Luke 11:5-13
November 16
David A. Davis
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It was only a few loaves of bread. That was all the friend was asking for. The one knocking on the door had a late-arriving visitor at the house. One can imagine that the expectations, the understanding, the norms, and the requirements of hospitality in the world at the time of Jesus were pretty well known and set with a high bar. A traveling friend arrives at your house? Yes, you are going to welcome them with more than open arms. A meal and a place to lay their head would likely be the least one would do, even if the visitor shows up unexpectedly and very late at night. Still, a warm welcome, a meal, and a place to stay.

The parable tells of three friends. The unexpected visitor. The one knocking. The one already in bed. Identified by Jesus as friends implies that the one knocking would surely return the favor if the shoe were on the other foot. If the friend, already asleep with the children, needed some assistance in showing hospitality, the neighbor now at the door would surely help. The traveling friend would no doubt receive and show hospitality and provide a meal, and a place to stay if the knocker was the traveler. It is, after all, a tale of three friends. The shameless persistence of the person at the door asking may be less about just being annoying and more about knowing that they would do the same in a heartbeat for the person inside the door. After all, it was only a few loaves of bread. It’s hardly that much to ask of a friend.

Except… it was midnight. “Suppose one of you has a friend, and you go to him at midnight…”.  The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King’s sermon entitled A Knock At Midnight appears in his book Strength to Love, first published in 1963. Dr. King begins the sermon like this: “Although this parable is concerned with the power of persistent prayer, it may also serve as a basis for our thought concerning many contemporary problems and the role of the church in grappling with them. It is midnight in the parable”, King preaches. “It is also midnight in our world, and the darkness is so deep that we can hardly see which way to turn.”

Martin Luther King builds on the metaphor of midnight throughout the sermon, and with an allegorical take on the parable, the friend already in bed is the church, the Christian. The persistence is the crying need for justice and righteousness in the land. And whether or not to answer at midnight is the question of the church, the Christian’s response of faith in public life. “At midnight,” King writes, “colors lose their distinctiveness and become a sullen shade of grey. Moral principles have lost their distinctiveness.” “Midnight is a confusing hour when it is difficult to be faithful.”  King’s sermonic riff on “midnight” has a timelessness to it, almost a constant relevance. Last week, the biblical text from the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew’s gospel spoke of light shining and a city on a hill that can’t be hid. The metaphor of midnight must pretty much be the opposite. The kind of darkness all around that feels like you almost can’t see your hand in front of your face. A darkness that stirs discouragement, pessimism, worry, almost a paralysis when it comes to thinking you can make a difference, you can find a light to shine.

I have told you before about the weekend years ago when a few men from my first congregation were doing some work at our cabin in the Endless Mountains of Pennsylvania. The cabin was unfinished then, and as we settled in for sleep, we were in sleeping bags on the plywood floor. The darkness in a cabin in the woods is the sort of darkness that defines midnight. That night amid the darkness, someone said, “It’s darker with my eyes open than when my eyes are closed.” It’s darker with my eyes open. That’s the midnight Dr. King was describing for the church when the world is knocking with a shameless persistence.

It was only a few loaves of bread. Our Wednesday small group was discussing how it is easy to be discouraged and not be sure how to respond or what to do when the darkness seems so bright. I was reminded of the years when Cathy and I were part of the advisor team with our youth group at the summer gathering at the Presbyterian Conference Center in Montreat, NC.  Absolutely every year, long about Wednesday, we would find ourselves in conversations on the porch with kids who thought they were doing enough to save the world. You understand how that happens. A great preacher or keynote speaker tells stories of a young person with a great idea that takes off and goes really well. Working for clean water. Fighting for the environment. Serving urban food deserts.  Maybe a video was shown that morning as well, telling of a young person in a far-off place doing something transformational in their community. And what is supposed to be encouraging for a young person in their walk of faith actually does the opposite. Because young people of faith want to let their light shine.

