Thank you for worshiping with us this morning.  You can follow along with the order of worship below.  Each video will play on this page and the words to the prayers and hymns are listed below the video.  If you so choose, there is a playlist on YouTube that you can find here.  The words to hymns and prayers for the playlist can be found by clicking “show more” on the bottom left, below each video.  For both choices, closed captions can be used by clicking the “CC” button at the bottom right in the video screen.

Prelude

Toan-Yan: La Fète du Double Cinq by Pierre-Octave Ferroud

Welcome, Call to Worship, Prayer of Confession

Call to Worship

Luke 19:28-40 

Jesus went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem. When he had come near Bethphage and Bethany, at the place called the Mount of Olives, he sent two of the disciples, saying, “Go into the village ahead of you, and as you enter it you will find tied there a colt that has never been ridden. Untie it and bring it here. If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you untying it?’ just say this, ‘The Lord needs it.’” So those who were sent departed and found it as he had told them. As they were untying the colt, its owners asked them, “Why are you untying the colt?” They said, “The Lord needs it.” 

Then they brought it to Jesus; and after throwing their cloaks on the colt, they set Jesus on it. As he rode along, people kept spreading their cloaks on the road. As he was now approaching the path down from the Mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to praise God joyfully with a loud voice for all the deeds of power that they had seen, saying, “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven!” 

Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, order your disciples to stop.” He answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the stones would shout out.”

Prayer of Confession

Holy and most beautiful Lord,
We are humbled by your compassion and mercy.
We recognize within us there is much that has hurt and offended you.
We acknowledge our faithlessness
and admit that we are undeserving of your commitment to us.
We avert our eyes to the sight of those in need
for fear they’ll ask us for help.
We perpetuate societal structures
that benefit some but not all.
We don’t share, hoarding our goods, depriving others.
But now, empowered by your grace,
given to us through Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection,
we seek forgiveness. Have mercy on us. Amen.

Assurance of Forgiveness

Finally, beloved, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is pleasing, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, and if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things.

Friends in Christ, hear and believe the good news of the gospel.
In Jesus Christ we are forgiven. Thanks be to God.

Hymn

[ezcol_1half]Refrain:
All glory, laud, and honor
to thee, Redeemer, King,
to whom the lips of children
made sweet hosannas ring!

1 Thou art the King of Israel,
thou David’s royal Son,
who in the Lord’s name comest,
the King and blessed One. (Refrain)

2 The people of the Hebrews
with palms before thee went;
our praise and prayers and anthems
before thee we present. (Refrain)[/ezcol_1half]

[ezcol_1half_end]3 To thee, before thy passion,
they sang their hymns of praise;
to thee, now high exalted,
our melody we raise. (Refrain)

4 Thou didst accept their praises;
accept the prayers we bring,
who in all good delightest,
thou good and gracious King! (Refrain)[/ezcol_1half_end]

 

Time with Children

 

Scripture, Sermon, Call to Offering

Luke 13:1-5

At that very time there were some present who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. He asked them, “Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans?  No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did.  Or those eighteen who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them—do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did.”

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Offertory

Affirmation of Faith, Prayers of the People, Benediction

from the Brief Statement of Faith

In a broken and fearful world
the Spirit gives us courage
to pray without ceasing,
to witness among all peoples to Christ as Lord and Savior,
to unmask idolatries in Church and culture,
to hear the voices of peoples long silenced,
and to work with others for justice, freedom, and peace.
In gratitude to God, empowered by the Spirit,
we strive to serve Christ in our daily tasks
and to live holy and joyful lives,
even as we watch for God’s new heaven and new earth,
praying, “Come, Lord Jesus!”

Tending the Flock

Deaths–

Barbara Welch Salmon, mother of Alex Welch and mother-in-law of Anne Marie Kelly on March 18, 2020 in Ponte Vedra Beach, Florida 

Ricarda Froehlich, wife of Karlfreid Froehlich on March 29, 2020 in Princeton, New Jersey

Hymn

[ezcol_1half]1 Ride on! ride on in majesty!
Hark! all the tribes hosanna cry;
thy humble beast pursues its road
with palms and scattered garments strowed.

2 Ride on! ride on in majesty!
In lowly pomp ride on to die;
O Christ, thy triumphs now begin
o’er captive death and conquered sin.[/ezcol_1half]

[ezcol_1half_end]3 Ride on! ride on in majesty!
The hosts of angels in the sky
look down with sad and wondering eyes
to see the approaching sacrifice.

4 Ride on! ride on in majesty!
In lowly pomp ride on to die;
bow thy meek head to mortal pain;
then take, O God, thy power, and reign.[/ezcol_1half_end]

Postlude

Adult Education

 

 

Hymns from “Glory to God” the Presbyterian Church (USA) hymnal. Musical streaming and print rights granted under OneLicense #A-730100 and CCLI#11457258.

Luke 8:26-39
David A. Davis
March 22, 2020
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          The discomfort pretty much comes as soon as Jesus steps out of the boat in Luke, chapter 8. The uneasiness that stirs in Luke’s reader. A sort of gnawing feeling as Jesus steps out on land and is immediately met by “a man of the city who had demons”.  The man who wore no clothes for a long time. The man who “did not live in a house but in the tombs.” The man who “was kept under guard and bound with chains and shackles.” The man wouldn’t break the shackles and chains and be driven into the wilds. For Luke’s readers, for those draw into the gospel’s witness to the life of Jesus, for the church, for you and for me, a kind of knot in the stomach starts to churn as soon as Jesus steps out of the boat.

Luke and his “telling of the events that have been fulfilled among us (1:1)”. It is one thing to linger with his extended telling of the birth of John and the birth of Jesus. It is one thing to walk slowly along the Emmaus Road with the Risen Christ and the two disciples. But lingering here among the tombs and demons, it is uncomfortable. This is the first and only time in Luke that Jesus ventures into the Gentile, unknown territory “opposite Galilee”. To put an exclamation point on the unknown, ritually and religiously unclean place, the man lived in the tombs among the dead. And the demons begged Jesus to let them enter a heard of pigs. Pigs and the dead, both unclean. Right after Jesus calms the sea, Luke brings Jesus to a most uncalm place. An uncomfortable place. In the telling of this story, only Luke uses words like “the wilds” and “the abyss”.  It is as if Luke wants his reader to be uncomfortable too.

A certain degree of the uneasiness in Luke 8 comes when you and I reflect upon history’s portrayal of mental illness and the semantics of demons and evil. That connection between mental illness and the manifestation of evil is rooted deep in humanity’s past and the history of biblical interpretation hasn’t always been helpful in providing the necessary language to create distance from that past. But in the world by this New Testament text, it is a story that tells of Jesus going toe to toe with evil. Jesus up to his eyeballs in the abyss and the wilds. Just like the wilderness temptations at the hand of the devil in Luke 4. Just like Jesus enduring the betrayal and desertion of those he loved in Luke 22. Just like Jesus suffering the brutal torture and death in Luke 23. When Jesus steps out of the boat in Luke 8, he steps into a world that reeked of suffering and death. He stepped into humanity’s world. And in that world, Jesus confronts all that works against the ways and intentions of God, all that seeks to destroy the promise and the shape and the gift of God’s salvation made known to us in and through him. In and through this Jesus.

