Romans 14:1-12
David A. Davis
September 17, 2017

“I am the resurrection and I am life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, yet shall they live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die” (John 11:25-26). That’s Jesus talking to Martha after her brother Lazarus had died. Jesus, responding to death and grief with words of resurrection hope. “Where can I go from your spirit? Or where can I flee from your presence? If I ascend to heaven, you are there; if I make my bed in Sheol, you are there. If I take the wings of the morning and settle at the farthest limits of the sea, even there your hand shall lead me, and your right hand shall hold me fast” (Psalm 139:7-10). The words of the psalmist. The psalmist singing, praying, affirming the fullness of God’s presence in life and in death. Psalm 139. An existential piece of poetry that plunges the very the depth of our being, our life in God.

“I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end, the first and the last. I was dead and behold I am alive forever and ever; and I hold the keys of hell and death” (Revelation). The cosmic, victorious Christ of the Apocalypse to John, the Book of Revelation. A triumphant proclamation of God’s ultimate resurrection power. “What is your only comfort in life and in death? That I belong—body and soul, in life and death—to my faithful Savoir, Jesus Christ” (Heidelberg Catechism, Question 1, 16th-century). A bold, right out of the gate, here’s where we start, everything else flows from this affirmation of the resurrection promise that defines our life in Christ.

“For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38-39). The Apostle Paul in that memorable eighth chapter of Romans. A soaring conclusion to those paragraphs of the epistle, paragraphs that include: “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus” and “If the Spirit of the One who raised Jesus from the dead dwells in you, the Lord who raised Christ from the dead will give life to your mortal bodies also through the Spirit that dwells in you” and “For in hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen?” and “What then are we to say about these things? If God is for us, who is against us.” “I am convinced that neither death, nor life… shall separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.” Paul on the hope, and the promise, and the victory of resurrection life.

And from our text today, the 14th chapter of Romans. “We do not live to ourselves, and we do not die to ourselves. If we live, we live to Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s. For to this end Christ died and lived again, so that he might be the Lord of both the dead and the living.” Once again, Paul on the eternal promise of life in Christ. Not chapter eight but slipped in here in chapter 14. Like Jesus daring to speak of life in the face of death. Like the psalmist waxing eloquently on the purpose of life and God’s constant presence. Like the Christ of Revelation trumpeting the victory of all victories. Like the theologians of the Reformation pounding the defining stake into the ground. Romans 14:8. “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.”

In our tradition’s “Book of Common Worship,” the liturgy of the Service in Witness to the Resurrection, the liturgy for a memorial service, for a funeral, it begins with opening sentences of scripture. The notes to the liturgy suggest that the pastor read some or all the verses listed. There are about 20 verses and they read like a “hall of fame” of scripture texts, the greatest hits. Some of those top 20 I’ve already mentioned. You will remember or you can guess some others. “Our help is in the name of the Lord, who made heaven and earth… God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble. Therefore we will not fear… We believe that Jesus died and rose again; so it will be for those who have died in Christ. God will raise them to be with the Lord forever. Comfort one another with these words.” And right there in the list is “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.”

At many, many weddings, I have read I Corinthians 13, “Love is patient, love is kind..” and many, many times, my first line of the homily has been to say to the congregation and to the couple, “Now you know this has nothing to do with marriage, right?” The point being that Paul is writing about love and community and love in the Body of Christ and love as the greatest of spiritual gifts which means, of course, that it has everything to do with marriage. But I have not, at least so far, I have not stood before a congregation at a memorial service and stopped after reading, “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.” I’ve never stopped right then said, “Now you know this has nothing to with mourning, grief, and death, right?

