The Presbyterian Committee on the Self-Development of People continues to work with low-income communities across the United States to overcome oppression and injustice. In 2017, National SDOP entered into partnerships with the projects below. Projects focused on literacy, worker-owned cooperatives, advocacy, youth-led initiatives, skills development, farming, worker rights, immigration/refugee issues and capacity building. Through your gifts to One Great Hour of Sharing, over 5,000 projects in economically poor communities in the United States and around the world have had an opportunity to develop solutions to their own challenges since SDOP’s inception. Find an interactive world map with OGHS recipients at www.pcusa.org/oghsmap.
Highlighted Projects:
Barranco Fisher Folk Cooperative, Barranco Belize—This group of economically poor young adult villagers designed this project to increase their capacity to work together as fisher folks by cultivating a conservation.
Women in Agriculture Association, Atlanta, GA —A cooperative owned farmer’s association promoting their locally grown farm products within the community.
Youth on the Move, Pine Apple, AL— This youth-led after school project prepares low income youth in Wilcox County, AL to meet the challenges of living in a severely depressed county.
Tenant Coalition Training of Fargo-Moorhead Area, Moorhead, MN—This group of low-income refugees seeks to become economically self-sufficient and to improve their financial skills.
The Genesis Youth Organizing Internship Project, Oakland, CA—This project is comprised primarily of low-income minority youth seeking to disrupt School-to-Prison Pipeline related problems in Oakland, CA.
National SDOP Projects:
Picture the Homeless, East Harlem, NYC, NY
Women in Agriculture Association, Atlanta, GA
Union Popular de Vendedores Ambulantes (UPVA), Popular Union of Street Vendors, Los Angeles, CA
Southside Worker Center, Tucson, AZ
Youth on the Move, Pine Apple, AL
Coalition for Police Accountability, Oakland, CA
Youth Rise Organizing Institute, Austin, TX
Rochester Refugee Resettlement Services, Inc., Rochester, NY
PHP works to alleviate hunger and eliminate its root causes. As a part of this mission, PHP gave over 160 grants totaling more than $1.2 million, impacting communities across the United States and 37 other countries in 2016. You make this work possible through gifts to One Great Hour of Sharing! Find an interactive map with OGHS recipients at www.pcusa.org/oghsmap.
More and Better Food
23 Hunger Action Advocates served 1,600 congregations in presbyteries around the country.
55,115 pounds of grain distributed through community food banks
16 grain storage facilities built or repaired in Sierra Leone and Cameroon
50 fuel efficient stoves constructed and installed in family homes in Guatemala
500 chicks raised by families around the world
Solidarity with People
2,600 people around the world regained access to their lands that had been forcefully taken from them.
187 training sessions were held to build grassroots capacity in communities around the world.
Since the Fair Food Program was implemented in 2011, more than $25 million has been paid out to farmworkers in Fair Food Premiums; 135,000 farmworkers have received “Know Your Rights” materials; and 1,100 farmworker complaints have come in through the 24-hour complaint hotline, 100% of which have been resolved.
$9.1 million was compensated to hundreds of victims of sweatshop fires and their families in Pakistan and Bangladesh. Cincinnati became the first city in Ohio to pass a wage theft ordinance, which will provide additional protection for more than 33,000 low-wage workers.
More Livable Environment
1,088 congregations ordered 192,560 Eco-Palms
More than 1,000 Presbyterians purchased at least 79,000 lbs of Fairly Traded coffee
191 certified PC(USA) Earth Care Congregations worked holistically to care for God’s creation in their own communities
93,020 planted trees, 128 nurseries and 40 family gardens in partner countries
12 wells and hand pumps built or repaired in communities in Sierra Leone and Liberia with limited access to clean water
Presbyterian Disaster Assistance (PDA) is the emergency and refugee program of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). It enables our congregations and mission partners to witness to the healing love of Christ through caring for communities adversely affected by crisis and catastrophic events. Find an interactive world map with OGHS recipients at www.pcusa.org/oghsmap.
National aid:
25 states received help following natural and human-caused disasters, including flooding in North and South Carolina, Texas, Missouri, Kansas, Indiana, Michigan and New York; wildfires in California, Tennessee, Texas and Kansas; ongoing response to Superstorm Sandy and Hurricane Matthew; and various public violence incidents.
