The Forward in Faith Together Working Group Webinar
June 24, 2020
June 24, 2020
Exodus 1:15-2:10
David A. Davis
June 14, 2020
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Shiphrah and Puah. You ought to remember their names. If you have a list of people you would like to meet one day when we all gather on the Great Getting Up Morning, when the trumpet blasts, when the Roll is called up yonder, if you have a list of folks you would love to meet in the communion of saints, you ought to add Shiphrah and Puah. Two women who defied the king. Two women who didn’t speak truth to power, they lived it. Two women whose presence on the scared page reflects how the lineage of the people of God began with civil disobedience. Two women who found themselves in the thick of it, sought after by the powers of darkness, destruction, even evil, Recruited by the rulers of this world, by the principalities and the powers. Two women who feared and worshiped and lived for God more than they feared or followed or obeyed the king. Shiphrah and Puah, they “let the boys live”!
Midwives. Hebrew midwives. Or, as it could be translated: “midwives of the Hebrews.” It’s not really clear whether Shiphrah and Puah were Hebrew or Egyptian. The names themselves could be either. Scholars suggest that it may be something of an intentional ambiguity, a blurring of ethnic boundaries and of race in the identity and portrayal of the two women. I once asked Rabbi Feldman about Shiphrah and Puah; whether he thought they were Hebrew or Egyptian. Without any hesitation or pause for thought, he said “yes”. Their identity in the narrative, how they are introduced, that they are actually referred to by name, Shiphrah and Puah, all of it breaks down barriers, crosses dividing lines. They shatter boundaries even before they let the boys live. Apparently, it was part of who they were. Say their names, Shiphrah and Puah.
Alison Gise Johnson and Vanessa Monroe published a volume last year titled, “Exodus Women Volume One: Securing the Sacred: Usable Truths, Secret Pledges, and Clarion Calls in the Story of Shiphrah and Puah, the Midwives” Two women of color. One a professor of historical and theological studies. One a pastor. In the book published by the Center for Womanist Studies in Richmond,VA, the authors imagine the covenant Shiphrah and Puah must have made with another. They also write about a rationale; what might have been the motivation for the two midwives. They suggest this thought in the voice of Shiphrah, “You know” Shiphrah reasoned, “This did not just start yesterday. Pharaohs before this new king, directed staff to invent systems that solely valued people as potential profit whose labor and image could be leveraged for more power. And to create a culture of obedience, pharaohs enlisted religious leaders to meticulously construct practices that perverted relationships between Egyptians and Hebrews, and made it seem as if the Divine celebrated and signed off on their demonarchy.” Shiphrah and Puah and a timeless critique of the use and abuse of institutions, religion, and power that has been and is so ever present in the history of humankind.
According to the first two chapters of Exodus, Pharaoh found out he couldn’t just work the Israelites to death. His own census numbers showed they were increasing in number. Those Israelite people. Those foreigners. As it says in Exodus, chapter one: “The more they were oppressed, the more they multiplied and spread so that Pharaoh and the Egyptians came to dread the Israelites”. (1:9) It was a changing neighborhood, Pharaoh’s kingdom was and he was determined to put a stop to it in any way he could. Forced labor didn’t work so the kind decided to get rid of all the boys right when they were born. That’s when he called Shiphrah and Puah; midwives to the Hebrews, Hebrew midwives.
The king figured out his efforts still were not working. The two women were summoned again. “Summoned” is probably an understatement for two midwives being hauled before a frightened, self-preserving leader who was convinced the Hebrews were taking over the world; his world. So with a lie to cover up their civil disobedience and their strength, perseverance, and determination to “protect our children at any cost”, Shiphrah and Puah avoid the wrath and vengeance of Pharaoh. They said to the king, “Because the Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women; for they are vigorous and give birth before the midwife comes to them.” Or course right before that the reader of Exodus is told “because the midwives feared God ; they did not do as the king of Egypt commanded them, but they let the boys live.” And yes, their description of the Hebrew women they invoked would have only stoked one of Pharaoh’s worst fears: strong Hebrew women.
