March 29, 2015
Matthew 4:1-11
“Lead Us”
Rev. Dr. David A. Davis

Do not bring us to the time of trial, but rescue us from the evil one. Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. Save us from the time of trial and deliver us from evil. Trial. Temptation. Test. “God is faithful, and God will not let you be tested beyond your strength, but with the testing God will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it.” That’s I Corinthians 10. The Apostle Paul. Testing. Temptation Trial. I Peter 1: “In this you rejoice, even if now for a little while you have had to suffer various trials, so that the genuineness of your faith—being more precious than gold that, though perishable , is tested by fire—may be found to result in praise and glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed.” The Book of James: “Blessed is anyone who endures temptation. Such a one has stood the test and will receive the crown of life that the Lord has promised to those who love the Lord. No one, when tempted, should say “I am being tempted by God” for God cannot be tempted by evil and God tempts no one. But one is tempted by one’s own desire, being lured and enticed by it.” Trial. Temptation. Testing. That night in the garden when the disciples couldn’t stay awake even though Jesus asked them to. Jesus said to them, “Stay awake and pray that you may not come into the time of trial; the spirit is indeed willing but the flesh is weak.” The time of trial. The time of testing. The time of temptation.

This one petition in the Lord’s Prayer is not a summary of the New Testament witness when it comes to trial and temptation. It is not a theological thesis statement on testing, faith, life, and the providence of God. It is a petition. A prayer. It is not a philosophical statement on the problem of evil. It’s the teaching of Jesus on prayer. Pray then in this way: do not bring us into temptation but rescue us from evil.

Of course Jesus had his own recorded, iconic experience of temptation, trial, testing. Here in Matthew just before the Sermon on the Mount; the sermon that includes the Lord’s Prayer. According to Matthew, Jesus was led up by the Spirit in the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. Scholars point out that the Lord’s encounter with the devil here, it follows a familiar pattern. Pattern being the order of the temptations: hunger, putting God to the test, false worship. It is the same pattern from the Hebrew Bible and Israel wandering in the wilderness. The timeless wilderness connection affirmed all the more by the response of Jesus; by his defense, his quotes from Deuteronomy. As one commentator points out, those wilderness trials, before they were his, they were Israel’s. Feeding yourself first. Putting God to the test. Creating and worshiping false gods. Before they were his, they were the trials of God’s people. And after they were his, they are the trials of God’s people. Jesus in the wilderness. It’s a prototype of sorts. An example with a capital “E” of the testing that comes in the world’s wilderness. Not just this temptation or that temptation; one vice, another sin. No, it is a portrayal of how the principalities and powers of darkness tear away at the very core of what it means to be God’s people, God’s children. Jesus and his wilderness testing, It is the role model, the prototype, the archetype, the veritable definition of obedience and faithfulness for a child of God.

And on this Palm Sunday, we find ourselves yet again somewhere along the pathway as Jesus rides on. As he goes up to the city that was in turmoil. A city full of swirling chaos; where the forces of evil are out to destroy him and the kingdom that comes with him. The city where shouts of “Crucify him” will reduce any “hosanna” to a faint echo of yesterday. Turmoil. Chaos. The taunts. The mocking. The jeering that will surely come. “If you are the Son of God, come down from the cross.” A wilderness taunt that Jesus has heard before. It’s Palm Sunday and Jesus is in full obedience. His faithfulness on display for all to see as he rides on. Jesus is heading into an urban wilderness to be tried, tested, tempted; tested by death itself. He still rides on…   “though he was in the form of God, he did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death—even death on the cross.” (Philippians)

Pray then like this, Jesus said, Lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. This petition in the Lord’s Prayer is about more than one temptation, one vice, this sin or that one. It’s not the sound track for a morality play. Without question, prayer is essential when it comes to humankind battling the ways of the flesh. Anyone in a 12 step program will attest to the importance of prayer. Any parent who watches their high school student pull out of the driveway on a Friday night understands the necessity of prayer. A couple celebrating their 60^th wedding anniversary will give witness to the effectiveness of prayer in their lifetime of fidelity and faithfulness to one another. A business person rises to offer gratitude for the role of prayer in daily putting on the whole armor of God in the ongoing test between what’s right and what’s wrong. The prayer lives of God’s people are full to overflowing with the plea of helping us in the battle against the way of all flesh. In the thick of one of those brutally honest conversations with God Almighty, a whole lot of other words, groans, and cries, and pleas, and shouts are going to be offered before you get to “Save us from the time of trial and deliver us from evil.”

Every Sunday when we have communion, the serving teams meet in my office. They get themselves organized. Look for a substitute or two if necessary. When everything is ready, and the start of worship has drawn near, we pray together and as those elders and deacons are heading out of my office I almost always say “Be careful out there.” It is a silly quote from an old television show, “Hill Street Blues”. The commanding officer, after the morning briefing, would say “be careful out there” on every episode. It has been pointed out to me that the one morning I didn’t say “be careful out there” was the one time anyone can remember when we had a significant stumble and spill. It’s a symbolic exhortation to communion servers, and then to worshippers heading out, the people of God being sent into the world. “Hey, let’s be careful out there”.

The petition of the Lord’s Prayer that includes trial, testing, temptation, and evil, it’s a “help us be careful” out there plea. Not just be careful in terms of sin, morality, and our good and bad choices, but be careful in terms of obedience and faithfulness. Being mindful of who God in Jesus Christ has called us to be. Being reminded that powers and principalities are at work in very real ways tearing away at your life and mine, tearing away at the core of what it means for us to be children of God. The petition, it is a weekly, daily, a few times a day plea to God that God will empower us, shape us, and lead us in service to the gospel. You don’t just stumble upon this language in the Lord’s Prayer. It comes just paragraphs after Jesus’ own wilderness testing. It comes firmly embedded in the gospel narrative that follows him to all the way to the cross. Pray then like this; that we who are so surrounded in the world’s darkness, that we might somehow, someway reflect the light of his obedience and that everything that works against the kingdom of God here on earth might cower at the power of him who is at work in us.

This petition of the Lord’s Prayer, it may get worked over more than all the others as translators, commentators, you, me, as we all try to understand and find meaning. But through it all in this part of the prayer and in the whole prayer for that matter, no one ever questions the plural part. Us. Our. We. Save us from the time of trial and deliver us from evil. It has a striking plain sense to it when you stop and ponder the plural. It’s not about your trials, temptations, tests, It’s about ours. The children of God. The body of Christ. God’s people. It’s about our faithfulness and obedience amid the world’s turmoil. God’s own people amid the world’s testing, the world’s temptation, the world’s trial. Marked at our baptism. Nurtured at his table. Claimed at the cross as God’s own. God’s people. “You are God’s people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of the one who called you out of darkness into God’s marvelous light” (I Peter).

To stand here along the way watching him ride on is to be drawn in once again to his complete obedience and his incomparable faithfulness. To watch him ride on is to be spellbound once again by his perfect love. To watch him ride on is to have the breadth of his life and teaching and action, it all passes before your eyes. His words, his healing touch, his broken heart, his own tears, his embrace of the sinner, his poke at the pious, his challenge to the rich, his abiding concern for the poor, the sick, the grieving. It’s all right there as he rides on. To watch him ride on toward humanity’s wilderness, with the cross being fashioned on the horizon, is to be reminded afresh of the powers and principalities of darkness that still work to destroy him and the kingdom that comes with him. To watch him ride on is to realize what’s left along the way, all’s that left as he rides on, it’s not palms strewn along the way, it’s not the cloaks tossed in the road. What’s left after the parade has passed by, what’s left is us. We’re sort of all he has left. Us and the Holy Spirit (thank God). It’s us. We’re God’s people.

