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That the World May Know

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John 17:20-23
David A. Davis
October 1, 2017

They call it “the priestly prayer.” This prayer Jesus offered, tradition calls it “the high priestly prayer.” Jesus’ longest prayer recorded in the gospels. Here in John the prayer comes after Jesus final words, his last teaching to the disciples. The prayer comes after “Let not your hearts be troubled” and “In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places” and “Peace I leave with you” and “Abide in me as I abide you” and “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you.” The prayer comes after Jesus washed the disciples’ feet, after he celebrated the Last Supper. The night of his betrayal and Jesus prayed. The night before his death and Jesus prayed. It was the same night he begged the disciples to stay awake with him. It was the night of his anguish.

The night, according to Luke, that Jesus’s sweat became like great drops of blood falling to the ground while he prayed. It was the night he prayed that God would let the cup pass from him. Matthew tells that Jesus threw himself on the ground in prayer. “Yet not what I want but what you want.” It was that night. This prayer. “Jesus looked up to heaven and said, ‘Father, the hour has come…’”

In that hour, the hour, Jesus praying to God on behalf of others. That’s the priestly part. Jesus praying for the disciples whom he had called. The ones he loved. And Jesus praying for “those who will believe in me through their word.” Jesus praying for those followers yet to come. For all who will hear and believe. For future generations. For the great cloud of witnesses. The communion of saints. Jesus’ prayer for the church. On that night, amid betrayal, arrest, denial. With his arms about to stretch to embrace the world in his death on the cross, on that night, Jesus prayed for you and Jesus prayed for me.

Like the time when you were a child and you could hear a voice at bedtime coming from your grandmother’s room while she was staying at the house after a fall. You stopped to listen and realized she was praying, she was praying for you. Like the saint of the church now in a care facility whose body is failing but not the size of his heart. At the end of your visit, he takes your hand in his, hands big enough to almost wrap around twice and he tells you he prays for you every day. Like the person at work whose email flashes with a note, a request from the prayer chain at the church. Right there at the desk so as not to forget later, the head bows and the eyes close, the name is lifted up to heaven. Like the child who won’t let you leave the bedside until you say all the names with her, like the young adult in church you saw adding names to the prayer list on his phone, like the hospice patient, when asked what she would like to pray for, pretty much names everyone except herself. Jesus prayed for you and Jesus prayed for me.

“That they all may be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you, may they all be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me… I in them and you in me, that they may become completely one, so that the world may know that you have sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me….so that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.” Jesus, God, and us. That we might all be one. That’s what Jesus prayed.

Since the earliest church fathers, theologians, philosophers, thinkers, and skeptics have tried to wrap their minds around Jesus, God, and their “oneness.” The pathway leads to discussions of the Trinity and the fully human, fully God part of Christ’s being and uses words like hypostasis and homoousios and perichoresis. All complex terms used to try to understand the relationship of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The earliest creeds of the church address the “oneness” of Jesus and God. The Nicene Creed, coming from the Council of Nicea in the year 325. You’ve heard the language. “We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten not made, of one Being with the Father.”

But that night, that night, that hour, in that moment Jesus wasn’t offering a philosophical discourse or a theological dissertation or even a creedal statement. It was a prayer. He was praying for you and praying for me, praying that in and through us, the world would know of God’s love.

Today is World Communion Sunday. A day to live into those words of Jesus in Luke’s gospel: “People will come from east and west, and from north and south, and sit at table in the kingdom of God.” A day to imagine believers of every kind and in every place lifting the cup and breaking the bread. As we affirm in the Apostles’ Creed, “one holy catholic church.” Beyond Roman Catholic. Beyond Protestant– Catholic. Universal church. One. God. Jesus. The church. One. Of course, long before the Reformation, now 500 years ago, the church of the east and the church of the west were moving in different directions in practice, in theology, in belief. Ever since, such fragmentation defines the Christian Church in the world. “One” in not so much. Sort of like the man rescued from a deserted island all by himself after 30 years. The rescuers found two churches. The man “that’s the one I built. I built the second one after I left the first.” Some would suggest that the multi-faceted landscape that defines the church in the world must be disheartening to Jesus. I tend to believe Jesus understands us better than that. That he understands what it means to be human.

Besides, on that night, that night, that hour, in that moment, Jesus wasn’t offering an ecclesiastical organization chart. He wasn’t speaking of sacramental theology. He wasn’t looking to the far horizon of 2000 years later in church form and structure and belief. He was praying. He was praying for you and praying for me, praying that in and through us, the world would know of God’s love.

The current issue of The Christian Century includes an excerpt from a forthcoming book by a pastor entitled Love Big, Be Well: Letters to a Small-Town Church. A work of fiction, it is a collection of written correspondence between a Presbyterian pastor and a small church called the Granby Presbyterian Church. The exchange begins when the PNC, the pastoral nominating committee, decides to write a letter to potential candidates. That first letter reads in part like this: “We do have a few questions for you. Perhaps we’re foolish, but we’re going to assume you love Jesus and aren’t too much of a loon when it comes to your creed… I’ll be up front with you: we don’t trust a pastor who never laughs. We’ll put up with a lot—but that one’s a deal-killer.

“Here are our questions… Is our church going to be your opportunity to finally enact that one flaming vision you’ve had in your crosshairs ever since seminary, that one strategic model that will finally get this Church-thing straight? Or might we hope that our church could be a place where you’d settle in with us and love alongside us, cry with us and curse the darkness with us, and remind us how much God’s crazy about us?… Will you love us? And will teach us to love one another? Will you give us God—and all the mystery and possibility that entails? Will you preach with hope and wonder in your heart? Will you tell us again and again, about ‘the love that will not let us go,’ not ever? Will you believe with us—and for us—that the kingdom is truer than we know—and that there are no shortcuts? Will you tell us the truth—that the huckster promise of a quick fix or some glitzy church dream is 100% crap?….” In other words,” they wrote, “do you really want to be our pastor?” They wrote about Jesus, God, the church, the congregation, and the pastor being one.

One candidate wrote a very long response. The excerpt implies it was the beginning of their new pastoral relationship. In that long letter, part of what the pastor wrote was this: “I committed my life to walking alongside people whom I hoped to call friends. I committed to learning how to help people pray. I determined it would be my job to simply recount over and over again that one beautiful story of how Love refused to tally the costs but came for us, came to be with us, came to heal us. I took ordination vows and promised that though I might be asked to do many things as pastor, I would always do one thing: I would point to God. And I would say one simple word: ‘love’. But it didn’t take me long to figure out that lots of church don’t actually want a pastor. They want a leadership coach or a fundraising executive or a consultant to mastermind a strategic takeover… In this scheme there is little room for praying and gospel storytelling, for conversation requiring the slow space needed if we’re going to listen to love.”

Jesus, God, and us. That we might all be one. That’s what Jesus prayed. On that night, that night, that hour, in that moment Jesus prayed. It was a prayer. He was praying for you and praying for me, praying that in and through us, the world would know of God’s love.

Jesus on the unity of church. Jesus on his unity with God, the one whom he called Father. Jesus, God, the church, you, me, and love. It sounds like a pretty low bar. A low ecclesiastical, theological, intellectual, ministerial, missional bar. But don’t be fooled. There is absolutely no higher bar. Love. Just look around. It’s a very high bar. That in and through us the world would know of God’s love.