Luke and his discomforting account of the man from Geresene. And the discomfort and unease grow a bit, the knot tightens a bit with Luke’s portrayal of the people and their reaction. “When the swineherds saw what had happened”, Luke writes, “they went and told it in the city and in the country. Then people came out to see what had happened, and when they came to Jesus, they found the man from whom the demons had gone sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind….And they were afraid.” It was not until then that they were afraid. Not when there was an unclothed man being tormented in the tombs. Not when a man ran off into the wild having smashed the chains and shackles that bound him. Not when they were told about the herd and the sea. It was then when the man sat dressed in clothes at the feet of Jesus. Luke tells us about the people, those who arrived from the city and the country. He tells about the people and how they were afraid. The people were filled with fear. Jesus takes on all that seeks to destroy, a force coming at him to the nth degree, and the people were afraid when they saw the man made whole.

It must be easier when you know what to hate, where to look, where to point. It must be easier when evil is contained somewhere, shackled and chained. Life has a clarity when you know where the threat lives, where the threat is, where the threat comes from. The people were afraid because Jesus removed the locus of evil from their town. He took away the centrality of darkness. The people are so afraid, “seized with great fear”, that they ask Jesus to leave. The demons begged Jesus not to be sent back into the abyss. The man made whole begged to stay with Jesus. The people asked Jesus to leave. So much fear that they turned their backs on the Savior in their midst. The people chose darkness rather than light. The people who walked in darkness turned away from that great light. The people begged “God with us” to head the other way.

The Gospel of Luke and the knot in your stomach. I don’t know about you, but the knot in my stomach this week, the discomfort, the uneasiness, for me it’s not just coming from my reading from the 8^th chapter of Luke. In the span of few days, it feels like the world we live in changed. Our lives changed. Maybe like the change some can remember in World War II. Maybe like what some remember when President Kennedy was killed. Maybe like the change some remember during the Vietnam War, or 1968, or September 11, 2001. This maybe like all of that, maybe completely different. Regardless, our lives have changed. It feels like the world changed. When Jesus stepped out of that boat, he stepped in humanity’s world, this world. The same world. Jesus stepped out of the boat into a world of suffering and torment and terror and destruction and disease and virus and death. A world where no literary exclamation point is needed because the uncleanliness of it all speaks for itself. A world where fear and panic are real, predictions and statistics hard to fathom, and threats are far from contained. Jesus stepped out that boat right into your world and mine.

How many times have you heard me say it from your pulpit in our sanctuary? The opposite of faith isn’t doubt. It is fear. Of course, fear and concern are real these days! That’s one of the reasons why the collective eye of the readers of Luke’s gospel is drawn to the people’s great fear. But they begged Jesus to leave. When Jesus, the Son of God, stepped into our world, when he burst forth from Mary’s womb, he came bearing our very flesh. A flesh that aches when surrounded by the darkness of this world. And as we linger there just outside the tombs with the man-made whole sitting at the feet of Jesus, Luke wants you to remember another tomb. Luke knows you know of another tomb in the gospel. That tomb is empty. For this Jesus, the Savior who steps into your world again and again, this Son of the Most High God has conquered death and plunged the depths of hell itself. He has forever broken the chains and the shackles of those powers and principalities. And for those of us who live in world so uncontained, in a land of deep darkness, on us, a light has shined.

And so today, this week, and next week, and the week after that, and the month after that, God’s people will dare to hope, and the people of God will not fear, as the Psalmist writes, “though the earth change, though the mountains shake (Ps 46)”.  We will dare to pray for healing and wholeness and seek to love our neighbors as ourselves. We will continue to be the body of Christ for one another so we can be the body of Christ for the world. We will keep yearning to serve others and work for justice all with compassion and mercy and kindness, fully assured that the kingdom in heaven shall surely be coming on earth. A kingdom where “they will hunger no more, and thirst no more, and the Lamb at the center of the throne will be their shepherd.” And the one who is on the throne, the one who stepped out of the boat into our world will lead us to springs of living water and wipe away every tear from our eye.

Until that day, here along the Way in this world where Jesus stepped out of the boat, you and I called to remember how much God has done for us. To remind one another how much Jesus has done for us. To let the world know with the very faithfulness of our lives.

The demons begged Jesus not to be sent back to the abyss. The man made whole begged to stay with Jesus. The people asked him to leave. As for us? As for you and me? Let’s beg Jesus to never, never, never leave.

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Permission to podcast/stream the music in this service obtained from One License with license #A-730100 and CCLI license #11457258.

Psalm 100

Luke 7:36-50

Luke 4:14-30
David A. Davis
March 8, 2020
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Every parent of young children must go through it at some point:  watching the young friends at play. 2 or 3 years old, maybe 4, 5, 15, 20, 50. 70 for that matter. Who knows? The toys come out: balls, trucks, blocks, dolls, puzzles, anything at all. And a parent, every parent watches, waits, hopes, maybe prays. “Please, please, please…don’t make me have to say it. I hope I don’t have to say it this time. Let another parent have to say it today. Am I going to have to say it my child’s entire life? No, no, no, uh, uh….oh, not again…. “Remember, Remember. Sweetie. You have to share!”  It starts so soon.

I was headed into New York City this week for a denominational meeting. As everyone exited the train in Penn Station I was in one of those crowds that was moving slowly, silently, and surprisingly orderly to a narrow door and staircase up from the platform. One person with a phone to the ear so as not to pay attention to anyone else, bypassed the crowd, did an end around on the wide right, right to the front like a driver at rush hour jumping the line at the exit ramp. Me first, I guess. The person next to me said under the breath and without malice, “Front of line people”, like it was anthropological axiom.

News reports and video this week from Boston showed a mother and her 15-year-old daughter being physical and verbally assaulted by two others because they were speaking Spanish to each other. The attackers yelled “This is America! Speak English!” The two now charged in the attack told police they thought the mother and daughter were making fun of them because they were laughing and speaking Spanish. With all that is troubling and yet not surprising in the news report, it probably could have mentioned for information that English was certainly not the first language spoken in this land. Us and them can so quickly become hatred and violence.

I met a rabbi a few months ago who transitioned in his life from serving a congregation in the upper Midwest to living and working in Jerusalem. It is very difficult for an American rabbi to serve in a religious capacity in Israel. His career is now working with and leading high school groups from Jewish Day Schools in the US when they spend a semester in Israel. He is expanding his tour guide business and within the last year had his first experience leading a pastor and his conservative evangelical congregation. “Can you help me understand?”, he said to me. He said everyone was so polite and attentive along the way and their knowledge of the various biblical sites was refreshing. It was the passing questions along the way that he found troubling. One day, a woman came up and sat next to him in the front of the bus. The conversation took a sudden turn when she asked, “You do believe Jesus is the Messiah, right?” He said to me, “I came up with the appropriate answer and question back to her long after that tour was over. In Judaism, we are raised to understand and practice our faith while learning and respecting that others understand and practice in different ways. What is it about American Christians who have to believe they are right and everyone else is wrong?” At every age and in all sorts of ways, it is the developmental, anthropological, political, sociological, theological oppressive and oppressing power of mine, me, me first, us, I am right, and I deserve it.

