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Abiding in God’s Tent

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Psalm 15
February 1
David A. Davis
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O Lord, who may abide in your tent?
Who may dwell on your holy hill?

Those who walk blamelessly and do what is right
and speak the truth from their heart;
who do not slander with their tongue
and do no evil to their friends
nor heap shame upon their neighbors;
in whose eyes the wicked are despised
but who honor those who fear the Lord;
who stand by their oath even to their hurt;
who do not lend money at interest
and do not take a bribe against the innocent.

Those who do these things shall never be moved.

Live free of blame. Do what is right. Speak the truth sincerely. Do no damage with your words. Harm neither friend nor neighbor. Call out wickedness. Honor those who honor God with their lives. Keep your word even when it hurts. Don’t take advantage of others to make money. Live like this and you won’t stumble.

That is the psalmist’s answer to the question: “who may abide in your tent? Who may dwell on your holy hill?” Who can live in your tent? Who can dwell on your holy mountain, Lord?  Eugene Peterson poses the leading question of Psalm 15 like this: “God, who gets invited to dinner at your place? How do we get on your guest list?” But Peterson’ cozy paraphrase misses the reference to the holiest of places. God’s tent. The Lord’s holy hill. The tent is reference to the traveling tabernacle housing the ark of the covenant. The holy hill is Jerusalem and the temple. The holiest of places. Places made holy by the presence of God. Abiding in God’s tent. As one scholar described these holiest of places; “it is the place where God comes to dwell with God’s people and the place where God’s people come to dwell with God.”  Who can abide, who can dwell in the holiest places, the holiest moments with you, Lord?’

Those who walk blamelessly and do what is right
and speak the truth from their heart;
who do not slander with their tongue
and do no evil to their friends
nor heap shame upon their neighbors;
in whose eyes the wicked are despised
but who honor those who fear the Lord;
who stand by their oath even to their hurt;
who do not lend money at interest
and do not take a bribe against the innocent.

Those who do these things shall never be moved.

Interestingly, the same scholar I just quoted digs in the Hebrew verbs, “to dwell” and “to abide.’ They make the argument that the verbs and the tense used in the Hebrew connote a brief stay; a lack of duration to being in the tent, to being on the holy hill. There was no mention of what that grammatical observation might mean. What the take away might be of the ancient language indicating what the writer describes as “remaining in a place for a short period of time.”

I have only been inside the lobby of The Graduate hotel down the block a few times since it opened. Some of you know that the bar and restaurant are to the right as you enter from Chambers Street. To the right is a beautiful lobby area designed to look like a library. A beautiful library with tons of books on shelves, big leather chairs, and a long library table that stretches the length of the room. Each time I have been there that long table is full of students studying on their laptops with headphones or earbuds and their own water bottle there on the table. Students working there for the long haul, some for the day, others perhaps for the night. It is either a warm policy of hospitality to the community or an unwise or anticipated business model. I would imagine the room was designed and intended for briefer stays.

Maybe the implication of the short stay in the holy place is less about duration and more about a vitality, a freshness, an active, day in, day out, each moment experience between God and God’s people. You don’t go to the tent to rest on the laurels of your piety. You don’t experience the holy hill as a place to linger apart from the world where God has sent you to serve. As one writer observed, perhaps Psalm 15 is less about a moral test for the priests who can enter the tabernacle or the temple and more about the “longing for the kind of community the psalm describes and the kind of God who would be in the company of such people”.

O Lord, who may abide in your tent?
Who may dwell on your holy hill?

Those who walk blamelessly and do what is right
and speak the truth from their heart;
who do not slander with their tongue
and do no evil to their friends
nor heap shame upon their neighbors;
in whose eyes the wicked are despised
but who honor those who fear the Lord;
who stand by their oath even to their hurt;
who do not lend money at interest
and do not take a bribe against the innocent.

Those who do these things shall never be moved.

Old Testament Professor Beth Tanner, is a graduate of Princeton Seminary and on the faculty at New Brunswick Seminary. In her book The Psalms for Today (2008), she references the use of the psalms during the Reformation and tells of something I never. Dr. Tanner points out that the psalms were song in public during the Reformation. Songs of praise sung in public as songs of protest. And in their singing, Tanner suggests, the psalms became prayers for strength and for seeking God’s presence.

I first heard of “Singing Resistance” in Minneapolis. It began with small numbers singing songs of protest in the frigid streets of Minneapolis. It has grown into a movement. Andrew and Len Scales shared with me that Slatz Toole is a leader in that movement. Slatz was nurtured in faith through the Breaking Bread community. I watched a video of a Methodist Church full of 1,5000 singing and lighting candles. Prayers for strength and for seeking God’s presence.

I can’t tell you how many people sent me a link to the Ezra Klein Podcast with James Talarico. Family members, church members, neighbors, colleagues near and far. Talarico is running for office in Texas. He was raised in the St. Andrews Presbyterian Church in Austin and is a seminary student at Austin Presbyterian Seminary. His popularity has grown, in part, because of his willingness to talk about his own faith and his willingness to challenge the Christian right. The interview reminds me of our January inter-generational series on sharing faith stories. It was Talarico’s faith story including his impressive knowledge of scripture. At one point in the podcast Ezra Klein asks James Talarico about his faith and his progressive views on being pro-choice and for full inclusion of the queer community. His answer to that question alone is worth the listen. He criticizes both the obsession and the reductionism of the two issues as it relates to the gospel. He concludes by saying there are over 3,000 references in the Old and New Testament to economic justice and yet the story is as old as time, he says. “The powerful and those in control pervert religion and use it make more money and to control people.”

O Lord, who may abide in your tent?
Who may dwell on your holy hill?

Those who walk blamelessly and do what is right
and speak the truth from their heart;
who do not slander with their tongue
and do no evil to their friends
nor heap shame upon their neighbors;
in whose eyes the wicked are despised
but who honor those who fear the Lord;
who stand by their oath even to their hurt;
who do not lend money at interest
and do not take a bribe against the innocent.

Those who do these things shall never be moved.

“The place where God comes to dwell with God’s people and the place where God’s people come to dwell with God.” That sounds a lot like the Lord’s Table and the promised real presence of Christ here with us as we gather around. But we don’t stay long, do we? Here at the Table where we eat, drink, sing, and pray. Christ meets us here at Table made holy not just by his presence. But by his promise. His promise that he is with us out there too.

Come to the table this morning longing for the kind of community the psalm describes and be nurtured by the grace of the of  Jesus Christ to who longs be in the company of the people the psalm describes. Not just here today. But Monday and Tuesday and Wednesday and Thursday and Friday and Saturday.  Nurtured for faith in here. Doing faith out there.

 

The Unconcealed Love of God

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Psalm 40:1-10
January 18
David A. Davis
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Each year, as the holiday to honor the Rev Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. approaches, I reread Dr. King’s Letter from a Birmingham Jail. The letter is dated April 16, 1963, and it is in response to a public statement signed by 8 clergy people published on April 12, 1963, in The Birmingham News. Four bishops. Three ministers. One rabbi. I realized this week that I while I have read The Letter from a Birmingham Jail more times than I can count, I have never read that published statement. So, I read it this week. The statement reads in part:

“We the undersigned clergymen are among those who, in January, issued ‘An Appeal for Law and Order and Common Sense’….We are now confronted by a series of demonstrations by some of our Negro citizens, directed and led in part by outsiders. We recognize the natural impatience of people who feel that their hopes are slow in being realized. But we are convinced that these demonstrations are unwise and untimely.”  The statement also refers to the protests for civil rights in Birmingham as “technically peaceful”.