I am persuaded, not to sound too much like the Apostle Paul, I am convinced that every Sunday morning when we gather in this place there is someone, every Sunday there is someone, maybe just one person, someone in the sanctuary longing to be reminded, needing to be assured, hearing for the first time, hoping beyond hope to be told today that God’s love is for you. That God loves you. The second grader struggling each morning because you’re convinced this year’s teacher doesn’t like you very much. The retired one wondering if you will ever feel needed again. You who were raised in a home where everyone kept score, including God, even though you figured out a long time ago score-keeping isn’t helpful in relationships or in faith. The one with the broken heart wondering whether anyone will ever love you again. The student convinced no college will want you and why would God either. The brooding thinker among us who long ago cast off any trappings of faith or things eternal so God couldn’t possibly anything more than a long lost lover who won’t have you back.

Those among us who’ve been told by some of the loudest Christian voices that they’re going to hell because of who they are. Or those who have been drowning far too long in the tepid waters of phrases like “it must have been God’s will” and “hate the sin, love the sinner” all the while growing distant from a God you’re left to conclude is punishing and one to be feared. The spouse and parent here every Sunday for the sake of the family, who deep down just figures that when it comes to all this stuff, “yeah, I was never good enough.”

Every Sunday there’s someone here in this room who longs to be told of God’s love for them. That’s where it has to start. Helping the world to know of God’s love. It starts with knowing God loves you.

Jesus, God, and us. That we might all be one.

That night, that night, that hour, in that moment Jesus prayed. He was praying for you and praying for me, praying that in and through us, the world would know of God’s love. Praying that you would know God loves you just as much as God loved Jesus.

© 2017 Nassau Presbyterian Church
Contact the church to obtain reprint permission.

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God Chooses to Give the Kingdom

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Matthew 20:1-16
Len Scales
September 24, 2017

If we jump back to the second half of Matthew chapter 19 for a moment, we hear a wealthy young man ask how he may inherit eternal life. Being told by Jesus, “go, sell your possessions, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven; then come, follow me,” the young man goes “away grieving, for he had many possessions.”[1] Peter interjects as Jesus debriefs the interaction with the disciples, with what sounds to me like a tone of exasperation, saying, “Look, we have left everything and followed you. What then will we have?”[2] Jesus replies and reveals the disciples’ place of honor at the “renewal of all things.”[3] But before moving into the parable I read from Matthew chapter 20, Jesus continues the conversation with a line echoed in our reading this morning, “many who are first will be last, and the last will be first.”[4]

The first will be last, the last will be first. These words, this parable of the generous landowner, the generosity of God, can be difficult to hear. They can rub us the wrong way.

Perhaps we question the economic wisdom of the Landowner. Will he have workers in the early hours of the tomorrow? Will they sleep in and meander to marketplace at noon the next day? Maybe we feel indignant, identifying with those who labored throughout the heat of the day and were paid the same as those who only worked the last hour of the day. Are you feeling fear or loss, realizing what you produce will not earn you God’s grace? If you find yourself taken aback by the seeming unfairness of it all, you are not alone.

“It is an old story,” acknowledges the Texts for Preaching commentary. “Jonah sat on the brow of the hill outside of Nineveh and pouted when God spared the city. The elder brother thought his father a doting old fool when his father invited him to join the celebrating at the prodigal’s return. The Pharisee at prayer thanks God that he is not like the sinful publican. Divine grace is a great equalizer which rips away presumed privilege and puts all recipients on par.”[5]

For others, who know what is is to be one down—to struggle to meet their bills, who never feel on equal footing with those on the other side of the boardroom or classroom, or perhaps, even feel shut out of the business or institution altogether—maybe they hear this passage with a sense of hope. They know the sweet relief that an unexpected gift can bring—no longer wondering if it is the grocery bill or the electric bill that will be met this month. This too can be a liberating story; it simply depends with which character you empathize.

However we identify with this story, we are reminded of God’s generosity. Perhaps we do find ourselves reacting with indignation, anger, envy, jealousy, frustration, as the first laborers who complain react. Hear the words of the landowner again, “Friend… Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me? Or are you envious because I am generous?”[6]

Jesus came to turn over the status quo. Jesus teaches us to pray, “may God’s will be done on earth, as it is in heaven.” There must be a discrepancy between earth and heaven of which Jesus speaks. Because on earth we have: earthquakes, dams breaking, flood waters rising, the need for hunger strikes, the increased fear by those who are disabled because their humanity keeps being called into question, the lack of resources of so many when so few have more than enough, warring regimes and rumors of war, violence in our streets and in our institutions, the comparison that drives us away from our best selves and our communities. And in the kingdom of heaven—there is the healing of the nations.

So I don’t know why we are surprised when Jesus turns tables over, goes to dinner with those who are cast out of society, heals the perpetually wounded, and calls forth workers who are happy to receive a living wage, whether they worked all day or only for an hour.

But, really, I do know. It is because we are humans who separate ourselves from the love, beauty, and grace of God. Yet, God still comes for us, in the dawn of life, in late morning, in the early afternoon, and again at twilight, and calls us to work, to serve, to bear witness to a God that is gracious enough to seek us out. And gracious enough to give us what we need.

It is the character of the landowner, it is God, that takes center stage in this story—dolling out grace to all who come, providing a usual day’s wage to all, offering enough for thriving today, calling a community to wholeness. God chooses to give the Kingdom.

God chooses to give the Kingdom and we have the honor, the privilege to witness God’s generosity.

Sometimes we may react similarly to the laborer who hustles all day in the vineyard—maybe I, you, we do feel cheated sometimes by the “great equalizer” of God’s grace.

It is in our best interest, and in the interest of participating in the Kingdom of God, to acknowledge those feelings and continue to stay engaged in the work God has called us. To come back the next day and the next to labor in the life-giving work of cultivating the Kingdom of God on earth.

October brings the beginning of fall small groups at Nassau Presbyterian Church. Through the preaching life of this congregation, I have felt moved to gather a group to read and discuss Debbie Irving’s Waking Up White.

I think Irving has her own story to offer us in light of today’s parable of the generous landowner, especially if we find ourselves in someway offended, confused, or discomforted by this story. Irving is a white upper-middle class woman from the Northeast United States, so a WASP by all accounts, including her own. She worked for 25 years to cultivate programs with the arts in Cambridge that were intended to “help” those less fortunate. Irving’s book is her account of coming to terms with her own white privilege.

Irving shares about the first time she attended a conference by and for professionals of color. After the first workshop, Irving inserts her opinion “trying to help” the workshop leaders and other 150 people in the room. Striking a nerve for several, Irving faces feedback from which she reels, wondering if she should just reserve a seat on the next plane home. But several gracious strangers spend the next hour with her, processing the experience, and encouraging her to remain engaged, even, especially, when it is uncomfortable.

Irving recounts:

I realized in this moment that thinking about and dealing with the emotionally fraught subject of racism is a choice for me. I could walk away. I could retreat to my white world, where racism would be off my radar. But five of the people standing around me, and any person of color who has ever lived in America, must think about and deal with racism on a daily basis. For me to have walked away in this intensely uncomfortable moment would have been invoking my white privilege. Though I wanted more than anything to leave, I stayed.[7]

So I invite you to stay, to sit for a while with this story. To feel the discomfort or the relief. To work through your reactions to this parable of the kingdom of heaven. To acknowledge God’s grace turns our world upside down. And instead of comparing your hours worked or production with your neighbor, to pause and remember that God offers you enough too. That God freely gives salvation to all whom God calls, irrespective of what time of day you showed up to hear the call. It is a costly grace which is offered, for which Christ has already paid for in full.

