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Abundantly

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II Corinthians 9:6-15
David A. Davis
September 27, 2015

God loves a cheerful giver. A proverb-like, Ben Franklin-like, Hallmark-card like quote from the Apostle Paul. God loves a cheerful giver. Wisdom from Paul tucked in here in a longer section of II Corinthians as Paul writes to the Corinthian church to remind them of the collection they promised for the church in Jerusalem. God loves a cheerful giver. Cheerful. Cheerful. It just doesn’t sound very biblical. The word, “cheerful”; it comes off kind of light and airy. It just doesn’t seem to bear the weight of what Paul must have been trying to communicate. God loves a cheerful giver. Yes, it sounds more like Poor Richard’s Almanac” than an epistle of the New Testament. Cheerful. It’s sort of like when folks translate the Beatitudes of Jesus in Matthew’s gospel with the word “happy’ instead of “blessed”. “Blessed” is such a better bible word.

“God loves a cheerful giver” New Revised Standard Version. NIV, New International Version. “God loves a cheerful giver”. The New Jerusalem Bible. “God loves a cheerful giver.” The Common English Bible. “God loves a cheerful giver”. The New English Bible. “God loves a cheerful giver.” Ah, the King James. “God loveth a cheerful giver.” The Contemporary English Bible, “God loves people who love to give”. Ew! Too much “quid pro quo” in that translation. As if God loves some more than others.

“Cheerful” isn’t all that common in the New Testament. In Romans 12: “We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us; prophecy in proportion to faith, ministry in ministering, the teacher in teaching, the exhorter in exhortation, the giver in generosity, the leader in diligence, the compassionate, in cheerfulness.” In James; “are any among you suffering? They should pray. Are any cheerful? They should sing songs of praise”. That’s about it when it comes to “cheerful”. In the English or the Greek, it’s pretty rare when it comes to the bible. The Greek word for cheerful, it shows up in the etymology of the English word “hilarious”. “God loves the hilarious giver!” No help there.

In his commentary on II Corinthians, John Calvin takes a face value, plain sense approach to the cheerful giver. One need not go any further than right here in v.7 for understanding. “Each of you must give as you have made up your mind, not reluctantly or under compulsion.” Cheerful is simply defined by what it is not. As Calvin puts it “when Paul says that God loves a cheerful giver he implies the contrary, that God rejects the mean and the coerced.” A cheerful giver then, is simply someone who giving without reluctance or compulsion. An unadorned description that comes when you lift the verse out of context and plaster it on a poster to be put up in the fellowship hall around stewardship season.

Perhaps Paul, with his bit of embedded folk wisdom about generosity is simply sending a pre-emptive word strike to the Corinthian congregation who are already complaining that he talks too much about money. Maybe anticipating a negative response, or knowing that some folks have already left because all they ever do in the church is talk about money. “Come on now, Paul writes, God loves a cheerful giver”. Paul as the Christian tradition’s forebearer of stewardship, passing forward a snippet for every preacher since who has found out that when it comes to money and giving and pledging and budgets, pastors are in a no win situation. It’s all a lot easier, a lot safer, if you just stay on the surface, stop meddling, don’t talk about money, and just wear the T-shirt that says “God loves a cheerful giver” Rah! Rah! Rah!

The Apostle Paul deserves more of our theological imagination. Paul requires more of our theological imagination. When Paul writes about the cheerful giver, he must have been expecting more of our theological imagination. Just in the text I read to you, take your eyes off the cheerful giver and other words leap off the page: bountifully, abundance, abundantly, multiply, increase, great generosity, thanksgiving, many thanksgivings, surpassing grace, indescribable gift. These verses are overflowing with words about overflowing. Back when our kids were in high school, one of them came home with an essay from English class that was covered in the red comments of the teacher. By about the fifth grade I was unable to help my kids in math but writing and essay, that’s right up my alley. As we sat down to go over the essay, one of the margin comments from the teacher next to a sentence in a particular paragraph was that it was “too watery”. I still know what that means. But if there is a margin note to write here for Paul, a comment on his style, his content, his writing here, it is “abundant in abundance”. Because Paul is over the top with the language of abundance.

Scholars also point out something that is lost here in the English. The Greek word for grace, “charis”, is repeated all through chapters 8 and 9 of II Corinthians. The word is translated in various ways but what is repeated is the Greek word for grace. Back in chapter 8; Paul begins: “We want you to know brothers and sisters about the grace of God”. When he writes about the “privilege of sharing in this ministry with the saints” it is actually “the grace of sharing in this ministry.” A reference to a “generous understanding” can be translated as “an act of grace’. “The generous act of our Lord Jesus Christ” is really “the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ”. And then in this morning’s verses, “God is able to provide you with every blessing in abundance” is “God is able to provide you with every grace”. And right there at the end, after Paul refers to the “surpassing grace of God that God has given you’ he concludes with “Thanks be to God for God’s indescribable gift” which can also be translated “grace be to God for God’s indescribable gift!”

What abounds here in Paul is grace. Abundant grace. Grace abounds. Grace overflows. God provides every grace in abundance. You will experience grace in your generosity. Your great generosity produces thanksgiving to God, produces grace upon grace. And in response to the surpassing grace that God has given you, that indescribable gift, you offer thanks, you offer grace to God. Abundant grace, it has a swirl to it. From God to you, from you to others, from you and others back to God. More than a circle of grace, more than a grace cycle, it is a swirl, a whirl of grace that with the movement, with the pace, grace splashes off like holy water blessing the world.

Grace received generates grace or it wasn’t grace at all. Grace received generates grace or it wasn’t grace to begin with. A cheerful giver isn’t just a happy one. A cheerful giver is more than just the opposite of a reluctant giver. God doesn’t love cheerful givers because they love giving for giving sake. A cheerful giver is someone who finds themselves up to their eyeballs and overwhelmed daily by God’s grace, the abundance of God’s mercy, and the healing power of God’s love. Cheerful givers are those who rise each day knowing they have been claimed by God’s generous Spirit and thus joyfully take their place in the economy of God’s grace. Passing forward. Fanning the flames. Giving of themselves and their resources. Forgiving and being forgiven. Loving and being loved. Making a difference. Sowing kingdom seeds. You and I and the daily swirl of God’s grace. God’s indescribable gift. To live in and by and through and because of the surpassing grace of God. And to do so abundantly. Cheerful doesn’t begin to describe it!

I have to confess to you that I have been a bit crabby when it comes to the coverage and the intense security and massive response to the visit of Pope Francis. I wish I could blame my Reformed Presbyterian heritage and a Calvinist theological foundation, but mostly, if I am honest, I have just been a crank about it. You can ask my friends, my colleagues, my family. So my response the other day caught me completely off guard. I was at the gym, on the elliptical machine watching the coverage of the Pope in New York City. I was listening to music and only watching as Pope Francis walked into that elementary school classroom in Harlem. He was stopping at each round table as the children would explain their project that was on display. As I continued to watch without sound, what I noticed was the looks on their faces, the smile on his face, the joy and the wonder in the room. At one point, a boy and girl, they wanted to show the Pope a display on an interactive television monitor over on the wall. The little boy reached out for his hand to take him over to the screen. They walked together hand in hand. It was at that point that I realized I was crying. Sweat from the workout and tears running down my face. I didn’t really know why.

I unplugged my music and plugged into the television sound. The Pope was in another room now greeting a group of teenagers from a soccer team, all of them emancipated minors and undocumented immigrants. One of them asked the Pope about his favorite soccer team. Eventually, the Pope offered some remarks in his slow determined English. It was then that I figured out why I started to cry. As he addressed the young people in the room, he said, “Wherever there is a dream, wherever there is hope, wherever there is joy, Jesus Christ is present. Always. Always.” The Pope was talking about grace. Abundant grace. What I saw in that classroom in the face of the little boy who took the Pope by the hand was a face full of dreams and hope and joy. A moment made sacred not by the holiness of the Pope or the innocence of the boy, but by the abundant grace of God and the presence of the Living Christ. That child had the face of a cheerful giver.

On the Day of Pentecost last May I preached a sermon about God’s promise of the Holy Spirit and the future of the church. I challenged what I called “the death of the church movement” in sociological studies, in some professors’ lectures, in speeches from denominational leaders, in journalists who seek to put another nail in the coffin of the church, and in the hand wringing of all the conspiracy seeking folks obsessed with what they think is the chronic victimization of the Christian Church in contemporary culture. At the end of the sermon I cited the cognitive and spiritual dissonance that arises when I read and hear all of that and then stand before the thriving, vibrant congregation I am blessed to serve.

At the church door that Sunday, a visiting professor from another seminary challenged me a bit. It was his last Sunday in Princeton after a time of study. He said, “you know, I don’t think you could preach that sermon in most of the churches around where I live. They are just trying to survive.” My response was to point to the theological affirmation that no matter what the future of the church is in God’s hands and that a positive outlook is a theological issue. “I don’t disagree with you about that” the professor of theology said “but I don’t think you understand how good you have it here at Nassau Presbyterian.” We offered our handshakes, well wishes and good byes and I look forward to seeing him again. I didn’t say what I was thinking as we wrapped up the short conversation. “I know exactly I good I have it here at Nassau Presbyterian Church. That’s why I preached that sermon.”