Because when you drop the quote from Romans back into context of the 14th chapter, it doesn’t come with profound reflection on humanity’s knowledge of God and therefore the knowledge of ourselves, not some divine pronouncement to the saints of every time and place gathered around the Lamb of God. Paul is writing about the issue of food choices, dietary laws, sabbath keeping, judgment, and self-righteousness. It’s a plea to avoid quarreling over opinions and an exhortation to honor and give thanks to God in the mundane practice of life. It is Paul weighing in, not on death, but on life. Paul writing to the ordinary, the everyday rituals and routines of life. What you eat, when you abstain, whether you observe a day to be holy and when you don’t. How in the rhythms of the day, the waking up and the going to sleep, the goings and comings, how amid life itself, folks in the gathered community of faith are so easily prone to judging one another.

This is not the soaring theological treatise of Romans 8. This isn’t Jesus confronting the heartbreak of death. This isn’t an apocalyptic vision of Christ upon the throne. It’s Paul writing about life, ordinary, everyday life and food and relationships and community. And right smack in the middle of it, he plays the resurrection card. “We do not live to ourselves, and we do not die to ourselves. If we live, we live to Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s. For to this end Christ died and lived again, so that he might be the Lord of both the dead and the living.”

It’s not about dying, its about living! It’s about a life together infused in absolutely every way with resurrection hope, resurrection promise, resurrection power. It’s not just about shouting, “Christ is risen.” shouting it on Easter morning. It’s about living it long about Wednesday, and praying in the dark of night, and whispering it with your life into the world’s chaos. Christ is risen! It’s not just about standing in the cemetery and hearing, “Behold I tell you a mystery, we shall not all die, but we will all be changed.” It’s about living in the light of that mystery every day, basking in the promise of eternal life, and passing forward the living, giving, life-sustaining power of God’s love to those around you moment by moment.

It’s not just about singing, “Abide with me… Hold thou thy cross before my closing eyes, shine through the gloom and point me to the skies… in life, in death, O Lord, abide with me,” it’s about singing a resurrection song with the forgiveness you sow in your life, and proclaiming the resurrection gospel with how your treat others in your office, and giving a resurrection witness with the unconditional love you can now give back to your father whose health and mind is fading fast. It’s the assurance of God’s resurrection presence you cling to when the loneliness of the first week on campus rises up. It’s that resurrection strength you didn’t know you had that carries you the day after the diagnosis. It’s that grabbing hold of God’s resurrection future as the tears fall down your cheeks as your turn from the font with your baptized infant in arms, as your daughter climbs the steps of the school bus for first grade, as your son almost forgets the hug outside the freshman dorm.

It is the resurrection confidence that calms you at day’s end and lifts you at day’s beginning. It is the resurrection hope that echoes in your ear and beats in your heart when news of missiles and bombs and threats of war rise up again. It is that resurrection rising that you see when cities rebuild, and communities rally and hearts are changed and lives are transformed. It is that incomparable resurrection comfort that can carry you all of your days, every day, that I belong body and soul in death… and in life, to my faithful Savior Jesus Christ. If we live, we live to Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord; so then whether we live or whether we die, we are the Lord’s. Christ is risen!

“So then, each of us will be accountable to God,” Paul writes. Accountable for our judgment and our self-righteousness. Sure. Thank goodness grace abounds. But accountable also for the proclamation and witness to God’s resurrection hope, God’s resurrection promise, and God’s resurrection power in our lives. One theologian notably argued a long time ago that in and through the preached word, Christ rises from dead. Sunday after Sunday when the gospel is proclaimed. I have to tell you that preachers like me, we’re not that good. But you, the witness to the resurrection? It starts with you and in the smallest of ways you could ever imagine.

Christ risen. He is risen indeed!

So go, and live like it.

© 2017 Nassau Presbyterian Church
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Romans 13:8-14
David A. Davis
September 10, 2017

“Instead, put on the Lord Jesus Christ…put on the Lord Jesus Christ.” “Let us then lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of light.” Put on. Put on the Lord Jesus Christ. It is in Ephesians that Paul writes, “Be strong in the Lord and in the strength of the Lord’s power. Put on the whole armor of God.” You remember, the belt of truth, the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation, the sword of the Spirit which is the Word of God. And “Put on the breastplate of righteousness.” Put on. Put on the Lord Jesus Christ. “Since we belong to the day, let us be sober, and put on the breastplate of faith and love, and for a helmet the hope of salvation.” That’s I Thessalonians. Put on. Put on the Lord Jesus Christ.

