Luke 17:11-19
June 30
Lauren J. McFeaters
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Desperation leads us to do many things.

Our lepers live in desperation; they breath it, look like it; smell of it.

And we can understand it. Leprosy is a horrific disease affecting the skin and nerves that causes severe disfigurement where tissue rots, and sensation in hands and feet ends, lungs are scared, and eyes are blinded. Leprosy is a disease of stench and desperation.

Here’s what the Book of Leviticus says about lepers:

“They shall wear torn clothes and

let the hair of their head hang loose,

they shall cover their lips and cry,

‘Unclean, unclean.’

They shall remain unclean

as long as they have the disease;

and shall dwell alone in a habitation outside the camp. [ii]

So by the laws of Leviticus, those with leprosy are completely, utterly, separated from family and work and synagogue. Those suffering from leprosy are forced to live as those who mourn – except the death they mourn is their own.^[iii] All they can do is to travel down the road and not come back again.

If you travel down the road in Elgin, Illinois, just off the Highway 90, you come to the headquarters of the Church of the Brethren. It’s tucked in a beautifully wooded area close to the highways’ exit and within the complex of its administrative offices sits a chapel.

I visited this chapel years ago and without exaggerating – it was astonishing, for in the middle of a contemporary denominational headquarters, is a chapel of ancient stone; dark and cool; silent and welcoming; holy and simple. Standing at the entrance of this chapel is like being transported into another time; for it’s a small, rustic, rough-hewn sanctuary our ancestors would have worshipped in.

As you look up front toward the pulpit, you are immediately drawn to the small squares of beautiful stained-glass windows, set into the stone. Being about 1 foot by 1 foot, and settled back into the stone about 1 foot, the colorful glass is thick and chunky; it catches the light and holds onto it.

You can’t help but be drawn in, to walk forward down the center isle; and that’s when the extraordinary happens; when you become aware of all the other small windows that come into view, beside you, above you, surrounding you. Unless you’re standing at a particular angle, the windows and symbols are hidden from view, but once you step farther into the sanctuary – the windows are revealed; the symbols are discovered. Each individual window holds a Christian symbol: fish and loaf; Bible and cup.

I have rarely seen anything so thoughtfully designed for the glory of God. The gifts of God, for the people of God were everywhere. The wheat and cross, the boat and net. A holy place, tucked between a freeway and the woods, where once you step in, something comes into view that was not there before.

So, it was with the lepers. As Jesus steps forward into their village, something comes into view that wasn’t there before. The lepers, in all their desperation, and keeping a distance, call out, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!”

Not keeping his distance, Jesus gets close that when:

• They cry for mercy – he restores their sight.
• They wheeze out a whimper – he gives them their breath.
• They sob for compassion; he sews their flesh back together.
• They weep for comfort; he takes their stench and bathes them.
• All by these words: “Go and show yourselves to the priests.”
• That’s it. Seven words: “Go and show yourselves to the priests.”

 

And down the road they go on legs that can walk, and spines that can carry, and fingers that can feel. But. But then something comes into view that wasn’t there before: one of them turns around and comes back again. One of them, One out of ten – when they feels their fingers, takes a deep breath, sees their hands, comes back, celebrating God with an unimpeded voice, falls on their face to the dirt and sings the sweetest, simplest gratitude that ever was: “Thank you, Thank you, Thank you.”

What compelled this sole Samaritan to discover what the others did not? Here is a person of the wrong race, wrong religion, wrong worship, in the wrong place. The major point of contention between Jews and Samaritans was the proper place for the worship of God: for the Jews, Jerusalem in Judea; for the Samaritans, Mount Gerizim in Samaria.

The nine Jews make a B-line for Jerusalem.

• Only the Samaritan relocates worship in the presence of Jesus – the restorer of life.
• Only one recognizes that the place to worship God is at the feet of Jesus of Nazareth.^[iv]
• Only one returns for the doxology: Praise God from whom all blessings flow!

“But weren’t there ten? I’m sure there were ten. I thought I had counted ten,”

Jesus says, sounding a little playful.

“Where are the nine?”

Well, it’s perfectly obvious where the nine are – the nine are doing what Jesus told them to do. They are literalists – God love them; they are doing their duty as commanded, found their cleansing on the road, and seem to think that staying on the road is the just the thing. Like Forrest Gump with a football, they have scored a touchdown, crossed the goal, and go right on running, clear out of the stadium, where the celebration happens without them.^[v]

Barbara Brown Taylor says that the question is not really “Where are the nine?” but “Where is the tenth?” “Where is the one who followed their heart instead of their instructions?” ^[vi]

Jesus loves it when we make our way down the road and turn back again; when our hearts break into praise and we fall with abandon into song.

• We cry out in desperation; Jesus leads us to one another and gives us a church.
• We spin ourselves into anxious, quivering beings; Jesus is the lamp at our feet and illuminates our hope and helps us to breathe.
• We feel trapped in bodies that betray us; Jesus hears our weeping, claims us as his own, and never, ever, relinquishes us.
• We treat others as invisible; Jesus sends something into view, wakes us up, gives us eyes to see and hands to right the wrong.
• We treat ourselves as dead; act in ways that deny our humanity; Jesus calls us back upon the road for a new beginning:^[vii]
• It’s a cleansing, so therapeutic, that it gave ten lepers the means to be restored to their lives, homes, families, Temple.

Do you think Jesus is repulsed by your desperation?

It’s not so.

Do you think our God is repelled by your shame?

Think again.

When it’s too dark to see, our Lord, hears our pleas for “Mercy,” and something comes into view that wasn’t there before – like stained glass tucked into a holy place.

And it’s us – finally able to see the Healer of our Every Ill. And we turn around, fall at the feet of our Savior with our faces in the dirt –

thanking and praising, that we belong to him, and he to us.

Thanks be to the God of the Lepers.

 

ENDNOTES

[i] Luke 17:11-19 NRSV On the way to Jerusalem Jesus was going through the region between Samaria and Galilee. As he entered a village, ten lepers approached him. Keeping their distance, they called out, saying, “Jesus, Master, have mercy on us!” When Jesus saw them, he said to them, “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” And as they went, they were made clean. Then one of them, when he saw that he was healed, turned back, praising God with a loud voice. He bowed down at Jesus’ feet and thanked him. And he was a Samaritan. Then Jesus asked, “Were not ten made clean? But the other nine, where are they? Was none of them found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?” Then Jesus said to him, “Get up and go on your way; your faith has made you well.”

[ii] Leviticus 13:45-46.

[iii] Leviticus 13:45-46.

[iv] Dennis Hamm. What the Samaritan Leper Sees, CBQ 56, 1994, pp. 273-287.

[v]  Paul D. Duke. “Down the Road and Back.”  The Christian Century, September 27, 1995.

[vi]  As quoted by Paul D. Duke.

[vii]  Dennis Hamm.

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 1 John 4:7-21
June 23
David A. Davis
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“Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love.  God’s love was revealed among us in this way…”

I have shared before about a summer conference I attended each year when I was in high school. It was held in Western Pennsylvania on the campus of Westminster College north of Pittsburgh. It was called the New Wilmington Missionary Conference. It was a multi-generational conference attended by lots and lots of people. On the campus there was a huge outdoor covered auditorium. That is where evening worship happened each night with hundreds of people in the congregation. One year the keynote speaker in the morning and the preacher each night was a traveling evangelist from Brazil whose name was Juan Carlos Ortiz.

At one of those evening services of worship after someone else read the scripture for the sermon, the preacher stood up, looked out at the gathered community and said “let us love one another”. Then he went and sat down. After a long awkward silence, he stood up again and said with a bit more volume, “let us love one another” and sat down again. Then a third time he stood up at the podium to proclaim “let us love one another” with pretty much a shout. He sat down. There was a long time for silence reflection. It became apparent he wasn’t going to say anything else. Eventually, the congregation was led in song.

Now when I think about it, if he were not speaking five times in the morning and five times at night, I would wonder if the preacher earned his honorarium. Or maybe he was taking a lesson from Jesus asking Peter three times: “Do you love me more than these”. Regardless, it was the shortest and one of the most memorable sermons ever. He made his point. The preacher made his point on the clarity of I John on love.