In that conversation on Wednesday, one person said, “I don’t have the gifts that some of our church members do when it comes to making a difference, but I can make food. I know how to make food for lots of people.” I know they do, and I have seen them do it. Another person said, “I am just not sure what my gifts are that can make a difference.” I said, “Oh, I know what your gifts are. But I will wait to share it offline.” Yes, those gifts are already being shared. Another person called attention to how we can pray…constantly. And since we all had our Bibles open or on the screen in front of us, someone else turned to II Corinthians. “We have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed, always carrying in the body the death of Jesus so that the life of Jesus may also be visible in our bodies.”

A knock at midnight and a few loaves of bread. Perhaps the church, the Christian’s response amid the darkness that surrounds us, begins with just a trickle from that stream of the everlasting waters of justice and righteousness. Or in the baby steps of letting love be genuine. Or in loving the smallest acts of kindness, looking to do justice in your little neck of the woods, and quietly striving to walk humbly with your God. For twenty-five years, one day a week, I think it’s Thursdays, as I pull out of the church driveway, I have watched members of the Quaker Meeting of Princeton stand across the street. Only two, maybe three. Different people each week. They stand and pray, holding a sign that says “Prayers for peace”.  It was only a few loaves of bread.

Professor Heath Carter has done an incredible job this month leading our adult education series. Even as I can only listen on Mondays to the audio, I can tell he has the room in the palm of his hand. This week’s posted readings on our adult education web page include an article Heath wrote earlier this spring that he titled “A World That Might Yet Be”. He tells the story of Amelia Boynton Robinson. If you have not clicked on this posting yet, I really encourage you to do so. I have listened to Heath tell her story to me from the other side of the lunch table. I have witnessed him tell it in front of a room full of people. He can’t tell about Amelia Boynton Robinson without tears in his eyes. She was an unsung hero who worked in the African American community for voter education and voter rights for more than 30 years, beginning in the 1930s. She was beaten unconscious on the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma. She walked across that bridge 50 years later, holding the hand of the first black president of the United States.

In writing about Amelia Boynton Robinson, Dr. Carter concludes with this: “It is important to remember that Boynton Robinson lived not only to see the passage of the Voting Rights Act and the election of the nation’s first Black president, but also the gutting of that same Voting Rights Act in 2013 and the beginnings of a new era of voter suppression. History is not a story of unbroken progress, but rather of fits and starts, forward and back.

In those moments when it seems clear that we’re lurching painfully backwards, I give thanks for the memory of Amelia Boynton Robinson, who inspires me to do the small faithful thing in front of me that day. One never knows what may come. But we can pray, as she did, not just with words, but with hands and feet, for a world in which God’s will is done on earth as it is in heaven. A world that might yet be.”

A small faithful thing in front of me that day. Or a few loaves of bread, maybe even at midnight. “Midnight is a confusing hour when it is difficult to be faithful”, Dr. King proclaimed. And King continued, “The most inspiring word that the church may speak is that no midnight long remains. The weary traveler by midnight who asks for bread is really seeking the dawn. Our eternal message of hope is that dawn will come…..The dawn will come. Disappointment, sorrow, and despair are born at midnight, but morning follows. ‘Weeping may endure for a night,’ says the psalmist, ‘but joy cometh in the morning’”. King concludes his sermon, A Knock at Midnight, like this: “This faith adjourns the assemblies of hopelessness and brings new light into the dark chambers of pessimism”.

Len Scales shared another sermon from Dr. King with her small group this week. He concludes with a similar word of hope: “I get weary every now and then. The future looks difficult and dim, but I’m not worried about it ultimately because I have faith in God. Centuries ago, Jeremiah raised a question, ‘Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there?’…Centuries later, our slave foreparents came along…They did an amazing thing,” King concludes. “They looked back across the centuries and they took Jeremiah’s question mark and straightened it into an exclamation point..’There is a balm in Gilead to make the wounded whole. There is a balm in Gilead to heal the sin-sick soul.”

By grace, the work of the Holy Spirit, and the righteousness of Jesus Christ, Nassau Presbyterian Church, straightening the exclamation when darkness seems to carry the day, begins with a few loaves of bread, even at midnight. The Gospel of John 1:5 — “The light shines in the darkness and the darkness did not overcome it.” Did not. Shall not. Will Not. Shall never overcome it!

