A Spirit-Driven Church

Acts 2:1-21
Rev. Dr. David A. Davis
May 24, 2015

It is the Day of Pentecost. Fifty days after Easter. A day of celebrating God’s gift of the Holy Spirit to the church. Pentecost. Worship on the Lord’s Day that marks the occasion recorded in the Book of Acts, that occasion of the Holy Spirit coming with a rush of mighty wind and tongues of fire. A day to celebrate the church, the presence of the Spirit, the gifts of the Spirit, the fruit of the Spirit. Pentecost. What has been called the birthday celebration of the church. Happy birthday, Church!

In the days leading up to our celebration, the Church (not Nassau Church, but the Church) received quite a birthday card from the Pew Research Center. It came in the form of the their newest data released entitled “America’s Changing Religious Landscape.” The data isn’t all that great for the home team. Don’t worry if you missed the press release, or the various editorials, op-eds, and reports that picked up the release of information because the hand-wringing, anxiety, and blame is no doubt on the way. According to the study, the population of Christians in the United States has dropped in number and by percentage, down in seven years to now just above 70% of the US population. The data also indicates a steady increase of the “nones,” non-affiliated, religiously leaning adults, who, when combined with self-identifying agnostics and atheists, are almost 23% of the adult population. Both percentages have changed significantly in the last five years. “Happy birthday, Church,” from the Pew Research Center.

To borrow from the movie Casablanca, “I am shocked — shocked, I say — shocked that the numbers would be dropping in this establishment.” Who could be shocked or surprised by that research? To put it another way, “Tell us something we don’t already know, Pew Research Center.” Those numbers have been trending since the 1950s. So here it comes again, people lamenting the death of the church and the nation and the world as we know it! Some try to respond by pointing out that data can be misleading or can be interpreted differently. Others worry about self-fulfilling prophecy and folks like you reading the newspaper and saying, “Oh, well I am not going to go either.” Still others look for the right response or opportunity in evangelism or different kinds of worship or church re-invented, like there’s an answer out there toward a next Great Awakening we are all missing… and then there’s the story of Pentecost in the second chapter of Acts.

As recorded in the witness of the New Testament: When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place… and then came the violent wind and the divided tongues of fire and the abundance of language… in response to that cacophony of sound; the wind, the fire, the languages, the crowd gathered… everyone heard them speaking in their own languages… all were amazed and perplexed, but others sneered… Peter, standing with the eleven other apostles, he starts to preach… these people are not drunk, it’s only 9 o’clock in the morning… Peter quotes from the prophet Joel… God pouring our God’s Spirit on all flesh… sons, daughters, young men, old men, slaves, both men and women… signs on earth below; blood, fired, smoky mist, the sun turned dark, the moon turned to blood… the Lord’s great and glorious day… everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved!

Peter’s sermon goes on then beyond what I read to you. Peter preaches to the crowds about Jesus of Nazareth, telling of his life, his death, his resurrection. In the sermon Peter puts Jesus in the context of Israel, King David, and the yearning for a Messiah… concluding with this: Therefore let the entire house of Israel know with certainty that God has made him both Lord and Messiah, this Jesus whom you crucified.

You will remember something of the description of what happened in the crowd when Peter finished. How the Spirit moved in the crowd as Peter finished: They were cut to the heart, the Bible says, and they asked what to do. Repent and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ so that your sins will be forgiven and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit… For the Promise is for you, and for your children, and for all who are far away, everyone whom the Lord our God calls… Three thousand people were added to the church that day. They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and then prayers… all who believed were together and had all things in common, they would sell their possessions and good and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need… Day by day, as they spent time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people… day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.

Whenever I read articles or hear lectures or have discussions about “the death of the church,” I find myself thinking about Alma Ward. Alma was one of the saints in my first congregation. She raised five boys in that congregation long before I arrived. Her youngest was older than me when I became her pastor. She told how those boys sat in birth order in the pew every Sunday. One evening over dinner at their house, Alma shared her disappointment about her adult children and their absence from the church. “David, we raised our boys all exactly the same when it came to church. Now, they are grown and all have their own families and only one of them goes to church. And that’s the one that lives next door to me. One in 5 isn’t going to win any prizes,” Alma lamented. She wasn’t looking for answers, she wanted me to know she did her best. She wasn’t looking to blame, she reminded me of what the church meant to her, what the church had done for her. When their youngest son Timmy was killed in a car accident, it was that congregation that carried them. And a generation before when her husband Walt was captured at the Battle of the Bulge, it was that congregation that watched over her and cared for her until he came home. That’s what the church does, she said.

They devoted themselves to the apostles teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and then prayers… all who believed were together and had all things in common, they would sell their possessions and good and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need… Day by day, as they spent time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people.

On that first day of Pentecost, after the miraculous, almost indescribable experience of the Spirit, and after Peter stood to preach a sermon that told of God’s plan of salvation revealed in Jesus of Nazareth, that sermon that pulled from the prophet Joel on the Spirit’s work in the last of days, you can’t miss how those first Christians responded, how the Bible describes the earliest days of the church. When Peter stopped preaching and called them all to repentance and baptism, they devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and prayer. All who believed, they had things in common, cared for any in need, spent time together, broke bread in each other’s homes, had glad and generous hearts and praise God. Yes, the apostles were doing great and wondrous signs. And undoubtedly days later folks started to pick apart Peter’s sermon on “the Lord’s great and glorious day.” And scripture attests that it did not take long for disagreements to arise. But the response on Pentecost, the response was teaching and fellowship and breaking bread and prayer and worship and caring for one another and being generous. “Tell us something we don’t know, Book of Acts.” The response on Pentecost was to be the church and do what the church does. The Spirit-driven church was the church in all of its extraordinary ordinariness.