Near the end of Dr. King’s lengthy letter, he offers a stinging, timeless lament for the white moderate church. “So here we are moving toward the exit of the twentieth century,” King proclaims, “with a religious community largely adjusted to the status quo, standing as a tail-light behind other community agencies rather than a headlight leading to higher levels of justice.”  He writes of traveling the length and breadth of the south, looking at the plethora of beautiful churches “with their lofty spires pointing heavenward” and pondering the people who worship there. “Where were they when the lips of Governor Wallace were calling for defiance and hatred?” he writes. “Where were their voices of support when tired, bruised, and weary Negro men and women decided to rise from the dark dungeons of complacency to the bright hills of creative protest?”

It is impossible to read The Letter from the Birmingham Jail and not see the compelling relevance to these days. Impossible to read a letter from Birmingham and not think of Minneapolis. “A headlight leading to higher levels of justice” when an epidemic of injustice spreads. Nassau Church. I believe that is who we are. That is how we are. That is who and what the God we serve is calling us to be. Jesus Christ is calling, empowering, guiding each one of us in our life of discipleship to pray for, yearn for, work for higher levels of justice. The faithfulness of our lives is our letter. Each Sunday being sent from here to live our faith every day in the world. “To do justice, to love kindness, to walk humbly with our God” Or as adapted in the vision statement of this congregation, “By God’s grace in our lives, we engage with the world, yearn to do what is just and fair encourage what is kind and helpful, and seek to walk humbly before God and alongside our neighbors.”

As we go to Psalm 40 together this morning, I invite you to reflect with me on the theme The Unconcealed Love of God. The Unconcealed Love of God. Because as I have read and reflected on the first several verses of Psalm 40, it touches me as a prayer. My prayer. Our prayer A prayer from each one of us. A prayer for these days

We have waited and waited and waited for God to hear our cry. And we’re waiting again, Lord! You have heard. We know you have heard and we ask that you hear again. Our urgent, fervent prayer for these days. Hear us again, God. As in days passed, when you pick us up from the lowest of points, from what felt like a foggy chaos. Each of us can point to the moments, Holy One, “when the Lord lifted me.” When God lifted me. God really lifted me. We remember. We know, O God, when you lifted us high upon the Rock of our Salvation. When you drew us close, O Rock of Ages. Draw us and your world close again, Mighty God, you who are our rock and redeemer.

We cling to those moments when we felt like we could sing again. When you put a new song on our lips, in our hearts. When we could again praise you, O God of everlasting peace and righteousness. When you lifted us, each one of us at some point. When you reached all the way down, O Emmanuel, God with us, and with your everlasting arms, you lifted hearts unto you again. On that one Sunday, when our mouths could again join in with those singing next to us, in front of us, behind us, in these pews. How could we keep from singing your praise, Wondrous God of mercy and grace?  Hear us again, O Lord. Hear our cry. But we’re not going to lie, Lord, we could use a lift again. Today. Right now. Lift us again from the fog of chaos all around us, O Light of the world.

Surround us afresh with more and more people who will see you and the world you desire. Who will be filled with the wonder of your magnificent beauty and the beauty of the world, the creation, the kingdom you intend? Assure us of the multitudes of your beloved children that put their trust in you, and you alone. Those who surround us here in this place. Those that you bring into our lives out in the world. Keep helping us to find our people, Lord Jesus. For before they were our people, they were your people. Your children. For that is who we are.

Blessed. Blessed. Blessed are those who put their lives in your hands and their hearts in you, Ever-present God. You who know each of us by name and the number of the hairs upon our head. Blessed. Blessed. Blessed are those who rest their heart in you rather than the allure of wealth and power and winning at all costs and vengeance. Blessed. Blessed. Blessed are those who turn to you, the Suffering Servant who stretched out your arms on the cross to embrace this broken world, these your broken people. Those who turn to you rather than those who boast of their own pride. Those who become disciples of the false gods fired in the world’s furnace of greed, and violence, and hatred, and bigotry, and evil. The false gods of this world that are legion and tempt us like Satan in the wilderness.

Loving God, you who created this vast universe and called it good. You who created each one of us and called us good. The more we ponder all that you have done for us,  the more wondrous your work, your love, your kindness, and your faithfulness for and to us becomes. It’s not science. It’s not math. It’s not philosophy. It’s not even theology. It’s life. Our life in you. When it comes to life, nothing compares to you. Truth is, the legion of your goodness is always stronger than the legion of false gods that confront us. And at the end of the day, trying to find words, trying to explain, trying to shout it from the rooftops, trying to go tell it on the mountain is not enough. It’s never enough. Not enough words. Never enough when all you desire is the faithfulness of our lives in here and out there.

Here’s the wonder of it all, God. Here’s the mystery of your plan for our salvation. It’s never about what we do for you. It’s not about how religious or pious we can be. You already have us in the book of life. You already have our names on the class roster of abundant and eternal life. You have us. You got us. Here I am, Lord. Here I a,m Lord. Here we are, Lord. All of our broken, frumpy lives, all of our hard edges and wounded, aching limbs as the body of Christ. Here we are for you. That’s all. It’s that simple for these way too complex, frightening days. You are the purpose of each of our lives and for our lives together. You are our joy, our delight. You have imprinted your desire, your intent for this crazy, out-of-control world within our hearts. And today, right now, right here, we claim your promise once again, that you are greater than our hearts. Thanks be to you, O God, of steadfast love and faithfulness.

We have told of your good news, the good news of our salvation, with our lips, with our songs, with our praise, in here and out there, Magnificent Lord. We have not kept your saving grace to ourselves. And you know, God knows, we can’t keep your saving grace to ourselves these days. We have spoken of your every -present faithfulness and told stories of your love over and over and over again. And you know, Jesus Christ knows, we have to tell them more and louder these days. We have to tell of your love not just with words, not just with songs of praise, but with the nitty-grittiness, the everydayness, of our lives.

Your love and faithfulness are utterly concealed these days by those who pervert the gospel to their own end. Your love and faithfulness are concealed these days by those who threaten the stranger rather than welcome them, those who create orphans rather than care for them, those who create enemies in order to hate them, those who seem to want a world where the hungry and poor are demonized rather than fed and lifted up.

So yes, Lord, words aren’t enough. By your grace, and with courage drawn from Jesus himself, and only by the power, guidance, intercession, and advocacy of the Holy Spirit, we are going to live lives that reflect the unconcealed love of God, especially these days. The unconcealed love of God for the living of these days, for the living of these days. Because to be honest, Heavenly One, to open our heart and soul to you this morning, Lord,  it’s really hard to wait and be patient for you these days. Really hard. So hear us. Hear our cry. Hear our plea. Our urgent, fervent prayer for these days. Hear us again, God. Hear us, now. Hear us, O Spirit ever on the loose among us. Hear us and so use us. Headlights, not taillights.

And Jesus, hear us, hear our endless pleas. Because of you, because of our life in you, because you have told us that you shall, you will be with us even to the end of the age. Well, then, Jesus, we’re going to trust and never doubt, Jesus will surely bring us out. Because you, Jesus, you never failed us……yet.

Amen.

