I Am for You

Isaiah 9:2-7
David A. Davis
December 24, 2015
Christmas Eve

Somewhere tonight a family has arrived from three states over. They have come to spend Christmas with their dad and grandfather, who has been struggling after he fell and broke his hip just before Thanksgiving. Truth is, grandpa has been struggling since grandma died three years ago. After the car is unpacked and everyone settles into the living room and Grandpa ask the expected question “How was the trip.” Then Grandpa says, “You shouldn’t have come so far. You should be at your house for Christmas.” Theresa, the nine-year-old, the youngest of the grandchildren, goes over and carefully joins Grandpa in his favorite chair. At nine Theresa is just learning that giving at Christmas can be as fun as receiving. She looks up and says to her grandfather, “No Grandpa, we’re here for you.”

Somewhere tonight a mom is giving the necklace her mother gave her to her daughter who is pregnant with her first child. As mother and daughter share the tears, the mother says, “When I was pregnant with you my mother gave me this necklace. Her mother gave it her when she was pregnant with me. It comes from your great-grandmother. It’s not the gift that keeps on giving. It’s the gift we keep giving and it’s for you.”

Somewhere tonight a father is having that conversation with his future son-in-law. The young man invites the older man out to the patio for some private time. It was not an unexpected conversation but both men were nervous. “I would like to ask Lindsay to marry me and I would like to ask your blessing.” The dad offers a bear hug and a congratulatory slap on the back and quickly offers an affirming response. But then with both hands on the man’s shoulders and with a serious tone, the father says, “But I need you to know one thing, I am on Lindsay’s team and I will always be on her team. So there will never be a question; I am for her and the last thing I will say to her before we walk down the aisle will be, ‘I am for you.’”

Somewhere tonight a pastor is telling the story of the birth of Jesus from Luke’s Gospel. She invites all the children to come up and sit around the front of the sanctuary like she does and they do every Sunday morning. She brought a rocking chair to the chancel that afternoon and envisioned sitting in it with all the children gathered around like little angels listening to her tell of Mary and the shepherds and the angels. That’s how you know this is her first Christmas after being ordained and the rookie mistake she makes is that children on Christmas Eve really can’t sit and listen quietly no matter how hard they try. She pretty much lost them at hello. Those 17 kids felt like 50 on the floor around here. She hadn’t even come to “in that region there were shepherds living in the fields” when she could tell there was about to be a great Christmas uprising at her feet.

So in an act of desperation, as she keeps telling the story, she gets up and walks down the aisle to a dad who is holding a baby just a few months old. The pastor and the dad communicate without talking and she takes the child and walks back amid the children gathered around. It was the family’s third child or the father never would have done that. With a baby there in the pastor’s arms, a sudden calm came on the chancel steps. “And the angel said to them, ‘Do not be afraid; for behold, I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people: to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.’” As she stood there with that child, the pastor had those kids, and the whole congregation for that matter, in the palm of her hand.

In a moment of pastoral/theological-Holy Spirit-inspired genius, the pastor goes off script, off Luke’s script. And as she says, “this will be sign for you,” she says it 17 times. The “for you” part. Looking each child right in the eyes and moving toward them as she can. “For you and for you and for you.” Justin, who is four years old, makes it a Christmas Eve for the ages. He was the 17th child over on the side and just as the pastor works her way to him and leans over, extends her arms just a bit, and says “for you,” Justin stands up, backs away and with a highly detectable incredulous tone, says, “For me? Really? I’m 4 years old. I can’t take care of a baby!”

Eventually order is restored. The story is finished. The service ends with “Silent Night.” At the church door, an older saint of the church gives the still flustered young pastor a knowing look and a pat on the shoulder and leans in and says to her, “It’s what we all say, isn’t it?” The pastor’s look indicates a need for clarity. “It’s what we all say to God’s promise at some point in our lives. For me? Really God? For me? For us?”

For a child has been born… for us
A son given… to us

For… to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior who is Christ the Lord.
This will be a sign… for you, and you, and you, and you.

For us? For you? For me? Really? In writing about Jesus, Dietrich Bonhoeffer argues that that the Christ can only be understood as the Christ who is for me, for us. He is not first a Christ for himself. His being for me is not just an effect that emanates from him like generosity or hospitality. It is who he is. It’s not an accident that Christ is for me, for us. It is at the core of his very being. It is who this Jesus is. He is for us. He stands for us. For you. Immanuel. God with us. Here for you. This gift that God keeps giving and it is for you. It is the first thing Jesus says to us and the last thing he says to us. The Alpha and Omega of his teaching. I am for you always. This child forever wrapped in swaddling clothes, is for you. The sign from God that says “I Am… for you.”