The connotation in Greek has to do with clothing and dressing and wearing… putting something on. Eugene Peterson, in his paraphrase The Message, he puts the end of Romans 13:14 this way: “Dress yourselves in Christ and be up and about.” It makes it sound like part of the morning routine. Take a shower. Brush your teeth. Dress yourselves in Christ. Other preachers and devotional writers draw on the image of putting on a uniform or wearing the colors. You put on the armor, you put on Christ, like a member of a team dresses for the game, like an athlete puts on Under Armour, like a member of the military represents and prepares.

Put on the Lord Jesus Christ. The image in the epistles of the New Testament comes with urgency, an uncommon urgency that seems somewhat lost in the comparison to the morning routine of picking your clothes for the day. In Ephesians, Paul’s exhortation about putting on the whole armor of God is for the purpose of standing firm against the devil. “For our struggle is not against enemies of blood and flesh, but against rulers, against authorities, against the cosmic powers of this present darkness, against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly places (Eph. 6:12). That all sounds far away from the morning paper and a cup of coffee.

In I Thessalonians and here in Romans the urgency is the coming Day of the Lord, the return of Christ, the triumphant coming of the kingdom, the consummation of salvation, the eschaton, the ultimate fulfillment of salvation history, the kingdom ultimately come on earth as it is in heaven. As Paul puts it, “For salvation is nearer to us now than when we became believers; the night is far gone, the day is near.” In contrast to Paul’s urgency on spiritual warfare in Ephesians, in contrast to that battle imagery, the urgency in Romans, the urgent response is to the coming day of the Lord. And that response as described by Paul, the response described in Romans, is not to battle; it is to love. Have no obligation other than to love one another. “The one who loves fulfills the law… Love is the fulfilling of the law… Lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of light.” The armor of light is love; loving actions. You know what time it is, Paul exhorts the church in Rome, so live honorably and love. Put on Christ! And do it now.

It would seem to me that the sense of urgency, Paul’s urgency in putting on Christ, is lost on the average 21st -century disciples of Jesus like us. No doubt some traditions, some preachers, some corners of the broader Christian Church give testimony to an experience of the urgency of spiritual warfare. And yes, in some Christian circles the focus on the end times, the rapture, the apocalypse comes with a certain urgency in all the rhetoric, in the teaching, and in the preaching. But even then, one is hard-pressed to ponder a day-to-day urgency for the individual Christian life, an urgency like that reflected in Paul. Here in Romans Paul’s urgency is not going down the path of a kind of revival preacher who wants to know, if Jesus comes back tonight, are you ready? No, Paul’s sense of being ready, responding to the day drawing near, Paul’s urgency is the call to love your neighbor as yourself.

Let me speak only for myself here. I’m not sure the Apostle Paul’s urgency has had much resonance for me in my life of faith. Urgent prayers when people I love and care for are sick or dying or in harm’s way this morning? Sure. An urgent need for God’s guidance in seasons of discernment, or an urgent yearning for God’s peace in moments of turmoil, or an urgent cry for God’s assurance when, as the psalmist says, “the earth should change, the mountains shake, the nations are in an uproar, the kingdoms totter?” Yes. No doubt. But that kind of day-to-day, first thing in the morning, before you put two feet on the floor you better put on Christ, that kind of guttural, groaning, response to the coming Day of the Lord, that sort of defiantly and intentionally putting on Christ every day, that urgent faith-with-an-attitude start to the day, I’m not so sure. I’m not sure in my 55 years, in my 31 years of ministry, in my 18th year as your pastor, I have felt that kind or urgency. I’m not at all so sure about that kind of urgency in my life of faith. Until now. Until right about now. Until “these days.”

