Hearts Turned to Peace

John 14:25-29, Psalm 83:8-13

Vacation Bible School here at FPC starts tomorrow morning, and I’m just one of many folks of varying ages who are very excited.  Just look at the wonderful, inspirational decorations and staging we have in place for this year’s theme!  And what is the theme you may be asking yourself?   Fly!    It’s all about having a faith that soars … soars with trust in God wherever we go and whatever we do.  Everyday absolutely everyone can fly this way because everything is possible with God.   

One part of the program we are offering encourages students, helpers and leaders to all keep a faithful eye out for evidence of this biblical truth.    The importance of having daily “God Sightings” is explained well in the planning guide.   Here’s some of what it says –

“God hasn’t retired, you know.   God’s as busy as ever.   But until you see that with your own eyes, it’s tough to have a vibrant faith.  God can seem distant and impersonal.   God is active in our everyday lives … we just have to look.  We have to make it a habit to keep an eye out for the daily overwhelming evidence that God is doing great things all around us.  There are everyday clues that God is present, passionate, and powerful.”

Trusting that these clues are fully present in our lives will be emphasized through all the Bible lessons, fun activities, and energizing music we’re about to offer all week.    As usual, VBS encapsulates in one week what every Christian of every age should be faithfully focused on year-round.     Building up belief that God has not stopped being intimately active in our lives and in the teeming life of the world is vitally important to everyone having a vibrant faith.   Especially since we all have times when we feel like God has retired, is real but remote.  We all have days and life experiences when we lose sight of God’s intimate, active, good and loving presence. 

Fortunately, you don’t have to be participating in this week’s VBS in order to have someplace to go and be reminded that God is not indifferently, distantly sitting around.    You can also turn to Psalm 85 each day.

The voice in Psalm 85 strongly believes God’s saving grace and living love is always in motion.    It sings with all the faithfully frenetic energy of the fun VBS songs that will fill this room all week.   It sings of trusting in God – most especially during times of desperate uncertainty, when our hearts and minds can’t seem to settle into God’s holy peace.    

This trust being preached in Psalm is not simply wishful thinking, nor is it blind belief.   This trust is based on a firm conviction that God has been, still is, and always will be unwavering in holding to holy promises.  It is based on what this voice has heard of and personally experienced in the past.  It hinges on historic witness, inspiring confidence to hold fast to the truth that God will not ever choose to be hands-off with regard to human plights.    A colleague in ministry states it this way, “During times of testing or seasons of emptiness, the psalmist calls on the people of God to remember all that God has done.”[i]

To make it clear that our God is not some other-worldly, static Somebody, but can be personally known in everyone’s here and now, the Psalmist uses very lively language to point us to God’s activity and thus to God’s holy and wholly reliable character.     This voice sings that God will speak words of peace to those who turn to listen for it with their hearts.   This voice sings that God’s steadfast love and faithfulness not only meets us where we are, this happens while offering us a kiss of righteousness and peace.    And this voice sings of God always energetically in motion … springing up from the ground, looking down from the sky, giving what is good.   

Need a God sighting?   Look for evidence of God’s faithfulness springing up around you, or God’s righteousness radiating down on you like sunshine, or God’s goodness rising up like the abundance of corn crops this time of year.

Do you have moments when your heart holds fast to previous experiences of God’s amazing grace in your life?  Do such faithful recollections help you trust that God is helping you through today, especially if today is presenting a troubling experience? 

Building trust in God based on past and present holy promises is something Aunt Gladys taught one particular family member.  This family member happens to be a pastor in McBain, Michigan who also has written for Christianity Today magazine.[ii]    

Aunt Gladys had a little apple orchard at her home.  And one year she had a noticeably huge and previously unseen harvest of those apples.   The pastor asked if there was a particular reason as to why the branches were so heavy under the weight of abundance.    Aunt Gladys had a quick answer, of course.  She explained that there has been a late frost the previous spring.  This froze all the buds.   And that, Aunt Gladys preached, is when the miracle of the apple tree happens.    When frozen over, it stores up its energy in thousands of small nodules called scions (pronounced see-ons).    The energy pulsates through the network of scions until one day BAM! it’s all unleashed and the evidence of this is an exploding riot of buds.  Aunt Glady’s God sighting is really a God Scion!

