February 23, 2014
Psalm 119:41-48
I Corinthians 3:10-11; 16-23
“God’s Architecture”
Rev. Lauren J. McFeaters

Some of you may have been fortunate enough to see the exhibit called The Quilts of Gee’s Bend. This is a traveling exhibition of quilts stitched by the women of one town Gee’s Bend – a small, rural, African-American community, in the hills of Alabama.

Over the last century this community has created hundreds of quilts. The stitch at church, they stitch at home, they stitch in the morning, they stich in the evening. And they have singlehandedly carried on a deeply-rooted tradition of quilt-making for household and family; sometimes sewn by three and four generations of women of the same family:  Bennetts and McDaniels, Pettaways and Witherspoons. All, who over the years in the face of slavery and servitude, poverty and hunger, have created something exquisite – a sublime beauty: quilts that bear witness to faith, and grace, and resilience.

And the building blocks of those quilts:  scraps. The quilts are composed of scraps –

• scraps of work clothes,
• scraps of feed bags,
• worn dresses and pants,
• discarded remnants that hold no value in the world.

The people of Gee’s Bend take these scraps and transform the fabric of their lives into an art that strengthens and warms and binds a community.

 

“For each builder

must choose with care how to build on it.

No one can lay any foundation

other than the one that has been laid;

and that foundation is Jesus Christ.”

 

Today Paul finds himself with a church that has forgotten the building blocks of their faith and they’re now coming apart at the seams. They’ve forgotten how to pick up their scraps, those things tested and seasoned, and to build a church that strengthens and warms and binds a community. Their edges are fraying, stitches unraveling, the batting’s unhinged.

You see the Corinthians are a church more focused on the sources of division, than God as the source of unity; more aligned with disaccord than to harmony; more devoted to old quarrels, than to the new life they have in the risen Lord. The world’s wisdom and knowledge have become their religion.

“Do you not know that you are God’s temple

and that God’s Spirit dwells in you?”

 

“If anyone destroys God’s temple,

God will destroy that person:

For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple.”

 

It’s easy to hear these verses as a nod to the individual; that is,

 

Do you not know that “you” are God’s temple

and that God’s Spirit dwells in “you”?

But that’s not what Paul says. “You” in both verses is plural, not singular, so what we should hear is:

 

“You – together – all of us – are God’s temple.”

“God’s Spirit dwells in you – all of us, everyone – together.”

 

Paul’s focus is collective because God, the architect, builds the church out of people, not stone.

 

I wonder what God sees when God looks at our church. Bear with me here because I’d like to do a little architectural redesign. I look up at our sanctuary ceiling and I see buttons. In those large round lights, I see buttons. I wonder what would happen if we unbutton the ceiling, Then I wonder if we were to unzip the ceiling, pull back the rooftop, and God were to look in from above – What does God see? What pattern, what design, what shape takes place? Who are the threads, the stitches? Who serves as the batting?

You know the batting is part of the trinitarian architecture of a quilt. First comes the quilt top, then the batting that is the stabilizing core, the stuffing that provides the warmth. Then the quilt bottom, sewn together to make a whole. Who serves as the batting?

Who makes up the edging, the border that keeps us from fraying? Who does the repair work, the mending; the patching? And what about appliques, the color; so many colors that they reverberate with sound.

What God sees is the sum of our parts.

 

God is the architect of this quilt and God sees our scraps:

• the scraps of our sorrow, our guilt, our hurt;
• the scraps of our delight, our joy, our forgiveness;
• the scraps of our falling down and getting up;
• failing one day and starting over the next;
• our discarded remnants that hold no value in the world,
• and yet God takes these scraps and transforms the fabric of our life together into strength and warmth, freed to welcome, serve, and care.
• Because together we are builders and:

“Each builder

must choose with care how to build on it.

No one can lay any foundation

other than the one that has been laid;

and that foundation is Jesus Christ.”

The building block that was rejected.

The scrap that became the cornerstone

of the whole world.

Thanks be to God.

 

© 2014, Property of Nassau Presbyterian Church
Contact the church to obtain reprint permission.

 

February 16, 2014
Matthew 5:21-30
“Leaving Gifts”
Rev. Dr. David A. Davis

At some point in the Sermon on Mount, Jesus starts meddling. That’s an old church door expression. I still hear it occasionally; mostly from my colleagues in ministry now honorably retired. They say it to me because folks said it to them back in the day at the church door. In a sermon, when the pastor starts hitting close to home, or making the listener uncomfortable, she is meddling. When the preacher makes the move from safe and sanitized biblical interpretation, theological tradition, and heart-warming inspiration, when he turns to matters of Christian discipleship and ethics and everyday life, well, then the preacher is meddling. Over the years, my colleagues probably heard the phrase most after talking about money, or civil rights, or gender, or affordable housing, or war. But the meddling, the meddling of the gospel, comes just as easily as when the preacher brings up something like forgiveness or reconciliation or relating to the other. At some point in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus starts meddling.