Almost ten years ago Nassau Presbyterian Church and Witherspoon Presbyterian Street shared in a yearlong celebration of Presbyterians in Princeton. Lectures were given during that year on the history and impact of the Presbyterian witness in this community. One lecture was delivered by our own Professor Jim Moorhead and it was entitled, “Princeton and the Warring Twenties.” Moorhead charted the impact of rapid and massive change in the nation and in the culture, impact on the University, the Seminary, and the Presbyterian churches in Princeton. As he moved to consider congregational life, Dr. Moorhead offered this statement which I haven’t forgotten: “…[C]ongregations do not always directly mirror the issues being addressed or fought out either in denominations or in the larger culture. Part of the charm of congregational life is that, through its enduring patterns of worship and devotion, it allows people to look beyond temporary issues and connects them with the rhythms of the eternal.” The charm of congregational life. I don’t take that as a negative from an every Sunday worshiping Doctor of the church. The charm of congregational life. The reality of congregational life. The faithfulness of congregational life. The church’s enduring pattern of worship and devotion. The church’s enduring pattern of teaching and fellowship and breaking bread and prayer and worship and caring for one another and being generous. The church doing what the church does. A Spirit-driven Church.

I am not naïve to the sinfulness and shortcoming of the church throughout history and in our lifetime. Neither am I unaware of the present challenges and realities. I live them and manage them every day. It’s the cognitive dissonance, the spiritual dissonance, that comes when I read about the data or sense the anxiety in a denominational leader or listen to a lecture from a professor or hear from a seminary student about how the church gets it so wrong… the dissonance between the “death of the church’ movement and the congregation I experience, the dissonance between the nostalgic lament for yesteryear and the God-given promise of the Holy Spirit and a future for God’s people, a future for the followers of Jesus defined by teaching and fellowship and breaking bread and prayer and worship and caring for another and being generous.

Last weekend was an incredible one in the life of Nassau Church, incredible and typical. Sunday afternoon I go home to put my feet up and read the paper. Two opinion pieces try to bring me down. One was an essay about the previously mentioned Pew data. The other cited Harvard sociologist Robert Putnam and a comment he made in an interview about the church taking its focus away from poverty and instead obsessing about morality for the last decade. “You’ve got to be kidding me!” I said out loud to no one but myself. Here on the editorial pages of the New York Times, the church is being told its dying up here and being blamed for poverty down here. There was this dissonance…

And the only thing to do, the only response, the most faith-filled response we can muster is do what those first Christians did on Pentecost. They devoted themselves to the apostles teaching and fellowship, to the breaking of bread and then prayers… all who believed were together and had all things in common, they would sell their possessions and good and distribute the proceeds to all, as any had need… Day by day, as they spent time together in the temple, they broke bread at home and ate their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having the goodwill of all the people.

That’s what the church does.

Happy birthday, Church.

 

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

God’s Testimony

I John 5:6-13
Rev. Dr. David A. Davis
May 17, 2015

Greater. Greater. God is greater than our hearts. (I John 3:20). Greater. Greater. For the One who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. (I John 4:4). Greater. Greater. The testimony of God is greater. (I John 5:9) Greater. Greater. If we receive human testimony, the testimony of God is greater….The Spirit is the one that testifies, for the Spirit is the truth. There are three that testify: the Spirit and the water and the blood, and these three agree. If we receive human testimony, the testimony of God is greater.

            This weekend the Nassau Presbyterian Church family is honored to once again share in celebrating and giving thanks for Centurion Ministries and their inspiring and tireless work on behalf of the wrongly imprisoned. 54 individuals freed, more than a 1,100 years in prison for crimes they didn’t commit. That includes Barry Beech and David Bryant both re-incarcerated with Centurion continuing to work on their behalf. This weekend is the celebration of Jim McCloskey’s retirement. Jim’s retirement after 35 years. And so on a Centurion Ministries Sunday at Nassau Church, in response to the scripture from I John, maybe it doesn’t even need to be said. Maybe it is obvious to everyone. Maybe it rises to the level of common sense. The truth of it sort of blows through the building this morning: the testimony of God is greater. You can’t hang around the CM family for very long and not be confronted with the frailty of eye witness testimony. The testimony of God is greater. God is greater.

            If we receive human testimony, the testimony of God is greater; for this is the testimony of God that God has testified to God’s Son. Those who believe in the Son of God have the testimony in their hearts.

            God’s testimony. In response to the scripture from I John, maybe it doesn’t even need to be said. Maybe it is obvious to everyone. God’s testimony made known to humankind in Jesus of Nazareth; his life, his ministry, his teaching, his suffering, his death, his rising from the dead. God’s testimony. A testimony portrayed in the Prologue to the Gospel of John with poetry, image, symbol:

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God,

And the Word was God….

 

What has come into being in him was life,

and the life was the light of all people.

The light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not overcome it….

 

And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have his glory,

the glory as of a father’s only son.

full of grace and truth.

 

God’s greater testimony: the life and witness of Jesus. Years ago in a seminary speech class, I learned this brief monologue from Professor Bob Jacks. It is a reflection on God’s testimony.

I open my mouth to speak and the Word is there…

formed by the lips, the tongue, the organ of voice.

Formed by the brain, transmitting the word by breath.

 

I open my mouth to speak and the word is there,

traveling between us—caught by the organ of hearing, the ear

transmitting the thought to the brain, through the word.

 

Just so do we communicate, you and I…

the thought leaping from one mind to the other,

given shape and form and substance

so that we know and are known through the word.

 

But let me speak to a very small child and the words mean nothing,

for she does not know my language.

And so I must show her;

“this is your foot” I say, “and it is meant for walking.”

Or I help her up. “This is how you walk”

Until one day, “walking” shapes in her brain,

through the word.

 

God has something to say to us

but the words mean nothing,

for we do not know God’s language.

And so we are shown, “behold the man”.

 

God says, “this is the image, the thought in my mind,

humanity as I mean it, loving and serving.

I have put him in flesh.

Now the Word has shape and form and substance

to travel between us.

Let him show forth love, until one day loving shapes in your brain,

through the Word.