Matthew 5:14-16
November 9
David A. Davis
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 I would like to invite you to ponder with me this morning a phrase from the lips of Jesus. “A city on a hill”. But before reading the gospel lesson, a bit of background, an article published in the Humanities magazine in 2020 is entitled “How America Became a City on a Hill”. The author credits mid-20th-century Harvard historian Perry Miller with bringing a sermon from 1630 into focus. The sermon was delivered by layperson John Winthrop aboard the flagship Arabella sailing toward the New World. The title of the sermon was “A Model of Christian Charity.” Prior to Professor Miller’s study of the sermon’s importance to the Puritan presence in New England, apparently, the text was largely ignored. The sermon became infamous for this line: “We shall be as a city on a hill”. 

I figure I am not alone in thinking Ronald Reagan was the one to initiate the political appropriation of the biblical metaphor in political rhetoric and platforms and the establishment of the vision of “American exceptionalism”. But according to the 2020 article, Reagan wasn’t the first or the last. The term was used in speeches by John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, Richard Nixon, Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan, George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama. Winthrop’s sermon was not even mentioned in American History books until after Professor Perry’s death. In 2010, a high school history textbook was published with the title City Upon a Hill.

The author of the article, Abram van Engen, was on the faculty at Washington University in St. Louis at the time, and that year he also published his book City on a Hill: A History of American Exceptionalism. Van Engen points to the irony that Miller’s take on Winthrop’s sermon could not be more in contrast to its lasting political appropriation. His interpretation “differed radically” from any thought of American Exceptionalism. Van Engen writes that Miller understood that the sermon called Puritans to “model radical communal solidarity. It had nothing to do with the American Dream, nothing to do with bettering one’s life, nothing at all to do with making money or getting ahead.”

MATTHEW 5:14-16

“You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. People do not light a lamp and put it under the bushel basket; rather, they put it on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.”

Our granddaughter Maddy turned two last weekend. Maddy and Franny love to listen to music and dance. Saturday afternoon, we were having a bit of a dance fest. During a break in the recorded music, the girls burst into a song they learned and sing all the time at the Broadway Presbyterian Church in NYC. Of course, both girls have a gifted ear and sing beautifully. Maddy’s blaring all the words along with big sister Franny, but most of them are not quite understandable. What was very obvious and easy to understand were the motions that go along with the song. [candle, blow it out, under a bushel, around the world]. It occurred to me as we all joined right in that the first move of the church, letting its light shine, is the generativity of faith in every generation.

The small groups this week took a journey through some of the light in the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament. You don’t really need the help of a concordance or a device for it. “I am the Lord, I have called you in righteousness, I have taken you by hand and kept you; I have given you as a covenant to the people, a light to the nations” (Is. 42). Psalm 4: “Let the light of your face shine on us, O Lord.” “This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light and in God there is no darkness at all…. If we walk in the light as God is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, God’s son, cleanses us from all sin.” (I John) Revelation 22: “I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb. And the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God is its light, and its lamp is the Lamb. The Gospel of John. “Again, Jesus spoke to them, saying, ‘I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in the darkness but will have the light of life.” Jesus said, “I am the light of the world…and you are the light of the world.” So whose light is it, anyway?  His light or your light. And, of course, the answer is “yes”.

The very light of Christ shining in the world by grace and the power of the Holy Spirit through the good works of those whom Christ has called. Here in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus could not be clearer. “Let your light shine before others, so they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.” Not just go tell it on the mountain. Not a religious fervor on the loose. Not showing a glimpse of piety. Letting your light shine is allowing Christ’s light to inspire you, lead you, and anoint you to good works. Jesus preaching and James applauding. James, who wrote “Show me your faith apart from your works and I by my works will show you my faith.” “You are the light of the world”, Jesus said. “People do not light a lamp and put it under the bushel basket; rather, they put it on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house.”

