quickly as he can. I Samuel puts it more formally: “Then Eli answered, ‘Go in peace; the God of Israel grant the petition you have made to him.’” What it doesn’t say is that he was probably already half-way out the door, because Hannah, Hannah, just dropped the mic. Don’t call me a worthless woman when I have been pouring my soul out before the Lord.” Oh, I bet, no kidding, you think, “the Lord took note of Hannah”?
As to that dominant biblical, theological theme of barrenness and fertility, the culmination, the end of the story, of course, is that Hannah conceived and bore a son, Samuel, the child she lent to the Lord for as long as he lived.
But this time, with this read, with this biblical, theological theme, I sort of want to stop right there. Right there with the echo of Hannah’s bold, courageous voice. For a powerless, childless woman dared to speak up and pour out her soul before God and before a world, a religious world that then, and pretty much ever since, would prefer she just keep quiet. One biblical scholar puts it more eloquently. She writes, some of these stories of women in the Bible, “they are not just simple domestic tales with happy endings” but rather, they are stories that tell of how “the initiative of bold women can alter the trajectory of history.”
God’s covenant, God’s covenant with God’s people. The monarchy, the king, King David, the house of David, God’s promise to David, it didn’t start with a lineage. It didn’t start with a coronation or a royal wedding. It started with Samuel. Which means it started with Hannah. A powerless, childless woman who dared to speak up and pour out her soul.
John 3:1-17
Lauren J. McFeaters
May 27, 2018 Jump to audio
Barbara Brown Taylor tells the story of a desperate woman whose life is full of anxiety. The woman senses no purpose to her life, so she decides she must search for life’s meaning.
First, she first reads everything she can get her hands on – history, philosophy, psychology, religion. And while she becomes a very smart person, nothing she reads gives her the answers she is looking for.
So, she sets off, away from home, and goes into the world and talks to as many people as she can, but no two people can agree on life’s purpose and meaning.
Then she hears of a man who does have this kind of knowledge and wisdom and in desperation travels thousands of miles to find him deep in the Himalayas. I think there must be a surfeit of wise people living in the Himalayas. This old man lives in a shed perched on the side of a mountain. She climbs and climbs and arrives in triumph and knocks at his door.
“Yes?” says the old man who comes to the door.
She thought she had gone to heaven and died of happiness.
“I have traveled around the world
to ask you one question.
What is the meaning of my life?”
Silence.
“Please, come in and have some tea,”
says the man.
“No. Sorry,” she says.
“I mean no disrespect, and really, I don’t,
but no thank you.
I didn’t come all this way for tea.
I came for an answer.
Please tell me, what is the meaning of my life?
I will perish without understanding.”
“We shall have tea,”
the old man said.
So, she resigned herself, gave up trying,
and went inside.
And while the man was brewing and steeping the tea,
the woman began to chatter about all the many books she had read,
all the many the people she had encountered,
and all the many the places she had visited.
And then, just then, the man placed a fragile tea cup in her hands and he began to pour the tea.
She was so busy speaking she didn’t notice her cup was filled.
The old man just kept pouring,
until the tea ran over the sides and spilled onto the floor.
“What are you doing!” she shrieked, “It’s spilling all over my hands and leaking everywhere. It’s full. It’s full. Can’t you see? There’s no more room!”
“Just so,” said the man. “You come here wanting something from me, but what am I to do? There is no more room in your cup. Come back when it is empty and then we will talk.”
Meanwhile, many years ago and miles to the west, a ruler of the Jews named Nicodemus came in secret to see Jesus at night. They held back on the tea, the cups, and the ritual. The outcome, however, was the same. Nicodemus came looking for answers – about life’s meaning, faith’s place in the world, and his identity in God’s kingdom.
Like the old man, Jesus would not play this endless, wordy game and instead poured tea all over his visitor and said, “Nicodemus you already have teapots full of questions and gallons full of answers, yet you will not receive my testimony.”[i]
Have you not listened?
Have you not heard?
Over and over and over again I’ve been saying:
Very truly I tell you.
Very truly I tell you.
Very truly I tell you.
So, how’s the tea in your cup? Is it full to brimming? Overflowing? Is there any room for more? Is your cup empty and ready to be filled? Did you even know you had a teacup in your hands? Do you even drink tea?