 

When The Manger Overflows

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Luke 2:1-20
December 24
David A. Davis
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“This will be a sign for you.” One morning this fall, on my way to the church office from our home in the Littlebrook section of Princeton, I ran into four detours for road closures. It took me 40 minutes to get to the office. We live 3.3 miles from here. The frustration was that there was never a “road closed ahead” sign. Arrive at the intersection, and a police car is blocking the road where you intend to go. A sign would have been helpful. When you find yourself traveling on an interstate, have you experienced those sometimes misleading blue signs that list the gas, hotel, or food options at the next exit? I know I am not the only one to experience this. You see a little icon on the sign for the gas you need or the food stop you would like. You exit a mile or two later. Drive slowly down the ramp. Come to the stop. The more honest sign says gas or food to the right in another 4 miles. The better sign at a highway exit is the huge fast food or gas sign towering up in the air with the destination right at the base of the sign. There is a refreshing clarity in that signage.

“This will be a sign for you,” the angel said to the shepherds. The angel of the Lord who stood before them with all that glory that terrified them. The angel was not the sign. The heavenly host of angels that appeared praising God and singing “Glory to God in the highest” had to have been breathtaking. But the heavenly host was not the sign. The shepherds, though they “returned, glorifying and praising God for all they had heard and seen,” had nothing to do with the sign. For that matter, neither did Mary and Joseph, post-partum, post-swaddling, post-lying the babe in the manger. “This will be a sign for you; a child wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger…So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the child lying in the manger.”

The preacher in the Book of Hebrews tells us that some of us have probably entertained angels unaware when showing hospitality to strangers. Most of us, however, have not come upon an angel with the glory of the Lord shining all around. But we have all seen a baby. We haven’t had a band of shepherds come and preach the good news of great joy for all people. But we have seen a baby. “This….will be a sign for you.” Not a burning bush. Not a cloud by day and pillar of fire at night. Not stormy sea brought to a dead calm. Not a withered hand healed. Not a few fish and loaves of bread feeding thousands. Not a lame person walking. Not tongues of fire falling from heaven and everyone hearing the gospel in their own language. Not prison chains falling off of their own accord. “This will be a sign for you.” A sign we have all seen. A sign we can all understand. A child is swaddled and lying there in front of you.

Generation after generation of students down the street at Princeton Theological Seminary have worked on their worship leadership skills in the required Introduction to Speech Class. Those classes are currently taught by faculty very familiar around here at Nassau Church: Michael Brothers and Nancy Lammers Gross. I am absolutely certain that they continue to carry the mantle when it comes to how to properly read Luke 2 before a congregation. It is the most common example used to teach a pastor the importance of a pause and the purpose of a comma when it comes to oral interpretation. I can still hear the speech teacher in my intro class after a student read “So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph and the child lying in the manger.” “No, no, no! The three of them are not in the manger.” “So they went with haste and found Mary and Joseph….., and the child lying in the manger.” “The manger is not overflowing”.

Of course, it is overflowing. For that which is divine, “the one born this day in the city of David, a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord”,  is swaddled not just in bands of cloth but wrapped in all that it means to be human. God and flesh. Divine and human. God with us. Look for a sign. The manger is overflowing both with the presence of God and the flesh of our humanity. A child lying there in the manger. Swaddled for warmth and security like a parent wraps every newborn before and ever since. Eyes yet to open. Skin color is yet to recover from the trauma of birth. And therein lies God. This so an understandable and relatable sign of our humanity; this newborn baby bears in this tiny flesh the awesome holiness and otherness of God. All of the mystery of the transcendent Creator of all now nurses at Mary’s breast. It is the scandal of the incarnation, God in human flesh. The manger cradles the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. It overflows with the very humanity of God.

I was meeting a new friend for coffee one morning last week. We met at the place where he works, but over a period of only a few weeks, we kept running into each other. We both took it as a sign that we should grab coffee. He suggested meeting at Sakrit coffee, which is always too crowded, but I kept that thought. That morning, there was no place to sit. I suggested we go back to my office in the church. He said, “How about we take a walk?”  For the next hour, on a brisk but sunny morning, we walked all over campus, up and down Nassau Street. As we walked and sipped, we shared our lives, our hopes and dreams, and complained about traffic in Princeton. We both ran into people we know and introduced each other. I introduced him to Len Scales, a few blocks down Nassau Street. We said hi to John, the unhoused man who spends a lot of time in the seminary library and on a bench in front of the Nassau Christian Center. We both know John. Wished him a merry Christmas. We split up, and both went back to work at 10. I found it to be a God moment, even a holy one. A reminder to me of God’s presence in the everyday, earthiness of it all. That’s when God still comes.

“This will be a sign for you.” It is a simple sign; the child, the manger, and the fleshiness of it all. The earthiness, the smelliness, the prickliness of humanity’s manger still receives the presence and promise of God, God with us. Because it is here, not “here” of this room but the “here” of our lives. Here in humanity’s stable of heartbreak and grief and disappointment, where God still comes. Here, when you and I are trying to keep our heads above water with the flood of the news of the world and the daily drenching downpour of humanity’s sinfulness, God still comes. Both in joyful family gatherings and in family struggles, in the realities of college admissions or difficult job searches or increased job stress or dignity torn away by unemployment, God is still there. As weddings are announced and new babies met for the first time, and medical tests shared and empty places at the table scream too loudly, God is there. Here, as parents seek wisdom in raising children and children seek wisdom in caring for parents, as young people search for courage in adulting or discerning what’s next in school and life, here, as someone we love is being treated for cancer, or struggling for a peace of mind, or a relationship now broken and over, God still comes.

“This will be a sign for you… a child lying in a manger.” Not a throne, not a cushy bed, not a bassinet crafted for royalty. A manger in a barn surrounded by animals and night air. Just so God rests in the rickety frame of our lives, and all of creation stands ready to burst into song. For the manger overflows with the humanity of God. And on nights like tonight, as the world groans with the suffering of God’s people and the darkness of the powers and principalities seems to be darker and heavier, our hope for peace and goodwill again rests in the scandal of God’s love. Out in the darkness, surrounded by other than the fleshiness of our humanity, the night air, and the world’s chaos, God is still with us. God is still for us.

My favorite children’s Christmas pageant story tells of the director deciding to mark the places for the angels and the shepherds. A circle for each angel and a cross for each shepherd. Unfortunately, there was no rehearsal in costume. When the angels took their places during the pageant in their flowing robes and halos, they covered up the marks for the shepherds. “The shepherds, driven by God knows what demonic impulse to indiscreet obedience,” William Muehl writes, “began looking for their places. Angels were treated like they had never been treated before. And at last one little boy, who had suffered about all such nonsense he could handle, turned toward….the teacher in charge…and announced angrily, ‘These damned angels are fouling up this whole show…They’ve hidden all the crosses.”

“Needless to say,” the writer continues, “his mother and I were greatly embarrassed.” But then offered this reflection on the life of faith. “We are, indeed, ‘damned angels’, possessors of gifts and insights which we turn to works of destruction, victims of burdens and infirmities which become occasions for glory. The rich pageant of life is often fouled up by our rigid moralism, and the cross is hidden beneath the flimsy fabric of our piety…Our flesh drives and afflicts us from birth to death. But we have the gall to affirm that it once sheltered the Eternal.

Or said another way, we dare to believe and affirm that the manger still overflows with the humanity of God.

“Do not be afraid, for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people, to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign for you.”