In his book The Continuing Conversion of the Church, long-time professor at Princeton Seminary and long-time member of the Nassau Church community, Darrel Guder, makes a compelling, even provocative argument for a congregation sending folks into the world to let their light shine. He tells the story of a woman who was a pillar of the church. As one of her pastors, he was growing frustrated that she never said “yes” to a request to serve on a committee or board of the church. Finally, he asked her about it. Her response stopped him in his tracks and influenced his academic/theological life for years to come. She told him her calling was to be a children’s librarian, and it takes a good deal of work and study for her to be good at what she does. “I want to represent Christ there, and that has to be my priority.” Professor Guder follows that example in his book by stating that if a congregation took seriously the call to empower its people to carry the mission of God out in the world, to let their light shine so to speak, the congregation should expect to see people less at activities within the building. In other words, letting your light shine not just in here, but out there!

This week, in our letter to the congregation, Elder Wendy Wakefield Davis and I invited all of you to join us in a month of expressing gratitude for one another, for our ministry together, for the abundant blessings God continues to pour out on, in, and through Nassau Church. I want to share with you that recently I have found my heart strangely warmed and my spirits strangely lifted. I say “strangely” not in homage to Charles Wesley and his account of his conversion. “Strangely,” rather, because these are not really days for warm hearts and lifted spirits, are they? But the privilege of seeing your light shine in these days is a remarkable gift to me as your pastor. I see it all the time, in more ways than I can count, in more ways than I could ever tell. I saw it a few weeks ago when I went to visit a church member struggling with health, and they told me of a visit from a deacon and their young child that very morning. I saw it when going to the 100^th birthday party for a church member last summer, and seeing a church couple and their two kids at the party, and the one celebrating the birthday told me how much their visits have meant to them.

I see it in how your light, the light of Christ, shines all around your continuing efforts to support and care for our current refugee family. I think it is the 14th family to be sponsored by you in almost 60 years. I see how the light of Christ beams from the steady stream of volunteers who come in and out of ArmInArm in the lower level of this building during the week. Some are serving downstairs. Others are loading their car for food deliveries. Your light and the light of other members of the Princeton community. I see your light, the light of Christ, in the generosity that allows us in real time to cut a check to a landlord for an immigrant family about to be evicted. I see your light, the light of Christ, warming the hard work of racial reconciliation in the now years-long conversations between members of the Witherspoon Street congregation and Nassau Church in the “Bending the Moral Arc” small groups.

And this week, I have seen your light, the light of Christ, brightly shining in our congregation’s response to nationally elected officials and appointed judges intentionally letting the most vulnerable among us go hungry. This week, Len Scales received a request from the Trenton Area Soup Kitchen for a $50,000 grant for a third food truck. TASK uses traditional food trucks to serve hot meals out in the community. They often partner with ArmInArm in the city. Going out together to designated spots with  ArmInArm distributing groceries and fresh vegetables from their refrigerated truck and TASK serving hot meals. TASK reported serving 600 people in one day. Thanks to your generosity and the leadership of the Mission and Outreach Committee, $50,000 went out the doors of this building by the end of the week. In addition, almost $40,000 was granted to ArmInArm for a commitment to give every client they see at one of their pantries this month an extra gift card to a grocery store for $25. An absolutely breathtaking example of your light, the light of Christ shining for all the world to see, giving glory to the God we know in and through, and serve through Jesus Christ. The One whom we serve. Jesus, who said, “I was hungry and you gave me something to eat.”

There is an unexpected plus with our current LinkedIn series that brings together our preaching life, adult education, and small groups. Professor Heath Carter has provided links each week to some secondary readings, videos, and blogs. Heath provides snippets of some of the most important historical materials while also pointing to unexpected examples in the media or on video. You can find these links under adult education, current series, and the week-to-week listing on our website. It is well worth the click even if you are not in a small group.

