A meeting of the congregation of Nassau Presbyterian Church will be held next Sunday, June 25, at 11:00 AM in the Sanctuary for the purpose of electing new Ruling Elders, Deacons, the Audit Committee, and the Nominating Committee and approving the terms of call for the pastors. See the list of nominees below.
Ruling Elders
Russell Annich (Class of 2020)
Audrey Brown (Class of 2018, youth)
Polly Griffin (Class of 2020)
Holly Hardaway (Class of 2019)
Camille Ladendorf (Class of 2020, youth)
Je Oh (Class of 2020)
Monisha Pulimood (Class of 2020)
Jason Sterlacci (Class of 2020)
John Thurber (Class of 2020)
Deacons
Karen Berliner (second term)
Josie Brothers (youth)
Melissa Davis (second term)
Janine Edwards
Katherine (Kate) Harmon
Alan Hendry
Margaret Hill (youth)
Frances Katrishen (second term)
Anne Kuhn
Jeff Kuhn
Cecelia (Celia) Tazelaar
Deborah Toppmeyer
Edwin (Ned) Walthall (second term)
Nominating Committee
Linda Jesse
Michael Dean Morgan
Alexandra (Allie) Rounds (youth)
Donna Saragnese
Carol Wehrheim
In my first class in theology at seminary, theology 101 or whatever it was called back then, Professor David Willis stood at the front of the lecture hall and said, “The Holy Spirit matters!” And he let out loud laugh, a kind of cackle, like he was prone to do. “The Holy Spirit matters! (HA!) And I mean that in every possible way!” He went on to tell the story of a fellowship hour conversation with a woman after worship. She was announcing to Dr. Willis, the guest preacher for the day, her disillusionment with the church and the lack of the Holy Spirit. During that conversation, people from the church kept coming up to her and asking after her health, offering a touch on the arm, mentioning they had been praying for her in the aftermath of some illness. Surrounded by the fellowship of the church, the witness of prayer, the touch of concern, the smell of coffee hour, Professor Willis confessed that he found the woman’s take on the Holy Spirit ironic. He turned again to the class and bellowed, “The Holy Spirit matters! HA!” And he took his hands and rubbed his fingers together. “The Holy Spirit Matters!” It took me a good ten or fifteen years in ministry to understand what that teacher of mine was trying to get at when it came to the Holy Spirit.
It took me ten or fifteen years to understand what the professor was getting at. Imagine with me….
It was very early one Sunday morning in the kingdom of heaven. Jesus, Peter the Rock, and Paul the Apostle were trying to decide where to go to church. Peter was more than a bit awestruck with the beauty of the day. And Peter, who always seemed to rush into saying the wrong thing, made the mistake of mentioning that maybe they could go play golf instead. As you might have guessed, his frivolous suggestion brought two stares that could only be matched there in eternity. Paul, who even there in heaven prided himself on always having the right answer, reminded the other two that it was, in fact, Pentecost Sunday. He shared with them that maybe they could find a place where they could relive the Pentecost experience all over again. Of course in eternity everything seems like just yesterday. But Peter and Jesus knew what Paul was driving at; the rush of a mighty wind, the tongues as of fire, being filled with the Holy Spirit, that mystery having to do with language. Paul wanted to find a place to worship where the Holy Spirit was present in all it’s power; power like that unleashed on that first Day of Pentecost.
Jesus smiled and thought to himself about the church and the Holy Spirit. He knew how churches and traditions and preachers were always trying to claim the corner of the market on the Holy Spirit. Some think they have the Spirit all to themselves. Others live almost oblivious to the reality of God’s Spirit working in their lives and the lives of their congregations. So the prospect of finding a church to attend on the morning when Pentecost was being celebrated, a church where the Spirit’s presence was clearly acknowledged and celebrated, a church that would reek of the aroma of the first Pentecost, well, the prospect of worshiping with a congregation like that was rather intriguing. And despite the fact that so many misunderstood, misplaced, and mistook the Holy Spirit, Jesus knew just the place to go.
Always the one looking for a teachable moment among his followers, Jesus first asked Peter and Paul to suggest a church where they should go to worship. Shockingly, the both had an opinion about where to go, which congregation to visit on Pentecost morning. And they shockingly disagreed. Jesus made a comment about whenever two or three are gathered there will be different opinions, sighed a bit, and then said those all familiar words. Jesus said “Follow me” and they went off to the church of the Lord’s choosing. Along the way Peter and Paul were arguing amongst themselves about which church choice had been better, about whose idea was better, about which one of them was the greatest. Jesus just shook his head and kept moving.
Before they knew it, the Apostle and the Rock found themselves sitting next to Jesus in a sanctuary that looked awfully ordinary. The worship service had already started and the people were singing a hymn. The congregation wasn’t big and the congregation wasn’t small, but it was just right. As the minister led the congregation in a prayer of confession, Jesus elbowed the two of them and motioned with his eyes that they should look up and look around. It didn’t take long for them to begin to catch on.
There were young and old gathered there for Pentecost. There were individuals and there were families. Families of all combinations and there were individuals sitting together as adopted Lord’s Day families. A few single parents sat with their kids not far from an older couple who seemed to be surrogate grandparents, maybe for the whole church. Peter happened to notice the young man standing up front, repeating everything that was said or sung in sign language. Paul was looking at the collage of color in the pews. It wasn’t that everyone was wearing red. It was the many colors of skin. The diversity was even greater when it came to dialect, or accent, or language. Jesus motioned slightly with his head to point out various folks who were differently abled. Or the same gendered couple sitting together. A young baby over on one side was joining right with her “shouts of praise.” A young boy on the other side was fidgety. Back in the last pew a parent sitting next to three young children was rearranging the order of seating. What couldn’t be seen was the plethora of opinions represented in the congregation; political, theological, economic, moral. Thoughts about education and schools (charter, public, private), opinions about the local candidates for office, what team to cheer for what team not to cheer for, the best music to sing in worship, what made for the best sermon, what was most important in the congregation’s outreach, and how the congregation ought to spend it’s money. The differences ranged from the mundane to the essential, from life in the community, to life in the church, to life in the world. Not all difference can be seen or heard, but Jesus knew that when he chose that congregation for Pentecost worship.
The pastor was calling for prayer requests now. She was standing in the center aisle and they had all just shared the peace. You could feel how the concerns of the congregation were bound together as they were lifted up in prayer. The pastor led the congregation from there in the center aisle, next to the baptismal fount. They prayed for the sick and the grieving. They prayed for one another. They prayed for young and thy prayed for old. They prayed for far off places in the world worn down by despair and torn apart by violence, war, and hatred. They prayed for the families of the latest victims of a terror attack. They prayed for their own community outside the church, for those struggling with not enough money, not enough to eat, not enough love to carry them through another day. During that prayer the community of the congregation and the community of the world, it all seemed to merge. Then they prayed the Lord’s Prayer together in so many different languages. Peter, Paul, and Jesus, they heard so many different voices, and language, but, of course, it was all one prayer. When it came to languages, and voices, and volume, it suddenly sounded like a whole lot more than the number gathered there in the sanctuary. Like the volume was just turned up. Jesus and his two followers found themselves again looking up from the prayer, looking around and listening just to make sure more people weren’t suddenly added to the room.