This month marks the 15th anniversary of my ministry as your pastor. You and I, we are part of such a swirl of grace, such abundance in our life together. We dare not miss it or take it for granted. God is calling us to live in and by and through and because of the surpassing grace of God. And to do so abundantly. Your place here, you service here, your worship here, your giving here, your prayer here, your compassion here, your praise here, your singing here, you….here, it is way to offer grace to others and grace back to God.

Living in grace. It has this amazing swirl to it.

So live in it abundantly.

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

Way Beyond Shame

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Mark 8:27-38
David A. Davis
September 13, 2015

            It is the turning point in Mark’s gospel. Here at the end of the 8th chapter; Jesus and the disciples at Caesarea Philippi. In terms of the story, the plot, these paragraphs begin a shift from all the healings and teaching in and around Galilee to a narrative movement that now heads to Jerusalem. That Jerusalem turn, it is paralleled in content with Jesus speaking for the first time about the suffering and death and rising again of the Son of Man. These pivotal verses in Mark, they bear such a weight of content for study, there’s so much going on, so much “gospel meat” that it sort of feels like the anchor or the center, the thickest part of the shortest Gospel. “Who do you say that I am?…You are the Messiah…The Son of Man must undergo great suffering and be rejected…and be killed…and after three days rise again….Get behind me Satan!…If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”

            As Jesus and his disciples were on the way to the villages of Caesarea Philippi, Mark invites the reader to listen in on their conversation. That piercing question from Jesus, the “who do you say that I am?”, it comes in the overhearing. Along with how he “sternly ordered them” not to tell anyone about him. It is as if Mark’s audience finds themselves listening in on what was a private moment. It doesn’t get any less awkward when Jesus talks about the suffering of the Son of Man and Peter takes Jesus aside to tell him to stop with the nonsense and Jesus, probably yelling back, calls Peter “Satan” of all things. It’s the sort of thing that ought to make you uncomfortable, like you ought not to be listening. You sort of don’t know whether to turn away or to keep listening, start taking notes, and then study the whole scene for a couple thousand years.

You are the Christ. And the church then and ever since affirms and explores the messianic identity of Jesus. The question for the Christian takes on an existential air for generations. “Who do you say that I am?” The not telling part, labeled by the tradition as “the Messianic Secret” leads to shelf after shelf in the library of gospel studies. Jesus and his Passion Predictions. No shortage of material there on how Jesus foreshadowed his death and resurrection throughout the gospels giving the reader a glimpse ahead while the disciples fall a step behind in terms of putting it all together. As for the matching rebukes between Jesus and Peter, it sparks the lasting fascination and character study of the Apostle Peter. The one Matthew’s Jesus refers to as the “Rock upon which I will build my church.”

The thickest part of the shortest gospel. An analysis of just these few verse, that brief private conversation offered up for hearing, the terminology that rises from the page like a first whiff of a bowl of soup, it sounds, it smells like the syllabus of an introduction to the New Testament class. It’s the kind of reading and study and reflection that Christians like us eat with a spoon. A Christian faith from the neck up kind of thing. And then, just then, just when you’ve sopped up all the knowledge you can from that iconic Caesarea Philippi moment, and you’ve studied and read and listened and talked, the whole nature of the conversation changes. It all shifts from overhearing to direct address. It turns out the only thing more uncomfortable than eavesdropping on the awkward encounter between Jesus and his disciples is when Jesus turns and includes you. Or as Mark puts it, “Jesus called the crowd with this disciples and said….” So easy to miss, Jesus shifting from the twelve and calling to the crowd. As all of Mark’s gospel begins the turn to Jerusalem, this is Jesus calling to the crowd, to the reader, to his followers, to you and me, Jesus calling to you, pointing to his own cross, and saying, “this is we’re it’s all headed, why don’t you come along?” Talk about uncomfortable.

“If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? Indeed, what can they give in return for their life? Those who are ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.” And he said to them, “truly I tell you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see that the kingdom of God has come with power.” Jesus looking at us and nodding toward Jerusalem says, “so…. here we go. While the church wishes Jesus was still just talking to Peter and the gospel could remain a safe and sanitized academic exercise (from the neck up).

Just in case the reader misses the subtle broadening of the conversation beyond just the disciples, and therefore misses the notion that Jesus’ teaching here is no longer a matter of just “them” and then misses the move that Jesus takes it beyond what one thinks to how one lives, about the whole self, just in case you missed all that, Jesus drops a little shame into the equation. The followers of Jesus being ashamed of him and his word. The Son of Man being ashamed of his followers when he comes into God’s glory. There can’t be much that digs at the heart of being human more than “shame”. The only thing worse than experiencing someone’s anger and wrath is being on the wrong side of their disappointment and shame. Shame used as verb, “shaming” has been elevated to an art form that reflects humanity’s dark side. Shame. Shame has garnered a certain popularity these days. A Ted Talk on shame now as 4.5 million views. Shame works on a person, eats at a person, it erodes the self. If sinfulness is at the top of the list of what defines the human condition, shame can’t be far beyond. So when you’re working on shame, dealing with shame, coping with shame, you’re working right at the center of your being.

So forgive me if I don’t interpret the word from Jesus here as a threat to a backsliding, under-performing, wayward Christian who then has to sit in the corner of eternity’s classroom with a ‘dunce cap” on holding a sign that says “slacker”. No. Neither do I take Jesus to being setting a low bar for the gospel here, a sort of “as long as you don’t embarrass me or cause be to be ashamed of you” approach to faith. Christ’s call to follow him is way beyond shame. My takeaway is that with the reference to shame, Jesus is announcing that the prospect of taking up one’s cross and following him has implications that ought to reverberate all the way to the core of your being, to the core of what it means to be human. Not just for the life of the mind, but for all of life. The gospel reaches to the most tender places of what it means to be human and what it means for God to be God and what it means for our relationship; humanity and God. It is Jesus, looking at us and nodding toward Jerusalem and saying, “whoever is in…..has to be ALL in….your whole self…bring it all.” The thickest part of the shortest gospel is Jesus call to discipleship; his call for you to follow, to follow with your whole life.

An article in the Washington Post on Tuesday was entitled “How a consumer driven culture threatens to destroy pastors”. Colleagues and friends were filling my mail box with the link. Lauren McFeaters tweeted it out this week. The article cites a recent study that names the percentage of pastors overwhelmed, who work too much, who worry for their family’s financial security, who feel like they can’t keep up. It also included numbers about more personal struggles of loneliness, depression, struggles in marriage. As I read and thought about it, it occurred to me that another study and another article could easily be written about “how a consumer driven culture threatens to destroy teachers, or accountants, or doctors, or spouses who are home raising their kids, or “fill in the blank”. Within the article the author makes a solid theological point, however. A model for church life and faith that is consumer based and consumer driven, a “come to us because we will worship better, lead it all, have all the programs you need, innovate, teach your children, care for you, and make it all convenient at the same time: is bound to fail and is antithetical to the teaching of Jesus.

Or as Jesus puts it, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.” Andrew Fosters Conner, a Presbyterian pastor down at Brown Memorial Church in Baltimore puts it this way in response to Jesus call to discipleship: Jesus makes it clear that “you should be prepared to give everything for the sake of God—nothing’s off limits. Everything is required. I can’t stand that about Jesus. It makes building a church in our times really hard. ‘Come to our church and we’ll call on you to give everything that you have for Jesus—money, time, work, relationships, life— all for Jesus. ‘Do we have programs?  Yeah, we have programs—it’s called, take up your cross. That’s the program.!’”

How about an article entitled “How Jesus with his call to discipleship threatens to destroy a consumer culture?” (#Mark8). How Jesus and his call to discipleship threatens a consumer driven, what’s in it for me, you can never have enough money, perfectionist, win at all cost, demonize the other, shaming is an art form, voting for what serves me best, charity begins at home, lack of trust, bitterness on the loose, fear the stranger, money is power, pull yourself up by your bootstraps, the poor are losers, and I have to be right all the time culture.

Jesus call to discipleship, his invitation to follow, it is for all of you. All of you. Your whole life. Which means when it comes to the world we live in, the culture that surrounds us, and the faith to which we have been called it will not, shall not, cannot be easy. When Jesus is calling to you, pointing to his own cross, and saying, “this is we’re it’s all headed, why don’t you come along?” Uncomfortable doesn’t begin to describe it.

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

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A Dead Past & A Future Born

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Ephesians 4:25-5:2
Lauren J. McFeaters
September 6, 2015

Eric Hobsbawm grew up as a Jewish orphan in Berlin and when he was 15 years old, he saw at a newsstand a headline that would change his life and would change the world: “Adolph Hitler Appointed Chancellor of Germany.”