Claimed, shaped, saved, sent yet again by his complete obedience, his incomparable faithfulness, and his perfect love. And as he rides out of sight, as it all starts to sink in, someone somewhere in the Body of Christ, calls after him, hoping that he can still hear as he is way up that hill.

Jesus! Hey Jesus, save us from the time of trial! Deliver us from evil! Hosanna!

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

March 22, 2015
Matthew 18:21-35
“Forgive”
Rev. Dr. David A. Davis

             The 18^th chapter of the gospel of Matthew; it’s full of the teaching of Jesus. No healings. No exorcisms. No conversations. No taking, breaking, and blessing of bread. Just teaching. Jesus teaching and two brief questions from the disciples. Before the text we read just now, right at the beginning of chapter 18 the disciples asked Jesus “who is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven?” And then that question from Peter, “Lord, how often should I forgive.” All the rest, here in Matthew 18, all the rest is from Jesus. It’s all Jesus.

He calls a child over and puts the young one there among the disciples; “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me,” he says. Jesus goes on to warn about putting a stumbling block before a little one and he does one of those rhetorical hyperbolic riffs about cutting off body parts and tearing out eyes that cause you to stumble. And he tells that one about the shepherd who has a hundred sheep and leaves the ninety nine to go in search of the one that went astray. “I tell you, he rejoices over it more than the ninety-nine that never went astray. It is not the will of your Father in heaven that one of these little ones should be lost,” Jesus says.

But he’s not done! Here still in the same chapter Jesus offers that teaching about taking one or two of the members with you to visit a brother or sister who has sinned against you. It’s a rather detailed process he gives. “If the member refuses to listen to them, tell it to the church.” If the offender still refuses let them be like a tax collector to you. “Truly I tell you, whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” If two or three of you agree on anything you ask, Jesus says, it will be done. “For where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.” There’s that priceless promise about the presence of Christ forever sealed into the church’s collective soul. It comes not in a vignette about the disciples at worship or an exhortation about them doing mighty things with just small numbers, in comes in Jesus’ teaching about discipline, accountability, and forgiveness.

“Then Peter came and said to Jesus, ‘Lord if a brother or sister sins against me, how often should I forgive? As many as seven times? Jesus said to him, “Not seven times, but I tell you, seventy times seven” times”. Which, in terms of biblical numbers, any way you shape it, it’s Jesus telling Peter you have to do it this many times (fingers flashing). Put another way, you have to do it every time, forgive every time. “For this reason” Jesus says, “the kingdom of heaven may be compared to…”.

            Here in this chapter that’s pretty much all from the lips of Jesus, after Peter asks about how many times he needs to forgive, Jesus doesn’t look around the room to find someone to use as an object lesson on forgiveness so that Peter can practice. He doesn’t lay out a step by step process on forgiveness that involves this member and then these members and then the church. He doesn’t try to parse the word “forgiveness” in a Sermon on the Mount kind of way like he did with “adultery” (defining it as in the heart). He doesn’t give a real life example like when teaching on generosity he pointed to the poor widow who put in the two copper coins, all the living that she had. He doesn’t get practical and specific, like when he tells the disciples to “pray then like this.”. No, when Peter asks Jesus how often he had to forgive someone, Jesus says “for this reason the kingdom of heaven may be compared to….” And he goes on to tell them the parable about the king and the unforgiving servant.

A king decides its time to settle up with all the help. One slave has run up a debt so large it is beyond calculation. The text says “ten thousand talents”. That’s 150,000 year’s worth of wages for a worker. The debt was a million-zillon-gazillion. After the king orders the man and his family to be sold, all their possessions liquidated in order to salvage a “million-zillion-gazillioneth” of a basis point on the debt return, the slave asks for patience and promises to pay back everything; which of course is insultingly impossible. The king, however, has pity on the slave. Releases him. AND FORGIVES THE DEBT!

That same slave, that same day, or as the bible might put it elsewhere, “immediately” that same slave went out and came upon a colleague, a fellow servant, another slave who owed him ten or twenty bucks. The freshly forgiven slave grabs the other by the throat demanding to be paid. “Give me a break. I will pay” was the response of the slave being choked. The one who couldn’t breathe. The debt free slave refused and demanded that the one who had borrowed something like a day’s wage be thrown into prison until he paid, which of course he would not be able to do from prison with any earnable income now off the table. Some other slaves, they captured the whole thing on their cell phones and went and showed the video to the king who was so mad at the wicked slave’s unwillingness to pass “debt forgiveness” forward that he handed him over to be tortured until he would pay his entire debt of a million, zillion, gazillion. Which means he was to be tortured forever. “So my heavenly Father will also do to everyone one of you, if you do not forgive your brother or your sister from your heart,” Jesus offers the editorial exclamation point to the parable. And Peter looks at the other disciples, and asks in somewhat of a whisper, “The word of the Lord?”

All the ways and the things Jesus taught in Matthew 18, all that form and content about being humble like a child and not being a stumbling block and searching for the one lost and taking members with you to confront someone who has wronged you, after all of that, when it comes to forgiveness, Jesus tells this blasted parable. It was like Jesus somehow knew that humankind forever would have much a more visceral reaction to and have a harder time forgiving debt than forgiving sin. It’s interesting how many commentators, preachers, and teachers point to Jesus use of humor here. Humor, I guess, in the hyperbole of the size of the debt. But as the saints in my first congregation would say, “it might be funny, but it’s not “ha-ha”. There are many other adjectives one could use to describe the parable before getting to “funny”. Chilling. Disconcerting. Violent. Assertive. Absurd. Upsetting. Sure, the debt is a crazy amount but what about the seizing around the neck and the thrown in jail for 20 bucks and the tortured part. The only other reference to torture in the four gospels is the suffering of Jesus.

Oh, and then Jesus comments on the parable mentioning that the heavenly Father will do that to you also if you do not forgive. Jesus is wickedly serious about forgiveness! You don’t explain away a parable like this. You certainly don’t chuckle it away either. All you can do is let it knock you off kilter, make your head spin, and jerk the chain of your heart over and over again. Because God’s forgiveness of us is absurd and God’s call for us to forgive is chillingly assertive.

Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. Forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us. Forgive us our sin as we forgive those who sin against us. Debts. Trespassses. Sins. Translation confusion abounds. As Carol Wehrheim notes, “perhaps the best thing to do is to focus on the verb in the prayer: forgive”. When it comes to forgiveness, Jesus isn’t messing around. While you and I are trying to figure out which is the best word to use, what works best with children, what makes sense up here (in the brain) what offers the better connotation and reflects our Lord’s intent (sins, trespasses, debts), Jesus is off telling the parable about the king and the unforgiving servant. While you and I are still talking about how difficult forgiveness can be, and whether or not one can or has to forgive and forget, Jesus has already moved on to tell the parable about the king and the unforgiving servant. While you and I are engaged in healthy and meaningful theological banter about whether forgiveness comes only after someone asks, or whether repentance is a prerequisite for forgiveness and necessary for justice to flow, Jesus is yet again telling the parable about the king and the unforgiving servant. While you and I are rightly regale one another with stories of famous forgivers like Nelson Mandela or Ernie Zamperini, Jesus tells the parable about the king and the unforgiving servant yet one more time. “Jesus what does it mean, ‘forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us”. Jesus responds, “the kingdom of heaven may be compared to…”

It happens pretty regularly in an ecumenical gathering where the Lord’s Prayer is said. Ecumenical gathering, not a meeting, but a wedding or a funeral or an occasional community worship service. The Lord’s Prayer is said and all the Methodists and the Roman Catholics and the Episcopalians and the Baptists and the Presbyterians all join in. There is that awkward moment in the cadence, right? It happened again yesterday at Margaret Merrill’s memorial service. Those in the room who say debts and debtors, they have to wait, they have to pause, for the others to catch up; as we forgive those who trespass against us, who sin against us. Call it the debtors pause. What if the pause was more than just an act of hospitality and a good practice for successful unison prayer? What if everyone praying the Lord’s Prayer, what if we all (trespasses, sins, debts), what if everyone just stopped at that point? There ought to be a pause, a break, a silence. Forgiveness: it’s all so beyond words. And when you are confronted once again with the absurd forgiveness of God and God’s chillingly assertive expectation that you will forgive, it ought to knock you off kilter, make your head spin, and jerk the chain of your heart over and over again.

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

March 1, 2015
Hebrews 12:28-29
“Hallowed Be Thy Name”
Rev. Dr. David A. Davis

Hallowed. Hallow-ed. In the Lord’s Prayer as it appears in the Greek of the New Testament, the word “hallowed”, it is a verbal form of the root word for holy. Holy is a descriptor; an adjective. Hallow is a verb, an action word. Hallow: to make holy, to sanctify, to purify. Hallowed. Sanctified. Purified. Hallowed be Thy name. Sanctified. Purified. Hallowed is your name, O God. God’s name is holy. Yes. God is Holy. But the phrase in the prayer connotes action; it comes in a verbal form. Not just God is holy. Not just your name is holy, O God. But make holy, keep holy your name. To just make up a word, how about “holify”? “Holify” your name”. Holy. Precious. Awesome Awesome-ify your name, O God.

Not just the descriptor, but the action. Hallowed. Sanctified. Purified. Holy-fied. One might conclude that the action, here, the bestowing of holiness on God comes from the person offering the prayer. That you and I somehow keep God holy, make God holy, maintain God’s holiness as the words take shape on our lips. I had a coach in college who had a favorite saying when one of us would make a mistake. He said it often, with great volume, and in the strongest of Boston accents: “Holy Mary Mother of God”. I can pretty much guarantee that Mary was no more holy because of him. In the biggest of pictures, in the grand theological scheme, it stands as fairly obvious that humanity is not in the business of preserving the holiness of God, even by our most pious efforts. No, the action implied, acknowledged here at the beginning of the Lord’s prayer, it must belong to God. Hallowed be Thy name.

Holy places. Holy moments. Holy people. Holy things. Your list might be long. Your list might be short. But everyone has a list of what they consider holy in their lives. People whisper in holy places. People get goose bumps, or get teary, or speechless in holy moments. People honor and are humbled by those they consider holy. People handle and preserve and shine and dust holy things. If you took your list of that which is holy in your life and tried to use other words, other descriptors, think what those words would be: special, memorable, unique, faith-filled, unforgettable, sacred, godly, loveable, irreplaceable, important, priceless. It’s kind of odd, the word “holy” is so overdone, can be so easily trite. Yet, other words really won’t do. When it comes to trying to grasp what on earth or in heaven it means that God is holy, none of those other words on the list even come close. When you’re trying to find meaning in the biblical witness to the holiness of God, words don’t come all that easy. When your trying to make any sense in your own life to what difference it makes that God is holy, all those other words just sort of fall into a heap of “not very helpful”. When you and I pray, “hallowed be Thy name”, holy is your name, O God”, it sort of serves as an acknowledgment that nothing else really works. It’s the best we can do. It’s the only language we have for you, O God.

Our Lenten Small Groups that are reflecting on and discussing the Lord’s Prayer are using a study guide offered through the website “The Thoughtful Christian”. I have already thrown things off a bit by splitting “Our Father” and “hallowed be thy name” in our preaching life. Both are in the first lesson of The Thoughtful Christian series. Our own Carol Wehrheim wrote the Leaders Guide. A Methodist pastor and professor named Ellsworth Kalas wrote the study guide for each week. In addressing “hallowed be thy name” the author points out the tension between the intimacy of calling God “father” and the distance implied with “hallowed”. He goes on to point out how that tension portrays the immanence and the transcendence of God. Immanence meaning God present with us. Transcendence asserting the God is far beyond us. Here in the opening phrase, the writer concludes, “the immanence and the transcendence of God are equally true and equally important, each so true that their concepts must be blended in one breath.”

Here’s the problem, immanence and transcendence, that might be good for conversation on a cold night in a warm living room with coffee and a bun, it might be good for study and writing and discussion in a classroom down the street, it’s just not very helpful when you are actually praying the Lord’s Prayer , when you are saying the prayer just before sleep that you have said as long as you can remember, when you have climbed to the top of a mountain on a crisp summer day and creation so knocks your socks off that you have no other words to say, when you are in the waiting room and so anxious you can’t really think of anything else, when you are craving a relevant, compelling notion about God, when you are praying “hallowed be thy name.” Keep on being holy, O God. Now, right now, O God, preserve your holiness in my life and in your world.

Don’t stop being holy, Lord God. Because, as one preacher, the preacher in the Book of Hebrews puts it: our God is a consuming fire. “Since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us give thanks by which we offer to God an acceptable worship with reverence and awe; for indeed our God is a consuming fire”. A consuming fire. Well, that’s hardly a domesticated, over done understanding of holy; God is a consuming fire. Commentators point out that the Book of Hebrews is to be read, understood, heard, as a sermon. The sermon is from an unknown preacher that heralds the work of Christ Jesus as the great high priest who was sacrificed at the cross for us. “Long ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets, but in these last days God has spoken to us by a Son (1:1).” That’s how the sermon (the letter of Hebrews) begins. Memorable verses are throughout. “Let us therefore boldly approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy…..Let us hold fast to the confession of our hope without wavering…and let us provoke one another to love and good deeds…Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for the conviction of things not seen….Therefore since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses….”

The God is a consuming fire part, it comes near the end of the sermon as the preacher offers a riff on the holiness of God. It’s a complex few paragraphs contrasting the experience of God at Mt Sinai and the promised experience of God at Mt Zion, the heavenly city. The preacher is really bringing it now; complete with warnings of judgment and a reference to the sprinkled blood of Jesus and the power of God shaking both the heavens and the earth. God at work shaking, purifying, sanctifying, hallowing. When you imagine with your ears, hearing the preacher of Hebrews, here at the end of the sermon. Rhetorically, oratorically, the preaching is finishing with some heat now. The preacher. The preacher has set the table with “let us run with perseverance the race that is set before us” and “therefore lift your dropping hands and strengthen your weak knees” and “Pursue peace with everyone” and “See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God”. The preacher has set the table and is bringing it home with a more than a bit of hellfire and brimstone. Bringing it home with the holiness of God. “Since we are receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us give thanks by which we offer to God an acceptable worship with reverence and awe; for indeed our God is a consuming fire”.

