I John 4:7-21
Rev. Dr. David A. Davis
May 3, 2015

Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. God’s love was revealed among us in this way….

            In my high school years each summer I attended a conference in Western Pennsylvania on the campus of Westminster College called the New Wilmington Missionary Conference. It was there that I heard one of the shortest and most memorable sermons ever. A well-known preacher, a traveling evangelist of sorts, delivered the keynote each morning and the sermon each night. One evening during worship when it came time for the sermon, he stood up, read from somewhere in I John, looked out at the gathered community and said “let us love one another” and he turned and sat down. After an awkward silence, he stood up again and said, “beloved, let us love another” and he sat down again. And then a third time, he stood up at the podium and said “let us love one another.” He sat down. There was a long time for silent reflection and then we were led in song. The shortest and one of the most memorable sermons ever. He made his point. You get his point on the clarity of I John on love.

            God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent God’s only Son into the world so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we loved God but that God loved us and sent God’s Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and God’s love is perfected in us.  

Perfecting the motion. It is a term in Robert’s Rules. A term for the parliamentary process for a governing body that operates with a moderator who oversees votes, motions, speaking for, speaking against. Perfecting the motion. It is the way the body works a particular motion that is on the table: amending it, amending the amendments, offering substitute motions, debating. The irony, of course, is that the process of perfecting a motion is more often than not an utter and complete mess. A confused moderator, a less than patient parliamentarian, debates that have nothing to do with the prior, main motion, folks yelling out for a point of order and a meeting just on the edge of total chaos. Perfecting? Even with the best effort, it’s a wonder anything gets done. God’s love perfect in us? Even with humanity’s best effort, it’s a wonder. But that’s I John on love.

God’s love is perfected in us….God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them. Love has been perfected among us in this: that we may have boldness on the day of judgement, because as God is, so are we in this world. There is no fear in love , but perfect love casts out fear…
I think I have done it wrong for almost thirty years. I’m not sure how many times I have erred in thirty years but that’s because long ago I lost track of how many weddings I have done. The call to worship in a service of Christian marriage, the first words spoken: God is love and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them. But just like I Corinthians 13, (love is patient, love is kind) just like I Corinthians 13 has really nothing to do with marriage, weddings, just one couple, it’s pretty clear I John is not about romance. I am not beating myself about my mistake. After all, it’s in the liturgy of the Book of Common Worship of the Presbyterian Church USA, in the liturgy for marriage, the opening sentences, the first word spoken: God is love and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them. I didn’t make it up. Reading the text from I John like that at a wedding, at pretty much every wedding. I’m just not sure it’s right. Let me put it this way, I’m not sure it’s the best use of I John on love.

There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear; for fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not reached perfection in love. We love because God has first loved us.

It happens over and over again. An old family picture up on the wall. A grandfather as a young man. A great grandmother as a child. Someone looks at one of the newest generation in the family. A child in arms at the holiday meal. A picture on a phone sent from a cousin. Everyone can see it. Two, three generations later in the facial features, the hair, the eyes. She looks just like her great grandmother. He looks just like grandpa when he was in high school. “Well, will you look at that!” First among the distinguishing traits of those referred to in I John as the “beloved”, first among the traits, first in the DNA is love. I John on love. It is the writer of I John pointing to a picture of Jesus hanging on the wall and then looking back to the Beloved. “Hey, look at that”. Sort of like when we find ourselves at this Table remembering, and partaking, and thanking, and tasting, and seeing. God’s love for us. God in Christ in the power of the Spirit, inviting us here. God saying, “well, will you look at that!” The Lord’s Supper. I John…..On love.

Those who say “I love God” and hate their brothers or sisters are liars; for those who do not love a brother or sister whom they have seen, cannot love God whom they have not seen. The commandment we have from God is this: those who love God must love their brothers and sisters also.

