Micah 5:2–5a
David A. Davis
December 20, 2015
Advent IV

Unlike our encounter with Zephaniah last week, there are few parts of the Book of Micah that are familiar to the ear.

For out of Zion shall go forth instruction and
the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.
He shall judge between many peoples
and shall arbitrate between strong nations far away;
they shall beat their swords into plowshares,
and their spears into pruning hooks;
nation shall not lift up sword against nation,
neither shall they learn war any more. (4:2-3)

That sounds like Isaiah’s peaceable kingdom. It’s in Isaiah too. But also Micah.

With what shall I come before the Lord
and bow myself before God on high?
Shall I come before the Lord with burnt offerings,
with calves a year old?
Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams,
with then thousands of rivers of oil?
Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression,
the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?
He has told you, O mortal, what is good;
and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God. (6:6-8)

Ah, Micah! And, of course, the lesson for today. It’s what the Magi quoted to King Herod.

You, O Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,
are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;
for from you shall come a ruler
who is to shepherd my people Israel. (MT 2:6, Micah 5:2)

One evening a long time ago, I opened our refrigerator with the intent of setting out some cheese and crackers. I opened the little door on the shelf where we always keep the cheese and grabbed a few different kinds. When I reached for the brie I made a rather shocking discovery. Someone had been eating the brie. But that’s not the surprising part. The family member who was scarfing the brie ate the cheese between the skin, the rind of the brie. The cheese on the pie-shaped slice of brie was mostly gone and the rind was hanging there like the ear flaps on a winter hat. I figure not everyone eats that part of the brie but it was an impressive, delicate operation to go for the cheese and leave the rind. It required a kind of surgical precision.

You and I have been listening to the church read the prophet Micah during Advent and Christmas forever — fourth Sunday of Advent, Lessons and Carols, a pageant here and there. Not just here at Nassau, but everywhere. Micah 5:2-5a. Notice the surgical precision in how the tradition reads Micah at Christmas. God’s promise delicately lifted out and then romanticized by the season. Like all the other minor prophets, Micah isn’t lacking when it comes to judgment and wrath. Some have called Micah the angriest of the prophets. But not at Christmas. “You, O Bethlehem… he shall stand and feed his flock in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God… and he shall be the one of peace” (Micah 5:2-5a).

The liturgical editing of Micah is more than simply cherry-picking the messianic promise. If there is a “scroogie” listener among us this morning, or even a careful listener who likes to follow along in the pew Bible when the lesson is being read, or maybe just a typical worshiper gifted this morning with some extra curiosity, a basic question ought to arise. If the bulletin lists the end of the reading or if the lector announces the end of the reading as “5a,” inquiring minds ought to be wondering about “b.” For that matter, if a lesson like this is as expected and familiar as “chestnuts roasting on an open fire” and it starts at verse 2, just once, some time, some year, someone may want to ask about verse 1.

Sometimes this sort of snipping of a scripture lesson is because of transitions, or a rethinking of how the ancient counsels number chapter and verse. It’s not always a Thomas Jefferson-esque omitting of parts you don’t like. But here in Micah it smells of a Christmas tradition that takes the cheese and leaves the rind, opting for the messianic promise and leaving behind the bleak image of a nation and a king under siege.

Now you are walled around with a wall;
siege is laid against us;
with a rod they strike the ruler of Israel upon the cheek. (5:1)

If the Assyrians come into our land
and tread upon our soil,
we will raise against them seven shepherds
and eight installed as rulers.
They shall rule the land of Assyria with the sword
and the land of Nimrod with the drawn sword;
they shall rescue us from the Assyrians
if they come into our land
or tread within our border. (5b-6)

A people surrounded on all sides by the forces of destruction. A king who has been slapped in the face. And an acknowledgment that the most brutal and violent of enemies are on the doorstep and must be turned back by might. And in between is the promise of a great shepherd rising up who will nurture the people rather than exert power over them. A ruler who will bring security to the land and will be great to the ends of the earth. This shepherd, this ruler, shall be the one of peace. In Hebrew, shalom. Peace. Wholeness. Completeness. Prosperity. Safety. The prophet Micah: the bold promise of the one of peace smack in the middle of the very real threat of defeat, destruction, and death.

I was back in Princeton Cemetery this week standing with a family around an open grave. It is always colder in the cemetery and that day the wind was whipping at my back as I stood at the head of the casket looking across that open grave at a grieving husband and children and grandchildren. I read the Scripture that I pretty much always read: “Behold I tell you a mystery, we shall not all die but we will all be changed… Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O grave, is your sting?” The Apostle Paul, First Corinthians. It is one thing to read those verses here from this pulpit on Easter morning when there is no seat to be found and the trumpet sound is still bouncing off the wall. It’s quite another to read it to a handful of brokenhearted folks as the cold wind of death blows right in their face and they have to decide if they can believe it.

Micah’s promise of the coming one of peace. It’s one thing to read it up here on Christmas Eve about 30 minutes before “Silent Night.” It’s quite another to read it when you know someone, more than one, feels the world pressing in on all sides and is wondering if peace, this peace, the peace that passes all understanding, whether that peace is real. Micah’s promise. It is more than a perfectly read sound bite clipped and made tidy as all eyes look to a manger artfully placed in an array of Christmas flowers under a spotlight up in the front of the sanctuary. It is a bold declaration of hope best received when surrounded by the world’s darkness or life’s gloom or a wilderness despair. An audacious claim of wholeness best heard when relationships have been broken or when the body has been wearing out or when important parts of life seem to be falling into pieces all around.

This promised one of peace stands among us to feed our soul with the word of salvation and to calm our spirits with the assurance of his love. The one of peace guides us toward a kingdom of compassion and justice and calls us to a life of servanthood. The one of peace invites us to experience a security the world can never give and marks us with a grace that the world can never take. To be overwhelmed by humanity’s lust for violence and still have hope in a peace that can blanket the earth. To be upset by the rejections, the anxieties, the stress of the day, and still go to bed assured of the peace that will greet you in the morning. To be battered by the torrential messages that meaning is to be found in the perfect gift or that a new car speaks to the truth of the season or that the design of a Starbucks coffee cup is an insult to Jesus himself and still dare to believe in a peace that comes in doing justice and loving kindness and walking humbly with your God. Micah’s Advent promise. Micah 5:1-6

Fiddler on the Roof is back on Broadway. An article in the newspaper described how the current production begins and ends in a new way. The actor playing Tevye opens and closes the show in contemporary clothes, a person of today. The article called it a framing device; the familiar, traditional musical framed by two very brief contemporary scenes. Apparently the director had to work at convincing the original lyricist, who is still alive, about the framing. In explaining the framing device, the director said, “I’m not trying to change it. I’m just trying to heighten the experience. I can’t imagine starting in the traditional way — it never occurred to me. We have to ask questions about where we are now.”

Imagine how Micah might explain how his messianic promise is framed by the very real threat of defeat, destruction, and death. “I’m not trying to change the promise, just heighten the experience of it.” Then the whole chorus of the minor prophets turns to us and says in one voice, “You have to ask questions about where we are now.” Where you are now. Because whether you climb to the highest spot you can find and look out at the world or you retreat to the innermost part of your soul and examine your life, it can feel like you’re being surrounded on all sides by something other, everything other, than peace. It’s in those moments, on those days, during those nights, in that wilderness that that you have to cling to the promise of the Christ Child. Emmanuel. God with us. I am with you until the close of the age. My peace I give unto you. Not as the world gives, give I to you.

He shall be the one of peace.

© 2015, Property of Nassau Presbyterian Church
Contact the church to obtain reprint permission.

Zephaniah 3:9-20
David A. Davis
December 13, 2015
Advent III

We can safely assume that with a few notable exceptions here among us this morning, most of us (including me) are not all that familiar with the Book of Zephaniah and its three chapters. I read to you the last twelve verses, the concluding verses. But let me share a few other quotes with you. Quotes from Zephaniah.