Flint water crisis:
PDA is assisting in Flint by supporting the annual Fresh Flint Festival, a free event for the community to support city residents while promoting fitness, nutrition, and healthy living as a means to mitigate the effects of lead poisoning. The festival is designed to unite the community in compassion and renew commitment and hope for the future.
Fall 2017 Hurricanes:
Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria devastated islands in the Caribbean and communities in the U.S. PDA will be doing long-term recovery and is expected to assist the affected areas for at least 3-5 years, if not longer.
North and South Carolina flooding:
In October 2015, the South Carolina coastline was pummeled by heavy rains and flooding. A year later, Hurricane Matthew caused havoc in North Carolina damaging thousands of homes and businesses. There were flooded areas in both states that had never flooded before. PDA has 6 volunteer host sites that have hosted over 3,400 volunteers to assist with cleanup and rebuilding.
International aid:
In the first half of 2017, 11 countries received aid and support after catastrophic events, including the violence and famine in South Sudan, flooding in Peru and Colombia, cholera prevention and food security in Haiti, drought in Malawi and Kenya, and ongoing assistance for refugees and internally displaced persons related to Syria.
Syria:
With the support of PDA, the National Evangelical Synod of Syria and Lebanon has opened five schools in Syrian refugee camps, which are hosting over 300 students. Homes in Homs are being rebuilt so that displaced families who fled their embattled city can return to begin the hard work of rebuilding their shattered city and broken neighborhoods.
South Sudan:
PDA is working with Presbyterian Relief and Development Agency, the humanitarian arm of the Presbyterian Church of South Sudan, to provide large-scale emergency relief projects for South Sudanese displaced persons and refugees, as well as supporting livelihood and food security, peace building, and education for civil society.
The YAV program is a one-year service opportunity for young adults ages 19–30, offered through the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.). For the YAVs, the benefits include a year of vocational discernment, the opportunity to live and work outside their comfort zone with the support of an intentional Christian community, time to explore their relationship with God and to live more simply in response to an unsustainable human demand for natural resources.
Isaiah 61:1-11
David A. Davis
December 17, 2017
Advent III
When preparing to preach on a particular biblical passage, preachers like me often go and find other sermons that have been given on the text. When you have been doing this for a while, that would include looking at your own past sermons. Finding other sermons is lot easier now than it used be. Back in the day the search would be limited to the books of sermons on the shelf in the study. Now, of course, a pastor can spend a morning online and find tons of sermons. In this case, sermons on Isaiah 61.
Some look for sermons by notable preachers who have inspired before or important preachers in history. Others have their “go to” church websites to listen to friends and colleagues, folks who are slugging it out week in and week out. Sermons in “real time” as it were. Preachers have to figure out a way to have their own craving for good preaching met. Not much inspiration comes if the only voice you hear is your own.
The thing about Isaiah 61 is that Jesus preached on this passage. “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” Jesus preached on that. Good news to the poor. Release to the captives. Recover of sight to the blind. The oppressed go free. Jesus preached on Isaiah 61. Luke writes about it in his gospel. Luke, the fourth chapter.
After Jesus was tempted by the devil for forty days in the wilderness, Luke tells of Jesus, now filled with the power of the Spirit, returning to Galilee as reports about him spread through all the surrounding country. Jesus began to teach in the synagogues of Galilee and he was, according to Luke, being praised by everyone. Then he came to Nazareth, where we had been brought up. He came to teach in the synagogue in his home town. That’s when, that’s where he preached on this passage from Isaiah.
Jesus stood up. The scroll of the prophet Isaiah was given to him. He unrolled it and found the place where it was written, where this was written: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.” Jesus rolled up the scroll. He gave it back to the attendant and sat down again. All the eyes of the people in the synagogue were fixed on him. People waiting, wondering, watching. And Jesus began to say, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” And that was all he said.