God’s greater testimony. Jesus of Nazareth. Maybe it doesn’t need to be said. Maybe it is obvious to everyone, Maybe it rises to the plain sense of I John.

The Epistle of I John where it says: If we walk in the light as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin…By this we may be sure that we are in him: whoever says “I abide in him” ought to walk just as he walked….We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us—and we ought to lay down our lives for one another….Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love another…..We love because he first loved us.

            Just when you think that God’s testimony, God’s greater testimony is so obvious, so clear– God’s testimony in and through Jesus—you have to remember that the epistle of I John is fraught with God’s love working through us, Christ light and love being made known as we walk with him, in him, through him. If the scholars are correct that the epistle should be received more like a sermon, than a lot depends on how you hear it, the intonation and emphasis of the preacher. If we receive human testimony, the testimony of God is greater; for THIS is the testimony of God THAT GOD HAS TESTIFIED TO GOD’S SON. Those who believe in the Son of God have the testimony in their hearts. Or how about this way: If we receive human testimony, the testimony of God is greater; for THIS is the testimony of God that God has testified to God’s Son. THOSE WHO BELIEVE IN THE SON OF GOD HAVE THE TESTIMONY IN THEIR HEARTS. So much depends upon the “this”. God’s testimony in the person of Jesus. Yes. God’s testimony in the hearts and lives of those who believe. Yes. God’s testimony in those who believe and so love, not in word or speech but in truth and action. (I John 3:18). God’s testimony in and through us? Yes. Yes. All of the above. Yes.

And this is the testimony: God gave us eternal life and this life is in God’s Son. It is the hope and the promise for those who believe. The hope and promise we claim when we splash in these waters. This morning we claim it for Crosby. Abundant life now and eternal life forever. And our prayer? That God would protect and watch over Crosby, or as we say at Confirmation, “defend your servant with your heavenly grace”. But the prayer too, is that God would make known God’s love in the world in and through Crosby DeBruin. Because God is greater than our hearts. Greater. Greater. For the One who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. Greater. Greater. The testimony of God is greater. That God’s greater testimony would be at work, one precious life at a time.

Not with your eye witness testimony, not with a steady stream of your pious and religious words, not by trying to tie a nice and tidy bow on the mega theological enterprise of a complex and pluralistic world, not in claiming for yourself a god-like role of deciding who is in and who is out, who is right and who is wrong. No, our baptismal prayer, the very call of God on the life of the Christian, is about the testimony of your life and how God’s mercy and God’s love in Jesus Christ and God’s grace through the Holy Spirit, how all of that; the mercy, grace and love of God cradles you, fills you, and works through you. God’s greater testimony. Greater. Greater.

It was Jim McCloskey who taught me about the unreliability of eye witness testimony. It was around our dinner table as Jim told story after. Jim can tell a story. Oh, he can tell a story. It’s part of why he is so good at what he does. Jim knows every detail, every name, every date of the 54 cases. Those of us who know Jim know he has never met a word he didn’t like. With his life and work, Jim has also taught me a bit about how God’s love works. But here’s the thing, when it comes to Jim’s testimony, Jim and God’s love at work in and through him. Believe it or not it doesn’t come with lots of words. It doesn’t come with Jim sounding all religious (that’s not going to happen). The greater testimony of God? It comes like this:

Richard

Mark

Milton

David

Cathy

Frank

Barry

Louis

Richard

Marcus

Darryl

Willie

Walter

Kevin

Johnny

Harry

David

Michael

Nick

Wayne

James

Gary

John

Jon

Dennis

Timothy

Michael

Clarence

Danny

A.B.

Ed

Ellen

Kerry

Geronimo

Paul

Steven

Richard

Earl

Edward

Eddie

David

Benny

Clarence

Charles

Gregory

Matt

Clarence

Damaso

Joyce Ann

Jimmy

Nate

Rene

Milton

Jorge

 

Greater. Greater. The testimony of God is greater.

 

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

The Victory of Obedience

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 3rd 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.

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Perfecting God’s Love

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.

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Idle Tales

Luke 24:1-12
April 19, 2015
“Idle Tales”
Rev. Dr. David A. Davis

It is one of the most disconcerting experiences for a pastor. The local funeral home calls the church and asks if the pastor would be available to do a service there in the funeral home later in the week. The family has no church home. The person who died had no church affiliation. They would like to have the service Thursday morning at 11:00am. Doing a funeral for someone in the community for a family the minister doesn’t know, that’s not the disconcerting part. That happens all the time. As a young pastor in South Jersey I did more than my share. I did so many that one Christmas the funeral director gave me one of their matching ties all the staff would wear when they worked a large funeral. A service for a non-church member, that’s not the challenge. The challenge comes during the service. In the intimate setting of funeral home with the family just steps away in the front row and all that separates the minister is the skinny lectern with the light and the pull chain. The most disconcerting part, it comes before the eulogy. It comes when scripture is being read.

The clergy person is reading what is read pretty much at every service. I lift mine eyes to the hills from when does my help come. (Psalm 121) The Lord is my shepherd I shall not want. (Ps 23). Behold I tell you a mystery we shall not all die but we shall be changed. (I Cor 15) In my Father’s house are many mansions. (John 14). And somewhere right about, Thy rod and Thy staff, they comfort me, the pastor looks up to make eye contact. That’s how she was taught. That’s how she practiced. And right in that moment she looks into the face of a family member who has absolutely no idea what on earth she is talking about, what she is reading, what crazy stuff she is saying. That stare back, it has a bit of anger, maybe some disdain, and of course, sorrow. To call it the look of disbelief is probably assuming too much. It’s more like a look of someone who has absolutely never heard any of it before, any of what is being read. It makes the pastor feel like she is speaking a language unfamiliar. That unforgettable disconcerting look now seared into the pastor’s memory, it’s like the person thinks you’re just speaking gibberish, nonsense.