“I will utterly sweep away everything from the face of the earth, says the Lord.
I will sweep away humans and animals;
I will sweep away the birds of the air and the fish of the sea.
I will make the wicked stumble.
I will cut off humanity from the face of the earth, says the Lord.” (1:2-3)

“The great day of the Lord is near, near and hastening fast;
the sound of the day of the Lord is bitter,
the warrior cries aloud there,
That day will be a day of wrath,
a day of distress and anguish,
a day of ruin and devastation,
a day of darkness and gloom,
a day of clouds and thick darkness.” (1:14-15)

“Gather together, gather O shameless nation,
before you are driven away like the drifting chaff,
before there comes upon you the fierce anger of the Lord’s wrath.
Seek the Lord, all you humble of the land
who do the Lord’s commands;
seek righteousness, seek humility;
perhaps you may be hidden on the day of the Lord’s wrath.” (2:1-3)

“Therefore wait for me, says the Lord,
for the day when I arise as a witness.
For my decision is to gather nations, to assemble kingdoms,
to pour out upon them my indignation,
all the heat of my anger;
for in the fire of my passion all the earth shall be consumed.” (3:8)

And right about now, somewhere in the kingdom of heaven, a voice can be heard responding to the prophet Zephaniah: “Well, Merry Christmas to you too Uncle Zeph!” The cranky old prophet of gloom and doom who feasts on judgement and doles out God’s wrath not with a fine-tooth comb but with a fire hose. Like the family member at the Christmas gathering who just gets meaner every year and always seems to find a new way to express the same old vitriol based on what’s going on in the world or in the family this year. Like that friend of yours who quotes scripture all the time and never has a good thing to say about anybody, including you. Like that person in the office who purposely stirs the current event pot of tension over lunch while claiming to have studied all the world religions so you are expected to accept those harsh conclusions and stereotyped indictments of the faith groups you really know nothing about. Like that thread, that thick cord, that huge log that runs through the Christian tradition, and Christian preaching, and Christian teaching, and Christian attitude, and Christian practice that always seems more drawn to God’s anger than God’s love.

“You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath that is to come?” That’s John the Baptist with two feet firmly planted in the wilderness tradition that includes a whole lot of God’s wrath. “I baptize you with water for repentance, but one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to carry his sandals. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and will gather his wheat into the granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire.” (Mt 3:7, 11-12) Wrath. Fork. Chaff. Burn. Unquenchable fire. John the Baptist upholding the tradition of hellfire and brimstone while a gaggle of prophet followers who went before and a whole multitude of judgment by fire hose people who came after can’t hold back on their applause.

The remarkable part of Zephaniah, though, the remarkable part is that there is this turn. In just three chapters. An unexpected, breathtaking turn. Zephaniah’s turn. The turn is so surprising that you’re a few verses past it, a few verses into it, before you even realize. You have to do one of those reader backups. “Whoa, what just happened?!”

On that day you shall not be put to shame
because of all the deeds by which you have rebelled against me…

For I will leave in the midst of you a people humble and lowly.
They shall seek refuge in the name of the Lord….
they will pasture and lie down
and no one shall make them afraid.

The Lord has taken away the judgments against you.
Do not fear, O Zion; do not let your hands grow weak.
The Lord your God is in your midst…
The Lord will rejoice over you with gladness,
The Lord will renew you in God’s love
The Lord will exult over you with loud singing.

I will save the lame and gather the outcast,
and I will change their shame into praise and renown in the earth.

At that time I will bring you home.

When you read the little known minor prophet straight through, all of a sudden things change. Here on the playing field of God’s judgement and grace, here in that same wilderness tradition that includes a whole lot of God’s wrath, here in the annuls of salvation history, here in the prophet Zephaniah, as with all the Hebrew prophets, there’s a change, things change. Everything changes. It all changes. It’s a breathtaking, unexpected turn toward God’s mercy, God’s promise, God’s love.

Imagine a parent escorting a “skootchy” 4-year-old through a crowded parking lot out along Route 1 somewhere. The child has done the best she could, held it all together in the store for longer than anyone wants to ever be there anyway. And there in the parking lot, with a cart piled high and darkness falling in the sky, the child sees the family car and for no apparent reason breaks free of the grip and races ahead to a win a race that no one started. Thankfully the other car stopped. The other driver saw but — the honk and the stop and the headlights and the near miss — it was all so frightening for parent and for child. Words of correction with a strong tone would be warranted so that it never happened again. But as it was, both parent and child were in tears. No words came. Just an embrace of love and relief.

Or think of the two siblings who have been at it for years. They haven’t talked for so long they each forget what started the hard feelings and the finger pointing and cold hearts. It was their children, the cousins who planned the family reunion and insisted. When the two embraced at the picnic, words would have been too dangerous. Just some tears and an embrace of love and relief. Or the parent of the teenager driver who comes home after the first ticket or the first accident. The parent fully expects to launch in with a high volume lecture to end all lectures. But that face and the fear still on that face and the heart-sick reality of what could have happened. So no words, no lecture. Just the firmest of embrace of love and relief.

Expecting judgment and receiving only an embrace. Kind of like when Jesus told about that son who came home after eating with the pigs and squandering all the money his father gave him. His father offered an embrace not a reprimand, and there was a big party too. What a twist that was. Nobody expected it, especially the elder brother. A twist. A change. A turn. Zephaniah’s turn. The prophet’s breathtaking, unexpected turn toward God’s mercy, God’s promise, God’s love.

Old Testament professor Bill Brown puts it this way, “The words of the prophet Zephaniah both plumb the depths of judgment and climb the heights of grace. In fact, the overall movement of the book is defined by judgment giving way to salvation.” Judgment giving way to salvation. “No one shall make them afraid. The Lord will rejoice over you with gladness. The Lord will renew you in love. The Lord will exult over you with loud singing. I will save the lame and gather the outcast. The Lord your God is in your midst. I will bring you home.” Judgement giving way to salvation. What an incredible turn. It’s an Advent turn. A turn toward God’s mercy, God’s grace, God’s love. The Advent turn. Things change. Everything changes, As the Catholic priest and writer and spiritual director Richard Rohr said on Thursday night down at St. Paul’s Church, “When you fall into the ocean of mercy, the counting stops.” The counting of sins and the pointing of fingers and the keeping score and the demonizing the other and the fire hose of fear and judgement. Even in the wilderness tradition so full of God’s wrath, there comes this unexpected turn, and the counting stops. A turn toward the ocean of God’s mercy.

Just a few weeks ago I was on a panel over at the seminary in the class for first-year students on the Old Testament. The discussion was about preaching the Old Testament. I have been a part of that classroom discussion many times now. Each year the professors invite the students to submit questions ahead of time and then they forward them on to the panel members ahead of time. Over the years the students change but the questions are about the same. They can all be grouped into the same four, five, or six questions. One group of questions every year has to do with this wilderness wrath, the prophets that are so full of judgment, this God of the Old Testament.

Next year if I am invited back, my response is going to be, “God of the Old Testament? Have you listened to John the Baptist lately?” Wrath. Fork. Chaff. Burn. Unquenchable fire. When it comes to John the Baptist in Matthew’s gospel, there is no turn. You listened to it. In those days John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness of Judea proclaiming… and what comes next is pretty much a fire hose of wrath. After John’s sermon, after he finishes, after he ends at “unquenchable fire,” Matthew writes, “then Jesus came from Galilee to John at the Jordan.” Then Jesus came. Then Jesus came. That’s it. There it is. The turn. Then Jesus came. The unexpected, breathtaking turn. The Advent turn toward God’s mercy, God’s promise, God’s love. Then Jesus came. In the wilderness tradition so full of God’s wrath, there comes this unexpected turn, and the counting stops. A turn toward the ocean of God’s mercy.

The Lord your God is in your midst… The Lord will rejoice over you with gladness. The Lord will renew you in love. The Lord will exult over you with loud singing. I will save the lame and gather the outcast. I will bring you home… And no one shall make them afraid.

Then Jesus came. And before you sing over him this Christmas, before you welcome him and wrap him and gather around him and love on him, long before any of that, you know he is waiting to rejoice over you and renew you. He is waiting to welcome you home to the cradle of God’s love where nothing and no one shall make you afraid.

Then Jesus came.

© 2015, Property of Nassau Presbyterian Church
Contact the church to obtain reprint permission.