Later in his life, Hobsbawm reflected on that moment and said,

“It was as if we were all on the Titanic

and everyone knew it was going to hit the iceberg.”

It was difficult, he said, to describe what it meant to live in a world that was simply

not expected to last.

It was like living between a dead past

and a future not yet born.[i]

We learned in those years about God’s call upon us.

God’s call upon us was not to stay silent

or slink into oblivion.

 

How often, this week, have we wanted to stay silent; to slink into oblivion? I know I have.

 

  • Perhaps it was that first glimpse of Aylan Kurdi, the 3-year-old refugee from Syria lying in the surf? We can still see his Velcro sneakers; his red shirt.
  • Was it the picture of Melvina Allen bruised and bleeding after her family; an African American family from Sacramento, who had been enjoying a reunion camping trip, only to be terrorized by nearby white supremacist campers turned violent?
  • Or was it the snapshot of a father lifting his child amid thousands of other refugees trying to board a train in Hungary and somehow making it to Austria or Germany. We saw a father’s anguish, his suffering, that he might not be able to pass his daughter onto others; even if he didn’t get on the train.
  • Or perhaps it was the photo of Friday’s funeral for Sherriff’s Deputy Darren Goforth. We witness the face of his grieving wife and their five-year-old son; that little boy trying to stand tall in a Captain America t-shirt. He was trying to stand bold as he walked with his mother into Second Baptist Church in Houston. And just as we’re ringing our hands and shaking our heads and crying out “What is happening to our world?” Paul comes by with a hymn from the ancient church and won’t let us be silent. You see once you’ve known the love of Christ you can never stay quiet can you? You can never slink into oblivion or pretend you don’t smell that fragrant offering of Christ Jesus’ sacrifice. At this point, some of you may be taking out your phones and checking the news. Or going onto Amazon for some kind of search for a moral primer in Christian living. Go ahead; take out those phones. I dare you. But you won’t find a list of do or don’ts that matches Paul’s because of course his list isn’t about a “do” or a “don’t.” Paul offers us the answer. The way to serve the Lord looks exactly like the Lord serves us:
    No lies. Speak truth.
    Be imitators of God and live in love.
    He doesn’t want our sympathy or pity. He wants our empathy; our kindness. He wants no less from each of us, marked with a seal of the Holy Spirit, to love the world like we’ve never loved before.
    Support one another.
    Be angry – go ahead, you can be angry, just don’t let the sun go down on your anger.
    And forget about stealing; plagiarizing.
    Speak only words that build up.
    Do not grieve the Holy Spirit.
    Forget all bitterness, wrath, anger,
    slander and malice,
    and anything that keeps you from being in relationship with other people.
    And with everything that you are:
    be kind to one another,
    forgiving one another,
    as God in Christ has forgiven you.    

God’s commandments. God’s revelations for living.

I recently spoke to a friend and I’m still shaking my head. They say they were really tired of Paul. Why, I asked? Well you know, they said: he’s so judgy, so preachy, so annoying, so against women. I don’t come to church to have a finger pointed in my face; and anyway Paul’s not a very nice person.

Mmmmm.

You know those times in your life when you think of the perfect and brilliant thing to say (after something like this) and it comes about four days later?

That’s what happened to me and in this instance I remembered something Barbara Brown Taylor said about Paul: niceness does not concern Paul at all. He does not give two rips about being nice. No one ever taught him that if you cannot say something nice you should not say anything at all. Paul knows when we get together, we discover big differences and we suffer very real discord. For Paul, it is not possible to love one another without knowing that you can also be furious with one another. And when anger comes, we are not to shut up and slink into oblivion; we are to speak up, being honest but also kind.[ii]

It takes practice.

It’s one of the most difficult lessons of the Christian life. It’s one of the most difficult lessons I teach students in the ordination process and it’s one of the most challenging spiritual disciplines for church folk. And it’s this:

We are never called to be nice. We are always called to be kind. There is a deep theological difference.

  • Nice is shallow; kindness bares your souls.
  • Nice is cautious; kindness has the courage to speak the truth in love.
  • Nice takes zero imagination. Kindness is creative and resourceful.
  • Nice lets us look away from the front page of the paper and go right to the comics. Kindness takes the feelings we have when we look at that child churned up in the surf. Kindness breaks our hearts and gives us a place in the world to say, “No More!”
  • Nice is a perpetual Stepford-spouse smile. Kindness gives us wrinkles, because it shapes us and it mends us and it reforms us into something new every day.

Frederick Buechner says it best: If you tell me living as a Christian is a kind of nice thing that happens to you once and for all like some kind of spiritual plastic surgery, I say “go to,” “go to,” you’re either pulling the wool over your own eyes or trying to pull it over mine.

Every morning, Buechner says, we should wake up in bed and ask ourselves this:

“Can I believe it all again today?”

No, better still, don’t ask it till after you’ve read The New York Times, till after you’ve studied that daily record of the world’s brokenness and corruption, which should always stand side right next to your Bible.

Then ask yourself if you can believe in the Gospel of Jesus Christ again for this particular day. If your answer is always Yes, then you probably don’t know what believing is all about.

At least five times out of ten, he says, the answer should be No because the No is as important as the Yes, maybe more so.

The No is what proves you’re human in case you should ever doubt it.

And then if some morning the answer happens to be really Yes!, it should be a Yes that’s choked with confession and tears and……great laughter. [iii]

Yes!

You see, in Christ, the past; it’s dead and the future is born. He is our past. He is our present. He is our future.

  • We, he says, are members of one another.
  • We do not make room for evil.
  • We share with the needy.
  • We put bitterness and anger.
  • We are tenderhearted and forgiving.
  • The very things Christ has been for us.

    And my friends, when you have experienced the Living and Loving God, you can never keep quiet; you never slink into oblivion; never shy away from suffering that tears you apart; because you know in the depths of your soul you are here to serve the One who has created you. You are here to be responsible for the world.
    And by the way, what would we ever do without one another?

    We love one another.
    What would we ever do without one another?
    Mmm.I don’t even want to think about it.
    What would we ever do without one another?
    I don’t even want to think about it.

ENDNOTES

[i] Thomas G. Long. Sermon: Called By Name. Broadcast on Day One from Alliance for Christian Media, Chicago, IL, January 11, 2004.

[ii] Barbara Brown Taylor. God in Pain: Teaching Sermons on Suffering. Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1998, 33.

[iii] Frederick Buechner. The Return of Ansel Gibbs. New York: Knopf, 1958.

 

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

Sermon Not Required

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David A. Davis
James 1:17-27
August 30, 2015

A long time ago I was meeting with a couple to plan their wedding. They were a bit older and it wasn’t their first marriage. They were very clear on their intentions for the ceremony and expressed some firm opinions. “It’s just going to us and our children” she said. “No flowers, no processing, no photographer, none of that.” They told me if they could all fit, they just assume get married there in my office instead of the sanctuary. Too big. Too formal. “Now for the service” he said, “you won’t have to preach or anything. I just want you to read from James.” And he handed me a list of verses, all from James. He smiled at me and said, “I know there’s not much Jesus in James, but there’s a whole lot of gospel.”

Just this summer I sat with a family to plan a memorial service. As we came to the specifics about remembrances and music and scripture, they had come prepared and had all the choices ready. As for scripture, one of the readings was from James. The rationale, the explanation for the James choice as it related to the family member who had died, as one of them put it, “Well, she wasn’t all that religious but she lived a life of service. She lived the gospel.”

James at a wedding. James at a funeral. James at a whole lot of places in between. With no sermon required (except today!)

“Do not be deceived, my beloved. Every generous act of giving, with every perfect gift, is from above, come down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow due to change. In fulfillment of God’s own purpose, God gave us birth by the word of truth, so that we could become a kind of first fruits of God’s creatures.”

James at a baptism. The community of faith gathered not just here at the fount but gathered at the edge of God’s flowing river of promise. Celebrating life and birth and rebirth. As we dip again and again into the life-giving and life-sustaining waters of God’s grace. It is a sacramental pause of gratitude. Yes, this morning for Abrianna. Thanks be to God. But for all of us. To remember your baptism, to sense that mark, to know you have been sealed in God’s love, it is before all else, an act of gratitude to God. “I’ve been baptized”! It’s a synonym for “thanks be to God!” Here according to James, to be one of God’s first fruits, to be first among all that God created, it is to live a life defined by gratitude and generosity. Every generous act of giving, every perfect gift it comes from above and multiplies through the first fruits of those born by the word of truth. A baptismal prayer for Abrianna, for all the baptized, that God would be made known in the world through the gratitude and generosity of your life.