He didn’t preach that sermon in the Garden of Gethsemane at the Last Supper. He didn’t preach it then and say, “Tomorrow this scripture shall be fulfilled.” He didn’t preach the sermon at his trial before Pilate, or when the soldiers were taunting and abusing him, or when he was hanging there between the two thieves. He told them, “Today you will be with me in Paradise,” not “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” The Risen Jesus didn’t preach this sermon at the tomb when Mary held onto his feet, or along the Emmaus Road when he taught the two men all that was in the scripture, or when he cooked breakfast for the disciples on the shore of the Sea of Galilee, or when he gave the Great Commission. The Risen Christ didn’t preach Isaiah 61 then and say, “Now, finally, at last, this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”
No. Jesus preached Isaiah right at the beginning of his ministry in Luke. He preached it before he healed Simon’s mother-in-law, before he touched the man with leprosy and healed him, before that paralyzed man was lowered through the roof and he healed him, before he called the tax collector and the rest of the twelve, before all the teaching, before all the miracles. Jesus and Isaiah 61. It was before the Sermon on the Plain, before the parables, before the lost sheep and the lost coin and the Prodigal Son and Zacchaeus and the widow with two copper coins. Before all of that, Jesus read from the scroll of Isaiah, sat down, and said, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” But the sermon didn’t end there.
The sermon was his life. Good news to the poor. Release to the captives. Recovery of sight to the blind. The oppressed go free. Comfort to those who mourn. Building and repairing from ruins. Loving justice. Exulting in God. Clothed with the garments of salvation. Covered with robes of righteousness. Righteousness and praise before all the nations. Jesus preached Isaiah 61 with this life. God’s glory revealed in him. Before God’s glory revealed in his death, before God’s glory revealed in his resurrection, before God’s glory revealed in the Lamb upon the throne, God’s glory is revealed in his life, in his touch, in his teaching, in his healing, in his preaching. God’s glory revealed in his flesh.
There is a certain timelessness to the last few chapters of Isaiah. The prophet is preaching to the people of God who had, in every possible way, failed to live up to the expectations and hopes of better and more faith-filled days. Rebuilding and restoring and refreshing religious life and ritual practice and community cohesion was all a failure. Division and rejection of the other and passing judgment and splintering and separation carried the day. The faith being touted and professed was not the faith being lived and practiced.
The prophet’s encouragement, the prophet’s word, the prophet’s hope, the prophet’s “good news” comes to the oppressed, the brokenhearted, the captives, the prisoners. The prophet’s “good news” is promise that life shall again flourish even from the ruins, that repair shall come to the cities, that righteousness shall rise among the nations. The prophet’s “good news” is that amid all that life-crushing devastation, even then, even now, God is faithful. God of the everlasting covenant is faithful. Amid the timeless failure of God’s people to live up to the expectation of better and more faith-filled days, and the chronic inevitability of our sinfulness, and the episodic chaos of life, God is faithful…still.
Cynthia Jarvis, pastor at the Chestnut Hill Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia and once a pastor here at Nassau, puts it this way. Cindy writes, “the God who can build up ancient ruins is also the God who can redeem the ruin a prodigal son believes he has made of his life, the God who shall raise up the former devastations is also the God who means to pick up a daughter’s broken parts, the God who shall repair the ruined cities and the devastations of many generations is also the God who can repair even the ruined nation that has forgotten its way in the world.”
The prophet’s “good news” is that God’s transforming and redeeming faithfulness is revealed in the flesh of our lives. God’s glory revealed in Him, in his flesh, and thus, the hope, the promise, the yearning that God’s glory would be revealed in ours. Jesus didn’t wait until the end of his life, the end of the gospel, to preach Isaiah 61. That’s because God’s glory isn’t just about the promised life to come, it’s about life here and now. It’s about good news and comfort and repair and justice and righteousness and praise… now. In your life and in mine and in the world.
I told you all a few weeks ago to come to our Wee Christmas celebration that first Wednesday of December. You missed quite the production and proclamation. As I told the story of the birth of Jesus the second time, all the children had parts and were in costume: angels, shepherds, animals, Magi. It just so happened with the numbers that we had four or five Marys and one Joseph. Each of the Mary’s were carrying a baby doll Jesus. You will understand the decorum that allowed for the Mary’s to be “carrying the child” in the form of a doll in arms while on the way with Joseph to Bethlehem. After Joseph found them a spot for the night back in the barn, and after all the animals came to gathered round to welcome Mary and Joseph to their stable (animals being kids with horse, cow, sheep, and pig masks), the time came for Mary to deliver her child and lay him in the manger.
