I recently came across
a small but beautiful collection of very brief prayers that speak to the power
of God’s Word in our lives. These were
originally spoken by people living in the mountains of Haiti. Historically, Christianity in the
expression of Catholicism came to this Caribbean part of the world when
Christopher Columbus landed there on December 6, 1492. Through various missionary streams, the
Word of God continued to actively flow through the lifeblood of the nation all
throughout its hard history of ethnic revolutions, abject poverty, and natural
disasters.[i]
I do not know the time
frame when these prayers of Haitian mountain folks were gathered, or which
branch of Christianity most influenced them.
What I love is that they speak about the Word of God in a way that is
folksy rather than formal. This makes
sense, given that they arise from some really hard realities and from hearts
yearning for God’s comfort and saving grace.
So with the Holy Spirit igniting
the pilot light of our faithful imaginations, I invite us to welcome four of these
to enter our hearts here today –
“Our Great Physician,
Your word is like alcohol. When poured on an infected wound, it burns and
stings, but only then can it kill germs. If it doesn't burn, it doesn't do any
good.”
“Father, we are all
hungry baby birds this morning. Our heart-mouths are gaping wide, waiting for
you to fill us.”
“Father, a cold wind
seems to have chilled us. Wrap us in the blanket of your Word and warm us up.”
“Lord, we find your
Word like cabbage. As we pull down the leaves, we get closer to the heart. And
as we get closer to the heart, it is sweeter.”[ii]
Notice that God’s Word
is being defined in these prayers as more than just the Bible and as more than
just the historic person of Jesus. It
is described as an uncomfortable but effective disinfectant for open wounds …
as what fills our open, hungry “heart mouths” … as what wraps us up in warmth
when cold winds chill us … and, in what is my favorite image, as multi-layered
like a cabbage whose sweet heart is at the center.
What these honest
prayers help us appreciate is that the Word is God is best defined not by what
we believe it exactly is, but by what
is does.
In the constitutional words of our Presbyterian Church (USA) tradition,
we strongly affirm that all of our confessed and professed understandings about
God are fully subject to “the authority of Jesus Christ, the Word of God, as
the Scriptures bear witness to Him” and that “no one type of confession is
exclusively valid, no one statement is irreformable.”[iii]
As we actively strive to grow in our
faith, we do so placing our “confidence in the Holy Spirit’s continuing guidance
of the Church through the centuries,” which “enables the Church to hear the
Word of God through Scripture in every new time and situation.”[iv]
I hope you hear in these
words how strongly we Presbyterians believe God’s Word in Christ is living and
active. It’s not static. It’s not a book stuck on shelf. It’s not irrelevant, out-of-touch with
contemporary realities. It’s not just
ancient history, though we rely on the ancient writings of the Bible to hear it
with greatest clarity and authority.
Through the Holy Spirit, it is always fresh, speaking directly and
personally to our hearts and minds today.
It is heard through traditional creeds, confessions and church doctrines
… but also through homespun prayers for healing, nourishment, and comfort.
As the Word of God lives with and within us,
it constantly opens us up to honestly consider our sin and sin’s corrosive
impact on God’s good, original intentions for us and this world. It reminds us that it is totally impossible
to outright lie or even to slightly fib to God about this. Our passage this morning from the fourth
chapter of Hebrews makes it especially clear that the Word of God knows and
judges all human thoughts and intentions. It divides our truly faithful thoughts and
intentions from our false, idolatrous, sinful ones the way a sharp sword can separate
bone from marrow. Every one of us,
according to Hebrew 4:13, is thus “naked and laid bare to the eyes of the One
whom we must render an account.” Further,
through Psalm 51 it reminds us that we are all born guilty, sinners when we
were conceived. As a fellow Christian
leader has concluded, “Believing in God does mean believing in the truth. It does mean a certain nakedness, the
willingness to face up to who we really are and to stop pretending.”[v]
Does this sound very
heavy, perhaps even threatening to you?
It sure does to me! But I find being reminded about what the
Word of God does instead of just is to be a very good thing. It opens me to hold me to honest
account. Humbles me. Inspires – no, I’d say insists -- on my prayers of confession. It both whispers and shouts to me that I’m so
important and eternally loved by God that I will never be left alone to let sin
roost and come to rule my heart. It
does this for me, and for all of us! And
it does so to keep our attention focused on the Good News of Jesus Christ.
This Good News is that
the Word of God doesn’t just open us up, expose our sin, and leave us feeling
stung, naked, cold, unable to locate our place of loving warmth in the heart of
the Almighty. It heals us.
It does so by fusing us to the redeeming love of Lord, who completely
understands all our personal and global plights. He, the Word of God in the flesh, once lived
them all.
Jesus endured all our
temptations full-throttle, saddled Himself with all our sorrows and sufferings,
encountered and embodied every violence to mind, body, soul. As He lived all of this and more, there
wasn’t a single moment of faithlessness, of turning away from trusting in the great
holy plan for peace and reconciliation.
Hard realities can easily cause us to quickly turn away, to sin. But He did not turn away, did not sin, and
therefore was able to bring divine Light to and through and beyond all
darkness; especially that of death, sin’s ultimate consequence. Through the holy truth of His words, supreme
example, and resurrection we are able to truly hear and see what the Word of
God had been and is still doing in the world.
When we read the Old
and New Testaments, the Word of God reminds us that the sacred story of
salvation did not end over two thousand years ago. I like how the 16th century
church reformer John Calvin reminds us of this.
He wrote that the Scriptures are like spectacles for our weak, failing
eyes. If we do not look through them,
we see only a world in chaos, a world driven only by human ambition and
failure. God’s plans are at best blurry,
at worst totally undetectable. But when
we put on the spectacles of Scripture – or, perhaps we should just say, “God’s
glasses” – then our vision is refocused and God’s saving work in Christ becomes
crystal clear. “We no longer see a
world abandoned to its own devices, but see God’s transforming love, which
brings good out of evil and hope our of despair.”[vi]
As we walk away from
this sanctuary today, the Word of God will go with us. So may we go fully recommitted to daily
practices that help us receive it – such as prayer, putting our faith in
action, and, of course, Bible reading and study. The absolute importance of reading and
hearing the Scriptures is stated simply and very well by the late Harvard
Divinity School professor and Memorial Chapel Minister, Peter J. Gomes. I
conclude this morning with his words –
“We hear the same texts that our ancestors heard
but we hear them not necessarily as they heard them, but as only we can … our understanding
of what [they say and mean] evolves, and so too do we as a result.”[vii] Amen.
[i]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christianity_in_Haiti#History_of_the_development_of_Christianity_in_Haiti
[ii]
Wally R. Turnbull and Eleanor J. Turnbull, God Is No Stranger (Light Messages,
2010), pp. 14, 18, 56, 92
[iii]PCUSA
Book of Confessions, preface to the
Confession of 1967, 9.03
[iv]
PCUSA Book of Confessions, Confessional Nature of the Church Report, section
C.3.e
[v]
http://wwwstaff.murdoch.edu.au/~loader/BEpPentecost20.html
[vi]
Bartlett, David; Taylor, Barbara Brown.
Feasting on the Word: Year B, Volume 4, Season after Pentecost 2
[vii]
The Good Book, pp. 20-21
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