For it is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire laborers for the usual daily wage, who went out again to the marketplace at 9:00 a.m. to hire more workers, and again at noon, and again at 3:00 p.m., and again at 5:00 p.m. And after the day was over, she called the last forward and had them paid a full day’s wage, and eventually the first were called and too paid a full day’s wage.

Friends, the landowner is doing no wrong. Friends, it is God who chooses to give the kingdom. Friends, it is a generous God who calls us. Friends, it is the same God who says, “The last will be first, and the first will be last.”[8]

[1] Matthew 19:21-22

[2] Matthew 19:27

[3] Matthew 19:28

[4] Matthew 19:30

[5] Texts for Preaching: A Lectionary Commentary Based on the NRSV—Year A (Westminster John Knox Press, 1995) p.495.

[6] Matthew 20:13, 15

[7] Irving, Debby. Waking Up White: and Finding Myself in the Story of Race (Elephant Room Press, 2014), p.163-164.

[8] Matthew 20:16

© 2017 Nassau Presbyterian Church
Contact the church to obtain reprint permission.

So Then

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Romans 14:1-12
David A. Davis
September 17, 2017

“I am the resurrection and I am life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, yet shall they live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die” (John 11:25-26). That’s Jesus talking to Martha after her brother Lazarus had died. Jesus, responding to death and grief with words of resurrection hope. “Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there. If I take the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me fast” (Psalm 139:7-10). The words of the psalmist. The psalmist singing, praying, affirming the fullness of God’s presence in life and in death. Psalm 139. An existential piece of poetry that plunges the very the depth of our being, our life in God.

“I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last. I was dead and behold I am alive forever and ever; and I hold the keys of hell and death” (Revelation). The cosmic, victorious Christ of the Apocalypse to John, the Book of Revelation. A triumphant proclamation of God’s ultimate resurrection power. “What is your only comfort in life and in death? That I belong—body and soul, in life and death—to my faithful Savoir, Jesus Christ” (Heidelberg Catechism, Question 1, 16th-century). A bold, right out of the gate, here’s where we start, everything else flows from this affirmation of the resurrection promise that defines our life in Christ.

“For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38-39). The Apostle Paul in that memorable eighth chapter of Romans. A soaring conclusion to those paragraphs of the epistle, paragraphs that include: “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” and “If the Spirit of the One who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, the Lord who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through the Spirit that dwells in you” and “For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen?” and “What then are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us.” “I am convinced that neither death, nor life… shall separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Paul on the hope, and the promise, and the victory of resurrection life.

And from our text today, the 14th chapter of Romans. “We do not live to ourselves, and we do not die to ourselves. If we live, we live to Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s. For to this end Christ died and lived again, so that he might be the Lord of both the dead and the living.” Once again, Paul on the eternal promise of life in Christ. Not chapter eight but slipped in here in chapter 14. Like Jesus daring to speak of life in the face of death. Like the psalmist waxing eloquently on the purpose of life and God’s constant presence. Like the Christ of Revelation trumpeting the victory of all victories. Like the theologians of the Reformation pounding the defining stake into the ground. Romans 14:8. “If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord, so then whether we live, or whether we die, we are the Lord’s.”

In our tradition’s “Book of Common Worship,” the liturgy of the Service in Witness to the Resurrection, the liturgy for a memorial service, for a funeral, it begins with opening sentences of scripture. The notes to the liturgy suggest that the pastor read some or all the verses listed. There are about 20 verses and they read like a “hall of fame” of scripture texts, the greatest hits. Some of those top 20 I’ve already mentioned. You will remember or you can guess some others. “Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth… God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear… We believe that Jesus died and rose again; so it will be for those who have died in Christ. God will raise them to be with the Lord forever. Comfort one another with these words.” And right there in the list is “If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord, so then whether we live, or whether we die, we are the Lord’s.”

At many, many weddings, I have read I Corinthians 13, “Love is patient, love is kind..” and many, many times, my first line of the homily has been to say to the congregation and to the couple, “Now you know this has nothing to do with marriage, right?” The point being that Paul is writing about love and community and love in the Body of Christ and love as the greatest of spiritual gifts which means, of course, that it has everything to do with marriage. But I have not, at least so far, I have not stood before a congregation at a memorial service and stopped after reading, “If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord, so then whether we live, or whether we die, we are the Lord’s.” I’ve never stopped right then said, “Now you know this has nothing to with mourning, grief, and death, right?

Because when you drop the quote from Romans back into context of the 14th chapter, it doesn’t come with profound reflection on humanity’s knowledge of God and therefore the knowledge of ourselves, not some divine pronouncement to the saints of every time and place gathered around the Lamb of God. Paul is writing about the issue of food choices, dietary laws, sabbath keeping, judgment, and self-righteousness. It’s a plea to avoid quarreling over opinions and an exhortation to honor and give thanks to God in the mundane practice of life. It is Paul weighing in, not on death, but on life. Paul writing to the ordinary, the everyday rituals and routines of life. What you eat, when you abstain, whether you observe a day to be holy and when you don’t. How in the rhythms of the day, the waking up and the going to sleep, the goings and comings, how amid life itself, folks in the gathered community of faith are so easily prone to judging one another.

This is not the soaring theological treatise of Romans 8. This isn’t Jesus confronting the heartbreak of death. This isn’t an apocalyptic vision of Christ upon the throne. It’s Paul writing about life, ordinary, everyday life and food and relationships and community. And right smack in the middle of it, he plays the resurrection card. “We do not live to ourselves, and we do not die to ourselves. If we live, we live to Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s. For to this end Christ died and lived again, so that he might be the Lord of both the dead and the living.”

It’s not about dying, its about living! It’s about a life together infused in absolutely every way with resurrection hope, resurrection promise, resurrection power. It’s not just about shouting, “Christ is risen.” shouting it on Easter morning. It’s about living it long about Wednesday, and praying in the dark of night, and whispering it with your life into the world’s chaos. Christ is risen! It’s not just about standing in the cemetery and hearing, “Behold I tell you a mystery, we shall not all die, but we will all be changed.” It’s about living in the light of that mystery every day, basking in the promise of eternal life, and passing forward the living, giving, life-sustaining power of God’s love to those around you moment by moment.

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

It is the resurrection confidence that calms you at day’s end and lifts you at day’s beginning. It is the resurrection hope that echoes in your ear and beats in your heart when news of missiles and bombs and threats of war rise up again. It is that resurrection rising that you see when cities rebuild, and communities rally and hearts are changed and lives are transformed. It is that incomparable resurrection comfort that can carry you all of your days, every day, that I belong body and soul in death… and in life, to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ. If we live, we live to Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s. Christ is risen!

“So then, each of us will be accountable to God,” Paul writes. Accountable for our judgment and our self-righteousness. Sure. Thank goodness grace abounds. But accountable also for the proclamation and witness to God’s resurrection hope, God’s resurrection promise, and God’s resurrection power in our lives. One theologian notably argued a long time ago that in and through the preached word, Christ rises from dead. Sunday after Sunday when the gospel is proclaimed. I have to tell you that preachers like me, we’re not that good. But you, the witness to the resurrection? It starts with you and in the smallest of ways you could ever imagine.

