Revelation 7:9-17
May 11
David A. Davis
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I have admitted it before in a sermon. Some may remember it. I own up to it. I am not ashamed to admit it. I embrace it without bragging about it. It is part of who I am. I come by it honestly. It comes from my father, and I passed it on to one of our two children. Cathy no longer rolls her eyes at me. She has rather come to expect it. I am a crier. I cry at commercials. I cry at standing ovations. I cry at ESPN 30 for 30 documentaries. Not a sobbing sort of thing, but enough for a tear or two to run down my cheek. I cry at sappy sports movies like “Rudy”. I cry at acceptance speeches. I cried Wednesday night at the Farminary listening to Nate Stucky share his testimony. And I have heard Nate share it on multiple occasions.

So I took great comfort, great encouragement, this week as I did my homework in preparing for this sermon this morning. I discovered what I already knew, but I discovered it as if for the very first time. There are a whole lot of tears in the bible. More often than not, when I share some of my homework, like the study of a particular word and where it shows up on the scriptures’ page, more often than not, I am pointing out how rare or unique the use of the word may be. On Easter morning just a few weeks ago, I argued that the use of the word “Greetings”, as in the Risen Christ saying “greetings” to the women outside the empty tomb, only occurs three times in the gospel. But this morning, I rise before you to tell you what I think you already know as well, there are a whole lot of tears in the bible.

“Hear my prayer, O LORD, and give ear to my cry; do not hold your peace at my tears. For I am your passing guest, an alien, like all my forebears. (Ps 39)…My tears have been my food day and night, while people say to me continually, “Where is your God?”  (Psa 42)…Again, I saw all the oppressions that are practiced under the sun. Look, the tears of the oppressed– with no one to comfort them! (Ecc). “A voice was heard in Ramah, wailing and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be consoled, because they are no more.” (Mat 2). “Therefore, be alert, remembering that for three years I did not cease night or day to warn everyone with tears.” Paul in the Book of Acts. “Recalling your tears, I long to see you so that I may be filled with joy.” (II Tim)

In the Book of Genesis, at one point in the dramatic reconciliation with his brothers, Joseph wept so loudly that the Egyptians could hear him. Hannah wept so hard in the first Samuel that Eli the priest thought she was drunk. There was the woman who anointed Jesus’ feet with her tears. The weeping that filled the house when Jesus arrived to heal the daughter of Jairus. You remember that when Peter heard the cock crow the second time, he “broke down and wept.”  In John’s gospel, after Mary Magdalene had told the disciples about the empty tomb, after they ran to look in and then returned to their homes, Mary stayed at the tomb. “Mary stood weeping outside the tomb.”

And, of course, when Mary confronted Jesus about the death of her brother Lazarus, and Jesus saw her and everyone else weeping, “Jesus wept.”  When Jesus  came near to the city of Jerusalem in the Palm Sunday procession, “he wept over it.” The verb used to describe Jesus’ last words in the gospels is “cried”. “He cried out in a loud voice.”  The preacher in the Book of Hebrews proclaims, “In the days of his flesh, Jesus offered up prayers and supplications, with loud cries and tears, to the one who was able to save him from death.” (Heb 5).  

Yes, there are a whole lot of tears in the bible. There is a whole lot of weeping on the scripture’s page. That’s because the bible says as much about God’s people as it says about God. Though in the tears of Jesus we see the very tears of God. As Nicholas Wolterstorff writes in his moving memoir Lament for a Son, a memoir dripping with his own tears: “How is faith to endure, O God, when you allow all this scraping and tearing on us? You have allowed rivers of blood to flow, mountains of suffering to pile up, sobs to become humanity’s song–all without lifting a finger that we could see…. If you have not abandoned us, explain yourself. We strain to hear. But instead of hearing an answer, we catch sight of God [In Christ himself] scraped and torn. Through our tears we see the tears of God.”

In a similar way, William Sloan Coffin points to the tears of God in the first sermon he preached after coming back to the pulpit after the death of son. “For some reason, nothing so infuriates me,” Coffin preached, “as the incapacity of seemingly intelligent people to get it through their heads that God doesn’t go around with God’s fingers on triggers, God’s first around knives, God’s hands on steering wheels….My own consolation lies in knowing that it was not the will of God that Alex die…that [on that night] God’s heart was the first of all our hearts to break.”

We had around a hundred people at the Seminary’s Farminary for the tour and worship, and potluck dinner. Once again, I heard Nate say a version of what I have heard him say multiple times: “Farmers and pastors have a lot in common. They both have to learn a lot about life and death.” You won’t be surprised that I have had a multitude of conversations that no one can number about dying, death, and eternity. The older I get, as the conversations keep coming, I find myself willing to say less when the topic turns to what heaven will be like. As Dan Migliore writes in his seminal work “Faith Seeking Understanding”, “We should not pretend to have precise language and detailed information about the future.” He argues that we can only speak in images, metaphors, and parables. Here, Professor Migliore quotes Martin Luther: “As little children know in their mother’s womb about their birth, so little do we know about life everlasting.”

Saying less for me about is not a reflection of a lack of faith or rising doubt in a grizzled old pastor. I cling ever more and more to the resurrection promise of God for you and me and this broken world. I will admit that some of the biblical imagery regarding heaven is less compelling to my own hopes and longings. Or maybe better said, the imagery surrounding eternal life with God has shifted for me. Life forever nestled into the beauty of the very heart of God. Well, I find myself praying that with people, proclaiming that more and more. But there is one biblical image about heaven that I won’t let go of. “God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”

When the bible is so full of tears, is there a more compelling resurrection promise? The Word of God is so full of tears. The tears of humankind. The tears of creation. The tears of Jesus. The tears of God. So many tears. So many tears. Yes, the tears of the sacred page. But yes, the tears that define humanity then and now and every time in between, so full of tears. You can’t miss, you ought not miss, you better not miss this eternal promise of God in and through the Risen Lamb upon the throne. That by grace and his righteousness, and the everlasting mercy of God, one day. One day. God will wipe away every tear from our eyes. God will wipe away every tear but the tears of joy. For weeping may linger for the night, but joy comes in the morning.

Cathy and I fell in love on this campus forty years ago this spring semester. Part of our romance was sneaking into this chapel later at night. Believe it or not, it wasn’t locked. The piano was locked, but I knew where the key was hanging. I would sit at the piano and play, and we would sing.  One of the few songs I knew how to play was a song by Andre Crouch. Noel Werner has chosen it for our final hymn. Noel didn’t know this part of our story when he planned the hymns for this morning. “No more crying there, we are going to see the King.”. Here is another one: “Blessed Assurance, Jesus is mine. O, what a foretaste of glory divine. Heir of salvation, purchase of God, born of his spirit, washed in his blood. This is my story; this is my song, praising my Savior all the day long”.

Stick with me here, church. If our life in Christ is a foretaste of glory divine, if God in God’s infinite love and mercy offers just a glimpse of the kingdom to come on earth as it is in heaven, if Jesus with a grace that greets us fresh every day, invites us to taste and see now the love he has for us, if the Holy Spirit is on the loose in our lives planting a seed deep within us of the knowledge of God’s dwelling place, the Wonderful Counselor reminding us today and tomorrow and the next day that the Savior has gone to prepare a place for us, if this life we live together as the body of Christ is somehow a foretaste of glory divine, than that means God is wipe your tears and mine this side of glory.

The wordless comfort of the Holy Spirit at work when really, no words should be said. The Savior’s love tends to a broken heart and allows just a bit of light to shine in the darkness. The resurrection promise of God that even in the chaos and turmoil of this blasted, broken world still points to an open door that no one can shut. Luther seems right when he writes about “how little do we know about eternal life”. But when it comes to this foretaste that I am trying to describe, when it comes to God wiping away, receiving, sharing, joining the tears of God’s children in this life? Maybe I can’t describe it. Maybe I can’t give you a great sermon illustration. But that’s because too many of you would be in it. Because when it comes to God and your tears and my tears now, I believe, I know it, because I’ve seen it.

A whole multitude of times that no one can count. The tears God wipes.