Soon it was time for the pastor to preach. It seemed she was right in tune with the purpose of the visit of the heavenly three. Right in tune or maybe it was the Holy Spirit. She spoke about the miracle of Pentecost in the Second Chapter of Acts. “It may have been the rushing wind. It may have been the tongues of fire,” the preacher proclaimed. “It may have been the part about speaking in other languages. Maybe it was Peter’s sermon…” Sitting there in the pew, Peter looked over at Jesus for maybe a nod of affirmation. But Jesus was listening so intently to the preaching. “It may have been the image of sons and daughters prophesying, or young men seeing visions and old men dreaming dreams. It may have been that the church grew by thousands in one day.”
“It may have been all of that” she said with her voice dropping to a whisper. “But I think the most miraculous thing happened right at the beginning. Right at the start of the story. Right there where they were all together in one place. As it is written, she said, ‘when the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place.’” The preacher paused and she looked around the congregation. She looked around long enough to create a bit of an awkward silence. “That first sentence”, she went on, “it’s not just a description of the small group of apostles gathering for the feast. It is the thesis statement of the whole story. It is the theological thesis statement that foreshadows the depth of meaning for Pentecost itself. It is the trumpet fanfare that tells of a gathering from every nation under heaven. People from east and west, north and south, all together in one place, miraculously united by the power of the Holy Spirit. “When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place.”
In words of profound power, the pastor stood before her otherwise ordinary congregation and concluded her sermon by telling them that they were a living witness to the truth that Pentecost still happens. “Each of you and all of you. Each and all”, she said. Jesus elbowed both Peter and Paul to make sure they got the point. Yes, miracles happen. Yes, the Holy Spirit is at work in the church in powerful and charismatic and mysterious. Yes, the very Spirit of God is at work in the world in ways that go far beyond what can be imagined or comprehended. But the experience of that first Pentecost is best relived when the people of God find ways to be with one another, to love one another, to allow the Spirit to bind them together, to taste and see something of what it means to be One in Christ the Lord. Some years when Pentecost comes around, that is miracle enough.”
The sermon was done, another hymn has been sung, and the congregation was gathering around the Table for the Lord’s Supper. As the pastor led in those familiar words of celebration, Jesus found himself mouthing right along with her. “This is my body broken for you.” “This is the cup of the new covenant sealed in my blood.” “Do this in remembrance of me.” Then she said, “the gifts of God, for you, the people of God. For each and for all”
Jesus turned to Peter and Paul and whispered “Pentecost.”
When the people of God find ways to be with one another, to love one another, and to allow the Spirit to bind them together, to taste and see something of what it means to be One in Christ the Lord. When Pentecost comes around, that might just be miracle enough.
I was driving the Pennsylvania Turnpike this week coming home from leading a retreat gathering for young pastors. After stopping for gas, I zipped into the store for a cup of tea. Music was playing over the sound system at a substantial volume. I couldn’t help but listen. It was hip hop song. As I was dipping my tea bag, something about the tune struck me. I kept listening and lingered there at the coffee island. The hip hop melody sounded familiar. A few measures later, I recognized it. Here was the main tune… It’s that little piano ditty that folks pluck out even when they have no idea how to play the piano! Some hip hop artist took that tune and made it into contemporary piece that people actually listen to. I stood there until the end of the song. It was definitely that same old, old tune. It sounded a whole lot different there in the Sheetz convenience store just off the turnpike exit in Bedford, Pennsylvania. I guess it all depends on how, when, where, you hear it.
“God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble!” When you stop and think about it, the church sings, reads, hears Psalm 46 a lot, a lot of different places, a lot of different ways. Psalm 46 is sort of all through the hymnal. Psalm 46; the phrases, the verses, never far from the church’s collective tip of the tongue. “A very present help in trouble… We will not fear…God is in the midst… the nations are in an uproar… Behold the works of of the Lord…be still and know that I am God.” Psalm 46.
Most often, I think, I read these words standing before you at a memorial service or over at the cemetery. Sometimes in part, sometimes as a whole. When surrounded by all the trappings of death and loss and grief, the song’s meaning could not be more clear. “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore, we will not fear….” The psalm’s meaning could not be more clear. Neither is the need for God’s strength ever more clear. And so the church, you and I, we affirm and remind and assure and hope and nudge and cling and whisper and shout and sing. Psalm 46. We sing it over and over again in that time of trouble. Death’s time of trouble. God be our strength!
But then find yourself reading Psalm 46 at home in the morning after CNN has just told you of another earthquake, or hearing Psalm 46 in worship one Sunday after another hurricane somewhere. The song sounds different. “Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change, though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea, though its waters roar and foam, though the mountains tremble with its tumult”. The message is still about God as refuge and finding strength and stemming fear. Yet, when the powers of nature are shaking, the ears of the faithful attend to the psalmists words in a new way. Holding on through the darkness , through the night. The prophet’s promise for the shaking city of God. God’s promise for those besieged by creation’s storm. “God will help it when the morning dawns.”
Psalm 46. And when the nations are in an uproar? Psalm 46 plays again. When the Korean peninsula shakes. When the Middle East totters. “When you hear of wars and rumors of wars” is how Jesus put it. Psalm 46 sounds different. Or as our nation pauses on Memorial Day to remember all those who gave their lives in pursuit of a lasting peace in the world, the psalmist words fall on the ear as more of a prayer, a plea. The psalmist sounds more like the prophets who sings about ending war and smashing weapons. Psalm 46 as the prophet’s plea. Like Isaiah, “they shall beat their swords into plowshares and their spears into pruning hooks; nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more” (Isaiah 2). Like Amos, “let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream” (Amos 5). Like Jesus, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God” (Mt 5). The psalmist’s words burn when the nations are in in an uproar. A prayer, a plea carved like a monument into the landscape of war. “The Lord makes wars to cease to the end of the earth. The Lord breaks the bow and shatters the spear. The Lord burns the shield with fire”.