Christ risen. He is risen indeed!

So go, and live like it.

© 2017 Nassau Presbyterian Church
Contact the church to obtain reprint permission.

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Putting On

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Romans 13:8-14
David A. Davis
September 10, 2017

“Instead, put on the Lord Jesus Christ…put on the Lord Jesus Christ.” “Let us then lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of light.” Put on. Put on the Lord Jesus Christ. It is in Ephesians that Paul writes, “Be strong in the Lord and in the strength of the Lord’s power. Put on the whole armor of God.” You remember, the belt of truth, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, the sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God. And “Put on the breastplate of righteousness.” Put on. Put on the Lord Jesus Christ. “Since we belong to the day, let us be sober, and put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation.” That’s I Thessalonians. Put on. Put on the Lord Jesus Christ.

The connotation in Greek has to do with clothing and dressing and wearing… putting something on. Eugene Peterson, in his paraphrase The Message, he puts the end of Romans 13:14 this way: “Dress yourselves in Christ and be up and about.” It makes it sound like part of the morning routine. Take a shower. Brush your teeth. Dress yourselves in Christ. Other preachers and devotional writers draw on the image of putting on a uniform or wearing the colors. You put on the armor, you put on Christ, like a member of a team dresses for the game, like an athlete puts on Under Armour, like a member of the military represents and prepares.

Put on the Lord Jesus Christ. The image in the epistles of the New Testament comes with urgency, an uncommon urgency that seems somewhat lost in the comparison to the morning routine of picking your clothes for the day. In Ephesians, Paul’s exhortation about putting on the whole armor of God is for the purpose of standing firm against the devil. “For our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against rulers, against authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places (Eph. 6:12). That all sounds far away from the morning paper and a cup of coffee.

In I Thessalonians and here in Romans the urgency is the coming Day of the Lord, the return of Christ, the triumphant coming of the kingdom, the consummation of salvation, the eschaton, the ultimate fulfillment of salvation history, the kingdom ultimately come on earth as it is in heaven. As Paul puts it, “For salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers; the night is far gone, the day is near.” In contrast to Paul’s urgency on spiritual warfare in Ephesians, in contrast to that battle imagery, the urgency in Romans, the urgent response is to the coming day of the Lord. And that response as described by Paul, the response described in Romans, is not to battle; it is to love. Have no obligation other than to love one another. “The one who loves fulfills the law… Love is the fulfilling of the law… Lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of light.” The armor of light is love; loving actions. You know what time it is, Paul exhorts the church in Rome, so live honorably and love. Put on Christ! And do it now.

It would seem to me that the sense of urgency, Paul’s urgency in putting on Christ, is lost on the average 21st -century disciples of Jesus like us. No doubt some traditions, some preachers, some corners of the broader Christian Church give testimony to an experience of the urgency of spiritual warfare. And yes, in some Christian circles the focus on the end times, the rapture, the apocalypse comes with a certain urgency in all the rhetoric, in the teaching, and in the preaching. But even then, one is hard-pressed to ponder a day-to-day urgency for the individual Christian life, an urgency like that reflected in Paul. Here in Romans Paul’s urgency is not going down the path of a kind of revival preacher who wants to know, if Jesus comes back tonight, are you ready? No, Paul’s sense of being ready, responding to the day drawing near, Paul’s urgency is the call to love your neighbor as yourself.

Let me speak only for myself here. I’m not sure the Apostle Paul’s urgency has had much resonance for me in my life of faith. Urgent prayers when people I love and care for are sick or dying or in harm’s way this morning? Sure. An urgent need for God’s guidance in seasons of discernment, or an urgent yearning for God’s peace in moments of turmoil, or an urgent cry for God’s assurance when, as the psalmist says, “the earth should change, the mountains shake, the nations are in an uproar, the kingdoms totter?” Yes. No doubt. But that kind of day-to-day, first thing in the morning, before you put two feet on the floor you better put on Christ, that kind of guttural, groaning, response to the coming Day of the Lord, that sort of defiantly and intentionally putting on Christ every day, that urgent faith-with-an-attitude start to the day, I’m not so sure. I’m not sure in my 55 years, in my 31 years of ministry, in my 18th year as your pastor, I have felt that kind or urgency. I’m not at all so sure about that kind of urgency in my life of faith. Until now. Until right about now. Until “these days.”

You know what time it is. Hatred. Bigotry. Racism. Homophobia. Antisemitism. All abundant and unveiled. The day may be near but the night isn’t far enough gone. The clear and present darkness abounds. It demands the armor of light. Putting on the armor of light. The nastiness that’s in the wind. The putrid things people are saying. The horrible actions directed at those who are somehow deemed different or less-deserving or just less. Such hatred, such disturbing behavior, it’s not limited to or defined by a “hillbilly elegy,” or some old racist uncle everyone avoids at the family reunion. The sinful growing darkness comes in every generation, in all economic strata, in every demographic, among the powerless and the most powerful. Decency and unity and reconciliation are so far off the rails that people seemed surprised at the goodness of humanity revealed during and after catastrophic hurricanes. It’s a pretty low bar these days when it comes to the common good.

A rabbi stood outside his synagogue on that fateful day of Shabbat in Charlottesville as the congregation gathered for worship. While the crowds and violence and all the police presence were blocks away, the small band of people on the other side of the street shouted threateningly, “Jews will not overtake us.” An Asian American television reporter in Philadelphia, born and raised in this country, was verbally assaulted in a crosswalk in Center City by an aggressive female driver who yelled at her, “This is America. Just go home.” Several high school students in Iowa were dismissed from the high school football team when pictures of them wearing white robes, hoods, and burning a cross showed up on social media. An African American teammate, son of the local mailman, said “I thought they were my friends. I have been in their homes.” You know what time it is.

A group of conservative pastors and theologians issued a widely distributed statement on human sexuality. Clearly it was intentionally timed for the current political climate. It is a hurtful theological assault targeting the LGTBQ community and any of the Christian faith that would dare declare themselves welcoming, affirming, and understanding God’s Spirit at work in all of God’s children. One Baptist seminary president said he signed the document as “an expression of love and concern for those increasingly confused about what God has clarified in holy scripture”. An expression of love? An expression of love that has in just days stoked the fires of discrimination and hate and condemnation and fear. You know what time it is.

Roman Catholic Cardinal Timothy Dolan in New York City defended the undocumented young people known as the dreamers who know no other country but this one. He said that ending the DACA program and putting all of the young people at risk is “contrary to the spirit of the Bible and of our country, and a turning away from the ideals upon which our beloved country was founded. All of the ‘Dreamers’ who now face such uncertainty and fear, please know that the Catholic Church loves you, welcomes you, and will fight to protect your rights and your dignity.” Loves. Welcomes. Protects. And a former member of the presidential administration responded in an interview that the Catholic Church just needed illegal immigrants to fill their pews and that it was in their economic interest and that priests and bishops should stick to doctrine. You know what time it is.

All of that and more, in just the last few weeks. There is an urgency to “these days.” You and I have to put on Christ with day to day urgency. If you’re anything like me, maybe with an urgency like never before. Have no obligation other than to love one another. Love does no wrong to a neighbor. Love your neighbor as yourself. Love is the fulfillment of the law and the fulfillment of the gospel and the fulfillment of scripture and the fulfillment of doctrine and the fulfillment of the Christian life. You know what time it is. Lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of light. Live honorably and love! And put on Christ and do it now.
Put on Christ urgent and new every morning. And be confident that his love moving in and through you will be sufficient for another day, that his love moving in and through you will make a difference in the world, that his love moving in and through you will bring light to the present darkness because this darkness can never overcome His light.