This time of year, I like to drink my tea over ice with extra lemon, a sprig of mint, and never with sugar. That’s a hint to have me over for tea. We can compare the emptiness or fullness of our cups. Because as Brown Taylor says; sometimes we need is one droplet of teachability; one drip of openness; one dribble of trust. [ii]
When the Reverend John Buchanan retired after 48 years as a Presbyterian pastor; he gave an interview for a magazine that looked back over his five decades of ministry. He especially remembered one Sunday when he baptized a two-year-old boy.
During the baptism, John Buchanan, following the Presbyterian liturgy, put his hand on the little boy’s head. (You can probably recite the words by heart.)
“Child of the covenant, I baptize you in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And the blessing of God Almighty, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, rest and abide with you from this time forth and forever more.”
And then turning to the congregation saying, “This child is the newest member of Christ’s church. He has been sealed by the Spirit and belongs to Christ Jesus forever.”
And then, without warning, the little boy looked up and responded, “Uh-oh.”
It was an amusing moment, and the people of the congregation laughed because it was darling, but “it was also an appropriate response,” wrote Buchanan, “… a stunning theological affirmation” from the mouth of this little boy. [iii]
And undeniably, “uh-oh” is an affirmation of so much. The expression is an acknowledgement that everything has changed, noting remains the same, and this one little boy is transformed. He belongs body and soul to the Lord who loves him. He belongs body and soul to Christ Jesus forever and ever.
This is what Jesus wants for Nicodemus. Not to set up faith’s sufficient proofs and arriving at a clear conclusion; but rather to recognize that in accepting God so loves him he belongs to heaven, to eternal life, and to God’s salvation.
Is there room in your cup Nicodemus?
Is there room for an eternal cup from above?
Is there room in your heart for your God?
This is what Jesus wants for us.
We are not so different from Nicodemus. We come week after week seeking our meaning and bringing our questions. Week after week we put up our walls and build up our fortifications. Week after week we carry our pain, and drag our anxiety, and ask God to make things better.
Our prayers begin “Lord God, have mercy on me, a sinner,” and end with “Lord God, forgive us our debts.” And it goes on and on and on.
We are so much like Nicodemus. Laura Mendenhall puts it this way: “We struggle for the prize not recognizing that the prize is already ours.” [v]
If we could just look into our cups.
God is pouring forth salvation.
Is your cup empty and ready to be filled?
Is there room in your cup for God?
If not, make some, because your life, our life together, will never, ever be the same.
Thanks be to God.
[i] Barbara Brown Taylor. “Stay for Tea, Nicodemus, John 3:1-17.” Living by the Word Column, Christian Century, February 21, 1996. Copyright by the Christian Century Foundation 1996 and the Gale Group 2004.
[iii] John Buchanan. “Beginnings and Endings,” The Christian Century, Jan 25, 2012, as quoted by Tom Long in his sermon, The Start of the Trail: John 3:1-17. Day 1, a Ministry of the Alliance for Christian Media, Atlanta, GA, Day1.org, June 3, 2012.
[iv] Tom Long. The Start of the Trail: John 3:1-17. Day 1, a Ministry of the Alliance for Christian Media, Atlanta, GA, Day1.org, June 3, 2012.
[v] Laura Mendenhall. Born of the Wind John 3:1-17. Day 1, a Ministry of the Alliance for Christian Media, Atlanta, GA, Day1.org, June 18, 2000.
Ezekiel 37:1-10 and Acts 2:1-18, 21
Mark Edwards
May 20, 2018 Jump to audio
Today is Confirmation Sunday- a day when we welcome eight new high-school-aged members into our church. Having gone through a series of retreats, having memorized a number passages of scripture, having reflected on the church’s role in their lives, having written a statement of faith, having met with Session, they will soon come before us, profess a public confirmation of their faith and be welcomed into the church as new members.
It is also Pentecost Sunday- a day when we adorn the sanctuary in red, when we read the passage from Acts 2 and when we make promises about the Holy Spirit’s presence in the world and in our lives. When combined with the classic and bizarrely biblical story of Ezekiel in a field of dry bones, bones that God shakes, rattles, and rolls into life, it is a day when we expect great things to happen. If the breath of God can do such things, then the pressure is really on. High speed reverse decomposition; divine tongues of fire blow-torching down from the heavens; the voice of God calling out, “Mortal, can these bones live!?”; uneducated day-laborers bursting forth fluently in foreign languages they don’t know; a vast multitude of ‘ready to do thy bidding’ faithful assembled on an apocalyptic field; instantaneous cross-cultural understanding between Medes, Phrygians, Arabs, and Judeans. If the breath of God can do such things, then the pressure is really on. What might we expect today? What will we see today? Will we see anything quite so… supernaturally fantastic?