Pharaoh just kept trying to legislate and ensure his own power and demise of the Israelites. This time it came by commanding his own people to toss the boys into the river. The next woman to disobey and push back on Pharaoh doesn’t get a name. A nameless Hebrew woman who conceived and delivered a baby. A baby boy. A “fine” baby boy according to the text. She actually did what the king commanded. She put the child in the reeds on the river’s edge. The child’s mother made a basket and laid him down in the river as his sister watched him float there.. The basket, it was made from the very same material the Hebrews used to make bricks. It was a basket made from the very material Pharaoh used to try to stamp out the Hebrews. But with this basket, she let the boy live. The basket was an ark of safety. A cradle of life. A manger.
Shiphrah, Puah, and Moses’ mother. The real and effective threat to Pharaoh’s evil plan came from women who stood up for and lived for and worked for what was right. Women who served those who were most vulnerable, most at risk. Women who let them live. Before God delivered God’s people from the hand of Pharaoh in the book of Exodus, these women were delivering God’s children. Delivering with all the meaning that word can muster.
And one more woman of righteous deliverance. Pharaoh’s own daughter finds herself on the list of women in scripture who exhibited courageous defiance in the face of powerful men. She saw the bucket there along the river’s edge. She saw the child in the basket. Here I turn to the work of Dr. Jacq Lapsley, Professor of Old Testament and Academic Dean at Princeton Theological Seminary. As Dr. Lapsley, an elder of Nassau Church points out, Pharaoh’s daughter didn’t notice the child’s beauty there in the basket. She wasn’t struck by how cute he was or even by “the fine baby” his own mother saw. No. No, she heard his cry. She heard and saw and knew that the baby was crying. She sees the baby. She knows he is a Hebrew child and she has pity on him. Her reaction, her empathy, her act of defiance comes as she knows he is…crying. As Dean Lapsley affirms, “Pharaoh’s daughter has compassion on the baby because he was crying. She responds to his helplessness and vulnerability.” She is the only woman of power and privilege to appear in the first two chapters of Exodus and she has compassion and empathy and she listened. She let the baby live.
Way before that child saw the burning bush, or told old Pharaoh to “let my people go”, before the plagues and Passover and the Red Sea, before water from a rock and manna from heaven, before the grown man came down the mountain with the two tablets, before his face shown because he had been with God, before he found himself on the mountain top of Transfiguration with Elijah and Jesus, before all that, Moses was delivered by Shiphrah, Puah, his mother, his sister, and Pharaoh’s daughter. All of them let the boys live.
Our text ends with this: “She named him Moses, ‘because I drew him out of the water.’ ” That river for Moses was a river of life. A stream of saving grace. Waters of righteousness and a flowing stream of justice. Not because of the water but because of the watchful eye of God who called him to lead God’s people out from Pharaoh’s oppression. Not because of the water but because of the watchful eye of God and the women along the riverbank who let the boys live. Not the water, the water is sign. You and I stand along that riverbank every time we gather at the fount for baptism and draw from the water of God’s grace. A river of life and salvation in Jesus Christ who is the living water. That water is a sign of the kingdom where the waters of righteousness and justice flow like an abundant, never ceasing, life sustaining stream. That water is where young and old alike come to splash in the promise of abundant life, to wash in the forgiveness of the Savior, and to be marked forever and sent into the world with the sign of God’s unending and conditional love. That water is how we remind ourselves again and again of the ark of God’s faithfulness and the basket of God’s providence. Along the riverbank we belong to Christ and to him alone. Children of God, just like those Exodus boys.
