Isaiah 64:1-9
David A. Davis
December 3, 2017
Advent I

You can imagine it. You may have experienced it. That moment when the two kids, just older than toddlers, not quite first graders, maybe siblings, maybe friends, they are off in the bedroom playing, keeping themselves occupied. The parent, just a few steps away, has that sudden realization that things have been too quiet for too long and goes to stick a head in the door. It was the morning that the kids found out crayons can write on walls as well as paper. But the walls are a lot bigger and more fun. And the parent, with all the appropriate amount of love and playfulness in the voice, proclaims, “Oh my goodness, what a mess!”.

You can imagine it. You may have experienced it. The college student is home for the holidays. Home, meaning sleeping at home… a lot. Sleeping a lot. Finals just complete. Another semester in the books. The parent, so glad to have the young adult home, sticks a head in the door mid-day to make sure the child is still there, still sleeping. And the room, well, the room is a mess. And the parent bites the tongue, opts for the joy of having them home, closes the door, and proclaims in a whisper, with a sigh, “Whew, what a mess!”

You can imagine it. You may have experienced it. Another crazy week at work. Too many twelve-, fourteen-hour days. The long commute. The stress of the numbers. The emails that won’t stop, ever. Then that night of the holiday concert at school. The parent didn’t get away from the office as planned. The train was late. Finally arriving halfway through, the now quite discombobulated, weary one who left home at 5:45 that morning plops into the seat on the edge of the row there with the rest of the family. The look from them, from friends and strangers and from the middle-schooler up on stage, now sitting back down, says it all. The solo just finished. And sitting there, still trying to catch a breath, the craziness of an out-of-control life screams inside. And the parent holds back the tears and with regret proclaims to himself, “Wow, what a mess!”

You can imagine it. You may have experienced it. The freshly minted retiree sits down at the kitchen table with a big old cup of coffee and two newspapers. The scene is one the retiree looked forward to for years. Papers in hard copy, morning sunshine, quiet room, nowhere to go. Obituary section first. Then local news. Followed by national, international, sports, entertainment, and, lastly, opinion. The silence is broken both by the sound of sipping from a cup and the voice of the retiree, who knows full well there was no one to hear, but with a voice full of frustration: “What a mess.” The morning reader doesn’t just say it after reading the two papers; the proclamation comes after every single section, everything but the crossword.

You can imagine it. You may have read about it. A prophet rises among the people of God. The temple, the center of worship and religious life and identity, it stands in ruins. The attempt to rebuild is in shambles as well. Just like the temple, the community is nothing but ruins. Conflict and bitterness rampant. Suffering fills the land. The longing is for a life back in exile, back in captivity. God seems distant. Sinfulness abounds. And the prophet rises among the people of God and proclaims, “O that you would tear open the heavens and come down, so that the mountains would quake at your presence… From ages past no one has heard, no ear perceived, no eye has seen any God besides you… We have all become like one unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a filthy cloth. We all fade like a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away.” A prophet rises among the people of God and with urgency and passion, proclaims, “What a mess!”

What a mess! “Yet, O Lord, you are our Father, we are the clay, and you are the potter; we are all the work of your hand.” The potter and the clay. You will remember another prophet and another day. The same image. The potter and the clay. Jeremiah and his trip to the potter’s house. The word of the Lord came to Jeremiah and told him to go down to the potter’s house. Jeremiah tells of watching the potter work there at the wheel. The vessel of clay was spoiled so the potter just kept working, reworking, reshaping a new vessel until it seemed good to the potter. And the word of the Lord came to Jeremiah: “Can I not do with you, O house of Israel, just as this potter has done?… Just like the clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand…”

The potter and the clay. Three hymnbooks ago in the Presbyterian Church, it was number 302. The old red hymnbook. “Have thine on way, Lord! Have thine one way! Thou art the Potter, I am the clay. Mold me and make me, after thy will, while I am waiting, yielded and still.” Both the early 20th century hymn and the prophet Jeremiah, affirming that we are like clay in the hands of God. For the individual disciples and for the community of faith, the promise tells of the shaping and reworking of the very hand of God in our lives. “Have thing own way, Lord! Like clay in the potter’s hand, so are you in my hand,” says the Lord.