I’ve got my robe on, and I feel like now is the time that I should Harry Potter up some “speremus meliora” incantation to really make a show happen…
But that is not really how this works. I’m not in control. God isn’t under my command. I can’t conjure up the divine at will. The breath of God is no ritualistic regularity; it is no genie; it is no magic trick in my pocket. It may rush among us a powerful wind, it may breeze upon us as a gentle puff, it may ripple among us a silent whisper. Or it might not come at all and leave us sitting in the emptiness of our own making. The breath of God. Where is it? Will we see it? Will we feel it? Will it come?
Alex, in your “History with the Church” essay you wrote: “Looking back at the past seven years of my life, I see one thing that has remained consistently in my life. Nassau Presbyterian Church.”
And in your statement of faith you wrote:
I affirm my faith of the Holy Spirit, my sustainment and power in life. The Holy Spirit is God’s force which is the breath in my body and the wind in the sky. The Spirit inspires myself and many others and is the force which drives me to be better. I am part of God because the his Spirit resides within me, and all people. The Holy Spirit explains the inexplicable so that we, created in God’s image may better understand our purpose and direction. God’s Spirit creates life where there is death like Jesus in his tomb. The Holy Spirit will always lead me through the deepest of oceans and the tallest of mountains, so that I may fulfill God’s purpose.
You close by saying that God gives you power, Jesus Christ gives you freedom, and the Holy Spirit gives you life.
Wow. You learned that here? A 14-year-old talking about the indwelling of the Holy Spirit? That might be a miracle. A 14-year-old Presbyterian talking about the indwelling of the Holy Spirit? That definitely is.
From Ezekiel 37: “Mortal, can these bones live? I answered, ‘O Lord God, you know.’”
I think I can speak for all of us on staff here at NPC when I say that we’ve all had experiences and histories with the breath of God. We’ve been encouraged, converted, enlivened, forgiven, freed, and have been given hope by the breath of God. And we want others to see it, feel it, hear it, live it too. And so we talk about it. And talk. And talk. And talk.
Grace, you wrote honestly when you said
What I dislike about church is probably that it does feel long sometimes and I don’t always connect with what the pastors are saying. This might be partially due to the fact that I have swim practice beforehand and then have to come to church right after when I am tired. This makes me more likely to zone out, and then once I have zoned for part of the sermon, it is hard to bring myself back in and understand what is going on.
Grace, we’ve all been there, and some are probably there right now. But then you wrote in your Statement of Faith the following:
I believe the Holy Spirit is what calls us together to celebrate what Jesus has done for us, to thank God, and to pray to God. It is what allows us to view what is good in life, what allows us to learn from our mistakes, and what gives us appreciation for what we have and what is around us.
You made it clear that you do understand what is going on here. And when you wrote, “Once we had a guest speaker that spoke about his time in jail and his story. I don’t remember exactly what his message was, but I do remember walking out of that sermon saying to myself that I wanted to do something helping others’ lives who had gone jail,” you show us all that you really understand what is going on.
From Ezekiel 37: “O dry bones hear the word of the Lord… I will cause breath to enter you, and you shall live.”
Rory, you wrote:
I have been a part of the church for as long as I can remember. I started by coming to church school every sunday when I was very young. I made friends in sunday school, and I learned about Jesus and God. Although, I don’t think I understood or really believed any of it.
A lot of us have been there too, and that is pretty understandable. I mean, a valley of dead bones? Do we need to get scientific about that for a second? And yet, you wrote:
Appalachia Service Project was the most life changing trip for me. I went into it being more scared of anything else I had ever done in my life, but I loved it. It was a highlight of my summer and something that changed me as a person. In these more recent years at the church, the last one specifically, I feel that I have grown as a christian a lot. I am understanding Jesus and God way more than I did in the past. I am starting to grow my own sense of faith, and I now believe and trust in God and Jesus. I have nothing else but the church, to thank for this.
