James 5:13-18
September 29
Len Scales
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At the close of the passage today, we hear of a harvest. Last week, in James chapter 3, we explored a harvest of righteousness, elsewhere translated the fruit of righteousness. Dave in his sermon reminded us of the good fruit that we hear of throughout Scripture. The passage that always comes to my mind is the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. As we consider good fruit that comes from prayer, we can discern between the bad fruit that too often accompanies conversations around prayer in our current world.

It is not good fruit when prayer is only “thoughts and prayers” without any accompanying action. It is not good fruit when people are told they aren’t praying with enough conviction because loved ones are still sick. It is not good fruit when prayer is used to isolate an individual rather than surround them with supportive community.

We hear in our passage today how prayer is a part of community care. It has to do with connecting those praying with God and with others. Prayer acknowledges the mysterious working of God, the responsibility of the community, and the participation of the one praying.

Similarly, as we celebrate a baptism today (in the 11 o’clock service), we as a community are surrounding a family in prayer and with promises to help care for the child baptized and always tell them about Jesus. Baptism reminds us of the promises of God that nothing, nothing ever, can separate us from the love of God. Baptism of a child is also about the promises of the family to raise the child in the family of faith. Baptism of an adult includes the individual’s promises of faith. The prayers at baptism are about these promises, acknowledging the mysterious, unending love of God combined with the community’s active engagement in the life of the one baptized. Baptism is a sign of God’s love and seals us as Jesus’ disciples, caring for one another and our world.

Prayer is this line that runs throughout our actions as a community in our entire life together. Civil Rights activists would gather to pray, preparing themselves, inviting God’s presence with them, that come what may, they would be ready to respond with nonviolence. One of my first sermons at Nassau in 2017 was the weekend of the white supremacist rally in Charlottesville. Andrew and I saw our seminary colleague Seth Wispelwey gather with other faith leaders the evening they were surrounded by tiki torches in the church. They were there praying. They were preparing themselves for the day ahead. They prayed that night and they sang “This Little Light of Mine” in the morning as they stood between the Nazi-inspired white nationalists and the counter-protestors. The Rev. Dr. William Barber II when interviewed then and since has continued his call for a “non-violent moral movement.”^[1] Barber’s call for a moral movement is built on a fusion coalition, bringing together people across differences for the good of the poor.^[2]

So too prayer is about bringing us together, from our different identities and concerns. Our passage today offers several examples of how prayer is communal, for one, James encourages the sick to gather the elders, to pray in a way that is embodied. In the passage, they anoint the sick with olive oil, which was tradition. It is not about magic powers, but about a humanizing touch, a reminder that we are here together.

The call to confession is also in community, that we may together be honest about the brokenness of our world, our need for healing. When we participate in confession in worship in the Presbyterian tradition, we only do so in conjunction with the assurance of forgiveness. It is a time to tell the truth that God has the power to forgive and transform us to follow God’s call to “do justice, love kindness, and walk humbly.”

Through our prayers of preparation, our prayers of petition, and our prayers of confession, we engage them together. As we face the challenges of life, we as a congregation will do so with the compassion of community and the promises of God.

A particular community known for its prayer is the Taizé Community in France. Taizé is an ecumenical monastic community that joins together in prayer three times a day, welcoming young people from around the world. The fusion of people of faith from protestant, catholic, and Orthodox traditions along with their growing conversations between Muslim and Christian young people, results in this unique space of prayer and in their collective work for the poor. David Hicks wrote about the prayer and action of Taizé on the occasion of their fiftieth anniversary as a community in the 90’s. Hick’s encourages, “To be faithful to the lesson of Taizé, then, would be to use a ‘prayer and action’ commitment to the gospel to discern present, particular needs in present, particular places.”^[3] As we share in prayer with one another, we can better see and understand the opportunities and needs before us in any given season.