“God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”

Revelation 5:8-14
May 4
David A. Davis
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Our second scripture lesson for this morning comes from the Book of Revelation, the Apocalypse to John, the last book of the New Testament. The apocalyptic literature of the bible, like Revelation, and in the Old Testament, Ezekiel and parts of Isaiah, can be rather inaccessible, dense, and even foreign to the reader. Sort of the epitome of the strange old world of the bible. Let me try to give some context to our reading this morning by describing the movement of the Book of Revelation. After an initial salutation and instruction from John the Revelator, the beginning sections of the work describe a breathtaking vision of the Heavenly Christ: “his eyes were like a flame of fire, his feet were like burnished bronze…his voice was like the sound of many waters”

The next view chapters include letters to seven churches with some memorable quotes like “I have this against you, that you have abandoned the love you had a first” and “I knoe your works- your love, service, and patient endurance. I know your last works are greater than the first” and  “I have set before you and open door, which no one is able to shut” and “I know your works; you are neither cold nor hot. I wish that you were cold or hot. So because you are lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I am about to spit you out of my mouth.”

After the letters, the scene shifts, the image shifts, and the reader is invited to look through the door of heaven into the very throne room of God. The word picture tells of colors as radiant as jewels, and a sea of glass, living creatures gathered around the throne, twenty-four elders casting their crowns before the throne of God in adoration and praise. As John encounters the very beauty of heaven, the focus again shifts to the scroll held in the right hand of the one seated upon the throne. An angel cries out “Who is worthy to open the scroll and break its seals?” No one is found either in heaven or on earth who can break open and reveal the plan of God. John weeps bitterly. But he is told to weep no more, but to turn and look at the Lion, the mighty conqueror, the Root of David. The Lion who can open the scroll of God.

John turns to look and sees not a lion, but a Lamb. The slaughtered Lamb with seven horns and seven eyes. A number, a symbol that speaks of all power and knowledge. John sees the Lamb, whose weakness and vulnerability only God could define as perfection. The Lamb takes the scroll from the One seated upon the throne. The Lamb steps forth to bear the will of God. All who surround the throne fall before the Lamb in adoration and praise.

Revelation 5:11-14

“Then I, John, looked, and I heard the voice of many angels surrounding the throne and the living creatures and the elders, they numbered myriads if myriads and thousands of thousands, singing with full voice, ‘Worthy is the Lamb that was slaughtered to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and blessing!’

Then I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea, and in all that is in them, singing, ‘To the one seated on the throne and to the Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!’ And the four living creatures said ‘Amen!’. And the elders fell down and worshiped.”

What follows in the Book of Revelation is the opening of the seals, and the four

horses of the Apocalypse, and the great gathering which no one could number, and the silence in heaven as the seventh seal is broken, and the plagues, and the beast and the pit, and the dragon and the seven bowls of God’s wrath, and the fall of Babylon, and the New Heaven and the New Earth, and God wiping away every tear, and the river of the water of life, and the throne of God and the Lamb and no more night, for God will be their light, and the Lamb together with the Lord God, shall reign forever and ever. What follows the text we just read is the intended chaos of apocalyptic literature and the always puzzling, often troubling piling up of image after image, symbol after symbol. This heavenly hymn of praise comes on the threshold of the Lamb’s rolling out the mystery of God and all hell about to break lose, and right then and there every creature in heaven and on earth and in the sea and under the earth; every creature pauses to join in a song of adoration and praise to the Worthy Lamb.

“Worthy is the Lamb that was slaughtered to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and blessing!…. Blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!” Reading the text this week, coming back to the Book of Revelation this week, pondering the biblical apocalyptic literature this week, it landed in my ear, my head, and my heart a bit differently this week. It all felt oddly relevant this week. The chaos and mystery that leaps off the page of the Book of Revelation, all that can be so disorienting and troubling to the reader, comes with a familiarity this week.  These age-old chapters have a jarring unsettledness that has resonance when chaos, fear, and uncertainty are on the loose. The endless battle between good and evil never seems to stop. When death continues to be on the loose among the lives of people we love. When institutions teeter and long-held expectations shake. The jarring unsettledness of the Book of Revelation meets the jarring unsettledness of life.

In his commentary on the Book of Revelation, New Testament scholar Brian Blount argues that apocalyptic literature has an ethical motivation. “It implores people,” he writes, “to act in the present in a way that agrees with its understanding of the future.” Blount goes on to explain what that means. The followers of the Worthy Lamb “must put themselves on God’s side…They must live for God’s future in the present, even if making that choice means that they will come into conflict with the leaders of the present…”. Or to say it another way, there is something timeless about a community of faith struggling to live the faith in a hostile world. To read the Apocalypse to John these days is a lot less about trying to unlock God’s intended future and a lot more about discerning God’s call in the present. Because the Book of Revelation has less to do with what heaven is going to be like for you and me and a lot more to do with what it means to be a faithful follower of the Worthy Lamb here and now.

“Worthy is the Lamb that was slaughtered to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and blessing!…. Blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!” The jarring unsettledness of the Book of Revelation and the jarring unsettledness of life. The intersection comes in a timeless moment of all creation bowing before the Risen Christ, the Lamb who is worthy to be praised. Every now and then, the beauty of God’s resurrection promise and the mystery of God’s plan of salvation, and the assurance of God’s victory break through the tumult of our lives and the calamity of this world. Apocalyptic moments are not reserved for the end of time, rather for the inbreaking of God, when the distant holiness of the One on the throne once again shatters the darkness with light, and Lamb anoints the messiness o life with grace, and the faithful feast again on the breath of God forever singing God’ praise. “Worthy is the Lamb that was slaughtered to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and blessing!…. Blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever!”

When I was in college and going through a rough patch, I decided to do something I had been doing since kindergarten. I joined a church choir.  It was an auditioned choir that would sing every Sunday at Memorial Church on Harvard’s campus. I was actually paid to go to

church back then, too. My warm and fuzzy experience of church choir was soon rocked a bit when the conductor in the midst of a particularly frustrating rehearsal, stopped everything and called out for quartets. I didn’t know what that meant, except I knew those around me in the bass section were not happy. For the next hour, the conductor would randomly call out a bass, a tenor, an alto, and a soprano. We would proceed to the front of the room, and he would pick a part of the piece to be sung right there before him and God, and everybody. When the four were finished, they were told to go sit together. And the last thing we did that afternoon was to sing the piece through completely, sitting not in sections (basses, altos, sopranos, tenors) but in quartets. One

voice alone, surrounded by the other parts, together then, in full voice. And the sound was glorious; the uniqueness of voice, clearly bound to something greater that grew and grew with each quartet.

John’s vision of the faithful at worship includes that factor of multiplication. A growing choir, myriads upon myriads, thousands upon thousands. He hears every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea. The song burst forth from everywhere and everyone. Quartet after quartet after quartet. To stop amid the chaos when it seems like all hell is breaking loose, to stop and bow down to offer all praise and worship to the Worthy Lamb is a subversive act that affirms we are a part of something greater. So much greater. To join our voices with all creation’s praise right smack in the middle of trying to figure out what it means to be faithful in a hostile world is a bold commitment that we are choosing God’s side and choosing to live today. We are striving to act for, to live for, God’s future now in our life together and our discipleship out in the world. To stand together before the Lamb that was slaughtered and shout Christ is Risen! He is Risen Indeed! is an act of resistance when death’s power is on the loose.

To come to this table, to remember and give thanks for the Worthy Lamb and all that the Savior Lamb has done for us, is an act of praise and thanksgiving that testifies to something so much greater. Come, for the Worthy Lamb, invites us to be nourished by the grace and mercy ,and love of God that is so much greater than our hearts.

John 20:19-31
April 27
Dr. Jonathan Lee Walton
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Matthew 28:1-10
April 20
David A. Davis
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It starts with a “great earthquake”.  The resurrection morning, according to Luke, begins with the earth shaking at sunrise as the women are on their way to see the tomb. Perhaps the earthquake was the divine tool used by the descending angel to roll the stone away from the entrance to the tomb. The angel’s countenance and attire has quite a glow. So startling that those guarding the tomb are scared to death. Like most angels in the bible, the radiant one perched on the rock tells the women not to be afraid. The angel goes on to explain that the crucified one they are looking for was not there, for “he had been raised, as he said.” The women are invited in to see where the body had been. “He is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him.” The women leave quickly with “fear and great joy” to run and tell the disciples. It must not have been far from the tomb when the Risen Jesus suddenly appears and says, “Greetings!”