Rory, let’s be real for a minute. Norm’s house? It was dry bones. Dirty dry bones. That were rotten. And uninsulated. And without plumbing. And cigarette butts. And beer cans. And that really big snake. And yet, you all… You all brought those bones back to life.
From Ezekiel 37: “I will lay sinews on you, and will cause flesh to come upon you, and cover you with skin, and put breath in you, and you shall live; and you shall know that I am the Lord.”
Alex, you were in that house. Camille, too. Camille, you wrote:
I also believe that prayer is how you talk to God, however I have never heard a direct reply. Instead, I see God in working through people who interact with me. […] My fondest memory so far has to be going on the ASP trip and bonding with the other teens as well as helping Norm and repairing his house.
Camille, rest assured that you were the direct reply to Norm’s prayers. Because, see, this is what the Holy Spirit does. It takes you and uses you to reveal God to other people, even if you don’t know that it is happening at the time. While you were working on his floor and painting his trim, remember how hot it was in there at times? That was the breath of God you were huffing and puffing out. But when we give ourselves in service to others in Christ’s name, God is faithful and the breath of God brings faith to life.
From Ezekiel 37: “Thus says the Lord God: Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain, that they may live.”
James, some more honest words:
I never wanted to go to church on Sunday mornings. I didn’t understand what the point of it was. It was always so boring and long. And I never fully understood who Jesus was. Last year, my cousin approached me with the idea of going to Tennessee for a week to work on homes with the Appalachian Service Project. My initial response was, ‘No way, why would I spend a whole week of my summer doing that?’ After many hours of convincing, I finally agreed to do it with no idea of what I was really getting myself into. During that week of hard work in Tennessee, I had a lot of time to reflect on my life and the reason I was there.
[Christian, are you here? Cause what comes next is your fault. John and Jacq, you too.]
James, you wrote:
I got to know Jesus by giving up my time to help someone else. He gave me the strength to be there to do good work for the homeowner, Bob. While I got to know Jesus that week, I also realized he had always been there for me even though I didn’t recognize him.
From Ezekiel 37: “Thus says the Lord God: I am going to open your graves, and bring you up from your graves.”
James, I think it is safe to say that Bob has been in some graves. A former meth addict. A daughter who’s a meth addict. Time in jail for violent offenses if I remember correctly. Bob had a tattoo of a web on his right forearm, a tattoo of a spider around his left elbow, and a tattoo of spider in a web on his right bicep. He’s seen some graves. And yet now he’s adopting his granddaughter, painting the house, and growing the biggest organic cabbages in the neighborhood. The breath of God gives life.
And the breath of God teaches us the language of God, who is Jesus Christ. We might look at the Pentecost story and think it incredible. But James here learned the language of Christ from a power drill, a pile of Mountain Dew cans, and time in community working on Bob’s roof. The breath of God was blowing in those Tennessee hills. And James’s life is different. And so is Bob’s. And so is Jacq’s and John’s, and mine…
From Ezekiel 37: “Mortal, can these bones live? I answered, ‘O Lord God, you know.’”
The Breath of God. Have we started to see it? Have we started to feel it? Can we, in fact, really live without it? Allison, as you say:
I think this is the question that has really fueled my journey so far. It’s so easy to feel like religion is unnecessary when everything is going well, and it’s so easy to feel like God isn’t there when everything falls apart. But what about when life is just okay? […] That’s where I’ve found God the most because sometimes it’s easy to feel sort of empty.
It is easy to feel empty. And I imagine that is how the disciples felt just before Pentecost. They’ve resorted to throwing dice to try and figure out who their next club member is gong to be. They are, to some degree, compensating for their emptiness by securing a well-rounded social network.
“Two summers ago,” you wrote “my first time going to NorthBay, a speaker there made an analogy that really stuck with me. If you imagine life like a well, social media, friends and material objects only temporarily fill it, and when you try and get more water, you’ll find it empty. But the speaker’s idea was that God could be the thing in your life that will eternally fill it.”
From Ezekiel 37: “Suddenly there was a noise, a rattling, and the bones came together, bone to its bone. I looked, and there were sinews on them, and flesh had come upon them, and skin had covered them; but there was no breath in them.”
Without the breath of God we are simply bodies and minds who are, well, empty. The beauty of the breath of God is that it fills us and guides us away from emptiness.