Now I did invite the Marys to all put their baby doll Jesuses in the manger. I did not, however, imply Jesus should be tossed into the manger with the same vigor of tossing a t-shirt at the end of the day in the dirty clothes basket. Jesus (all four or five of them) was hurled into the manger with a significant amount of force that frankly left Joseph looking rather bewildered. The result was that Jesus dolls were strewn in that manger every which way; piled in, hanging out, with no concern at all for what might be cute and cuddily. That manger was teeming with flesh. There was flesh everywhere. Humanity just spilling out of the manger.
Upon further review, that pageant image from Wee Christmas, is an apt theological metaphor for the manger, for the Incarnation, for God with us. God in Christ come all the way down. Humanity just spilling out of the manger. Because God’s glory is revealed not just in Christ’s holiness, in his divinity. God’s glory is also revealed in his flesh: in his healing touch, in his tears, in his embrace of the sinner, his welcome of the stranger, his care for the sick, his daring, boundary-crossing love, his challenge to the rich, his threat to the powerful, his frustration with the pious, his concern for the poor, his undivided attention to the broken. Good news and comfort and repair and justice and righteousness and praise with his life. The prophet’s “good news” is God’s glory revealed in Him. The prophet’s promise is that if God’s glory is revealed in Him, then God’s glory can be revealed in us, as we live for Him, as we serve Him, as we learn from Him.
There is a certain timelessness to the last few chapters of Isaiah and the promise and call for good news and comfort and repair and justice and righteousness and praise. A timeless resonance when it comes to our lives, to our community, to the nation, to the world. A timelessness relevant to the brokenness of our humanity. Here’s the prophet’s call, the prophet’s challenge, the prophet’s inspiring, convicting call upon our hearts and our lives: Isaiah 61 in one hand and the world in the other. You and I, we’ve got to start preaching. Preaching with our lives. Preaching, living, working for, telling, shouting, praying about, serving, doing, the “good news.”
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
The Worst Bible Stories
and What We Might Learn from Them
We all know the Bible is full of quiet love, knitting grandmas, good people, and a smiling Jesus. But this January we’re overlooking the Bible’s abundant tame stuff and digging into the difficult and troubling corners of our sacred scripture. What might we learn?
Because of the structure of these classes we do not record them. Please see the links below each description to read the relevant Bible passage.
The classes at 9:15 in the Assembly Room (and Niles Chapel) are part of our continuing January “All-Ages” series: join the Middle School and High School students for bagels & hot chocolate before class begins!
Sundays, 9:15 a.m, in the Assembly Room unless otherwise noted.
For a look at Adult Education offerings in January, download the brochure: AE Jan 2018
Murder in the Royal Loo
Jacq Laplsey
January 7
You can’t make this stuff up: While on the toilet, an obese king is killed by a disabled assassin, and there’s a mighty mess to clean up afterwards. What does this smelly, violent murder in the bathroom have to do with God? Come find out as we look together at this scatological story in Judges 3!
Jacq Lapsley wears many hats, including being mom to Emma and Sam Bezilla. She has loved traveling with the church youth on their adventures. By day, she teaches Old Testament at Princeton Seminary.
George Hunsinger returns for the 21st year to lead this verse-by-verse examination of the First Letter of Paul to the Corinthians. Bibles are available for use during the class. Find them on the Deacon Desk by the church kitchen. Class meets next door in Maclean House (Garden Entrance).
God Made Me Do It
Shane Berg
January 14, 9:15 a.m., Niles Chapel
King Herod, in a fit of murderous rage, orders the execution of all infants in the town of Bethlehem. Matthew tells us that this barbaric act fulfills a prophecy from the book of Jeremiah. Does this mean that God uses evil to accomplish divine purposes? Come and explore the question of the relationship between God’s will and human evil.
Shane Berg is best known around Nassau as Corrie Berg’s husband and the father of Anders, Mathias, and Soren. But his other hats include former NT professor and current Executive Vice President at PTS.