“You must understand this, my beloved; let everyone be quick to listen, slow to speak, slow to anger, for your anger does not produce God’s righteousness. Therefore rid yourselves of all sordidness and rank growth of wickedness, and welcome with meekness the implanted word that has the power to save your souls.” Quick to listen. Slow to speak. Slow to anger. James for a presidential election. James, not just for candidates, and pundits but for you and me. James for times like now when the decibel level of the rhetoric in the public square includes such hatred and disdain for the other, when there is such a sordidness to the way people talk about those who they disagree with, when what should be a robust debate about complex international policies and a treaty is reduced to name calling and questioning someone’s heritage, when the presidential election is still more than year away and the absence of civility will continue to tramp on any hope for the common good, as “trickle down” becomes less of an economic descriptor and more of an apt phrase for the nastiness that can so infect and spread among people, not just those who act out in horrible ways, not just in those who make the news, but in people just like us.

James, no not just for politics and the world out there. It’s not that easy. Only a few weeks ago I was standing at a site in Northern Israel, in the Golan Heights, not far from Lebanon and Syria. It is the site that tradition names as Caesarea Philippi; that location described in the gospels where Jesus asked the disciples “who do people say that the Son of Man is?” and “Who do you say that I am?’ There are also springs there coming out of Mt. Hermon that flow into the Jordan River and there is archeological evidence of pagan worship. It’s a multi-faith site and on the day we were there it was very crowded with Christians, and Jews, and Muslims. There was a group of big strapping in shape college kids from the U.S. traveling with the Fellowship of Christian athletes. There were several groups of Jewish college kids from the U.S. traveling with Israel’s birthright program. A few groups of Muslim families were picnicking along the water.

As I was waited my turn next to some steps that led up to one of the informational signs in front of some ruins, another college group from the U.S. was walking by. A few young men from that group stopped right next to me, sort of fell out of line from their group and they were arguing. I mean they were really arguing. It was about something their trip leader had said just moments before as he taught from scripture. It had to do with the gospels and the Apostle Paul and the inerrancy of scripture. One of the guys was really revved up and they were going at it for all to hear. I took my turn in front of the sign, worked my way around to a dozen more or so around the site and when I came back to those same steps, they were still there arguing in full voice about scripture.

It was not lost, the irony. Those college kids may never get back there again, there in front of God and Christians and Jews and Muslims, at the site where Jesus asked the disciples “Who do you say that I am”, all those guys could do was argue. You would be happy to know, as my kids are always happy to know, I didn’t say anything. Though, in hindsight, maybe I could have said, “guys, guys…James.” James for the church. Quick to listen. Slow to speak. Slow to anger. For your anger does not produce the righteousness of God.

“Be doers of the word, and not merely hearers who deceive themselves. For if any are hearers of the word and not doers, they are like those who look at themselves in a mirror; for they look at themselves and, on going away, immediately forget what they were like. But those who look into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and persevere, being not hearers who forget but doers who act – they will be blessed in their doing.”

James for dropping a child off at college. James for starting life together on a campus. James for a new school year. Doers of the word. Not forgetting. Persevering. Blessed in the doing. It sort of sounds like a version of parent launching a child and saying, “Remember who you are.” Or the saintly grandmother rocking a child and whispering “now you, you never forget where you belong.” Or the preacher standing before her congregation week after week just before giving the benediction, “Remember who you are, whose you are, and to whom you belong.” Not a hearer who forgets but a doer who acts.

It won’t be a surprise to you but in my job I don’t travel all that much. When I do travel I often find myself thinking about the challenges and for those who travel all the time. Yes, I watch with envy as everyone else gets on the plane and I am in group 72. But then I remind myself how wearing it all must be, all the travel. Part of the misery, part of it that I never hear any one talk about is the tyranny and oppression and insult of the hotel room mirrors. They are big and they are everywhere. No one has mirrors like that at home because it is like looking at yourself first thing in the morning on a high definition screen. Those mirrors scrape at your confidence and sense of self, bit by bit. If it is only you and a mirror, maybe its better to forget!

When it comes to being a faithful doer of the word, if left to yourself, I’m not sure a mirror and the law of liberty is enough. Any confidence in doing, in living the faith, it so easy droops and sags and dries up. Philosophers write about how you can’t really have a sense of self without a sense of the other. You can see a part of me that I cannot see. My sense of self is not fully complete and you help me to see all of me and I help you to see all of you. One philosopher calls it “the surplus of seeing”. The “whole of me” requires a surplus of seeing. In other words, a mirror is not enough. Or in terms of the life of faith, for doers of the word, a mirror and a bible is not enough. There has to be this surplus of seeing, there has to be others. Doers of the word, it requires that sense of others. That’s why doers of the word go to church. Not because their all that religious but because it is a way to see., to more fully see, to better know your whole self as child of God. The congregation, the community, the body of Christ is the mirror. Or as Tara Woodard Lehman put it in an essay on the Huffington Post, “I go to church because I have a really bad memory…I forget who I am and who God is.” By the grace of God, we’re not called to look in the mirror by ourselves.

One of the occupational hazards of ministry is that when you meet people anytime, anywhere, there is an almost compulsive need to share all that they think is wrong with religion, with the church, with the congregation they just left, with clergy. Folks forget that their aren’t many who understand the underbelly of church life better than pastors. Instead of just listening and nodding my head, maybe next time I ought to pull out a mirror. The people of God will always need prophets, saints, and martyrs who teach, challenge, and lead us. Those names recorded in scripture and in history. But along this journey of faith to which we have been called, when I look in the mirror, when my sense of self is complete with a surplus of seeing, what I see around me in the reflection is a sea of faces whose names are known only to me, and some of them to you, the faces of those who have been and are and will be blessed in their…doing.

“If any think they are religious, and do not bridle their tongues but deceive their hearts, their religion is worthless. Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to care for orphans and widows in their distress, and to keep oneself unstained by the world.”

Oh, yes. No sermon required.

© 2015, Property of Nassau Presbyterian Church
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Finally

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Ephesians 6:10-18
Rev. David A. Davis
August 23, 2015

Finally. As when you are sitting in a lecture hall, one of those college amphitheater rooms, listening to the driest of lectures and trying your best to stay awake. The speaker organized the presentation by numbering the main points and you started to lose focus somewhere after you heard, “Fifthly”. But your ears perk up and you take a few deep breathes and you find yourself able to type some notes again after you hear the person with the lapel microphone at the podium say “and….finally”.

Finally. Like when you find yourself on a jam-packed plane sitting on the tarmac at Newark Airport after a 3 hour flight waiting for a gate to open up. It was only 15 minutes but it seemed like forever, and then there is the deplaning ritual yet to come. As you step off the plane and hit the jet way, you don’t have to say anything. It’s your body that speaks as the blood makes it way back down your legs. Finally.

During one of those long hugs, at the airport, at the train station, in the driveway, when the loved one comes home after a semester abroad, a stint overseas with the military, just a long business trip. That embrace as tight as the one from the “Prodigal’s Father” and someone whispers “Finally”! Or the kind of shout that comes as the fireworks on July 4th reach their bombastic, colorful conclusions, “Finale, finally”, it’s all the same. Or when the use of the term and the tone with which it is spoken connotes attitude elevated to an art from. People use a few different words like “Finally” but the message is the same: “I’m just about done with you”. When heard this way the words sound the same: “Seriously….Whatev…..Finally”!

The Apostle Paul, Ephesians the 6th chapter, v.10. “Finally…Finally….Finally….be strong in the Lord” Perhaps better, “be made strong or keep being made strong… Finally, keep being made strong in the Lord. Paul and his finally. We’re here almost to the end of the epistle. So one could rightly conclude Paul’s use of the term is not unlike a professor’s organizational cue for a lecture; “we’re coming to the end now”. Though in Paul’s letter-form, the ending is most signified by his parting words of love and grace. Here in Ephesians, “Peace be to the whole community.” Maybe its better understood as the conclusion to just these last few chapters. After Paul addresses wives, husbands, children, fathers, mothers, masters, slaves, what the scholarly tradition labels and contextualizes as “Paul’s household codes”. Here in Ephesians as Paul signals the end of his domestic instruction, he writes, “finally”.

But it would not be far off base to interpret Paul’s “finally” as the tag for his finale, his rousing finish. After such memorable sections; God has put all things under Christ’s feet and has made him the head over all things for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all (1:22)…..For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing it is the gift of God….So, then you are no longer strangers and aliens but you are citizens with the saints and also members of the household of God….For this reason I bow my knees before the Father from whom every family in heaven and hear takes its name….There is one body and one Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope of your calling, one Lord, on faith, one baptism, on God and Father of all” And of course Paul on the gifts of the Spirit; all of them equipping the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ. After all that, all those highlights, all those crescendo’s, finally, one last great big splash, the Apostle Paul and the whole armor of God!! Belt, breastplate, shoes, shield, helmet, sword. The whole armor of God. Finale!!

