Worship
Dust
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.”
Very Good, Again
Let Me Show You
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.
Deep Water Faith
Luke 5:1-11
February 9
David A. Davis
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In the church’s collective memory, Jesus’ call of the disciples can become pretty boilerplate, even formulaic. Jesus walks by the water where some fishing boats are pulled up along the shore. Some fisherman are tending to their nets after the latest outing. Jesus says, “Come, follow me and fish for people.” The fisherman-disciples immediately drop their nets and go. And you and I start singing, “I will make you fishers of people, fishers of people, fishers of people, if you follow me!” Truth is, when it comes to Matthew and Mark’s gospel, that crisp formula is pretty close to what’s there. Early in the two gospels, after Jesus is baptized and John the Baptist leaves the stage, after Jesus is tempted by Satan in the wilderness, Jesus walks by Peter, Andrew, James, and John and calls them to follow. Immediately, they drop their nets and go.
In the Gospel of John, the first two disciples are identified as disciples of John the Baptist. They heard John point to Jesus and say, “Behold, here is the Lamb of God!” They promptly left John to follow Jesus. They asked Jesus what he was looking for. Jesus answers, “Come and see”. One of those two was Andrew, who then went to get his brother Simon Peter. The next day, Jesus found Philip. Philip found Nathaniel. No net drop. No immediately. Only “Come and see.”
That brings us to Luke’s gospel and Jesus’ call of the disciples. In Luke’s telling of the gospel, Jesus already knows those of those fishermen, and they know of him. In addition to telling of Jesus’ baptism, his temptations in the wilderness, and his call of the disciples, here early on Luke tells of Jesus teaching in synagogues, healing, and casting out demons. As Luke tells, “a report about Jesus spread through all the surrounding country.” Just before Jesus calls the disciples, Jesus heals Simon’s mother, who had a fever. After a long day of teaching and healing, the fisherman hosted the carpenter at his house. Jesus knew of the fishermen, and the fishermen knew of Jesus. That makes it all feel a bit different.
Luke 5:1-11
Lake Gennesaret is another name for the Sea of Galilee. Clearly, the pressing in crowd has already heard about Jesus. Heard from Jesus. The word choice here of “pressing in on him to hear the word of God” connotes a sense of urgency in the Greek text. When those fishermen were out of their boats washing their nets, Jesus wasn’t just walking by. Having been to the house the night before, Jesus asks Simon to take his boat out just a bit so he could turn and teach the crowds from the boat. Not the Sermon on the Mount, the sermon in the boat. As Jesus finishes preaching to the pressed in crowd, he tells Simon “To put out into the deep water and let down your nets for a catch.” Or as the King James version puts it, “Launch out into the deep.”
Simon must have wondered about the carpenter giving the fisherman advice. But there had been this report about Jesus doing and saying amazing things, and Jesus had been over to the house. So Simon bites his tongue and drops a net that immediately fills to the point of bursting. Other fishermen come with their boats to help with the catch. Such a catch that all the boats are about to sink out there in the deep water. Simon drops to his knees among all those fish. “Go away from me, for I am a sinful man!” Jesus doesn’t go anywhere but stays right there among the fish and boats. Jesus stays right there smack in the middle of their way of life in the deep water and says, “Do not be afraid; from now on you will be catching people”. They all bring the boats, the nets, and fish to shore, and “they left everything and followed Jesus.” They didn’t just drop their nets. They left everything. Even all those fish left there for the crowd.
John tells a similar story of an abundant catch of fish in his gospel. You will remember it, John’s account of an appearance of the Risen Christ along the shore of the Sea of Tiberius. Yet another name for the Sea of Galilee. The disciples were all together again at their boats. Simon Peter announces that he is going fishing. The others decided to join them. At the break of day, Jesus is standing at the water’s edge. The disciples can’t see that it is him. “Children, you have no fish, have you?” The weathered fishermen admitted they had not caught a thing all night. Jesus said, “Cast the net to the right side of the boat, and you fill find some.” Once again, they catch so many fish the nets are about to break. John counts them. 153 fish they caught. When they came ashore, there was a fire burning. Instead of saying “Come and see” there in John, Jesus says “Come and have breakfast”
New Testament scholars raise the possibility that in the oral tradition that shapes the gospels, we might have one miraculous, abundant catch of fish story made two ways. Told two ways. Luke takes a resurrection story and turns it into the call of the disciple,s or perhaps John takes the call story and allows it to radiate with post-Easter Risen Christ. Either way, the relationship Jesus has with those first disciples begins and ends with fish. Which is to say the call of Jesus on their lives bursts into their ordinary way of life. The appearance of the Risen Christ breaks in as they return to their day job. They were fishermen. Their encounter with God came right in the midst of the labor and the sweat and the sounds and the frustrations and the smell of everyday life. When Jesus stepped onto Peter’s boat to teach the crowds, the Savior stepped right into Peter’s office, his classroom. Jesus stood right in front of his computer. Jesus walked right onto Wall Street. Right onto campus. Right into the home office. He turned off the television and sat down in the living room. He came into the nursery right next to the changing table. Jesus pulled up a chair at the kitchen table and turned to face the world.