Just this last Friday I participated again in a Prayer Walk through the streets of Trenton. Now the second year of an interfaith effort of stopping to pray at every site were someone has been murdered in the city since January. A half dozen or so folks from Nassau came along this year. At several stops we were joined by family members of the men who had been killed. At each spot: silence prayer, spoken pray, maybe a song, an anointing of the ground with oil. In the silence there in front of a home on Pearl Street and then again on Hanover Street I was struck by the spring time that was evident in the color in the trees and the birds I could hear singing and the contrast to the sound of a family member gently weeping the death of a son, a brother, a father. When the family members spoke, each one, they spoke about love. They called for an end to violence. They pled for healing and peace in the city. A gutwrenching call for love. A love that dares to rise out of death. A love that is boldly and courageously at work in places, in people, in relationships where there would otherwise be no love. A love that comes from nowhere but above. A love that overcomes. A I John kind of love

Beloved let us love another…Beloved since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another…God is love and those who abide in love abide in God and God abides in them…We love because God first loved us…

Of the many heartbreaking, disturbing, and not easily forgettable scenes from Baltimore this week, one was early on when the marches were still peaceful. It was a video of protesters were walking past a bar, an outdoor café kind of place that was full of folks obviously going to the baseball game. They had jerseys on: Baltimore and Boston. There was no audio on the clip but clearly words were exchanged and some pushing and shoving ensued. Later I read about what happened. As the mostly African American marchers passed the bar shouting “No justice, no peace!” and “Black Lives Matter!”, the mostly white ballgame going patrons shouted back, “We don’t care! We don’t care!” And somewhere, someplace, some time, a preacher says to the gathered community and beyond, “let us love one another” and then she turns and sits down.

Which brings me back to where I got it wrong; the wedding thing, I John and those opening sentences. I will quote I John the next time and the time after that. Yes, it is fitting for the promise of nuptial joy. But a I John kind of love, wow, it is so much more than that. So much more prophetic than that. A better use, a more urgent read, a more compelling, convicting, life giving, transforming encounter with I John? It’s in weeks like this one Preachers like me, churches like ours reading, proclaiming, pleading for, praying for, pointing to, working for, living a I John kind of love. “Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action. And by this we will know that we are from the truth and will reassure our hearts before him whenever our hearts condemn us, for God is greater than our hearts, and God knows everything.” (I John 3).

God is greater than our hearts. God is greater than our feeble efforts to perfect God’s motion; that bold, courageous, prophetic, world changing, I John kind of love. God is greater than our hearts! (Let the church say “Amen!”). I John on love. God in Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit on love. Inviting us here to this Table to feast on a promise for weeks like this one. Before you voice an opinion on current events in all of their fullness, before you let the angst in your heart turn to a numb not caring anymore, before judgement or anger or guilt or sorrow or righteous indignation rise up within you, before you find yourself overwhelmed by the magnitude of death and suffering in Nepal, or your own paralysis when it comes to what to think or do when it comes to race and reconciliation, or when love seems all together absent or far from perfect in your corner of the world, your corner of the family, your corner of life and faith…Come, here……will you look at that….well, will you look at him

I John on love…..Come, taste, and see.

© 2015, Property of Nassau Presbyterian Church
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March 8, 2015
Matthew 13:31-33
“Thy Kingdom Come”
Rev. Dr. David A. Davis

The kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed and a bit of leaven; like the greatest of shrubs and three measures of flour all leavened. The greatest of shrubs, Jesus said. Bible translations try different words to capture the intended image, the twist, even the humor. The greatest of shrubs. The greatest among herbs. The largest of garden plants. The largest of all vegetable plants. The greatest of shrubs. Sort of an oxymoron. Not like the Old Testament: oaks of righteousness and mighty cedars of Lebanon. The greatest of shrubs, Jesus said.

In the high school year book when the senior class votes on most likely to succeed and best athlete and king and queen of the prom and most likely to own her own bio-tech company and who will probably be elected president some day; being voted best date to take home to mom or dad, that’s like being called the greatest of shrubs. The dreaded “back-handed compliment”. The kingdom, Jesus said, looks pretty good….for an herb. When it has grown it is the greatest of shrubs and becomes a tree so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.

The kingdom, it nests in the most unexpected places, in the most unassuming ways. The kingdom of heaven, it doesn’t soar from the pinnacles of power. It doesn’t ride on the coattails of wealth. It isn’t launched from the hallowed halls of the smartest or even birthed in the practice of the most religious. The kingdom takes root and multiplies among the least, and the last, and the outcast, and the weak. Unnamed and unheralded kingdom bearers who forward grace and make servant-hood contagious and give glory to God with the overwhelming ordinariness of their lives. Bearing witness, allowing the kingdom to stretch, and whether they know it or now, offering a forearm shiver for the kingdom straight into the world’s solar plexus where wealth and power and self-interest and success and violence and hatred all swirl with a life all their own. The kingdom of heaven, it’s like the greatest of shrubs, and all leavened.