In the sections of Matthew’s gospel that surround the reading for this morning, the longer stretch of text that is the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus the preacher makes the turn to meddling right after telling his listeners to “let you light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.” What follows, then, is Jesus telling how he has come not to abolish the law and the prophets but to fulfill. What follows is that familiar rhetorical move from Jesus, “you have heard that it was said…but I say to you.” What follows is one of Jesus’ hyperbolic riffs on sin; “If your right eye causes you to sin, tear it out and throw it away; it is better for you to lose one of your members than for your whole body to be thrown into hell”. Jesus moves in the sermon from “blessed are the poor and spirit” and “blessed are the meek” and “blessed are the merciful: and “you are the salt of the earth” and “you are the light of the world” to bringing up anger and judgment and insult and objectification and sin and adultery and false witness and empty promises and revenge. Jesus moves on to forgiveness and reconciliation and turning the other cheek and loving your enemies.

Right there buried in the terminology that grabs the ear (murder, adultery, hell), surrounded by the language that gets the attention and dominates the room (thrown into prison, lust in the heart, cut it off and throw it away), amid the themes of ordinary life that could indict any one of us at any moment (anger, resentment, grudge, broken relationship, inappropriate sexual behavior, sin), amid all that sermon stuff, Jesus says this “So when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift.” First go make it right with your brother and then come back and offer your gift. Go and make peace with your sister and then come back to worship. One paraphrase puts it this way,  “If you enter your place of worship, and you are about to make an offering, you suddenly remember a grudge a friend has against you, abandon your offering, leave immediately, go to this friend and make things right. Then and only then, come back and work things out with God.”  So when offering your gift at the altar, if you remember a friend who has something against you, leave your gift and go. So when offering your gifts. So. Usually it is the “you have heard it said, but I say unto to you” that catches the ear. But what about “so”? So when you find yourself at worship….

Offering a gift at the altar. It’s more than a bit foreign to our Reformed tradition. Someone coming into the temple with a gift to present before the Lord, a sacrifice to God to fulfill the law. In Luke when Mary and Joseph presented Jesus to the Lord, they offered a sacrifice according to what was stated in the law; a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons. That is a bit far removed; a gift at the altar. Of course we Presbyterians don’t have altars; we have a table and a chancel. We celebrate communion here at the table.  The language of the Great Prayer of Thanksgiving, in the communion prayer, the language carefully renames the gift we offer to the Lord as our sacrifice of thanks and praise. At the table, we give to God our worship and thanksgiving. It’s a different form of a gift but a gift nonetheless, a gift at the altar. So, when you are offering to God the thanks and praise of your life here in worship. So, when you find yourself at worship.

Here in the Sermon on the Mount, this transaction mentioned by Jesus, the described human/divine exchange is easily missed; overwhelmed by the talk of murder and anger and adultery and lust. When you bring your gift to the altar. There is something about the altar prescription from Jesus that seems out of whack, out of order. The expected flow of such religious activity would be to make an offering to God and then experience a blessing in life; make a sacrifice pleasing to God, then turn to face the world afresh; present oneself in worship, be transformed by the Holy Spirit, and go out a changed person, seek inspiration here before the Lord, and thus, be strengthened within for another week. There is an assumed direction that comes when you find yourself before the Lord. To put it less reverently and more practically, say a prayer to St. Anthony, and then go find what is lost. There is one direction to the alter interaction and everybody knows it.

Matthew’s Jesus turns the order upside down; redirects the transactional flow. No, no, when you remember that grudge, leave your gift at the altar and go and make right and then when you come back, then you come before the Lord. Inspired by fresh forgiveness, moved by recent reconciliation, come and offer your thanksgiving to God. Leaving gifts. There is a drop and go element here; like when you realize you left your credit card in the bill fold at the restaurant last night and you tear over just when it opens to see if its still there, or when you lost track of time and your daughter’s lesson was over 15 minutes ago and you rush to make sure she’s not alone at the curb, or when your boss or your teacher or your parent or your conscience says, “now.”  That fractured friendship, that broken relationship, that anger, resentment, hurt….leave your gift at the altar now and go.

Over at Princeton Theological Seminary, Miller Chapel sits at the center of campus and the worship life it contains forms the center of the community. One of the repeated seminary scenes that strikes me is the front porch of Miller Chapel when the seminary community is gathered on a weekday morning for worship. Students leave their book bags, knapsacks, and other daily baggage there piled up on the porch as they go into the crowded chapel to sing and offer praise, to hear the gospel proclaimed. That pile of belongings, it is like a sign hanging out front of the chapel that the seminary community is at worship. Bringing all the trappings of seminary life and leaving them right there on the threshold between worship and life. The twist to that image, the twist Jesus offers, is a sign that says “we will return shortly.” That whole pile of life, the offerings of everyone’s life, heaped there on the doorstep of worship. “We will be right back.” The pile of gifts waiting for the community to return to worship. Leave your gifts and go make peace and then come and offer yourselves to the Lord.

“If your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away….Everyone who looks at a woman with lust has already committed adultery…Come to terms quickly with your accuser while you are on the way to court….If you are angry with a brother your will be liable to judgment; if you insult a sister you will be liable to the council, and if you say ‘you fool’ you will be liable to the hell of fire…So….when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that a friend has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go, first be reconciled to them and then come and offer your gift to God.”