In the Gospel of Luke, the call of the disciples doesn’t come when Jesus stands up in the synagogue at Nazareth to unroll and read, “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he 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.” The call of the disciples doesn’t come the sabbath when dared to heal the man who had been tormented by an unclean spirit. The call didn’t come that sabbath evening when Jesus healed Simon’s mother-in-law. Neither did the call come as Jesus was healing the crowds at sunset on the Lord’s Day. Jesus’ call to the disciples came sometime during the work week. Which says to me that you and I ought to seek the presence of God, hear the Word of God, see the grace of God out there as often and as intentionally as we seek God’s presence, God’s Word, God’s grace in here. Pressing in as called disciples of Jesus Christ in the very fullness of life, the complexity of life, the challenge of life, with the sure expectation that indeed, God is present.
Jesus said to Simon, “Put out into the deep water and let down your nets”. Launch out into the deep. Deep Water. Only a few chapters after Jesus calls the disciples in Luke, he calms a storm out in the deep water. Luke tells of Jesus and the disciples setting out in the boat to go to the other side of the lake. Going to the other side of the lake, by definition, would be crossing the deep water. Jesus falls asleep in the boat. A storm comes. The boat is filling with water. The disciples know they are in danger. They wake Jesus up shouting, “Master, Master, we are perishing!’ Jesus wakes up and rebukes the wind and the “raging waves”. There is a sudden calm out in the deep water,r and Jesus says to them, “Where is your faith?” Deep water faith.
I am guessing in the ancient world, fishermen had a fraught relationship with deep water. I imagine people who fish for a living today still have a fraught relationship with deep water. Jesus telling the freshly called Simon, who he had already come to know, to put out into the deep water has to be about more than the actual depth of the sea. Jesus telling Simon to launch out in the deep has to be about more than locating a huge school of fish. Perhaps deep water is a kind of metaphor for life when the storms rage and the wind gusts. Perhaps Jesus telling Simon to launch out into the deep is his way to show the fishermen, now disciples, that he had come to know that God is present in the world. Early on in the journey, he shows those he knew and would come to love that following him is going to require a deep water faith.
Deep water faith clings to the assurance of the presence of God in day-to-day life when the storms rage and the winds gust. Deep water faith finds a way to get stronger when the days get harder and the nights get longer. Deep water faith presses in to hear a word from Jesus when the world’s clamor and blather gets ever louder. Deep water faith finds a way to soothe the soul with a calm and an assurance despite chaos unleashed all around and every day. One ought not to miss that here in Luke, Jesus’s call of the disciples doesn’t come out of the blue. It comes out of the relationship. When your relationship with the world, with the day-to-day, is fraught with deep water, deep water faith inspires the courage, the strength, and the determination to make a difference one person, one moment, one breath at a time.
The reference to “deep water” is not common in the bible. I could only find one other occurrence in the Book of Proverbs. “The purposes of the human heart are like deep water, but the intelligent will draw them out.” And the Greek word for “deep” doesn’t show up all that often in the New Testament. But here’s one you will know. “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 deep…nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
That’s a promise for deep water. A promise that rises to the top with deep water faith
The Gospel From a Level Place
Luke 6:17-26
February 16
David A. Davis
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Tradition calls it “The Sermon on the Plain”. This teaching from Jesus is here in Luke. “He came down with them and stood on a level place.” The Sermon on the Plain. If you keep reading the Sermon on the Plain beyond where I stopped this morning, you will come upon “love your enemies, do good, and lend, expecting nothing in return”. And “do not judge, and you will not be judged; do not condemn, and you will not be condemned. Forgive, and you will be forgiven; give, and it will be given to you.” As you heard, it all starts with the blessings and the woes. Jesus stood on a level place surrounded by a great crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people and began to teach with….these blessings and woes.
Blessed are you who are poor….Blessed are you who are hungry now….Blessed are you who weep now…Blessed are you when people hate on account of me. Woe to you who are rich…Woe to you who are full….Woe to you who are laughing…Woe to you when all speak well of you. Jesus starts with the blessings and the woes. Then goes on to love your enemies and turn the other cheek. Give to anyone who begs. Do to others as you would have them do unto you. Jesus and the plain sense of the Sermon on the Plain.
In the first few weeks after I was ordained as a minister of Word and Sacrament, a retired pastor in the presbytery named Ed Shalk came to visit me. In that conversation of welcome, he gave me plenty of advice, most of it very helpful to me over the years. One thing he suggested to me was to make sure I understand the church budget and the monthly financials better than the church treasurer. It didn’t take me long to live into his advice. That church budget in the late 1980s was well under $75,000. There was very little in the line item for what we call around Nassau Church “Mission and Outreach”. Very little. I observed early on that the members of the Session sort of just took the church treasurer at his word and didn’t pay much attention. Of course, his word was that the church was barely getting by. One afternoon prior to a Session meeting I went back and read ten years of annual financial reports. I noticed that the balance in the church operating fund had grown every year. Even after a year of paying me as a full-time pastor.