What has happened to democratic reform in Myanmar? In light of what the United Nations has called ethnic cleansing of the Rohingya population in Rakhine state, many are asking what kind of democracy perpetuates violence against its own people. Why does Aung San Suu Kyi seem unwilling, or unable, to oppose the military campaign against the Rohingya? Is it time for the international community to abandon her government, or is there a constructive role we can continue to play?
Lex Rieffel is a nonresident senior fellow in global economy and development at the Brookings Institution. His recent work has focused on the economy of Myanmar during the period of democratic transition. Rieffel has held positions at the Institute of International Finance, the U.S. Treasury Department, and USAID. He served in the Peace Corps and as an officer in the U.S. Navy. Mr. Rieffel is a graduate of Princeton University and the Fletcher School, Tufts University.
RESOURCES:
For the past twelve months, he has been working with a Burmese scholar at the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore on a study of options for ASEAN in promoting peace and development in Rakhine State, as ASEAN’s contribution to resolving the Rohingya crisis. The 10-page policy brief can be downloaded here (PDF): Rieffel-Thuzar-ISEAS Perspective2018-3
Perhaps the most avoided verse in the entire Psalter: “Happy shall they be who take your little ones and dash them against the rock!” (Psalm 137:9) What’s the story here? And what is it doing in our Bible?
Nancy Lammers Gross teaches Speech Communication in Ministry at Princeton Seminary and last year was promoted to the two-year-old Sunday School class here at Nassau.
It’s hard enough to imagine that we would, like the earliest believers in Acts, choose to sell our possessions and trust the church to take care of our every need. Harder still is making sense of the strange story of Ananias and Sapphira whose deceptions and deaths don’t exactly seem to function as a lesson for us today. Join Eric as we read these puzzling texts together.
Eric Barreto is Weyerhaeuser Associate Professor of New Testament at Princeton Theological Seminary, an ordained Baptist minister, and a Nassau parent.
The digital media files posted on the Nassau Presbyterian Church website are copyrighted by the pastors and presenting lecturers. These works are only for personal and educational use through a digital media player on a personal computer or using a personal digital media device (e.g., iPod). These works may not otherwise be archived or re-posted on the Internet, broadcast in any manner, distributed, transcribed or modified in any way without written permission of the presenting lecturer. The user of the audio file holds no license (of any form – expressed or implied) to any of the content of these files. The same applies to any Powe
Their student days may have been a generation apart, but both Lemuel Garcia-Arroyo and his nephew Jasiel Hernandez found the Presbyterian Pan American School (Pan Am) to be an incubator for Christian leadership in their lives.
Lemuel, now Associate Director in the Racial Ethnic & Women’s Ministries area of the Presbyterian Mission, came to Pan Am from southern Mexico in 1981 as a high school sophomore. He enrolled in the Kingsville, Texas, secondary school in part to escape the scrutiny that comes with being a pastor’s son. He says the space Pan Am gave him helped his faith grow and encouraged him to claim his love for the church.
Jasiel, a senior at Austin Presbyterian Theological Seminary, made the trek from southern Mexico to Pan Am 27 years after Lemuel. He grew up hearing stories about Pan Am from Lemuel and his younger brother Joel, who is an information systems manager and lay pastor in Mexico City. Jasiel heard his uncles talk about opportunities to excel academically, create community, and grow spiritually. Jasiel and Lemuel spoke highly of Pan Am’s academic preparation, chapel services, and extracurricular activities, but both also emphasized the importance of participating in student organized
Bible study and prayer groups.
“Who would have thought teenagers would voluntarily go to chapel to pray after breakfast?” Lemuel asks. “But that’s what we did. I wasn’t pressured to do it, but it helped solidify my identity and my love for the church.”
Jasiel participated in a weekly dormitory Bible study. “It was there I discovered I wanted to learn more about God. I wanted to know more about people’s faith and their understanding about how God works in their lives through different events and situations,” Jasiel says. “So that Bible study really impacted my life. I wound up leading it my senior year.”
Lemuel is grateful the Pan Am tradition continues and that it helped shape his nephew’s calling. “I am so proud and joyful that God would call him into ministry,” Lemuel says.