That’s Jeremiah. But we’re reading Isaiah this first Sunday of Advent. And Isaiah steps into the image of the potter and clay from a different perspective. The downbeat of Isaiah’s use of the metaphor is not the promise, it’s the mess. What a mess! Of course the prophet’s exhortation is directed to the people of Israel. But a careful read of the text shows the proclamation is intended for the very ears God has as well. What a mess, O people! What a mess, O God! And yet, and still, and even now, the prophet keeps preaching, “Even now you are our Father; we are the clay and you are our potter. We are all the work of your hand.” The people of God aren’t the ones Isaiah is reminding here. It is God. Look at this mess, the mess of our lives, the mess of our world, the mess of my heart and my faith. Yet, O Lord, you are our Father. Yet, you are our God.

We are just the clay. You are the potter. We’re just all the work of your hand. Don’t give up on us now. Don’t hide from us now. Don’t be angry now. You are the God of our salvation. Our help comes from you and you alone. In you is our hope. In you we find forgiveness. In you there is new life. You better have Thy own way, because mine, because ours, it’s not working all that well, O Lord. To quote the Advent prayer: come, Lord, Jesus, quickly come. You’d better come quickly, Jesus. As Robert Duvall in the movie The Apostle put it, “I’ve always called you Jesus. You’ve always called me Sonny. Tell me what to do Jesus.” We’re only the clay. You’re the potter!

“Every time you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death, until he comes.” Here at the table, every time. We say it. You hear it. And we all wonder why only his death is mentioned. “You proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.” Some celebrants toss a little resurrection in there, or refer to it as his saving death to help us all feel better about it. But the quote, the quote is from Paul in I Corinthians 11:26. “You proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes.” The Lord’s Supper. The Last Supper. The night of his betrayal. The night of his arrest. The night before he was hung up to die. Our Savior, the Child of Bethlehem, the Son of God, the Great Shepherd of the Sheep, the Teacher, the Healer, the one who ate with sinners, and challenged the rich, and touched the unclean, and wanted to be servant of all, the one born in a manger in the still of night, it was the night before he was nailed to a cross to die abandoned by absolutely everyone. Yeah, what a mess.

Yes, you remember his death until he comes. Because in his death, ashes to ashes, dust to dust, in his death you really find out that the Potter, the Potter became the clay. Christ took on our flesh. Christ took on this mess. Christ took all this on because of God’s love. Because we are all the work of God’s hand. And God saved us through Christ. And Jesus, Jesus was clay. He became clay. Christ and us. God with us. You are the potter. Our salvation, the Glory of the Lord, revealed in clay.

Advent is so much more than a time of year. Advent is when you come to the point in your life, in your heart, in your faith, in the world when you crave to be assured yet again that your salvation, that our salvation rests in God and God alone. Advent is when you feel like things are a mess yet you know that despite the all the mess, in the midst of all the mess, right smack in the middle of all this mess, Christ shall come.

Come, Lord Jesus! Quickly come! No, really, Jesus. Really quickly come!

© 2017 Nassau Presbyterian Church
Contact the church to obtain reprint permission.

I Thessalonians 4:13-5:11
David A. Davis
November 12, 2017

Wake up and encourage one another! Here in Paul’s letter, after the salutations, and the greetings, and the expressions of thanks, and after tending to the pastoral relationship, and offering exhortations, and pretty much constantly giving thanks to God for how much they love each other, and after the description of what it means to be holy, now Paul seems to get to what is on the congregation’s heart. The question that is tugging at their faith. The worry that is not being helped by all that love for another. Well into the letter, well into the body of the letter, Paul brings up the nagging questions that won’t seem to go away. Paul finally comes to what it is in the day-to-day in all that is going on around them. He gets to what is weighing them down. They are worried about those who have died. It’s their grief. What’s getting to them is all the death and destruction. And Paul writes to them and pleads with them to wake up and encourage one another with the promise of life forever in the presence of God.

Some of the language, the images, the expressions leap off the page. They grab the readers’ ears and sort demand their own attention: a cry of command, the archangels call, the sound of the trumpet, a thief in the night, a pregnant woman, children of light, the breastplate of faith and love, a helmet of faith and faith. And this word picture of Jesus swooping out of heaven and scooping up the living, “we will be caught up in the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the air.” What is so easily missed, taken for granted, overshadowed by flashy language that catches is the part that Paul repeats. Did you hear it? What he writes to the Thessalonians who are crumbling under the burden and reality of death, what he writes to them, and then writes again. What he repeats: wake up and encourage one another with the promise of life forever in the presence of God.