I have been reading the book The Boys in the Boat by Daniel James Brown. It is a beautifully written and compelling story of the 1938 Olympic gold medal winning crew team from the University of Washington. In the preface to the book the author writes about his visit to see one of the rowers, well into his old age, who was dying. As they visited and the man reminisced about life, it wasn’t until he started talking about his rowing career that he began to cry. He got choked up as he talked about “the boat.” The author tells of how he wasn’t sure whether the reference to “the boat” was about the shell or the men in the boat. But it was “the boat” that brought the tears. “I realized,” he writes, “that the boat was something more than just the shell or its crew… it encompassed but transcended both — it was something mysterious and almost beyond definition. It was a shared experience… he was crying, at least in part, for the loss of that vanished moment but much more, I think, for the sheer beauty of it.”

Somewhere tonight a congregation is starting to light candles and sing “Silent Night.” A family is sitting together in the pew, three generations together again in a pew that the grandparents have occupied for 65 years. The grandfather, who always sits on the end of the pew, starts to get weepy. Not just teary, but weepy. With his shoulders heaving a bit as he tries to sing. His tears are glistening in the candlelight. In the middle of the pew is the fifteen-year-old grandson, who leans over and looks over and sees his grandfather barely keeping it together. With genuine concern he leans over and asks his father in one of those church whispers, “What’s wrong with grandpop? Why’s he crying?” “Grandpa always cries at ‘Silent Night.’ Every year I can remember, since I was way younger than you, Grandpa cries during ‘Silent Night.’” It wasn’t quite like the son was tired of his father’s Christmas Eve tears, but it did have sort of a “that’s just grandpa” tone to it.

It is later at night now, when for a moment it’s just grandfather and grandson sitting in front of the Christmas tree while everyone else is in the kitchen. The teenager wasn’t satisfied with his father’s answer so this time he asks his grandfather. “Grandpa, why do you cry every year during ‘Silent Night?’” Grandpa seems surprised anybody noticed when in fact, the whole congregation notices every year. “Is it cause you like the song? Or is it the candles being pretty? Or the family being all together?”

Grandpa is quiet at first. Then he smiles and heaves a bit of sigh. “You know, no one has ever asked me before, including your grandmother. But I have thought about it a lot. I’ve had many years to think about it since I can’t seemed to stop the tears on Christmas Eve. It’s more than just the song, though I do like it. It’s not just the candlelight. And I can’t tell you what it means to me to have the family all together like that. But it’s more than all of that. It’s kind of beyond words, the beauty of it all.” Grand stops and tilts his head and sort of looks up at nothing in particular and without looking back at his grandson, he goes on. “The beauty of it all, the experience of it all, and that baby too, to think of that baby.” And he catches himself getting teary and says to his grandson with a chuckle, “Jesus I mean, the baby Jesus.” “Yeah, Grandpa, I figured that part!”

“Well, I know it’s sounds kind of weird, but it’s like every Christmas Eve, right in that moment, God is telling me how much God loves me. That Jesus loves me. This Jesus loves me. And I never get tired of hearing it. God sending that baby just for me.”

Somewhere tonight… for me? Really?

Yes, really… for you and you and you and you and you.

© 2015, Property of Nassau Presbyterian Church
Contact the church to obtain reprint permission.

O Jonathan, Jonathan

II Samuel 1:1-27
Rev. David A. Davis
June 28, 2015

What a week it has been! When it comes to the news, current events, stuff that will be written about in books, things we will remember the rest of our lives, what a week it has been. Funeral after funeral in Charleston, South Carolina. Supreme Court decisions on the Affordable Health Act and Marriage Equality. Ongoing debate and action about the Confederate flag. Escaped prisoner killed after weeks of headlines and a massive search by law enforcement. Hundreds gathered here on Palmer Square to pray for mourning families and an end to gun violence and a better way when it comes to race. A significant storm causes all kinds of havoc in in Philadelphia and New Jersey south of us here. Terror attacks in France with a beheading. 38 killed on a beach in Tunisia. 25 killed in Kuwait while at prayer. An American president singing “Amazing Grace” in church pulpit. And one last high school graduation. All this week. Broadcasters often overdo it when it comes to “breaking news”. This week they couldn’t keep up. Neither could we, really. The world and life and all of it, pinning the needle, pedal to the floor, making the head spin, wondering where to look, trying to process, make sense, find meaning. What a week! Where do you even start?