World Without End

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Luke 1:46-55
December 21
David A. Davis
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Basking in the glow of last week’s Christmas Pageant, Ingrid Ladendorf (our director of your and children’s choirs) and I were reminiscing about Christmas Pageants in general and Christmas Pageants here at Nassau Presbyterian Church. We discussed the gift of creating Christmas memories here at the church that our youth and children will carry with them forever. How each year the imperfections of the pageant make it perfect. That Christmas Pageants embody the theological affirmation of the incarnation. The perfection of the pageant is in the fleshiness of telling, acting out, performing the story of the birth of Jesus. Ingrid said to me, “I find it very moving to think of all the Marys here at Nassau over the years who memorized “My soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for God has looked with favor on the lowliness of God’s servant.” Year after year, decade after decade, a young woman memorizing the Magnificat and likely never forgetting at least parts of it. That image Ingrid offered helps to cleanse my palate of the image Lauren McFeaters often shared of when she served as an associate pastor at the Ewing Presbyterian Church. The interim pastor who served after David Prince stood in the pulpit on Christmas Eve while wearing a purple scarf on his head with his bearded face, and began his sermon, “I am Mary”.

Growing up in the Presbyterian Church, I never heard much about Mary. I am sure that Luke 2:47-55 was read every Advent and Christmas Eve. But I don’t remember hearing about Mary in sermons. I don’t remember my own sermons, but I am pretty good at remembering others’ sermons. It must have been part of what some biblical scholars have called “The Protestant silence” when it comes to Mary. I do remember hearing those voices of grown-ups around the church talking about Roman Catholics, “you know, they pray to Mary,” which was far from a compliment or an unbiased observation. I heard more about Mary my first week of football practice in college when one of the assistant coaches, who likes to yell a lot, avoided salty language by invoking the name of Mary with one of those memorable Boston accents. “Holy Mary, mother of God.”  “Or Mary, Joseph, and Jesus….can someone make a tackle today?” I heard Mary’s name more in those weeks than I ever did growing up. I grew up Presbyterian. Our text for today from the Gospel of Luke, and sung by the choir in just a moment, is the Song of Mary, the Magnificat. Mary, the mother of God. Mary the theotokos. Mary the God-bearer.

In those days, as the bible has it, Mary “went with haste” to see Elizabeth. Like the shepherds who “went with haste and found Mary and Joseph, and the babe lying in the manger”, Mary went with that same kind of expectant intention to find Elizabeth. You know the story: when Mary greeted Elizabeth, John the Baptist saluted with a kick. Elizabeth’s response to Mary comes as she is, according to Luke, “filled with the Holy Spirit.” Just like her own baby John, described by the angel as “filled with the Holy Spirit”, like Elizabeth’s husband Zechariah after he named the child John, he was “filled with the Holy Spirit”. Like all the people on that day of Pentecost who began to speak in other tongues, like Peter rising to speak after his arrest to the elders and scribes assembled in Jerusalem, like Stephen as he was being martyred and he was looking up to heaven, all of them, according to Luke, “were filled with the Holy Spirit.”

Elizabeth was “filled with the Holy Spirit,” and she said with a loud voice, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb….And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.” Elizabeth, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to Mary, “Blessed, blessed, blessed”. Bless your heart Mary, that you would believe that God will fulfill all that God has spoken to you.” Or as it says in the King James: “And blessed is she that believed, for there shall be a performance of those things which were told her from the Lord.”

That’s when Mary speaks, she prays, she sings. That’s when Mary offers her recollection, her rendition of Hannah’s Song from the Hebrew scriptures, those lines so memorized in the collection of Christmas pageants throughout history. “My soul magnifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for the Lord has looked with favor upon the lowliness of his servant. Surely, from now on all generations will be blessed.” Blessed. Blessed. The Mighty One. Great things. God’s mercy from generation to generation. Strength in his arm. Scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. The Lord has brought down the powerful from their thrones and lifted the lowly. Hungry filled. Rich sent away. All of it according to the promises God made to Abraham and his descendants forever.

Mary believed. She believed God would do what God promised. She believed that God would fulfill what God had spoken to her. That there would be a performance of what God had said. You have found favor with God. You will conceive and bear a son. He will be great, called Son of the Most High. Of his kingdom, there will be no end. She believed what God said. The Holy Spirit will come upon you. The child to be born will he holy, called the Son of God. Nothing will be impossible with God. She believed in the promise of God. God’s mercy for those who fear the Lord from generation to generation. Strength is shown with the arm of God. Scattering the proud in the thoughts of their hearts. She believed in the performance of God’s promise. The powerful were brought down from their thrones. The lowly lifted up. Hungry filled. Rich empty. All of it according to the promise of God.

If I were to list the most often asked questions of me as a pastor over the last forty years, a few would be at the top. My granddaughter Franny asked me not long ago if God ever sleeps. But a few of the most frequent:  “Do you believe in the bodily resurrection?” “Why does the Apostles Creed say ‘he descended into hell’?” “Do you believe in the Virgin Birth?” I confess that I don’t think about the Virgin Birth all that much. When I find myself before the throne of God’s grace in the great bye and bye there among the communion of saints, the great cloud of witnesses, if the Risen Jesus said to me, “Now about that Virgin Birth” thing. My response would be something like “shocked, I say, shocked!” If the whole story of Mary and Elizabeth and Gabriel and the promise of God can be reduced to an examination of belief in the Virgin Birth, one sort of misses the point. As Cynthia Rigby from Austin Seminary pointed out in an essay on the matter, our questions, our thinking about Mary, all have a way of being “unacceptably inattentive” to the divine artistry of it all. It is not about who does this, who does that, it is about who we are in relationship to Go,d who fulfills, who we are in light of God who is faithful, who we are in response to God for us, God with us.

Rigby pointed out that Protestant thinkers have long identified Mary as the model Christian believer. But Mary was more than that, she argued. For as God-bearer, Mary pushes, gives birth, cradles, nurses, nurtures, rocks, burps, bathes, changes, comforts, the one called Son of God. A believer indeed, as Elizabeth exclaimed. Yet one who also somehow participates in the very work of God. Partnering with God who fulfills. Mary reminds us, Rigby wrote, “it is in particular concrete actions undertaken in particular moments that finite creatures realize their participation in the artistry of God….What is impossible is made possible: we are capable, creative, willing, irreplaceable companions of the God who claims us in Jesus Christ. We are included….in the artistry of God.” Or in other words, we too are God-bearers.

When I think of Mary, the mother of God, Mary, the God bearer, I wonder what was more difficult for her to believe, that she would have a baby without being intimate with a man, or that both she and her baby would survive beyond childbirth, or that her life was not about to be ruined, or that the weak would be made strong, and the first would be last, and the hungry filled, and the proud scattered? Of course, a virgin birth is impossible. A virgin birth is impossible, but apparently, so is the powerful of this world being brought low, and all the lowly lifted up. Impossible. And the hungry are filled with good things. Impossible. A virgin birth is impossible. So, it would appear, is peace on earth, and poverty being wiped away, and so is doing justice, and loving kindness, and walking humbly with God. Impossible. And forgiveness that expands seventy times seventy, and a Samaritan called good, and turning the other cheek, and giving your coat also, and eating with sinners, and doing unto the least of these, and life rising from death on the third day. Impossible. Because there is nothing on our own that we can contribute to God being faithful. It is God who fulfills.

Years ago, I attended a choral concert that included the premiere of a piece from a composer who had died years before. The conductor turned and explained to the audience that the piece of music basically sat on the shelf of years after the composer’s death. But he said a composition is never finished until an audience hears it, receives it, and experiences it. Until it is performed. The conductor then thanked the audience for completing the piece of music. “And blessed is she that believed, for there shall be a performance of those things which were told her from the Lord.”  

