Romans 8:12-17
Dr. Mark Edwards
May 31, 2015

Text is not available at this time

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

 

I John 5:1-6
Rev. Dr. David A. Davis
May 10, 2015

             Part of one’s education, at any level really, is learning how to take notes. Some teachers ask students to turn in their notes as a way to both monitor a student’s diligence and provide some coaching about how to be efficient and effective in the art of taking notes. I had some good teachers early on and I became a pretty good note taker in high school. So much so that many friends and classmates started asking to see my notes. Now, in a moment of confession and acknowledging my less than Christian behavior, I will tell you that my awful handwriting today is a result of intentionally making my handwriting unintelligible so folks would stop asking to see my notes!

So I’m a pretty good note taker. But everyone now then one comes upon a teacher, a professor, a lecturer whose style, organization, presentation, and communication of content makes note taking really difficult; almost impossible. There were one or two back in the 80’s at Princeton Seminary but its too risky for me to name names. I will tell you, however, that the most difficult professor to annotate in college was Robert Coles. He was a professor of psychiatry teaching an undergraduate course entitled “The Literature of Christian Reflection.” We read some incredible stuff: Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Dorothy Day, Simone Weil, Flannery O,Conner. Professor Coles would come into the lecture hall all rumpled wearing a sweater with holes in the elbows and just start to talk about the reading, the author, the context. Eventually, as a listener, you put your pen down, sit back and take it all in. Not because the lectures weren’t helpful. They were actually remarkable and memorable. Rather than taking notes and dissecting point by point, you had to sort of live into the moment and hang on to, file away, a takeaway or two. Some of those takeaways, I still carry 35 years later. Robert Coles and “The Literature of Christian Reflection.”

When you get into the heart of the Epistle of I John, you sort have to put your pen down, stop taking notes, lean back, and look for the takeaways. Unlike the linear, rhetorical argument style of the Apostle Paul, I John, it’s less an argument to follow and more of a sermon to take in. Lots of repetition, layers of meaning, circling back again and again to theme. I John, it comes with the sense that it is more pleasing to listen to than to read. It’s just hard to diagram it all. Just here in the few verses of the fifth chapter that I offered for your hearing; belief in Jesus Christ, born of God, love of God, love the parent love the child, obeying God’s commandments, conquering the world, victory over the world, believing Jesus is the Son of God, Jesus Christ made known in water and the blood. The Spirt is truth. Amid the swirl of familiar terms and themes, the reader tries to follow the thread, jot down the notes, connect the dots, keep up with the preacher, all the while wanting to interrupt the unrelenting pace of the material with a clarifying, even halting question. “Excuse me!”

Take “conquering and victory” for instance. “Conquering and victory” here in I John. You remember Paul uses the term “conquerors”. The memorable concluding verses to Romans 8: “In all things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.” More than conquerors. And victory. There’s victory all through the scripture in the narratives of the Old Testament. But also in Psalm 98: “O sing to the Lord a new song, for the Lord has done marvelous things. God’s right hand and God’s holy arm have gotten him victory. The Lord has made known his victory….All the ends of the earth have seen the victory of our God.” And again with the Apostle Paul in I Corinthians 15. You won’t forget Paul on victory: “Death has been swallowed up in victory. Where O death is your victory? Where O death is your sting? The sting of death is sin, the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ! Victory. Conquering. In the witness of scripture “conquering and victory” belongs to God and the work of Jesus Christ.

So when the preacher in I John drops some victory language in the sermon, the listener knows what to expect. “And this is the victory that conquers the world” Yes, preacher, bring it on. Here we go! “This is the victory that conquers… that conquers the world….our faith. This is the victory that conquers the world, our faith” Woe, woe, woe! And all the pens in the room drop, and the hands go up? Excuse me? Our faith. Our faith conquers the world? My faith conquers the world? That’s not where I thought you were going? Because if it is up to my faith, our faith, the world is going to win every time. And by the way, I John preacher, have you looked around lately?

A sharp pencil approach, it doesn’t work so well with I John. Sit back and listen for the takeaway. Everyone who believes that Jesus is the Christ has been born of God, and everyone who loves the parent loves the child. By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey God’s commandments. For the love of God is this, that we obey God’s commandments. And God’s commandments are not burdensome, for whatever is born of God conquers the world. And this is the victory that conquers the world, our faith. Who is it that conquers the world but the one who believes Jesus is the Son of God? This is the one who came by water and blood, Jesus Christ, not with the water only but with the water and the blood. And the Spirit is the one that testifies, for the Spirit is the truth.”

How about this takeaway: The Spirit is at work in those claimed by the saving grace of Jesus Christ calling us to a life of faithfulness and commitment best defined by love. That love has been revealed to us first and foremost in the life, suffering, and death of Jesus. When the followers of Jesus live in obedience, ordained by the water of his baptism and forever drawn to the blood of his selfless love, God’s love works to overcome the world. How about this takeway? The victory of our obedience furthers the work of God’s love in the world. Not just a takeaway but a promise from God about God’s love works.

This week I was in Atlanta with a peer group of pastors I meet with regularly. We went to the Civil Rights Museum one morning with what seemed like every third grader in the metro Atlanta area. Walking through the history of civil rights in this spring of 2015 surrounded by crowds of elementary school students of all races, talk about living into the moment? At one point several of us were standing in front of the surround sound film clips of “The March on Washington”. You couldn’t miss the faith leaders there in the front alongside Dr. King. And of course at one point the film showed the crowd, with interlocking arms, all singing. The volume on the presentation turned up at that point. I looked around at my colleagues, four or five of us standing with all these kids who came up to our waist. The pastors, we were all singing along. Some of the kids, they heard us and were looking up and giggling at us. My faith leader colleagues, they couldn’t take their eyes off the march. The kids didn’t know what do think of us, but we kept singing along with those in the film. You know what we were singing….”We Shall Overcome”. “Whoever is born of God overcomes the world.” I John.