But when you stand along the rivers of God’s grace, when you draw from the Living Water of our salvation in Christ, you have to be able hear their cry. I’m not talking about a baby at the fount who is not all that happy to be there in a stranger’s arms. I’m talking about God’s children of all ages in the world who are at risk, oppressed, helpless, vulnerable, and afraid. Because you can’t dip your hand into the waters of righteousness and turn your back on those who suffer in the world. You can’t celebrate the mark and memory of your baptism without yearning for kingdom of God to come and therefore committing yourself to be a servant of that kingdom. Because when you wade into the promise of abundant life, when you walk in up to your waist, when you find yourself bathing afresh in the matchless grace of Jesus,, then you have to know that Jesus is sending you out there to let them live.
I keep reading the statement I shared with the congregation from my friend Brian Blount, President of Union Presbyterian Seminary in Richmond Va. I began my sermon with voices of color and I conclude with Brian’s voice. He begins with why he writes, what compels him to write. He is afraid. An African American, Presbyterian minister, doctor of the church, New Testament scholar, seminary president in the year 2020. He is afraid. His statement is a call, a plea for the witness of white Christians. Especially white Christians because Dr Blunt writes “Whether it’s individual acts of brutality or systemic oppression, it is hard to maneuver successfully for change when your hands are shackled, your legs are taken out from beneath you, and someone is kneeling on your neck. You need the people who wield economic, political, police, and military power to reign in the agents they have authorized to act on their behalf, to rain down change upon the systems their forebears have spent centuries erecting. To privilege themselves.”
A call to witness.
Yes, it is more than hearing a people’s cry.
It is working to let them live.
Acts 2:1-18
Mark Edwards and Nassau Youth
May 31, 2020
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When my daughter was young, perhaps 5 or 6, and while she was still enamored with ballet, I took her to see The Nutcracker. In the opening scenes she leaned over and asked, “Why are there no words?” It is a great question. I don’t quite remember what I said at the time, but the answer I’ve come to is that words aren’t always necessary.
Sometimes there are acts that speak more clearly and more authentically than our words do. And, as anybody who has ever been in an argument knows, sometimes “silence is healing” as the ancient philosopher Heraclitus says in his final Fragment #130.
Over Memorial Day weekend, I started a home improvement project- I’m putting on a new roof, at least over some of the smaller sections of my home. Learning the language of roofing is, well, learning a new language. Rakes, pitch, gauge, flashing, gable cleats, z closure, and “J” channel are mostly new to me, certainly new in these ways. I’m learning to speak the language of roofing. I’ve got some wonderful help who is already fluent, but I’ve also got some helping hands who are newer than I am. Since this project has become something of a neighborhood spectacle, people are frequenting the street see the progress. One of our visitors is a new member of the neighborhood, a middle school boy who speaks very little English. But when he walks into the backyard and starts to pick up shingles and carry tools, we understand him quite well. He wants to be a part of the action. He wants to help. He wants to do something to build the community and care for a neighbor. Thank you Jose.
Much like learning the language of roofing is the Confirmation process. This past year a dozen students went through the Confirmation program and were approved by Session on Thursday night. This Sunday, today, was to be Confirmation Sunday. We’ve postponed it until this fall, when we hope to baptize the, pray for them, and confirm them, in person, at least in some form. Our confirmation program is aimed to let kids think critically about the faith they’ve grown up with. To learn some of the language of faith and to think about how they will define those terms, both in terms of their concepts and where they’ve seen them lived out. There are many gems from their statements of faith, statements in which they attempt to put into words what they believe and why. Yet, one of the things that stands out the most is how comfortable they feel being in this church where community is valued and acceptance takes precedence over words. While many of the students, like many of us, still have many questions, and so only have words of uncertainty, they find in this community actions, fellowship, healing, and comfort that goes beyond words.
Today is Pentecost Sunday and today’s text from Acts 2 is another Biblical epic. People from all nations, a small band of believers, a bold leader who speaks out, accusations of public drunkeness, and a divine spirit which, if you’ve read your Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, does the opposite of the bizarrely improbably Babel Fish, which only caused more and bloodier wars than anything else in the history of creation. As tensions mount and as the crowd gets frustrated, a translation happens that allows people to not only to understand words, but to repent, to be washed and cleansed, to have hope in God’s good promises, and to be welcomed to a community that produces awe, wonders, and signs. Sharing, giving, distributing, and the selling of their possessions is the result. This is not the first church, I believe, as taught by my friend Karl, that the first church is Christ on the cross, Jesus crucified with two thieves; God in unity with those who are broken by and dying of sin. But that first community is now growing and expanding and taking on new forms in new places with new people. Yes, words are a part of it. But acts are perhaps so much deeper. Again, as the ancient Heraclitus says, “For wisdom listen not to me, but to the Word” (Fragment #1).