Psalm 46. It’s all about where you are when you hear it. About 50 or so from our congregation are worshiping this morning on the annual Memorial Day family retreat somewhere down on the Chesapeake Bay. Corrie Berg tells they are gathering for worship on the beach right about now. I’ve never been there, but I can see them in my imagination, gathering for worship after nothing but a morning walk. And if they’re reading Psalm 46 this morning in worship, if one of the children gets up to read Psalm 46 in worship this morning, when she gets to “Be still and know that I am God” there’s going to be a collective sigh, a sort of grateful sigh for the time away, the beauty of the place, the gift of a retreat. “Be still and know that I am God” A centering prayer. A breath prayer with a few extra words. Words of the psalmist that feed the soul and waft over the listener craving even a moment, a slice, a whiff of stillness.
But notice that there’s not much stillness here in Psalm 46. Mountains shaking in the heart of the sea. Threats to the holy city of God. Nations in an uproar. Earth melting. Desolations to behold. The psalmist doesn’t seem to be on retreat when God’s voice comes, when God speaks, when the song shifts to the imperative; “Be still and know that I am God!” God speaks when the creation is in turmoil. God speaks when the very dwelling place of God is threatened by the forces of chaos and the kingdoms of the world are tottering far beyond the edge of violence. Far beyond, far from, far away from the stillness, God speaks. “Be still and know that I am God.”
Here in Psalm 46, at v.10, when God speaks? It’s a lot less like the Chesapeake, and lot more like Manchester, England where all those children and young people died in the bombing, a lot more like Portland where two men were killed as they spoke up to defend a woman on a train, a lot more like that desert road in Egypt where 29 Coptic Christians were killed by ISIS this week on their way to a monastery, In the aftermath of brutal of violence, and senseless death, and unimaginable grief. God speaks. To evil that forever threatens life in the peaceable kingdom, to the enemies of all that God intends for creation, to the powers of darkness so intent on conquering the good and obliterating the light, the voice of God comes in the imperative, perhaps with a shout, perhaps with tears, “Stop it! Stop it! Be still. Drop it! Enough already! Stop the violence. Put an end to the violence. Abandon the chaos! Turn away. Turn away from it all. “be still and know that I am God.”
The psalmist’s song number 46. Comfort in the face of death’s reality. Hope for the promise of the morning when the storm shall pass. A plea for peace in times of war. An affirming prayer of gratitude for a taste of tranquility. An urgent demand when humanity’s total depravity rises again and again. No matter how or when or where you hear it, it is the psalmist testimony to the endless, persistent, imperative grace of God.
Peter Gomes, one of my mentors in preaching, would preach to each graduating class at Harvard on the morning of commencement. More accurately, he would preach to those who chose to come to the morning worship service in Memorial Church on Harvard Yard the morning of graduation. It is that season once again of sermons and speeches and addresses like that. One year, Peter Gomes said this: “On these occasions, I worry that we are selling you… a bill of goods. Instead of preparing you for ‘success’, we should be preparing you to cope with failure when things don’t turn our right—whether it is your marriage, your job, your children, or your nation. We should all along have been inculcating in you not ‘modalities of thought’” Professor Gomes preached, “but capacities for endurance. Instead of breeding eagles we should have been breeding camels who will make it across the desert because they have what they require on the inside and will not quit.”
“Put your confidence in something that works,” Gomes proclaims. “It is God who will keep you when all else has failed you; and it is God to whom you will turn when you have exhausted all of the alternatives. It is God on whom you will call when you get that fateful diagnosis. It is God on whom you will call when the bottom drops out; and it is God on whom you will call when you pass through those seasons of doubt and despair, when life itself seems not worth the living and you cannot remember the last victory; and it is God on whom you will call with your very last breath.”
“Put your confidence in something that works,” says the graduation preacher.
“Be still and know that I am God,” says the psalmist preacher.
Every time we sing Psalm 46 around here, someone is being rocked by the world’s shake, overwhelmed by life’s uproar, or hanging on until the morning dawns. So together, we will tap our feet, and move our lips, count our rests, and find out notes, and sing it again. One generation after another.
Because “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.”
Today is Confirmation Sunday and in just a short while we will celebrate with these 11 confirmands in their public profession of faith and their entrance into the full membership of this church. In many ways the Confirmation program, which has met over the course of this past year, is about confronting the big questions of the faith. I’ve asked lots of questions and while even I can’t answer them all, there is one answer that all these confirmands are prepared to give today. It is the most basic answer to the grandest and most important question.
I like questions. And this text from Acts raises many. There is so much in this episode that it would be easy to get pulled in all kinds of fun directions, by asking all kinds of important questions: questions of philosophy, politics, science, providence, idolatry, religion, culture. So many questions…
[The following section was not delivered on May 21 due to time restraints.]
There is the fact that Athens is full of all kinds of idols. One might easily explore these and the similarities they have with contemporary American culture and politics, much of which is derived from Greek influences. What might we find?
There is the Stoic and Epicurean philosophy and Paul’s engagement with the leading intellectuals of the day. Stoicism emphasizes that “everything happens for a reason” and Epicureans insist that the happy life is attained by 1) simple material pleasures and 2) not thinking too deeply about stuff we can’t grasp. Both were dominant schools of thought. And yet, 2000 years later, it is Paul’s preaching of Christ resurrected that has effectively endured as a dominant coherent school of thought. How did that happen? Is it because Christianity is more rational? And what might happen if we slip back into Stoic assumptions about fate and providence and Epicurean aspirations of pleasure? Could we end up like ancient Greece?
There is the fact that Athens is caught up with the perpetual quest for anything new and exciting. What happens to a culture that jettisons all tradition for the latest and greatest ideas? Did they get confused? Might we?
There is the fact that the Athenians are deeply “religious” and thus likely very “spiritual” and devout — but what it is they worship? They worship Gods of silver and stone? Who could ever fall in love with and worship art and manufacturing?
There is the fact that the Athenians seem to be groping around for ecstasy and divine encounters and yet can’t seem to get their hands on the thing they most crave. And yet, of those who “search” it says they also find God. How should we feel about for God? Will all our fumbling eventually lead us to ecstasy?
There is the fact that Paul claims God “who made the world and everything in it” has “allotted the times and the boundaries” of the universe. Is God the cause of the Big Bang, the weaver of the space-time fabric?
What does it mean that the omnipotent and omniscient God, the God who knows and sees all, “overlooks times of human ignorance”? If God is not focused on our sin, failures, and short-comings, what is God focused on?
What does it mean that “we live and move and have our being” in God? Are we, like fish in water, swimming in something so ubiquitous we can’t even recognize it? Could God really be that immediate and foundational to our moment-by-moment physical existence? How? Where? Why?
Why would the almighty and all-powerful God choose to have the world judged in righteousness by “a man”? Why wouldn’t God just do it? Who is the man? Johnny Cash once sang:
There’s a man goin’ ’round takin’ names.
An’ he decides who to free and who to blame.
Everybody won’t be treated all the same.
There’ll be a golden ladder reaching down.
When the man comes around.
Who is this man? Is Cash’s apocalyptic vision theologically prudent?