Many of the children were moving through the museum with clipboards and an assignment page. You know how it works. They were assigned particular people to find in the various exhibits. At one point as I stood before a wall of leaders, pictures, dates, and names, a little girl stood next to me looking way up at this mountain of people. “Can I help you find someone?” “Yes” she said. “I’m looking for Ruby Bridges.” Well, the first person to tell me about Ruby Bridges was Robert Coles in my freshman year of college in a course entitled “The Literature of Christian Reflection.” I leaned over to give a hint, “let’s look for the picture of a girl who was even younger than you.” Ruby Bridges was the first African American girl to integrate a school in New Orleans in 1960. She was in kindergarten and had to be escorted by her mother and law enforcement officers every day to school.

One of those days her teacher, Mrs. Henry, thought she saw Ruby talking to the crowds along the sidewalk who were shouting mean and horrible things to her. The teacher asked Ruby about it. “I wasn’t talking to them, Mrs. Henry. I was praying for them. Usually I prayed in the car on the way to school, but that day I’d forgotten until I was in the crowd. Please be with me, I’d asked God, and be with those people too. Forgive them because they don’t know what they’re doing.” The 3^rd grader and I, we found Ruby Bridges on the wall in Atlanta on Monday. When she read about her, she was reading about one little girl’s faith overcoming the world.

Later that night one of our colleagues told of remarkable conversation with a church member last week, The member is pretty sick and has been battling for a long time. During the conversation, the member told the pastor about difficult but important conversations with children and grandchildren. The member said “I wouldn’t be able to have those conversation if it hadn’t been for your visit to me the last time I was in the hospital.” The pastor wasn’t following and didn’t know what the member meant. “When you prayed with me that day, something happened. A peace came over me like I have never felt. God’s love poured out on me. Your prayer. It made me a believer. My faith was like it was brand new. My life changed right then and I am no longer afraid.”

Overcoming the world. It takes all shapes and sizes. And it happens all the time.

That’s how God’s love works. That’s God’s promise.

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

I John 4:7-21
Rev. Dr. David A. Davis
May 3, 2015

Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. God’s love was revealed among us in this way….

            In my high school years each summer I attended a conference in Western Pennsylvania on the campus of Westminster College called the New Wilmington Missionary Conference. It was there that I heard one of the shortest and most memorable sermons ever. A well-known preacher, a traveling evangelist of sorts, delivered the keynote each morning and the sermon each night. One evening during worship when it came time for the sermon, he stood up, read from somewhere in I John, looked out at the gathered community and said “let us love one another” and he turned and sat down. After an awkward silence, he stood up again and said, “beloved, let us love another” and he sat down again. And then a third time, he stood up at the podium and said “let us love one another.” He sat down. There was a long time for silent reflection and then we were led in song. The shortest and one of the most memorable sermons ever. He made his point. You get his point on the clarity of I John on love.

            God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent God’s only Son into the world so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we loved God but that God loved us and sent God’s Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and God’s love is perfected in us.  

Perfecting the motion. It is a term in Robert’s Rules. A term for the parliamentary process for a governing body that operates with a moderator who oversees votes, motions, speaking for, speaking against. Perfecting the motion. It is the way the body works a particular motion that is on the table: amending it, amending the amendments, offering substitute motions, debating. The irony, of course, is that the process of perfecting a motion is more often than not an utter and complete mess. A confused moderator, a less than patient parliamentarian, debates that have nothing to do with the prior, main motion, folks yelling out for a point of order and a meeting just on the edge of total chaos. Perfecting? Even with the best effort, it’s a wonder anything gets done. God’s love perfect in us? Even with humanity’s best effort, it’s a wonder. But that’s I John on love.

God’s love is perfected in us….God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them. Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness on the day of judgement, because as God is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love , but perfect love casts out fear…
I think I have done it wrong for almost thirty years. I’m not sure how many times I have erred in thirty years but that’s because long ago I lost track of how many weddings I have done. The call to worship in a service of Christian marriage, the first words spoken: God is love and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them. But just like I Corinthians 13, (love is patient, love is kind) just like I Corinthians 13 has really nothing to do with marriage, weddings, just one couple, it’s pretty clear I John is not about romance. I am not beating myself about my mistake. After all, it’s in the liturgy of the Book of Common Worship of the Presbyterian Church USA, in the liturgy for marriage, the opening sentences, the first word spoken: God is love and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them. I didn’t make it up. Reading the text from I John like that at a wedding, at pretty much every wedding. I’m just not sure it’s right. Let me put it this way, I’m not sure it’s the best use of I John on love.

There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love. We love because God has first loved us.

It happens over and over again. An old family picture up on the wall. A grandfather as a young man. A great grandmother as a child. Someone looks at one of the newest generation in the family. A child in arms at the holiday meal. A picture on a phone sent from a cousin. Everyone can see it. Two, three generations later in the facial features, the hair, the eyes. She looks just like her great grandmother. He looks just like grandpa when he was in high school. “Well, will you look at that!” First among the distinguishing traits of those referred to in I John as the “beloved”, first among the traits, first in the DNA is love. I John on love. It is the writer of I John pointing to a picture of Jesus hanging on the wall and then looking back to the Beloved. “Hey, look at that”. Sort of like when we find ourselves at this Table remembering, and partaking, and thanking, and tasting, and seeing. God’s love for us. God in Christ in the power of the Spirit, inviting us here. God saying, “well, will you look at that!” The Lord’s Supper. I John…..On love.

Those who say “I love God” and hate their brothers or sisters are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen. The commandment we have from God is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also.