You will remember that when the angel Gabriel appeared to Mary in Luke, Gabriel said, “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.” Also, when Judas leaned in to betray Jesus with a kiss in Matthew, Judas said, “Greetings, Rabbi”.  If I have done my homework correctly, I have just shared with you the only three times in the gospels that “greetings” occurs. The Greek word translates as “joy”. These three occurrences represent a formulaic use or expression that was a common form, even an informal greeting. Like “hi there” or “how’s it going”.  On the one hand, these three “greetings” happen at pretty important moments in the gospels: the Annunciation, the Betrayal, and the Resurrection.” On the other hand, the Risen Jesus suddenly appears and uses an everyday, mundane, routine expression of greeting that seems a bit out of place, even underwhelming, after a great earthquake, a stone rolled back, a blinding angel, guards frightened out of their minds, and an empty tomb.

Like any grandparent, when a phone or an iPad in our house rings with a FaceTime chime, Cathy and I race to answer as quickly as we can. We run not with fear but great joy, we run great joy and greater joy. If I am being honest, most of the calls are at the instigation of soon-to-be four-year-old Franny, who wants to talk to Gram. You answer the call, and there isa  screen full of Franny’s face as she holds the phone. Franny wants to talk to Gram about their respective cups of seeds growing and their gardens, soon to be planted. But last week, a FaceTime call came that warmed a grandfather’s heart. It was fifteen-month-old Maddie calling to talk to Pop. She was holding the phone, and all we could see was from her nose up. I could hear her smile, though. We exchanged the greeting I taught her. “Pop”, she says. I say “Haaay,” To which she says, “Haaaaay!” That was about it. That was all she wanted. She dropped the phone on the floor and ran off.  That was about it but it was way more than enough!

The Risen Jesus appears to the frightened, joyful women on the run to go and tell the news. He suddenly appears and says “Haaay”. No don’t be afraid at first. He doesn’t call Mary by name like in the book of John. Here, after all the divine, bible-like special effects that one would expect to trumpet that first Easter morning, with the rolled away stone still within view, Jesus says “hi there, how’s it going, good morning, cheers mate, what’s up, hey there, yo.” A startling every day, informal, common greeting amid what was a far from everyday encounter. The women fall to his feet as both fear and great joy escalate. They take hold of his feet to try to somehow tell if he is real or not. The same feet the woman anointed with expensive perfume. The same feet that had been nailed to the cross. Jesus said to them, “Do not be afraid; go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.”

In Matthew, the only appearance of the Risen Jesus beyond the fist bump with the two Marys somewhere near the tomb is in Galilee. The eleven disciples returned to Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. They saw him there, the Risen Jesus. The bible says, “They worshipped him, but some doubted.” That’s when Jesus gave the eleven the Great Commission. “All authority in heaven and earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”

There’s not much else happening here at the end of Matthew in terms of resurrection. Oh, there are a few verses about the powers that be cobbling together a story about the disciples stealing the body.  But in Matthew, not much else is going on after Easter morning except the Great Commission. No Emmaus Road; that’s in Luke. No breakfast on the beach; that’s in John. No Jesus putting Peter on the spot with, “Do you love me more than these?”; that’s John as well. It is as if Jesus’ ordinary greeting here in Matthew marks a shift away from the miraculous way the morning started and a shift toward an extraordinary promise of how resurrection power is unleashed in the world. “Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me.”

In Galilee. In Galilee is where Jesus called the disciples. It is where he taught. It’s where he ate with sinners and tax collectors. In Galilee is where he healed the sick. It’s where he fed the thousands with a couple loaves and fish. It’s where he told parables. It’s where he drove out demons. In Galilee is where he preached the Sermon on the Mount. It’s where the Pharisees and Sadducees first came to test him. It’s where he welcomed little children and challenged the rich young man by telling him to sell all his possessions, give the money to the poor and follow him.

“He is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him.” “Go to Galilee, they will see me there”, he said. In Galilee is where you will find my resurrection power unleashed. A resurrection life that comes not with trumpets blasting, or the earth shaking, or angels appearing, but with the poor being fed, and with the outcasts being served, and the unclean are embraced, with the first being last and the last being first, with turning the other cheek and loving one another, with the kingdom of God being taught, announced, proclaimed, served. In Galilee. In Galilee, there they will see me. An extraordinary understanding of how resurrection power is unleashed in the world.

I remember visiting a saint of the church years ago. I was a young pastor, nowhere near 30, young enough that he had been widowed longer than I had been alive. His name was Ray. He had his struggles when it came to health, but he explained that his father lived to be 102 so he didn’t expect to be going anywhere soon, though he wished the good the Lord would take him just like his wife, take him when he was sound asleep. “I’m ready anytime,” he said with a smile. His personal faith statement was as well-worn as the Apostles’ Creed itself.

Much of our conversation was about his worries and anxieties about life; his children, grandchildren, great children. He was worried about their marriages and jobs and challenges. He was worried about the economy and politics and the war in Iraq, and the Phillies who were in a slump. He wasn’t just complaining or being cranky. His worry was genuine. Then Ray used one of those clichés that are so often said, but his use had a weight to it. “David, I just don’t know what this world is coming to.” And he waved a hand like he was swatting a fly.

We all know I could have had that conversation yesterday. I’m sure I had little pastoral wisdom to offer back then for that saint who has long since gone to glory. Not sure how much I have now.  But his faith statement and that weighty cliché of his, the assurance of his own spot next to the throne of grace and his angst about what this world’s coming to….they don’t match real well when it comes to the power of God’s resurrection promise. The promise of the resurrection power of Jesus Christ has been unleashed in the world now. Because the promise of the resurrection is for life eternal, yes! And it is also for the kingdom to come on earth as it is in heaven. “In my Father’s house are many mansions, I go to prepare a place for you…..and…Go to Galilee, you will see me there…I will be with you always”.

You may have read or heard of some conservative Christian pastors who have quite a following on social media. They embrace the evil of Christian nationalism. Recently, they began calling for an end to empathy. Here is one astonishing, heretical quote: “Empathy almost needs to be struck from the Christian vocabulary. Empathy is dangerous. Empathy is toxic. Empathy will align you with hell.” It is way past time for everyday preachers, disciples, congregations, denominations, for the Christian Church to respond in word and deed with “umm, hell no!

The followers of Jesus who listen and believe what Jesus taught us don’t have the luxury of basking in the piety of our Easter finery, or waiting for divine earthquakes or angel mic drops. Because the Risen Jesus is calling us to Galilee. The Risen Jesus yearns to say hello where the poor are being fed. The Risen Jesus is waiting to say “how’s it going” where the outcasts are being served. The Risen Jesus is saying “good morning” where the strangers are being welcomed and immigrants are protected, and international students are embraced. The Risen Jesus is shouting, “What’s up?” where acts of kindness and mercy carry the day. The Risen Jesus is hugging it out every time and every place where the people of God live resurrection power with the strength to love, the courage to do unto others as you would have them do unto you, and the bold resistance to love your neighbor as yourself. I have said it before from this pulpit, and I will keep saying it louder and louder. In the most difficult of seasons of life, the simplest parts of the gospel of Jesus Christ become all the more compelling, essential, and true.

Christ is Risen! He is Risen Indeed! Keep the strength to love.

Christ is Risen! He is Risen Indeed! Don’t lose the courage to do unto others as you would have them to unto you!

Christ is Risen! He is Risen Indeed! Live the bold, resistant to love your neighbor as yourself.

Christ is Risen! He is Risen Indeed!

Luke 22:1-23
April 13
David A. Davis
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You. “I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you before I suffer; for I tell you I will not eat it until it is fulfilled in the kingdom of God.” You. “Take this and divide it among yourselves; for I tell you that from now on I will not drink of the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.” You. “This is my body, which is given for you. Do this in remembrance of me.” You. “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood. But see, the one who betrays me is with me…” You.