The inspired the pastor to faithfully reflect on the miracle of the apple tree.   He got to thinking about the harsh frosts that can cover us in life.  His list included cancer, divorce, bankruptcy, trauma, grief, depression.  Such frosts can cause our spiritual lives to freeze.   But then he remembered something vitally important to our faith journeys.   He remembered that at the “core of the Christian faith” we live with the incredible promise that God’s power is always pulsating “under the gnarly bark of this world.”    During certain seasons when we “feel our hearts waiting, longing, and even aching for those frozen places to burst into new life,” we are like nodules of living hope, trusting that one day all the “stored up glory will be unleashed in a joyful riot of splendor.”

The more we turn in trust to God’s ever present, pulsating presence, the more evidence we see of sacred scions within and all around us, the more we experience Christ’s peace.  This is the deep peace our Lord promised when he said, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid.” (John 14:27).   Concerning this, someone once wrote a good reminder that outwardly, Jesus life “was one of the most troubled lives that ever lived: tempest and tumult, tumult and tempest, the waves breaking over it all the time. But the inner life was a sea of glass. The great calm was always there.”[iii]

Like the voice of the Psalmist, sometimes we really need someone to speak or sing and remind us about this deep calm, about trusting that God’s good, free flowing fidelity to holy promises is always with us.  

I was reminded of one such voice this past week while Anna was away at Camp Johnsonburg.   Her being there got me thinking even more than usual about all my experiences with the camp over the years.   One particular experience popped-up in my mind, a time when I felt frozen with fear.  It was during my first ever summer staff training, when we each had to attempt the high ropes course deep in the woods.   I climbed up and across confidently and comfortably enough.  But then it was time to come down.  That’s when I realized the way down was by sliding off a tiny platform located most the way up a tree and letting a zip line carry me.              

I admit I was terrified.  I didn’t trust a thing sitting there.  Not myself. Not the ropes.  Not, at first, even God.     Twenty-three years later, I’m still extremely grateful to the fellow staffer whose faithful talk guided me safely through this experience.   By listening to him, I sensed God was with me … whispering words of deep trust and peace.   Before I knew it, faithfulness had sprung up from the ground and I had grasped just enough of it to slip and zip.      

You know what really happened on that day?   Yes, I went flying through the woods, but more importantly, and praise God, I went flying in faith!    Amen.

             

           

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[i] Bartlett, David L. and Taylor, Barbara Brown (2011-05-31). Feasting on the Word: Year B, Volume 3, Pentecost and Season after Pentecost 1 (Propers 3-16) (Kindle Locations 8057-8058). Westminster John Knox Press. Kindle Edition.

[ii] www.preachingtoday.com/illustrations/2011/November/611211

[iii] http://www.preachingtoday.com/illustrations/1997/december/52.html

Placing Jesus

Ezek. 2:1-7; Mark 6:1-13

            In what places is the person and the presence of Jesus recognized, received, and praised?    One answer I certainly trust comes right to mind is that this happens in church – in particularly designated and designed public places.   For example, folks have been recognizing, receiving and praising the person and presence of Jesus in buildings around here throughout our 265 year old congregational history.   

            But we should also always be reminded that church is more than buildings.   In the Bible, the essential meaning of “church” is that it is “the people of God, created and called by God, to be God’s worshipers and witnesses, both in this world and in eternity.”[i]   And we should always call to in mind that the earliest Christians did not meet in special church buildings, but rather, in homes (Acts 2:46, Colossians 4:15, Philemon 2).     In homes, then, is definitely another place I hope to hear that Jesus is recognized, confirmed and praised.

            Wherever the locations, the point is that our Lord is known.    Not known based on loose familiarity with His famous name or by correctly identifying Him as the founder of a world religion.   I mean known as in knowing Him through the Bible and biblical community, where our hearts and minds are inspired by the Holy Spirit to embrace His teachings, personality, priorities, and awesome holy purpose.  Where, by grace and through faith, we come to intimately dedicate ourselves to Him as our family member, our friend, our mentor, as well as our Lord and Savior.    To be in the same place as Jesus – from right here in this spot today on through to the ends of the earth -- is to be in and desire to share His heart.  