Christ, as the Word of God, is God’s expression to us. God’s will and personality disclosed. God’s intentions unveiled. God’s providence manifested clearly. God’s love spoken. Spoken in words, but more deeply with acts and in deeds. Returning to the Confirmation class, it has been my goal, and I believe this is the goal of the church, to show how God in Christ teaches us the words to pray, the language of grace, and the acts of love that correspond with both. Our language of grace, then, should not be turned into a jargon, a dialect, or a code that is inaccessible to those around us. Our acts should not be off-putting, exclusivist, or barrier building. We see far too many such words and acts flying around the internet today. Sadly such words and acts of defense, of fear, of hate, and of self-superiority go much deeper than virtual codes. As Alexander Solzhenitsyn says in his epic analysis of human brokenness, the Gulag Archipelago, “the line separating good and evil passes not through states, nor between classes, nor between political particies either—but right through every human heart—and through all human hearts” (Gulag Archipelago, p. 312).
May the Spirit break our hearts open so that we all are filled with grace, peace, love, faith, & hope. May we learn to speak a new language, that is not native to any of us. This new language is not the language of self, me, I, I want, my power, or my superiority. This new language is a language of service, of help towards others, of them. It is a language of peace, of prayer, of song, and of Christ. It is the language of Jose. May the Spirit come to us all. May the Spirit heal our rifts, our tensions, our hostilities, our miscommunications. The world has so many of them…
From failing to dialogue with each other in peace, to failing to understand the language of creation, from physical distance, to social distance, to emotional distance, to the chasms of distrust, dislike, pride. May the Spirit flow into our words and into our acts, such that God’s mercy and grace may be known. From a breath of fresh air, to the “I can’t breath” of Eric Garner and George Floyd, come Holy Spirit, come. “For we are deeply in need of a new way beyond the darkness that seems so close around us.”[1] And sometimes, when there are no words, “may the Spirit intercede for us with sighs too deep for words.” Amen.
[1] Martin Luther King, Jr. Beyond Vietnam Speech. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AJhgXKGldUk 4:59ff.
Psalm 98
David A. Davis
June 7, 2020
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The title for the sermon this morning is “Singing When You Can’t Sing”. “O sing to the Lord a new song.” Singing when you can’t sing. When I submitted the title to the staff weeks ago I was thinking about what this virus, this pandemic, this distancing means for singing. You have likely read the same things I have about the significant concerns that will linger for some time about choral and congregational singing. “O sing to the Lord a new song” ….when you can’t sing. But in these days, these last two weeks in our nation, the sermon title has a whole other connotation. George Floyd. Breonna Taylor. Ahmaud Arbury. Protests non-violent and violent. Peaceful prayer vigils, vandalism, looting. City after city after city. Racial tension as high as it has ever been in most of our lifetimes. The bible being held up as the threat of military action in America’s city streets is proclaimed. How can you sing a new song to the Lord? How can you sing a song of praise when a song of lament is all you can muster? When a song of lament is more fitting? Come on preacher, pick a different psalm!
You can certainly take an ala carte approach to the Book of Psalms. The Psalter contains such a rich diversity of prayers and hymns, of complaint and lament, of praise and adoration, of one voice and of many voices. Psalms for celebrating the royalty of God upon the throne. Psalms to pray on the ascent to Jerusalem for worship. You can pick and choose a psalm as you take the pulse of your day. One of the books on my shelf is a book of pastoral prayers that takes that approach: a prayer for a winter day, or a wedding anniversary, or the morning after a storm, or the day after a funeral, or for New Year’s Eve, or for Palm Sunday So it is with the psalms. We’re at the cemetery; Psalm 23. It’s Thanksgiving Day: Psalm 100. A service of reconciliation; Psalm 133. A prayer for peace; Psalm 122. Good Friday; Psalm 22. A time of lament; Psalm 42. “My tears have been my food day and night while people say to me continually, ‘Where is your God.’”