The “you” at that Passover table that night included the Betrayer. The one who went away and “conferred with the chief priests and officers” to make a plan. To make a plan with the chief priests who were looking to kill Jesus. “You” that night included Judas. The “you” at this first supper of bread and wine included Peter. Not long after the bread and cup, while still at the table, Jesus said to Peter, “I tell you, Peter, the cock will not crow this day until you have denied three times that you know me.” “You” that night included Peter. But it was not just the Betrayer and the Denier in the ‘You”. As Mark tells of this night, Mark concludes “They all forsook him and fled.” A night of betraying, denying, deserting, and forsaking by those he called, taught, and loved. Immediately after the bread and cup, the disciples who are the “you” get into an argument about which one of them was the greatest for goodness sake! And still, “You”. “This is my body, which is given for you.” “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.” You.

In the liturgy of the sacrament of communion, his body broken and his blood shed are labeled “the Words of Institution.” The liturgy quotes the Apostle Paul from I Corinthians. “The Lord Jesus on the night when he was betrayed took a loaf of bread.” I am not sure I have thought about it much before, but “the night when he was betrayed” seems like a massive understatement. Betrayed. Denied. Deserted. Forsaken. Slept on. Kissed. Seized. Arrested. Mocked. Beaten. Blindfolded. Insulted. That’s all just here in the rest of Luke 22. Yes, “the night when he was betrayed” doesn’t begin to describe it. The night when he was betrayed and the night before he was tried, tortured, and murdered by the ruthless, evil, dark powers of Herod’s empire. The night when Jesus looked into the bottomless, timeless pit of human sin, disobedience, lust for power, arrogance, and obsession with self. And still….you. “This is my body, which is given for you.” “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.” You. A great big, universal you for every time and every place. You as in all. Humankind. Creation. ALL. “God so loved the world…. God saw everything God had made, and indeed, it was very good.” Given for You. Poured out for you.

This Palm Sunday our service began with the Triumphal Entry here in Luke. As Luke puts it, “Jesus went on ahead, going up to Jerusalem.”  Matthew’s Palm Sunday is more triumphal than Luke’s. Matthew tells of a very large crowd, and people running ahead and coming up behind shouting. Matthew writes of the whole city of Jerusalem in turmoil. Matthew’s Palm Sunday seems more stirred up, a sort of flash mob, a bit more “oomph” when compared to Luke. In Luke, people kept tossing their garments on the road, maybe even the same people. No branches, no hosannas. The “whole multitude of disciples”? That could have been just twelve. Maybe the irony of shouts to a king and folks trying to make a bit of pomp while the king rides on a colt was pretty evident.  The royal treatment of a meandering, winding procession from one hill to another with no army, no galloping horses, no chariots, just one innocent animal to ride, maybe the absurdity of it all was just as plain as day. At the very least for Luke, the whole thing seems more intimate. Jesus going up to Jerusalem.

Jesus tells the Pharisees that the stones would shout if the disciples were silent. Creation’s shout coming from those stones. Echoing creation’s praise described by the prophet Isaiah, “For you shall go out in joy and be led back in peace; the mountains and the hills before shall burst into song, and the trees of the field shall clap their hands.” (Is 55:12) After Jesus’ nod to creation’s praise, the procession continues. Luke tells of one more stop before Jesus enters the city gates. “As Jesus came near and saw the city, he wept over it, saying, ‘If you, even you, had only recognized on this day the things that make for peace.” You, even you. There’s that “you” again. Luke is the only gospel that tells of Jesus weeping over the city. There is lament elsewhere but only in Luke does Jesus weep while looking up at the city ahead of him. If you, even you. You.

Luke goes on to describe the destruction of Jerusalem; enemies, ramparts, crushed to the ground, not one stone left upon another. Gospel scholarship informs the reader of the unique sense of timing here. Jesus predicted what was to come. Luke writing about what has already happened; the fall of the city in the year 70. Chronology and timeline take the back seat to the symbolism of the city, of this city, being ravaged by war and the Savior’s tears. Tears that are not about the march of time. The tears are more about HIS march. THEE march to Jerusalem. This last stop along the way, it’s only in Luke.  Here between the Mt. of Olives and the city that looms just up there. Jesus, his last stop on the way to the cross, and he looks and sees the holy city once and forever devastated by violence, humanity’s violence. If you, only you. And still….he goes up.

When we draw near to Jesus and his last stop along the way, usually what strikes, what lingers, what moves the heart is his tears. But this morning, paired with his words at the Table, his words at the bread and cup, it’s the imagined tone in the voice of Jesus that hangs in the heart as he refers to the city and to humanity all at once. If you, even you, you, and you, and even you. If you only knew. A timelessness to both his tears and his exasperation in the face of humanity’s inability to grasp peace. A great big, universal you for every time and every place. You as in all. Humankind. Creation. ALL! “God so loved the world…. God saw everything God had made, and indeed, it was very good.” If you, even you.

In our Lenten small group on Thursday we were sharing our earliest experiences of communion and whether or not our experience of the Lord’s Supper has changed over the years. Whether the more meaningful, moving parts of communion that nurture our faith might have shifted over the years? Interestingly, there was a bit of consensus in our group. Several people talked about how over the years communion became more of an experience of the faith community together. Less about an individual’s relationship with God and more about something we do together. Less a prayer between God and more a prayer about God and us. A sacrament that nourishes our life as the Body of Christ. A turn away from the self and God and a turn toward community and God. Our relationships in the community and the community of God as in God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit. And every time we gather at the table: “You proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes again.” You as in us. You as in all. A great big, universal you for every time and every place. You as in all. Humankind. Creation. ALL. “God so loved the world…. God saw everything God had made, and indeed, it was very good.” You proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes again.

 

The Last Supper. Palm Sunday and Jesus’ last stop on the way to Jerusalem. When you remember his body given for you and his blood shed for you on that night when Jesus looked into the bottomless, timeless pit of human sin, disobedience, lust for power, arrogance, and obsession with self. And still….you. When you, even you, stop with Jesus for that tear-filled view of Jerusalem, when humanity’s inability to grasp the things that make for peace never, ever seems to get any better, when you stop to ponder how he still goes up, somewhere deep down the magnitude of God’s plan of salvation kind takes the breath away. I claim, lean on, bathe, and bask, tell myself again and again of God’s love for me, a love that will not let me go. But then there are those days, those seasons, when I find myself claiming, leaning on, bathing, and basking, telling myself again and again that God’s love is so much greater than just for me.

Because when Jesus kept going, when he went up, he took all of us, all of this, he took ALL of it to the cross with him.

“God so loved the world…. God saw everything God had made, and indeed, it was very good.”

Luke 9:1-9
April 6
David A. Davis
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“Now Herod the ruler, the tetrarch, heard all that had taken place, and he was perplexed.” Herod was perplexed. Herod was confused. A possible translation of the Greek is that Herod “was at a loss.” These few verses go on to explain that he was perplexed because some were saying John the Baptist had been raised from the dead or Elijah or some other ancient prophet had appeared. “Now Herod the tetrarch heard all that had taken place.” Herod the most powerful man in the land heard all that had taken place. One should assume that hearing it all means hearing it all. Indeed, back to John the Baptist. Luke chapter 3: “So with many other exhortations, John proclaimed the good news to the people. But Herod the ruler, who had been rebuked by John because of Herodias, his brother’s wife, and because of all the evil things that Herod had done, added to them all by shutting up John in prison.” Oh, yes! Herod heard it all.

He heard about a man named Jesus standing up in a synagogue in Nazareth and reading from the scroll of the prophet Isaiah. “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. The Lord 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.” Herod heard about Jesus sitting down and saying “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing” and how they tossed him out of his hometown trying to hurl him off a cliff. He heard about Jesus teaching on the sabbath, healing people tormented by demons, and his followers catching great hauls of fish. Herod heard about people healed of their diseases, lame folks walking, a tax collector leaving his job to go with Jesus, and Jesus plucking grain on the Sabbath. Herod heard it all.