Jasiel is looking toward ordination in the PC(USA) and doctoral work in theology and Christian education after he finishes seminary. Jasiel and Lemuel appreciate the scholarships that made it possible for them to enjoy Pan Am’s spiritually nurturing and high-quality academic programs. They draw a connection between the student aid they received and gifts to the Christmas Joy Offering.
“My family is from humble origins, so money was tight,” Jasiel says, “I appreciate those who gave money, because scholarships made it possible for me to go to Pan Am.”
Your gift to the Christmas Joy Offering will make it possible for the Presbyterian Pan American School to prepare more leaders. Half of the Offering goes to Presbyterian-related racial ethnic schools and colleges, and the other half supports current and past church workers and their families who are in critical financial need. Your gift will make a difference in the lives of individuals and will strengthen our church.
Isaiah 40:1-11
David A. Davis
December 10, 2017
Advent II
There is not as much “comfort” in the Bible as one might think. Comfort, as in the word “comfort.” Comfort, as in “Comfort, O comfort my people.” You would sort of think that the word would pretty much be strewn all over the pages of scripture. The word “comfort” in Hebrew and Greek ought to roll off the pages, the scrolls, in abundance. But not really.
You and I, we could all list some familiar citations, the most familiar examples. “For thou are with me, thy rod and thy staff, they comfort me” (Ps. 23). Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew, the Beatitudes. “Blessed are those who mourn, for they shall me comforted” (Mt. 5). A few of the other psalms go for some “comfort.” “You, O Lord, have helped and comforted me” (Ps 86). “You will increase my honor and comfort me once again” (Ps 71). Psalm 119 is long enough that there are several occurrences of the word there.
Some may remember that the three friends of Job famously met together and set out to “console and comfort” (Job 2). Job when his life started to fall apart. The prophet Jeremiah beautifully tells of God’s promise of turning mourning into joy, gladness into sorrow, “I will comfort them” (Jer. 31), says the Lord.
But other than that one Beatitude, there is very little other “comfort” in the four gospels. The Apostle Paul tosses in some “comfort” in his thanksgiving offered in the Second Letter to the Thessalonians. But a careful reading and keeping of the semantic metrics would indicate there is a surprising lack of “comfort” in the Bible.
A professor of the Hebrew Bible once described the first 39 chapters of Isaiah as one long prophet finger wag at the people of Israel. In fact the term used was that of “prophetic assault,” that the prophet lays into the people for their continuous, ever mounting, and quite appalling sin, especially as it related to their lack of care for the poor, the hungry, the orphans, and the widows. To read the first 39 chapters of Isaiah is to, as the professor put it, “take a bath in religious condemnation” intended to reflect how furious God was with God’s people.
Thirty-nine chapters far from “comfort.” That helps me to understand how when the old Wednesday morning men’s Bible study decided to join the congregation in reading the Bible through the year, when we got to Isaiah, folks started dropping like flies. Isaiah 1-39 together with the fact that I was diagnosed with “mono” about the same time pretty much brought an end to that Bible study!
All of the above on “comfort” is to say that “Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God!” is a really, really big deal. “Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem.” To a people now in exile, now held captive in Babylon, now trying to sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land, to a people whose sins are exponential, who have known little else but destruction and judgment and chaos and ruin, enough, now. Enough!Speak tenderly, “comfort, comfort, comfort, comfort.”
Thirty-nine chapters of judgment and the voice changes, the page turns, a new song is heard. Not because of a people’s miraculous transformation, not because of some seismic behavioral shift, not because of a religious great awakening. It all changes because of the unilateral, prevenient, intrusive, shocking grace of God. The term has been served. The penalty has been paid. Enough is enough. “Comfort, O comfort my people says your God.” The radical, game changing, life changing, salvation history-changing comfort of God.
Pat Lyons was our former director of communications here at the church. He died very suddenly several weeks ago. His memorial service was held at Trinity Church where he was a member. Pat was an Episcopalian. He had this self-deprecating Episcopalian humor. “We’re not always sure what we believe, but darn it we dress well,” he would say. And he would tell me that Episcopalians don’t believe salvation by good works, they believe in salvation by good taste.
Don’t get too carried away, you frozen chosen, you “decently and in order” rowdies, you Protestant Work Ethic devotees, you Presbyterians who major in being the Type A personalities of the Protestant world. Type A Protestants who really do think we better still earn it, or work to deserve it, or do something, anything to help it… to earn, to work, to deserve, to help along our salvation.