Just this last Friday I participated again in a Prayer Walk through the streets of Trenton. Now the second year of an interfaith effort of stopping to pray at every site were someone has been murdered in the city since January. A half dozen or so folks from Nassau came along this year. At several stops we were joined by family members of the men who had been killed. At each spot: silence prayer, spoken pray, maybe a song, an anointing of the ground with oil. In the silence there in front of a home on Pearl Street and then again on Hanover Street I was struck by the spring time that was evident in the color in the trees and the birds I could hear singing and the contrast to the sound of a family member gently weeping the death of a son, a brother, a father. When the family members spoke, each one, they spoke about love. They called for an end to violence. They pled for healing and peace in the city. A gutwrenching call for love. A love that dares to rise out of death. A love that is boldly and courageously at work in places, in people, in relationships where there would otherwise be no love. A love that comes from nowhere but above. A love that overcomes. A I John kind of love

Beloved let us love another…Beloved since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another…God is love and those who abide in love abide in God and God abides in them…We love because God first loved us…

Of the many heartbreaking, disturbing, and not easily forgettable scenes from Baltimore this week, one was early on when the marches were still peaceful. It was a video of protesters were walking past a bar, an outdoor café kind of place that was full of folks obviously going to the baseball game. They had jerseys on: Baltimore and Boston. There was no audio on the clip but clearly words were exchanged and some pushing and shoving ensued. Later I read about what happened. As the mostly African American marchers passed the bar shouting “No justice, no peace!” and “Black Lives Matter!”, the mostly white ballgame going patrons shouted back, “We don’t care! We don’t care!” And somewhere, someplace, some time, a preacher says to the gathered community and beyond, “let us love one another” and then she turns and sits down.

Which brings me back to where I got it wrong; the wedding thing, I John and those opening sentences. I will quote I John the next time and the time after that. Yes, it is fitting for the promise of nuptial joy. But a I John kind of love, wow, it is so much more than that. So much more prophetic than that. A better use, a more urgent read, a more compelling, convicting, life giving, transforming encounter with I John? It’s in weeks like this one Preachers like me, churches like ours reading, proclaiming, pleading for, praying for, pointing to, working for, living a I John kind of love. “Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action. And by this we will know that we are from the truth and will reassure our hearts before him whenever our hearts condemn us, for God is greater than our hearts, and God knows everything.” (I John 3).

God is greater than our hearts. God is greater than our feeble efforts to perfect God’s motion; that bold, courageous, prophetic, world changing, I John kind of love. God is greater than our hearts! (Let the church say “Amen!”). I John on love. God in Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit on love. Inviting us here to this Table to feast on a promise for weeks like this one. Before you voice an opinion on current events in all of their fullness, before you let the angst in your heart turn to a numb not caring anymore, before judgement or anger or guilt or sorrow or righteous indignation rise up within you, before you find yourself overwhelmed by the magnitude of death and suffering in Nepal, or your own paralysis when it comes to what to think or do when it comes to race and reconciliation, or when love seems all together absent or far from perfect in your corner of the world, your corner of the family, your corner of life and faith…Come, here……will you look at that….well, will you look at him

I John on love…..Come, taste, and see.

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

March 8, 2015
Matthew 13:31-33
“Thy Kingdom Come”
Rev. Dr. David A. Davis

The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed and a bit of leaven; like the greatest of shrubs and three measures of flour all leavened. The greatest of shrubs, Jesus said. Bible translations try different words to capture the intended image, the twist, even the humor. The greatest of shrubs. The greatest among herbs. The largest of garden plants. The largest of all vegetable plants. The greatest of shrubs. Sort of an oxymoron. Not like the Old Testament: oaks of righteousness and mighty cedars of Lebanon. The greatest of shrubs, Jesus said.

In the high school year book when the senior class votes on most likely to succeed and best athlete and king and queen of the prom and most likely to own her own bio-tech company and who will probably be elected president some day; being voted best date to take home to mom or dad, that’s like being called the greatest of shrubs. The dreaded “back-handed compliment”. The kingdom, Jesus said, looks pretty good….for an herb. When it has grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.

The kingdom, it nests in the most unexpected places, in the most unassuming ways. The kingdom of heaven, it doesn’t soar from the pinnacles of power. It doesn’t ride on the coattails of wealth. It isn’t launched from the hallowed halls of the smartest or even birthed in the practice of the most religious. The kingdom takes root and multiplies among the least, and the last, and the outcast, and the weak. Unnamed and unheralded kingdom bearers who forward grace and make servant-hood contagious and give glory to God with the overwhelming ordinariness of their lives. Bearing witness, allowing the kingdom to stretch, and whether they know it or now, offering a forearm shiver for the kingdom straight into the world’s solar plexus where wealth and power and self-interest and success and violence and hatred all swirl with a life all their own. The kingdom of heaven, it’s like the greatest of shrubs, and all leavened.

Years and years ago Cathy and I were given some Friendship Bread. Someone gives you some batter, some pre-dough, whatever you call it. It takes like ten days. You stir this day. You add something this day, then you split it up all up, give some to friends and bake your own loaf. We were newly married so we took the friendship project very seriously. It all went as smoothly as could be expected. We baked a loaf that was pretty good. Three containers of stuff were ready to pass on to friends; passing friendship forward. We delivered two of the three right away. One bowl of batter, stored in a Cool Whip/plastic ware container, was left on the counter with the lid on to be delivered in the morning. What happened over night could have made one of those old science fiction movies. The next morning the Friendship Bread batter was everywhere. There on the counter, right above the dishwasher that was run at bed time and therefore heated the counter top, the warmed batter pushed the lid off the container and set out to take over the kitchen. It ran off the counter, into the sink, down the front of the dishwasher. The batter was creeping everywhere. Even the dog was frightened. That batter, the beginnings of bread dough, the start of a loaf, it was as the scripture says, “all leavened”.

Kingdom creep. The constant presence and movement of the kingdom of heaven here and now. No, rarely with leaps and bounds. Never with enough flow from the mountaintops of life. Kingdom creep. Once in a while like a march for justice across a bridge. More often with baby steps, one life, one relationship, one voice at a time. And at times far too easy to look around and think that kingdom might be in retreat, or the kingdom was closer back in the day, or the kingdom it thrived at the time of Jesus, or the kingdom peaked that night in Bethlehem or that afternoon at Golgotha or that morning at the tomb. But Jesus taught that the kingdom is on the move, until all of it, all of us, all of this, until all of it is leavened. God at work. Ever-present, ever-moving, with a subtle power that has the potential to knock the lid off this world. The kingdom in our midst, creeping into people’s lives and reaching the world’s darkest corners, offering a life of forgiveness and love, resurrection hope and joy, and future unbound by fear. All of it in the name of and through the work of the One who said “the kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed and a bit of leaven.”