I told you last week about the Hunger Offering in November. When the government shutdown was threatening to take support from food insecure people, families, and children, we invited you to not wait until the traditional last Sunday of the month to contribute to the hunger offering. Locally, our Hunger Offering currently supports Send Hunger Packing in Princeton, the Trenton Area Soup Kitchen, and Homefront. The November Hunger offering was double what it typically is. $15,000 in November alone. And yes, your support of the ArmInArm food pantry downstairs has increased significantly as well. “God has filled the hungry with good things”.  A performance of the promise of God.

I see it Sunday after Sunday, week after week, Though the proud and powerful and empire continue to run amok, the people of God at Nassau Church hear and receive the very promise of God and are sent out into this cold-hearted world of darkness to not simply bear witness to that promise but make a difference, to participate in that promise, to participate alongside the God who fulfills. “It is in particular concrete actions undertaken in particular moments that finite creatures realize their participation in the artistry of God.” Mary, you, me. God-bearers, hearing, receiving, experiencing afresh the promise of God and somehow, by God’s grace and power of the Holy Spirit, partnering in the very work of God. Pushing. Cradling. Nurturing. Rocking. Proclaiming. Living. It is what it means to be claimed by the gospel promise of Jesus Christ.

A promise not heard is not a promise. A piece of music not heard by an audience remains incomplete.

Mary, you and me. Blessed. Blessed. Blessed. Bless your heart that you believe in and so live for the God who fulfills.

Holding It Together

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Colossians 1:15-20
December 14
David A. Davis
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The storyteller Garrison Keillor once wrote of an experience of table grace at a family gathering before a holiday meal. “Uncle Al dinged his glass”, Keillor writes, “and announced that we were going to return thanks now…Then he said, ‘Carl, would you return thanks?’ Uncle Carl stood up and cleared his throat. Uncle Carl was the last person you would ask to pray. For one thing, he prayed longer than anybody else in the church, where prayers tended to cover a lot of theological ground and touch on all the main points of faith. Carl was endless. Scripture said, ‘Pray without ceasing,’ and Carl almost succeeded. He could pray until food got moldy. And what was worse, when Carl came to the part of the prayer where he thanked God for sending God’s only begotten Son, Jesus Christ, to die on the cross as a propitiation for our sins, Carl always wept.

“Carl had wept in prayer for many years,” Keiller goes on to tell. “Either he never got over Jesus’ death the way the rest of us had, or else it was just a bad habit he couldn’t stop. He always stood and cried, helpless, his shoulders shaking. He was a sweet man with tidy hair, oiled, with comb tracks in it, a dapper dresser who favored bow ties—a good uncle, and it was painful to sit and listen to him cry.

“He stood, and we stirred in our seats uneasily. I peeked at my fiancée and saw that she had already put a big dab of squash on her plate. She was not accustomed to table grace. I couldn’t imagine she would be ready for Uncle Carl. Carl spoke in a clear voice….thanking God for the food, for each other, for this day, and for sending the only begotten Son, Jesus to die on Calvary’s cross, and he started to sob, such a wrenching sound, his awful weeping, especially because he tried to keep talking about Jesus, and the words would hardly come out. He stopped and blew his nose, and we all, one by one, started to get weepy. My fiancée wept. I cried. We all cried. I don’t think we wept for Jesus as much as from exhaustion.”

Traditions and practices abound when it comes to “returning thanks” in the days ahead. For some, there is the designated prayer person who “returns thanks” every time the family gathers for a holiday meal. Others might practice going around the table for everyone to offer a word of gratitude. Some gatherings might feature a particular unison prayer passed on from generation to generation. Still others might look to sing the doxology or another table grace learned in church school. In the Cook Davis family, returning thanks often sounded like this while holding hands: “God our Father and our Mother, once again, once again, we will ask a blessing, we will ask a blessing. Amen. Amen. Amen. AH!” Other times it was saying the end of Psalm 27 in unison: “Wait for the Lord, be strong, let your heart take courage, yay, wait for the Lord.”

Maybe when “returning thanks” in the days ahead, we could all take a page out of Uncle Carl’s prayer. Not necessarily with the length or the weeping or the shaking soldiers. But the part that comes in “returning thanks” to God for the One who holds it all together. Returning thanks to God for God’s only begotten Son. “The image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation.” The Apostle Paul’s words here in Colossians, his soaring words describing Jesus, read like a poem, a prayer, a hymn. “In him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers—all things have been created through him and for him. He himself is before all thing,s and in him all things hold together.”

The Word who was in the beginning. The Word who was with God and was God. The Word without which not one thing came into being. The Word who brings life and the light of all people. That Light, the Light that shines whenever, wherever, darkness seeks to prevail. That Light that the ever-present darkness can never overcome. In and through the Word, the Light, all things hold together. The world came into being through this One Joseph named Jesus because he would save God’s people from their sin. The One Mary magnified with her song and pondered, treasured in her heart. This Word, this Light, this Life creating One, who gives the power for us, for you, and me to become children of God. And that is who we are. “He is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he might have first place in everything.”

The Christ who alone is head of the church. The Great Shepherd of the Sheep, who in the power of the Holy Spirit and by his grace calls the church to be the body of Christ for one another so that together we can be his body in and to and for the world. This cosmic Christ sets before us an open door that no one is able to shut. The One who promises to stand at the door knocking so that we can open the door and eat with him, and he with us. First place in everything. First place in everything. The Alpha and Omega, who is God with us. God for us.  He holds it all together.

The Teacher who transformed the law and embodied the prophets and told parables. The Teacher who blessed the poor and those that mourn, the meek and those that hunger and thirst for righteousness, the merciful and the pure in heart and the peacemakers and the persecuted. He holds it all together. The Great Physician who healed the sick and anointed those so tormented.  The Savior who welcomed children and ate with sinners and embraced the broken and touched the dying. The Messiah who chose tax collections instead of the most religious, who turned obligation into a joyful feast, who threatened the powerful and the empire with a vision of the world where the first shall be last and the last first, where power is defined by servanthood and leadership is displayed in an endless concern for the other and divine wisdom is revealed by a cross.

The Suffering Servant who stared down the forces of evil and called out life from death’s tomb and stood up to all who work for destruction, all who yearn to subvert the way of peace. The Son of God was born from Mary’s womb, born in the very flesh that speaks of our mortality. His own flesh scarred forever. His own anguish and suffering seared in the memory of God. He holds it all together. The Balm of Gilead, who, even in death, reached to embrace those who hated him most, plunging the very depth of humanity’s distance from God. The Risen Christ who rose victorious from the grave, the Victor of life, and eternity, the Lord of Lords, the King of Kings. “In him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him God was pleased to reconcile to Godself all things, where on earth or in heaven, by making peace by the blood of his cross.” Yes, he holds it all together.

Returning thanks for the One who holds it all together. The One whose love won’t let you go. Uncle Carl. The Apostle Paul. And the ancient hymn of the church.

Let all mortal flesh keep silence

And with fear and trembling stand

Poner nothing early minded,

For with blessing in His hand,

Christ our God descendeth

Our full homage to demand.