Many New Testament commentators, weekly preachers, and devotional writers, they spend quite a bit of time with the armor metaphor. One suggests providing a labeled sketch in the worship bulletin of a roman soldier all decked out in battle attire. Another catalogues the armor to such degree that it seemed important to note which part of the armor Paul left out (something to do with shins). Many point out that all of the armor pieces are defensive except for the sword and the sword is the Word of God. There seems to be more than a bit of fascination with Paul’s extended metaphor of the whole armor of God.

Early this summer when the Nassau Church group was in the Holy Land, we learned the archeological term “tel”. As we visited some tells, you could see how they were strikingly visible mounds, hills, that rise from the earth over centuries. Tels are formed as one civilization is established over the remains of another. One place we visited archeologists have been able to identify 26 layers going back thousands of years. To say it is one civilization established over another is a bit of historically cleansed understatement. More accurately put, it is one civilization wiping out another with a violence, a destruction, a complete leveling, that over time reduces an entire people and decades of their existence to an inch or two in the earth. A tel is an archeologist’s dream perhaps, but also a lasting witness to humanity’s unquenchable thirst for violence, victory, and vengeance.

As we would be driving all around the region of Israel and the West Bank in our tour bus, Shane Berg would sometimes take the microphone and read to us from the ancient historian Josephus. Josephus offers vivid descriptions of the land and the geography from a resource of antiquity other than the bible. But to listen to Josephus read is to hear graphic accounts of violence that would rank up there with the latest post-apocalyptic movie out there today: blood, death, war. And any study of the city of Jerusalem itself is a chilling reminder that the potential for military conflict in that region now is a never ending lesson in history repeating itself, pretty much forever.

Interestingly then, even a rather obsessive treatment of Paul’s description of the whole armor of God does not begin to give Paul enough credit for his literary, poetic, metaphoric, creative use of the whole armor of God. It really doesn’t do justice to the contrast Paul makes between “the cosmic powers of this present darkness” and the ways of God. To make a drawing of a Roman soldier and label it like a kind of GI Joe spiritual action figure does little to draw out the Apostle’s Paul’s indictment of humankind’s lust for earthly power, and the idolatry of military might, and the penchant for evil. Belt, breastplate, shoes, shield, helmet, sword. Paul’s not offering an inventory. For with every phrase, every piece, he offers the coupling of truth, righteousness, peace, faith, salvation, prayer. He piles one twist, one paradox, one oxymoron upon another in way that just takes his point to the nth degree, hammers it home. Which is to say, in every conceivable way, the strength and power of God is in contrast to, works differently than, cannot even be compared to the forces at work in the world that gnaw away at and over time come to define the human condition. It is Paul’s ultimate description of how life in the kingdom of God ought to stand part from and forever contrast the world’s way. Finally.

The Apostle Paul’s “finally”. It’s where he points to the compelling, overarching existential, divine difference. In the Hebrew prophet Isaiah it is the peaceable kingdom. In Paul it is the whole armor of God. And the divine/human distinction, the path of the Spirit vs the path of the flesh, the way of God over and against the way of the world, for Paul it could not be more striking, more lasting, more clear. Truth, righteousness, peace, faith, salvation, prayer. Which is why those blasted household codes ought to be so frustrating to us as a people of the Word. There is nothing about slavery that fits in Paul’s “finally”, that fits in God’s kingdom of truth, righteousness, peace, faith, salvation, and prayer. And no amount of historical contextualizing ought to make the church somehow feel better about it; especially when pro-slavery, anti-abolitionist preachers and churches and politicians used those verses all the time to justify their arguments and themselves in our nation’s history. Given the current conversation on race and the tensions that are again on the rise, the church, a prophetic church, a church that seeks a voice in the public square, a church committed to racial justice ought to take the risk and be willing to say that Paul just got it wrong. Paul on slavery, it was inconsistent with his own sense of God’s way. Every time the church gives Paul a pass that is labeled “historic context”, it invites someone inspired by literalism or far-right Christianity or hateful teaching that abuses the gospel, it invites someone to try to turn back the clock….or worse.

The belt of truth. The breastplate of righteousness. Shoes that proclaim the gospel of peace. The shield of faith. The helmet of salvation. The words of the Spirit which is the word of God. Prayer at all times. Notice too, how standing firm is the theme. Stand against. Stand firm. Stand therefore. Putting on the armor of God is a call to perseverance. Words like victory and conquering don’t appear. Victory for Paul? That’s resurrection; God’s victory in Jesus Christ over death ( I Cor). Conquering? We are more than conquerors through him who loved us.” (Romans 8). To immerse oneself in this promise, to put on the whole armor of God, to keep being strong in the Lord and in the strength of God’s power, it is for the purpose of standing firm in and for God’s kingdom, it is in order to persevere amid all that the world’s present darkness has to offer and to witness to, to work toward the world that God intends. The whole armor of God. Standing firm. It’s more than waiting for God’s promise of eternal life yet to come, it is a craving for an abundant life not just for you but for all.

One scholar translates the word “finally” in v. 10 as “for the rest”. Rather than “finally, be strong in the Lord”, he suggests, “For the rest, be made strong in the Lord. For the remainder, for everything else, keep being made strong in the Lord and in the strength of God’s power. It makes the whole armor of God sound a lot less like a command and a whole lot more of a promise. For all the rest, for everything else, for all that is in your life out there, for everything you face in the world, for the rest, allow the strength of God’s power to go with you, to be with you, to help you to stand. To stand. To persevere. To get to tomorrow and the next day and day after still standing for the way of God.

© 2015, Property of Nassau Presbyterian Church
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Second Wind

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Luke 9:10-13a
Rev. Dr. Robert Dykstra
July 19, 2015

“To be ashamed of oneself is to be in a state of total conviction,” writes British psychoanalyst Adam Phillips (Equals, New York: Basic Books, 2002, p. 94). While religious communities often press their members for states of greater conviction, the experience of achieving total conviction in shame might give us pause in this.

The conviction in shame involves the total self, even one’s body self; it floods the self, raises one’s blood pressure, flushes the skin, makes us want to avert our eyes, hide our face, sink into the floor, imprisoned in humiliation and self-loathing. Total conviction may not be all it’s cracked up to be, not exactly a goal the religiously predisposed may want to pursue. We get a little nervous, and rightly so, when we see someone acting out of total conviction, religious or otherwise, in the news these days, and more often than not, I’m pretty sure, such acting out stems from an accumulation of personal or communal shame.

Perhaps we religious types, inclined to states of greater conviction, are more susceptible to shame than others, but everyone knows shame, everyone has felt it. Your earliest memories of childhood are ones likely infused with shame (Note to self: Why wouldn’t my kindergarten teacher allow me to choose the color of finger paint I preferred? I still don’t get it). Shame is sticky that way. It’s hard to peel it off once you get wrapped up in it. Effective shame-removal products or strategies are hard to come by, few and far between, though we keep searching them out: whether by losing ourselves in shopping, in electronic screens, in addictions of every flavor, maybe in writing sermons, even running for President in Donald Trump’s case – all of these incapable of ridding us of shame’s dreadful effects.

The experience of shame threatens our sense of hope for the future, my colleague Donald Capps suggests, threatens our sense that the future holds something worth looking forward to. Shame experiences always come unexpected; they surprise us, catch us off-guard and make painfully clear, Capps observes, “that what [we] wanted [to happen] did not happen, in spite of the fact that [we] fully expected [it] to.” Thus in shame we discover that not just our hopes but that we ourselves were misguided, “that we have been,” Capps says, “the victims of self-illusion” (Donald Capps, Agents of Hope: A Pastoral Psychology, Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1995, p. 123). Shame is the devastating conviction that our hopes were in vain, our expectations, our very selves deluded and untrustworthy.

Someone ran into our car while it was parked on the seminary campus last week. When I mentioned to the guy at the repair shop that whoever did it hadn’t left a note, he replied, “No one ever leaves a note anymore.” I felt a minor twinge of shame, I think it was, that I didn’t know this, that my expectations, my hopes for the world (or, at least, for the seminary community) were deluded. While sometimes the total conviction of shame washes over us in a big way, in a tsunami-like wave, as for the entire nation in the September 11 attacks, even little micro-threats to hope–learning that people don’t leave notes anymore–can add up over time.

And increasing doubts about a hoped-for future translate into increasing anxiety–less future means more anxiety–another familiar state of total conviction.

*******

All kinds of people, apparently thousands of them in our text today, a set-up for the miracle of the feeding of the five thousand, are flocking to Jesus–and “flocking” may be the best way to put it, given that we are told in the Gospel of Mark’s version of these events that Jesus had compassion on seeing them “because they were like sheep without a shepherd” (Mark 6:34). An accumulation over time of little microbot attacks of personal shame, maybe accompanied by tsunami-like waves of national shame at being an occupied territory, diminishing hopes, their anxiety about the future, and ways these experiences of mind and soul had come negatively to impact the health even of their physical bodies: something like all of this propels them by the thousands to Jesus, as though they sense in him some alternative means of freeing themselves from the stickiness of shame and anxiety, from their states of total conviction.