Hugo, you see this when you say:
The holy spirit guides and raises me to be good and do the right things. Church is my home away from home in that it is my safe haven. Church is my place of freedom. Church is where my sins are forgiven, church is where my prayers are answered, church is what connects me to the holy spirit. […]
Hugo, this is beautiful. But if the church is these things, then it is because the breath of God is here.
Annie, you say, “I am taking this journey of confirmation because I want to discover a God who is:
Loving
Forgiving
Peaceful
Gender-neutral
Accepting of all genders, races, ethnicities, sexualities, financial situations, pronouns, religions, beliefs, family structures, mental and physical illnesses, and mental and physical disabilities
Understanding
Present when anyone wants Them to be there
Present when nobody wants Them to be there
At the marches with all of us
Fighting for us, with us
Just so, so good.
Annie, I think we all want to meet that God. And if we have, we all want to see and feel that God again. And we need the breath of God, the spirit of God to do so. So may it blow on us all, may it teach us the language of Christ’s love, and may it prove to us the existence of the loving, redeeming, sacrificing triune God.
I’ve been teaching a philosophy class this past semester, so I have to make a comment here about proofs for the existence of God. Much of medieval theology was deeply concerned with offering proofs for the existence of God. These philosophical, logical, and even mathematical proofs sought to coherently establish the being and existence of an all-powerful, good God.
And while these are fun fodder for a philosophy class, sometimes we need something beyond our own ideas to move us past doubt and uncertainty. Sometimes we need to be drawn out of our own ideas about God and skepticisms toward eternal love, and out of our own hostilities to sanctifying peace. But what such traditional arguments overlook is that God seems interested in proving to us the existence and depth and power of the reconciling triune love.
From Ezekiel 37: “I will cause breath[a] to enter you, and you shall live… and you shall know that I am the Lord” (emphasis added).
Do we really want proof that the breath of God is real? Do we really want evidence what the breath of God can do? Then we will likely be lead to a valley of dry bones. We will likely be brought to a place where death, disintegration, and despair are so heavy that only a miracle of God can bring life. WWII Nazi resister, Corrie ten Boom, and her family were brought to such a place: it was a concentration camp called Ravensbruck. Of her time there, Corrie writes in The Hiding Place, “Life in Ravensbruck took place on two separate levels, mutually impossible. One, the observable, external life, grew every day more horrible. The other, the life we lived with God, grew daily better, truth upon truth, glory upon glory.”[1]
“So it was,” she was able to say time and time again, “we were not poor, but rich. Rich in this new evidence of the care of Him who was God even of Ravensbruck.” In that camp of death, the breath of God brought life of the spirit. And after the War, Corrie took another death camp, one at Darmstadt, and together with members of the German Lutheran Church, turned it into a group home for reconciliation, rehabilitation, and gardening.[2] “Perhaps only when human effort had done its best and failed, would God’s power alone be free to work.”[3]
Or as Ezekiel puts it: “Then you, my people, will know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves and bring you up from them. I will put my Spirit in you and you will live, and I will settle you in your own land. Then you will know that I the Lord have spoken, and I have done it, declares the Lord.’”
There are many graves and valleys with dry bones in our world today. And many places desperately need the breath of God. We think of Sante Fe, Texas, with ten new graves of teens your age, gunned down by a maniacal fellow student obsessed with death and domination. And we ask, “How long, oh Lord.” How long will this insanity go on? How long before it happens here? We pray that it does not. And we pray that God will guide prophets to our wastelands and that the breath of God would give life.
We give thanks today for you eight confirmands, who are proof to all of us that the breath of God is real and active in this place. And we pray together: Come breath of God. Fill us all and give us life eternal. Do this to us, that we may know that you are Lord. Amen.
[1] Corrie ten Boom, The Hiding Place, 35th Anniversary Edition (Grand Rapids: Chosen Books, 2006), 206.
Blessed are those who do not follow the advice of the wicked. Blessed is the one who does not walk in step with evil doers. The one who doesn’t go down that road. The one who does not walk the trail now so well marked by sinners. The one who does not follow the crowd along the jam-packed highway of self-interest and hatred and greed; that wayward path, the easier path, the wider road. Blessed are those who do not tumble down that darkened, worn, crowded pathway of sin.