One of the traditions on Sunday evenings at Breaking Bread Worship with the 40 or so undergraduate and graduate students who gather in Niles Chapel is how we participate in the prayers of the people. With a community of that size, we take the time to pray for one another with a communal bidding prayer. We ask for students, as they want, to briefly share something they are bringing with them that is either a joy or a challenge they need help holding. Then, the person leading the prayer rephrases the petition aloud, so that the person can hear it in another’s voice. We close by praying “Lord in your mercy,” and the congregation responds, “Hear our prayer.” In this way, it gives us space to acknowledge what we are carrying into worship with us and some insight into how to care for one another during the week.

In a larger community, small groups can be a way of understanding the present, particular needs. As you heard from Marshall & Debbie in the Moment for Mission, Small Groups are gearing up for a new season and are a wonderful way to get to know one another. They include a space to share prayer requests and join in prayer. Prayers for when we are sick, prayers for when we are celebrating, prayers when we don’t even have the words.

Praying is not about having the most eloquent phrasing or just the right description. It’s not a test of our vocabulary or faith. Prayer is about what is going on. Whether it is a timely topic, a shared silence, or a joining in the Lord’s Prayer, we are reminded that we are not alone when we pray. We can be carried by the community who is praying with us and even for us at times. It is an opportunity to be lifted by the community when we don’t have the energy or the focus to be able to put into words what is going on. We can draw on the words from Jesus and tradition.

In our prayers, we carry the needs of our community and are equipped by the Spirit to respond together. It reminds us that we are not alone. God is with us. Last fall, we explored prayer in the Old Testament with several narratives. As we turn to prayer in the New Testament with today’s text, we hear both descriptions of how people prayed but also prescriptions to simply pray. So in our corporate worship and in our gatherings in small groups, may we pray. Pray welcoming God’s everlasting love. Pray with an intent to follow it with action. Pray in sorrow and in joy. Pray in ways that bear good fruit.

^[1] “Religious Leaders Respond to White Nationalists in Charlottesville,” August 12, 2017, https://www.msnbc.com/am-joy/watch/religious-leaders-respond-to-white-nationalists-in-charlottesville-1023675459700.

^[2] Matthew Desmond, “A Prophet for the Poor,” The New York Review of Books, October 3, 2024, https://www.nybooks.com/articles/2024/10/03/a-prophet-for-the-poor-white-poverty/.

^[3] Douglas A Hicks, “The Taizé Community: Fifty Years of Prayer and Action.” Journal of Ecumenical Studies 29, no. 2 (1992): 202–14.

James 3:13-18
September 22
David A. Davis
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Our church went on a staff retreat two weeks ago to a retreat center in Quarryville, Pa. Quarryville is about 30 minutes from Lancaster. The GPS route to get there takes you off the highway about an hour from the conference center. Then it was all two-lane roads, rolling hills, and farm after farm after farm. It was a beautiful day and it was a beautiful landscape. A road was closed and we found ourselves crossing over a one-lane covered bridge. We passed horses and buggies and saw house after house with laundry drying on lines that looked like they stretched the length of a football field. During one afternoon break, I was in the car again passing buggies, and kids walking home from school carrying their shoes and lunchboxes. I was so enjoying my surroundings that GPS had to reroute more than once. I came upon a farmer harvesting what I guess was hay and being pulled by a team of four horses. I saw a barn full of harvest hanging from the ceiling to dry. Maybe it was tobacco, but I don’t know.  I drove along a field where a family of all ages each had baskets in their hands and they were bent over harvesting something, but I couldn’t see that it was. As a kid who grew up not far from the river in Pittsburgh, I could tell from the smell in the air where the millworkers were in the steelmaking process but my knowledge of agriculture and the harvest is sort of embarrassing. It was like I needed a farming docent riding shotgun because the harvest may not always be what one guesses.