There must be those times in most congregations when the relentlessness of death starts to tear away at the heart and soul of life together. I certainly know that our congregation has experienced such seasons of despair. Amid the suffering and persecution of the early church, however, Paul’s pastoral response goes beyond offering comfort in response to one death or another. What he offers is a faith-filled perspective when not much in the world around you makes sense. What he acknowledges is that humanity’s illusions of peace and security can be shattered in a heartbeat. What he lifts up is that even the best intended assumptions and conclusions when it comes to faith and God, even the most ardent attempts to put all things divine and holy together, to have them all worked out in both your heart and mind, yeah, that can all be torn down, as Paul might say, in the twinkling of an eye.

A hurricane absolutely devastates the island where you live and weeks, months later there’s still no power. Really, God? Someone intentionally drives a rented truck down a sidewalk to kill and hurt as many people as he can. Really, God? You watch as folks in the public square use scripture and the language of faith to espouse beliefs so far from your experience of God and defend opinions so hateful and justify behavior that is horrific. Really, God? You watch as a family you love and care for faces the sudden onset of inexplicable loss, pain, and grief. Really, God? A man walks into a church with an assault rifle, and… really, God? When your community of faith is looking to the darkness where answers never come and chilling reminders of our mortality never cease, then, even then, Paul writes, wake up and encourage one another.

The theologian Karl Barth suggested that believers are not just those who woke up, they are those who keep waking up. The difference between the children of light and the children of darkness is not simply a difference between those who are awake and those who are asleep. Rather, for Barth, the followers of Christ are those who, in fact, are consistently in need of being jolted awake. They are those who keep waking up, those who over and over again find themselves awakening to the call to discipleship and a fresh taste of the grace of Christ and a renewed commitment to a life that yearns for reconciliation and righteousness and kingdom life. Watch. Keep awake. Pay attention. Keep waking up. Not to the world crumbling all around you but to the Christ who calls you and bids you to come, follow me. The one who promises to be with you forever. The one who promises that you will be him… forever.

Just a few nights ago Cathy and I were with some friends at a violin concert at McCarter Theater. The violinist finished performing the pieces published in the program and announced he was going to play a few more selections. I think it was three. The soloist announced each one before he played it. Now, I listen to a lot of classical music and I enjoy violin solos. But I am not very good at remembering titles or particular composers’ works or really even being able to tell a really, really fine violin player from a really, really, really fine one. Clearly, most in the theater that night were much better at all of the above. Because when he announced each piece before he played it, this audible gasp-like sigh rose from the crowd, like everyone had just taken their first bite of grandma’s best pie ever! And I had no idea what was coming. But in listening, in taking it in, in letting the music wash over me, I bet it was as beautiful to me as the person in front of me who knew, understood, savored, interpreted, explained, defined every note.

The power and assurance and encouragement of God’s promise is not limited to those who can understand it. It is not any better for those who think they can explain it. It is not more real for those who have never questioned it or those who want to dissect it and diagram it and detail it, down to every last note. The beauty comes when you let it wash over you. “We will be with the Lord forever…” Forever. “Remember, I am with you always…” Forever. “Where I am, you will be also…” Forever. “If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord, so then, whether we live, or whether we die, we are the Lord’s…” Forever. “Today, you will be with me in paradise.” Together with the Lord. In God’s presence, forever. Forever.

I made the serious error in judgment a while back when I decided that I could install the new under-the-cabinet microwave in our kitchen all by myself. Now, in my defense, it didn’t go all that badly. It only took two days, two friends, and my wife. It works fine and looks great, thank you very much. But also in my defense, the written material made it all sound so easy. So easy, in fact, that they even provided a paper template to show where the holes should be drilled for the screws to hold the blasted thing up under the cabinet. Now, when I say paper template, I mean the actual life-sized facsimile of the top of the microwave. The instructions were to tape that paper up under the counter to show exact size, edges, and, of course, the placement of the holes. All one had to do to get it right was to drill the hole right into the paper where it said, “hole, drill here.” And I still got it wrong.

When the Apostle Paul finally writes about the concern of the Thessalonian believers, when he addresses their worry about all those who have died, he doesn’t give them a template, a cut-out, a diagram. Writing to the church now grown weary because of death and suffering, Paul tries to write them a picture of “forever.” Professor Eric Baretto puts it so when he concludes, “The point is not how. The point is the promise.” Between you and me, if you will excuse the possible heresy here, when comes to exactly what happens when we die, I don’t think Paul knew any more than we do. He does now! And he was a few years off on his expectation that Jesus would return pretty much in his lifetime. It’s not a template. It’s a promise. “The point is not how. The point is the promise.” Wake up and encourage one another with the promise of life forever in the presence of God.