“God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent God’s only Son into the world so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we loved God but that God loved us and sent God’s Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and God’s love is perfected in us.”

It happens over and over again. A family picture up on the wall. A photograph of a grandfather as a young man in his military uniform. A great grandmother’s baby picture. Someone looks at one of the newest generation in the family; maybe a child in arms at a holiday meal or a picture on a phone sent from cousin. Everyone can see it. Two, three generations later in the facial features, the hair, the eyes. She looks just like her great grandmother. He looks like grandpa when he was in high school. “Well, will you look at that!”  When our son Ben was only three or so, back when his hair was much more blond and mine still was, back when we could have dressed for Halloween as “The Incredibles”, a neighbor watched the two us walk up the driveway between the church and manse where we lived. Our backs were to him. He said to me later, “You know, you two walk the same way.”

According to I John, first among distinguishing traits for the followers of Jesus referred to as “Beloved”, first among the traits, first in the DNA is love. It is the author point to a picture of Jesus hanging on the wall and looking back at the Beloved. Looking back and forth and saying to the Beloved, the Body of Christ, “Well, will you look at that!” Perhaps it out aspirationally, or more of a prayer, maybe a plea. “We also ought to love one another.”

“By this we know that we abide in God and God in us, because God has given us of God’s Spirit. And we have seen and do testify that the Father has sent his Son as the Savior of the world. God abides in those who confess that Jesus is the Son of God and they abide in God. So we have known and believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and those who abide in love, abide in God, and God abides in them. Love has been perfected among us…”

I leave tomorrow morning for the meeting of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA). Part of the Presbyterian tradition is conducting a meeting by Roberts Rules of Order. Actually in the Presbyterian church, it has become a bit idolatrous. Because those who know Roberts Rules have a huge advantage and can sometimes manipulate a debate. But there will be 500 or so voting commissioners next week so Roberts Rules are pretty essential. “Perfecting the motion” is a term from Roberts Rules. It is the way the body works a particular motion that is on the table; amending it, amending the amendments, offering substitute motions, debating. The irony, of course, is that process of perfecting a motion can sometimes decay into an utter and complete mess. A confused moderator, a less than patient parliamentarian, debates that have nothing to do with the motion on the table. Perfecting love? Even with humanity’s best effort it can be a mess. But that’s I John on God’s love being perfected in us.

“Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness on the day of judgment, because as God is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love. We love because God first loved us. Those who say, “I love God” and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or a sister whom they have seen cannot love God whom they have not seen. The commandment we have from God is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also.”

Some folks from our congregation traveled to Israel-Palestine now I think ten years ago. When we were in Jerusalem, in the evenings after dinner, we invited various local speakers to come and sit down with us. An American rabbi who took his young family to live full time in Israel. A mission co-worker of our denomination who lived and served in Jerusalem with her husband who worked in Gaza for the Carter Center. Some of the folks we met with were members of group called “Parents Circle”. The members of “Parents Circle” are members of Jewish and Palestinian families who have lost family members due to the conflict. The organization has existed since 1995 and this week I went to the website to see if they still exist given the terror attacks in Israel and the ongoing war in Gaza.  The headline on their website right now reads “We are heartbroken” and it is followed by a compelling statement.

Listening to those few family members who joined us that night was something not to forget. There were still tears as they shared of the death of a child, a father, a mother, or a sibling. They pled for the end of hatred and violence. They pled for healing and a lasting peace. It was (it is) a gut-wrenching call for love.  A love that dares to rise out of death. A love that is bold and courageous love that is found among people where love has little reason to exist. Finding within an example of what Dr. King labeled “the strength to love”. A love that comes from nowhere but above. A love that overcomes hate and death. A I John kind of love.

Of all the upsetting video clips to be seen when protests and counter protests were being held on college campuses this summer including the one behind, one of the most chilling was the one from the University of Mississippi. That scene of white students confronting the mostly student of color who were encamped was so disturbing. The hateful things being said, the words being used, the gestures. The white students drinking beer like they are watching a football game. All of it just on the edge of becoming really violent. And somewhere, someplace, some time, a preacher says to the gathered community and beyond, “let us love one another” and then she turns and sits down.

“God is love and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them.” This verse is the call to worship in the liturgy for marriage in the Book of Common Worship in the PCUSA. Yes, I have lost count of how many times I have said it from here in the chancel or somewhere else with a couple standing before me. I will say it again in two weeks when Elizabeth Katen-Narvell and her fiancé Kyle stand here to make their solemn vows to one another.

But the text of I John really has nothing to do with marriage. Like I Corinthians, “Love bears all things” it is a lot bigger than marriage. A I John kind of love is much more than a romantic love. It is more prophetic than that. A I John  kind of love also comes with a promise. Earlier in the letter, the author writes “Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action. And by this we will know that we are from the truth and will reassure our hearts before God whenever our hearts condemn us, for God is greater than our hearts and God knows everything. (I John 3).

“God is love and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them” and “God is greater than our hearts”. God is greater than our feeble efforts to perfect God’s motion. That bold, courageous, prophetic, world changing I John kind of love comes full of promise. God is greater than our hearts! (let the church say “amen”!) I John on love. God in Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit on love. For the one who raised Christ from the dead promises to lift our hearts and enable, anoint, empower our ability to love. For Christ is Risen! He is Risen indeed! Abide in love as God abides in us. Before you weigh in on all that is going on around us, before you let the angst in your heart turn to a numb not caring anymoe, before judgement or anger or guilt or sorrow or despair rises up, before you find yourself overwhelmed by the magnitude of death and suffering in Gaza, Ukraine, and the rest of the world, before your weariness gets the best of you when it comes to an election that is still almost five months away, when love seems all together absent in the world and far from perfect in your corner of the world, your corner of the family, your corner of life and faith, remember and never forget God’s love for you made known in Jesus Christ. Remember and never forget that you are created in the image of God. Love, bold, courageous, prophetic, world changing, salvation bringing love is in your DNA. God has shown us what love looks like in Christ Jesus. Will you look at that? Will look at him

Abide in love because God abides in you.

 

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Matthew 25:31-46
June 16
David A. Davis
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Sheep and goats. Sheep over here. Goats over there. The sheep on one side. The goats on the other. Sheep and goats. Goats and sheep. The goats hear of judgement, curse, and the fire prepared by the devil and his angels. They hear “you did it NOT to me.” The sheep hear of invitation, inheritance, the kingdom, and eternal life. “You did it to me.” Sheep and goats. Here and there.

Both the sheep and the goats are there in that gathering of many nations before the Son of Man. Both are there before the Son of Man who comes in all his glory, complete with an entourage of angels. The Son of man was there before the nations on the throne of his glory. This Son of Man who, according to the teaching of Jesus, had no place to lay his head, who had the authority on earth to forgive sins, who came eating and drinking with sinners, who is the Lord of the sabbath, who was betrayed into human hands, handed over and condemned to death. This Son of Man who came not be served but to serve. This Son of Man who is seated at the right of power and is coming on the clouds of heaven. The goats and the sheep are gathered before the Son of Man and his glory. The Son of Man comes dripping in glory and there among the gathering of many nations, the sheep and goats finds themselves before his throne.

You did it to me. You did it not to me. Somewhere in that gathering when the Son of Man comes in his glory, James must poke an elbow into the Apostle Paul’s ribs. Paul who wrote “therefore since we are justified by faith.” Paul and “for by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing, it is the gift of God.” Paul and “we know that person is justified not by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ.” James listens to the Son of Man on the goats and sheep, smiles and gives Paul a little dig. James and “be doers of the word not merely hearers.” James and  “I by my works will show you my faith” and “faith by itself, if it has not works, is dead.” You did it. You did it not.

Some have made the argument that when Jesus speaks of “the least of these of my family, my siblings, in Greek my brethren, he was referring to those who would follow him. First to the twelve, and then to those who would take his name: apostles, disciples, preachers, martyrs, saints. Those who, in the name of Christ and for his sake, find themselves hungry, thirsty, a stranger, naked, sick, in prison. It is the least of these defined as some sort of apostolic succession; care and concern within the Christian community.