It can be argued that this synagogue scene taking place in Nazareth is a signature text for Luke. Jesus’ visit to his hometown takes place early in Luke. In Matthew and Mark, the visit happens later. Neither Matthew nor Mark include the reading from Isaiah. The text from Isaiah seems to set the stage, define, and foreshadow the ministry of Jesus all through Luke. It’s like the opening piece played by the orchestra in a musical where the themes and melodies of all the songs to follow are woven together in one piece.

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,

Because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives

and recovery of sight to the blind,

to let the oppressed go free,

to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

 

Jesus singing Isaiah. It is the gospel’s overture.

In Matthew and Mark, when that “no prophet is accepted in the prophet’s hometown” business unfolds, the tone from the crowd is much more one of cynicism and doubt. “Isn’t he just the carpenter’s son. His brothers are James and Joseph and Simon and Judas. We know his sisters too! Where does he get all this? Who does he think he is? In Matthew and Mark they were “offended.” Jesus said to them “Prophets are not without honor except in their own country and in their own house.”  They were offended.

There is a whole lot more going on among the crowd in Luke; a whole lot more than offense taken. No, in Luke Jesus confronts the utterly human and persistent response to him and his gospel. When Jesus returns to Galilee from the wilderness temptation at the hands of the devil a first stop would have been along the lake shore at Capernaum. Word spread, he taught in the synagogues, and was praised by everyone. He traveled a ways up into the hills surrounding Galilee to Nazareth where he had been raised, where he attended shabbat services each week. He stood up, read from the scroll of Isaiah, and sat down. That would have been the practice then. Stand up to read, sit down to teach. Luke describes how the eyes of all in the synagogue were “fixed” on the hometown carpenter’s boy. The King James says their eyes were “fastened” on him. “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” Today. “All spoke well of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth.” According to Luke, that’s when they said, “Is not this Joseph’s son.” They say it not with doubt, or cynicism, or offense. They say it with amazement. They say it with awe They are blown away by his “gracious words.”

But it doesn’t take long, does it? To go from amazement to being filled with rage. To getting up and driving him out of town, to leading him to the brow of a hill to hurl him off the cliff. No it doesn’t take long at all; four verse for goodness sake. It didn’t even take a sermon from Jesus to enrage the congregation. He did it in a few sentences. He did it with a few references. And they were ready to kill him. Remember Luke expects that his reader, his audience already knows how this whole gospel story is going to end. Jesus passing through the now riotous, enraged mob is less miracle and more a direct foreshadowing of his walk through the crowds with a cross upon his back, more a literary kind of reference to his walking through the valley of the shadow of death, and walking through the tomb of death itself. Jesus passing though the midst of death itself and all the forces working to kill him and crush his gospel. Jesus passing through and going on his resurrection way. Neither death, nor humanity’s rage will hold him down.  Today. Today. “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

It all turned so incredibly quickly. First Jesus tells them they are going to quote an ancient proverb to him; “Doctor, cure yourself!” “Doctor, cure yourself!” was just an older version of “charity begins at home.” Years and years ago I was trying to convince the Session in my prior congregation to increase the mission and outreach budget. The church treasure announced to the table that it says right in the bible that “charity begins at home”. “No, no actually it doesn’t, the bible doesn’t say that”, the 20 something old pastor had to say. “Doctor, cure and take care of yourself, and your family, and your hometown neighbors first! “Do here in your hometown the things that we have heard you did at Capernaum!” Jesus tells them what they are already thinking. All that teaching, that healing, those miracles. Why Capernaum first and not here? We watched you grow up. You are one of us. How about a little something for all that effort, all that “it takes a village” effort Jesus?

Only after calling out the congregation for what they were all thinking but what no one was saying, did Jesus drop the line about a prophet and the hometown. Then Jesus reminds them that there were a whole lot of widows in Israel during a long drought and famine in the land but Elijah cared for the widow at Zarephath in Sidon. She was a “them” not an “us”. There were also a lot of lepers in Israel and Elisha chose to cleanse Naaman the Syrian, a might man of valor, but he was a “them” not an “us.” The widow of Zarephath and Naaman the Syrian. That’s all it took to launch the rage. Elijah and Elisha certainly carried the promise of God and the prophetic word to the people of Israel. Elijah and Elisha never turned their backs on the people of Israel. It is certainly not the message of I and II Kings that the promise of God was for “them and not us”. No. But Jesus gave examples to the congregation that day of the reach of God’s promise and power and grace. The bold, boundary crossing reach of God. He gave them examples that made it clear he was not just for them, or even them first. And they didn’t like it one bit. That was all it took to unleash the rage that forever foreshadows a profound and ever present yet sinful human response to the gospel of Jesus Christ.

One commentator puts it this way in interpreting the hometown reaction to Jesus and his gospel: “The popular [initial] reaction became increasingly hostile as the magnitude of Jesus’ message sank home.” But it wasn’t just the magnitude. It was the height and breadth and width and depth of God’s love. It was the reach of God’s promise.  It was the stretch of the gospel. It was the eye-opening, mouth dropping news that as the Apostle Paul puts in Ephesians, “Christ is our peace; in his flesh he has made both group into one and has broken the dividing wall, that is, the hostility between us.” (2:14) Yes it was the magnitude, but it was also the lack of favor directed to the hometown crowd, and the absence of preference for the rich, and challenge to the religious at the front of the line, and the hard to fathom truth that God’s grace and love and promise and hope actually knows no bounds and blows where God wills and can never be defined as just for “us”, or even “us first”. Jesus, God’s Son, the Savior of the world, and his challenge and indictment of the oppressive and oppressing power of mine, me, me first, us, I am right, and I deserve it. Yes, he unleashed the rage. That rage that is the ever present yet sinful human response to the gospel of Jesus Christ. The disturbingly timeless, self-centered, selfish, xenophobic, nationalism of God’s people and the followers of Jesus.

And yet, and now, and still, the gospel’s overture still plays. We can still hear it. The song of liberation, the gospel hymn still washes over us, and fills us with hope and assurance and conviction.

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,

Because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.

He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives

and recovery of sight to the blind,

to let the oppressed go free,

to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”

 

“Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

Jesus and his song of liberation. His song of assurance. Singing of the Kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven, a kingdom that belongs to those who are poor, where those who are hungry now are blessed, and blessed are those who weep now, for they shall laugh. Jesus and his gospel overture. Foreshadowing the kingdom of God. Where the proud are scattered in the thoughts of their hearts, and the powerful are brought down from their thrones, and the lowly are lifted up. Where the sick are healed, and the storms of creation are calmed, and the power of death is conquered once and for all. The reign of God. Sins are forgiven. There is no hurt or destruction. His sacrifice is once and for all. The Lord makes all things new. Death has no sting. God wipes away every tear. Jesus and the reign of God. Where the stranger is always welcomed. The nations learn war no more.  And the prodigal always comes home to a warm and tear-filled embrace.

