Rock Salt

Psalm 18:1-2, 21-31, Matthew 5:13-20

            There’s a fun story about a man who walked into a little mom-and-pop grocery store and asked, "Do you sell salt?  "Ha!" said Pop the proprietor. "Do we sell salt! Just look!" And Pop showed the customer one entire wall of shelves stocked with nothing but salt -- Morton salt, iodized salt, kosher salt, sea salt, rock salt, garlic salt, seasoning salt, Epsom salts, every kind of salt imaginable.   "Wow!" said the customer.   "You think that's something?" said Pop with a wave of his hand. "That's nothing! Come look." And Pop led the customer to a back room filled with shelves and bins and cartons and barrels and boxes of salt. "Do we sell salt!" he said.  "Unbelievable!" said the customer.  "You think that's something?" said Pop. "Come! I'll show you salt!" And Pop led the customer down some steps into a huge basement, five times as large as the previous room, filled wall, floor, to ceiling, with every imaginable form and size and shape of salt, even huge ten-pound salt licks for the cow pasture.  "Incredible!" said the customer. "You really do sell salt!"  That’s when Pop gave the exasperated reply, “No, that's just the problem! We haven’t sold any salt! But that salt salesman, Hoo-boy! Does he sell salt!"

            It sure would be a waste for all the kinds of salt in our world to not be used for all of their necessary purposes.   Let’s see what you know.  What’s your guess?    Across our country, is there more salt used in our food or on our roads?    Fact check:  17% of salt is used as rock salt and only 6% used in food.   What’s your guess?   How many cells in our bodies use salt?  If you guessed every single one, then you are correct.   Our brains need salt to fire off signals to the rest of the body, especially when it comes to regulating our heart beats and the balance of fluids in our systems.   What’s your guess?    How is salt made?   If you guessed that this is a trick question, you are correct.    It’s not made … it’s a natural resource like water and air that is harvested, mined, and extracted.     What’s your guess?  What was the only way for people in ancient times preserve food, especially meat?    I know we all guessed correctly – they used salt!   

            One more.   What’s your guess?    What did Jesus call all of his followers?   Since you were listening carefully to the Bible reading, you’ve got this.   Our Lord calls us the salt of the earth!    We are each very valuable, vital part of how Jesus seasons this world with saving grace.  

            Jesus and his first followers knew the symbolic significance of salt very well.   They fully understood that salt is not useful to itself.   Its value comes from its purpose as part of other things.  The essential value of it was noted throughout their Bible, which is our Old Testament.   A quick survey reveals that the prophet Elisha sprinkled salt into a spring at Jericho to purify the water (2 Kings 2:21.), that eating salt with another person was a sign of loyalty, sort of a passing of the peace pipe, a breaking of bread (Numbers 18:19.), that temple priests strew salt on sacrifices and seasoned incense with salt, and, get this, that parents rubbed salt all over their newborn baby’s body as protection against all kinds of ills (Ezekiel 16:4.)”[i]     

            To be Jesus’ salt, His followers understood this meant being part of His purifying presence in the world, peaceably loyal to Him and to one another, and making faithful sacrifices for the sake of protecting the most innocent and vulnerable.    

            This is, of course, what it means for us modern day disciples as well.    And if you need further clarification about what Jesus meant by calling us the salt of the earth, read what Matthew quotes him as preaching right before He said so.   These verses, commonly known as the Beatitudes, inspire and instruct us to be part of our Lord’s highest ideals of mercy, humility and compassion.   These poetic words about blessedness are truly beautiful and “bring out the true flavor of what it is to be truly alive,” to be “life-givers to others.”[ii]   Jesus calls us to mix ourselves “right into the middle of life, adding some zest and making a difference.”[iii]

            But honestly, it can be very challenging to go out and be the salt of the earth.  Tossing words about meekness, mercifulness, and purity of heart is not at all easy to do in this world stewing in sorrows, sinful stubborn pride, injustices, persecutions, and warfare.    To shake this radically divine love out for others, we have to first fill ourselves into constant awareness of all this darkness and our part in it.  

             Jesus understood this difficulty.   He personally experienced it.   But in verse thirteen we read how he kept the bar set high.   To be his faithful followers, to be his sacred seasoning, he made it clear that we mustn’t lose our taste for the Beatitudes holy flavor.    If ever we do, we are, to quote Jesus, “no longer good for anything.”   

            Given that we just had our eleventh snow storm of the season, I’ve been thinking a lot about the tons of rock salt that’s all around.   While I’m rather tired of it being all over my shoes and encrusting my car, I know how necessary and valuable it is.   I’m thankful for it and all the good folks who’ve been working hard to spread it around.    I’m not the only preacher in this tri-state area whose been mulling over the symbolic meaning of rock salt.  A Presbyterian colleague in New York City not only gave this good thought, but he came up with a beautiful reflection on it that’s well worth fully quoting.   I invite you to faithfully listen to these words of Pastor Andy James –

            “Just as salt works to give us traction when things are slippery, as salt of the earth we can help others to regain their footing in times of uncertainty. Just as salt works to melt down the mounds of ice around us these days, we can be the salt of the earth to help melt the hardened hearts of our world. And just as salt takes a little bit of time to take effect and clear the path, so as salt of the earth we may need a little time and patience to join in God’s work of making a way amidst the challenges of this world.”