Just a few weeks ago I was sitting with some clergy friends in a hotel lobby after a day’s worth of meetings that ended with dinner. You’re not going to believe me when I tell you this, but we were sitting there talking about particular verses, particular translations of the New Revised Standard Version of the bible that we find less than satisfying. That’s a rip roaring time, right? The only good news there, is that more often when pastor’s get together they tell funeral stories or just talk about you church folks. So one of my colleagues lamented the lack of poetic license in the NRSV and the perceived rigid commitment to the Greek text. The example given was Jesus in Mark’s Gospel, Jesus’ first words spoken in Mark, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent and believe in the good news.” That’s the NRSV. The argument continued, “In the King James and in the Revised Standard Jesus says “the kingdom of God is at hand”. I get the “come near” is closer to the actual Greek but what the heck does that mean “come near”, my friend pleaded with us. “Don’t we believe the kingdom in and through Christ is something that can be touched; “is at hand”, something that makes a difference all around us, all around here.” It was some preaching going on. Don’t knock sitting around a lobby bar talking bible translation until you’ve tried it! “The kingdom of God is at hand”, Jesus said, “and it is like a mustard seed and a bit of leaven.”

When Jesus instructs you to pray “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven”, it’s not a casual choice of words. The words comes with quite a bit of baggage. The petition itself, bears the weight of all the Lord’s teaching on the kingdom of God. Jesus said a whole lot more about the kingdom than he ever said about the church. And you know Jesus practiced what he taught; he prayed what he taught. In the Garden of Gethsemane, that night of his betrayal and arrest, that night of the Last Supper, the night before he was tortured and killed, Jesus prayed, “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me. Yet, not my will but yours be done.” Pray then like this, Jesus said. Pray then like I will, pray then like I do. “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” The kingdom. God’s will. Pray it!

On earth as it is in heaven, in heaven where, as John Calvin puts it, “nothing is done apart from God’s good pleasure.” As it is in heaven, because there is no will in heaven other than yours, O God. No other will, no other forces, no one else at work in heaven but God. The reference to heaven, “as it is in heaven”, the connotation is not for the heavenly city to suddenly appear, not for paradise to break out, not even for justice and righteousness to blossom in an end time kind of way that wraps this life up with a bow and calls it a day. No, the plea is for God’s will to unfold unabated; unfettered by the powers and principalities of the world, unencumbered by the world’s present darkness. For God’s will to be at work in the world with a slow and steady kingdom creep to it all. For God’s will to be freed in your life, in mine, God’s will freed even from own selves, our own voice, our own will.

The prayer could not be any further from a social media frenzied world where every voice and opinion is supposed to count. The prayer could not be any more counter-cultural in a day when everyone demands a place at the table. The prayer could not be any more disconcerting in a consumer –driven religious marketplace that sells a whole lot do it yourself, DIY spirituality. The traditional prayer makes a counter-intuitive move; it’s not a centering prayer at all; it is decentering move where as Dietrich Bonhoeffer would put it, Christ is the Center. It’s a self-emptying, not a self-fulfilling prayer. So simple, yet so radical. So easy to miss. The radically God-centered nature of the Lord’s Prayer. Just like in heaven where absolutely everything surrounds the throne of God’s grace, and the One who sits upon the throne, the very Lamb of God, is in the midst of them all, in the center of it all. There where God wipes away every tear from their eyes.

When writing about prayer, the theologian Karl Barth describes it as an essential part of the Christian attitude. By Christian attitude, Barth seems to be describing the qualities, the character traits, the necessary ingredients of the Christian life. It’s sort of interesting to add a contemporary overlay of the usage of the term “attitude” . As in “he’s got quite an attitude” or “you’re going need a better attitude” or “she should lose the attitude” or “what’s with the tude, dude?” Attitude these days seems to imply an edginess or a bit of moxie, unabashed, unfiltered assertiveness. Which actually isn’t all that far from the role, the importance, the essence of prayer according to Barth. For the Christian, before prayer is worship, before it is confession, before it is adoration, prayer, according to Karl Barth, it is unadulterated, honest, authentic petition. Or as he puts it, prayer is simply asking. As in “just asking”. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. I’m just asking, Lord. Just asking. The counter-cultural, counter-intuitive, radical, subversive, not at all passive or naively pious petition of the Lord’s Prayer. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Not so much of a complaint or lament as it is a petition with a bit of attitude. An affirmation, a belief, a conviction about the kingdom of heaven. It is so like a mustard seed and a bit of leaven.

Just last night I sat over there listening to the combined choir from Nassau and Trinity sing the Durufle Requiem. It was beautiful. As the choir was singing all these faces started snapping past as I closed my eyes. Sort of like one of those award shows where someone sings and the pictures of those who had died in the last year flash on the screen. I was listening to the Requiem and finding myself freshly surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses. Thinking about this sermon, I sat there pondering how they shared the kingdom with me, taught the kingdom to me, witnessed the kingdom to me, brought the kingdom to me. Unheralded kingdom bearers who forwarded grace and made servant-hood contagious and gave glory to God with the overwhelming ordinariness of their lives.

One of the faces I saw in my evening prayer was Sam Moffett’s. I’m not sure I could name anyone in my life, in my cloud of witnesses that had a greater impact on the spread of Christianity in the world, a greater impact on the kingdom than Dr. Moffett; his ministry in Korea, his impact on generations of servants sent out to the mission field. But Dr. Moffett’s kingdom sharing with me, it’s going to sound so ordinary. On Sundays at the church door, or back at coffee hour, or over at the Windrows, whenever I would see Dr. Moffett, he would always say to me, “power to you”. If you knew Dr. Moffett you knew what power he was talking about. For all I know Sam Moffett said “power to you” to the mail carrier, the hostess at dinner, and every friend he ever had. But for me, what I heard, what I experienced every time he said it, was his prayer for me as pastor and proclaimer of the gospel of Jesus Christ, that I would be lifted by the very power of God in service to God’s kingdom. That God would bless me to share in a bit of kingdom creep. With all those faces flashing on the screen in my heart and soul last night, I found my shoulders lifting and I was sitting a bit taller, reminded of the kingdom work to which we have all been called. . An affirmation, a belief, a conviction about the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, since you are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, pray then like this…

Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

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

Luke 2:22-40
December 28, 2014
“With These Hands”
Rev. Dr. David A. Davis

Text is not available.