            It sure seems very logical to say that nobody has ever known Jesus better than those who walked with Him while He was incarnate in one human body a couple thousand years ago.  I mean,  just imagine being right by His side, directly absorbing his abundant love as it flowed through so many pure, holy words and actions.    Imagine his actual fingerprints leaving a healing mark on you, hearing the tenor of his voice as it both sooths your sin-sick soul while also stirring up life as you know it.    Yes, indeed, the people that close to him in the time and places of the first century surely must have known him best.   

            How terribly curious and rather confusing it is, then, to find what we read in this morning’s passage from Mark’s gospel account.

            We read that after exhibiting divine power all around the Sea of Galilee, Jesus had returned to his hometown of Nazareth.    He had returned to the place where family, friends and neighbors in this nearly 2,000 member village had interacted with him for thirty years.  This estimated population size gives me helpful perspective because it’s basically the size of the church I served as a full-time student minister.   I certainly didn’t know everyone there, but I knew of names and heard many stories that went along with them.    In ancient Nazareth, Jesus the boy, the teenager and the young adult had at least been generally known.   

            Our passage from Mark places us in the hometown synagogue on a day of worship.  We are sitting down in the pews next to the people who knew well enough of Jesus.   We experience their immediate reaction as He began to teach.     Initially, this means we encounter their utter astonishment.     It’s like strands of our hair move as the home town crowd is blown away, completely struck with amazement at Jesus’ wisdom and witness to deeds of divine power.     We can relate to this, to His powerful person and presence.

            But then we experience the congregation move quickly and dramatically away from this astonishment.   We uncomfortably shift in our pew seats as the locals turn against him, suddenly suspicious and actually offended by all that wisdom and witness.   

            Mark was very specific in writing down a particular Greek word to convey the drama of the scene that day.    We commonly translate this Greek word, skandelizo, in English as “offense,” but it means more than just feeling affronted, insulted and upset.   It’s more scandalous than that.   In this context, the word means that the crowd began to distrust and desert someone they otherwise should have trusted and obeyed.    In this tension between being blown away and wanting to cast away, we hear Jesus proclaim a proverb that everyone there would have known, a proverb about how prophets are not honored in their hometown, amongst their closest kin and acquaintances.    This was also, perhaps, a zinging nod for the congregation to remember God’s call of Ezekiel, when God labeled the Israelites “impudent” and “stubborn” and overall a “rebellious house.”

            What happened?  Why the grievous shift?  My reading of Bible commentaries points to the fact that in the culture of that day, it was quite offensive to become someone other than what you were perceived and expected to be.   With regard to Jesus, the crowd clung tightly to their knowing him only as the carpenter they had called upon to build wooden door frames and tables.   Jesus’ “status as a local craftsman” had been “considerably lower than that of a member of the educated class,” and so the villagers perceived and resented Jesus as someone attempting to elevate himself to a position above that which He was entitled to at birth.    Plus, it seems his first thirty years may have been surrounded by whispers around town, whispers about his birth to a teenage mother and about uncertainty regarding his father’s identity.    In short, they expected Jesus to maintain the status quo and keep in His place.  And they expected Him to do so right then and there, in what they provincially felt was their church.

            And so He surely did.  He knew His place.  And He kept to His place … His place as the Son of God, as the Savior of the World, as the consistently counter-cultural stirrer up of social conventions, as the One who understood completely that the church is created and called by the providence of God alone.  He had been rejected for being other than expected, but this did not warp Jesus’ wisdom and witness, His divine ministry of reconciliation and salvation for all. 

            Mark reports that it did, however, cause some interruption of holy power flow.    It happened because Jesus found Himself bewildered by the utter lack of belief amongst those close kin and neighbors.   We should not jump to the conclusion, however, that the church crowd that day totally turned off the power within Him.   This gracious flow is not at all dependent on what we do or don’t do, and it’s clear across the Scriptures that God’s loving desire to deliver us from sin is eternally unabated.   