Jesus, Isaiah, and the signature text of Luke’s gospel. But don’t forget the most profound statement of hope and assurance and victory here. Yes, in good news to the poor. Yes, in release to the captives. Yes, in sight to the blind. Yes, in the oppressed go free. Yes, in the year of the Lord’s favor. Yes in “Today”. Today this scripture has been fulfilled. Yes. Yes, but don’t forget. Don’t miss. Jesus passing through. Jesus passing through the riotous, enraged mob. Jesus passing through the crowds with a cross upon his back. Jesus passing through the valley of the shadow of death, Jesus passing through the tomb of death itself. Jesus passing though the midst of death itself and all the forces working to kill him and crush his gospel. Jesus passing through and going on his resurrection way. Neither death, nor humanity’s rage, or the oppressive and oppressing power of mine, me, me first, us, I am right, and I deserve it will hold him down.

He passed through.

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Luke 1:24-25
David A. Davis
March 1, 2020
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Our text in Luke for this first Sunday in Lent is found in chapter 1 with the familiar story of Elizabeth, Zechariah, and the birth of John the Baptist. The story is familiar because it is most often read in a congregation’s worship life in the season of Advent. These familiar verses that serve as the introduction of John the Baptist are woven into Luke’s expansive birth narrative and are therefore etched forever into the church’s Christmas tableau. In fact, just last Advent, the first Sunday of Advent, I preached Zechariah and Elizabeth. December 1^st. Now March 1^st. Lent I. Looking not to Bethlehem but to Golgotha. Elizabeth and Zechariah, again. When you take something intended for Christmas out of the box in March, and you blow the dust off, it can look different. It can sound different.

When my friend Rabbi Feldman and I would compare notes on our professional lives and our family lives, our roles leading congregations and our kids all being clergy kids, he would sometimes say to me, “Well, the Feldman’s and Davis’ are really in the same business, aren’t we?”; meaning the two of us and our families, all in the same business. According to Luke, Zechariah and Elizabeth were in the business. Beyond the priestly office, Luke describes them both as “righteous before God, living blamelessly according to all of the commandments and regulations of the Lord.” There are not a whole lot of people described like that in the scripture; righteous and blameless. They had no children Luke reports; and they were “getting on in years”.

The Angel Gabriel, who also doesn’t appear all that often in Lent, comes to Zechariah one day while he is at work in the sanctuary of the Lord. The angel appeared to the righteous and blameless one who was smack in the midst of his daily routine, taking his shift at the altar of the Lord. The angel scared the bejeebers out of Zechariah and told him Elizabeth was going to bear a son. The angel said some incredible things about who this son, to be named John; who this son would become; what he will do; what he will mean. But Zechariah couldn’t get past “your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son.” When Gabriel took a breath, Zechariah said “I am an old man, and my wife is getting on in years”.  Fortunately for Zechariah, Elizabeth didn’t hear that. But Gabriel was not pleased about the hesitation and told Zechariah that his priestly voice would be silenced until the day the child was born. Zechariah motioned to all the people who were waiting for him to come out of the sanctuary that he couldn’t speak. He finished his day, waited to punch the clock, and he went home.

Which brings us to Luke 1:24-25:  After those days his wife Elizabeth conceived, and for five months she remained in seclusion. She said “This is what the Lord has done for me when he looked favorable on me and took away the disgrace I have endured among my people.”  

This week I heard someone say the strangest thing on the radio when I was in my car. I was listening to ESPN and some refreshingly mindless sports talk when I heard someone say this. “No, you have to listen more closely than that. You have to listen more to what is not being said.” I actually repeated it out loud to myself in the car. You have to listen more to what is not being said. Now I know what the person meant. But how do you “listen to what is not said”?

But that may be the best way to hear Elizabeth and Zechariah and the birth of John when the theological context is not the promise of the manger but the promise of the cross is to listen to what is not said. Luke says so little about Elizabeth but so much about Zechariah. So many details about the scene at the sanctuary that day. The conversation with Gabriel. The prophetic words about John. Zechariah’s hesitation. The imposition of silence. His wordless explanation to the worshipers. And when it comes to the other righteous and blameless one in the priestly business? Only this: After those days his wife Elizabeth conceived, and for five months she remained in seclusion. She said “This is what the Lord has done for me when he looked favorable on me and took away the disgrace I have endured among my people.”  Zechariah even get’s the song in Luke. Hannah got to sing in the Old Testament when she lent her child Samuel to the Lord as long as he lived. Mary got to sing after Gabriel’s visit. But not Elizabeth. I bet Zechariah couldn’t even carry a tune!

This week in New York City the Broadway production “To Kill A Mockingbird” was performed in the round in Madison Square Garden to an audience of more than 15,000 middle and high school students from the city. Reports described the audience moaning, even booing when harsh racist things in the script were said and cheering for the characters of Tom Robinson and Atticus Finch. Taken from the gilded, high priced theaters of Broadway and dropped into the middle of a crowd of thousands of teenagers of all colors and all faiths, it as if the organizers want to underline and emphasize the play’s portrayal of institutional racism;  Harper Lee’s trenchant indictment of the timeless sin of racism must have come to life in fresh, powerful, even raw way.

When you read Luke chapter 1 on your way to the cross, it is as if the gospel writer, in giving Elizabeth such a minor role in terms of text time, it is as if the gospel writer wants to underline and emphasize, even display something of what Elizabeth herself names as “the disgrace I have endured.” Because the disgrace comes not from the hand of God. She was righteous and blameless, after all. No, the disgrace comes at the hands of her people who label her, objectify her, ridicule her, shame her, and minimize her because she isn’t a mother. This foundational birth narrative in Luke underlines and emphasizes the disgrace in the elevating of Zechariah and the naming, even mimicking the seclusion of Elizabeth, minimizes Elizabeth’s presence in the text.

But the disgrace, her disgrace, it is not a theological disgrace. It is a sociological disgrace completely smothered in “her people’s” beliefs, assumptions, and conclusions about God and what God has done to her and why. What God has done to Her, the one the bible calls righteousness. The disgrace is the community of faith, even those closest to her, heaping their own disdain and disappointment on her all the in name of God. Talk about a timeless, ever-present sin. The disgrace. But according to Elizabeth, “God looked favorable on me and took away the disgrace I have endured among my people.”

 Listening to what is not said. Luke doesn’t say anything about what many in this room have always assumed; what few preachers (like me) ever say. Elizabeth no doubt had a lifetime of conception, pregnancy, loss, suffering. All of it at the risk of her life. The five months of seclusion must have had to do with shielding herself from yet one more painful experience of loss and a collective shake of the head from even those who loved her most. Luke writes about Mary, “When the time came for Mary to deliver her firstborn son.” Here with Elizabeth, it is when the time came for Elizabeth when she was able to claim God’s promise for her; at five months. Elizabeth and trusting in the promise of God. It had to have been what Eric Barreto calls in our study guide for Lent, “a hard-earned trust in God.” “A hope rooted, not in naivete or optimism” he writes, “but a hard-earned trust in God’s promise.”  A hard-earned, life scarred, loss filled, reality weathered, experience driven, Christmas shine long since worn off kind of hard-earned trust in God. “My wife is getting on in years” Zechariah said. Maybe that is less a statement of age and more a description of her well-worn faith.