            Building on these faithful words, let me ask -- when times are tough here on earth, when they are like what we read in the Beatitudes, in what ways do you serve Jesus?    Help folks find secure footing, melt any hardness of heart, patiently wait for God to open up a way forward when the path isn’t clear?   In what ways do you humbly witness and enact your love for Him as your only true strength, refuge and rock?  

            I joyfully believe that every one of us had been gifted by the Holy Spirit with the ability to be the salt of the earth.    We just need to take the time to inventory our inner-salt stockpile and realize that there is an endless storehouse of ways our Lord works through us to bless and transform this world.   I was very glad to learn that this was discussed in last week’s Sunday School class.  The kids did a little experiment which showed how well things stick together when everyone is applying their spiritual salt, their God-given gifts.   

            Yet it’s very natural for all us to have times when we feel as though we’ve lost our spiritual saltiness, our sense of holy purpose in this world.    During such moments, pray.  Pray for restoration of a deep trust that you are what Jesus calls and equips you to be.   Also read the Bible.  You don’t have to understand every word — let the Spirit sprinkle insight and season your faith as you study and reflect.   God promises that the Spirit will move through your prayers and your reading and strengthen you.    You should also keep getting to know your soul--- If music speaks to your heart, find a way to listen to hymns or allow praise songs to lift your spirit.  If seeing God in nature blesses you -- then set aside time to look and see the goodness of God all around you in the snowy landscape and watch for signs of spring.    God has also given us each other on the journey of life — so if you feel washed out spend time with other Christians who you know bring faithful flavor to the world.  You’ve done so today by being here.  Jesus is your rock and you are therefore rock salt.  You have a sacred purpose.  Especially through life’s storms.  Let’s all make every effort not to stay stuck on a shelf!    Amen.   

           

             

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[i] http://www.beatitudessociety.org/blog/195-be_salt_and_light

[ii] https://www.goodreads.com/author_blog_posts/5672311-weekly-sermon-illustration-the-salt-of-the-earth

[iii] http://www.beatitudessociety.org/blog/195-be_salt_and_light

Time Management

2 Corinthians 5:18-6:2, Ecc. 3:1-15

        This well-known passage from the Old Testament is very wise – not in some profound and otherworldly way, some way you know rings true but aren’t quite sure why.  It’s wise because of its matter-of-factness.  It’s wise because of the blunt way it forces us to acknowledge stark realities of life we all know to be true but may or may not want to talk about.   We join up with these worldly juxtapositions in one way or another every single day.   They live in our hearts and hopscotch all over the daily headlines.    We can’t miss how everything on this list happens in time.  

            Many folks can sing this wise part of Scripture thanks to the late Pete Seeger having put a folk tune to them in the song, “Turn, Turn, Turn.”   I’m certainly glad this world famous song ends with a plea for peace (in parallel with Ecclesiastes 3:8).  But I have to say that it otherwise fails to convey the overall point the writer of Ecclesiastes was making.   It fails to speak to the wisdom we find in verses nine through fifteen.       

            In these verses, the words shift from stating what we all can’t help but acknowledge to stating one thing we may have difficulty accepting about our relationship with God.   In the midst of all we can know and can control concerning planting and plucking up, about breaking down and building up, about seeking and losing, tearing and sewing, loving and hating, warring and peacemaking … we are not able to time God’s omniscient plans.   We can mostly manage the timing of many things in life, but we can’t manage God’s sense of timing.   All our human wisdom combined can’t comprehend and control the complete picture of God’s will for our lives, for the world.    It is sinful vanity for us to ever argue otherwise -- the same vanity that first bit into God forbidden fruit back in the Garden of Eden.   We live within time, but time itself belongs to God.   It is calculated differently by God’s infinitely good and redeeming wisdom than our use of it as a tool for measuring and interpreting our daily lives and human history.    

            We very easily lose sight of this.  Our hearts and minds give way more attention and energy to all our diligent means of time management.    We devoutly turn to and trust in the clock.  We totally depend on the clock to give security and structure to our personal and community life.   This is necessary and not at all inherently a bad thing.   But if we aren’t careful, if we cease giving prayerful respect to God’s big picture, we can let the clock define us.    When this happens, we allow it to function as a false god.  

            Consider how we feel blessed by the clock when it grants us peace of mind by telling us that there is plenty of time for us to do this, that, and all those other things.   And consider how we feel cursed by the clock when it feeds our anxieties by telling us that we’ve run out or have completely lost time.   We especially fear the power we give to this false god when it “makes us anticipate the moment” in which it will not speak any more for us, the moment of our death.[i]

            Add to this the fact that efficiency is a very active virtue of American culture.   As Christian author Gregory Spencer has pointed it, “it’s what makes the clock of capitalism tick” and it usually serves us well.    Until, that is, we let it become our dictator instead of our servant.  He shares a personal word about how this has impacted his family life …

             When his daughters were young, he “frequently bemoaned” how little time he could give to writing.  But one day a friend reminded him, "Your girls will only be toddlers once. Don't worry so much about being productive." Then another friend chimed in, gesturing to his daughters and declaring, "Spence, here are your publications!"    He got the message.    He understood that these friends were encouraging him to understand time well used is time that appropriately meets the needs of the moment instead of being measured by the demands of the clock.[ii]