But a wider read, a broader understanding, a more universal affirmation of the least of these is more consistent with Jesus’ own ministry and the rest of his teaching. By his own example, Jesus was not so parochial. There is a boundlessness to his servanthood. He makes the family reference in his response to the sheep but not to the goats. And remember how he really turns the language of “greatest and least” on its head anyway. So all the hungry and all the thirsty and all the strangers, the naked, the sick, the prisoners in the gospel of Jesus are actually the greatest not the least.

I did some research this week to try to find out if farmers have to keep sheep and goats separated from each other. Turns out farmers are a lot like bible scholars, preachers, and people who go to church. There were lots of different opinions. One wrote that a sheep and a goat can be together and can actually become good friends. Another suggested it has more to do with a having a few animals or running a working farm. On a farm it is too risky for the health of the animals. The most convincing opinion I read was that the animals are just too different when it comes to physiology, psychology, and behavior. They have absolutely nothing in common except they are both animals.

So the Son of Man in glory seems to be reprising his role as a shepherd. Maybe the first thing a shepherd would do would be to separate the sheep and the goats. Goats over here. Sheep over there. The reader, the listener, the theologian, the interpreter, the preacher, and the farmer can’t help but ponder the difference. Sheep and goat difference. Right and left. Reward and judgement. But in the Son of Man’s telling before they were separate, they were together. In all their “sheep and goatness”, what they have in common ought not be missed.

“Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison?” Both sheep and goats had to ask. Both had missed when he was hungry or thirsty. Both missed that he was a stranger, that he was naked. Both goats and sheep didn’t know that he was sick or in prison. Sheep and goats. They all could see it was Jesus standing before them on the throne wearing nothing but glory. They knew then. But looking back, looking back not just at an instance here or an opportunity there, looking back over a stretch of time, looking back at all of life here on earth. Standing there in the kingdom of God with the canvas of history stretched all around them and they had no idea. Both the sheep and the goats didn’t know. They couldn’t see the hidden Jesus.

When it came to the least of these, when it came to the Son of Man present in the lives of the least of these, when it came to seeing the Lord’s face in the hungry and the thirsty, when it came to recognizing him in the stranger, in the one with no clothes, when it came to looking into the eyes of Jesus in the one who was sick, the one in prison, when it came to the least of these who are members of my family? They missed it. Both the sheep and the goats. The sheep and the goats were united, they were one when it came to their inability to see Jesus in the face, in the life, in the person, in the face of the other.

Jesus’ parable of the sheep and the goats is so familiar, ingrained, memorable. But it is far too easy to not remember that this teaching of Jesus comes right on the threshold of his suffering and death. Here in Matthew Jesus tells this parable just before the narrative takes the turn toward his betrayal, his trial, his beating, his humiliation, and his crucifixion. Another to think about it is that while James and Paul may have the luxury of theological banter at the kingdom table, and as the tradition goes toe to toe about faith and works and debating faith vs works, Matthew’s Jesus tells the parable and heads off to the cross. Matthew’s Jesus, the last word from the Teacher, the Rabbi, his last bit of teaching to the disciples, it isn’t a beatitude or a lesson about prayer or a quote from the prophets. He leaves them with the one about the goats and the sheep. Jesus points not to the law, not to the devil, not to the Pharisees, not to a miracle, not even to the twelve, but to the least of these. As if to say, when I am gone, when I am gone, see me, find me, look for me, serve me, not on the mountain where I delivered that sermon, not at the Mt of Transfiguration with Moses and Elijah, not in the temple, not in the synagogue, but among the hungry, the thirsty, the strangers, the naked, the sick, the imprisoned.

You remember that the Risen Christ told the women at the tomb to tell the others to go to Galilee and he will see them there. At the Great Commission Jesus tells them “Go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, teaching them everything I have commanded you.” In the fullness of the story of Jesus and all the nations, before preaching, before teaching, before making disciples, before conversation, before the Great Commission, it is “as you did it to one of the least of these….”. The first act of gospel proclamation is for the followers of Jesus to join all nations in feeding the hungry. The first step in sharing Christian faith is to find yourself among the nations pouring for the thirsty. The first move of evangelism is for the followers of Jesus to lead all nations in welcoming the stranger and clothing the naked and visiting the prisoner. “As you did it to one of these, you did it to me.” It ought to be such a part of who we are. It is such a part of who we are.

One preacher I listened to a long time ago offered the takeaway that all of us are part sheep, part goat. When it comes to living this parable there is a bit of goat and sheep in all of us. Once in a while Jesus says to us “you did it unto me”. Other times Jesus says “you did it NOT to me” At the very least, we have a lot in common with both those over here and those over there in the kingdom of heaven. Sheep, goats, and the hidden Jesus. But here is where we are different. Here’s what is different for those of us who follow Jesus. For us, for you, for me, Jesus has already told us where to look.

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Deuteronomy 6:1-9
June 9
David A. Davis
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 In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus answers the question about the greatest commandment in the context of getting grilled by the religious leaders. It is part of a conversation that Matthew introduces by telling the reader “the Pharisees went and plotted to entrap Jesus in what he said.” Their first try was the question about taxes and whether paying them was allowed by the commandments and the law. “Give to the emperor the things that are the emperor and to God the things that are God’s”, Jesus said. Next some Sadducees came to Jesus and asked a complicated question about a woman who married seven times and all of her husbands died. They wanted to know who her husband would be in the resurrection. Part of Jesus response? “God is not the God of the dead, but of the living.”

If was then that a Pharisee who was a lawyer asked about the greatest commandment in the law. “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: You love your neighbor as yourself.” There had to have been a follow-up question that didn’t make it into the print edition. There are always follow-up questions. “Excuse me, Teacher, did you say mind or might? Love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind or might? Moses was pretty clear as recorded in the Deuteronomist’s history. I’m pretty sure Moses said might as in strength. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your might. Might. M-i-g-h-t. Not Mind.”

No, that part of the conversation isn’t here on the page. But one cannot listen to a reading from Matthew 22 and reading from Deuteronomy 6 without hearing the difference. Strength or mind. Might or Mind? Sitting in a Presbyterian church in a university town, being part of the Reformed tradition that includes an historic affirmation of an educated clergy, in a congregation that has always valued the life of the mind, always trying to remember that “might does not make right”, knowing that Jesus said, “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they shall be called children of God”,  there is little doubt which of the two we would prefer, which of the two our ears prefer to hear, which of the two are easier for us to grasp. Love the Lord your God with all your mind.

Loving God with all your strength, all your might. Is it a reference to just loving God more, love God with more passion, loving God harder, more intensely? One of the letters to the churches in the Book of Revelation laments that the people had abandoned the “love they had at first”. It is as if one’s love for God should have that feeling of a first crush with all the butterflies, excitement, and spinning of the head.

Did Jesus say might or mind? “You have heard it said ‘you shall love God with all your might, but I say unto to you, you should love with your mind.” Would that it were that easy for those among us who would prefer to keep all conversations about God and Jesus and faith and discipleship and forgiveness and grace and righteousness and loving neighbor all safely academic and intellectual, tucked far up in the church’s own ivory tower. Heat, soul, and mind safely shrink-wrapped and sanitized, kept at a safe distance from reality, day to day life, our life in the flesh, and our life out in the world.

Matthew, Matthew, Matthew. In Mark’s gospel, Jesus answers the question about the great commandment like this: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind, and with all your strength.” Mind and strength. In Luke? Luke places the Great Commandment on lips of a lawyer. The lawyer asks Jesus, “”What must I do to inherit eternal life.” Jesus responds, “What is written in the law? What do you read there?” The lawyer answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” Jesus then says, “You have given the right answer; do this and you will live” Moses, Jesus, is it mind or strength? And the answer, of course, is yes!