The sermon text for this morning comes from the Old Testament, the Book of II Samuel, there in the chapters that tell of the life of David; David the shepherd boy/sling shot expert/military leader/ ark returning/ temple building/dynasty leaving/psalm writer…that David. The chapters in I and II Samuel, the David narratives, are so full of the world and life and all of it. Think about it. The story of David and Goliath can be romanticized for Sunday School but the recounting of battles, and killing, and death as the bible tells of the life of David, it’s sort of unrelenting. The story of David and Bathsheba, that account of rooftop lust and sex and David conspiring to get her husband Uriah killed, and their unnamed child dying and the prophet Nathan confronting David with the truth, that part of David’s life is told and comes with a rather chilling timelessness. A chapter in the human story that seems endlessly repetitive. Then there is that recounting of David leaping, dancing before the ark of God as he victoriously returns the ark to Jerusalem. David and his shameless life of praise. David, the gifted musician and his unceasing devotion to God. The unparalleled legacy of prayer and worship passed on in the psalms: “the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want….To you O Lord I lift up my soul…..the Lord is my light and my salvation….Create in me a clean heart O God…O my God, I will give thanks to you forever”. The house of David. So full of the world and of life and of God and of faith and all of it.

The text I am about to offer for your hearing is a poem, a song of lament, a funeral elegy that David offers after receiving the news of the death of Saul, the first King of Israel and his son Jonathan. King Saul, who was plagued by his own paranoia and yearning for power, took an early shine to David who was able to calm the king with his music. When David took down Goliath, Saul brought him into the royal fold. It was right then from the start that David and Jonathan experienced a striking bond of friendship. As the bible records, “Jonathan made a covenant with David, because he loved him as his own soul.”

The friendship between the young men, a friendship forged on the battlefields and in the house of royalty, was quickly challenged as Jonathan’s father, King Saul, determined that he was going to have David killed. The bottom line was that David was getting too much attention and too much praise for his military success. Jonathan tried to intercede on David’s behalf and was able to hold off the plot for a little while. But Saul resolved to kill David again. David fled for his life out into the fields and Jonathan went on a search for information about his father’s plans. Indeed, Jonathan found out that David’s life would be forever in danger in the court of King Saul. Jonathan risked his own life to find David and tell him to flee. They met, there in the field, as Jonathan was supposedly practicing with his bow and arrow. Jonathan confirmed that David had to go and they parted, in tears and with an embrace. Jonathan said to David, “The Lord shall be between me and you, and between my descendants and your descendants, forever.”

Other than one more battlefield covenant between David and Jonathan reported in the chapters of I Samuel, Jonathan isn’t mentioned until the report of his death along with his father and his brothers at the hand of the Philistines. Then, it is in II Samuel, chapter 1, after David hears of the death of Saul and Jonathan that he offers this song.

II Samuel 1:19-27

            Your glory, O Israel, lies slain upon the mountains. How the mighty have fallen! Don’t proclaim it there in the streets where your enemies will rejoice. The mountains where the shields of the mighty are left to rot, let those hills cease to flourish. For Jonathan and Saul were strong and mighty in battle, united in life and death. O children of Israel, weep over your king who adorned you with plenty. How the mighty have fallen! My heart is broken for you, O Jonathan. So great was my love for you. Your love for me was wonderful, passing the love of women. How the mighty have fallen and the weapons of war perished!

The elegy, the lament, the eulogy, the ode, the funeral song, David’s song falls into a common genre in antiquity. A poem offered in praise of a king (even one who tried to take your life). A song to honor military strength and victory. An ode for one whose death has national implications. A secular piece. No mention of God or faith though it is offered here by the one who penned so many stanzas addressed to and in praise of the Lord God Almighty. Pretty standard fare, David’s dirge here in II Samuel. Except for Jonathan. Except for how David tells of their love, their loyalty, their friendship. David lauds the king but Jonathan is the one whom he laments. “Your love to me was wonderful.” It’s the love here that stands out, that seems out of place, that catches the ear.

When you read what comes right before the elegy and then what comes after, its war and death on both sides. So to praise courage and strength makes sense. It’s the love and friendship that seems odd. All these chapters that tell of David’s life; his victories, his sinfulness, all the twists and turns, the complications, and its love that throws the reader off balance. “You love to me wonderful, passing the love of women.” The Old Testament world can seem so foreign, so distant from our experience, as far removed from how you and I perceive God, the strange old world of the bible. It’s love and friendship that leaps off the page. So full of the world and of life and of God and of faith and all of it. And tucked right in there is such an extraordinary, ordinary, timeless expression of love.

When you visit places where history goes back to the ancient world, you learn the meaning of the world “tel”. Tel as a noun. It’s a world that means hill. In archeology, a tel is an artificial hill that has been created as civilizations are built one on top of another over generations. A city is destroyed and the victor builds another one right on top. So when archeologists dig at a tel, they find layers upon layers, dozens of layers that represent centuries of human history. And they find the artifacts of daily life and of war and even of worship. There on a tel, there among all the ruins, you can’t find love and friendship. “I am distressed for you, my brother Jonathan; greatly beloved were you to me; your love to me was wonderful, passing the love of women.” It’s the love that stands out.