Malachi 2:17-3:5
David A. Davis
December 6, 2015
Advent II

As we sit with the prophet Malachi this second Sunday of Advent, you will want to notice that we are at the very end of the Old Testament. Malachi is the last of the twelve prophets ordered in what the tradition labels “The Latter Prophets” or “The Minor Prophets”: Hosea, Joel, Amos, Obadiah, Jonah, Micah, Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Haggai, Zechariah, Malachi. The Bible didn’t fall out of heaven back in the day with a table of contents and a batting order. The arrangement is the work of the church fathers who established the canon of the Old and New Testament. In fact the order of books is different in the Hebrew Bible. These twelve prophets are in a different place. Malachi isn’t the last book of the Hebrew bible.

So the wisdom, the theological imagination, of our forbears in the Christian faith comes into play when the reader gets to the end of Malachi, turns the page, and reads, “An account of the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham” (Matthew 1:1). Malachi to Matthew. The gospels. Luke and Matthew, in particular, connect Malachi’s concept of a messenger, the messenger of the covenant, with the role of Elijah and of John the Baptist. Malachi to Matthew and Luke.

In just a few minutes the Adult Choir will be singing a chorus from Handel’s Messiah. “And he shall purify,” which is Malachi 3:3 in the King James. “And He shall purify the sons of Levi, that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness.” The libretto of Handel’s oratorio was done by Charles Jennings using the King James Bible. Immediately after the chorus we will hear this morning, immediately after “And He Shall Purify” in the movement of Handel’s Messiah an alto soloist sings “Behold A Virgin Shall Conceive” and not long after that comes the unforgettable chorus “For Unto Us A Son is Given.” Like in the canon of Christian scripture, in Handel and Jennings work Malachi is the pick-up note to the gospel’s tune. The prophet’s upbeat to the gospel proclamation of Jesus as the Messiah. Malachi to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. And with the turn of one of those thinnest of Bible pages comes the jarring juxtaposition of refiner’s fire, fullers’ soap, and a babe lying in a manger. It is an unlikely pairing of judgement and of grace, purification and sanctification, the hard work of preparing and the humble act of receiving. “Who can endure the day of his coming and who can stand when he appears?… For to you is born this day in the city of David a Savior who is Christ the Lord.” Messengers just a few thin pages apart with a word about God’s covenantal promise and the messiah who is surely coming.

The major message of this minor prophet is intended for priests who have corrupted the community’s worship life and insulted God by offering at the altar something other than the best of sacrifices. Malachi also indicts the state of relationships and fidelity among the people while offering a word of judgement on their lack of willingness to care for the most vulnerable. As you heard at the end of what was read: “I will be swift to bear witness against the sorcerers, against the adulterers, against those who swear falsely, against those who oppress the hired workers in their wages, the widow and the orphan, against those who thrust aside the alien, and do not fear me, says the Lord of hosts.”

With such judgement in the air, the messenger’s role, the prophet’s action, the necessary preparation for the coming of the Lord is to purify. Thus fire and soap. Fire and soap. If you were to spend just a little bit of time this week at the library, or online, or just with the books in my study, you would find no lack of commentaries, devotionals, and sermons on our lesson for the day from Malachi. But you will no doubt come to agree with me that few metaphors in Scripture have had more life squeezed out of them than the refiner’s fire and the fullers’ soap. So I will spare you the detail of doing laundry in the ancient world and a lesson on the production of finer metals. Let us agree to respect the power of Malachi’s language here and just leave the images alone. Fire and soap. The messiah’s coming demands of God’s people a cleansing so deep that the very nature of both the individual and the community is transformed. Refined. Purified.

It has become one of the highlights of the Advent and Christmas season here in our congregation. It’s called “Wee Christmas.” Just this last Wednesday families with the youngest children came to the church to share a meal, to work on a craft, to play with crèches, and to tell the story of Jesus’ birth in a rather active way. That part comes here in the sanctuary as I tell everyone the story and give everybody things to say and sound effects to do. Then we send the children to various corners, designated by age, to put on the expected costumes. So one group will be the shepherds, another the angels, there will be magi, and a group of Mary and Josephs. The second time through the Nativity story everyone has a part. Parents who were there will attest to the wondrous commotion and the unbridled enthusiasm and the beauty and fun of 20-30 kids two through second grade (though it seemed like 80) participating in pretty much a flash mob pageant. It’s the hardest work I do all year!

This year, amid all the chaos (which is a much too negative word but you get my point), I noticed a few of the children who took their roles very, very seriously. We had a Mary, who held that baby doll like she was holding an infant brother the day he came home from the hospital. One of the Magi carried his gift like he was asked to carry his grandmother’s favorite piece of china. And every time I told of the Magi stopping and looking up again at the star, he would stop and look up with such sincerity and intensity. A few of the shepherds were determined to do what was right by the sheep and by Jesus, even when I mistakenly thought at one point they were Mary and Joseph. Undeterred by my mistake, they kept in character. Even when the angels and the animals who were all much younger ran pretty much amok, those shepherds tended both to their sheep and to the baby Jesus. There was a serious, sincere, authentic, intense, devotion to the birth of the messiah around here even when those kids were surrounded by distraction and chaos.

Maybe that’s where to start your Advent purification. With a renewed devotion to God’s promise of a Savior. A devotion that comes with a seriousness, a sincerity, an authenticity, an intensity. An attention to the coming of the Lord so genuine, so real, that your very nature, your being, your heart, your soul yearns for a cleansing so deep, so transforming. An encounter with the messenger of the covenant that breaks through the abundant distractions that surround you, and the very real parts of life that cause you concern and worry, and the world’s despair and chaos that can so easily be overwhelming pretty much on any given day.

In these wilderness days of terror attacks and reports of double digit death, when workplace and campus so quickly and easily turn to killing fields, as fear and hatred spread with epidemic force, political leaders on all sides rush to point fingers at each other and turn the conversation to score points for some kind of gain. In these wilderness days of campus unrest when it comes to race and as protesters take to the streets of Minneapolis and Chicago in response to jarring and troubling videos, and as the conflict among the nations grows ever more complex, the news shows and outlets are so willing to call pretty much anyone an expert and let them express an opinion. The only thing piling up quicker than the events that make headlines and jam up the news cycle are the opinions of those who are willing to talk about everything and everyone else whether on camera or online. Opinions about everything and everyone… else.

The word of the prophet affirms that when the wilderness rages the first heart to examine is your own. The hard work of preparation, the humble act of receiving… purification begins within. The first place to turn when you feel lost in the world’s wilderness is toward the One whose life upended the world, whose teaching threatened the world, whose mercy disarmed the world, whose death and resurrection transformed death’s stranglehold on the world. The one wrapped in a swaddling clothes and lying in a manger. That’s the first place to look. And the first heart to examine is yours. When the wilderness looms, the Advent instinct ought to kick: an intensified devotion to God’s promise. Transformed. Refined. Purified.

“And He shall purify the sons of Levi, that they may offer unto the Lord an offering in righteousness.” The New Revised Version puts it, “he will purify the descendants of Levi and refine them like gold and silver until they present offerings to the Lord in righteousness.” Not “that” they offer but “until” they offer. Who knew the word “until” could be a word of hope. That God will be about the work of our purification until our offerings of righteousness overflow. The persistence of God’s promise. Until. Until the very righteousness of God flows. Until justice rolls down like waters and righteousness like an ever-flowing stream. Another minor prophet. Amos. Nothing minor about the promise.

When the choir sings Handel, notice how the purifying part works its way through all of the voices of the choir: sopranos, altos, basses, tenors. “He shall purify…” And with that movement of notes and the tempo that is so Handel, there is a sort of feel like scrubbing or crackling fire. “He shall purify”… When you listen, it’s kind of like fire and soap. But when the choir then sings of the offering of righteousness, “that they may offer unto the Lord an offering of righteousness,” the harmonies ring out, the unity of voices can’t be missed. The pace changes. You have to listen for it, right in the middle of the chorus and then at the end. Handel’s creative proclamation that affirms purification may come one heart at time, but righteousness, righteousness unleashed, that’s a plural thing, that’s a community thing, that’s a kingdom thing. The righteousness of God that transforms the world. For God so loved this world that God gave God’s only Son. God gave us God’s Son.

Let your Advent instinct kick in and join in the Advent prayer, the Advent wilderness plea: Even so, come Lord Jesus. Come.

© 2015, Property of Nassau Presbyterian Church
Contact the church to obtain reprint permission.