What is this “altar to an unknown God”? How can we know things we don’t know? How can we worship a known as unknown? And how can Paul know the the unknowable that others don’t know?
And what of those few converts at the end of the chapter, namely the one named Dionysius the Areopagite? What of the mystical works that surfaced in the 5th or 6th Century claiming to the definitive works of this man? Is unknowing all that we know of God the true way to know that which supersedes and transcends all words, ideas, and mental images of God? How about this for a Dr. Seuss-style theological mind-twister: “But now as we climb from the last things up to the most primary we deny all things, so that we may unhiddenly know that unknowing which itself is hidden from all those possessed of knowing amid all beings, so that we may see above being that darkness concealed from all the light among beings.”[1]
[The May 21 sermon resumes at this point.]
Many of these are great unknowns (or are they unknowables?) and we could go on, and indeed we probably should, but not here and not now. For to do so would be to overlook the greatest and most interesting question of the passage. For at the heart of this strange and world-colliding passage is the “unknown God.” Do you know who it is?
Consider that just last week Pastor Dave preached on the stoning of an early apostle Steven. Those who stoned Steven to death laid their coats (to get better aim and power) at “the feet of a young man named Saul” (Acts 7:58); “…and Saul approved of their killing this” early Christian believer (Acts 8:1). Then, just one chapter later Saul had his own encounter with an “unknown God.” “Lord, who are you?” he asked on the road to Damascus. And now, just a week and eight chapters later, Saul, now known as Paul, is preaching to the philosophical elite in the epicenter of the western intellectual world, Athens. Who is the God that can pull off such conversions? Do you know?
Strangely, the Bible is full of people’s encounters with an unknown God:
Consider Jacob wrestling on the banks of the Jabbok river (Genesis 32). “Please tell me your name,” says Jacob. But the God that Jacob is wrestling with just replies, “Why do you want to know my name?”
Who is this strange God who wrestles with humans, and lets them win? Do you know?
Consider Moses talking with a voice emanating from within a burning bush (Exodus 3), “What did you say your name was again?”
Who is this God that has heard the cries of the people and who has seen their sufferings? Who is this powerful liberating God of the Israelites. Do you know?
Consider the mother of Samson (Judges 13), who encounters a divine being in the fields, a being who promises to answer her prayer for the gift of son. When her husband, Samson’s father, encounters this curiously labeled “man of God” he asks, “Are you the one?” The simple answer in reply is, “I am.”
Who is the enigmatic life-giving God who hears the desperate pleas for a new-born, who simply says, “I am.” Do you know?
Consider a paralytic whose friends chop a hole in the roof of a house, so they can lower him down before a teacher with a bizarre reputation. Who is this one who proclaims to have the authority to forgive sins, to heal paralytics, and who says, “Stand up, take your mat and go to your house” (Mark 2:11)?
And the paralytic got up?! Who has the ability to do such things? Do you know?
Consider a batch of disciples, who spend all their days and nights with their loyal leader. And they get stuck in a storm out on a lake and think they are going to die. And when they panic and begin cussing out their leader, he calms the storm. They are stupefied and they ask, “Who then is this? Even the wind and sea obey him” (Mark 4:41).
“Who then is this?” they ask; and they live with him. They don’t even know who this one really is. Do we know?
Consider the little children, “And he took them up in his arms, laid his hands on them, and blessed them” (Mark 10:16). Did the little children know what was going on? Did they know whose lap they sat upon? In whose embrace they received an eternal blessing regarding entering the kingdom of heaven? Did anybody there have a clue?
Who can make promises and guarantees concerning entering the kingdom of heaven, as this one did? Do we know?
Consider an outcast, a thief and a murderer as they are being publicly executed in the most humiliating and painful way conceived of by the local department of justice. “Those who were crucified with him also taunted him” (Mark 15:32). Who is this one who dies an unjust death, in torture and in shame, all while enduring the mocking insults of those he is with, of those for whom he is with?
Who would do such a thing? They had no idea. Do we?
And finally, consider an early Sunday morning, the friends of the deceased who are racked by grief and depression. Mary comes in, and she “told those who had been with him, while they were mourning and weeping. But when they heard that he was alive and had been seen by her, they would not believe it” (Mark 16:11).
I mean, come on, it just wouldn’t be rational? Who is capable of being undead? Who wields power over death itself? Do you know?
From the hills of Midian, from the ford at the river Jabbok, from the fields of Manoah and his wife, from a house that needs re-roofing, from the calmed Sea of Galilee, from the marketplace swarming with vagabond kids, from the bloody site of public executions, to the dark closets of despair and emptiness, we have Paul proclaiming an unknown God in the midst of Athens. These people are smart. These people are educated. These people have heard it all. Most laugh. But not all.
When they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some scoffed; but others said, “We will hear you again about this.” At that point Paul left them. But some of them joined him and became believers, including Dionysius the Areopagite and a woman named Damaris, and others with them.
Some… just a few… certainly no more than a dozen… well, let’s just say 11 decided to cross that boundary. They decided to know the God that others did not. They decided that they did know the God that others thought was unknowable. Who were these 11? Will we ever know?
Caroline, in your confirmation Statement of Faith you wrote: “I believe that God has a plan for us all that we may not understand at the time that events occur or even that we may never be able to understand it, but I believe that God has a purpose for me and everyone around me. I accept God’s plan of salvation.”
Who stands at the center of God’s plan of salvation? Caroline knows.
Lindsey, you wrote: “Having faith is like falling off a cliff backwards with your eyes closed. You can never completely know that what you believe in is true. Even the strongest Christians have some doubt. All parts of our lives belong to God, and he created everything for us. When I am unsure of things, I have to believe that God will catch me and knows what is best for me.”
Who is the One in whom Christians put their trust? Who catches us? Lindsey knows.
Anna, you wrote: “I know that the love and forgiveness of Christ are not something I can ever achieve… With this I am grateful to be accepted into a life with the love of Christ.”
Who is the forgiving messiah who welcomes us in love? Who is the accepting Christ? Anna knows.
Josie, you wrote: “I believe that he will one day come again, but until then he is working with us and through us in spirit… The Holy Spirit has worked through me during ASP last summer, where I helped to repair damaged houses in Kentucky.”
Who is the giver of the Holy Spirit? Who is the God that is with us in Princeton and in Kentucky? Josie knows.
Cal, you wrote: “I believe in the Church, a house of knowledge, [a] closely knitted community that teaches us, preaches to us, enlightens us, provides bagels and lemonade for us, and connects with us.”
Who is the bread of life? The Bagel of Life? Who is Lord of the church? Cal knows.
Matt, you wrote: “I believe that God gave up his only son so that whoever believed in him could live eternally in heaven. God’s forgiving nature and generosity is represented through his son.”
Who is this God? Who is this son? Matt knows.