One of those clicks this week is a blog post from Rachel Held Evans. It is a brief, one-page post about what she does and does not believe evangelicalism to be. It is her response to being excoriated by far-right evangelicals for daring to identify as an evangelical and hold views that others thought to be heretical and evil. Like Rachel Held Evans, it may not surprise you that some among us here at Nassau Church have been on the receiving end of an abusive, “Christian” nastiness you would not believe. Here is how Held Evens described what “evangelical” means to her. “It means, traditionally,” she wrote, “an impassioned personal response to the gospel and a commitment to the scriptures that point to it. And so, as an evangelical, I am deeply invested in my faith, at both a personal and communal level, and I believe that all scripture is inspired by God and useful for teaching, challenging, correcting, and training in righteousness, so that people of faith are equipped to love God and their neighbors.” Or one might say, to allow their light to shine. Not all lights in this big old Christian tent of ours are the same. When it comes to being faithful to the gospel taught from the lips of Jesus, the loudest light, the most dominating light, the most arrogant light, may not be the light that is shining the brightest.

“You are the light of the world. A city built on a hill cannot be hid. People do not light a lamp and put it under the bushel basket; rather, they put it on the lampstand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.”

A city built on a hill. You and I know Jesus was not referring to America. A city built on a hill. Jesus wasn’t referring to America. Jesus was referring to you.

Romans 12
November 2
David A. Davis
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It occurs to me that we would likely be hard-pressed to find a few verses of scripture that have more variation in translations and paraphrases than Romans 12:1-2. That was evident Wednesday morning as our small group read from the different versions of the bible being used in the virtual room. The variations seem to reflect an attempt to understand what Paul means by “present your bodies as a living sacrifice” and “your reasonable act of worship,” and being transformed rather than conformed. I don’t have time to offer much for your hearing, but I invite you to do a search this week on your device of choice.

I appeal to you, therefore, brothers and sisters, based on God’s mercy, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your reasonable act of worship. Do not be conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of the mind, so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect (NRSV)

An English translation commissioned by the Church of Scotland in 1964:

Therefore, my brothers, I implore you by God’s mercy to offer your very selves to God: a living sacrifice, dedicated and fit for God’s acceptance, the worship offered by mind and heart. Adapt yourselves no longer to the pattern of this present world, but let your minds be remade and your whole nature thus transformed. Then you will be able to discern the will of God, and to know what is good, acceptable, and perfect.

And maybe the most recent published translation to be found is in New Testament scholar Dr. Beverly Gaventa’s hot-off-the-press commentary on Romans:

So I urge you by God’s mercies, brothers and sisters, to present your bodies as a sacrifice that is living, holy, and pleasing to God. That is your reasonable service. And do not be shaped by this age, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind that you discern God’s will for you, the good and pleasing and fully mature

 Do not be shaped by this age. Adapt yourselves no longer to the patterns of this world. Do not be conformed. The gift of the 12^th chapter of Romans. The gift and the wisdom of the Apostle Paul is that he continues in the chapter to describe for the reader what it looks like. A life transformed. A life of reasonable service. A life of sacrifice that is living, holy, and pleasing to God. While translators and scholars attempt to help you and me wrap our heads and hearts around some of Paul’s vocabulary in the first two verses, Paul launches into practicalities, paints a picture. Paul tells the church at Rome, and the church ever since, “here’s what it looks like”. Or as Dr. Gaventa puts it, “Following the summons, with its depiction of life as radical sacrifice, [Paul goes on] to promote an understanding of that life in terms of shared generosity made possible by divine gift and characterized by love”.

“For by the grace given to me I say to everyone among you not to think of yourself more highly that you ought to think…so we, who are many, are one body in Christ…ministering… teaching… encouragement …. Sincerity …diligence …cheerfulness … Let love be genuine, hate what is evil, hold fast to what is good,; love one another….rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep…. If it is possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all.”   Interestingly, after the first two verses, there is a remarkable consistency across translations and paraphrases for the rest of the chapter. Paul to the church at Rome and the church ever since: “This is what it looks like!”