The ones who choose not to sit in the seat of scoffers. The scoffers. The mockers. The hecklers. That sold out section in the arena of life. Full and getting fuller by the day, it seems. Those who toss insult and disrespect toward the life of righteousness and pretty much all of life for that matter. Scoffers don’t simply ask questions or voice doubt, they sit back and feel good about themselves by putting others down. They have no time for those who strive after a gentle holiness, or those who offer a bold embrace, or those who turn the other cheek. They ridicule those who talk of a more excellent way and mistake being loving for being weak. They make fun of those who dare believe that love for others and love for a stranger is a virtue. They mock those who dare to live like faith is not the stuff of nostalgia. They roll their eyes at any who insist that hope is found in that which cannot be seen or earned or taken or spent. Scoffers shake their heads with disdain when someone tells them life will conquer death, that goodness is stronger than evil, that love wins, and that at the end of the day there is actually something more to life than simply looking out for yourself all the time. Scoffers, mockers, insulters abound. Blessed is the one who shall not find their seat in that crowded row.
For those who do not follow the advice of the wicked, those who refuse to join the scoffers’ mob, for them their delight is in the law of the Lord. Their delight, their joy comes in the Word of the Lord. They celebrate the precious moments of grace and cling to God’s promise in the moments of tumult. Their souls bask in the rising sun of God’s steadfast love which is new every morning. Their deepest fulfillment comes as they remember the One to whom they belong. They remember who and whose they are and they drink of the ceaseless mercy of God. They take sips of the unmerited favor of the Everlasting God. They crave, they have visions of, they lean into the very reign of God.
On God’s law they meditate day and night. Not like one long bible study marathon, not like a constant cram for a bible exam, maybe not even like a disciplined daily and nightly quite time. More like the Word of God being a lamp unto their feet. They are molded by God’s teaching, nourished by the stories of faith, shaped be the very voice of God revealed and proclaimed and heard in and among and through the community of God’s people. They take comfort in familiar words, words often heard, phrases deeply etched, images forever seared. “The Lord is my shepherd I shall not want.” “In my Father’s house are many mansions.” “Rejoice in the Lord always and again I say rejoice” “I am the vine you are the branches.” “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” They live in God’s Word day and night, day and night, day and night.
These blessed of God, these blessed ones. They are like trees planted by streams of living water. Like young trees tenderly plucked from an arid, wind-swept wasteland and lovingly planted in the plush and fertile soil of the water’s edge. These trees, these saplings, they look to stretch and spread and grow and bloom along the grace-filled river banks of the kingdom of God. Their roots are fed by the Living Water of God’s Holy Spirit. They are cultivated, and clipped, and pruned by the hand of God, nourished by the soil of God’s word.
Indeed, there are seasons in God’s time. But these trees, they learn over time what it means it stand in and out of season, knowing deep down that the cycles of God’s creation are sure as God’s promise. For God will remain faithful in the coldest and harshest winter of life, on the darkest of days when it seems the sun never did rise. Even then, and even at the farthest limits, then and there, God is faithful still. Those who stand like these trees know that there will be those mornings, those long nights, when that is all there is to hold onto….the faithfulness of God.
Yet, those planted by the streams of living water, in all that they do they prosper. Prosper. Prosper? To prosper in God’s creation, to prosper in the kingdom of God is not a promise of wealth. It is not the world’s definition of prosperity, not the prosperity that thrives in the world, not the prosperity that fills some while crushing others. A kingdom prosperity isn’t a synonym for success. It is far from a guarantee of a trouble-free life. To get a glimpse of what it means to prosper in God’s eyes, you have to look around at the people of God, the saints that surround you, the great cloud of witnesses, the body of Christ that enfolds you. A glimpse of embodied prosperity. Prosperity redefined.
To prosper in the kingdom God is to bear fruit for the harvest. It is nothing more than leading a life that reflects God’s love. God’s love made known to us in Jesus Christ. God’s love passed forward in and through the lives of those who prosper. To prosper is to live a life that flourishes while sharing faith, doing mercy, rising for justice, and standing strong for righteousness. Those who prosper in the kingdom of God don’t avoid the storms of life. Far from it. Some storms, some seasons, they hold on to the roots of what God has given them with every ounce of strength they can muster. They face into the wind seeking a glimpse of God’s presence in everything that life has to offer, everything the world blows. Like trees planted by streams of ever-flowing water are the righteousness ones of God.