A few weeks ago I came over to Mark Edwards here in the chancel during the hymn we were singing and told him I had an out-of-body experience while I was preaching. I was counting the number of people who were falling asleep during that particular sermon. I stopped when I got to six. Yes, I see it! No, I will never say anything. Maybe a vocal “elbow nudge” by raising the volume every now and them. Keep awake!

Paul’s exhortation. It’s not a mad vision for the church, for a congregation. Nudging each other to stay awake and encouraging each other along the Way. Pointing one another back to the life of discipleship and speaking hopeful words of God’s promise. Calling one another back to the pathway of faith and patting each other on the back with whispers and shouts about “forever,” our life forever in God. Helping each other to keep waking up to the gift of God’s grace and helping each other never lose sight of the visions of God’s future. Not letting each other forget Christ’s call to servanthood, and loving neighbor, and putting God first. And lifting each other up with the assurance of the light that never dims, and the love that never fades, and the life that ever ends. Keep awake and encourage one another. It’s what it means to be the church.

And these days, when it comes to life and death and faith and heart and mind and the world and figuring it all out, and wrapping it all together, holding it all together, you just can’t do that alone. God doesn’t expect you to do that alone.

So, to the body of Christ that is Nassau Presbyterian Church, keep awake and encourage one another with promise of life forever in the presence of God. In the presence of God. Forever.

© 2017 Nassau Presbyterian Church
Contact the church to obtain reprint permission.

I Thessalonians 3
David A. Davis
November 5, 2017

It seems to me that most of us Presbyterians aren’t sure what to do with “saints.” Not as in “For all the saints who from their labors rest, / who thee by faith before the world confessed, / thy name, O Jesus be forever blest, / alleluia, alleluia.” No, we love that one. Presbyterians love to sing that hymn.

But it’s the term “saints,” it’s the understanding of “saints” that makes us uncomfortable. Today is All Saints’ Sunday. The Sunday closest to November 1st, All Saints’ Day. Remembering All Saints’ Day today, remembering it today, because Presbyterians would never come out mid-week to celebrate saints.

To be fair, it’s sort of in our Reformation DNA. Some of what John Calvin wrote in the 16th century about the veneration of saints is so harsh it would be difficult for me to quote here in worship. Here’s a calmer snippet from Calvin and his Institutes of the Christian Religion: “A few centuries ago the saints who had departed this life were elevated into copartnership with God to be honored, and also to be invoked, and praised in his stead. Indeed we support [try to convince ourselves] that by such an abomination God’s majesty is not even obscured while it is [in fact] in great part suppressed and extinguished.”

Presbyterians are supposed to be uncomfortable with saints. Though there will always be those among us who would admit to a quick prayer to St. Anthony when we’ve lost something really important and are in a complete panic. But saints? We know that none of us were ever, are ever, or will ever be that good. Presbyterians tend to prefer “the great cloud of witnesses” to the “communion of saints.” It is as if every time we Presbyterians use the term “saints”, we need a hand gesture to indicate small “s.” All saints’ Day.

But, yet, on the other hand, if we’re honest, if the truth be told, all of us, even us Presbyterians, have known some saints in our lives. Yes, some among us have studied the saints, read lots of work by the saints. But we’ve known a few along the way too. All of us can name those heroes, those big names of faith in our lifetime, just outside our lifetime. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Mother Theresa, Dr. King, Rose Parks, Bishop Tutu. That’s a hall of fame approach to saints.

But we’ve known a few along the way. Even Presbyterians have known a few a saints along the way. People who have, by the content of their lives, shown us the way of Christ. Shown us the way, less by their piety and more by their example. Less by their certainty of faith and more by their enduring relationship to God. Less, as Dietrich Bonhoeffer might put it, by talking to you about Jesus over the years and more because over the years they never gave up talking to Jesus about you. Less by showing you an unwavering, steadfast belief in every season of life and more by showing you the courage of holding on by nothing other than the thread of grace in the darkest of days.

Saints. Not the pillar of the church on Sunday but the example of Christ on Monday. Not the one who writes of a transforming, supernatural vision of Christ but the one who somehow by God’s mercy is able over and over again to see the face of Christ in the face of the other and the stranger and the outcast and the untouchable and the unloved and the last and the least. Saint: someone who in the gritty ordinariness of their life has shown you the holy path of Christ himself.

Many, many years ago I was meeting with a family I did not know in the office at a local funeral home just prior to officiating at the service for the husband, father, and grandfather who had died. I didn’t know them. I didn’t know him. Such meetings were intended for introductions but also to pluck a bit of last minute material for the service, things the family would like said, qualities and experiences and attributes for which the family would like to offer thanks to God related to their loved one.