I mean we Presbyterians give it a good go when it comes to singing and proclaiming that we are “saved by grace through faith alone” but that deeply rooted spiritual myth of pulling up bootstraps never really goes away. And we’re kidding ourselves in when we pretend there isn’t always that underlying threat to our experience of — that heretical detraction from, our ingrained tendency to deny — the radical unexpected comfort of God.
When you underestimate the bold intrusion of “comfort” in the opening verse of Isaiah 40, then it’s way to easy to read the rest of the promise as a conditional clause, an “if-then statement.” “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Every valley shall be lifted up, and every mountain and hill be made low, the uneven ground shall become level, and the rough places a plain… Then… the glory of the Lord shall be revealed.” Prepare the way. Make straight a path. Prepare and make, in every valley and every mountain, all the uneven places and rough places. Prepare. Make. Excavate a way and then “the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all people shall see it together, for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.” It is the “if you build it, he will come” reading of the prophet’s song. If you prepare the Way, then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed.
There is old saw of a story in my family and I could never tell if it was true or not. It was often said that in my parents’ younger years when they would entertain, have a dinner party or a New Year’s Eve party or a bowl game party, my mother’s preparation took a unique form. She would go through the house and replace all the light bulbs with lower wattage, dimmer ones. Rather than clean beforehand, she would wait and clean afterward. The party was going to happen whether the house was clean or not. Dim the lights, clean once. A bit of party wisdom, probably party folklore as well. Party preparation in a different light.
Preparing the Way is not in order for the glory to be revealed. Preparing the Way is in response to that that radical, game changing, life changing, salvation history-changing comfort of God. John the Baptist with his “Brood of Vipers” sermon in Luke made it quite clear that the glory of the Lord is coming whether you are prepared or not, the Way of the Lord shall be made whether you make it or not, this glory train is coming whether you’re working the track or not, whether you deserve it, earn it, work it, help it, or not. Isaiah blurts it out like never before. The glory is revealed in God’s comfort. “Comfort, O comfort my people, says your God.”
And the Way? The pathway, it’s going into every valley, and every mountain and hill, and all the uneven ground, and the rough places too. The Way of the Lord shall be everywhere. The kingdom shall know no end. It shall be on earth, on all the earth, as it is in heaven. The glory of the Lord will touch the roughest places and the most uneven ground and the highest mountain and deepest and darkest of valleys, even in the valley of the shadow of death, God’s glory, God’s comfort. Yes, it shall meet you there too.
The glory of the Lord revealed in every valley. The vast expanse of the Way, every valley, every mountain, and every rough place, is not a reflection of the thoroughness of our preparation. It is an affirmation of the “completeness” of salvation. It sounds like a no-brainer, almost a silly thing to have to say, but it is no small theological and spiritual affirmation: “Salvation is bigger than us” and no one understood that better than the Hebrew prophets and John the Baptist.
Yesterday at the memorial service for Margaret Migliore, as we witnessed to our resurrection hope in Christ the Lord, I shared with the gathered congregation that Margaret never asked for prayer for herself. She never complained either. But in the midst of a pastoral visit from me or other members of the staff, when asked what she would like us to pray for, it was always prayers for others and prayers for our nation and prayers for the world.
In fact over the summer as Margaret was struggling for health and facing setback after setback, she was always more worried about what was going in the world, and in our country, and in our community, and in the lives of those she loved, those in need, including the poor, the hungry, the orphans, and the widows. Margaret’s prayer was for the rough places. Her prayer was for the salvation of the world. Her prayer was for God’s comfort for the world. That the glory of the Lord shall be revealed. Her confidence was in God’s love for her and God’s love for the world.
The radical, game changing, life changing, salvation history-changing comfort of God. And the completeness of salvation. That’s not a bad Advent pairing. Not a bad Advent affirmation. The comfort of God in every valley, and every mountain, all the uneven ground, and rough places too. Comfort. Comfort. Comfort.
Here’s the Advent prayer: that the glory of the Lord would be revealed in every valley. And the Advent promise? That the glory of the Lord shall be revealed in every valley.