What a week it has been. The world and life and all of it, pinning the needle, pedal to the floor, making the head spin, wondering where to look, trying to process, make sense, find meaning. What a week! It’s love that ought to stand out. In the witness of the family members of those murdered last week. In the message coming out of Mother Emanuel AME Church at funeral after funeral after funeral. It’s love that ought to stand out. As the gay and lesbian couples we all know take a deep breath and with a bit of disbelief celebrate the high court acknowledging their love and their right to live in it. It’s love that ought to rise up. As three black churches are burned, and vandals think damaging monuments is the way to move forward, and as some stoked the fear that marriage is somehow under attack, and as terrorists around the world wage war on humanity, it has to be love that rises up. The place to start to find meaning this week, the only place to start is in the extraordinary, ordinary, timeless expression of love. Time will tell how the history will be written about this week, whether love and friendship and reconciliation has a chance among the ruins of our time.

I sat in a worship service Thursday morning at Fourth Presbyterian Church in Chicago. Eustacia Marshall was singing and playing piano. Eustacia was one of my field education students when she was in seminary not long ago. She now serves a congregation in North Carolina. Eustacia offered a contemporary gospel song called “Speak to My Heart”.

“Speak to my heart, Lord, that’s what I want you to do. Message of love, love to encourage me
Lifting my heart from despair, how you love, love me, and care for me. Speak to my heart now, oh Lord.”

With her own arrangement she worked in a few other spirituals that spoke of guiding feet and moving on by faith. Later around a table someone asked her if she wrote the song. Eustacia said no and gave attribution to the composer but then as the conversation continued it became clear how the song was a prayer for her over the last week as she tried to make sense, find meaning, figure out how to lead her congregation and offer a voice in the social media world of her generation. The first place to start after a week like this is to ask God to speak to your heart. Speak to my heart, Lord.

These days are so full of the world and of life and of all of it. As you try to make sense of it all, as you weigh into the deep water of the social media driven conversation, as you try to wrap your head around it and put in the perspective of your 60, 70, 80 years of live, as you pick and choose which writers get it right and which get it wrong, as you find yourself thinking about what to say next about “all of this” to your children or to one of your parents or to your neighbor or to your co-worker or the person in the next pew or to your pastor…ask God to speak to your heart so that you can pass on the extraordinary, ordinary, timeless expression of love.

© 2015, Property of Nassau Presbyterian Church
Contact the church to obtain reprint permission.

When the Dew Falls

Psalm 133
Rev. David A. Davis
June 21, 2015

“How very good and pleasant it is when kindred live together in unity!” How good and pleasant it is when brothers and sisters live together in unity. How wonderful, how sweet when the people of God dwell together as one. How great is it, how good and pleasant when kindred abide united in unity. The image that comes to mind is that of a wise old psalmist working the room at the family reunion. Shaking hands, slapping backs, a bit teary with a heart-warming laugh of disbelief that everyone could make it. Saying over and over again to God and whoever will listen. Oh, Lord, Lord, Lord….how great is when we all get together!

But that’s not quite it…..historically, liturgically. Psalm 133 and those surrounding it in the psalter, they were psalms intended to be read, sung, chanted as the people of Israel climbed their way up, made their way up to Jerusalem for the few religious festivals throughout the year. “How very good and pleasant it is when kindred live together in unity!” It’s more of a refrain for God’s people heading for worship. A psalm refrain; like “I lift mine eyes to hills, from whence does my help come? And “I was glad when they said unto me ‘let us go into the house of the Lord!’” and “out of the depths I cry to thee, O Lord”. Almost a liturgical expression like “The Lord be with you” and “The peace of Christ be with you” and “God is good, all the time”. Sort of a traveling call to worship for the people of God that affirms how important it is to get together, to be together offering God the praise, worship, and gratitude of our lives. How very good and pleasant to us and to God when we make it there for the holiday and we’re all together in worship! As if the psalmist was standing before the faithful on Christmas Eve or Easter morning. My, my, my…..how good it is to be together in the house of the Lord.