That sermon from Jesus was full of blessings and woes favoring the poor and the hungry and the weeping. Threatening the rich and all who had so much. He heard about that too.  “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you…Give to anyone who begs…do to others as you would have them do to you…Be merciful just as your Father is merciful…The good person out of good treasure of the heart produces good, and the evil person out of evil treasure produces evo;; for it is out of abundance of the heart that the mouth speaks.” Herod heard about the healing of the centurion’s servant and the widow of Nain. The scandal of the woman anointing Jesus’ feet in the Pharisee’s house. The parable of the sower. The stir Jesus caused in the country of the Gerasenes by healing a tormented man and sending all the pigs to their death in the sea. Jesus stopping to heal the woman who touched his outer garment. They raised Jairus’s daughter from the dead. And yes, Jesus sent the disciples to the villages “curing diseases everywhere.” The most powerful and feared man in the land had the sources, the resources, and the connections to have heard it ALL. And he was perplexed. He was confused. Herod was at a loss not just because of the rumors surrounding John the Baptist, Elijah, or a prophet. Herod was perplexed by it all.

Jesus gathered the twelve and bestowed on them the power and authority to do what he had been doing. To do what Herod heard Jesus was doing. Send out demons. Cure diseases. Proclaim the kingdom of God and heal people. Jesus sent them out on the journey to the villages with nothing: no staff, no bag, no bread, no money, no change of clothes. Find a house where folks will take you in and stay there. Stay in their home until you leave the village. If no one welcomes you, move on. Shake the dust. It’s their loss. The gospel is not something to be imposed, mandated, forced, legislated, ordered, or nationalized.

Take nothing. The evangelism, the mission, and the ministry of those who follow Jesus begins with a bold, courageous, beyond-the-pale, perplexing trust in God and God alone. The ministry of those who follow Jesus also begins with a bold, courageous, beyond-the-pale, perplexing trust in the hospitality of others. The only way this was going to work was if others offered the disciples a place to stay in their homes. If others gave the disciples something to eat and drink. If others offered to share some extra clothing with the disciples. The disciples could not have done anything with their Jesus-gifted power and authority without the help of others. According to Luke the twelve were “bringing the good news and curing diseases everywhere.” It never would have happened without the others. A divine miracle story all its’ own that begins with bold, courageous, beyond-the-pale, perplexing acts of hospitality and kindness. The ministry of those who follow Jesus is defined by, dependent on, not possible without a reliance on and a relationship with others.

A few days ago, I went over to the Seminary Chapel to hear our resident guest preacher Jess Winderweedle preach at daily morning worship on campus. As you would expect, Jess preached a powerful and memorable sermon. After chapel, I told Jess she is the most subtly subversive preacher I have listen to. There was one riff I kept coming back to in preparation for this morning. As I pondered Jesus telling the disciples to take nothing.  Jess was preaching about Paul ending up in prison after sending a spirit of divination out of a slave girl who was likely then in great danger since her owners made lots of money off her and that spirit. “Here in this chance encounter” Jess proclaimed, “their precarities- his perhaps unexpected and hers a tale as old as time—their precarities were revealed to be inextricable from one another….I want to imagine” Jess went on, “that Paul, there in prison couldn’t stop thinking about liberation, and about how getting free isn’t always as simple as we want it to be, nor is it ever an individual endeavor…There is no way of salvation that any one of us can walk alone, and no real liberation in which we can be preciously selective about who will walk with us.”

Our life in Jesus and our way of salvation and the first disciples’ journey, it doesn’t happen alone. As Carol Wehrheim notes in our Lenten study guide “Recognizing and accepting our interdependence might not be so easy for a nation that claims to be built on rugged individualism”.  As Nate Stucky has been teaching all these Sundays in Lent, the idolatry of autonomy is struck down again and again in scripture. The beginning of ministry in Jesus’ name here in Luke strikes a blow to the myth of pulling yourself up by your own bootstraps. It forever slays the go-it-alone, self-made human success narratives. Serving in Jesus’ name can’t be any more different than all the rich and powerful with such influence in the world who start on third base and think they have hit a triple. The gospel we learn from the lips of Jesus and the testimony of his life is so perplexing to the world and its powers and principalities. The world and its tetrarchs and tyrants.

Which brings us back to Herod. Herod was perplexed about the one whom he was hearing about. He had beheaded John. The conjecture among the crowds about whether it was John, Elijah, or another one of the ancient prophets. That conjecture is messianic conjecture. That’s wondering about whether this person saying and doing all that Herod heard was indeed the Messiah. What Herod is hearing is messiah talk. And as Luke writes “he tried to see him.” Herod tried to see Jesus.

It might be a no-brainer but it seems to me that if Herod, the most powerful man in the land with all the sources, resources, and connections wanted to see Jesus, it would not have been all that difficult to arrange. Have your people contact his people. Send some armed guards with face coverings to go round him up off the street. Tell your staff to go hang out the next time there is a crowd gathered and bring the one doing all the talking and healing back to your fortress. Before the disciples hid in the Upper Room after Herod’s empire tortured and murdered Jesus, Jesus, and his disciples were hardly staying under the radar. Send a Zoom invitation for goodness sake. If Herod wanted to physically see Jesus, there is little doubt he could work something out to see Jesus of Nazareth, the carpenter’s son, Mary’s child.

“He tried to see him” It has to be more than getting a meeting. Herod was perplexed, confused, and lost. He couldn’t wrap his head or his heart around ALL that Jesus was teaching and ALL that Jesus was doing. Herod couldn’t see the Messiah and the messianic world he was painting.  Like Pharoah before him, his heart was hardened. Herod was never going to see a messiah who was a servant. A messiah who claimed the great must become the least to follow him. Herod would always be perplexed, confused, and lost when it came to the gospel teaching about caring for the poor, the orphans, and the widows.  Herod was always going to be perplexed, confused, and lost when it came to a journey of proclaiming and healing that depended on acts of love and kindness. Herod was always going to be perplexed, confused, and lost when there was “no way of salvation that any one of us can walk alone and no real liberation in which we can be preciously selective about who will walk with us.”  Herod tried to see Jesus but he was incapable of seeing Jesus and the way of the gospel.

The tetrarchs and tyrants, the forces of empires, the powers and principalities of the world’s darkness are incapable of seeing Jesus and the kingdom he brings. They have no vision for a world where the last will be first, the poor will have favored status, and the common good that builds community will be prioritized. They can’t look at the most vulnerable in the world and see the face of Jesus. They can’t see a world where love is stronger than hate, where welcoming the stranger is an act of faith and gives glory to God. Where doing justice, loving kindness, and walking humbly with God is an aspirational way of life. Where justice can roll down like waters and righteousness like an everflowing stream.

It is still true. The witness of those who follow Jesus begins with a bold, courageous, beyond-the-pale, perplexing trust in God and God alone. The witness of those who follow Jesus begins with a bold, courageous, beyond-the-pale, perplexing trust in the hospitality of others. The only way the powers and principalities of this world are going to see Jesus and the kingdom he brings, the beloved community he intends, is when disciples, when followers, when simple folk like you and me, find a way to show them. I’m in. You?

Exodus 16:1-21
March 30
David A. Davis
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This is my first memory of listening to a sermon. I was sitting in the sanctuary of the church I grew up in during worship with my parents. Sermons were at the very end of the service just before the final hymn. When it came time for the sermon, the sanctuary lights would dim and the spotlights would go up on elevated pulpit at the front left side of the chancel. I don’t know how old I was when I heard this in a sermon but I know that pastor left to serve a congregation in Michigan when I was in elementary school. His name was Kirk Hudson. In Pittsburgh at the time there was a fast-food burger chain called “Winky’s”. Winky’s slogan in signage and advertising was “Winky’s makes you happy to be hungry.” I don’t remember anything else about that sermon except this. At some point, this distinguished formal pulpiteer wearing a Geneva gown with a clergy collar and tabs absolutely shouted with what I remember must have been the very top of his lungs. “Nobody is EVER happy to be hungry.”