Years and years ago Cathy and I were given some Friendship Bread. Someone gives you some batter, some pre-dough, whatever you call it. It takes like ten days. You stir this day. You add something this day, then you split it up all up, give some to friends and bake your own loaf. We were newly married so we took the friendship project very seriously. It all went as smoothly as could be expected. We baked a loaf that was pretty good. Three containers of stuff were ready to pass on to friends; passing friendship forward. We delivered two of the three right away. One bowl of batter, stored in a Cool Whip/plastic ware container, was left on the counter with the lid on to be delivered in the morning. What happened over night could have made one of those old science fiction movies. The next morning the Friendship Bread batter was everywhere. There on the counter, right above the dishwasher that was run at bed time and therefore heated the counter top, the warmed batter pushed the lid off the container and set out to take over the kitchen. It ran off the counter, into the sink, down the front of the dishwasher. The batter was creeping everywhere. Even the dog was frightened. That batter, the beginnings of bread dough, the start of a loaf, it was as the scripture says, “all leavened”.

Kingdom creep. The constant presence and movement of the kingdom of heaven here and now. No, rarely with leaps and bounds. Never with enough flow from the mountaintops of life. Kingdom creep. Once in a while like a march for justice across a bridge. More often with baby steps, one life, one relationship, one voice at a time. And at times far too easy to look around and think that kingdom might be in retreat, or the kingdom was closer back in the day, or the kingdom it thrived at the time of Jesus, or the kingdom peaked that night in Bethlehem or that afternoon at Golgotha or that morning at the tomb. But Jesus taught that the kingdom is on the move, until all of it, all of us, all of this, until all of it is leavened. God at work. Ever-present, ever-moving, with a subtle power that has the potential to knock the lid off this world. The kingdom in our midst, creeping into people’s lives and reaching the world’s darkest corners, offering a life of forgiveness and love, resurrection hope and joy, and future unbound by fear. All of it in the name of and through the work of the One who said “the kingdom of heaven is like a mustard seed and a bit of leaven.”

Just a few weeks ago I was sitting with some clergy friends in a hotel lobby after a day’s worth of meetings that ended with dinner. You’re not going to believe me when I tell you this, but we were sitting there talking about particular verses, particular translations of the New Revised Standard Version of the bible that we find less than satisfying. That’s a rip roaring time, right? The only good news there, is that more often when pastor’s get together they tell funeral stories or just talk about you church folks. So one of my colleagues lamented the lack of poetic license in the NRSV and the perceived rigid commitment to the Greek text. The example given was Jesus in Mark’s Gospel, Jesus’ first words spoken in Mark, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent and believe in the good news.” That’s the NRSV. The argument continued, “In the King James and in the Revised Standard Jesus says “the kingdom of God is at hand”. I get the “come near” is closer to the actual Greek but what the heck does that mean “come near”, my friend pleaded with us. “Don’t we believe the kingdom in and through Christ is something that can be touched; “is at hand”, something that makes a difference all around us, all around here.” It was some preaching going on. Don’t knock sitting around a lobby bar talking bible translation until you’ve tried it! “The kingdom of God is at hand”, Jesus said, “and it is like a mustard seed and a bit of leaven.”

When Jesus instructs you to pray “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven”, it’s not a casual choice of words. The words comes with quite a bit of baggage. The petition itself, bears the weight of all the Lord’s teaching on the kingdom of God. Jesus said a whole lot more about the kingdom than he ever said about the church. And you know Jesus practiced what he taught; he prayed what he taught. In the Garden of Gethsemane, that night of his betrayal and arrest, that night of the Last Supper, the night before he was tortured and killed, Jesus prayed, “Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me. Yet, not my will but yours be done.” Pray then like this, Jesus said. Pray then like I will, pray then like I do. “Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” The kingdom. God’s will. Pray it!

On earth as it is in heaven, in heaven where, as John Calvin puts it, “nothing is done apart from God’s good pleasure.” As it is in heaven, because there is no will in heaven other than yours, O God. No other will, no other forces, no one else at work in heaven but God. The reference to heaven, “as it is in heaven”, the connotation is not for the heavenly city to suddenly appear, not for paradise to break out, not even for justice and righteousness to blossom in an end time kind of way that wraps this life up with a bow and calls it a day. No, the plea is for God’s will to unfold unabated; unfettered by the powers and principalities of the world, unencumbered by the world’s present darkness. For God’s will to be at work in the world with a slow and steady kingdom creep to it all. For God’s will to be freed in your life, in mine, God’s will freed even from own selves, our own voice, our own will.