As I prepared to take to session my rationale for increasing the congregation’s mission giving, I knew those financials front and back. I graphed the increasing balance of the operating fund with a pencil on graph paper. The treasurer was not a member of the Session. The Trustees were a separate board, and he reported to them monthly. I invited him to come to the Session meeting and told him we would be discussing the mission budget (or lack of it). That night I shared my research with the 9 members of the Session, including copies of my carefully prepared graph showing the increasing balance. Mind you I was 25 years old, and most the elders were my parents’ age or older. The discussion was not tense. It wasn’t an argument. But at one point, the treasurer said to me and the rest of the Session that the bible says “charity begins at home.”
No, that is not a verse from the bible. I hope I responded pastorally, but I don’t really remember. As Pope Francis reiterated this week a position he has offered in the past, “charity isn’t just a series of concentric circles extending from the individual to family, friends and fellow citizens and ultimately the world, but it is centered on human dignity with a special concern for the poorest.” Or as Jesus said, “blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.” No conditional clauses when it comes to the plain sense of the Sermon on the Plain.
“Jesus came down with them and stood on a level place,” and he started with blessings and woes. We all know that in the beatitudes of the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew there are no woes. Comparing and contrasting the Sermon on the Plain in Luke with the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew is more than just content. In Matthew, “when Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain.” He sat down and began to speak. Matthew’s Jesus is the Teacher, the Rabbi, the one who embodies the tradition of Moses and Mt. Sinai and the Law. There is a sense in which Jesus went up the mountain as Moses went up Mt. Sinai. Instead of two tables with the Ten Commandments, Jesus offers to the disciples and the crowd listening his list of blessings and then a whole lot more. The beatitudes are from above, from on high, from the Great Teacher. Like a burning bush and a voice calling, pillar of fire by night, cloud by day. A theophany, a divine appearance there on the Mount of Beatitudes. According to Matthew, after Jesus calls the disciples, after he goes throughout Galilee proclaiming good news and healing the sick, with the great crowds now following him, Jesu goes up the mountain and begins to teach. He says, “blessed….blessed…blessed…blessed.”
It is different in Luke when it comes to the gospel from a level place. Very different. In Luke, Jesus had gone out and up the mountain to pray. He prayed up there all night long. The next day he called his disciples, choosing the twelve of them. It was then that “he came down with them and stood on a level place.” As you heard and read, Jesus was surrounded by a great crowd of disciples and multitudes from all around. “They had come to hear him and to be healed by their diseases; and those who were troubled with unclean spirits were cured. And all in the crowd were trying to touch him for power came out from him and healed all of them.”
There, among the press of humanity near and far, Jesus looks to his disciples and says, “blessed…blessed…blessed…blessed” and “woe….woe….woe…..woe.” Not up on the mountain, not from on high, not like tablets of sone, but there smack in the middle of the crowd on a level place. Right there among the rich and the poor, among the hungry and the full, with the weepers and the laughers, surrounded by some who were hated and some who were praised. Jesus came down and stood among them. He stood on a level place surrounded by the disciples and a crowd from all around. Jesus stood on a level place surrounded by everyone then and ever since. Jesus looks at his disciples and offers the gospel from a level place.
The plain sense of the gospel from a level place. Jesus teaches the gospel, fully immersed in all that is human. A plain sense from a Jesus surrounded by the extremes of our experience: poor-rich, hungry-full, sorry-joy, hatred-praise. Here, so early in the Gospel of Luke, listeners of Jesus and John the Baptist before him have already heard him proclaim the kingdom: Every valley being filled. Every mountain and hill made low. The crooked made straight. The rough places smooth. All flesh seeing the salvation of God. The kingdom come. The reign of God. Good news to the poor. Release to the captives. The blind seeing. The oppressed going free. The year of the Lord’s favor. And surrounded by everything that it means to be human in the world, it is as if Jesus turns to his disciples and says, “This just isn’t it”. He stood there up to the eyeballs in the human condition, surrounded by the rich and the poor, the hungry and the poor. He saw the joy and the sorrow, the hatred and the praise. He looked over to his disciples, and with those blessings and woes, he was saying, “Yeah, this isn’t it.”
Blessings and woes. One really can’t avoid that for many of us, it is more the woes that apply. But maybe with Jesus’ rhetorical flare, it is more than promise and threat. Jesus is trying to communicate how the ways of this world will be so turned upside down when the simplest parts of the gospel prevail and the level-headed faithful let their light shine. How the first will be last and the last first, how the valleys will be lifted and the mountains made low. Blessings and woes. It is a way for Jesus to proclaim that the kingdom of God is something other than getting all the praise while some are so hated. The kingdom of God is something other than some dancing with joy as others live like the psalmist describes “my tears have been my food day and night.” In the reign of God, you can’t have it where some are so rich and others so poor. Jesus looked at the disciples and the crowds and the multitude and the world and said, “This isn’t it!”