When I was in college, an itinerant campus preacher came to visit our Christian fellowship group one Friday night. The next day, Saturday morning, a few of us went with him to the University of New Hampshire. When I describe him as an itinerant campus preacher, I mean he would show up on a campus somewhere, find an outdoor central spot with student traffic, and start preaching. His goal was to get people to engage with him, talk back to him, and even argue with him. It was a form of open forum political debates that seemed to be popular on college campuses today. Even though I was in a different place in my theological journey way back then and felt a call to ministry and preaching way back then, I found it a shockingly strange way to try to share the gospel of Jesus. By means of picking an argument with people. Picking a fight instead of showing someone with your life what being a disciple looks like.

Of course, if we are honest about the tradition, about the history, about the church, in absolutely every generation, in every season, the followers of Jesus, the church, denominations of every persuasion, congregations of every kind, could learn, should learn, a whole lot from Paul and Romans 12.  “Outdo one another in showing honor. Do not lag in zeal; be ardent in spirit; serve the Lord. Rejoice in hope, be patient in affliction, persevere in prayer. Contribute to the needs of the saints, pursue hospitality to strangers…live in harmony with one another, do not be arrogant, but associate with the lowly….do not be overcome by evil but overcome evil with good.” A life of shared generosity made possible by a divine gift and characterized by love.

Our theme for this week in the Linked-In Adult Education/Small Group fall series is “Social Gospels and Smaller Tents”. In looking to the evangelical movement in the first half of the 20^th century, Dr. Heath Carter points to the conflict between the ecumenical effort working to serve the common good and improve equality for all people and those looking to draw boundaries and claim the right kind of Christianity. Professor Carter’s use of the metaphor of “smaller tents” is a reference to the beginning of an ongoing obsession for so many about who is in and who is out. Who is right and who is wrong? Who is a proper believer and who is not? The history tells that the arguments and the language and the vitriol were as heated and unchristian in the early and mid-twentieth century as they are today.

It seems to me that the lasting focus in the Christian tradition on who is in the tent and who is out of the tent could not be in greater conflict with the last 19 verses of Romans 12. At the end of the day, isn’t the persistent longing for smaller tents and more and thicker boundary lines inconsistent with lives of shared generosity made possible by divine gift and characterized by love? Or to say it another way, how often does the intramural nastiness in the Christian world distract from and diminish the call of the Gospel of Jesus Christ? Understood in Paul’s language: “Let love be genuine; hate what is evil; hold fast to what is good…Contribute to the needs of the saints; pursue hospitality to strangers…. Do not be arrogant but associate with the lowly…. Do not repay anyone evil for evil but take thought for what is noble in the sight of all…if your enemies are hungry, feed them; if they are thirsty, give them something to drink….do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.”

As the infuriating inaction/incompetence/feckless behavior of elected officials in Washington has led to lost jobs, lost pay, and now lost SNAP benefits for upwards of 42 million of our fellow citizens including what must be a terrifying number of children, I found myself drawn to the very last paragraph of Princeton University Professor and Nassau Church family member Matt Desmond’s book Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City. His captivating sociological study of eviction rates and predatory landlord practices is chilling. But this week, his last paragraph is a prophetic, relevant lament about a whole lot more.

“Whatever are way out of this mess, one thing is certain. This degree of inequality, this withdrawal of opportunity, this cold denial of basic needs, this endorsement of pointless suffering—by no American value is this situation justified. No moral code or ethical principle, no piece of scripture or holy teaching, can be summoned to defend what we have allowed our country to become.”

I wonder how the Church of Jesus Christ has any time to be picking fights when there’s so much gospel work to do. Picking fights instead of showing the world what the life of discipleship looks like. The body of Christ is not conformed to this world but transformed to live a life of shared generosity made possible by divine gift and characterized by love.

In Romans 12, the Apostle Paul paints a picture with words describing for his readers, for the church, for you and me, a life transformed. A life of reasonable service. A life of sacrifice that is living, holy, and pleasing to God. “Here’s what it looks like.” Jesus, our Savior, shows us with his teaching, his life, his death, and his resurrection. Way beyond words.

Jesus said, “This is my body broken for you. Do this in remembrance of me.”