Luke, you wrote: “In the beginning, only his light pierced the veil of nothingness.”
Who is the light of the World? Luke knows.
Margaret, you wrote: “I believe that every part of the triune God is always present in the world. I believe we must be open to this idea that He might not be as direct as we would like but God does know what is best for us. ”
Who is the indirect God who guides us and walks among us in subtle, cloaked, and sometimes anonymous ways? Margaret knows.
Camille, you wrote: “As the 32 of us were standing in St. Peter’s Basilica in Italy singing our hearts out, we couldn’t help but feel the emotions and feelings of togetherness spreading like wildfire from one person to the next.”
Who is the God who sets hearts afire, who puts promises in stone and invites us into the house of God forever? Camille knows.
Morgan, you wrote: “This year in confirmation I learned many things. One of which was at Lake Champion. I learned God’s love is never-ending no matter what mistakes I make.”
Yes, Morgan, this is something we all need to learn. Who is the one who, as you say, “healed the sick, blinded the brokenhearted, forgave sinners, and died on the cross”? Morgan knows.
Isabel, you wrote: “I believe God has a path for us and we should not worry too much about tomorrow for God is in control.”
Who is the one who tells us not to worry about tomorrow and what we shall eat and we shall drink? Who tells us that our heavenly Father knows we need such things and that they will be provided? Isabel knows.
Friends, we have before us 11 who know who the “unknown God” really is. Today they confirm that they are putting their trust, their faith, and their hope in Jesus Christ. May we, like them, follow Christ into, and through, all the unknowns of our lives. Amen.
[1] Pseudo-Dionysius, The Mystical Theology in Pseudo-Dionysius: The Complete Works (Classics of Western Spirituality), trans. by Colm Luibheid. (NY: Paulist Press, 1987), p.138 (1025B).
Stephen. In the Bible, Stephen appears in the Book of Acts. Tradition labels Stephen the first deacon and the first Christian martyr. Luke, the writer of Acts, spends a bit of time when it comes to Stephen. In what is otherwise a kind of fast-paced biblical book, Luke lingers on Stephen. Stephen’s lengthy response to the high priest, his sermon, is recorded in its entirety. Stephen’s conflict with the synagogue leaders and their plotting against him is described in detail. When writing of Stephen’s calling by the twelve apostles, along with the other six who were appointed to the task of feeding and serving the widows, Luke tells of the apostles praying over them and laying hands on them. And Luke gives these repeated descriptions of Stephen. The kind of descriptions the Bible reserves for people like Noah, who “was a righteous man, blameless in his generation; Noah walked with God” (Gen 6). Or Job. “That man was blameless and upright, one who feared God and turned away from evil” (Job 1). Luke repeatedly offers descriptors of Stephen. It’s like Luke wants you to get to know him, to get to know Stephen.
In Acts, chapter 6, the disciples tell the community to select from themselves seven people who are “of good standing, full of the Spirit and of wisdom.” When Luke names them, Stephen is the first one. “They chose Stephen, a man full of faith and the Holy Spirit,” Luke writes. The other six don’t get the extra shout-out. Stephen’s story continues with Luke telling of how the Word of God spread and the number of disciples increased greatly in Jerusalem. And “Stephen, full of grace and power, did great wonders and signs among the people.” Full of faith and the Holy Spirit. Full of grace and power. Some who belonged to the synagogue stood up to argue with Stephen. But Luke tells his readers that “they could not withstand the wisdom and the Spirit with which he spoke.” They couldn’t best him rhetorically so they conspired to stir up the people, the elders, and the scribes against Stephen. They convinced some folks to lie about how Stephen was blaspheming against Moses and God and saying bad things about the temple and the law. Stephen sat before the council, who all glared at him intensely. “They saw that his face was like the face of an angel,” Luke writes. That Stephen, full of faith, full of the Holy Spirit, full of grace, full of power, full of wisdom, and he had the face of an angel.
That’s when Stephen starts in on his long-winded sermon. Like one of those commencement speeches you know is going to go on forever because the speaker starts with a story from kindergarten, Stephen starts his response to the council with Abraham. He moves on to Isaac and Jacob and Joseph and his brothers and Egypt and then Moses and Moses’ younger years, and then Mount Sinai and the burning bush, and the deliverance from Egypt and wilderness wanderings and the golden calf and the people’s disobedience, and Joshua, and David, and Solomon. It is quite the history lesson, all coming down to an indictment of the people’s chronic disobedience, and their temple worship, and their mistaken belief that the Most High God would somehow dwell in a house made of human hands. Stephen brings it home with some harsh and scathing words. “You stiff-necked people, uncircumcised in heart and ears, you are forever opposing the Holy Spirit, just as your ancestors used to do.” He accuses them of being the betrayers and murderers of the Righteous One, Jesus. “You are the ones who received the law as ordained by angels, and yet you have not kept it.” And that’s the end. No amen. No thanks be to God. No doxology here. What happens next is our text for the morning.
[Acts 7:54-8:8 is read.]
Now you know why Luke wanted you to get to know Stephen. Stephen, filled with the Holy Spirit until the end. Filled with the Holy Spirit and beholding God’s glory. Filled with the Holy Spirit and echoing Christ’s words of compassion as he hung above the fallen world. “Forgive them, for they know not what they do.” Stephen, filled with Holy Spirit. “Lord, do not hold this sin against them.” Stephen, filled with the Holy Spirit. “Look, I see the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God!” Most descriptions of the heavenly throne room tell of Jesus seated at the right hand of God. That’s what we say in the Apostles’ Creed: “He sitteth on the right hand of God the Father Almighty.” Jesus himself tells of the “Son of Man seated at the right hand of the power of God” (Luke 22:69). But here Stephen sees Jesus standing up. The Son of God rising to the defense of Stephen, rising out of respect for the one giving his life for the sake of Christ. The Lamb of God, the Savior of the world standing to greet Stephen at the gates of heaven. Stephen. Stephen, full of faith, full of the Holy Spirit, full of grace, full of power, full of wisdom, and he had the face of an angel. And they killed him. Luke really wishes you could have known him.
Notice who doesn’t get any descriptors, any space, any character amplification. That would be a young man named Saul. “The witnesses laid their coats at the feet of a young man named Saul… Saul approved of their killing him… Saul was ravaging the church.” Saul. Saul. The one soon to be known as Paul. Saul. Paul. The Apostle Paul. Romans. Corinthians. Galatians. Ephesians. Paul. That Paul. He comes on scripture’s stage to check coats at a stoning. They laid their coats at his feet. The witnesses. Like they were going to the theater. It’s a disgusting image that symbolizes humanity’s unquenchable thirst for violence. And that’s how the Bible introduces Paul. Not Saul, a man full of faith and the Holy Spirit. That was Stephen. Saul is up to his knees in the darkest side of being human. A sort of epicenter of sin.