There is no shortage of reference to the harvest in the pages of scripture.  No shortage of reference to the harvest in the teaching of Jesus for that matter. You remember what Jesus said about the harvest. Jesus said, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few”.  Jesus said it in Matthew and Luke. “The harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into the vineyards.” Harvest. Jesus usually mentions the harvest in a parable. Like the parable of the weeds and the wheat (Mt 13) or the parable of the vineyard (Mt 21) or the parable of the seed that grows in secret (Mk 4). They all include mention of the harvest. But a conversation about harvest and the teaching of Jesus usually starts with “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few”.

            This memory verse, this quote, and this sound bite from Jesus often comes with a connotation of evangelism. It may conjure up thoughts of revivals, altar calls, and invitations from the preacher. Salvation’s rolling landscape full of hearts yearning to be transformed, waiting to hear the gospel, longing for grace and forgiveness anew. It is the harvest of conversion and the Gospel laborers attending to those hearing the gospel. The preacher concludes with the invitation, the plea, the promise. Jesus said, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few.”

            In the 10^th chapter of Luke, Jesus speaking about the harvest and the laborers is wrapped up in the Lord’s appointing 70 others beyond the 12. He sent them ahead in pairs to every town and place he intended to go. That is when he warned them, telling them “I am sending you out like lambs into the midst of wolves.” Jesus told them if they are rejected to shake the dust from their feet and move on. The sending starts with “the harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few. The gospel of Luke and Jesus’ sending of the 70. It does have that evangelistic flavor, that feel, that context.

But the harvest is a bit different in Matthew. Jesus dropping the verse in Matthew has a different feel. At the end of the 9^th chapter, Matthew tells the reader that Jesus went around to all the cities and villages teaching and proclaiming the good news. Jesus was also “curing every disease and healing every sickness.” As he came upon crowd after crowd Jesus “had compassion for them, because they were harassed and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd”. And that’s when he turned to his disciples and said  “The harvest is plentiful but the laborers are few, therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into the Lord’s harvest.”  Yes, the harvest for Jesus is about proclaiming the gospel. But here in Matthew, it comes with the feel, the flavor, the twist of his mercy and compassion. It comes with Jesus looking around and with a heavy heart full of love. Jesus looks into the faces of the crowd, turns to the disciples, and says, “There is so much to do and so few of us. We have to ask God for more help. This harvest of need is so plentiful. The harvest isn’t just about proclaiming the gospel. It is about living the gospel too.

The harvest. This harvest. This isn’t like taking our granddaughters to Terhune Orchards this fall and going out into the pumpkin patch to let them pick a pumpkin. No, this kind of harvest is where the exhausted farmers work all night long, and nameless, faceless migrant workers spend days that never end out in the field because there is so much to do and bad weather is coming and the economy of an entire region is at stake.  A plentiful harvest, A plentiful harvest for Jesus among the crowds of people harassed by the world and so helpless.

Nassau’s mission partner, Centurion, held their annual gala in NYC last night. Mark Edwards and Annalese Hume took several Nassau youths up on the buses provided by Centurion to hear more about Centurion’s incredible work. Nassau member and great friend Jim McCloskey started the work now more than 40 years ago and Nassau has served as the ministry’s spiritual home. Centurion has freed 71 people who were wrongly imprisoned. The collective years in prison for those 71 people now exceeds 1500. In August, Jose Carrion walked out of a prison in Queens after more than 25 years

Jim McCloskey and John Grisham have written a book together that tells the story of 12 different cases. The book will be released next month, Jim writes about 6 of his cases and John writes about six cases he has followed and studied. I will be interviewing both of them at the Princeton Public Library event here in the sanctuary. Tickets are free and available on the library website and the evening will be livestreamed. I received an advanced copy of the book and read it this summer. I found it a book I couldn’t read cover to cover. Not because it wasn’t compelling or well-written. Of course, it is. But it is the weight of what McCloskey and Grisham write about. It is the heartbreak of getting to know these stories. Stories of real people and real suffering, most for decades. To read it is to come alongside children of God who were pretty much the definition of harassed and helpless. There is a weight that comes with hearts full of compassion.