The prayer could not be any further from a social media frenzied world where every voice and opinion is supposed to count. The prayer could not be any more counter-cultural in a day when everyone demands a place at the table. The prayer could not be any more disconcerting in a consumer –driven religious marketplace that sells a whole lot do it yourself, DIY spirituality. The traditional prayer makes a counter-intuitive move; it’s not a centering prayer at all; it is decentering move where as Dietrich Bonhoeffer would put it, Christ is the Center. It’s a self-emptying, not a self-fulfilling prayer. So simple, yet so radical. So easy to miss. The radically God-centered nature of the Lord’s Prayer. Just like in heaven where absolutely everything surrounds the throne of God’s grace, and the One who sits upon the throne, the very Lamb of God, is in the midst of them all, in the center of it all. There where God wipes away every tear from their eyes.

When writing about prayer, the theologian Karl Barth describes it as an essential part of the Christian attitude. By Christian attitude, Barth seems to be describing the qualities, the character traits, the necessary ingredients of the Christian life. It’s sort of interesting to add a contemporary overlay of the usage of the term “attitude” . As in “he’s got quite an attitude” or “you’re going need a better attitude” or “she should lose the attitude” or “what’s with the tude, dude?” Attitude these days seems to imply an edginess or a bit of moxie, unabashed, unfiltered assertiveness. Which actually isn’t all that far from the role, the importance, the essence of prayer according to Barth. For the Christian, before prayer is worship, before it is confession, before it is adoration, prayer, according to Karl Barth, it is unadulterated, honest, authentic petition. Or as he puts it, prayer is simply asking. As in “just asking”. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. I’m just asking, Lord. Just asking. The counter-cultural, counter-intuitive, radical, subversive, not at all passive or naively pious petition of the Lord’s Prayer. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. Not so much of a complaint or lament as it is a petition with a bit of attitude. An affirmation, a belief, a conviction about the kingdom of heaven. It is so like a mustard seed and a bit of leaven.

Just last night I sat over there listening to the combined choir from Nassau and Trinity sing the Durufle Requiem. It was beautiful. As the choir was singing all these faces started snapping past as I closed my eyes. Sort of like one of those award shows where someone sings and the pictures of those who had died in the last year flash on the screen. I was listening to the Requiem and finding myself freshly surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses. Thinking about this sermon, I sat there pondering how they shared the kingdom with me, taught the kingdom to me, witnessed the kingdom to me, brought the kingdom to me. Unheralded kingdom bearers who forwarded grace and made servant-hood contagious and gave glory to God with the overwhelming ordinariness of their lives.

One of the faces I saw in my evening prayer was Sam Moffett’s. I’m not sure I could name anyone in my life, in my cloud of witnesses that had a greater impact on the spread of Christianity in the world, a greater impact on the kingdom than Dr. Moffett; his ministry in Korea, his impact on generations of servants sent out to the mission field. But Dr. Moffett’s kingdom sharing with me, it’s going to sound so ordinary. On Sundays at the church door, or back at coffee hour, or over at the Windrows, whenever I would see Dr. Moffett, he would always say to me, “power to you”. If you knew Dr. Moffett you knew what power he was talking about. For all I know Sam Moffett said “power to you” to the mail carrier, the hostess at dinner, and every friend he ever had. But for me, what I heard, what I experienced every time he said it, was his prayer for me as pastor and proclaimer of the gospel of Jesus Christ, that I would be lifted by the very power of God in service to God’s kingdom. That God would bless me to share in a bit of kingdom creep. With all those faces flashing on the screen in my heart and soul last night, I found my shoulders lifting and I was sitting a bit taller, reminded of the kingdom work to which we have all been called. . An affirmation, a belief, a conviction about the kingdom of heaven. Therefore, since you are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, pray then like this…

Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

© 2015, Property of Nassau Presbyterian Church
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Luke 2:22-40
December 28, 2014
“With These Hands”
Rev. Dr. David A. Davis

Text is not available.

© 2014, Property of Nassau Presbyterian Church
Contact the church to obtain reprint permission.