That coat check boy ravaging church. It certainly casts a light on Paul’s Damascus Road conversion and underscores the transforming power of the gospel of Jesus Christ. According to Luke, Saul’s persecution of the church even contributed to the scattering, the spreading, of the Word beyond Jerusalem. Paul was spreading the Word when he was Saul. The story so quickly moves on after Stephen’s killing that by that last verse I read “there was great joy in that city” of Samaria as Philip proclaimed the Messiah to them. But Luke wants you to remember Stephen and not let his death just be the pivot that moves the story along.
You remember on the Day of Pentecost Peter preached a sermon similar to Stephen’s. He told the story of faith. He talked about Jesus of Nazareth. He offered words of indictment and accusation: “this Jesus whom you crucified.” Peter preached and three thousand people joined the church and the community of faith was defined. Stephen preached and was murdered. Peter preached and the church was born. Stephen preached and the Lord stood up. The church may have started with Peter but those who take the name of Christ entered the real world with Stephen. The world that is always and forever stained with gruesome violence and death. The promise for those who take the name of Christ is not one of endless mountaintops because sometimes the mountains themselves can begin to shake. There is no guarantee of a life without tragedy, or faith journey that comes easy, or that the cause of compassion and mercy and justice and peacemaking will ever be anything other than a daily struggle. The promise is of God’s presence through it all. The promise is of God’s love through it all. The promise is of God’s steadfast mercy and abundant grace through it all. The promise is that life shall overcome. And that the transforming, death-conquering, sword-smashing, life-giving resurrection power of the God we know in Jesus Christ will ultimately bring a kingdom of peace and once and for all mop up that stain and cleanse that sin and heal the self-inflicted wounds of our humanity.
When I was just starting out as a pastor, my mother thought it would be helpful to share newspaper clippings from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette with me. For a season of life she regularly sent me clippings from that paper. It seemed that she was sending along any article that included the word “God” or “Presbyterian.” She would underline or write comments right on the clipping. Maybe it wasn’t all that helpful for my ministry but she had good intentions. And she taught me plenty of lessons about God and the Christian life and pastoral care along the way. When I was eight years old, my 21-year-old brother was killed in a car accident on a Saturday night not far from home. It was this time of year. I can still remember being in the backyard that sunny Sunday afternoon and hearing my mother’s cries from inside the house. It was years later when my mother told me about the friend who came to visit in the days afterward and said, “It must have been God’s will.” That didn’t go well for my mother’s friend. “Don’t you dare tell me it was God’s will. God has to be as heart-broken as I am.” Or to put it another way, when my brother Bobby died, Jesus stood up. That promise carried my mother all the rest of her days.
The promise that neither death, nor life, nor the violence that never wains, nor missile tests and talk of war, nor political chaos, nothing, nothing, not the heart-wrenching struggle to care for aging parents far away, nor the worry for a child whose marriage is in disarray, nor the private pain of a miscarriage, nor the tears for a 95-year-old child of God who now rests from her labor… nothing, nothing, not the stress of a prolonged job search, not the worry of sending a child off to college, not the fears for the world’s future for our children’s children… nothing, nothing… not burying your child, nor the loss of a spouse to dementia years before death, nor your world turned upside down by what a doctor tells you, nor staring into the face of your own mortality… nothing, nothing, shall separate us from the love of God made known to us in Jesus Christ.
You know that quote is from Romans. That means Saul wrote it. And remember Stephen. Luke really wants you to remember Stephen.
The Session of Nassau Church has passed the following resolution, which was written for adoption by members of the Princeton Clergy Association:
“Love Your Neighbor/Welcome the Stranger”
As congregations serving the town of Princeton, we seek to live out the very foundations of our faith by being in solidarity with immigrants, refugees, and other vulnerable populations in our community. Our covenant is to a ministry of accompanying, advocacy, and bold, faith-filled hospitality. We seek to walk with and support individuals and families who are involved in immigration proceedings, to advocate for fair and just immigration policies, and to care for our neighbors negatively impacted or families torn apart by immigration enforcement.
We pledge to work with non-profit groups, schools, and public officials in representing and carrying out the values of loving neighbor, welcoming the stranger, and speaking up for those who have no voice.
Our intent is to continue to carry out our existing ministries and services while discerning how best to be faithful and serve in the months and years ahead.
Consistent with this resolution, members of Nassau Church who share a concern for immigrants carry out a variety of support activities and advocate for broad-based immigration reform. Two groups provide support services to our immigrant neighbors. Read about their activities below and reach out to the contacts listed to get involved.
For general questions about immigration advocacy and service, contact Bill Wakefield (609-306-5299; ).
Love Your Neighbor, Welcome the Stranger, Help Your Neighbor
This group connects volunteers to people in need, identified by the Princeton Clergy Association, Princeton Human Services, the Latin American Legal Defense and Education Fund, and the Neighborhood Sanctuary Alliance.
Volunteers are needed in a number of areas:
Legal aid
Notary public services
Support for people under deportation orders and their families
ESL instruction
Issuance of Community Identification Cards
Transportation for people without driver’s licenses
Support for frightened children
Monitor ICE operations in case of a raid
Friendship
If you want to help, please contact Frances Slade () and indicate your areas of interest and skills.
Sanctuary
If a person or family is actually and directly threatened with detention or deportation, the Session may take action to offer sanctuary in the church. In that eventuality, volunteers will be needed to provide a more intensive level of support, including:
Being on site or on call at night when the church is closed
Providing transportation for family members who are free to go to work, school, doctors appointments, etc.
Shopping for food and other basic needs
Liaison with LALDEF, a lawyer, or others who are providing other support
Going to immigration court with them to show support
If you would want to help, please contact Maureen Llort () or Frank Llort ().
They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayer. Awe and wonder and joy and generosity and mercy were all on the move among them. The apostles’ themselves were drawing on the Spirit of God and their ministry among them was full of wonder and signs of God’s presence, God’s grace, God’s resurrection power. Those who believed were together. They had all things in common. Possessions, goods, proceeds were shared. The needs of all were met. They spent a lot of time together in the temple. They broke bread from house to house to house. They ate. They worshiped. They demonstrated the goodness of God to all people. Day by day. Day by day God added to their number those who were being saved. Day by day.
Studying, learning, growing in the faith of Jesus Christ. Fellowship, generosity, sharing, caring for those in need, demonstrating the goodness of God. Breaking bread, praising God, testifying to the signs and wonders of God. And prayer. Day by day. Day by day.