            Attending to the needs of the moment is exactly what Ecclesiastes encourages.   The author teaches us the wisdom of not spending so much energy trying to predict or control all that can and does happen in this life.   Too much is beyond our human toiling and timing.   Rather than descend into ongoing despair about this, we are taught to focus on finding holy joy in every moment of our lives and to do this in the company of one another.   All enjoyment, we are reminded, comes from the “hand of God.” (2:24)    Life well lived seeks out the holy business God has made suitable for each day – the holy business of love, joy, hope, peace.    When time-driven despair strikes us with all the impact of Big Ben tolling the hour, it “casts a veil over our eyes, blinding us to the brilliance of God’s love.”   But as a different ministry colleague has preached, “if we see momentary joys as what they are, as small pinpricks of light in the veil, we live not in despair over meaninglessness but in hope for the day when that light shines brilliantly to all.”[iii]           

            2 Corinthians 5 reminds us another big and wise reason to focus on each moment and find life’s meaning and security in God’s infinite love alone.  It reminds us that we are ambassadors of Christ.  Not during just one time slot or another.  The joyful Good News of God’s reconciling love in Jesus is gifted to us every second of every single day.   We are urged not to waste time taking this amazing grace in vain.   When is it an acceptable time to remember this?  To live into it?   “Now is the acceptable time, now is the day of salvation!” comes the Apostle Paul’s prompt reply.    Every minute is full of divine possibility!

            What would it be like to really live with this awareness of time?  To fret less about what worldly time it is, what we’ve gotten done, what we’ve yet to or never will do?   To have more trust that in this very moment Jesus Christ is ministering through all of us in the power of the Holy Spirit?   

            I believe we’d be more thankful for each breath, be more appreciative of kind words and gestures, be more attentive to using our spiritual gifts for selflessly building up others in love.  The tick-tock tyranny wouldn’t suppress our energy and hope and dreams.  We’d be able to let go and let God with greater peace of mind.  We’d more fully appreciate our loved ones and feel freer to count our blessings.   Fears for the future and regrets about the past would float away into the redeeming care of our Lord.   We’d be more at ease with the plain truth that there is a time to be born and a time to die.  We’d embrace the wisdom of Ecclesiastes that teaches “That which is, already has been; that which is to be, already is; and God seeks out what has gone by.” (3:15)

            So in summary, we have this ongoing choice about how we choose to perceive and live in time.  On the one hand, we can do so in a way that matches an invention called the Corpus Clock.   Have you ever heard of this?   It was awarded one of the best inventions of 2008 by a magazine named … wait for it … Time.    You can find it located on the campus of Cambridge University.   This clock has no hands or numbers.  It has three concentric circles with slits in each.   On the outer rim, a blue LED light circles around with every passing second.   I saw a video of the Corpus Clock, but could not tell the time by it whatsoever.   Yet it’s really more of an art installation anyway and it gets its message across quite clearly.   The message comes across by way of the large, mechanical, totally grim looking locust that sits atop of it.   This thing rocks constantly back and forth with a fanged open mouth that insatiably gobbles up every passing second.   Watching it, you can’t help but get the point – beware of time for it is a threatening, beastly reality.    Its inventor was quoted as saying that if this clock terrifies you, it’s intended to.    

            On the other hand, in light of the teaching of Ecclesiastes, we can choose to perceive time by way of a different, more peaceful symbol.  I suggest we can do so by way of a good old fashioned sundial.  This instrument tells us the time of day according to the position of the sun.    Symbolically speaking, this can remind us that the Light of God’s Son is always positioned upon us and that we live every second of our lives in God’s care.    What a wise way to manage time this would be.   Amen.

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[i] Paul Tillich @ http://www.religion-online.org/showchapter.asp?title=375&C=34

[ii] Gregory Spencer, Awakening the Quieter Virtues (IVP, 2010), pp. 170-171

[iii] www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=1711

Give, Forgive, Deliver

1 Samuel 1:13-18; Matthew 6:5-13

            An ordained Minister of the Word and Sacrament … sits in the corner of a local coffee shop trying to prayerfully converse with God.   The pastor is relieved not to actually see God in the form of George Burns and to just generally sense God’s living presence.   At one point she finds herself asking, “Lord, why do I need to tell You what I need in prayer?”  She discerns God saying in reply, “Because I love you, my child.”   She knows this, of course, but feels the need to press a little further, to intellectually wrangle on. “Yes, for that I am forever thankful.  But You know my heart inside and out, you know what I need even before I do.   Why do I need to tell You what You already know?  I trust You will act with love and mercy whether I speak to You or not of my needs.”   She falls silent.  She waits for a reply.  She sips more coffee.  Silence.   Takes a bite of blueberry scone.   Time stretches out.  She starts questioning her line of questioning.   Ongoing silence.    About forty minutes and three saucers full of ground up caffeinated bean juice later, she detects a divine whisper.    “My dear child, we are family.   You and I have a unique, tight-knit relationship.  It’s one born of the love I personally bestowed upon you.   Loving relationships, most especially the one we share together, need honest conversation.   True enough, I will act as I will act and the reasons won’t often be clearly revealed to you.  But this doesn’t mean our relationship is like those necessary but frustrating One-Way streets you humans have constructed.   I do have dominion, but I also desire dialogue.   You didn’t enjoy not hearing right back from me, right?  Nor do I enjoy when I don’t hear from you.”