A look something like that, it must have been what the women saw on the faces of the apostles. “These words seemed to them an idle tale, and they did not believe them.” An idle tale. Translated in other versions as “nonsense”, “pure nonsense”. The women who had been to the tomb, what they were telling the apostles, the men thought it was pure nonsense. An idle tale.

Two weeks ago on Easter morning in the sermon, I said “the only thing mentioned more than the Jesus being raised in Matthew’s account of the empty tomb is fear.” Last week in Mark, the hard stop in the Easter morning text was “they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.” What is striking, then, about Luke’s account, is that there isn’t much fear. When the women found the stone rolled away, when they went in and did not find the body, Luke records that they were perplexed. When the two men suddenly appeared in dazzling clothes and stood right beside them, the women were, of course, terrified. Who wouldn’t be? They bowed their faces to the ground but Luke doesn’t say another word about their fear. And the two men, their first words to the women, those first words remarkably were NOT “do not be afraid.” That’s what angels are supposed to say. There is no call and response here in Luke about fear. “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen.” Yes, they were afraid, but apparently not afraid enough for the two men to offer the angels’ signature words of comfort. When you do the first Easter morning gospel texts three weeks in a row it is striking how little fear there is in Luke.

The only thing mentioned more than Jesus being raised in Luke’s account of the empty tomb is remembering. “‘Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, but has risen. Remember how he told you while he was still in Galilee, that the Son of Man must be handed over to sinners, and be crucified, and on the third day rise again?’ Then they remembered his words…” Remember how he told you? Then they remembered. Luke’s brief plot of the empty tomb, it turns on remembering. It is in their remembering that Luke names the women: Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James and the others. Named not right at the outset on their way to the tomb but named in their remembering. It is in their remembering that “they told all this to the eleven and to all the rest.” Remembering. It’s hard to miss in Luke. And when the apostles thought the women were just spouting pure nonsense, when Luke tells the reader they did not believe them, it wasn’t just that they didn’t believe, it was that they didn’t remember. The apostles didn’t remember how and what and why he told them. The looks on their faces, must have shown what they were thinking, that what they were hearing was pure nonsense. But the women…they remembered.

You remember that recurrent theme in all the gospels, how Jesus would teach about his suffering, his death, his resurrection and the disciples wouldn’t listen, wouldn’t get it. Just here in Luke, Jesus spoke with clarity about what was going to happen to the Son of Man, and he followed up with “If any wants to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me.” Then just a bit later in Luke, after Jesus heals a boy and gave him back to his father, after Luke writes that “All were astounded at the greatness of God”, Jesus repeated that teaching about his suffering and betrayal. Right then the disciples start to argue about which one of them was the greatest. Again, still in Luke, Jesus took the twelve aside and was very specific about the Son of Man being mocked, insulted, spat upon, flogged, killed…and that he would rise again on the third day. They understood nothing. It was hidden from them Luke tells. What happened next was Jesus restoring the sight of the blind man sitting by the side of the road.

In Luke, and in all the gospels for that matter, Jesus’ telling the disciples, teaching the disciples, Jesus predicting his suffering, death, and resurrection is so interwoven with the unfolding gospel witness to his life, his identity, his relationship to them, his teaching, his actions, his every move. “Remember how he told you, while he was still in Galilee…” Remember it, remember all of it. This is not simply remembering the algebraic equation learned for an exam. This is not just remembering one more thing on the list before you leave the store. This is not just remembering the name of that person at work when you see them across the way in the restaurant. And honestly, it’s a whole lot more than just remembering handed over, crucified, rise on the third day (A + B = C…Oh! Check). It wasn’t just that they didn’t remember what he told them, they weren’t remembering him at all! All of him.

These words seemed to the apostles to be pure nonsense. An idle tale. The Greek word here, the one word for idle tale, is unique in the gospels. The only time it is used. The word idle, as in resting, or not in use, or unemployed occurs elsewhere in scripture with a different Greek word. Here the Greek dictionary translates the word as idle talk, nonsense. It was like those first proclaimers of the resurrection were speaking gibberish, an unknown language. The apostles and their not remembering, not believing, it was a singularly unique occurrence; distinctive not just in word choice but in their striking, fleeting yet unforgettable paralysis of remembering, living, acting, in response to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. For in that moment, there was nothing. This was the apostles and it was if they had never heard any of it before.

That moment in Luke’s account of the empty tomb, the apostles’ moment of unbelief, it wasn’t even what public figures today call “misremembering”. It was un-remembering. You pretty much can’t get any further away from what Jesus of Nazareth told his followers to do. “Do this in remembrance of me”. Before that walk along the Emmaus Road when the Risen Jesus came near and went with them, before he interpreted to them “all the things about himself in all the scriptures”, before he “took bread, blessed, and broke it, and gave it to them”, before “their eyes were opened and they recognized him”, before the Risen Christ made himself known to them, to the others, to the church, to you and to me, there was that unforgettable moment of nothingness. And it ought to haunt and inspire, chill and motivate, challenge and exhort any and all who think that the biggest threat to a life in Christ is whether or not you can fathom the resurrection. No, without question, what tears at the life of faith, what eats away at the kingdom, what must cause the most upset in the heart of God is the lingering paralysis of remembering, living, acting, responding to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. To proclaim Christ is Risen! He is Risen indeed! And then to do nothing.

Near the end of her book Take This Bread: The Spiritual Memoir of a Twenty-First Century Christian, Sara Miles tells in uncomfortable detail the challenge of caring for a dear, dear friend who was dying. With beautiful images of the Lord’s Supper, she compares preparing and giving some toast and a glass of water to preparing and offering the sacrament. The words of the communion liturgy come to her mind as she is there in the kitchen making toast, breaking bread. In that moment, she finds herself comforted in the presence of the Risen Christ. Or as she writes, “I wasn’t alone. This wasn’t the end”. And in giving the toast she said, “Millie, this is for you”. Knowing that Millie wasn’t alone either. Then Sara Miles writes about driving across the bridge to home, stunned and blinking and saying aloud to herself in the car, “Oh my God, it’s real.” What she meant was that yes, the promise of the sacrament is real. What she meant was that yes, the presence of the Risen Christ is real. What she meant was that yes God with us is real. “I wasn’t alone. This wasn’t the end”. The Risen Christ present and made real in her caring for the dying and offering love and compassion in the most human, ordinary, and remarkably holy of ways.