To those who listen, those that ears to hear, that see, that look around and yearn to live the level-headed plain sense of the gospel, Jesus says “Turn the other check. Give to anyone who begs. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Give. Do good. Be merciful. Forgive. Don’t be judgey. Don’t condemn. Love”. So when we find ourselves confronted, surrounded, up to our eyeballs in something other than the kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven, when we know “this isn’t it”, then as followers of Jesus there ought to be certain plain sense of the gospel that kicks in; that takes over, that guides, that inspires, that defines us.
My father-in-law, Hank Cook, lived at Stonebridge during the last years of his life. One afternoon, a few weeks before he died, he and my wife Cathy were remembering Friday night pizza in the Cook house. Apparently, up in Millburn, NJ, there were two pizza shops side by side owned by feuding brothers. In the clouds of his faded memory, Hank knew the name of the favored pizza shop. It wasn’t an every Friday night thing, Cathy said. More like once a month. Cathy, her older brother, her younger sister, and her parents. Five eaters. One pie. That didn’t sound like enough pizza for five people. So I said, “Hank, didn’t you ever consider getting two pizzas?” He looked at me rather incredulously, shook his head, and said, “Dave, Dave, Dave”.
That’s sort of how I hear the blessings and woes from Jesus’ sermon from the level place of our humanity. Jesus looking around at the timeless tableau of humanity and then turning to the disciples, the church, you and me and saying all our names all at once. “Dave, Dave, Dave… this isn’t it.” His call, his invitation, his plea to you and to me for this time and place, is to lean into the plain sense of his gospel. As I said in a sermon a few weeks ago, in the most challenging of seasons, the simplest parts of the gospel become all the more compelling. Inspired by the he level-headed faithful let their light shine. “Turn the other cheek. Give to anyone who begs. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Give. Do good. Be merciful. Forgive. Don’t be judgey. Don’t condemn. Love”.
Jesus and his gospel from a level place inspiring level-headed followers of the Savior to so let their light shine.
Resurrection
1 Corinthians 15:51-58
February 23
David A. Davis
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“Behold, I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed.” I have read these verses from the end of I Corinthians 15 more times than I could ever count. I have read them a few times from here at this pulpit. Mostly, I read them down there at Princeton Cemetery next to an open grave. “In a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound and the dead shall be raised imperishable, and we shall all be changed.” I had been here at Nassau Church for more than fifteen years before I learned an interesting fact about our cemetery. When a visit to the cemetery includes a casket burial, the pastor leads the procession. I was taught in seminary that when standing at the grave, the appropriate and respectful place for the pastor to stand is at the head of the casket rather than the foot. In Princeton Cemetery, all the caskets are interred in the same direction. The head of the casket, the head of the person in the casket, is closest to Witherspoon Street. That means all those buried in Princeton Cemetery for hundreds of years are facing east. Those who have been to an Easter morning sunrise service at the cemetery know that the congregation stands with backs to Witherspoon Street, facing east to the rising sun.
The tradition of burying the dead goes all the way back to the ancient church and the practices of the earliest Christians. When the trumpet sounds, on that day of resurrection, when Christ comes again, on that “great getting up morning”, at the dawn of that day, at the first sight of the rising sun, the dead will be raised. The dead are buried facing east so they can be ready. For that day “when this perishable nature must put on the imperishable, and this mortal nature must put on immortality.”
I have told you before about a conversation I had a long time ago when Zorba’s restaurant was still across the street. It was a conversation with Duke Divinity School New Testament professor Richard Hayes. You may have seen his obituary last month in the NYT. Dr. Hayes spent a full year on sabbatical here in Princeton shortly after he published his commentary in the Interpretation series on I Corinthians. Most Sundays he worshipped with us. That day at lunch in Zorbas, I was looking to offer a pastoral welcome to a well-known visiting scholar. What I didn’t expect was a conversation that year that changed how I thought about preaching resurrection hope. One of our casual conversations turned challenging and intriguing for me as I listened to the scholar’s stinging critique of the church’s proclamation on Easter and at most, funerals. The gist of Richard’s argument was that preaching resurrection should not sound like the content of a Hallmark card. Examples he gave ranged from preaching that denies the reality of death to sermons full of kitschy illustrations that promote the concept of the immortality of the soul. Something along the lines of “he is not dead; he’s just gone to the other side of the lake to fish” is what comes to mind.