              In the midnight hours … outside after another loud ‘n wild show, the heavily tattooed and body pierced songwriter and lead singer of a hard rocking band pauses instead of passes out.   He takes note of his small place underneath the heavens,, of how the stars far outshine his overblown rock star ego.   They seem to dissect him in a soul-stirring way.  They call to him of a homecoming he’d been long away from since growing up with his preacher dad.   He can’t recall the last time he spoke with the Lord about his life.   Slowly, sullenly, in that sobering starlight, he begins to write down a few words.   “I looked up at the sky tonight,” he writes, “to see Your face and feel Your presence now.  I need You here right now. I came from a lonely place, the windows closed on my darkest hour.  I need You here right now, ‘cause You won’t leave me lonely … You won’t leave me broken in a world that not my home.” (Josey Scott of the band Saliva).   More words like this pour out in the shadow light of the stars, building a highway between his sin-sick soul and his Maker’s holy heart.    So much so an entire collection comes together, the makings of what would become his first non-rated “R” album.   He gives the collection the Christ-tinted title, “Blood Stained Love Story.”

            In the middle of an average day … a stay-at-home mom paused from daily chores in order to approach her Lord.   A life-long and self-dubbed “devout” Christian, she quietly speaks aloud saying, “Most gracious God, heavenly Father, eternal in the heavens, Alpha and Omega.  I hesitate to bother You with such petty details about my life.  But I’m so tired.  My spirit is sagging more than my aging skin.  I need energy, some new joy.   If You, according to Your most glorious, everlasting, wise, powerful, omniscient will would see fit, please grant this petition from for my humble spirit.   I know I’m just a sinful speck on the spacious screen of all that is sacred in You.   I’m a sinner, of the same idolatrous heart as any and all mayhem makers.  I’m not worth Your time.  But I read and believe in Your holy Word the Bible of how You care for even the smallest sparrows who’ve fallen from their nest.   My nest, most heavenly Father, feels like its falling.  So I pray, dear Jesus, if it be Your glorious and eternal will … please hold it up.”     From the nearby stairwell of the family home, her young son overhears these words.   He can’t quite understand them all.   He doesn’t get why the prayer sounded so complicated.  He’s confused because he’d learned in Sunday School that folks should just approach the Lord with faith like a child.    He suppresses the urge to run to his mom, confess that he heard everything and then instruct her to next time simply say, “Daddy, I’ve got a boo-boo in my heart.  Please make it better.”

            As these opening vignettes hopefully illustrated, approaching God to make a personal, prayerful petition isn’t always easy.   It can be more comfortable praying for others than for ourselves.   We can get caught up in intellectual arguments with ourselves about whether or not we even need to enter into conversation with the Almighty.   We can get caught up for many years totally ignoring the God we knew in our youth.   We can get trapped in tongue-twister prayers, more concerned with how to properly address God than with simply stating our soulful desire.  

            So how best to make a prayerful petition to God?   How do we come to experience what the poet John Greenleaf Whittier once affirmed by saying, “Every chain that humans wear crumbles ‘neath the weight of prayer”?   Like Hannah, how do we whole-heartedly petition God about our anxiety and sad countenance with honest hope of receiving a blessing?   

            In his book Prayer: Finding the Heart’s True Home, Quaker theologian Richard Foster reminds us what our faith tradition highlights as the definitive model petitionary prayer.  He points us to Jesus’ example in Matthew 6:9-13.    He reminds us to frame our personal requests in this way, focusing on three words – give, forgive, and deliver.

            So many of us folks have deep pride in self-sufficiency.  Asking for help, admitting we are dependent on another … even God … can thus be a tough thing to do.  Jesus knows this, hence he teaches us to practice it.   He teaches us to petition God for our daily bread.   Daily nourishment of body and spirit.   The little things that sustain us and fuel our faithful service.  “What if,” writes Foster, “the only things we were allowed to talk about in prayer were weighty matters, the profound issues?  We would be orphaned in the cosmos, cold, and terribly alone.  But,” he goes on to conclude, “God welcomes us with our 1,001 trifles, for they are each important to God.  We pray for daily bread by taking to God those trifles that make up the bulk of our days.”  

            Accepting that God cares about and helps us with even our tiniest trifles builds up trust.   Upon this trust we then ask for holy help with bigger things burdening us.   We ask for forgiveness of our sins, those things we do against God and neighbor as well as don’t do for God and neighbor.    Believing that God is giving empowers and equips our belief that God is forgiving!  Foster hits a particularly honest stride when he invites us to consider what forgiveness is and is not.  It does not mean that “we will cease to hurt, that we will forget, that we can pretend the offense did not really matter.”  It is “not acting as if things are just the same as before the offense.”   What it means – and this is why it’s so crucial to our personal petitions – is that forgiveness “is a miracle of grace whereby the offense no longer separates.”  It means that God helps us not to use any offense to “drive a wedge” into our relationships.   When we experience this, we are far better able to accept that God, through Jesus Christ, doesn’t use our sin to punish us.   It is instead fully forgiven and we are constantly welcomed back to mutually loving fellowship.  Stay tuned for more on the topic of forgiveness – I’ll be preaching on it throughout Lent.