Put on Christ urgent and new every morning so that by his grace you can work on the log in your own eye and lay aside the weight and the sin that clings so closely, so that by his grace you can see the face of Jesus shining back at you in someone who is different, in the stranger, in someone who disagrees with you, in someone everyone else expects you to shun, so that by his grace that strengthens you can speak for the long silenced and embrace someone wounded by another’s words and lift up those being stomped on by evil.

Put on Christ urgent and new every morning, and with the power of His Spirit you can defiantly stare down hatred without fear, you can stick your finger into the bullying puffed up chest of bigotry, and you can rise above the sinfulness of complacency and the temptation not to care. Put on Christ urgent and new every morning so that the vision and promise of his kingdom would so fill you that can’t help but shout louder than those who would pervert the gospel for the sake of prejudice and their own power.

And so that the vision and promise of his kingdom would so inspire you that you can’t stop telling our children of a God whose love will never let them go and a God whose love embraces all and that our embrace, our love absolutely shall be as bold, and broad, and audacious as Christ’s own love. So that the vision and promise of his kingdom would so convince you that your own voice does make difference when the saint’s are called to sing a song of righteousness, and your own light does make a difference when others want to blow it out, and your own act of love makes a difference, because in the words of Bishop Desmond Tutu, “goodness is stronger than evil; love is stronger than hate, and life is stronger than death.”

You know what time it is.

Put on Christ.

Now.

© 2017 Nassau Presbyterian Church
Contact the church to obtain reprint permission.

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Following Jesus

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Matthew 16:21-28
Andrew Scales
September 3, 2017

In the midst of a tumultuous week, hearing of storms and of stress in our country, an image from the ancient Church has been returning to my mind while preparing this sermon. It’s the depiction of the Church as a boat, filled with people and animals, as crowded as Noah’s Ark, tossed by waves and winds. And in the middle of that boat stands a mast with no sail. No, it’s not a mast as much as it is a cross. Biblical scholar Eugene Boring describes how early Christians represented themselves on murals as sailing through storm-tossed waters, facing the trials of life huddled together in the boat, that is, the Church. The cross is the sign of their trials, and it is at the same time the sign of their hope in God’s power to save.[1]

That image helps explain why we sometimes call our sanctuaries the nave, it’s from the Latin and Greek words for ship. And if you take a look around you from side to side for a second, here we are, seated in our pews, oriented not unlike rowers stationed at oars in a boat, voyaging with Jesus through the storms and the calm seasons of this life. But no matter where the Christians go, however rough the seas or wild the winds become, we go with the cross—with Jesus crucified and raised—at the center of our life together. We belong together, helping one another, encouraging each other, and discovering that in our love for God and one another, Jesus is alive in our midst.

The Christian life is not a promise that we will avoid struggles or trials. Instead, we trust that, wherever Jesus goes, he brings God’s powerful and transforming love. He can take something even so horrible and hopeless as the cross, and out of it usher in God’s promises of Good News: life and wholeness for all people. Taking up the cross as a disciple of Jesus means not running from the ugliness of the world, but facing it in hope that God is at work in ways we may not be able to discern. As Jesus says, when we lose ourselves in following him, we find that we and the world have been loved and redeemed by the living God.

In this morning’s reading from Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus tells his disciples that his ministry will end in Jerusalem at the cross. Peter must have wondered if Jesus was telling a cruel joke: Jesus had preached a message of hope in God’s Kingdom. The Romans crucified people in order to put an end to their lives and the things they stood for. There was no message of hope in the cross and its brutal finality.

When Peter takes Jesus aside and rebukes him, he’s afraid and angry. Afraid because he knew what the cross meant: it mean the end of Jesus’ life, of the Kingdom he had talked about so much, of the hope people placed in him. Peter loved Jesus. He had followed him since that day in Galilee when Jesus called him and his brother Andrew to leave their nets and fish for people instead. Peter had listened to Jesus tell Kingdom stories about tiny mustard seeds growing into mighty shrubs, and God’s concern for the sparrows.

He had seen Jesus heal people; and calm mighty storms; and out-argue every scribe, Pharisee, and priest between Jerusalem and Caesarea Philippi. The cross—if that was the end of Jesus’ ministry- it meant the loss, the death, of all that Jesus said, and did, and stood for.

But Jesus tells Peter that he’s misunderstood what he’s talking about. Because when Jesus goes to Jerusalem and carries that cross to Calvary, he does so to demonstrate the steadfast love God has for the world. Jesus will not turn away from the violence and injustice we inflict upon one another; he will take it up and carry it as a fellow human being, and as the living God.

The theologian Karl Barth once described Jesus in his commentary on Romans as the “crisis” of this world and of human history.[2] It is a crisis because Jesus in his death and resurrection reveals truth about ourselves and about God. In the death of Jesus, we see the cruelty we inflict on one another.

We understand, in the cross, how ugly we are to one another, how we mistreat and extinguish life in one another.

We see, in the cross, the steadfast love of God revealed in Jesus. When we think of the cross and see Jesus there, we see it is God’s great “No!” to to our indifference to the suffering of others, “no” to our cycles of violence and oppression, “no” to death being the end of our stories.

But the cross is even more so God’s great “Yes!” more even than it is God’s “No”: “yes” to God’s faithfulness with us and for us in Jesus Christ, “yes” to transforming humanity through self-giving love, “yes” to the life of the world. Jesus, the person God promised would heal and redeem this world, enters fully into human suffering.

In rising from the dead, Jesus gathers us into life with God and the Kingdom he promised.

This Jesus, who was crucified by human beings and raised by God, speaks to us today just as he did to Peter and the disciples. He speaks to me, and to each one of you and says, “Take up your cross and follow me. Lose your life for my sake, and you will find it.”

When I was a pastor in Davidson, North Carolina, I led a trip to El Salvador with two fellow campus chaplains and ten college students. We went there because we had heard that, during their terrible civil war years ago, many Christians had been faithful followers of Jesus. We wanted to learn from them what it meant to be a disciple. One of the people we visited was Sister Peggy O’Neill, an American nun who ran a school for young children in a tiny town called Suchitoto. The village of Suchitoto is a beautiful place, its name in Nahuatl means “land of birds and flowers.”

But a generation ago, it was the site of some of the most violent fighting and bombing of the war. Sister Peggy had lived there in El Salvador during the worst of it, and now she ran this elementary school where children could learn about peace through artistic expression.

So we sat in a classroom filled with children’s bright paintings, with the sounds of kids playing soccer outside, and we listened to Sister Peggy’s stories of how ordinary Salvadorans followed Jesus in those frightening times. She told us about a time when she was looking out from her window into the street, and there was no food in Suchitoto, but she saw a little boy with a banana walk past an old man who was hungry, sitting on the curb in the street. The boy walks out of sight, and then, after a minute, the boy came back, peeled the banana, gave the man the fruit, and walked away eating the peel.