In this case the man had lived well into his 80s. When I asked his wife what about him she would like me to lift up in the prayer, in the thanks, she couldn’t think of anything. She did want me to know that while he wasn’t religious at all and he wasn’t a church-goer, and he was certainly no saint, he was a man of faith. That’s a refrain we clergy types hear a lot in funeral planning. And she shared that he always said the prayer at every family Thanksgiving dinner and that his favorite Bible verse was “Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved.”

Their son, who sat with us, didn’t say a word. The meeting wrapped up, they left. I waited the few minutes prior to entering the next room with the casket and the lectern where everyone was gathered. The son came back to me and said, “You can say whatever my mother wants you to say about my father but I need you to know he was a real son of a gun.” And he walked away. The life of faith is more than a table blessing and a favorite Bible verse.

Saint: Someone who has, by the content of their life, shown you the way of Christ. Here in the middle of First Thessalonians, the Apostle Paul continues to expound on the importance of the relationships he has with the believers in Thessalonica. He writes of sending Timothy to see them and offers such gratitude for the reports that came back that told of the “good news of [their] faith and love.” Amid all the thanksgiving and joy, Paul continues to express his concern that they would stay strong in their faith amid suffering and persecution, that God would allow their love for another to increase and abound. Not just their love for one another but their love for all. “And,” as Paul writes, “may the Lord so strengthen your hearts in holiness that you may be blameless before our God and Father at the coming of our Lord Jesus with all his saints.”

That God would so strengthen their hearts in holiness. The remedy for a struggling faith, the opposite of a weakening faith, Paul’s prayer for them in light of what might be lacking in their faith, is that they would increase and abound in love and have their hearts strengthened in holiness. When struggles and suffering comes, when the world shakes, when your faith is dicey, Paul urges, recommit in your faith, double down in your faith, focus in your faith on love and holiness. Hearts strengthened in holiness.

When John Cavin would administrate church discipline in Geneva in the 16th century, historical records indicate that he would often admonish an individual and them tell them to go to more sermons, to go hear more sermons and to listen better the next time. In one case of follow-up, the person was asked to tell how many sermons had been heard, what had been learned, and then was asked to recite several creeds and catechisms. One might conclude that Calvin was exhorting people to work on the holiness.

But in First Thessalonians, Paul doesn’t go there at all when it comes to strengthening hearts in holiness. In the first part of chapter four, the verses that follow Paul’s prayer for hearts strengthened in holiness, in what is to come next, Paul exhorts the believers to live in a manner that is pleasing to God. Phrases leap from the text about controlling lustful passions, and not wronging or exploiting a sister or brother, and loving more and more, and aspiring to live quietly, and minding your own business, and working with your hands, and behaving properly to outsiders, and being dependent on no one.

Paul does not challenge them to listen more, study more, read more. He writes not just of a Sunday morning holiness but a Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday holiness, a Thursday, Friday, Saturday witness. Not just a holiness of the prayer offices at the start of the day and the end of the day, but a holiness that carries throughout the day and carries through the night. Not just a witness of faith in devotion in prayer, but a witness of faith in every relationship, a witness in every context, a witness in every role of life, a witness to everyone.

When their life was shaken, and their faith lacking, Paul doesn’t exhort the church at Thessalonica to get their piety on, to do better at this religion thing, he urges them to be saints: to be people who have, by the content of their lives, shown the world the way of Christ Jesus. He prays for their hearts to be strengthened in holiness.

Years ago at the Woods Memorial Presbyterian Church down near Annapolis, when they did a major renovation they built a columbarium in the rear of the sanctuary. Beautifully done, the niches for ashes were behind large doors that matched the design, the architecture of the now redone sanctuary. When our colleague was showing us, he said that on All Saints’ Sunday, they open those large doors as a way of remembering the saints. My first thought was that it was a bit creepy. But you know, every time we gather at this table, we are joined in the mystery and promise of God’s mercy by such a great a cloud of witnesses…(uh, uh, uh?!)…joined by the communion of saints.

Today, in our bulletin, we have the list of those in our congregation who have died in the last year. We will read that roll of names from the table in just a moment. We Presbyterians might have some trouble with saints, but I have to tell you, some people on that list, some were flat out saints in my life.

Saints, who by the content of their life showed me the way of Christ. We’ve known a few along the way, haven’t we? Come to the Table, and remember all that Christ has done… and remember them too.

© 2017 Nassau Presbyterian Church
Contact the church to obtain reprint permission.