Professor Hayes was leaning into I Corinthians 15 and arguing that the resurrection doesn’t happen until that trumpet sounds. I said to him, “So if I am standing next to a hospital bed, and a loved one says that ‘at least now their family member is in a better place’ I should say ‘well, not yet.’? The New Testament scholar looked at me across the table and said, “yes”. “Richard,” I responded, “that’s why you are a professor, and I am a pastor. I also quoted Jesus’ words to the thief next to him on the cross. “Today you will be with me in paradise.” Despite our disagreement about the mysteries of the resurrection, when I sit in my study typing a sermon for a memorial service or for an Easter sermon, the professor’s concluding remark in that conversation both inspires and haunts me a bit. Richard Hayes said to me, “Well, resurrection hope has to be about more than whether you and I get to heaven.” His reference was to a resurrection hope for the here and now.
A funeral service in witness to the resurrection, or an Easter morning service for that matter, is not dependent upon our ability to figure it all out or to work out the timeline or to even understand what earth “resurrection of the body” is referring to in the Apostles’ Creed. For when the followers of Jesus are confronted by everything that death has to offer, the Church rises to proclaim the power of God to bring life out of death, the power of God to transform the dark shadows of despair into the rising light of a bright morning star, the power of God to anoint the sufferings of this life with a hope-filled balm of the kingdom yet to come. To read the Apostle Paul standing around an open grace is a bold and courageous affirmation of God’s resurrection power when death has the loudest voice. These verses from Paul offer a shout of resurrection promise and hope not just for the eternal life to come but for life here and now. It’s more than just Paul, it is all of creation standing to sing and to stomp. “Death has been swallowed up in victory. Where, O death is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?”
Some years, some months, some weeks, some days, it becomes glaringly obvious that the psalmist’s reference to “the valley of the shadow of death” isn’t only about cemeteries. It is not death that has the loudest voice, but the voices of this world. When the followers of Jesus find themselves trying to shout and sing and stomp resurrection hope while “wrestling” as the Apostle Paul writes in the Book of Ephesians “not against flesh and blood, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the world’s rulers of the darkness of this age” Living into resurrection hope when our experience is like that of Mary Magdalene that first Easter morning described by John. She headed to the empty tomb when it was still dark. On a morning filled with brilliant sunshine under a cloudless sky, we gather to live into resurrection hope while it is still dark. To cling to a daring, defiant word of resurrection hope unleashed on a world that seems increasingly to look like anything but “thy kingdom come on earth as it is heaven.” Maybe an even bolder and more courageous affirmation of resurrection is required today as compared to when you and I gathered around an open grave. “The sting of death is sin and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. When the darkness in the day-to-day of life all around us is so magnified, the Easter acclamation comes with a louder shout. Remember, our tradition affirms that every Sunday is an Easter Sunday. Christ is Risen! He is Risen Indeed!
One ought not to miss, should not miss, cannot miss, that at the conclusion of the Apostle Paul’s resurrection argument that runs the entire 15th chapter of I First Corinthians, after the soaring, ethereal rhetoric of the verses we read this morning, after all the words about the mystery of the resurrection, don’t miss maybe the most important part of the chapter. “Therefore, my beloved, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.” Back in the cemetery, as I read these verses, after I focus on not slipping up on all “the immortality and imperishability” words, when I get to Paul’s “therefore”, I have done it enough that I can lower my pastor’s book. “Therefore, my beloved, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.” For me, it is the most meaningful, powerful, and moving moment is at the cemetery committal service. To look directly in the faces of those who grieve, leaning into the resurrection promise of God and say, “Therefore, my beloved, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.” It is what the people of the resurrection do. In the face of the harsh reality of death and the world’s ever-present darkness, we speak of life, we live life, we yearn to be faithful to the gospel of Jesus Christ in life. Still.
Years ago I sat in my office with a person whose spouse had died about a year prior. They were still struggling and struggling to understand why they were still struggling. The person said to me “if you tell me to just take it a day at a time, I will punch you right in the face.” So I didn’t say that. I wouldn’t have said that. I don’t remember what I said. But I could have said, “Therefore, my beloved, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.” When death’s voice rage, when the world’s voices of darkness rage, Paul offers us a refrain that has to stand right up there with Christ is Risen! He is Risen Indeed! “Therefore, my beloved, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.”
You can take this tip from Dave for no charge. When reading the Apostle Paul, there are a lot of “therefore’s”. Sometimes what comes next is really important. “Therefore, since we are justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ”(Rom 5). “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” (Rom 8). “Welcome one another, therefore, just as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God.” (Rom 15) “I appeal to you therefore, brothers and sisters, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.” (Rom 12) Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, (Phi 2:9 NRS) “Stand therefore, and fasten the belt of truth around your waist, and put on the breastplate of righteousness.” (Eph 6:14) And yes, Paul’s exclamation point on resurrection hope. “Therefore, my beloved, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.”