Jeremiah 33:14-16
David A. Davis
November 29, 2015
Advent I

“A voice cries out: ‘In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God.” That’s the prophet Isaiah, the 40th chapter. Of course it’s John the Baptist too. As Matthew, Mark, and Luke make that indelible connection. “The voice of one crying out in the wilderness; Prepare the way of the Lord, make his paths straight.” You know it is Advent when you read, when you hear, when you sing, “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord.” This Advent that prophet’s call is what will shape our preaching life. “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord.” Typically a congregation’s experience of Advent worship puts the emphasis of that sentence on prepare. The theme, the language, the theological underpinning of the four Sundays, more often than not it is prepare. Prepare for the Christ Child. Prepare your heart. Prepare for Christmas. Let every heart prepare him room. “In the wilderness PREPARE the way of the Lord.”

But this Advent, with the help of the prophets, maybe we can hear it in a different way. Not just Isaiah but Micah and Malachi and Zephaniah and Jeremiah. This Advent as we look to the prophets that call may start to sound different. Those prophetic voices offer a shift in the emphasis, a different inflection. Instead of rushing to PREPARE, how about “In the WILDERNESS, prepare the way of the Lord.” When you hang with the Hebrew prophets in Advent other themes, different language, and other theological underpinnings rise up. Not just Advent preparation. But Advent wilderness. “In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord.”

In the wilderness…

Our sermon text for the First Sunday of Advent comes from the prophet Jeremiah. Among the Old Testament prophets Jeremiah is sort of the “Debbie Downer.” That’s not a technical term among scholars but the long chapters in the long book that take the prophet’s name are full of harsh words for and the indictment of God’s people, descriptions of pending destruction, Jeremiah’s own lament and struggle with God, and a recounting of various challenges in his own life. In the history of the people of Israel this was the time of Babylonian rule, and some being hauled into exile, the city of Jerusalem being ravaged and the temple being destroyed, and the end of the reign of the lineage of David. No Jerusalem. No temple. No king. A wilderness of devastation, destruction, judgment, and the prophet’s wrath. And still, and yet, and of course, God’s promise.

The days are surely coming. A righteous branch to spring up from David. Justice and righteousness executed in the land. Jerusalem in safety. Our Christian ears are quick to hear a messianic reference to Jesus the Savior of the world born to the house of David. But notice how specific God’s promise is for a people whose city and temple and monarchy has been destroyed. The promise of righteousness returning to the lineage. The promise of righteousness in the land. The promise of righteousness in the city. Righteousness, as in the very righteousness of God. Not just God’s will and God’s way, but an attribute of God. Part of God. Part of God’s DNA. The promise is that God’s righteousness will rub off. From no city, no temple, no king to an abundance of righteousness. The days are surely coming when the land, the city, the king, when all of it just drips with the righteous of God. The name by which it will be called is “Yahweh is our righteousness.”

The name by which it will be called is “Yahweh is our righteousness.” I cannot for the life of me figure out exactly what is being named here. Is it the righteous branch that will be called “the Lord is our righteousness”? Or is it Jerusalem, the city living in safety, that will be called “the Lord is our righteousness”? In an earlier chapter Jeremiah makes it crystal clear that the reference is to the righteous branch, the king, “this is the name by which he will be called, ‘the Lord is our righteousness.’” (23:6). But commentators and translators are split on this reference in chapter 33. “This is the name wherewith she shall be called” (King James). But the Common English Bible sticks with “this is what he will be called.” And the New Jerusalem Bible states it this way: “And this is the name the city will be called: Yahweh is our saving justice.” So the Hebrew is vague. Translators seem to go about 50/50. So the answer to the question to what is being named “the Lord is our righteousness,” is it the righteous branch or Jerusalem, the answer must be a resounding “yes.” Righteous in the branch. Righteousness in the city. Righteousness. Righteousness in the king. Righteousness in the people. The Lord is our righteousness.

When our son Ben went to college his teammates on the soccer team quickly gave him the nickname, Bane. The name Bane comes from the Batman comic books and movies. Bane is one of Batman’s arch-rivals, a scary armored kind of villain complete with a mask. I am sure there was more to the story of Ben becoming Bane that I probably don’t want to know. But for four years now pretty much everyone on campus has called him Bane — players, coaches, trainers, friends. Bane. A few weeks ago Ben broke his nose in a game. A short time after the injury he was cleared to play but only if he wore this mask that protected his nose. So the one named Bane now wore a Bane-like mask. At one game some opposing fans were mocking the mask and started chanting “Bane.” Little did they know they were just calling Ben by his team name. As I said to many folks later, I never knew a nickname could be prophetic.

“The Lord is our righteousness”. A name given by God through the prophet Jeremiah. A name given to announce that things are going to get better. A name given when things really couldn’t get much worse. A name given to a future king and a future people. A name with a future where God’s righteousness rubs off on God’s people. A name that points to the righteousness of God becoming, showing forth, bearing witness, passing on in the righteousness of God’s people. A name that speaks of hope amid despair, life amid death, and salvation itself rising up from nothing else, nothing other than the everlasting mercy of God. “The Lord is our righteousness.” A name given that is prophetic.

Advent is a season to receive and to claim God’s promise and to yearn again for God’s future. Receiving God’s promise of an incomparable love revealed in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus. Receiving God’s promise of a wordless comfort and an worldly peace and a divine wisdom that blows with the breath of the Holy Spirit. Receiving God’s promise of a coming kingdom full of the justice and the compassion and the beauty that the Creator intends.

Advent is not just a season, it’s an attitude. To have an Advent attitude is to claim God’s promise right when it seems things couldn’t get much worse. To lift up God’s promise of peace when the nations quake and violence rages and terror reigns. To cling to God’s promise when a diagnosis comes or a marriage ends or child is suffering or a parent is failing. To proclaim God’s promise with a forgiveness that stuns or a patience that unsettles or a hospitality that is increasingly counter-cultural. To live in God’s promise when it’s easier to give up altogether or it’s safer not to speak up for the kingdom way. To have an Advent attitude is to find yourself surrounded by the kind of darkness only the wilderness can bring and daring to believe that the light of God’s promise shines even in that darkness and the darkness will never overcome it.

I imagine that our family is not the only family that sits around the Thanksgiving table and remembers. It must have happened over and over again on Thursday. Every year the same stories are told of Thanksgivings past. Some from generations ago. Memories are shared of those who are no longer around the table and have gone on to glory. Laughter comes as more stories are told about when the children were young, when mom and dad were dating, when grandma forgot to take the giblets out of the bird, when the dog stole the turkey leg, and on and on and on. So much looking back.

A few hours after we finished eating and before we had dessert, we Facetimed family in Pittsburgh. My nephew and his wife were hosting. They have a two-year-old, The first of his generation, my brother’s grandson, the first great-grandchild to my parents, who are no longer alive. At one point the two-year-old stuck his whole face in the camera to wish us all a Happy Thanksgiving. The face of another generation. I miss my parents pretty much every day and yet that Davis Thanksgiving meal in Pittsburgh, a new location for the meal, a booster chair at the table, that meal has a future. In the grace and mercy of God, the Thanksgiving meal isn’t all about remembering; it has a future.

Just like this Table has a future. Of course it is a Table of remembering, remembering all that Christ has done. But this Table has a future. God’s future. It is the Table of God’s promise that in the fullness of time it will get better. It can all get better. Here where we proclaim his death until he comes again. The Lord is our righteousness. Who knew a meal could be prophetic.

Advent is not just a season. It’s not just an attitude. Advent is a faith statement about God’s future. That in the days to come our life is not in the hands of nations, or powers and principalities, or perpetrators of violence and terror, or Wall Street, or elected officials, or doctors, or college admissions committees, or staff at the Windrows or at Stonebridge. That our lives, your life and mine, rest firmly in the everlasting arms of the God of the prophets and the God of the Savior and the God of tomorrow.

Come, taste and see that the Lord is good. Today. Yesterday. And forever.

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John 18:33-38a
David A. Davis
November 22, 2015
Christ the King

“Are you the king of the Jews?” Pilate asked Jesus. “Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about me?” Jesus answered. “I am not a Jew, am I? Your own nation and the chief priests have handed you over to me. What have you done?” Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.” Pilate asked him, “So you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say that I am king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.” Pilate asked him, “What is truth?”