A plentiful harvest. Is that a promise or lament? You live in the same world, the same times as me. We, you, me, the followers of Jesus and Jesus himself, we better all be asking the Lord for more help. It can be so paralyzing when there is so much to do; like you don’t know where to start. It can be so disheartening when dominant voices in the public square invoke a Christian faith that lacks any mercy. It can be overwhelming when the need in crowds only seems to grow in our lifetime and humanity’s inability to know the things that work for peace seems etched in stone. And Jesus still turns to the disciples, to the church, to you, to me and says “Wow, we have a  lot of work to do.”

Right here is where the voiceover from James starts. Here is where the soundtrack from James starts to play. Here is where the melody line from James rises from the string section as the requiem heads toward its completion. When the Faith Without Works author gets your attention, he eventually gets to “The harvest of righteousness is sown in peace for those who make peace.”  A plentiful harvest of righteousness. No, not a lament. Indeed a promise from James. A word of encouragement. “The harvest of righteousness is sown in peace for those who make peace.”

            It is fascinating to discover that James uses a different Greek word for “harvest”. It is not the same word for harvest that is found in the gospels. The word used by James when it comes to “harvest” is crop or fruit. Fruit like in Galatians 5:22: the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.”  Fruit like in Ephesians 5:8-9 “For once you were darkness, but now in the Lord you are light. Live as children of the light—for the fruit of the light is found all that is good and right and true.” Fruit as in John 15 when Jesus said “I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last”

            For James, the harvest is the fruit of righteousness. And righteousness? Well, all through scripture righteousness is righteousness. A reference to what God requires, what God intends. Righteousness has to do with the godly work of righting what has been wrong. That the kingdom here on earth might more nearly be as in heaven. Righteousness. Not our righteousness, but the righteousness of Jesus working through and among us. “The fruit of righteousness is sown in peace by those who make peace.”

            James counts the harvest one piece of fruit at a time. Jesus turns to the disciples, to the church, to us, and says “look at this crowd of humanity, harassed and helpless; we have so much work to do”. And James, somewhere in the crowd gives you an elbow and says, “Well, we have to start somewhere.”

We are ordaining new leaders in the life of Nassau Presbyterian Church this morning. People God has called through the voice of this congregation to lead us in the harvest. The fruit of righteousness is not going to be found in the brownfields of church sanctuaries if faith communities have long since lost their edge when comes to the work of the gospel: the work of justice and serving the poor and speaking for those so long and still silenced. Kingdom fruit does not ripen when congregations hunker down, wring their hands, and wish for the good old days. The fruit of righteousness will rot on the vine if Christians like you and me give up on Christ’s call to bear witness and to live what we believe Jesus has taught us. The harvest is not just about proclaiming the gospel. It is about living the gospel. Living it out in the world.

I haven’t had a chance to talk to any of the Nassau youth who were at the Centurion celebration last night. But I imagine as they heard the stories of the recently exonerated and heard the thanks offered for Kate Germond’s 35 years of work, they learned what Jim McCloskey taught me years and years ago. The harvest of righteousness comes one fruit at a time. One life at a time. It is quite difficult to fathom actually, how the entire Centurion team of staff, volunteers, and financial supporters spend years of time, sweat, and tears working endless hours, working for every one of those 71 lives and more.

You and I are called by the Hebrew prophets and Christ himself to speak for and work for righteousness and justice. The call is to follow Jesus and his challenge to systems, practices, and institutions that sow injustice into the fabric of human life. The call is to follow Jesus with hearts full of compassion tending to the crowds so full of need. Let James rest in your ear and tend to your soul. Because we have to start somewhere and the harvest comes one fruit, one act, one work at a time.