            A consuming fire that still judges, purifies, sanctifies, hallows, “holifies”. A consuming fire that elicits, brings out of us, evokes in and from us the worship of our lives. A consuming fire that brings about, results in, forges a kingdom that cannot be shaken. A consuming fire. The action oriented holiness of God. Don’t stop it, ever God!

The “hallowed be Thy name” part. It’s so easy to skip over. To smush it together with “Our Father”. But some days, probably most days, you and I and the world we live in, we could all use a bit more, call on a bit more, believe in a bit more, beg for a bit more of the action oriented holiness of God. Living in response to the gospel of Jesus Christ; it is a daily encounter. Right? Remembering your baptism. Basking in God’s grace, new every morning. Forgiveness a afresh. But it’s also, the experience of growing in faith, and having rough edges softened, and yearning to be a better disciple. Your prayers at the end of the day, it’s not just asking for forgiveness, it’s asking God to help you be more faithful tomorrow. Keep being holy in my life, O God. Keep that fire burning.

Calling on, calling out the holiness of God. How else can you pray for the world today? How else could you have any hope for the world today? Our prayers of intercession, our prayers for peace, our prayers for the world, they presuppose and depend on the conviction that God is still at work; judging, purifying, sanctifying; that God is still at work bringing about justice and righteousness and peace; that God is still in it and at it. That the God of Abraham and Sarah, the God of our forbearers, the God we know in and through Jesus Christ, that with mystery and power and spirit, God was, and is, and ever shall be holy, that God is still holy. That God is working God’s holiness; keeping God’s name holy, and bringing about, working on, ushering in a kingdom that cannot be shaken. Don’t stop now God!

This holiness of God, this ongoing, ever working holiness of God, it evokes in us, illicits from us, yes demands of us, our worship. The very worship of our lives. Our sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving is how we say when we are the Table. God is holy and there is no other. If you’re going prayer the Lord’s Prayer on Tuesday, then you better be finding a place to sing on Sunday, because God is holy. I spent a few days in a meeting with Presbyterians from around the country this week. As always, there is the hand wringing and worry about the state of the church and its future. But when you stop and think about it, God’s people will always have a future in praise and worship, because God is holy. Here among God’s people, the worship of the people of God; before you are here to be nurtured and fed by the Word, by God’s promise, before you are here for the fellowship and companionship of God’s people, before you are here to receive a blessing or experience the Spirit, or feast on some peace….before all of that, you are here because God is holy. God evoking, illiciting, pulling out from within you your praise, your thanksgiving, your worship. Keep it up God! Keep on being holy!

You heard how I imagine the preacher from Hebrews, bringing the heat, finishing the sermon, our God is a consuming fire! What if when we prayed, what if when you prayed the Lord’s Prayer, what if you gave the phrase a little umph. Rather than rushing by it, loosing it in a set to get to “Thy Kingdom come, Thy Will be done”, what if you slow down, and give it a little rhetorical, oratorical flare that is fitting to a plea for the ongoing holiness of God; begging each day for the persistent, action-oriented holiness of God. Tonight, tomorrow, next week…..

Our Father who art in heaven, HALLOWED BE THY NAME!

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

February 22, 2015
Matthew 6:9-13
“Our Father Who Art in Heaven”Rev. Dr. David A. Davis

Way before I was born my father played professional football. When I started to play, he taught me some things that the coaches never did. Like…almost all of the time a quarterback is going to unconsciously look in the direction that the play will go before the ball is hiked; you can tell by the pressure a lineman puts on his hand, whether the play will be a run or pass; the person hiking the ball always grabs tighter right before the snap. Each of these small tidbits helped me make quite a few plays back in the day. Often right in the moment, or maybe after the game in the locker room, or now years later when I remember, it makes me think of my dad, how he taught me.

In the first few months after I was ordained I visited in my office at the church by a retired pastor named Ed Schalk. At that time he had been retired longer than I had been alive. Ed gave me a whole bunch of advice that morning. One piece he said, “David, you will always have to work at understanding the church budget, money, and stewardship as well as the treasurer, the finance chair, or members of session. They don’t realize it, but most church members would prefer their pastor not understand anything about money in general and the church finances in particular. That way they can more easily live by the myth that their faith and their money don’t go together. Your job as a spiritual leader is to correct them every week. And it starts by letting them know you understand the church’s financial picture better than they do.” Whenever I work at understanding a financial statement or prepare a budget or preach stewardship, I remember old Rev. Schalk, how he taught me.

When we were first married my mother prepared a small notebook with 3×5 cards that had recipes on them. Almost 30 years later, we still have it, still use. The most important recipe there is the secret Davis family barbeque sauce recipe; made available to others only by marriage. You would think I could make that recipe by memory by now, and I probably could. But I always look for the book. I pull out the book, I read the card. Not so much for the recipe but because it is in my mother’s handwriting. Every time I make that sauce, I do it with gratitude in my heart for my mom, remembering how she taught me.

Jesus said, “Pray then like this.” “Whenever you pray” don’t be like those who like to be seen. “Whenever you pray” go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. “When you are praying” do not heap up empty phrases, your Father knows what you need before you ask. “Pray then like this”. Jesus said, whenever you pray, when ever you pray, when you are praying, pray then like this. : “Our Father in heaven.”

            When offering his commentary on the Lord’s Prayer in his Institutes of the Christian Religion John Calvin points out that whenever you call God “Father”, whenever you pray to God as “Father” you are really just praying in the name of Christ. Who else, why else, would you dare to call God Father. “Who would break forth into such rashness” Calvin writes “as to claim for [themselves] the honor of a [child] of God unless we have been adopted as children of grace in Christ” To pray to God as Father is to “put forward” the name of Christ.

To pray the Lord’s Prayer, to begin the Lord’s Prayer, it is to remember and offer gratitude for the one who taught us to pray, the one in whom we know ourselves to be God’s children, for so we are. Should we have a conversation about the multiple images for God in scripture? Certainly. In the 16^th century Calvin was quoting scripture from Isaiah 49 , citing the motherhood of God. Should we affirm together God that is beyond gender? No question. Of course most are comfortable affirming God has no gender; until someone refers to God as “her” or “she” Should we offer a theological conviction on the person-hood of God; that language and image is the only way we have that enables us to name a God of relationship, a God for us, a God with us? Of course. Should we offer space for a pastoral reality check that acknowledges the baggage, the hurt, the grief, the pain, that can come with the term “father” for so many. Yes! But when you pray, when you pray the Lord’s prayer, what if along with Calvin, to pray “our Father” is not just a way of invoking God but a means of allowing the heart to think afresh on Jesus and our life in him. “Pray then like this.” Every time you pray “our Father” it is a time to remember Christ Jesus and to affirm that “neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God” we know and experience in Christ Jesus our Lord. Our Father. Remember how he taught us.

            Anne Lamott, in her short book Help, Thanks, Wow: The Three Essential Prayers, she refers to the Lord’s Prayer as one of the “beautiful pre-assembled prayers”. She compares it to one of the prayers of Thomas Merton or the 23^rd Psalm. Prayers like that “have saved me more time than I can remember” Lamott writes. “But they are for special occasions. They are dressier prayers, the good china of prayers” Useful, she argues, when you have enough wits about you to remember and when you can find yourself entering into enough of a state of trust to even say them. “This would be approximately seven percent of the time,” she concludes. Meaning for Anne Lamott, some other form of prayer is what kicks in 93% of the time.