            In the strength of faithful community, we pray the third part of this petition.   We pray for ourselves and others to be delivered from evil temptations.   We’ve all wrestled and continue to wrestle with these in one form or another.  They come at us in our hearts and through sinful human systems.   Jesus knew first-hand what it was like to be encountered by both unholy enticements.   He experienced them in the wilderness alone and in the company of thieves beside his Cross.   So we can trust Him in our plea for protection.  We can believe we’ll be delivered by the righteous, resilient strength of our Savior.            

            Yes, it’s not always easy to pray for ourselves.   But our Lord gave us a definitive guide.   What simple sustenance do you need God to give you today?   What thoughts, words or actions have you failed to honor God with, thus accruing a spiritual debt needing to be forgiven?   What evils in this world do you pray for the power of our Lord to deliver you and so many others from?   May we pray our petitions this day, trusting that in the Lord we are given, forgiven and delivered.  Amen.  

The Land of the Living

Ephesians 5:8-10; Psalm 27

            When I was five years old, a certain family television show first appeared.   Forty-three episodes then aired over a two year span.   I was too young to watch it at that time, but I was glued to every one of these when the show began its life in re-runs on Saturday mornings back in 1985.   It’s was a science-fiction adventure about a human dad and his two teenagers who had mysteriously gotten trapped in an alternate universe.    This was quite a captivating and somewhat relatable premise to my sixteen year old self.    Maybe you remember it?  The now cult-classic T.V. series was called “Land of the Lost.”  

            You definitely remember it if the word “Sleestak” just popped into your head.    These characters were really creepy human shaped lizard creatures with a little horn ridge atop their head.    And if eyes are the windows to the soul, as I’ve often heard it said, then the oversized, glassy black orbs of the Sleestaks revealed them as absolutely soulless.   They were intriguing predators of the show protagonists -- Rick Marshall and his kids Will and Holly.   At the beginning of every episode, we are reminded that this family ended up exiled in the alien universe of Sleestaks and other hostile creatures after an earthquake opened up a space-time rift during a white water rafting trip.  

            The captivating goal of the whole series was for the Marshall family to survive being utterly lost … to return home to the world where they truly belonged.    And despite the very campy early 1970’s styled rubber Sleestak suits and other primitive special effects, I recall how real it felt relating to this family’s anxiety-filled adventures.    Their identity and unity and, on some level it seemed the whole human race, was under threat.   

            In all the ways it’s creatively interpreted, this epic theme of being dangerously lost but yearning for and fighting to get safely home is easy for every human to relate to.  Nobody ever wants to be in the land of the lost.  We all want to be in the land of the living.  We don’t want to be confused and anxious about our lives, constantly fleeing in fear from all sorts of emotional and physical enemies to our well-being.   We want to be where we and our families are fully able to live securely, growing and thriving in places inhabited by goodness, love and peace.   

            Yet we all live with the reality of human sin.   This is no science-fiction.  It’s biblical truth.  And it means we all inescapably have times of feeling lost – lost to ourselves, to those we most love, to our God who created and loves us uniquely and unconditionally. 

            Let’s be reminded that the origin of all such anxious times in the land of the lost is told to us in the Book of Genesis.  There we read about the first human beings, Adam and Eve, falling to the temptation of believing they could be just like God, then realizing their rebellion, experiencing their isolating shame, and establishing spiritual exile as our human norm.   Living in sin is like an alternate universe because it’s not what God planned for us and this world.  Instead of the perfect paradise of feeling secure, fully accepted, always willing to use our spiritual gifts to God’s glory and for the benefit of all God’s children and all of Creation … sin pushes us through a spiritual rift where we find ourselves dangerously confused about where and with whom our true home is.

            This epic struggle is held up before us like a big mirror in Psalm 27.    When we read it, we see ourselves feeling trapped by enemy forces all around us, feeling forsaken by family, coping with false witness against us, and living in a land where all human breathing leads to violence.    I’d rather live with the slow stalking Sleestaks!  

            Blessedly, through Psalm 27 we are also able to clearly and inspirationally see something else of ourselves.    We see ourselves returning to live securely in the house of the Lord every single day.   We see ourselves confidently lifting up our heads to sing praises to our Lord in the face of every manner of enemy.   We see ourselves glad to be taught God’s level way of living and exuberantly beholding divine beauty all around us.    In this mirror to our soul, we see salvation.   We see all darkness being completely dispelled by holy light.  We stand in the reflection as children of this light, believing we will see all that is good and right and true.    We see ourselves in the land of the living.   

            But life in the land of the living is not easy.   It’s usually not like we are crawling through pitch-black spaces one moment and then a sudden flood of radiant light shows us we are actually safe in our homes.     It’s more like what the ancient Israelites experienced.   When the sun went down in the days of Psalm 27, there weren’t any light switches to flick on.   Nor were there any street lamps, floodlights, super bright LED’s, rows of high intensity stadium bulbs.    To be in the land of the living at night meant trusting in the little bit of light provided by simple, single wick and flame pottery lamps.   To follow God’s path, God’s will, meant not knowing what the road right ahead looked like and trusting that God gives just enough light “to take a few more steps.”[i]     It’s always easier to see and trust the goodness of God when there is great illumination, like here in this sanctuary and when in the security of our homes.   It’s harder to experience this when you can only see a few feet ahead of you – literally and figuratively – out in the midst of dim and dark places and times.