But that’s not quite it…. in terms of the imagery woven together in these few verse by the psalmist/poet. A depth of meaning is lost when you step away from the Hebrew language, and the rituals of the ancient faith, and the visuals that come with the region of Israel and Palestine, the Jordan Valley. The language here in the psalm emphasizes unity in almost a redundant expression. It isn’t just a being together kind of unity. It is a unity unity. Abiding in unity unity. Unity to the nth degree. The oil running down the beard refers to the sacred task of anointing one to the priesthood. Annointing. Ordination. Set part by God. Here for the psalmist an abundant, messy and glorious anointing. The dew of Hermon; Hermon is the highest of mountains way up to the north in Israel, a range of mountains now in Israel, Syria, and Lebanon. A mountain top that was snow covered a few weeks ago when the traveling group from Nassau saw it. It would take nothing short of an act of God to bring that sort of refreshing, life giving dew southward to the parched mountains of Zion, the hills around Jerusalem. Miracle would not be too strong of a word. Divine promise would be apt. God’s Holy Spirit brushing a dewfall like creation’s morning kiss upon the hills of Jerusalem. There in Zion, in Jerusalem, where God bestows the very blessing of life. Abiding unity for God’s people; it comes from above yet from humanity it requires a most sacred, priestly attention. It is the psalmist waxing poetically and descriptively about unity in all of its holiness. Oh my God…how precious it is when your people abide as one.

But that’s not quite it ….when it comes to the reality of human experience. There in the Old City of Jerusalem, the Temple Mount is a most holy site for both Muslims and Jews. It is believed to be the site of the Holy of Holies from David’s Temple in the tradition of Israel. Also the site where the prophet Muhammed ascended to heaven, the Dome of the Rock in the Muslim tradition. It is holy ground, the Temple Mount. Our group went up there on our visit. It is a huge expanse of ground yet you feel like you ought to whisper because of that sense of holiness. When we were up there the silence was suddenly broken as groups of Muslim women started to shout. The shouting, the sound moved all around us. The shouting went from group to group, groups of women here, groups of men over there, and groups of children across the way. They were shouting “God is great” in Arabic but none of us knew why. Until our guide pointed out a small group of Jewish people. They looked to be in their 20’s., 4 or 5 of them. They were surrounded on all sides for protection by Israeli police holding guns. The shouting followed them as they walked along, each one reading scripture, reading Torah. To the Jew, the shouting started by the women was intended to intimidate and provoke; Muslims crying out that you don’t belong here, this is ours. To the Muslim, the young peoples’ act was intended to intimidate and provoke. Reading holy text on holy ground even where unwelcome as a reminder that they could come there and read whenever they want. It was disconcerting and unsettling; the tension there at the holiest of spots. The Temple Mount where the psalmist claims God intends to bestow blessing. Holy ground and shouting of “God is great” and the reading of scripture; yet the farthest thing from unity that humankind can fathom. And somewhere here in the West, a Christian picks up the psalms to read 133 in a sort of finger pointing we know better kind of way. Reading it to the Jews and the Muslims of the Middle East. No, no, no….how good and pleasant it is when kindred live together in unity.

But that’s not quite it….when you read Psalm 133 in America this week. When you try to wrap your heart and your mind around the brutal murders inside the Mother Emanuel AME Church in Charleston, SC., Psalm 133 starts to sound like a lament. When every part of your being is repulsed by the hatred and racism in what the 21 year old said and wrote and did and then you find your heart touched in a profound way as you try to imagine if you would have the same faith and strength and courage displayed by grieving family members who speak of forgiveness and mercy, you remember how God anoints and ordains and sets apart those who speak for peace and love kindness and show mercy. Psalm 133 is a subversive, counter cultural promise. When you read the editorial board of the Wall Street Journal trying to suggest how much better things are on race now and institutional racism is a thing of the past because the perpetrator was caught and will be tried and it took years for any justice when the girls were killed in the Birmingham Church bombing and then the next day you talk to one of the patriarchs of the Witherspoon St Presbyterian Church who basically tells you “I never thought I would feel this way again”, you resign yourself to the belief that when it comes to racial reconciliation, when it comes to America on race, it’s going take divine intervention once more. Miracle is not too strong of world. Divine promise. Our plea to God. That it is time for the dew to fall again O God. How good and pleasant it is supposed to be.

But that’s not quite it….for the people of God this week. Lament is not enough. Abiding unity for all of God’s children; it comes from above yet from humanity requires a most sacred, priestly attention. There was another attack inside a church this week. It was in Galilee. The Church of the Multiplication. The site along the Sea of Galilee that tradition points to as the place where Jesus multiplied the loaves and the fishes. We visited the site on our trip just three weeks ago. It was targeted early this week by vandals who wrote graffiti in Hebrew denouncing idol worship. They set the church on fire. Police reports implicate young activist Jewish settlers living in the West Bank who were camping in the area. It’s increasing all around the world, religious zealots, the fanatic fringe targeting holy sites. When it comes to the historic Black Church in America, few sites are more important than the Emanuel AME Church in Charleston. And my guess is that when as that congregation gathers for worship this morning, you and I, and the world will be reminded once again of the difference between holy sites and holy people.