She was remembering.

 

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Its a Hard Stop

April 12, 2015
Mark 16:1-8
“It’s a Hard Stop”
Rev. Dr. David A. Davis

 

            It’s a hard place to stop. “They said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.” Mark’s account of the empty tomb at the end of his gospel. “They said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.” No greeting from the Risen Jesus. No Risen Jesus for that matter. Yes, the stone is rolled back. There is a young man dressed in white who tells the women that Jesus has been raised. He is not here. The women, according to Mark, they fled from the tomb in terror and amazement. No “fear and great joy”. Just fear. “They said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.” It’s a hard place to stop.

When you read the 16th chapter of Mark, if you were following along as I read the first 8 verse to you, you will see all kinds of brackets and footnotes and margin notes and paragraph headings. Bible editors and bible translators try to make the reader aware of the critical work that has been done related to the ending of Mark’s gospel. Ancient manuscripts lack consensus and so ones finds a shorter ending and a longer ending and an ending-ending. Beyond what the scholars write about in terms of historic sources and style of the Greek language, parts of the second half of chapter 16th, they sort of don’t pass the sniff test (a highly technical term in biblical scholarship). Snake handling and drinking deadly things but not getting hurt and the Risen Jesus “upbraiding” the disciples for their lack of faith and stubbornness and Jesus sending out through them “the sacred and imperishable proclamation of eternal salvation”. That phrase sounds less “gospelly” and much more like a sentence from a final paper over at the seminary. The consensus among New Testament scholars is that the ending ending is here at v.8. “They said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.” Yes, it’s a hard place to stop but it’s a hard stop. Mark ends here.

I had read the novel Gone Girl a while back. When the movie came out, I kept reading and hearing from folks who saw it but complained that they didn’t like the ending. When I finally did see the movie, the ending of the movie was pretty much exactly like the ending of the book. Some people didn’t like it, but the ending was the ending. When it comes to the Gospel of Mark, it would seem that folks didn’t like the ending. The earliest scribes, church fathers in the first centuries, establishers of the canon; they didn’t like the ending and after all, who wants to stop at “They said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.”? So we’re left with a shorter ending and a longer ending and an ending ending. On a morning like last Sunday, it’s not easy to stick with Mark and a hard stop at v.8 when the sanctuary is full and the brass are playing and everyone is waiting to sing “Thine is the Glory”. And the preacher announces that the first proclaimers of the Easter message, they fled in “silence and fear.” Cue the trumpets!

Don Juel was a professor of New Testament at Princeton Seminary and a worshipping member of Nassau Church, along with his wife Linda. Don died in 2003. Others can describe his legacy more fully than I can, but I can’t imagine anyone wrote about the ending of Mark’s gospel in a more compelling, more provocative, more faithful way than Don Juel. The hard stop at v.8, . “They said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid”, for him, it was no longer up for discussion. What’s most captivating about Juel’s work is how he sees Good News in THIS ending. How he sees in THIS ending to Mark, the very promise of God.

With what must have been a bit of devilish humor, Don once preached a sermon on the longer ending of Mark and after reading Mark 16:9-19 he said to the gathered community “I will confess that I have never heard those words….read in church. And I hope I never will again.” Juel went on in that sermon, which was of course on the ending ending not the longer ending, he went on to say this: “People can’t leave the ending alone: it’s too unsettling. What terrified the women who went to the tomb, loaded down with spices to do their duty to the corpse, was that Jesus wasn’t there…As the Gospel ends, Jesus isn’t there. He is nowhere to be seen. There’s not even a garment to touch.”

“When you reach the end of the story” Professor Juel preached, “Jesus isn’t there….It’s a good thing. If we could get our hands on Jesus, we would surely throttle the life out of him as did his contemporaries. But we can’t. Jesus is free, out of the tomb, beyond our control, and beyond death. That’s why the story is good news. He’s free so that he can make his way into our lives and actually liberate as God had planned since before the foundation of the world.” Here’s the provocative trajectory of Juel’s thought: if you are going try to keep the Risen Jesus under your thumb, if you’re going to forever link resurrection hope to a pious effort to cling to his feet or to hear him call your name, holding on to a conception of Jesus that simply confirms all your expectations and assumptions, if you’re going to limit God’s liberating promise to the requirements of your intellect, your imagination, or your satisfaction, if God’s entire Easter enterprise results in little more than (in Juel’s own words) “believing in a Jesus who has saved everyone in principle but never gets close enough to unsettle anyone in particular”, well, you may as well leave him in the tomb.

When you do the hard stop here in Mark. When you stop in the harder place,. “They said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.” When you stop right there, all you have to hold onto is the promise of God. The promise of God in the words of the young man in a white robe. “He has been raised; he is not here….he is going ahead of you to Galilee, there you will see him, just has he told you.” As Professor Juel concluded, “the gospel that ends with frightened women is far more real and holds considerably greater promise.” Holds more promise because the only one to finish the story, it’s not a scribe, or a bible editor, or the women or the disciples, or the first century church, or even you and me, the only one who can finish the story is God. Because it’s God’s promise.

“He is going ahead of you…there you will see him, just has he told you.” Or as the Risen Jesus puts it at the end of Matthew’s Gospel, “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,, and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

            Earlier when we were gathered at the font, I said to Charlotte what I try to say every time we celebrate a baptism for someone older than an infant, what I try to say to an older sibling standing there with us around the baptismal waters, Charlotte, this water, it’s a sign that God loves you very, very much. And nothing, nothing, nothing will ever change that.” Truth is, I should have said it to Rich. “Rich, , this water, it’s a sign that God loves you very, very much. And nothing, nothing, nothing will ever change that.” I should have said it to him. We should say it to parents when they stand up here. We should say it to any witnesses. We should say it over and over again. It is the baptismal promise of God. The prior promise of God. The promise of God we claim in baptism. I am with you always. The baptismal resurrection promise of God. You will see him just as he told you. I am with you always, to the end of the age.