One of our own college students finishing up his last semester wrote to me this week and asked some questions about a paper he is writing for a journalism class on the rise of atheism. He asked me about the abundance of folks who identify as religious but unaffiliated, about whether I thought atheism appealed more to millennials, and whether there are concerns about whether Christianity will hold on for the long haul. I shared some thoughts, gave him some book references, and then told him about the numbers of young people in our last new member class, and the adult baptism on Easter evening in our Breaking Bread worshiping community, and our Great Fifty Days of Prayer. And that in Jesus Christ, our best days are always yet to come
Studying, learning, growing in the faith of Jesus Christ. Fellowship, generosity, sharing, caring for those in need, demonstrating the goodness of God. Breaking bread, praising God, testifying to the signs and wonders of God. And prayer. Day by day. Day by day.
I have been serving on a committee of the General Assembly that gets together every few months to conduct our work. Our conversations are lively, engaging, and sometimes we don’t all agree. One member of the committee is rightly concerned about the ever-dropping numbers in the PCUSA. The committee member brings up the topic and asks who is responsible, who is held accountable, why aren’t pastors incentivized in their contracts to increase the number of folks in the pew? At one point another member of the committee responds that as a pastor and preacher, the call, the responsibility, the outcome isn’t about numbers, it is about hearts being filled with the love and grace of Jesus Christ. A community empowered and sent out to serve God and witness to God’s love every day.
Studying, learning, growing in the faith of Jesus Christ. Fellowship, generosity, sharing, caring for those in need, demonstrating the goodness of God. Breaking bread, praising God, testifying to the signs and wonders of God. And prayer. Day by day. Day by day.
I just read a book called The Benedict Option: A Strategy for Christians in a Post-Christian Nation by Rod Dreher. Dreher is a conservative, Eastern Orthodox practicing Christian. The title of the book is a reference to the Rule of St. Benedict and reflects Dreher’s conclusion that the only hope for the future of the church and for Christianity in the West is a kind of pseudo-monastic practice where Christians retreat from the world and its culture and form intimate communities that follow a rule of faith, practice, and life. Only published in March, the book has created quite the buzz among conservatives, both Catholic and Evangelical. According to an essay in the New Yorker, David Brooks in his New York Times column described it as “the most discussed and most important religious book of the decade.”
Dreher basically argues that Christianity has been on a downward slide since about the 5th century. Evidence he cites for that decline include things like the Enlightenment, the Reformation, the Industrial Revolution, birth control pills, and digital technology. His criticism of technology and social media as isolating and destructive to communities has truth, of course. But it is a bit ironic because his blog on the website “The American Conservative” gets a million visits a month. Dreher also stakes a claim, labeling his beliefs as “traditional Christianity,” which pretty much doesn’t include Protestants, and certainly not congregations like ours that welcome, include, support, and celebrate LGBTQ individuals. The church, he writes, “no longer forms souls but caters to selves.” The exception, I guess, being his church.
I finished the book and right at the end Dreher sums up his vision for the Christian Church. “We live liturgically, telling our sacred Story in worship and song. We fast and we feast. We marry and give our children in marriage, and, though in exile, we work for the peace of the city. We welcome our newborns and bury our dead. We read the Bible, and we tell our children about the saints…” He continues, “We work, we pray, we confess our sins, we show mercy, we welcome the stranger, and we keep the commandments. When we suffer, especially for Christ’s sake, we give thanks, because that is what Christians do. Who knows what God, in turn, will do with our faithfulness? It is not for us to say.” And I had to say, “Amen.” Actually, first I said to myself, “Rod, what do think we’ve been doing here?” What do you think we’ve been trying to do here, faithfully, by God’s grace and God’s mercy? Maybe it’s not all up for you to say?”
Studying, learning, growing in the faith of Jesus Christ. Fellowship, generosity, sharing, caring for those in need, demonstrating the goodness of God. Breaking bread, praising God, testifying to the signs and wonders of God. And prayer. Day by day. Day by day.
You and I are not called to re-create the Christian life of the 5th century, or even that of New Testament Church for that matter. What transcends the centuries, what connects us, is our life in Christ, our life as the Body of Christ. What binds us to the communion of saints, to the great cloud of witnesses, is the Risen Christ himself, Christ and his promise. Our unity is not by the merit of our belief, or by the purity of our discipline, or by an adherence to one moral code or another, our unity is in Christ and him alone. And according to the Reformed theological tradition, according to traditional Christianity, “wherever we see the Word of God purely preached and heard, and the sacraments administered according to Christ’s institution, there, it is not to be doubted, a church of God exists” (John Calvin, 16th century). The body of Christ, formed, reformed, shaped, built, sent into the world by Word and Sacrament, carrying out the very mission of God day by day.
Some rue the day and lament the end of Christianity as they choose to know it. Others pray for the eyes and ears and hearts to behold the wonders and signs of the living God present and at work in our lives, in the lives of those around us, and yes, in the world, in the culture, in the West. Like the first-century followers of Jesus they celebrate with awe the saving grace of Christ that still fills hearts and changes lives and meets us afresh every morning. They yearn for a kingdom where the hungry are fed and those that have much work to help those who have little and do it with generous, joy-filled hearts. Like the prophets of old they cry out for justice and righteousness and wholeness, not just in the community of faith, but in all the land. They foster a community of faith, maybe not of all like-minded and like-looking people, but a community that weeps with those who weep and rejoices with those who rejoice, a community that’s less concerned with who is in and who is out and more concerned with reflecting the goodness of God and the hospitality of Christ to all who come in and all who go out and to all who pass by, a community that will sing for you when you can’t sing, pray for you when you can’t pray, and believe for you when there is little to nothing left in you, a community that knows its collective worship life to be sacred, and its fellowship a gift of God, and the life of discipleship to be the absolute highest calling. A community that believes that our life in Christ is precious and we live it day by day to God’s glory.
Studying, learning, growing in the faith of Jesus Christ. Fellowship, generosity, sharing, caring for those in need, demonstrating the goodness of God. Breaking bread, praising God, testifying to the signs and wonders of God. And prayer. Day by day. Day by day.
Who knows what God will, in turn, do with our faithfulness?
Accept this, O God, accept this, THIS, All OF THIS, this our sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving as a living and holy offering of ourselves, that our lives may proclaim the one crucified, the one Risen. That our life together might proclaim that Christ is risen!
See a letter below from Pastor Lauren McFeaters about the plans for her upcoming sabbatical. Lauren’s sabbatical begins on Monday, May 22.
Beloved Friends, I am writing to let you know of my sabbatical plans for this summer of 2017. With deep gratitude for the support of the Session and our Human Resources Committee, I am marking the conclusion of my 16th year as associate pastor of Nassau Presbyterian Church with a sabbatical. Sabbatical 2017 will begin after Confirmation on May 21st and will last through Labor Day weekend.