Bernie Flynn, the CEO of Mercer Street Friends, shared sobering news this week with various non-profit partners throughout Mercer County who operate hunger, housing, and anti-poverty programs. The federal government has cut $26 million from the grants and funding that come to the state of New Jersey, much of which is intended for social services. There have been significant cuts to Feeding America which supplies the bulk of food distributed from food banks. There is a continuing resolution before Congress to cut SNAP benefits significantly. For every 10 charitable meals provided in this country, 9 of them come through SNAP.  You may have read that there is also a proposal to raise the qualifying threshold for publicly funded breakfasts and lunches at public schools drastically reducing the number of eligible students. “Nobody is EVER happy to be hungry.”

One of the tasks of a preacher week in and week out is to bring the world to bear on unsuspecting biblical texts. Rather than attempt to translate the strange old world of the bible for the contemporary listener, a preacher who brings the world to bear on the text is seeking that living word for both the preacher and the hearers of the word. With that in mind, and mindful of all going on in the country and in the world, I don’t see how we can read Exodus 16 as the same old, same old.  In my past reading of the story of manna from heaven, my eye has typically been drawn to the complaint. “On the fifteenth day of the second month after they had departed from the land of Egypt. The whole congregation of the Israelites complained against Moses and Aaron.” The word in Hebrew is more like “murmured”. Some scholars write about “the murmuring motif” or the “murmuring tradition.” But then “Nobody is EVER happy to be hungry.”

The Lord hears the people murmuring. When they are thirsty in the next chapter, Moses goes to the Lord on behalf of the murmuring people. Here in chapter 16, the Lord makes the first move in response to the people’s hunger. God tells Moses that bread will rain from heaven and the people will gather enough for the day. Twice as much on the sixth day. Moses and Aaron then gather all the people. “In the evening you shall know that it was the Lord who brought you out of the land of Egypt, and in the morning you shall see the glory of the Lord…” As Aaron spoke the people look toward the wilderness and see the glory of the Lord appear in the cloud. The Lord tells Moses, “At twilight you shall eat meat and in the morning you shall have your fill of bread; then you shall know that I am the Lord your God.”

That evening the quail came in abundance. The next morning the people awoke to “A fine flaky substance as fine as frost on the ground.” At the dawn of the day, no one knew what it was. Moses told the people of Israel, “It is the bread the Lord has given you to eat.”  Or as Moses and Aaron told them the day before, “in the morning you shall see the glory of the Lord because the Lord has heard your murmuring.” What is described next by the narrator is so easy to miss when your eye is on the complaining. “Gather as much of it as each of you needs….some gathering more, some gathering less…those who gathered much had nothing left over and those who gathered little had no shortage.” Here in Exodus 16 there is a “loaves and fishes” kind of moment going on. Not the twelve baskets full left over but the “All ate and were filled” Part.  Here in Exodus 16, there is an Acts chapter 2, post-Pentecost kind of moment going on. A community taking care of one another. All have enough. The evening quail. The morning glory bread. Just enough for all. Gathering as much as each one needed. Twice as much on the sixth day. The people resting on the seventh day. Forty years of meat and bread in the wilderness. Forty years of God hearing. Forty years of God providing. Right here at the beginning just a glimpse of life together for the people of God. The life together for the people of God that God intends. God and God’s beloved on the way to the promised land.

There at that first manna breakfast, Moses gave some further instruction. It doesn’t say whether Moses spoke before, during, or after breakfast. I imagine that Moses spoke again before everyone began to eat. “Moses said to them, ‘Let no one leave any of it over until morning.’” You get the gist, right? Give us today our daily bread. Don’t worry about tomorrow, let’s today’s worry be enough for today. No squirreling away. No hoarding. No storing up treasure. No pulling down barns just to build larger ones. No sneaking more so others have less. No messing with the loaves and fishes balance. No putting self above the community. No forgetting of the most vulnerable. No serving God and mammon because you will be devoted to one and despise the other. No turning from the face of Jesus in the face of the least of these. “Let no one leave any of it until morning.”

“But they did not listen to Moses; some left part of it until morning.” They did not listen and some left part of it until morning. Strange way to say it there in the text. They and some. They did not listen makes it sound like “all” did not listen. But only “some” tried to save some for later.  But the manna didn’t keep. “It bred worms and became foul. And Moses was angry with them.”  When it came to gathering twice as much on the sixth day so you can rest on the sabbath, later in the chapter again it is “some.”  “Some of the people went to gather and found none. The Lord said to Moses, how long will you refuse to keep my commandments and instructions?!” I don’t know, Lord. It was only some, not all the people. Maybe some were still so hungry they had trouble listening. Here in Exodus 16, not only a glimpse of the community of faith God intends for God’s people but also a lasting image of what it means to be human and how hard it is fully trust in God. How easy it is to for the old sinful self to run over the new self God desires. The manna bred worms and became foul. That’s just nasty.

The takeaway this week is not the murmuring. God hears the people and responds with a promise. “At twilight you shall eat meat and in the morning you shall have your fill of bread; then you shall know that I am the Lord your God.”  The takeaway is more about the old self. Humanity’s ever-present sinfulness. Some but not all turn from God’s commands and threaten the community of kindness and concern that God intends. Threatening the community God calls us to be. God invites us to be. Seeing visions of God’s justice, yet some but not all repeatedly return to a care only for self.  Hearing of God’s expectation of care for all while some but not all work to cause division and spark mistrust; watching as kingdom life turns afoul. Receiving the gospel promise of life eternal and life abundant and then some but not all wrongly concluding that salvation is just about their seat at the banquet table. Hearing about the parable of the Good Samaritan and Jesus call to go and do likewise and then some but not all demonizing nameless immigrant workers, faceless federal employees, and lab-coated researchers.

Maybe the takeaway is how quickly visions of the kingdom life God intends can be torn apart by the some but not all who want to save more for themselves rather than making sure everyone had their fill. Feasting on the words of the Apostle Paul, there is neither Jew nor Greek, slave nor free, male or female, and then some but not all drawing boundary lines that perpetuate stereotypes and prolong bigotry and pass hate to yet another generation. Saying “Amen” when the words of the prophet Amos are read on Sunday, “Let justice roll down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream”, and then some but not all on Monday doing absolutely everything to preserve their own power and privilege. Setting aside manna for themselves, a lot more manna than just for the next day.

It’s not about the complaint. You and I, we rise each day feasting afresh on God’s glory, knowing that the Lord requires us to do justice and to love kindness, and walk humbly with our God, only to realize sometime after breakfast how easy it is to melt into a world where the rich get richer, the poor get poorer, a world full of empires and voices that try to convince us that we had better grab all the stuff that we can so we can save it for the morning.

Manna from heaven. It’s a glimpse of the community God intends. A testimony to how God hears and God provides. It’s not about the complaint. It’s about how easy it is to breed worms.

Genesis 3:17-19
March 23
David A. Davis
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Adam, Eve, the apple, the snake. Genesis 3. The Hebrew bible’s account of the fall. A .story most of us have been told, heard, and read as long as we can remember. One cannot approach Genesis 3 apart from all the chaff that comes with it. The swirling history of use, misuse, and abuse that comes with Genesis 3. It’s not like we just come to a whiteboard this morning with a dry eraser and start over. Rather, we bring it all with us, and by God’s grace and in the power of the Holy Spirit we humbly seek a word, a living Word. We dare to yearn for what God might have to say to us through this first and oldest story of faith, boundaries, rules, and our relationship with the Creator God.

After the serpent successfully tempts Adam and Eve to eat the apple and they cobble some fig leaves together to cover their nakedness, God is taking a stroll through the garden as evening falls. God sees the two of them and their silly outfits. An awkward conversation ensues. Adam throws Eve under the bus. Eve throws the snake under the bus. God then responds that the tradition tends to label “the curse”. Unlike the last few Sundays when we read the entire portion of both creation stories in Genesis 1 and 2, I will read only a small snippet of Genesis 3. It’s God’s response to Adam.

Genesis 3:17-19

“You are dust, and to dust you shall return.” The last few words of God’s response to the serpent, to Eve, and to Adam. The last words of God’s curse after the fall. Curse. It is important to note that the word “cursed” comes only in God’s response to the snake and then again as God speaks to Adam. “Cursed” is not directed at Adam but at the ground. “Cursed is the ground because of you.” “Cursed” is never used directly in reference to Eve or to Adam. Yes, their garden days are over but in Genesis 2, God told Adam if he ate of that tree of good and Evil, “you shall die.” Here in the Genesis account of the fall, they don’t die. Yes, of course, Adam and Eve eventually die. But here in the story of the first and oldest lesson about boundaries, rules, and a life in relationship to God, amid language of temptation, fall, death, and expulsion, God’s grace and love abound.