            The prior promise of God. Not you will win the game, or you will make lots of money, or you will live a long and happy life, or you will be cancer free, or it will be all good all the time, or your most important relationships will always thrive, or your boss will always like you, or you will get in wherever you apply, or you will have no doubts, or you will always have a mountaintop believe, or that all of this (life, meaning, purpose, kingdom, servanthood, following Jesus), that it is all going to be that easy. No. How about “You will see him just as he told you.” and “I will be with you always”.

The baptismal promise of God. That Jesus of Nazareth, the One who brought the kingdom of heaven near, the One who embodied the unconditional love of God, the One who sowed visions of righteousness and snipped away at religiosity, the One who emptied himself and was obedient to the point of death on the cross all the while saying that he would rise again, the Son of God, the Messiah, the Savior, the Risen Christ, nothing, nothing, absolutely nothing will ever take his love away from you. He will be with you until the end of the age.

When the women got to the empty tomb he wasn’t there. And at that moment, all they had to go on was a promise. Of course they were scared and said nothing to anyone. But the story continues, the gospel continues with the promise of God. The baptismal resurrection promise of God. And those first women, and then disciples, and then the early church, and then our forbearers in faith, and then you and me…the Living God invites us to respond to that promise, to live that promise, to participate in that promise, to carry out that promise with our lives seeing the Risen Jesus there and knowing that with every step, with every day, with every breath and then some, he is with us and for us.

“They said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid”. It’s a hard stop. Last Sunday with the sanctuary overflowing and the brass playing and everyone waiting to sing “Thine is the Glory”, here’s how it should be proclaimed. Here’s how to do Easter morning and the end of Mark’s Gospel: the congregation is of course all revved up to hear about the Risen Jesus. They’re ready for “Christ is Risen!” Someone stand up to read the gospel lesson, and stops at v. 8 and sits down. “They said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid”. Then, nothing. No sermon. No singing. No organ. No brass. No timpani. Only silence and a church full of uncomfortable, shuffling folks wondering what on earth is coming next. What comes next, what breaks that awkward loud silence, the next thing to be spoken, heard…..

I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

Responding to God’s promise and continuing God’s story with the discipleship of our lives.

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Forever

April 5, 2015
Matthew 28:1-10
“Forever”
Rev. David A. Davis

Fear and great joy; as in “they left the tomb quickly with fear and great joy.” Fear and great joy. It is a jarring combination of emotions. It’s not something to really be explained. You don’t make sense of it. Fear and great joy. But the combination, it is part of the human experience. You can’t explain it but you’ve seen it. I’ve seen it. An 18 year old arrives on a college campus somewhere, anywhere. She is so glad to be out of high school. She is, honestly, so happy to be away from home. But her chief goal that first week is to not let her roommates know how wicked scared she is. Fear and great joy. Ask any first time parents who have just brought a baby home from the hospital, they’ve just arrived home with their adopted newborn, ask any first time parents and without using the exact words, I assure you they will describe fear and great joy to you. When both dads take the morning off from work because their son is getting on the bus for the first time and heading off to first grade? That moment when the bus drives away, it is fear and great joy. The saint of the church, with a fullness of life far beyond what the psalmist describes, four score by reason of strength, that pillar of faith and strength who is both ready to go to glory and anxious about getting there. That’s fear and great joy. You can’t really describe it but you’ve seen it. You’ve tasted it. You know it.

The only thing mentioned more than the Jesus being raised in Matthew’s account of the empty tomb is fear. For fear of the stone rolling, stone sitting, earthquake announcing angel, those guards shook and became like dead men. To the women there at the now empty tomb, the angel said “do not be afraid”. Do not fear. When they left the tomb quickly it was with fear and great joy. And then suddenly Jesus met them and as they clung to his feet and fell down and worshiped him, he said, “do not be afraid”. Do not fear. Some translations, some commentators, some preachers, they try to soften the fear; opting for the word “awe” or “wonder”. They try to go with that old biblical use of the word “fear” as in “the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom” (Psalm 111). Fear as in worship and reverence. “Filled with awe and a lot of excitement” the women left the tomb quickly. No, they were scared to death, scared by death, sacred of the mystery that life might somehow rising out of death. Otherwise the Risen Jesus would not have said to them, “Do not be afraid.” It was fear and great joy.

Not all that many weeks ago I was over at Princeton Cemetery for the burial of ashes. It was one of those bitter cold, single digit kind of days. When I arrived at the cemetery I was warned that the pathway back to the grave was long and treacherous; treacherous because of ice and snow. It was a large, extended family gathering and they arrived sort of in shifts. So the first of us at the grave, we had to wait. It was so cold and it is always colder in a cemetery. At one point we were waiting for the last car load to make their way down that pathway. They couldn’t move fast at all, though they were trying. And did I mention that it was really cold. The older family members and I, we had been waiting out there for quite while by then. The liturgy at the grave is brief but I made the pastoral call to be even more brief that frigid afternoon. After I gave the benediction, there amid the silence, a young great-grandchild spoke up loud enough for everyone to hear: “Don’t we have to sing something?” An older voice around the circle said something like “we can sing later”. But the child was right of course; about having to sing.