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

December 14, 2014
Isaiah 58:6-12
“Yearning”
Rev. Lauren J. McFeaters

In the vibrant but chaotic days before Christmas I like to get out of the office for a walk and I often make my way to the other side of Nassau Street to the Paper Source, you know the store that sells cards and gifts and all things paper. They also sell calendars. I have a little problem with calendars. I love calendars. I love the fresh start of January and the dreaming of the days ahead.

So as I was drooling over the 2015 selections I overheard a couple at the Christmas card table. Even though my back was to them, I could tell they were looking at the boxes of Christmas cards; they were foraging and I could hear the man say: “No. Ugh-ugh. Mmmm. Nope. Nah. NO, NO, NO.”

Finally, the woman said, “What’s wrong?”

The man answered,

“I just don’t want anything about

Christ in our Christmas cards.

Aren’t there any Christmas cards without Jesus?”

Then silence and additional foraging.

“Well here’s one,” said the woman.

“This just says ‘Longing for Peace’ and look,

it’s blank inside. Will that do?”

“I guess so,” said the man.

“Longing for Peace will have to do.”

Longing for Peace, yearning for peace will have to do.

For Isaiah who is testifying to God’s yearning, believing that anything “will have to do,” just won’t do.

• Where is your zeal and your might? Your yearning and your compassion are withheld from me…Where are the yearning of your heart and your compassion? Isaiah 63
• Thus, yearning over you, we had found our delight in having imparted to you not only the glad tidings of God, but our own lives also 1Thessalonians

• You would call and I would answer, and you would yearn for me and for your handiwork. Job 14

• For God is my witness; how I yearn for you all with the affection of Christ Jesus. Philippians 1

• And yearn like newborn infants for pure, spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow up to salvation. 1 Peter

All examples of scriptural yearnings: from the Prophets to the Psalmist to Paul, the Bible is pieced together by the glue of yearning – the longing, the hunger, the eagerness, the thirst, for restoration.

Yearning.

O how we yearn.

We’re a people of yearning.

We are created to ache for better things.

We crave, we desire, we yen for God to set us on new paths;

to give us a sign; to make life a bit easier, a bit calmer;

and to serve a world that has forgotten how to yearn;

that would rather live in nostalgia and wistfulness

instead of the present here and now.

Your light, it shall break forth like the dawn,

and your healing,

it shall spring up quickly;

your vindicator shall go before you,

the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard.

Then you shall call,

and the Lord will answer;

you shall cry for help, and the Lord will say, “Here I am.”

 

On the afternoon of Christmas Day 1531, Martin Luther preached a sermon on Isaiah and began his sermon by saying:

Earlier today on Christmas morning

we heard the Christmas story.

Now, enough of that.

Now you will hear how to make use of it.

So we take up the words of the prophet Isaiah

who sings us a song;

a song of yearning and longing for the coming kingdom

and the little child who will lead it.

But in these days as we draw closer to the manger we’re all like a woman who approaches a baby’s cradle and says,

“Oh, it’s a baby!

And I answer, says Luther:

“It is a baby – and he’s ours!”

That baby is given to us as though he were our own son.

And how proud and honored we are that he is our son,

that he belongs to us.

But it is not enough that he is “born” to us;

he is also “given” to us and he yearns for us.^[i]

O how he yearns.

As we balance between the messes we live in, and our hope for the bliss to come, Isaiah’s Christmas card, is anything but blank inside. There’s no vague “LONGING FOR PEACE” beautifully scrolled on the outside and an empty page on the inside.

• For Isaiah there’s no blotting out cruelty and brutality with port and plum pudding.
• There’s no hiding behind a manger scene while a seemingly passive infant smiles and coos for his guests.
• There’s no luxuriating in sentimental feelings or believing that just yearning for a just world filled to brimming with freedom and healing “will have to do.”

Isaiah tells us of God’s design for us: the smashing of burdens and troubles; pulverizing the abuse of oppressors; crushing the cruelty of tyrants – all whips and cudgels and curses – are lifted away. ^[ii]

Your ancient ruins shall be rebuilt;

you shall raise up the foundations of many generations;

you shall be called the repairer of the breach,

the restorer of streets to live in.

On this edge of Christmas, how will the Yearning One make use of us?

• You who are undergoing rigorous medical treatment, awaiting surgery, enduring the ache and sting, fighting the good fight, waiting for news to live by: you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters never fail.
• You who are sure that God could not love you, that you have done something so incomprehensible that you are a lost cause. You who stare in the mirror and don’t recognize yourself; there is One who knows you through and through and loves you still and still; who gives himself as a gift: Then your light shall break forth like the dawn, and your healing shall spring up quickly.
• You who grieve, you who are ashamed, you who are young with your life ahead of you, and you who are older with your life ahead of you: your vindicator shall go before you and the glory of the Lord shall be your rear guard.^[iii]

 

You see, there is no secret of the heart so buried that the God of yearning cannot find it. There is no soil so sterile that the seed of holy wonder cannot grow in it. There is no path so dark that the Light of the World cannot light the way.

Is not this the fast YOU choose:

to loose the bonds of injustice,

to let the oppressed go free.

Your ancient ruins they shall be rebuilt;

you shall raise up the foundations of many generations;

you shall be called the repairer of the breach,

the restorer of streets to live in.

Thanks be to God.

 

ENDNOTES

[i] The original text for this sermon (in Latin and German) is in WA34/2:508-514. The translation is by Frederick J. Gaiser. A contemporary German version is available in Martin Luther, Ausgewählte Werke, Vol. 3, Ausgewählte Predigten (Stuttgart: Calwer Vereinsbuchhandlung, 1935) 54-58.