Loving God with heart, soul, strength. In Hebrew, the word carries the connotation of force, exceeding force. Love God to the highest degree. One word included in the Hebrew dictionary definition is “muchness.” Love the Lord your God with all your might, all your strength, with exceeding force, with full abundance, with all of your muchness. As one paraphrase puts it, love God with all you got! Love the Lord your God with everything that you are, with everything you have. Out of your abundance, love the Lord your God. With heart and soul and with the full force of everything that defines you, love the Lord your God. There is no part of your life that is free from God’s expectation and God’s command. All is in service to your love of God. All of your muchness, all of your earthy, fleshy, day to day, muchness. Write that on your doorposts!

Not just on your doorposts. Not just on your forehead or on your hand. Keep it all close in your heart. Recite it all to your children. Talk about it all when you are home and when you are away, when you go to bed at night and when you get up to start the day. Don’t just write it on the doorposts. For that matter, don’t just write it up here in the chancel. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. Live it like you mean it. How you live it, how you live out in the world, how you serve, how you learn, how you give, how you love and how your faith seeps into every nook and cranny of life. Live it with all you got.

When I was a seminary student now four decades ago, my campus job was working in the Speech studios. Back then they were crammed on the third floor of a classroom building. The technology for recording was all reel to reel. The job included recording preachers in chapel, guest lectures all over campus, and providing classroom support. In a class where students learned stuff like baptizing babies and doing burial services, we would pump the sound of a crying baby or traffic noise into the room eventually making it so loud no one could hear a word. I remember the day I was taught how to load the reel to reel machines and edit and splice tape. The person in charge said to me, “I am not going to say anything but I want you to watch my hands very carefully.” His pedagogy was a sort of forerunner to putting together something form IKEA with only pictures. But I learned by watching.

In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus preached about not letting your right hand know what your left hand is doing when it came to giving alms and when you pray you should go into your room and pray in secret. It was Jesus warning against the public display of one’s piety that was more show than substance. An attempt by the overly religious to impress others rather than be faithful to God. A religious leaders version of a politician playing to the base. When Jesus welcomed the children everyone noticed. When Jesus broke barriers and talked to the Samaritan woman at the well, the disciples saw it. When Jesus stopped to heal the woman who reached out to touch his clothes, the crowds watched. When Jesus shout down death and called Lazarus out of the tomb, Mary and Martha were right there. When Jesus forgave those who were killing him from up on the cross, all who came to see that spectacle, they saw forgiveness too. When Jesus healed and liberated and took down and comforted and cared and loved and forgave, the disciples, the crowds, the church and the world ever since watched. You and I watch Jesus and only by his grace and the work of the Holy Spirit and with a whole lot of help from God, hopefully we have learned something about loving the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.

This week the Overseas Mission Study Center over at the seminary invited area pastors for an afternoon tea. It was a smaller gathering and most of us there had a relationship with the Center and the visiting scholars the last few years. The purpose was to thank us and our congregations and to brainstorm a bit about ways to build more pastoral and community support for the international guests. The staff members pointed out the primary mission of the OMSC is to provide space for rest and scholarly work. They shared the challenges the global partners face from loneliness, to transportation, to language, to learning more about America. At one point, Easten Law, the associate director shared something I can’t get out of my mind. One of the reasons the Center staff want to nurture relationships with local congregations, Eastin said, is that these faithful servants of World Christianity only know the American Church by what they see and read from media coverage around the world. We want them to see a different side to the Christian life in America. He was inviting us to help them learn and see a church and congregational life different from the one that dominates the news. How will they learn if without a congregation full of people striving to follow Jesus and love the God with all their heart, and all their soul, and all their strength?

When you love God with all of your strength, might, being, how you live your life out in the world becomes an act of worship itself that gives glory to God. Love the Lord your God with everything that you are, with everything you have. Out of your abundance, love the Lord your God. With heart and soul and with the full force of everything that defines you, love the Lord your God. There is no part of your life that is free from God’s expectation and God’s command. All is in service to your love of God both here in this place and out in the world. Lover the God who created you, the God who saves you, the God who loves you, love that God with the whole of your earthy, fleshy, day to day, self. With all the muchness you can muster.

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Micah 6:6-8
June 2
David A. Davis
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The television series “The Bear” is an award-winning Hulu show set in Chicago. At a church meeting last week, one person pointed out that the show won an award for “best comedy” and that it didn’t really feel like a comedy. That “The Bear” won the category over “Ted Lasso” and “Abbott Elementary” is a bit strange. Last year one of the episodes was called “The Fishes”. That is short for “The Feast of the Seven Fishes”. It was a telling of Christmas Eve dinner attended by the main character and his extended Roman Catholic family. It was an incredibly intense show. When I say there was nothing funny about it, there was nothing funny about it. It was like being invited in a large family gathering where all the worst arguments come up, old wounds service, and broken relations break even more. I kept thinking this is Christmas Eve, certainly there will be a feel-good ending. There was not. Part of what made the episode so intense and hard to watch was the incredible acting. A handful of well known and really good actors make guest appearances as various family members the viewer has never met. Their ability to bring the dialogue to life with tone and delivery and emotive body language is what took that episode to a whole other uncomfortable, this feels all too real, level.

Do justice. Love kindness. Walk humbly with your God. Act justly. Love mercy. Walk humbly with your God. Shout out kindness. Be fair. Shout out kindness. Think of God before you think of yourself. Do justice. Love kindness. Walk humbly with your God. There is a certain plain sense to the prophet’s words. A kind of free-standing self-evidence. Because of that clarity of meaning, that easy take away, this last part of the 8^th verse of the 6^th chapter of Micah is in the hall of fame of memory verses.

Despite all the stand-aloneness of the quote from the prophet, the phrase does come with a context in chapter 6. A context that serves to make it all the more meaningful. Within the book of Micah and the verses I offered in your hearing, “do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly with your God”, comes in a conversation between God, God’s people, and prophet. Biblical commentators describe it as courtroom drama with all of creation serving as the jury. “Hear you mountains, the controversy of the Lord” God has a controversy with God’s own people. A courtroom scene? Perhaps. But this morning as we gather at the Lord’s Table, I wonder if it can’t also be read as a really uncomfortable, difficult, heavy family dinner conversation.

God speaks first. “O my people, what have I done to you? In what have I wearied you? Answer me, please!” I brought you out of Egypt. I redeemed you from the house of slavery. I sent you Moses, Aaron and Miriam. Remember how Balaam had an answer for King Moab. Remember what happened as you crossed the Jordan from Shittim to Gilgal, how you crossed into the Promised Land. Do you remember any of that? Don’t you remember? Don’t you know all that I have done to save you?”

God asks for an answer from God’s people, as if God is yearning to understand, wanting to know where God went wrong. The challenge with this conversation in Micah is that, unlike that Christmas Eve dinner conversation on Hulu, the tone, the delivery, or any emotive non-verbal cues are left to our collective sacred imagination. The Lord sounds more disappointed than angry. God seems to be making more of a plea and less of an accusation. Elsewhere in the book the prophet describes violence, cheating, and lying among the people. Prophets, priests, and rulers being bought with a price. A whole people following the ways of evil earthly kings. Here in the family conversation, God describes the controversy of the people neglecting all God’s saving acts. The people turning away from all that God has done. God’s people not remembering salvation history. Do justice. Love kindness. Walk humbly with your God. It comes in the context of the people not remembering.

God, not being able to hide the disappointment, the heartbreak, falls silent waiting for an answer. The people speak as one. “With what shall I come before the Lord and bow myself before God on high? Shall I come before God with burnt offerings, a calve a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, ten thousand rivers of oil? Shall I my firstborn for my transgressions, the fruit of my body for the sin of the soul?

No explanation. No apology. No seeking forgiveness. The response is an inquiry as to what to do, how to make it right. How to make all this tension at the table go away. “Tell us what you really want, God!” Those escalating, exponential amounts of sacrifice mentioned, some might hear it as appropriately reflecting the urgency of the conversation. Others might hear a bit of sarcasm and a bit of attitude. Either way, humanity’s response reflects the once and future and always present dynamic in the divine/human relationship. The speaker tries to bargain with God. Humans being human. Like when folks like you and me confuse asking for forgiveness with keeping score or reducing our walk with God to an attempt to act more religious. Do justice. Love kindness. Walk humbly with your God. It is the prophet’s response to humanity’s timeless tendency to confuse God’s call on our lives with our own self-righteous piety.