              Psalm 27 invites us to keep seeking out and stepping into this little bit of divine light and welcoming it to guide us through the land of holy living.  It calls on us to find those places where we too can confidently declare, “The Lord is my light and my salvation; whom shall I fear?  The Lord is the stronghold of my life; of whom shall I be afraid?”   Where are these places for you? 

            The way back home to them is always through the gracious power of Jesus Christ.  And there is a traditional Christian perspective that can help us better balance our days in the land of the lost and the land of the living.  We are reminded about this every time we pass by the stone cross on our way into this sanctuary.

            This perspective comes from people who lived long ago in Ireland and Scotland.   It’s a form of Christian living that they practiced known to us as Celtic spirituality.  That’s a Celtic Cross out front.  Central to this way of seeing God’s goodness in the land of the living is identifying what they called “thin places.”   Fortunately, this has nothing to do with our diet and where we choose to stand!  It has to do with both geographical locations and specific moments in time where what is holy becomes clearer to the eyes of the human spirit.   You are in a “thin place” when you experience a profound encounter with ancient and eternal reality within our present time.   It’s a place of homecoming, of reunion, where God seems particularly real and close by and all seems good with the world.    It’s a place of meeting where it seems the veil between heaven and earth is so sheer you can almost step through it.   In “thin places” you feel less lost in sin and more securely part of all that is sacred.[ii] 

            When I hear folks talk about feeling close to God when out in nature, I hear it as their being in “thin places.”   Can you take a moment and picture one these places for you?   Are you overlooking the ocean or some other body of water? Gazing at or from a mountain vista?  One place I like to go for this is by the Black River right behind Cooper Gristmill in Chester.  And, of course, there are so very many spots up at Camp Johnsonburg.    

            But again, it’s not just about certain locations.  “Thin places” happen when you locate yourself as being in a particularly holy moment too.   Since we all suffer inescapably anxious moments, of feeling as though we just surviving in a land of the lost, it takes constant practice to identify these and thus to focus on believing and seeing and thriving and truly living in the goodness of the Lord.    

            So I’m going to end today with telling you about an excellent suggestion by author Dorothy Bass.   She has written about how often we ask each other the question, “How was your day?”    This is a question that usually comes from someone who deeply cares, such as when we ask it of spouses and kids the moment they get home from work and school.    It’s often met, however, with kind of vague response like “Not bad.”    Or it opens up space for a litany of complaints.    She goes on to tell about a mother she knows of who therefore chooses to ask a much different question.  When tucking her children in at night, she asks, “Where did you meet God today?”    Then witness to thin places is shared … by the tree with beautiful blooming flowers, as my teacher was helping me, when my eyes met those of a homeless person.    So “before the children drop off to sleep, the stuff of their day has become the substance of prayer.  They enter a thin place and the presence of God is very near.”[iii]     

            Amen.

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[i] www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=1872

[ii] http://day1.org/807-a_psalm_of_thin_places.print

[iii] ibid.

Stepping In to Make Things Right

Matthew 3:13-17

            Do you remember the “Hey, Mr. Cunningham” scene from the 1962 movie of Harper Lee’s book To Kill a Mockingbird?    Set in a small Alabama town in the 1930’s, it’s the scene when Scout steps in to make things right.  It’s when this feisty, intelligent, and deeply caring young girl manages to diffuse a lynch mob.  She does so in support of her attorney father Atticus Finch as he stands guard against injustice outside the jail cell of Tom Robinson.   After exiting a Ford Model A, a 1927 Studebaker, a 1928 Chevrolet National, and a 1930 Buick with shotguns in hand, the murder-minded mob demands the impeccably dressed Gregory Peck to step aside and let them get on with their execution.    

            That’s when Scout, along with brother Jem and best friend Dill, race in from the margins of the scene.   Scout shouts out “Hey, Atticus” as she parts the mob like the Red Sea.  I understand Atticus allowed children to call him by his first name as a sign of respect, as a further way to teach that all people are equal.   He responds by commanding the kids to go back home and be safe.  When they refuse, the mob waters start to fall in on them.  It’s amazing how Scout kicking some adult shins put a stop to that!   Then they join Atticus atop the jail steps.  

            After letting lo loose with a small defiant shout, Scout then suddenly spots Mr. Cunningham standing there in the blindly prejudiced posse.   She very sweetly reminds him who she is, that he’s the father of her classmate Walter, and how he’d been kind enough to visit her family with some food once and how that had led to a nice, neighborly conversation.   With genuine concern in her voice, she also supportively asks how he’s doing regarding a property settlement dispute he’d been having trouble with.   Having momentarily liberated him from the mob mentality, Mr. Cunningham replies by telling her he’ll say hey to Walter.   And then he orders the gang to disband.

            Scout stepped in to make things right, to stand against injustice by protecting the rights and dignity of Tom Robinson, Atticus Finch, and Mr. Cunningham all at the same time.   She did so not by responding to violence with violence, but by interceding with warm-hearted words of compassion and peace.  