A few weeks ago we told the congregation of the death of Patrick Miller, Old Testament Professor emeritus at Princeton Seminary. In my mind Dr. Miller was the prototype of what the theological tradition refers to as a “doctor of the church.” Professor Miller’s book Interpreting the Psalms ought to be required reading for any pastor who rises to preach from one of the psalms. The binding on my copy is broken and the pages are loose due to overuse. In that book Dr. Miller address the relationship between psalms of lament and psalms of praise. He points out that there is more going on in the book of psalms than simply a pendulum swinging back and forth. Today its lament. Tomorrow its praise. Next week its supplication. One day it will be adoration again. Life in the nation is painful so we lament. Things are going well for the people of God so we sing. No, the prayer life reflected by the psalmist is not an exit poll. Dr. Miller describes the psalter as a steady, slow, persistent “movement toward praise.” Maybe not a simple line where all the dots can be connected but a movement nonetheless. A movement where the ultimate and final word is intended to be praise and adoration of God. To be led in song by the Book of Psalms, is to move ever closer to the lasting word of praise. In Pat Miller’s own words, “praise more than any other act fully expresses utter devotion to God and the loss of self in extravagant exaltation of the transcendent Lord who is the ground of all.” Utter devotion and loss of self.
Finding your voice in what is a steady movement toward praise. Losing your self amid the songs of the people of God. Realizing praise and adoration is less and less about you and more and more about God. Singing a new song. Discovering your desire to yet offer praise to God even after a dark night of the soul. Acknowledging that your heartfelt praise to the Living God is not wholly dependent upon your ability to count your own blessings one by one, or having to wait until the heavenly scales have tipped again toward justice for all. Singing a new song. Finally understanding that you are more nearly who God created you to be when you are one among the saints and the great cloud of witness in a movement toward praise that resonates with the very purpose of life. Finding your self somewhere along the march of the faithful where the praise and adoration of God is not fulfilled or complete until every child of God, children of every kind, can join the song and creation itself can sing for joy. As the Doctor of the church, now united with all the saints put it, that one day when “all that is God….hears praise from all that is created.”
Psalm 98 begins with “O sing to the Lord a new song , for the Lord has done marvelous things.” Psalm 98 ends with “God will come to judge the world with righteousness, and the peoples with equity.” Or as the Common English Translation puts it “God will establish justice in the world rightly; God will establish justice among all people fairly”. The psalm begins with a new song of praise and ends with God’s establishment of justice, fairness, and righteousness. Embedded in the movement toward praise of the Book of Psalms, Psalm 98 has its own movement as well. Psalm 98 has its own alpha and omega. Praise to God and justice in the world. Singing a new song and a world where people are treated with equity, with fairness. Offering praise and praying for righteousness to flow. Lifting your heart in adoration and yearning for justice to roll down. Making a joyful noise and shouting for what is right. Singing a new song and witnessing to God’s righteousness. It’s not two sides of the same coin. It’s the same side of the gospel coin.
Last Sunday afternoon I participated in a pastor’s prayer service in the parking lot of the Trenton YMCA. It was prayer vigil for the city and for the nation. We were all masked and distanced and we were split into groups of ten or so for prayer. I was in a group with Pastor Lukata from Witherspoon Street Presbyterian Church and Pastor Matt Ristuccia from Stone Hill Church here in Princeton. A retired African American pastor and 7 or 8 other young African American pastors as well. As we went around the circle you can imagine the different theology and the different styles, language of prayer that were being lifted. The prayers could be heard from the other three circles as well and it was something like a Pentecost-like cacophony. Praying out loud with folks you don’t know can be a very vulnerable thing to do. Of the many things that struck me, of the many things I learned listening to the prayers, especially from the young black pastors, was how every prayer started with powerful, compelling, often lengthy words of praise. Over and over and on and on—and I don’t mean that in a bad way at all. Quite the opposite. If I were to chart or diagram or put a stopwatch on the prayers, many had more praise than supplication, more adoration than petition.