At this point over dinner, someone else speaks. This time it is the prophet. “The Lord has told you, O mortal, what is good” with a gesture or a nod in the direction of God at the table. The Lord has already told you.”. “And what does the Lord require of you?” Is it yet another plea? Is it more exasperation and frustration? How many times to we have to tell you people? We being the prophets, the wisdom, the matriarchs, the patriarchs, the preachers and the whole choir angels. “God has told you what is good…What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God? Do justice. Love kindness. Walk humbly with your God. It is the prophet’s ageless call to the people of God to a faithful, faith-filled life, walking in the Light of the Living God.

A family dinner table conversation that feels all too real. Dinner conversation and the heartbreak of God. Violence, cheating, and lying among the people. Prophets, priests, and rulers being bought with a price. People following the ways of evil earthly kings. God’s heartbreak…still. Through it all God’s people not remembering all that God has done. Not realizing their own unfaithfulness mocks what God has done. Humankind’s inability to do what seems doable, “do justice, love kindness and walk humbly with your God”. It doesn’t seem like that tall of an ask; a pretty low bar when it comes to what God expects. It is not “drop everything right now and come follow me.” It is not “sell all of your possessions, give it to the poor, and come follow me. No, it is “be fair, kind, and walk humbly with God”.  And yet, God’s people then, now, and forever cause tears to flow down the face of God like an ever-flowing stream. God’s heartbreak.

God’s people failing to remembering, refusing to hear, that whether they know it or not, their lives, the lives of God’s people for good and for bad, in faithfulness and unfaithfulness, for better, for worse, our lives are part of something bigger. You and I are part of the very mission of God. Every time we do justice, and love kindness, and walk humbly with God, we are making history. We are part of God’s salvation history. From Moses, Aaron and Miriam to the Risen Christ himself on the throne of the right hand of God, from the prophet’s proclamation of the kingdom of God to Jesus’ teaching, healing, welcoming, from God’s steadfast love and liberating power to the cross and resurrection of Jesus Christ, from God’s Spirit moving of the waters of creation to the Holy Spirit interceding with sighs too deep for words. Right there in the midst of all that comes you and me and our every effort, every step, every commitment, every act, every time we yearn to do what is just and fair, encourage what is kind and helpful and seek to walk humbly before God and alongside your neighbors, every time we are doing God’s work. We part of God’s mission in the world. Do justice. Love kindness. Walk humbly with your God.

All the piety in the world can never measure up to a people who yearn to work for God’s justice. All the religiosity one can muster can never replace kindness. All the ritual sacrifice and the doctrinal perfection combined is nothing compared to a people who choose to try to walk with God rather than be right all the time. So come to the Table this morning. This dinner table conversation in the family of God begins with “Take, eat, this is by body.” It is our Savior’s invitation for you to come and feast on his grace. The only controversy is his dying love for you. Come to be forgiven, come to be nourished, come to be sent out again.

Sent out again to do justice. Love kindness. And walk humbly with your God.

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Matthew 13:1-23
May 26
Nathan T. Stucky
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“Listen! A sower went out to sow…”

I wonder. What do you know about God? What do you know about God’s kingdom? About the Gospel? About God’s work in the world?

I wonder if you’ll humor me for a second. Take just a moment and think of one thing you really believe about God – something for which you might say, “I know this to be true about God.”

Perhaps it is that God is love. Or God is kind. Perhaps you know deep in your being that God is with you. Or that God is abundantly gracious.

Go ahead. Take just a second. What do you know about God?

Now I wonder – if you’re willing to humor me just a bit more – I wonder if you can connect that knowledge about God with a particular location, a place. What I wonder is this: Where did you learn that about God?

If, for example, you believe down in the depths of your soul that God is love? Where did you learn that? Who taught you?

If you know to the core of your being that God is present, who were your teachers?

What do you know about God?

Where did you learn that?

Who taught you?

In the fall of 2007, I was ready to learn more about God. In our years since college and getting married, Janel and I had spent six years on the eastern shore of Maryland where I served as a youth pastor. We then returned to Kansas where I farmed for about two years. Those two years had become a season of intense vocational discernment.

In 2007, I gave up the fight. I finally owned up to the fact that I was called to ministry. We would leave the farm and move to Princeton so I could learn more about God as a student at Princeton Theological Seminary. I would learn more about God from faculty in theology, bible, history, and practical theology. I would learn from fellow classmates, from field education and coursework. I would learn in the library and Stuart Hall, and yes, in the seminary chapel. The quest, after all, was not merely to know about God, but to know God.

I came to Princeton because I wanted to know God, and I wanted to know how I might best serve God in the world.

Where do we go to learn more of God? Who will teach us? What might we learn?

What do you know of God? Who taught you? Where did you go to learn it?

“Listen! A sower went out to sow…”

Some years ago, a colleague sent me an article about the Parable of the Sower by an ecological geologist from Johns Hopkins University. The article sought an ecological interpretation of the Parable. It argued that “[r]eflecting on the dynamics of Galilean ecology can deepen our understanding of [the] parable.”[1]

The article’s author, George W. Fisher, recognized the dominant lines of interpretation for the Parable. They are the interpretations that I grew up with. Perhaps you’ve heard them, as well. They read in the Parable not a single story, but four stories within a single parable, and those four stories convey three failures and one success.

Seed on good soil equals success. Seed on path, rocky ground, or thorny ground equals failure. The moral of the story is simple. Be good soil. But what does that even mean? Can soil simply choose to be good? How does one become good soil?

Where do we go to learn more of God and Gospel?

As I already mentioned, Fisher thought Galilean ecology might be able to teach us something.

Over and against the typical three failures and one success interpretations, an ecological perspective attuned to the particularities of the Galilean countryside recognizes a deeper thread of connection between all four settings. According to Fisher, Galilean ecology challenges the reader to embrace the parable as a single Gospel story rather than four smaller tales. On this reading, each landing place of the sower’s seed leads logically to the next. The story tells us not only about the growth of grain, but also and perhaps more significantly about the growth of soil. Each landing place for the seed moves the reader through the earth’s natural processes of growing soil.

The first seeds in the parable land on a path where “birds came and ate them up.” Here we might ask, “Why is this a failure?” The seed provides nourishment for the birds. Additionally, birds provide a primary outlet through which seed moves. The seed moves through the birds’ digestive tract (In fact, some seeds will not germinate unless they pass through the digestive tract of an animal!) and then the seed is deposited pre-fertilized in another location, perhaps on rocky ground. There it can germinate, even amid thin soil. Yes, the thin soil limits the lifespan of the plant, but when the plant dies, its organic matter decays back into the ground. The addition of this tiny gift of organic matter renders the soil just a little less thin. Over generations of this life and death process, soil gradually grows. In time, the soil can sustain larger plant life, perhaps thornbushes.

Those thornbushes help hold the soil in place, attract greater populations of birds and other wildlife, and thus attract even greater additions of organic matter to the slowly growing soil. In time, the cycles of life, death, and new life build soil that is capable of a remarkable harvest, maybe even a hundredfold.

Or at least this is what George W. Fisher was arguing in his article.

Now to be clear, I appreciated Fisher’s article from the beginning. It demonstrated the kind of interdisciplinary theological exploration that can animate the life of Christian faith. The preacher in me recognized a powerful sermon illustration or two.

But I also had questions, some of which undoubtedly emerged from a lifetime of hearing the parable as a tale of three losers and one winner. I wanted to believe it…but I just wasn’t sure.

“Listen! A sower went out to sow…”

Where do we go to learn more of God and Gospel? Who will teach us?

If you pull into the Farminary driveway, stop when you are about twenty feet from the road, and look ahead and to the left, you see a perfectly straight clearing about forty feet wide that runs through the woods. That clearing’s longer story forever links it in my mind to the Parable of the Sower.