Paul’s exhortation to the faithful is that in the face of death, the people of God dare to sing and speak about life. It is who we are as resurrection people. Paul’s encouragement when grief and lament are real. “Therefore, my beloved, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.” The people of God know that here in the world it is “still so dark”. Yet, we keep marching in the light of God. The one whose goodness shines on us. The one whose grace has pardoned us. The one whose love has set us free. Paul and his “therefore” when the fear and anxiety are real. “Therefore, my beloved, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.”
When the world’s challenges seem so vast and you and I feel so small. When the strategic press of change and disruption in the land isn’t just dizzying, it’s intentionally paralyzing. God is still calling us to live each day to God’s glory and to never forget one of the Apostle’s other exhortations. Never forget to “press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” (Phil 3) Pressing on while the empires rage and compassion is lost, all the while remembering, repeating, living the exclamation point of resurrection hope for the here and now. “Therefore, my beloved, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.”
Crossing Over
Luke 9:28-36
March 2
Lauren J. McFeaters
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Many years ago, during the Cold War, I traveled with my family on an extended trip to the Soviet Union. My father was teaching. And when we returned home, I found it was difficult to share about the experience.
School friends would ask, “How was your trip?” And I didn’t know where to begin. The trip was so formative and unexpected; so shaping and strange, I didn’t know how to form the words.
Moscow was astounding and daunting. And Leningrad. Leningrad was filled with light and mystery, sadness and bitter cold, like something out of Doctor Zhivago. I was thirteen years old, and this was the Russia of the 1970s. I was overwhelmed.
In Leningrad, if it was a sunny day, even with piles of snow on the ground, Russians would strip off their clothes to help the sun touch their skin. On a sunlit day, everyone walked with their faces to the sky so as not to miss one drop of sunshine. People stood for hours, 50 deep to buy bread or vegetables. Teenagers would trade us pictures of Lenin for chewing gum, or offer us 50 rubles to mail back Levi jeans.
And then there were the maps. On our search for the Church of the Blessed Trinity, my family thought we were lost, because my father’s maps didn’t match what we were seeing. We knew the church was built on the banks of the Neva but we could not find the church, no trace and no address.
We passed the Church of Saints Simeon and Anna, it was right there, huge and glowing, but it was missing from our map. We passed ancient onion domed basilicas, majestic historical cathedrals, but still no notation on our maps.
Finally we stopped to ask why churches were not listed and the woman said, “We don’t show churches on our maps because they don’t exist.”
“Well,” my father said. “What about this church – the one we’re standing in front of?”
“Oh, that is not a tserkov (or House of God). That is what we call a museum. There are no churches here.
So to return to the States and say to my friends and family that the trip “was so interesting,” “remarkable,” or “unlike anything else,” was completely mediocre in the face of the beautiful, the fantastic, and incredible.
Have you ever been unable to speak of an experience because of your inability to communicate the depth and height of something so remarkable and astonishing? Times when we want to reach someone and get others to see what we saw and felt, but making that connection feels impossible – because capturing the sublime feels unachievable.
This is the Transfiguration. A mystery so profound there ae hardly any words to describe the experience. A transcendence so extreme that three disciples become lost in glory and in wonder.
It begins with Jesus wanting a place to pray. A private place. A still and calm place. He and the disciples have been traveling and healing, teaching and feeding thousands. It is time for a rest. And so Jesus takes Peter, James, and John up a mountain to pray, to reflect, to breathe.
But still calmness was never in the cards, because as prayer begins, so does the unbelievable – Jesus is amazingly changed, transfigured before them; he begins to shine and glow – he becomes an illumination – dazzling, blinding, stunning.
And there next to him, as clear as day, appear the very prophets who had come closest to knowing God – Moses and Elijah – and they too begin to gleam, shine, and glitter.
It was stunning, transcendent, and absolutely mind-blowing.
And then Peter, being Peter, does a very Peter thing. And he does what most of us would do. He wants to pause and take a picture.
Everyone stay right there. I’m going to build little houses, so this never ends. Don’t move. Stay still. And on three … one, two …
But before a picture can be snapped, a selfie taken:
A cloud came and overshadowed them;
and they were terrified as they entered the cloud.
Then from the cloud came a voice that said,
“This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!” [ii]
Luke is a Gospel of Voices.
Three months ago, we began hearing heavenly voices. First, it was the angel Gabriel saying, “Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard.”
Again Gabriel to Mary, “Do not be afraid, Mary, for you have found favor with God. And now, you will conceive and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus.”
And another angel, this time to shepherds, “Do not be afraid; for see—I am bringing you good news of great joy for all the people.”
At Jesus’ baptism, a voice from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved Treasure; with you I am well pleased.” And now on a mountain peak, with a voice announcing to all have ears to hear that this is indeed the very Son of God and that it would be in our best interest to listen to him. Listen.
Christ is in his glory. His holiness shining through his humanness, his face so incandescent, that it’s almost beyond bearing. [iii]
How do we respond?
Do we say, “that is so interesting,” “remarkable,” or “unlike anything else.” No. Because that’s a completely mediocre way to tell of the amazing and incredible.