At one point, one man began his prayer saying something like this: “I am not a pastor but I am a follower of Jesus.” And he launched into his offering of praise. It was difficult to hear each other through our masks and I was having hard time hearing his prayer. It sounded like he was saying something about knees, about our knees. And then he knelt down on one knee, repeated his prayer, and I understood perfectly what he said. “Knees are made for offering our adoration to you O God not for taking life.” Kneeling in praise and adoration to God and kneeling in a prayer for God’s righteousness, God’s justice, God’s peace to fill the earth. Until every child of God can join the new song of praise.
You will remember that in Romans 8, the Apostle Paul writes of the promise that “the Spirit helps us in our weakness; for we do not know how to pray as we ought, but that very Spirit intercedes with sighs too deep for words.” (Romans 8:26) One translation describes the sighs that are too deep for words as “wordless groans.” I find myself clinging to that promise these days. Not just that the Spirit intercedes for us, prays on our behalf. But that the Spirit prays for us in “wordless groans.” Because words are hard to find right now. Words are had to find in so many ways. For me, at least, that includes prayer. Praying with wordless groans. I understand that language better these days. You, me, and the Spirit together praying with wordless groans. It is the promise that when we can’t sing, God in the power of the Holy Spirit, God sings for us.
When words and songs can’t seem to be found, we still offer our praise to God. Today we offer that praise in the celebration of the Lord’s Supper. Your participation in this meal that Christ himself prepares is an act of praise. Yes, it is a meal of thanksgiving; giving thanks for our life in Christ and our salvation. Yes, it is a meal of remembrance of all that Christ has done for us. Yes, it is a communion meal that we share together, even when we are not physically present with one another. But sharing in the meal itself, taking, breaking, eating and drinking, it is an act of praise. It is an act of praise that joins each of us with a glorious song that has already started and includes the communion of saints and choirs of angels. Here, at the table, as you take the bread, as you take the cup, you join a divine and steady movement toward praise.
Come to the Table. It is your wordless act of praise.
Come to the Table, and sing to the Lord a new song.
Galatians 5:16-25 [i]
Lauren J. McFeaters
May 24, 2020
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Freedom comes in many shapes and sizes.
There’s an old legend about how freedom comes first with great heartache and anguish and can then be found in grace. The legend is about Judas Iscariot. After his death, Judas found himself at the bottom of a deep and slimy pit.
For thousands of years he wept his repentance, and when the tears were finally spent, he looked up, and saw, far into the distance, a tiny glimmer of light.
After a time, he began to climb up toward the light. The walls of the pit were dark and wet, and time and time again he kept slipping back down.
But finally, after great effort, he reached the top and as he dragged himself into a room; he saw it was an upper room; and he saw people, his people, people he knew, people seated around a table. And Jesus said,
“We’ve been waiting for you, Judas.”
“We couldn’t begin until you arrived.” [ii]
You know I wept when I read that story, because I know freedom comes with great heartache and anguish. I also trust that freedom comes through the grace of god.
When you travel with Paul to Galatia, you meet new Christians for whom freedom in Christ has been given. The problem, however, is they find no joy in their freedom.
Instead they are held captive by unending arguments about the law and food and circumcision – endless conflict and drama taking precedence over a peace based in generosity; all biting and devouring one another given priority over a grace that has already set them free. And it’s found within the community they’re tearing apart. It’s found in the offering of patience, kindness, gentleness, and self-control. It’s the one single commandment they have yet to accept: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’
For Paul, whose Gospel message is the unbound and unrestrained life lived in Jesus, “the Galatians’ fighting was the outward and visible sign of their ongoing captivity. [iii]
And Paul knows all about freedom in Christ because knows about captivity:
The wonder of Paul is that he was able to live, in the midst of chaos and confinement, a life unbound and unrestrained. Sounds like Good News!