“This is the cup of the new covenant sealed in my blood for the forgiveness of sin. Every time you drink it, do it in remembrance of me.”

Come, people of God. This is what it looks like.

Philippians 3:7-16
October 26
David A. Davis
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Arthur Link was a professor of American Church history at Princeton University and a member of this congregation when it was known as the First Presbyterian Church of Princeton.  In 1967 he edited a volume of the history of First Presbyterian Church that was published in celebration of the congregation’s 200 years. He wrote the first chapter on the earliest history and tells of Presbyterians settling in Princetown, which he described as a “way station on the stage coach line between Philadelphia overshadowed by its larger neighbors of Kingston and Lawrenceville.” Link makes the argument that Presbyterianism in Princeton had a direct correlation to the revivalism of the Great Awakening. “It is entirely possible”, he writes, “that organized Presbyterianism in Princeton was also a child of the Great Awakening.” A movement Link describes as “a revolt against the cold formalism that had begun to ossify the churches and laid great emphasis upon the personal experience of grace.”

 A personal experience of grace. A personal experience of grace, perhaps as opposed to a primarily intellectual exercise, dependent upon the clergy and the hierarchy of the church and the monarchy. Interestingly, Link points out that the Presbytery of New Brunswick turned down the request for a congregation in Princeton before 1755 more than once because of the proximity to existing congregations in Kingston and Lawrenceville. The minutes report that whoever was serving at Kingston might “preach a lecture at Princetown if they can.” “Preach a lecture” sounds like a bit of that cold formalism ossifying the church. A personal experience of grace. That might just be a working definition of the introduction of evangelicalism in this land. A personal experience of grace. An experience of faith that is between someone and God with no need of a clergy conduit. A faith that is not just a matter of the mind but is also a matter of the heart.

In the third chapter of the letter to the church at Philippi, the Apostle Paul comes to both the heart of the matter and the matter of the heart.  “Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ”.  Here in ten verses or so, the core of the letter.  “For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but one that comes through the faith of Christ” Right here in the reading for this morning, after that great hymn in chapter two, the hymn that proclaims of the self-emptying of Christ on the cross and God’s exaltation of Christ giving him the name that is above every name, after his mention of his co-workers in the faith, Timothy and Epaphroditus, Paul comes to the crux of things. “I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the sharing of his sufferings by becoming like him in his death, if somehow I may attain the resurrection of the dead.”

            After Paul warns the congregation about those who preach what is antithetical to the gospel, after he lists his own stellar credentials, his own CV, his life resume “If anyone else has reason to be confident in the flesh I have more…a Hebrew born of Hebrews…as to the law a Pharisee….as to righteousness under the law, blameless), the apostle then offers to the believers at Philippi, what is for him, the very center of it all, a center etched forever here in the Living Word. “Not that I have already obtained this or have already reached the goal; but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. ..Forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” 

These few verses of Paul’s letter, where Paul gets all personal, where Paul opens up about his relationship with Christ, where Paul writes about his own encounter with the gospel, his own longing in a relationship with Jesus, it’s like Act III of a Shakespeare play. The act where the play turns. The act is labeled the climax. Paul tells of what he has let go and considers worthless, how he longs for more of Christ and his resurrection, and how he presses on. These familiar and quotable, and memorable verses are the heart of the letter. It’s what drives the plot. The plot here, it’s not of Paul’s life. That plot line would, of course, tell of his conversion on the Damascus Road. No, it is the movement of the letter, in the structure of the letter; here we have the climax. The core, the key, the transformative part of his correspondence is his own witness to the “prize of the heavenly call of God in Christ Jesus.” Losing and gaining. Wanting more. Pressing on. Only this, just this, this one thing, Paul concludes, hold fast. Hold fast to this! Losing, gaining, wanting more, pressing on. Hold fast to your own encounter with the gospel of Christ Jesus. It is the heart of the matter and the matter of the heart.