How do we, standing on this side of the resurrection, and in the midst of a nation full of folly and recklessness; madness making itself known every day, how do we hold onto the wonder of faith?
And when we are panicked. Are you panicked? And when we are frightened. Are you frightened? And when we are horrified. Are you horrified? How do we hold onto the joy of faith?
How, in a society filled with idiocy, how do we hear the voice of God directing and guiding us?
Well, it’s not through the explosion, boom, or din of a tantrum, but in the Voice of the Upside-Down Kingdom, where God’s power is in the tender and loving words:
“This is my Son, my Cherished,
my Beloved, my Adored –
I give you a Savior –
attend to him, hear him, listen to him.”
It’s Gospel Medicine my friends, Gospel Medicine.
On the edge of Lent, our incandescent Lord gives you his hand and walks you off the mountain top and back into the valley – to assure you that God’s glory is alive and shines in every drop of our humanity and works for the good and worthy; the faithful and the valuable.
And holding his hand, back down the mountain we go, where we in turn, hold His hand back, squeezing tightly, to show that we will stay beside him as he heads to all that is waiting for him in the hills and valleys of Jerusalem and Calvery.
But this time, having lived through such an experience, this time, rather than not knowing what to say; not having the words, we know the words:
In life and in death we belong to God.
In a broken and fearful world
the Spirit gives us courage
to pray without ceasing,
to witness among all peoples,
to Christ as Lord and Savior,
to unmask idolatries in Church and culture,
to hear the voices of peoples long silenced,
and to work with others for justice, freedom, and peace.
In gratitude to God,
we strive to live holy and joyful lives,
even as we watch for God’s
new heaven and new earth,
praying, “Come, Lord Jesus!” [iv]
Come, Lord Jesus.
Come, Lord Jesus.
ENDNOTES
[ii] Adam H. Fronczek. “Transfiguration – Luke 9:28–36,” February 14, 2010, fourthchurch.org.
[iii] Frederick Buechner. Whistling in the Dark: A Doubters Dictionary. New York: Harper Collins,1993.
[iv] “A Brief Statement of Faith.” Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), Office of the General Assembly, 1990.
Very Good
Genesis 1:1-2:3
March 9
David A. Davis
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When I was on sabbatical in 2008, I traveled to South Africa and stayed with my dear friends Malan and Marlese Nel. The Nels are worshipping with us for a month or two as they once again are in town for a study visit. A highlight of that trip to South Africa was a visit to Kruger National Park. The goal of a visitor to the park hoping to see wildlife is to find the Big 5: lion, leopard, rhinoceros, elephant, and buffalo. The Nels made a booking for me for a nighttime guided ride out into the park with a dozen or so other tourists in an open-air jeep kind of thing. It lasted a couple of hours as darkness fell. Two guides, flashlights, headlights, slowly driving on dirt roads far from the paved public access roads. Two hours. Beautiful moonlight. No animals. We didn’t see one animal.
The next day we piled into Malan’s car, for what we used to describe to our kids as “a car hike”. Driving all through the park along with other cars weaving through the park. By the end of that several-hour car hike, we saw all of the Big 5 and a whole lot more of the animals of God’s creation. The truth is that Malan and Marlese always, always saw the animals before I did. Well, other than the elephant herd crossing the road that was hard to miss. The stunning birds up in a tree, the lion to see through the trees, the rhino in the water with nothing showing but his snout. The baby elephant is being hidden and protected by the grown-ups. They had the eyes, the expectation, the experience of being a witness to the beauty of God’s creation. And they helped me to see, hear, and experience that beauty. They gifted me with a glimpse of the awe and wonder of God’s creation.
That’s how we ought to read Genesis 1. Side by side with those who have the eyes, the expectation, the experience, even the longing for the beauty of God’s creation. Reading the seven days of creation in a community of God’s people longing for the awe and wonder of the very goodness of all that God has done.
Genesis 1:1-2:3
Reading Genesis 1 together with awe and wonder. Reading Genesis 1 together, as Jesus would say, with the ears to hear. Folks read Genesis 1 in all kinds of ways, for all kinds of reasons. But what if you and I read Genesis 1 together to sort of press the reset button on the awe and wonder place in your soul. The awe and wonder for all that God has done. Like our forebearers in faith, who wanted to turn from the worship of many Gods and the plethora of idols, and offer a witness to the one God of all creation, the One God who made heaven and earth, that same God who gives breath to all humankind. Genesis 1; it’s a kind of palette cleanser. Allowing you to rinse after drinking from the world’s firehose of idolatry and chaos and darkness and destruction. A bit of refreshment for the sacred imagine. Taking in the beauty of God’s creation where the light arose out of the darkness. Once again ponder all the good of God’s creation and receive with awe and wonder the promise and the knowledge that you have been created in the image of God. And that, like all of creation, you belong to God, and you are precious in God’s sight. “God saw everything that God had made, and indeed, it was very good.”