And with the brush of the imagination, you and I follow the numbers and paint in the familiar landscape of the biblical witness to the passion of Jesus. This trial before Pilate surrounded on all sides by the garden betrayal and the fireside denial and the shouts from the crowd and the haunting crow of the cock and the flogging and the crown of thorns and the inscription and the taunting and the cross and the gambling for his clothes and “It is finished.” Of course the primary context of the conversation between Jesus and Pilate is that ingrained holy week narrative that demands that the Christian then and now and forever would be absolutely spellbound by his suffering and death; knowing that in this King Jesus is our life and our salvation. This King is the embodiment of God’s love, the epitome of God’s mercy and grace. In him is the crux, the essence, the very core, the heart of our being. As Frederick Buechner once put it, “Pilate asks his famous question, ‘What is truth?’ (John 18:38), and Jesus answers him with a silence that is overwhelming in its eloquence. In case there should not be any question as to what that silence meant, on another occasion Jesus put it into words for his disciple Thomas. “I,” he said, “I am the truth” (14:6).

In the flow of the church year, the liturgical calendar, the rhythm of our tradition, today is Christ the King Sunday. The reign of Christ. Next week is the beginning of a new year, the First Sunday of Advent. Next week we begin to once again prepare and wait and yearn to welcome the promise of God make known in the Christ Child, the Incarnation of God’s love carried in the ark of Mary’s womb. Today, here at the end of the year, the liturgical context bears witness to the exalted Christ. The One who reigns in heaven and on earth. The One who intercedes for us from there at the throne of God. The king of kings, the lord of lords. The Alpha and Omega. The beginning and the end. The church calendar and a sort of life cycle of Jesus approach that finishes the year. It all finishes with Christ as King and our songs of praise and adoration. King Jesus, the Risen Christ now mighty and triumphant.

Pilate asked him, “So you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say that I am a king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.” And the Christian, taking the cue from such liturgical tradition, listens to this conversation between Pilate and Jesus and of course hears Handel echoing off the walls. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. Hallelujah. And today as the followers of this king, we show our gratitude, we respond to the abundance of his blessings with the consecration of our giving, the offering of pledges. With hearts full of joy our thanksgiving for the king includes the sharing, the giving, the dedicating, the giving back a portion of all that God has given to us. On this last Sunday of the church year, with our pledge to the witness and ministry of Nassau Presbyterian Church, we once again consecrate ourselves before the king. Christ the King.

Holy Week. Christ the King. And then there’s November 2015. Death and terror and violence and evil rain down in unforgettable amounts at the hands of religious zealots in Paris, in Mali, in Beirut, in the Sinai. And that’s not an exhaustive list. Extremists attempting to testify to an ideology, seeking to exert power and establish a faith-based foundation, declaring a religious war where unspeakable violence supposedly and horrifically gives glory to God. When the conversation between Jesus and Pilate is once again breathed into the Body of Christ and given life as the Word for the Christian in November 2015, a whole other context bears down. It’s like a weight bearing down. It is the weight of the world. Jesus, Pilot, and a very real and formidable weight of the world bearing down.

“Are you the king of the Jews?” Pilate asked Jesus. “Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about me?” Jesus answered. “I am not a Jew, am I? Your own nation and the chief priests have handed you over to me. What have you done?” Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.” Not from this world. Not from here. As it is, my kingdom is not from here.

Pilate asked him, “So you are a king.” But this king eschews violence. His followers don’t fight to keep him from being handed over. He won’t let them. His reign is established, his power comes through all that the world describes as weakness. His march to victory includes his own suffering, his own death. This king spews forgiveness, not hate. On his conquering battlefield is spilled his own blood, his own love. The war of ideas isn’t won in an argument. That silence before Pilate, it turns up the volume on his life, his way of life, the ethic of his life, the actions of his life. His life of bringing good news to the poor, and proclaiming release to the captives and recovery of sight to the blind and letting the oppressed go free. As it is, my kingdom is not from here.

November 2015. This weight of the world includes reactions to violence that fan the flames of fear and make religious bigotry not just a two-way street but a four-lane highway. This weight of the world includes the dark underbelly of social media now transformed into a petri dish of hatred. This weight comes as the world seems smaller than ever with semesters abroad and international business travel and friends and family now everywhere. This weight of the world so easily erodes the Christian of the assurance of a life in God as the rhetoric of the public square is so antithetical to the truth of this king. Our trust in him is so easily replaced with the idolatry and the myth that security comes by might or by money or even by more violence. Anxiety and fear bears down on the soul. That’s the world’s way. As it is, Jesus said, my kingdom is not from here.

The assurance, the promise, the hope we have in Christ. It’s not from here. And so on Christ the King Sunday, November 2015, the Christian ought to place herself amid the great cloud of witnesses who rise to affirm the promise of the king. “My only comfort in life and in death is that I belong not to myself but to my faithful Savior, Jesus the Christ” (Heidelberg Catechism, 1562).

Amid this worldly heaviness, the Christian should to be encouraged by the forebears of faith in another time and place. “As the church of pardoned sinners, the church has to testify in the midst of a sinful world, with its faith as with its obedience… that it lives and wants to live solely from his comfort and from his direction… We reject the false doctrine as though the church were permitted to abandon the form of its message and order to its own pleasure or to changes in prevailing ideological and political convictions” (Barmen, 1933). His kingdom is not from here.

When the world crashes in, the Christian can cling to that promise, that truth that is this king, the promise and the hope and the future, is not from here. “God’s lifegiving Word and Spirit has conquered the powers of sin and death, and therefore also the power of irreconciliation and hatred, bitterness and enmity, that God’s lifegiving Word and Spirit will enable the church to live in a new obedience which can open new possibilities of life for society and the world. The credibility of the church’s message is seriously affected and its beneficial work obstructed when it is proclaimed in a land which professes to be Christian, but in which the enforced separation of people on a racial basis promotes and perpetuates alienation, hatred and enmity” (Belhar, 1982).

“Are you the king of the Jews?” Pilate asked Jesus. “Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about me?” Jesus answered. “I am not a Jew, am I? Your own nation and the chief priests have handed you over to me. What have you done? Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.” Pilate asked him, “So you are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say that I am king. For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.” Pilate asked him, “What is truth?”

And Pilate said to Jesus, “You’re not from here, are you?”

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Luke 10:25–37
David A. Davis
November 8, 2015

He never called him good. That was everyone else, ever since. Jesus never called him good. Maybe that’s because back in the day, back in Jesus’ day, it would have just been too much of a stretch. Sort of like a die-hard Yankee fan referring to the friend at work who roots for the Red Sox, “Well, she’s a good Red Sox fan.” Or all the Princeton alums trying to feel better back in the day when they discovered their pastor graduated from Harvard: “Well, let’s hope he is at least a good Harvard man.” Or a candidate running for office these days, would anyone expect to hear someone on the other side of the aisle referred to as “a good Democrat or a good Republican.” Some things you just don’t expect to hear.

He never called him good. Everyone else did and has. Jesus never called him good. Maybe that’s because for the Jews of antiquity the words “good” and “Samaritan” were never intended to go together. For all the reasons that remain timeless — bigotry, stereotypes, religion, hatred, segregation — Jews and Samaritans would never have referred to one another as good. If somehow the terminology were to ever have worked its way in, one could imagine it would have been on the condescending side. Like in the American vernacular when someone of color was referred to as part of the “good help” or when someone who is different is labeled as “one of the good ones.” It’s uncomfortable to provide any other examples of that sort of pandering offensive condescension, but it’s really not necessary because everyone has heard it before. He was a Samaritan, one of the good ones.

He never called him good. That was everyone else. Jesus never called him good. The lawyer who stood up to test Jesus, the one who, according to Luke, wanted to justify himself, can’t even say it, can he? The question on the table was the one about being a neighbor. Who is my neighbor? Which of these three, do you think was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of the robbers? When Jesus finishes the parable, everybody and their uncle knows the answer. Who was the neighbor, as in love your neighbor as yourself? Everybody knows. It wasn’t the priest. It wasn’t the Levite. Come, lawyer guy, say it. Say the right answer. IT WAS THE SAMARITAN. The lawyer can’t even bring himself to say it, to use the word. “Who was a neighbor to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?” Jesus asked. “The one who showed him mercy”. The lawyer said. The one. That one. Jesus could have said, “Uh, uh, uh… which one? Go ahead, you can say it?” Jesus could have made him say it, but the parable is shocking enough all by itself. So Jesus said, “Go and do likewise.”