Returning thanks with the full homage of our lives. Our lives as a hymn of praise. Thriving yet again on the forgiveness of the Savior and living into the abundant life the Bestower of grace upon grace offers. Tasting of his unconditional, undying love while seeking a depth of relationship with him that redefines life’s purpose. Discovering over and over again that as a child of God created in God’s image, we are called to serve others and bear witness to that divine promise of steadfast mercy and overflowing compassion and everlasting life. Seeing his very face in those who suffer, and the long-silenced, and the unseen. Yearning for his wisdom in understanding and yes, loving and caring for those the world wants us to hate or worse. The total praise of life in his name. Following, listening to, looking to the one who bore in his flesh the fullness of God and basking in the fullness of God’s love revealed in the One who holds it all together.

Returning thanks and never forgetting, always remembering that the Victorious, Risen, Triumphant Christ who holds it all together, holds you and you and you forever the very heart of God.

To God’s Ears

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Isaiah 11:1-9
December 7
David A. Davis
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“Sing of a Savior.” That is our theme for worship this Advent. Each Sunday service is crafted around the anthem being offered by the adult choir. This morning, the choir is singing a setting of Isaiah 11, the text I just offered for your hearing, entitled Dona Nobis Pacem. Grant us Peace. From Isaiah, “A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse, and a branch shall grow out of his roots. The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him.” Discerning wisdom. Strong counsel. Knowledge that drips with the fear of the Lord. Delight in the worship of God. “He shall not judge by what his eyes see, or decide by what his ears hear.” The poor judged with righteousness. Fairness shall abide with the meek. Evil and wickedness upon the earth will be brought to ruin by his word and by his breath. Word and Spirit. Righteousness and faithfulness will surround him. “The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together and a little child shall lead them.” Cows and bears will graze in the same place. The young animals will curl up together. Even the lion will eat straw. The nursing child, the weaned child, will play with the most dangerous of snakes. “They will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain; for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.” 

Reading Isaiah can be like listening to a symphony, a cantata, or a concerto. An attentive audience can hear how a composer works the melody and the harmonies throughout the piece using different instrumental sections. That recurring melody is becoming more and more familiar in the listener’s ear. That’s how it is with Isaiah’s song.

The people who walked in darkness
have seen a great light;
those who lived in a land of deep darkness—
on them light has shined….
For a child has been born for us,
a son given to us;
authority rests upon his shoulders,
and he is named
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Great will be his authority,
and there shall be endless peace
for the throne of David and his kingdom.
He will establish and uphold it
with justice and with righteousness
from this time onward and forevermore.
-Isaiah 9

 

For I am about to create new heavens
and a new earth;
the former things shall not be remembered
or come to mind….
No more shall there be in it
an infant who lives but a few days
or an old person who does not live out a lifetime…
They shall build houses and inhabit them;
they shall plant vineyards and eat their fruit.
They shall not build and another inhabit;
they shall not plant and another eat,
for like the days of a tree shall the days of my people be….
Before they call I will answer,
while they are yet speaking I will hear.
The wolf and the lamb shall feed together;
the lion shall eat straw like the ox,
but the serpent—its food shall be dust!
They shall not hurt or destroy
on all my holy mountain,
says the Lord.

-Isaiah 65

 

Isaiah 9, 11, 65, and of course more. Isaiah’s song. Isaiah’s attentive audience can hear how the prophet works the melody and the harmonies throughout the book. That recurring melody is becoming more and more familiar in the listener’s ear. Of course, for Isaiah and the rest of the Hebrew prophets, it was never about an audience. Prophets don’t look for spectators. They don’t put out the call for religious onlookers. With his kingdom song, Isaiah is calling, creating, shaping, pruning, sending a kingdom people. The tradition labels Isaiah’s song “the peaceable kingdom”. The prophet’s peaceable kingdom song for God’s kingdom people.

Edward Hicks was the early 19th-century Quaker who created the famous paintings of “The Peaceable Kingdom”.  I use the plural because Hicks actually painted more than 60 different versions of  “The Peaceable Kingdom”. Hicks was born in Bucks County, PA. According to art historians, Hicks encountered pushback in his Quaker meeting because of his “worldly indulgence,” which was in conflict with Quaker values. He actually gave up painting and tried to be a farmer, but it didn’t go so well. According to Victoria Emily Jones in an article posted to the website Art and Theology, Hicks struggled with the relationship between his passion for painting and his passion for faith. He opened his painting shop and became a Quaker minister serving a meeting in Newtown.

I have shown you Hicks’s work in a sermon before. But, with Noel Werner selecting the Isaiah passage for this second Sunday of Advent,  I thought coming back to Edward Hicks and his “peaceable kingdoms” was appropriate. What you are looking at is one of Hick’s earlier works now in the Yale University Art Gallery. The child Jesus is prominent there among the animals. To the lower left, Hick’s portrays a group of Quakers marching with a banner that quotes the angel’s pronouncement to the shepherds in Luke: “Peace on earth and goodwill to men.”  Hicks pairs Isaiah’s vision with a worshipful march offering praise and adoration to the birth of the Christ Child, the Prince of Peace.

            This 1834 painting of “The Peaceable Kingdom” resides in the collection of the National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. The portrayal is more familiar if not more famous. The eye, of course, is drawn to the three children and the animals, all of whom have no focus to the lower left. Instead of pairing the prophet’s word picture with the angel proclamation of the coming Christ Child, in this painting, Hicks’s pairs Isaiah with a depiction of William Penn and colleagues in a peaceful, maybe even worshipful gathering with indigenous people along the banks of the Delaware River. It would have been members of the Lenape tribe who occupied the land there in Bucks County and the land where we gather this morning. You and I know that the aspirational portrayal of a peaceful gathering with indigenous people along the Delaware River drips with irony and unfulfilled hope. Later in his life, Hicks wrote about his own growing cynicism that the realities of life had destroyed his hope that he would ever see the peaceable kingdom in the here and now. One wonders whether multiple efforts at painting the peaceable kingdom were part of that journey of his. Hicks also wrote that his disappointment only led him to cling to Christ and Christ’s promise more and more.

Perhaps part of the legacy of the work of Edward Hick’s is an affirmation that humanity has never learned the things that make for peace. As Jesus said when he wept over Jerusalem, “If you, even you, had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace.” (Luke 19:42) Nonetheless, Hicks’s Quaker-influenced theological point should not be tossed away. It is a visual depiction of the prophet’s “already and not yet.” While waiting for that promised glorious kingdom to come, God’s kingdom people are called to point to, work for, shout out, and claim the reign of God now. That sounds like Advent to me. On the one hand, Isaiah’s song is sort of the soundtrack of a lifetime of Christmas Eves. Isaiah’s song played in the pageantry of a Christmas Eve full of carols and hymns and candlelight. But on the other hand, singing the song, singing of a Savior in Advent, offers a different takeaway. It is a vision of Christ’s promised kingdom, casting a light on and transforming humanity’s world so full of darkness. The peacefulness of God’s new creation yet to come spilling into the world, you and I see all around us. The eternal hope of Christ’s glorious kingdom gives perspective to the present reality. Singing Isaiah’s song in Advent comes with some umph, with urgency, even volume, while clinging to Christ and Christ’s promise more and more. Pretty much holding on for dear life and singing Isaiah’s song as a plea, a prayer. Begging Isaiah, your lips to God’s ears, Isaiah! To God’s ears!

Sometimes the song of Isaiah comes right from the scriptures page. Sometimes, in sublime beauty, like the setting of Dona Nobis Pacem, grant us peace. Other times, the vision is communicated with the subtlety of brush strokes and interpretation, art history, and the proclamation of God’s people. Isaiah’s message comes to us in many ways, but now and then, and especially right now, and right then, God’s kingdom people have to shout “your lips to God’s ears”.