[ii] These verses from Isaiah have been adapted from Eugene H. Peterson’s translation of Isaiah as found in The Message: The New Testament in Contemporary English. Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress Publishing Group, 1993.

 

[iii] Jon M. Walton. Inspired by and adapted from his sermon, “Christmas at John’s House: A Breakthrough.” The First Presbyterian Church in the City of New York, December 24, 2002.

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

December 7, 2014
Mark 13:28-37
“Watching”
Rev. Dr. David A. Davis

I hear it over and over again during visits with folks after knee surgery or hip replacement, or in conversation with someone in cardiac rehab. They share the message from the doctor about how quickly muscles can deteriorate while you’re leg is in cast or how long you can expect it to take to really get back your strength after you’ve been flat on your back due to surgery. The numbers differ and doctors say it various ways: it will take a week for every day you were in the hospital, a full day of rehab on your quad for every hour you sit and can’t move your knee. Over and over again the message is about how easy it is to lose whatever tone, shape, breath, strength you have when you find yourself suddenly doing nothing for a few days. Atrophy is the word. So make sure you work hard.

Some of you know my children have both been college athletes. One of the challenges to playing a sport at that level is that no one on the team is used to spending time on the bench. You don’t get to play in college by spending a whole lot time off the field or the court watching in high school. So I had the same conversation with both Hannah and Ben that my father had with me, that coaches everywhere have with their players. You have to be ready when your number is called. It’s a long season, people get hurt, some don’t play well. You never know when the coach is going to call your name. And when that happens, you want to be prepared physically and mentally to get in the game. You want to be ready.

Just a few weeks ago Cathy and I had dinner at the home of some friends. There in the living room of the house was a gorgeous Steinway piano. I play little bit. A very little bit. A few favorite songs I have played since high school. The songs I play when I am alone at my house, or over in Nile Chapel. The songs Cathy has endured since I played them for her late one night in Miller Chapel over at the seminary the year we met. After dinner I sat down at the Steinway I sat down to play those few songs. It seemed like with every piece I could only get so far; the fingers couldn’t find the right keys, the ear couldn’t hit the right tune. I couldn’t even pound out “Precious Lord” by Thomas Dorsey which I have played since I was 16. Cathy had the right response, “Wow” she said, “you really need to play more.”

Jesus said, “What I say to you, I say to all: Keep awake”. Here in Mark’s gospel, at the end of the 13^th chapter; keep awake. Beware, keep alert…It is like a man going on a journey, when he leaves home and puts all the staff in charge. The man commands the doorkeeper to be on the watch. Keep awake. Evening, midnight, cockcrow, dawn? You don’t want the master of the house to come suddenly and find you asleep. Keep alert. Be on the watch. Keep awake. What I say to you I say to all: Keep awake. Make sure you work hard. You want to be ready. You really need to play more.

When it comes to our scripture lesson this morning, it is so easy for the gospel reader to get distracted by an apocalyptic fascination. The images, the language, it’s all here in the 13^th chapter of Mark, here in the teaching of Jesus: wars and rumors of wars, nation will rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom, earthquakes, famines, persecution, brother betraying brother, the sun darkened, stars falling from heaven and the Son of Man coming in clouds with great power and glory. The good news must first be proclaimed to all nations, Jesus says. And the one who endures to end will be saved. And heaven and earth will pass away but my words will not pass way. Therefore, keep awake.

Distracted by an apocalyptic fascination. Not as if the unique literature isn’t worthy of further study, not as if a theological affirmation of the power of God amid the world’s chaos and turmoil isn’t important, not as if God’s ongoing and unfolding plan of salvation in Jesus Christ isn’t worthy of our thanks and praise; but distracted by apocalyptic fascination as if this were all like one of those disturbing shoot them up video games that you supposed to master (Grand Theft Auto: Mark 13). Or distracted by apocalyptic fascination in terms of endless conversation about overly complicated theological terms and categories fairly distant from the Christian life here and now. Or distracted by apocalyptic fascination to the point of spending all your energy worry about what you personally believe in or what you don’t; what “i’ you can dot and which “t” you can’t cross. Distracted from what at the end of the day, is a simple imperative from Jesus: keep awake. Keep alert. Be on the watch.

It is worth noting that the little apocalypse of Mark 13 is framed on either side of the chapter by two women acting on their faith. At the end of chapter 12 it is the poor widow who dropped two copper coins in the offering, the one who put in all the living that she had. And at the beginning of chapter 14 comes the woman who broke open the jar of costly ointment to anoint the head of Jesus. “What she has done”, Jesus said, “will be told in remembrance of her.” Two nameless women seeking to live the gospel. Two daring acts; one of generosity, one of devotion. Two women, who received the praise of the Savior. You and I can talk apocalypse until Jesus comes again but those two, they were living the faith. They were watching.

When it came to the moment, to the here and now, in the life of faith, they were watching, like a doorkeeper who is commanded to be the keeper on the watch. Surprisingly the term doorkeeper isn’t all that common in either the New or the Old Testament. “I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than live in the tents of wickedness”. That’s Psalm 84. And that’s pretty much it for the Hebrew scripture. In the New Testament, the only other use for the Greek word for “doorkeeper” is the description that Jesus offers of the gatekeeper and the sheep in John’s gospel; “the gatekeeper opens the gate for the shepherd.” The gatekeeper. Same Greek word as doorkeeper. The doorkeeper. The gatekeeper. The guard. The porter. Not just standing there, but serving, working for the shepherd. On the watch and doing the work. There’s more to doorkeeping than just passively watching like a devoted pet who holds the pose, or sits in the same place, or has a favorite spot waiting for the owner to return. You can’t take the whole of the gospel seriously and think that watching for Jesus is just about twiddling thumbs and passing time and predicting gloom and doom and watching the horizon, all until the sky starts to fall and Jesus comes again. Doorkeeping, gatekeeping is in service to that Great Shepherd of the Sheep. Watching is about dropping coins and breaking jars. Keep awake. Keep alert. Be on the watch.