I boarded a plane on Friday to come home from a meeting in Louisville. It was one of those smaller planes and my seatmate was about my size. So before we even spoke, we were touching in inappropriate ways. As you reach for the seat belt you sort of have to make conversation. I told him I was heading home. So was he. He asked me why I was in Louisville. I told him I was a Presbyterian pastor in town for a denominational meeting. “No kidding,” he said with a smile, “I’m a Presbyterian too.” As we acknowledged that the Presbyterian Church can be a small world, he asked me if I knew his home congregation and the pastors. I didn’t recognize either and when he said the church had 7,000 members I realized I would have known that one if it were a part of the PCUSA. So I explained that there were a few different Presbyterian denominations and his church was probably a part of the Presbyterian Church in America, PCA, and that I served a PCUSA congregation. “Oh, right,” he said, “you guys have all those homosexuals, right?” Like he could barely say the word. “Yes,” I said, “that’s us.” I was trying to think of what to say next but his earbuds went in and not another word was said between us until “have a nice weekend.”

He never called him good. That was everyone else. Jesus never called him good. Maybe that’s because, at the end of day, the parable isn’t about being good. The wonder and the power of the parables of Jesus is that they cannot be easily reduced to moral point. They are not simply morality tales. Not just a fable with a lesson. This isn’t just a story with a life lesson, a takeaway about being good. Yes, Jesus said, “Go and do likewise,” when the lawyer referred to the “one who showed mercy.” But he didn’t say to go and do good. And the lawyer is the one who brought up mercy. Jesus might as well of said, “go and be,” “go and live.” He said, “Go and do likewise.” He didn’t just say, “Go and be good,” like parent dropping off a six-year-old to a birthday party. “You be good, sweetheart.”

He never called him good. That was everyone else. Jesus never called him good. And if the takeaway here is about being good, you and I are in deep trouble. Because we aren’t good enough. You are not good enough. I am not good enough. And compared to the priest and the Levite, we’re not holy enough and not smart enough either. If this parable about the Samaritan who acted as a neighbor to the man in the ditch is about being good, and if it is the standard of assessment for our faithfulness, the instruction manual for how to live and work and stop and care and help and give — I will only speak for myself — I am failing miserably. And I’m the one walking down the street with the label of religious professional.

Years ago when our children were very young, a man stopped by the church office one afternoon. He was very tattered and worn from life and life on the street. I had trouble following his story that was getting longer and more disjointed. He was talking about demons and computers and struggling to just sit still in my office. Finally I interrupted and I asked him point blank, “What can I do for you?” I was expecting him to ask for money or food or a bus ticket or a place to stay. With a stark clarity he asked me for a ride to Camden which was about 15 minutes away. Sometime during that drive up on the expressway with the guy in the passenger seat I thought of my two kids and my wife and said to myself, “This might be the stupidest thing you have done.” If Jesus’ teaching is all about being good, we’re never going to make it. As the German preacher and theologian Helmut Thielicke said in a sermon on this parable, “The road to hell is paved not merely with good intentions but with good reasons.”

Of course Jesus knew that. He never called him good. That was everyone else. Jesus never called him good. He called him a Samaritan. In the parable when the Samaritan was traveling along the way, he came near to the man in the ditch. When he saw him, he was moved with pity and took care of him. The man in the ditch. He’s the only one Jesus didn’t label, didn’t identify. The priest. The Levite. The Samaritan. And the man in the ditch. The reader can assume he was Jewish as well, the man in the ditch who fell among thieves. He had to be Jewish. Because the parable has a jolt to it. The parable has a shock way before anyone tried to call a Samaritan good. The man in the ditch received mercy, pity, and compassion in the most unexpected of ways, from the most unexpected of people. What makes the parable, what makes it a parable, is not that he was good, it’s not that he stopped and helped, what makes it a parable is that he was a SAMARITAN! What makes the parable timeless, is that he was a SAMARITAN. What makes the parable relevant in our time and place is not that he was good, but that he was a SAMARITAN.

To go and do likewise is an exhortation not just to do good or be good but to live and to be and to work for and to long for a world of mercy, pity, and compassion. To go and do likewise is a command from the lips of Jesus that assumes that separation walls should be tumbled down and hateful stereotypes should be crushed and righteousness starts with a trickle of unexpected action. To go and do likewise is an invitation from Jesus to see the world with kingdom eyes and to be liberated from all that has been ingrained in you about those who are different. The only way to go and do likewise is to first find yourself on the receiving end of God’s mercy, pity, and compassion. To know not just in your head, but in your heart, that this saving grace of Jesus Christ is as unexpected and undeserved and upending and life-changing as the loving touch of a stranger, not just a stranger, but a foreigner, not just a foreigner, but a SAMARITAN.

He never called him good. That was everyone else, ever since. Jesus never called him good. So what if it’s not the Parable of the Good Samaritan? Because the parable starts with you and me in the ditch.

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Philemon
David A. Davis
September 8, 2013

I am about to read an entire book of the bible to you. The Letter of Paul to Philemon. It is our second scripture lesson for this morning. One letter. One book. All 25 verses. The letter is to Philemon and Apphia, and Archippus and the church in their house. The main concern in the letter is a man named Onesimus. Paul meets Onesimus in prison, develops a deep love, a fatherly relationship with him and intercedes on his behalf with Philemon and the others. Apparently Onesimus is a former slave whose relationship with Philemon had been broken in some way and now Paul is asking them to receive him back in the community as a beloved brother. Paul asks that any debt, any wrong, any blame to Onesimus be forgiven in light of the profound bond and history and faith-filled relationship that Paul has with all of them.

The letter is so short and there are very few other details to go on. That doesn’t seem to bother preachers and writers like me who “expand the narrative” of the Book of Philemon. Onesimus was a runaway slave, some say. He clearly stole from Philemon, went on the run, was caught, ended up in prison, Paul befriended him there, shared faith with him, then tries to broker a story of redemption for the slave who has now found Jesus. Or, Onesimus was a slave who was able to get away, start a new life, found himself offering care and support to those in prison like Paul. The debt owed by Onesimus was more of a slavery/property issue and in a small world kind of way, Paul happened to have connections and could intercede for Onesimus in terms of his legal status. Still others suggest that Onesimus was an emanicipated slave and Paul was intervening to repair a relationship broken by the obvious chains of slavery and redefine it within the bounds of a Christ-like love.

Of course, as you will hear, all of that is conjecture, or historically informed literary hypothesis, because the letter says so very little. Another aspect of the “unsaid” here? Paul nowhere condemns slavery itself as a practice, doesn’t name it here as wrong. The contemporary hearer of the word is left wanting more from Paul, more from scripture, more from the bible. Perhaps Philemon ought to sit on the coffee table when you find yourself in a living room conversation with someone who thinks the bible is always so clear, cut, and dried and translates so easily as a moral compass and recipe book for 21^st century life. Paul’s appeal on behalf of Onesimus is not that slavery is wrong but that relationships in Christ can be reframed. Philemon was used historically by those in the church on the wrong side of slavery and human rights, so one has to conclude, at least here in Philemon, that Paul didn’t go far enough with a prophetic word.

So hear now, the Word of God, as I read to you the Book of Philemon. Mindful of what is not said, I invite you to listen for how Paul expects the gospel to be lived in the lives of his readers; listen to what Paul expects the church will do in response to the gospel proclaimed.

Philemon

I pray that the sharing of your faith may become effective when you perceive all the good that you may do for Christ….Confident of your obedience, I am writing to you, knowing that you will do even more than I say. Paul to Philemon, Apphia, Archippus, and the church in the house. I pray that the sharing of your faith may become effective when you perceive all the good that you may do for Christ….Confident of your obedience, I am writing to you, knowing that you will do even more than I say. Paul,writing about a particular individual, one person, one relationship; writing from prison to Philemon and the others, writing about one man named Onesimus. I pray that the sharing of your faith may become effective when you perceive all the good that you may do for Christ….Confident of your obedience, I am writing to you, knowing that you will do even more than I say. Paul way into the weeds of life, this time not climbing the theological mountaintop like Romans or scribing a lasting hymn like Colossians or tackling fundamental understandings of the gospel like Galatians; this is Paul writing to the church about one guy. I pray that the sharing of your faith in the gospel of Jesus Christ will be fruitful as you come to understand all the good you can do for Christ and confident of our desire to be faithful, I am writing to tell you that you will do even more than I can say.