Last weekend I had a conversation with our soon to be four year old granddaughter Franny. For a few precious moments, we were the only ones in the room sitting on the couch. I asked her about her school. She named some of her friends. She told me how they share chores. Each day, each student has a responsibility. Franny’s favorites are collecting the trash and giving the weather report. I asked about her teachers and Franny told me all of four of their names. No Miss or Mr, just names. I asked if she had a favorite.

“I like Anna. She is our art teacher.” “Is art your favorite part?” “Yes, Pop. And I am good at following Anna’s rules. Well, pretty good”. “Well, that’s good. I bet Anna likes it when you follow her rules.” Franny nodded her head. Then there was a pause. Not a long pause but you could see Franny was thinking about something. “Pop, I am gooder at following Anna’s rules than I am Mommy and Daddy’s rules.”  “Following rules can be hard, Franny, don’t you think?” Franny nodded yes again. “And Mommy and Daddy love you even when it’s hard to follow the rules!” I thought about telling Franny that her Mommy and Daddy love her even more when she doesn’t follow the rules. But I thought that might be risky.

It doesn’t take long, does it? For a child of God to learn perhaps the first and oldest lesson of life about boundaries and rules. It is part of growing up. The metaphor of “growing up” is how one scholar of the Hebrew Bible ends his commentary chapter on Genesis 3. Professor Sib Towner taught the Old Testament at Union Presbyterian Seminary in Richmond, VA for a generation. “What Genesis 3 gives us is a paradigm,” Dr. Towner writes. “ A story about every human being rebelling against the commandments of God…It is a powerful, primitive rendition of a reality all of us know full well—the truth that life is a pilgrimage from innocence to maturity, through a land fraught with the dangers of loving and hating, growing powerful and cowering in humiliation, living and finally dying. It is a story about God too, whose name is not only Yahweh, but also Emmanuel, and who will not leave God’s own beloved creatures to their fates even when they defy him to his face or thrust a spear in his side. Genesis 3”, the professor  concludes, “is a story of growing up.”

“You are dust and to dust you shall return.”

“Almighty God, in sure and certain hope of resurrection to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord, we comment this your beloved child to you. These remains we commit to the ground, earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust. Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord. They will rest from their labors for their works shall follow them.”  Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. I scoured the bible this week trying to find the phrase I have read out loud in a cemetery way too many times in the last 40 years. Well, the phrase in that form isn’t in the bible. The phrase is from the earliest versions of the liturgy in the Book of Common Prayer from the Church of England. “For as much as it hath pleased Almighty God of his great mercy to take unto himself the soul of our dear departed, we, therefore, commit this body to the ground, earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust.”

“You are dust and to dust you shall return.” That’s the closest the bible comes to “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust. When it comes to the New Testament, well the New Testament isn’t very dusty. The only dust that shows up in the New Testament is when Jesus tells the disciples to shake the dust of their sandals and move on when folks reject them and the gospel. The liturgy at the grave that affirms our resurrection hope has to be rooted here in Genesis 3. “You are dust and to dust you shall return.” But when you are getting dirt and mud on your shoes around an open grave and you say ashes to ashes, dust to dust while loved ones are trying not to look at you, I am just not sure it sounds all that much like a promise. If I am honest, in that context, it sounds more like a stark reminder. Less of a trumpet blast of resurrection hope and more of a cymbal crash reminder of human mortality. Yes, that committal service liturgy quickly arrives at the Apostle Paul’s riff on resurrection hope. “Behold, we will not all die but we will be changed.” But “dust to dust” doesn’t sound like much of a promise.

“You are dust and to dust you shall return.” With his leadership at adult education and our series entitled “Called to the Impossible; Life through Death,” Dr. Nate Stucky is inviting us to reclaim the invitation and promise of dust. (If you haven’t had a chance to listen to the audio recordings of Nate’s weekly conversation with us, I invite you to do so on the adult education tab on our website). In Genesis 2, God creates Adam from the dust of the fertile soul. “The Lord God formed Adam from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life. Rather than bind dust to dust to that singular, once, and for all experience of life and of death, Nate Stucky the farmer theologian suggests linking it first to the promise, gift, and rhythms of the creation stories. In sending Adam out from the garden to the very world we know as real, God reminds Adam that he came from the dust of the fertile soil. An invitation to return to the dust perhaps can be understood as an invitation to repentance and a renewed experience of the life God creates. A life defined by death and resurrection over and over and over again. Yes, this side of heaven too.

That historic liturgy that ends with “dust to dust” begins with these words, “In the midst of life, we are in death. From whence does our help come? Our help comes from the Lord who made heaven and earth.” In the midst of our everyday lives, we are surrounded by the promise, the gift, and the rhythm of God’s creation. God’s gift of grace comes as we experience life and death, death and resurrection. And also as we experience sin, repentance, forgiveness, new life, God’s “no” and God’s “yes” in the day-to-day. “You are dust and to dust you shall return.” Everyday. From dust to dust as God continues to breathe God’s spirit of life into our nostrils. Maybe, just maybe, with the gift of breath, of Spirit, in Hebrew, ruah, God also gives us eyes to see and lips to bear witness to all our creating God has done.  Death and resurrection not just with a capital D and capital R. But God’s love, grace, and rhythm of creating. Creating all that is very good. And continuing to create each one of us as one of God’s own beloved.

When in the midst of this life we are in death and chaos and kindness and compassion seem too hard to find. When war and rumors of war abound, when leaders rage, when government shakes and institutions teeter and markets tremble, when the most vulnerable among us and around the world are threatened by the decisions of the most powerful, I wonder if we are being called to pay attention to our experience of the extraordinary presence of God in the most ordinary places of our lives. In Luke, in what scholars describe as “the little apocalypse”, Jesus says “This will be a time for you to bear testimony”. Maybe, just maybe paying attention, bearing witness, and sharing our testimony to our experience of the Holy Dust moments of our lives past and present is at least one way to strive to be faithful these days.

Perhaps an example of what I am trying to describe would be helpful. In the fall of 1999, I was in the third year of the PhD program in homiletics in the seminary. I discovered that one of the aspects of teaching I enjoyed most was listening to a student preach and then gathering the class together and leading the discussion about the strengths of the sermon and how that sermon might be improved. I fully expected back then that I would become a teacher of preaching. Some of my classmates were getting jobs prior to finishing their dissertations at various Presbyterian seminaries. A position was posted at Pittsburgh Seminary. I applied. I networked. I scored a breakfast at the Academy of Homiletics with the Dean of the Faculty at Pittsburgh Seminary. I was born and raised there. My parents were still alive and living there. Okay, this it God! I didn’t even get an interview.

Disappointment wasn’t a strong enough word. A few months later over on the seminary campus, I heard how the search committee at Nassau Presbyterian Church down on Palmer Square had been left at the altar by a candidate who said no after saying yes. The candidate was a professor of preaching who had no congregational experience. I said to a friend who had some connections at the church that if Nassau Church was willing to call a pastor with a PhD in preaching who had never moderated a Session meeting, maybe they would be willing to talk to a pastor who had been serving for 12 years at that point and would eventually have a PhD in preaching.

In April and May of 2000, members of the search committee from Nassau Church came in small groups for six Sundays in a row to hear me preach and lead worship in the 250-member congregation I served. And in May, the congregation called my 38-year-old self to the ministry God had in store. Something beyond what I would have thought impossible. Serving as a pastor and preacher in a university town and routinely teaching as a visiting lecturer. 24 years later, through that experience of life out of death, in that holy dust experience, God taught me what God already knew. I am not a frustrated scholar who couldn’t get a job and so went to serve a congregation. I am a pastor who enjoys sharing my love of preaching with others.

How about you and I, how about we pay attention, bear witness, and share our testimony with one another to the holy dust moments of our lives? I think we could use some of it these days. And remember what Jesus said, “I will be with you always, even to the end of the age.”