Lament is not enough. For God is calling God’s people, anointing us, ordaining us, setting us apart, with the dripping oil of the Holy Spirit and grace and wisdom, calling us to give sacred attention, and tireless effort, and bold vision, and a courageous voice to abiding unity unity in all of creation. Ordained at your baptism to the priesthood of all believers God is calling you to the holy task of rising up and standing firm against the darkness of evil and the powers and principalities of this world and the hatred that so infects us. God empowers you in witnessing to and working for that peaceable kingdom described by the Hebrew prophets and the more excellent way of love described by the Apostle Paul and what Jesus in the gospels called “the Good News of God”.

Rid yourselves, therefore of all malice, and all guile, insincerity, envy, and all slander. Like newborn babes, long for the pure, spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow into salvation—if indeed you have tasted the Lord is good.

Come to him, a living stone, though rejected by mortals yet chosen and precious in God’s sight, and like living stones , let yourselves be built into a spiritual house,
To be holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. (I Peter 2)

We believe God bestows, ordains, commands God’s blessing of life forever more, not on holy places but on holy people. Reading Psalm 133 in America this week, I don’t think there can be holier, priestly task for us than the unity of God’s people. If you affirm with me the theological conviction that in Jesus Christ, our best days are always yet to come, then dare to believe with me that the dew still falls, that God will make a way, then according to Psalm 133, you and I have work to do. Abiding unity for all of God’s children; it comes from above yet from humanity requires a most sacred, priestly attention.

© 2015, Property of Nassau Presbyterian Church
Contact the church to obtain reprint permission.

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A Prayer for the Emanuel A.M.E. Church in Charleston

FROM OUR PASTOR

In response to the horrific murder of worshipers at a prayer meeting inside the sanctuary of the Emanuel A.M.E. Church in Charleston, I am asking the Nassau Presbyterian Church community to join me in prayer:

Merciful God we once again find ourselves coming before you with aching and disbelieving hearts. We lift before you our sisters and brothers in Christ in Charleston; a congregation and family members mourning the loss of a pastor and church members who died inside their house of worship. Yes, we pray too for the young man now arrested and his family. As Jesus wept over the city of Jerusalem that could not recognize the things that make for peace, we weep today as an evil act of violence once again shatters the hope for peace in the land. Holy One, as hatred and racism and gun violence once again come to the front page of the nation’s conscience, we fervently pray that you will lead us, encourage us, inspire us to work more intensely toward the Hebrew prophets’ vision of a peaceable kingdom and the Apostle Paul’s description of the more excellent way. By your grace and in the power of the Holy Spirit, save us, O God, from the tyranny of sin, the apathy of weak leaders, and the powers and principalities that profit from our fears. We are your body, O Christ! Your hands, your feet, and your voice. Multiply and make sacred our efforts to transform the world. Help us stand and speak and work for justice, until as Dr. King put it, we can “make of this old world, a new world”. In the name of Christ we pray. Amen.

Family Values

Mark 3:13-35
Rev. David A. Davis
June 14, 2015

Two weeks ago our traveling group from Nassau Church gathered for Sunday morning worship at an outdoor chapel on the Mt. of Beatitudes. It was Confirmation Sunday here in the sanctuary. Over there, 7 hours ahead, and just after 8 in the morning, 28 of us were looking out from that elevated point over what is a beautiful scene: the Sea of Galilee spread below with the Golan Heights on the other side, the city of Tiberius to the right, and just below us, where the hill rolls into the water, there along the lakeshore, the ruins of Capernaum. A few days before we were in Capernaum at the water’s edge listening to Shane Berg teach from Mark’s gospel. As Shane spoke with his back to the Sea, you couldn’t help but look around; not just out to the water but up and down the shoreline. Turn and look behind at the ruins. Regardless of whether or not tradition has it right about this spot or that spot, or whether archeologists hypothesize correctly about dates and stones, you look around you can’t help but think about Jesus and the disciples and the crowds and the kingdom.

Some have heard me say before that a visit to the Holy Land will forever change how you read the bible. You can’t read without seeing landscape and topography and places in your imagination. It gives the biblical text a color and a texture and a feel. This trip I found myself attending to verses in the gospel that otherwise seem inconsequential. Transitional phrases about location and movement that the reader tends to just skip over in order to get to the next meaty section of healing or teaching or dialogue. Just here in Mark, these first few chapters: “In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan…The Spirit drove him immediately out into the wilderness…Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee proclaiming the Good News of God….As Jesus passed along the Sea of Galilee, he saw Simon and his brother Andrew casting a net into the sea…..They went to Capernaum, and when the Sabbath came, Jesus entered the synagogue and taught….As soon as they left the synagogue, they entered the house of Simon and Andrew….In the morning, while it was still dark, he got up and went to a deserted place….And he went throughout Galilee proclaiming the message…When he returned to Capernaum after some days , it was reported that he was at home…Jesus departed with his disciples to the sea, and a great multitude from Galilee followed him…” and then this easy to miss one from the New Testament Lesson for this morning “…then he went home.”