            At the beginning of his ministry of compassion and peace, Jesus stepped into the Jordan to make things right.   He did so to receive ritual cleansing from the hand of his relative John, who, you’ll recall, had first acknowledged Jesus’ divine identity with a kick of hope while in his mother Elizabeth’s womb.  That kick was the first sign that his life was to be about preparing the way for the Messiah.   John grew into this calling with revolutionary zeal by standing and shouting at the edges of Roman Empire.   With a belly full of wild locusts and lots of dried honey drips on his beard, he bombastically barked for all people to come to the great river, repent of their sins and be ready to receive their Savior.   He did all this for Jesus.  

            So the very last thing he expected was for Jesus to show up to be baptized.  He wasn’t prepared for this and it made no sense to him.   John knew Jesus’ holy authority was infinitely greater than his own.  He knew that of the two of them, he alone was a sinner.   He was the one who needed to be forgiven and ritually cleansed as a marker of new life.  “I need to be baptized by you,” he pleaded to Jesus.      

            Jesus was not persuaded to step away.  John needed to baptize him.  Period.   Jesus insisted he needed to step into the Jordan in order to make things right, or in his words, “to fulfill all righteousness.”   

            Righteousness is a rather “heavy” word, isn’t it?   I think many of us hear it and quickly associate it with self-righteousness, with people sinfully speaking and acting in a smugly superior ways.    These same folks are very often discovered to be hypocrites.

            Well, Jesus certainly didn’t stand in the Jordan to fulfill self-righteousness.   The Son of God didn’t go there with any superiority complex.   He went there to humbly demonstrate his full solidarity with all humankind.  He went there to compassionately share in the common experiences of humanity.   What’s more common than needing to be physically and spiritually cleansed?   

             So our Lord joined the throng longing for a fresh start in the kingdom of God.   He stepped in and stood in the midst of their sinful suffering and all the injustices being carried out by both the governmental and religious powers of his day.  He did so to live into the prophecy of Isaiah 42.   Jesus stepped in and stood in the Jordan to show that he’d come to make things right between God and all God’s children.  And leading by example, Jesus modeled from the get-go that his holy mission wasn’t going to issue in violence and worldly power-plays … but through selfless, unexpected, humble, compassionate, and peaceful words and actions.     

            We should take notice of how public Jesus’ baptism was.   Of course, it had to be.   At that time there weren’t any church buildings with ordained ministers offering the actions and liturgy of a traditional sacrament.   To be baptized at that time happened in the wilderness, at the edges of society.   It was more about joining a holy revolution than building up an earthly institution.   Still, it’s not hard to imagine that Jesus could have made private arrangements.   He and John were family, after all.   He could have said, “Hey, John.  Listen, I actually don’t want to draw too much attention to myself.   I just want to quietly get my traditional religious duty done with and get on with things.   Think we can meet up at the water after the crowd’s gone home?”   We can suppose he then would have heard God the Father’s voice bestowing a personal blessing with the words “You are my Son.”      

            But God the Father instead made a booming public announcement up and down the shoreline – “THIS is my Son, my beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”    Being one with God the Father, Jesus didn’t need to have a holy word with himself.    This was a word for the world, a word of infinite authority summoning all around him to take notice and to pay full attention to his example.   It was a call to righteousness, to follow him from the waters and live with the faithful integrity acceptable to God.

            This Almighty word still echoes today.    We are a community of the baptized, called to demonstrate in words and actions that Jesus makes things right with God and between all God’s children.    The power of the Holy Spirit has engrafted us all into Christ’s body.   We have Christ’s compassionate, peaceful solidarity to share.   How and where have you stood up and stepped in for the sake of it?  

            In last week’s sermon, I shared my resolve about helping us find ways to facilitate more intergenerational conversations about life in Christ.   What a community strengthening it would be to make time to sit together and share our stories about faithfully stepping in to situations that helped our Lord Keep making things right in this world.    Parents and grandparents have these words of steadfastly faithful, compassionate intercession to share with children and grandchildren.  Children and grandchildren have them to share with parents and grandparents.  Harper Lee had one to share with us all, and I’m glad it continues to be required reading in our schools and its classic Hollywood version is always available to view.    And do you recall how she had Scout knowing the right thing to do in that “Mr. Cunningham” scene?    She tells us Scout learned this righteous behavior by intergenerational example.   She’d asked her father why he was defending Tom Robinson.    And Atticus replied, “Scout, I couldn’t go to church and worship God if I didn’t defend that man.”   Amen.  

Looking Forward

Luke 2:22-40

            In last week’s Christmas Eve sermon I talked about how both lowly, outcast shepherds and wise, wealthy strangers stood at the side of Mary, Joseph and Jesus to teach us about what it means to adore God and to really believe that God adores us.    This morning, let’s meet two other adorers who came to the side of the newborn Messiah.   There are a few likely reasons why Luke tells us their story.   A reason I invite us to consider is that Simeon and Anna are Luke’s way of calling on us to pay reverent attention to the faithful words and wisdom of the older, tradition bearing believers found in every congregation.

            Luke first tells us the context in which Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus meet this significant pair of very first believers.    It happened because Mary and Joseph devoutly chose to honor tradition.  They did so by going to the great Temple in Jerusalem to ritually dedicate the baby.  Luke doesn’t tell us this historical fact as a side note.  It’s there for the very important reason of reminding us that as Christians we are firmly connected with the sacred history of the Hebrews.  