In the small group I am leading on Wednesdays, I tossed out a question about the group’s earliest memory or understanding of the world “evangelical”. For me, as a young person growing up in a Presbyterian congregation in Pittsburgh, much like this one, I was taught that the term was to be understood much like Arthur Link’s brief portrayal of the Great Awakening. In the preaching that shaped me and my faith, a reference to “evangelical” was not political, not theological. It was a reference to the experience of grace in a relationship to God understood through the love of Jesus Christ. Yes, it was the 70s and television evangelists were “legion,” but they didn’t own the word “evangelical.” Pretty much ever since it has frustrated, to say the least, that the term has been co-opted, twisted, redefined, stomped on, misused, abused, and weaponized. I can remember the last time “evangelical” crossed my lips from this pulpit. It is similar to how I feel about the American flag. It is as if one side of the political spectrum thinks it owns the American flag. Anyone who has listened to a season of my preaching can hear that I believe the gospel of Jesus Christ touches the heart and is a personal experience of grace. I believe it because I have experienced it. A faith that moves me and never just stays above the neck.

Last weekend, I was the keynote speaker for another congregation’s Men’s retreat. 38 men staying in three Airbnbs in Avalon at the Jersey Shore and cramming into one large living room and kitchen area for meals and then for worship and my four sermons. I knew the pastor and one other person. They were all certainly welcoming to me, but they were also enjoying each other’s company. So let’s just say there were multiple times when I found myself alone in that crowded room. It takes a little while for that many people to go through a buffet line. On Saturday morning, as I finished my light breakfast and was waiting for the worship time to begin, I found myself sitting next to a young man who was quiet and not talking to anyone either. Instead, he was leafing through his obviously brand-new, big, annotated bible. I am guessing it was purchased or gifted for the occasion. Since the only instructions on the email thread for the retreat were to bring your own linens and your bible. He was not really reading it, he was leafing through it like he was seeing it for the first time.

I introduced myself and asked him how long he had been at the church. “Not long,” he said. “A bit more than a year. I wasn’t raised with any church background or faith. It’s all new to me. We took our 4-year-old daughter to some of the activities that the church advertised in town. Then we started going to worship. We just love it. This is my first retreat.” The rest of the morning, I couldn’t stop thinking about him, glancing over. It was clear that, like me, he was an introvert. Talking to people he didn’t know wasn’t easy for him. When I was preaching, he was hanging on every word. When we were singing from the little prepared songbook, he didn’t know any of the songs, but he was trying. Then, during those breaks or waiting for the next thing, he had that bible. He was enjoying it more than trying to talk to people.

On the two-hour drive home from Avalon late Saturday night, I was blasting Bruce Springsteen to stay awake and I kept thinking of this young man. I don’t know if it was admiration, jealousy, or nostalgia. The first for him was a whole lot more than that retreat. A whole lot more. Somewhere, along the Atlantic City Expressway, I thought of this verse from the Book of Revelation. “Don’t abandon the love you had at first.” It is from the second chapter, John the Revelator. His letter to the church at Ephesus. In John’s vision, the letters are the words of the Risen Christ. “I know your works , your toil and your patient endurance….I also know that you are enduring patiently and bearing up for the sake of my name, and that you have not grown weary. But I have this against you. That you have abandoned the love you had at first.”  One paraphrase puts it this way, “you have forgotten your first love”.  They may be able to rob us of the word “evangelical,” but don’t let anyone take away the love you had first when it comes to your journey of faith. Never forget, don’t give up on the matter of the heart and the heart of the matter.

In that letter to the church at Ephesus, John is writing to a congregation about its attempt to remain faithful in a world full of violence, evildoers, false prophets, heretical teaching, and untruth. Sound familiar. Sound eerily relevant? Sound timely? “I know you are enduring and bearing up for the sake of my name.” Don’t forget the first love, the personal experience of grace. When you can’t make sense of the world or what’s going on all around you, when from the neck up it is confusion and discouragement amid a world that seems to be apocalyptically shaking, maybe lead with your heart. Cling to the grace Christ offers. Forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, press on, press on. Reclaim his steadfast love for you as if for the very first time.

Luke 18:1-8
October 19
Jess Winderweedle
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