I’ve never paid any attention to the phrase that dangles there in Mark just after Jesus completes his disciple roster and before he teaches about Satan and a house divided against itself and the “unforgiveable” sin of blaspheming the Holy Spirit. Then he went home. Such a crowd came that they couldn’t even eat there in the house. He went home. He went into the house. Just a chapter before, when Jesus returned to Capernaum, Mark writes that “It was reported that he was at home.” It’s the Greek word for house, home. One can try to dig a bit more; was he home or just in the house? Was it his house or Simon and Andrew’s house? Is the use of the word here by Mark some sort of literary device intended to set up the teaching which is to come which is about “a house divided against itself? Then he went home. Was he in the house, or was he home? It is so Mark, so uniquely Mark; Jesus at home. It seems pretty clear that when it comes to Mark’s gospel, and Capernaum, and Jesus proclaiming the Good News of God, this was his dwelling place, his abiding place. Then he went home. It’s not just any house, not a random gathering place. No. The domestic connotation must be intended. Good News proclaimed. Unclean spirits sent packing. The sick healed. A leper made clean. Sins forgiven. A crippled man walking. Sinners and tax collectors at the table. Teaching and teaching and more teaching about the kingdom of God. Jesus is in the house. Jesus is home.

So when his family heard it, heard about it, when his family heard? It wasn’t just a house so crowded that they couldn’t break bread that bothered them, his family. It was all of it: what he was saying, what he was doing, who he was with, where he felt so at home. The close reader will see that the New Revised Standard Version tries to defend Jesus’ relatives a bit here; distinguishing the attempt to stop him from the word spreading that he was out of his mind. Distinguishing his family as those who were stopping him and then people were saying, “They went out to restrain him, for people were saying, ‘he has gone out of his mind’”. But it’s all just pronouns in the Greek. When his family heard it, they went out to apprehend him, to stop him, to restrain him, and they were saying he has gone out of his mind, he is not himself. He is beside himself. He is outside of himself. He is other than himself. When it came to Jesus and all that was going on in and around Capernaum, his family was very clear: THIS is not our home!

His mother Mary and his brothers arrived outside the house and they stood there calling for Jesus, sending for him. The crowd said to Jesus, “your mother and your brothers and sisters are outside asking for you”. Well, that’s a polite way to put it. And Jesus replied to those who relayed the message from his family, “who are my mother and my brothers?” Then Jesus looked around at the crowd that sat around him, the crowd that had been following him, the crowd that was in the house, a crowd that by then that would have included sinners and tax collectors, and those crying out to be healed, and those who brought someone to be healed, and the disciples, and all who found themselves so taken with his teaching, so claimed by his authority, those who found themselves captive to his spirit. It was that same crowd. Jesus looked at those who were around him and he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers!” In a move, in a quote, in an affirmation, that should have forever given pause to politicians and pundits and preachers who claim some higher ground on family values and the bible, Jesus says for every generation to hear, “Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.” To put it another way, Jesus looked at all those faces in the crowd gathered around him and he said, “This is my home”.

Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother. Whoever does…and somewhere in the kingdom of heaven James is shouting “amen”. You remember James, the epistle of James; “faith without works is dead.” James who always makes the Reformed, grace alone, hairs on our neck stand up. “Be doers of the word, and not merely hearers….Show me your faith apart from your works, and I by my works will show you my faith”. Jesus said, “Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.” And of course, we hold Paul and James in tension. “Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ” (Romans) “For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God.” (Ephesians) And of course Jesus in John’s Gospel; “For God so loved the world that God gave God’s only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have everlasting life.” But here in Mark, when it comes to kinship, and family, and home; it’s not belief or faith that Jesus cites. It’s doing the will of God, living the will of God, serving the will of God. Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother. Our salvation in Christ comes by grace alone, the gift of faith and his righteousness. But our kinship, our family tie, it comes through servanthood. A life of serving in God’s kingdom. The life to which, like Paige Gwendolyn, to which we were ordained at our baptism.

As you can imagine, a visit to Galilee and Nazareth and Jerusalem includes visiting church after church after church. Christians have been coming from around the world for centuries to visit the Church of the Annunciation, the Church of the Nativity, the Church of the Holy Sepulcher and all the others. And it doesn’t take long for folks to realize that the churches hire men to help with the crowd, to work the door, to make sure there is appropriate dress, and the holiness of the site is observed. Let’s just say their primary role is not that of hospitality. Not a lot of smiling going on. Some even use long sticks to get the attention of a wayward pilgrim who is talking too much. When the psalmist wrote about being a “doorkeeper in the house of God”, I don’t think these bouncers were what the psalmist had in mind. At one particular church that wasn’t crowded, our group was heading down a flight of stairs to see the tomb of St. Jerome. The church attendant just kept “shushing” us. He “shushed” us all the way down the flight of stairs. Taking his responsibility very seriously, he followed us all the way down and kept “shushing” us.