  *******

In his book Why Teach? In Defense of a Real Education, Mark Edmundson, a literature professor at the University of Virginia, comments on the frenetic activities of his undergraduate students, who jet around the globe to accumulate exotic experiences, a lifestyle pace he attributes to anxiety in the wake of the “near-American Apocalypse” of September 11. “No one,” he says, believes that the whole [American] edifice is likely to topple down around us soon. But everyone now lives with the knowledge that today, tomorrow, next week, we can suffer an event that will change everything drastically . . . . Tomorrow the deck may be shuffled and recut by the devil’s hand. So what shall we do now?

The answer of Edmundson’s students, it strikes him, appears to be: Live, live, before the bombs go off in San Francisco or the water goes vile in New York . . . . On that bad day there will be, at the very least, the start of a comprehensive closing down. There will be no more free travel, no more easy money, and much less loose talk. . . . There’s a humane hunger to my students’ hustle for more life–but I think it’s possible that down below bubbles a fear. Do it now, for later may be too late. (Edmundson, Why Teach? In Defense of a Real Education, New York: Bloomsbury, 2013, pp. 34-35)

The Times reported a few weeks ago that university counseling centers are seeing sharp increases in the number of students seeking help–a 15% rise last year at the University of Central Florida, as one example, where supply closets are being converted into therapist’s offices. “Anxiety has surpassed depression as the most common mental health diagnosis among college students,” The Times notes, though depression is holding its own just fine (Jan Hoffman, “Anxious Students Strain College Mental Health Centers,” New York Times, May 27, 2015). These developments are mirrored by students in the seminary across the street, as no doubt at the schoolhouse in this church’s back lot. Who says young people today are incapable of conviction? And it’s not as if they and the rest of us don’t have reason to be anxious. They do, and we are. No one, besides the occasional terrorist, leaves a note anymore.

 *******

 Jesus had compassion for them, these anxious throngs, Mark writes, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. Jesus welcomed them, is the way Luke puts it, even though Jesus had hoped for a time to get away from it all, to get away from those very crowds. “On their return [from the mission of the twelve] the apostles told Jesus all they had done. He took them with him and withdrew privately to a city called Bethsaida. When the crowds found out about it, they followed him; and he welcomed them, and spoke to them about the kingdom of God, and healed those who needed to be cured.”

Jesus’ disciples have just been promoted here to “apostles,” meaning “the sent ones,” on returning from their first solo mission trip, which appears to have gone very well. They’re excited, eager to tell him all about it, the youth group just back from Montreat, from backpacking in British Columbia. And Jesus wants to hear about it. He is the kind of leader who cares to hear about what they’ve seen and accomplished, who wants to listen to them, who takes pride in them and their gifts.

To do this, to give them and their holy exploits full attention, he proposes to take them on a retreat, wants to get away. Like men in a bar after the big game or like superhero fans at Comic-Con, he wants to hear all about it, wants a play-by-play, a blow-by-blow, a frame-by-frame, wants to know how it all went down. A small act of kindness, a teacher who pulls them aside, who gives them space, who attends with interest, who wants to know.

But you remember that saying about our best-laid plans? The retreat comes crashing to a halt even before it begins when the crowds get wind of it and rush to get there before him, these sheep without a shepherd, so great their weariness and need. Jesus responds to this interruption not in the way I would likely respond, not by rolling his eyes but by rolling up his sleeves, not by wondering why a guy can’t catch a break but instead by digging down deep and catching a second wind.

“He had compassion for them,” Mark writes; “He welcomed them,” Luke says, “and spoke to them about the kingdom of God, and healed those who needed to be cured,” the exact same things, it’s worth pointing out, that he instructed his disciples to do as he sent them on the mission of the twelve: welcoming the anxious, speaking of the kingdom of God, healing those who need to be cured is what he wanted his followers to do, too. And on their return they couldn’t wait to tell him that they actually did, that they actually could.

This compassion, this welcome, this empathy, this grace when we least expect it, is the only remedy of which I’m aware for our states of total conviction, for our hopelessness, anxiety, and shame: a face that shines upon us in our moment of vulnerability and need.

It’s something that can be taught, something that can be learned. Jesus wants to teach us how.

******* 

Two days after the murders of nine parishioners at a Bible study at Emmanuel AME Church in Charleston last month, family members of the victims lined up in a courtroom to confront the man who killed their loved ones. Again and again in this instance the message they delivered to Dylann Roof was the completely unexpected “Forgive You”: “‘You took something very precious away from me,’ said Nadine Collier, daughter of 70-year-old Ethel Lance, her voice rising in anguish. ‘I will never talk to her ever again. I will never be able to hold her again. But I forgive you. And have mercy on your soul’” (Nikita Stewart and Richard Pérez-Peña, “In Charleston, Raw Emotion at Hearing Suspect in Church Shooting,” New York Times, June 19, 2015). Over and over again compassion and welcome when least expected, and we who were watching in awe and disbelief wondered if the world was about to turn.

Then just two days after that, on a Sunday when I expected that church’s doors to be bolted shut, maybe forever (“They may have to tear down the church,” I’d thought, “like Newtown’s elementary school, and we would understand if they did”), Emmanuel’s faithful instead flung them wide and poured through by the hundreds, nearly two thousand, filling every pew, overflowing even into the basement room where the shootings occurred four days before, and into the public square, with the rest of us watching those faithful dig down deep to discover a second wind of compassion and welcome as the only possible antidote for our terrible states of total conviction. And the world was about to turn.

*******

In an essay entitled “The Importance of Individuals,” published in 1897, William James (James, The Will to Believe and Other Essays in Popular Philosphy, New York: Dover Publications, 1956, p. 261), America’s first and arguably still greatest psychologist, makes a case for the importance of our having heroes whom we strive to emulate, but also therefore for the necessity of choosing wisely just who our heroes will be. It matters, it makes a concrete difference in terms of what we value and how we order our lives, what heroes we choose. He writes, “What animal, domestic or wild, will call it a matter of no moment that scarce a word of sympathy with brutes should have survived from the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth?”

I understand all too well how naive it seems to suggest, as I am trying to suggest, that compassion and welcome could ever suffice in response to the devastating shame and increasing anxiety we experience in this era of near-American apocalypse. How could empathy and grace ever be enough to counter our terrible states, our terrorist states, of total conviction?

But if our hero is Jesus of Nazareth, of whom “scarce a word of sympathy with brutes should have survived,” if Jesus is Lord, then compassion and welcome is our secret superhero power, then empathy and grace the remedy entrusted to us.

*******

A former seminary student of mine is the son of a tall-steeple Baptist minister from a southern state. The student was open about being a gay man on our campus at a time not long ago when such candor was not common. He had come out to his conservative parents as a teenager many years earlier. Learning of his sexual orientation was not something they had wanted to hear from him. In the initial aftermath of his revelation, both sides maintained radio silence concerning his sexuality. Eventually, however, Tim decided to make a point of bringing up his orientation, to his parents’ discomfort, each time he went home for holidays or school breaks. He refused to allow them to ignore this important part of who he was.

His parents remained entrenched in their opposition long past his graduation from the seminary and for years into his first professional position as a non-ordained but openly gay youth minister in a working-class Presbyterian congregation, itself not entirely supportive of gay rights, in urban New England. Meanwhile, he began the process of preparing for a day when he might be allowed to be ordained as an “out” gay minister in the Presbyterian Church (USA).

That day finally arrived, as Presbyterians voted in 2012 to allow for the ordination of gay and lesbian persons. Tim asked his minister father not only to attend his ordination but, if he were willing, to offer the customary scriptural “charge” to the newly ordained minister. To his surprise, his father agreed. Likewise, though such an ordination strained the belief system of the little congregation with which Tim had been working, parishioners nonetheless rallied in their historic role and witness in hosting the ceremony.

A year or so after the fact, I received an email from Tim telling of his ordination service. He said, “My father gave the charge, which was truly an amazing moment. For me, it would have been enough if he had simply read the phone book, but he gave a beautiful charge and thanked the church for ‘being there for our son when our family was not.’ Not an accolade the [Presbyterian] church often receives,” Tim said, “but there were a lot of tears” (personal correspondence, May 6, 2013; see Robert C. Dykstra, “Zombie Alleluias: Learning to Live in the Space Between Worlds,” Pastoral Psychology, 63:5/6, December 2014, pp. 611-624).

Compassion and welcome when we least expect it, the only sure remedy for our anxiety and shame, and the world is about to turn.

*******

When Jesus saw the crowds, “he welcomed them, and spoke to them about the kingdom of God, and healed those who needed to be cured.” That’s it. That’s all. That’s enough. That’s who Jesus is. That’s what he does. That’s what he taught his disciples to do, what I’m wagering he wants us to do. A face to shine upon us, we sheep without a shepherd; our faces to shine upon others’, our modest superpower antidote for anxiety and shame.