There was another time when soldiers stopped a bus Sister Peggy was riding, and they accused everyone of being Communist sympathizers. The war had become so out of control that these soldiers looked and saw the enemy everywhere, even in the faces of innocent farmers, villagers, nuns, and priests. Sister Peggy and two other women fled out the back door of the bus and ran into the corn fields in the dark of the night. One woman was pregnant, but she took out three tortillas—the last food in the bag she was carrying—to share with them. Sister Peggy said to her, “You’re pregnant. You need to eat to keep up your strength.” But the woman said to her, “Tonight we share the tortillas; tomorrow we share our hunger.” She talked about people who had died in the faith—refusing to give up their friends to interrogators—about Archbishop Oscar Romero, who was assassinated during Mass the day after he told soldiers to disobey unjust orders.

At one point, a student asked, “How come the people kept the faith at a time when so many were dying because of it?” Sister Peggy said, “In El Salvador, when someone you love dies, you take up their struggle, their lucha. You stand for the things they stood for. You keep their memory by carrying on their work, you say ‘this person did not die in vain.’” And then Sister Peggy paused and looked around the room at each of us before she asked, “What do you think the disciples meant when they said, ‘Jesus did not die in vain’?”

My friends, Jesus, who died on a cross, is alive, and he calls us to be his disciples today, to carry on his struggle, his lucha. And God knows the world needs people who will not shy away from the crosses that still stand in our world. When we hear of DACA students, of parents, of children who are facing deportation in our country, of policies that would tear families apart, we cannot simply say, “Oh, no, that does not concern me; that’s not something I can get involved in.” Because we believe that Jesus, who died for us, says, “I am also here. I am with these neighbors. I love them as much as I love you. Follow me.”

When we see in the news people of faith and goodwill standing up arm-in-arm in nonviolence to white supremacy, and racist violence, and armed militias, we hear the voice of Jesus say, “I am here, alive in this place. Come and follow me.”

This week on the news, we’ve seen the waters rise and the rains fall in Houston and on the Gulf Coast, we know that Hurricane Harvey has brought terrible suffering to ordinary people. Many have lost homes and possessions their recovery will be long and arduous, and what comes to mind for me is that image with which we began, of the Church as a ship on storm-tossed waters. When trials come, we do not desert one another, we gather around Jesus, around the cross, as the symbol of the power of God’s self-giving love.

We trust that Jesus is there in Texas and the Gulf Coast, with immigrants and refugees, with protesters against white supremacy, both in the presence of his Holy Spirit, and through the hands and feet of those who help people evacuate, and commit to rebuilding, and calling out for justice in our time. When we give, as you can do, even on our website, to organizations like Presbyterian Disaster Assistance, we give because we have been loved by God; the best response we can offer to God for Christ’s grace is to love others in return. Because of Christ, we belong to each other, just as each one of us belongs to God.

We will face these trials, these times, these storms together, because we trust that Jesus is alive, his Kingdom will surely come. He calls us today: “Follow me.” Come, Lord Jesus. Amen.

[1] Eugene Boring, The New Testament Library: Mark, A Commentary (Louisville, KY: Westminster John Knox, 2006) 145.

[2] Karl Barth, The Epistle to the Romans, 6th ed., trans. by Edwyn C. Hoskins (New York: Oxford University Press, 1968) 91, 97.

© 2017 Nassau Presbyterian Church
Contact the church to obtain reprint permission.

Harvey Disaster Relief

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Our hearts go out to all who have been so gravely affected by Hurricane Harvey. Below are a couple ways to help.

Support Presbyterian Disaster Assistance

Presbyterian Disaster Assistance (PDA) is working to help all affected by Hurricane Harvey. To support the efforts of PDA, Give Now on My Nassau and select the Disaster Relief Fund. All donations go directly to PDA.

See the PDA website to follow the efforts of the National Response Team.

Send Supplies via Hermann Transportation

Hermann Transportation is collecting supplies which they will be trucking to Houston for free. See the list of supplies needed below as well as their collection sites in Central NJ.

You can call Hermann Transportation (800-524-0067) with any questions.

Supplies Needed

[ezcol_1half]Personal supplies

  • Shampoo and conditioner
  • Deodorant
  • Lotion
  • Tooth brush
  • Tooth paste
  • Soap and body wash
  • Baby wipes
  • Hand sanitizer
  • Diapers for children and seniors
  • Q-tips and cotton balls
  • Feminine hygiene
  • Razors and shaving cream
  • Socks
  • Formula [/ezcol_1half]

[ezcol_1half_end]Home supplies

  • Towels
  • Pillows
  • Blankets
  • Bleach
  • Detergent
  • Comfort kits
  • First aid supplies
  • Medical gloves
  • Pet food
  • Water
  • Gatorade

Other Supplies

  • Flash lights
  • Phone chargers
  • Batteries
  • School supplies[/ezcol_1half_end]

Drop-Off Sites

Hermann Transportation
11 Distribution Way
Monmouth Junction, NJ 08852
8:00 a.m. – 4:00 a.m.

Plainsboro Recreation Building
641 Plainsboro Rd
Plainsboro, NJ 08536

Max Fitness
Four locations
3790 US Hwy 1 North,  Monmouth Junction, NJ.
2 JFK Blvd, Somerset, NJ
220 Triangle Road, Suite 233, Hillsborough, NJ
1966 Washington Valley Rd, Martinsville, NJ
5:00 a.m. – 10:15 a.m.
4:00 p.m. – 8 p.m.

Tiger’s Tale Restaurant
1290 US Hwy 206
Skillman, NJ 08558
12:00 – 8:00 p.m.

 

September Start-Up

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On Sunday, September 10, we return to our schedule of two services of worship at 9:15 and 11:00 am, and many programs soon kick off, including the following. Click through to learn more about any program and how to get involved.

Wednesday, Sep. 6 Adult Choir
Sunday, Sep. 10 Church School and Worship Explorers
Sunday, Sep. 10 11:00 Senior Bus Service
Sunday, Sep. 10 Small Groups Sign-up
Thursday, Sep. 14 Nassau Ringers
Sunday, Sep. 17 Youth Choirs
Sunday, Sep. 17 Youth Fellowship
Sunday, Sep. 17 Breaking Bread
Tuesday, Sep. 19 Grace Note Singers
Wednesday, Sep. 20 Children’s Choirs
Friday, Oct. 13 Club 3-4-5

Going Out and Coming In

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Psalm 121
Mark Edwards, Christian Martin, Ingrid Ladendorf, Sallye Zink
August 27, 2017

[Mark Edwards]

“Going out and coming in”

I’ve done a lot of that this summer. Nassau youth, and a good many adults, have been to camp at NorthBay on the Chesapeake, the hills and hollers of Johnson County Tennessee to repair homes, and to Spain for the Camino de Santiago.

While all of these trips have had stories and experiences that would nourish the life of faith of this community, this morning we’ll get to hear a few voices from the most recent trip, a two-week pilgrimage walk in Northern Spain on the Camino de Santiago, or, in English, “The Way of St. James.”

James the son Zebedee, along with his brother John, were two of Christ’s 12 disciples- the so called “Sons-of-Thunder” of Mark 3. After Christ’s death, James is reported to have traveled to Spain, then well within the transportation network of the Roman empire to preach of Christ’s death and resurrection. James then returned to Jerusalem where he became the first recorded Christian martyr. As Acts 12:1-2 reports, “About that time King Herod laid violent hands upon some who belonged to the church. He had James, the brother of John, killed with the sword.”

Catholic tradition holds that after this death, James’ friends and disciples took his body back to Northwest Spain to bury it among his converts. James’ remains, according to Catholic traditions, reside in the glorious Cathedral of Santiago.