So leave your gifts. So go make peace then come back. So. What’s profound about the “so” is that the God revealed to us in the ministry of Jesus cares about relationships. It’s not that Jesus offers a revises what to do with your altar gift. It’s not even the twist he puts on the direction or the order or the timing of when you make the offering and when you are to go and make peace. So….Christ cares about how you handle yourself in relationships….and how you live the faith God gives you, how you respond to the grace God gives you, how you live into and carry out the call of Christ Jesus, how you do all of that in the everyday, most common, ordinary part of life; how you play with others, how you work with others, how you live with others. Your life on Saturday night matters as much to God as what you do on Sunday morning. Who you are in your office chair is as important to God as who you are in the pew. The spirit around your Table at home is as important to God as the spirit around this Table here. Leave your gifts. Go. Come back. Leave. Go. Come. Leave. Go. Come. It’s not a snapchat, instagram, one shot deal of a friendship that needs fixing out there in your world. No, it’s a worship and life dance where the gift you bring to the altar is ever deeper and your relationships ever more sacred. The gift ever deeper because you bring more and more of your life. Relationships more and more sacred because you realize how precious they are in the eyes of God.

The current issue of the New Yorker includes and essay by Adam Gopnik entitled “Bigger than Phil: When did faith start to Fade?” The piece traces the intellectual history of atheism. Interestingly, in a piece that tries desperately to pass intellectual muster (there were sentences I had to read three and four times), the title comes from a line from a Mel Brooks movie. With a bit of a snarky flare, the author describes conceptions of God at various moments in the essay as: the God of the Gaps who fills the bill for whatever humanity can’t explain, Jehovah as little Tinker Bell who lives only if you say the name enough, God as a dinner guest legendary for his wit who spends the meal mumbling with his mouth full, God as an omnipotent little man in the sky making moral rules and watching human actions with paranoiac intensity. In the end, Gopnik cops to an atheism akin to Karl Marx arguing that “relatively peaceful and prosperous societies…tend to have a declining believe in a diety.” That as “incomes go up, steeples come down.”

Upon further review, what strikes me about the essay, is that the author reserves his strongest disdain not for believers who are looking to argue that mystery still exists in science, or those who want to hold out for an existential higher purpose or ground of being for humanity, or even for those who suggest there must still be someone, something, out there at the end of the rainbow of the ultimate answerless question. What clearly irks this particular atheist the most is any suggestion that there is a God who cares about how you and I treat people; the ones we love, the ones we don’t know, the stranger, our enemies…or as he describes it, “an omnipotent little man in the sky making moral rules and watching human actions with paranoic intensity!”

So……Jesus said,  “when you are offering your gift at the altar, if you remember that your brother or sister has something against you, leave your gift there before the altar and go; first be reconciled to your brother or sister, and then come and offer your gift.”

Paranoic intensity, sounds a bit dramatic to me. But a God who cares about human interaction? Yeah, I’ll take that every time.

© 2014, Property of Nassau Presbyterian Church
Contact the church to obtain reprint permission.

February 9, 2014
Isaiah 58:1-9
“Here I Am”
Rev. Dr. David A. Davis

Several years ago a member of the congregation gave me a gift of an old book that bears in it a whole lot of the history of the First Presbyterian Church of Princeton. The book is the pulpit edition of the 1933 Presbyterian hymnal (the hymnal intended to be kept here and used by the preacher).  It is signed by Charles Erdman and with his inscription he presents the pulpit hymnal to the church in May of 1934. The history tells that May of 1934 was when Dr. Niles was installed as the pastor to follow Dr. Erdman. So you see, it is the 1933 pulpit hymnal given by Charles Erdman to the church in May of 1934 for Frank Niles to use as he began his ministry. The most interesting part of the book, however, is that in 1960 Mary Krimmel, the organist and director of music, marked all the hymns with margin notes and dates they were sung in worship. 1960 was when Dr. Meisel came to be the pastor. So one can conclude that Mary Krimmel marked the pulpit hymnal to assist the new pastor in picking hymns.

The margin notes included a scale of familiarity to the congregation: FF fairly familiar, F familiar, Q quite familiar, N not familiar. But Mary Krimmel provided a second note, a scale of rating the hymn; 1 “what joy”, 2 “ok”, 3 “must we?” , 4 “oh no!.  So, the fun ones to find, are the ones the congregation knew very well that Mary Krimmel didn’t like. For instance, “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing” is marked F for familiar, and 3 for “must we?” “Abide with Me” Q for quite for familiar, 3 for “must we?” To be fair, I had to look harder through the hymnal for a 4, “Oh no!” But I found one marked Q for quite familiar and 4 for “oh no!” “I need Thee, O I need Thee, Every hour I need thee…”

So I share this pulpit hymnal and all its commentary as I stand before you because I am going to boldly confess to you I have some “oh no” and “must we?” hymns too. One of them is the hymn “Here I am, Lord”.  I know, I know, many people love it; especially at ordinations. “Here I am Lord, Is it I Lord? I have heard you calling in the night. I will go Lord, if you lead me, I will hold your people in my heart.” There is an odd voicing to the hymn. The verses are sung from the perspective of God’s voice and the refrain is the one being called by God. The hymn communicates a rather emphasized or pronounced, I would say uncomfortable sense of self with a theology of call not much experienced these day. “Here I am Lord. I heard you calling in the night!”  And the tune, well Noel ruined that for me a long time ago when he pointed out it sound a lot like the theme from the Brady Bunch. So to use the language of a judge on American Idol, “it’s a no for me.”