© 2015, Property of Rev. Dr. Robert Dykstra
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Outbursts Happen

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II Samuel 6:1-15
Rev. David A. Davis
July 12, 2015

Let me tell you this story again. If you had never heard of Uzzah before this morning, my guess is that you will remember his name now. This is one of those odd, memorable bible stories that sort of sticks with you. Some of you will remember that a few weeks ago we read David’s ode to Saul and Jonathan that comes at the beginning of II Samuel after David had been told of their death in battle. In the chapters to follow David becomes king of Judah and then king of all of Israel and Judah. With the desire to reestablish Jerusalem as the military stronghold and the political and religious center of the kingdom, David sets out to get the ark of God that been in the hands of the Philistines and return it to Jerusalem. With 30,000 of the chosen men of Israel, plus all the people, David went to get the ark. The ark was in the house of Abinadab up on a hill. As the bible tells it David brought a new cart to carry the ark and Abinadab’s sons were driving the cart; Ahio and Uzzah. Driving the cart, leading the team of oxen pulling the cart that was bearing the Ark of God. David and the people were dancing, singing, praising the Lord with every instrument you could imagine. It must been a Psalm 150 kind of moment.

When the ark parade comes to a threshing floor, a presumably a flat, smooth area, something unexpected, something tragic happens. The oxen shook, the cart must have dipped, and the ark start to tip. Uzzah, not wanting the ark to fall, reaches out his hand and touches the ark. Right then and there, according to II Samuel, the anger of the Lord was kindled against poor Uzzah and God struck him dead because he reached out his hand to the ark. The Lord wasn’t the only one angry. David was angry at God because the Lord had burst forth with an outburst upon Uzzah. In traditional biblical fashion, David named the place; Perez-Uzzah. Bursting out against Uzzah was now the name of the place.

In the aftermath of Uzzah’s death, David was scared to continue with the ark, to take the ark to Jerusalem. David left the ark at Obed-edom’s to see how he would fair with it for a while. Things went well there at Obed-edoms house for three months. So David went ahead with the ark moving plan and David and all of Israel brought the ark of the Lord into Jerusalem with shouting and with dancing and with the sound of the trumpet, and apparently without incident. History and tradition and rabbis and preachers and readers and you and I, we remember this story for David dancing pretty much naked before the ark of God, skipping over the whole Uzzah part. But I don’t think we should forget Uzzah. I bet most you will remember Uzzah. The poor guy who reach up to stop the ark from falling and died right then and there.

How about a word for Uzzah? A sigh, maybe. A shake of the head. It’s a bizarre happening recorded there on the sacred page. You come upon this sort of thing every now and then in scripture, you know? Here someone will say, “oh that’s just the Old Testament. “That’s how it is in the Old Testament”, someone says with a shrug of the shoulders and a wave of the hand. But the bible tells of Annanias and Sapphira, they sold property and didn’t share all the money with the community of faith. They lied about it. They died. That’s in the New Testatment. The Book of Acts. The assigned Old Testament text for this Sunday, the Revised Common Lectionary is II Samuel 6:1-5 and v12b-19. A lectionary cut that cuts Uzzah right out of the story.

How about a word for Uzzah? The bible mentions Ahio and Abinadab, his brother and father. But what about Uzzah’s mother? If you’re on Uzzah’s side of the family, the story really stinks. Relatives in grief. People in shock. All because the man reached out his hand to the ark of God. Because it was starting to tip. Was it that bad? Would it have been better to let it fall to the ground? Maybe all 30,000 would have died then? Did Uzzah really deserve that?

I guess his time was up? There is so shortage of such philosophy that rains down in the aftermath of a tragedy. When your time is up. It must have been God’s will. You can’t tempt fate. His number was up. Stuff happens. God must have need and ark bearer up in heaven. All things work for good for those who love the Lord. He’s in a better place. I wonder if someone offered such wisdom to Uzzah’s mother that day somewhere outside of Jerusalem.

Everyone has been trying to understand what happened to Uzzah pretty much from the moment he died. The writer of II Samuel comes right out with it, “God struck him there because he reached out his hand to the ark”. David himself questioned, was angry at God. That naming of the place. Bursting against Uzzah. That’s David saying this is where it happened Lord, This where you took him. It must have been so easy back then, for the writer of II Samuel. So black and white when it came to the rules. The rules about the ark, how to build it, how to carry it, how NOT to touch it. The rules intended to honor God’s holiness. You break the rule, here comes God’s wrath. You touch the ark, God will strike you dead. You touch me, I’ll kill ya. So long, Uzzah!

But I keep thinking about Uzzah’s mother. On our trip to Israel and Palestine, we met one night with two women from a group called “Parents Circle”. It is a support group for both Jewish families and Palestinian families who have lost loved ones to the violence, the ongoing conflict. It’s a group that advocates for peace and the end to violence. It’s a group Nassau Church has supported for about ten years through our mission and outreach budget. The two women who spent a couple of hours; one was a Jewish mother whose son was killed by a Palestinian sniper. The other was a Muslim woman whose husband was killed by Israeli soldiers as he tried to maneuver out of a traffic jam. It has been years since their loved ones died yet their grief, their suffering, it was palpable that night last month. They know what it is like to have history and tradition edit out your story, trying to make things so black and white.

People like us, readers and interpreters of scripture, have been trying to understand and explain what happened to Uzzah for a really long time. Some blame it on how David chose to carry the ark. It was being carried in a cart pulled by oxen. The instructions however, dictate that the ark was supposed to be honored and carried by human means. Ark bearers with poles on the shoulder, carrying it like king would be carried in the ancient world rather than being schlepped in a cart behind some oxen. So Uzzah died because David didn’t follow directions? Not very convincing, is it?

One interesting argument suggests that Uzzah was killed in an animal related accident. The text reads that Uzzah reached up to the ark because the oxen shook it. Scholars point out that a better translation of the verb would be that the oxen stumbled, or even more accurately, the oxen dropped. Or to be agriculturally accurate, the oxen reached the flat terrain of the threshing floor and they made some manure. Uzzah, according to this theory, just slipped. Touch the ark and with a bad struck of luck, was gone. The wrath of God and an unfortunately placed pile of manure. Let me tell that to Uzzah’s mother.

If you will pardon the pun, the arc of the story here points the reader toward the holiness of God. As you and I come upon the story, and as you remember Uzzah’s name after today, remember too that we believe that in the mystery of God’s plan of salvation, God making Godself known to God’s people,  that God’s holiness, the presence of God Almighty went from the Ark of the Covenant to the ark of Mary’s womb. Not only was the holiness of God now to be touched, the holiness of God was to be held, the holiness of God was heard to cry, the holiness of God nursed at his mother’s breast. The holiness of God, the presence of God there in the form of a child. This child, God’s holiness, the One who allowed a woman to anoint his feet, the one who healed the woman who touched his garment, the one who called out to the dead with tears in his eyes, the one who allowed the children to run into his knees. He allowed himself to be touched, and to be whipped, and to be spat upon, and spread out on a cross. God’s holiness. God’s presence displayed not in the finery of the ark but splattered on a cross. The very epitome of a tragedy.

The truth is, we can do the theological and biblical maneuvering with the best of them to try to figure out how to feel better, or to think better about these biblical passages that gnaw away at your mind and your heart. An abstract theological perspective and rationale can be found that somehow helps it all make sense. Or on the other hand tradition can just cut around it. But then there’s Uzzah’s mother, and there’s Jesus’ mother. If not Uzzah’s mother, then maybe his brother or his wife or his children. Just about every day you can I hear about, read about, live next to, or look straight into the face of Uzzah’s mother. People who are wrestling with tragedy, grief, unexplained happenings, and the stark reality of life and death. People forced to wrestle with that which they and we will never understand this side of heaven.

You and I fall right in line behind the Old Testament writers who yearned for simple answers. We fall right in line with Kind David who was angry and questioned God. We fall right in line with thousands of years of feeble interpretation and only slight understanding. We fall right in line with all who wonder how a poor man can be struck dead after touching a museum piece that was starting to tilt. We fall in line with those who struggle to understand when the inexplicable happens and yearn to draw near to the God whose holiness we know best in Christ himself; a holiness defined by compassion and a self-emptying love.

Way too many people have come to think that the Christian faith is about finding answers, offering answers. At least for me, I have come back from the cemetery too many times with muddy shoes, and sat in too many waiting rooms or hung up the phone too many times with I didn’t have a blasted thing to say. If you think the invitation to walk with God and follow Jesus is about always having an answer, demanding an answer, finding an answer, you may as well be playing catch with an ark. Because you and I are called to stand knee deep in the grey water of life and point to the presence of God, especially when the words are not going to be found. This journey of faith we are on together, it is all about naming and nodding to and seeing and affirming the holiness, the majesty, and the love, and the grace of God in the here and now. Anyone can rise to point to and rail on the sin and the darkness of the world all around us. But some are called to stand in the darkness of the world and bear witness to the light of God’s presence.