            This Gospel writer insists that we remember how back in the days of Egypt, all Hebrew children born into that slavery belonged to a slave master.    But as we know God worked miraculously through Moses to liberate them into a free future.    So the religious practice of dedicating the firstborn male, found in Exodus 13:2, was then established to celebrate and confirm their identity as people belonging to God alone.    Every time we offer the sacrament of baptism, I follow suit by praying over the water being using with the words “We thank you, Almighty God, for the gift of water … through water You led the children of Israel from slavery in Egypt to freedom in the Promised Land.”[i]     By telling us that Mary and Joseph obeyed the traditional ritual found in Exodus, Luke is reminding us that the rescuing God of Moses is the very same God active in the lives of Mary, Joseph and the infant Messiah.    And, of course, the same God of the two tradition-bearing first believers Luke calls on us to pay reverent attention to.

            As the holy family dutifully entered the great temple that day, the first of the elder duo, a righteous and devout man named Simeon, quickly came to their side and asked to hold the baby.    Many of us have done the same, haven’t we?  Asked to hold someone else’s baby at a church event?  I really think there is a something about cradling an infant in our arms that deeply comforts us and fills us with fresh hope.  

             But it was not a general comfort or hope for the future Simeon was cradling.    He’d been waiting his entire life for the fulfillment of a special promise given to his heart by the Holy Spirit.   This was the promise that he would not die before getting the chance to personally see the Savior of the World.    How he recognized and confirmed the Messiah in the cute little scrunched up face of baby Jesus we can only say was revelation of the Holy Spirit.   After all, unlike the shepherds and wise men who’d come to Mary and Joseph’s side for the same purpose, there isn’t any record of Simeon having been visited beforehand by a heavenly host of angels or being given a bright, guiding star.    

            So there stood Simeon, looking and cooing right into the face of everything his heart had most been looking forward to seeing before passing from this world.    Just try to imagine yourself in the same sacred place, feeling the immense elation of truly, deeply knowing that not only had God’s personal word come true for you, but even more so God’s word of salvation for all humanity.    So he joyfully praised the only God he and they all belonged to saying, “Master, you are now dismissing your servant in peace, according to Your Word, for my eyes have seen Your salvation.”    And then, being someone who had long lived a righteous and devout life, he added a few words of saintly and prophetic wisdom to his proclamation.    He turned to Mary and Joseph and spoke cautionary words about how Jesus was going to bring about the rising and falling of many people by bringing their innermost thoughts to light.    

            Once telling us about Simeon stepping out the shadows to offer blessing, Luke then immediately introduces us to a devout eighty-four year old woman named Anna.  Her beautiful name, at its biblical language root, means “grace.”[ii]   She’d long been a widow, and since economic status was strictly tied to marital status, this had left her socially and financially marginalized.   To survive, she had found safe sanctuary by spending night and day in the temple worshipping with fasting and prayer.  

            Since Luke likes to give us important contextual facts to connect us Christians with the sacred history of the Israelites, it’s good to wonder why he mentions Anna’s daily spiritual practices.    I found out the constant fasting was a sign of her being in a state of mourning.  But not just for her husband. It was mourning for all God’s people in suffering.[iii]     This does explain why Luke identifies her as a prophet.   But this life-long mourning turned to instant joy and praise upon seeing baby Jesus.    No longer did she need to live in intercessory sorrow, for she knew this child had been born to fully free all of humanity from enslavement to sin.    So bless her heart, she spoke right up and praised the arrival of the world’s Redeemer.

            Devout congregational elders Simeon and Anna.    No angelic chorus suddenly summoned them.   No sudden stunning starlight shone on them.   I don’t believe I know of any hymns that help us sing of them.   Yet they are both crucial witnesses in the Christmas story.  

            Who are the modern day Simeons and Annas in every church?  Right here at FPC?   Folks perhaps just waiting in the wings for an inspired, opportune moment to speak about the hope and vision for the future the Holy Spirit has long placed in their hearts?   To speak faithful words and wisdom to young families coming through the doors of historic churches seeking to fulfill traditional rituals?    To offer witness to the constant, daily Christmas truth that the Savior of the World is with us?  

            I can’t think of any better of the very first Christian believers to call our attention to on this first Sunday in 2014 than Simeon and Anna.   They further fuel my strong desire – and sure, let’s call it a resolution -- that we need to work together to find more ways of facilitating faithful conversations between generations here at FPC.   I know how blessed I am to be pastor for so many wise, long-standing tradition bearing believers.    And I know how greatly I value your voices.     So if you have an inspired idea or two about how we can get more relevant, intergenerational conversation about Jesus Christ going in our congregation, in our families and across our local communities, please reach out to me soon so we can spend some time together.   I’m hoping and planning on this being a year of strategic visioning for the future God is calling us as FPC to live into.   And this looking forward always begins by stopping and listening to all the ways God’s Word keeps stepping up and out to speak to us all.   Amen.    

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[i] from the baptism liturgy found in the Book of Common Worship

[ii] Greek and Latin form of the Hebrew name Hannah.  cf. http://www.behindthename.com/name/Hannah.

[iii] http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=207