You know what time it is. Hatred. Bigotry. Racism. Homophobia. Antisemitism. All abundant and unveiled. The day may be near but the night isn’t far enough gone. The clear and present darkness abounds. It demands the armor of light. Putting on the armor of light. The nastiness that’s in the wind. The putrid things people are saying. The horrible actions directed at those who are somehow deemed different or less-deserving or just less. Such hatred, such disturbing behavior, it’s not limited to or defined by a “hillbilly elegy,” or some old racist uncle everyone avoids at the family reunion. The sinful growing darkness comes in every generation, in all economic strata, in every demographic, among the powerless and the most powerful. Decency and unity and reconciliation are so far off the rails that people seemed surprised at the goodness of humanity revealed during and after catastrophic hurricanes. It’s a pretty low bar these days when it comes to the common good.

A rabbi stood outside his synagogue on that fateful day of Shabbat in Charlottesville as the congregation gathered for worship. While the crowds and violence and all the police presence were blocks away, the small band of people on the other side of the street shouted threateningly, “Jews will not overtake us.” An Asian American television reporter in Philadelphia, born and raised in this country, was verbally assaulted in a crosswalk in Center City by an aggressive female driver who yelled at her, “This is America. Just go home.” Several high school students in Iowa were dismissed from the high school football team when pictures of them wearing white robes, hoods, and burning a cross showed up on social media. An African American teammate, son of the local mailman, said “I thought they were my friends. I have been in their homes.” You know what time it is.

A group of conservative pastors and theologians issued a widely distributed statement on human sexuality. Clearly it was intentionally timed for the current political climate. It is a hurtful theological assault targeting the LGTBQ community and any of the Christian faith that would dare declare themselves welcoming, affirming, and understanding God’s Spirit at work in all of God’s children. One Baptist seminary president said he signed the document as “an expression of love and concern for those increasingly confused about what God has clarified in holy scripture”. An expression of love? An expression of love that has in just days stoked the fires of discrimination and hate and condemnation and fear. You know what time it is.

Roman Catholic Cardinal Timothy Dolan in New York City defended the undocumented young people known as the dreamers who know no other country but this one. He said that ending the DACA program and putting all of the young people at risk is “contrary to the spirit of the Bible and of our country, and a turning away from the ideals upon which our beloved country was founded. All of the ‘Dreamers’ who now face such uncertainty and fear, please know that the Catholic Church loves you, welcomes you, and will fight to protect your rights and your dignity.” Loves. Welcomes. Protects. And a former member of the presidential administration responded in an interview that the Catholic Church just needed illegal immigrants to fill their pews and that it was in their economic interest and that priests and bishops should stick to doctrine. You know what time it is.

All of that and more, in just the last few weeks. There is an urgency to “these days.” You and I have to put on Christ with day to day urgency. If you’re anything like me, maybe with an urgency like never before. Have no obligation other than to love one another. Love does no wrong to a neighbor. Love your neighbor as yourself. Love is the fulfillment of the law and the fulfillment of the gospel and the fulfillment of scripture and the fulfillment of doctrine and the fulfillment of the Christian life. You know what time it is. Lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armor of light. Live honorably and love! And put on Christ and do it now.
Put on Christ urgent and new every morning. And be confident that his love moving in and through you will be sufficient for another day, that his love moving in and through you will make a difference in the world, that his love moving in and through you will bring light to the present darkness because this darkness can never overcome His light.

Put on Christ urgent and new every morning so that by his grace you can work on the log in your own eye and lay aside the weight and the sin that clings so closely, so that by his grace you can see the face of Jesus shining back at you in someone who is different, in the stranger, in someone who disagrees with you, in someone everyone else expects you to shun, so that by his grace that strengthens you can speak for the long silenced and embrace someone wounded by another’s words and lift up those being stomped on by evil.