For the same God who presence was acknowledged by the ancients with the Ark of the covenant, the same God whose presence kicked around in the ark of Mary’s womb, the same God whose holiness is defined as “friend of sinners”, the same God whose love turned a cross  of death in an ark of life eternal, that same God this is day present among us. God for us. God with us.

Some demand answers. Some search for words. Most days, all you and I can do is lean into life, clinging to God’s promise and yearning for God’s embrace.  God’s promise and God’s embrace. If you want to know where to look, if I were you, I would start looking right next to Uzzah’s mother.

© 2015, Property of Nassau Presbyterian Church
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Morning Joy

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Psalm 30
Rev. David A. Davis
July 5, 2015

Weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes with the morning. Psalm 30. That’s what jumps off the page from the center of the psalm. Better said, the heart of the psalm. Weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes with the morning. The psalmist poetically proclaiming, clinging to the promise of God. Weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes with the morning. Psalm 30. Sing praises to the Lord, O you God’s faithful ones. Yes. God’s anger is but for moment by God’s favor is for a lifetime.  Yes. Yes. Hear, O Lord, and be gracious to me! O Lord be my helper! Yes. You have turned my mourning into dancing, you have taken off my sackcloth and clothed me with joy. Yes. But the heart of the psalm, the signature verse of Psalm 30, the memory verse, the takeaway, the refrain: Weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes with the morning.

On its own it doesn’t even sound all that religious. It could have come from Ben Franklin or Shakespeare. Weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes with the morning. But here with the psalmist, from the songbook of the people of God, it functions as a bold affirmation about life in God. Without even naming God it is a proclamation about God’s faithfulness and our hope in God. It is the heart of Psalm 30 and as a refrain, as a faith statement, it is etched into the heart of God’s people. Weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes with the morning.

God’s Morning joy. When you stop and think, this refrain from the psalmist it comes up in so many ways, so many places. Different words. Different phrases. Affirmations of God’s promise of morning joy. Elsewhere in the psalms. Psalm 42. You remember: As a deer longs for flowing streams, so my soul longs for you, O God…My tears have been my food day and night while people say to me continually, ‘where is your God?’ Psalm 42 concludes Hope in God; for I shall again praise God; my help and my God. Or to use the psalmist’s other words, Weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes with the morning.

God’s morning joy. A few weeks ago in sermon I repeated what you have heard me say many times from this pulpit, “in Jesus Christ our best days are always yet to come.”  That’s a variation on the theme.  Weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes with the morning. When you visit one of the senior saints in the congregation, or when you talk to your grandmother in Illinois, or when you stop to talk to your neighbor who is sitting on the front porch, and when you ask the question, how are you doing today? Then you can hear it, hear the refrain, not in the same words of the psalmist but that affirmation comes something like this, “Well, God blest me with another day” or “I woke up this morning and thanked the Lord for a new day”. Those phrases, those affirmations passed on from generation to generation. That’s not just one of grandpa’s saying. It’s a faith statement. A variation on the refrain. Weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes with the morning.

I had a church door conversation a while back with someone who took exception to the response of praise that morning in worship. We had sung “Thank you, Lord” A piece that came into our worship out of the context of our partnership with Witherspoon St Presbyterian Church At Witherspoon it is pretty much a weekly part of worship. It’s a short response with a black gospel feel to it. *** “Thank you Lord, Thank you Lord. I just want to thank you Lord.” The second verse, “Been so good, been so good. I just want to thank you Lord”. ***“You know it hasn’t been so good” was the gist of the commentary back at the door. What I thought about later and what could have been a follow up conversation, is how that song functions in worship. How it serves liturgically. It is another take on the psalmist’s refrain; boldly, yet simply, anticipating and proclaiming God’s once and future favor. Like Weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes with the morning.  God’s morning joy.

Like the refrain itself, the implied affirmation doesn’t always come draped in religious language. But you have to have eyes to see and ears to here. Just last Saturday there was an article in the paper about the Jerusalem Youth Chorus. It is a choir made up of Palestinian Muslim and Christian teenagers and Israeli Jewish teenagers. They rehearse at the Jerusalem YMCA in West Jerusalem. As you can imagine it is an exceptional and singular effort at crossing boundaries, building friendships, and challenge the status quo of conflict and hate. I read the article on line. As one of their recorded songs was cited, I clicked on it. It was a cover of the song called “Home” by an American Idol artist named Phillip Phillips. For some reason, I have always had an affinity to Philip Phillips (David Davis)! The arrangement from the Jerusalem Youth Chorus enabled me to hear the song in completely different way. The video shows scenes from the region, the members of the choir, iconic views of the Old City of Jerusalem, the wall and its checkpoint. The recording starts with two voices singing, one in Arabic, one in Hebrew. Then as it gets to the familiar English chorus, you can’t help but be struck by the lyrics.

Settle down, it’ll all be clear Don’t pay no mind to the demons They fill you with fear The trouble it might drag you down If you get lost, you can always be found

Just know you’re not alone Cause I’m going to make this place your home

Palestinian voices. Jewish voices. Singing together. LISTEN TO THEM. Palestinian voices. Jewish voices. Singing together about turning away from fear and being found and making a home. Singing in Jerusalem of all places. It is a critically relevant, courageously hopeful, creative, musical variation on the theme. Weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes with the morning. A divinely inspired hope. God’s morning joy.

I have now listened to and read President Obama’s eulogy for Clementa Pickney several times over; his sermon from a week ago Friday in Charleston, SC. There is a point in that speech where the president shifted from eulogy to preaching. After his words about the slain pastor, after he placed the importance of the Black Church in historical perspective, and right before he started talking about grace, that shift to sermon happened. After he referred to the young perpetrator’s intent to spark civil war, his intent to deepen division that, in the president’s words “trace back to our nation’s original sin”. Then came a remarkable rhetorical, theological turning point in that speech. President Obama, sort of chuckled just a bit and said “Oh….but, Oh”. And he goes on, “But God works in mysterious ways. God has different ideas”. Then he went on to preach about grace. In that turn, that transition, that rhetorical moment when the President said God works in mysterious ways, he could have just as easily have quoted the psalmist. Weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes with the morning. He was offering the refrain, a variation on the refrain. He was talking about God’s morning joy.

The person back at the church door pointing out to me that it actually hasn’t been all good, the worshiper want me to know that some days it still feels like night. And of course the person was right. If you read all of Psalm 30, if you put that refrain, the heart of Psalm 30, back into the context, the flow, the move and content of the psalm, it’s clear the psalmist understood that particular church door observation. Before God’s morning joy, there is the crying out, the acknowledgement of a life in hell. O Lord, my God, I cried to you for help….O Lord your brought up my soul from Sheol, from hell.  Before the refrain the psalmist tells of weeping and crying for help, a gut wrenching plea to God.  Along the way the psalmist admits to the spiritual arrogance, that part of our DNA: “I never thought it would happen to me”. Or in the words of the Psalm 30: As for me, I said in my prosperity, “I shall never be moved.” And who can’t relate to the honest portrayal of a bit of negotiating with God in a time of trial. “what good can possibly come from my life going to pieces, Lord? When I am done, will the dust sing your praise? Come, God, be my helper!”        Yes, the heart of the psalm is God’s morning joy. A testimony to God’s promise framed by a cry for help and a desperate prayer. Yes, some days, many days, it still feels like night, O God. But..so…yet…and…still… Weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes with the morning..

Last month my wife Cathy and I had dinner with some seminary friends we had not seen in way too long. Robert was my seminary roommate. Robert and Carol have two children both born within days of our children. We haven’t stayed in touch like we should and we basically had a few decades to catch up on. It was one of those old friend moments where you pick up right where you left off without missing a beat. There at the table, over a meal we laughed a lot, we sighed as we shared about our parents death and struggle for health and piece of mind, we radiated joy as we talked about the four children, our stomachs knotted up as they told of their youngest being badly hurt and the nighttime call from campus police. Joy. Weeping. Life. Death. Prayer. Gratitude. We covered it all in one meal. Twenty years or so. It wasn’t “life passing before our eyes”. It was all of life right there with us in that moment, at the table.

That’s what happens every time we come to this Table. You. Me. The honest one from the church door. Some bearing joy. Others dropping tears. Life. Death. Prayer. Gratitude. All of life right here with us at the Lord’s Table. We have it all covered in one meal. A couple in worship who are planning a wedding. The person just home from the hospital with a new hip. Family members in town for a memorial service. Someone having to wait the weekend for the results of test. The parent who FACETIMED yesterday with a child overseas having the time of their life. A visitor who just feels overwhelmed in the world this week. The member here for decades who thinks each Sunday in worship at this point in life is just bonus. Testimonies to God’s promise framed by cries for help and desperate prayers. Here at the Table, it’s Psalm 30, the movement of Psalm 30, all stirred together.

And Jesus, the one who invites us here to the Table. Jesus says, Come unto me all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon yon and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.

Or maybe, just maybe, Jesus says, Come, sisters and brothers, for the table is set. Weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes with the morning.

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