When it comes to Jesus and what Mark calls in his gospel the “Good News of God”, maybe it is obvious to all but it is worth being said, there’s a big difference between “shushing” and serving. There is no shortage of politicians and pundits and preachers and people who with the most sincere yearning to be faithful, think the Christian calling is to “shush” the world. But when you look around, just in the first few chapters of Mark, when you look around, you can’t help thinking about Jesus and the disciples and that crowd and the kingdom; when you find yourself so taken with his teaching, so claimed by his authority, and drawn to his spirit, when you are so moved, inspired, transformed by what and who and where he considered home? You realize once again that Jesus of Nazareth, the man of Galilee, he calls you and I to serve the world not to “shush” it.

You might have seen that there was a protest on campus. and in town, this week. We have a good relationship with the police and so the police called my office to tell me that the next day there was going to be a protest. And that the folks would be protesting on the campus and entering the campus next to our parking lot using the sidewalk next to Holder Hall. And that they just wanted us to know. So one day this week I’m in my office and I’m suddenly aware of all this ruckus that is going on outside of the office. And I look out my office and realize that the plaza outside of the church was the staging ground for the protest. I looked out and there were 30, 40, 50 people, and they were making signs, getting ready for their protest. And then I read some of their signs. And then in my office, looking out the window, my fear was that everyone walking by would think they were protesting the church! So my first reaction was to walk out and “shush” them.

When the police called, they didn’t tell me the nature of the demonstration. It was a group of differently-abled folks who were gathering from all around Mercer County to protest Professor Peter Singer and some of the provocative and disturbing things he says routinely about the value of human life. And so I went out and talked to the folks who were gathered. And then you stop and realize that most of them were in wheelchairs, wheelchairs can’t stage on the sidewalk – they were all over the plaza. And because of the morning sun, now afternoon sun, the front steps of the church were providing shadow so there were 10-20 folks sitting on the steps of the church to get out of the sun. The plaza and the front steps of the church were just packed with folks. Making signs, cheering, getting ready for their march on the university campus. So they stayed.

A little while longer I went out to get lunch. And as I came back I was on the other side of Palmer Square looking back at the church. Still 40, 50, 60 folks full on the plaza, all kinds of wheelchairs and other things, folks filling out signs, there was a coffin there. I looked above and there was our banner, “Serving God’s Kingdom” – and I smiled to myself the rest of the way to my office. Never, ever, has the front of Nassau Church looked more like the Kingdom of God. And I smiled because I’m pretty sure that somewhere, on the front steps of the church, just this week I saw the face of Jesus.

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Congregational Meeting – June 28

The Session of Nassau Presbyterian Church calls a meeting of the congregation following the ten o’clock  service of worship on Sunday, June 28, 2015, in the Sanctuary for the purpose of hearing the report of the Nominating Committee with a slate of nominees for the Session, the Board of Deacons, and the members-at-large for the Nominating Committee and to vote on changes in the calls of the pastors.

Officer Slate for June 28, 2015 Congregational Election

Session 3-Year Term (Class of 2018)

Lisa Burke
Brian Daly
Katie Gallagher
Anna Hill (Youth)
Peter Loupos
John Parker
Stephanie Patterson
Nicos Scordis

Board of Deacons 3-Year Term (Class of 2018)

Marie Behnke
Harriet Black
Jennifer Borowski
Emily Borowski (Youth)
Ken Brown
Mary Brown
Morgan Burke (Youth)
Betty Dominick
Lynnette Dunn
Carol Fagundus
Elizabeth Gift
Linda Jesse
Joan Kettelkamp
Zhengqing Li
Zahn Liu
Val Mathews
Janie Nutt
Janet Roman
Kirt Rosenbaum
Martha Sword
James Takasugi
Sam Weinglass (Youth)

Audit 3-Year Term ending September 2018

Brad Middlekauff
Ann Elmes

Nominating (2015-16)

Laura Carter
Tom Coogan
Doodie Meyer
Amy Olsen (Youth)
Sharilyn Tel
Bob Woods

Latest Communications

All-Church News

Mission Partnership Quarterly

Nassau’s Upper Room

The Youth Ministry newsletter (upcoming events and updates for middle and high school youth and families)

Nassau Next Gen(eration)

The Children’s and Family Ministry newsletter (upcoming events and updates for families with infants – grade 5)

Other Communications