So little is said about Onesimus and his situation and we could work for a long time to creatively fill in the gaps. But what Paul does say is that when the gospel is effectively shared folks will begin to perceive all the good that can be done in Christ. And when the church strives to be faithful, it can do more than even what can be said. Yes on one level, Philemon can do more than Paul is asking in receiving Onesimus back into the community. He can do more than what Paul says. But on another level, from a broader perspective, when striving to be faithful, the church in the house can always do more than what is said, do more than what can be put into words, do more for the gospel than what can even and ever be said.

In his book The Tacit Dimension, philosopher Michael Polanyi writes about human knowledge and existence and rationality. Early on in the book he states his beginning premise. Its a fact that he argues. It is a fact that “we can know more than we can tell.” Part of what it means to be human is that we always know more than we explain. So much of what we can know can’t be put into words. There is always more to know, to do, to be than can be said. At the highest levels of science and philosophy there will always be more than what can be explained. A complex intellectual trajectory of thought then leads to conversation and study in the relationship of science and theology. My point this morning, however, is much simpler. Part of what is means to be the church, the community of faith, the Body of Christ, part of what it means to be the church in the house is to claim the gospel promise that we can always do more than we can say. In the power of the Holy Spirit and only by God’s grace, we come to see all the good we can do for Christ and that goodness is always more than we can describe or tell.

It is a bold promise and counter-intuitive because you and I have been told since we were knee high that you should “practice what you preach” and “do as I say, not as I do.” Paul here in Philemon is telling the church to do more than I say and to practice more than what is preached. It’s not a qualitative statement or a quantifiable assumption about goodness. It’s not pious rhetoric that flies in the face of the obvious that sin is part of the DNA when the community gathers. Neither is Paul putting works and doing up on a justification pedestool here. No it’s part of the gospel promise; the hope, the expectation, the affirmation, the belief that when the Gospel of Jesus Christ is proclaimed and shared, the kingdom will expand and move further along in places we cannot begin to describe or imagine. The good we do in Christ, it’s always going to be more than we can say. When the church is in the house, the kingdom life around here, the kingdom life that stretches out there is so much more than what is said here, or written about somewhere. Think, dream, see what life as the Body of Christ can be in response to the love and grace of God. Can you imagine all the good that we can do for Christ?

As your pastor and your preacher, I stand up here and try to find the words to describe the power of God’s love to transform and make new and bring meaning. But there will always be more forgiveness and more strength and more hope in your lives than any preacher can tell. I can speak of God’s justice and proclaim a vision of God’s righteousness here on earth but if the promise is real, there will always be more faith lived, more faith in the action of your lives in this community and in the world, more of it than we can tell. I can tell of resurrection hope from this pulpit and down the street surrounded by grave stones over and over again, and I will never have enough words to ably describe a people who refuse to let death carry the day; a people who work from deep within to stomp on the powers and the principalities of darkness; the one person who rises every day to take on grief and reminding God every morning that there has to be a better way. As your pastor and preacher, I can find the words to join with Pope Francis in pleading with world leaders to seek resolution and intervention in Syria without escalating violence but the words will never be enough when compared to the whole of God’s people praying, working, yearning, demanding peace in Syria, in the world, in their lives. Can you imagine all the good we can do in Christ?

A few weeks ago when the carpet was pulled off this chancel the raw subfloor was exposed for a day or two while the guys worked to pull out all the staples. You might have seen it in the pictures on the website, but this floor was signed by the youth group from 1987. That’s 26 years for the carpet. Some of us stood and read the names: Ryan Wise, Lisa Kelsy, Katey Ruddy, Brian Ruddy, Tracey Foose. A few weeks ago I did a wedding and the bride stood here almost 30 years to the day that her parents stood here. Wouldn’t it be cool if everyone who has passed by this pulpit, who has feasted at this table, who has splashed in this fount, if everyone signed the floor? Because the Apostle Paul was writing to the church in the house about one guy! Our stewardship of the gospel; every guy, every girl who in this place has heard of God’s grace and God’s love. And if by God’s mercy, our communication is effective in any way, can you imagine all the good we can do in Christ, it is so much more than we can tell.

So when someone asks you about all the work done at 61 Nassau Street in the heart of Princeton…no, we’re not preserving a building like a museum. We’re not just honoring history and looking to the past. Tell them we’re sending a message to this community about the vibrancy of our life together and our bold commitment to the very hospitality of Christ, we’re announcing our confidence in a long future of gospel proclamation and kingdom service in this place. We want the town and our community to know there’s a church in the house….and you better watch out because we believe we can do so much more than we say.

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Ephesians 4:11-16
Lauren J. McFeaters
August, 2 2015

Garrett Keizer is a pastor in Northwest Vermont where he says people are still outnumbered by Holstein cows. And at the end of every summer his congregation invites the local logging community; the loggers, to bring their chainsaws to church; to bring their chainsaws for a dedication. Keizer calls it the Annual Blessing of the Chainsaws.

So on this particular Sunday everyone gathers for what they call a Logger’s Breakfast and you can imagine the food they serve. And then there are gifts: an evergreen seedling for planting and a container of two-cycle engine oil for the chainsaws. Then there’s worship and after the closing hymn and the blessing of the chainsaws, everyone gathers on the front steps of the church where they fire up their saws, lift them to the heavens, and make one rip-roaringly joyful noise unto the Lord.[ii]

It’s a huge deal. There’s the blessing of the work of the loggers that keeps the community on good economic footing; there’s a confirmation by a church that God’s gift of grace is embodied in the work of our hands (logger or not); and then there’s Paul’s affirmation that each one of us are given gifts to serve; each of us is given grace according to the measure of Christ’s gift.

What kind of blessing would we have on the front steps of our church? I don’t know how many of us have chainsaws in our garages, but we might have the Blessing of the Text Books. The Blessing of the Lesson Plans. The Blessing of the Peanut Butter Sandwiches for Loaves & Fishes. We could lift them up to the Lord and give rip-roaring praise. The Blessing of All Forms of Work.

Today, Paul gives us an additional job description:

Each of us is given grace
according to the measure of Christ’s gift.

And I’m not talking preachers and teacher. I’m saying all of us, we who are the priesthood of all believers.

Each of us is given grace
according to the measure of Christ’s gift,
to equip the saints for the work of ministry,
for building up the body of Christ,
until all of us come to the unity of the faith
and of the knowledge of the Son of God,
to maturity.
Each of us is given grace
according to the measure of Christ’s gift.

What is this grace? One preacher puts it like this: When we say the word grace here, we unfortunately downsize the word. We say things like, “She’s the most graceful woman,” and we mean she sings or walks or talks with dignity. Or, “They are such gracious hosts,” and we mean they give great dinner parties. We tend to use the word grace in minor ways. But when Paul says grace, he says it in the biggest way possible.

When we hear the word grace in the New Testament, we’re essentially hearing the translation of a Greek word. We say grace in English but it’s really translated from the Greek word charis, and charis means gift.

When the New Testament talks about grace, it’s talking about a gift we can hardly fathom because it’s so glorious. It’s the:

• the bond and promise;
• the union and covenant;
• the sinew and bone of God’s love for us.

I know this because I know you and I love you. I know as I look upon your faces some of your hearts are broken today. Some of you have received this week a word that is unbelievably difficult. Some have received glorious news about a birth or an adoption. Some have been given the news of a frightening diagnosis; some freed from an illness. For some a door has been flung wide open on the unexpected and for some a door has been slammed shut. What’s been your gift of grace in your life this week?

I am confident that God’s grace has held you all week long and will do so again. And I am confident God’s grace is carrying you through every slum and every trouble; sustaining you in fatigue and also in your times of energy. I now the Triune God is upholding you with encouragement and inspiration.

At the very heart of our faith is a Lord whose gift is grace and whose grace is gift. What I love it there’s no punitive judge or scolding critic, but a Lord who molds us by mercy and forgiveness; gift upon gift, grace upon grace.[iii]

I want to share a story with you, a troubling story that I heard this week. It’s about a public hearing concerning a luxury apartment building in a city nearby. This apartment building is located in a very lovely housing development and it was discovered that some of the residents of this apartment building were on public assistance, on welfare.