By her own description in the book on prayer, she acknowledges that her family never prayed when she was growing up, people who prayed were ignorant, and her parents were “too hip and intellectual to pray.” I don’t know about you, but my experience of the Lord’s Prayer is different from Anne Lamott. Growing up in the church and serving as a pastor all these years, it’s not a “good china” experience. It’s more like that serving dish passed on from your grandmother that you would be absolutely crushed if someone broke it doing the dishes. The Lord’s Prayer; it’s so deep inside. The Lord’s Prayer here with a couple getting married. The Lord’s Prayer at a hospital bedside with a family. The Lord’s Prayer in the cemetery. The Lord’s Prayer in a continuing care room. The Lord’s Prayer with a mom whose newborn is at her breast. The Lord’s Prayer before a bible Study. The Lord’s Prayer with second graders. The Lord’s Prayer after choir practice. The Lord’s Prayer on your knees with your child. The Lord’s Prayer in bed that first night of college. The Lord’s Prayer somewhere over seas when you were in the service. The Lord’s Prayer here in worship. Even the “nones”, the non-practicing folks, when life is a flutter it’s the Lord’s Prayer that gets said. Far more than 7% and something much different than “the good china of prayers.” And it all starts with “Our Father who art in heaven”. Remember how Jesus taught us.

Our Father. Sometimes I wonder if the prayer couldn’t stop right there. If there are not times when it does stop right there. Our Father. Like in an airport when you are waiting to see a loved one who has been home for such a long time. You start to speak, “Oh Sweetie…” and nothing else comes out but an embrace. Like when your child experiences the heartbreak of a first break up or not making the musical or getting cut from the team and your start to speak, “Oh Charlie, O Christy….” and you really have no words to say much more. Like when a friend tells you she’s pregnant, or they just got a job, or they past their oral exam…you shout the name and scream a bit, and what’s more to say. Like when you walk into the room to offer an embrace to someone whose heart is broken with grief.

To call on, to invoke, to speak, to shout, to weep. To start a prayer and it stops at something like a sigh. “Our father” like Jesus taught us. Holding your newborn babe in your arms for the first time; circled there in the room. Someone starts it, “Our Father, who art in heaven”,,,,and you just can’t finish as the tears of joy drip on the receiving blanket. To watch on the news and learn of the Christians brutally murdered by ISIS in Libya, and to know nothing else to say or pray than just “Our Father”, or to read the letter Kayla Mueller’s wrote to her family in the spring of last year. Before she was killed by those who held her hostage, she wrote about her love for her family, her trust in God. You read it, and no words come. You stare at your computer, at the screen, praying for her, for her family, for this blasted world, and the whole mess, wondering, asking, pleading, where is this all can go. But all you can muster is “Our Father”. You sit here in the sanctuary on any given Sunday with a heart so heavy with concern or so relieved with joy, that all you can say is “our Father” and let the rest of us finish the prayer! God our Father, it’s more than a way to start. It’s a prayer all by itself. Sometimes its all you can get. A sigh. A gasp. A prayer. Like Jesus taught us.

Not long ago I was working with a family to prepare for a memorial service for their mother, grandmother, mother-in law. One of the memories that I won’t forget had to do with her meal time table; the memories they had of sharing a meal together at mother’s table. They told me whether you were having just a sandwich, or breakfast, or more of a holiday meal, the table was always set; place mat, napkin, simple dishes, nothing fancy. The place setting, it reminded them of her welcome, her hospitality, of how she could make the little things so important. The table was always set. And it told them of her love.

Some tables, some meals, go so far beyond words. This one tells of God’s love. When you settle in at this table, sometimes just being here is a prayer. Remembering how he taught us. Our Father who art in heaven.

 

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February 8, 2015
I Corinthians 7:29-31
“Life is Short”
Rev. Brian Ellison

Text is not available

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February 15, 2015
II Kings 2:1-15″Mantle Passing”
Rev. Dr. Dave Davis

Let’s just put it out there. Elijah the prophet and drama of biblical proportion seem to always go together. It was at Mt Carmel when Elijah called down the fire of the Lord; “if the Lord is God, follow God, but if Baal is god follow Baal”. It was at Mt Horeb where Elijah fled all by himself in fear for his life because of Queen Jezebel. God was not in the great wind or the earthquake or the fire, but in the still small voice. When it comes to Elijah the prophet, the biblical special effects, the symbols of divine action and presence, things like whirlwinds and fire, it all tends to grab the eye and steal the scene. Appropriately so in a biblical kind of way.

By the time one gets to II Kings 2, the symbolism of God at work in the whirlwind and chariot of fire becomes quite clear. As the narrator puts it “the Lord was about to take Elijah up to heaven by a whirlwind.” Other meanings, other symbolic actions are hard not to miss as well. Elijah rolling up the mantle and parting the water in a Moses with staff kind of way. Elisha asking for a double share; meaning he is asking for nothing short of the identification, the rights and privileges of a first born son. The prophet’s spiritual son. Thus, “father, father” as Elijah goes out of sight and the now anointed prophet laments as he would for his own father, tearing his own clothes in two. And of course, the mantle passing. You can’t miss it! Elijah first tossed it on Elisha when he was behind a plow, here Elijah drops it as he heads up to heaven, and Elisha picked it up off the ground there beyond the Jordan. Leadership transition. Authority passed on. One prophet to the next: “tag you are it”. Divine succession planning. Mantle passing.

Elijah and Elisha. Symbols fraught with meaning and expected biblical imagery sort of carry the day. Part of what gets lost in all that, part of what’s left after all that, is the unimpressive trek they took along the way and the odd, repetitive conversation they shared. The road to the whirlwind, as it were; Elijah, Elisha, and the fifty prophets following them around. It’s easy to look past it and rush to the fireworks. But along that way, Elijah keeps telling Elisha to stay, stay here for the Lord has sent me on to Bethel, to Jericho, to the Jordan. Each time Elisha refuses, “As the Lord lives, as you yourself live, I will not leave you.” Stay here. No. Stay here. No. Stay here. No. The company of prophets, they kept telling Elisha that the Lord is going to take him away. You can’t stop it. “Yes, I know that” was Elisha’s response to the unhelpful band of prophets. “Can you just keep quiet?”

Elisha’s unwavering companionship. A Ruth and Naomi like devotion. You remember: “Do not press me to leave you or to turn back from following you! Where you go, I will go; where you lodge, I will lodge; your people shall be my people, and your God my God.” Or perhaps a bit of test from the older prophet to the younger. Elijah seeing if Elisha’s loyalty would endure along the way, all the way. Or maybe Elijah would just like to face this last wind like he faced the one up at Mt Horeb, all alone. Like a dying patient who doesn’t want to put loved ones through anymore heartache. One blogger writing about the side by side journey took a more cynical approach suggesting that Elisha stuck with it all the way to make sure this time old Elijah toned down his own zest for all the drama. Of all that it might mean, the prophets (plural) joined at the hip journey to the whirlwind of God, the dominating parts of the story so easily cover up what is the most accessible, understandable, relatable, human element. That’s their relationship. The devotion. The commitment. The prophetic companionship. So easy to miss; God as present between them as in that whirlwind. “As the Lord lives, and as you yourself live, I will not leave you.”