Not all that many days ago, again at Princeton Cemetery, as what would be the last snow flakes started to fall that Friday morning, we stood around the open grave. Snow now sticking to us, on the flowers, on the casket. I finished with the benediction and there amid the silence a lone voice started to sing; “Amazing Grace.” It was without cue, without plan. But we all joined in. Even the funeral director, standing behind me, holding an umbrella over my, he was singing in my ear. “I once was lost but now am found.” There at the grave as winter was offering a last gasp and death was demanding to be the exclamation point on life, the song was a daring act of praise. That lone voice that started us, that led us, the lone voice, like the great grandchild weeks before, someone knew we had to sing. Surrounded by death and still bold enough to sing God’s praise. It’s what fear and great joy sounds like. A daring, death stomping doxology.

Doxology. Literally, “words of glory.” An ascription of praise to God. Like “glory to God in the highest”. Doxology. Like “praise God from whom all blessings flow. Doxology. An act of praise to God that often includes the word “glory”. As in “for thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever.” The last line in the Lord’s Prayer. It is doxology. A doxology appended to the prayer in the earliest days of the ancient church. For careful readers of Matthew’s gospel, it is a footnote referencing some early manuscripts. “For thine is the kingdom, the power, and the glory.” Forever confusing generations of the faithful who wondered whether Protestants or Catholics had it right. Is it in? Is it out? Do we stop? Are we finished? What’s the deal on the Lord’s Prayer, pastor? Father? Nobody’s right. Nobody’s wrong. It’s simply a bold offering of praise in the prayer life of some of the earliest Christians. John Calvin argued that no one would dare offer such prayer to God based on the worth, the merit of the one doing the praying. The last line commends the prayer, lifts the prayer, frames the prayer in the justice and righteous flowing kingdom, the death conquering power, and the breathtaking glory of God; all of which is forever, and ever, ever. Hallelujah, Hallelujah.

My high school football team huddled up before each half of every game like every team in every sport does. It wasn’t “team on 3” or a captain yelling “who are we” and the team shouting back. No, we took off our helmets, knelt down, and said the Lord’s Prayer. My public high school. Before you applaud the coach’s piety, let me describe how the prayer ended. The pace of the prayer quickened throughout and by the time we came to “for thine is the kingdom..” all voices were raising. Here’s how it finished…”for thine is kingdom, the power…..(turns to a shout and scream)” Everyone rose to their feet, with shouts and cries… now including “lets go out there and crush them!” It wasn’t piety. It wasn’t praise. It wasn’t even prayer. It was a pregame ritual, a sideline pep talk, something akin to a motivational speaker!

I have felt guilty about that Lord’s Prayer abuse for 35 years. Until this week. I finally found a lesson in it. A more meaningful take away. No, that sideline experience will never be deemed holy. But how that last line, how the “For thine is the kingdom” part turned to a shout, it reminds me of how doxology can become a shout of praise? Easter morning for the followers of Jesus, it is our shout of praise. Easter morning is when doxology becomes a shout. You and I gathered here, it is all praise, total praise, all doxology brought about, brought forth, caused by that empty tomb, and the stone rolling angel, and the “he has been raised” part of the gospel witness. Easter morning, it is for us to pray, “For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory (turns to shouts)” Christ is Risen! He is Risen indeed!   A daring, death stomping doxological shout! It’s what fear and great joy sounds like.

Fear and great joy. You can’t really describe it but you’ve seen it. You’ve tasted it. You know it. The women at the tomb were scared to death, scared by death, scared by the mystery that life might somehow rise out of death. Scared to death. Been there. Scared by death. Check. Yes. But it’s difficult to say what’s so scary about the life rising out of death part, what’s scary about resurrection, is it the mystery of it all? Is it the after three days he rose just like he said part? Is it that in rising from the dead he has forever transformed the power that sin and death can have over us? Is it how in coming out of the tomb he has promised eternal life to us and opened the way to new life now, abundant life now? Is that what’s scary? Or is the scarier part the notion that you and I will never be able to wrap our minds around it. For most of us, probably, for most of us in a congregation like ours, in a town like this, where the (PhD) stripes rule and smarter is always better, that’s the scary part, right? You’ll never get it!

“Do not be afraid” Jesus said to them, go and tell them to go to Galilee; there they will see me.” Jesus sent them out to Galilee, that kingdom has come near place, that place of kingdom talk and kingdom work….where the children and the widows and imprisoned and the sick and dying are cared for…where sinners are welcomed and tax collectors are transformed and the unclean are embraced….where parables are told and lived, the one about a father embracing a lost son, and the one about a foreigner helping the one the ditch, and the one about how you can’t serve God and mammon….where the gospel is taught and lived: turning the other cheek, and caring for the poor, and loving your enemies, and forgiving over and over. The women and the disciples and us, the Risen Jesus sent them, sends us out to do his work and says “yeah, I will see you there”. Do not be afraid!

Easter morning has already come and gone in Kenya. In that nation so shaken by the brutal murders on a college campus of almost 150 mostly Christian people; killed for no other reason than they answered “I am a Christian”. It is a faith-laden tragedy beyond what you and I can imagine. Here’s what been stirring in my heart this weekend. The followers of Jesus gathered all over Kenya earlier today. You know it. I know it. We don’t have to wait to read about it or see a story about it. It’s Easter Day and those dear, dear Christians sisters and brothers gathered to weep and to pray and to yes, to offer a daring, death stomping doxology. And someone had to say it, had to start to sing it. Someone did. Surrounded by death with nothing to cling to other than the resurrection power of God and still bold enough to pray, “For thine is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever.” A defiant, doxological shout. You know they said it. And this morning, this Easter day, Christians all around the world, we say it with them. Because we have to. We have to because of him. Because….

Christ is Risen! He is Risen indeed!

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Prayers for Easter

As you gather with friends and family today, we offer you 3 prayers from David Davis to use around your table:

 

Easter Day 2008 Prayers of the People

Oh Mighty and Life-giving God, by your grace-filled power and with your wondrous love for us, you raised your Son Jesus from the dead. With his resurrection, you have forever trampled the force of death and you have opened the gate of abundant and everlasting life. Up from the grave he arose, showing us the truth of your Gospel, revealing for us and for all of creation, the blessed hope of promise amid suffering, the light of life amid the shadows of death, the persistent joy that sounds amid the silence of despair. We praise you. We thank you. We celebrate you, O God of power and life and forgiveness and mercy. Our lips are full of your Holy Name and our hearts overflow with your Spirit, for Christ has Risen. He has Risen Indeed!