Mark 8:27-38
September 15
David A. Davis
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Our text this morning is from Mark’s gospel. The account in Mark of Jesus asks the disciples “Who do people say that I am?” and follows it up with “Who do you say that I am?” The narrative tells of Jesus predicting his own suffering. Peter tells Jesus, “Say it isn’t so,” Jesus pretty much calls Peter the devil. Jesus proclaims that those who want to be his disciples will have to take up their cross and follow him. It is likely a familiar gospel story to most listeners this morning. But here in the context of Mark, I invite you to hear it afresh.

This account of Jesus and the disciples at Caesarea Philippi is a critical turning point in Mark’s gospel. Here at the end of the 8th of 16 chapters, it is a kind of narrative center that is more important than its placement. In terms of the story, and the plot, these paragraphs mark a shift from all the healing and teaching in and around Galilee. The gospel now shifts to head to Jerusalem. This Jerusalem turn comes with Jesus’ first time talking about the suffering and death and rising again of the Son of Man. Such weight in content, so much going on, such an important turn; it serves not just as the literary center but as a kind of anchor to the gospel. It is the thickest part of the shortest gospel.

Mark 8:27-38

As Jesus and his disciples are on the way to Jerusalem, Mark invites his readers to listen in on their conversation. The church listens in as Jesus asks the question about what people are saying about him. “John the Baptist and others, Elijah, still others, one of the prophets.” Jesus pushes it further; makes it more specific, more personal to the ones he has called. “But who do you say that I am?” Peter doesn’t hesitate. “You are the Messiah.” Jesus firmly tells them to tell no one. We are privy to what Jesus intended to be a private conversation. And it is about to get more uncomfortable for those eavesdropping on Jesus and his disciples.

Jesus starts to talk about his suffering, his rejection, his rising again. Peter takes Jesus aside to tell him to stop with the nonsense. Jesus probably matching Peter’s volume and emotion calls Peter “Satan” of all things. It quickly becomes the kind of uncomfortable exchange you wish you didn’t have to listen to. The kind of private conversation you realize you probably shouldn’t be listening to. You don’t know whether to turn away or to keep listening, start taking notes, and study the whole drama between Jesus and Peter for the next few thousand years.

You are the Christ. Peter’s acclamation of the messianic identity of Jesus. From the lips of the disciple Matthew Jesus refers to as “the Rock upon which I will build my church.” Peter launches the church’s affirmation of faith forever more. Then there is the not telling part, the just between us part. Labeled by the tradition as “The Messianic Secret.” Jesus’s stern command to the disciples leads to shelf after shelf in the library of biblical studies. Jesus and his Passion Predictions, foreshadowing his death and resurrection for the church listening in while the disciples fall a step behind in terms of putting it all together. A whole lot to chew on in these few verses at the center of Mark. So much biblical, theological grist for the mill. So much to write about, noodle about, and think about. The best of fodder for a Christian faith from the neck up. The thickest part of the shortest gospel.

Just when you’ve sopped up all the knowledge and understanding you can from this Caesarea Philippi moment, all that is to be studied, read about, talked about, preached about, the whole nature of the conversation in Mark changes. It’s easy for the reader, the church, you, and me to miss it. For us, the conversation shifts from overhearing to direction address. It turns out the only thing more uncomfortable than eavesdropping on the tense encounter between Jesus and his disciples is when Jesus turns and includes you and me. Or as Mark puts it, “Jesus called the crowd with his disciples, and said to them..”  The crowd. As Mark’s gospel makes the turn to Jerusalem, Jesus calls to the crowd, to the reader, to his followers ever since, to you and me, Jesus calls, points his cross, and says, “This is where it’s all heading, why don’t you come along?” Talk about uncomfortable.

“If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, will save it. For what will it profit them to gain the whole world and forfeit their life? Indeed, what can they give in return for their life? Those who are ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of the Father with the holy angels.” Jesus looked at the crowd that included us, nodding toward Jerusalem and saying “So…here we go.” While the church wishes Jesus was still just talking to Peter and the gospel would remain a safe and sanitized academic exercise (from the neck up).