            What Mark reports happened seems more to be that in Jesus’ wisdom, he chose to limit His own ability to do divine deeds.  By choosing this, the church that day and forever was taught a deeply significant lesson -- how we respond to the living person and presence of Jesus does matter.    If any of His followers and hometown churches fail in faith to recognize, confirm and praise Him for His gracious power – especially if it’s because they are offended that He didn’t stay in the place of their limiting, narrow perceptions, and if they therefore act like those rebellious folks God warned Ezekiel about -- then they will fail to realize that they have “an important role to play in the manifestation of the kingdom.  They will not perceive and receive their role in “sensing, experiencing and making known God’s will and work in the world.”[ii]    

            After leaving the hometown worship service that day, Jesus resumed his ministry of reconciliation and salvation.   He did not go alone.  He went with his disciples, freely sharing his power with them in order to multiple the miracles.   But as he sent them out, he also warned them about the very strong possibility of power interruptions.    He counseled them to expect some people not to listen and not to welcome them.   They were told to respond to such encounters by shaking the dust of their feet as they departed.  This was a common gesture indicating they’d made the wrong choice.    Understandably, then, the disciples were to do this as part of their calls for repentance, their calls for people to turn around and recognize, receive, and praise Jesus.

            In what places today, I wonder and I worry, is our living Lord’s gracious flow being interrupted?    In what places in the universal Church, in the vast and diverse people of God who are called and created by God to be worshipers and witnesses?   Where are narrow perceptions and limiting expectations of our Lord leading to distrust and desertion?    

            We presently don’t have time in this place to answer such challenging, though very necessary, questions.    Please don’t dismiss them, though.  I encourage you to depart here today allowing the sixth chapter of Mark and the second chapter of Ezekiel to summon you to faithful examination.    Examine what you are reading in the papers and on-line about the Church in the world today and, more provincially, about all that is happening in the life our PC(USA) denomination.   There is quite a lot to prophetically review, especially given that our 220^th General Assembly just wrapped up yesterday – a gathering that passionately deliberated where Jesus is placed within the critical issues that are currently causing conflict and personal pain across our declining denomination and for a great many of God’s beloved people.  

            As you examine, though, be sure to do so prayerfully trusting in and seeking to further perceive the amazing, unbounded grace that reveals the person and presence of Jesus.    We can be faithfully, blessedly assured that our Lord is keeping to His place as the Son of God, the Savior of the World.   Our Lord will be known.   Amen.

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[i] Ralph P. Martin, The Dictionary of Bible and Religion, Abington Press

[ii] David Lose, www.workingpreacher.org

According to God's Abundant Mercy

Hebrews 4:12-16; Psalm 51:1-14

Of the many musical styles I love listening to, my heart and soul most connects with blues-rock vocals and guitar.    When I write, sing and play my own songs, I think most folks can hear something of this influence.   It’s the style that led me away from my earliest influence of Hank Williams and on toward the likes of Jim Croce.  Basically, I didn’t play the 45 record of “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry” as often as I did “Bad, Bad Leroy Brown.” 

I’m not sure I can fully explain why I’m so deeply drawn to this manner of musical expression, but there is one musician and one particular song that sums it up pretty well.     The artist’s name is Phil Keaggy and he happens to be one of the most quietly revered all around guitarists of the past few decades.   He was raised in a small farm house in Hubbard, OH with nine brothers and sisters.   This fact alone seems a likely enough setting to have birthed some fresh blues and rock n’ roll!    Along with that crowded, humble beginning, several family tragedies followed that fueled and further developed Keaggy’s musicianship and songwriting.    The emotional weight of all this also fed into his full-on, hazy 1960’s rock star lifestyle.     

The particular song coming to my mind was written long after he repented from one way of life and become a Christian in both his lifestyle and his music.   This was around 1970, after being inspired to the faith by way of one of his sisters.   Simply enough, the song is titled “Have Mercy, Lord.”   Welling up from his life story and against a backdrop of his edgy and powerfully emotive electric guitar work, Keaggy sings about worldly temptations and then belts out the following chorus of words, “You don’t know how good it feels when my heart breaks down and screams, have mercy, Lord!”  

Heart breaking down.  Voice screaming out.   This is not just a song … it’s a soul-stripped-down-begging-for-new-beginnings prayer.  I find most all the songs I’m drawn to from the blues-rock genre seem to me to be souls crying out for mercy.  Keaggy particularly epitomizes this.

I’m mentioning this musician and this song because I can’t seem to read or speak Psalm 51 without hearing him belt that chorus.    Yet his voice is only a mere whisper when compared  to the repentant soul shout of King David that comes through this ancient prayer song’s powerful plea for mercy.    I don’t know what kind of music went along with it – since the Psalms were Israel’s songbook -- but I’m fine letting my imagination envision King David playing a stringed Lyre to a blues-rock rhythm.