The scripture text behind “Here I am Lord” is the call of Isaiah, from the 6^th chapter. That text tells of the seraph touching the prophets lips with a live coal as the voice of the Lord says “whom shall I send and who will go for us?” And Isaiah responds “Here I am; send me!” Here I am. Fast forward, then to the 58^th chapter of Isaiah, and the phrase comes back. The words, they ring a bell. Here I am. But this time, it’s not the prophet talking, It is God. “Then you shall call, and the Lord will answer; you shall cry for help and the Lord will say, “Here I am.” Well, that’s a different hymn all together, isn’t it?

Shout out! Do not hold back!  Lift your voice like a trumpet! Announce to my people their rebellion, to the house of Jacob their sins. Day after day they see me…as if they were a nation that practiced righteousness and did not forsake the ordinance of their God…”Why do we fast but you don’t see, O God? Why humble ourselves but you don’t notice?”….Look, you serve your own interest on your fast day, and you oppress your workers. You fast, only to quarrel and fight. Is this what I the Lord, choose? Is this the religious practice I want, the spiritual disciplines I call for, the piety I expect? A day to humble yourself, a day to bow the head, a day to dress for repentance, clothing yourself with sackcloth and ashes, a day to wear your Sabbath finest? How can you be so concerned about looking religious when there are people in your community who are hungry? How can you take such a posture of worship all the while casting seeds of bitterness amongst yourselves? Why are you so concerned with public displays of piety, and posted tablets of the tradition, and prayer in public places when so many people are poor? How can you go through the motions of worship when people are suffering?”

“Is this not the fast I choose; to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, to break every yoke? Is it not to share your bread with the hungry, and bring the homeless poor into your house; when you see the naked, to cover them, and not to hide yourself from your own kin?” Your own kin. The naked, the homeless, the hungry, the working poor, people of a different class, the refugee, the single parent child, the one trying to survive on minimum wage, the illegal immigrants, Part of your own family. You can’t hide from your own kin.

In the midst of such devotion, where piety has legs, where worship gives birth to a ceaseless care of the other, where worshippers serve as midwives of the very kingdom of God, in in the midst of such devotion, right then in your worship, the promise is that God will go ahead of you and God will go behind. When you call upon the Lord, the Lord will answer. When you cry for help, the Lord will say “Here I am.” So remove the yoke of selfishness that hangs among you, shatter that idol that convinces you that worship is about what you get out of it, or how you feel, or what you like and don’t like. Stop pointing the finger at what you think is wrong with the community or with the world or with “them”, so easily speaking of evil in others different than yourselves. Instead, offer food to the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, attend to the hurting and speak for those long silenced and reach out to the dying and lift up the trampled and advocate for those who have little chance. And when you need help with that, when you do that, when your life together is about that, then you call out, you cry out, then, I will say here I am, says the Lord! Here I am, that Here I am, Q for quite familiar, and 1 for what joy.

When a candidate is ordained to be a teaching elder, a minister, in the Presbyterian Church, the order of worship calls for someone to give a charge to the ordinand. Such a charge is a sending of sorts into the ministry of Jesus Christ. Typically it includes scripture and often comes from someone a bit weathered with the experience of ministry. Usually the charge comes right before everyone sings “Here I am, Lord.”  there ought to be such a charge when new members are received; a charge when folks older than infants are baptized, a charge at confirmation. Sending and sending, sending the priesthood of all believers into the ministry of Jesus Christ. And instead of singing, “Here I Am Lord,” we ought to sing the Lord’s Here I am.

You remember at the very end of Matthew’s Gospel, the Easter story in Matthew, when the angel appears to the women at the tomb. “Do not be afraid, I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here. He has been raised. Come and see and then go quickly and tell. And tell them he is going ahead of you to Galilee.” When the Risen Christ greet them, he told them “Don’t be afraid, go and tell them to go to Galilee. I will see them there.” In Galilee; Galilee were so much of the ministry of Jesus happened. Go to the place of ministry and I will see you there. Go to the place of your ministry, the resurrected One has gone before you. Go, in your servant hood, in your ministry, in your witness, you will see and experience the presence of Christ. There, there, God will say, “Here I am”

The baptismal waters; our anointing and our charge, our sending, the waters roll down the steps and the aisles, carrying you right out to the streets. For at your baptism you were ordained to the priesthood of all believers, commissioned to a life of service in God’s name, and in response to the love of Jesus Christ. And this, this is who we are and our worship life, it never stops here. Our roots are firmly planted in our delight in the Lord, and our reach of compassion, it is the very reach of Christ. We believe in the God who gave us life. The God who expects the hungry to be fed and the poor to be cared for and the oppressed to be set free. The God who forever sanctified such acts of compassion and the work of justice and the call for righteousness. God sanctified such servanthood in the life and death and resurrection of Jesus. Jesus, who healed the sick, and cradled the children, and touched the outcast, and knelt down with the sinner, and ate with those everyone hated, and embraced the grieving, and challenged the rich and threatened the powerful.