Years ago, I invited Professor Paul Rorem to give about 20 of my colleagues from around the country a tour of some of the religious art in the Princeton University Museum. A frequent leader of adults here at Nassau Church, Dr. Rorem is a retired professor of European church history. Looking at a piece of stunning artwork with Paul Rorem is sort of like driving through the Kruger Park with the Nels. He would point out details in the art that the unexpected, inexperienced eye could so easily miss. Sometimes, with a laser pointer directed a large work up on the wall. Other times with his pinky finger pointing out the smallest of detail. After several of these experiences with Dr. Rorem over the years, I have observed his practice of allowing and inviting, the community of observers gathered around him to take time with a piece of art and not rush. Paul always asks the group to look not just at the beauty of the art but to search for the theological takeaways of the art. He would step away from the piece and allow the group standing together to search for the theological symbolism, to note the smallest of details, and ponder what the artist was trying to say about God, God’s promise, and the place of God’s people in that promise.
Reading Genesis 1 together and pondering what it says about God, God’s promise and the place of God’s people in that promise. God the artist, sculpting a creation that reflects God’s own goodness. Humankind was created in God’s image, in God’s likeness, blessed by God to fill and rule the earth. Good. Good. Good. Good. Good. Even before God stepped back to rest on the seventh day, “God saw everything that God had made and indeed, it was very good.” Very good. Indeed.
I made a rookie mistake this week at lunch with Dr. Nate Stucky. I told him my sermon title for this morning was “Very Good”. He asked me what was “very good.” I knew right away it was a trap question, and I was going to blow it. “Well, it comes after God created humankind.” Nate rose up in his chair but across the table. His face was equal parts shock, dismay, and then disappointment in his pastor. “That’s the big mistake everyone makes”, he said. Very good is not just a reference to humankind. God saw everything, everything, EVERYTHING God made and indeed, it was very good.” That is one mistake I won’t repeat again. I promise.
Here is where we take a few steps back from the work of art and ponder. Everything God made was very good. Everything. Very good. Humankind was created in God’s image, God’s likeness. On day 6, God brings the children of God into the family business. Humankind is blessed by God and entrusted with creation, to be god-like in relationship to the very goodness of creation. To be in relationship to creation in a way that reflects the Creator and the Creator’s goodness. To somehow rule the very good earth in a god-like way. Rule like God rules.
As we stand here together a few steps back, however, those words still leap off the canvas of the text. Subdue. Dominion. Perhaps the frailty of language is what also comes into view as well. Words that seem inconsistent with our theological learnings. Because words like subdue and dominion cannot be softened or explained away in the Hebrew. Scholars point out in Hebrew, the connotations are even stronger and not very nice. Perhaps the words fail us in trying to ponder not just the artistry and beauty of God, the very good of God. But also fail us as we try to ponder humankind in relationship to God and to that god-like relationship to creation. Words not just coming up short in terms of theological imagination. But words foreshadowing and perhaps in the history of interpretation even contributing in some way to the harm humankind has done and continues to do to God’s “very good” creation. Words that land more like scars in the artwork. Or better said, a lasting echo that ought to sound like a trumpet’s call to humankind to be more god-like when it comes to God’s creation.
Reading Genesis 1 together not just in awe and wonder but in lament as well. Pondering the theological takeaways of the art that tells of God creating, of humankind being created in the image of God, of humanity’s relationship to all that God has created. Very good. Indeed. Reading Genesis 1 together and sparking our collective sacred imagination. Push the reset button for your soul when it comes to awe and wonder and lament. Awe and wonder and lament. While it sounds a bit like a title of a book by Anne Lamont. It also sounds a lot like what it means to be a child of God living in the in-between of death and resurrection. It sounds like what it means to be a disciple of Jesus Christ pretty much every day. Awe, wonder, and lament all mashed up. And still morning comes after the evening. Light still shines in the dark. Good. Good. Good. Good. Good. Very good. And you and I, we cling to, proclaim, and dare to believe the impossible. The resurrection promise that darkness shall never, ever, conquer the light of God.
Come to the Table this morning. It is the Risen Christ who invites. We take this bread, this juice. We take the elements of God’s creation and we feast on Christ and his life, death, and resurrection. We are nurtured here at this table by the impossible. For the God of creation is the the same God who authored salvation in and through Jesus Christ and by God’s grace and in God’s love, claimed us as God’s own beloved children. God’s new creation. “If anyone who is in Christ, there is a new creation; everything old has passed away; see everything has become new! All this is from God, who reconciled us to Godself through Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation….So we are ambassadors for Christ. God making God’s appeal through us.” (II Cor 5)
God is blessing humankind and entrusting us to reflect God’s very goodness, by God’s grace and in the power of the Spirit, to dare to be god-like in our relationship with all that God has done. Yes, impossible. But remember what Gabriel said to Mary. “Nothing will be impossible with God.” Good. Good. Good. Good. Good. Very Good, Indeed.