I have been in this business too long to rush to the birth of John. You and I know the child doesn’t always come. An answered prayer doesn’t always keep death away. To stop today here with Elizabeth is let the prayer of the psalmist from earlier echo a bit longer. “How long, O Lord?” (Ps. 13) To stay here with Elizabeth in Lent is to let the prayer of another psalm sink in. “Hope in God, for I shall….again…praise God.” (Ps. 42) I have sat with too many people with nothing to say, been asked too many questions that have no answers to rush to the birth of John. Let’s just stay here with Elizabeth this morning and sing that setting of Psalm 116  “I Love the Lord who Heard my cry.” Because, as one of the theologians I work with everyday has said, “The promise of scripture is that God hears our prayers, not that God answers them.” Not that God answers them in the way we ask, demand, or plead. Let’s just stay here with Elizabeth this morning and look toward the cross at the suffering and unanswered prayer of the one who prayed “Take this cup from me”. Stay with Elizabeth and her response; “This is what the Lord has done for me when he looked favorable on me and took away the disgrace I have endured among my people.”

I don’t have all the words, or all the answers, maybe it’s because I’m getting on in years. But what I can’t get out of my heart reading Luke chapter 1 the first week of Lent, what I keep coming back to when I read about Elizabeth, Zechariah, and John in Lent is that Elizabeth experiences the very promise of God weeks before the baby is born. According to Luke, God took away her disgrace with four months to go. Hope came with still four anxious months to go.  She tasted something of her salvation right then. Not only when John was born, not only at Christ’s crucifixion, not only at his resurrection, and not only when she herself meets Jesus in paradise. No, right then. When from Mary’s womb, the Christ Child embraced her with the promise of salvation. When God took away the disgrace. “Salvation is thus about a hope rooted, not in naivete or optimism but a hard-earned trust in God’s promise.”

I am always a bit puzzled by the stories that I read and hear about the pop-up imposition of Ashes on Ash Wednesday. Again, last Wednesday accounts of street corners, train stations, drop-in hours at a church. People one by one receiving that liturgical mark of our flesh, our mortality. It’s a kind of stop and smudge spirituality. This week it struck me how different the practice is from our Reformed theological practice of the sacraments: baptism and communion.  Because in our Presbyterian tradition, we are called, indeed required to celebrate them together. Home communion is an extension of the table, an extension of this Table where we feast together. We taste and see and feast and are nurtured… together. Not just every head bowed, everyone in prayer, being nurtured individually by the promise of our salvation. You and me, together, the body of Christ, nurtured at this Table. It is the reformed and sacramental critique of the ever-increasing individualism of faith and spirituality.

Here at this Table we are nurtured by the promise of salvation together. Receiving anew the gift of our salvation and being sent out as servants of the kingdom. And if it is true that salvation in Luke is not just about eternity but is a liberating, abundant life-giving gift now, then we are being sent into the world as midwives of the very salvation of Jesus Christ. Called by Jesus to bring salvation to bear in the lives of those who live with the disgrace; the timeless, ever-present sin of the disgrace of the world and the church and even someone’s people heaping disdain, pain, and suffering of them all in the name of God.

Elizabeth at about five months, said, “God took away the disgrace I have endured among my people.”

Come, taste and see, and bear witness to salvation.  

 

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Matthew 5:6
David A. Davis
February 23, 2020
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It would be so much easier if Jesus would have said “blessed are those who hunger and thirst for their own righteousness.” If the righteousness Jesus was talking about was more about one’s devotional life, or prayer time. A qualitative assessment of one’s spiritual journey. If by “righteousness” Jesus intended to refer to a quality of religiousness, a kind of holiness. If with this one line Jesus was attempting to point to that great aunt of yours who always knew scripture and kept her prayer list in her bible and radiated a certain God-centeredness. If “righteousness” is all about “right relationship”, “just you and me God”, then this particular beatitude would be a whole lot easier.

It would be much easier if Jesus would have said “blessed are those who hunger and thirst for goodness.” If the righteousness Jesus was talking about had to do with living a good life. If it had to do with honesty and fairness and business ethics and treating others well and loving your family and caring for your parents and hugging your kids and being an upstanding citizen and going to church on Sunday and volunteering at the hospital and coaching softball and serving a few non-profits. “Righteousness”, as in “he was a good man. She was a good soul” When it comes to this beatitude, at least we would understand it.

Our own righteousness. Our own right relationship with God. Our own goodness. My hunch is that somewhere along the line, somewhere down deep, we’ve been convinced by John Calvin and others about the hopelessness of our own goodness. We’ve absorbed something of this Presbyterian Reformed tradition that recognizes any effort toward our own perfection this side of glory is ultimately fruitless. We shall forever be grateful to the Apostle Paul and we cling to his proclamation that “by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God” (Eph 2). Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for their own righteousness? That take on Matthew 5:6 is easy to pass over when you believe that at the end of the day your saved by grace alone.

The word for “righteousness” doesn’t cross Jesus’ lips all that often in the four gospels. A few times he refers to the righteousness of God, the righteousness of the kingdom, a kind of righteousness with a capital “R”.  When John the Baptist was appropriately hesitant about baptizing the Messiah, Jesus said to him “Let it be so now; for it is proper for us in this way to fulfill all righteousness.” (Mt 3) Those words from the introit we have been singing this month,  “Seek ye first the kingdom of God and God’s righteousness, and all these things will be given unto to you,” the words come from the lips of Jesus later in Matthew in the Sermon on the Mount (Mt 6) And then few other times Jesus refers to righteousness on the human side. “Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them; for then you have no reward from your father in heaven” (Mt 6).

The Greek word Matthew uses there for piety is the same word as the word Matthew uses for righteousness. Beware of practicing your righteousness before others. Another time Jesus warns his listeners “unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and the Pharisees, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven.” (Mt 5). When Jesus speaks about our righteousness, our piety, our attempt at religious behavior, it always seems to come with a warning, a word of caution. When it comes to your own piety, your own doing, your own religiosity, your own preoccupation with the state of your spiritual self, when it comes to your own self-righteousness, Jesus says, yeah, not so much!  It’s not about hungering and thirsting after your own righteousness. It is about hungering and thirsting after God’s righteousness! And hungering and thirsting after God’s righteousness is not so easy to understand and certainly not so easy to do. “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled.”

Fifteen years or so ago the rock star Bono was the main speaker at the Annual National Prayer Breakfast in Washington, DC. The lead singer of the Irish band U2 has always been a strong voice and advocate in the fight against global poverty, the fight for global health, and debt relief for suffering nations around the world. When my dear friend Dave Prince was the interim pastor at Rutgers Presbyterian Church in New York City, he told me Bono would often slip in and sit in the back for worship. That morning at the National Prayer Breakfast he referred to his keynote address as his homily.  At one point he was offering praise and thanks for the response that had come from America, doubling aid to Africa and tripling funding for global health. He specifically thanked President George W. Bush who was sitting right next to him for his leadership and support of the funding. Bono went on to describe the magnitude of the suffering, the scale of the emergency. Then the singer said “It’s not about charity after all, is it? It’s about justice…It’s not about charity, it’s about justice. And that’s too bad, because you’re really good at charity…but justice is a higher standard.” Bono was talking about righteousness., the righteousness of God.