The path was originally cut in the 1950s so that a natural gas pipeline could be installed.

Because gas pipelines are inspected aerially, the wide path over the gas line needed to be maintained. To facilitate this maintenance and access for the heavy equipment that would do the maintenance, the utility company dug out six to eight inches of topsoil and then backfilled with gravel. The result? A forty-foot wide gravel road, up to eight inches deep, utterly devoid of plant life, and intended for heavy machinery.

You can see this gravel path circled in red from this 1957 aerial photograph of the land that is now the Farminary – a stark white path cutting through the woods.

And yet…even amid all the hubbub of the laying of the gas line and the construction of that path, and the laying of the stone, the local birds carried on with their lives.

No doubt, little time passed between the completion of the rocky path and the first seed deposit by an avian friend. Perhaps the wind blew the thinnest layer of dust atop the gravel. Eventually, it happened. One of those seeds took root. And with that, the ecological parade of resistance to the machinations of the world had begun. Yes, the first plants likely only survived a few days, but with each passing, the forces of life atop the gravel path grew.

Seventy years of life, death, and new life have transformed the gravel access road. If you go look now, this is what you’ll see – a verdant path.

When you walk the path now, you have no sense that you are walking on a gravel foundation. You feel only the softness of grass and soil beneath your feet. By the time the Farminary began in 2015, the gravel was completely undetectable.

I never would have known about the gravel road had our neighbor not mentioned it to me one day at the farm.

Eventually, the possible connection between the path and the parable dawned on me. When it did, I headed straight for the barn and grabbed a shovel. The shovel provided an easy way to test the stories. Did the path really use to be a gravel road? Could the parable really be a story of both the growth of seeds and the growth of soil through endless seasons of life and death?

I carried the shovel straight to the path, took the handle in both hands, raised my hands above my head, and then drove the tip of the shovel into the ground. Clink! The unmistakable sound of steel shovel against gravel rang through the air.

That moment – and the previous seventy years of life and death on the path – forever changed my reading of the Parable of the Sower. I can no longer read it as a story of three failures and one success. I can only see it as one long story that encompasses countless generations, endless cycles of life, death, and new life that in time can bring about a rich harvest even from the places and spaces that today seem most lifeless.

But what about Jesus’s explanation of the parable?

What about the evil one who snatches away what is sown, or the trouble and persecution that arises on account of the word, or the cares of the world and the lure of wealth that choke the word?

Well, friends, I think the witness and testimony of the stone path turned verdant walkway at the farm stands. Life still gets the last word.

The evil one cannot stop it.

Trouble and persecution cannot stop it.

The cares of the world cannot stop it.

Not even the allure of wealth can stop it.

Yes, it will require countless generations of life, death, and new life, but Life persists. The Gospel of Jesus Christ is the Gospel of Life. It is the Gospel of Life through Death, and the gates of hell will not prevail against it.

Thanks be to God, we have the privilege of hearing that message week in and week out here in this sanctuary. But friends, there are more witnesses to this Gospel.

Where will we go to perceive it?!

The hills rejoice. The rocks cry out. The trees clap their hands. Mountains and hills burst forth into song. Creation groans.

Are we willing to listen? Are we willing to go there?

Friends, you have my permission to go to the Farminary any day. Take a shovel with you or borrow one from the barn. Go to the path. Try to drive the shovel into it. And pay attention. Open yourself to the witness of the rocks and the birds, the stones, the thorns, and the soil. They just might bear witness to the Gospel of life, to the possibility that the parable tells one long story of life, not four stories that neatly fit into our categories of success and failure.

But you don’t have to go that far. You don’t have to drive the three miles from here to the farm. Just step outside! Look down!

Do you see it?

Do you see the life growing straight out of the path, out of the sidewalk?

Do you hear the witness to the fate of every lifeless path?

Plants and vegetation sprouting in the cracks proclaiming the power of life, even in the face of our most diligent efforts to cover it up, pave it over, or trample it down.

What do you know about God?

Where did you learn that?

Who taught you?

Are you willing to learn from seeds, birds, rocks, and thornbushes? Are you willing to learn from soil, waters and trees? They bear the weight of human sin, but they also proclaim a longer story.

In the end, life gets the last word.

 

[1] Fisher, 378.

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Romans 8:22-30
May 19
Mark Edwards
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Psalm 108:1-6
May 12
David A. Davis
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My heart is steadfast, O God, my heart is steadfast. Steadfast. Steady. Fixed. Always ready for you, Holy One. Deep within my soul, always resolute. Firm in my love for you. Solid as a rock in my life lived for you. Yes, I am a strong foundation of faithfulness and loyalty to you, the living and loving God. I am always here for you, O God of all.

My heart is steadfast, O God, my heart is steadfast. If I repeat it, if I say it over and over, maybe it will be true. Maybe I can make it happen. I sure do yearn for my heart to be steadfast, to be forever faithful to you, O God. To be fixed, locked on you. But you know, you know me Lord. You know when I sit down and when I rise up. You know my inner most thoughts. When I am on a mountaintop full of gratitude in this walk with you, when I feel like you and I are as close as could be, when I feel like singing “And God walks with me and talks with me, and tells me I am God’s own”, you are there. But I know you are there when I wander, when I find myself in a distant place. Those moments of a spiritual life best described as arid, empty, maybe even dark. The kind of darkness where I can’t see my hand in front of my face, much less your hand in front of my face. You tell me, you promise me you are there. Right there even when I am waist deep in the pig slop of life like the lost son in the parable. Even then, you are there. If I am honest, God, the mountaintop, the “in the garden” moments and the pig slop feelings can come on the same day, during the same night. Or at least in the same season. Yeah, sometimes it seems like my life with you, this steadfast heart of mine is more like whiplash. Back and forth. Back and forth.

My heart is steadfast, O God, my heart is steadfast. Let’s not kid ourselves, Mighty One, when it comes to steadfast, that’s you. You’re the steadfast one in this relationship. You are the one who told Moses up on Mt Sinai that you are “a God merciful and graciousness, slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for the thousandth generation.” (Ex 34) The psalmists testify to you being steadfast over and over again. “I trusted in your steadfast love; my heart shall rejoice in my salvation”. (Ps 13) “All the paths of the Lord are steadfast love and faithfulness.” (Ps 25) “Let your face shine upon your servant; save me in your steadfast love.” (Ps 31) “Because your steadfast love is better than life, my lips will praise you.” (Ps. 63) “Show us your steadfast love, O Lord, and grant us your salvation…Steadfast love and faithfulness will meet, righteousness and peace will kiss each other.” (Ps.85) “God’s steadfast love endures forever.” (Ps. 100) “Your steadfast love is higher than the heavens, your faithfulness reaches to the clouds.” (Ps. 108) The Book of Psalms is so full of your steadfast love, your steadfast-ness. You write the book on steadfast.

My heart is steadfast, O God, my heart is steadfast. It is not just wishful thinking, Lord. But it is aspirational. I want to be steadfast. Deep, deep down I have this craving that won’t go away. A craving to be steady for you. To be ready, and willing, and able to make a difference for you. But darn it, it is hard sometimes. So hard sometimes. The weight of the world really isn’t an empty expression anymore. At least not for me. Not for those you have entrusted to my love and care. To make the list, to pray the litany, to go over the weight of the world in my heart again and again, it can bring such weariness, worry, and discouragement. Honestly, the long list doesn’t help much when it comes to my heart being steadfast. I find myself relying more and more on your promise of the Holy Spirit interceding for us, not just with sighs but with groans, groans to deep with words. I am guessing that’s a better prayer, a more effective prayer, at least a holier prayer since it is sort of your prayer. You, O Maker of heaven and earth. You who created this world and once called it good.