Q for quite familiar and 1 for what joy.  You and I, we, are mid-wives of the kingdom of God in our midst; called to a life of worship that forever redefines piety. That’s who we are. God is calling you to be the hands and the feet and the face of Christ. And when we need help with that, when we are about that, when this is all about that, God says, “Here I am.”

© 2014, Property of Nassau Presbyterian Church
Contact the church to obtain reprint permission.

January 26, 2013
Psalm 27
“One Thing”
Rev. Dr. David A. Davis

            One thing. One thing. One thing I asked of the Lord. One thing I will seek after: to live in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in God’s temple. Okay, that’s three things. Three things, really: to live, to behold, to inquire. So with a poetic pass granted to the psalmist, we will call it one thing. One thing I ask of the Lord, that will I seek after; to live in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in God’s temple. One thing.

Psalm 27 is so full of devotional nourishment, prayer thoughts, and preaching possibilities. The Lord is my light and my salvation, whom shall fear? The stronghold of my life. In God’s shelter in the day of trouble. I will sing and make melody to the Lord. Be gracious and answer me! Your face, Lord, do I seek. If my father and mother forsake me, the Lord will take me up. Teach me your way, O Lord. I believe that I shall see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living. Wait for the Lord; be strong, let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord. You could spend a whole lot of time on your knees or at your bedside or at your breakfast table or in your favorite reading chair, at your desk with Psalm 27. You could pray Psalm 27 every morning for a year and it would never get old.

I just finished reading Daniel Goleman’s new book on leadership. It is called “Focus: The Hidden Driver of Excellence”. Continuing his work on “emotional intelligence,” Goleman writes about research into brain chemistry and function that supports the anecdotal evidence of what makes business leaders successful. In this new book, Goleman has a section on “mindfulness” and how the practice of mindfulness is taking the workplace by storm; on the cutting edge campus of Google, and in Institutes for Mindfulness in business schools and medical schools. The author tells of taking part in a business meeting where attention around the table started to crumble; there were sidebar conversations going on, people were checking their email. At one point someone announced, “it’s time for some mindful moments” and the person got up and rang a small gong and everyone sat in silence until the gong rang again. When the conversation started over again, the energy and focus was refreshed. What was rather amusing was how the leadership/guru/scholar described the experience. “It was a remarkable moment for me” he wrote. As if he had never experienced a prayerful quiet time. What was surprising was that a cutting edge place like Google thinks it invented something that the Psalmist wrote about and practiced thousands of years ago. If you’re looking for “mindfulness”, take Psalm 27 with you to work. Breathe in Psalm 27. Wait for the Lord, be strong, let your heart take courage. Wait for the Lord.

In the heart of the Psalm is “one thing”. The one thing.  One thing I asked of the Lord; living in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, beholding the beauty of the Lord, inquiring in God’s temple.

When I was first called to serve the First Presbyterian Church of Blackwood, NJ, there were about 130 members on the roll. In the early years Sunday morning attendance averaged about 60, maybe 70. But there was a core group of the faithful; maybe 12-15, they were there all the time. Not just Sunday morning, but at every program, every fellowship opportunity. I used to tease them that if the door was unlocked and the lights were on they would be there. An older crowd, mostly all women with a few men; it was like they lived at the church. And they always came early for things. Cathy and I lived in the manse right next to the church. On summer Sunday morning, sort of on the spur of the moment, I invited the entire congregation to come for a backyard picnic. I told them I would light the grill and everyone should bring something to cook and a dish to share. “Come back at 5:00 this evening and we will have picnic” I said in morning worship. That afternoon, upstairs at the manse, I happened to look outside, the crowd had already arrived, set up their lawn chairs in a circle in the parking lot, and they were just sitting there chatting waiting for me to light the grill; Mame and her sister Rae, Mary and Mark, Walt and Alma, Betty, Elizabeth, Illyf, Bea, Hazel, Sis, Fran. I looked at my watch; it was 4:20pm. They would have been at that church every day if they could!

Being here at the church 24/7, that can’t be the one thing. Please, God, don’t let that be the one thing. Perfect, constant, attendance. Living in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, beholding the beauty of the Lord, inquiring in God’s temple. The psalmist’s one thing must be something other than a big, giant lockin here at the church for all of us; like Samuel in the Old Testament who pretty much went to live in the temple with the priest Eli after his mother Hannah “lent him to the Lord.”

Those folks out in our backyard 25 years ago, waiting for me to light the grill, all had known each other pretty much their entire lives. 60-70 years in that church together, in that congregation together, in that community together. Pretty much all the days of their lives together. The house of the Lord as the people kind of thing; the house of the Lord as the community of faith. Those folks did the house of the Lord together since before World War II.  Princeton University Professor Robert Wuthnow raised significant questions about the metaphor or image or characterization of the church as community last fall here from this pulpit in a lecture entitled “Faith Communities and the Challenge of Contemporary Culture.” His lecture was part of the inauguration festivities for President Barnes at Princeton Seminary. Wuthnow called for a moratorium on the use of the term gathered community when it comes to church. His argument is that studies show “community” is changing in form; not just declining as some sociologists argue. People are seeking community in different places and in different forms and congregations can no longer expect to be the primary agent of community for even the most faithful of souls.  Research indicates that folks are no longer expecting or seeking or finding community in church. So, he concludes, that we in the church should watch our language in terms of what we offer, what we promise  and we best clarify what’s at stake moving forward in terms of what Dietrich Bonhoeffer called our “life together.”