When you and I hear Jesus say the word “righteousness”, our first move is to look within. It’s easier. But those listeners there on the mountain, the crowds gathered around, along with the disciples who had come near and sat down as he began to teach them? The first move for those hearers of the Word, the first thought when it came to “righteousness” would have been the words of the prophets and the songs of the psalmist. It would have been their yearning for the messiah that came to mind. The messiah, that shoot that shall come forth from the branch of Jesse, the one “who shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide by what his ears hear; but with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth.” (Is 11) It would have been the prophet’s lament they remembered. “Justice is turned back, and righteousness stands at a distance; for truth stumbles in the public square.” (Is 59) It would have been the prophet’s divine rebuke that echoed in their ears, a rebuke that came from the shouts of Amos. “Take away from me the noise of your songs; I will not listen to the melody of your harps. But let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.” (Amos 5) It would have been God’s promise that leapt in their hearts. The promise spoken by the psalmist in Psalm 85. Words I read just a moment ago in the psalter. “Surely God’s salvation is at hand for those who fear him, that God’s glory may dwell in our land. Steadfast love and faithfulness will meet, righteousness and peace will kiss each other. Faithfulness will spring up from the ground and righteousness will look down from the sky.” (Ps 85) When the people of God heard Jesus use the word “righteousness” they wouldn’t have looked within focused on their own piety, they would have stood up and looked around determined to see some evidence of the very reign of God!

It would be much easier if Jesus would have said “blessed are those who hunger and thirst for their own righteousness.” But the promise comes to those who hunger and thirst for…those who set their minds on… those who fast and pray for….those who count it the most profound of spiritual disciplines to cry out for and work toward God’s righteousness, God’s justice, God’s kingdom to come here on earth as it is in heaven. Those who crave a world where the hungry are fed and the thirsty receive drink, where strangers are welcomed and the naked are clothed, and the sick are cared for and the prisoners are visited, where the injured man in the ditch is helped along by the most surprising of neighbors, where the poor are invited to a feast of seismic proportions. God’s righteousness, where the people God of know and live what the Apostle Paul called “the more excellent way.’ The way of love. Where there is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for all are one in Christ Jesus. God’s righteousness, where the first shall be last, the last shall be first, where those who seek to be great know they must first be the servant of all. That desire, that yearning, for God’s righteousness, it will be filled, if not in this world, then in the kingdom to come.

One Saturday in January I was preaching at the closing worship service of a conference of pastors who had come together from all over. During the sermon, behind me to my right, there was an artist painting on a canvas. I was preaching about Jesus and his long walk to Jerusalem in Luke’s gospel. In those 15 or so minutes, she painted Jesus sitting on the Mount of Olives looking over, across the valley, to the city of Jerusalem. I had never experienced someone painting during one of my sermons and I will admit that it was a bit disconcerting to have the listeners not watching me but watching the painting come to fruition. But it was beautiful and appropriate to behold his last stop along that way.

If someone behind me was painting “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled”, I think it would be harder. Because hungering and thirsting after God’s righteousness is not so easy to understand and certainly not so easy to do and not easy to see either. Maybe it could be an historical portrait of the church working for God’s righteousness. The Barmen Declaration; Germany, 1934. The Letter from the Birmingham Jail, Martin Luther King, Jr, 1963. The Confession of Belhar, South Africa. 1986. Ordination of women in the Presbyterian Church (USA). 61 years. The combined Men’s groups of Witherspoon Street Presbyterian Church and then First Presbyterian Church working together to establish fair and integrated housing in Princeton some 50 years ago. Crisis Ministry, now Arm In Arm, feeding hungry people in our community. 35 years. Centurion Ministries, working to free the wrongly imprisoned. 33 years. Nassau Church, speaking for, working for, living the full inclusion of members of the LBGTQ community. More than 25 years. Some kind of historical landscape of the people of God hungering and thirsting for righteousness. That could be the painting of those who hunger and thirst for righteousness. God’s righteousness. Because you can actually see it.

Every time you hear Jesus use the word righteousness, don’t look within. But stand up with me and look around, and roll up your sleeves, and clear your voice. Because in due time our children and grandchildren will be telling our great grandchildren about what the church said and did when they were young. What the church said and did now. And by the mercy and grace of God, I hope and pray they will be telling something of what it means to live into and to hunger and thirst for the very righteousness of God.

 

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Matthew 5:5
David A. Davis
February 16, 2020
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“Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” A few translations opt for “Blessed are the gentle”. One translation I came upon this week had “Blessed are the humble.” The word for meek in Greek can be translated “humble, gentle, considerate”.  It is here in the gospel of Matthew, the 11^th chapter, that Jesus offers the words never t be forgotten, “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” (11:28-30) Gentle and humble in heart. Gentle, the same word in Greek for meek. Matthew’s record of Jesus’ Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem, his telling of the Palm Sunday scene is the only gospel that includes this quote from the Hebrew prophet Zechariah: “Tell the daughter of Zion, look, your king is coming to you, humble and mounted on a donkey, and on a cold, the foal of donkey”. (Zech 9:9) Humble. In Matthew that’s the same word as meek.

Meek. “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.” The prophet Isaiah tucks a reference to the meek into a messianic passage most heard in Advent. “A shoot shall come out form the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots. The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and might, the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord. His delight shall be in the fear of the Lord. He shall not judge by what his eyes see or decide by what his eyes hear; but with righteousness he shall judge the poor, and decide with equity for the meek of the earth.” (Is 11:1-4) Decide with equity for the meek of the earth. Elsewhere, Isaiah again offers a promise to the meek. “The meek shall obtain fresh joy in the Lord, and the neediest peoples shall exult in the Holy One of Israel.” (29:19)

            The psalmist sings the same tune of promise as well. “O Lord, you will hear the desire of the meek; you will strengthen their heart, you will incline your hear to do justice for the orphan and the oppressed, so that those from earth may strike terror no more” (Ps 10:17-18)  In Matthew 5:5, Jesus pretty much quotes Psalm 37: “But the meek will inherit the land, and delight themselves in abundant prosperity.” (Ps 37:11)  When it comes to the teaching of Jesus and the broader biblical tradition, one can not really count how many times, how many ways, how many variations there are of the familiar tune from Jesus, “All who exalt themselves will be humble and all who humble themselves will be exalted”. (Mt 23:12) “Blessed are the meek.”