Put on Christ urgent and new every morning, and with the power of His Spirit you can defiantly stare down hatred without fear, you can stick your finger into the bullying puffed up chest of bigotry, and you can rise above the sinfulness of complacency and the temptation not to care. Put on Christ urgent and new every morning so that the vision and promise of his kingdom would so fill you that can’t help but shout louder than those who would pervert the gospel for the sake of prejudice and their own power.

And so that the vision and promise of his kingdom would so inspire you that you can’t stop telling our children of a God whose love will never let them go and a God whose love embraces all and that our embrace, our love absolutely shall be as bold, and broad, and audacious as Christ’s own love. So that the vision and promise of his kingdom would so convince you that your own voice does make difference when the saint’s are called to sing a song of righteousness, and your own light does make a difference when others want to blow it out, and your own act of love makes a difference, because in the words of Bishop Desmond Tutu, “goodness is stronger than evil; love is stronger than hate, and life is stronger than death.”

You know what time it is.

Put on Christ.

Now.

© 2017 Nassau Presbyterian Church
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Psalm 139
Len Scales
July 23, 2017

A couple times a week, I make a detour through Prospect Garden. It’s my favorite spot on the University campus. I eagerly await the tulip blooms in the spring, and enjoy seeing the colors and textures change as the summer plantings grow.

My love for gardens, in part, comes from my great Aunt Nora. When she and my great uncle, Dr. John, lived in their Spartanburg home, they held garden parties in July at dusk every year. They would have 20 people over one evening, 12 another. Probably 100 people in total every season would arrive with folding chairs in tow to wait for darkness to fall. Always frugal, Dr. John would hand-pack ice cream parfaits in plastic cups that he would reuse for the entire season (maybe longer?).

It was always fun to visit them in July. The occasion for the gatherings were very simple—it is the season Evening Primroses bloom in South Carolina. Tall shoots of green carry delicate yellow flowers that open not for the light, but for the darkness. The blooms unfold before your eyes as night settles in.

Eagerly anticipating darkness is largely foreign to our experience in the modern, western world. Artificial light dispels darkness not only inside our homes, but also outside our apartments and along our streets. If an area is not well-lit at night, we are encouraged to avoid it, we peer around a dark corner apprehensively, walk a little quicker, call a friend, and lock the door as soon as we are inside.

Darkness has largely become synonymous with something we avoid, fear, or fight against.

This close association of darkness with evil, or at least lack of good, supports institutional racism and white supremacy. Even, if only, in our unexamined language and subconscious reactions.

What if we, like the Psalmist, knew God to be in both the light and the dark?

We might be surprised that “Surely, the Lord is [even] in [that] place.”^[1]

“Because the sun had set,”^[2] Jacob rests from his travels, lays down his head, and dreams. Jacob dreams of God telling him that he and his family will be blessed in order to be a blessing. When Jacob awakes, he takes his stone pillow and sets up a memorial, saying, “Surely, the Lord is in this place.” Surely, the Lord was with Jacob in the darkness.

God shows up, even when Jacob does not expect it, in the middle of the night, on his way to claim an inheritance that was originally meant for his brother.

Throughout Psalm 139, God shows up as well, in the places the Psalmist would go looking for God and in the places the Psalmist tried to flee from God.

Surely, the Lord is with the Psalmist. Surely, the Lord is in the sitting place, the standing place. Surely, the Lord is from the east to the west. Surely, the Lord is from mountain top to valley. Surely, the Lord is with the Psalmist and with us.

Even so, we do not always have the same assurance of God’s presence as Jacob did or as the Psalmist.

Throughout the first half of Psalm 139, we hear again and again how the Psalmist directly addresses God as “you.” It is a description of the Psalmist experience with God to God. The deeply personal interaction poetically relays God will accompany the Psalmist absolutely everywhere.