For over a thousand years — the earliest written reports date from 950 — Christians have made pilgrimage to the city of Santiago de Compostela in Northwest Spain in veneration to James, as penance for sins, or as a simply journey of faith.

Pilgrims walk each day, village to village, on a well marked path that offers deep glimpses into the history of medieval Spain, the long life of the Christian tradition, and our very own souls.

My wife, Janine, and I were on the Camino in 2004 and fell in love with the simple rhythms, the natural beauty, the welcoming locals, and the spiritual lessons of living life “on the Way.” We’ve long wished to return, and this year we were able to.

This summer twenty of us from the Nassau youth program spent two weeks walking the Way. There were nine High School youth, nine adults, and my own two children, Adeline and Elias. We walked the final third of the path, nearly 200 miles in all and enjoyed many kilometers of contemplation, daily worship in fields and Gothic cathedrals, great food, fantastic company, all while reading slowly through the Sermon on the Mount.

While many of the church youth are away this weekend for vacations or college move-ins, we’ll get to hear from some of our other pilgrims, peregrinos, as we were called. This first of these is Christian…

[Christian Martin]

Todos somos peregrinos en esta tierra.

Todos somos peregrinos en esta tierra.

We are all pilgrims on this Earth. The father who declared it before his congregation said it slowly, enunciating, aware of the foreigners in his crowd. Originally from Burundi, now preaching in the Spanish city of Sarria, his own journey was no doubt storied. But if life is a pilgrimage, as this priest claimed, then the question is begged, why do the Camino? Why go to Spain for a pilgrimage when my pilgrimage is here? A day in Princeton or a day in Spain.

Why go out at all? Why endure physical discomfort, mental exhaustion, sleeping in crowded, noisy hostels, walking miles on sore ankles? It’s certainly not evident and its certainly easy to forget: that it is only through struggle that we are forced to have faith. Not faith in ourselves, not faith in pleasures, but faith in the Lord. Staring up the hill with miles more to walk, we tell ourselves we can’t take another step, yet we do, and another one after that, and after that. In this normal life, we have too many defaults to where our help might come from. Once I’m home in the AC, I’ll be ok. After I finish this paper, I’ll be ok. No. “My help comes from the Lord.” “My help comes from the Lord.” Every day, everywhere. Because this journey is hard. We have thousands of miles ahead of us in our lives. We walk seeking to find our God-given purpose. Because we are all pilgrims on this Earth. Porque todos somos peregrinos, en esta tierra.

[Ingrid Ladendorf]

The night before we began walking, we attended a service at a beautiful chapel in the city of Leon. At the end of the service they called the pilgrims forward, and lead a special prayer to send us on our way. For me, this prayer was a very memorable and touching way to be sent out. And it was in English, which really helped. They had no idea who we were, but they knew we were pilgrims, and they extended such kindness in their praying for us. I’m sure they pray this prayer day after day, for the benefit of the thousands of pilgrims that pass through each year. We received our first stamp in our credentials, our first printed pilgrims prayer, and we were wished “Buen Camino.”

We received such heartfelt hospitality at the most unexpected times. Our first day, we came upon a small group of volunteers that had constructed a labyrinth of pine cones and stones with hand-drawn symbols of the Camino on them. It was artful, and beautiful. We walked the labyrinth, they checked in to see how we were feeling, they offered us drinks and snacks, and we left. Unexpected generosity.

I actually wrote in my journal, “I feel this overwhelming sense that along this path, what we really need just seems to be given to us.” I wasn’t trying to write metaphorically at the time, but in truth remembering that in one moment we were feeling pretty hungry, and in the next, we turned the corner and a donation cart filled with fruit and drinks would be sitting there, unmanned on this dirt path. Just sitting there.

We met a group of volunteers about 75 k. from Santiago, La Fuente del Peregrino, whose mission is to keep the original spirit of the Camino, in which hospitality and service are generous and not self-seeking. Through acts of service, hospitality, and love they seek to show the character of Jesus to the thousands of pilgrims that pass each year. They gave us a small brochure of the symbols of the Camino to consider as we walked:

Symbol #1: Yellow Arrows. Every path we followed was marked somewhere with a yellow arrow, either on a building or on the road, or marker. They were our only direction. So the questions were: Who or what do you look to in life to point the way? What arrows do you follow?

Symbol #2: The Backpack. When you’re carrying everything you need for two weeks in your backpack, you seriously consider what is essential and what is not. So we always had to ask ourselves, what can we take out to make the trip lighter? What extra baggage am I carrying every day? And how can we carry each other’s weight. Somehow when you know your hiking partner needs your help, your own pack doesn’t seem heavy at all anymore.

Symbol #3: Bandages. We all have unavoidable wounds and pain in life; how do we deal with pain, and how can we help each other?

Symbol #4: Walking Stick. Who are the people who help you walk this path? What would it look like for you to be a walking stick for others?

Symbol #5: Scallop Shell. Symbolizing a hand and the good works that Jesus did for humankind. When a pilgrim wears this shell it represents a changed life, that this pilgrim is now returning home to live by the lifestyle of serving and loving the rest of humanity.

I can’t think of a better story to share than our hike up to the town of O Cebreiro. It was a 35 k. hike day, nearly 22 miles up, on a very hot day. I was walking with my daughter Camille and eight-year-old Elias, and we were feeling pretty spent. Camille was visibly exhausted, hot, her knees were not cooperating, and well, you get the picture. Our albergue seemed pretty far away, given that we could see the long pathway up the mountain. All of a sudden I heard Elias say, “Camille, I have an idea! I can climb this tree, and slingshot you to the top of the mountain, and you’ll land right in your bed at the albergue! The only problem is we don’t know exactly how far it is, and so I wouldn’t know how far back to pull.” Our thinking was realigned in that moment. I was really thankful we had Elias with us that afternoon. Camille was, too.

We walked over 265 kilometers on this journey. Each day filled with opportunity to be renewed and be transformed in some way. From where does my help come? My help comes from the God who made heaven and earth, the same God that made me and you, the same God that is with us now, and in all of our going out and coming in.

Buen Camino.

[Sallye Zink]

I suppose that it is fitting and only fair that it was just this past Tuesday Mark asked me to participate in this service. After all, it was only the Tuesday before the Saturday planned departure for Spain that, with encouragement from Mark, Jacq, Ron, and others, I decided to make the group of Nassau pilgrims an even twenty.

I am very grateful for the newfound flexibility afforded by my recent retirement which allowed me to make this last-minute decision. And it is this long-planned exit from the workforce with no script for my time in retirement that placed in my mind the hope that I could use this journey, in the words from Romans read by Kelsey today, “…to be transformed by the renewing of your minds, so that you may discern what is the will of God — what is good and acceptable and perfect.” Using the “gifts that differ according to the grace given to us.”

I know I have been given talents, gifts that I have used throughout an interesting, challenging, and successful career in business. I am now in the enviable position of being able define my own schedule and “path” forward. But this means having the responsibility to make choices, decisions, discernment about how I can now reapply my God-given gifts. What better place and time than eleven days walking on El Camino, the Path, in the company of this wonderful group from Nassau – companions, known and new, each at different times of transition and discernment in their own lives.

Don’t get me wrong, with only a few days to prepare, what was most on my mind before the trip was hardly profound, but ran more to practicalities of logistics and packing — high on my list of expertise from 40 years of business travel.