From Gilgal to Bethel to Jericho to the Jordan. It wasn’t that the trip was an endurance test. Even for the ancient world, it’s just not that far. It’s hardly a pedal to the metal, straight shot from here to there with a few rest stops along the way kind of trip. Bethel is closer to the river. Then some backtracking to Jericho. Then back to the river. And this isn’t Jesus in Luke when he “set his face to go to Jerusalem.” It’s a tad “wandering”, “meandering”. So it must be the places, the cities where they stop. That’s the point. Right? Bethel. Abram stopped there after God called him. He built an altar there. Jacob had a dream there. Jacob’s ladder dream, it was at Bethel. Jacob built a pillar there. Bethel is a notable, holy place. “Elisha stay here”. Jericho. A strategic place. Joshua’s battle place. A sort of gateway to the Promised Land. A notable place. “Elisha stay here”.

The whirlwind, the chariot and horses of fire, Elijah being lifted up to heaven, the mantle passing, it didn’t happen at Gilgal, or Bethel, or Jericho. It happen on the other side of the river. Not a holy place. Not a notable place. Just over there, beyond the river. It wasn’t even right at the river. After they crossed over, Elijah and Elisha kept walking and talking. They weren’t at the river, they were beyond it. One scholar points out the journey went from the familiar and known world back across to the place where mysteries happen. Another writer suggests that their encounter with God, the divinely anointed transition of leadership happened far away from any “A-list” biblical destination. A nameless place where lives are interrupted by the “glorious and disturbing” transforming presence of God. The mantle passing happened beyond the river. When Joshua trumpeted his infamous call to the people, the one that concludes, “as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord”, when Joshua issues the call he cries out “put away the gods that your ancestors served beyond the river”. That region beyond the river, full of other-god worship where the ancestors served, that’s where Elijah and Elisha ended up. That’s where the mantle was dropped and passed and picked up. That’s where Elisha encountered the always notable, strategic, holiness of God.

Of all that it might mean, the prophets (plural) meandering journey to the whirlwind of God, the dominating parts of the story so easily cover up what is the most accessible, understandable, relatable, human element. God’s glorious and disturbing presence transforms lives in the most un-notable places, the least expected of times, even and especially when surrounded by all the other god-worship the world has to offer. God as present between the prophets as in the whirlwind. God as present between us as in the whirlwind. The most sacred place for the prophets, made holy not by name or fame or even by mysterious chariots of fire; but made holy by the presence of God. The most sacred places for us made holy not by name or fame or even by mystery; but made holy by God’s transforming presence.

Early this week I was leading a retreat for a group of Presbyterian pastors serving their first call; most now about 18 months in. There were 8 of them. Three serve on staff in larger churches, the rest are solo pastors in small congregations in Pennsylvania and New York. As you could imagine the purpose of the gathering was to offer support, listen to the challenges, affirm gifts and call, seek collective wisdom, and worship and pray together. We talked about the big picture of denomination divisions and closing churches and congregations struggling to pay a living wage and wondering what the future would hold in their life in ministry. We talked about the smaller picture of congregations never trying anything new or particular members who seemed never to be pleased, or twenty something clergy finding friends.

At one point I asked the group to think about a few instances just in the last two weeks where they experience the palpable presence of God, where they witnessed the Spirit at work in someone’s life, where they walked away saying to themselves, “this is why I am doing this!”  I had planned for them to go off and take 15 to 20 minutes. I had thought, given some of our conversations about their struggles that they were going to have to work at this question just a bit; affirming the glorious and disturbing transforming presence of God in their midst. I was wrong about that. We spent the next 45 minutes with these pastors telling stories; smiles, tears, joy. There wasn’t even any silence. It was like one of those dinner parties where everyone keeps interrupting to get the floor because there’s so much to share.

A pastor told of the prayer requests coming from the pre-k to 3^rd grade class she leads during worship. “They really get it” she said referring to the love of God. A pastor told of a youth mission day working on a home for a family. “I looked over and one of the chatty kids in our group who wouldn’t be prone to overworking, he was sitting talking to the son his age who lived at the house. They talked for hours! Only God could bring those kids together from such different backgrounds to just sit together all day” The pastors told about a bible study where an insight about God brought someone to tears, an adult adviser sharing his faith journey with the youth group, a journey that included testimony about finding a place in that community of faith, a congregation where everyone is trying to figure out how to help their oldest member who has no family, a youth group that was growing but with all young people who would never hang together at school, a stranger thanking the pastor for giving such comfort for her family after the funeral and saying she hadn’t been in a church for 25 years. Those young pastors, they could have kept going for hours. It was only the last two weeks in their ministry.

God as present as in the whirlwind as God is here with us. The most sacred places made holy not by name or fame or even by mystery; but made holy by God’s transforming presence with us, for us. Mantle passing. Yes, it has to do with prophets and leadership succession and that strange old world of the bible so full of drama and symbol. But what if also, what if in addition, what is mantle passing, what if it was all about seeing, naming, affirming, celebrating the glorious and disturbing transforming presence of God in the ordinary relationships and least expected places?

Here, right here, surrounded by all the other-god worship the world has to over, here beyond the river. Attending to the power, the promise, the presence of the God we know in Jesus Christ.

Mantle passing.

You and me making sure our witness to the transforming presence of God, making sure our witness never gets lost!

 

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February 1, 2015
Jeremiah 1:4-10
“Don’t Say Only”
Rev. Dr. David A. Davis

It’s a “call story”. The Old Testament prophet Jeremiah and his call story. For Moses it was at the burning bush. For Isaiah, it came with an angel and some hot coals touching his lips. For Gideon it was an angel under an oak tree. Ezekiel, his call story goes on for chapters. It all started for him “with a stormy wind that came out of the north”. Old Testament call stories with all their flare and detail, they sort of put Jesus and the call of the disciples to shame: that whole drop your nets and go theme is so barren compared to the call of Jeremiah and his Hebrew bible companions. Biblical call stories can sound so….biblical. Or put another way, so far removed from you and me, our experience of God, our faith journey, our call to discipleship. The call stories of the Bible, Old or New Testament, at first blush, can so easily appear irrelevant to us: prophets, angels, burning bushes, voices, the Word of the Lord.

When writing about this passage from Jeremiah, one retired Old Testament professor refers to Jeremiah’s call over and over again as a “vocation report”. It sounded odd when I read it; “vocation report”. It might be a technical term among scholars, “vocation report”, but I had never come upon it before. When referencing Jeremiah and other Old Testament figures, the professor doesn’t use the term call stories, it’s “vocation reports”. So non-theological, non-biblical, unspiritual, so pedestrian. “Vocation report”. It’s just seems like odd terminology. But then you think about it, everyone one of us has a “vocation report” of some kind. It wouldn’t be surprising to find an HR department somewhere near here that has every employee fill out a “vocation report” every year. “Vocation report”; kind gathers us all in next to the prophet. A thorough “vocation report”, it wouldn’t just be about work. For you and me, it would be about our experience of God, our faith journey, our call to discipleship, our vocare (Latin). Maybe we can’t easily relate to all that detail and flare of a prophet’s call, but everyone one of us has a “vocation report.”