At the very start of this Psalm song, David describes and appeals to God using a few different Hebrew words for “mercy.”   This repetition gives his honest intention and confession much fuller expression.   One mercy word translates directly to mean “gracious.”  Another means “steadfast love.”   Yet another conveys “motherly compassion.”    He is praying for God to grant him undeserved grace according to God’s unfailing, self-giving, life-giving love.   This is a deeply introspective appeal and the only audience he cares to be singing to is the Almighty.

Having started by calling on God’s merciful character with abundant praise, David then moved to the awkward task of describing the utter corrosion of his interior life.   When feeling like a sinful wretch, where to begin?   He began by holding himself accountable, by confessing that his spiritual condition has been corrupt since the very moment of his conception.   He states that he fully knows the sin and evil he has done, that’s it’s all been in the sight of and against God.   He feels the weight of God’s justifiable judgment against it all, a weight that feels as if it’s crushing his very bones.

           

There’s no need for us to wonder about what one of the offenses was that triggered this particular cry for mercy.   He either wrote – or someone later added -- a note about it in the superscription of this “Have Mercy, Lord” psalm.    It points to the time he had coveted Bathsheba, the beautiful wife of a man directly under his kingly power and authority.    He had then boldly abused his divinely appointed kingship by ordering messengers to go and fetch Bathsheba, whom he then impregnated before making sure she became a widow and eventually his wife.   2 Samuel 11 spills all the details of this rather wretched story.   How terribly sad that the heroic Goliath-killing shepherd boy had grown into his own kind of enemy monster.

           

The inspiring, familiar words we find in this Psalm, the ones that say, “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a new and right spirit within me” cannot be properly appreciated unless you know well what King David was deeply repenting from.   If you hear a song, as I do, associate with these words, know that it is not just a campfire Christian folk tune.  It is a soul-stripped-down-begging-for-new-beginnings blues-rock classic.    The songwriter was clearly sick and ashamed of his life-long succumbing to sin.  His song is raw repentance and heart-sick admission of his utter dependence on God’s mercy to not cast him out, to still have holy purpose for him, to steadfastly restore his heart and soul to a state of holy wisdom, purity, and joy.    In return for this merciful deliverance, this spiritual rebirth of a broken and contrite heart, King David pledged to keep right, keep declaring praise, keep singing aloud to God’s glory alone.  

When we today listen to this ancient prayer-song, with its bold ‘n bluesy backbeat and soaring cry for mercy, when we realize David’s plea was granted and that divine blessings were not revoked, it can help us build more trust in our belief that God’s abundant grace covers all sin.   We all need this liberating, regenerating good news.   We all need to sing our own particular penitent praise songs to the audience of the Almighty.    We all need to pray, “Have mercy, Lord” as we confess our own failures of faith – be they in thought, word or deed --  and as we return to God in trust that God wants to and will create in each of us a clean heart.

  

We specifically pray this in the name of Jesus Christ, the King of Kings.   By His merciful example and soul-saving grace we can sing confession and praise with bold confidence.   The fourth chapter of the New Testament book of Hebrews reminds of this.   It reminds us that Jesus was without sin, yet experienced all of our terribly human trials and temptations.   He encountered every thought and intention of the heart that we wrestle with as we strive to honor and obey God with our lives.   And he sympathized with it all.   He knew how good it felt for a human heart to break down and scream for mercy, to let it out and turn in trust to God for deliverance.     So whenever we come to admit, as King David did, that our souls have fallen seriously out of tune, that we are in need of a new beginning, our Lord and Savior never fails to listen.   Through the power of the Holy Spirit, we receive His mercy and we freely, joyfully find grace to restore us in every time of need.  

           

This week, as we all celebrate 236 years of our national identity and freedoms, I also encourage you to also spend some time acknowledging the religious freedom you have to keep turning away from sin and keep turning toward God in Jesus Christ.    Maybe you have a little blues or blues-rock to record and release.   Sing it out in the hope and strength of salvation and so you can live all the more independently dependent upon God’s mercy.   Sing it too so you can honor our common history, and especially all men and women who, inspired by and to the glory of Jesus Christ, have fought for and sacrificed for liberty, justice, and equal rights for all humanity.   Amen.