The focus of my sabbatical study finds its home in the words of Paul’s Letter to the Galatians: “Bear one another’s burdens and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ” (6:2) and in an old Jewish prayer which asks God to help us “Walk with Sight among Miracles.” To this end I will:
Study the monastic healing practices that attend to soul care with solitude and silence. I will travel by train to Le Monastère des Augustines in Quebec City to study at the Augustine Sisters’ monastery, established in 1639, where their motto for 378 years has been, “Neither hunger, nor cold, nor isolation would prevent them from establishing a haven here to heal the bodies of an entire people.”
Michael and Josie and I with travel to Washington’s Whidbey Island, Seattle, and onto Tonasket in the Okanagan Fruit Valley for a family wedding. We will return for Josie to leave on Nassau’s mission trip to Tennessee with the Appalachian Service Project and onto a musical theater camp at Westminster Conservatory.
Then comes library time for study and research on behalf of the Deacons and the creation of a broader educational experience in the areas of ministry serving persons experiencing losses related to aging, persons needing long-term care, and persons experiencing grief in its many forms.
Dave Davis, Joyce MacKichan Walker, Len and Andrew Scales, and the Deacons will look after the pastoral care of the church. I am forever grateful for this sweet sabbatical chapter where I may study, explore new realms of pastoral work, spend time with my precious family, and continue to give thanks for Nassau Church. It is my deepest prayer that through renewal and study Nassau and I can find rejuvenation for heart and soul, continue to serve our Lord together, and “walk with sight among miracles.”
We are a people of prayer. We pray for every kind of reason and in every kind of circumstance. We pray when we’re in distress and when we give thanks. We sing our prayers when we have something to celebrate or lament. We pray at birth and at death. We pray alone and together. We pray while crying and while laughing.
During pre-marital counseling, I often tell couples I’m counseling that prayer is one of the most intimate acts of a marriage. I counsel families and individuals that when prayer is at the heart of life together, God meets and guides us, seeks us and attends to us.
Who teaches us to pray? Who taught you to pray?
How do you know how to pray? Do you know how to pray? Would you like to learn how to pray? For many of us the answer is probably, Yes, Lord, teach me to pray!
For the early Christians seeking to be Doers of the Word and not merely Hearers, James comes along with a letter that could be titled How to Practice Resurrection. And through it he guides the church in the way of prayer.
In the beginning of the letter, James urges the church to be quick to listen, unhurried to speak, and slow to anger. He teaches the church to let go of its hierarchy of the wealthy and poor, to act with gentleness and wisdom, to watch our language and how we speak to one another. Because, as we all know, words can hurt; words do a lot of damage.[i]
But Martin Luther called James the “Epistle of Straw” and he sought to keep it from the Bible Canon. For Luther, James is a lightweight, trifling, and insignificant offering of scripture. He believed the letter doesn’t carry the weight that revealed Christ as all that is necessary for salvation. Luther thought the letter was chaff, weedy, straw, “and it has nothing of the nature of the Gospel about it.”[ii]
Not so fast. Ultimately James became part of the Biblical witness and rather than straw. We find in James the building blocks of Resurrection Life: it’s not about how to get “RIGHT” with God – DO these things, DON’T do these things. God HAS made us right through Jesus Christ and now James teaches us how to live rightly with each other, bound through acts of prayer in the name of the Lord.
What does it mean to pray in the name of the Lord?
Can I tell you there are thousands of articles and books on how we can pray, but little to nothing on how to pray in the name of the Lord.
There was a time in seminary when I was working on a group project and I cut and paste every reference to prayer in scripture.
When I say cut and paste, I don’t mean with the strike of a key and the sweep of a finger. I mean with Xerox copies, scissors, and glue. I organized all the clippings on charts. What appeared before me was fascinating. It was Biblical Visual Bliss – that sounds just like a new Starbucks Frappuccino.
Of course I knew that Jesus prayed. But what I didn’t know is scripture hardly ever tell us what he prayed or how he prayed. A few sentences at most are revealed:
Father, hallowed be your name; your kingdom come.
Loving Father,
protect and guard my people.
Shelter them as they live the life ahead of them.
I pray that they be one heart and mind,
just as you and I are one heart and mind.
As long as I have been with them,
I was the one who guarded them.
Now I am about to die,
so I’m saying these things in the world’s hearing
so my people can experience
my joy completed in them.[iii]
And we know from Paul: Christ died for us, Christ rose for us, Christ reigns in power for us, Christ prays for us.
As we stand on this side of Easter, when Jesus rides into Jerusalem, walks to Gethsemane, staggers to Calgary, and then strides straight out of the tomb — we have a Word from the Lord: Pray, people of God. Pray with and for others.
It is our Lord’s way of loving us, so in turn prayer can be our way of loving others.
When we pray to God on others’ behalf, we are shifting our center of gravity from our own needs to the needs of others. Prayer becomes a loving balm, a courageous act, a generous anointing.
When I asked earlier who taught you to pray, I had someone in mind. You may have heard me talk about how my mother-in-law taught me to pray. May Lou Brothers did not believe in dilly-dallying about prayer or quietly, privately lingering around the edges of prayer.
She believed in praying for specifics. She’d say God wants our specifics, our particulars, so there’s no use in being wimpy about prayer: be bold, courageous, and daring.
If she knew someone was struggling with cancer, she didn’t ask God to gently hold that person and soothe their cares; she prayed that God would take those pockets of Stage 3 cancer in the lower left lung and annihilate it, eradicate it, and wipe it out.
If a child was injured in the car accident she wouldn’t pray for peace, she’d pray for a subsuming chaos so that no one would rest until physicians knew exactly, positively, unerringly, what to do so that the child would wake up, get up, and walk.
If a marriage was falling apart, she’d pray for God to intervene so powerfully that the two people wouldn’t know what hit them, that they’d be knocked over by grace, and look so deeply into their hearts that nothing could defeat their love.
I wish you could have known her. Mary Lou Brothers was a modest, humble wisp of a woman. She was petite, but she prayed like an Amazon. She was elfin, but her intercessions were ginormous. She was unobtrusive but she intervened like the prayer warrior she was, like she was ten feet tall and could fly to the moon.
And that’s exactly what James has in mind for the people of God, what Jesus, our Pastor, has in mind as the practice of Resurrection:
To pray as if we can be set free on the wings of hope. And so we are.
The gift of prayer is that we are loved by a Lord who enfolds our confessions with forgiveness;
Whose very is essence is sufficient for our healing;
Who prays for each one of us — in specifics.
And who makes it our sacred responsibility and blessed privilege to pray in his name for others.
Sisters and Brothers in Christ,
Hear the good news!
Who is in a position to condemn us?
Only our Lord Jesus Christ.
And Christ died for us, Christ rose for us,
Christ reigns in power for us, Christ prays for us.
[i] Rick Morley. “On Doing and Being – A Reflection on James 5:13-20.” September 20, 2012, www.rickmorley.com.