However, once we set foot in the town of Astorga, Spain, on El Camino, the miles to cover, scenery, companionship, and solitude all became unexpected blessings. Being away from the constant barrage of politics, news (fake or otherwise), terrorism, and hatred — leaving this behind, what a luxury. Focusing each morning on quickly and quietly getting up, dressed, pack on your back. Carefully following behind those with head lights before the morning dawn. Looking forward to the first village where the morning, best-ever café con leche would be served. Trusting that a shower and bunk would await at day’s end at the next albergue expertly reserved for us by Janine. And knowing that Marcus would be there with outreached hand to help me get up after the evening circle gathering where Mark would have cheered us all with a “Great job, everybody!” This became the new normal.

While I did not come away with an answer sheet for my way forward, I did come away imprinted with what it means to hope for and wish others a “Buen Camino.” Buen Camino, literally, a good path, a good way, a good journey.

When encountering other pilgrims on El Camino you exchange the greeting “Buen Camino.” As you walk pass local farmers and villagers, they wish you “Buen Camino,” all wishing each their own good journey. You soon realize that the greeting extends well beyond wishes for a good day’s walk.

Each day along the path we would lift our eyes to the mountains, enjoying their beauty but filled with a bit of trepidation about where the day’s walk would take us. In looking at different versions of Psalm 121, I learned that this psalm is referred to as both a pilgrimage song as well as a song of ascents. How very fitting.

Though unspoken, it was in my heart every morning in bidding and each evening in thankful assurance: “I raise my eyes toward the hills, from whence comes my help!” The beauty of the rolling countryside, majestic mountains, and heavenly skies. In awe to walk along surrounded by the stunning vistas and remember how just two weeks prior I had gazed upon similar majesty in the Blue Ridge Mountains with many of these same Nassau youth and adults while on the Appalachian Service Project. What a privilege. What a wonderful world that has been entrusted to us.

Whether spoken or not, we thanked God for carrying our feet along the path, providing us shade from the sun during the day and restful sleep at night. We trusted in the Lord to keep us on this journey, along this path and along life’s way, to protect and guide us towards how we each can best use our time and talents. This time on El Camino has reminded me that whatever our path and current footing, we are all life’s pilgrims that the Lord will keep and protect, directing our going out and coming in along life’s journey.

Buen Camino!

[Mark Edwards]

Friends, there is a road, no simple highway that your life is being called to walk.

Friends, there is a guide, Jesus Christ, who is on that road and who calls to you saying, “Come, follow me.”

Friends, we have a faithful God who promises to nourish us and to protect all our goings out and comings in.

Friends, we can walk this road together, as a community, in joy of faith, song, and compassion.

May each of us here today, find in the words that have just been spoken, living witness to this truth:

The Lord is your keeper;
The Lord is your shade at your right hand.

The sun shall not strike you by day,
nor the moon by night.

The Lord will keep you from all evil;
he will keep your life.

The Lord will keep
your going out and your coming in
from this time on and forevermore.

Amen.

© 2017 Nassau Presbyterian Church
Contact the church to obtain reprint permission.

When Compassion Leaves the Church

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By David A. Davis. August 16, 2017. Adapted from “Filled,” preached on August 6. This essay was also published on Huffingtonpost.com.

Before Jesus was a teacher, a healer, or a miracle-worker, he was one full of compassion.

IT should not have to be this difficult to find compassion among the followers of Jesus. According to the scripture, before Jesus was a teacher, a healer, or a miracle-worker, he was one full of compassion. In the Gospel of Matthew alone, Jesus three times sees a crowd and has compassion on them. When he comes upon two blind men sitting by the side of the road, he was full of compassion. Before he multiplied the loaves and fishes to feed the hungry multitudes, Jesus had compassion for them.

When Jesus saw the crowds, he didn’t pretend that he didn’t see them. He didn’t turn away or go find another spot. Jesus didn’t require them to listen to a sermon first, or to show their religious stripes, or pass a scripture test. He didn’t wait for them to ask, or make them beg, or convert them first. He didn’t expect them to justify themselves, their sickness, or their hunger. He didn’t demand they shout out, or bow down, or perform a sacrifice, or praise him, or express their gratitude first. He had compassion.

Jesus didn’t wait to find out if they could afford it. He didn’t check to see if they came from the right family. He didn’t search the Hebrew scripture for a justification. He didn’t stop to ask himself if they deserved it, or if they earned it, or if they even wanted it. He didn’t try to sort out the true believers first. He didn’t preach about a narrow way. He didn’t tell them to go and sell everything and give it to the poor. He had compassion.

Jesus didn’t wade into the crowd to see which ones agreed with him. He didn’t ask them if they bought into his interpretation of this text or that. He didn’t examine their views on piety, or temple practices, or the Sadducees and the Pharisees, or rendering under Caesar, or marriage, or heaven and hell, or even salvation. He didn’t require them to attest that he was the only way. He didn’t divide them into groups based on where they came from, or what dialect they spoke, or what side of the street they lived on, or who were haves and who were have nots.

He didn’t check to see who was pulling on their own bootstraps or who was trying to pull their own fair share. He didn’t wait to declare who was sicker or hungrier. He didn’t ridicule them, or question them, or demonize them, or label them, or tell them they were wrong, or yell at them. He didn’t lead with cynicism, or lack of trust, or fear. He led with compassion. He didn’t stoke their fear, or pit them against each other, or threaten them, or assume they were lying, or conclude they were out to get something they in no way deserved. He had compassion.

The multiplication of the loaves and fishes is listed in the Christian tradition as one of the miracles of Jesus. But before “the Multiplication,” there was his compassion. Was such compassion remarkable? Yes. Was it miraculous? Perhaps. But was his compassion itself a miracle? No. Compassion ought not to be that much of a stretch for humankind. It shouldn’t be so unexpected. Compassion is not reserved for only the holiest or the most divine. Compassion ought to be so utterly human. The plea isn’t to just “have some compassion.” The example of Jesus is to be “filled with compassion.”

Today, now, there can’t be anything that is more important when bearing witness to the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus by communicating, living, breathing, and exhibiting compassion.

When it came to the crowds, his compassion always came first. It came before he looked up to heaven and blessed and broke the bread and gave it them, and before the Last Supper, and even before his crucifixion and resurrection. His compassion came before the canon of the New Testament took shape, before the Apostles’ Creed, before the King James Bible, before theology and doctrine, and before biblical interpretation. Long before the Reformation, and before liberals and conservatives, and literalists, and fundamentalists, and progressives and evangelicals, there was his compassion.

Long before people took on the name of Jesus, before Christians disagreed and argued about pretty much everything, before it became more important to be right rather than be faithful, before Christians became so enamored with who is in and who is out, there was his compassion. Before the Bible and Christianity and the name of Jesus were used to invoke violence and hate and slavery and oppression and exclusion, there was his compassion.

Before the expression “follow the money” became an adage in politics and business and corruption and life, the Christian should have been taught to “follow the compassion.” For Jesus, it would seem, it all started with compassion. When such compassion leaves the church, we face much bigger crises than membership, attendance, and denominational futures. Today, now, there can’t be anything that is more important when bearing witness to the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus by communicating, living, breathing, and exhibiting compassion. God knows it is way too hard to find these days.

David A. Davis
Pastor
Nassau Presbyterian Church
Princeton, New Jersey