Well, when that news came out, the homeowners in the neighborhood were outraged. They didn’t want their property values plummeting, they said. So they demanded and they received a public hearing.

The first person to go to the microphone was a young mother with a baby on her hip. She told her story. When she married she moved into the apartment but after she became pregnant, her husband took the car and left her – left her with nothing.

And she needed to get a job and she did. She’s a maid at a local hotel and if she didn’t have the apartment she couldn’t have the job, and if she didn’t have the job she couldn’t feed the baby. And then she begged, in the midst of this public meeting, she begged for mercy that she would be able to live in her home.

The next person to the microphone was a homeowner who said they had poured their life savings into their apartment and they wanted their security protected. Then this person said to the young woman with the baby:

“I understand how you feel, I do,
but I earned mine,
and you’re going to have to earn yours.”

When you have experienced the gift of grace,
you can never, ever again look into the face
of another human and say,
“I earned mine, you’re going to have to earn yours,” [iv] because we know in the depths of our souls
we do not create ourselves.
It is Christ who shapes us and makes us his own. Everything we have is a gift from God.
Everything.
Gift upon gift upon gift upon gift upon gift.

 

Endnotes

[i] Ephesians: 4:7, 11-16: But each of us was given grace according to the measure of Christ’s gift The gifts he gave were that some would be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Christ. We must no longer be children, tossed to and fro and blown about by every wind of doctrine, by people’s trickery, by their craftiness in deceitful scheming. But speaking the truth in love, we must grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and knit together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is working properly, promotes the body’s growth in building itself up in love.

[ii] Garret Keizer. “The Day We Bless the Chainsaws,” from The Christian Century. March 8, 2000, 63-64. Thanks to the Rev. Ann Deibert, co-pastor of Central Presbyterian Church in Louisville, KY for pointing me to this article.

[iii] Thomas G. Long. Sermon: “Amazing and Uncomfortable Grace.” The Chicago Sunday Evening Club/30 Good Minutes, Program #4902. Chicago, IL, October 9, 2005.

 

[iv] Thomas G. Long.

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Ephesians 3:14-21
Lauren J. McFeaters
July 26, 2015

One thing we can always count on from Paul, is his message tell us:

• who HE is in relation to the God he loves;
• and then he teaches us, who WE are in relation to the God who loves us.

This is so very different from what we’re bombarded with day by day. In fact it’s the opposite. It’s the Kingdom of God turning the world upside down. There will be countless moments throughout this very day when the world’s message will be who we are in relation to our possessions, things, stuff. We can’t check the Twitter feed or open a newspaper or click on a link to the next news story without our lives being defined by the things we have, the iPhone 6S, the food we crave, the experience we desire.

For me it will be the daily message from Starbuck’s. Josie and Michael and I were just in Seattle visiting family and we went to the new Starbuck’s Reserve Roastery and Tasting Room on Pike Street. It’s not like any Starbucks you’ve ever seen. It’s the Disneyland of coffee.

And may I tell you what I really wanted to do when I got there was to just roll around in the beans. The beans are being roasted over here and they get sucked up into the tubes that take them to the grinders that make your individual cup. We in the East are ignorant of all that’s happening in the Pacific Northwest coffee land. These new systems won’t reach us for months. The good news is that there’s a Reserve Roastery and Tasting Room coming to Manhattan. I’m ready.

Today I will receive my daily message from Starbucks and I will be invited to luxuriate in the aroma of roasting beans and indulge my whims of all the new coffee paraphernalia I can simply buy with the touch of a key. It’s bliss.

Somewhere out there today you’re going to find out there’s a microbrewery offering you the fellowship of the pub. There’s a celebrity who wants the satisfaction of your company. There’s a deodorant that is going to make you feel better about your body. Macy’s wants you to start your Christmas shopping.

Paul however would like us to unplug.

And he’s being relentless about this one thing: he’s calling us back, not to deny the existence of things in our lives, but to give these things the perspective they deserve. We’re not created for the things we want or own or have to have, are we? We’re not created for the things we eat or crave or desire.

We’re created for the Gift.

I pray that you may have the power to comprehend, what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, so that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
You.
You are being rooted and grounded in love.

Here is where Paul offers us perspective. Here’s where Paul offers us equilibrium and it comes in the form of a prayer, a balm, a blessing, Gospel Medicine:

I pray that, according to the riches of God’s glory, God may grant that you may be strengthened in your inner being with power through God’s Spirit, and that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith,as you are being rooted and grounded in love.
You.
You are being rooted and grounded in love.

One writer has called this prayer “the Holy of Holies in the Christian life.” Another writer called it “a prayer for the impossible.”

I’m especially grateful there’s nothing timid about Paul’s prayer; nothing bashful; nothing retiring; nothing reserved. It’s simply one of scripture’s most powerful and commanding prayers, because it asks for everything: [i]

• That the breadth, length, height and depth of the love of Christ surpasses what’s in our heads and goes straight to our hearts;
• That we may be filled with all the fullness of God; filled – not with what we think we want and have to have – but filled with a prayer so potent that our desire is rooted, grounded, love.
• That we may be filled to brimming with all the fullness and richness and abundance of God;
• And that the Gift of Christ Jesus is a glory to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.

In these days:

• of assassination, and the slaying of people’s character;
• in these weeks of more people shooting their guns off and others shooting their mouths off;
• in these days Paul’s prayer convicts us to get down on our knees, asking God to fortify us. Root us. Ground us. And Love us into sanity.

I often tell couples who come to me for counseling, both the soon-to-be-married and decades-long married that the most intimate moments in their life together are the moments they are at prayer together.

• When was the last time you prayed with the ones you love most? It will change your life.
• When was the last time you sat beside a friend and laid a hand on them to pray for healing and comfort? It will change both your lives.
• When was the last time you held a child’s hand and bowed your heads and gave thanks? It will change a family’s life.
• How are we to serve our Jesus unless if we’re not rooted in our Jesus?
• How are we to live up and out of ourselves unless we are firmly anchored in our Jesus?

Or as Calvin says, to be rooted and grounded is needful not only to those who are youngsters in faith, but even to the oldest also, that as we grow up, we are grounded and rooted in the knowledge of that immeasurable love, with which God has loved us in Christ.[ii]

Do you know Jean Vanier?

Jean Vanier is an 86 years old, French-Canadian, and he recently won the Templeton Prize, for his ground-breaking network of small groups of people with different intellectual abilities who live and work as peers. The Prize honors a living person who has made exceptional contributions to affirming life’s spiritual dimension.

Decades ago Vanier, a WWII vet, discovered a call to serve people whom society typically considers of least value, the intellectually disabled. He discovered the intellectually disable person enables the strong person to welcome their own vulnerability and to grow in their humanity.

The hundreds of communities Vanier founded are called L’ARCHE (which in French means Ark, like Noah’s Ark) and the purpose is to be rooted in a faith where the practice of love has the potential to change the world. [iii]

Upon accepting his prize Vanier said this:

Before being Christians or Jews or Muslims, before being Americans or Russians or Africans, before being generals or priests, rabbis or imams, before having visible or invisible disabilities, we are all human beings with hearts capable of loving.

We are being rooted and grounded in God’s love.

That’s us too. Called by God not so much to do extraordinary things, but to do ordinary things with extraordinary love.[iv] Called by God not so much to do astonishing, ambitious, and successful thing, but to do ordinary things with tenderness. [v]

Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen and Amen.

Endnotes:

[i] Ronald Olsen. “Thinking and Practicing Reconciliation: The Ephesians Texts for Pentecost 8-14.” Word & World, 17/3. Luther Seminary, St. Paul, Minnesota, 1997, 325.

[ii] John Calvin. Geneva Notes: The Geneva Study Bible [1599], Ephesians 3:14. Edited and translated by www.textweek.org, 2006.

[iii] www.larche.org.

[iv] Jean Vanier. Our Journey Home: Rediscovering a Common Humanity Beyond Our Differences. Trans. by Maggie Parham. Maryknoll, New York: Orbis Books, 1997.

[v] Jean Vanier. Community and Growth: Our Pilgrimage Together. New York: Paulist Press, 1979.

 

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Contact the church to obtain reprint permission.