            Sitting this week with this second beatitude, I have been struck by how many scholars, preachers, and devotional writers spend so much of their writing space trying to explain the meek, what it means to be meek, who are the meek, where are the meek. There are also a whole lot of words on the page intended to address what meek does not mean. As in, it is not timidity. It is not passivity. It is not weakness. Meek. My sermon title for this morning, “The Invisible”, certainly indicated that I intended on pointing to the meek today. But I have come think that we all know! We already know who the meek are, where the meek are. When it comes to the gospel and teaching of Jesus and the world we live in, it is as clear as a hand in front of your face. The meek. Yep. We know the meek. We see the meek. You and I can ignore the meek just like everyone else. But Jesus didn’t, Jesus couldn’t, Jesus doesn’t. And in all of scripture, are there many who receive the abundance of God’s promise more than the meek? “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.”

            Fewer people, a lot fewer people write about, preach about, comment on “they shall inherit the earth.”  As the psalmist put it, “the meek will inherit the land, and delight themselves in abundant prosperity.”  Or as Isaiah puts it, “The meek shall obtain fresh joy in the Lord, and the neediest peoples shall exult in the Holy One of Israel.” Again, the psalmist: “O Lord, you will hear the desire of the meek; you will strengthen their heart”.  Strengthening heart. Obtaining fresh joy. Inheriting the earth. All promised to the meek. It is a bold, bodacious, and bald promise. Like the promise from God to Abram. “Raise your eyes now, and look from the place where you are, northward and southward and eastward and westward; for all the land that you see I give to you and your offspring forever.” (Gen 13:14-15) Like God’s promise to Moses at the top of Mount Nebo. “This is the land of which I swore to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob.” (Deut 34:4) Like the promise of Jesus in Matthew 25 to those at his right hand who cared for hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the sick, the imprisoned, those who cared for….the meek. “Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” (Mt 25:34) Like the promise of the Risen Jesus to the women at the empty tomb that first Easter morning who were clinging to his feet. “Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee, there they will see me.” (Mt 28:10)

            “They shall inherit the earth”. A bold, bodacious, and bald promise that in the greater schemes, doesn’t get talked about all that much. I can’t decide whether that relative silence on the second half of the third beatitude is because preachers like me don’t know what to do with or really just don’t believe it. It is bold, bodacious and bald but is it true? The meek certainly are not inheriting much these days. At least not yet. One sure fire way to know that the earth is not what the Lord intends, or that kingdom on earth is not as it is in heaven, or as Jesus says in Matthew 24 “the end is not yet”, one sure way to know is to read “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth” a few times and then go read the newspaper, or take a walk down the street, or have lunch in a school cafeteria. Say “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth” over and over to yourself and then start a conversation at work about affordable housing or sanctuary cities or prison reform or the 800,000 Syrian refugees fleeing a war torn land with nowhere to go, no country to let them in, including ours.  Let “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth” sink deep into your heart and then ask God to help you dare to believe it.

My wife Cathy and I went to McCarter Theater this week to hear a concert by Gregory Porter. He is a Grammy award winning jazz vocalist. Over at McCarter theater this week, I heard a sermon. I heard a few of them actually as I listened to Gregory Porter perform the songs he wrote. One of his most well-known songs is called “Take Me to the Alley”. I first heard the song here in the sanctuary when my friend Toby Sanders sang it at Dan Darrow’s ordination a year or so ago. The song is pretty brief, the lyrics are few. But they are powerful.

Well, they guild their houses in preparation for the King

And they line the sidewalks

With every sort of shiny thing

They will be surprised

When they hear him say

Take me to the alley

Take me to the afflicted ones

Take me to the lonely ones

That somehow lost their way

Let them hear me say

I am your friend

Come to my table

Rest here in my garden

You will have a pardon

Listen to this clip now with ears to hear:

Take me to the alley, to the afflicted, to the lonely and let them hear me say I am your friend, come, rest, thrive in my abundant grace. As for all the rest, all the rest in the world, even those who follow me and take my name, won’t they be surprised when they hear me say, take me to the alley.

The opening words of Psalm 24, the first scripture lesson read this morning: “The earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it.”  You will remember that the King James is “The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof”. The psalm writer intends the reference of “fullness” to allude to all that the earth contains. The breadth of creation and all who live it. “The earth is the Lord’s and the fullness thereof.” But I have always taken the King James to mean something a bit more. Something more like: The earth is the Lord’s. The earth and all of God’s fullness.  The earth belongs to God and the fullness thereof is the vast expanse of God’s love in Jesus Christ that surpasses all knowledge. The earth is the Lord’s alongside what the Apostle Paul calls “the breath and length, and height, and depth”. The earth is the Lord’s. The earth belongs to God and no one else. Though creation groans and God must weep at humanity’s stewardship of what belongs to God. The earth belongs to God. And the fullness thereof belongs to God. The fullness of God. Our salvation by the mercy, grace, and love of God. Both the earth and our salvation come from and belong to God.

The meek shall inherit the earth. “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth”. The meek shall inherit all that belongs to the Lord. The earth and God’s fullness thereof. Yes, a bold, bodacious, bald promise that the very inheritance of God is for the meek we know. The meek everyone knows. The meek we see. The meek everyone sees. The meek that the world would rather ignore. But Jesus didn’t. Jesus doesn’t. Jesus couldn’t. And don’t let any preacher, any scholar, any commentator, any teacher, any elected official, and relative, or any co-worker ever convince you otherwise. Never, ever forget the promise that rests at the very foundation of the teaching of Jesus and the gospel itself. “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.”

Won’t they be surprised?  Won’t they be surprised? Or course they shouldn’t. They shouldn’t be surprise if they paid any attention him at all, to Jesus. But they are. We are. Everyone will be surprised.

“Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.”

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Matthew 5:4
David A. Davis
February 9, 2020
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I had been a pastor for all of two weeks when the call came. A church member had taken ill and died while on a July vacation in New England. He was in his 80’s. He was the president of the Board of Trustees. No one referred to him as a saint of the church, he was too gruff for that. He had been a member of the church for more than fifty years. The first time I met his wife just about two weeks earlier, she told me she had the longest membership in the congregation. I guessed then it was about 138 years. They lived two blocks from the church. Yes, it was my first funeral. I then had six funerals in the next two months; all of them were church members. All of them were buried in the church cemetery followed by a potluck reception in the fellowship hall. The cemetery was the back yard to the manse where we lived right next to the church. The cemetery was where our kids learned at a very young age to dribble a soccer ball around the tomb stones. The potluck lunch each time included jello salads, tea sandwiches (most of them on white bread with the crust cut off), baked ham, macaroni and cheese, and Mame’s iced tea and a selection of Alma’s pies. No one else dare make the pie or the iced tea. I was 24 years old. That summer I began to learn about Matthew 5:4; the second beatitude.

“Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.” And somewhere and everywhere a reader of Matthew’s gospel can be heard saying out loud: “Really?” “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.” Really? In his book on the Sermon on the Mount Professor Dale Allison writes what so many must think. “‘Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted’ is obviously false as a statement about this life, many sad people die without consolation.” True. True. Professor Nicholas Wolterstorff puts it this way, “Blessing to those who mourn, cheers to those who weep, hail to those whose eyes are filled with tears, hats off to those who suffer, bottoms up to the grieving. How strange, how incredibly strange!” He concludes with a big old exclamation point and his reader can almost see the philosopher/theologian/writer/father/mourner throwing up his hands as he shares his own wounded heart. Throwing up his hands and shouting, “Seriously?!”
Sometimes the bible just sounds out of touch, different than life, doesn’t match the human experience. Sometimes the bible just sounds different. “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted” come the words of Jesus with such…. certainty. Dr. Allison does offer an approach to the seemingly false promise of Jesus. He offers his readers an understanding. He suggests that Matthew’s Jesus draws upon Isaiah’s promise of the year of the Lord’s favor and God’s comfort to all who mourn. The prophet’s audience are the people of Israel, the people of God oppressed at the hands of captors. “So God’s own righteous suffer” he writes, “the wicked prosper, and God has not yet righted the situation. It is the same in the Sermon on the Mount. The kingdom has not yet fully come. The saints are reviled and persecuted. The meek have not yet inherited the earth. The righteous still have enemies who misuse them. In short, God’s will is not yet done on earth as it in heaven and that can only mean mourning for God’s people.” It is Professor Allison pointing to the timeless, existential groan of grief coming from the people of God in Babylon, in Galilee, and indeed in the here and now. For God’s kingdom has not yet fully come.

I find such a pathway to understanding helpful and compelling when I am trying to wrap my head around this promise of Jesus that just sounds different from the human experience. When I look near and far this week I crave to understand the promises of Jesus for the present. For the kingdom has not yet fully come. In The Cost of Discipleship Dietrich Bonhoeffer writes, “By mourning, Jesus, of course means doing without what the world calls peace and prosperity. He means refusing to be in tune with the world or to accommodate oneself to [the worlds] standards. Such people mourn for the world, for its guilt, its fate, its fortune.” For Bonhoeffer, Christ’s blessing is for those who mourn the state of the world and the state of the nation, both so far, so very far from the kingdom. “The disciples are strangers in the world, unwelcome guests and disturbers of the peace” according to Bonhoeffer. Thus, a great, collective, kind of “macro” mourn for the followers of Jesus. The timeless, existential groan of the people of God. For the kingdom has not yet come. “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.”

But all of that on the second beatitude, as helpful as it is to ponder in February of 2020 when it was 65 degrees in Antarctica this week. And this week there was the jarring juxtaposition of the 68th Annual National Prayer Breakfast in Washington held the morning after the State of the Union. I went to that Prayer Breakfast when I was in college. The purpose of the prayer breakfast has always been to bring college students from around the country to experience how officials in Washington live their faith in fellowship with one another and how faith informs leadership. And this week, public health leaders around world continue to scramble to respond to a new virus as the death toll continues to rise. And this week a report was released that estimates that 1.5 million public school children in this country experienced homelessness in the last school year. 1.5 million, more than double the number of homeless children in the school year 2004-2005. So, yes, that promise of Jesus in response to the “macro-mourn” from those who follow him today is comforting. The kingdom has not come…yet.

But that is not what I began to learn about Matthew 5:4 in July of 1986 standing next to an open grave in the backyard cemetery. That is not what I learn over and over again about the second beatitude when I hear myself saying it over from this pulpit while I look to the broken-hearted souls sitting here in the first pew. That is not what I learn about “Blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted” as I find myself driving to meet a family to plan a memorial service and all of my pastoral training and peer review and the classroom work in preparing funerals falls silent and I drive around the block a second time looking for strength and hoping for wisdom and yearning for God’s presence, all the while knowing the only words, the only prayer may just be “Blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted”. That is not what I learn when this promise of Jesus that can just sound so different from real life when it is paired again and again with Psalm 23 and John 14. When “the Lord is my shepherd” and “in my Father’s house are many mansions” and “Blessed are those who mourn” are read and etched in the heart of the faithful like a kind of faith filled triptych of assurance that stares into the face of death and offers a witness to resurrection life.

Matthew 5:4, the second beatitude, “Blessed are those who mourn”; it has been set a part by our liturgical use, by our yearning to cling to it for strength. It has been set a part by the context in we hear it and live. This beatitude has been set apart, ordained for a unique purpose. It is the church’s breath prayer for when we walk through that valley again. It is a witness to God’s promise when we can’t find another words. Last week I quoted another preacher saying that the beatitudes were “performative”. That they just don’t say something, they do something. In the philosophy of communication, it’s called “performative utterance”. Expressions like “I love you” and “I do” and “I’m sorry” and “I promise”. Those expressions just don’t say something, they do something. “Blessed are those who mourn….”; when we speak it, or pray it, or heart it, we dare to believe that some part of the Blessed Savior enters the room, sits at the table, cradles your heart, wipes a tear. When you and I find ourselves wanting to, having to hear it again, it is so beyond words. It’s not an explanation. It’s not a timetable. It’s not even a guarantee. It’s the means by which the followers of Jesus remind one another that our only comfort in life and in death is that we belong to him. And more than that, in reminding one another, we dare to believe that Christ himself is present. These words etched so deep. The comfort really comes from The Comforter. “Blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted”

The first movement of Brahms’ German Requiem is a setting of Matthew 5:4 and a few verses of Psalm 126. The first words of the choir are selig sind, blessed they. Sung very quietly, but with intensity. Before the choir begins, however, the orchestra starts with these low notes. There is a quarter note beat that begins with the basses and moves through the cellos and violas. Boom. Boom. Boom. The rest of the orchestra comes in eventually to be joined by the choir. “Blessed they” comes amid that steady, ever present, almost heart beat like march of those quarter notes. For Brahms, it is as if the promise of comfort comes quietly, expressively, intensely, amid the steady march….amid the steady march of life and of death. God’s comfort, so far beyond words.

What I have learned about Matthew 5:4, the second beatitude, is that when I hear the words, “Blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted”, I see faces. The more I hear the words, even if I am hearing them come from my own mouth, the more I hear them over time, year after year, the more I hear them, the more meaningful they become. Mostly, I think, because I see faces. It’s not like some power point flashing still shots in my imagination like at the Oscars when they show the faces of those who have died in the last year. No, I see faces at those potluck receptions. I see faces gathered around kitchen tables. I see faces in this room and faces huddled on a bitter cold morning in a circle a few blocks down the street across from the library. I see faces of those whose hurt is shockingly fresh and those who have carried it for 35 years. I see the now countless numbers of faces yearning to have these words from the lips of Jesus wash over them. I see the faces of the church gathered for worship week after week where there are, in fact, always those who mourn. When I hear the words, I see faces.

And at the end of the day, when the scholarly books are closed, and when I find I can’t do any better that this with words, any better than I have tried to do here this morning with words, when the words written or spoken don’t seem to work, I want to show you the faces! Those faces in my life and ministry, the stream of faces it is as steady and sure as the march of life and death. Streams of faces, like quarter notes that start somewhere in string bass section. It is the march of the faithful who have found comfort. I can’t explain it. I can’t put it into words. But for goodness sake, for God’s sake, I’ve seen it. It is the march of the faithful who mourn; who have found comfort in and from the One who said “Blessed are those who mourn for they will be comforted”

I have seen it. Thanks be to God. I have seen it.

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