Jeremiah is far from unique in his effort to dissuade, deflect, defer the call of God. “Ah, Lord God…I am only a boy.” Only. Moses tried too. “I am only slow of speech and slow of tongue.” “I am only from the weakest clan and I am only the least in my family.” That was Gideon. Isaiah: I am only a man of unclean lips. Only. I’m only. God must hear it all the time. Only. Maybe not the exact word “only” but the disclaimer. Our vocational reports are full of them. I’m not a very religious person. I’m not an expert. I’m not spiritual enough. I’m not sure where to start. I’ve never read the bible. I’m just so busy. I’m no good at prayer. I’m just a banker. I have too many doubts, too many questions. I’m not a joiner. I’m not a leader. It’s more his thing, not mine. She’s better with the kids anyway. I prefer a good long walk. It’s just not me. But I’m more into math and science. I’m better working with my hands. I’ve already paid my dues, put in my time. Oh sure, when I was growing up, back then. Life is just too difficult right now. Life is just going to well right now. And somewhere in the kingdom of heaven, God is saying over and over and over again, “Will you just quit saying “only? Do not be afraid. I am with you. I will be with you even to end of the age.” So far beyond prophets and preachers is the call and the promise of God. The God we know in and through Christ Jesus calls each one of us, sends each one of us, anoints each one of us, empowers each one of us to a deeper, more profound life in and through him. Examine the “onlys” that fill your vocation report because Jesus is still calling.

God’s charge to Jeremiah, it comes in such poetry. “Now I have put my words in your mouth. See, today I appoint you over nations and kingdoms, to pluck up and to pull down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant.” Some readers are bound to keep score; that’s four tear downs and two constructions; four negatives and only positives; that’s a lot more judgement than hope; to pluck up and to pull down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant. Others will try to soften it; “it’s a lot of judgment, but it ends on an up note…building and planting.” But the balance, the leaning of the poetic call, it reflects what is to come throughout the book, in Jeremiah’s life. Faith in God and a prophet’s vision will always push against the worldview of nations and kingdoms; push and bring discomfort. The voice of Jeremiah, the Book of Jeremiah, according to Walter Brueggemann, it is “a hard, demanding theological tradition, mostly unwelcome.” “A line of teaching and perception not so fully seduced” by the world’s promises that often float around unchallenged or even worse, unnoticed. Jeremiah’s “vocation report” is a crisp and lasting reminder that the Word of the Lord will always be in opposition to the empires of this world. I appoint you over and against nations; over and against kingdoms.

As far as I can tell, all of us are pretty much up to our eyeballs, thrown into the deep water, way over our heads, solidly have two feet planted, in this world. We don’t have much choice, do we? With a nod then, to that hard and demanding theological tradition embodied in Jeremiah and his prophetic call, there ought to be places of ongoing dissonance and discomfort when it comes to our experience of God, our faith journey, our call to discipleship. Places where your faith and your role in the world necessarily clash. Places where your hearing of the gospel, your reception of the teaching of Jesus doesn’t always sit well with the promises of the world that seduce you. So that teaching, that gospel, it stirs you up, you want to push back, you disagree with it, maybe even it makes you angry. Times when your view, your understanding of the world is challenged. Times when your understanding of the faith is challenged. You can’t have two feet planted in the world and not expect some part of the gospel to make you uneasy. Jeremiah and his “vocation report”, it provides a not so gentle challenge to that old notion that you and I come here every week to get recharged and filled up and made to feel good for another week.

Weeks ago after the grand jury decision in Ferguson was announced, I participated in a gathering out on Palmer Square. There were some speeches and some chants. As the evening went on, more and more people were there; including quite a few students from the university. At one point the microphone was opened to any who would like to speak. Most who did at that point were connected to the university. A young African American woman who works with one of the Christian groups on campus asked the crowd that night, “when is the last time you heard your pastor say anything about racism in a sermon? It’s something we have to talk about. It’s something the church has to talk about!” she shouted to the amens and the cheers of the crowd. I was standing right next her trying to convince myself that everyone in the crowd wasn’t looking right at me. Of course she was right. My mind took it another step right then, a broader question “When was the last time the gospel of Jesus Christ made you uncomfortable about anything?

The gospel’s call to see beyond color, gender, race? Or Jesus on forgiveness? Or the radical call to servant-hood and generosity and putting the other first and welcoming the stranger? Or how about “Faith without works is dead” or “by grace you have been saved through faith and this not your own doing” or something simple like “pray without ceasing”? Isn’t there a parable of Jesus that really gets your goat? You have a heart for the elder brother in the Prodigal Son, or you think you would probably cross the street to avoid the guy in the ditch in the Good Samaritan, or when the bridegroom doesn’t let the foolish maidens into the party because they went to get oil. He didn’t’ let them in, really? When you find yourself treading water, just trying to keep your head above the world’s deep water, Jeremiah and his “vocation report”, it provides a not so gentle reminder, that the gospel of Jesus Christ shouldn’t just serve as a checklist to approve our own agendas. If we’re going to be honest, if we’re going be real, your “vocation report” ought to have some growing edges to it.

So many different themes, threads, meanings rise from this table when we gather here. Wafting in the aroma of a table set with bread and grape juice, the church once again basks in the remembering Christ Jesus, his suffering, his death. A congregation gets a fresh whiff of forgiveness (his body broken, his blood shed) and being one with Him and he with us (his real presence when we gather. Here at the Table, over and over again, there is such a strong scent of thanksgiving and praise and adoration and unity in His name. This meal, this celebration, it is also a sign of the kingdom. A sign post of the reign of God. It’s a meal that points away from the empires of this world and leans into the kingdom that God intends. Yes, that means a foretaste, of heaven come here on earth. The smell of a divine comfort food wafting over us, among us, teasing in the best sense of the word, our collective sacred imaginations. But this kingdom meal, it can’t all be comfort food. Because the meal, the sign, amid everything this table celebration, this sacrament means, it also pushes back, like Jeremiah’s “vocation report”, this table is a crisp and lasting reminder that the Word of the Lord will always be in opposition to the empire of this world and our participation in it. So shouldn’t we expect here, maybe every now and then, just a hint of discomfort?

Feasting on the promise of Christ Jesus. When it comes to our experience of God, our faith journey, our call to discipleship, this promise of Christ, it inspires us to stop saying “only” and it empowers us to keep working on the growing edges of our vocation report.

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January 25, 2015
Jonah
“Changing Minds”
Rev. Dr. David A. Davis

Our second scripture lesson this morning comes from the Old Testament, the Book of Jonah. The bulletin lists a reading from chapter three. I have decided instead to read from chapter four. But when it comes to Jonah you really have to tell the whole story. It is a wonderfully humorous, compelling story that packs quite the wallop of meaning when it comes to God, the people of God, and God’s call on our lives. When I was in college I remember a Friday night Christian Fellowship meeting with a guest speaker who was a professor from a nearby school. His talk was entitled “The Historicity of the Book of Jonah.” I don’t remember much of the lecture, his attempt to argue why and how all the stuff in the Book of Jonah really happened. But I was thinking about that Friday night somewhere around 1982 this week in my study as I found myself swallowed afresh by the Book of Jonah. Here’s my thought about that night and that lecture: “Wow, what a waste of time.” Maybe it’s because I am getting older and value time well spent. Maybe it’s my own theological journey and my ever increasing fascination and love of scripture; my amazement at how it comes alive and speaks afresh over and over and over again. Maybe it is because of how compelling and timeless I found the story of Jonah again in my encounter with it this week. It’s a great story about a God who is gracious and merciful, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love. It’s a great story about God’s love.