To be honest, I wrestle with Jesus playing “the shame card”. “Those who are ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when we come….” Maybe that is too much of contemporary lens use. But Jesus and shame make me squirm a bit. There is some relief in discovering that this verse and the same verse in Luke is the only time the word falls from the lips of Jesus in the gospels. A possible takeaway is that Jesus invoking the notion of shame here is a nod to feelings, an emotion, a matter of the heart. Jesus doesn’t seem to be setting a low bar for the gospel here. It is not a sort of “as long as you are not embarrassed by me and you don’t embarrass me” approach to a relationship with him. Quite the contrary. With this turn to Jerusalem, turn to his cross, maybe Jesus is telling the crowds to not just bring their minds but to bring their hearts too. Just on the heels of the mind-being conversation with Peter and the disciples, Jesus turns to the crowds and adds a bit of heart-bending to it too. We are headed that way and the only way to go is to bring your whole self, to give of your whole self. The turn to Jerusalem. The turn to the cross. A turn not just for the mind, but for all your mind, all your strength, all your soul, and all your heart.

“If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” These days there are many words or phrases that rightly are not appropriate to drop in conversation. The sort of things a younger person will tell a parent they just can’t say anymore. One of my irritations is how often sports broadcasters use battle imagery to describe people playing a game. So many others we could describe. Here is one for you. “We all have our crosses to bear.” That old saw ought to fade from the vernacular. Even with Jesus telling followers to deny themselves and take up their cross, the reference is to his cross. THEE cross. Take up your cross. Jesus, the disciples, and the crowds with his cross looming on the horizon.

Andrew Fosters Conner, a Presbyterian pastor down in Baltimore, puts it this way in response to Jesus’s call to discipleship: Jesus makes it clear that “you should be prepared to give everything for the say of God—nothing’s off limits. Everything is required. I can’t stand that about Jesus” Andrew writes. It makes building a church really hard. “Come to our church and we’ll call on you to give everything that you have for Jesus — money, time, work, relationships, life — all for Jesus. “Do we have programs?’ Yeah, we have programs — it’s called take up your cross. That’s the program!”

Here in the middle of Mark’s gospel, Jesus’ call to disciples, his invitation to follow, is stopping and pointing and saying this is where we are going, it is a call for his followers to bring it all. All of you, he is telling them. This means when it comes to the world we live in, the culture that surrounds us, bombards us, and the faith to which we have been called…it will not, shall not, cannot be easy. When Jesus is calling you and pointing to his own cross saying “This is where we are headed, come join me, uncomfortable doesn’t begin to describe it.

Our granddaughters are now 3 and 10 months. So, of course, we have dug out the children’s books we had when our children were young. One of those is a Christmas book titled “Angel Pig”. We even have an Angel Pig Christmas ornament but I will spare you. The story tells of a family of pigs who are getting ready for Christmas. As they prepare to go shopping for shiny and new wonderful presents, they discover they don’t have any money because they have already spent it on themselves. In their despair, the Angel Pig appears and tells them not to worry. It is not about what expensive gift they will receive but about celebrating one another. You don’t need money just enjoy each other and have time to rejoice. So they go off and make crafts, bake bread, and write poems for each other and have the best Christmas ever.

Trying to wrap your head and heart around taking up your cross is a big lift, maybe even a paralyzing mind and heart bender. But what is the place to start is a lesson a child can grasp? A lesson every parent at some point tries to teach. It isn’t always about you. Jesus is asking us to live, to act, to be like it is not always about us. The gospel of Jesus Christ offers a bold challenge to the dominant cultural message of “what is in it for me.”  The examples of the “me first” movement are legion pretty much in every facet of life. Yes, the call of Jesus to take up your cross can be as intimidating and discipleship hesitating as can be. But maybe Jesus is calling us to live each day looking for a way to affirm that it is not always about you. That seems like a solid, grace-filled, Spirit-led first step. When I look around at the world we live in, the culture we live in, the days we live in, I think I love that about Jesus.