A first reaction is to lament Dr. Wuthnow’s conclusion. But it is pretty clear on face value, that the vast majority of church goers won’t be sitting next to lifelong friends anymore. With few exceptions, that’s just not how it works anymore, at least around here. Another day we could debate the professor’s conclusions about a congregation’s role in creating meaningful relationship and how Christian fellowship is sustainable even as understandings of community change. But when it comes to the one thing, the psalmist’s one thing, that one thing isn’t about being in the building 24/7 and neither is it about the deepest of lifelong relationships in a particular congregation, as precious as they may be. One thing will I seek after: to live in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in God’s temple; to live, to behold, to inquire, all the days of my life.

I’m having trouble finding the words to describe the one thing. But I’ve seen it. As you have heard, it’s easier for me to describe what I think it’s not; the one thing. But I have, I have seen it time and time again. Unpacking the one thing, the psalmist’s one thing; it’s not an exercise in Old Testament interpretation. The clue doesn’t come in a Hebrew word. There is no academic “ah-ha” moment here for me to pass along to you when it comes to living, beholding, inquiring. Something like living in the house of the Lord—worship (check), beholding the beauty of the Lord—that’s seeing God in creation and music and art (check), inquiring in God’s temple—that’s a lifelong commitment to Christian education (check)…..and thus any lasting meaning of the psalmist’s poetry is lost, any thick description of the one thing long gone, and we’ve sucked the life right out of Psalm 27.

If you have never had the chance to be in this room all by yourself, you ought to figure out a way, a time, an opportunity. We now keep it open for prayer all during the week. You ought to stop by sometime. Because when you linger in this room all by yourself, in prayer and reflection (mindfulness), after you ponder the simple beauty and you try to wrap your mind around the history, you can’t help but start to see faces and think about people. One preacher writes about sermon preparation, how during the week the preacher ought to go into the sanctuary and sit in the pew. Because you can’t help but think about and pray for the person you know sits there most Sundays. A couple of years ago my predecessor Wallace Alston came back and preached and during his introductory remarks here at the pulpit he talked about standing here and seeing the faces of those who were longer here; those who had died. The room does that to you when you are in here by yourself. It’s like having a dream but still being awake. Not a daydream, that implies mindlessness….no I’m talking about a meaningful experience.

The names, the faces, the experiences that rush into my being when I am in here by myself; it’s this collage of people who have shown me the one thing. A living, breathing, gratefulness to God that greets them when they wake up in the morning and helps put them to bed at night. A yearning to see and to name the beauty of God’s grace and mercy amid the ordinary trek of life. A sure and steady walk with God that exudes a desire for a deeper understanding and a humbleness that affirms a bit of mystery when it comes to God and life and never being able to figure it all out. The folks that come into my mind and fill my heart; it’s this wonderful roster that goes far beyond this congregation or that congregation. It’s the saints who have shown me that when the psalmist says “all the days of my life,” it’s not a reference to the span of life, it’s an affirmation that longing for God and the experience of God’s presence comes on the greatest of days and the worst of days, in life and in death, the longest of nights and the brightest of mornings, when you stood here for a baptism or when you sat there for a funeral, the days spent during the war or the day of a graduation from school, in prison or on campus, on a mountaintop or in a hospital bed….All the days of my life.

Trying to tell you about the one thing, the psalmist’s one thing…..Maybe the best I can do is give you a list of names. Or better yet, maybe we can dream together, while we’re still awake….and you, you can have you own list.

Of the saints in life who taught you about living, beholding, inquiring…

The one thing.

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December 29, 2013
1 Corinthians 15:54-58
Meditation
Rev. Joyce MacKichan Walker

When this perishable body puts on imperishability, and this mortal body puts on immortality, then the saying that is written will be fulfilled:
‘Death has been swallowed up in victory.’
‘Where, O death, is your victory?
Where, O death, is your sting?’
The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Therefore, my beloved, be steadfast, immovable, always excelling in the work of the Lord, because you know that in the Lord your labour is not in vain.

 

I bet you expected to hear Luke 2 and Matthew 2. The tired couple after a long, dusty journey. The straw filled manger turned receiving blanket by bands of cloth – (hold one up) – did you get one from the manger at the end of the family service on Christmas Eve? The Gloria angels. The shepherds who couldn’t believe their eyes and ears. And a little late to the party – the star, the magi, the seemingly extravagant, exorbitant gifts. I bet some of you even came on purpose to hear those stories.