The poor bathed in righteousness. The meek showered with fairness. Evil and wickedness plundered. Righteousness. Faithfulness. “The wolf shall live with the lamb, the leopard shall lie down with the kid, the calf and the lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them….They will not hurt or destroy on all my holy mountain; for the earth will be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.” And yes, it’s about more than our shout because prophets aren’t interested in an audience who just sit and shout. Prophets aren’t interested in a litany of “thoughts and prayers”.  Prophets aren’t interested in self-absorbed pietists who have concluded that Christ’s promise of salvation is just about their punched ticket to eternity. Prophets call people to do justice, and to love kindness, and walk humbly with their God. Prophets inspire people to let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. Prophets tell of the Messiah, the Savior, the Son of God who stood up in the temple and unrolled the scroll of the prophet Isaiah and read, “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.” (Luke 4:18-19). Prophets are about pruning, shaping, sending, creating, empowering, inspiring, encouraging, calling, a kingdom people. God’s kingdom people who pray and plea and shout “your lips to God’s ears….Isaiah! ”

People of God, we are clinging to Christ and Christ’s promise more and more.

And we are going to shout, so God can use us.

We’re going to live, so God can use us.

We’re gonna work, so God can use us.

We’re going to pray, so God can use us.

We’re going to sing, so God can use us

To God’s ears

Dona Nobis Pacem.

Quickly

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Revelation 22:1-7, 20-21
November 30
David A. Davis
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He was wrong. He was clearly wrong. John, here in the Apocalypse, to John, he was wrong. There, I said it. John the Revelator was wrong when it came to the “soon” part, the “quickly” part. Revelation 22:20 (KJV): He which testifieth these things saith, Surely I come quickly. Amen. Even so, come, Lord Jesus.” When it came to the Risen, Victorius, Triumphant Christ “coming soon”, John was wrong. As we gather here this morning near the end of the year of our Lord, 2025. It is rather obvious, isn’t it? Amid all of the sensory overload of what John was seeing and hearing, maybe he misheard. Because it becomes apparent to any observer, “quickly” has nothing to do with it when it comes to Jesus’ promised return.

Last week at the memorial service for Audrey Gates, during the homily, I said that any sense of time in the kingdom of heaven must be different. Whatever it is like, I said, I would like to imagine that Audrey’s husband Mosie, who died in December of 2019, has been within the gates of heaven waiting for her. Yes, God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit and eternity and the concept of time as we experience it, don’t all go together. Maybe John wasn’t wrong about Jesus coming again quickly. Maybe we just call it a little “loosie goosie” when it comes to time. Quickly-ish.

When our son Ben was very young, there was a season when the words “tomorrow” and “yesterday” were not yet in his vocabulary. It was “next day” and “last day”. “Last day” could have been two, three days ago. “Next day” could be a week or so away. As in Christmas is coming “next day”. Of course, Ben famously said that as long as you still have cake, it’s still your birthday. Ben, something of a philosopher when it comes to time. Maybe we just leave the whole “quickly” thing to theologians and philosophers and quantum physicists. Let them hash it out.

“Are we there yet?” “Are we almost there?” Is there a parent anywhere, in any generation, who has not heard that inquiry coming from the back seat? Is there a parent anywhere, in any generation, who has not fudged a bit when it comes to the answer? “Sure, sweetie, we’re almost there! (with fingers crossed). As I gathered with the Gates family before the service, I stood next to the oldest grandchild, who was trying to encourage his young son, the youngest great-grandchild, when it came to the length of the service. “It won’t be that long, probably about an hour”, he said. Then he added, looking at me, “Right, Pastor Dave?” I looked down and said, “Maybe even 45 minutes”.  I knew that wasn’t true. Five family members were speaking in addition to me. I basically lied to that great-grandson. I was wrong, and I knew I was wrong.  I couldn’t help myself; the ever-present desire of a parent trying to comfort a child when it comes to time. Maybe the Risen, Victorious, Triumphant Christ was showing John some compassion, like a parent who knew “quickly” was a stretch? “Are we almost there, Jesus?”

Regardless, on the face of it, John was wrong. There, I said it. But I am neither the first nor the last to say it. New Testament Scholar Brian Blount said it at the end of his commentary on Revelation published in the New Testament Library series. “In quoting Christ here and elsewhere”, Dr. Blount writes, “and in making his own claims about the nearness of God’s judgment/salvation, John was wrong.” Brian doesn’t stop at the calendar: “Contemporary readers of John’s work are right to consider that his mistake on this critical matter does well imply that he was probably mistaken in other areas of his presentation. His negative presentation of women, his understanding of eternal suffering, and his depictions of God’s authorisation and even execution of extreme acts of violence come immediately to mind.” I have rarely come upon a more liberating sentence when it comes to understanding the authority of scripture.

Dr. Blount’s gift to the reader of Revelation, to the preacher, and to the church is a foundational understanding of how to approach apocalyptic biblical literature. In his introduction to that commentary, Professor Blount argues that the apocalyptic literature of scripture intends to convey a truth about God and the world, a truth that words themselves can simply not convey. That truth is so powerful, so overwhelming that the writers, in this case John, appeal to symbols and codes to bear a weight of meaning that language cannot. Thus, in the Book of Revelation, one reads these complex descriptions and strange puzzle-like narratives and all these weird symbols. “John seems to believe that a person must viscerally feel what cannot be linguistically conveyed,” Blount writes. Of course, what must be felt, is that in a world so full of chaos, suffering, death, and empire-like power run amuck, that the peaceable kingdom of God will ultimately prevail and that God has a future where there is a healing of the nations, and there be no more night and no need of lamp or sun for the people God, “for the Lord God will be their light.”  

What must be felt is that God’s future is the world’s future, is our future. God’s glory. God’s light. God’s presence. God abundantly abounds. Dr. Blount suggests that the light as named by John in Revelation is God’s glory shrouding the city like a fog. God is completely on the loose among God’s people. A future where there is no more sun, no more night, only God’s glory, God’s presence. It is “God with us” on steroids. “God with us” with a bunch of exclamation points behind it. God with us to the nth degree. The Lord will be their light. It is EMMANUEL (with all caps). The Lord will be their light. It is where Advent and the Apocalypse meet. God is on the loose among us forever and ever and ever.

What if “quickly” is less about God’s urgency and more about ours? That’s the conclusion Brian Blount draws when it comes to apocalyptic biblical literature, the Book of Revelation, and John getting the time wrong.  In a way that maybe only Brian Blount can, he concludes his 450-page scholarly commentary on Revelation by bursting into a sermon. “John’s future-oriented visions were intended to impel his hearers and readers into appropriate contemporary action. John appealed to the imminence of God’s intervention not to offer a timeline but to encourage a sense of urgency… In a world where many human and even satanic forces seem to be in control, God and the Lamb reign as Lord. No matter how powerful any country or force becomes, no matter how far the reach of its military, political, and economic empire, God and Lamb reign as Lord…Those who believe in that lordship- despite seeing pretensions to lordship in people and powers…must continue to witness, in word and in action, to the lordship of God and the Lamb. They must do so because the Christ who is Lord, the Christ who is faithful and true, has promised that he is coming….soon.” And you  and I find ourselves echoing John the Revelator’s response, John’s prayer, John’s plea: “Amen, Come, Lord Jesus!”