The Word of the Lord came to Jonah and told him to “Go at once to Nineveh, that great city, and cry out against it; for their wickedness has come up before me.” Jonah didn’t want to go. It wasn’t simply that “he didn’t want to go”, Jonah decided to sail to Tarshish in order to get away from God. He ran away and jumped on a ship bound for what, at the time, was considered the farthest place you could go. Jonah thought he was on the run, running from the presence of the Lord.

Not too long into the trip the problems started: wind, rough seas, danger. A storm unlike any other. Even the ship itself knew it was in trouble. In a panic, the crew threw all of the cargo overboard, hoping to lighten their weight and tough out the storm. It wasn’t working. Jonah, the prophet, maybe with a bit of pious bravado, or a bit of “I couldn’t be bothered to help” attitude, was sleeping down in the hold of the ship. The captain rousted him, “What are you doing asleep? Get up, call on your god! Perhaps your god will spare us a thought so that we do not perish!” The sailors weren’t ready to wait for God, they wanted to bank on superstition as well. They drew straws among all the men on the ship to see who among them could explain it or who they could blame. Jonah drew the wrong straw.

“I am a Hebrew,” Jonah said as everyone backed him toward the rail of the ship, “I worship the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land.” The crew drew closer around him and were scared all the more. They figured it out, that he was on the run from God. He in as much told them so. “What shall we do to you, that the sea may quiet down for us?” Jonah offered them a solution: “Pick me up and throw me into the sea, then the sea will quiet down for you; for I know it is because of me that this great storm has come upon you.” The men weren’t convinced. They rowed harder and harder, but nothing was working. They cried out to the Lord, pleading that God would not make them suffer because of something Jonah had done. “So they picked him up and threw him into the sea; and the sea ceased from it’s raging. Then the men feared the Lord even more. They offered a sacrifice to the Lord and made vows.” I bet they did. Right then and there!

But the Lord provided a large fish to swallow up Jonah; and Jonah was in the belly of the fish three days and three nights. During that time, Jonah prayed, asking God to save him, to hear his plea. In a notable detail not to be missed by the story’s listeners, Jonah prayed about God and his own deliverance all in the past tense. His prayer reflected his flat out confidence that God would spare his life. “Deliverance belongs to the Lord!” he prayed. Then the Lord spoke to the fish and it spewed Jonah out upon the dry land. The fish upchucked Jonah. The fish vomited Jonah. The Lord again told Jonah to go to Nineveh. Surprise, this time Jonah went. And his message to the people of Nineveh was clear, short and not so sweet. “Forty days more and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” A sermon, a fire and brimstone sermon fit for Twitter. “Forty days more and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” Nineveh will be no more.

Here’s where the story gets even more interesting. Something happened that Jonah wasn’t expecting; probably the last thing Jonah was expecting. Something Jonah wasn’t prepared for. The people believed him, or perhaps better said, they listened to him, or they took him seriously, or they decided he was telling the truth about what God was about to do, as it is written in the ancient text; “The people of Nineveh believed God; they proclaimed a fast and everyone great and small, put on a sackcloth.” For goodness sakes, even the king put on a sackcloth and sat his royal backside down in some ashes. He made a proclamation. He legislated repentance and dared hope that God might have a change of heart. The king declared that all human beings and all animals should fast. The king proclaimed that all human beings and all animals should put on sack cloth. And that all human beings and all the animals should cry mightily to God. The king said “Who knows? God may relent and change God’s mind; God may turn from God’s fierce anger, so that we do not perish.” The people heard, responded, repented, worshiped, prayed, turned from their evil ways and turned toward God.

Jonah 3:10-4:11

According to the story, when God changed God’s mind, Jonah became angry. “You see, I told you so! I knew that you are a gracious God and merciful, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love, and ready to relent from punishing! Why do you think I fled to Tarshish?” Jonah couldn’t bear to see the love of God pour out upon a city that he had come to hate. He was preaching a message of judgment and destruction, while God came through with an experience of mercy and forgiveness. Jonah wanted to see God’s power in wrath. God displayed God’s power in love. Jonah wanted vengeance. The people received new life. Jonah tried to run away from God. God found him even in the blubbery walls of hell. Jonah tried to play God. God sent a worm to teach him a lesson. By the end God must have been speaking real softly and probably just as slowly. “You are concerned about the bush, for which you did not labor, and which you did not grow. It came into being in a night and perished in a night. And should I not be concerned about Ninevah, that great city” full of all those people who don’t know their right hand from their left?” Should I not be concerned about Ninevah?

It’s a great story about God’s love. A story that doesn’t offer a philosophical, theological treatise on the changing mind of God. This story, how it ends abruptly there with God’s question, it’s a story that refuses to reveal whether or not Jonah changed his mind. It’s a story not so much about God’s changing mind, or Jonah’s changing mind, it’s a story about ours….our changing mind; and how willing or comfortable we are with the notion that God’s love is always greater than we want it to be. It is not a story that begs for profound theological conclusions or the perfecting and protection of sound theological doctrine, it’s a story about God’s grace and mercy. It’s not a story to be kept up in the ivory steeple somewhere safely guarded by those who think they hold the keys to God’s love, who is in who is out, who deserves it, who doesn’t. It’s a story that ought to worm its way into your life; unsettling those feelings of resentment and bitterness you have for all the “theys” and “thems” in your world, poking at all the animosity you have for those you might even name as enemies in your world, prodding at your faith-filled conscious where you hold the grudges, the jealousies, the bitterness. This story ought to worm its way int your life making room for the steadfast love of God to do God’s work in you, the steadfast love of God at work in the world through you.

Rob Bell was a pastor and a preacher who wrote a book not long ago entitled Love Wins. His provocative affirmations about the greater love of God got him pretty much kicked out of or shunned by the Christian evangelical community. At the end of one of his sermons, a sermon on the Book of Jonah, Rob Bell offers a summary that is all the more compelling when you ponder what happened to him. “Religious people have been very good over the years at seeing themselves as US”, he preached, “while the people that aren’t a part of the group are viewed as THEM. But in this story, the dude (that’s Jonah) who sees himself as Us is furious because of how chummy God and THEM have become. He’s so furious that he’d rather die than live with the tension.” The tension he means, is the tension caused by the notion that God’s love is always greater than we want it to be.

There’s been quite a stirring controversy down at Duke University about the prospect of the Muslim student group on campus broadcasting the call to prayer from the steeple of Duke Chapel. Muslim students have prayed in the basement of the chapel for years and the chapel office made the decision to host the broadcasted call to prayer one day a week from the tower. The university then reversed that decision because of security concerns in light of all the reactions and threats lobbed at the Muslim student group, the chapel office, and the university. The threats presumably coming from those who would be Christian. Some of the most rabble-rousing and unhelpful comments have come from Billy Graham’s son Franklin. Many of us here have friends and colleagues down at Duke who are writing or have been quoted on all sides of the conversation. You can’t live and serve in a university community like we do and not think about the complexity and the challenge and the reality of the situation, wondering what would happen here?

I found myself thinking about all the folks from the Center of Jewish Life on campus, the Reformed Jewish community that worships in this space each year for the High Holy Days with the pulpit moved and the Torah up here and hundreds of Jewish folks coming and going for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. Then I wondered what the reaction would be if that was the local Muslim community broadcasting a call to prayer and gathering to worship at Nassau Presbyterian Church.

If that happened, someone would have to stand up and tell the story of Jonah. Someone down in Durham ought to be telling the story of Jonah. It’s a great story about God’s love and how that love can changes minds. God’s love is always greater than we want to be.

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