By your grace, Lord God, transform us to be your Easter people. In your Spirit, inspire us to be witnesses to the presence of the Risen Christ among us. Confirm in us, the assurance of his presence with us, here in all of our brokenness, here despite the certainty of our mortality, here in this life were we ought to see his face in the tired and the poor and the stranger and the other. With your wisdom, Heavenly God, lead us along a life-giving, death stomping pathway of justice and righteousness and peace.

So overwhelm us, so startle us, so take us a-back this Easter morning, illumine the shadows that linger and drop the blinders that cling to our eyes and remove the haze of indifference, so that we might see Jesus and his hope for us, so that we might see Jesus and his vision of your creation in full bloom, so that we might see Jesus, that we might then work in and for his kingdom; a kingdom where the hungry are fed and children are welcomed, where the sick are healed, where sins are forgiven and the lame walk and prisoners are set free, where those who mourn are comforted and the peacemakers are blessed and those who hunger and thirst for righteousness are forever satisfied, where the nations are healed where war is learned no more, where there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male nor female, where the dead rise from the grave and gather forever around the throne of your grace.

Use us, your Easter people, Living God, use us as instruments of prayer, even now, Holy One. Hear these prayers that we offer deep within our hearts, prayers breathed into the silence offered amid Easter’s cacophony of praise.

We offer these prayers, as we would live, in the name of the Risen Christ, whose resurrection unleashes our salvation. And we pray, as he has taught us…..

 

Easter Day 2011 Prayers of the People

Great God Almighty, God of life, abundant and eternal, God of resurrection power, God of death conquering hope, God of darkness shattering light, God of healing, reconciling love, God of sin stomping forgiveness, God who makes all things new, Great God Almighty….we thank you this Easter Day for the resurrection of Jesus Christ, for his rising from the tomb, for the breath of life that he shared, that Spirit giving and kingdom forming commission to all who would follow him, and live in him, for his life giving victory over the powers and principalities of this world, for his promised presence with us until the end of the age. We praise you, Everlasting Lord for the Risen Christ; our prophet, priest, and king.

Unleash the mystery of the resurrection among us Lord God, transform us to be your Easter people. In your Spirit, inspire us to be witnesses to the presence of the Risen Christ among us. Confirm in us, the assurance of his presence with us, here in all of our brokenness, here despite the certainty of our mortality, here in this life were he taught us to see his face in the tired and the poor and the stranger and the other. With your wisdom, Heavenly God, lead us along a life-giving, death stomping pathway of justice and righteousness and peace.

Recast the power of the resurrection in all the world, Holy God. That you would be about the promise of doing a new thing in your creation, that the divine beauty of a new heaven and a new earth might break upon the world as fresh and as certain as the dawn of a new day, that creation’s moan might turn to a glad shout, that the cry of those who suffer might turn to a dance, that the nations posturing for power might turn to a posture of praise to you, O Lord God. With your mighty peace, Loving Lord, transform the earth to your kingdom that stretches from east to west, and from north to south.

Refresh the promise of the resurrection in each of our lives, O God of saving grace. Take the hearts that are heavy with grief and wrap them with a sense of eternity deep within. Take the minds that are wrought with anxiety and anoint them again with the peace that passes understanding. Take the bodies that broken, or battling, or worn, and pour out a healing so far beyond words and a comfort so beyond imagination. Take those who find themselves walking in darkness and rekindle the assurance of your light, a light that comes by the magnitude of your grace, and the daring resurrection promise of your presence with us, now and forever, making the ordinariness of our lives, unbelievably sacred.

For Christ has Risen! He has Risen Indeed!

 

Prayers of the People Easter Day 2013

Thanks be to you, Almighty God, on this Resurrection Day. Thanks be to you, for the victory you have given us through our Lord Jesus Christ. Thanks be to you, Mighty and Merciful God of life, for your death conquering love, your darkness shattering light, and your hope-filled promise of a triumphant coming kingdom where the hungry are forever filled, the poor are forever lifted up, swords are forever plowshares, and righteousness and justice forever flow like a mighty river. Thanks be to you, O God.

In the joy of this Easter Day, as the songs of praise fill the air, anoint us afresh with your Holy Spirit. Shower us again with your grace, and so bless us with a full remembering of the gospel; that the stories of Jesus might nest forever in our hearts, that the truth of the gospel might be seared in our bones, that the life of discipleship we lead may be grounded not in fear but in comfort. That, indeed we may be sent out into your world to proclaim the Good News with the earthiness of our lives….steadfast in our yearnings to please and glorify you, immovable in our commitment to compassion and peace, and always excelling, abounding, increasing in our work as servants for your kingdom.

Basking in the warmth and the light and the power of your Resurrection promise, we are bold to pray this morning, Holy God, to pray for those around us we know who grieve, whose hearts are broken, those for whom death is all too real right now……Comfort your people, O God, with resurrection hope.

We are resolute to pray, this morning Faithful God, to pray for your world and for the violence and hatred that too often seems to define it. For vulnerable peoples all across the land, for regions where despair only rises, for leaders and nations who can choose to work for peace…Inspire your people, O God, with resurrection hope.

We are persistent to pray this morning, God with Us, to pray for the witness of your people, for those who are working for a kingdom to come, for those who are telling of a world where all are one, for those who are weeping for a world where the kingdom is so clearly not yet…Empower your people, O God, with resurrection hope.

Hear our prayer, Gracious God, Risen Savior, Guiding Spirit, for while we may not be able to figure out resurrection, you have instilled deep within us the confidence, the assurance, the knowledge, that in the Lord, in you, our labor, our prayer, our lives are never in vain. So may we live now and forever to the Glory of your name.