To be fair, it’s not just the heavy stuff that challenges my heart being ready for you. More often than not, it is just the busyness and pace of the day to day. It isn’t always the pull of the earthly powers and principalities that chip away at my steadiness of heart. All the blessings, all the good things, everything I am so thankful for in life, it can all, they can all distract me a bit when it comes to my life of faith. I know that sounds kind of strange to say, Lord. It’s not that when things are going great or when I am in a good place, the best of places inside that I forget you all together. Or that I only turn to you when I need something or life is so hard. No, I really don’t look at you and me, our relationship, as a transactional one. I guess what I am trying to say is that when it comes to my heart being steadfast for you, it isn’t just the weight of the world or the pains of life, or the reality of death and loss that makes my heart and soul shakey at times, sometimes, maybe most times, it’s just me. My humanity. My feeble self. But I guess you know that too, don’t you, O God of steadfast love, endless grace, and an endless stream of forgiveness.

My heart is steadfast, O God, my heart is steadfast. The wonder of your love is that when I pray that, when I pray it twice yearning to be so, you already know. I am guessing you appreciate the effort, the yearning, buy you know. You knew it when you called Moses and told him of your steadfast-ness. You knew it when the songs of the psalmists overflowed with your steadfast-ness. That when it comes to understanding steadfast for me, for us, it has to be yours not ours. That you will always be steadfast and we…well, we will keep trying. Maybe that is why in your wisdom, and in your mercy, and in your love, and in your plan of salvation, and in the fullness of time, you showed us steadfast this side of heaven. You showed us steadfast in human form. You allowed your steadfast love to come all the way down to our human flesh. Steadfast became flesh and dwelt among us. Thank be to you O God of our salvation!

Your Son, our Savior, Jesus the Christ. Like us, he knew temptation in very way, he knew what it meant to be human in every, but unlike us, he was without sin. He was steadfast. His teaching, whether in the temple or out somewhere surrounded by a crowd or just with the twelve, always pointed to you and what it means to live for you and to follow him as his disciple. His embrace of the outcast, his favor of the poor, his touch of the unclean, his care for the sick, his concern for the widow, the imprisoned, the child, it is all so steadfast. How he stepped right up to religious and cultural boundaries and then crossed right over, how he spoke truth to power and challenged those who had so much, how he offered forgiveness over and over and over again….and with all of that, calling us to go and do likewise. Yes, you showed us steadfast, Of God so full of compassion and righteousness.

The Savior of the world, our Messiah, God with us, God’s steadfast love with us, he knew grief, he shed tears, he expressed anger, he lamented, he loved and loved deeply, Holy One. But he also suffered. People said hateful things to him and about him. His knowledge, authority, and relation to you were questioned, doubted, and denied by the most religious. He was betrayed, denied, and deserted by those he loved. Those he taught so much. Those he showed so much. He was arrested, beaten, whipped, humiliated, spat upon, mocked, and brutally murdered. In all of it, Lord, every bit of it, including “not my will but yours, be done”, in all of it he was steadfast. Your son took steadfast to the cross. Jesus Christ endured the weight of the world. He endured the weight of the world then and he endures the weight of the world now. We don’t take on that weight of world alone, thanks to you O God. You and your Son.

My heart is steadfast, O God, my heart is steadfast. Jesus didn’t have to pray it twice, did he? Yes, he showed us steadfast. You showed us steadfast, Eternal One. Before it was his steadfast love for us, it was your steadfast love for us. Before and after his steadfast love, it is your steadfast love. Yes, in the mystery of your great love for us, you gave life again when death had taken him from you and us. In his rising from the grave, you showed us, not just your steadfast love, you showed us that nothing can defeat your great and mighty and everlasting steadfast love for us and for the world. What’s more, you promise that the wonder and the mystery of your great love lives on in the world in and through us in the resurrection power of Jesus. Your steadfast-ness in and through us, only by grace and the work of the Holy Spirit.

I discovered something this week, O God of resurrection life. I notice that once you showed us steadfast in Jesus, the word steadfast almost leaves the bible’s page. Compared to how many times it appears in the Hebrew scripture, steadfast is almost non-existent in the New Testament. Five times by my count, Lord. And all but one refer to the call of following Jesus, the call of discipleship, the call for us to be steadfast. You write the book on steadfast. You show us steadfast in human form. You call us, even us to be steadfast. Knowing full well, the only thing, the only way, the only steadfast in our heart when it comes to you, is your resurrection spirit at work in us.

My heart is steadfast, O God. I only have to pray it once. We only have to pray it once. For it is you at work in us. Your resurrection power and promise and life at work in us. And so, we can live into your call, not with aspiration but with confidence, taking to our heart, to our feeble little hearts the exhortation of the Apostle Paul to be “steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.” (I Cor 15).

Steadfast. Steadfast. Thank you, God. Thank you. “Now to you who by this power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, to you be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.” (Eph 3)

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1 John 5:1-6
May 5
David A. Davis
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Victory and conquering. “Death has been swallowed up in victory. Where O death is your victory? Where O death is your sting? The sting of death is sin, the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ! The Apostle Paul on victory. Paul on victory in I Corinthians 15. “Behold, I tell you a mystery! We will not all die, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound and the dead will be raised…Thanks be to God who gives us the victory of our faith.” The Apostle Paul on the victory of our faith. Resurrection and eternal life.

“In all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” The Apostle Paul on not just conquering but more than conquering. The more than conquering of our faith. For Paul it is the promised steadfast, eternal, never-ending, love of God. Not just in Paul, but in the witness of scripture, victory and conquering belong to God and the righteousness of Jesus Christ. “All the ends of the earth have seen the victory of our God”, proclaims the psalmist. (Ps 98).

Victory and conquering.  So when someone gets up to read I John, when you come upon some victory language in I John, the muscle memory of our faith knows where this is going. “For whatever is born of God conquers the world. And this is the victory that conquers the world….. (wait for it)….this is the victory that conquers the world….our faith. Who is that conquers the world but the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God.”  Victory and conquering here in I John. Not God. Not Jesus. But our faith? “For the love of God is this, that we obey God’s commandments. And God’s commandments are not burdensome, for whatever is born of God conquers the world.” Our faith? Our victory? Our conquering? You sort of want to tell the writer of I John to take some time to look around at the world. Hard not to think that more often than not, the world wins.

Let’s try this for a takeaway: The Spirit is at work in those claimed by the saving grace of Jesus Christ calling us to a life of faithfulness and commitment best defined by love. That love has been revealed to us first and foremost in the life, suffering, and death of Jesus. When the followers of Jesus live in obedience, ordained by the water of his baptism and forever drawn to the blood of his selfless love, God’s love works to overcome the world. How about this takeway? The victory of our obedience furthers the work of God’s love in the world. Not just a takeaway but a promise from God about how God’s love works.

In the Greek of the New Testament, victory and conquering share the same root word. The victory, victory of faith is our obedience. Our discipleship. Our living the gospel of Jesus Christ. What forever threatens the world’s power, what turns the world on end, is the foolishness of God that is wiser than human wisdom and the weakness of God that is stronger than human strength. What pushes back on the ways of the world, is the faithfulness of the followers of Jesus. Followers who yearn to have the same mind of Christ, “who, though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and become obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.”  (Phil 2)

Whenever we gather at this Table, we use the words from the Apostle Paul in First Corinthians. “For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.” Not you proclaim his rising from the dead until he comes again. Here at this Table we remember his obedience. The death and resurrection of Jesus. His obedience on the cross and God’s power in raising him from the dead. God’s love at work. Yes, conquering and victory come in obedience of faith and the promise of resurrection hope. God’s love at work in and through God’s people.

Years ago, I was with a group of pastors in the Civil Rights Museum in Atlanta. It was a week day and we were outnumbered by kids of all ages and colors on school field trips. One of the museum displays was a surround sound film that showed clips and scenes from the March on Washington in 1963. You could tell the few pastors in that room because most everyone else came up to about our waist. At one point the film showed everyone in the crowd and those up on the stage locking arms and singing. The sound in the room became louder at that point. I looked around and saw all the pastors singing along, including me. Some of the kids looked up at us and giggled a bit. But us grownups couldn’t help it. We kept singing. You know what we were singing……We Shall Overcome.  “Whoever is born of God overcomes the world.” I John.