You would be surprised how many former Presbyterians I meet along the way. It happens on airplanes, at weddings, at funerals, at a non-profit board meeting, on the sidelines of a soccer game, at party far away from church just making conversation with a stranger. Meeting the former Presbyterians that might be symptomatic of a declining denomination. Or it may be that some deeply implanted button is pushed in folks when they find out what I do for a living. More likely it is a result that God put a sticky on my back years ago as part of my call to ministry; a sticky note that says, “good listener.” The former Presbyterians. They offer an explanation even though I never ask. Yes, a few moved to another church by marriage. Every now and then someone tells me about a falling out with a pastor or with God. Once in a while it involves finding another church, a theological shift, or a different culture in terms of worship. But over the years, most often, far and away, what I hear over and over again, is some version of what the person said to me not that long ago at a reception after a funeral, “well, you know how it goes, don’t you. I guess you hear it all the time.” And what came next was a description of spiritual atrophy. A falling away from faith and the body of Christ and worship. There’s usually no reason, no crisis, no blame. It starts in such a simple way and before you know it, you don’t even know where to begin to find your way back. It can happen so fast. Atrophy is the word. So make sure you work hard. Keep awake. Keep alert. Be on the watch.

I read a newspaper account of four rabbis in New York City who led a crowd in the mourner’s prayer, the kaddish, on the steps of a synagogue. The prayer was the held at the beginning of one of the marches, the protests this last week since that second grand jury decision. Later in the protest all four were arrested. During the prayer the rabbis read the name of Eric Garner and dozens of other young black men killed by police, security guards, or vigilantes in the last few months. The rabbis’ explained the prayer as a “religious act”. In their own words, “a prayer of hope, a prayer about the vision of the world redeemed. It was a desire to express in Jewish terms our outrage, our concern and also our vision for a brighter future.” None of those rabbis could have imagined offering the mourners prayer on the steps of a synagogue for a black man from Staten Island. But there are those times in the life of faith when you just have to be ready. In your own life, one of those opportunities when you are called on to welcome the stranger and in so doing entertain an angel unawares (Hebrews), or when you are called on to love your neighbor as yourself, or when you are called on to offer a witness to the matchless grace of Jesus, or when you are called on to cross the aisle to someone whose opinions are different than yours and show a little love, or when you are called to just sit and listen to a person of color tell you about their experience of the police growing up, or when you are called on to speak for those who have been long silenced, or when you are called on to sit with someone in the lunch room long shunned and bullied by others, or when you are called on to do justice and to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God. You have to be ready. Keep awake. Keep alert. Be on the watch

I have told you before of the prayer walk I participated in early in the fall down in Trenton. I described a group of clergy leaders from around the county who went to visit each place where murders had occurred in the city since January of 2014. What I didn’t describe to you were the three women from Shiloh Baptist Church who went on this prayer journey with us. When we started I figure they were praying to send us of. I thought it was going to be an hour long prayer vigil. It was more like three hours, ending after ten o’clock at night up on a road behind a liquor store in the West Ward. Those three senior women, they led the way to every stop. They were introduced to us as part of Shiloh’s prayer warrior team. I learned that night that it wasn’t a hyperbolic title. And to listen to them pray, oh, my, my.

This fall our deacon’s ministry and our adult education small groups initiative combined to offer a small group on Sunday mornings devoted to prayer. Nikos and Francis led the group. On Monday morning if you were a part of the ministry of Nassau being prayed for that Sunday, you received a wonderful email explaining that you had been prayed for when the group gathered Sunday morning at 9:15. The challenge, as you might guess, was that it was always a very small group. From what I’ve been told, some Sundays just Francis and Nikos. The group has stopped for awhile as we try to discern a pathway forward. After Ted Vial’s funeral a few weeks ago, I was reminded of the Wednesday noon time prayer that we started in Niles Chapel after 9/11. It started as a prayer service for the community, for folks working in town. Mostly it was Ted and few others coming faithfully to pray for the world, for the church, to pray for the congregation’s list of pastoral concerns. But Wednesday noon time prayers, they stopped too.

With all that’s going on in the world, and in our country, with all the loss our congregation has experienced in recent months and weeks, as someone said at our gathering on Thursday night with the Westminster congregation, “you have to pray. We can’t forget to pray.” Some days when you don’t’ know what you can do, you can pray. And some days when it comes to prayer, it’s hard to find the notes, even get a tune, and your thankful for that promised intercession of the Holy Spirit. But that’s when Jesus says, “wow….you really need to pray more.”         Keep awake. Keep alert. Be on the watch.

According to Mark, Jesus said, What I say to you I say to all: Keep awake.

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

Isaiah 40:25-31
November 30, 2014
“Waiting”
Rev. Dr. David A. Davis

Waiting. You can learn a lot about yourself when you have to wait. Others learn a lot about you when you have to wait. Waiting. In a crowd, in traffic, at a ticket counter, it’s never hard to find those who think the waiting is only about them. Waiting.

When it comes to God and scripture and the spiritual life, there are a few definitions, expectations about waiting. On this first Sunday of Advent the waiting is traditionally labeled as a waiting for Christ to come. Waiting in a Christmas/Incarnation kind of way, waiting for the Christ Child to come again in our hearts. Waiting for Christ to come again; that Second Coming of Christ. “But about that day or hour no one knows, neither angels in heaven, nor the Son but the Father. Beware, keep alert” (Mark 13). Waiting as being ready for Christ the Savior, the Redeemer, the Judge.

In the Hebrew scripture, the psalmist portrays a different kind of waiting when it comes to life in God. “Wait for the Lord, be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord!” Psalm 27. Or Psalm 130: “I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his word I hope, my soul waits for the Lord, more than those who watch for the morning, more than those who watch for the morning.” Waiting as a discipline of prayer. Waiting on God as spiritual discernment. Waiting for an answer. Waiting to experience God’s presence. Waiting for peace. Waiting for courage. Waiting; not so much as being ready and on guard, but waiting as listening, waiting as a posture of submission before the Lord. Waiting to receive and yearning for the Spirit of God to fall afresh.