 

But I bet you didn’t expect Paul and “Death has been swallowed up in victory. ‘Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?’” That’s for the other time we worry about how many seats we might have lost in the renovation to allow for more leg room, and lots of children up front, and a more welcoming entryway. “Where O death is your victory?” is for the only other time in the year we wonder whether we need to make an announcement that, in our heads is “Come on folks! Of all times this is the last one to be ‘big personal space’ Presbyterians!” Or, “You need the end of the pew why? … Dave might say something controversial and you might need to make a break for it? Your cell phone might go off and it might be – a facebook post you have to “Like” right away?” “Death has been swallowed up in victory” is for the only other time we, thankfully, don’t say what’s in our heads. Instead we discretely encourage you to cuddle up a little and slide to the middle because it’s going to be a packed house, and because we are indeed that welcoming congregation that wants you to be here – that makes room for every single one.

 

“Death has been swallowed up in victory.” That’s the Easter story. That’s the “forgiveness of sin” good news. That’s the, “But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” proclamation that always ends in the litany response this congregation has embraced, “Christ is risen!”  “He is risen indeed!”

Christmas is the time we Christians boldly claim that God came to us in Jesus. The birth of Jesus is the moment all creation had been waiting for. God broke into this world, announced peace and good will, turned it upside down, and began the long process of making all things new – building the new creation, the kingdom, God’s kingdom, here on earth. The moment God came to us in Jesus, God enlisted all of us as partners.

 

One of the new small groups formed in the fall studied Surprised by Hope, a book by NT Wright, former Bishop of Durham for the Church of England, and currently a professor of New Testament and Early Christianity at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. Wright says it this way:

 

“What we can and must do in the present, if we are obedient to the gospel, if we are following Jesus, and if we are indwelt, energized, and directed by the Spirit, is to build for the kingdom…. You are not oiling the wheels of a machine that’s about to roll over a cliff. [Wright says] You are not restoring a great painting that’s shortly going to be thrown on the fire. You are not planting roses in a garden that’s about to be dug up for a building site. You are – strange though it may seem … – accomplishing something that will become in due course part of God’s new world.”[1]

 

Wright has some examples to help us too:

 

Every act of love, gratitude, and kindness; every work of art or music inspired by the love of God and delight in the beauty of God’s creation; every minute spent teaching a severely handicapped child to read or to walk; every act of care and nurture, of comfort and support, for one’s fellow human beings and for that matter one’s fellow nonhuman creatures; and of course every prayer, all Spirit-let teaching, every deed that spreads the gospel, builds up the church, embraces and embodies holiness rather than corruption, and makes the name of Jesus honored in the world – all of this will find its way, through the resurrecting power of God, into the new creation that God will one day make. That is the logic of the mission of God.[2]

 

Some of us have a hard time imagining that what we do matters in the long run. Matters to God. Matters to God’s kingdom. Paul didn’t. “Therefore, my beloved, be steadfast, immovable, always excelling in the work of the Lord, because you know that in the Lord your labour is not in vain.”

 

Christ the Saviour is born. Friends – what part will you play in building for the kingdom of God in the new year?

[1] Surprised by Hope, NT Wright, HarperCollins, 2008, page 208.

 

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January 12, 2014
Matthew 3:13-17
“Baptismal Consent”
Rev. Dr. David A. Davis

             Righteousness is such a Matthew word. The term “righteousness”, as here when Jesus says to John the Baptist “it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness”, that is so Matthew. Matthew and righteousness: “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled” (5:6), “Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness sake, for theirs is the kingdom of God” (5:10), “Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and God’s righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well” (6:33), “For John came to you in the way of righteousness and you did not believe him” (21:32). “it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness”.

            Righteousness, the word righteousness, it is uniquely Matthew. If I have done my homework correctly, righteousness never even appears in Mark. In Luke, the word only occurs in the Song of Zechariah as John’s father is singing about his son and Jesus. In John’s gospel, Jesus uses the word in his final speech to the disciples; talking to them about sin and judgement and righteousness. So when Matthew’s Jesus tells John that his baptism had to happen in order to fulfill all righteousness, the gospel writer must have had something big in mind.

Matthew’s recorded liturgy of the baptism of Jesus is the only gospel account that includes this dialogue between the two. “I need to be baptized by you, and you come to me?’ John protests. Jesus answered him, “let it be so now”; permit it now, allow me to be baptized now, let’s do it now…”for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.”  Fulfill all righteousness.

Some translators connect law and righteousness here implying that the baptism of Jesus is necessary to meet and obey and follow the law of God. It is right to do this because of God’s law. Some commentators see the fulfillment of righteousness as a reference to how Jesus, through his life, death, and resurrection, reorients the relationship of God and humanity. Jesus paves the way for all to be righteous before God. His baptism as sort of prototype not just of our baptism but our salvation; as Paul writes in Galatians, “we know that a person is justified not by works of the law but through the faithfulness of Jesus Christ”. The righteousness of Christ. Fulfilling all righteousness in him for us.

But the argument can be made that with this uniqueness of righteousness in Matthew, even more must be going on here, something other going on; Matthew and fulfilling righteousness. Matthew’s bigger picture, it starts to come into view when you ponder those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, and when you stop to think about being persecuted for righteousness sake, and when you try to wrap your heart around seeking first the kingdom of God and God’s righteousness.