Many of the children were moving through the museum with clipboards and an assignment page. You know how it works. They were assigned particular people to find in the various exhibits. At one point as I stood before a wall of leaders, pictures, dates, and names, a little girl stood next to me looking way up at this mountain of people. “Can I help you find someone?” “Yes” she said. “I’m looking for Ruby Bridges.” I leaned over to give a hint, “let’s look for the picture of a girl who was even younger than you.” You will remember that Ruby Bridges was the first African American girl to integrate her school in 1960. She was in kindergarten and had to be escorted by her mother and law enforcement officers every day to school.

One of those days her teacher, Mrs. Henry, thought she saw Ruby talking to the crowds along the sidewalk who were shouting mean and horrible things to her. The teacher asked Ruby about it. “I wasn’t talking to them, Mrs. Henry. I was praying for them. Usually, I prayed in the car on the way to school, but that day I’d forgotten until I was in the crowd. Please be with me, I’d asked God, and be with those people too. Forgive them because they don’t know what they’re doing.”  The school girl and I, we found Ruby Bridges on the wall in Atlanta that day. When she read about her, she was reading about one little girl’s faith overcoming the world.

Faith overcoming the world. It comes in all shapes and sizes. And it happens all the time.

Come to the Table that your faith might be fed, and nourished. For we shall then be sent into the world to live our faith. To live the gospel of Jesus Christ.  And one day, one day, one day!

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1 John 4:7-21
April 28
Lauren J. McFeaters
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 There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear;

for fear has to do with punishment,

and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love.

We love because God first loved us.

 

There’s a life-time of learning about love, and so many ways to learn.

There’s a life-time of learning about how to love, and so many ways to learn.

I learn a lot about love through music. Maybe it’s having been sung to sleep as a child, or growing up in a house full of music. My father put himself through college by playing the bass-fiddle in a quartet. My mother played piano, my sister the cello, my brother the trumpet.

What instrument did you play Lauren? Well, the joke in my family is that I played the radio – because after trying multiple instruments it was clear I was not – shall we say, adept. But I loved to sing. There’s something about singing and learning about love.

Here’s the music I love:  Bill Withers’ Lovely Day; Van Morrison’s Hymns to the Silence; Rhiannon Giddens’ Black is the Color of My True Love’s Hair.

And we learn so much about God’s love through the music of Hymns, Psalms, and Spirituals. They lift us beyond ourselves and take us to church. And we all have our favorites. For me it’s the Canticle of the Turning: My Soul Cries Out with a Joyful Shout; The Coventry Carol; and   Down to the River to Pray. Church music revives us, moves us, tells our bodies to move and sway – especially when we are out of sorts, soul sick, or have lost our way.

The preacher of 1^st John knows this. She knows her church is out of sorts, soul sick, and most of all, have lost their way. They have forgotten who they are and to whom they belong. Some have abandoned the congregation; many are whining, complaining, dissatisfied – wanting so much for the Christian life to be without sacrifice and obedience. ^[ii] There are quarrels and clashes; lack of consideration for differing opinions. Our preacher’s heart is breaking for a church caught up in narcissism and forgetful of the peace that comes from the Spirit. And so to lift them beyond themselves, to revive them, to take them to church, she writes them a song. Rather than snarking back she chooses to sing; she writes them a song:

 

Dear Ones, stop and listen,

Every one of you is loved by God –

There is no competition.

Every one of you is created to love and be loved –

Not to bully and harass.

This is how God shows love for us:

God sent Jesus into the world

so we might live in peace through him –

to be one in the Spirit.

This way, love comes home.

And we love because God first loved us. ^[iii]

 

So often we get this upside down and backward: “Believe in  Jesus; keep the commandments; live a moral life; give up your bad habits – and God will love you with an everlasting love.” But it’s not that way at all. ^[iv]

God’s love is not a reward for anything we’ve done or can do. Rather, God’s love sets us in motion; sometimes to do the very thing, in love, we thought we could not do:

• Reaching out to someone to whom we’ve been estranged;
• Forgiving ourselves the thing that everyday messes with our head;
• Turing from your pew to say to a friend, “I see you’re hurting. What can I pray for?”
• Moving across the bedroom to say, “I’d like to talk about what’s keeping us apart.”

Sometimes I can’t get over how patient God is with us. Patient too, because ultimately in the life of faith, love is not a feeling; love is a living encounter with our Loving God who knows our deepest need: And our deepest need is not proof there is a God somewhere, who exists to give us love. What our heart seeks is the love of God, who is right here, knee-deep in the mud and mire of our existence — a Risen Christ who comes to us every day to give life and hope. ^[v]

In last week’s sermon, Dave preached Psalm 23 and about the mud and mire of the shepherd’s job in leading and protecting the sheep. Dave mentioned John Galloway, a pastor who authored a book on being a pastor. In that book, Galloway describes his leadership style, his protection of his flock, not as a shepherd, but as a rancher. Galloway says, I am better leading from the front – not the rear. My congregation calls Associate Pastors to serve our church because they are better shepherds than me. ^[vi]

Well, I laughed out loud. I laughed because Dave Davis is not a rancher – leading from the front – out ahead of all of us. Dave Davis is a shepherd. I am too. So Nassau Church – you called two Pastor Shepherds to lead.

I want to say something about being an Associate Pastor.

• Being your Associate Pastor is a delight and a treasure.
• An Associate, however, is not someone who plays the second violin to a Senior Pastor’s first violin.
• Being an Associate Pastor is not about being a Junior Pastor hoping one day to be Senior Pastor; a novice awaiting a larger role.
• Nor is it someone in training for something more distinguished and illustrious. No way. No how.
• Because in our Presbyterian tradition, we are not called to titles or position – we are called to functions of the church, where hopefully our gifts match a need, and a need blossoms from a gift, and then together we serve because God, in God’s infinite wisdom, equips us to serve.
• I’m your Associate Pastor because together we’ve had had songs to sing, and care to give, and compassion to plant, and grief to trudge through, and loved ones to bury, and children to baptize, and marriages to bless, and anxiety to manage, and relationship betrayals to cope with, and aging to contend with, and faith to mature, and it’s seeds to sew.

Here’s the thing about being one of your pastors – and I’ll go ahead and speak for Dave – our job – our one and only job – is to love you. To love you through the knee-deep mud and muck; the joy and adventure; the mire and slog; and the wonder and exultation of the Christian life. And most of all – most of all to remind you that our Risen Lord is ready each day to love you with a perfect love.

A love that can:

• Cast out your fear and dread; your horror, and dismay.
• A perfect love that sets in your heart a song to sing;
• an action to take;
• a mantle to pick up;
• a courage to find;
• a truth to tell;
• a reason not to stay;
• a path to choose;
• a fresh breath to revive your soul;
• a lesson on love found in a song of tenderness.

We have through the love of God, a Lord who is right here, knee-deep in the mud and mire of our existence — a Risen Lord who first loved us, so we may be free and bold and confident before God – the God who is our Song.

 

ENDNOTES

[i] 1 John 4:7-21 (NRSV) Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us.

By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and do testify that the Father has sent his Son as the Savior of the world. God abides in those who confess that Jesus is the Son of God, and they abide in God. So we have known and believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them. Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness on the day of Judgment, because as he is, so are we in this world.  There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love. We love because he first loved us. Those who say, “I love God,” and hate their brothers or sisters, are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen. The commandment we have from him is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also.

[ii]  M. Eugene Boring and Fred B. Craddock. The People’s New Testament Commentary.  Louisville, KY:  Westminster John Knox Press, 2004, 743.

 

[iii] 1 John 4: 7-21 adapted from Eugene H. Peterson’s The Message:  The New Testament in Contemporary English. Colorado Springs, CO:  NavPress Publishing Group, 2002.

 

[iv] Russell E. Mase. “God in His Grace.” Day 1:  A Ministry of  the Alliance for Christian Media, Atlanta, December 13, 1998.

 

[v] Attributed to Frederick Buechner.

 

[vi] David A. Davis. “Other Sheep?” April 21, 2024, Nassau Presbyterian Church.

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