Psalm 19
World Communion Sunday
October 2, 2011
Inspired by our contemporary
culture at large and by the Holy Spirit persistently tapping me on the shoulder
… I recently created a blog. A blog is
a way of self-publishing on the computer internet. On the down side, there isn’t a print copy
of what is published. On the up side, little to no money is needed
to create a blog and there is potential for a local, national and global group
of readers.
All sorts of blogs
exist. Some simply work like personal
diaries for anyone interested in following the blogger’s life. Some are a public forum for promoting
ideologies, organizational agendas, and academic discourse. For example, as I study the Bible, I do so
using print commentaries as well online blogs by professors and pastors. Other blogs are a perfect tool for creative
types to share their arts with any and all whom they’ve managed to attract to their
blog. According to one study published in
February of this year, over 156 million public blogs exist.[i]
The blog I created,
titled “Word Windows,” (http://wordwindows.blog.com/) is a new, faithful, and creative online
homestead for me. Many of you may know
that I enjoy taking digital photos of nature.
Many of you may also know that I dabble in writing poetry. Both of these, along with sermon and song
writing, are ways I feel God connects with me and personally calls on me to
share the Good News. I express myself
to share how blessed I feel with gifts that have saved, sustained and strengthened
my faith journey as well as companioned other people on their walks with our
Lord.
On the “Word Windows”
blog, I post a photo I’ve taken that I feel glorifies our Creator and then I
write some form of prayer poem about it.
This fusion of image and word is intended to point to the beautiful, abundant,
peaceful life with God we have in our Lord Jesus.
When I created this blog a couple weeks ago, I
didn’t know I’d be preaching about Psalm 19 on this World Communion
Sunday. When preparing for the sermon
each week, I always check the common lectionary – a church calendar oriented,
ecumenical, world-wide list of suggested Scriptures for preaching and teaching. Psalm 19 was on the list for today. And the moment I read it, I really understood
it! What it teaches is pretty much how
the Word Windows blog works in my life and what I hope it conveys to those who
visit it.
Psalm 19 brings a full,
faithful witness to two primary ways God connects with us. It
points to how our Creator’s inspiring, instructive, authoritative “voice” comes
to us through the awesomeness of the natural world and through the written word of Scripture.
Unfortunately, church
history is pockmarked with problems regarding modes of divine revelation.
For Christians, there
is strong, central consensus about God being most fully revealed in the person
of Jesus Christ. We come to know this
revelation by reading the Gospels and by welcoming the Holy Spirit to interpret
His holy truth for us in the context of our lives and our faith communities.
Global debates rise up,
however, about how God may or may not be additionally revealed. We
accept that Jesus, as witnessed to in the written New Testament, is God’s
fullest revelation. But folks get into
disagreements about how much authority to give to other means of divine
revelation, such as, and specifically, whether God’s nature is additionally
revealed through the natural world.
Suffice it to say, there is a lot of thick theological grass to tread
upon in trying to create consensus.
Walking on the edge of
that thicket, I suggest we take a good stroll with none other than C.S.
Lewis. He had this to say – “Nature
never taught me that there exists a God of glory and infinite majesty. I had to learn that in other ways. But nature gave the word glory meaning for me. I
still do not know where I could have found one.”
I understand C.S. Lewis
to be saying that he learned and accepted the historic story of God’s glory
through reading and being taught God’s Word in the Scriptures. The special, written revelation that led to
our Bible was primary. But no written
words could capture the magnificent scope of God’s glory. This was impressed on his mind and soul
much more so through the inspiration and revelation found when experiencing the
incredibly expansive, exquisitely detailed, life-thriving creation God has
given us in the natural world.
Throughout the earliest
years of my life, I did not read nor was I taught the Bible. God was intuitively grasped and not in print
for me. I didn’t begin studying the
holy written word in earnest until I was hired to work at nearby Camp Johnsonburg
while in college. I recall how those
400 acres of splendid nature “spoke to me” of diversity and of cycles of life
existing in, for, and to God’s glory. I’d always found nature fascinating and
beautiful, but not until I read the Bible did I understand it all as testimony
to our Creator. So I take the insight
of C.S. Lewis, and encourage you to do so, because I really get it. And it helps us to get and appreciate the
strong duel witness to God’s revelation that is at the heart of Psalm 19. Another
scholar sums it up by saying “creation and law, nature and word, complement
each other, together bearing fuller witness to God than either alone.” Additionally, this same scholar makes the
excellent point that by “hearing the voice of God in creation, hearing the
voice of God’s Law, we can join the voice of the Psalmist in the Psalms final
section … praying that our words, our voice, be acceptable to God.”[ii]
This Psalm is a
wonderful, holy word to lift up on this World Communion Sunday. All kinds of people in all sorts of places
across our world receive God’s written and natural revelation. This is common ground for all
Christians. And this truth sets the
table for how we are about to celebrate God’s fullest revelation through Jesus,
the Word made flesh.
As God’s most
authoritative voice, the same voice that was present and breathing upon the
formless void at the beginning of all creation, Jesus spoke instructions at the
Last Supper. He instructed every single one of his friends
to remember him and commune with him through the repeating of his words during
a meal of wine and bread. He continues
to reveal the loving, reconciling reality of God to every brother and sister in
the faith through this ritual, this sacrament.
The Lord’s Supper is celebrated
because we follow the written word in the Bible to do so. And as we do, we have a tangible experience
of holy presence. This happens by way of
two elements drawn from nature – the fruit of the grapevine (remember, we are
the branches, Jesus is the vine!) and the grains that make life-sustaining
bread.
I’m pleased to say that
World Communion Sunday was originated with the Presbyterian Church. The intention from the start, back in 1936,
was for it to be a special Sunday of global, ecumenical togetherness around God’s
Word. It is a time to celebrate our oneness
in Christ, the Prince of Peace, in the midst of the world we are all called to
faithfully serve.[iii] And so
we are here to do so today.
As we share in the
responsive litany found in your bulletin, may the written words inspire you to
regularly reflect upon God’s glory throughout the natural world and centrally
in the Scriptural witness to Jesus. I
have a feeling I’ll have at least one new Word Windows blog post to create in
joyful reflection upon today’s worship!
Let us now prepare our hearts for this revelatory feast! Amen.
1 comment:
wow! Pastor Rich, your sermon completely coincides with how I've tried to explain to my children as they matured why and how I can and do believe in something some would say I cannot see, touch, smell, etc. Because, in my view of reality, I most certainly can sense Him in every aspect of life. He, God, creator of all we perceive and all we cannot even imagine, is everywhere. He is the energy from raging rivers and storming seas, to barely breathing bodies in their last moments of physical life, and in everything else no human could alone create. Thank you for explaining how you came to believe as you do, and to share so eloquently (with who knows now how many!) I'll be looking forward to your gifted ways of communicating our faith.
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