And here in the prophet Isaiah, the 40^th chapter, another kind of waiting. “Those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount of with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.” Waiting as the yearning for a newness of life, a strength that comes not from within but from beyond. Waiting for a healing and fresh start after a season of weakness and struggle for health.Waiting amid grief for a resurrection hope that will surely carry those who mourn to brighter days. Waiting for an anointing from above that will bring an end to despair and a robust embrace of life. Waiting for God to fulfill the promise of life; abundant and eternal. This expectation and definition of waiting in a few verses in Isaiah popularized by Josh Groban or the local church soloist singing about how God will raise you up on “Eagles’ Wings. “Bear you on the breath of dawn, Make you to shine like the sun, And hold you in the palm of His Hand.” Waiting for God to lift and carry you through.

Waiting. Waiting/ready for Christ to come. Waiting/open to the leading of God’s Spirit. Waiting/looking to God to intercede with the sustenance of life. All of it as if waiting were all about you. But the waiting here in Isaiah is different. The prophet’s waiting is different. When it comes to god and scripture and the spiritual life, the prophet offers another understanding. Waiting. To study the prophet on waiting this last week with a knot in the stomach as a grand jury’s decision was announced and protests and riots broke out all over, casts a biblical approach to waiting in a whole different light. The prophet’s light. The week waiting changed.

At this point in the Book of Isaiah, the prophet is writing to the people of God in exile in a foreign land. Exiled to Babylon, away from their own land, faced with the reality and the lure of all the other gods, questioning whether or not the God of their ancestors had deserted them. In exile; the land God had promised them now faded in a horizon far behind and any vision of a peaceable kingdom yet to rise from the horizon that lies ahead. In exile, betwixt and between, asking the proverbial God-question. As the prophet puts it to the people, “Why do you say it, why speak it? ‘My way is hidden from the Lord, and my right is disregarded by God’”? Why are you asking whether or not God has forsaken you? In exile yes, but why question God?

“Have you not known? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. The Lord does not faint nor grow weary; God’s understanding is unsearchable. The Lord gives power to the faint and strengthens the powerless. Even youths shall faint and be weary, and the young will fall exhausted; but those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength, they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary, they shall walk and not faint.”

Isaiah’s waiting, it’s different. The contrast, the opposite of those who wait for the Lord, it isn’t the faint and the weary and the exhausted. The tired ones are set in contrast to the Lord who never wearies, the Lord who doesn’t faint. The opposite of those who wait for the Lord are the ones who question whether God has abandoned them, God has forgotten them, God has deserted them. Those who wait on the Lord are the ones who belief that God is present, that God hasn’t finished yet, that God is still at work even in betwixt and between, surrounded by the lure of other gods, when the past seems as bleak as the future. Yet even then, even here and now the Living God is present, moving God’s people forward toward a kingdom of justice and righteousness and peace.

This prophetic kind of waiting isn’t a solitary spiritual discipline. No, it is collective waiting for all who, with renewed strength, will continue to worship God and God alone, a corporate waiting for any who, with a vision of God’s kingdom come on earth as it in heaven will soar to the mountaintops where there is neither Jew nor Greek, male nor female, slave nor free, for all are one in Christ Jesus, a God’s people kind of waiting for those who will run and not be weary, walk and not faint; knowing that any present suffering and discontent shall not eat away at a yearning to live into what the Apostle Paul describes as “a more excellent way”.

This plural form of waiting, it has purpose. The purpose is to be runners and walkers for God’s kingdom. A kingdom where swords become plow shares and swords become pruning hooks. A kingdom where God is about to do a new thing. A kingdom where the wolves and lambs shall lie together. A kingdom where a little child shall lead in the way of peace. The prophet Isaiah, the prophet changes the waiting game. You can’t read Isaiah this week and come to the conclusion that waiting is just about you.

On Tuesday morning staff members here at church told me it was probably better that I don’t Facebook. Their point was that the level of rhetoric about the events on Monday night in Ferguson had escalated and was alarming in content. Later in the day I was on PCUSA website and the comments and posts even there were beyond troubling. That same morning, I checked in with a few pastor friends, folks of color; one was in tears, the other told me of the gut wrenching conversation he had with his son watching television Monday night, still another was honest and said he just couldn’t talk to me about it just yet. Instead of watching cable news, instead of posting, every one of us should find someone to talk to; someone different from us to talk to.

Announcing a grand jury decision after dark at 8:00pm local time and therefore insuring that the media would be covering not just a legal decision but unrest and violence, it necessarily underscored our nation’s inability to talk and listen in a meaningful way when it comes to race. In my lifetime, the discussions in the public square have become worse not better. The Civil Rights era and groundbreaking accomplishments like the Voting Rights Act fade in past horizons while our children and grandchildren’s ability to dream together of a future is crushed again and again by violence and a deep-seated racism and statistics on incarceration, poverty, education, economics that skewed by race, and the brutal anonymous rhetoric of social media isn’t helping. Our nations state of exile when it comes to race and racial justice and equality for all. And you and I, God’s people, the followers of Jesus faced yet again with the lure of other gods, the powers and the principalities of this world, living in time and place that is so unlike what God intends.

You can’t read Isaiah this week and think waiting is just about you. The prophet changes the waiting game. The people of God, the followers of Jesus, the church no longer has the luxury of waiting on the sidelines; or as Dr King put it in his Letter From the Birmingham Jail when he was lamenting the silence of the white church, being simply a “tail-light” while others work to lead the nation to higher levels of justice, understanding, reconciliation for all. Waiting on the Lord is for those who believe God is still at work, and God hasn’t given up, and God’s vision will still come to be. Waiting on the Lord, is for those of us who believe that the Living God is present, moving us forward toward a kingdom of justice and righteousness and peace.

This prophetic kind of waiting, it is so far from a waiting game. It is time to call on God to renew our strength, to lift us to a higher and better places, to run and not be weary, to walk and not faint.

Just to start, for goodness sake, for God’s sake, find someone to listen to, to talk to.

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