 

 

Genesis 2:4-25
March 16
Youth Sunday
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1 Corinthians 12:27-13:13
February 2
David A. Davis
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When you have seen someone stand up to read “Love is patient, love is kind”, I am going to guess that more often than not, it wasn’t a member of the clergy. When you have heard someone read “Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things”, I am thinking most of the time it was not a Sunday morning. The last time you heard reader conclude with “Now faith, hope, and love abide, these three, and the greatest of these is love”, I am guessing it was Uncle William or cousin Sandy, or a college friend still in seminary, or younger sister or brother. The reading came after all eyes were on the three-year-old hoping she made it down the aisle. After Pachelbel Canon in D. After the others walked down the aisle. Sometime soon after Trumpet Voluntary and before the two make their solemn vows, someone stands up to read “If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love…”  The familiar words presume their place, just before the vows, just after the procession.

But in the Apostle Paul’s letter to the church in Corinth, the words don’t come after Canon in D or Trumpet Voluntary or The Wedding March. In the letter to the church, the “love part” comes after Paul writes about the varieties of gifts that come from God in the power of the Holy Spirit. The singable phrases about love come after Paul writes about how the church is like a body, how every part, every one in the community is important. Paul writes about God arranging every single part, just as it should be in the body, in the community, in the church. Hands. Ears. Eyes. Feet. Every single part is important. “If one member suffers, all suffer together, if one member is honored, all rejoice together,” Paul writes to the church. These so familiar verses about love come after Paul affirms that everyone has gifts to be used and celebrated in service to the community. “Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all teachers?….Strive for the greater gifts”. When you read I Corinthians 13 on Sunday morning, you have to start somewhere in chapter 12. You have to at least start with Paul telling the church, I will show you a still more excellent way.”

You will remember that the church founded by Paul there in Corinth was a community of faith that found themselves threatened by allegiances and favored relationships. A community of faith that disagreed about things, some of them really important things. A people of faith wrestling with their own thirst for knowledge, mistakenly thinking that the Word of the Cross, the message of Jesus, was primarily a matter for the mind rather than the heart. People of God trying to hold on to their faith in an ever-challenging secular world. A gathering of God’s people trying to be faithful in their witness to Jesus, in their proclamation of the gospel, and in their desire to live in the power of the resurrection. A fledgling faith community covered in all of the dust of life, trying to be church. Or, in Paul’s language, a community called to live as the Body of Christ in the here and now.

“And I will show you a still more excellent way.” That’s what it follows. The famous chapter on love, the words that sort of create their own atmosphere when they are read into the room, their own aroma of romance. The Apostle Paul on love. It doesn’t come after the wedding march. It comes after this: “I will show you a still more excellent way”. A still more excellent way when it comes to life together. The more excellent way. The Apostle Paul on love in church. “Let me show you”. But Paul doesn’t “show” anything. He keeps writing. The church looks around, but Paul just writes some more. “Let me show you,” and the church forever looks around. Where’s he pointing? Who is he looking at? A picture. A parable. A drawing of the dirt. Anything Paul! But he just kept writing, “If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love.”

I have told you before about the saint in my first congregation who took me to McDonald’s for breakfast every Tuesday for 14 years. His name was Mark. He joined that church right after he came home from World War II. He landed at Normandy Beach the second day. One morning over an egg McMuffin, I asked him if the war was as bad as the movie “Saving Private Ryan” made it look. He said, “It was much worse, David”. Mark worked in sales for ten or so years. Vacuum cleaners door to door, then caskets to funeral homes. He then worked as a custodian in the local schools. I think he retired before I was born. On more than one occasion, Mark brought home someone who had no place to live. One year, when the church hosted twenty or so unhoused men in the fellowship hall for two weeks, it was Mark who arrived every morning at 4:30 to take one of the men to work who had just landed a job driving a truck. Without knowing it, Mark mentored generation after generation of young men in that church when it came to faith and being a father and a husband, including me.

When I arrived as a 24-year-old pastor, it was Mark who took care of me. We talked about everything over the years. One day, we shared our breakfast with a mission co-worker /friend of Mark’s who was on furlough and home visiting friends and family. At breakfast, he expressed his disappointment that we didn’t say grace before the meal. “After all”, he said, “I’m eating with the pastor and an elder”. I wanted to say, “We’re in McDonalds for goodness sake”. I didn’t say it. Mark didn’t miss a beat and, without a hint of judgment or defensiveness, said, “I pray long enough at dinner for all three meals.” I believed him.

Like many seminary graduates and new pastors, I landed in ministry with all kinds of information, ideas, opinions, and critiques of all that the church needs to be. I hit the ground back then, ready to leave my mark on the church. But in the power of the Holy Spirit, and by grace, I was shown a more excellent way. God was pointing at Mark’s life. Mark showed me. Mark taught me more about the gospel, more theology, more about the church than I ever learned in the classroom. Never an unkind word. Always had open arms for those he disagreed with. Unfailing in his care for others. Visiting a dying friend. Laughing with a lonely widower. Constant in prayer for those on his heart. Mark taught me about being a pastor. Mark’s life was a witness to the gospel in so many ways. But especially in the way he showed me the still more excellent way. The love he shared in and through that community of faith. Love in a particular community of faith. Love made very real. Love made very real to me.

“Let me show you,” Paul wrote to the church. And yes, he kept on writing with words, with poetry, that you and I will not soon forget and neither will the church or the world or the romantics, or Hallmark, for that matter. But when you read it, when you hear it on Sunday morning, remember the context, the place, the atmosphere that these familiar words actually presume and create. A community of faith that by God’s grace and as a gift of the Spirit, strives for the “still more excellent way”. Members of the body of Christ here and now who live like and know that “the greatest of these is love”.

A collection of the followers of Jesus Christ who know that when tragedy strikes, when death comes to soon and for too many, the first move is for love because “love never ends”.  They know that because they have seen it. They have lived it. God showed them. People of God who believe that in the hardest of seasons and the most difficult of days, the simplicity of the gospel becomes all the more profound. “Love is patient; love is kind, love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude.” They believe that because they have seen it. They have lived it. God showed them. A community of God’s people who witness to the clearest and most basic teaching from the bible as the most important, especially when listening to those who choose to contort it and abuse it for their own gain. “Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful.” They witness it because they have seen it. They have lived it. God showed them. A community of faith who come to understand that the world’s complicated way of being can never erode the lasting power of a timeless teaching like “love does not rejoice in wrongdoing but rejoices in the truth.”  They understand it because they have seen it. They have lived it, God showed them.

Before the Apostle Paul wrote, “I will show you a still more excellent way”, God showed that more excellent way: “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us…full of grace and full of truth.” Before Paul wrote to tell the congregation “I will show you”, Jesus sat at the table with his disciples and said, “This is my body broken for you….This is my blood shed for you.”  Jesus pointed. Jesus showed them. Jesus did more than write about the still more excellent way. “Every time you eat this bread, do this in remembrance of me….Every time you drink this cup, do this in remembrance of me.” Yes, Jesus shows us he is the more excellent way.

I don’t often associate coming to the Lord’s Table with the physical, biological yearning to be fed. Though I do love the aroma here at the Table, Yes, yes, I know Jesus said “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be fed.” But I don’t often experience hunger pangs or a craving for this meal. Maybe that’s because of the Reformed tradition that shaped me without weekly eucharist. Maybe that’s because somewhere deep inside, I always assumed it was more polite to wait for Jesus to invite me through those words of invitation at the start of the communion liturgy.

But then again, some days, some weeks, there is a longing. A desire far beyond words. A need that comes with hunger pangs A longing to feast on Christ’s love like you can never get enough. To rush to the table for the dinner bell of righteousness is being rung. To sit down at this Table of grace even before Jesus says “come and get it”. To sit down and be nourished now and forever, to be encouraged now and forever, to be strengthened now and forever, to be sustained by nothing more than Christ’s righteousness, grace, and love.

The Apostle Paul concluded, “The greatest of these is love”

Come to the Table this morning. Come to be fed and receive the love of God in and through Jesus Christ that we all crave.