It’s Advent again, and the world is still so full of chaos with suffering, death, and empire-like power run amok.  Maybe I’m just getting old, but the world always seems to be in chaos at Advent. Here’s the point in my sermon where I would offer a litany of reality, or quote statistics, or cite some article. But you can do it as well as I can. And if it’s not the world’s chaos, there’s always enough of us here in the room whose lives are in turmoil at Advent. And so we sing, “Come Thou Long Expected Jesus.” And we strike an Advent light. Because the truth of the promise is so powerful and so overwhelming that words can’t bear the weight of it. That this world, that you and I, that our future is God’s future. Lighting an Advent candle, it’s so much more than comfort food. It is a bold, defiant, persistent way of saying yes to God and spitting at the world’s darkness. The Advent light. “The Lord will be their light”. The Advent light burns with the affirmation that the kingdom of God shall burst forth in us and our life together, and through us and our life together, to the world. The Advent light and the confidence of God’s future. For every time you eat this bread and you drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death, until he comes again.

O Lydia!

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Acts 16:11-15
November 23
Lauren J. McFeaters
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Not too many women have ever prevailed upon Paul. 

Not too many women carried the day when Paul was on the loose for the Lord.

Not too many women have ever faced Paul and upped the ante.

But somewhere between a riverside prayer meeting, a conversion, and a festival of baptisms, came the establishment of a church.

 Lydia prevailed.

She prevailed upon Paul and the traveling Apostles to be her guests; and to find a port in the storm.

Before there was Iona or Rajpur; Taizé or Machu Picchu; before there was El Camino de Santiago or Changhua Ching Shan,  followers of Jesus found their way to Lydia’s Home. [i] And it’s not just any home. It’s a thriving compound located in an epicenter of trade and fortune. Lydia has a hefty share of the city’s prosperity. She’s a commercial success: an importer of costly fabrics, a producer of rare textiles.

Eric Barreto describes Lydia as an entrepreneur with vision and initiative. She’s strikingly self-sufficient: bright, creative, industrious. And even though she depends on its adherents to be her customers, she doesn’t bow to the religion of the Empire.

Because in Philippi, it is Caesar who is “lord & god.” There are no synagogues.No places for Jews to worship. Any Jew had to go to the river’s edge, outside the city gates to pray. And it seems that’s where Lydia and her friends went to meet. [ii]

It’s a dangerous walk to the river’s edge when you want to worship God.

Paul, Silas, and Timothy have landed on the shores of Macedonia. It’s the Sabbath and there’s been talk in the streets about the goings-on in Jerusalem, anxious murmurings about a Redeemer who resurrected after being in a guarded tomb; and very quiet instructions about where to find a prayer meeting outside the city gates.

It’s just the thing God’s Chief Apostle wants to hear.Paul is on the loose; on the move, and ready to preach.

And when he does, Paul preaches through lips that only a short time ago had ordered the stoning of Stephen; the annihilation of any Christian; the eradication of any hint of a resurrected Messiah. But now – now Paul speaks and words flow. He speaks as one Converted by the Damascus Road; Altered, Persuaded, Re-Formed. He speaks and acts as one Converted by Christ Jesus. O Paul!

We don’t seem to talk about conversion very often. We don’t readily share about the experiences of God’s unwrapping our hearts and renovating our spirits.

For many of us it’s a private and intimate experience. For some, it happens over the long haul. For some it happens in the blink of an eye,  a dramatic and fully realized moment when we know we will never be the same.

For two of my sisters-in-law, neither one raised in a family of faith, it came because someone invited them to church.

For me, it came when I was a 5-year-old during the Kindergarten Nativity play, like Wee Christmas. I was holding a baby-doll-Jesus in my arms and singing a lullaby and something changed. I have no idea what it was, but there was trust in God, and the trajectory of my life took flight. I was 5-years-old, and I look back and all I can think is, our God is so surprising. O Lauren!

Conversion can seem like a long-gone ancient practice; something that happens for a chosen few; a reward;  an act reserved for those in the early church, or for those headed to ordination.

Anne Lamott says her conversion to Christ did not start with a leap but rather a series of staggers.“Everywhere I went,” she says, “I had the feeling that a little cat was following me, wanting me to open the door and let it in. But I knew what would happen:  you let a cat in one time, give it a little milk, and then it stays forever. So I tried to keep one step ahead of it,slamming the doors of my life.”

“When I went back to church,” she says, “I was so hungover that I couldn’t stand up for the hymns, but it was as if the people were singing in between the notes, weeping and joyful at the same time, and I felt like their voices, or something was rocking me, holding me, and I opened up to that feeling – and it washed over me.”

And then Anne Lamott adds this:I hung my head and said . . . ‘I quit.’This was my beautiful moment of conversion.I took a long deep breath and said out loud, ‘All right. You can come in.’” [iii] O, Anne!

That’s what Lydia says, too. Here’s an influential woman who hopes for more, needs more, wonders if there’s more.

And before we picture Lydia as a neat, delicate, elegant, woman who glides through Phillipi offering you a look  at tasteful, luxurious fabrics – She’s not.

 Lydia has dirt on her face, blood on her knuckles, grit in her hair,  and she’s just spit out a tooth as she rises for another go. [iv]

Lydia’s conversion does not take place in the C-Suite of her Corporate HQ. This is no tidy negotiation for textile distribution and sales.

No.

Lydia’s conversion takes place in the slime of a riverbank  where it’s rough and rocky; swampy and water-logged.  She’s got the smell of sulfur stinging her nostrils and  sludge oozing between her toes.

And in the middle of the mud and muck, she and all who are dear to her are received into Christ’s church; are sealed by the Holy Spirit; and belong to Christ Jesus forever.

And how does Lydia respond?  With tenacious hospitality. She prevails – upon Paul: Not with a sweet plea, not a polite appeal. Heavens no. But with a triumphant and unwavering summons.  

Her home becomes God’s home – for traveling evangelists, refugees, new believers. God’s home for prayer, meals, rest, study.

And because she prevailed – her home becomes the First Church in Europe. O Lydia!

O Paul! O Lauren! O Anne! O Lydia!

O Nassau!

God has converted us. God has put wings on our Mission. We’re not a delicate, sweet, fragile group of converts,  who gently beckon Princetonians to luxuriate in the fabric of our pews.

No.

We’ve got dirt on our face, grit in our hearts, and tenacity in our hospitality, because that’s what it takes to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly.

It takes placing people, who can never repay, at the head of the table; at the place of honor.

It takes the smell of sulfur stinging our nostrils to clear our sinuses for truth-telling in the public square, and bridge-building between divisions.

It takes a willingness to have mud oozing between our toes to dive into difficult but faithful conversations, so we may do God’s work for the community & world.

O Nassau!

You are Christ’s church; sealed by the Holy Spirit; belonging to Christ Jesus forever.

I thank you for loving me so deeply; for loving Michael and Josie. 

And that for a time, together, we have, with God’s loving guidance: Mended the broken. Restored the lost. Comforted the grieving. Stitched up the hurt.

Such freedom. Such beauty. Such tenderness.

O Nassau!

[i] Religious communities: Iona, Scotland; Rajpur, West Bengal, India; Taizé, France; Machu Picchu, Peru; El Camino de Santiago, Spain; Changhua Ching Shan, Taiwan.

 

[ii] Eric Barreto. Acts 16:9-15 Commentary. www.workingpreacher.org, May 9, 2010.

 

[iii] Anne Lamott. Traveling Mercies: Some Thoughts on Faith. New York: Random House Inc.; 1999.

[iv] Adaptation of a quote from Matthew @CrowsFault.