The Lord is familiar with all the Psalmist’s ways. God shapes the Psalmist behind and before. The Lord will travel with the Psalmist throughout time and location. The light and the darkness are God’s dwelling place, there is no difference to the Lord between the two.

What happens though when we encounter what feels like the absence of God?

We do not need to deny our experience or others, an empty wilderness feeling often occurs in the midst of deep suffering—at times of loss, betrayal, and confusion.

After acknowledging our experience, it is important to hear again though the stories of God’s faithfulness. These stories can be brought to us by objects that are catalysts to remembering. It is also important to remember these stories and make meaning of our experiences in trusted community.

Jacob understood the power of remembering—he setup a stone to mark the spot of his encounter with God and God’s promises.

Stones are used as memorials elsewhere in Scripture. Joshua has twelve stones taken from the dry riverbed of the Jordan. These rocks are set on end, like Jacob’s stone pillow, to mark God’s faithfulness. The stones serve as a witness to their children, to their community.^[3]

The Psalmist words are remembered, eventually written down, and read again and again as a witness of God’s presence that is as close to us as our very breath.

In this way the community has a reminder of how God has accompanied them.

This was not only helpful for the people of God then, but it is helpful for us now—to have symbols we return to again and again—the table, the font, a sung hallelujah.

We also need to hear the stories retold along with the objects, to have a trusted community that helps us make meaning of our experiences.^[4]

That is part of what Andrew and I are trying to create with Princeton Presbyterians. It has been especially evident during the evening worship service, Breaking Bread. We gather in Niles chapel weekly during the academic year to hold one another in prayer, to listen to Scripture, and to be welcomed to Jesus’ Table.

It is in that place that students are able to reconnect with faith when they’ve experienced rejection by religious communities after they came out as LGBTQ; others try on the language of Christian faith for the first time, being able to share prayer requests and consider Scripture. We gather in times of joy and times of stress. It is there we are able to honestly name the tragedies of life, and remember that God too knows the deepest of suffering.

Surely, the Lord is present in that community.

Surely, the Lord is present in this community too.

It is not only God that meets us in the hardships of mental illness, divorce, grief, and failure; community may meet us there too. And through this companionship of God and community, we are sustained to carry on, to be transformed, to do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly.

We practice remembering together in the light and in the darkness.

One of several contemporary voices seeking to recover positive associations with darkness is Barbara Brown Taylor, author, professor, priest. In her latest book Learning to Walk in the Dark, she encounters the dark in a variety of ways. At one point in her research process for the book, she goes caving. It is there that she contemplates the existence of the dark tomb in the resurrection story anew. You see, Jesus rose from the dead while in a dark cave.

Taylor writes,

As many years as I had been listening to Easter sermons, I have never heard anyone talk about that part. Resurrection is always announced with Easter lilies, the sound of trumpets, bright streaming light. But it did not happen that way. If it happened in a cave, it happened in complete silence, in absolute darkness, with the smell of damp stone and dug earth in the air.

Sitting deep in the heart of [a] Cave, I let this sink in: new life starts in the dark. Whether it is a seed in the ground, a baby in the womb, or Jesus in the tomb, it starts in the dark.^[5]

Reading Taylor’s account made me pause and consider too the darkness that was not only present at the cross but the darkness that was present at the resurrection.

Resurrection occurs in the dark. God meets the Psalmist in the dark. It is in the dark trusted community reminds us, “Surely, the Lord is in this place,” even, especially when we don’t feel it. It is in the dark Evening Primroses bloom.

^[1] Genesis 28:16

^[2] Genesis 28:11

^[3] Joshua 4

^[4] Nishioka, Rodger. “New Ways of Knowing for the NEXT Church” keynote delivered at the NEXT Church 2017 National Gathering (https://youtu.be/JlSV6BTurV4)

^[5] Brown Taylor, Barbara Learning to Walk in the Dark (Harper One, 2014) p.129

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