Righteousness in Matthew, it’s not just our righteousness before God, it is a kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven kind of righteousness. The heavens opening and the Spirit descending and the voice announcing; the inbreaking from heaven, it’s like God opening up the sky and pouring righteousness all over the earth. The baptism of Jesus in Matthew is like a groundbreaking in the building of the Old Testament prophet’s peaceable kingdom. It’s like an inaugural event in the coming age of a new heaven and a new earth. John the Baptist hesitates and says to Jesus, “you need to baptize me, and you’re coming to me?” And Jesus says, “let’s do it now and get this party started!”

Every now and then on one of these reality/competition shows like “America;s Got Talent” or “The Voice” or “American Idol”, every now and then there is an occasion where a person sings or plays or performs in such an incredible and unexpected way, that the video goes viral. In those videos the camera always cuts to the crowd reaction as notes of something beautiful are lofting through the venue. The audience is first stunned, then surprised, then they rise to their feet in appreciation and affirmation with the sure sense that they have just witnessed something amazing and the launch of a life-changing career. If you will excuse the comparison, that’s the kind of reaction Matthew seeks from his reader, from the crowds, from the church. To witness the fulfillment of all righteousness in the baptism of Jesus is to experience an earth-shattering, kingdom coming, life changing, turning world upside down, there’s no going back, transformative event that comes with a foretaste of life now and forever as it is created, shaped, and intended by God.

“Let it be so now, for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.” And according to Matthew, John consented. “Then he consented”, it reads. Some translations say “he said yes” or “he agreed to baptize Jesus” The King James puts it this way, “Then he suffered him”. The Greek verb can go a variety of ways. Eugene Peterson in The Message puts its succinctly, “So John did it.”  “He consented” gives the reader so much more.

Back before Christmas and opinion piece in the New York Times was entitled “The Emotional Power of Verbs”. The author argued that writers tend to overlook the importance of what she called “the poetry of verbs”. “Think about action embued with feeling” she wrote, “for your characters in terms of actions that will reveal their interior lives.” She went on to give examples in literature that showed how verbs don’t always need adjectives. Verbs aren’t just about action, they connote emotion too. “The correct action will deepen a character with the same beauty as a description’, she concludes. So, there is a huge difference between “So John did it” and “then he consented”.  The lesser verb takes away any reflection about John and his action, his consent. He consented. He gave up trying to prevent what was an inaugural event of the very kingdom of God. And when John consented, there was no going back for him or for the people of God. In the ministry of Christ Jesus, the righteousness of God was on the loose.

When we gather here at the fount for baptism, there are always multiple meanings swirling around the bowl. Baptism would be easier to teach and practice if it only meant one thing: like a washing of sin, or welcome  to the household of God, or the coming of the Holy Spirit. But it means each of those things and more. As I was taught back in the day, baptism signifies: incorporation into the Body of Christ and the gift of the Holy Spirit come down, and participation in the death and resurrection of Jesus, and the now and future forgiveness we experience in Christ. We also teach that baptism is a sign of the kingdom of God. That’s always been the harder one to explain to parents, or to the one being baptized. That every time we gather here, and we pour the water, and we baptize, it is a sign of the kingdom of God.

It’s harder for me to explain because I’m not sure I have ever really understood it. Baptism as a sign of the kingdom of God. But how about this? Every time we gather here, and we pour the water, and we baptize, we are consenting to the movement of God’s righteousness in our lives. We are consenting to work for it in the world. We are acknowledging that there is no going back for us as God’s people. What this is, is a sign of the kingdom. A sign of an earth-shattering, kingdom coming, life changing, turning world upside down, there’s no going back, transformative event that comes with a foretaste of life now and forever as it is created, shaped, and intended by God. A sign that God’s righteousness is on the loose; his baptism, and ours.

A few of us on the staff gather every now and then to talk about preaching. Not too long ago we sat in my office and listened to a few sermons from some well known preachers. Fred Craddock finished his sermon by telling a story of baptism in one of the churches he served as a young pastor. On sundown on Easter evening the congregation would gather out at a lake. After it was dark, and after the candidates had been baptized in the lake, everyone would gather on the shore around a fire. One member of the church would then introduce the baptized as everyone else stood in a circle, standing close to keep warm by the fire. They would be introduce by name, where they lived and where they worked.

As Craddock describes it, the next part of the ritual was that every member of the congregation would then give their name and it went like this…”My name is Ceila, and if you ever need somebody to do washing and ironing, call on me….My name is Raymond, and if you ever need anybody to chop wood, call on me…..my name is Cindy, if you ever need anybody to baby sit, call on me…..my name is Tucker, if you ever need anybody to repair your house, you call on me…..” And it went on and on, all around the circle until everyone finished. Then they ate, Craddock says, and had a square dance.

“After everybody left that night, my first experience of the Easter baptism at the little church on Watts Barr Lake between Chattanooga and Knoxville,” Craddock concludes, “Percy Miller, one of their members, saw me still standing there, still. He looked at me and said, ‘Craddock, folks don’t ever get any closer than this.’ And then the preacher says, “in that community, their name for that kind of ritual is “church”. Or put another way, that scene on the lakeshore all in the name of Christ….a sign of the kingdom.

Righteousness. Righteousness. Let’s do this now in order to fulfill all righteousness, Jesus said. Then John consented.

© 2014, Property of Nassau Presbyterian Church
Contact the church to obtain reprint permission.