For the wicked? For the scoffers? For those on the other path? It is not so. It never comes to be. For in the kingdom of God, the trees of righteousness shall flourish as the chaff of wickedness blows away. Like dust that swirls into nothingness. Just a speck tossing and turning. Like a dried flower that crumbles in the hand. The evil doers, the doers of darkness, those who work to thwart the ways of God, they shall not stand in judgment, They shall not prevail. That great gathering in the by and by, that great multitude which no one can number, there won’t be any scoffing there, no wickedness there, no crying, no sickness, no darkness, no death there. The world’s brittle leaves of wickedness shall tumble forever, forever tossed by the wind of God. For the Lord watches over the way of the righteousness but the way of the wicked will perish. The way of the wicked shall perish. Perish.
Blessed are those who do not follow the advice of the wicked. Psalm 1.
But sometimes. But sometimes, Lord. But…sometimes it all doesn’t feel that way. Sometimes it all doesn’t look that way. Sometimes its just not that way. Sometimes those on the other way seem to be doing just fine. And those of us, trying to make our way, make our way along your way, God’s way, well….you know. We all know.
Psalm 1. It is not like spitting into the wind of the obvious when it comes to the way things seem to be. It is more like trying to stand up and reach deep and lean straight into the headwinds of life and proclaim the yearning to be in the kingdom of God, along the righteous path. Psalm 1. It is not some simplistic, naïve, description or prescription. It’s more like a prayer. A poem. A longing. An art work of faith. An affirmation of faith. A depiction of belief. That God’s plan of salvation is greater than the complexity of our lives, that God’s abundant love and mercy shall carry us far beyond our ability to see and figure it all out, and that the Holy Spirit shall anoint us, not always with answers, but with the presence of God who shall surely walk with us to the mountaintops and through the valleys. And along the way, God calls us to stand firm, and to lean in, and to mark, to point to, to line the way of righteousness.
Every time we gather here for worship we affirm our desire to commit to and stand in and live in God’s pathway. Every time we gather around the baptismal fount we collectively and symbolically turn toward God’s way and turn our backs on the other way. Every time we come to the Table we yearn for the nourishment that will carry us along God’s way. Through our prayers, our confession, our intercessions we acknowledge that there is another way, a lot of other ways, ways in the world that contradict, that work against, that oppose the way of God….and some of them seem to do quite well, thank you very much. But because we believe ourselves to be called here by God, because we have bathed in the waters of God’s mercy time and time again, and because we have tasted of that abundant grace offered in the heavenly feast, because some days we have little else to hold on save the love and promise of the Living God, we stand together and proclaim, “the Lord watches over the way of the righteous, but the way of the wicked will perish.”
One of my friends and colleagues in town this week last week is the pastor at Black Mountain Presbyterian Church in North Carolina. I asked her how Pat Miller was doing. Dr. Miller taught Old Testament at Princeton Seminary for decades. Together with his wife Mary Ann, they were very faithful members here at Nassau. Mary Ann died last after a very long illness and caring for her for many years took it’s toll on Pat. Pat and Mary Ann taught Sunday School with a few other couples. 6th grade I think. Can you imagine if your 6th grade Sunday School teacher was one of the most influential Old Testament scholars of a generation; a doctor of the church. Cathy and I visited Pat and Mary Ann at their home in Montreat several times. They were so enjoying retirement where the only real task was to work together all week on the Sunday crossword in the New York Times.
I asked Mary Katherine, the pastors, if Pat still got to church from the continuing care community where he lives. “Yes, of course, he does” she said. “He sits every Sunday there in the same pew next to his sister Mary. Every Sunday. He’s Pat Miller for heaven sakes!” she laughed. Meaning, “of course he is there, he’s Pat Miller.” She could have said, “You know, he’s like a tree.”
Dr. Miller once wrote a suggestion for the life of faith. That as we make our way along this path, as the church travels this way of faith, as you and I navigate all the challenges, the complexities, the life and death that will surely come, Pat Miller wrote, “it might be well to sing the psalms as we go.” It might be well to sing the psalms. An understated suggestion from one of those oak trees of faith, one of the oaks of righteousness. It might be well to sing the psalms.
Psalm 1. It’s a song. A song of faith. As you and I seek by God’s grace to tread along this narrow path, the pathway of discipleship, the way of the cross, the way of life, abundant and eternal….it might be well to sing it, to pray it, and to live it. For the Lord watches over that way, the way of the righteousness. It’s God’s way.