Frederick Buechner puts it like this: You see, there was hardly a whistle-stop in the Mediterranean world that Paul didn’t make it to eventually, and sightseeing was the least of it. He planted churches the way Johnny Appleseed planted trees. And whenever he had ten minutes to spare he wrote letters. He browbeat. He coaxed. He comforted. He cursed. He bared his soul. He reminisced. He complained. He theologized. He inspired. He exulted. And everything he ever said or wrote or did from the Damascus Road on was an attempt to bowl over the human race as he’d been bowled over. [vi]
The day Paul found freedom in Christ was the day nothing became impossible.
And this is why he is so distraught over his beloved Galatian Church. They’ve taken the gift of salvation and turned it into a reason for self-indulgence and immaturity. For freedom Christ has set us free, yet we, insist on our own way.
It’s obvious what happens to our lives when we try to get our own way all the time; when our wills run riot, and our pleasure-seeking knows no bounds. Without living in Christ, and with Christ, and through Christ, our days turn into one big Roulette Wheel of “Choose Your Fortune!” Paul lays it out for us – here’s what becomes of us when we deny we belong to the Lord. We become:
We show forth our:
Freedom comes in many shapes and sizes. Lead us. Guide us, Lord. And watch what happens when we set aside our burdens and live as those set free. God grants such calm and simplicity; such serenity, much the same way fruit appears on a tree. Fruits of the Spirit. Amazing fruits happen, in the blink of an eye we grow-up and mature. We gain:
We know this from Paul’s own life.
Lead Us. Guide Us Lord to those gifts found in you:
You see, for those who belong to Christ,
there’s not one detail of life that he will not set free
so that we might belong to God body and soul.
And living our days in that kind of freedom is like: Looking up and seeing (far in the distance) a glimmer of light. And climbing up to light, and when we reach the top, we find ourselves in a room, at the table, with people we know, and they’re smiling, weeping, and Jesus turns and looks at us and says:
“I’ve been waiting for you.”
“We couldn’t begin until you arrived.” [x]
ENDNOTES
[i] Galatians 5:16-25: Live by the Spirit, I say, and do not gratify the desires of the flesh. For what the flesh desires is opposed to the Spirit, and what the Spirit desires is opposed to the flesh; for these are opposed to each other, to prevent you from doing what you want. But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not subject to the law. Now the works of the flesh are obvious: fornication, impurity, licentiousness, idolatry, sorcery, enmities, strife, jealousy, anger, quarrels, dissensions, factions, envy, drunkenness, carousing, and things like these. I am warning you, as I warned you before: those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. By contrast, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against such things. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also be guided by the Spirit.
[ii] Madeleine L’Engle as cited by James T. Moor. A Place of Welcome. Luke 7:36-50. Day1, A division of the Alliance for Christian Media, Atlanta, Georgia, June 17, 2007.
[iii] J. William Harkins. Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary, Year C, Vol. 3.Eds. David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010, 186.
[iv] 2 Corinthians 11:24-27
[v] 2 Corinthians 12:7
[vi] 1 Corinthians 1:18-25
[vii] Galatians 5: 19-21 adapted from Eugene Peterson’s The Message. Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 1993.
[viii] Galatians 5: 22-25 adapted from Eugene Peterson’s The Message. Colorado Springs, CO: NavPress, 1993.
[ix] Frederick Buechner. Excerpt from Peculiar Treasures. www.frederickbuechner.com, July 8, 2012.
[x] Madeleine L’Engle as cited by James T. Moor. A Place of Welcome. Luke 7:36-50. Day1, A division of the Alliance for Christian Media, Atlanta, Georgia, June 17, 2007.
A pastoral word from Rev. David A. Davis on May 31, 2020